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IRL: Loundon test 97-07-07

For Immediate Release CALKINS FIRST TO TEST NEW IRL CAR AT NEW HAMPSHIRE LOUDON, N.H., July 7, 1997 Buzz Calkins drove off pit road in Bradley Motorsports' G Force/Oldsmobile Aurora at Noon today for the first test of a new Indy Racing League ...

Edited: Mar 27, 2008, 5:32 AM

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For Immediate Release

CALKINS FIRST TO TEST NEW IRL CAR AT NEW HAMPSHIRE

LOUDON, N.H., July 7, 1997 Buzz Calkins drove off pit road in Bradley Motorsports' G Force/Oldsmobile Aurora at Noon today for the first test of a new Indy Racing League car on the one-mile New Hampshire Motor Speedway oval.

Calkins, the 1996 IRL co-champion, ran 90 circuits and posted a fastest lap of 148.087 on the first of three days of IRL testing in preparation for the Aug. 15-17 Pennzoil 200, the ninth race of the 1996-97 IRL season.

Scott Goodyear also took the track late in the day in Treadway Racing's G Force/Aurora. Goodyear ran 30 laps and reached 145.749.

Other teams scheduled to test during the sessions are Team Scandia, with Eliseo Salazar, Vincenzo Sospiri and Jimmy Kite; Team Menard, with Samsonite 200 winner Tony Stewart; Treadway Racing, also with Indianapolis 500 winner Arie Luyendyk; and AJ Foyt Enterprises, with series point leader Davey Hamilton and Billy Boat.

*** QUOTES: BUZZ CALKINS: "This mile is different than some of the other miles we've been on and with the new cars, I think yo have to adjust the setup a little more than before. The corners are a lot tighter here than some of the other tracks we've run and you really have to slow the car down a lot in the corners. I like this track. We've always done well here, between running the IRL last year and Indy Lights before that. We've never won here, so hopefully this will be the one." (about the difference between last year's cars and the new IRL cars): "These cars don't accelerate as fast as they did last year but you're also going through a much wider rev range, so there's going to be a lot of working with the new engines to make sure they work as well as they possibly can."

JIMMY KITE: (about his IRL debut at Pikes Peak): "It was fun. It was too short. I wished I'd at least gotten to do a pit stop. It was everything I expected and more." (about what he learned from his first IRL weekend): "Honestly, how much I like these cars and what a good crew I have." (about the race): "One thing, I learned how bad I lost the front end when I got behind cars. That took some getting used to." (about being in the state of New Hampshire for the first time and seeing NHIS for the first time): "They let us go around in a rental car. This track has some really strange elevation changes. You see it on TV and it looks like a basic oval."

LARRY CURRY (Team Menard director of racing about Tony Stewart's win at Pikes Peak International Raceway): "It was a great relief for the team, for Tony, for John Menard. There were so many people involved in that ... all the years Glidden has sponsored Menard. John had said it was 18 years (to get his first win). We've been sitting on poles, leading monumental amount of laps. So, you ask, what do you need to change to win? I told the guys nothing. It's one thing when you're running back there uncompetitively. That wasn't our problem. As Tony said on the radio, "The monkey has been sent back to the zoo.' And I hope he stays there the rest of the year."

TelX Sports will provide a satellite uplink 3-3:15 p.m. (EDT) Wednesday with highlights and interviews from the IRL test at New Hampshire International Speedway. The coordinates are :SBS 6 Transponder 9 KU.

...97TEST-46...

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