#10 Kanaan Monterrey CART Pre-Race Notes/Quotes

TONY KANAAN

#10 Pioneer-WorldCom/Mo Nunn Racing Honda-Reynard
Tecate/Telmex Grand Prix of Monterrey - March 8-10, 2002 - Pre-Race
Notes/Quotes
Fundidora Park - Monterrey, Mexico - 2.1-Mile Temporary Street Course
Round 1 of 20 on the 2002 CART FedEx Championship Series

**Tony Kanaan begins his fifth CART FedEx Championship Series season and his
third with Mo Nunn Racing with this weekend's Tecate/Telmex Grand Prix of
Monterrey.  In his Champ Car career, Kanaan has 75 starts, one win (1999
U.S. 500), two poles (1999 at Long Beach, 2001 at Chicago), four podium
finishes, 11 top-fives, and 38 top-10s.

**Kanaan takes over Mo Nunn Racing's #10 Pioneer- and WorldCom-sponsored
Honda-powered Reynard this season.  Last season, two-time series champion
Alex Zanardi piloted the entry, then #66, until he suffered devastating leg
injuries in a racing accident in Germany last September.

**In his 35 starts with Mo Nunn Racing during the 2000 and 2001 seasons,
Kanaan, driving the team's Hollywood-sponsored entry (Mercedes-Benz power in
2000, Honda power in 2001), has one podium finish (2001 at Twin Ring
Motegi), one pole (2001 at Chicago), four top-five finishes, and 18 top-10s.

**The team's Hollywood-sponsored racing program shifted to the Indy Racing
League this season with Brazilian Felipe Giaffone driving the #21
Hollywood/Mo Nunn Racing Chevrolet G-Force.  Giaffone, the 2001 series
Rookie of the Year, opened the 2002 IRL season last weekend with a
seventh-place finish at Homestead, Fla.

**Veteran race engineer Iain Watt joined Mo Nunn Racing this past offseason
after working with Max Papis (1999), Cristiano da Matta (2000) and Dario
Franchitti (2001) while at Cal Wells' Precision Preparation team (1999-2000)
and Team Green (2001) the past three seasons.  Thus, Kanaan is working with
a new engineer for the first time since he first came to the U.S. to race in
the Indy Lights series after the 1995 season.   He worked with Eric Cowdin
enroute to Indy Lights Rookie of the Year (1996) and the series championship
(1997) honors while at Tasman Motorsports, moved up with Cowdin and Tasman
to the Champ Car ranks and was CART Rookie of the Year in 1998, then moved
to Mo Nunn Racing with Cowdin after the 1999 season.  Cowdin is engineering
the team's IRL entry this season, and is joined by Kanaan's chief mechanic
from the past two seasons, David Popielarz.  Don Lambert, who joined Mo Nunn
Racing last season as chief mechanic with the Pioneer-WorldCom Honda-Reynard
program, will be Kanaan's new chief mechanic and is joined by a majority of
the Pioneer-WorldCom crew from last season.

**In 2001, Kanaan piloted the #55 Hollywood/Mo Nunn Racing Honda-Reynard to
ninth place in the driver points standings.  He scored points in 14 of his
19 starts last season, including eight consecutive events from Toronto
through Laguna Seca, and nine of the final 10 events of the year.  Season
highlights included a third-place finish at Twin Ring Motegi for the team's
first and his fourth career podium, and a pole qualifying effort on the
1-mile oval at Chicago.  He added top-five finishes at Vancouver (fourth),
Mid-Ohio (fifth) and the 500-mile season finale at Fontana (fifth).  Kanaan
had six top-five qualifying efforts on the year (the pole at Chicago, third
at Long Beach, fourth at Motegi and Toronto, and fifth at Cleveland and
Michigan).  The Cleveland (fifth), Toronto (fourth), Michigan (fifth) and
Chicago (pole) qualifying efforts came during consecutive events.

