CART MEDIA CONFERENCE

March 16, 2000

Michael Andretti

MICHAEL ANDRETTI: My pleasure.

MICHAEL ANDRETTI: That would be nice. I don't know. I just -- I enjoy Homestead. I think it is a great racetrack, especially a new configuration and, yeah, we have tested really well there this winter. I am actually real excited about going down there next week. I think we are going to be really competitive.

MICHAEL ANDRETTI: No, it will be smoother. It will be back to normal. That was just an interim thing.

MICHAEL ANDRETTI: If you know watching everybody talk about it.

MICHAEL ANDRETTI: Every year you have a new car, whether it is a Swift, Reynard, Lola, you know, so it is always going to be new. You have new rules. And so to compare that side of the actual race car, the way it feels, and all that, there is a lot of variabilities there. What we are seeing going back with Lola is that we feel that the other program that we had was a huge drain from our team, especially from the engineering standpoint because our guys had to do more than just make the car go fast. They had to make them reliable. They had to do everything. We really didn't have the support; whereas, with Lola, we have a factory, we feel, supporting us more. I think because of that it has freed up our engineering again to go back and just worry about getting these cars to go fast. I think that is a big relief on our team. Being with Lola has been more that way,; whereas, it has freed up our engineering resources again as the other one was taxing us.

MICHAEL ANDRETTI: I don't even know when the date is. Is it conflicting with us?

MICHAEL ANDRETTI: I don't know. Be honest with you, I haven't really thought about it.

MICHAEL ANDRETTI: No, again there hasn't been any dialogue there at all. I probably would not do it. I am just really trying to concentrate 100% on this CART thing and going for the Championship there. So I really -- Nowadays, it is so competitive it is hard to really break yourself up that way and I am just trying to keep 100% focus on my main job at hand which is winning the CART Championship.

MICHAEL ANDRETTI: I think experience is a wonderful thing, for sure. I wish I knew now what back ten years ago, I think, I would be just that much better. I think experience in anything you do is something that you just cannot buy. I feel that if I lack anything of speed or anything like that, that I don't have from the youth side, I think I can make it up with the experience. I think one thing experience teaches you is, hopefully for me, which has only been one of my critiques is patience. I am hoping that I can be a little more patient and wait for things to come to me. I think if I do that, I will be better off.

MICHAEL ANDRETTI: It just blows my mind every year. You think it can't get any worse than it is now - I mean, it can't get anymore competitive. Now we are going into this year, it is like it is going to be more competitive. We are going to have to worry about the Penskes again. There is other teams, I mean, it is just going to be so incredibly competitive. Toyota is going to be much more competitive. It is just amazing. It amazes me every year. This year is definitely no exception. May be --

MICHAEL ANDRETTI: I think -- that just comes from that burning desire within your heart. That is not really something you learn. It is just something you either have or you don't. I believe -- once that desire is not there, you are not going to be competitive. When I feel that that desire leaves me is the time that you will see me retire. So that is what -- it is not something that I learned off dad. It is just something that you observe. In the end, it wasn't desire that held dad back. It was just the physical side of it. He still has that desire which is, I don't know anybody in any sport that has that burning desire like he does. I feel bad for him that -- I know he wishes he was out there, but he just physically and because he is older and stuff, it is not going to work for him. Dad's situation is very unique.

MICHAEL ANDRETTI: I think it is something we are always concerned about it and we will always be concerned about and we just are always learning and we are always trying to make things safe. The goal is for 100% safety which that will never happen, but you got to always make that your goal and hopefully we can learn things from those things. I know what happened to Gonzalez now at Laguna Seca will never happen again because they are making the changes there on the track. With what we learned out of Greg's accident, you know, they are making the changes on the racetrack to make sure that that doesn't happen again. At least those things aren't being a waste, but there still has to be the goal of making every place and -- the race cars and everything 100% safe. Realistically, that will never happen, but that has got to be our goal. I think that is one thing that CART does look at very heavily is the safety aspect and, you know, they are always addressing it. I think -- when I look at these cars now and the race tracks from now compared to when I started, I mean, it is just incredible how far they have come. I am hoping another five years from now I will look back and say, God, I can't believe I even drove these cars that I am driving today. That is just the way it works. I think that we are all striving for that.

MICHAEL ANDRETTI: It is different. It is a different organization. There is different people you are dealing with and all that. So from that standpoint it is much different. But it is much bigger and better than it was even when we were there. Now they have their own new state of the art wind tunnel, things like that, that are going to help us. Those guys are racers. They really -- they know what it takes to win and they are going to do what it takes to win and that is a mentality, I think we are facing more on the other program -- we didn't have that mentality in the other program, but these guys are very hungry and they are racers and they are going to get the result. But to compare it to before, it is just different because it is different people.

MICHAEL ANDRETTI: I am hoping so. I don't think, you know, it is not a huge edge. I think we are very competitive with the other guys. It is just -- but it is a good basic race car. It is reacting like a race car should and that is the way it should be. Whereas, I think the last few years, we were fighting some problems there. Where it is nice to get back in a car and it react the way it is supposed to react. It has been really good. Do we have an advantage? Maybe a little bit. But I don't think it is as big as every everybody thinks.

MICHAEL ANDRETTI: Yeah, I think we are going to be fast right out of the box. The car was quick right away and this team knows how to make a race car go quick. And now that is all they have to concentrate on. We have a big support of Lola which is really going to help us a lot. Am I disappointed that Ganassi has it? Yeah, very disappointed because if there is any advantage, well, one of our biggest competitors has the same advantage.

