Festa moves up point standings
By Tim
Harms
indycar.com
There
aren't many athletes at Florida State University who never
play a home game.
Chris Festa, race car driver in the Indy Racing League
Menards Infiniti Pro SeriesT, is one of a few such athletes.
Festa,
19, recently completed his freshman year as a marketing
major at FSU. The school granted Festa, who has raced
competitively since he was 12, student-athlete status prior
to the school year, enabling Festa access to athletic
department facilities, including the weight room and
training staff, as well as policies that make it easier to
miss classes for travel.
Festa,
whose helmet features a Seminole, has proven to be a quick
learner on the race track, moving into fourth place in the
Menards Infiniti Pro Series point standings after six of 14
races. Festa has finished on the podium three times,
including consecutive third-place finishes at Texas Motor
Speedway and the Indianapolis Motor Speedway.
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At the
Liberty Challenge June 18 at Indianapolis, Festa qualified
sixth but used an aggressive start to improve two positions
in the race's first turn.
"The
starts in this country are usually pretty similar, where
people go to the inside and brake early. And based on my
experience, I decided to go outside and brake late, which
paid off for me," the Atlanta native said. "I was able to
pick up a couple positions off the start and then just fall
in behind
Jeff Simmons and
Wade Cunningham for the next 10 or 15 laps."
The
25-lap race around the 13-turn, 2.605-mile course at speeds
reaching 170 mph was not easy, however, as oil spraying from
Simmons' car blinded Festa for most of the race.
"That
started happening through about Lap 3," Festa said. "He
started spraying oil all over my car and visor, and I ran
out of tear-offs at about two laps,
and there was
oil on my visor the rest of the time we were out there. I
really could not see very well, but I had to
deal with it a little bit. I cracked my visor open just a
little bit and peeked out through there and just dealt with
it the rest of the race."
With
eight races remaining, Festa must make up a 49-point deficit
to points leader Cunningham. He also must pass Sam Schmidt
Motorsports teammates
Travis Gregg and
Jaime Camara, who rank second and third, respectively.
"Off
the track, all three of us are really good friends," Festa
said of
Gregg, 27, and Camara, 24. "After the weekend is over and we
want to go out and have some fun, all three of us go out
together. We always have a great time. Then once we put our
helmets on and get in the car, we want to beat each other as
much as we want to beat anybody else. We just want to race
each other cleanly."
The
tutelage comes from team owner Sam Schmidt, a former IndyCar
Series racer who was paralyzed in a testing accident in
2000.
"Every
weekend basically before every session we get in the car,
Sam sits all three of us down and he goes over things with
us, his experience on that track, and if he has not been to
that track before, like the road courses, he gives us his
perspective," Festa said.
"If he
thinks we should be patient or get aggressive early, he
gives us that kind of thing, and he tells us to basically
just be smart out there and don't do anything stupid."
That
kind of teaching has helped put Festa, Gregg and Camara
among the top four positions in the series.
Festa's
next opportunity to improve in the standings - he trails
Camara by three points - comes July 16 in the Cleanevent 100
at Nashville Superspeedway.