Rough Brickyard Debut for Team JRM

By:
On:
In: Xfinity Series News

Race 19 of 33: Indiana 250 at Indianapolis Motor Speedway
Track Specs: 2.5-mile oval / 100 laps
Weather: Sunny; 85 deg.
Race Winner: Brad Keselowski
Whitt’s finish: 17th
Patrick’s finish: 35th

Cole Whitt landed a 17th-place finish for JR Motorsports in the Nationwide Series’ inaugural event at the famed Indianapolis Motor Speedway on Saturday. After an uncharacteristic 40th-place start, Whitt and the TaxSlayer.com team steadily drove through the field, improving 23 positions before the race’s conclusion. Danica Patrick’s highly-anticipated return to the Brickyard in a stock car was met with misfortune. Patrick made inadvertent contact with a competitor entering turn one on lap 38. She was caught in the ensuing spin and the GoDaddy.com Chevrolet received terminal damage. The No. 7 team was dealt a 35th-place finish as a result.

Cole Whitt, driver No. 88 TaxSlayer.com team
“I think I speak for everyone on this 88 team, when I say we were really disappointed today. We come to the track to run up front and win races. Our guys work too hard and we owe it to partners like TaxSlayer, Hellmann’s and the JR Motorsports fans to run better. We have some things to work on, but we just struggled with the car this weekend. We were really tight in practice, freed it up too much for qualifying, then we were tight again in the race. We couldn’t find a middle ground with it. We’ll just stay focused, keep working on it and move on to Iowa next weekend.”

Danica Patrick, driver No. 7 GoDaddy.com team
“It’s just unfortunate for our Go Daddy team. It’s a big race and it’s a big weekend. This is a track I would have loved to have done well at. We were just trying to pick them off one by one. Tony (Eury Jr.) made the car better on that second run and we just got shuffled back on that restart there. I just picked the wrong line. I got into the center of the corner and got pretty close to the 98. I might have tapped him, I’m not sure. He was slowing down quite a bit. I didn’t mean to take him out. When I was trying to go around him, he hooked right and got in to us. It’s upsetting because there was still a lot of racing left.”

JRM PR

Speedway Digest Staff
Follow Me
Latest posts by Speedway Digest Staff (see all)
Post Views: 45