IRL: Sears Point: Scott Sharp Friday report

Infineon Opening Day Presents Challenges for Sharp

The IRL IndyCar Series turned its first official laps on a permanent road course today with opening practice activities for the Argent Mortgage Indy Grand Prix at Infineon Raceway. Scott Sharp, a past winner at Infineon in Trans-Am competition, ended the day 15th overall following two-and-a-half hours of practice time around the 2.26-mile, 12-turn road course. He will be looking to make gains tomorrow as the team prepares for Marlboro Pole Award Qualifying featuring the Firestone "Fast Six".

Scott Sharp, #8 Delphi Panoz/Honda/Firestone:

"It was a challenging day for the Delphi Fernandez team. We are struggling a little bit to get the car to handle like we want. It is not for lack of effort. The engineers and crew worked really hard. We are trying a lot of different things but we are not able to get it to behave just the way we want it quite yet. The second session didn't go well. We went out late because of all the changes we chose to make, and then never had a chance to put on fresh tires like probably everyone else in the field. Certainly there is better speed than that in the car, and we'll just have to keep on working and see what we can do tomorrow."

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