CART: Gidley posts career best qualifying performance to lead Toyota effort

Posted By Terry Callahan
Motorsports Editor, The Auto Channel

July 29, 2001

GIDLEY QUALIFIES FOURTH TO LEAD TOYOTA AT CHICAGO - Memo Gidley (Target Toyota) registered a career-best fourth-place qualifying effort to lead Toyota for Sunday's Target Grand Prix Presented by Energizer. Gidley's previous career-best start was a fifth earlier this season at Cleveland. Saturday's result marks the second time in three qualifying efforts that Gidley's started in the top five since joining the Target Ganassi team (Michigan's qualifying was rained out).

THREE TOYOTAS TO START IN TOP-10 - Jimmy Vasser (Visteon Toyota) and Patrick Racing teammate Roberto Moreno (Visteon Toyota) will join Memo Gidley in starting tomorrow's 225-lap race in the top-10. The two Visteon cars will start in sixth and seventh-place, respectively.

PATRICK PUTS TWO IN TOP-10 - With Jimmy Vasser and Roberto Moreno qualifying seventh and eighth Saturday, it marks the fourth time this season that the Patrick Visteon team has qualified two cars in the top 10 at the same race - the most of any Toyota-powered team. Moreno matched his best 2001 qualifying with his seventh.

Quotes:

Memo Gidley, #12 Target Toyota: "I had a pretty good qualifying lap. I gave it everything that I had out there. I might have been able to go a little bit faster, but I am very happy with our run Saturday. We were very quick in the morning practice session and that transferred over to our qualifying run. The car is consistently fast on long runs, so we should have a good car for the race. I was really hopping to win the pole for the Target Chip Ganassi/Toyota team this weekend. We have a very good starting position for the race and I think that we will challenge for a win. Each week that I am with this team, we seem to improve both on and off the track. We have developed some great chemistry and the first win of our season is not far away."

Jimmy Vasser, #40 Visteon Toyota: "Overall, I think the #40 Visteon Toyota had a good qualifying run, but I am disappointed because I thought we would do better. We had a good car this morning, so I thought we had a chance of qualifying very well this afternoon. I think the jet blower put some kind of oil on the track because the car was squirming. The track started to get better the longer I was out, but I was sliding around during my run. The Visteon car was good, but the track was slippery from whatever was coming out of the jet blower. I guess it's just luck of the draw. We have a good car for the race and I have had some success here in the past, so hopefully we can have a good performance tomorrow."

Roberto Moreno, #20 Visteon Toyota: "I am very happy with our qualifying performance Saturday. The #20 Visteon Toyota team did a good job. We had a car that wasn't that good at the start of the weekend, but my engineer, David Dembick, and the team did a great job improving the car each time out. We also got quite a bit of help from Jimmy (Vasser). I am very happy with the way the Visteon team worked together this weekend. It really paid off Saturday. I think we have a good race car and I am looking forward to tomorrow's race."

Toyota Drivers Chicago Qualifying

4. Memo Gidley
6. Jimmy Vasser
7. Roberto Moreno
11. Bruno Junqueira
13. Mauricio Gugelmin
18. Tora Takagi
19. Scott Dixon
20. Cristiano da Matta
24. Christian Fittipaldi

Target Grand Prix Presented by Energizer, ABC, 4:00 p.m. EDT/1:00 p.m. PDT

Text provided by John Prodica

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