CART v IRL 1999 PreSeason Testing in Phoenix
No your eyes don’t deceive you…that is the Arciero-Wells Reynard-Toyota (with Christiano DaMatta at the helm) sharing pit lane with the Bradley Motorsports Dallara-Oldsmobile of Buzz Calkins. They both descended on Phoenix International Raceway in February of 1999 to complete some pre-season short oval testing which was getting a complete aero overhaul in CART with speedway wings implemented in an effort to reduce speeds. Because of this the IRL machine actually lapped slightly faster than the CART Reynard with Buzz’s best lap being 21.2 seconds versus DaMatta’s 21.5 best. It should also be noted that Buzz Calkin’s engineer was Jeff Braun, father of Colin Braun who ran a couple races for Dale Coyne last year.
No your eyes don’t deceive you…that is the Arciero-Wells Reynard-Toyota (with Christiano DaMatta at the helm) sharing pit lane with the Bradley Motorsports Dallara-Oldsmobile of Buzz Calkins. They both descended on Phoenix International Raceway in February of 1999 to complete some pre-season short oval testing which was getting a complete aero overhaul in CART with speedway wings implemented in an effort to reduce speeds. Because of this the IRL machine actually lapped slightly faster than the CART Reynard with Buzz’s best lap being 21.2 seconds versus DaMatta’s 21.5 best. It should also be noted that Buzz Calkin’s engineer was Jeff Braun, father of Colin Braun who ran a couple races for Dale Coyne last year.