CART MEDIA CONFERENCE

September 17, 2002

Jim McGee

Oriol Servia

ORIOL SERVIA: Thank you.

ORIOL SERVIA: Yeah, it's going to be a long answer. To start with, I was happy at the beginning of the year signing with PacWest. And after a few races they shut the doors down. That was extremely bad news for me and the whole team. But I remember Jimmy Vasser told me: "Don't worry, things happen for a reason, doors close, doors open." And at that point, I thought, yeah, right, it's probably an American saying -- but I'm here with no job, blah, blah, blah. And finally, I have to say that he was right. You know, probably that was a good thing to happen for me because I end up with a great team, Patrick Racing, with all of the good people that works there and all of the motivation that I find there. You know, at the end, it's been obviously a good thing. We started in Vancouver, and since then it has been a progression, five races, which is the original deal. We all decided to go to the end of the season and I think it's going better each race. It should get better from now on, also.

ORIOL SERVIA: Exactly. All weekend long, we had a great car. Every time I would come back to the pits and say "the car feels great." We just felt we were lacking some speed. We can't know exactly from where at that point, but we went out in qualifying, we knew we were not going to be very quick, and that was it, we were 14th, which was not great. But in the race, the car felt good and we knew that if we would have good mileage and playing a little bit with a good strategy that usually Mr. McGee is able to do, we would be at the front at the end, and that's the way it worked. The first two pit stops we went a little bit backwards, but I think that was because we put a lot of fuel. I think probably that was the key that allowed us at the end to put less fuel where we move forward. It was obviously a good strategy and the good car that allowed me to pass people. I think nowadays, if you finish at the top, it's because everything went right. The competition is so high, you have to do everything right, and I think it's what we did this weekend.

JIM McGEE: Well, Oriol bring us really what we were looking for. We needed some consistency and we needed some feedback. Certainly, over the last couple of three years, Oriol has had, you know, some good experience with PPI and last year with Sigma. Oriol and I have been talking to each other probably for the last couple -- three years, and he was convinced that I was just going kind of whispering in his ear and telling him what he wanted to hear; but that nothing was really going to happen. I watched him over the last couple years, and even since he started in Indy Lights, I always liked what I saw and I told him, some day you're going to drive for us. And he still didn't believe me until he signed with us here six races ago. He brings the kind of consistency and the information that we need. We need the feedback from him to improve the car. And you know, it takes a few races. We have done no testing at all. With the rules, you can't test in-season. So we have been kind of doing our testing in the qualifying, practice sessions. And it's tough again with a single-car team, you don't have the luxury of having another driver in there with you to accomplish more when you go to these tracks. We've got an hour and a half of warm-up, and you know, then you go right straight into qualifying on the road courses. And of course, in England, it was basically the same thing. So you have very few times to get a feel for what the car is doing and improve it. But Oriol, he's done a good job, and we've had decent cars and we really just haven't had very many breaks, let's say. In Montreal, he was very competitive. We should have qualified well but we blew the engine in the last qualifying session; that put us back in the pack. And we broke an axle on the first pit stop which is something we never have had. We got through these little things. I think now we are ready to improve our qualifying. We just start a little bit closer to the front, I think we can get on that podium real quick.

JIM McGEE: We do. We have a great team. A lot of us have been together a long time. We have good data. Ed Nathman and his team of engineers and Mark Shambarger with his mechanical group, these guys do a good job. They are well experienced. I think Oriol kind of pulls us all together. He's a good team leader. He's very easy to work with, and very determined, and, you know, this thing is starting to come together. I just see little twinkles here and there, and you know once you get that confidence in each other, it's not only us getting the confidence in him, it's him getting the confidence in us. Then the thing starts to gel and it kind of snowballs. Hopefully here in the last four races, we can have some good results and move forward into next year.

