Indy NXT

IPS: St. Pete: Cheever Racing race one notes

Festa Earns Pole for Sunday's IRL Indy Pro Series Race With Sixth-Place Finish Today; Bussell Comes Home Fourth ST. PETERSBURG, Fla. (Saturday, April 1, 2006) Cheever Racing's Nick Bussell and Chris Festa finished fourth and sixth in today's first ...

Edited: Mar 27, 2008, 11:54 PM

Copy link

Share on Viber

Add as a preferred source

Festa Earns Pole for Sunday's IRL Indy Pro Series Race With Sixth-Place Finish Today; Bussell Comes Home Fourth

ST. PETERSBURG, Fla. (Saturday, April 1, 2006) Cheever Racing's Nick Bussell and Chris Festa finished fourth and sixth in today's first of two IRL Indy Pro Series races here this weekend as part of the annual Honda Grand Prix of St. Petersburg.

Bussell, the 23-year-old out of Grand Rapids, Mich., started from the seventh position in the #52 Cheever Racing Dallara and ran a steady race while picking up three positions before the checkered flag. He held of the hard-charging Jonathan Klein in the closing laps to nail down the fourth-place finishing position.

Festa, the 20-year-old out of Atlanta, started eighth in the #51 Formtek Cheever Racing Dallara and picked up two spots by race's end and, more importantly, will start on the pole tomorrow by virtue of his sixth-place finish. This weekend's unique doubleheader format sets the starting grid for Sunday's race based on today's finishing positions with today's top-six finishers inverted. Bussell will start Sunday's race from the inside of the second row, right behind the polesitting Festa.

A 10-minute warm-up session is set for 8:30 a.m. EDT Sunday, with race time for Sunday's 40-lap event set for 11:30 a.m. EDT. ESPN2 will air coverage of both of this weekend's races next Friday (April 7) at 4 p.m. EDT.

NICK BUSSELL

"It was a pretty decent day for us. We picked up a few spots before race's end and got ourselves an inside-second-row starting spot for tomorrow's race. We definitely need to find some more grip for tomorrow. That was the problem today. The balance of the car is definitely something we can work with. But the grip is what we need the most. We'll make some changes tonight and see how things work out in the morning warmup. After that, we'll go racing and try to better today's result."

CHRIS FESTA

"Well, the good news is that we're starting on the pole tomorrow with this inverted grid format. There's more good news in that I know exactly what we have to do to make the car better for tomorrow's race. I think everybody was wanting to find more grip out there today. I also had some balance issues where I could get a good run on a few cars, but I just couldn't work my way around them in the corners. As the race was winding down, the team told me on the radio that we were running sixth, and there was nobody threatening us from behind, so I just held onto the spot and am glad tomorrow's pole comes with it."

-cr-

We want your opinion!

What would you like to see on Motorsport.com?

Take our 5 minute survey.

- The Motorsport.com Team

Read and post comments

Share Or Save This Story

Copy link

Share on Viber

Previous article IPS: St. Pete: Friday practice notes

Next article IPS: St. Pete: Race summary

Top Comments

There are no comments at the moment. Would you like to write one?

View More & Comment

Latest news

With the Qatar MotoGP Grand Prix over, it is time to heal the wounds

MotoGP

MGP MotoGP

Qatar GP

With the Qatar MotoGP Grand Prix over, it is time to heal the wounds

How Brazil showcased everything that's good about F1 - plus some that isn't

Formula 1

Sao Paulo GP

How Brazil showcased everything that's good about F1 - plus some that isn't

Max Verstappen on Ferrari clashes: "I would never sign two number-one drivers"

Formula 1

F1 Formula 1

Sao Paulo GP

55 min

Max Verstappen on Ferrari clashes: "I would never sign two number-one drivers"

Austin Cindric wins Ford Veterans Day Classic at Daytona

General

Misc General 6 h

Austin Cindric wins Ford Veterans Day Classic at Daytona

Subscribe and access Motorsport.com with your ad-blocker.

From Formula 1 to MotoGP we report straight from the paddock because we love our sport, just like you. In order to keep delivering our expert journalism, our website uses advertising. Still, we want to give you the opportunity to enjoy an ad-free and tracker-free website and to continue using your adblocker.

You have 2 options:

Become a subscriber.
Disable your adblocker.

Subscribe now Already subscribed? Sign in here

Already disabled your adblocker?
Reload page

Manage Alerts