Q&A: Wally Dallenbach and Lee Dykstra.

The CART series will witness a number of important rule changes in 2002, including revisions to the qualifying procedure and the introduction of traction control.

Overseeing the changes are two vitally experienced campaigners, who were more than happy to answer questions on the future direction of the series.

Moderator:
We are now joined by two of the most well respected names in most sports, Wally Dallenbach and Lee Dykstra. Thanks for taking the time to join us this afternoon.

Most of you are more than familiar with Wally's accomplishments through the years, but he competed as a driver racing Indy cars from 1965 through 1979, winning five races over that time frame. Wally stepped out of the car in 1980 to help assist CART as a race official and he became the chief steward of the series in 1981. He presided over 298 Champcar events from 1981 through 1999 when he decided to step aside as chief steward.

After serving as a key role to the chief steward in both the 2000, 2001 FedEx Championship Series season, he decided to come out of retirement and rejoins the race control staff this year, returning to the role of chief steward where he will work closely with Chris Kneifel, who served in that capacity last season. On behalf of CART, let me just say that we are happy to have him back.

Veteran racing engineer Lee Dykstra came on board with CART in early January. He will serve as director of technology and
competition overseeing CART's technical program and the race competition staff, as well as playing a key role in the competition rules CART has established for the 2003 season and beyond.

Lee has worked in racing for some 33 years working as a design engineer with Ford, Kar-Kraft and serving as president of Indianapolis-based Special Chassis Inc. Most recently, Lee served as race engineer for the #77 Forsythe Championship racing entry in a 2001 FedEx Championship Series season, driven by Bryan Herta.

With all of the recent technical and competition rules, changes announced by CART in the last week or so, we thought this would be a great opportunity for the media to ask some questions of the experts. With that, we'll open it up to questions both Lee and Wally.
Q:
I would like to ask Lee Dykstra two questions. First of all, I remember him when he worked with Patrick Carpentier as an engineer; why did he take that job. And also, I would like to ask him if he thinks the three engine manufacturers will be ready with a traction control for the first race in Monterrey.

Lee Dykstra:
First question, I have a lot of respect for Patrick and his ability. That's obviously, you know, a major reason for taking that
particular job. I enjoyed very much working with him during the couple of years that we did work together, and, you know, like I said, I have a lot of respect for his ability.

As far as the second question is concerned, all three manufacturers at some time in the past have done development on traction control. They are currently taking engineering or manufacturers' days to do further development to sort of finalise the things, but I have no doubt that all three of them will be ready for Monterrey.

Moderator:
Lee, can you just take a second and tell us a little bit about traction control, why CART is putting this into place in 2002. It was
announced last Friday, all of the engine manufacturers bought into the concept. If you could just talk about the concept behind traction control, we had a few questions on that earlier in today's call.
LD:
The traction control was put in as allowing it because of the difficulty of trying to police not having traction control. With the current electronic systems that we have for engine control, it's very, very difficult to try to get a handle on things that are done
that simulate traction control in one gear or, you know, at a particular place in a corner or that sort of thing.

So rather than having, you know, a big hassle as far as accusations between manufacturers and stuff, they graciously agree that we will mandate the traction control and eliminate that as a possible argued point.

Moderator:
Thank you for clarifying that.
Q:
Wally, you've been at this game, obviously, in a number of roles for a long time. Is this the biggest group of rule changes and such that you've seen in your career, and how do you think that's going to affect the competition and your gentlemen's roles in regulating it?

Wally Dallenbach:
Well, there's no doubt it's been the biggest change I've seen in 20-some years that I've been involved as an official. And changes are really going to be challenging, not only for the officials, but I think for everybody involved. I feel like they are good changes and
they are changes that are needed to bring some excitement back into the sport.

Policing them is going to be difficult and there's going to be some miscues and trial and error as we perfect the system as we go into it. But I think conceptually, those changes should create a better aroma for television and the fan. They are going to have to spend a little time understanding it, as well.

Challenge, yes it is. But will it make it better for racing? I think it will. Probably needs to be polished, but that will come as time
goes by.
Q:
Last year at Monterrey, you said essentially that you hoped that Chris [Kniefel] was the last guy standing on Fantasy Island; and that having come true, which is why you're back here, what can you do to help Chris understand the things that he did wrong last year, or maybe not necessarily wrong, but what can you do to help him so that he can assume this and you can go back to Colorado?

