IRL: Team Menard/Greg Ray Finish Second at Texas
13 June 1999
Race Notes/Quotes - Saturday, June 12, 1999 The Longhorn 500 Texas Motor Speedway Pep Boys Indy Racing League - Round 5 of 11 Greg Ray and the #2 Glidden-Menards Dallara/Aurora/Firestone entry of Team Menard finished second in tonight's Longhorn 500 on the Texas Motor Speedway 1.5-mile oval. It was the best finish of the season for Ray, who followed race-winner Scott Goodyear across the finish line and battled hard to hold off third-place finisher Sam Schmidt. Starting fourth on the grid, Ray worked his way into the lead by Lap 61 of the 208-lap event. He led a total of 56 laps on the night. With 60 laps to go, his car suffered a cracked cylinder head and it lacked the power to catch Goodyear the rest of the way. The next stop on the Pep Boys Indy Racing League is Round 6 at Fountain, Colo., on June 27. GREG RAY - "Wow, these 1.5-mile ovals make for some really good racing. Just giddyup and go. I had a lot of fun out there tonight. I had a great car, especially in the early going. We cracked a cylinder head with about 60 laps to go and were down on power after that. But we certainly had the best car out there tonight in traffic. I wish there would have been more cars out there at the end because we might have been able to catch Scott Goodyear. But in the open, it just wasn't going to happen. Sam (Schmidt) was certainly showing me his nose a good bit at the end there, but he was in for a good fight for second place. I'm really happy to race here. We've finally finished a race and finished well. This is what we should have been doing all along. This Glidden-Team Menard has worked so hard all year long, but we've just had some rotten luck. We'll go into Colorado in a comfort zone now that we've put together a complete race. We'll definitely need to start winning some of these if we're going to figure in the point standings. The 300 less rpm has actually helped our motors, not hurt them. It's just that we have to go back and work with our setups to get everything just right with the new rev limit."