Takagi-Giaffone Fontana Friday Practice
Contact: Laz Denes, 256-657-6190 ldenes@monunnracing.com www.monunnracing.com media information Takagi 7th, Giaffone 13th on Opening Day of Practice at Fontana FONTANA, Calif. (Friday, Sept. 19, 2003) - Mo Nunn Racing teammates Tora Takagi and Felipe Giaffone opened practice for Sunday's Toyota Indy 400 at California Speedway with the seventh- and 13th-fastest laps of the day. Takagi, in the #12 Pioneer/Mo Nunn Racing Toyota-powered Panoz G Force, circled the 2-mile tri-oval in 32.1609 seconds (223.874 mph) in this morning's opening session that was second in his practice group and fifth-fastest overall. Giaffone and the #21 Hollywood/Mo Nunn Racing Toyota-powered Panoz G Force turned a lap of 32.3642 seconds (222.468 mph) this morning that held the 13th position on the charts combining today's morning and afternoon practice sessions. He spent a majority of the afternoon session in the pit lane as the Hollywood crew tried to troubleshoot a problem with the fuel system. Tony Kanaan's morning time of 32.0328 seconds (224.833 mph) stood up as the fastest time of the day. Roger Yasukawa's afternoon time of 32.0528 seconds (224.629 mph) was next-best, followed by Scott Dixon's morning lap of 32.0849 seconds (24.405 mph). Practice resumes at 9 a.m. local time (noon EDT) Saturday with single-car qualifying scheduled to begin at 11 a.m. local time (2 p.m. EDT). Race time for Sunday's 400-mile event is 12:30 p.m. local time (3:30 p.m. EDT). ABC-TV will carry Sunday's event live. TORA TAKAGI "We got off to a good start this morning, but then I was surprised that the track seemed to lose a lot of grip by the afternoon session. We worked exclusively on race setup today and we ran all of our best laps on our own, so we're reasonably happy with where we are so far. I'm looking to have a good qualifying setup tomorrow and hopefully we will be able to start at or near the front. Overall, I think the Pioneer crew did a really good job today." FELIPE GIAFFONE "We struggled a little bit this morning with some changes we made to the front of the car, so we never really had a chance to go fast. Then, this afternoon, we were in and out of the pits the entire session because we were trying to find out what was not right with our fuel system. We'll tear the car down completely tonight and see if we can find the problem and hopefully we will come back strong tomorrow. I know we have a good car for this track. We just need track time to actually show it." # # # --------------------------------------------------------------------------------