Bell 5th for Chevy in Nashville IRL
http://media.gm.com/gmracing BELL TAKES FIFTH FOR CHEVY IN NASHVILLE IRL NASHVILLE, Tenn., July 17, 2004 - Townsend Bell rang up a fifth-place finish for Chevrolet in the action-packed and accident-filled Firestone Indy 200 at Nashville Superspeedway. A good race setup, quick pit work by the Panther Racing team and a strong Chevy Indy V-8 engine delivered a top-five finish for Bell in only his second IRL race. "It starts with a great car and a great team," said Bell. "Everybody has been digging deep, Chevrolet and the Menards/Johns Manville team, and they certainly deserved a top-five finish." A narrow racing groove, an abrasive concrete surface and aggressive driving combined to produce seven caution periods that accounted for 52 laps in the 200-lap race. Three of the six Chevrolet drivers in the 22-car field were sidelined by accidents - Ed Carpenter on lap 60, Tomas Scheckter on lap 108 and Alex Barron on lap 178. All walked away without injury. "We had a few close calls," Bell reported. "The last 50 laps were busy, and it seemed like all hell broke loose at the end. Some guys were getting aggressive; sometimes it paid off and sometimes it didn't. I kept coaching myself to be patient. I had a really solid car all race, and we kept making changes in the pits. I'm very happy to be in the top five with this team. It's a great start." Bell and Felipe Giaffone were the only Chevrolet drivers running at the finish. Giaffone brought the Team Purex Dreyer & Reinbold Racing Chevrolet Dallara home in 15th after losing track position under a green-flag pit stop to replace a suspected flat tire. "It was a shame with the green stop we had to make because the car was feeling really good," Giaffone said. "We short fueled and didn't take tires on the previous yellow to get our lap back and got out ahead of the leader, but then I thought I had a tire going flat when we went green. We had to come in for tires only and it really cost us. We went two laps down late with no one else on our lap. The way I finished tonight was the way I finished during warm-up last night - flat out and it felt really good." Scheckter encountered the Turn 2 wall after getting into the marbles (worn tire rubber) that built up outside of the racing line. "I just got a little bit high as someone got inside of me," said Scheckter, who finished 19th. "At this track, once you try to bring it down low and wait for someone to get by, I became a passenger. I was going slow and the car drives itself once it gets high." Accidents eliminated both of the Red Bull Cheever Racing Chevrolet Dallaras. Ed Carpenter went high in Turn 4 and found the wall while trying to provide racing room for the leaders, while Alex Barron suffered damage to his car's front suspension in a mid-pack melee when the front-runners made contact shortly after a restart on lap 176. "Vitor Meira went under me going into Turn 3," Carpenter reported. "I was just respecting the leader and giving him a little room, but there is no second groove here. I went a little higher and tried to bring it back down. It just wasn't going to happen." Mechanical problems on lap 64 sidelined Jaques Lazier in his first drive with Patrick Racing. "Unfortunately leaving the pits we broke another axle," Lazier explained. "We'll diagnose the problem and find out what's going on. It's very unfortunate because during the last pit stop we made some changes to the car and everything was starting to come to us." The IRL IndyCar Series will hold its inaugural event at the Milwaukee Mile on Sunday, July 25. The Menards A.J. Foyt Indy 225, the ninth round of the 16-race IndyCar Series, is scheduled to start at 3:30 p.m. EDT and will be televised live on ABC. RACE SUMMARY Track: Nashville Superspeedway, 1.33-mile oval Winner: Tony Kanaan, Andretti Green Racing Honda Dallara Margin of Victory: .3755 seconds Average Speed: 134.975 mph Pole: Buddy Rice/Honda, 201.231 mph Fastest Lap: Vitor Meira/Honda, 198.084 mph RESULTS Pos./Driver/Engine/Laps 1. Tony Kanaan/Honda, 200 2. Sam Hornish Jr./Toyota, 200 3. Helio Castroneves/Toyota, 200 4. Darren Manning/Toyota, 200 5. Townsend Bell/Chevrolet, 200 15. Felipe Giaffone/Chevrolet, 198 17. Alex Barron/Chevrolet, 178 (suspension) 19. Tomas Scheckter/Chevrolet, 108 (accident) 21. Jaques Lazier/Chevrolet, 64 (axle) 22. Ed Carpenter/Chevrolet, 60 (accident) CHAMPIONSHIP STANDINGS (After 8 of 16 events) Driver/Engine/Points (victories in parentheses) 1. Tony Kanaan/Honda, 325 (3) 2. Dan Wheldon/Honda, 264 (2) 3. Buddy Rice/Honda, 253 (2) 4. Helio Castroneves/Toyota, 242 5. Sam Hornish Jr./Toyota, 200 (1) Manufacturer/Points (victories in parentheses) 1. Honda, 77 (7) 2. Toyota, 57 (1) 3. Chevrolet, 42 NEXT EVENT July 25, Menards A.J. Foyt Indy 225, Milwaukee, 1-mile oval Nashville, Tenn., 1.33-mile oval TV: ABC, 3:30 p.m. EDT General Motors Corp. , the world's largest vehicle manufacturer, employs about 325,000 people globally. Founded in 1908, GM has been the global automotive sales leader since 1931. GM today has manufacturing operations in 32 countries and its vehicles are sold in 192 countries. In 2003, GM sold nearly 8.6 million cars and trucks, about 15 percent of the global vehicle market. GM's global headquarters is at the GM Renaissance Center in Detroit. More information on GM and its products can be found on the company's consumer website at www.gm.com.