Catchfence

NEWTON, Iowa June 20, 2010— All’s well that ends well. Vitor Meira and the ABC Supply team turned their ‘unlucky’ 13th place starting position into a ‘lucky’ seventh place finish in the Iowa Corn Indy 250 Sunday afternoon at Iowa Speedway.

Collecting his fourth top-10 of the season, Meira worked for every spot. At the start he was pinned down low and lost a couple spots, although he was fortunate to miss the first lap crash that claimed Justin Wilson and Mario Moraes. As the race progressed, so did Meira who moved into 12th by lap 46. He had just passed Ryan Briscoe for 11th when the caution came out for debris on lap 52.

He came out in 12th because Graham Rahal did not pit, trying to gain track position. While Meira beat Dan Wheldon out of the pits, Briscoe beat Meira out because of his favored pit position near pit out.

By lap 64, Meira passed Briscoe again and moved past his Penske teammate and pole winner Will Power for 10th on lap 87. By lap 90, he was ninth. Meira was closing in on Marco Andretti for eighth when the yellow came out for Sarah Fisher’s crash in turn four on lap 95.

Pitting on lap 98, he lost out to the Penske teammates once again due to their pit location (which are determined by entrant’s points); Meira emerged in 11th. However by lap 122 he passed Briscoe again for 10th and moved into ninth past Wheldon on lap 145. Then the car developed a big push as the left front tire wore down to the cords during the stint which was the longest one of the race.

“Too much push!” Meira radioed in when Briscoe passed him back on lap 160. Meira lost quite a bit of track position as he dealt with the change in handling.

Foyt told him, “Do what you can, we’re going to pit in 15 laps.” As it turned out, it was a common complaint as many competitors had handling problems at different points of the race.

Takuma Sato’s crash on lap 177 brought out the yellow before Meira’s scheduled stop. He was the last car on the lead lap. Sato’s misfortune moved Meira into ninth. He pitted under caution on lap 180 and he moved into eighth when Ryan Hunter-Reay was penalized for a pit infraction. On lap 200, Meira moved into seventh when Dario Franchitti , who had just taken the lead, suffered a gearbox problem, forcing him to the pits.

Meira was closing in fast on sixth place Scott Dixon when the checkered flag flew after 250 laps. Tony Kanaan won his first race in two years, outpacing runner-up Helio Castroneves and E.J. Viso who claimed his best finish to date in the IZOD IndyCar Series. Teammates Briscoe and Power rounded out the top five.

“It was a good result,” Meira said afterwards. “What matters most is that we’re improving and being consistent everywhere we go. We’ve had top 10s and the next stage is top 5s. It’s hard in this series but the ABC Supply team is moving forward and that’s important.”

Meira moved from 13th to 12th in the IZOD IndyCar Series standings.

The finish was a satisfying end to the weekend which had a rocky start due to a crash in the second practice on Saturday. Meira had been on a qualifying simulation run when he closed in on Hunter-Reay whose car pushed to the outer groove and forced Meira into the grey causing him to hit the wall in turn two. The crew replaced the right side suspension and sent Meira out to qualify.

He qualified 13th and felt he could have been even more aggressive if he knew the car was going to be as solid as it was. “I wasn’t worried about where we started because I knew we had a good car for the race,” Meira said afterwards.

The team has next weekend off before they leave for a test at Mid-Ohio Sports Car Course June 30th on their way to Watkins Glen International road course. The Camping World Grand Prix at the Glen will be televised by ABC starting at 3:30pm ET.

- A.J. Foyt Racing Press Release