Dreyer & Reinbold Racing Had Ups and Downs in Texas
7 Jun 2009
Fort Worth, TX (June 6, 2009)- Dreyer & Reinbold Racing had some ups anddowns for the sixth round of the IndyCar Series at the Bombardier Learjet 550in Fort Worth, Texas today. TheIndianapolis-based squad endured plenty of action during the 228 lap race.
As the green flag dropped, all three Dreyer& Reinbold Racing drivers' Tomas Scheckter (No. 43 MonaVie), Mike Conway(No. 24 Roll Coater) and Milka Duno (No. 23 CITGO) were off to a very goodstart. Unfortunately, that rapidly changed for the team. Coming out of turn two on the secondlap, Milka Duno was in the wrong place at the wrong time. The No.2 of Graham Rahal went sidewayscoming out of turn two, collecting HVM driver EJ Viso and unfortunately Dunowas the victim of an unfortunate circumstance as she had nowhere to go and hitthem both. As a result, the incident was the first caution of the day and endedthe Venezuelan's race early.
Today marked Englishman Mike Conway's first timeto compete at Texas Motor Speedway. The rookie started from 19th position and had a strongstart. His race went inanother direction when he began having trouble shifting on lap 48. Conway came in and the team had torepair his gear stack in pit lane. Luckily, the 25 year old was able to get back out on track, butunfortunately he went down 37 laps as a result. From that point on, Conway drove a solid race and broughtthe car home to the same place he started, in 19th position.
Newest member to the team, Tomas Scheckter,drove a good, consistent race. Starting from 18th position, theSouth Africa native immediately gained positions. From then on he stayed out of trouble and the No. 43 MonaViemachine finished 13th.
Dreyer & Reinbold Racing heads straight to Watkins Glenfor a test and then back home to Indianapolis for a weekend off. The team will hit thepavement June 21st in Iowa for the Iowa Corn Indy 250.
What they have to say.
Mike Conway, (No. 24Roll Coater): "We were just hanging in there on thestart and after about 40 laps in we started having problems with thegearbox. It kept slipping intogear and eventually knocked out of gear and we only had third to run in. Obviously we couldn't run in third gearand we had to pull it in and see what the problem was. One of the parts bent and we had toreplace the gears and that was that. We lost 30 laps or so, but I was able to finish the race and I learnedquite a few things out there. It'sjust a shame we couldn't finish the race properly."
Dennis Reinbold: "Unfortunately Milka had nowhere to go whenGraham Rahal crashed and it ended her day before she could get up to speed,which was too bad. We thought thatshe would have a pretty good car. With Mike we had a gear problem that wouldn't allow him to downshift, sowe had to fix it. We got back out and soldiered around and made up a couple ofpositions. With Tomas, we didn'thave that much time to put the deal together. It came together at the last minute. We had hoped for a top ten finish andwe were close with 13th. If a couple of things could have fallen our way a little better thanthey did, then we could have been in the top ten potentially. All in all, it's not the start that wewanted, but we are ready to build the program from here.