ORIOL SERVIA: Well, I don't know exactly like that, but while we were talking -- I think he won the championship in '99, we've been talking every year. At the end, you know, most of the time it wasn't my choice that they went some other way. So, you know, you kind of got the feeling that this man just likes to feel the water, he must call all of the drivers, which he probably does, and then I would do, too. I felt that some day probably, you know, things would come together for both of us, and it just took a little longer than what I wanted at the beginning, but I think it's working pretty well now.

JIM McGEE: Well, you know, you talk to different mechanics and different people, engineers and so forth involved in racing, and everybody that I talk to that had been involved with Oriol always gave him a real thumbs up. Watching him on the racetrack, he's aggressive, seems to be able to bring a car home. He's able to keep the wheels on the thing and that's a big important part of it. You know, I just think -- I just thought that if he was in the right atmosphere with the right group and we gave him the support that he needed, that he could run up front. I think that he can. I think he's got a great future ahead of him. Hopefully, it's with us and we're looking forward to many, many more podiums.

JIM McGEE: Originally when the season started out, Patrick Racing was going to be a two-car team. You know, that was really one of the reasons, you know, that we decided we would go with Townsend. Then Townsend's sponsor that was with him in Indy Lights, the deal fell through and Mr. Patrick decided that he had made a commitment to Townsend; and that he did very well in Indy Lights, and he thought he would take a gamble. I mean, Pat is a wildcatter. He's drilled a lot of dry oil wells, too. He felt, well, maybe this guy was a diamond in the rough. Townsend I think is the -- had it been a two-car team, he would have had a much better chance of being successful. But being on his own and trying to call the shots as far as what he wanted and what the car needed and everything, he just did not have that much experience in these cars. You know, the end result was that it really didn't work out.

ORIOL SERVIA: You know, in a way there was pressure, but I was really happy to have that kind of pressure. Finally, you know. After Motegi, I came to every race and I was really, really getting tired of being there and not having this kind of pressure. So when suddenly I had the chance to be in a car and have all of the problems that you have when you want to win a race and you're not doing it, and you want to set up the car, and you're pissed with your engineer and pissed with yourself because you are not able to go flat or go quicker or whatever, I was really missing these kind of problems. So in a way, I have been really very relieved, finally having this pressure back.

ORIOL SERVIA: Oh, yes, yes, I told him many times. Jimmy knows, yes.

ORIOL SERVIA: I think in a way, I was lucky that I was out of a job, but at that point, I was out of a job not because I did something wrong or I was not performing. I was performing well in every race. The team decided to stop, but was nothing concerned to me or my engineer or anything. It was more related to political or money issues. So, in a way I wasn't feeling depressed that it was not fair, that I was going to be given another chance. I was confident at some point there was going to be another chance, also, I would go to every race and I had a lot, a lot, a lot of people giving me support, telling me that I should go to the race, that an opportunity would open. Toyota was really trying to create a new wheels for me, trying to put a second car in some other team. So I could see every weekend that it was possible that something could happen. So I never really got depressed, thinking I had no more future. I just tried to be patient, and in a way, I hoped that the door would open soon.

JIM McGEE: Well, you know, it's a tough period that open-wheel racing is going through right now. You know, certainly, the direction is still pretty unclear, whether it's ovals, road courses. There's a demand for both, and I don't know whether or not by combining or everybody going one way, what is going to happen to some of the venues. I think that one of the things over the years that usually happens in our type of racing, it's either where they get the tire manufacturers or the engine manufacturers that put a lot of money in the sport, and usually the money goes to the bigger teams; that they feel like they are going to have the most success with. It hurts the little guy. The IRL was kind of formed with a kind of basis that they were going to try and have a level playing field that was going to be equal and smaller teams could start up, and that they could grow the series. It seems like that's all turned around now. You know, the big automotive companies are pumping money into that series now; and therefore, the big teams follow that way. Now, what happens to the little guys over there, I don't know. And it's just whichever one is going to survive, or is it just going to flip positions and they were going to go through the same thing all over again? It's a hard scenario to figure out, because I'm sure some of the real supporters in the IRL, you know, over the past six years are going to be kind of left by the wayside because the cost there is going to escalate similar to what it was in CART. By the same token, the CART cars are going to go down. It's not a healthy situation, I don't think, for open-wheel racing, but where it all ends up is still, I think, far from being determined.

