Race Report Alabama

Good Weekend in Alabama Followed by First Test at Indy

By A.J. Foyt

Entering Indianapolis Motor Speedway is still a thrill for me even though I’ve been doing it for almost 60 years. It’s no secret that it’s my favorite track and the Indianapolis 500 is my favorite race. We tested there on Wednesday with our ABC Supply Dallara/Honda along with three other Hondas and five Chevrolets.

Since it was the first time on the track with this new car, we played it conservative. I mainly wanted to give our driver Mike Conway some seat time because he (and his teammates) had a tough time here last year. He got 65 laps in by the time the session ended which was the second highest total for the day.

None of the cars reached the speeds we ran last year but there’s still time to find more speed in these cars. And if they don’t go as fast as last year’s cars, I think these cars will put on a good race because it looks like they can draft better.

I’m looking forward to coming back in May.

The Honda Indy Grand Prix of Alabama turned out to be one of best weekends overall in a long time for my ABC Supply team. We’ve had weekends where we’ve qualified well but haven’t finished or times where we didn’t qualify good but we came home with a good finish. This past weekend we qualified and finished well at a track where we couldn’t do either in the past.

And my driver Mike Conway wasn’t particularly happy where we finished, even though seventh place was his best finish there too. I like the fact that he wasn’t satisfied with the result even if I was.

FOURTH!

BIRMINGHAM Mar. 31, 2012—First impressions! Mike Conway signaled in winter testing he would be a force to be reckoned with and today he made good on that promise by qualifying fourth in the No. 14 ABC Supply Dallara/Honda at Barber Motorsports Park. He rounded the 2.3-mile road course in 1:10.87 for a speed of 116.819mph.

It was the first time that the No. 14 was in the Firestone Fast Six since 2007 when Darren Manning qualified fifth at St. Petersburg.

Helio Castroneves (Chevrolet) won the pole with a speed of 117.485mph. He was trailed by James Hinchcliffe (Chevy), Scott Dixon (Honda), Conway (Honda), J.R. Hildebrand (Chevrolet) and Tony Kanaan (Chevrolet).

“Obviously happy to be in the Fast Six,” Conway said. “The ABC Supply team did a good job making some changes overnight because I was happy with the car. Being up front makes life a little bit easier in the race because it’s quite hard to pass here so qualifying is key. We’ll make some changes overnight, not too much, just tickle it a little bit and hopefully improve it for the race.”

Notes & Quotes: Honda Indy Grand Prix of Alabama

Mike Conway on Barber Motorsports Park: “Barber is pretty different compared to most tracks we go to: it’s very smooth and has some faster corners. It requires a little bit of a different setup but the test we had there at the beginning of the year went okay so we’ve just got to keep improving from what we found with this new car. Racing wise, it does get a bit static sometimes, you have to rely a lot on the restarts to make things happen because it’s not easy to pass there.”

Conway on the race: “I don’t think you’ll see much side-by-side racing happening at Barber, it’s pretty tight, and quite hard to pass so it may be a bit of a processional race to be honest. It’s going to make qualifying more important, you’ve got to be up at the front and see how the race plays out.”

A.J. Foyt on 2013 Houston Grand Prix: “I’m glad to see the race come back to my hometown—I can save on hotel bills! I’m really glad to see they’re talking about making changes to the race track because I don’t think the other layout was good for the spectators or the racers—there was no place to pass. So I hope the changes they make do give the drivers some places to pass. It should be a great event for Houston.”

Past performance in Alabama: Mike Conway’s best start is second and his best finish is 9th (same race-2010) The ABC Supply team’s best start is 19th and their best finish is 12th (Vitor Meira, 2011).

Race Report: Honda Indy Grand Prix of Alabama

Mike Conway’s Sunday drive proved to be tougher than expected at Barber Motorsports Park but he delivered the best race result there to date for the ABC Supply team with a seventh place finish in the Honda Indy Grand Prix of Alabama.

The strong performance vaulted him from 20th to ninth in the IZOD IndyCar Series point standings.

Conway qualified fourth for the race but a sticky throttle on the pace laps created a tense situation as the team tried to determine the source of the problem. With telemetry saying all was normal, Conway gambled and took the green rather than pit to check the car over. He never had the problem again with the electronic throttle but the team will investigate it thoroughly in their post-race teardown.

At the start, Conway filed in fourth behind Scott Dixon but the yellow came out for Alex Tagliani who stopped on track. When the race resumed three laps later, James Hinchcliffe and Scott Dixon made contact causing Dixon to run wide which sent Conway off track. By the time Conway gathered it up, he crossed the line in seventh.

“I was outside of Scott and he clipped Hinchcliffe and went wide,” Conway explained. “I was on the outside and had to drift out on the grass. As I pulled back onto the track, I got so much stuff on my tires, I couldn't get through turn 2. There was so much understeer, I would've run into people. I lost a bunch of positions but got a couple back. We just had to hang in there all day. Tough day.”