#21 Giaffone Homestead IRL Thursday Practice

Felipe Giaffone

#21 Hollywood/Mo Nunn Racing Chevrolet G-Force
Grand Prix of Miami - Practice Notes/Quotes - Thursday, Feb. 28, 2002
Homestead Miami Speedway - Homestead, Fla. - 1.5-Mile Oval
Round 1 of 15 for the 2002 Indy Racing League

Felipe Giaffone and the #21 Hollywood/Mo Nunn Racing Chevrolet G-Force
opened practice today for Saturday's Indy Racing League season-opening Grand
Prix of Miami at Homestead Miami Speedway.  Giaffone, the 2001 IRL Rookie of
the Year, is competing for the first time with Mo Nunn Racing this season.
He turned the 12th-fastest lap (27.070 seconds/199.480 mph) in this morning'
s opening practice session, and moved up to eighth in the order in the
afternoon session with his top lap of the day (27.037/199.725).  The team
worked primarily on race setup for Saturday's 300-mile event on the 1.5-mile
Homestead oval.

Roookie Tomas Scheckter turned the fastest lap of the day (26.406/204.497),
followed by longtime veteran Eddie Cheever, Jr. (26.551/203.378) and CART
transplant Helio Castroneves (26.615/202.892).  All three turned their best
laps in the morning session.

Practice resumes at 9:30 a.m. EST on Friday with qualifying set for 12:30
p.m. EST.  Final practice begins at 4:30 p.m. EST Friday.

Race time Saturday is 1 p.m. EST and it will be broadcast live by ABC-TV and
the IMS Radio Network.  Pre-race programming includes "Indy Racing 2Day"
Saturday at 12:30 p.m. EST on ESPN2.  Practice begins Thursday morning with
qualifying set for Friday at 12:30 p.m. EST.

FELIPE GIAFFONE

"It was a pretty smooth day overall.  No real dramas.  We spent a lot of
time this morning getting in some long runs, and spent more of the afternoon
fine tuning the balance on the Hollywood car.  I think we're going to have a
very good car for the race.  Tomorrow morning, we'll start trimming out the
car for qualifying and see where we end up.  I think we have a car capable
of the top six.  There are some very fast guys out there so far who are
going to be tough to catch in qualifying.  We'll see how it goes tomorrow."