IndyCar Series: Meijer Indy 300 presented by Coca-Cola and Secret

Topics:  Meijer Indy 300 presented by Coca-Cola and Secret

Vitor Meira
August 13, 2006

SPARTA, KENTUCKY

THE MODERATOR: We are joined by our story of the day, Vitor Meira.
VITOR MEIRA: Story of the day?
THE MODERATOR: Sixth place finish, tenth Top-10 finish of the season, Vitor, unofficially. We're double-checking this right now, stands fifth in the points standings with 348. Hornish moves into first place in the points standings with 418 points.
Obviously you had your incident at the final practice this morning and then come back and finish in sixth place. If you would tell us about your day a little bit?
VITOR MEIRA: For us in the Lincoln Tech Panther Racing, it was one of hardest of the year, definitely. Again for the last 50 laps, I had radio, but I couldn't hear. The only thing I could hear was static.
Tight, the race, how tight the race was, it was just really, really an effort. The guys did a really good pit stop by the end. All of the pit stops were good, but the last one was even better. So we could gain position from Kanaan, and actually, not only his, but two or three positions just on the pit stop, but again, the setup wasn't quite there. We showed up with the setup a little weak, and we had to always catch up, and the warm up didn't help either and I think we recovered good. After everything that happened, having the Lincoln Tech car on six places turned out to be a good day.

Q. On the restart, they jumped you pretty quickly, if you can tell us what happened there.
VITOR MEIRA: Well, that was kind of our choice back on the pits to go with three top gears, and having three top gears, the gears to get up to speed, you pay a little bit there.
So we had three stops again, and because to be honest, we didn't think we were going to be restarting on lead at all. I thought that I was going to have a little bit of draft in front of me, but on this case, it didn't, and that's why I lost so quick so much.

Q. What did you guys have to do to the car after the incident this morning?
VITOR MEIRA: We changed the right front corner, repaired the diffuser and we changed the nose. There wasn't a lot of damage, and the guys did a great job putting it all together because we felt just like how I was running before.

Q. What was the action like, this track?
VITOR MEIRA: The track is wide and everybody seems to need a little bit of air. So everybody was fighting for a space. Like every race, there are a couple of incidents that you are not pleased with, but I mean, that's how it is, and everybody is racing hard and I think everybody raced fair.
Again, it's wide and everybody needs a little bit of clean air, so that's how it goes.

Q. You have ten Top-10s this year, you've been there each and every time, any chance we'll see you on victory podium this year?
VITOR MEIRA: We don't come here to finish sixth or second. We come here to win, and we always give it 110%. The rest takes care of itself. Everybody, every champion like Tony, Scott know that all you can do is 110%. The rest works out by itself.