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| June 27, 2012 |
| Indy Lights: Unfazed Belardi Team Soldiers On |
INDIANAPOLIS, IND. (June 26, 2012) - A rain-delayed night race is not what anyone hopes for, but Belardi Auto Racing seemed unfazed by the approximate five-hour delayed start on Saturday night at Iowa Speedway. The Firestone Indy Lights race was moved from before the IZOD IndyCar Series' Iowa Corn 250 to after, once thunderstorms invaded the Newton, Iowa, area just prior to driver intros for the Sukup 100.
Starting in P10, Venezuelan Jorge Goncalvez fell back to P13 during the start of the event. After gaining more confidence and becoming comfortable with the No. 4 machine, Goncalvez began to pick off the competition one by one. He first passed Chase Austin on lap 26, went three-wide with Juan Pablo Garcia and Bryan Clauson on lap 32 gaining a spot to P9 from Clauson, and then reeled in 2011 teammate Anders Krohn on lap 52 to move to eighth.
When leader Tristan Vautier was penalized a drive-thru penalty for blocking on lap 71, Goncalvez glided his way to P6, but was later passed by the Sam Schmidt Motorsports driver on lap 104. As the end of the race neared, the 24 Hours of Daytona podium finisher managed to make one more move on Andretti Autosport driver Carlos Munoz, and earned back his spot in P6.
"I really have to say thank you to the team," said Goncalvez. "We really improved since practice and qualifying. I only lost a couple positions on the start...I wanted to feel the car out because it was so different tonight than it was this morning. Right now I'm pretty happy because I finished the race! There have been too many races I haven't finished lately and I think tonight we did a really, really good job. I went down to P13 and finished P6, so I'm pretty happy. We will keep working hard [to prepare] for Toronto."
Goncalvez's teammate Mike Larrison was able to stay out of trouble and keep the car in one piece - something he and the team were very happy with as a series of unfortunate accidents have recently plagued the team since the Freedom 100 in Indianapolis. The Avon, Ind., native finished just outside of the top-10 in P11 marking the Sukup 100 as his second highest finish to date in his Firestone Indy Lights career.
"Tonight was really about finishing the race, not tearing anything up and building our confidence back up. The car didn't have a lot of straightaway speed, but we finished! We turned all the laps and got a lot of experience. Wouldn't be here without my team, so thanks so much to all of them."
The 115-lap race on the 0.875-mile speedway may be the only one in Indy Lights history that took two days to complete. A total of 14 cars took the command at 11:47 pm CT Saturday and saw the twin checkers fly around 12:30 am CT Sunday.
With the misfortune a part of their history, the Belardi Auto Racing crew hopes the positive change will follow them to the Canadian swing of their season. The first of three events in Canada, the Honda Indy Toronto will go green at 4 pm ET on Saturday, July 7 with the broadcast airing on Thursday, July 12 at 5 pm ET on NBCSports Network.
Belardi Auto Racing is a Cooper Tires Presents USF2000 Powered by Mazda and Firestone Indy Lights team based in Brownsburg, Ind. The 2011 season saw two race wins, 10 podiums, 17 top-five finishes and 36 top-10. Follow the team on Twitter, Facebook or their official website, http://www.BelardiAutoRacing.com |
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