APRIL 3, 2005
Travis Gregg
Back To Pro Series Points Lead
Schmidt Motorsports teams 6th, 8th, 13th
at St. Pete
ST. PETERSBURG,
Fla.
- The setting was pristine and the weather gorgeous but it was
a battle of survival inside the gates and on the track of
Sunday's Menards Infiniti Pro Series portion of the Grand Prix
of St. Petersburg - the
first street race in
IRL history.
When the smoke cleared, Travis
Gregg and his #7 Lucas Oil Special had regained the lead in
the series points standings, while teammates Chris Festa and
Jaime Camara maintained slots in the top six. Gregg has 110
points, and leads second place Wade Cunningham, who has 107.
Previous leader Jon Herb fell to third with 106, followed by
Nick Bussell, 93.
Festa is fifth with 84 and Camara
sixth with 76.
While the series standings aren't
too bad, Sunday's race was a mixture of ups and downs. For the
three Sam Schmidt Motorsports entries, each portion of
Sunday's race saw a car involved. Jaime Camara was caught up
in a first-turn crash on the first lap. Chris Festa was
involved in a spin on the 12th lap of the 40-lap
race. And Gregg, a native of Camden, Ohio, held on for a solid
sixth-place finish in the race.
Marco Andretti won the race.
"It was a lot of fun but that
almost wore me out," smiled Gregg after the race. "It's more
of a challenge mentally than it is physically. A 14-turn
street course is just going to keep you pretty busy all day
long."
Festa, a 19-year-old Atlantan who
is a freshman at Florida State University driving Schmidt's
#19 SpacePark/CareCentric entry, fought back from a Lap 12
spin to finish eighth. The
Atlanta,
Ga., native was running
third and making a bid for second when he was involved in a
Turn Four spin. He lost a lap and fell to 11th, but
was able to fight his way back to the eighth-place finish.
Festa was turning laps with the leaders the latter portion of
the race.
"We did what we could do," Festa
said. "We could run with just about anybody out there towards
the end of the race, and we had the car about as good as it
had been since Saturday morning."
Camara, a Brazilian native living
in Miami had high hopes for his #1 CELG/Goais entry at the
beginning of the day, but was caught up in a first-turn crash
in front of him. The damage was too extensive for Camara to
continue.
"It was pretty wild at the start,
and the cars up front slowed down a lot sooner than they had
been because of that," Camara said. "A car ended up parked in
front of me, and there was just nowhere to go."
Sunday's Grand Prix was televised
by ESPN-2 and will run on the network, Friday, April 8, at
3 p.m. Eastern.
The next Menards Infiniti Pro
Series race is at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway oval,
Friday, May 27.
FOR FURTHER INFORMATION: Williams
Company of America, Inc. (704) 660-0796
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