rpm.espn.com: Airton Dare

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Thursday, December 6

Airton Dare
By Jack Arute
ESPN.com

Team: TeamXtreme
Nationality: Brazil

STATS

Year
Rank
Wins
Poles
Top 5
Top 10
Money
Best finish

2001 10 0 0 1 6 $806,025 5th, Pikes Peak

Career 0 0 2 9 $1,416,125 2nd, Pikes Peak

Airton Dare
Dare

2001 Recap
The Good: The Brazilian backed up his Rookie of the Year selection with a full slate of drives as TeamXtreme's primary driver. He led a couple of races and increased his top 10 finishes.

Season Highlight: Despite starting 22nd, Dare worked his way through traffic, using solid pit stops to post a sixth at Kansas.

The Bad: Dare's team got caught in the dot-com industry downturn and struggled financially. The funding woes created performance inconsistency.

Season Lowlight: After qualifying fifth at Richmond, Airton was collected in a late race crash that dropped him from a potential podium finish.

Key Stat: Dare more than doubled his IRL earnings take to $806,025 in just 2 years.

2002 Outlook
What needs to be done: There is only so much a driver can do with limited resources. Dare is considered a "hot prospect" but is saddled with a multi-year contract with TeamXtreme. The operation needs to find sufficient funding to provide the 23 year old better prepared equipment.

Cheever is spending the offseason auditioning drivers as a potential teammate. Whomever is chosen will need to take the F-1 approach to teammating. Cheever is the boss and you DON'T beat the boss!

Prediction: Dare will continue to struggle and will be one of the first drivers to entertain other offers. He'll likely not finish the season with the team he starts the 2002 campaign with.

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