ATLANTICS: Buddy Rice: A diamond in the rain
8 September 1999
Lynx Racing driver Buddy Rice crafted a diamond of a drive out of
skill, rain and ice-slick asphalt during the KOOL/Toyota Atlantic race at
the Molson Indy Vancouver this past weekend.
He qualified on the front row, was forced off-course in the first
turn and dropped back to 17th, from which he worked his way back up to 6th
-- before being forced off the road yet again and dropping back to 12th.
By the end of the rain-soaked event which was punctuated by crashes every
few laps and finished early under yellow, Rice had finished fourth, passed
20 cars for position, brought his car home without a scratch and further
enhanced his reputation as one of the most skilled and aggressive drivers
on the circuit.
"It was like driving blindfolded in a demolition derby on ice,"
said Rice. "Conditions like these really take a lot of what happens out of
your hands, but I never give up during a race, no matter what. If there's
somebody ahead of me, my total focus is on getting ahead of him while still
keeping it off the wall. This is one we could have won, and should have
won, but under the circumstances, I think we achieved something
worthwhile."
Rice's Lynx Racing teammate, Mike Conte, carved out his own little
jewel with a race that featured its own off-course excursion, but still saw
him move up from 13th qualifying position to finish 8th.
"This was as much a war of attrition and survival as an auto race,"
said Conte. "Usually I hate for a race to end because I know if there were
just a few more laps, I could have done a lot better. But when this one
was over, and I was in the top 10 with all the corners still on the car, I
was so happy you'd think I won the thing. Racing under these conditions is
a skill a driver has to have, but one he hopes he never has to use."
Ultimately, the 57-minute, 35.599-second race was won by rookie
Will Langhorne, with Kenny Wilden and Andrew Bordin finishing second and
third. Championship points leader Anthony Lazzaro finished sixth.
The winner's average speed was 61.228 mph, and the margin of
victory was 7.6549 seconds with the race finishing under yellow. There
were three caution periods for a total of 11 laps. The fastest lap of the
race was turned by pole-sitter Alexandre Tagliani at 1:29.651 sec. / 71.517
mph.
The battle for the series championship shapes up like this: Lazzaro
leads with 158, Wilden is in second with 126, Tagliani is in third with 108
and Rice is in fourth with 96. Vancouver was round ten of a 12-race
series, and with a maximum of 22 points available at any one race, Wilden
is the only driver with a mathematical chance of catching Lazzaro for the
championship. Lazzaro has already been announced as the driver of the new
Cal Wells/PPR Bush stock car team for the 2000 season.
The next race on the schedule is the Grand Prix of Monterey,
Spetember 11 at the famed Laguna Seca track in Northern California On the
following weekend, September 18 - 19, Lynx driver Mike Conte will compete
in the American Le Mans Series (ALMS) Petite Le Mans race at Road Atlanta
in the GT-class Porsche he fields under his own Contemporary Motorsports
banner. Conte and co-driver Bruno Lambert scored a podium finish at the 12
Hours of Sebring earlier this year.
Also at the Petite Le Mans event, Lynx Racing's most recent
graduate will take a break from his duties as a driver for the Herdez/
Payton-Coyne team in the CART FedEx Championship to join the Panoz team and
drive the team's LMP-1 prototype.
Lynx Racing's youngest driver, Sara Senske, will also be competing
on the Petite Le Mans weekend, in the fourth round of the innovative new
Women's Global GT Series, created by Indy 500 driver Lyn St. James and
motorsports entrepreneur/Road Atlanta owner/Panoz owner Don Panoz. In the
third race of the Women's GT series, at Portland, Senske qualified on the
pole, led every lap, set the fastest lap of the race and won by a margin of
27 seconds.
Lynx Racing, owned by Peggy Haas and Jackie Doty and now in its
ninth year of operation, is both a championship-winning racing team and a
unique driver development program. The team's mission is to seek out young
drivers with championship potential and provide them with the training,
resources and opportunity to realize that potential and make the jump to
auto racing's 'major leagues.'
Vancouver Atlantic Television Schedule (ESPN2 - all times Eastern):
Sunday, Sept. 12 10:00 p.m. - 11:00 p.m. First broadcast
Tuesday, Sept. 14 5:00 a.m. - 6:00 a.m.
Repeat broadcast
Wednesday, Sept. 15 2:00 a.m. - 3:00 a.m. Repeat broadcast
Editors Note: For hundreds of hot racing photos and racing art, be sure to visit The Racing ImageGalleries and the Visions of Speed Art Gallery.