Montoya Nabs Second Career Pole

pole position of the season. Tomorrow's Motorola 300 is only the sixth raceof his CART career, and he gives the Target Chip Ganassi team a second
consecutive Gateway pole position. Sitting alongside Montoya on row one
will be Paul Tracy. Helio Castro-Neves, Patrick Carpentier and Dario
Franchitti round out the top five qualifiers. Tweny five of the twenty seven
entries this weekend are qualified within one second of each other.

Montoya is beginning to run away from the crowd only a third of the way
into the season. He leads the championship battle, has led the most laps to
date, has won the last three races and is feeling very confident about win
number four tomorrow. "I was expecting something good here," he said after
the qualifying session. The team tested here several weeks ago, shortly
after his win at Nazareth. The test was good and he's been consistenly
quick this weekend. The rookie is already in class of his own after scoring
three consecutive wins in his first five races. A win tomorrow will place
him in a most exclusive club. Only Al Unser Jr. and Alex Zanardi have won
four in a row, but neither of those drivers accomplished that feat in their
rookie year.

Montoya has one more thing to enjoy this weekend aside from the pole, he's
been removed from probation by Chief Steward Wally Dallenbach. The
undefined probation period was the result of an incident between Montoya
and Michael Andretti during the Firestone Firehawk 500 race in Motegi
several weeks ago. According to Dallenbach, "Juan has kept his nose clean
since Motegi and no longer deserves to be on probation."

Paul Tracy, no stranger to probation, makes his first front row appearance
in almost two years, the last coming in Milwaukee in 1997 where he won the
pole. Time has not been good to Tracy as he spent the last season in the
shadow of teammate Dario Franchitti. Worse yet, he sat races out in the
penalty box, the result of several on-course incidents and other sundry
rules infractions. He even started this season out on the sidelines serving
one more penalty from last season. His best finish this season is a tenth
at Nazareth and while he's not saying the worst is behind him, it is
beginning to look that way. He said, "Things are starting to shape up at
Team Kool Green for our side." He added that their short oval package has
really come together and bodes well for the race tomorrow.

Helio Castro-Neves was the man to bump Montoya from the pole today. The
drivers qualify in reverse order of their best practice speed and
Castro-Neves was the last man on the track this afternoon. He looked good
but he fell short by 0.80 seconds. For Castro-Neves it is another top five
start for him this year, he's led laps at two events this season as well.
The big help for this weekend comes from a very intense testing schedule,
the team has completed over 20 testing days so far. But today the car got a
little out of hand during qualifying. "Sometimes you just have to try
everything, and I did, but unfortunately when I hit the bump in turn three,
the car just went straight away with big understeer."

The muscial chairs of the CART circuit continue this weekend with driver
substitutions and additions. The injured Mark Blundell is being replaced by
two drivers this weekend, Gualter Salles and Roberto Moreno. Salles sat in
for Moreno yesterday while Moreno ran over to Indianapolis to prepare for
this weekend's Indy 500. Shigeaki Hattori is back in his ride over at
Bettenhausen Motorsports after sitting out the Rio event in favor of a few
more testing laps. Tarso Marques is sitting in a Marlboro Penske car again
this weekend as the team fields two cars again. In an additional twist to
the Penske story, Al Unser Jr. is competing in a Lola chassis this weekend
while Marques stays the course with the Penske chassis. Marques was the
faster man today.

The Motorola 300 begins tomorrow, Saturday, at 2:00 pm local time tomorrow,
but not before the drivers participate in a little night magic here at
Gateway International Raceway. For the first time in CART history, the cars
will hold an exhibition session under the lights at
8:00 pm tonight. Said Tim Mayer, senior vice president of CART racing
operations, "We haven't made up our mind on whether or not we will run
night races in the future but this session will give us the information we
need to help us make a proper decision going ahead."