Vitor Meira’s Indy Test Results? All Positive!


INDIANAPOLIS Sept. 30, 2009 – Snug in his No. 14 ABC Supply Indy car, Vitor Meira took to the Indianapolis Motor Speedway for the first time since his horrific-looking crash in the Indianapolis 500 in May.


“It feels really good to be back,” said Meira who sustained two broken vertebra when he crashed with Raphael Matos entering turn one on lap 174. “I can’t deny that I was a little bit apprehensive coming in here today. It wasn’t a normal test day for me but now it’s all good.


“Everything that I’m supposed to feel, I’m feeling so I’m happy about that. That’s what I was most concerned about because you don’t really know what you have mentally since you can’t simulate the conditions out there. You can train as much as you want but you can’t simulate the car running so I was a bit apprehensive on that but now all the questions are answered.”


Meira ran a total of 65 laps with a top speed of 222.2mph but his team owner A.J. Foyt was not concerned about speed.


“We came here to run laps not set track records,” said Foyt. “It’s important to get back in the car as soon as possible. That’s what I used to try to do to make sure you even really want to do this even though you are telling yourself you do. A lot of times, it’s like a racehorse, once they get operated on they never seem to come back to their former status. With Vitor, I’ve seen he’s right back to where he was before the wreck so we’re real happy and he’s real happy. So that was the biggest thing was to get him back in the saddle.”


The ABC Supply team will not run two cars in the final race of the season as they prefer to use those resources toward preparing for next year when Meira will again drive the No. 14 ABC Supply car for Foyt.


“We were going to run him but I felt this was more important than running him in the final race of the year,” said Foyt. “I knew I couldn’t put two crews together to give him a fair shake and I didn’t want to cheat our other driver Ryan Hunter-Reay cause I made a deal with him that we’d run him through the season. We’re going to do as much testing as we can with Vitor in the off season to prepare for 2010.


“This season has been one of our toughest and you’re going to have seasons like that, you have to take the good with the bad, but we’re anxious to get started on next year and make it one of our best.”


Hunter-Reay, who gave the team its best finish of the season with his fourth place run at Mid-Ohio Sports Car Course, will drive the ABC Supply Dallara/Honda car in the season finale at Homestead-Miami Speedway Saturday, Oct. 10th. The race will be televised on Versus starting at 4pm ET.