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Race Report: Firestone 550K
FT. WORTH June 5—Vitor Meira drove the ABC Supply car to a
hard fought 10th place finish in the Firestone 550K at Texas Motor
Speedway Saturday night to keep intact his record of top-10 finishes
at the 1.5-mile Speedway.
Meira started 19th and had moved into 14th by lap 34. He started
challenging for the top-10 around the lap 140 mark of the 228-lap
race. The car was very strong in the beginning of the stints, and he
would often pass two cars on the first lap of restarts. However,
about midway through the stint, the car would develop a push which
got worse as the run went on. The team kept correcting for it by
adding front wing on every pit stop.
Meira made some dramatic passes over the course of the race—at one
point passing three cars on one lap! Actually between turns three
and four!
“I got a run and I just decided to go for it because everyone was
checking up,” he said. “It got a little crazy and I was like, ‘Hey,
I’m coming through!” He moved into seventh on lap 152
but by lap 157, the car started pushing again. When he pitted about
30 laps later, the crew added another turn of wing.
Meira hovered around the top-10, dropping back to 12th at one point
but was able to bring home a tenth place finish for the ninth time
in 10 starts here. It was Meira’s third top-10 of the season for the
Foyt team. It was the best finish for the Foyt team at their home
track since 2004 when A.J. Foyt IV also finished 10th.
“Any day that you come home with a top 10 as competitive as it is
these days, it’s a good day,” he said afterwards. “We didn’t have a
great starting position and we fell back a couple times but the ABC
Supply car was good enough to drive back to the front. If you have a
car that you can keep flat in traffic that’s the way to get to the
front and A.J. and Jeff [Britton, chief engineer] gave me that
tonight.”
Four caution periods slowed the race. The most frightening accident
happened on lap 98. Simona de Silvestro escaped serious injury when
her car hit the wall and then skittered across the track on the
backstretch and caught fire. Safety crews were able to extricate her
from the car despite the blazing fire.
Ryan Briscoe won the race. Danica Patrick finished second followed
by Marco Andretti, Scott Dixon and Dario Franchitti.
The IndyCar Series returns to action June 19-20 for the Iowa Corn
Indy 250 at Iowa Speedway.
Meira To Start 19th in Texas
FT WORTH June 4 –Vitor Meira will start 19th in the Firestone
550k at Texas Motor Speedway tomorrow night. He qualified the ABC
Supply car at 212.805mph. In the final practice tonight he was 13th
quick.
“We were disappointed with our qualifying run, we certainly weren’t
expecting that," Meira said, adding, "but after final practice, I
feel the ABC Supply car is pretty good. We only had a half hour
which is pretty short to do what we wanted but we were able to do a
couple of experiments that worked. I think the race is going to be
tougher than everyone thinks. It will be much slicker than people
are anticipating. I hope that works to our advantage.”
The unusually high temperatures today-- in the mid-90s—are predicted
to be even higher for tomorrow with the forecast of temps in the low
triple digits. The race is set to start at 7:45pm Central time and
will be broadcast on Versus, starting at 7:00pm Central time.
NOTES & QUOTES: Firestone 550k
Vitor Meira: ABC Supply No. 14 Dallara/Honda/Firestone
· Meira on the key to Texas: “I think we need to have the
fastest car with as little downforce as possible for qualifying and
the race. It’s a fast track and you have multiple lines and it has a
lot of banking. Texas gets pretty tight with traffic and that’s the
reason you want to have a good comfortable race car. If Kansas was
tight, Texas is going to be even tighter. The race is at night, the
air gets cool and we have better downforce this year compared to
last year’s race which got a little strung out. So you need a
comfortable car in traffic but at the same time, you need a fast car
because really comfortable cars don’t get you to the front
normally.”
Meira on bouncing back from disappointment at Indy: We’ll
bounce back like any other bad result or bad day. You take what you
needed to learn, you learn and you hope to use that in the future.
And the future is the next race. We know we have a good car, the car
at Indy was very good, very comfortable; we had a very fast car in
Kansas and that is sort of the same track as Texas so we’re very
hopeful for Texas.”
On racing at night at Texas: “The lights are awesome in Texas
so it’s not a big difference from the day.”
· Meira won his first pole position at Texas Motor Speedway in
2002. Driving for Menard, Meira finished third in his first race
at the track. In nine starts there, he has posted eight top 10
finishes, four of which were top-fives. His best finish to date is
third, achieved in 2002 and 2003.
· ABC Supply employee Arnold Luna, who works in the Austin,
Texas branch, will be the honorary crew member for the race. Luna
will help the team as they prepare for the race and will participate
in the pit stops, operating the deadman valve on the fueling rig.
· ABC Supply roofing customer PSI Roofing of Houston won the
‘Your Name Here’ contest for the Firestone 550k. The company name
will be atop the sidepods of the No. 14 ABC Supply Dallara/Honda.
Bruce Feldman 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.
· The Firestone 550k will be shown live at 8:00 p.m. ET on Saturday,
June 5 on Versus.
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