Tag: Sausalito

J.R. Hildebrand of Sausalito Finishes 7th on the Road Course in Japan

National Guard Panther Racing Driver Extends Rookie of the Year Lead, Moves Up to 13th in the Championship

J.R. Hildebrand at Infineon Raceway in Sonoma, CA.

MOTEGI, Japan (September 18, 2011) – National Guard Panther Racing driver JR Hildebrand collected his best career road/street course finish Sunday at Japan’s Twin Ring Motegi, where the IZOD IndyCar Series rookie collected a seventh-place finish. Hildebrand finished one spot better than his previousnon-oval best of eighth place, which happened earlier this year on the Streets of Toronto. With the result, Hildebrand extends his lead in the IZOD IndyCar Series Rookie of the Year standings to 14 points over Newman/Haas driver James Hinchcliffe, and moves up to the 13th position in the overall points’ championship.

Hildebrand qualified in the 19th position and had moved to 11th-position on the track following a quick pair of cautions for the stalled car of Joao Paulo de Oliveira (Laps 22-24) and contact between Ryan Briscoe, Dario Franchitti and Graham Rahal (Laps 26-26) – both of which occurred almost immediately after the team’s first pit stop on Lap 20. Hildebrand maintained that position until the team made its final stop on Lap 42, and returned to the field in the 11th position chasing local favorite Takuma Sato, and with three-time Indianapolis 500 winner Helio Castroneves and defending series champion Dario Franchitti in hot pursuit behind him.

In the final 10 laps, Hildebrand moved past Mike Conway and then drove through an incident between Ryan Hunter-Reay and Sebastian Bourdais that caused the final caution flag of the race on Lap 58. A restart on Lap 61 saw teammates EJ Viso and Sato collide into Turn One and former Panther driver Vitor Meira spin off course in Turn Three, causing local cautions in both turns on the final lap. Castroneves passed Hildebrand going into Turn Three on the last lap for seventh position, but was penalized for passing under the local yellow and sent to the end of the lead lap, securing Hildebrand’s seventh-place result.

The IZOD IndyCar Series will have a weekend off as teams return to the United States before traveling to Kentucky Speedway on October 2nd for the Kentucky Indy 300, which will be broadcast live on VERSUS at 2 pm with additional coverage provided by the IMS Radio Network, XM channel 94 and Sirius channel 212.

JR Hildebrand, No. 4 National Guard Dallara Honda:

“We all worked together this weekend to get a car that wasn’t necessarily the fastest in the field, but one that was easy to sit back and rip off some laps. And for today’s race, that’s what you needed. The National Guard boys gave me a good car and we were able to be smart about where we were at on the track and pick points to be aggressive. Really happy with the way it worked out and that we were able to hold off Helio (Castroneves) and Dario (Franchitti) at the end, and all-in-all a good run for the boys here and a great way for us to end the road course action for this season. I’m happy to see Dixie (Scott Dixon) get a win here. I know how hard he works and on top of that he’s one of the nicest guys in the paddock. It’s cool to see that pay off for him; he’s had a lot of tough luck this year, so big ups to the No. 9 car boys.”

www.JRHildebrandRacing.com – www.PantherRacing.com – www.NationalGuard.com.

– Panther Racing, Press Release

J.R. Hildebrand Comes Home to Race at Infineon Raceway

J.R. Hildebrand drives the No. 4 National Guard car for Panther Racing.

J.R. Hildebrand, the 23 year-old from Sausalito, CA returns to his hometown as the leading rookie in the IndyCar Series. He is set to race in the Indy Grand Prix of Sonoma this Sunday, at Infineon Raceway, a track where he attended the Jim Russell Racing School and won the Sprint Kart Series championship at age 14. He lists Infineon as one of his favorite tracks, as well as Road Atlanta and Indianapolis. Perhaps, the reason why, is that J.R. has won there at every level on his climb to the IZOD IndyCar Series.

In 2009, driving in the Firestone Indy Lights Series for Michael Andretti, he won the pole and the race in Sonoma on his way to 4 wins and the series championship. Last year at Infineon, JR raced for the first time in an IndyCar and was involved in a crash on lap 38 and finished in 24th place. This year, with a lot more experience and a great Panther Racing team behind him he hopes to get that first career IndyCar win.

J.R. Hildebrand on the track at Infineon Raceway.

J.R. drives the No. 4 National Guard car for Panther Racing and is currently in 13th place in the 2011 points standings. He has led the rookie points standings pretty much all year. His best finish of the year was the now famous, 2nd place run in the Indy 500. With only 5 races left in his rookie year, J.R. would really like to get into the win column here in Northern California.

