Chevy Phoenix IRL Results
J. Lazier Sixth, Fisher Fast with Chevy in Phoenix
PHOENIX, March 23, 2003 - Jaques Lazier recovered from a 360-degree
spin to bring Team Menard's Johns Manville Chevrolet Dallara home in sixth
place today at the Purex Dial Indy 200, the top finishing position for
Chevrolet's new Chevy Indy V8 racing engine. Three Chevy engines finished
in the top 10 in today's 200-lap contest at Phoenix International Raceway
as Sarah Fisher finished eighth and Buddy Rice ninth. All three were on the
lead lap. Chevrolet engines again had a perfect reliability record,
completing a total of 1,071 laps at PIR.
"I kept the throttle down and kept going," said Lazier of his Turn
2 pirouette. "Right now a sixth-place finish and being the top placing
Chevrolet is a spin and win for us.
"I'm really happy with our finish," he continued. "Today was much
more indicative of what this team is capable of. We still don't quite have
the chassis completely figured out, but the bottom line is that we were
running as fast as the leader. We ran all 200 laps, we have the reliability
figured out and we have the momentum now that we can be ready to compete
for wins in the near future. We're getting all aspects of this team working
better - the driver, the chassis, the team and the engine."
Fisher brought the crowd to its feet with a strong mid-race run in
Dreyer & Reinbold Racing's Chevy-powered Upromise Dallara. Savvy pit
strategy put her in second place, and she pressed the leader for 32 laps
until a miscue on a pit stop cost her track position.
"I had a beautiful race car today," said Fisher. "The car wasn't there
at first, but my engineer Mark Weida kept tuning it and did an excellent
job. I could catch the leader, but I couldn't get underneath him. We have
to find some more strength out of every piece.
"Chevy has been very supportive this year," she noted. "The GM
engineers keep digging, they keep coming up with more pieces and better
solutions. They race to win. Chevy's showing that it's committed, and
they're not going to fall off the landscape. They keep putting more effort
in and hopefully we'll be faster at Indy."
"A number of the Chevy teams were very competitive in this
very hard-fought race today," said GM Racing Group Manager Joe Negri. "It
was exciting to see Sarah Fisher running in second place and challenging
for the lead. We had three cars finish in the top 10 and we extended the
Chevy Indy V8's perfect reliability record, so we are continuing to make
progress on all fronts. We are optimistic that trend will continue in the
next race."
Buddy Rice of Phoenix gave the hometown fans reason to cheer with a
strong performance in Red Bull Cheever Racing's Chevrolet Dallara. He ran
as high as sixth.
"Today's results will hopefully take some of the heat off Chevy,"
Rice declared. "Obviously we got our chassis sorted out from Homestead to
here, and that put us up with the guys running at the front. We still need
to keep working on our whole package, but we showed we can run with those
guys. We were right there in the big freight train. It was a big
improvement from the first race, so we're very happy."
The race was run under a cloudless blue sky in the Arizona desert
with 85-degree air temperature and 117-degree track temperature. The race
was slowed 10 times by caution periods and seven cars were involved in
accidents. Defending champion Sam Hornish Jr. was sidelined in an accident
on lap 32 and finished 21st in the 22-car field. He was uninjured.
Hornish was charging hard in Pennzoil Panther Racing's Chevrolet
Dallara, coming from his 17th starting position to ninth when he made
contact with the car of A.J. Foyt IV.
"I went to the outside of a lapped car," Hornish explained. "I don't
think I moved down, but it's hard to tell because I haven't seen a replay.
My instinct is that I got hit. It's a shame, because we had a pretty fast
race car. I'm disappointed, but we will do the best we can at the next
race. It's a long season."
CHEVY DRIVER QUOTES:
Buddy Lazier, Hemelgarn Racing Delta Faucet/Life Fitness, Chevrolet
Dallara, finished 11th:
"We had a real good day going. I thought maybe we had a top-five run
going. Then on the last pit stop, when we came out I picked up a big
vibration and slid up into the marbles. We finally came in an had a bunch
of debris on the left-front tire. I think that really hurt our race. We
dropped back to 11th from a possible top 10. Nevertheless, it was a great
to finish. We had a fairly strong run, and I think we caught up a lot this
weekend."
Robbie Buhl, Purex/Aventis/Dreyer & Reinbold Chevrolet Dallara, finished
12th:
"We'd like to be more competitive, but we're still learning about the car.
For a stint there, we were up there running competitively, but it wasn't
enough for me to be able to aggressively challenge. It's nice to run all
day, but no when it's more of a survival mode than racing. It was important
for us to finish the race, so now we'll regroup and chart a new plan for
Motegi."
RACE SUMMARY
Track: Phoenix International Raceway, 1-mile oval
Winner: Tony Kanaan, Andretti/Green Racing Honda Dallara
Margin of Victory: .9328 seconds
Average Speed: 100.073 mph
Pole: Tony Kanaan/Honda, 178.512 mph
Fastest Lap: Scott Dixon/Toyota, 167.595 mph
RESULTS
Pos./Driver/Engine/Laps
1. Tony Kanaan/Honda, 200
2. Helio Castroneves/Toyota, 200
3. Felipe Giaffone/Toyota, 200
4. Al Unser Jr./Toyota, 200
5. Kenny Brack/Honda, 200
6. Jaques Lazier/Chevrolet, 200
7. Scott Sharp/Toyota, 200
8. Sarah Fisher/Chevrolet, 200
9. Buddy Rice/Chevrolet, 200
10. Shigeaki Hattori/Toyota, 199
11. Buddy Lazier/Chevrolet, 198
12. Robbie Buhl/Chevrolet, 198
19. Scott Mayer/Chevrolet, 155
21. Sam Hornish Jr./Chevrolet, 30
CHAMPIONSHIP STANDINGS (after 2 of 16 events)
Driver/Engine/Points (victories in parentheses)
1. Tony Kanaan/Honda, 84 (1)
2. Helio Castroneves/Toyota, 75
3. Scott Dixon/Toyota, 60 (1)
4. Gil de Ferran/Toyota, 58
5. Felipe Giaffone/Toyota, 57
Manufacturer/Points (victories in parentheses)
1. Toyota, 17 (1)
Honda, 17 (1)
3. Chevrolet, 10
NEXT EVENT
April 13, Japan Indy 300, Twin Ring Motegi, Motegi, Japan TV: ABC, 1 p.m.
EST