**In the inaugural Grand Prix of Monterrey here last year, Kanaan
consistently ran in the top four during practice.  But CART qualifying rules
last season had drivers grouped according to points standings.  Kanaan was
19th in the points after the team's first-ever CART season.  He easily was
fastest among the "slow" group qualifiers, but on a brand new track surface
that got better every lap, he ended up just 10th on the grid after the
 "fast" group was finished.  On race day, it proved to be a treacherous
track to pass on, but Kanaan had a strong run from beginning to end for a
seventh-place finish.

**In 23 career Champ Car starts on temporary street circuits, Kanaan has one
pole (Long Beach 1999), one podium finish (third at Houston in 1998) and 11
top-10s.  He was fourth on the streets of Vancouver and seventh on the
streets of Long Beach last season - both temporary circuits.

**Longtime race engineer Morris Nunn began his third season as team owner
last weekend at the Indy Racing League opener at Homestead.  He founded Mo
Nunn Racing just prior to the 2000 CART FedEx Championship Series season
after leaving Target/Chip Ganassi Racing, where he was technical director
during consecutive series championships by Jimmy Vasser (1996), Alex Zanardi
(1997-98) and Juan Pablo Montoya (1999).  Nunn also engineered Emerson
Fittipaldi's 1989 Indianapolis 500 victory and CART championship while the
two were with Patrick Racing.  This year, Nunn's team will split its time
between single-car entries in both CART (Tony Kanaan driving the #10
Pioneer-WorldCom/Mo Nunn Racing Honda-Reynard) and the IRL (Felipe Giaffone
driving the #21 Hollywood/Mo Nunn Racing Chevrolet G-Force).


TONY KANAAN QUOTES

"Last year, I won a really nice bicycle at Monterrey in a running bet we had
with Cristiano all last season.  The winner of a race would have to buy the
other guy a bike, and Cristiano went out and won the race down there.  This
year, I don't want a bike.  I want the first-place trophy.  I'm really
looking forward to starting the season.  We worked really, really hard in
testing.  Now, I'm ready to go to work so we can start earning points for
all of our hard work.  It's bound to pay off.  We made good progress in
every area, from our Honda engine program to our new Reynard chassis and our
new Bridgestone tires.  We'll get to put it all together at Monterrey on one
of the most interesting race courses we go to all year.  It was a little
difficult because grip was a real problem all weekend long.  I had to
qualify with the slow group last year because they broke us into groups
based on points from the previous season.  So even though we ran in the top
four or five in all the practice sessions, we had to start 10th, and the
best we could do was to finish seventh.  It was really difficult to pass.
Hopefully, this being our second year on the racetrack, all of that will
improve.  We're all going to have a fair shot at the pole with the new
qualifying rules.  Otherwise, it's a great place to race.  The people down
there really fell in love with us.  The atmosphere was electric on the grid
on Sunday.  I remember getting goosebumps.  I'm ready!"

MORRIS NUNN QUOTES

"Well, we begin our third CART season and it will be, by far, the most
interesting one, yet.  We took our Hollywood program over to the IRL because
that's what the sponsor decided is best for them, and we're back down to a
one-car team on the CART side.  Believe me, there is a lot more juggling
than you can imagine with one car each in two different racing series.  It's
a lot different, as you can imagine, than running two cars in the same
series.  In a way, it's probably a natural part of the evolution of this
racing team.  We grew to a two-car team last year and put solid people in
place on both sides of our operation.  We added some new faces here and
there, but the core of the team remains.  We had a very productive winter of
testing.  So we're as ready as we will ever be.  Tony has done particularly
well on the test track, and he and Iain (Watt) are working better and better
together every day, as he is with his entire crew from last year's
Pioneer-WorldCom car.  This racetrack was particularly tricky a year ago,
and we suspect it will be the same again this year.  But with new qualifying
rules, we'll have a fair shot and starting up front and, hopefully, staying
up front."