Saturday, April 26, 2008
Road Runner Turbo Indy 300 – Kansas Speedway
Round 4 of 18 in the IndyCar Series

HOLE IN THE WALL CAMPS DRIVER RAHAL QUALIFIED 20TH FOR HIS INDYCAR SERIES OVAL DEBUT AT THE ROAD RUNNER TURBO INDY 300; McDONALD'S® DRIVER WILSON TO START 22ND

1st: Scott Dixon 4-lap avg. speed of 213.956 mph (L1: 213.835, L2: 213.939, L3: 213.999, L4: 214.051)
20th: Graham Rahal 4-lap avg. speed of 209.799 mph (L1: 209.541, L2: 209.783, L3: 209.943, L4: 209.929)
22nd: Justin Wilson 4-lap avg. speed of 209.405 mph (L1: 209.332, L2: 209.348, L3: 209.439, L4: 209.501)



Justin Wilson, No. 02 McDonald’s Dallara/Honda/Firestone: “The McDonald’s crew did a great job of getting some parts changed inside the gearbox after that last session. It was close in terms of timing to get to qualifying but they managed to get it done. On the last lap of the practice session the car jumped from fifth gear down to third. Qualifying was straightforward; kind of what we expected. Its kind of difficult being first out but I’m just very pleased that the McDonald’s team was able to qualify today despite the gear issue. I had the throttle wide open and the car was working well. The car was more stable then than it was earlier in the day. I was quite pleased with qualifying but I am a little frustrated because I think we can do better in the race than we can in qualifying. We’re pretty much qualifying what we will race. It’s probably not going to be very quick today but I think we can be a lot better tomorrow.”

FAST FACTS: Will be his first race here, second on an oval in the IndyCar Series, and seventh on an oval…He has competed on an oval track six times…Qualified 17th but started 15th in the season-opener in Homestead due to two cars having their qualifying speeds disallowed. Dropped one lap down when he was hit by Will Power on a restart after approx. 22 laps and had to pit to replace a deflated tire but rallied to finish 15th…Started third in his street course ICS debut in St. Pete but alternate fuel and tire strategies dictated by intermittent rain led to a ninth place finish after he led a total of 18 of 83 laps…Was the pole winner on Friday and Saturday in the Long Beach Champ Car finale and dropped to second on the start but engine failure on Lap 13 ended his race and he finished 19th to drop from 15th to 19th in the ICS point standings with 49 points…Finished runner up in the Champ Car championship to the driver he recently replaced, four-time champion Sebastien Bourdais, in 2006 and 2007. Was a championship contender until the conclusion of the penultimate race of each season.



Graham Rahal, No. 06 Hole in the Wall Camps Dallara/Honda/Firestone: “The car was pretty good but we’re not as quick as the others unfortunately. When you are flat (on the accelerator) on the bottom (of the track) you’re only going to go so fast. With a little more time in these cars we can take a little more drag out and we should be more competitive. If you are comfortable out there, I think you must have a screw loose but I feel fine in the car especially on my own. It’s tough when you’re not running up front but we’ll get there later in the year. Our car handles well in race setup. We knew we wouldn’t have a shot at the top-10 so we worked on race setup all day. If we can have a good race day, we’ll be pretty happy. We want to be competitive. We don’t really have a shot at winning but you never know. If we can finish in the top-10 in our first oval race, that would be pretty good. The guys are working hard and there is not much more that we can do that isn’t already being done. We need to stay out of trouble in the race. We have fallen back in points a little bit after Long Beach so we need to start making our way back to the front. If we can get the first oval race under our belt, we can continue to build on the experience.”

FAST FACTS: Will be his first IndyCar Series (ICS) oval race and only his second on an oval track after having finished second at Pikes Peak in a junior formula, Star Mazda event in 2005. In his IndyCar Series debut on a road/street course he became the youngest winner in major open-wheel racing in North America after winning in St. Pete on 4-6-08 at 19 years, 93 days old…He is ranked ninth in series points with 70 points.



NHR/NHLR will compete for the first time at Kansas Speedway.



The 200-lap Road Runner Indy 300 will begin at 4:00 p.m. CDT on Sunday afternoon. Fans can watch all the racing action live on ESPN2 beginning at 5:00 p.m. EDT. It will also be broadcast live on IMS Radio Network at 5 p.m. EDT and XM Radio 145.