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RLR/Andersen's Hildebrand Finishes Fifth
And Prendeville Places Ninth
In First Half of Mid-Ohio Doubleheader Saturday
LEXINGTON, Ohio, July 19 - RLR/Andersen Racing's J.R. Hildebrand finished
fifth and his teammate, Andrew Prendeville, duplicated his results at Nashville
last week by placing ninth Saturday at the Mid-Ohio Sports Car Course in the
first half of a Firestone Indy Lights doubleheader.
Both Hildebrand, of Sausalito, Calif., and Indianapolis, and Prendeville, a
native of Chatham Township, N.J. who now lives in Las Vegas, improved four
positions from their starting spots. Hildebrand's Allied Building Products No. 25
started ninth, while Prendeville took the green flag in 13th position with
his Best Friends Animal Society No. 5.
Hildebrand moved up two spots in the point standings and Prendeville one
position due to their solid performances Saturday. Hildebrand is now fourth in the
point standings heading into the second half of the doubleheader Sunday
morning, while Prendeville is 11th. Hildebrand has the same number of points as the
fifth-place driver, Arie Luyendyk Jr., 297, but his one victory gives him the
edge for the tiebreaker.
No one in the 22-car field had anything for polesitter and points leader
Raphael Matos on Saturday, however. With no full-course cautions to close up the
field, he had a 4.2603-second lead over Franck Perera at the end of the
40-lap/90.3-mile contest on Mid-Ohio's 2.258-mile, 13-turn road course. Last year's
winner here, Richard Antinucci, placed third. Jonny Reid finished right in
front of Hildebrand in fourth place. Reid will have the pole tomorrow, since
Matos drew that number in the post-race draw that determined how many drivers
would be inverted for Sunday's starting line-up. That didn't affect either
Hildebrand or Prendeville, who will start fifth and ninth tomorrow morning, in
the same positions they finished Saturday. Matos will be in fourth, one spot
ahead of Hildebrand, for the start of tomorrow's race.
Saturday's race followed an American Le Mans Series (ALMS) event. Both of
the RLR/Andersen drivers got great starts, and both missed a scuffle involving
Wade Cunningham and Daniel Herrington. Hildebrand advanced from ninth to
seventh by the end of lap one, while Prendeville charged from 13th to tenth.
Hildebrand stayed in seventh place until lap 12, when he advanced one spot
when Luyendyk went off course and back on again in Turn 13. That put him behind
Reid, whom he chased the rest of the way. He got fifth on lap 33 when the
fourth-place driver, Bobby Wilson, tangled with the lapped car of Mark Olson.
Hildebrand then went on to post his sixth top-five finish of the year.
After the start, Prendeville was never out of the top 10. He chased Jeff
Simmons early, and then Luyendyk. Wilson settled in right in front of him after
his scuffle with Olson, but Prendeville passed him on lap 36 for ninth place
and brought his car home in that position four laps later.
Hildebrand's fastest race lap was a 1:15.2555 (108.016 mph), which wasn't
that far from Matos's fastest lap of the race at 1:14.7270 (108.780 mph). That
was nowhere near Antinucci's fastest race lap record of 1:13.2998 (110.898 mph)
set last July. Prendeville's fastest race lap Saturday was a 1:16.2826
(106.562 mph). The four drivers who finished right behind him all had faster laps,
which shows how hard he worked to stay in front of them.
Allied Building Products Corp. sponsors the Palmetto, Fla.-based team. It is
the official development team of Hilliard, Ohio's Rahal Letterman Racing.
The second half of the Mid-Ohio doubleheader is slated to get the green flag
at 10:35 a.m. tomorrow. It will be preceded by a 15-minute warm-up session at
8 a.m.
ESPN2 will provide coverage of both races at 2 p.m. Eastern on Thursday, July
24.
This weekend's races are the 11th and 12th of 16 on the 2008 schedule. After
Mid-Ohio, the circuit travels to Kentucky Speedway in Sparta, Ky., for a race
on Aug. 9. A doubleheader at Infineon Raceway in Sonoma, Calif. Aug. 23-24
and an event at Chicagoland Speedway in Joliet, Ill. Sept. 7 follow.
The team's Web sites are at andersenracingteam.com and andersenracepark.com.
More information on the Firestone Indy Lights series, including live timing
and scoring and video coverage, is available at indycar.com/lights.
