Hildebrand Escapes With Extended Points Lead From Hectic Weekend in Iowa

06.22.2009

J.R. Hildebrand, of Sausalito, California, was able to make the best of a tough race in Newton, Iowa this weekend around the tough seven-eighths mile high-banked Iowa Speedway. Hildebrand started from the pole position in the ARPRO #26 car after a strong effort in qualifying, but fought the handling of his car early on, only to be penalized and moved to the back of the grid. He was able to drive through much of the field to salvage a sixth place finish and remarkably extend his overall points lead in the Firestone Indy Lights Championship.

The Indy Lights teams and drivers were faced with the daunting task of getting practice, qualifying, and the race finished on Saturday alone after rain washed out Friday nights practice session. Hildebrand and his Andretti Green/AFS Racing crew seemed unphased, however, topping the charts right away in the rescheduled early-morning practice. They went on to struggle with a very loose car when trying to prepare for qualifying in the second practice, leaving them with a number of questions heading into qualifying.

The car was very strong in the first session, and then it got a way from us a little bit in the second practice, Hildebrand related. It was a precarious position to be sitting in heading into qualifying. I had only been able to go flat-out for a handful of laps and none of them were in the second session. So we rolled the dice, changed a few things, and just went for it.

Hildebrand qualified third to last, and with two very aggressive laps he was able to nip provisional pole-sitter Wade Cunningham by a mere .0099 seconds over the combined two laps. His teammate Sebastian Saavedra was still yet to go, however. Hildebrands heart sank when Saavedra finished his first lap as it was quick enough for pole, but his second lap was only good enough for third on the grid, bumping Hildebrand and his crew to their first pole position on an oval this year.

I knew I had gotten everything out of it, but I wasnt sure it would be enough, commented Hildebrand. The car had a lot of understeer but I was able to drive around it and I was ecstatic that we got the pole. Typically this has been a track where track position is critical, so I figured we were looking pretty good.

Hildebrand and his team made only a few adjustments for the race on Saturday evening. After initially being delayed, the race eventually got under way, and Hildebrand was unable to hold the inside line as tight as he needed to without causing an accident with outside-pole sitter Wade Cunningham, falling back to second. He quickly began to fight understeer off the corners and while keeping his relative pace with the leader, he was caught by the following cars and was penalized without warning for blocking with a mandatory green-flag drive-through. Hildebrand got lucky that a caution came out just as he entered the pits, allowing him to stay on the lead lap, albeit at the tail of the field. He was able to stay out of trouble and fight his way back up to sixth by the end of the race.

It was a really frustrating and hectic race, Hildebrand relayed. We probably should have known it would understeer like it did after qualifying, but I certainly didnt expect it to affect my speed quite as much as it did. I thought the penalty was pretty stiff especially since it was without warning, but we got lucky with the yellow coming out, and at that point I had to just try to get as many positions back as I could without getting too annoyed about the situation. So thats what we did and we ended up okay in the big picture.

Hildebrand and his team will now have a string of road and street courses ahead, their next race being at the famed Watkins Glen International Raceway in just two short weeks. Hildebrand would like to thank his Andretti Green/AFS Racing crew, along with ARPRO, Bald Spot Sports, Doug Mockett and Company and the Racemaker Press for their continued support.