JIM McGEE: Well, I think somehow -- the thing about CART versus the IRL, the IRL needs a lot more car count. They need 38 or 39 or 40 cars, because otherwise, in Indianapolis especially, you don't have your pole day or your bumping day and so forth like that. The CART series can more or less get along with a lot fewer cars, similar to what Formula 1 is, where they have 20 or 22 or 18 cars. With the street circuits and a lot of the courses that we run, actually space is a big problem and the fewer cars you have, the better off you are. So whether or not you can gather that many cars or both series, I mean, if you look Atlantics, really, they need 38 in the IRL and they need 20 or so in CART; that's a lot of cars. Where is the money going to come from for all of these cars? I think that's the biggest problem with open-wheel racing today because it is divisioned; that does become an issue with both series.

JIM McGEE: We definitely would like to run a second car next year. We have the capacity here and the equipment and everything. It's a matter of dollars and cents and whether or not from a business standpoint we can find the sponsorship and the money to run a second car. You know, I'd love to have Jimmy Vasser as a teammate with Oriol. I think Jimmy drove for us last year, did a great job, but we had his typical bad luck in a lot of issues, but I think he and Oriol would be a great combination. Again, you know, there's a lot of talent out there right now, and a lot of great guys looking for rides. The driver issue isn't the problem, but we would always want to make sure that we had a good fit between Oriol and whoever else.

ORIOL SERVIA: I've been around it a little bit. I was around when they started working. I think it's a very good race there. I've been living there for the last three years, and it's a great city with a lot of tourists. There's always something happening, so people are used to having shows to go to and people -- even if there is people that is vacationing there, people that live there all the time, they are always ready to go and do and see something. So I think it will be a great venue from a spectators point of view. For us, the drivers, I don't think it will be the best track in the season, at least the way it looked to me looking around. Sometimes you have a very different view when the track is there than when the normal street is there. I don't think it will be the best track or the track I'd love to be. Like Surfer'S Paradise to me is the best street race we go to, and I think this will be actually smaller and tighter. It's not what I really like. I prefer fast corners than slow corners, but maybe some other drivers will pre. As far as I know, the asphalt will be pretty smooth and the racing. It's hard to say. I mean, there are a couple of good braking downs, but until we go and run there, it's hard to say how it's going to be, really.

ORIOL SERVIA: No. I'm younger than that. (Laughs).

ORIOL SERVIA: For sure, for sure. Because as I say, downtown in Miami or South Beach, there's always a lot of people that just goes there to have a good time, to have a vacation. It's hard, I think, to pull those people down to Homestead. Even it's not that far, it's 45 minutes and people are there to enjoy the beach, they don't even rent a car sometime, and having the event downtown will be great.

JIM McGEE: Well, I think from what I've seen of the new one, as Oriol said, the layout is a little more confining than what the last track was that we had down there. I think the cars today from when we ran then, aren't quite as good as far as we don't have as much downforce as we have in those days. Plus now with traction control, it makes it even more difficult to pass. I think with what we are looking at for next year, with the elimination of traction control and being able to drop the power, 150 horsepower, I think it will make some of the street races that we run at a lot more competitive and there will be more passing. Even as I look at over the last couple of years at Long Beach, when we ran there a couple of years ago before traction control, what we have had to do with the cars to try to slow them down by taking some of the aero out of them and so forth, we had pretty good passing at Long Beach. But over the last year, especially this year, there's been none. The cars are so equal now that if you qualify up front, that's usually where you're going to finish or vice versa. I think that not only the tracks have the problem or so, but also the cars are a problem. But I think we go to certain tracks that are better racetracks and then we have certain tracks that are better events. I think as Oriol was saying, that, you know, Miami is going to be an event. People are going to come there, the ambiance, where it is, the people, it's just the mingling and stuff that really is what some of these races are about. I think after this year, I think they are looking at doing some changing in the track and having a good look at it. But it's kind of been one of those ram-and-cram deals from the outset because it was on, it was off, it was on, it was off. I think that next year after we get one of these under our belt, they will improve the track and the cars I think next year will be better as far as being able to put on a better show on these street courses.

