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INDYCAR/INDY LIGHT ST.PETE NOTES


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KANAAN WINS PEAK MOTOR OIL POLE FOR HONDA GRAND PRIX OF ST. PETERSBURG

ST. PETERSBURG, FLA., Saturday, April 5, 2008 – Tony Kanaan will start from the pole for Sunday’s Honda Grand Prix of St. Petersburg after surviving a three-round knockout qualifying session. Kanaan, driving the No. 11 Team 7-Eleven entry for Andretti Green Racing, saved his best for last in the new qualifying format for road and street courses that was introduced for the first time. In Segment One, Kanaan was the second-fastest of his group, advancing with 12 drivers to Segment Two. In that second session, Kanaan once again came in second-fastest to advance to the 10-minute Firestone Fast Six shootout. Halfway through the 15-minute session, Kanaan recorded his fastest lap of the day, 1 minute, 2.5322 seconds, 103.627 mph, around the 1.8-mile, 14-turn temporary street circuit to claim the ninth PEAK Motor Oil Pole of his IndyCar Series career. “It was tough,” said Kanaan, who is one of two drivers to advance to the Firestone Fast Six in all 11 road/street races in IndyCar Series history. “I think the IndyCar Series is so competitive now that you have to give everything. When I finished the qualifying run, I was exhausted. With more good drivers, it makes it a lot more difficult. It makes me proud. If you look at my suit, I’m all wet. I had to sweat to get this one done.” KV Racing Technology’s Will Power will start alongside Kanaan in Row 1. His best lap was 103.499 mph. Justin Wilson and two-time race winner Helio Castroneves will start in Row 2 while Ryan Briscoe and Ryan Hunter-Reay will start in Row 3. Also on April 5, Raphael Matos led from flag to flag to win the St. Pete 100 Firestone Indy Lights race. For Matos, who earned the SWE Pole earlier in the day, it was his third career victory in six career starts. All three wins have come on the Streets of St. Petersburg where he has led 108 of 120 laps. Richard Antinucci, the nephew of 1998 Indianapolis 500 winner Eddie Cheever, finished second for the second consecutive weekend. Ana Beatriz finished third, the highest finish by a woman in Firestone Indy Lights history. *** Groups for today’s IndyCar Series practice session were determined by a random draw yesterday afternoon. Brian Barnhart, president of competition and operations, drew chips out of two bags. One chip contained a car number while the other chip was either red or blue, determining whether the selected car is in Group 1 or Group 2. The randomly assigned groups will take effect for Saturday morning’s practice session as well as Segment One of the new qualifying procedure that will be introduced this weekend. In Segment One, the fastest six cars from each group will advance to Segment Two. After Segment Two, the fastest six cars will advance to the Firestone Fast Six Shootout in an attempt to win the PEAK Motor Oil Pole Award. *** FIRESTONE INDY LIGHTS POST-QUALIFYING NOTES: · Raphael Matos sets a new Firestone Indy Lights qualifying record at St. Petersburg with a fastest lap of 1 minute, 6.4669 seconds, 96.514 mph. · This is Matos’ third career pole. He also won poles at St. Petersburg in 2006 and at Homestead-Miami earlier this season. · This is the fourth pole for AFS/Andretti Green Racing. The team won two poles with Wade Cunningham last year and the pole at Homestead-Miami with Matos this season. · Ana Beatriz qualified a career-best third. *** The Sam Schmidt Paralysis Foundation will be hosting nearly 70 guests today at noon at as a part of its Day at the Races program. Guests include visitors from the Haley VA Hospital, Caring and Sharing, Childrens' Medical Services, the Florida Spinal Cord Injury Resource Center, and the Center for Comprehensive Services. Visitors will be treated to a lunch at the Sam Schmidt Motorsports transporters, hear a speech from team owner Sam Schmidt, learn about quality of life programs from foundation President Ida Cahill and watch a full day of racing. The Sam Schmidt Paralysis Foundation was founded in 2000 while Schmidt was still in the rehabilitation hospital. Its mission is to raise funds to support spinal cord injury research which also benefits stroke victims, people with Parkinson's and Alzheimer's disease, ALS, and other neurological disorders. The foundation is active in advocacy efforts benefiting the disabled and funds organizations throughout the world that directly benefit people with spinal cord injuries and other disabilities. *** INDYCAR SERIES POST-QUALIFYING NOTES:

* Tony Kanaan wins his ninth career IndyCar Series pole. His previous best start at St. Petersburg was third in 2005 and 2006. * Kanaan will make his 19th consecutive top-10 start. * This is the 20th IndyCar Series pole for Andretti Green Racing. * Will Power will start second. He won six poles in Champ Car competition. All six of his poles came on street courses. * Three cars from each group advanced to the Firestone Fast Six. * Tony Kanaan and Helio Castroneves are the only drivers to participate in all 11 Firestone Fast Six sessions in IndyCar Series history. * Scott Dixon’s streak of 25 consecutive top-10 starts has been snapped. This was also the first time in 11 races that Dixon did not qualify for the Firestone Fast Six.

