Texas: Pit notes 2006-04-05

IROC PIT NOTES -- Wednesday, April 05, 2006 -- Ft. WORTH, April 5, 2006
The last two night sessions of driver practice took place on Tuesday and Wednesday with one afternoon practice remaining on Thursday before Race Two of the Crown Royal IROC Series takes the green flag on Friday at Texas Motor Speedway. Tuesday night it was Max "The Axe" Angelelli and "Mad Max" Papis preparing for the round two show down in Texas -- Italian style.

Quick Quotes: Max Angelelli: "In my last practice I really felt much, much better. With Max Papis, I ran two full races so I could understand a little bit more before I have to leave for Long Beach. I still have a long, long way to go, but I do feel like I'm beginning to understand a little bit about what my first oval race will be like on Friday. I can at least say I have confidence in the car. I can drive the car where I want now and not be driven by the car, which is how I was when I first started to practice. I'm looking forward to the race and feeling pretty good about it now."

Max Papis: "Definitely my hat it off to all of the Crown Royal IROC crew for how well they have prepared the cars for the race here in Texas this year. Everybody enjoyed the race last year and I can tell you the cars are improved even more over last year. Last year we did have quite a lot of side-by-side action, and this year we can run even longer side-by-side. I had a lot of fun out there tonight and know it is going to be a great show on Friday night."

Wednesday night practice included series drivers, Frank Kimmel, Ted Musgrave, Steve Kinser, and Max Papis.

Frank Kimmel: "The cars have been really, really good here tonight. I just went out with a full load of fuel, so we're trying different runs with the cars set up the way they'll be throughout different stages of the race. But, it is still different than what I'm used to driving, so we're just trying different scenarios and getting better acclimated to IROC cars each time out."

Ted Musgrave: "The IROC cars really drive pretty close to the way the Trucks do when we come here, which is pretty cool, and the speed is very similar. We've been running side-by-side very comfortably; we could probably run three-wide flat out all the way around without a problem. It's really been fun tonight with Kinser, Kimmel and Max Papis out there. The cars are really handling well, I've got to give all the guys credit for doing a great job preparing the cars."

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