FORT WORTH, Texas – (June 10, 2011) – National Guard Panther Racing driver JR Hildebrand starting position of his young career Friday at Texas Motor Speedway, where the 23-year-old qualified 11th for the first of tomorrow’s Firestone Twin 275s. Hildebrand, who is driving with a stabilizing brace after suffering an injury to his left knee, upped his previous career best of 12th (Indianapolis) and will be making his first career start on the high-banked1.5-mile Texas Motor Speedway oval.
The starting positions for the second race tomorrow night will be determined by a random draw.
Hildebrand posted lap speeds of 213.579 mph and 213.337 mph for a combined two-lap average of 213.458 mph. He will start on the inside of the sixth row alongside former Panther driver Vitor Meira. Buddy Rice had been brought in by the team in the event Hildebrand’s knee injury prevented him from racing, but the 2004 Indianapolis 500 winner has flown home after Hildebrand was cleared by INDYCAR doctors this morning and had no issues in practice or qualifications. JR Hildebrand from Sausalito, CA in the National Guard Car.
Hildebrand finished third overall in the final practice of the day with a top speed of 213.82 mph.
Texas Motor Speedway is the one IZOD IndyCar Series mainstay where Panther has had the most success. The team has captured a total of five victories here: Scott Goodyear (1999, 2000); Sam Hornish Jr. (2001, 2002) and Tomas Scheckter (2005). Hornish won from the pole in 2001,much like Scheckter did in 2005, a year in which Panther qualified 1-2 withScheckter and former Panther driver Tomas Enge.
The team has a total of six podiums, nine Top Five and 15 Top Ten finishes at Texas and has led a total of 538 laps. Panther has finished inside the Top Ten in six straight starts on the 1.5-mile oval.
The Firestone Twin 275s will be broadcast live on VERSUS starting at 8:00 pm (ET) 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 were pretty good. I was trying to get everything I could in the National Guard car because we didn’t work too much on the qualifying setup today in practice. But we’ve got a fast racecar and we’re looking alright going into tomorrow. It’s going to be a little bit of a different gig running the two shorter races tomorrow, but we’ll see what we get when it comes down to raceday. (On the knee injury) It’s fine. I’m not having any trouble getting in and out of the car, so it’s not going to be an issue.”
Even though J.R. Hildebrand was surely heartbroken after last Sunday’s disappointing finish in the 100th Indy 500, he was back to work on Friday. He has shown steady improvement every race in this his rookie year and it would not be a surprise to see him in victory lane before the end of the season. Here is some news from his team on his latest test session.
J.R. Hildebrand from Sausalito answering questions after his 2nd place finish in the Indy 500.
MILWAUKEE, Wis. – (June 3, 2011) – JR Hildebrand, the Indianapolis 500 Rookie of the Year and runner-up in the Greatest Spectacle in Racing, returned to the cockpit of his No. 4 NationalGuard Panther Racing machine during a one-day test at the Milwaukee Mile on Friday. The 23-year-old rookie, who has burst onto the open-wheel racing scene after the dramatics surrounding his last-lap crash at Indy last Sunday, spent Friday at the challenging flat one-mile oval for the first time in an IndyCar and turned a total of 99 laps.
The team conducted its first test with Hildebrand in December of 2010 at another difficult one-mile short track oval, Phoenix International Raceway.
Hildebrand currently ranks eighth in the IZOD IndyCar Series championship standings and leads fellow rookie James Hinchcliffe by 33 points in the chase for the series Rookie of the Year. In his five starts with Panther this season he has collected two Top Ten and one Top Five finish. Last weekend at Indianapolis he led the race on three separate occasions for a total of seven laps, his first career laps led as an IndyCar Series competitor.
The IZOD IndyCar Series is off this weekend before traveling to Texas Motor Speedway next Saturday night for the Firestone Twin 275s, a pair of exciting races on the high-banked 1.5-mile oval. Panther Racing has collected a total of five victories at Texas with three different drivers.
JR Hildebrand, No. 4 National Guard Dallara Honda:
“For everybody at Panther Racing it was refreshing to focus on something different and Milwaukee and Indy are so different it was nice to be in a new situation and start moving forward. It’s been a couple years since I’ve ran here in anything, but we rolled out and were up to speed right away. We got settled in pretty quick and from there it was just all of us trying to make progress on the day. There were a lot of things I was picking up on as we worked through the day. It’s a different place, but having ran two days in Phoenix in December prepared me for running at Milwaukee even though those two tracks are very different. I got a good feel for short oval racing those two days at Phoenix and that served me really well today.”
