Gordon Out Early at Gateway
On to Indy
30 May 1999
Motorola 300 Race Notes/Quotes
Robby Gordon
#22 Johns Manville/Panasonic/Menards Toyota-Swift
Saturday, May 29, 1999
Round 6 of 20 in the CART FedEx Championship Series
At Gateway International Raceway - Madison, Ill.
Robby Gordon's day ended prematurely when he spun and hit the wall between Turns 3 and 4
while working Lap 11 of today's Motorola 300. Gordon sustained a bruise and abrasions to
his right calf in the incident, his first during a race this season.
Gordon now heads for Indianapolis to compete in the #32 Johns Manville/Glidden/Duracell entry
of Team Menard in Sunday's 83rd running of the Indianapolis 500. It will be Gordon's
fifth appearance at The Brickyard.
Quotes
ROBBY GORDON on the race: "I drove my golf cart back from the medical trailer to our garage,
so I guess that means I'm fine. The ankle's fine. The calf's little sore. The bigger
issue for me is trying to figure out what happened. I lost it way before I ever got to the
corner. That's odd. The car gave no indication of being loose there all weekend.
Maybe a tire went down. Maybe something broke on the car. I'll be anxious to find out.
It's frustrating because we had a very good car today, and we'll never know what the final
outcome would have been had we not crashed. The tethers did their job, because everything was
intact on the car. I'll be fine tomorrow. I had a great race car here today, and I know
I have a great race car for the 500. It's just a shame that the weekend started out this way.
But we'll get over it, especially if we have a good day tomorrow."
JOHN MENARD (Team Gordon co-owner): "That was a rather abrupt end to what we thought
was going to be a promising day. The car stepped out in the corner a bit more than
it should have, and we're not quite sure what happened. It'll probably double Robby's resolve
for tomorrow (in the Indy 500). It's just very frustrating. We've all been through this.
Racing has more frustrations than triumphs, which sometimes makes us wonder why we
do this. But the triumphs make up for the frustrations, that's for sure. The tethers
performed just like they were supposed to. I'm just sorry we had to be the first ones
to test them."