Pye: Fans Making Austin Enjoyable

Lucas Dumbrell Motorsport’s Scott Pye saysthe fans are making the experience overseas even more enjoyable at the Austin400. 

After this morning’s autograph session, Pyewas surprised how many Australians approached him – though he has hadplenty of feedback from American fans who follow the series abroad.

“One thing that’s made the whole thing moreenjoyable is the fans as well, I think they’re embracing V8 Supercars reallywell and it’s cool for them to see more circuit racing – there’s a lot ofoval stuff over here but I think they’re quite interested in what we’ve got,”Pye said while getting ready for this morning’s Qualifying sessions (US time).

 “There’s surprisingly a lot more Australianscoming out – but all of the Texans who have been coming up have said theyobviously love the category and the sound of the cars has really impressedthem, so hopefully they enjoy the racing (today) as much as they’ve enjoyedeverything so far.”

While Pye has had a tumultuous season sofar in his debut year, he is comfortable in his ekol Racing Holden Commodoreand impressed by the Circuit of the Americas circuit.

“It's great (the circuit)," he said. 

 “It’s very technical and for me it’s nice tocome out somewhere where no one knows the circuit. It’s something I’ve had to doa lot – learning new circuits – obviously from my time in England I didn’t know alot of the places and I think it’s a cool challenge that I was looking forwardto. The track has lived up to my expectations.

“You watch the on board from the Formula One around here and the place did look amazing.”

Given the commentary on tyres yesterday,Pye said it was difficult to gauge where he was in the field until Qualifying.But he was happy to have been 11th overall in Practice yesterday,after running in the top 10 in two of the four sessions.

“The car’s great – the car was niceyesterday, we had a good platform to work with. We didn’t go changing too much,we just wanted to slowly improve throughout the day and we did that.

“Going into Qualifying you never know whereeveryone’s been at until this point – it’ll be interesting. I’m confidentwe’ve got a good package and if I can put a good lap together it will be ok.”

Qualifying isn’t far away, beginning at11.05am local US time.