Atlantic

Long Beach "Speedy Pete" Mercier Race Report

Long Beach, Calif. (April 15, 2000) -- "Speedy Pete" Mercier, made a strong comeback today on the streets of Long Beach for Round three of the Toyota Atlantic Championship series, part of the Grand Prix of Long Beach CART FedEx Championship ...

Edited: Apr 15, 2002, 11:45 PM

Copy link

Share on Viber

Add as a preferred source

Long Beach, Calif. (April 15, 2000) -- "Speedy Pete" Mercier, made a strong comeback today on the streets of Long Beach for Round three of the Toyota Atlantic Championship series, part of the Grand Prix of Long Beach CART FedEx Championship weekend.

After a disappointing qualifying session this morning, Mercier, the driver for the #14 World Speed -- Northwest SpeedWerx/Walker Racing Swift 008.a, finished 9th.

"It was a torrid battle, but we made it," said Mercier. World Speed qualified 16th, a combined effort of two qualifying sessions. "We did not have a good qualifying session this morning. We had some electrical problems and I wasn't able to finish the session. So we had to use my fast time from qualifying yesterday."

When the green flag dropped, Mercier made two passes to hold a steady pace in the 14th position for the majority of the race. "I had trouble getting down the straight-aways at full speed, so I passed some guys through Turns 8 and 9. Basically, that area was my passing zone," said Mercier.

Rookie Mercier made his street circuit debut on the famed southern California course. "Pete has never raced on a street circuit before, but that was not obvious to anyone watching. He was competitive out there, like I knew he would be," said Chuck West, team owner of World Speed. After Round 3 of 12 in the Toyota Atlantic Championship series, Mercier is tenth in Atlantic point standings.

Buddy Rice (DSTP Motorsports), finished first, followed by David Rutledge (Lynx Racing), and Andrew Bordin (PPI Motorsports), who finished third. The Long Beach race will be televised on espn2, Sunday, April 23 at 4:30 p.m. with a repeat broadcast on Thursday, April 27 at 5:00 a.m. For the latest information regarding World Speed, go to www.worldspeed.com Round four of the 12-race CART Toyota Atlantic Championship season takes place at the Milwaukee Mile, in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, June 3.

We want your opinion!

What would you like to see on Motorsport.com?

Take our 5 minute survey.

- The Motorsport.com Team

Read and post comments

Share Or Save This Story

Copy link

Share on Viber

Previous article Long Beach Lynx Results

Next article CHAMPCAR/CART: Houston update

Top Comments

There are no comments at the moment. Would you like to write one?

View More & Comment

Latest news

Max Verstappen on GTWC Europe debut: “We’re here to win”

GT World Challenge Europe Endurance

WCEE GT World Challenge Europe Endurance 6 h

Max Verstappen on GTWC Europe debut: “We’re here to win”

How to watch NASCAR at Phoenix II: Weekend schedule, start time, entry list, TV

NASCAR Cup

NAS NASCAR Cup

Phoenix II

6 h

How to watch NASCAR at Phoenix II: Weekend schedule, start time, entry list, TV

Ryan Ellis signs multi-year NASCAR O'Reilly deal with Alpha Prime Racing

NASCAR O'Reilly

NOAP NASCAR O'Reilly

Phoenix II

6 h

Ryan Ellis signs multi-year NASCAR O'Reilly deal with Alpha Prime Racing

Ayao Komatsu: Rafael Camara chosen for F1 2027 seat on speed, not Ferrari links

Formula 1

F1 Formula 1

Singapore GP

12 h

Ayao Komatsu: Rafael Camara chosen for F1 2027 seat on speed, not Ferrari links

Subscribe and access Motorsport.com with your ad-blocker.

From Formula 1 to MotoGP we report straight from the paddock because we love our sport, just like you. In order to keep delivering our expert journalism, our website uses advertising. Still, we want to give you the opportunity to enjoy an ad-free and tracker-free website and to continue using your adblocker.

You have 2 options:

Become a subscriber.
Disable your adblocker.

Subscribe now Already subscribed? Sign in here

Already disabled your adblocker?
Reload page

Manage Alerts