Hildebrand Fastest of the Champions in IPS Test

10.28.2006

J.R. Hildebrand once again showed that his dominance of the Cooper Tires Formula Ford 2000 Championship was no fluke by proving to be the fastest of the three champions in the highly publicized Indy Pro Series test this week at Homestead Miami Speedway with Sam Schmidt Motorsports. Along with Star Mazda Series Champion Adrian Carrio and Formula BMW USA four time race winner Reed Stevens, Hildebrand drove an IPS car for the first time, gaining valuable knowledge and experience in the 450 horsepower machine on Homestead's infield roadcouse.

Carrio and Stevens were first up, driving identical Indy Pro Series Dallaras in the morning session, while J.R. was forced to wait his turn until after the lunch break. Hildebrand got his first taste of the car in the afternoon, posting very quick times right away.

When asked about his first thoughts, he said, "The power is the first thing that comes to mind. Along with the differential, it combines to make it a fair bit different than what I'm used to, but its a blast when it all comes together." He then went on to add, "Its quite good in the high speed corners, which I guess I wouldn't have expected straight away. I think that I'm settling into it just fine!"

After a break in the action because of a quick mechanical fix on the car, Hildebrand went out on slightly better rubber and within laps set fastest time of the day, eventually bettering the other drivers' times by more than half a second on the 2.21 mile track on Thursday. The team then invited him to return on Friday to make up for the lost time from fixing the car, so he returned to get the rest of his miles in on Friday afternoon.

Hildebrand spoke in depth with the team's engineers, and decided on some changes that they all thought might be a bit better for the car and the track on Friday. With only about 20 laps worth of fuel, there was no time to waste, as J.R. immediately blitzed the time he had set the previous day, dipping under Alex Lloyd's fastest time from the two days combined, and on older tires no less! The team opted to not put on a new set for the last run as they were sufficiently impressed with how everything had gone up to that point, and decided that a new set of tires wasn't going to change anybody's mind.

"We were able to try a few things that I thought might make the car a bit better, and even without very good rubber, I was able to run some very consistent and solid lap times. I would like to thank the indy Pro Series and Sam Schmidt Motorporsports for giving me this opportunity, and hope that I can get back in the car at some point in the future."

J.R. will be taking a bit of a break from testing to focus on preparation for the upcoming season. More updates to follow as events progress.