Race Report: Iowa Corn Indy 250


NEWTON, Iowa June 20, 2010—All’s well that ends well. Vitor Meira and the ABC Supply team turned their ‘unlucky’ 13th place starting position into a ‘lucky’ seventh place finish in the Iowa Corn Indy 250 Sunday afternoon at Iowa Speedway.


Collecting his fourth top-10 of the season, Meira worked for every spot. At the start he was pinned down low and lost a couple spots, although he was fortunate to miss the first lap crash that claimed Justin Wilson and Mario Moraes. As the race progressed, so did Meira who moved into 12th by lap 46. He had just passed Ryan Briscoe for 11th when the caution came out for debris on lap 52.


He came out in 12th because Graham Rahal did not pit, trying to gain track position. While Meira beat Dan Wheldon out of the pits, Briscoe beat Meira out because of his favored pit position near pit out.


By lap 64, Meira passed Briscoe again and moved past his Penske teammate and pole winner Will Power for 10th on lap 87. By lap 90, he was ninth. Meira was closing in on Marco Andretti for eighth when the yellow came out for Sarah Fisher’s crash in turn four on lap 95.

Pitting on lap 98, he lost out to the Penske teammates once again due to their pit location (which are determined by entrant’s points); Meira emerged in 11th. However by lap 122 he passed Briscoe again for 10th and moved into ninth past Wheldon on lap 145. Then the car developed a big push as the left front tire wore down to the cords during the stint which was the longest one of the race.


“Too much push!” Meira radioed in when Briscoe passed him back on lap 160. Meira lost quite a bit of track position as he dealt with the change in handling.


Foyt told him, “Do what you can, we’re going to pit in 15 laps.” As it turned out, it was a common complaint as many competitors had handling problems at different points of the race.


Takuma Sato’s crash on lap 177 brought out the yellow before Meira’s scheduled stop. He was the last car on the lead lap. Sato’s misfortune moved Meira into ninth. He pitted under caution on lap 180 and he moved into eighth when Ryan Hunter-Reay was penalized for a pit infraction. On lap 200, Meira moved into seventh when Dario Franchitti , who had just taken the lead, suffered a gearbox problem, forcing him to the pits.


Meira was closing in fast on sixth place Scott Dixon when the checkered flag flew after 250 laps. Tony Kanaan won his first race in two years, outpacing runner-up Helio Castroneves and E.J. Viso who claimed his best finish to date in the IZOD IndyCar Series. Teammates Briscoe and Power rounded out the top five.


“It was a good result,” Meira said afterwards. “What matters most is that we’re improving and being consistent everywhere we go. We’ve had top 10s and the next stage is top 5s. It’s hard in this series but the ABC Supply team is moving forward and that’s important.”


Meira moved from 13th to 12th in the IZOD IndyCar Series standings.


The finish was a satisfying end to the weekend which had a rocky start due to a crash in the second practice on Saturday. Meira had been on a qualifying simulation run when he closed in on Hunter-Reay whose car pushed to the outer groove and forced Meira into the grey causing him to hit the wall in turn two. The crew replaced the right side suspension and sent Meira out to qualify.


He qualified 13th and felt he could have been even more aggressive if he knew the car was going to be as solid as it was. “I wasn’t worried about where we started because I knew we had a good car for the race,” Meira said afterwards.


The team has next weekend off before they leave for a test at Mid-Ohio Sports Car Course June 30th on their way to Watkins Glen International road course. The Camping World Grand Prix at the Glen will be televised by ABC starting at 3:30pm ET.
 

Meira Bounces Back from Crash to Qualify 13th in Iowa


NEWTON, Iowa June 19--Vitor Meira came back from a crash in practice this afternoon to qualify the No. 14 ABC Supply Dallara/Honda in the 13th position for the Iowa Corn Indy 250 at Iowa Speedway.


Meira had just clicked off fifth quick time in practice when the car he was approaching got loose and moved up on the track forcing Meira into the marbles. His car brushed the turn two wall hard enough to require replacing the right side suspension with just five minutes left in practice.