*** INDYCAR SERIES POST-QUALIFYING QUOTES: TONY KANAAN (No. 11 Team 7-Eleven, qualified first): “It was tough. I think the IndyCar Series is so competitive now that you have to give everything. When I finished the qualifying run, I was exhausted. With more good drivers, it makes it a lot more difficult. It makes me proud. If you look at my suit, I’m all wet. I had to sweat to get this one done.” WILL POWER (No. 8 Aussie Vineyard-Team Australia, qualified second): “I wanted to get into the Firestone Fast Six, which we did. I was a little disappointed that we didn't get the pole considering the lap time we posted in the previous session. I'm very happy to be on the front row. It's very good for Aussie Vineyards and KV Racing Technologies. Most importantly, it's a payback to the team. They've been working so hard over the last month - working long hours and they haven't been seeing their families - so I 'm very happy for them.” JUSTIN WILSON (No. 02 McDonald’s Racing Team, qualified third): “This weekend has just been great from start to finish. I’m glad to have made it through to the Firestone Fast Six, and I’m pretty pleased with third. Would like to have gone a tenth (of a second) quicker and got the pole position but that’s racing, and Tony (Kanaan) obviously put a good lap in. I think generally we’re just very pleased with the way the McDonald’s car is handling, and hopefully we keep it up in the race tomorrow.” HELIO CASTRONEVES (No. 3 Team Penske, qualified fourth): “Obviously, I went as hard as anyone out there. The field and the qualifying format were very competitive. Team Penske was able to get into the Firestone Fast Six. It was fast and difficult qualifying session and an interesting format for the fans.” RYAN BRISCOE (No. 6 Team Penske, qualified fifth): “It was hard work with a long qualifying session and a lot of laps. I was happy with the Team Penske car at the beginning of qualifying, and then it went away from me when the track got hotter. I think we should have been a bit better than where we qualified, but I’m happy to get into the Firestone Fast Six on my first try with Team Penske. I think we have a good car for tomorrow’s race.” *** The 30 team owners in the IndyCar Series will be honored with the “Legends of Racing” Award from the Honda Grand Prix of St. Petersburg during tomorrow’s pre-race ceremonies. The Honda Grand Prix of St. Petersburg has presented the award the past two years to legends within the sport of IndyCar racing. In 2006, Tony George received the award. Last year, the award was bestowed upon A.J. Foyt in honor of his 50th year in open-wheel racing. This year’s award goes to all IndyCar Series owners in recognition of a unified IndyCar Series. Florida Governor Charlie Crist, St. Petersburg Mayor Rick Baker and Tim Ramsberger, general manager and vice president of the Honda Grand Prix of St. Petersburg, will present the team owners with keys to the city. *** Panther Racing's No. 4 car, driven by Vitor Meira, will have a decal of the 53rd Infantry Brigade Patch on the nose of the car. The 53rd Infantry Brigade is the largest National Guard unit in the state of Florida with a total of 32 units from Pensacola to Homestead. The Brigade was selected as an "Enhanced Readiness Brigade" for its commitment to excellence; one of only 15 National Guard units in America to be recognized as such. The Brigade is undergoing a "Change of Command" Sunday morning at 9:30 a.m. when Colonel Richard Gallant will assume command from Brigade General John Perryman, who is retiring after 32 years in the Florida National Guard. *** Arie Luyendyk Jr. is scheduled to travel to Shanghai, China on Monday with A1 Team Holland for the A1GP World Cup of Motorsport event. The trip may force Luyendyk to miss the Firestone Indy Lights Open Test at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway on April 11. ARIE LUYENDYK (No. 26 Automatic Fire Sprinklers Inc.): “I’d love to be at the Open Test, and it’s obviously very important to me and team that I be there. But I have my commitments to A1 as well, so we’ll have to check with the Dutch team and with AGR to see what they want. Either way, I may be in for a lot of travel.” *** FIRESTONE INDY LIGHTS POST-RACE NOTES: · Raphael Matos wins his third career Firestone Indy Lights race in six starts. All three victories have come at St. Petersburg where he has led 108 of 120 laps. · This is the second victory for AFS/Andretti Green Racing. The team won with Wade Cunningham at Watkins Glen last season. · This is the 25th Firestone Indy Lights race where the winner has led from flag to flag. · Richard Antinucci recorded his sixth top-five finish in 11 career starts. Antinucci has finished second in both races in 2008. · Ana Beatriz recorded a career-best third-place finish in her second career start. It is the highest finish by a female driver in Firestone Indy Lights history. The previous best was Beatriz’ seventh at Homestead-Miami earlier this season. · The top four finishers will be inverted for the start of Sunday’s race after Matos picked a chip with that number on it from a bag after the race. Jeff Simmons will start from the pole.

