NWR and Hildebrand Finish Second at Cleveland

06.25.2007

J.R. Hildebrand, driving for Newman Wachs Racing in the Cooper Tires Presents the Champ Car Atlantic Series Powered by Mazda, scored a career best second place finish this weekend in the Grand Prix of Cleveland. After qualifying fourth, his podium finish marked the best overall performance for the team this season. Now just half-way through the season, J.R. and the NWR crew hope to carry that momentum through the rest of the busy Atlantic schedule.

J.R. was confident going into the weekend that he and the team would have success given his and team engineer Don Halliday's previous efforts at the circuit. Working on a number of different things during the first day, Hildebrand was able to put together a solid last lap in the first qualifier to end up fourth. On Saturday, they again worked away at improving the NWR #36 Mazda-Swift as he continued to come to grips with it's capabilities around the high-speed circuit at the Burke Lakefront Airport. He again qualified fourth, just shy of his best qualifying effort of third in Portland two weeks ago, but thought there was more to be had.

"I was definitely a little upset at myself at the end of the second qualifying session," he related. "I put in a good lap with several minutes to go, and just couldn't get enough space to put another together before the end. It was great to have ended up fourth, but at the same time I was frustrated that I didn't knock off a couple tenths."

For the race he lined up on the inside of the second row, as polesitter Raphael Matos chose the outside going into the first corner. Hildebrand got a great jump off the line, but with the track blocked off to the inside, he couldn't get by second place starter James Hinchcliffe and drove to the outside instead to get a clean shot out of the corner. Drafting Hinchcliffe down the straight to Turns 3 and 4, he made his move to the inside to pass Hinchcliffe into 3, and after making slight contact with third place starter Franck Perera, passed him too around the outside of Turn 5.

"I knew that if I got a good start and could manage to get by a couple guys right at the beginning, that I had the car to keep up with anyone up front," he said. "I thought I could keep the car under me right out of the gates, so I focused on being aggressive right away, and it worked. Unfortunately I was already a ways back f rom Matos at that point."

Hildebrand and Matos swapped fastest race laps for much of the first 20 minutes of the race, while both of them drove extremely hard to be faster than the other. Just before the half-way point, Adrien Herberts and Matt Lee made contact, bringing out the only caution of the day, and allowing the field to bunch back up. J.R. got a clean restart, but pushed a bit too hard on colder tires and lost some ground in the first few laps after going back to green. From there he chipped away at the lead that Matos had built as the two of them pulled away from the rest of the field. Making some big gains in the last few laps, Hildebrand crossed the line just .506 seconds shy of the leader, while being some 8.687 seconds ahead of third to get on the podium for the first time this year.

"I really can't thank the team enough. I've had some ups and downs, but they did an awesome job again this weekend and gave me a car that I co u ld do almost anything with. I'm so happy to finish well for Eddie Wachs especially, since he and Paul Newman have given me such a great opportunity," J.R. said after the race. "I might have had better tires than Matos at the end because I was trying to keep them in good shape at the beginning so it was too bad that I couldn't have kept a little closer after the restart, but all in all its been a great weekend for the team."

J.R. Hildebrand and Newman Wachs Racing will be at Le Circuit Mont Tremblant this upcoming weekend for the seventh race of the Cooper Tires Presents the Champ Car Atlantic Series Powered by Mazda, as they look to continue their success at Cleveland for the rest of the season.