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CART: Tony Kanaan Friday Practice Notes and Quotes, Chicago

29 July 2000

Tony Kanaan and the #55 Hollywood/Mo Nunn Racing Mercedes-Benz Reynard
clocked the fourth-fastest time in afternoon practice today for Sunday’s
Target Grand Prix of Chicago.  Kanaan toured the 1-mile Chicago Motor
Speedway oval in 22.722 seconds (an average of 163.031 mph) to place him
behind only Kenny Brack, Cristiano da Matta and Helio Castroneves.
Brack had the fastest time on the day at 22.551 seconds (164.224 mph).

Practice continues Saturday morning with qualifying set to begin at 1:30
p.m. CDT.  Race time Sunday is 3:00 p.m. CDT and it will be aired live
by ABC-TV.

TONY KANAAN

“It’s great to be back in the top five.  We have a very, very good race
car.  We seem to be doing very well on the mile ovals.  We had top-10
finishes at the other two mile ovals so far (Nazareth, eighth, and
Milwaukee, 10th), and we’ve made definite progress with the car and the
engine package since then.  So, all in all, it was a very productive day
at the office.  Then again, Friday results don’t count in the big
picture of things.  But it certainly has us feeling very good about
qualifying, and, better yet, for the race on Sunday.

“I’m feeling pretty good, physically.  This track definitely requires
more effort to get around than Michigan last week.  But I’ve been doing
a lot of go-karting.  I went out and bought one for myself last week,
and me and Cristiano (da Matta) went out and put in about 600 laps each
in the last three days back home in Miami.  So that’s the ideal way to
get in shape for the small, tight tracks.  Overall, I really want to
work hard to finish the race and get a good result.  It’s been a while
since we’ve finished a race.  So we feel we’re due.  We certainly are
working hard at it.”