Gormley Ontario’s Jonathan Macri, an impressive and much touted addition to P-1 Racing team is gearing up for the Lehigh Valley Grand Prix at Nazareth Speedway, May 4-6, part of the Bosch Spark Plug Grand Prix CART FedEx Championship weekend.
Rookie to the Cart Toyota Atlantic series, Jonathan, who finished a respectable 8th at Long Beach in his NTN Bearing Swift car, anxiously awaits to make his second appearance.
At Long Beach, Jonathan qualified 9th on the grid. Confident in the car and his team, he hoped to better his position in the next day’s qualifying session; however, a wet track sidelined his hopes. “Being my first race, the goal at Long Beach was to simply drive a clean race, to gain a feel for the car and my new team under race conditions, and to finish,” Jonathan said. Run a clean race, he did. Showing keen racing acumen at the start, Jonathan gained two positions by taking the outside racing line and avoiding the “very crowded inside track”. Long Beach provided valuable experience as Jonathan jousted for position with some of the top drivers, particularly Rodolfo Lavin and Rocky Moran, eventually passing Moran with four laps remaining.
Going into Nazareth, Jonathan’s goal is to finish in the top five. “A top five finish is possible, given a car with the proper set-up, which I am sure my team will provide”, says Jonathan. “I am new to ovals but testing at Phoenix International Speedway gave me a good grounding in racing on this kind of track.”
Jonathan, just 19 years of age, demonstrates a mature approach to racing. Wins, he believes will come. “Patience, focus and an all-out team effort will bring them,” he says. In fact, Jonathan’s goal for the 2001 racing season is to win Rookie of the Year. Next year, in 2002, he hopes to capture the Atlantic Series Championship Title.
Lofty goals? A philosophical approach that smacks of an overdose of optimism? Not really. Especially when it comes from a racer who in just two short years captured the Canadian Ford Championship (2000), after having won Rookie of the Year the previous year. |
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