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ATLANTICS/INDY Racing: Gidley aces Indy Rookie Test; Senske in the snow

12 April 2000

        Lynx Racing graduate Memo Gidley made onlookers at the Indianapolis
Motor Speedway sit up and take notice by breezing (of course, 214.388 mph
is quite a breeze!) through his rookie test for the Indy 500 in just 80
minutes.
        Making the achievement all the more impressive, Gidley went to Indy
without any connections at all, lined up a deal with Team Pelfrey the night
before, and had just 21 laps of practice before moving into the four-phase
rookie test. 
        "I've been here since Tuesday trying to get my rookie test done
with no money," said Gidley.  "I've been going around seeing shops trying
to get something going, but most teams told me the necessary seat time
would cost between twenty and fifty-thousand dollars. I don't have that
kind of money, and so it wasn't until 10:30 Sunday night that Dale Pelfrey
said 'Yeah, I'll put you out on the track no problem, be there at 7 a.m.
tomorrow. I hope you can bring some guys with you to work on the car,
because we're shorthanded.' So I changed the pedals and helped to get the
car ready for the track." 
        Gidley has run and won on ovals in the U.S. F2000 and CART Toyota
Atlantic series, and ran 11 CART road course and street circuit races in
1999 for Walker Racing and Payton-Coyne but this was his first experience
with an oval since the Atlantic race at Milwaukee in 1998 (a race he
won)... and his first-ever drive in an Indy car on 2.5-mile oval.
        "On the oval, it's more the car than the driver and the car was
real comfortable for me right away," said Gidley.  "I've always been
comfortable on high-speed corners, even though I've never been on an oval
this big.  It's pretty awesome.  When you're on your warm-up lap at 135 mph
it seems pretty fast, then you turn it up to 210 and it gets really wild. 
It's a lot for me to learn and I'll just try to do it as quickly as
possible."
        Gidley is currently in discussions with Pelfrey about trying to
qualify that same car for the 500 next month, and has been in negotiating
with Derek Walker (who gave Gidley his first CART ride last year) to
substitute for injured driver Shinji Nakano at CART's Long Beach event next
weekend, Gidley said "If I could tell you the roller coaster I've been on
this week… It's typical of a day in the life of my whole deal, which is you
never know what's going to happen around the corner. Because I was able to
get in the car and get up to speed pretty quickly, I came in and just
really, really wanted to race that car. Hopefully I will be able to do just
that on Memorial Day." 
        Gidley is still searching for sponsorship that will make it
possible for him to run the Indy 500, and if anyone interested in
participating, or knows someone who might, please call Lynx Racing PR
Manager Peter Frey at (818) 909-0985.

Senske In The Snow

        Lynx Racing driver Sara Senske ran her third Barber Dodge Pro
Series race at Nazareth on Monday, starting from the 22nd position and
finishing 19th.  Due to inclement weather (3-inches of snow) that forced
the CART race to be re-scheduled for May 27, the Barber Dodge competitors
were denied final qualifying and started the race in the order of their
practice times.  Monday's 60-lap race was run with no spectators, no TV
cameras, nobody at all on hand save the competitors themselves along with
race officials and corner workers.
        The race was won by Sepp Koster, who started from the pole. 
Michael Valiente, who tested with the Lynx Atlantic team earlier this year,
started and finished fourth.
        "There was only one yellow flag so it was a very fast race," said
Senske.  "Unfortunately we never did have enough time to get the car set up
properly and it was so cold that the car was really loose in the warmup
session, and during the race it pushed so bad in turn three that I had to
back way out of it to keep it out of the wall.  During the race I ran with
some pretty fast people, and I put in some laps that were within 2/10ths of
the leaders, so I think with a bit more time and experience I'll be moving
up both the starting grid and finishing order."
        Senske's next Barber Dodge Pro Series race is on the Grand American
Road Racing weekend at Lime Rock, CT on May 29.

Lynx Racing

        2000 marks the 10th anniversary of Lynx Racing, one of the most
unique organizations in auto racing today.  Created and owned by two women,
Peggy Haas and Jackie Doty, Lynx is both a championship-winning racing team
and a uniquely successful driver development program that focuses on a
driver's spiritual and psychological growth in addition to their on-track
skills. 
        The Lynx mission is to seek out young drivers with the desire and
potential to become champions at the highest levels of the sport and
provide them with the funding, equipment and training to take the last step
toward realizing that potential, a process the team calls 'destiny by
design.'  Lynx alumni include CART FedEx drivers Patrick Carpentier, Alex
Barron and Memo Gidley.