Buddy Rice setting the pace for Cleveland

Cleveland, OH (June 30, 2000) - DSTP Motorsports Buddy Rice earned the provisional pole for Sunday's CART Toyota Atlantic race at the Marconi Grand Prix of Cleveland. Rice, who recorded a 1:08.733 (110.305 mph), also set a new qualifying track record on the 2.106 mile temporary road course. The previous record, a 1:08.953 (109.950 mph) was set in 1998 by former Lynx Racing driver, Memo Gidley. Andrew Bordin (PPI Motorsports / Swift 008.a) recorded the second quickest time, a 109.228 in Friday's qualifying period, while David Rutledge, (Lynx Racing / Swift 008.a) was third.

"The car is awesome," said Rice. This morning in practice we were just running through our list in preparation for qualifying. We knew what changes we wanted to make for this session and we got it pretty close. The car is definitely capable of running faster. I think we'll make some more gains tomorrow, but not as big a jump as we had today."

PPI Motorsports and current Atlantic points leader Andrew Bordin posted the second quickest time of the day.

"There is definitely something left in the car for tomorrow," said Bordin. "I have had problems with backmarkers in the last two events, and it's unfortunate. I was definitely pushing it that last lap. We made some big adjustments, perhaps too big. I think we will take a little out of that tomorrow. We still have a practice session and a qualifying session left tomorrow. We will be in good shape."

David Rutledge who won both his first Atlantic pole and race in Montreal two weeks ago believes that he will also be back up front during tomorrow's qualifying period.

"We made changes from the morning expecting the track to be faster and it wasn't. I was trying to keep the tail of the car under control and carrying as much speed as possible through the turns. We have some things we want to try for tomorrow, and I expect we'll be back up front in final qualifying."

The second qualifying session for Sunday's 32 lap Toyota Atlantic Championship race will be held Saturday at 1:00 p.m.