#21 Giaffone IRL Fontana Friday Practice

Felipe Giaffone

#21 Hollywood/Mo Nunn Racing Chevrolet G-Force
Yamaha Indy 400 - Practice Notes/Quotes - Friday, March 22, 2002
California Speedway - Fontana, Calif. - 2-Mile Oval
Round 3 of 15 on the 2002 Indy Racing League

Felipe Giaffone and the #21 Hollywood/Mo Nunn Racing Chevrolet G-Force
clocked the fourth-fastest practice time of the day in preparation for
Sunday's Yamaha Indy 400 Indy Racing League event at California Speedway.
Giaffone turned a lap of 32.591 seconds (an average of 220.914 mph) on the
high-banked, 2-mile tri-oval in this morning's opening practice session.  It
was the fastest Chevrolet-powered entry for the session behind the
front-running Infiniti of Eddie Cheever (32.504/221.505) this morning.
Giaffone was 12th-fastest in this afternoon's practice session with a lap of
32.956/218.472.

Rookie Tomas Scheckter bettered his Infiniti teammate Cheever's morning time
with an afternoon time of 32.413/222.130 to bring home the day's fastest
lap.  Cheever's morning time was second overall today, followed by Jaques
Lazier's afternoon lap of 32.557/221.151, with Giaffone's morning time
placing fourth on the day.

Practice continues Saturday morning with qualifying set for 11 a.m. PST (2
p.m. EST).  Race time for Sunday's 200-lap event is 12:30 p.m. PST (3:30
p.m. EST) and it will be broadcast live by ESPN and the IMS Radio Network.
Pre-race programming includes "Indy Racing 2Day" Sunday at 2:30 p.m. EST on
ESPN2.

FELIPE GIAFFONE

"We already have a good car for the race.  My Hollywood Chevrolet is good in
traffic.  But we might not have quite enough power to be a contender for the
pole in the qualifying session on Saturday.  In the morning, I was the
fastest in my group because I was able to take advantage of the draft
(behind Robbie Buhls's car).  In the second session, I didn't draft and was
running with full tanks to test the race setup.  Tomorrow, and on race day,
we are going to use our 2001 engine, which we believe will be better for us
here than the 2002 version.  The Infinitis and the Menard team car will be
tough to beat at this time, so our goal is to be close to them on the grid."