Infiniti Pro Series: Sunbelt Rentals 100

Topics:  Sunbelt Rentals 100

Jaime Camara
Jay Howard
Jonathan Klein
July 15, 2005

NASHVILLE, TENNESSEE

THE MODERATOR: We'll go ahead and get started. Finishing second today is Jaime Camara. Actually, Jamie won here last year. He started third today. This is his best finish of the 2006 season. This is his third top five in the last four races.
We're also going to go ahead and introduce Jonathan Klein, who finished in the third position today after starting sixth. This is his fifth top five finish of the season and is currently third in the points.
Jaime, like we were saying just a minute ago, you won here last year. Talk to us a little about your day, please.
JAIME CAMARA: I had a pretty good race car on the start of the race. I was saving my tires until the second yellow flag because I think I could be really close to the leader at the end of the race and I would have a chance to pass him. But after the second yellow flag, my front was worse, the front of the car was worse, and I couldn't do the line I was doing. I had to lift a lot more to pass through one and two. I was losing a lot of time and Jay could open a gap from me and I couldn't get it back. But I had a pretty good race car until that time of the race, until the second yellow flag.
Just need to do some more work on our car and make things better. There's always next year.
THE MODERATOR: That's right.
Jonathan, what about you? Tell us about your day, please.
JONATHAN KLEIN: Well, it almost ended before it started on the first lap.
THE MODERATOR: What did happen?
JONATHAN KLEIN: I don't know if you saw the in-car camera. I was looking at pit wall, thinking I'm going to go towards that way. Somehow I was able to bring the car back and keep going. Kind of battled that oversteer condition the whole race, made a bunch of cockpit adjustments to try to fix that. But, you know, you can only go so far with sway bars and a weight jacker. We did what we could. I just pedaled it around for the whole race, concentrated on saving tires, not making mistakes. It paid off in the end. I was able to hold off Wade. He didn't have the speed to pass us. Good result for the team.
THE MODERATOR: Congratulations. Questions for our drivers.

Q. Jaime, what does this mean to you with the sponsorship announcement this weekend and for your team to finish 2-3 like this?
JAIME CAMARA: You want to know what the sponsor means to me?

Q. What does it mean with the sponsorship announcement and having a good finish like you did today?
JAIME CAMARA: It was pretty good. I mean, they're going to be pretty happy about it 'cause I didn't have -- the start of the season, the first half of the races, I didn't have the results I wanted to. Now things are going to start getting better I think with this second place. It's a new beginning for me and I'll do my best to finish on the top three and win races till the end of the season to hopefully have maybe a shot at the championship at the end.
The new sponsorship is a thing that I'm working since 2004 in Brazil. It's a Brazilian company, pharmaceutical company. It didn't work because they had a Brazilian stock car team and they wanted me to race there, and I wanted to come to the United States and try IndyCars. Now we put it together. I think it's bringing me luck for sure.

Q. Jonathan, talk about the parity in this series. I think this is the sixth different winner in seven races.
JONATHAN KLEIN: Define "parity" (laughter). The competition is excellent this year. I think it's the best it's been in the entire life of the Infiniti Pro Series. Like you said, six different winners in seven races, that really proves it. We haven't been able to notch a win this year yet, but we're working on it. You know, my whole program right now is based on consistency.
THE MODERATOR: Congratulations, guys. Thanks for coming in.
We are joined by Jay Howard. Congratulations, Jay. This is your first win in the Infiniti Pro Series. You get it here at Nashville Superspeedway. I know you came in the points leader and apparently you're going to leave the points leader. This is your fifth top five of the season. Just talk to us about your day out there.
JAY HOWARD: Yeah, words can't really describe it. Won a lot of races and a lot of championships. This definitely beats all of them. I can't thank the guys enough. The car was perfect. One small adjustment on my bars in the race and that was it. You know, they've given me the best car I could ever wish for. I gave them a result they all deserved.
Everyone's worked hard all year. For sure we expected the results to come prior to this. Long overdue, but at least I've got the win. I plan on - just as I did right from the start - winning every single race.
Like I said, don't mean to repeat myself, but didn't quite go how we planned to start off. We got a win. A little weight off my shoulders, to say the least. I'm sure we're going to go on and have a good second of half of the season.
THE MODERATOR: Great win today. We'll take questions.

Q. Talk about the pass you made on Wade on lap 48.
JAY HOWARD: Yeah, the first restart I got caught too close to him. Totally my fault. I'm not going to blame anyone for it. It was my fault. But as a driver, you have to learn from your mistakes. I did. I made sure I got a run on him. It worked perfectly. I could stay high and pull my teammate along to make sure he got by, put as many cars between me and Wade as possible.
Yeah, not a lot else to comment about that. Good restart. I never looked back.

Q. Talk about the parity in the series. You've become the sixth winner of seven races this season. Talk about how even the series is.
JAY HOWARD: Yeah, for sure. I've raced against a lot of drivers in the past, been to a lot of different championships. This is by far the most competitive championship I've raced in. I've raced against these drivers previously: Wade, Bobby Wilson, John Klein, Alex Lloyd, several guys in there. Other guys like Matos, Rahal, these guys that came in from USGP, all these guys I raced against. I know they're all good. I think I'm still better than the rest of them, that's for sure (laughter).
Yeah, definitely means something to win a race in this series for sure.

Q. Jay, the first part of the race, after the first caution, did you think you had something for Wade; you just needed a chance to get around him? This place is tough to pass.
JAY HOWARD: This place is really tough to pass. It took me four, five laps to get right round on Jaime, my teammate. I knew where I needed to pass him; it was just trying to position yourself so you can get that run. There is really one place to pass, into three, purely because of the front straight has a slight kink in it.
You know, I was confident I'd be able to get past Wade. To be honest, I don't care, I got past him in the restart. I won. I don't care.
THE MODERATOR: Thank you. Congratulations.
JAY HOWARD: Thank you, everyone.