Atlanta Wednesday testing pit notes

Hampton, GA (Oct. 26, 2005) -- The Crown Royal International Race of Champions Series continued testing at Atlanta Motor Speedway Wednesday, which included practice sessions for the series competitors. Nearly half the field was on hand to take practice laps in preparation for the final race of the 2005 season.

Newly crowned 20-time World of Outlaws Champion, Steve Kinser was joined by fellow Sprint Car ace, Danny Lasoski, IndyCar's Buddy Rice, Grand American Road Racing Champion, Scott Pruett, and the newly appointed 2005 Champ Car World Series Champion, Sebastien Bourdais.

Returning to Atlanta Motor Speedway for a second Crown Royal IROC finale Steve Kinser said, "Every time I go out I feel better and better and I feel really great after that last run. I feel pretty comfortable, most comfortable I've been here, but you never know what's going to happen come race day. It seems we all become different animals once that green flag drops. But, I really like this speedway, it's got more than one groove, it's fast, and for me, a fun track to race on."

After a day of turning laps for the first time at Atlanta Motor Speedway the 2004 Indy 500 winner, Buddy Rice said, "Just getting comfortable here at Atlanta. It's a nice high-bank, mile-and a half speedway. The cars are good and running pretty close. It should be exciting, there's a lot of little things you can do to try to keep up, so hopefully, we'll be able to learn enough here in the next couple of days to get up front and keep it there on Saturday."

Taking his second consecutive Champ Car World Series title with a win at Surfer's Paradise in Australia last weekend, Sebastien Bourdais took little time to breathe before climbing into the Crown Royal IROC cars on Wednesday taking his first turn of the wheel on the 1.54 --mile quad-oval. Bourdais said, "It's a fun track. It's kind of a compromise between Texas and Daytona with the high banking similar to Daytona and the shape similar to Texas. Right now we working over the setup with the test drivers and trying to get a real feel for how the car is going to behave during the longer run as we wear the tires. So far, I think it's going to be pretty good."

Testing and practice for the Crown Royal IROC 2005 season finale will continue Thursday and Friday before taking the green flag at 1:30 p.m. ET at Atlanta Motor Speedway on Saturday. SPEED Channel will broadcast the $1-million finale live.

-iroc