WATKINS GLEN, N.Y. July 6, 2008—The combination of Darren Manning’s hard driving and the A.J. Foyt/ ABC Supply team’s savvy pit strategy led to their season-best finish of second in the Camping World Grand Prix at Watkins Glen International Sunday afternoon.
“This strong finish doesn’t surprise me because we’ve proved it to ourselves every now and then but it’s nice to validate it on a weekend like this to everyone else,” said Manning afterwards.
Manning, who started eighth, overcame a first lap shuffle which left a black “donut’ on his left sidepod, and a brief loss of radio communication for his career best finish in the IndyCar Series.
The shuffle happened as the cars entered the backstretch three abreast on the initial start with Manning in the middle. As outside pole sitter Justin Wilson dropped to the back with a gearbox problem, Manning had to ‘jink it’ to the left to avoid hitting Marco Andretti who checked up for Wilson. That maneuver knocked out Dan Wheldon who had started in the row behind Manning and was challenging on the outside. Wheldon’s rear wheel left its mark on the ABC Supply sidepod.
Manning received only cosmetic damage to his race car, so he continued racing. When Helio Castroneves brought out the first yellow, the back half of the field pitted, but Manning, who was running eighth, stayed out with the leaders.
He pitted on lap 19 but he lost his radio earplug when he came into the pitbox unbeknownst to him and the team. He lost a couple seconds (and three spots) by hesitating in taking off but then figured out the problem and spent the next six laps plugging his radio back in, driving one-handed through the ‘bustop turns’ at one point.
Several different fuel strategies were in play as the ABC Supply team began conserving fuel after the first stop as Manning was stuck behind Vitor Meira. It enabled the team to get a read on what they needed to do in the final stages of the race.
Manning pitted on lap 38, taking only fuel and tires, and the yellow came out two laps later for Vitor Meira’s shunt. Manning inherited the lead when everyone else pitted. That is when Foyt told Manning to save fuel as he could possibly make it to the end without stopping.
A couple of yellows, the first on the lap 44 restart involving Milka Duno and A.J. Foyt IV, and the second on lap 48 when second-place Scott Dixon spun warming his tires and collected third-place Ryan Briscoe, enabled Manning to run to the end.
“I was a sitting duck on the first restart because I knew I’d have to save fuel and was hoping to hold off as many as I could,” said Manning. “With the yellows that followed I knew we’d be golden and I was just waiting to hear the words from A.J. to go full rich on my fuel trim.”
The next restart, Manning decided to gas it between turns 10 and 11 to avoid the dirt that Dixon had thrown onto the track. That fateful decision proved to be all that Hunter-Reay needed as he got a run on Manning coming down for the green. He took the lead going into turn one but Manning challenged on the backstraight only to be blocked by the new leader.
“I decided to use discretion when we came to the Bustop (turn),” said Manning, “I saw that Tony (Kanaan, running third) had dropped back and was licking his lips, thinking we wouldn’t make it through. Then there was another caution and I had A.J. yelling in my ear to do the same to Ryan but I think he learned off of my restarts not to go too late and get one done early and go through the dirt that the guys (Dixon from his spin) had brought up a few laps earlier.
“But it’s good for us. It’s good for ABC Supply. We’ve been struggling the last couple races and we know we’re always quick on these road courses so it’s good there’s a few coming up.”
When the checkered flag waved, Foyt radioed to Manning that he did a great job and commended the crew on their flawless pitstops. The crew never had to make an adjustment to the car during the race.
Ryan Hunter-Reay won his first IndyCar Series event with his pass of Manning on the restart with nine laps to go in the 60-lap race around the 3.3-mile road course in New York’s Southern Tier. Ironically, Manning placed second to Hunter-Reay when he won his first Championship Auto Racing Teams Indy-style race at Surfer’s Paradise, Australia in 2003.
Following them across the line were Tony Kanaan, Buddy Rice and Marco Andretti.
Manning’s performance enabled him to jump from 20th to 14th in the IndyCar Series standings.
The IndyCar Series’ next stop is the Firestone Indy 200 at Nashville Superspeedway this Saturday night. It will be televised live on ESPN starting at 8 p.m. eastern time.
Darren Manning Posts Best Qualifying Effort of the Season
WATKINS GLEN, N.Y. July 5, 2008—Darren Manning posted his best qualifying run of the season today in the ABC Supply Dallara/Honda. He will start eighth in the Camping World Grand Prix at Watkins Glen International on Sunday. His prior best qualifying run was at St. Petersburg where he started 11th.
“We went from 20th in practice this morning to 8th this afternoon so I’ll take that,” said Manning. “We made some good improvements and even went back to some stuff we ran yesterday. We risked a big change between the sessions and the car was better again. I just needed another run on new tires and I think we would have had enough for the top six but the full-course yellow took away that opportunity. We’re understanding the car more so that is the most important thing we gained.”
