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Juan Manuel Fangio II made his CART debut for the PacWest Team (top and bottom right at right) while subbing for the injured Danny Sullivan. The event was the Miller Genuine Draft 200 at the Mid-Ohio Sports Car Course held August 13, 1995. Ironically, Juan's first CART race was his best. In this performance he qualified the unfamiliar car 14th out of 25 cars and finished 7th! Impressive, regardless of the fact that Fangio knew the course well, having raced there in his GTP days. In AAR and Toyota's debut season of 1996, AAR designed and ran their own chassis, the Eagle Mk-V. A gigantic undertaking, but with no success. The Toyota power unit was down on everything that counted - reliability and power. Everybody knew 1996 was going to be the year they were backmarkers and the team hoped to just stay in races as testing and research studies. Often, though, the engines blew with great impact ending any hopes of just circling the track in search of knowledge. At Mid-Ohio in 1996 (middle photo), Fangio qualified 22nd, nearly 7mph slower than pole. He finished 20th out of 26. An onboard fire put him out after 56 of 83 laps. 1997 promised to be a better year for AAR and Toyota. Sponsors and Toyota insisted that Gurney drop the quest for inhouse chassis develpoment and Reynards, the chassis of choice for most other teams, were fitted to the unique Toyota engine. The AAR duo of Fangio and PJ Jones were now running alongside their Toyota counterparts at Arciero-Wells, Italian Max Papis and steady Hiro Matsushita. Though Toyota saw small gains in their engine, they were largely overshadowed by gains from Mercedes, Honda and Ford, and the innate behavior of Toyotas to blow, and blow big. CART warned Toyota to improve their engines or get off the track as throwing caution flags for blown Toyota engines was not what America's premier open-wheel series was about. At Mid-Ohio in 1997 (bottom left photo), Fangio qualified 25th, just 2.4sec. slower than pole, and finished 25th, out of 28. An engine failure put him out after just 13 of 83 laps. After acing two full seasons with Dan Gurney's All American Racers Toyota CART Team, Juan decided to retire. Though Fangio has retired from racing, Toyota made hugh changes leading up to the 1998 CART season. In fact, Toyota-powered cars were the only ones not to blow an engine in the first four races of the new season. Impressive! Robby Gordon drove a Toyota-equipped car to 7th position, Toyota's highest finished yet, just a handful of races into the new season. Did Fangio retire a year too early? Here's hoping. |