---

CART: Castro-Neves, Team Alumax Hoping for Super' Run in U.S. 500

25 July 1998

BROOKLYN, MI: When Helio Castro-Neves took to the bands of the Michigan Speedway, it marked the first time he had ever raced on a superspeedway.

Castro-Neves was running in the Indy Lights event that accompanied the inaugural U.S. 500 in May of 1996 and he used it as a learning experience. He finished a respectable fifth that day. Since that time, he has only gotten to run on a superspeedway one other time--the 1997 season ending Indy Lights race at Fontana, Cal. Again he finished fifth, although he feels he might have won had there not been an accident late in the race which caused the race to be finished under the yellow flag.

On Sunday, he gets another chance at the high banks of Michigan as he and the other CART FedEx Championship Series competitors contes the U.S. 500 (ABC, 1 p.m. ET).

"The first time I ran at Michigan, it was like nothing I had ever raced on before," said Castro- Neves, who now pilots the Team Alumax Reynard/Mercedes-Benz. "At the time, the only ovals I had ever run on were Homestead and Nazareth so you can imagine what it must have felt like to be on Michigan the first time.

"It was incredible, but I new that I muse use my head. So I just ran a nice, steady race and was able to finish fifth. I also felt that I had learned a lot in that race. A year later, we were running at Fontana, which is almost identical to Michigan and I was in fifth late in the race. It was a good position, but they had the accident at the end and the race finished under caution so I finished in fifth."

What could make this year's race even more interesting, however, is the introduction of the new Handford rear wing, which is designed to slow the cars. Initial test speeds show that the cars will be slower.