Post-race quotes follow:
J.R. Hildebrand: "The team has done a good job progressing from session to
session. We made some changes before the race on top of changes we made
earlier, and we're getting closer to where we want to be with the Allied Building
Products car. It's nice that we have a morning warm-up session tomorrow.
"It was a good finish for the points today. I feel like we've made progress
with the race car, and for that I want to thank the team.
"Arie went off in front of me.
"A couple of lapped cars were difficult to get by. Some of them would let
certain drivers by and then hold up others. I got held up by one on the last
lap that killed my last chance to get by Reid, but the lapped cars were nothing
out of the ordinary.
"We'll stay focused and work on our game plan for tomorrow.
"The track was really slick at the start of the race. The ALMS cars put down
a lot of rubber, but our cars didn't really dig in. We skated over their
rubber. It took about half the race to wear that down."
Andrew Prendeville: "I'm happy with ninth. I picked up four spots.
"The rubber the ALMS cars laid down probably wasn't good for my car. It
didn't get any better as the race went on for me.
"We finished all the laps today with the Best Friends Animal Society car, so
we're halfway towards our goal of finishing 80 laps this weekend for the
people who made donations to Best Friends at racinglapsforbestfriends.com. We'll
try to get the other 40 tomorrow."
The stats so far:
First Practice (Friday, 9:40 a.m. to 10:25 a.m.):
1. Raphael Matos, 1:14.1920, 109.564 mph
11. Andrew Prendeville, 1:15.4731, 107.705 mph
12. J.R. Hildebrand, 1:15.5544, 107.589 mph
Second Practice (Friday, 2:25 p.m. to 2:55 p.m.):
1. Franck Perera, 1:14.9040, 108.523 mph
4. Andrew Prendeville, 1:15.2154, 108.074 mph
13. J.R. Hildebrand, 1:16.3039, 106.532 mph
Friday Combined Practice Report
1. Raphael Matos, practice 1
9. Andrew Prendeville, practice 2
12. J.R. Hildebrand, practice 1
SWE Race Car Parts Quals (Saturday, 11 a.m. to 11:30 a.m.):
1. Raphael Matos, 1:13.1434, 111.135 mph, new record
9. J.R. Hildebrand, 1:14.2411, 109.492 mph
13. Andrew Prendeville, 1:14.4672, 109.159 mph
(Matos's lap broke Alex Lloyd's record of 1:13.7719 (110.188 mph) set last
July.)
Race 1 (Saturday, 5:25 p.m.):
1. Raphael Matos
5. J.R. Hildebrand
9. Andrew Prendeville
About Allied Building Products Corp.:
Allied Building Products Corp., headquartered in East Rutherford, N.J., is
one of the largest roofing and siding distributors in the United States. Founded
in 1950 with five employees and two trucks, today it is a $1.8 billion
building material distribution company with over 3,500 employees, more than 200
branches in 30 states, well over one million square feet of office and warehouse
space, and an inventory of approximately 85,000 products, from residential
roofing and siding to doors, windows, waterproofing, manufactured stone, interior
products and commercial roofing systems. For more information see
alliedbuilding.com.
About Andersen Racing:
Andersen Racing strives to provide the best and most comprehensive training
possible for future open-wheel superstars while giving its marketing partners
media exposure and hospitality opportunities at some of the most prestigious
events in North America. It provides a unique, three-step program utilizing
multiple entries in three different series: the F2000 Championship (webcast), Star
Mazda (televised on SPEED) and Firestone Indy Lights (televised on ESPN2). In
2008 it will field multiple entries in 42 races in 19 states and provinces at
some of the best facilities on the continent, including the famed
Indianapolis Motor Speedway.
Andersen Racing's principals, brother Dan and John Andersen, have extensive
experience in series administration as well as team management. They've worked
with many of today's top open-wheel stars, including several Indy 500 winners.
Andersen Racing is sponsored by Allied Building Products Corp. It is the
official development team of Rahal Letterman Racing, which competes in the IndyCar
Series. In addition, its F2000 team is also the official factory team of Van
Diemen. The team is headquartered at Andersen RacePark, an 18-acre facility
in Palmetto, Fla. that includes a 1-mile test track. For more information see
andersenracingteam.com and andersenracepark.com.