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CART: Team Gordon Practice Notes, Homestead

20 March 1999

Robby Gordon
It was a day of firsts on many counts for newly formed Team Gordon and the CART FedEx Championship Series' newest owner-driver. Most notably, it was the first day on the track for the Toyota-powered Reynard purchased just a week and a half ago. After spending most of the morning practice session conducting systems checks, Gordon finished with a fast lap of 26.407 seconds, an average of 204.764 mph around the 1.5-mile Homestead Motorsports Complex oval, 27th overall. His best time of 26.649 seconds (202.646 mph) in the afternoon session was 24th best overall. Practice resumes Saturday morning with qualifying set for 12:30 p.m. EST. Sunday's race begins at 2:00 p.m. EST.

ROBBY GORDON - "I'm pretty happy for the first day. We did about as well as could be expected. We shook the car down in the first session because we never got to test it before bringing it down here, and we didn't have any major dramas getting the car onto the track. Everything stayed together all day. It's all a matter of relearning the (Reynard) car again. We were supposed to forget everything when we decided to race a Swift this season. They're two different animals. We're not too worried about qualifying. Our main goal is to make the car comfortable."

MIKE HELD (Team Gordon Co-Owner) - "Hey, we're in the game, now, and we're not that far off. Our wheels have officially rolled. Day 1 is complete. It seems to be a confidence thing with Rob. First and foremost, he needs to feel comfortable on the track, and we have some work to do. The problem is we were doing a shakedown on race weekend. That's a tough row to hoe. But we're up for the challenge."

DAN MILLER (Team Manager) - "I think we pretty much did as we expected. You've got to hand it to the guys. It took everything we had to get here. We didn't run as quickly as maybe we thought we could. But these things take time, no matter how you look at it. We certainly have a bunch of hard-working individuals and I think that could go a long way toward accelerating the process."

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