News:

6-30-2006
Fifth-Fastest Jay Howard Leads Indy Road Course Qualifying

INDIANAPOLIS, Ind. (June 30) – Jay Howard led the trio of Sam Schmidt Motorsports drivers in qualifying Friday on the 2.56-mile Indianapolis Motor Speedway road course, and will start fifth in Saturday’s Liberty Challenge Indy Pro Series event, being held as part of the Formula One U.S. Grand Prix weekend at the famed “Brickyard.”

Running on the Indianapolis road course as a supporting event to the Formula One U.S. Grand Prix, Indy Pro Series drivers and teams had only two on-track sessions today, a 35-minute practice, followed by a single, 45-minute qualifying session to set the grid for Saturday’s 25-lap race.

Howard was unable to post a representative time in his first attempt, but changes made to his Lucas Oils/Isilon Dallara/Firestone later in the session made a difference, as the 2005 Formula Ford Zetec champion jumped to fifth overall in his final qualifying run.

Jonathan Klein was a disappointed ninth after appearing to be headed for a start in the first three rows, running as high as fifth in the overall order early qualifying before slipping down to ninth in the closing minutes as several other drivers made big improvements in their final runs.

A variety of problems hindered Jaime Camara as he struggled in both practice and qualifying. He will start 14th. However, the second-year Pro Series driver qualified and finished fifth in last year’s Indy road course event.

Jay Howard, #7 Lucas Oils/Isilon Dallara/Firestone

“We didn’t get all the best out of either set of tires in qualifying, for several different reasons. The positive side of starting fifth is that I’m on the inside, so that’s good. Hopefully, we can get a good start tomorrow, as the potential here for overtaking is very limited. The best place I’ve found is going into Turn One. But even there, you have to be consistently quick over a few laps to set the guy up in front of you, who in turn has to be consistently slow over just as many laps. Higher up in the field, I don’t know if that’s going to happen, but we can hope for the best.”

Jonathan Klein, #27 Klein Tools/Turn-Key Forging & Design Dallara/Firestone

“Obviously this is not the result we wanted for our only qualifying session this weekend. We ran as high as fifth and sixth during the session, which is the best we’ve done all season in dry conditions. We kept making improvements to the car, and it was getting better, but unfortunately so did every other car down in pit lane. I know that we have a good car for the race. It’s very consistent, which is going to be important for the race, and it’s consistently quick, too. That’s going to be key, having a consistently quick car, since we don’t have the opportunity to make changes to the car during the race. If we don’t make any mistakes, and have some attrition go our way, then we will have a very good result.”