CARPENTIER SHINES WITH A SIXTH-PLACE FINISH IN FIRST DAY OF TESTING

Homestead, FL (January 20, 2005) - As the second and final day of
IndyCar Series open testing concluded on Homestead-Miami Speedway's
road course Red Bull Cheever Racing once again ended the day with the
sixth fastest speed.

The day started off well for Patrick Carpentier as he, and the crew
of the No. 83 car maneuvered their way into another solid sixth-place
standing. Although his rank stayed the same he was able to improve
his speed by half a second from the previous day bringing his fastest
lap of the day up to 181.115 km/h (1 minute, 10.6949 seconds).  He
completed 167 laps in the two days of his first ever IndyCar open
test.

''Although we wanted to get farther ahead today we made some great
strides,'' Carpentier said. ''Later in the day the track kept getting
hotter and greasier leaving us with some uncertainty about how far we
could push the car. Overall this test was really great. I am getting
used the car and each test it is getting better and better. Red Bull
Cheever Racing plans on giving everyone a great run towards the
winner's circle.''

For Alex Barron it was a great start to another long day. During the
first session he quickly secured a place in the top ten. The
engineers and crew made considerable adjustments to the car and
things were running smoothly. However, by lunch time the No. 51 car
experienced more mechanical problems.

''We made some gains early on in the day with some changes to the
setup, but later we had another mechanical failure that ended our day
early,'' remarked Barron.

Barron was able to improve on the previous day's speed and bring his
fastest lap up to 180.024 km/h (1 minute, 11.1234 seconds) placing
him 14th in the overall ranking. Barron remains positive as the team
continues testing Saturday.

''At this point I think we are going to leave all the bad luck behind
us at the test so we can bring the good luck to the race,'' said
Barron.

Scottish driver Dario Franchitti ran his quickest lap near the end of
the session to edge his Andretti Green teammate Dan Wheldon by more
than two tenths of a second. Franchitti posted a record time of 1
minute, 10.1749 seconds to Wheldon's 1 minute, 10.4223 seconds. Third
place went to Brazilian Helio Castroneves of Team Penske (1:10.4905)
ahead of fellow countryman Tony Kanaan (1:10.5745) of Andretti Green.

''We had a pretty good couple of days,'' said Franchitti. ''We all
made progress. Definitely have seen the benefit of the four-car team
on the road course because I would test something or Bryan (Herta) or
Dan (Wheldon) or Tony (Kanaan), and we could either confirm it was a
good change in one of the other cars or not as the case may be so
that was really helpful.

Although there is no on-track activity scheduled for tomorrow,
Carpentier and Barron have a full day of media and press obligations
to fulfill before they make their way onto the 1.5-mile oval
Saturday, for testing in preparation for the Toyota Indy 300 on Mar.
6.