The ABC Supply crew immediately got to work as qualifying was scheduled to start in just over two hours. Fortunately Meira was the next to last to qualify so the crew was able to get the car repaired in plenty of time.


“Taking everything into consideration with the way we practiced, we could have qualified better but with everything that happened, it was an okay qualifying effort—a much better effort from the team than myself,” Meira said afterwards.


“The mistake in the last session didn’t help us. The car is very good underneath me, I was on the bottom and everything was fine. We definitely could have trimmed it out much more but I’m not too worried about that because I know in the race, the car is good. That’s the car we had all practice long and qualifying so we will most likely race with it. I’m very encouraged for the race because you can pass here if you have a good car and that’s what we have.”


A.J. Foyt admitted that they were conservative in the qualifying setup since Meira wouldn’t have any practice before his run.


“He ran pretty good in practice with this setup,” said Foyt. “Jeff [Britton, chief engineer] and I talked about it and decided he’d be better off with a little more downforce. We didn’t want to trim it out without Vitor having had a chance to try it in practice. I think he did a helluva job. I told him our garage is number 13 this weekend but he assured me we wouldn’t finish 13th in the race. ”

Vitor Meira: ABC Supply No. 14 Dallara/Honda/Firestone



· Favorite memory involving his father Haroldo: “Most of my memories around my dad involve racing. When I was little I wanted an electric mini-car and my dad gave me a choice between that and a go-kart. I knew nothing about go-karts so he took me to a track to see them. He said I could run the mini-car at home anytime I wanted but the go-kart I could only run at the race track. I chose the go-kart. It was faster and louder and I could race against other kids. It looked like a lot more fun. Looking back now, I think it was really perceptive on his part.”



· Vitor Meira on how his dad influenced his racing career: “My dad was very hard on me when I made mistakes and he would keep drilling it into me until one of us would get too upset. I don’t think he had to be that hard on me but then again I am competing in the IndyCar Series so maybe he was right to do so. He made me realize that I have to take all aspects very seriously--not just the racing because that was the part he knew the least about--but also the sponsorship stuff and relationships within the team because all of that affects your racing.”



· Meira on the key to Iowa: “First, have nothing go wrong! Seriously, I think the most important turns are 1 and 2 so if you have your car working well in 1 and 2, you’ll be good in 3 and 4 and you’ll do well. It is a two groove track—at least in 3 and 4—I’m not so sure about 1 and 2. I always preferred the outside in 3 and 4 but that depends quite a lot on car set-up.”



· Meira on the differences between turns 1 and 2 vs. 3 and 4: “In 1 and 2 there is a pretty big bump because of the tunnel which upsets the car quite a lot there, so getting through that is critical. Not only that, the corner feels tighter because you’re approaching it from the dogleg on the front stretch, the front stretch isn’t really straight, it’s more of a big wide curve which technically makes the track a tri-oval but we still refer to it as having four corners. Those are the biggest differences between turns 1 - 2 and turns 3 - 4.”



· ABC Supply roofing customer Rick's Roofing & Siding Inc. of Ham Lake, Minn. won the ‘Your Name Here’ contest for the Iowa Corn Indy 250. The company name will be atop the sidepods of the No. 14 ABC Supply Dallara/Honda. Rick Longnecker will receive selected merchandise, race tickets, hospitality and garage passes, plus a Meet and Greet with Vitor Meira. The “Your Name Here” promotion selected winners by random drawing from a pool of entries sent in by ABC Supply customers earlier this year.



· Iowa performance: Substitute Ryan Hunter-Reay was collected when rookie Robert Doornbos spun in turn 4 on lap three. In 2008, Meira started 12th and finished 15th -- had problems getting into his pitbox due to mechanical issues with his steering. Gridded by points, Darren Manning started 19th and dropped out after 94 laps due to the steering being too heavy. In 2007, Meira started 13th and was credited with ninth but he crashed out on lap 217 when his suspension failed. Manning started 15th and finished fifth.



· The Iowa Corn Indy 250 will be shown live at 1:30 p.m. ET on Father’s Day, June 20 on Versus