INDY CARS FIRE UP THE STREETS; LIGHTNING CAPTAIN GRAND MARSHALL

By on March 25, 2011

St. Petersburg, Fl. (RSEN)– The fastest spring party was in full swing today on the streets of beautiful downtown St. Pete.   The IZOD Indy Car Series practice was held in the morning with Ryan Hunter-Reay ran the fastest time with an average speed of 101.023.  Hunter-Reay had his first start here on the streets of St. Pete in 2003 running the Champ Car Series.   He is from South Florida and is currently a member of Andretti Autosport, which he joined last year.

Last year’s points champ, Dario Franchitti finished sixth just 0.0118 seconds behind Hunter-Reay.   Franchitti, who is a front man for Target Chip Ganassi Racing,  finished 5th last year here in St.Pete.   Franchitti is always a favorite when he takes the track.

RSEN catches up with Alex Tagliani on March 8th at the Media Kart Race at Anderson Race Park in Palmetto. (Photo By Rodney Meyering)

Alex Tagliani, who ran 14th in the morning practice, was a key contact in having Vinny Lecavalier accept the role as Honda St. Pete Grand Prix Grand Marshall.  Tagliani, known as “TAG” said on Thursday when RSEN asked about Lecavalier being the Grand Marshall, “Yea, I mean I texted him (Lecavalier) and asked him if he wanted to be the Grand Marshall.  Obviously Tim (Ramsberger, Grand Prix General Manager) and Bill Wickett (Lightning, VP of PR) you know helped me a lot when I was here promoting the race and he (Lecavalier) accepted. The thing was waiting to see if Guy (Boucher, Lightning coach) was going to put a  practice on Sunday. I’m going to watch their game Friday and then they (Lightning) are going to North Carolina Saturday night.  He’s (Lecavalier) will be back on Saturday night.  So I organized a two-seater ride and that’s something he wanted to do.”

Here is the full list with times and speeds.

RANK # DRIVER TIME SPEED
1 28 Ryan Hunter-Reay 1.04.1437 101.023
2 12 Will Power 1.04.1825 100.962
3 27 Mike Conway 1.04.2228 100.899
4 9 Scott Dixon 1.04.3184 100.749
5 6 Ryan Briscoe 1.04.3525 100.695
6 10 Dario Franchitti 1.04.3643 100.677
7 3 Helio Castroneves 1.04.4215 100.855
8 59 EJ Viso 1.04.5397 100.403
9 26 Marco Andretti 1.04.6672 100.205
10 22 Justin Wilson 1.04.7114 100.137
11 5 Takuma Sato 1.04.7668 100.051
12 82 Tony Kanaan 1.04.8591 99.909
13 2 Oriol Servia 1.04.9504 99.768
14 77 Alex Tagliani 1.04.9827 99.719
15 38 Graham Rahal 1.04.9983 99.695
16 17 Raphael Matos 1.05.1760 99.423
17 34 Sebastian Saavedra [R] 1.05.2207 99.355
18 14 Vitor Meira 1.05.2705 99.279
19 7 Danica Patrick 1.05.4240 99.046
20 19 Sebastien Bourdais 1.05.5265 98.891
21 18 James Jakes  [R] 1.05.9182 98.304
22 83 Charlie Kimball   [R] 1.05.9305 98.285
23 4 JR Hildebrand   [R] 1.05.9704 98.226
24 24 Ana Beatriz   [R] 1.07.2488 96.359
25 78 Simona de Silvestro 1.05.5267 95.962
         
    [R] – ROOKIE    
Categories: Motor Sports, Sports
Tags: , , , , ,

0 Comments

You can be the first one to leave a comment.

Leave a Comment

You must be logged in to post a comment.