CARPENTIER QUALIFIES A SEASON-BEST THIRD IN MILWAUKEE –
Player’s/Indeck driver Patrick Carpentier will make his best start of the season after qualifying third for tomorrow’s Miller Lite 250. The holder of the track qualifying record he established in 1998 (20.020 seconds),Carpentier lapped The Milwaukee Mile in 22.324 seconds with an average speed of 166.422 miles per hour. Adrian Fernandez captured pole position with his lap of 22.176 seconds (167.532 miles per hour), while Paul Tracy qualified second with his effort of 22.205 second (167.314 miles per hour).
Quotes: PATRICK CARPENTIER (#32 Player’s/Indeck Ford) – Qualified 3rd – “I’m pretty happy. We had a crash this morning and had to go to the backup car and let me tell you that the team did a fantastic job. The car was identical except that I had a little bit less push. The car was already loose this morning, but this time it held onto the track and it was really good. Hopefully we’ll have a great race tomorrow. This is a track that I love so we’ll see what happens. I’ve really got to hand it to my guys because after I crashed you’re always tentative. They gave me a really good car, actually a bit better than it was this morning, and I was pretty pleased with it so good job to them.”
ALEX TAGLIANI (#32 Player’s/Indeck Ford) – Qualified 11th – “We’ve been struggling with the car a little bit all weekend, but we kept improving. We were behind yesterday, but we’ve taken some steps in the right direction.”
WHAT DO YOU CHANGE FOR THE RACE? “Well, it all depends. The weather is supposed to turn colder tomorrow, so we’ll run the car during the warm-up and see where we stand. But I’m pretty sure that it’ll be different.”
WERE YOU HAPPY WITH YOUR QUALIFYING RUN? “It was okay. The car was a little bit better, but we’ve been fighting push and a little looseness at the exit of the corner. We struggled quite a bit yesterday, but we’re back on track. Hopefully we’ll be better for the race.”
JIMMY VASSER (#8 Shell Ford) – Qualified 12th – “The first lap I had a big understeer and on the second lap I went into Turn One and the back end stepped out on me. I had to do a little work just to keep the car underneath me and then I was out in the gray, so no sense in finishing a lap after that.”
OTHERWISE HOW’S THE CAR BEEN THIS WEEKEND? “It’s reasonable. We were quick this morning, we did a lot of work on the race set up with full tanks and stuff, so I think when the race comes around we’ll have a real good car.”
MARIO DOMINGUEZ (#16 Herdez Ford) – Qualified 16th – “Well, our run wasn’t the greatest and I think we should’ve changed the car a little bit more for the hot conditions. I had quite a bit of understeer in the corners and it’s too bad because we’ve been fast all weekend except for this run. We’re not going to start where we wanted to, but we’ll get them tomorrow.”
ARE YOU DISAPPOINTED WITH YOUR RUN? “Yeah, we had way too much understeer and should’ve changed the car a bit more for the track conditions. It’s very warm and obviously gave us a bit too much push.”
IT’S A LONG RACE TOMORROW SO YOU HAVE TO REMAIN FOCUSED AND USE YOUR HEAD. “Absolutely. You have to use your head, work with the team, work on the pit stops and just go as fast as you can all the time and make it to the end of the race.”
MAX PAPIS (#22 Sigma Autosport Ford) – Qualified 17th – “I think the team did a pretty good job yesterday. We lost a little bit on the track this morning and qualifying was not really our best today. We put in a lot of laps yesterday and since we haven’t done any testing we have to get as many laps during practice as we can.”
HOW HAS YOUR WEEKEND GONE IN GENERAL? “We started really well and I was very pleased. Yesterday we did a lot of long runs, but I think this morning we kind of lost our way and got away from the setup we wanted. But overall I think it was a good effort and we’re looking forward to the race.”
MICHEL JOURDAIN, JR. (#9 Gigante Ford) – Qualified 18th – “We had a very good test here about a month ago and the conditions were completely different. It was a lot cooler with temperatures in the 50’s and maybe the weather today affected us a bit. But tomorrow is a different day and hopefully we’ll have a good race.”
