Race Report: Meijer Indy 300 at Kentucky Speedway
SPARTA, KY Aug. 1, 2009—A pit road accident on
lap 48 sealed the fate of Ryan Hunter-Reay and the ABC
Supply team in the Meijer Indy 300 at Kentucky Speedway
Saturday night.
After losing Friday’s practice and qualifying due to
weeper holes oozing ground water onto the track, the
starting field was set according to entrant’s points,
putting the No. 14 car in the 17th position on the grid.
The teams did get an hour and 15 minutes of practice
Saturday afternoon. Hunter-Reay was happy with the car
except for a vibration in his right rear tire. Firestone
took steps to correct the problem for the race which
seemed to work.
In the race, Hunter-Reay moved up three positions by lap
four but then radioed in that he was getting an aero
push in traffic. Team owner A.J. Foyt told him to hang
on until they could make a wing adjustment.
Unfortunately that first pit stop turned into a near
disaster. Hunter-Reay had trouble getting it into first
gear on exit which cost him a precious second or two. At
the same time, rookie Mike Conway was exiting his pitbox
behind Hunter-Reay and as they raced out of their pit
boxes, Mario Moraes came roaring into his which was the
next pitbox ahead of Hunter-Reay. Moraes and Conway
crashed and came sliding into Moraes’ pitbox in front of
Hunter-Reay but he was able to stop before hitting
either of them.
His ABC Supply crew wheeled him back into his pitbox,
fired up his engine and he rejoined the race. Since the
accident happened under green, he lost two laps and
dropped to 18th. From then on, it was a matter of
driving a clean race and bringing the car home to the
finish which he did.
The crew continued to adjust the car with slight changes
and by the final fuel stint, he was able to keep pace
with the leaders. He passed the couple of cars that were
on his same lap and a couple more dropped out so Hunter-Reay
finished 14th.
“We got a good start but my ABC Supply car had an aero
push in traffic so we did a wing change on the first
stop,” said Hunter-Reay. “But when I came down and put
it in first [gear] and revved the motor, it wasn't in
gear so I popped it into gear again. But Moraes cleaned
out our pit and that did the damage to our whole race,
it put us two laps down. We fought back for the
positions we could gain but it's a shame we had a
problem on that first stop...horrible timing but that's
the kind of year we've had.”
Ryan Briscoe won the hard fought race but it was Ed
Carpenter who stole the show driving Tony George’s
Vision Racing No. 21 car. Carpenter started 14th and
moved into the top five by lap 30. He never left. He led
five times for a total of 34 laps and was narrowly edged
out at the line by .0162 of a second! It was Carpenter’s
best finish and tied his team’s best finish of second,
which Hunter-Reay had given them in St. Petersburg
earlier this year. Briscoe won that race too.
With just one caution flag, the average race speed was
200.893mph—the second fastest in history. Third through
fifth were Tony Kanaan, Helio Castroneves and Graham
Rahal.
IndyCar Qualifying at Kentucky Cancelled
SPARTA, KY July 31--Qualifying for the Meijer
Indy 300 has been cancelled. The field will be set
according to entrants' points. Ryan Hunter-Reay will
start 17th in the No. 14 ABC Supply Dallara/Honda.
Despite the sunny skies and warm temperatures at
Kentucky Speedway today, the heavy amount of rain from
the past week created 'weeper holes' on the track.
Officials have been working since this morning to fix
the weepers but were unable to do so in time for
qualifying. They still hope to be able to fix the track
in time to give the teams a practice session tonight.
Weepers are areas in the track where the ground water
rises to the surface creating puddles which make it
unsafe for the Indy cars to run.
There was much anticipation to see how the changes being
tried out this weekend--both aerodynamic and engine
management--would work to improve the racing on the
track.
If the ars do not get on track tonight, then there will
be practice scheduled for tomorrow. The race coverage is
set to begin tomorrow night at 8PM on the VERSUS
channel.
NOTES & QUOTES: Meijer Indy 300 at Kentucky Speedway
• Ryan Hunter-Reay on Kentucky: “It’s somewhat
similar to the other 1.5 mile ovals but it does have
bumps in turns one and two that you have to get around.
I heard that they got worse over the winter and they had
to be ground down but it’s the same for everyone. We
need to work on a good ‘race’ car and hopefully move our
way up through the race. The competition is so tight and
the teams are doing such a good job that it’s really
tough to get into the top-10 so when we do get in the
top-10, it’s a job well done.”
• Hunter-Reay on new aerodynamic options to add 300
pounds of downforce and Honda ‘Overtake’ function to
enhance competition: “I don’t know about the
downforce because I think you’re going to get cars that
are fast and they’re going to run without the downforce
on the bottom of the race track and you’re not going be
able to get around them anyway so I don’t think that’ll
be enough. I think the push-to-pass will be a good
thing. I don’t know how much of a boost it is. In champ
car it worked well but I think it was a hit of 80
horsepower—that was a lot of horsepower.” Note:
officials estimate at Kentucky Speedway, the Overtake
Function will increase maximum revs to 10,500 for a five
percent increase in horsepower. The Overtake Function
parameters will be tailored to the individual tracks and
may allow as much as a 20 percent increase in horsepower
at some tracks.
• Vitor Meira and A.J. Foyt IV to be at Kentucky:
Meira, who traveled to his native Brazil while the team
was racing in Canada, plans to be in Kentucky this
weekend. This will be Meira’s second IndyCar race since
his accident in the 500 with his first coming at Watkins
Glen International in early July. Foyt IV and his new
bride Casey Irsay-Foyt returned from their week-long
honeymoon in Jackson Hole, WY last Sunday and plan to
drive down from their Indianapolis home to attend this
weekend’s race.
• ABC Supply roofing customer D&J Construction of
Columbus, IN won the ‘Your Name Here’ contest for the
Meijer Indy 300. The company name will be atop the
sidepods of the No. 14 ABC Supply Dallara/Honda. Daniel
Baker will receive selected merchandise, race tickets,
hospitality and garage passes, plus a Meet and Greet
with Ryan Hunter-Reay. The “Your Name Here” promotion
selected winners by random drawing from a pool of
entries sent in by ABC Supply customers earlier this
year.
• ABC Supply will entertain over 300 guests in
their hospitality tent this weekend.
• IZOD spokesman Ryan Hunter-Reay will be appearing
at the Macy’s department store in the shopping mall
in Florence, KY along with two-time Indy 500 winner Al
Unser, Jr. to meet fans and sign autographs from 4:45 –
7:00pm on Thursday, July 30.
• Past performance at Kentucky: Hunter-Reay
finished ninth last year after starting 14th. In his
first appearance at the track in 2008 he started eighth
but had electrical problems which kept him in the pits
for an extended period of time. He rejoined the race and
finished 15th, 17 laps down to the leader. The Foyt
team’s best finish came in 2001 when Donnie Beechler
finished fifth; more recently A.J. Foyt IV finished
ninth in 2005 after the team switched from the Toyota
engine to the Chevy. The team’s best start came in 2000
with Eliseo Salazar starting second.
• The Meijer Indy 300 will be shown live at 8:00 p.m.
EDT Saturday night, Aug. 1 on VERSUS.
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