Kanaan/Zanardi Toronto Pre-Race
Notes/Quotes
PLEASE NOTE NEW CONTACT NUMBER
Contact: Laz Denes, 256-657-6190
ldenes@monunnracing.com
www.monunnracing.com
MO NUNN RACING - PRE-RACE NOTES/QUOTES
Molson Indy Toronto - July 13-15, 2001
Exhibition Place - Toronto, Ontario, Canada - 1.721-Mile Temporary Street
Course
TONY KANAAN -- #55 HOLLYWOOD/MO NUNN RACING HONDA-REYNARD
**This weekend marks Kanaan's 63rd career Champ Car start and his 24th with
Mo Nunn Racing. In his Champ Car career, he has one win (1999 U.S. 500),
one pole (1999 Long Beach Grand Prix), four podium finishes, eight
top-fives, and 30 top-10s.
**Kanaan remains 13th in the CART FedEx Championship Series driver point
standings with 34, looking to rebound after enduring a streak of misfortune
at Detroit, Portland and Cleveland. . At Detroit, he sustained a mild
concussion during Saturday qualifying that kept him out of Sunday's race.
At Portland, he got caught up in an opening-lap accident that sidelined him
for the remainder of the day. At Cleveland, he was knocked off the track on
the very first turn of the race and rebounded to run competitive lap times
but finished only 16th.
**Prior to that stretch, Kanaan had a streak of three consecutive races in
which he led laps - on the short ovals at Nazareth, Twin Ring Motegi and
Milwaukee. He totaled 112 laps led during that span, and earned his first
podium finish of the season and for Mo Nunn Racing at Motegi with a
third-place finish.
**Last year here at Toronto, Bryan Herta substituted for the then-injured
Kanaan (broken left forearm, four broken ribs sustained in a qualifying
accident at Detroit two races prior). Herta qualified 18th and retired
early in the race with a mechanical problem. Kanaan returned to action the
following weekend at Michigan after missing four races in all.
**In 20 career Champ Car starts on temporary street circuits, Kanaan has one
pole (Long Beach 1999), one podium finish (third at Houston in 1998) and 10
top-10s.
TONY KANAAN QUOTES
"I love coming to Toronto. I'm really sorry I missed it last year. It's a
wonderful city and the people of Toronto really embrace this event. You can
see it in the drivers' enthusiasm. It's a very interesting street track.
Very fast in certain places, which makes it really exciting to watch. I
think the Hollywood team has regrouped after a weekend off that we needed
very much. It was tough going for a while, but now we're ready to have
great second part of the season. We started out very solid and then things
started getting frustrating at Detroit. But, like I keep saying, 21 races
is a long season and everybody has their share of ups and downs. Now it's
time to move it on up."
ALEX ZANARDI - #66 PIONEER-WORLDCOM/MO NUNN RACING HONDA-REYNARD
**This weekend marks Zanardi's 60th career Champ Car start and his ninth
with Mo Nunn Racing, which he joined this past offseason after a two-year
hiatus from the series. He has 15 career wins, 28 podium finishes, 34
top-fives, and 38 top-10s.
**Two weekends ago at Cleveland, Zanardi had one of his most encouraging
race days of the year, climbing from his 13th starting position as high as
third at the race's midpoint. But then Zanardi had his left-rear tire
flattened by the lapped car of Max Wilson, and the pit stop to replace the
tire took him out of contention. He finished 13th.
**Like his teammate, Zanardi endured similar misfortunes at Detroit and
Cleveland. He made early exits from those two events - out on Lap 4 at
Detroit thanks to contact from behind from Michel Jourdain, and out on Lap 1
at Portland after an incident that involved Kanaan and Memo Gidley.
**Zanardi scored championship points in consecutive races at Japan's Twin
Ring Motegi, where he was seventh, and at Milwaukee, where he was 11th.
**Two-time series champion Zanardi has never finished worse than second in
three previous races here at Toronto. He was runner-up here in his Rookie
of the Year season of 1996, and again in his first of back-to-back
championship seasons in 1997. He then won here in 1998 enroute to his
second consecutive championship. Zanardi qualified second here in the 1996
and 1998 events, sixth in 1997.
**In 21 career Champ Car starts on temporary street circuits, Zanardi has
seven wins, 11 podium finishes and 14 top-5s. He also has qualified on the
pole four times, and on the front row 11 times altogether.
ALEX ZANARDI QUOTES
"I feel very encouraged this weekend after the race we had at Cleveland. I
had a race car that I was very happy with. I think I never doubted that I
could drive with the leaders in the race, and that is the way you want to
feel every race. Obviously, there were a lot of people pleased to see me
back in the hunt, overtaking people and lapping consistently with the
fastest guys out there. I don't have any doubt that if again we can bring
the same kind of car to Toronto, I'll be able to challenge people for
positions, and hopefully end up on the podium. The important thing is, we
understand why our car was working better in Cleveland than it has probably
all year. If that's the case, it means that we're really at a turning point
in our season. We figured out a few things. In particular, the engineers
(Morris Nunn, Jim Anderson and Adam Schaechter) did a great job giving me a
good race car. At this point of my career, it takes one split second to
have confidence in your race car, or to lose your confidence. I'm
experienced enough to know that there is nothing magic in this business.
When you have a good car, a car that is capable of winning a race, then you'
re going to have a good day if you stay out of trouble. And if something
happens to go wrong on the racetrack, a good car will allow you to overcome
your setback much of the time. That's where our focus has to be right now.
I think Tony and I are capable of winning races if we have the right car.
We still have a lot of questions that we don't have an answer for, yet, but
we're getting there."
MORRIS NUNN, TEAM OWNER
**This season, Nunn is reunited with the driver (Zanardi) with whom he
collaborated on back-to-back series titles in 1997 and 1998 for Target/Chip
Ganassi Racing. They won here in Toronto in 1998 after finishing second in
1996 and 1997. Nunn also was technical director at Ganassi during the
championship seasons of Jimmy Vasser (1996) and Juan Montoya (1999).
**Nunn scored his first podium finish as team owner in May when Tony Kanaan
brought home the #55 Hollywood/Mo Nunn Racing Honda-Reynard in third place
at Japan's Twin Ring Motegi.
MORRIS NUNN QUOTES
"I'll be cautiously optimistic and say that we're getting to the bottom of
our problems. We (Zanardi and I) have been successful in Toronto in the
past . Tony wasn't there with us last year, but it's his type of track. So
if we take the lessons we learned during the last three races, I think we
can come out with a pretty good set of results in Toronto. It's really
unfortunate what Alex and Tony have had to put up with the last few races.
Some of it might have been prevented, but some of it was just plain bad
luck. If you give the guys a good car, and their confidence is where it
should be, then somehow luck can seem like it's in your favor. So our job
is to take care of the things we have control over, to get our race cars up
to speed from the very first practice session, and build on it from there.
Toronto is a very low-grip track, so it will be a challenge. But it's the
same for everybody. The weekend off was helpful. I think all of our guys
are rested and refreshed and ready to go."
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