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Friday, April 20
Fittipaldi preparing different strategies
By Christian Fittipaldi
Special to ESPN.com
Because the season has not gone as planned so far with me not finishing the first two races and the cancellation of the Rio 600, I have to admit that the start of the season has been very slow and unusual.
In the previous years, the team worked nonstop at this time with testing and racing, and we never had much off-track time due to the quick pace. The hectic schedule kept the team on the road for weeks at a time. It was exhausting but there was no time to look back, just forward.
|  | | Christian Fittipaldi promises to be in a different mind set when he takes the track at Texas Motor Speedway. |
With the breaks between the first three races and the fact that we didn't finish either of the events, I have had too much time to think! I welcome the hectic schedule that will come with the race at Texas Motor Speedway and then Nazareth the following weekend before leaving for Japan.
It is time to construct a different mind set for the type of racing an oval track provides for the next four races. The majority of the speeds on an oval come from a flow of the car, which on a road course does not have the same degree of importance.
The first two races of the season were on road and street courses and now the team and I have to prepare different strategies for the oval events. We concentrated our limited preseason test days mostly on road and street courses since we already had a good baseline set-up for ovals. I think most of the other CART teams did the same so it will be very interesting to see how everyone will perform especially in Nazareth, Japan and Milwaukee where we have already raced before.
Texas is going to be a "one of a kind" race for us. The Champ cars don't run in that type of banking, so our experience on a high-banked track is zero. This track is a new venue, so I will be entering the race with no prior experience, but I imagine that it's going to be a wide-open event. The teams will be desperate to take drag of the car to make it as fast as possible. CART reduced the engine boost for 2001 but the speeds are still going to be pretty high for a track the length of Texas as well as one with 24 degree banking.
If I had to chose a race to compare the track in Texas to, I would say it will be similar to the superspeedways in Michigan and Fontana which is good for Newman/Haas since we ran well in both of those races. Over the past few years we have found that drafting is very important on that type of track, as it probably will be in Texas. It will be very interesting to see if setting up the car for the race on a high-banked track is the same as on a normal oval track.
I've been told by Mario and Mauricio that it will be difficult to feel the changes in the car on the track. The strength of our speedway set up will help Newman/Haas do well at this event and hopefully bring home a trophy.
Last year, the team had two oval track wins - Michael won on the 1.5-mile track in Japan and I won the 500-mile race on the 2-mile superspeedway in Fontana. Michael and I both led in the 500-mile race in Michigan and he finished second. The race is going to be very exciting for the fans. There will be a lot of passing and running side by side.
Hope to see you in the Lone Star State. I'm confident the team will pull together and put on a strong performance.
Kmart Toyota driver Christian Fittipaldi is the reigning oval track winner in the CART FedEx Series after driving to victory in the previous oval event - the Marlboro 500 in Fontana, Calif. You can check out Christian's web site at http://Fittipaldionline.com. Send this story to a friend | Most sent stories
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