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Saturday, April 28
Brack claimed second pole of 2001
ESPN.com news services
FORT WORTH, Texas -- Kenny Brack, the only CART driver with
racing experience at Texas Motor Speedway, earned the pole for the
inaugural Firestone Firehawk 600.
Brack ran a qualifying lap at 233.447 mph Saturday to take his
second CART pole, but insisted afterward that his five Indy Racing
League races at the 1-mile high-banked track from 1997-99 gave him
no edge. He was just a little bit faster than everybody else.
"My knowledge of this place didn't give me any advantage,"
Brack said. "If it's a good car, it's fairly easy to figure out
where to run. We'll see tomorrow if I know something more than the
others."
Of the 25 cars that ran qualifying laps Saturday, 17 of them ran
better than 230 mph. Only one car was more than a second slower
than Brack.
Patrick Carpentier will start on the outside of the front row
Sunday after a qualifying run of 233.345. Oriol Servia (232.978),
who got just one qualifying lap in before blowing his engine, and
Bryan Herta (232.663) will start in the second row. All four have
Ford-powered cars.
Brack's qualifying speed was in line with his 233.785 that was
the fastest during practice Friday. But it was nearly three mph
slower than the draft-aided speeds Paul Tracy and Tony Kanaan
reached during a practice session Saturday morning.
The high speeds were expected at Texas, CART's first race on a
high-banked track built primarily for NASCAR. Texas is tighter,
shorter and steeper than Michigan Speedway and California Speedway,
CART's two fastest tracks.
Unprecedented force and stress will be placed on the cars and
the drivers because of the 24-degree banking at TMS, making this
more a race of endurance than speed for 250 laps.
"Definitely. Everybody's going flat out and there is not much
really a driver can do except to get the car to the finish," said
Adrian Fernandez, who starts 12th. "It's going to be a hard race,
with a lot of laps and a lot of roughness on the track. A lot of
things can happen."
Gil de Ferran, the defending CART series champion, set a world
closed course speed record with a 241.428 mph qualifying run at the
2-mile California Speedway oval last year. His 231.291 Saturday was
good for seventh.
"Oval racing is a different animal than road racing, but then
Texas itself is a different animal than anything we've ever done
before," de Ferran said. "It's going to be a very tough race."
Brack, the 35-year-old Swedish driver, also earned the pole in
the season-opening Monterrey Grand Prix in Mexico. He finished
fifth there and is still looking for his first CART win, preparing
to make his 23rd start for Team Rahal.
"We want to really look for the checkered flag, but starting up
front is obviously good," Brack said. "Hopefully, we won't get
involved with any action at the start."
Carpentier, the Canadian without a win in his five years in
CART, was the second car on the track Saturday and his time held up
as the second-fastest and his best start since earning a pole in
Milwaukee in 1998.
The flexible cast on his left wrist, from an injury sustained in
a crash three weeks ago in the Toyota Grand Prix of Long Beach
didn't seem to be a bother.
"With the banking, the car kind of turns by itself going into
the banking so you don't have to force it as much. It actually
helps," Carpentier said. "It's less strong than before, but so
far there are not too many problems."
Carpentier doesn't think he could have been ready by now to run
on a road course, but that's not a problem since Texas is the first
of four straight oval races for CART.
The Ford-powered front two rows will be followed by three Honda
machines, Shinji Nakana, Alex Zanardi and de Ferran.
CART season points leader Cristiana da Matta was in a backup
Toyota car for qualifying after an accident in practice earlier
Saturday, but still qualified 11th at 230.911.
"It's not as bad as it looks," said da Matta, who has a win
and a second-place showing in his first two races replacing Michael
Andretti on the Newman-Haas team. "I'm probably the only guy in
the field that didn't qualify with a qualifying motor and ran the
same revs as I will in the race.
"It won't be easy to start in 11th place here, but it is a long
race so we can pace ourselves and work our way forward. This race
will be tougher mentally than physically."
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