Catchfence

ST. PETERSBURG, FL. (March 29, 2010)- After being postponed due to inclement weather conditions, Sarah Fisher Racing’s (SFR) Graham Rahal finished in the 9th position in the Honda Grand Prix of St. Petersburg, after beginning the race in the 16th spot. Thankfully, it was an overcast day on the streets of St. Petersburg as Rahal raced his No. 67 Dollar General Honda powered Dallara car across the finish line.

The originally scheduled race day started with a morning practice session for all drivers. Rahal posted a time of 1:03.6100, good enough for 15th place on the speed charts. During practice, Rahal complained of severe understeer and an overall lack of grip. As the day progressed, SFR worked to solidify a more stable car with changes throughout. Scott Dixon was fastest during the morning session, clocking a time of 1:02.9343.

Despite a challenging weekend, SFR, with the effort of Graham Rahal, put its first top 10 finish in the books for the growing team.

“I felt like today was a good run for us,” said Rahal. “I didn’t know how things were going to go, but the car was pretty consistent in the race and we made changes on every single pit stop to try to make it better. I think we’re slowly moving forward. We’re coming to grips here; the race was good for us. We made some passes and obviously got passed a little bit, but we just kind of hung in there and when everybody else started to falter we picked up spot after spot. I thought we had a pretty good strategy today. The car was good enough and consistent enough to move steadily up the field and to be competitive with all of those except for Dario. It seemed like at the end there Dario had something no one else did, but we were pretty good. If we would have went on blacks all race long I feel like we would have been a little bit further forward, but we went to reds for that short stint. We all know how that goes, but we took our best guess and fortunately it all played out.”

Today’s race marked a significant event for the driver/owner of SFR, Sarah Fisher, as it was her first time observing a race from a different position; she was on the timing stand instead of in the driver’s seat, as road course ace, Graham Rahal, took to the circuit.

“I think we had a great day,” said team owner Sarah Fisher. “I’m very excited that we brought home the best finish of SFR today. Graham did an exceptional job. We consistently got better throughout the race, but definitely showed better on the black tires. We just kept moving forward and taking advantage of every opportunity. It was kind of a free for all out there today on track, so we’ll learn from that. Those last laps from the timing stand are as nerve racking as they are from the seat! We’ve got a huge head of steam as we go into Barber and we’re really excited about the rolling opportunity.”

Team Penske’s Will Power took the checkered flag, followed closely by Dreyer & Reinbold Racing’s Justin Wilson.

The IZOD IndyCar ® Series returns April 11 for the Indy Grand Prix of Alabama presented by Legacy Credit Union, which will be the 3rd race of the 17-race 2010 IZOD IndyCar Series season. Barber Motorsports Park will play host to the race, and it will be aired live on the VERSUS Network at 3:00pm EST on Sunday, April 11, 2010. Additional coverage will be available on IMS Radio, XM Satellite Radio Channel 145 “IndyCar Racing,” along with broadcast coverage summaries available at www.indycar.com and www.sarahfisher.com.

- Sarah Fisher Racing Press Release