WD:
That was probably as much responsible for Chris getting the job as anyone, and I have a lot of faith in him and I feel that his qualities are there. He walked into a year in the sport when there was a lot of turmoil and there was a lot of things happening, and we all know what they were. Along with that, I think he really felt strong about being independent and doing his own thing initially, and as the year wore on, certain things, you know, took place. Some of them were nature, some of them were otherwise, whatever they were; they caused some problems.

The bottom line was that he got beat up a little. That's going to make him stronger for the long haul, and so maybe he did drop down on one knee by the time the season ended; I've been there. But what I would like to do, why I came back on board, not only on his behalf, but I believe in CART and I believe in where they are going. And I was there for the first round when we broke away from another organisation, and it was just as tough then, believe me.

Collectively, I think we are going to make a good strong team. I think what will happen ultimately is he will come out stronger for the future.

Moderator:
You had mentioned, I believe, when we were in Monterey California, a few weeks ago, that the changes, the things that are happening in CART under Chris Pook's leadership and all of the rules and competition changes that we've got. Do you still have that feeling and where do you see this going?

WD:
It's very clear in my mind that, when eight of us were denied even the practice time at Indianapolis at one point and had to go through the course to get back in there, those are scars that are clear in my mind. And out of all of that business that went on, we built an organisation that was really strong and versatile.

And what's unique about CART, of course, is the fact that we can probably race on fly paper if we had to. That is second to none in auto racing. Those qualities in this series are worth fighting for. Yeah, we have had some problems the last couple of years, and that's what went through my head, to come back and meet the challenge. Try to get strong again and in the black and try to be a part of what it should be.
Q:
Wally, with the advent of traction control and Bridgestone coming in now, I know there's going to be some subtle changes. Does
traction control present a new set of problems to deal with tyres?

WD:
No. I think not. I think actually traction control will probably be easier on tyres, generally speaking. In relating to your own car, it's like having an open dip, or something like that, where better application to the power goes through the ground and various ingredients; and I think that will help the tyre situation.

And also, I think we'll, you know, it will make it somewhat easier to drive these cars in some of the areas, but at the same time, it will make them perform better, and that's what we are looking for. We are looking for our cars to look good out there and to race side by side. This is certainly going to help that.
Q:
Do you foresee any changes in the race staff, as far as you are concerned, with race control or observers or any more changes in that area this year, or are you pretty well set?

WD:
I think we're close to where we need to be. I think we need a couple - a couple guys on our staff yet who can fill some gaps. But race control looks pretty strong, and people around me, I feel very good about. I feel that after the first race or two, based on the new rules and how we are going to monitor them and things like that, which in itself will be a challenge, but, I mean, we may be just seeing possibly one more person up in race control monitoring, maybe one additional screen or more.

But the good news is I think we are ready to make those moves if we have to, and it's going to be an exciting challenge, both up there and on the racetrack.
Q:
How is the relationship with you, Chris and the Atlantics?

WD:
Atlantics have always been close to me. I was a car owner in '84. My son drove one of the cars. I was not only chief steward, but I was a car owner. So I feel real close to the Atlantics, always have. I think they are the perfect race car for the training series.
I think what they did replaced the midget of the 50s. If I was small enough and young enough, I would probably be in one myself.

As far as Chris [Kneifel] is concerned, he is going to take a leadership role there, and he's going to be very close to me when he's not doing that; and the trade-offs I think will work great because we are going to lean on each other through the whole season.
Q:
Lee, how are you going to track all of these new changes this year, and also keep track of what's going to be happening next year with technical set-ups?

LD:
After I stop walking on water, you mean?

Yeah, it's difficult. Of course, I've got some help here. I've got Steve Dixon, as far as, you know, at the racetrack and as far as the
technical inspection and that sort of thing, and I'm going to rely heavily on him.

We are just, you know, going to go as quickly as we can as far as the 2003 regulations, because obviously, all of these manufacturers need information in order to make our time deadline for October/November.
Q:
What about 2003, have you had any conversations with Reynard or Lola to stay in the series?

LD:
Yeah, I've had numerous conversation with, not only them, some of the other chassis manufacturers, as well.
Q:
How about engines, I've heard in the past that there should be no problems...

LD:
In fact, [vice-president of racing operations] John Lopes has been involved with that stuff pretty deeply. There's a lot of stuff that has not come out in the press that we are doing that at some point in time, this stuff will be announced. But certainly the
situation looks very good.
Q:
I assume that both you and Wally are extremely happy to have Chris Pook on board?

LD:
I think this whole thing, you know, it sort of starts on the top and just sort of filters down. If you have strong leadership like Chris, then that allows you to work within your pasture, whatever, to get things done.

