IndyCar

Homestead: HVM preview

VISO AND HVM READY FOR SEASON OPENER AT HOMESTEAD Homestead, FL (March 26, 2008) - After two days of testing at the Homestead-Miami Speedway, HVM Racing and Ernesto Viso have successfully completed their pre-event preparations and now look forward ...

Published: Mar 28, 2008, 5:07 PM

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VISO AND HVM READY FOR SEASON OPENER AT HOMESTEAD

Homestead, FL (March 26, 2008) - After two days of testing at the Homestead-Miami Speedway, HVM Racing and Ernesto Viso have successfully completed their pre-event preparations and now look forward to this weekend's IndyCar Series season opener at the Florida track. "EJ" who lives between Caracas and Miami, will make his IndyCar Series debut in few miles from his second home.

With only two weeks to prepare its Dallara chassis, the team opted to skip the road course test, at Sebring International Raceway, and instead, to focus on the challenge of the oval course, at Homestead. Venezuelan Viso turned 134 laps on Monday and Tuesday, recording an overall best time of 25.5682 seconds at 209.088 mph.

It was a particularly creditable effort, as the past two days saw the former GP2 race winner run his first laps on an oval. This weekend's event will also mark the first time the young driver has competed at night, under artificial lighting. With two days of solid testing under his belt, though, Ernesto now has some useful experience of the Homestead-Miami Speedway, as he and his team ready themselves for the first race of the newly unified American open-wheel series. This historic event will be aired on ESPN2, Saturday, March 29, at 8:00pm Eastern time.

Ernesto Viso:

"It is very difficult to compare my experience in the last couple of days to anything else I have done before. At first it is a quite overwhelming experience to be going flat through the oval at speeds over 212 mph. But as soon as you get to grip with the speed and everything else, you just realize how technical this is. I think that some people have the wrong impression that racing in ovals is about full throttle and turning left. It is only until you sit in one of these cars that you realize how technical this Series is and a change of few millimeters on the line can make you go faster or cost you few miles per hour."

"I am excited about the start of this historical season and racing against some of the greatest drivers in American racing. I want to thank my sponsors who make this debut in the IndyCar Series possible, but also to the fantastic effort of my crew, who worked around the clock for the last couple of weeks to get the car ready for me for this event."

"I learned a lot about the track, the car, and how you should approach oval racing, but I am nowhere near the level of experience that drivers who have been racing in America for many years are."

"This weekend will be tough given the relative little experience that my team and I have in oval racing. My objective is to qualify as well as possible and then focus on finishing the race as high as possible under the guidance of my spotter Bobby Hatch. He will be my other set of eyes, guiding me through traffic and alerting me of anything happening in front or behind me on track."

Keith Wiggins, Team Owner:

"It's nice to be finally underway and testing for the new season. It's now a case of getting used to the ovals, getting used to seeing new logos on the side of the truck, and adapting to the tracks and the new group of people we are working with. Even though it's a lot of change, it's a positive sign for the future. I'm satisfied with progress that we've made with the team and Ernesto thus far, but for the race, I'm not setting my expectations too high. We're looking for a solid finish which we will then build on going forward."

-credit: hvm

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