IndyCar Series: Argent Mortgage Indy Grand Prix |
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Topics: Argent Mortgage Indy Grand Prix
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Buddy Rice
August 28, 2005
SONOMA, CALIFORNIA
BUDDY RICE: -- stay right there, wouldn't close the gap any more. That last little bit, like everybody, we were chasing the fuel a little bit. That was also part of the deal. But, I mean, everybody was just marking off each other. I was surprised how fast the pace was. I thought it would be actually a little bit slower. That's just the way it was.
Q. There's a lot of talk about how physical this race was going to be, especially in the heat. Can you talk about that?
BUDDY RICE: It was a lot cooler today than it was the last couple of days. I think that was a little bit of a help. Like I said, everybody was pacing themselves early on, waiting to see who was going to do what. You could see couple guys gapping or slowing down, or hold their pace at lease, because everyone was going to try to take a little something in the tank for themselves for, you know, the last 15, 20 laps. The speeds were all fairly even.
Q. Were you happy to see the road courses this year and would you like to see more?
BUDDY RICE: Well, I mean, really, everybody keeps bringing up this issue of getting back to road courses, certain people having road course experience. Five years ago it might have been an issue, four years ago maybe. But not any more. Everybody that's here, other than one or two guys, have extensive road course backgrounds. I say at least three-quarters of us have go-karting backgrounds from back when we were little. Everyone is exciting to go back to road course racing and do that. I think it's like what Alex said, it breaks up the monotony a little bit. It's different. Everybody has road racing background. I don't think that's an issue at all. It would be nice to see one or two more road courses in there, for sure.