CART: Mid-Ohio Qualifying Notes and Quotes

14 August 1999

DARIO FRANCHITTI, KOOL Honda Reynard: "We've spent four days testing here over the last couple of months, and the track didn't feel as good today. To do a 5.3 (1:05.3) was a bit of a surprise. I looked at the dashboard and saw '5.3' and I thought, 'Where the hell did that come from?' I think the times tomorrow are definitely going to be better. At certain points the car felt as good as it did during the test, at others, it felt a little worse. The car feels great on the straightaways to be honest. It's very quick."

BRYAN HERTA, Shell Ford Reynard: "Patches of the track were slippery, then it would dry out. It [the track] was a little slippery early in the session, and everybody was trying to bang one in [turn a fast lap] in case it rained. When the sun came out, that made it better. It's always good to see you guys [the media, in the post-qualifying press conference] at the end of the day. It's good to have a good weekend going for a change."

WHAT'S NOTEWORTHY

* Dario Franchitti (KOOL Honda Reynard) will be seeking his first pole position since last year at Australia during Saturday's final qualifying session. He has qualified on the front row for 10 of his last 16 starts on road or street courses, dating to last year's outside pole Portland.

* Bryan Herta (Shell Ford Reynard) is chasing his first pole since last year at Laguna Seca, site of his first career FedEx Championship Series victory. He owns six career poles, one of which came at Mid-Ohio in 1997.

* Paul Tracy (KOOL Honda Reynard) has started on the outside pole three times at Mid-Ohio (1992-94). He will be seeking his first pole since 1997 at Milwaukee.

* Mark Blundell (Motorola PacWest Mercedes) was disqualified from his provisional second-place grid position after his car failed post-qualifying technical inspection. Blundell's car failed to maintain the required two inches of clearance between the bottom of the car and the pavement.

* A stroll through the camping areas that are a significant part of the Mid-Ohio Sports Car Course reveals that Champ Car fans from locations near and far are on the premises for this weekend's Miller Lite 200. A check of license plates on the vehicles situated in the campgrounds Thursday afternoon found a majority of Ohio tags. But other states represented included Michigan, Kentucky, Pennsylvania, Indiana, Illinois, Wisconsin, Missouri, Tennessee, West Virginia, New York, Florida, Connecticut, Oregon, Georgia, California, Nevada and even Alaska. Campers from Canadian provinces Ontario and Quebec also were present. All campers were seen Thursday afternoon, prior to the official start of the weekend. "We have 1,500 camping spaces and we expect they will all be filled by Saturday night," said Michelle Trueman, president of Mid-Ohio Sports Car Course, who added that sales of her weekend spectator tickets are up when compared to a year ago. "It's difficult to say how many people are actually camping on each site but we believe camping represents roughly 10 percent of the crowd we get this weekend. The motorhomes began lining up last weekend, and we let the first one onto the grounds first thing Thursday morning. We see a pretty diverse group in the camping areas - lots of families camping, as well as couples and groups of young people. It's really a great bunch of people who love Champ Car racing." CART estimates that the camping crowd at Mid-Ohio is the largest on its 20-race schedule.

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