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| Long Beach, California (April 13, 2003) – Today, the streets of Long Beach, California rumbled with the wound-up roar of open-wheel racing machines. Fans delighted in the competitive euphoria of the 2nd leg of the 2003 season at the famed street course for the running of the Argent Mortgage Company Toyota Atlantic Race at the Toyota Grand Prix of Long Beach. For 21-year-old Jonathan Macri and Polestar Atlantic, LLC, who were looking to build on the momentum of their 2nd-place finish at Monterrey, Mexico’s Fundidora Park, all was realized at Long Beach as Jonathan powered his #84 NTN Bearings machine to a 3rd-place podium-finish. Qualifying 5th on the grid, the Gormley, Ontario native bolted off the line with the waving of the green flag and captured 3rd spot within the first lap, Safely nestled in 3rd spot, Jonathan pounced all over the rear wing of Aaron Justus (RuSPORT) for the remainder of the 32-lap race. Running on a tight track with virtually no passing opportunities, Jonathan continued to press hard so as to capitalize on any slight error committed by Aaron. But such was not the case as Aaron ran a consistent, flawless race. “It was a really exciting start. DeVellis got a good start, but halfway down the straight I was able to shoot up on the outside. This bumped me up to 3rd. Once in 3rd, I pushed hard to catch Aaron. I stayed in close and seeing that it would be difficult to pass an equally competitive car on such a tight track, I waited for Aaron to make a mistake. But this didn’t happen. He ran a really consistent race. On the restart in lap 9, I had to make sure that Valiante didn’t get past me but once I managed to create some distance between Michael and myself, I was then able to focus on catching A.J. and Aaron once again. Overall, it was an excellent race weekend. We walked away with a second podium finish and made some good gains on the car. Polestar Atlantic did a great job with the car and I think we’ll continue to make more gains in the next few races. We’ve experienced some really good momentum in the first two races and we’ll be looking to carry it over to Milwaukee. We have three test dates before we run the Mile and so we’ll be busy preparing. We’ll be pushing for another podium finish there.” The race was won by RuSPORT rookies A.J. Allmendinger and Aaron Justus. Valiante took fourth behind Macri and Alex Figge rounded off the top-five. Jonathan maintains his second place standing in the Championship, tied with Allmendinger, with 30 points, just three points behind leader Valiante (Lynx Racing). In only the second race of the Atlantic season, the formation of Macri and Polestar Atlantic, LLC has proven highly competitive. Two podiums in two races, a first-place podium-finish should not be too far in the offing. Race Report by Fedele Fortino |
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