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Pre-Christmas testing round-up

A whole host of Champ Car teams took the opportunity to squeeze in a week of testing before the Christmas break this week, with Newman/Haas, Team Kool Green, Team Rahal, Mo Nunn Racing, Player's/Forsythe and the new Zakspeed/Forsythe outfit all in action

Paul Tracy was behind the wheel for Team Kool Green as it tested on both the oval and road courses at Homestead. The oval running was in the 2000 car for the benefit of Firestone, and he lapped in 27.22s on the 1.5-mile oval.

Tracy then moved to the road course to complete systems checks on the 2001 Reynard-Honda, before completing a full 65-lap test with the car on Tuesday. TKG's next test will be at Sebring, also in Florida, in the second week of January.

"The 2001 package Reynard-Honda is really responsive," said Tracy. "It was great to get back in my old car on the oval but even better to be in the new car on the road course. It was also nice to run a different road course and get an opportunity to work different angles on the set-up that will be helpful in Rio."

Team Rahal's Kenny Brack turned the first Champ Car laps at Texas Motor Speedway under CART supervision on Monday. Brack is the only driver in the CART ranks to have raced at the venue before in the Indy Racing League, and his run was to help determine which rules package needs to be used for the April 30 race there. The Swede posted laps in the 215-221mph range.

The recent cold snap in America has affected other teams. Newman/Haas's first day of running with a 2001-spec Lola-Toyota in the hands of Christian Fittipaldi at Sebring was cut short by rain and they postponed serious running until today (Thursday). The Brazilian said: "We had too much oversteer with the set-up, but overall I was immediately happy with the performance and know there is much more in the car. The Toyota engine continues to impress us well."

The cold conditions at Sebring caused a few worries for others, too: "In the first couple of hours I think I spun about 50 times," reigning champion Gil de Ferran, who was testing his new Penske-run Reynard, told Speedvision. "You just couldn't get any heat into the tyres."

Bryan Herta shook down Zakspeed/Forsythe's new Reynard-Ford, as did Alex Tagliani for the Player's/Forsythe outfit. Tagliani will be engineered this season by Tony Cicale, who has previously run Paul Tracy at Team Kool Green.

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