Lynx - Gateway
25 May 1999
GALLOPING TOWARD GATEWAY AN INCH AT A TIME
Lynx Racing and the KOOL/Toyota Atlantic Support Race at the
Motorola 300 at Gateway
Lynx Racing driver Memo Gidley won the Atlantic race at Gateway last
year… and has now signed with Walker Racing to run in the CART Fed Ex
Championship beginning June 20 at Portland.
Gidley is the third Lynx driver in three years to move up to CART; others
include Lynx Atlantic Champions Patrick Carpentier (1996) and Alex Barron
(1997), both of whom will be racing in the Motorola 300 on Saturday.
· Next up in the Lynx pipeline of young 'phenoms' are current Atlantic
drivers Buddy Rice, 23, of Phoenix, Arizona, a likely first round draft
pick for the year 2000 CART FedEx season; and Mike Conte, 30, of Seattle,
Washington, who was a Microsoft computer wizard before pursuing his
racing dream.
Lynx Racing is the only championship-winning driver development program
owned by women. The team's mission is to seek out potential champions and
give them the resources and training to make it to the top.
_________________________________________
Lynx Racing, the championship-winning driver development program,
is galloping toward Gateway, an inch at a time.
Last year's driver, Memo Gidley, won the rain-shortened KOOL/Toyota
Atlantic race here (along with victories at Long Beach and Milwaukee), and
has now signed with Walker Racing in the CART FedEx series to substitute
for the injured Naoki Hattori. He joins Lynx alumni Patrick Carpentier
(Player's/Forsythe) and Alex Barron (Dan Gurney's All-American Racers) on
the top rung of America's racing ladder beginning with the Budweiser/G.I.
Joe's 200 at Portland International Raceway on June 20.
That's the galloping part. The inch-at-a-time all-work-no-glamour
part of the program now falls to the current 'phenoms' in the Lynx
pipeline, Buddy Rice and Mike Conte.
Rice was Gidley's Lynx teammate last year, and is shaping up as
everyone's number one draft pick for the 2000 CART FedEx season. He made
everyone sit up and take notice in 1998, his rookie year, when he sat on
the pole for his first-ever Atlantic race, at Long Beach, and won his
second-ever race, from the pole, at Nazareth. And he's back for 1999, as
planned, as the team's senior driver. He started 5th and finished 4th at
Gateway last year.
"We've been involved in an extensive testing program since well
before the start of the season, and we've been making progress, but it's an
inch at a time," says Rice, 23, of Phoenix, Arizona. "Since the Atlantic
series switched over to these Swift 008.a 'spec' cars mid-way through last
season, we've been working hard to find anything that will give us an
advantage. What it's done is force Mike and I to become better test
drivers and provide our engineering staff with much more accurate feedback,
so we can get the cars set up quicker on a race weekend."
Mike Conte, 30 of Seattle, Washington, is the newest addition to
the Lynx team. He's a Microsoft software wizard who is now a retired real
estate investor and following his racing dream. He finished where he
started -- 11th, -- at Gateway last year, driving for a different team.
Earlier this year, Conte co-drove a Porsche to a podium finish in the 12
Hours of Sebring and plans to intermingle his 1999 Atlantic schedule with
sports car races.
My car was actually running pretty well here last year, but with
the yellow flags and the race being stopped for rain just after the halfway
mark, I didn't have a chance to move up" says Conte. "With all the
testing we've done at Lynx, I'm finally feeling comfortable in the car,
which is critical if you're going to go fast on an oval. If the weather
and the yellow flags will cooperate, I'm confident of a better finish than
last year."
Atlantic Schedule of Events:
Thursday, May 27
9:30 a.m. - 10:10 a.m. Atlantic Practice
1:00 p.m. - 1:40 p.m. Atlantic Practice
Friday, May 28
12:20 p.m. - 1:00 p.m. Atlantic Practice
4:00 p.m. - 5:00 p.m.. Atlantic Qualifying
7:00 p.m. - 7:30 p.m. Atlantic Practice (Under The Lights)
Saturday, May 29
12:00 p.m. - 12:15 p.m. Atlantic Warm-Up
5:30 p.m. Atlantic Race (50 laps)
Atlantic Television:
3:00 p.m. - 4:00 p.m. Saturday, June 5 ESPN2 /
ESPN International
RDS /French (local listings)
5:00 a.m. - 6:00 a.m. Tuesday, June 8 ESPN2 (Repeat)
8:00 p.m. - 9:00 p.m. Tuesday, June 8 CTV / Canada /
English
4:00 a.m. - 5:00 a.m. Friday, June 11 ESPN2 (Repeat)
Next Race:
Round 4 of the 12-race 1999 KOOL/Toyota Atlantic Championship is set for
Saturday, June 5, at the Milwaukee Mile, part of the Miller Lite 225
weekend.