IRL: Cheever Racing Homestead road course open test, day two notes

Homestead, Fla. (January 20, 2005) As the second and final day of IndyCar Series open testing concluded on Homestead-Miami Speedway's road course Red Bull Cheever Racing once again ended the day with the sixth fastest speed.

The day started off well for Patrick Carpentier as he, and the crew of the No. 83 car maneuvered their way into another solid sixth-place standing. Although his rank stayed the same he was able to improve his speed by .8 mph from the previous day bringing his fastest lap of the day up to 112.540 mph (1 minute, 10.6949 seconds). He completed 167 laps in the two days of his first ever IndyCar open test.

"Although we wanted to get farther ahead today we made some great strides," Carpentier said. "Later in the day the track kept getting hotter and greasier leaving us with some uncertainty about how far we could push the car. Overall this test was really great. I am getting used the car and each test is getting better and better. Red Bull Cheever Racing plans on giving everyone a great run towards the winner's circle."

For Alex Barron it was a great start to another long day. During the first session he quickly secured a place in the top ten. The engineers and crew made considerable adjustments to the car and things were running smoothly. However, by lunchtime the No. 51 car experienced more mechanical problems.

"We made some gains early on in the day with some changes to the setup, but later we had another mechanical failure that ended our day early," remarked Barron.

Barron was able to improve on the previous day's speed and bring his fastest lap up to 111.862 mph (1 minute, 11.1234 seconds) placing him 14th in the overall ranking. Barron remains positive as the team continues testing Saturday.

"At this point I think we are going to leave all the bad luck behind us at the test so we can bring the good luck to the race," said Barron.

Although there is no on-track activity scheduled for tomorrow, Carpentier and Barron have a full day of media and press obligations to fulfill before they make their way onto the 1.5-mile oval Saturday, for testing in preparation for the Toyota Indy 300 on Mar. 6.

-www.redbullcheeverracing.com