In the first group session of 13 cars, Manning was third quickest, thus advancing him to the next group along with the other top five cars in his group and top six cars from group two. The fastest 12 cars then took to the track after a five minute break. During the group two’s initial qualifying session, the ABC Supply team made a couple of changes to the No. 14 car which worked. However, the untimely yellow factored into Manning not making it into the Firestone Fast Six.
In the fast 12 session, Manning had pitted to put on new tires and make a wing change when Will Power backed his car into the guardrail, bringing out a full course yellow. By the time the track was cleared, the cars were only able to make one timed lap which was not enough on new tires.
Ryan Briscoe won the pole, followed by Justin Wilson, Ryan Hunter-Reay, Scott Dixon and Oriol Servia.
The race will be televised live Sunday afternoon starting at 3:30 pm eastern time on ABC-TV.
July 4 -- In the first practice session at Watkins Glen International, Darren Manning was tenth quickest with a speed of 132.095mph (1:31.84) around the 3.37-mile road course in New York's Southern Tier. Manning improved his time in the No. 14 ABC Supply car in the afternoon session by half a second which translated to 132.771mph but he wasn't the only one. He ended up 13th quickest out of 26 cars.
On Saturday, there will be a half hour session in the morning for each of the two groups of 13 cars(Manning is in the first group) to fine-tune the cars before qualifying which starts at 1:30 with Group 1, followed by Group 2. Manning must be in the top six of his group to progress to the second round of qualifying which is comprised of the fastest 12 cars (6 from each group). Those 12 cars then vie to be in the Firestone Fast Six for the final round of qualifying, determining the first three rows of the grid, inclding the pole.
Cars failing to progress to the next level are gridded according to their speeds relative to the level they qualified in (2nd round group starts ahead of the first round, regardless of speed).
Watkins Glen International
Location: Watkins
Glen International, NY Shape: Road
Course Distance: 2.45-miles
Watkins Glen
Notes & Quotes: Camping World Grand Prix at The Glen
Darren Manning: No. 14 ABC Supply Dallara/Honda/Firestone
· Darren Manning on racing at the Glen: “I’m looking forward
to getting back to the road courses. We had a good run at
the Glen last year and I think we have an even better car
this year which will put us in a stronger position. Of
course with the infusion of the champ car teams, it will be
a lot more competitive which we saw at St. Pete—it’s a lot
tougher to get in the top 10… I love running at Watkins Glen
because it has a little bit of everything. There are lots of
high-speed corners plus a couple low speed ones so you need
a good balance between high and low speed performance. It
reminds me of one of my favorite tracks, the Spa
Francorchamps circuit in Belgium. Both tracks have many
undulations, long straights and high-speed corners. They’re
a lot of fun to drive.”
· Manning on wet weather as a factor at the Glen: “Well, we
practice and race in the rain so we won’t lose practice time
because of the weather. Growing up in England, I probably
raced more in the rain than I did anything else so I
wouldn’t mind if it did rain.” There is a 30% chance of rain
and isolated thunderstorms for this weekend. Rain factored
into the first two events at the Glen but last year the rain
didn’t hit until the teams started packing up their
equipment.
· Manning drove his motorcoach from Richmond, Va. to the
Glen, stopping in Hershey, Pa. where they make the Hershey
chocolate bars. He didn’t visit the candy factory but he
joined a host of other IndyCar teams’ coach drivers at the
Hershey Park campground. He played baseball for the first
time in his life, saying, “I learned I’m a big “pull
hitter.” I hit it out of the ballpark the first time at
bat—I like the inside pitches. As for fielding, I couldn’t
catch a ball to save my life. I wanted to field them without
using a glove like they do in cricket, but the guys wouldn’t
let me. They were afraid I might break a finger or something
and then A.J. would kill me for getting hurt.”
· Past performances at the Glen: Last year, Darren Manning
started ninth and finished ninth in his first ever start at
The Glen. The Foyt team’s best finish at Watkins Glen is 5th
with Felipe Giaffone in 2006. In the inaugural event in
2005, Jeff Bucknum drove to an 11th place finish after
starting 19th.
· William C. Rott & Sons of Tonawanda, NY is this weekend’s
winner of the ABC Supply Your Name Here Promotion for its
customers. The company name will be put on the top of the
sidepods of the No. 14 ABC Supply Dallara/Honda. Steven Rott
will receive selected merchandise, race tickets, hospitality
and garage passes, plus a Meet and Greet with A.J. Foyt and
Darren Manning. The “Your Name Here” promotion selected
winners by random drawing from a pool of entries sent in by
ABC Supply customers earlier this year.
The Camping World Grand Prix at the Glen will be broadcast
live at 3:30 p.m. eastern time Sunday afternoon, July 6 on
ABC-TV.
