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CART: Robby Gordon Motorola 300 Race Notes/Quotes

30 May 1999

Robby Gordon
#22 Johns Manville/Panasonic/Menards Toyota-Swift
Race Notes/Quotes -- Saturday, May 29, 1999
Motorola 300
Round 6 of 20 in the CART FedEx Championship Series
At Gateway International Raceway - Madison, Ill.

Robby Gordon's day ended prematurely when he spun and hit the wall
between Turns 3 and 4 while working Lap 11 of today's Motorola 300. 
Gordon sustained a bruise and abrasions to his right calf in the
incident, his first during a race this season.  Gordon now heads for
Indianapolis to compete in the #32 Johns Manville/Glidden/Duracell entry
of Team Menard in Sunday's 83rd running of the Indianapolis 500.  It
will be Gordon's fifth appearance at The Brickyard.

Quotes

ROBBY GORDON on the race: "I drove my golf cart back from the medical
trailer to our garage, so I guess that means I'm fine.  The ankle's
fine.  The calf's little sore.  The bigger issue for me is trying to
figure out what happened.  I lost it way before I ever got to the
corner.  That's odd.  The car gave no indication of being loose there
all weekend.  Maybe a tire went down.  Maybe something broke on the
car.  I'll be anxious to find out. It's frustrating because we had a
very good car today, and we'll never know what the final outcome would
have been had we not crashed. The tethers did their job, because
everything was intact on the car.  I'll be fine tomorrow.  I had a great
race car here today, and I know I have a great race car for the 500. 
It's just a shame that the weekend started out this way.  But we'll get
over it, especially if we have a good day tomorrow."

JOHN MENARD (Team Gordon co-owner): "That was a rather abrupt end to
what we thought was going to be a promising day.  The car stepped out in
the corner a bit more than it should have, and we're not quite sure what
happened.  It'll probably double Robby's resolve for tomorrow (in the
Indy 500).  It's just very frustrating.  We've all been through this. 
Racing has more frustrations than triumphs, which sometimes makes us
wonder why we do this.  But the triumphs make up for the frustrations,
that's for sure.  The tethers performed just like they were supposed
to.  I'm just sorry we had to be the first ones to test them."