“Indianapolis was a big sigh or relief for all of us because now we know we can do this right and be competitive. And we’re definitely taking that with us as we move forward. If you would have asked me at the beginning of the year the tracks were we’d be strong I would have told you Indy, Texas, Milwaukee and Iowa. But then from an attitude perspective, for me it will make for less pressure on all of us going back to road courses because we’ve shown we can do this and that simplifies the process and helps you get back to basics.”
J.R. Hildebrand from Sausalito, CA and the No. 4 National Guard Panther Racing Car.
What a finish! If you would have asked J.R. Hildebrand from Sausalito, CA before the race would he be happy to come in 2nd place in his first Indianapolis 500, he would have said of course, thrilled. But sports can change things. So fast forward a couple of hours and J.R. was coming around the final turn, of the final lap, of the 100th Indy 500, in the National Guard car, on Memorial Day weekend, in the lead and then it happened. He went high to get around a lapped car and also to ensure he could roll to the end if he ran out of gas. His car got into the marbles, the small pieces of rubber that come off the tires during the race and his car didn’t turn. It slid up right into the outside wall. J.R. managed to keep it straight and was able to limp across the finish line, but not before, Dan Wheldon, who was running second, was able to catch and pass J.R. for the win.
How unbelievably exciting would that have been to be coming around the final turn in 1st place in the Indianapolis 500? Then, how disappointing must that have been, knowing just how close you were to being an Indy 500 winner? Again, I was impressed with the amount of class demonstrated by a lot of race car drivers. J.R. genuinely seemed upset, not for himself, but for the team and especially for his sponsor, the National Guard. He said they had worked so hard for this, and he felt like he had let them down. Sports in general and racing in particular has a way of teaching you lessons and playing with your emotions. J.R. is only 23 and hopefully has a lot of Indy 500 races in his future but I bet he never forgets the lessons he learned in this one. Congratulations to J.R. Hildebrand for a thrilling race and especially for the classy way he handled himself after such a heartbreaking finish! J.R. Hildebrand speaking after the race.
To read the entire transcript of J.R.’s post race press conference go to www.pantherracing.com.
The following was released by his team after the race:
INDIANAPOLIS, Ind. – (May 29, 2011) – National Guard Panther Racing rookie driver JR Hildebrand led the 100th Anniversary of the Indianapolis 500 on three different occasions and came within a few hundred yards of winning the Greatest Spectacle in Racing before finishing in second position Sunday at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway. Hildebrand had taken the lead of the race for the third time on Lap 198 and appeared poised to capture Panther’s first ‘500’ victory until the No. 4 car got into the marbles while trying to pass the lapped car of Charlie Kimball on the outside of Turn Four and hit the wall. Despite the damage the car rolled past the Yard of Bricks in second position behind race winner, and former Panther driver, Dan Wheldon. So Close! J.R. Hildebrand with the Borg Warner Trophy.
The result marks the fourth consecutive runner-up finish for Panther Racing in the Indianapolis 500 with three different drivers; Vitor Meira (2008), Wheldon (2009-2010) and now Hildebrand (2011). The finish helps Hildebrand escalate eight positions in the IZOD IndyCar Series points standings to eighth position overall and puts some separation in the Rookie of the Year battle with James Hinchcliffe, as Hildebrand now leads the rookie chase by 33 points.
While running 11th on Lap 165 Hildebrand followed then-leader Dario Franchitti into the pits in hopes of stretching their fuel mileage. It was reminiscent of the Indianapolis 500 from a season ago when both Franchitti and Wheldon (then the Panther driver) were both desperately saving fuel in the final laps in hopes of the race before Mike Conway’s frightening crash concluded the race as the No. 4 car was quickly catching Franchitti. This season, as cars quickly began to peel into pit late, Hildebrand was able to catch an overtake Franchitti on Lap 196 for second position. Two laps later then-leader Bertrand Baguette had to pit for fuel and Hildebrand was at the lead of the field for the third time Sunday and threelaps from a victory at Indianapolis.
But as Hildebrand entered the final turn of the final lap he caught Kimball, a lap down, at an inopportune time at the center of Turn Four. Hildebrand attempted to pass Kimball on the outside but when his right-side tires got into the marbles, the No. 4 National Guard car quicklyshot towards the outside retaining wall and the 23-year-old made significant contact with the wall. He was able to keep the car straight but Wheldon wasable to pass before Hildebrand’s damaged car reached the Yard of Bricks. J.R. Hildebrand proudly represents the National Guard!