WD:
I agree. One of the big reasons why I signed back on is I had a lot of faith in Chris Pook, and I'm going to back him up as much as I can in my capacity.
Q:
Question for Lee. When we got the announcement that you've come on board, I think it stated that you would be working very closely with the rule changes for the new engines for 2003. I have a two-part question. The first part is whether the engine manufacturers that have been mentioned as suppliers would be Toyota, John Judd and Tom Walkinshaw? That's been
discussed, but I don't know how definite it is. I guess the question relates to John Judd and Walkinshaw, what would be the source of their engines, because to me they are a builder and not a manufacturer?

LD:
It would be a situation where essentially they are building an engine that's badged as some other manufacturer. In other words, they do manufacture engines. John Judd's engine won the 24 at Daytona.
Q:
That was just confusing to me. And the second part of that question is that, for the 2003 rules, I've read that we're going to use the basic tub which would follow the IRL rules, but the aerodynamic package would be the same for CART.

I know you need to have that for road course racing, as you can't use an oval package for a road course. It's also my understanding that our engines will be maybe a couple hundred horsepower less. So would the aerodynamics that we've taken away so much from the race cars over the years to slow them down to compensate for increased engine performance, go back to any of our previous aerodynamic designs?

LD:
Certainly. Certainly. We will be adding downforce for the short oval tracks. We'll be looking at taking out drag for Fontana to get to a performance level that we think is necessary for these cars.
Q:
And that brings to mind, when you said Fontana, that we use a Hanford there. I've seen it in print that that's going to be utilised in 2003, but will we even need that?

LD:
That's something that we'll look at. Obviously, we're in the early throws of this sort of thing, but there is some adjustability in the Hanford wing. Last year, we add the three-inch section on the back and things like that could conceivably come off. In our rules meeting, we said that we were going to try to maintain the current CART aero packages with adjustments.
Q:
But the idea is, when we get done with all of that and you finalise what it's going to be, we should see better racing; right?

LD:
For sure. If we add downforce for the short ovals and that sort of thing, we certainly should see back the to 1998-99 type of
racing situations.
Q:
Lee, I've got a two-part question here. The first part of it concerns this traction control system. Is it controlled by the engine; in other words by cutting revs, or by the brakes, or is it both in combination?

LD:
No. There is no braking as such. So it's strictly engine, engine power reduction, either through spark or fuel.
Q:
I'm not a technician, so I might be asking a dumb question here. In street cars, a lot of street cars using the traction control systems have attitude control, as well, to supposedly help a car from losing the rear end. Is that going to be possible with any of these traction control systems, and if so, how are you going to be able to use that against the rules and then are you going to be
able to police it?

LD:
Because they have anti-lock braking, they have the ability to selectively lock on essentially any corner on the car. We do not
have that ability. Essentially the traction control will be that, but not a stability control as such, which is what the auto manufacturers call it.
Q:
The rule book, when will that be released? There's been a lot of talk about these new rules, but will there actually be a release of the rule book in the near future?

LD:
That will be on the web here shortly. It's sitting down there essentially. We have got one issue that we want to resolve here but, at this stage, it's ready to go. So the teams will have it for sure in their hands before Monterrey, and it will be available to you guys as well, on the CART website.
Q:
As far as the 2003 package goes, have you done any simulation with regard to performance, and do you expect there to be a similar performance that we see today in terms of overall lap times, or do you expect a certain percentage drop off in times?

LD:
I would think that our current performance on short ovals will be quite similar. The road course, to be honest with you, I have
not done a lot of simulations to see what that looks like, but I think it's going to be pretty close.
Q:
The tub is going to be the same as the IRL and the engine is very, very similar. What do you think the cost is going to be if a team wants to convert the car over to the same IRL car as Indy; is there an estimate of what that might cost a team to do that? Or would a team just buy a whole new car?

LD:
Our owners specifically asked that we mandate the CART tub so essentially they could change that over, and that's the premise that we are going on. Whether we achieve that or not, that's hard to say because there's so many factors there. But it will be a common tub that a Lola or Reynard will build.

As far as the cost of the conversion, essentially, it comes down to, you know, the cost of the car minus the tub cost, because you are changing the aerodynamics, you are changing the gear box, the wheel housing, the suspension.

Racing these days is so specialised that, essentially, you run something different than you run for a road course.
Q:
So it's not really going to be too easy cost-wise for a team to bop back and forth between two different series if they wanted to?

LD:
Well, it's easier than it is now.

Moderator:
That's it for today. Thanks again for joining us today, gentlemen, and thanks to all who participated in today's call.