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Patrick Carpentier Captures 2nd Victory This Season At Mid-Ohio

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CARPENTIER AND FORD-COSWORTH VICTORIOUS IN TWO OF LAST THREE RACES – Player’s/Forsythe driver Patrick Carpentier capped a dominating weekend by capturing his third career victory, and his second in three races, today from the pole in the CART Grand Prix of Mid-Ohio. Christian Fittipaldi was second, Michael Andretti third and teammates Bruno Junquiera and Scott Dixon finished fourth and fifth, respectively. The win was Ford-Cosworth’s eighth at Mid-Ohio and the first since Adrian Fernandez was victorious in 1998.

PATRICK CARPENTIER (#32 Player’s/Indeck Ford) – Finished 1st – A FANTASTIC JOB TODAY. "I’m really happy and my car was really fast. Cristiano (da Matta) seemed to be fast after a few laps and seemed to be moving up but the Reynard was the good chassis to have this weekend. But it was tough, man. That was one of the toughest races I’ve run in a while, but my guys did a great job of keeping me up front day." IT SEEMED LIKE YOU HAD LITTLE TROUBLE HOLDING EVERYBODY OFF. "Yeah, the car was perfect. We tried it this morning and it wasn’t exactly what we wanted so I told my engineer what I needed and he changed it for me for the race." TEMPERATURES WERE HOT TODAY. DID YOU FEEL THE HEAT? "Oh man, that was tough. I don’t think they should’ve lengthened the race. The asphalt was coming off the track and sticking to the tires and I had to change my race line halfway through the race. It was one of the toughest races that I’ve ever run and I need to drink a lot of water. Thank God it’s over and we won it." THE REYNARD DID WELL HERE AND BEAT ALL THOSE LOLAS. "I think the Reynard was going to be good on this track because it tested really fast. We came here, the car was really fast and we only made a few changes and stayed up at the front all weekend long. The team did a fantastic job and the guys had really fast pit stops. But what was really important here today is that it’s tough to pass, as you saw with Cristiano. I hope I didn’t cut him off too much, but I braked really, really deep and he tried to brake deeper and lost it. But the guys put me out up front on the pit stops and that was really important. The Ford-Cosworth guys did another great job this weekend to give me a powerful engine and the traction control continues to get better." YOU ALSO SAID THAT YOU’D RUN THIS TRACK NAKED IF YOU WON. DOES THAT MEAN WE’LL BE SEEING THAT SOON? "No. (laughing) The thing is I said that I’d run the track naked but I never said when and at what time!"

ALEX TAGLIANI (#33 Player’s/Indeck Ford) – Finished 7th – "Today was okay. We didn’t really get a hold on the setup right and we were chasing the car all race long. It was tough. It was not one of those races where we had really great setup that we were confident of and we were always a little bit behind trying to catch up. But sometimes you need to accept those kind of races and just go on to the next one." WAS IT FRUSTRATING? "No, not at all. It’s good for the team that Pat (Carpentier) won the race and he did good but we need to keep on working. There’s three more races back-to-back-to-back after this so hopefully we can be quick there."

JIMMY VASSER (#8 Shell Ford) – Finished 8th – "We finished and that’s about it. We’d like to do a whole lot better than that and we’re capable of it, but it’s just one of those things. I think we’re somewhat relieved. We’ve been falling out of races and it’s nice to finish. Our car really wasn’t handling that well, we did the best we could and we’re happy to finish the race. It’s nice to get some points but we’ve got to make the car better."

MICHEL JOURDAIN, JR. (#9 Gigante Ford) – Finished 11th – "It was a very long and tough race. It wasn’t our best weekend from many, many perspectives and I’m glad that it’s over. There are some races coming up that I like, like Elkhart Lake, and we’ve been strong in a lot of races. Unfortunately we weren’t strong here but it’s not the end of the world. At least we got some points and I’m proud of the work my crew did this weekend. They gave me a car that finished the race and we’ll go on to next weekend."

MARIO DOMINGUEZ (#55 Herdez Ford) – Finished 16th – WHAT HAPPENED? "I lost it. I made a mistake and I crashed the car." HAS IT BEEN A TOUGH WEEKEND FOR YOU? "Yeah, it was very unfortunate. We were running pretty good in the race and we had a good shot at a top 10 finish, I made a mistake and I apologize to the team."
 
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