For more information:
Linda Mansfield, Restart Communications
Cell: 317-201-0729
E-mail: LindaKMansfield@cs.com
Prendeville Finishes All 40 Laps
Saturday at St. Pete
For Racing Laps for Best Friends
ST. PETERSBURG, Fla., April 5 - Forty was the magic number for Andrew
Prendeville Saturday during the first of two Firestone Indy Lights races that are
part of the Honda Grand Prix of St. Petersburg. His first goal was to finish all
40 laps of Saturday's race with his Best Friends Animal Society No. 5. He did
just that, guaranteeing the most donations possible to Best Friends by the
fans that made donations through racinglapsforbestfriends.com; at Thursday's
PetStop at the Tampa Bay SPCA; or at the Racing Laps for Best Friends booth in the
parking garage next to Mchaffey Theater and adjacent to the 1.8-mile street
course.
Prendeville started eighth Saturday afternoon and advanced two positions on
lap one. He stayed in sixth place until Arie Luyendyk Jr. passed him with two
laps to go, and ended up seventh at the checkered in the 23-driver field.
Passing is hard on street courses, and there were only three yellows to
tighten up the field for restarts. The walls are also very close to the track
surface and it's easy to get in trouble, but Prendeville kept his car under
control throughout the race despite difficult conditions.
"It was a bit like driving on ice, and we're not really sure why,"
Prendeville said afterwards. "We had a good enough finish to move up in the points. We
need to improve for tomorrow, but we got valuable points while others may
have fallen back. We also finished all the laps, and we thank everyone who made
donations to Best Friends."
The top four finishers from Saturday's race were inverted for the starting
line-up for Sunday's race, with the rest of the field following as they finished
on Saturday. That means Prendeville will start seventh tomorrow, beside
Cyndie Allemann in Row 4.
Tomorrow's action starts with a 10-minute warm-up session at 8:05 a.m.
followed by the second 40-lap race at 10:45 a.m. Both races will be covered live on
indyracing.com. They'll also air on ESPN2 at 2 p.m. Eastern time on April 10.
Fans can make their pledges for Sunday's St. Petersburg race and the other
events remaining on the schedule at racinglapsforbestfriends.com. Bertil Roos
Racing School raffle tickets can be purchased on that Web site too. Additional
information is available at bestfriends.org and andrewprendeville.com.