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People at Nazareth
Al Unser Jr. returned to action at Nazareth still on crutches from the crash at Homestead.
PJ Jones talks to Patrick Racing Team Manager, Steve Newey. Patrick ran a Reynard for Adrian Fernandez that is an assembly of parts from several model years. I'd bet the underwing and critical aero bits are the latest design. The rest of it hasn't changed that much.
PJ, however, drove the latest version of the Swift chassis. He qualified eighth and finished second. Steve Newey told me the team thinks the Swift chassis is the right long-term choice. "But it's a logistical nightmare," Steve said. "The cars have no common parts except the engines (Cosworth/Ford) and wheels. So we have to bring many more spares to a race than if we were running one chassis. We usually take one truck to a test with two cars in it, but now we have to take two trucks to every test."
That's John Dick, ex-Team Green, now engineering Scott Pruett at Arciero-Wells Racing.
Brian Lisles, engineer for Christian Fittipaldi, and Mark Handford, VP of Engineering & Technical Director for Swift Engineering. Brain and Peter Gibbons, engineer for Michael Andretti, worked closely with Mark when he was a consulting aerodynamicist for Newman-Haas Racing. Mark, a Brit, moved to Southern California when Newman-Haas teamed with Swift to design the new chassis for CART racing. Top-level racing is now too complicated for any company to design a car without help from an active, competitive team.
Race Engineers at the top teams are making good money now, and they can afford some toys. Steve Challis has been Greg Moore's engineer since 1992 when Greg won the Formula 2000 West series. Together they won the Indy Lights championship in 1995, entering the CART series the next year. Steve took delivery of this new bike on Saturday at Nazareth. I think he told me it was a Titan. A lot of the drivers and engineers own and ride motorcycles.