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Prendeville Completes All 40 Laps Saturday at IMS For Racing Laps for Best Friends

05/24/2008

By Linda Mansfield, Restart Communications

Image: Andrew Prendeville and the RLR/Andersen Racing Team with the #5 Best Friends racecar at Indy

INDIANAPOLIS, May 24 - Homeless animals got a boost from race fans and Andrew Prendeville Saturday at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway, as Prendeville finished all 40 laps of the Freedom 100 with his Best Friends Animal Society No. 5.

Through a website at racinglapsforbestfriends.com, fans make donations to Best Friends, a not-for-profit animal welfare group headquartered in Kanab, Utah. The donations are based on the number of laps that Prendeville completes in each of his Firestone Indy Lights races. Per-lap donations are accepted for any monetary amount of 25 cents and up.

Prendeville, of Las Vegas, NV, started 11th and finished ninth in the race, which was postponed one day due to rain. It will be shown on ESPN2 next Saturday, May 31, at 1 p.m. Eastern time on ESPN2.

Prendeville slipped to 13th at the beginning of the race, which slowed almost as soon as it started when Jon Brownson hit the wall coming out of Turn 3 on the first lap.

Image: Andrew Prendeville racing at Indy

Image: Andrew Prendeville racing at Indy

The green waved again on lap four. Prendeville stayed in 13th until he passed Sean Guthrie with 13 laps down to move into 12th. He moved up one more spot at the halfway point by passing Pablo Donoso. He broke into the top 10 on lap 21 when he got around Raphael Matos, and then a yellow came out after Chris Festa's car lost power in Turn 2.

The green came out again on lap 26. Prendeville stayed in tenth until lap 29, when Logan Gomez got around him. The next lap the yellow flew again for contact between James Davison and J.R. Hildebrand, which vaulted Prendeville to ninth. He passed Jeff Simmons to nab eighth with two laps to go, but Simmons passed him back on the next lap and Prendeville took the checkered in ninth place.

"My car was great when I was by myself. I just couldn't run in traffic," Prendeville said afterwards of the race, which featured cars three and even four abreast at times.

"It was more like dirt-track racing today," he added. "Some people made some very foolish moves.

"In the beginning I was just trying to save my tires for the end," he added. "I had to wait until people's tires fell off, and then I could pick them off."

Prendeville thanked his team, RLR/Andersen Racing. "The guys did a good job. Finishing in the top 10 is still a good run," he said.

The next Firestone Indy Lights race is coming right up on Sunday, June 1 at the Milwaukee Mile. Donations to Best Friends are already being accepted for that race on racinglapsforbestfriends.com. Tickets for a raffle featuring prizes of sessions at the Bertil Roos Racing School may also be obtained through the racinglapsforbestfriends.com website.

Go to the Photo Gallery for the Firestone Freedom 100 at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway

Additional information is available at bestfriends.org and racinglapsforbestfriends.com.

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