Conquest Racing Shows Strong Form in Edmonton

Conquest Racing was off to a strong start in Edmonton today continuing to show the progress it has made since the beginning of the season during the Rexall Edmonton Indy. But once again, Lady Luck forgot to show up for the Indianapolis-based crew. After running as high as seventh, Enrique Bernoldi ended up 16th and Jaime Camara 23rd.

Both drivers made up a couple of positions at the start and were running strong, consistent laps. After 20 laps, Bernoldi had made his way to seventh from his 11th place on the grid with Camara up to 21st from 26th. Unfortunately for Camara a lose wheel nut after his first pit stop caused him to lose his left rear tire. The rookie was towed back to pit lane and received another set of Firestone slicks but by the time he headed back on-track he had already lost a couple of laps to the leaders.

Camara’s bad luck wouldn’t end there. On lap 70, the Brazilian was pushing hard trying to catch Ed Carpenter but he ended up going wide and touched the wall in Turn 8 breaking his left rear suspension and putting an end to his race. He was credited with a 23rd place finish.

Meanwhile, Enrique Bernoldi was having a strong run staying amongst the front-runners throughout the first 50 laps of the 91-lap race. But after a lap 56 restart, Bernoldi, who had just come in for fuel and tires, returned to the pits with a right rear tire puncture. The unexpected pit stop sent the rookie to 18th when he rejoined the field.

Bernoldi soldiered on making his way up to 12th, but a spin while trying to make a pass on Dan Wheldon on the lap 66 restart caused him to lose some additional positions and also damaged his front wing. Because of the damage, the first-year IndyCar Series driver then had to pit 15 laps later for a new front wing. He fell back to 17th but gained one more position before the checkered flag fell on the one hour and 50 minute race (91 laps) to finish 16th.

The IndyCar Series and its teams will now have one much deserved weekend off after a stretch of six consecutive race weekends that began in June. The next race for the Conquest squad will be the Kentucky Indy 300 at Kentucky Speedway August 8-9, 2008.

"We showed a lot of improvement this weekend. We had a really good race pace and could have come home with a really strong finish but once again luck was not on our side. It’s really disappointing because we were having a good race but I guess these things happen, we’ll just try again at the next race."

"I was having an OK race up until the first pit stop when we lost the left rear tire. After that it was pretty much just trying to gain experience. Unfortunately, I made contact with the wall when I was chasing down Ed Carpenter. I was flat trying to gain on him but I touched the wall coming out of Turn 8 and it broke my left rear suspension. I was able to make it back to the pits but I then had to park the car because of the damage."

"This weekend, on a whole, Jaime has progressed really well. He is quickly learning the road courses and building up his confidence in the car and that showed with his lap times during the race today. Unfortunately, losing the wheel after his first pit stop didn’t enable us to capitalize on results with him, but we will be reviewing the videos and checking the equipment in order to do our best to make sure it doesn’t happen again.

With Enrique, we were off to a very good start. He had a good car and Enrique did an excellent job passing many cars to move up to P7. Regrettably, a puncture soon after his second stop, a spin while trying to pass Wheldon going into turn 1 and the broken wing a few laps later relegated us out of the top 10.

Without these problems, we feel we could have strongly finished in the top five. That being said, we are really pleased that even if both drivers faced a lot of hardship during the race, they stuck with it and were producing good lap times for the entire event. It was a very promising weekend for us."

-- Karina Redmond -