Up and Down Weekend at San Jose ends on a Down

07.30.2007

Good luck has been hard to come by for J.R. Hildebrand this season, and the past weekend at San Jose did nothing to change that. The team arrived in San Jose with high hopes, as J.R. has seemed to be on the verge of another breakthrough at each of the races since his first podium at Cleveland.

Things started poorly for the team in the first practice, as although he was only 8 tenths of a second off the pace, he languished at the back of fhe timing chart in unusually cool conditions. "We expected it to be warmer, and the change we made at the end of the session didn't seem to address the problems I was having" said J.R.

Heading out to the first qualifying session, the team felt confident that they had addressed the issues, and Hildebrand closely followed the Sierra Sierra cars around the first few laps - perhaps too closely given the still slick track conditions. On the third lap J.R was headed through the somewhat treacherous turn 2, and seemed to lose the front aero grip, causing the NWR #36 to make significant contact with the exit wall. "I kept waiting for the front end to grip, and then to maybe just glance the wall, but I hit a lot harder than I was hoping to. I made it around to the pits, but we really couldn't fix it there with the precision we needed. Given that, we decided to wait to improve in qualifying session 2."

J.R., engineer Don Halliday and the team worked together to prepare the car for Saturday morning's practice, and J.R. and the car responded by clicking off the sessions 11th best time, a little over 4 tenths off the leader. "At that point I knew there was more to gain." J.R. noted.

In the second qualifying, J.R. ran as high as fourth, and ended up a promising seventh when the session ended early due to a red flag. J.R. and the team felt pretty good, as they had dug out of a big hole after missing the first qualifying. "I know we could have been a little better if we hadn't missed the first qualifying, but all-in-all it was a good result today."

Conditions were warm and sunny for the start of the race on Sunday. J.R. got a good start, but was boxed in and got pinned behind one of the Conquest cars heading into the turn one hairpin. As cars went by on the outside, J.R. ended up having to make a pass on the opening lap just to hold eighth position. Moving up another spot in the opening laps of the race, J.R found himself running in seventh when the first caution flag flew for Ryan Lewis' collision with the turn 2 wall.

At the restart on lap 12, J.R got a good run down the front straightaway, but ahead of him the two Red Bull cars made contact, causing a traffic jam in the very tight turn one. As J.R. looked for room to get through, his right rear tire made slight contact with the front wing of Carl Skerlong. While he didn't know it at the time, this would subsequently cause his demise.

As he circled the course, J.R. noticed that the car was turning poorly, but kept on track thinking it might be a bent toe link in the rear end. As it got worse, he figured he needed to get to the pits, but as he tried to get over to the pit entrance after turn 6, cars going around him blocked his entrance, and the tire fully deflated as he tried to nurse the car back around.

While he did a great job avoiding further damage to the car, the time spent working his way back to the pits, along with the tire change, put him a lap down and just a few seconds ahead of the leaders when he came out of the pits. As the race neared completion, all of the lapped cars ahead of the leaders were ordered to drive through the pits and come out at the back of the pack, causing J.R. to fall two laps down to the leaders, where he finished in fifteenth place.

"I think this will all make me a better person and a better driver," the 19-year-old Hildebrand said. "But right now, at this moment, these problems are just frustrating. It's bad enough when it's your own fault, but when it's something out of your control, that's really hard to deal with."

Sunday was a chance for Hildebrand to shine in front of his sponsors, his friends and his family, but his recent trend of bad luck spoiled that. He was also hit from behind and knocked out of contention in the first race of a doubleheader in Edmonton on July 21, before finishing fifth in the second race.

"At least we didn't lose any points or any places in the standings," said an optimistic Hildebrand, still eighth in the standings. "We have one race left at Road America (Elkhart Lake, Wis.) and we've run well there. I think we can stick it on the podium."