2007 TEAM REVIEW: Pacific Coast Motorsports

One of the welcome additions for 2007 was the arrival to the Champ Car World Series family of Pacific Coast Motorsports who had competed in the Champ Car Atlantic, American LeMans Series and in the Rolex Grand American Road Racing Series in the last four years.

By Champ Car standards, it was a rookie team with two rookie drivers in Scotland’s Ryan Dalziel and Alex Figge of the United States.

The team had a most respectable first outing when the 2007 season opened in Las Vegas. Figge qualified 17th, but came home in eighth place. Dalziel qualified 15th and placed 11th.

Team Director Tyler Tadevic was encouraged by the team’s first Champ Car race.

“What a great finish, we are so pleased,” Tadevic said. “The crew did a great job. At the start of the race Alex had some rookie issues, he thought he had made some mistakes but he had some problems with his gearbox which made his race a challenge, but he persevered to finish eighth and be the most improved on the grid which is one heck of a run for his rookie race.

“Our strategy was perfect with Ryan and he was running very strong. Had we not had the problem with his gearbox we feel he could have finished in the top five. Ryan’s crew managed to fix the car and get him back out on track to pick up a few more places, they did a great job. If you had told me heading into our first Champ Car race that we would finish eighth and 11th, I would not have believed it. I am very, very pleased.”

Dalziel gave the team another top-10 finish at Long Beach, coming home ninth after starting 15th. Figge’s day ended against the Turn 9 wall late in the race and the impact left him with a back injury that would force him to miss the following race at Houston.

Roberto Moreno, the veteran driver from Brazil who had done most of the testing on the DP01 chassis, was deputized to replace Figge at Houston and he and Dalziel occupied the eighth row on the grid. The Scottish driver added another top-ten finish with an eighth while Moreno wound up 12th. As had been the case at Las Vegas, both cars were running at the finish.

Figge was back in the cockpit for Portland and once again both PCM cars were running at the finish. Dalziel was 14th after starting 17th and Figge placed 16th after starting 15th.
Mechanical problems would sideline Figge, who wound up 17th at Cleveland, but Dalziel recorded his third top-10 finish of the season by placing ninth.

At Mont-Tremblant, Figge would exit his second straight race with mechanical problems and finish 13th while Dalziel wound up 10th.
The opening lap pileup at Toronto eliminated Figge, but Dalziel would end up having his best drive of the season. Starting 11th, but managing to avoid the Lap 1 melee, the Scotsman was able to continue and slowly moved up in the standings. By Lap 41, he was in the lead. He stayed there for 16 glorious laps until eventual race winner Will Power passed him for the lead. Simultaneously, they were the first laps led by Dalziel and PCM.

Neel Jani passed Dalziel for second, who managed to keep third place after making light contact with the barrier on Lap 64. The podium chance would disappear seven laps later as Dalziel slid into the tire barrier under pressure from Justin Wilson. He wound up a disappointing seventh.

“What a day,” Dalziel said after the race. “The guys made a great call and did a great job in the pits. We struggled a bit on the re-starts since our pressures were low, but once we got going we were good. The visibility wasn’t too bad out there; it was actually one of the better wet races I’ve seen in terms of visibility. It felt great to lead at the time but it feels so disappointing now.”

Dalziel rebounded from the Toronto disappointment to qualify eighth at Edmonton, what would be his and the team’s best starting spot of the season. Unfortunately, he was unable to parlay that into a higher finish and wound up 12th, one spot ahead of Figge.

A broken collarbone suffered in a training accident forced Dalziel to miss San Jose and he was replaced by Mario Dominguez. Dominguez started 14th and finished 12th while Figge started 17th and finished 14th.

The European swing to Belgium and Holland failed to raise the team’s spirits. Figge finished 13th at Zolder after starting 15th and Dalziel was sidelined with mechanical problems and finished 17th after starting 13th. At Assen, Figge and Dalziel finished 14th and 15th, respectively.

Dominguez re-entered the scene for the final two races of the season, replacing Dalziel. Dominguez started and finished 12th at Surfers Paradise while Figge started 15th and wound up 13th. In the season finale at Mexico City, Dominguez started 15th but charged to eighth while Figge ended his initial Champ Car season with an 11th-place result.

All in all, there were some good results and good runs for a rookie team with rookie drivers which gives the operation something to build on for the future.

On Wednesday, December 26, we look back at Conquest Racing’s fifth season of Champ Car competition.

champcarworldseries.com

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