JIM McGEE: We will enjoy it if we can start up front. (Laughs).

ORIOL SERVIA: At the end, we can prefer -- or me, I prefer more one kind of track to the other or whatever. But at the end, you know, still 20 cars out there with great horsepower and hopefully great drivers trying to beat each other, so it's always a good show and it's a big challenge if you want to beat them. It's still going to be a great race. It's the same as the Monaco race in Formula 1; it's a great event because you always have those cars that are not really designed to go around those grids, but they do, and they want to beat each other. That's what makes it a great show even in Monaco, where I don't think many drivers really like it as a track, but they obviously do as an event.

ORIOL SERVIA: Yeah, have to say that I drove Lola last year and beginning of this year with PacWest, and I always liked the Lola. I always felt very comfortable. I thought it was a better car. But, since I joined the team, I've had great cars and I've really liked the way the car works. So I'm not that sure that the Lola is better. I think you can still make them both work if you have a good engineering team and you work well through the weekend. Player's have been improving it lately. They have been quick many places. Walker has also been quick at some tracks. As I said, I'm very happy with how the car has been. And I want to add, too. You were congratulating us for this fourth place where we were extremely happy, but I think we are more happy because we were able to break a little bit that kind of bad luck that we were having. Because Vancouver, we had mechanical issues; and then Mid-Ohio was a different race but nothing special. And then Montreal and Road America, we were really happy with the car, it was running very strong, very quick and we could see a podium finish, but it looked like something always happens. So I think that's why we were so happy here at Rockingham, not so much for a fourth place, because what it meant that finally, we got something decent on the paper, and a good threshold to start going good. We feel we have been going quick and the car has been quick, but we have not been able to prove it on the paper. I think that you will see in the next races, maybe Miami -- I think for the Reynard, actually, it works better when we have quick corners, and maybe Miami will not be our best. But Surfer's, Fontana and Mexico, I think will be great events for the Reynard and for us.

JIM McGEE: I think Oriol has kind of hit it. The biggest thing, always, that you have going against you is the car count, Lolas to Reynard because Reynard right now, there's no supporting group as far as engineering or anything like that so you're kind of on your own. We work a little bit with that Takagi, but not with Player's. So you don't get a good -- or any feedback, basically, as you do if you were running the Lola. The Lola has four or five or six engineers at every track. So if you've got a problem or if they see something that may be helping or is an advantage, they feed that information to you. We are kind of like on or own. So, you know, at Tennessee Automotive Grand Prix of Detroit, I did sometimes to have to struggle a little bit more to get the most out of the car. By the same token, when you have a lot of one particular type of car, if somebody makes it go quick, you know that you can make it go quick, too, sooner or later. But with our car, the Reynard, if we look at the tractors light up and we see all four Reynards grouped in one area, everybody has a tendency to say, well, this isn't going to be our track today, it looks like we have a deficiency, but that's not always the case, either. Sometimes you have a little breakthrough and all of a sudden, bang, the situation changes. You just have to persevere and you have to have the mentality that that's all we got today. This is the car we've got. This is the equipment we've got. We have to get the most out of it, and sometimes stop looking around, and you'd be surprised sometimes what you can get out of it.

JIM McGEE: I think traction control has been a big issue. The cars are -- even as it stands, there's no big differential in horsepower. The braking is relatively the same. So if you eliminate the driver as far as with the way he can come off the corner or the way he can use the throttle, again, everybody kind of comes off the corner about the same speed. So you're not going to pass anybody down the straightaway because the cars are relatively the same power wise. So your only choice is to maybe try and outbrake somebody, and you're just asking for trouble when you try and do that, unless you have a good enough run on them. Even a place like Cleveland, we used to go to Cleveland we awe all kinds of passing down that back straightaway, but now everybody comes off that big wide corner, put their foot down and traction control takes over. So everybody's acceleration rate is about the same. Nobody makes a mistake, or it's hard to make a mistake. Therefore, you can't get a run on anybody to get them in a braking zone. So it really does have a huge, I feel like, it has a huge impact on the way -- and the lack of passing.

