#10 Kanaan CART Road America Pre-Race

Tony Kanaan

#10 Pioneer-WorldCom/Mo Nunn Racing Honda-Lola
The Grand Prix of Road America - August 16-18, 2002 - Pre-Race Notes/Quotes
Road America - Elkhart Lake, Wis. - 4-Mile Road Course
Round 12 of 19 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.  The Grand Prix of Road America this weekend will
be his 86th career Champ Car start.  To date, Kanaan has one win (1999 U.S.
500), two poles (1999 at Long Beach, 2001 at Chicago), five podium finishes,
12 top-fives, and 41 top-10s.

**Kanaan took over Mo Nunn Racing's #10 Pioneer- and WorldCom-sponsored CART
entry this season after driving the third-year team's Hollywood-sponsored
car in 2000 (Mercedes-Benz Reynard) and 2001 (Honda-powered Reynard).

**At last weekend's CART Grand Prix of Mid-Ohio, Kanaan qualified fifth,
moved up to fourth at the start, and stayed there until moving into the top
three in the latter stages of the race.  He was running third when he pitted
with mechanical problems that forced his retirement with just 14 laps to go
in the 92-lap race.

**The team and Kanaan's latest podium finish came three weekends ago at the
Molson Indy Vancouver, where the 27-year-old Brazilian started sixth,
grabbed one spot by the very first turn of the race, and ran with the
leaders the rest of the way.  It was the team's second Champ Car podium and
the fifth of Kanaan's career.

**The third-place finish at Vancouver on July 28 was the team's top finish
of the 2002 season.  After a disappointing string of DNFs at the first four
events (Monterrey, Long Beach, Twin Ring Motegi and Milwaukee), Kanaan
scored his first points of the season with a 12th-place finish at Laguna
Seca.  He followed that with eighth-place finishes at three of the next four
races (Portland, Chicago and Cleveland) before the podium result at
Vancouver.

**At the Milwaukee event the first weekend of June, Kanaan debuted a Lola
chassis as the team made the switch from Reynard for the first time in its
two-plus years of existence.  He qualified eighth after running as high as
third following Saturday-morning practice.  In Sunday's race, Kanaan moved
from eighth to fourth on the very first lap, and was running third when, on
Lap 92, he was forced to retire from the 250-lap event with an oil leak.

**Kanaan's most promising performance this season came at Japan's Twin Ring
Motegi, where he qualified second, led a race-high 72 laps, and recorded the
fastest lap of the race before retiring with a mechanical failure on Lap
121of a scheduled 201 laps.

**On Memorial Day weekend, Kanaan competed in his first-ever Indianapolis
500, joining Mo Nunn Racing's full-time Indy Racing League driver Felipe
Giaffone in a second Hollywood-sponsored team car.  Kanaan qualified fifth
in the #17 Hollywood/Mo Nunn Racing Chevrolet G-Force entry - the fastest
rookie qualifier in the 33-car field - and dominated the early stages of the
race, leading 23 laps in all before an ill-fated accident while running
first on Lap 89.  Kanaan spun in the oil of fellow CART regular Bruno
Junqueira, who suffered a mechanical failure in Turn 3, and made heavy
contact with the outside wall.  Kanaan was unhurt, but saw a promising day
come to an end.  He clocked the third-fastest race lap.  Giaffone,
meanwhile, went on to finish third in the #21 Hollywood/Mo Nunn Racing
Chevrolet G-Force.

**Last August here at Road America, Kanaan qualified 17th and finished 12th.
He ran in the top 10 all afternoon, but had to make a late-race stop for
fuel that dropped him back to the final points-paying position.

**Kanaan's previous best result at Road America was fourth place during his
CART Rookie of the Year season of 1998 while with Tasman Motorsports (later
to be called Forsythe Championship Racing).  He finished sixth with Forsythe
in 1999, and eighth in his Mo Nunn Racing debut in 2000 driving the #55
Hollywood-sponsored Mercedes-Benz Reynard.

**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 the pole qualifying effort on the
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 18 career Champ Car starts on permanent road courses, Kanaan has one
podium, three top-fives, and eight top-10s.

**Veteran race engineer Iain Watt joined Mo Nunn Racing this season after
working with Max Papis (1997-98), Cristiano da Matta (1999-2000) and Dario
Franchitti (2001) while at Cal Wells' Precision Preparation team (1997-2000)
and Team Green (2001) the previous five 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, is Kanaan's chief mechanic this season and is joined
by a majority of the Pioneer-WorldCom crew from last season.

**Longtime race engineer Morris Nunn is in his third season as CART FedEx
Championship Series team owner and his first in the Indy Racing League.  He
founded Mo Nunn Racing just prior to the 2000 CART 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 is splitting its time between single-car entries in
both CART (Tony Kanaan driving the #10 Pioneer-WorldCom/Mo Nunn Racing
Honda-Lola) and the Indy Racing League (Felipe Giaffone driving the #21
Hollywood/Mo Nunn Racing Chevrolet G-Force).  Giaffone is currently fourth
in the IRL points standings behind Sam Hornish, Helio Castroneves and Gil de
Ferran.  Giaffone scored Mo Nunn Racing's first victory last weekend at the
IRL event at Kentucky Speedway.  He's just 17 points out of the championship
lead with three IRL events to go.

TONY KANAAN QUOTES

"It's another week and another chance to get the job done.  We had a good
car at Mid-Ohio last weekend and I thought we were going to have our second
podium finish in a row.  The Pioneer-WorldCom car was good from the very
beginning of practice, and that always makes you feel like this could be the
weekend.  We were top-five in qualifying, which made us feel confident for
the race.  Unfortunately, something let go with 14 laps to go.  Like I said
after that happened, you can feel disappointed, but you have to get over it
and turn the page and go to the next one.  I think we are getting a better
and better handle on our new Lola.  It's a tough thing to do, but Road
America should be a pretty good track for us because it's pretty similar to
Mid-Ohio.  It's much longer and there are some high-speed places where the
cars with better horsepower should have an advantage.  But there are
definitely some places where handling is very important.  So I think we have
as good of a shot as anybody.  As you saw at Mid-Ohio, you just have to have
a perfect weekend from beginning to end to win in this series.  It's so
competitive that any little mistake, or any little problem, will send you
home feeling disappointed."