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CART: Fontana Saturday Qualifying Notes/Quotes, Tony Kanaan

28 October 2000

#55 Hollywood/Mo Nunn Racing Mercedes-Benz Reynard
The 500 – Qualifying Notes/Quotes – Saturday, Oct. 28, 2000
California Speedway – Fontana, Calif. (2-mile oval)
Round 20 of 20 on the 2000 CART FedEx Championship Series

Tony Kanaan and the #55 Hollywood/Mo Nunn Racing Mercedes-Benz Reynard
will start Sunday’s season-ending 500-mile event California Speedway
from the outside of the sixth row.  He clocked a fast qualifying lap of
31.101 seconds (234.861 mph) around the 2-mile superspeedway oval, the
12th-best posting in today’s qualifying session.  Series points leader
Gil de Ferran grabbed the pole with a track-record time of 30.255
seconds (241.428 mph), with teammates Michael Andretti (30.550; 239.097
mph) and Christian Fittipaldi (30.553; 239.073 mph) some two-tenths of a
second behind in second and third, respectively.

Race time Sunday is 11:30 a.m. PST (2:30 p.m. EST) with a live broadcast
set for ESPN.

TONY KANAAN

“We were projecting about a 235 mph lap and we almost got that.  I was
flat out all the way around the track.  We got maybe just a little
greedy with the setup, so the car was a bit loose.  But overall we’re
fairly pleased because we did our best.  No excuses.  We knew we weren’t
going to be the fastest car our there, so we’ll concentrate on the race
and do everything we can to be there at the end.  It’s a long race.
We’ll need a good, consistent car, and make the right changes as the
track changes.  Hey, Morris has won 500-milers before.  I’ve won one.
If I didn’t believe we could do it, I wouldn’t jump in the car to begin
with.  It’d be great to send Mercedes-Benz off with a win in their last
race.  They’ve been so good to us all year long.”