ORIOL SERVIA: I think you should ask Jim. Right now, we are talking about next year and I think we would be both happy that that would be the reality, but it's not a done deal, signed the extension of the contract. I think if things go as the way they should, it should be the way you were talking, yes.

JIM McGEE: Well, I think certainly Oriol is my choice. I've got one guy that stands in my way all the time. (Laughs). And Pat is -- you know, Mr. Patrick is -- he doesn't roll over very easy when it comes to anything, and he just wants to make sure that the package and everything we've got is right. And hopefully, from my standpoint, and the team, we're very happy the way things are going with Oriol and the way we are progressing, and certainly, I just want to roll out of this year into next year. So hopefully that's the way we are going to do it.

JIM McGEE: I think you can run two cars, three cars, four cars, five cars. Basically when you're looking at, what it forces you and you can see it in NASCAR and some of the other series, the best advantages that they can get for their dollar is to run more cars. You get more feedback, you get more chances, better car, reliability, from a luck standpoint. You know, we do a lot of simulation programs and so forth, but still, it's difficult. You go to a track -- and we do have a lot of good data now on the different tracks that we run. We are pretty close when we get there, but again, if the tires are a little different and sometimes Bridgestone will change the tire at certain racetracks and so forth like that, so you go there, the track conditions, it is difficult. I think next year, there is some talk that what they are going to do is they are going to give you like six sets of tires in-season and with those six sets of tires you can maybe two or three days of testing at some tracks in case you have a problem where you get behind, or you have a situation like Newman/Haas, I think this year where they had a fuel-pick-up situation and they could not get it solved. So that becomes a very difficult situation on a race weekend where you go there and you have one hour and 30 minutes of practice and then right straight into qualifying. So I think that needs to be a provision in there where under certain circumstances, you can go run for a couple of days somewhere and sort out some of your problems.

ORIOL SERVIA: That could be an idea, I think. Probably longer brake zones will create more overtaking, yes. I don't think it's a golden solution, but it could probably help, yes.

JIM McGEE: I think there is some talk about them coming to a spec brake pattern road, but still, the place you pass is off the corner, not in the corner. In other words, you have to get a run on a guy off the corner. You have to be able to at least accelerate or have some kind of an advantage off the corner, and that's why a place like Cleveland used to be so good because you had this big, wide corner with all kinds of room that you could pick a different line and get lined up and you could actually get a run on a guy then you could outbrake him. Today, the way the cars are, if you try and outbrake somebody, nine times out of ten, you're going to get in there and lock it up and then you're either going to have an accident or you're going to come down on somebody and put them out, especially as narrow as some of these street courses are that we run. So you really have to do it off the corner, and at least get even wheel-to-wheel, and then a little bit of outbraking puts you in position where you can make the corner. Other than that, it's kind of tough. But again, you know, longer braking zones, that is something to think about. And we have, and we've thought about -- because all of the advantages now are gone with traction control, believe it or not, we have been spending tons of money and tons of testing on brakes, because brakes now are a big advantage because that is the only place you can do it. We've got full brake manufacturers, three rotor manufacturers and we are back and forth all over the place trying to gain an advantage in the braking now because there is no advantage on the other side because of traction control.

JIM McGEE: I think there, you can use your brakes upper and easy. Our brake package is pretty efficient, and with the cooling and everything, we have available to us, we don't have as many brake fading problems. I mean, you do, but it's not to the degree that they have at Winston Cup and you can run a guy out of brakes in Winston Cup. In our type of racing, these cars, for 200 miles, if you get the right ducting and with the brake package you've got, it's pretty hard to kill the brakes.