ATLANTICS: Vancouver Fast Facts, Lynx Racing
1 September 1999
LUCK AND LIGHTNING
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Fast Facts: Lynx Racing in the KOOL/Toyota Atlantic
support race at the Molson Indy Vancouver, September 4 - 5
1. Lynx Racing is the most unique auto racing team in the sport today. It
is the only championship-winning team owned by women, Peggy Haas and Jackie
Doty.
2. Lynx is one of the top teams in the KOOL/Toyota Atlantic Championship.
Lynx alumni include CART FedEx drivers Patrick Carpentier
(Player's/Forsythe), Alex Barron (Dan Gurney's All-American Racers and
Marlboro Penske) and Memo Gidley (Walker/Alpine and Herdez/Payton-Coyne).
3. Lynx Racing's latest CART hot prospect is Buddy Rice, currently fourth
in the championship points battle. His Lynx teammate, Mike Conte, is a
former Microsoft software developer involved in the creation of such
popular programs as Windows 95 and Microsoft Explorer.
4. Lynx Racing won at Vancouver, from the pole in 1996 with Patrick
Carpentier, and from the pole in 1997 with Memo Gidley. Both drivers will
be competing in the Molson Indy Vancouver this weekend.
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Lynx Racing drivers Buddy Rice and Mike Conte are looking for the lightning
at Vancouver -- that special combination of skill, equipment, teamwork and
luck that lights the way to victory lane in the KOOL/Toyota Atlantic
support race at the Molson Indy Vancouver, September 4 - 5.
Skill, equipment and teamwork are qualities constantly on hand at
Lynx, the most unique combination of championship-winning race team and
driver development program in auto racing today, as demonstrated by the
fact that Lynx drivers won this race in 1996 (Patrick Carpentier) and 1997
(Memo Gidley).
Luck however -- for Lynx and every team -- is the least reliable
participant in the equation.
Rice, currently fourth in the championship points battle, has run
at or near the front in most of the nine races so far in the 1999
KOOL/Toyota Atlantic season, and scored three podium finishes in a row...
that's the skill, equipment and teamwork part. His last-lap DNF at
Mid-Ohio while leading the race... well, that's the luck part -- that and
the inexplicable, unpredictable failure of a brand-new alternator.
In this event last year, he qualified 7th, tangled with another car
on the opening lap, pitted for repairs, re-joined the race at the back of
the field and slashed his way back up to fifth in a brilliant drive
overshadowed by the late-race drama of the top three cars all crashing
simultaneously in the same turn.
Rice's 1998 teammate, Memo Gidley, was running fourth at the time and
didn't hit, but found himself blocked by the wreckage. He too re-joined at
the back of the field and worked his way back up to 7th.
"Luck and lightning are funny things; once you've been hit, you're
more likely to get hit again," says Rice. "You need luck in a race, but
you can't count on it or wait for it. Sometimes you have to make your own,
and it takes a great team like Lynx to do it. Last year here was
definitely the weirdest race of the season, and this year could be
interesting, but we're prepared, we're pumped and we're ready to win."
Rice's 1999 Lynx teammate, Mike Conte, who drove for another team
in 1998, had an interesting race as well, moving up from his 20th
qualifying position to finish 10th in an attrition-filled race.
"Vancouver is a track where anything can happen, and usually does,"
says Conte. "It was one of my best races last season, and we gained the
most places of any car in the race. It's one of those races where you
really need to qualify as well as possible and move up as quickly as you
can because they typically run a lot of yellow flag laps. Of course, it's
the need to do these things quickly that produces the yellow flags, so it's
kind of a Catch-22 situation. You need a good car here, and a good
qualifying run, then you need equal measures of skill and luck."
Conte, in addition to his Atlantic racing, also competes in the
American Le Mans Series with a GT-class Porsche where he scored a podium
finish in the 12 Hours of Sebring earlier this year.
Lynx Racing, owned by Peggy Haas and Jackie Doty and now in its
ninth year of operation, is both a championship-winning racing team and a
unique driver development program. The team's mission is to seek out young
drivers with championship potential and provide them with the training,
resources and opportunity to realize that potential and make the jump to
auto racing's 'major leagues.'
In addition to Buddy Rice and Mike Conte in the KOOL/Toyota
Atlantic series, Lynx also sponsors a car for the team's first female
driver, Sara Senske, 21, of Kennewick, Washington. Senske competes in the
Star Mazda Championship, driving a car fielded by Kent Stacy's
championship-winning S3 Racing, and in the innovative new Women's Global GT
series where she won the Portland round from the pole.
Event Schedule:
Friday, September 3
9:35 a.m. - 10:10 a.m. Atlantic practice
1:00 p.m. - 1:30 p.m. Atlantic preliminary qualifying
Saturday, September 4
8:00 a.m. - 8:40 a.m. Atlantic practice
11:55 a.m. - 12:25 p.m. Atlantic final qualifying
Sunday, September 5
8:30 a.m. - 8:45 a.m. Atlantic warm-up
10:30 a.m. - 11:30 a.m. Atlantic race / 38 laps
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Television Schedule (ESPN2 - all times Eastern):
Sunday, Sept. 12 10:00 p.m. - 11:00 p.m. First broadcast
Tuesday, Sept. 14 5:00 a.m. - 6:00 a.m. Repeat
broadcast
Wednesday, Sept. 15 2:00 a.m. - 3:00 a.m. Repeat broadcast
Editors Note: For hundreds of hot racing photos and racing art, be sure to visit The Racing ImageGalleries and the Visions of Speed Art Gallery.