Indy Pro Series: Carneros 100

Topics:  Carneros 100

Alex Lloyd
August 27, 2006

SONOMA, CALIFORNIA

THE MODERATOR: All right, guys, thank you very much.
We're now joined by race winner Alex Lloyd. His second career win. Earned his first win earlier this year in Indianapolis in June as part of the U.S. Grand Prix weekend.
Alex, you would, talk about your race out there today.
ALEX LLOYD: Just an unbelievable race. You know, really tough race. I knew from the first it was going to be difficult. Yesterday we gave it everything to pass Wade. Just couldn't do it. I thought from fifth it was going to be really hard. We had some close moments out there.
The first lap we nearly took the lead into turn one. Got a great start. Then the wall started closing in on me. I stuck the car in front so I had to back up then and drop down to sixth. I managed to get fifth at the first corner, you know, around turn two.
Then, it was just a matter of taking every opportunity. You don't get many on this circuit. I knew the first lap, people would be cautious because it was so slippy out there compared to yesterday. I just had to take every chance I got.
I made some tough moves at the beginning, ones that were a little bit risky, but that's what you've got to do if you're going to overtake here. Took my moves when we got it, got great restarts, which was a great help to get into the lead. I nearly got it on the restart before trying the inside line.
And, again, the wall and the car sort of closed in on me so I had to back off. The next time I knew that I could get a run on the outside. I sort of measured up how his starts were. Got a great run on the outside. Got the run around turn one and into turn two. You know, just a great first 10 laps.
After that, it looks easy after that, but that's the toughest part. Because, you know, then you've got to control yourself, control your emotions, look after the car, pray for no yellow flags that could -- back markers, I think one of them spun off the chicane, started driving towards me, which gave me a bit of a shock about four laps to go. I bounced over the curb and got through that. Just hope that nothing goes wrong and that you keep you concentration because, your mind has a tendency to wander when you've got 10 laps to go and you've just got to keep focused, keep working.
Luckily I had the best car out there. Everybody did such a good job. We put together such a great car. I had that bit of comfort in my pocket that I knew I could go quicker if I needed to. I luckily didn't have to. That meant that I could just keeping pushing to a certain degree at about 80%, not risk the car, not risk coming off, and not make my life a lot easier. A big thanks to the team for that.

Q. Alex, talk about these doubleheader weekends and staying focused for the weekend. Are you a fan of the two races on one weekend?
ALEX LLOYD: Yeah, I am a fan. I mean, they're tough. They are tough mentally more than anything, you know, because you're so used to racing -- having a race and that's it. You have the emotions after one race that you've got to then control yourself because you've got another one the next day.
So it's tough. They're hard weekends. They're hard for everybody, especially when you have the inverted grid, you know, like it was today. I mean, that can sometimes work in your favor. It sometimes doesn't. You could get caught up in an accident. We might not have been able to overtake, things like that.
As it happened for us, you know, we just made the best of the situations that we were given today and did the best job. I think it would have been easy to go away yesterday thinking we had a great race in second. Because we had a doubleheader, we were able to come away with a second and a first.
Especially starting from where we did today in fifth, that made this race very special for us all, I think.
THE MODERATOR: Alex, congratulations.
ALEX LLOYD: Thank you.