Hildebrand led the race three separate times for a total of seven laps. The last, and only, time Panther has led at Indianapolis was in 2008 with Meira led 13 laps before finishing runner-up that year.
Fuzzy’s Ultra Premium Vodka driver Buddy Rice finish 18th in his first start with Panther in the team’s No. 44 entry. Rice, the 2004 Indy winner who was making a return to the field after a two-year hiatus, started in the seventh position but fell a lap down mid-way through the race after an ill-timed caution. Rice had been running well inside the Top Ten for a majority of the race after leading the team from his seventh-place starting position. The Fuzzy’s Vodka team had a caution flag thrown on track nearly immediately after both their second (Lap 60) and third (Lap 99) pit stops. The No. 44 team fell a lap down after its fourth stop of the day on Lap 137 and with Rice fighting a loose racecar the Fuzzy’s Vodka team was unable to make up significant ground.
In addition to Panther finishing runner-up in four straight races here, the team has finished inside the Top Ten in seven consecutive Indianapolis 500 Mile Races dating back to 2005.
JR Hildebrand, driver of the No. 4 National Guard Dallara Honda said:
“I mean, this is not really about me at this point. You always show up to try to win. But for me, my disappointment is for the team and for the National Guard as our partner. It’s one of those things, as a driver, you never really know what you’re going to expect. We knew we had a fast racecar. We knew if the race came to us, we may be in a position to sort of finish top three, top five, wherever that might be, depending on how it panned out. But as a driver, I’m smart enough as a rookie to not expect, no matter what’s going to happen, I’m going to come to the Indianapolis 500 myfirst year and be in a position to win the race. As it turned out, we most certainly were. We were in a position that we should have won the race. So for me, it’s not so much that I’m pissed off or disappointed that my face isn’tgoing to go on the Borg-Warner. Just with this team, Panther Racing has finished second three years in a row now with the National Guard sponsorship, I felt like we had an incredible opportunity to get on a big stage for those guys. You know, like I said, it’s not really like a personal thing right now.
“Maybe down the road it will turn into a personal thing that I’ll just be pissed off at myself for not doing whatever. In the end, it’s really more about the people, for me at least, this team has worked so hard, it’s such an integral part of being here at Indianapolis and being successful at Indianapolis, that’s really where the sort of heartbreak is for me right now. I certainly wasn’t planning my victory speech. But being here on Memorial Day weekend, driving the National Guard car with so many servicemen and women out here for this weekend, it’s really a treat to be a part of that. It would have been an outstanding feat to be able to get up on the top step of the podium for them, as well.”
Buddy Rice, No. 44 Panther Racing Dallara Honda had this to say:
“The Fuzzy’s Vodka car was sensitive and we hadn’t had that all month. We kept getting caught out on the yellows and then we got the car loose and that didn’t help us and we got ourselves backed into a corner. On that side of things it’s a bit disappointing for our guys, but for Panther to still finish second and have a car out front was good for the National Guard car. Our car just got overly sensitive and we’re all disappointed but hopefully we’ll get another opportunity to run together and be able to do some more races together. J.R. Hildebrand with teammate and past winner Buddy Rice at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway.
“(On working with JR Hildebrand this month) JR’s great. Americans just don’t get top flight jobs and he’s gotten an opportunity to drive for a top team and he’s making the most of it. Obviously he hasn’t got all the results he wanted but that’s just going to come with time andexperience and just getting used to everything. He’ll continue to get used to the team and they’ll continue to get used to him. He’s got a bright future and he’s just got to stick it out and there are always some tough rides on the roller coaster. But working together’s been great. He’s receptive and wants to learn, and he’s definitely not afraid to stand on the gas – that’s for sure. You can see that at a place like this and he’s done a great job all month long.”
John Barnes, Panther Racing Managing Partner & CEO added:
“We have to hold our heads up high. JR put us in a position to win. He was told the fuel we needed to finish was almost impossible, and he did it. I couldn’t be prouder of him today. He did a helluva job today and I can tell you what – I’m so proud of that kid for the way he’s driven that racecar and how he represents the National Guard. He’s got nothing to be upset about or ashamed of. I know there are a lot of Soldiers around the world watching this race and I hope they enjoyed the show we put on today. We’re in the entertainment business, and the people that are over in Iraq or Afghanistan risking their lives for our freedom, that’s what we concentrate on.” www.JRHildebrandRacing.com – www.pantherracing.com – www.NationalGuard.com
