Tony Renna Walks Away From Phoenix Crash

Phoenix, AZ - PacWest Lights driver Tony Renna walked away from a 160mph accident during a testing session at the Phoenix International Raceway today.

The young American was unhurt in the crash, which badly damaged the left-hand side of his car and unfortunately ended a terrific week of data gathering for the team.

"The car was fantastic, really well-balanced straight off the truck," said Renna.

"We were about 0.6 of a second quicker than the last time the team tested here.

"Maybe I should have taken it a bit slower because it was my first time here, but we were out there chasing it.

"The data did not show any change in my driving style on that lap, but the rear broke away on me.

"It is obviously disappointing to damage a car and for our testing to be limited by the accident, but despite all that the team is very positive.

"We were pretty fast out of the box and I am really enjoying working with the engineers and the team around me."

Team manager, Paul "Ziggy" Harcus, was delighted with the time Renna spent on the track and was obviously happy that his new young talent escaped the incident unhurt.

"We only did sixty or so laps, but the thing was impressive," said Harcus.

"Tony was doing some very quick times, but was hitting the rev-limiter.

"We brought him in to change the ratios and a couple of things, but on about the tenth lap of the next stint the back-end broke away on him on the exit of turn two. We were probably running with a little more push than we should have that early in the day.

"Although we only did sixty laps we certainly know we are heading in the right direction and we have plenty of data from today and our couple of days earlier this week at Firebird.

"While we don't want them happening every day, we all realize accidents are part of this deal and we are just happy Tony walked away from this one."

The team will now have a break and will test again in mid-February back at Firebird Raceway outside Phoenix.