Honda Grand Prix at St. Petersburg
By A.J. Foyt


The 2009 IndyCar Series kicked off with the Honda Grand Prix at St. Petersburg this past weekend, and our off season was officially over. The time really flew by for me.


We’ve made some important changes on our ABC Supply Racing team, the most obvious one hiring Vitor Meira to drive the ABC Supply No. 14. That kid has always impressed me with his hard-charging style, he really knows how to hustle. We also hired a new chief engineer, Adam Schaechter, who comes from a road racing background. We did more testing over the winter and Adam brought some things to the team that I really like so I felt like we were in good shape going into St. Pete.


Rolling off the truck, we were in pretty good shape. We were in the top-10 in practice, even though we had a problem with gaining traction off turn 14 which leads onto the longest straight. Unfortunately, we didn’t get to the bottom of that problem until after qualifying 17th. That was when something Vitor said lit the light bulb and Adam and I realized what was going on with the Number 14. That night we made some changes and they were the right ones because Vitor was very happy with the ABC Supply car in the final practice on race morning.


We also had a brake issue develop and it probably led to Vitor spinning into the tire barrier in the final practice—luckily he only tore the end fence on the rear wing. It had to do with the rear wheels locking up under braking. The problem was that it only happened in the first three or four laps of a run so by the time the brakes got heated up (from use) the problem disappeared. Vitor was able to adjust the brake balance between the front and rear brakes which helped, but the adjustment wasn’t enough for the rear brake problem in the beginning of his run. So to keep from spinning out, he had to tiptoe it into the corner.


The problem showed up mostly going into turn one because it was the turn after the longest straight—that’s where he was carrying the most speed into the turn. And since we got the traction problem fixed, the brake problem became worse.


It also explained how he lost those positions on a couple of the restarts. Mostly he was able to keep everyone back until he could run hard but with guys like Scott Dixon, the defending IndyCar champion, and our former driver Darren Manning, who are very good on the street courses, it’s hard. They see you hurting and they go in for the kill. I’m pretty sure Darren loved passing us right there at the end for eighth spot. I can’t blame him, and he did drive a good race for the Dreyer-Reinbold team.


I thought Vitor also drove a good race especially because of the problem he was fighting. On the last lap he had the No. 14 in a four-wheel drift coming off the last turn trying to sneak back by Darren! I like that about Vitor--he never gives up. The good news is that the car handled the way Vitor wanted for most of the race.


He did have a little accident on lap 31 with Alex Tagliani. Vitor tried to pass Tagliani who cut across in front, leaving Vitor nowhere to go. Vitor had lost half of his front wing and a lot of track position. We were lucky that a yellow came out when Danica Patrick and Raphael Matos crashed right after that. When Vitor came in, the ABC Supply team was on it, changing tires, fueling and then replacing the nose and front wings in under 18 seconds.


They were cool under pressure, which is from that daily pit stop practice my son Larry insisted on doing over the winter. He also signed them all up for a local gym membership so they could work out after they finished at the shop. I was fine with that as long as he didn’t expect to see me there! I know I need to do something to lose some weight but it won’t be working out a gym, I can assure you of that.


After that pit stop, Vitor came out at the end of the pack. When that happens, it’s hard to make up track position there because there aren’t many places to pass. If you get lucky with the yellows you can gain some spots through strategy but you can’t count on that. I think our luck was that we got out of there in one piece; a lot of people didn’t. Vitor ran fast laps—he had the seventh fastest lap of the race--and he finished ninth, for our team’s best finish yet at that track.


We didn’t go there to finish ninth but I told Vitor afterwards that he really did a good job, the crew gave him good stops and as a team, we’ll get better as the season goes on.


After the Easter holiday this weekend, our ABC Supply transporter heads out to California for the Long Beach Grand Prix. Vitor has never raced there but he says after one practice session, he’ll know the track. Me? I haven’t been there since 1995. It’ll be interesting to see how it has changed in the last 14 years.


The race will be televised live on the VERSUS channel starting at 3:30 pm ET. I hope you tune in!