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Pittsboro, IN August 11, 2009 - Under sunny skies, with ever
increasing heat, and an initial wave-off, the green flag flew at
Mid-Ohio Sports Car Course on August 9th. TMR driver
Andrew Prendeville started in eleventh spot after a
disappointing qualifying session that ended under yellow,
which certainly cost Andrew a higher position on the starting grid.
During the morning warm-up, after the checkered flag had
been shown, Andrew was on his cool-down lap when Richard
Philippe (apparently not realizing the session was indeed over)
hit the #2 Xtreme Coil car. Thankfully, the TMR car was
unscathed.
The only caution of the 40 lap event came on lap 19
when Cunningham and Romancini made contact in
turn 4, taking both cars off-course. Andrew had moved
up to 7th spot by lap 22 and held strong for the
remainder of the race while being seriously challenged
by Wilson all the way to the checkers.
“Generally I am happy with the outcome of the weekend,
though we had a frustrating qualifying session. With
the changing conditions we were P1 multiple times
but we missed our best laps at the end with the
full-course caution. In the race, I picked up a serious
vibration about half-way through and it felt like it was in
the transmission somewhere. The car kept getting
tighter and tighter going into the corners and picked up
a serious chatter coming off a few of the slower corners.
With other drivers dropping out of the race we picked up
four spots and the car made it home in one piece, so it
was a decent weekend that did not start too well,” said Prendeville.
Added co-owner Mark Moore: “Overall, the Mid-Ohio weekend went very well. The crew did an excellent job of adjusting the car in a multitude of
changing weather conditions throughout the weekend. Qualifying was very exciting in those changing conditions. It was a let-down not to get in
the lap that we could have done. So it was going to make for a long, hard-fought race on Sunday. We watched a fantastic race where Andrew had to
set pace in the last quarter of the race, first with Richard Philippe, then later with Stefan Wilson after he had overtaken Philippe. There is
just so much talent and depth in the Firestone Indy Lights series. You really have to be on your game or you won’t be racing in the top ten,
it’s hard. Andrew did a great job.”
“I am really looking forward to seeing what we can get done at Sonoma. Andrew has experience at that track and our team won there last year; we
should have a great result,” concluded Moore.
For more information, see www.teammooreracing.com and www.indycar.com/pro.
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