Telecast of the race Saturday at midnight source: teamplayers.ca Surfers Paradise, Australia, October 23, 2002 The CART championship may have already been decided but Team Player's drivers Patrick Carpentier and Alex Tagliani both say they have plenty of motivation for the final three races of the season, including this weekend's Hondy Indy 300 on Australia's Gold Coast. Carpentier, currently fourth in the drivers' standings, can still grab second place and the accompanying $500,000 prize with a strong finish in the final three races. Tagliani, who is in seventh spot, could climb into the top 5 if he can end the 2002 campaign the way he did last year when he closed out with consecutive podium finishes. One of the podiums came on the streets of Surfers Paradise, where he finished third. "Motivation isn't going to be a problem for me," said Carpentier. "Whenever I get on a racetrack, my competitive instincts take over. I always want to win and I'm going to give it my best shot. It's always been that way for me and I hope it will always be like that because that's what makes racing so much fun. Besides, it's going to be easy to get into the racing mood in Australia with as many as 130,000 fans in the stands on race day." Carpentier is further encouraged by the fact no team or driver has dominated on the 2.795-mile, 70-lap temporary street course, as 11 different drivers have taken the checkered flag in the last 11 years. "I guess that goes to show that you need everything working in your favour if you're going to win here," said Carpentier, whose best finish in four years of racing at Surfers Paradise is the fifth place he produced two years ago.
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