Hildebrand Tests With Coyne at Sebring

02.15.2010

J.R. Hildebrand ran a full day test with Dale Coyne Racing at Sebring International Raceway today. As is often the case in the winter in Florida, things started late in the morning and ran into the late afternoon. The team was preparing for the early races on the IndyCar calendar, so their program focused on running the car at ride heights that will likely be called for on the expected surfaces at Sao Paulo Brazil in the season opener.

"I've been itching to get back in a car," said Hildebrand. "I've been talking to Dale (Coyne) the last couple of weeks and he had scheduled this test day, so he invited me to come out. We're still trying to sort things out because the season is coming very quickly, but we are both in that boat. We'll just see how things look in a couple of weeks. Those important decisions have to be made quickly, but from both of our standpoints (the) test day went well."

"Most of the guys here were trying to prepare for street course races. I know, for sure, we weren't tuning to go fast at Sebring. We we're tuning the car to prepare for the bumpy tracks that start the 2010 season. St. Pete is pretty bumpy, and Brazil looks pretty rough from that standpoint. We still had a very good day. We didn't think we would be real competitive from a time standpoint, because as I said, we were working on street course testing packages, but we ended up being right in the quickest windows in terms of time."

Now Hildebrand heads back to Indianapolis to keep busy working on his fitness and race programs.