Pacific Coast Motorsports Qualifying 2 Notes from Long Beach

Saturday Qualifying Notes from Long Beach

- Run in the late afternoon, final qualifying for Sunday's Toyota Grand Prix
of Long Beach got underway in sunny and hot conditions.
- On his opening lap, Pacific Coast Motorsports driver Alex Figge posted the
fifth fastest lap.
- Attacking the course on cold tires, Figge was third on his third lap and
second on his fourth lap.
- Early in the session, Figge pitted, putting on fresh tires.
- While in the pits Figge dropped back to sixth.
- In the four laps it took for the tires to get to optimal race
temperatures, Figge fell back to seventh.
- With 10 minutes remaining in the session, Figge posted his first fast lap
on fresh tires, moving into fourth with a time of 1:17.4.
- For the next few laps, Figge was able to steadily improve his times,
though not improving position.
- During the final five minutes of the session, Figge repeatedly ran into
slower traffic, ruining numerous fast laps.
- At the checkered flag, Figge had lowered his time to 1:17.079 (91.916
MPH), five tenths of a second better than his previous best time.
- Figge will start seventh for the CART Toyota Atlantic Championships 20th
running on the streets of Long Beach. This significantly improves his 16th
qualifying position in 2002.
- Capturing the pole was A.J. Allmendinger with a new lap record.
- Round Two of the 2003 season will commence Sunday, at 10:30 a.m. (PT).

"I’m disappointed," said Figge. "I obviously think we have a better car than
we showed. I ran into a lot of traffic in some really bad spots when I had
fresh tires. Tomorrow the goal will be to run a clean race and work my way
to the front."


Allan Craighead
Pacific Coast Motorsports
303-883-8521 Cell
www.pacificcoastmotorsports.com