Barron-Takagi Nazareth Saturday Qualifying

Barron in Fifth Row for Nazareth 225, Takagi in 10th Row

 

NAZARETH, Pa. (Saturday, Aug. 23, 2003) - Alex Barron, subbing for the fifth race in a row for the injured Felipe Giaffone in the #21 Hollywood/Mo Nunn Racing Toyota-powered Panoz G Force, will start Sunday's Firestone Indy 225 at Nazareth Speedway from the inside of the fifth row while teammate Tora Takagi and the #12 Pioneer/Mo Nunn Racing Toyota-powered Dallara will start on the outside of the 10th row after qualifying this morning on the mile oval here.

 

Barron's lap of 20.0294 seconds (168.053 mph) was ninth-fastest in the field for tomorrow's 225-lap IRL IndyCar Series race.  Takagi clocked a fast lap of 20.9291 seconds (160.551 mph) on his two-lap qualifying run.

 

Scott Dixon won the pole with a lap of 19.6633 seconds (171.182 mph) and will be joined on the front row by Helio Castroneves, who's best qualifying lap was a 19.7016-second (170.849-mph) effort.  Tony Kanaan will start third after a lap of 19.7699 seconds (170.493 mph).

 

Race time Sunday is 3 p.m. EDT with a live broadcast set for ESPN.

 

ALEX BARRON

 

"We have a really good race car.  We rolled the Hollywood car off the truck yesterday and had ourselves a pretty good day of practice.  I thought for sure we'd be well into the 19s (19-second-lap range) in qualifying, but it just wasn't there.  This is a very tricky track.  It's one thing to build a comfortable race setup, but then squeezing another half-second out of the car for qualifying is a whole different deal.  It's definitely a tough thing to do.  You definitely want a good race car here on Sunday or else you're in for a long day.  I think we're in good shape."

 

TORA TAKAGI

 

"Obviously, we're still struggling to find just the right setup for our new Dallara chassis on this track.  We have the unusual problem of understeer on one part of the track and oversteer on another part of the track.  We lost a lot of time yesterday because we were in the first practice group and it took half the session for the (USAC) rubber to be cleaned off by our cars, and that didn't leave much time to really work on setup.  We have some more work to do for final practice.  We'll have 30 minutes with all of the cars out there at the same time so it should be our most productive session of the weekend.  I am sure we will come up with the strategy that will bring us a good result tomorrow."

 


 



--------------------------------------------------------------------------------