CART rookie crashes during testing at LVMS

Wednesday, Jan. 24, 2001 | 11:09 a.m.

CART rookie Bruno Junqueira got his first taste of driving on a superspeedway Tuesday morning during the second day of Target/Chip Ganassi Racing's two-day test session at Las Vegas Motor Speedway.

Unfortunately for the 23-year-old Brazilian, he also got a feel for what it is like to hit a concrete wall at 200 miles per hour.

Junqueira's day-long test came to an abrupt end about an hour and a half early when his Toyota/Lola spun between turns three and four and slapped the outside retaining wall before coming to a rest in turn four.

The driver walked away from the incident without injury and the car sustained moderate damage to its left side.

"It was a problem with the car," Junqueira said. "At least I'm fine -- that's the most important thing."

Mike Hull, team manager for Target/Chip Ganassi Racing, agreed with Junqueira about the cause of the accident.

"People say this all the time, but we think it was a mechanical problem," Hull said. "Really, the most important thing is the fact that Bruno got right out of the car and walked away fine."

Hull credited CART's safety measures for allowing his driver to walk away from the accident. Junqueira also was wearing a HANS head-and-neck collar device.

"CART's restraint system and the HANS device, which we're using, is a testament to the safety that CART works on," Hull said. "And the (track's safety crew) ... we go to test at different locations, privately, and these guys are as good as anybody we've ever seen."

Prior to his accident, Junqueira had turned in his top speed of the day, a 214.116-mph lap, and was running above 212 mph when he spun. That, combined with teammate Nicolas Minassian's incident-free test on Monday, helped eased the disappointment of Tuesday's accident.

"We had a pretty successful test for both days, no question about it," Hull said. "The cars ran well and we were able to work with the new CART aero package for ovals of this size -- which is something we're going to use about eight times this year."

For Junqueira, Tuesday's test was an eye-opener in more ways than one. It marked the first time he had driven a Champ Car on a superspeedway and at speeds of more than 200 mph.

"This is the fastest I've gone," said Junqueira, who won the FIA Formula 3000 championship last season and served as a test driver for the BMW Williams Formula One team for the past two seasons.

"This is far and away faster than the other ovals we tested. To run the ovals, you try to be very smooth ... it's really completely different than everything that I did in my 14 years of racing because here, it's much faster than the road courses."

Because the CART FedEx Championship Series will run 10 of its 22 races on ovals this season, Junqueira said he was not sure what goals to set for himself in his rookie season.

"I don't know what to expect this year," he said. "I just want to do a good season. Because we're not testing with the other teams, it's very difficult to judge which level you are.

"I don't know whether I'll even finish a race or whether I'll win a race or maybe fight for the championship (but) there is no doubt that Team Target is a very good team and I think we're going to have good results. I'm just going to try my best."