FIRESTONE INDY LIGHTS POST-RACE QUOTES: RAPHAEL MATOS (No. 27 Automatic Fire Sprinklers, Inc., finished first): “I love St. Petersburg. The atmosphere is great and everything was just working great today with the AFS Racing/Andretti Green Racing car. I just can’t thank all of those guys enough. Michael Andretti, Kim Green, Kevin Savoree and Gary Peterson have put a lot into the program. This is great for our sponsors, Automatic Fire Sprinklers and oso*fresh. This is a great feeling for them, too. This is our first victory of the year, and hopefully we can repeat tomorrow.” RICHARD ANTINUCCI (No. 7 Lucas Oil / Sam Schmidt Motorsports, finished second): “It was a good but tough race. I made a mistake on one of the restarts at the beginning and my teammate Ana (Beatriz) got by me. She did a good job passing me. I tried to make it hard for her but she was just very good. After that, I had to wait to pass her back. We had that (local) yellow flag that kind of slowed things up. Once we got around that, I knew I could pass her if everything was right. Once I got through, I pulled away from her and tried to catch Rafa (Matos). I think he had a couple of tenths on me; he's had them all weekend.” ANA BEATRIZ (No. 20 Healthy Choice / Sam Schmidt Motorsports, finished third): “It was a great race. I didn't imagine that I would pass Richard (Antinucci). I just thought that Richard and Rafa (Matos) would just pull away and I wouldn't be able to catch them. I overtook Richard and it felt good to run in second for awhile. I'm looking forward to tomorrow's race and trying to finish on the podium again. We'll have to make some changes on the car because we'll probably start further back in tomorrow's race and work on passing through the straights and trying to overtake people.” JEFF SIMMONS (No. 2 TMR-Xtreme Coil Drilling, finished fourth): “We did OK. It’s tough to pass on these street courses, and I don’t want to take any chances of damaging the car. This team wants to keep racing after this weekend so we have to try to be careful. Once we cleared the fourth-place car, we were really chasing down the third-place car quick. We caught some traffic there – probably weren’t going to catch up to her anyway. We just didn’t quite have the speed. The car was good, but we just haven’t had the time like the other teams to really nail down the perfect setup.” J.R. HILDEBRAND (No. 25 RLR/Andersen Racing, finished fifth): “It was a tough one. I had a really good start and got up to fourth right at the beginning and was knocking on the door of third. But the car started going away a little bit and (Jeff) Simmons definitely had the pressure on. I had a little bit of trouble with the brake bias in the car. It was sort of different going into a bunch of corners. I locked up the rears going into the hairpin with a few laps to go and he snuck around me. We came away with a top five. It should put us in good position for tomorrow’s race. We’re looking to get in the top five in points and we’ll take it from there.”

SUNDAY’S SCHEDULE (all times local): 6:30 a.m.

Garages open 8:05-8:15 a.m.

Firestone Indy Lights warm-up 8:30-9 a.m.

IndyCar Series warm-up 10:15 a.m.

St. Pete 100 Race 2 pre-race 10:45 a.m.

St. Pete 100 Race 2 (40 laps/72 miles) 2 p.m.

Honda Grand Prix of St. Petersburg pre-race 2:30 p.m.

Honda Grand Prix of St. Petersburg (100 laps/180 miles) *** The 2008 IndyCar Series season continues with the Honda Grand Prix of St. Petersburg on April 6 on the streets of St. Petersburg, Fla. The race will be telecast in High Definition live at 2:30 p.m. (EDT) by ESPN and broadcast by the IMS Radio Network. A Spanish-language telecast of the race will be carried by ESPNDeportes. The IMS Radio Network broadcast also is carried on XM Satellite Radio and www.indycar.com. The 2008 Firestone Indy Lights season continues April 5-6 with a doubleheader weekend at St. Petersburg. The race will be telecast at 2 p.m. (EDT) on April 10 by ESPN2.