Festa Involved in Five Car Crash
JOLIET, Ill. - Sam Schmidt Motorsports picked up 10
points in the Menards Infiniti Pro Series championship
battle with Travis Gregg finishing sixth in Sunday's
Chicago 100 at Chicagoland Speedway. Pole winner Sarah
McCune, the first woman to start a MIPS race from the
pole, led until she was involved in a crash on the fifth
lap.
Jeff Simmons won the race.
Chris Festa started eighth but didn't get a chance to
see what his car would do before he saw race leader and
teammate McCune tangle with second place Jay Drake on
the fifth lap. What followed was a five car crash, with
McCune landing on the nose of the #19 SpacePak/CareCentric
Sam Schmidt Motorsports entry in turn four. Festa's 11th-place
finish leaves him sixth in the standings with 323
points. McCune, a native of Perrysburg, Ohio, retired
from the race due to the damage on her #8 Trick My Truck
Sam Schmidt Motorsports entry.
Jaime Camara, a Brazilian who now lives in Miami, Fla.,
started and finished sixth. Camara's #1 CELG/Goias
Sam Schmidt Motorsports moved around the top five
through the middle portion of the race and led lap 15
before settling in for the sixth-place finish. He is
fifth in the standings with 357 points. Gregg saw the
crash wreckage slide up the track in front of him, but
he drove the #7 Lucas Oil Special/Sam Schmidt
Motorsports entry safely through to finish fifth. The
Camden, Ohio, driver remains second in the points chase
with 408.
"The car was good today. I think I had a lot more car
than I was able to show in the later stages of the
race. After watching Sarah and Jay slide across the
track in front of me and hit Chris, I guess I was trying
to make sure I'd be there for the checkered flag. I
know we picked up some points today, but I'd rather get
them racing, not with the points leader getting caught
up in a crash," said Gregg.
Camara managed to miss seeing the crash, but not getting
a peek at the front of the field.
"I had a good race car in the beginning. We were running
at the point where everyone was running close. It was
hard to pass, it was like a dog fight. From the middle
to the end, the car started losing. I could hang in
there, but my car wasn't strong enough to pass. That
was my day. It was a good race," said Camara.
Festa ended up with a front row seat to the five-car
crash at lap five.
"Going into three, I saw Sarah and Jay bump wheels, I
saw a lot of tire smoke and I saw them down on the
apron. I went high, figuring it was the best place to
go, and I had a car inside of me, so that was really the
only thing I could do. I was running the high line and
Sarah showed up out of nowhere in front of me," said
Festa, a sophomore at Florida State University.
McCune was frustrated about the crash, but still mindful
of her accomplishments in her MIPS debut.
"It was great to win the pole in my first Pro Series
race," said McCune. "I don't know why that (crash)
happened, he was all the way under the white line when
we got together. It's not the way you want any race day
to go, especially not when you're leading. I'm OK, just
frustrated."
Sam Schmidt knows his road course program will continue
to develop.
"This is a tough day for the team," said Schmidt. "Any
time you have a car loaded onto your hauler by the tow
truck, it's a tough day. It means the team has a lot of
work to do. We've got two cars that have been loaded on
the transporter by tow trucks, so, obviously, there's
even more than a lot of work to do. It would've been
great if we could have picked up more points in the
championship today, but at the same time, it's not the
way you want to get them with the points leader being
involved in a crash. The good in this is that no one is
hurt, and we've got a good about two weeks to work on
these cars, so there should be plenty of time to get
them ready for Watkins Glen."
Sunday's 67-lap race will be televised on a tape-delayed
basis at 3 p.m. (EDT), on Thursday, September 15, on
ESPN2.
The next Menards Infiniti Pro Series race is number
thirteen in the 14-race season. The Corning 100 will be
held on Sunday, September 25, at Watkins Glen
International, the 3.4 mile 11-turn road course located
in Watkins Glen, NY.
-30-
;
