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McGehee Wants To Make Big Impression At Gateway
By Paul Kelly, Indyracing.com
Pressure? You want to talk pressure entering the Gateway Indy 250 on Aug. 25?
Don’t talk to Indy Racing League points leader Sam Hornish Jr. Don’t talk to Helio Castroneves, who trails Hornish by just four points. Don’t talk to Gil de Ferran or Felipe Giaffone, either, who trail Hornish by 13 and 17 points, respectively.
Try talking to Robby McGehee.
McGehee is making his return to the Indy Racing League at the Gateway Indy 250 in the No. 55 Atlas Van Lines/Sam Schmidt Motorsports G Force/Chevrolet/Firestone fielded by Treadway and Associates Racing. McGehee has made seven starts this season with the Cahill and Beck teams, both of which raced with small budgets. This will be McGehee’s first start since finishing 13th on July 7 at Kansas Speedway. It’s a one-race deal, as McGehee is working hard to land a competitive, full-time seat for the 2003 season and beyond. There’s also one other aspect of the Gateway event that turns up the heat for McGehee: The event takes place at his home track, as he’s a resident of St. Louis. “I think I’m putting a lot of pressure on myself,” McGehee said. “I really need a shot to get in a car and run competitively. My driving style hasn’t changed. The IRL has changed a lot, in a very positive way. But it’s made it much more competitive, where you can’t go out there (and win) with a team that doesn’t test.” Fortunately for McGehee, he’s returning to the team with which he enjoyed the strongest of his four Indy Racing League seasons.
McGehee, 29, finished 12th in the series point standings with Treadway Racing in 2000. He recorded a career-best result of second in June 2000 at Texas in a heart-stopping finish, losing to Scott Sharp by just .059 of a second in a thrilling last-lap duel. 1999 Indianapolis 500 Bank One Rookie of the Year McGehee landed the Treadway ride in unique circumstances. Rookie Will Langhorne was signed to drive the car in three of the last four races of the season, McGehee said. The only event in which the seat would be open was at Gateway. McGehee needed a ride for St. Louis. The No. 55 car was open. Bingo – a perfect fit. He called IRL team owner Sam Schmidt and his business partner, Ray Parsons, inquiring about the availability of the ride. Schmidt said he wanted to put McGehee in the car, as Schmidt works in partnership with Treadway, and McGehee then contacted St. Louis-area businesses and personal sponsors to raise additional sponsorship funds for the car.
McGehee was in – but just for Gateway. Still, he was able to test last week along with many other IRL teams on the tricky, 1.25-mile oval, and he thinks that will pay big dividends on race weekend. “I’m obviously very excited,” McGehee said. “We got to test last Friday. We didn’t really quite get to the speed I wanted to get to, but at the same time we were definitely heading in that direction, so it’s obviously very exciting for me.” That’s the kind of positive excitement McGehee needs. He already had enough of the wrong kind of excitement in May to last an entire season, if not career. McGehee became the first driver to hit the SAFER Barrier at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway in a hard practice crash in Turn 3 on May 5, Opening Day of the Indianapolis 500. He suffered small fractures in his upper spine and lower left leg and didn’t return to the Cahill Racing car until May 15.
Bump Day qualifying was especially cruel to McGehee. Cahill Racing waved off his first qualification attempt that afternoon after two laps, and McGehee and the Cahill team returned to the garage to make changes. McGehee never got a chance to make a final qualifying attempt. Rain moved into the Indianapolis area, ending Bump Day qualifying 59 minutes early and locking the 33-car field with McGehee on the outside looking in for the first time in his Indianapolis career. Then he started a three-race stint with the Beck team in June at Pikes Peak, which resulted in a best finish of ninth at Richmond. A tight budget and an illness suffered by team partner Parsons forced the team to suspend operations. “This has just been a really tough year for me, obviously,” McGehee said. “The one thing that was important to me was to race in front of my home crowd. I’m really trying to create an opportunity for myself next year to run on a top team and sitting around waiting to be hired as a driver is one way to do it, but that really hasn’t worked that well this year.”
But McGehee’s chances of making an impression on a team owner at Gateway will be enhanced because he is again linked with someone with whom he works well, Treadway engineer Tim Wardrop. “I’m really excited to be working with him again,” McGehee said. “He’s a great engineer. I’m excited to be working with the Treadway guys again, for sure, but getting in and out of cars and racing and not racing, it definitely kind of kills the rhythm. “It’s like when you go play golf on a course where you have to wait a half-hour at every tee box; it’s hard to play because you lose your rhythm. At this point, I really don’t have much of a choice, so we’ll have to overcome that and do the best we can.”
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