#10 Kanaan CART Motegi Pre-Race Notes/Quotes

Contact:  Laz Denes, 256-657-6190
ldenes@monunnracing.com
www.monunnracing.com

Tony Kanaan

#10 Pioneer-WorldCom/Mo Nunn Racing Honda-Reynard
Bridgestone Potenza 500 - April 25-27, 2002 - Pre-Race Notes/Quotes
Twin Ring Motegi - 1.5-Mile Oval
Round 3 of 20 on the 2002 CART FedEx Championship Series

**Tony Kanaan is in his fifth CART FedEx Championship Series season and his
third with Mo Nunn Racing.  This weekend's Grand Prix of Long Beach is his
77th career Champ Car start.  To date, Kanaan has 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 took over Mo Nunn Racing's #10 Pioneer- and WorldCom-sponsored
Honda-powered Reynard at this year's season opener March 10 at Monterrey,
Mexico.  Last season, two-time series champion Alex Zanardi piloted the team
's Pioneer-WorldCom entry, then #66, until he suffered devastating leg
injuries in a racing accident in Germany last September.

**Two weekends ago on the streets of Long Beach, California, Kanaan
qualified sixth and was running fifth when a mechanical problem forced him
out of the race just 17 laps into the 90-lap event.  It was the second
consecutive race in which problems plagued the 27-year-old Brazilian.  At
the Monterrey season opener, he qualified 13th and was running ninth just
eight laps into the race when he was forced to pit with electrical problems
and lost two laps while the team replaced the electronic control unit
("black box").  That was Kanaan's first DNF in 11 races dating back to the
Michigan 500 in July, 2000.

**Last year here at Motegi, Long Beach, Kanaan had his best weekend of the
2001 season.  In his 20th start for his then-second-year team, Kanaan
qualified fourth, led 40 laps, and brought home Mo Nunn Racing's first-ever
podium finish with a third-place effort.  It was his fourth career podium
finish.  It was the 24th CART start for Mo Nunn Racing, which first opened
its doors prior to the 2000 season.  In the second team car last year, Alex
Zanardi started eighth and also was making a podium bid until he ran out of
fuel on course late in the race and salvaged a seventh-place finish.

**In his Mo Nunn Racing debut here in 2000, Kanaan and the #55 Hollywood/Mo
Nunn Racing Mercedes-Benz Reynard qualified ninth and was running seventh
when a mechanical problem ended his day in the closing laps.    He placed
16th.

**Prior to joining Mo Nunn Racing, Kanaan race here twice with Tasman
Motorsports (later to be called Forsythe Championship Racing), finishing
sixth with the team in both his CART Rookie of the Year season in 1998 and
in 2000.

**After this weekend, Kanaan heads to Indianapolis to compete in his first
Indy 500, joining fellow Brazilian Felipe Giaffone in a second Mo Nunn
Racing Hollywood-sponsored Chevrolet G-Force.  Giaffone, the 2001 Indy
Racing League Rookie of the Year, drives the team's full-time IRL entry for
the first time this year.  He placed second at Nazareth this past weekend,
and also has a seventh-place finish at Homestead and a sixth-place finish at
Fontana.  Giaffone is currently fourth in the IRL driver points.  Kanaan and
Giaffone spent a day shaking down a brand new race car at the Indianapolis
Motor Speedway on April 15, the day after the CART Long Beach event.

**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 34 career starts on oval circuits, Kanaan has one win (1999 U.S. 500 at
Michigan), four top-fives, and 14 top-10s.  In his last oval event, last
year's season finale at California Speedway in Fontana, he qualified 14th
but charged to the front and stayed there for most of the race, only to have
his bid ruined by a caution period in the closing laps.  He finished fifth.
Kanaan started from the pole on the mile oval in Chicago last July and went
on to finish eighth in that event.  Kanaan also was fastest in every
practice session at September oval events in Germany and England, but both
races were gridded according to championship points due to rainy conditions
during qualifying.  Last May, Kanaan qualified fourth here at Motegi, led 40
laps, and went on to finish third for his fourth career and the team's first
podium.  Last July, Kanaan qualified fifth at Michigan, but then was forced
to retire with an alternator failure.

**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.  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.

**Longtime race engineer Morris Nunn began his third season as team owner
last month with both the CART and Indy Racing League openers.  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

"Motegi looks very promising for us.  It was our best race last year.  We
got our first podium finish for Mo Nunn Racing.  Now, it's time to go one
better.  I come there with a new set of sponsors - Pioneer and WorldCom.
And just like at Long Beach, I'm going to be busy doing stuff for Pioneer
and Honda in the days leading up to the race.  It's very exciting.  I have
friends in Japan that I get to see this time every year.  I'm going to get
to meet the executives and employees of Pioneer in Japan.  And we always
have a nice time with the people from Honda over there.  Hopefully, after
all of that is done, we will be able to go out and finish the race, because
you need to do that before you can post any kind of a good result.  We've
had two DNFs in a row, which is very, very disappointing.  But, thank
goodness, we have a lot of racing left this season and there's no better way
to get back into the points race than with a win.  I like the track very
much.  We had a great setup there last year, and a great race.  The ovals
seemed to be our strength last year, and I think we can expect the same this
year.  I love the track at Motegi.  It's a wonderful facility, and the fans
there really know the CART drivers and teams.  I hope Race #3 is a charm for
us.  It'll be our third race of the season, and our third trip to Motegi
with Mo Nunn Racing."

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