NEWS

The rains fell heavily on Fundidora Park, site of the opening round of the 2002 Cart Toyota Atlantic Championship, causing a forty-minute delay in the start of the race.

The challenging 32-lap debut race on the 2.104-mile street circuit, the featured support race to the CART FedEx Championship Series Tecate/Telmax Monterrey Grand Prix, became even more challenging with the unpredictable weather. Would the rain continue, or would it stop mid-way through the race? Atlantic teams were pressed to make a choice, whether to go to a heavy rain set-up or something in between wet and dry, a far cry from the morning Official Qualifying session that was run under ideal weather conditions.

At qualifying, Jonathan Macri, racing for P-1 Racing, was hoping to improve upon a 13th place Provisional Qualifier Friday afternoon. However, the set-up continued to evade P-1 Racing and Jonathan Macri’s efforts as Jonathan qualified 12th.

By race time, the morning set-up had to be re-configured to rain conditions. P-1 Racing decided to go with a full rain set-up. Once the heavy deluge of rain eased, and track workers cleared the flooded areas of the track, the field of 23 drivers entered onto the track for their pace laps.

At the Green Flag, Macri safely navigated the rain-soaked, slippery start, jumping several spots to clinch 9th position by the first yellow called after Ryan Hunter-Reay (Hylton Motorsports) made contact with Joey Hand (DSTP Motorsports) at Turn 7. On lap 7, Macri captured 7th place by moving past Waldemar Coronas (Squadra Fortia) and Rodolfo Lavin (Michael Shank Racing) who were duelling for positon. Macri fell to 8th after being passed by Joey Hand on the 13th lap. Jonathan would than move past Diaz to re-claim 7th only to be overtaken by Diaz. Jonathan would finish 8th.

"It’s been a bit of a rough weekend," Jonathan said. "We never really got the set-up down. 13th is my worst start ever. We decided to go with a really wet set-up because the rain continued to come down hard. The car ran well for the first 10 laps but once the rain stopped, some good racing lines developed on the track and I wasn’t able to push as hard. We were fighting with a lack of rear grip and just couldn’t find it all weekend. The team worked really hard and considering we started 12th, going home with an 8th place finish and some points isn’t too bad. We’ll be testing in Phoenix on the 27th and 28th of March and I’m sure we’ll figure out the problem and show better at Long Beach.

Eighth in the race, and in the Championship Standings, may not be the start that Macri and P-1 Racing were looking for, but with 11 races to go, there is much opportunity to get into top racing form for Macri and P-1 Racing.

Jon Fogarty took the checkered for Dorricott Racing. Ryan Dalziel (Michael Shank Racing) finished in second, followed by Joey hand (DSTP Motorsports).

Report by Fedele Fortino