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Prendeville and Scarallo Make First Laps at Indy
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04/28/2007
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Now They're Focusing on Winning a Race There
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By Linda Mansfield, Restart Communications
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 INDIANAPOLIS,
April 28 - RLR/Andersen Racing drivers Andrew
Prendeville and Joey Scarallo made their first
laps ever at the famed Indianapolis Motor
Speedway on Friday afternoon during an Indy Pro
Series open test. That dream accomplished, on
Saturday both were concentrating on an even
bigger goal: winning a race there.
Both drivers are entered in the Freedom 100 Indy
Pro Series race at IMS on May 25, two days
before the Indianapolis 500. The Indy Pro Series
is the official development series of IndyCar.
Andersen Racing, based in Fairfield, N.J., is
the official Indy Pro Series development team of
top IndyCar team Rahal Letterman Racing.
Although it's very distinguished in other forms
of open-wheel racing, Andersen Racing is
tackling the Indy Pro Series for the first time
in 2007. Both Prendeville, of Morristown, N.J.,
and Scarallo, of Smithtown, N.Y., are rookies in
the Indy Pro Series.
Friday's test was shortened due to rain, so the
schedule was expanded to include four hours on
Saturday, when the weather conditions were
sunny.
Prendeville ended up 11th for the two days out
of the 24 drivers who participated in the test.
Scarallo chose not to run in a draft in order to
get a more pure reading of his car's
capabilities. He ended up 21st.
Prendeville's best lap in his No. 5 Dallara
occurred on Saturday when he was timed in
47.9270 for an average speed of 187.786 miles
per hour for the 2.5-mile oval. His car promotes
the Best Friends Animal Society. He did 48 laps
on both Friday and Saturday for a total of 96.
His fastest lap was his fourth lap on Saturday.
Scarallo's best lap in his car, which advertises
GroupAWheels.com, was a 48.4103 that he ran on
Saturday for an average speed of 185.911 mph. He
recorded 44 laps on Friday and 63 on Saturday
for a total of 107, which tied him with Ken
Losch for the most laps run over the course of
the two days. His fastest lap was the 12th one
he ran Saturday.
Practice and qualifying for the Freedom 100 will
be held May 24, followed by the 40-lap race on
May 25, at 4 p.m. It will be broadcast on ESPN2.
Andersen Racing's goal is to provide
up-and-coming drivers comprehensive training
that will enable them to reach open-wheel
racing's major leagues. It fields multiple
entries in the Hankook Tires F2000 Championship;
the Star Mazda Championship presented by
Goodyear, and the Indy Pro Series. More
information on the team is available through its
Web site at andersenracingteam.com.
Driver quotes follow:
ANDREW PRENDEVILLE: "I was
surprised at how different each corner is from
the others, and how long they are. We're
learning more and more. We tried a couple of
things here as we continue to try to figure out
what the car likes. We'll have to look over the
changes we made and figure out what worked and
what didn't work, and have a better package when
we come back here in a few weeks for the race.
"I've been watching the Indy 500 since I was a
child. Now I can walk in here saying I've driven
laps at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway and gone
190 miles an hour down the straightaway, and
that makes me feel good.
"It was good to get to drive here. The next step
is to race here, but the main goal is to win
here."
JOEY SCARALLO: "The main thing
we got accomplished was just learning the track.
There really are four individual corners here
that are all different, and you have to attack
all four corners differently. You hear people
tell you the corners are all different, but it's
really true, and until you do it you don't
really understand how different they are.
"We'll continue to try to keep the car freed up.
Our times here are deceiving because we didn't
run in a draft at all. We purposely didn't run
with other cars in a draft. We wanted to know
what our car could do by itself. We practiced a
little bit of our qualifying run today and the
car felt fine. The wind picked up in [turn] one
and two today and that affected the car quite a
bit.
"It's great to get to run at Indy. That ranks up
there very high in the things I've done so far
in my racing career. But my thing has always
been not just to run at Indy, but to win at
Indy. That's what I really want to know all
about."
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