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Prendeville Finishes All 115 Laps
Saturday at Iowa Speedway
For Best Friends Animal Society's Iowa
Flood Relief Efforts
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06/21/2008
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By Linda Mansfield, Restart
Communications
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 NEWTON,
Iowa, June 21 - The Rapid Response team from the
Best Friends Animal Society is in Iowa doing
everything they can to help the animals affected
by the Midwest's recent flooding.
On Saturday, Andrew Prendeville did everything
he could to help too, as he finished all 115
laps of the Jeld-Wen 100 Firestone Indy Lights
race at Iowa Speedway. By finishing all the
laps, he guaranteed the most donations possible
for Best Friends' Iowa relief efforts from the
fans that made per-lap donations on-line at
racinglapsforbestfriends.com.
The donations fans make through the Racing Laps
for Best Friends program for all of
Prendeville's races go entirely to the animal
welfare group based in Kanab, Utah. The funds
for this particular race were earmarked for Best
Friends' relief efforts in Iowa, however.
Just as many residents of the Midwest are
struggling, Prendeville found the going a bit
rough during Saturday's race. Passing is
difficult on the seven-eighths-mile tri-oval, and
he had to start 17th in the 22-car field with
his Best Friends Animal Society No. 5.
He never gave up. He had a close call on a
restart, but he stayed out of trouble and
advanced five positions to take the checkered
flag in 12th place.
Prendeville was 17th in the early going. Sean
Guthrie, who like Prendeville usually runs in
the front, passed him on lap 13 to push him back
to 18th on lap 13. Micky Gilbert also got by him
two laps later to relegate him to 19th, but
Prendeville kept digging and was always able to
stay on the lead lap.
Travis Gregg's spin on lap 42 moved Prendeville
back into 18th position. Prendeville passed
Gilbert on the restart on lap 47 to regain 17th,
but then Gilbert got by him one lap later to
push him back to 18th. He ran his fastest lap of
the race on lap 52, which was when he was in the
most danger of going a lap down.
He was able to stay on the lead lap, however,
and he got 17th place back on lap 57. By lap 66
he was still in 17th, but he was running between
two drivers who are also usually higher up,
James Davison and Logan Gomez.
Gomez passed him on lap 84 to push him back to
18th, and four laps later he was the last driver
on the lead lap. He regained 17th on his next
trip around the seven-eighths mile trioval,
giving Gomez the distinction of being the last
driver on the lead lap at that point.
Prendeville passed Davison for 16th place on lap
96. He got 15th on lap 100, and was still in
that spot when Jonny Reid crashed five laps
later. That moved him up to 14th, sandwiched
between Gilbert and Gomez. He passed Gilbert one
more time before everything was over. Coupled
with Bobby Wilson's crash at the end,
Prendeville ended up 12th in the final rundown.
"The Best Friends Animal Society car was fine;
the RLR/Andersen guys did a great job with the
car this weekend, as they usually do,"
Prendeville said after the race.
"We were able to pick up five spots, and we
finished all 115 laps for Racing Laps for Best
Friends. "I had an exciting moment in Turn 2 on
one of the restarts, but no contact with
anybody."
ESPN2 will telecast the race on a tape-delayed
basis at 5:30 p.m. Eastern time on June 26.
The most important day in Firestone Indy Lights
history is next, as the series will hold two
races on the same day for the first time ever on
July 5th at Watkins Glen International in
Watkins Glen, N.Y. Donations for Best Friends
are already being accepted on
racinglapsforbestfriends.com for those events,
as well as the remaining races on the 2008
schedule.
Tickets for a raffle featuring prizes of
sessions at the Bertil Roos Racing School may
also be obtained through the
racinglapsforbestfriends.com
website.
Additional information is available at
bestfriends.org,
indycar.com/indylights and
andersenracingteam.com.
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