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A.J. Foyt Hires Jeff Simmons To Drive No. 41 ABC Supply Car at Indy
INDIANAPOLIS (May 12, 2008) – A.J. Foyt has hired Jeff Simmons to drive the second Foyt Racing entry in the Indianapolis 500 as a teammate to Darren Manning, driver of the No. 14 ABC Supply Honda-powered Dallara.
Simmons will get in the No. 41 ABC Supply car for the first time on Wednesday when the track re-opens for practice.
“It’s great to be back with A.J.’s team,” said Simmons. “I’m looking forward to working with A.J. and Darren and the whole Foyt team. Darren can help me get up to speed quickly and hopefully I can contribute something to the team as we get ready for qualifying next weekend.
“A.J. is taking it on himself to put me in this car so I just want to do the best job I can for his team.”
“I’m glad to be working with Jeff again,” said Foyt. “I like the way he drives and the way he hustles the car pretty hard which is what I look for in young drivers.”
Indy 500 Update - May 10th
INDIANAPOLIS --Darren Manning’s first attempt to qualify for the 92nd Running of the Indianapolis 500 ended in an aborted run. The ABC Supply team brought the No. 14 Dallara/Honda car back to the garage and made some changes to the set-up.
They returned to the track in the afternoon when it was opened up for practice. Those runs were in the 220 mph range so Manning brought the car back in several times to make additional changes--all to no avail.
“We were making progress this morning, we ran 223s comfortably in practice,” said Manning. “On my qualifying run, it was a bit loose on the first lap and really loose on the second lap so I pulled in and we began chasing the set-up and chasing changing track conditions. We found some good bits but were never able to quite put it all together at the same time. We’ll try again tomorrow.”
Qualifying for positions 12 – 22 begins at 12 noon on Sunday. Second Day Qualifying will be broadcast live from noon-2 p.m. and 5-6:30 p.m. Sunday, May 11 on ESPN2.
Indy 500 Update - May 8th
INDIANAPOLIS– Rain has washed out the activities the past two days at Indianapolis Motor Speedway but Darren Manning did get on track when practice opened on Tuesday for the 92nd running of the Indy 500.
Manning saw a top speed of 221.314 miles per hour on his last lap of the day in the No. 14 ABC Supply Co. entry. He turned just 37 laps on the famed two-and-a-half-mile oval in advance of Pole Day qualifying this weekend.
"We're still fighting the car a little bit," Manning said. "But, I think the speed is going to be there, because I'm nowhere near comfortable in the car and we haven't even started trimming out yet.
"We're still getting quite good speeds, really; maybe three or four miles an hour off the top speeds. I'm really, really happy with how fast the car is, but it's just not giving me a very good feeling out there."
Manning said team owner A.J. Foyt, the legendary four-time Indianapolis 500 winner, makes a special effort at the Speedway.
Looking Ahead to Indy By A.J. Foyt
Change is good for a race team. Whether it’s a change in personnel or a change in luck or just a change in the way we look at things, change is good. After our race at Kansas Speedway last weekend, we are going to make some changes in our ABC Supply team.
Sunday’s Indy car race was a miserable one for our ABC Supply team. I’m tempted to just look ahead to Indy but I know I won’t get off that easy. Besides, you have to learn from your mistakes.
We didn’t have the car set-up that Darren Manning needed in that race. The right rear was too stiff and the right front was too soft which made for an uncomfortable race car. At first we thought something might have broken but everything checked out back at the shop. My engineer took the blame but we’re all to blame because we all agreed on it and we are a team. So it didn’t work and after several pit stops under green of trying to make it work, we parked the car.
We aren’t changing the driver or the engineer but we are going to change our approach on the short race weekends. We think it will help us arrive at the right race set-up sooner. But we won’t be able to test our theories until the Milwaukee two-day race weekend.
NOTES & QUOTES: Indianapolis 500 Qualifying
Darren Manning: ABC Supply No. 14 Dallara/Honda/Firestone
Darren Manning on Indy 500 Qualifying: “The unification of
the two series means that there are now 25 strong cars competing for
those top 11 positions on Pole Day. The new teams have been waiting
for Indy because the extra practice time before qualifying (25 hours
vs. the normal 2 hours at other races) will help them dial in their
cars, so we will be focusing our attention on qualifying even more
so than usual. Having said that, we’ll also benefit from that extra
track time. Last year we barely missed the top 11 with the ABC car,
so the next day I ran more conservatively just to get it in the show
which we did comfortably. That won’t be the case this year—we’ll
definitely be striving to get the car in on the first day which
would be good because I don’t want to have to wait around even a
day, and certainly not a whole week.”
Manning on the pressure of running for Foyt at Indy:
“Actually it makes it more fun for me because there is so much more
interest from A.J. and I revel in that. I don’t mind the extra
pressure. Not to say that A.J. isn’t interested in the other races,
but everyone on this team knows what Indy means to A.J.”
2008
Grey #14 Darren Manning / ABC Racing / A.J. Foyt
Racing Tee