Last week, some of the IZOD IndyCar series drivers including J.R. Hildebrand took part in a full day of testing at Infineon Raceway. Fans as well as Media were treated to a Press Conference in the tracks Panasonic Technologies Media Center. In attendance at the press conference was my friend, Lindi Bess, a columnist at SkirtsandSkuffs.com. Lindi was kind enough to provide us with this short excerpt as well as some nice photos.

J.R. Hildebrand answers questions at Infineon Raceway. Photo courtesy of Lindi Bess of SkirtsandSkuff.com.

JR Hildebrand was asked, “Its been an interesting rookie season, you’ve had an opportunity to improve yourself in alot of different venues, but where you’ve shown the brightest is the ovals, would you care to comment on that?”

“It’s obviously because I’m an awesome oval driver….(laughs) Our team has a long history of being an accomplished oval team and that played a big role in it. I think our focus because of that has flip flopped a little to try and improve our road course situation. We don’t always come into places with pole sitting data from the year before so that makes it a little tough to figure out just what we need to do but we’ve definitely been doing a lot of things over the last two, three road course weekends in particular to try to start remedying that situation and I certainly think we are on the upswing with it. Its really been nice to have those races that we’ve been competitive in. Its a shame last weekend (New Hampshire) that we weren’t able to complete the race because we ended up with the a really quick race car for the long runs but its just kinda the nature of how it goes and I’d be happy to admit that I’m still learning and figuring things out so all in all we’ve had a really strong season for being a one car team and its been my rookie year. Hopefully I can continue figuring things out and we continue to get better from here.”

J.R. Hildebrand in his National Guard Helmet.

On Wednesday, J.R. was interviewed on the Grant Napear show on Sports 1140 in Sacramento. He talked about what it’s like to be back home in his native Northern California, as well as his mentality following his crash during the Indy 500. He also talked about his beloved San Francisco Giants, as well as the 49ers and possibly taking new Head Coach Jim Harbaugh (a part owner of Panther Racing) on a ride around Infineon. To listen to the very interesting interview, click here.

For a complete listing of J.R Hildebrand’s race statistics please visit his driver page at www.racing-reference.info.

The Indy Grand Prix of Sonoma can be seen Sunday at 1:00 pm PDT on the Versus network.

J.R. Hildebrand Qualifies 11th for Sunday’s IndyCar Race

LOUDON, NH. (August 13, 2011) – National Guard Panther Racing driver JR Hildebrand qualified in the 11th position for tomorrow’s MoveThatBlock.com Indy 225 from New Hampshire Motor Speedway, where the IZOD IndyCar Series will be returning after a more than decade-long hiatus.

Hildebrand posted qualification lap times of 167.533 mph (22.0255 seconds) and 168.563 mph (21.8909 seconds) for a combined two-lap average lap speed of 168.047 mph.

J.R. Hildebrand from Sausalito, the Rookie of the Year Leader, Finished Fourth in his Last Oval Start

In his last oval start at Iowa Speedway Hildebrand qualified and finished in fourth position, in what was one of the best drives of his young career – passing perennial front-runners Ryan Briscoe and Dario Franchitti in the last 15 laps to secure the finish. Tomorrow will mark his first career start on New Hampshire’s one-mile oval.

Ganassi Racing driver Dario Franchitti captured the pole position and will be joined on the front row by Newman/Haas driver Oriol Servia.

Currently, Hildebrand has a 37-point lead in the IZOD IndyCar Series Rookie of the Year point standings over James Hinchcliffe, who will start on the second row tomorrow. Panther is currently in the tenth position in the overall championship standings and Hildebrand ranks in eighth in the oval-specific points race, with a best career finish or second place at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway earlier this year.

The MoveThatBlock.com Indy 225 will be broadcast Sunday at 3:30 pm (EST) on ABC, with additional coverage provided by the IMS Radio Network, XM channel 94 and Sirius channel 212.

JR Hildebrand, No. 4 National Guard Dallara Honda:“In the end we qualified around where we’ve been for most of this weekend so far. I don’t think it’s a bad place to be and it ultimately gets us more towards the front than towards the back and that’s a necessity around these types of tracks. I think I just worked the National Guard car a little bit out of where it needed to be for the first lap and then got it back for the second lap – I just didn’t have the momentum to really stick it in.”

www.JRHildebrandRacing.com – www.pantherracing.com – www.NationalGuard.com