MICHAEL ANDRETTI: Probably most you can give away is three races. And race wins, you will probably need around four or five.

MICHAEL ANDRETTI: Incredible. There is so many different things. I mean, first of all, the competitiveness is just like no other motor sports and class, I think, is the most competitive that it's ever, ever been in any form of racing. And I guess we can compare the safety issues and things like that of which are way, way different than it used to be. And the series as a whole has just grown so much as well. So it is just -- there has been a tremendous amount of change over the last few years that I have been with --

MICHAEL ANDRETTI: No way.

MICHAEL ANDRETTI: It is a huge loss. I mean, not just from the standpoint of great race car driver, but he was a great person. I really liked Greg. I really admired him and I thought he was a true talent. I think there was a guy who was going to thrill a lot of fans for a lot of years and it is a huge loss - what can you say - I mean, that hasn't been said. We are all going to miss that.

MICHAEL ANDRETTI: Yeah, that is what we are hoping. We know we have really been looking there. I think it has been more in our basic setup of things and the race car itself a little bit, the Swift was not the most friendliest car on the road course. But having said that, we found out that, well, the Lola, you know, it wasn't either. I think we were coming to the conclusion is there were a lot of things we were doing in our setup that wasn't right. I think we have made some pretty big gains the last couple of tests. I know Christian made some gains even just this week down at Homestead, so we feel like we are on to a lot of basic things that hopefully will help us on the road courses. I think we have been -- we are getting a little bit more competitive and getting more competitive on the permanent road courses, like Elkhart Lake, for instance, we have been very good there, and a couple of other places. But it is the street circuits, as well, that we lost a little bit of hand on and that is where we are really concentrating hard on and trying to be more competitive because those have been -- there is some tracks that haven't been competitive where I used to be really dominant at. We just -- we have to try to learn what the other guys are doing and try to get to that point again. We feel like we are on to a few things that could get us there.

MICHAEL ANDRETTI: That is what we did. They used last three days that we had and they went down to Homestead road course and ran Christian down there to hopefully learn some more things and they did. It was pretty worthwhile. We feel like on the ovals hopefully we will be competitive at Nazareth. We feel like -- we did run at Phoenix, I ran and Christian ran at Phoenix and we felt like we had a pretty good race car there which is a small oval which is similar to Nazareth. So we feel like we need to put more concentration on the road course and that is where we have been pushing.

MICHAEL ANDRETTI: That is one of them, yeah. I feel like I haven't been as competitive as I used to be there. I think I finished on the podium, not last year, but the year before, but not as strong as we used to be. We got to try to get back to those dominant ways. We have just lost a little bit of that side of it. I think it has to do with the way the cars have evolved and stuff and with the rules and stuff and I think we have -- we found some of the problems and we feel like we are on to -- I mean, answers to the problem.

MICHAEL ANDRETTI: I don't know. I just -- I am not doing a whole lot different there. I am just trying to attack -- trying to see where I made mistakes and trying not to make those same mistakes. Last year I made way more mistaken takes than I would have liked. I just got to cut those out. I believe if I do, and if the team does as well, I think together we will win this Championship if we run a mistake-free year, I believe.

MICHAEL ANDRETTI: Yeah, I definitely review them and some of them -- you call them mistakes, but I probably would do them again if I had the same circumstance, so you have got to be careful. But there are some that were dumb and I shouldn't have done. So you have to dissect each and every incident.

MICHAEL ANDRETTI: I did it even during the season. And I am not sure -- I wouldn't say I made the same mistakes. They may have appeared, but it was different reasons for every one. I think my biggest blunder of the year to me was the one at Vancouver, just that could never happen again.

MICHAEL ANDRETTI: But you don't do that before you get the green flag.

MICHAEL ANDRETTI: I really do. We have changed to a Lola, but I think that it is more of a proven deal. The Ford engine has just been terrific through all the testing and the packaging of the whole engine and being on -- being a year with Firestone now, we feel like that helps us a lot going into this year as well. So we feel are -- we are quietly very confident.

MICHAEL ANDRETTI: Long -- there is a lot of work in the offseasons. I think -- probably shorter because, you know, as these years have gone on, they become busier and busier and because of that next thing, you know, you are back at it again.

MICHAEL ANDRETTI: No, sort of predicted that.

MICHAEL ANDRETTI: Because I feel that our team basically made that car work. More our team than anything.

MICHAEL ANDRETTI: I don't know. I think one thing is the competitive side of it. It drives you like crazy. The other thing that makes this game fun and different than most is the technology, I think it is always exciting to see the new things coming along and anticipating what they are going to be like and hopefully finding something that the other guy doesn't have which will be an advantage. I think that is the thing that is a lot of fun about our sport.

MICHAEL ANDRETTI: No question about it. And that is an easy trap to get into even though you have -- I have been in this sport forever, you start questioning is like: Am I trying hard enough; am I doing it as hard enough; then you do start pushing it harder and then you do start making more mistakes because of that to try to -- and it doesn't matter if you are the greatest driver in the world, if you don't have the right combination, you are not going to get the result. I think that is true. That did drive me to a lot of mistakes.

MICHAEL ANDRETTI: Probably in the 1996 season I believe because there was a year that I won five races but I probably shouldn't have won one, but I did it because I was patient about it. I think I learned quite a bit -- quite a few things there. I'd call that more of a Rahal type year.

MICHAEL ANDRETTI: Thanks a lot. Looking forward to seeing everybody out on the circuit. Thank you.