Nazareth Practice Dominated by Fittipaldi
24 April 1998
Round Four of the Federal Express Championship arrived today for the Bosch Spark Plug Grand Prix presented by Toyota. The Championship Cars took to this north eastern Pennsylvania oval today for the first round of practice in preparation for Saturday's single-car qualifying. The all-important starting position at this "bullring" track is magnified by the fact that no one starting lower than 12th has ever won at Nazareth. An interesting bit of news was turned out of the CART media machine today. Omega Timing, the official timing and scoring provider for CART, measured the Nazareth Speedway and discovered that the one-mile oval is really .964 miles. So, a new track record will be established this week-end. Last year's winner Paul Tracy surmised the first practice session as "getting the cobwebs" out of the system. Tracy further commented that "my car is just a little off. Hopefully, between now and tomorrow we can find the set-up for pole position." This is the first one-mile oval that the Championship Cars have visited this year. Early in the practice session Marlboro Team Penske driver Andre Ribeiro made heavy contact with the second turn wall. Riberio was able to exit the car under his own power. Doctors cleared Ribeiro to race in the infield medical center, but he will have to do so in a back-up car. Hometown favorite Michael Andretti in the Newman-Haas K-Mart Havoline Special was in the top five early in the session and will no doubt be a contender on Sunday. His last two outings at Long Beach and Motegi, Japan were considerable efforts. Running out of fuel while leading at Japan was a heart-breaker, and then to follow that up with a blown left-front tire at Long Beach has only added to the pressure on his team. The team has decided to rely a little less on the computer and more on human instinct for strategic-decisions. At Motegi, the pit computer informed the team that the car had plenty of fuel. At Long Beach, the tire sensor on the left front reported no imbalance. The delamination was so evident on the television monitors that one had to wonder who was making the calls to stay out. Regardless of the past the Newman-Haas team has arrived to Nazareth with one mission---Victory. The practice session ended with Christian Fittipaldi leading the way with a lap of 179.167mph (19.008 sec.) followed by Michael Andretti 178.491mph (19.080sec.) and rounding out the top three was Paul Tracy with a speed of 178.164mph (19.115 sec.) David Treffer -- The Auto Channel
