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CART: Rain forces postponement of Miller Lite 225; Reset for Monday

4 June 2000

Posted By Terry Callahan
Motorsports Editor, The Auto Channel
WEST ALLIS, Wis.- Steady rain forced postponement of Sunday's Miller Lite 225 at The Milwaukee Mile, the sixth round of the 2000 FedEx Championship Series.

The race has been rescheduled for Monday morning, with a warm-up scheduled for 9 a.m. ET and green flag slated for 11 a.m. ET. The race will be broadcast live on ESPN2, beginning at 11 a.m. ET.

This marks the third weather-related postponement of a FedEx Championship Series event this season. The April 9 Bosch Spark Plug Grand Prix Presented by Toyota at Nazareth Speedway was postponed due to snow and rescheduled for Saturday, May 27. Last month's Firestone Firehawk 500 at Twin Ring Motegi, Japan was postponed from its originally scheduled May 13 date due to rain and run a day later.

Reigning Indianapolis 500 and defending FedEx Championship Series champion Juan Montoya (Target Toyota Lola) of Target Chip Ganassi Racing earned the pole position and a FedEx Championship Series championship point Saturday with a lap of 177.769 miles per hour (20.899 seconds).

WHAT THEY'RE SAYING

* J. KIRK RUSSELL, CART Chief Steward: "Weather conditions permitting, and I must say we don't know, but we will have a Champ Car warm-up from 8:00 to 8:15, a green flag at approximately at 10:05, and the Indy Lights race will be at approximately 12:30. We have some concerns about temperature because of the amount of moisture we had today. We'll slide the schedule as need be tomorrow to get the program underway. We've never had a Tuesday race that I'm aware of, but for whatever reason, we have to try to run tomorrow."

* PAUL TRACY, KOOL Honda Reynard: "I think it's just disappointing for the fans. We all want to race, we don't want to stay around another day and we have to test this week. It's just disappointing when you have 45,000 people here and you have to make a call. I'll race in whatever the temperature is (tomorrow). We're all professional race car drivers and we've all driven in bad weather at some point. I didn't do anything (today). I stood by waiting to go because it was touch and go for a while."

WHAT'S NOTEWORTHY

* The last rain postponement of a CART event at The Milwaukee Mile was 1981. The race was initially scheduled for Aug. 2 and was run Sept. 5. Tom Sneva was the winner.

* The last time a Champ Car event at The Milwaukee Mile was postponed and run the following day was in 1933. The event was originally scheduled for July 16 and run July 17. The winner of the event was Wilbur Shaw.

* The Dayton Indy Lights Championship race (100 laps/103.200 miles), which had been scheduled for a 12:30 p.m. start Sunday, will immediately follow the Miller Lite 225. An ESPN2 air time for the race will be announced in the future.

Text provided by T.E. McHale

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