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IROC: Practice sessions begin for Saturday's race at Talladega

11 April 2000

Posted By Terry Callahan
Motorsports Editor, The Auto Channel
Talladega, AL - The True Value IROC team took to the track this morning in their first day of preparation for race-two this Saturday at the Talladega Superspeedway.

Test drivers Dave Marcis, Jim Sauter and Dick Trickle put the fleet of IROC Pontiac Firebirds through initial "shakedown" testing. Similar to a qualifying run, each of the seventeen cars, of which three are dedicated practice vehicles and fourteen are candidates for the twelve car race, are tested for initial speed and handling. The test drivers will make an initial shakedown lap to make sure everything is mechanically sound, and then do three timed laps at full speed.

Each car is equipped with a radio allowing the crew and driver to communicate lap times and handiling comments. The drivers hop out of one car and into the next, repeating the process until all the cars have been run.

Said Sauter of the initial testing, "they all feel great 'out of the box' individually, but now we need to get the three of us out there in our practice cars and do some side-by-side running."

The three drivers hit the track eager to race each other. All was going well until Dave Marcis, in the red practice car, cut down a tire coming out of turn-four and took a wild ride, spinning every which way through the tri-oval. Skillfully, he wrestled the car to a stop without making contact with the wall. Marcis said he must have ran over something that punctured the tire. "The car was perfect. We were running three-wide and racing each other pretty hard when the tire went."

Northern Light Indy Racing League drivers Mark Dismore and Greg Ray are expected to practice on Wednesday. Fellow IRL driver Eddie Cheever Jr., is expected to arrive on Thursday.

This Saturday's True Value IROC race will air on ABC Sports Sunday, at 5:00 p.m. Eastern Time, immediately following the DieHard 500 Winston Cup event.

Text provided by IROC

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