J.R. Hildebrand Claims Impressive Double victory at Road Atlanta

05.15.2006

J.R. Hildebrand earned a pair of victories on Saturday, outpacing 27 other competitors when the 2006 Cooper Tires Formula Ford 2000 Championship kicked off in style at Road Atlanta.

Hildebrand, 18, who had been fastest during most of the preseason tests, started the first race in third, partially due to some miscommunication with the team in qualifying. He was clearly on a mission at the start of the race, moving up to second place immediately, and on the next lap deposed his teamate and polesitter Dane Cameron from the lead. He opened up a useful gap in the early stages, before clipping a curb heavily in Turn Three, allowing Cameron to close the gap.

"The plan the whole time was to get out front early, and I managed to get ahead of Dane (Cameron) at the start on cold tires," said Hildebrand, who took the lead at the start in his Formotion/ Spy Optics/ Mockett.com Cape Motorsports Van Diemen and led to the finish. "I pulled out a lead by using traffic to my advantage. Then I made a small mistake at turn 3 and Dane started to catch me."

The race finished under yellow due to a late race accident. "I'm confident I could have held off Dane if the race had stayed green," J.R. confided.

Rain began to fall just before the second 30-minute contest, but all of the front-runners elected to stay on slick, dry-weather Cooper Zeon tires. Hildebrand, who had taken the pole by virtue of posting the fastest lap in Race One, took off into the lead on a treacherous track and remained comfortably (as comfortably as is possible on slick tires on a changing track) out in front until the conclusion of the race.

"Once again, my goal was to attack the track early, and we managed to accomplish that. The conditions kept changing and I was able to try different lines and get a feel for the track because I had a good lead."

"Coming into a new series with a new team, I really wanted to start things off with a bang and I think I pretty much accomplished that," related Hildebrand, who finished second in last year's Pacific F2000 Championship.

J.R wanted to share his thanks to Formotion, Spy Optics, Mockett.com, and the Jim Russell Racing School.