Tag: Sausalito

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.

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

IZOD IndyCar Rookie of the Year Points Leader Returns to Track Where He Made IndyCar Debut in 2010

INDIANAPOLIS, IN (August 5, 2011) – National Guard driver JR Hildebrand and the Panther Racing crew finished in the 16th position during Friday’s practice session in preparations for the fifth Honda Indy 200 at the Mid-Ohio Sports Car Course. The IZOD IndyCar Series returns to the 2.25 mile, 13-turn track as Mid-Ohio celebrates its 50th year in racing. This narrow, natural terrain track with elevation change, sweeping corners, tight turns and a challenging pit entry will test driver skill and offer great action for IZOD IndyCar Series fans.

Hildebrand turned a total of 24 practice laps on Friday and finished with a top speed of 115.142, 1:10.5981 seconds. There will be another practice session tomorrow morning prior to IZOD IndyCar Series Firestone Fast Six qualifications. A total of 27 entries participated in today’s practice session, with the driver of the No. 38 car posting the fastest lap speed and he was followed on the chart by KV Racing driver EJ Viso and current championship points leader Dario Franchitti.

The Mid-Ohio road course marks the only track so far this season that National Guard Panther Racing driver JR Hildebrand has had previous IndyCar experience. The young rookie is looking forward to returning to the track where he made his IndyCar debut last year, finishing 16th for Dreyer and Reinbold Racing. Panther also participated in a one-day test here late last week, the first time all season that Hildebrand has tested as a venue immediately prior to racing there.

The last four years at Mid-Ohio has seen Panther finish 14th in 2010 and 16th in 2009 with driver Dan Wheldon, 6th in 2008 and 17th in 2007 with Vitor Meira, and 12th in 2007 with Kosuke Matsuura.

After climbing 13 positions to finish 11th at Edmonton, Hildebrand is tied for ninth place in the IZOD IndyCar Championship with Helio Castroneves, and is only six points away from 8th place. Securing the finish at Edmonton also bumped Hildebrand’s Rookie of the Year points lead over James Hinchcliffe to 39 points, a lead that Hildebrand is hoping to increase after this weekend’s Honda Indy 200.

The Honda Indy 200 at Mid-Ohio will be broadcast Sunday, August 7th at 2:00pm ET onVersus, with additional coverage provided by the IMS Radio Network, XM channel 94 and Sirius channel 212.

JR Hildebrand, No. 4 National Guard Dallara Honda:

“Having competed here last year is big for me because I’ve been here and I’ve got some baseline for what it feels like when a car has been good. And we feel pretty good about where we are right now, and being able to test here last week was a big help. We were reasonably competitive at Mid-Ohio last year (at Dreyer & Reinbold) and then even more so at Infineon so those being the next two road courses we go to, I’m excited about some of the things we’ve already learned. We’re ready this year and with test days for both the races it gives us the change to work out what we’ve been doing right and do things we want to try and still have plenty of time to sort everything out on the race weekend.”

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

The IZOD IndyCar Rookie of the Year Points Leader Has Moved Up a
Total of 64 Positions in Six Non-Oval Starts

EDMONTON, Alberta (July 24, 2011) – National Guard Panther Racing driver JR Hildebrand climbed the grid yet again Sunday during the Honda Indy Edmonton, where the IZOD IndyCar Series rookie climbed a total of 13 positions for an 11th-place finish on the City Centre Airport circuit. Hildebrand has now improved his finishing position relative to where he qualified by a total of 64 positions in his six road/street course starts; St. Pete (+13), Barber (+2), Long Beach (+10), Brazil (+12), Toronto (+14) and now Edmonton (+13). Hildebrand has also completed 100 percent of the possible 495 laps held this season on road and street courses.

After starting in the 24th position, JR moved up to 15th by the team’s first pit stop during a full-course caution on Lap 26. He later passed Marco Andretti into Turn Five on Lap 41 to move up to 13th position, with several cars ahead of him running an alternate fuel strategy. Hildebrand advanced up to 12th position when Alex Tagliani had to pit for fuel and with three laps remaining JR made a move to pass former Panther driver Vitor Meira into the last corner to help secure his final finishing position of 11th.

The National Guard Panther Racing team currently ranks in the ninth position in the IZOD IndyCar Series points standings, and in 11 starts this season has collected four Top Ten and two Top Five finishes. Hildebrand is tied for ninth with Helio Castroneves, and is just six points behind Graham Rahal, who is in the eighth position. Hildebrand also extended his lead in the IZOD IndyCar Series Rookie of the Year points’ championship by 39 points over fellow rookie James Hinchcliffe.

Team Penske driver Will Power captured the victory and was joined on the podium by teammate Castroneves and current championship points leader Dario Franchitti of Ganassi Racing.

JR Hildebrand, No. 4 National Guard Dallara Honda:

“The thing for me that’s encouraging, and encouraging for everybody on the National Guard Panther team is we had a really fast race car out there. We rolled out this weekend and thought we were looking OK and then kinda lost track of it in the second practice and in qualifying, but made some changes this morning and started to get it back and, man, during the race I felt like I had as quick a race car as lot of the guys that were running up front. As far as temporary circuits go, I feel like this is the best race car I’ve had in all of those events. That’s good and it definitely and it allowed me to be aggressive and allowed me to make some good passes on-track; setting guys up, braking late and getting by them and pulling away – so that always makes your day a lot more exciting.”

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

– Panther Racing, Press Release