Day Ends Early for Barracuda Racing at Milwaukee IndyFest

Day Ends Early for Barracuda Racing at Milwaukee IndyFest

Topics: Alex Tagliani, Milwaukee IndyFest

Day Ends Early for Barracuda Racing at Milwaukee IndyFest

Monica Hilton
Bryan Herta Autosport
June 15, 2013

With just under 100 laps left in the race, a mechanical issue ended the day early for Barracuda Racing at the historic Milwaukee Mile on Saturday afternoon.

Driver Alex Tagliani began the 250-lap race in 16th position and had a strong start, advancing three positions in only the first four laps. A yellow flag came out on lap 21 and the Barracuda Racing team saw their chance to go off strategy with a pit stop.

On the restart immediately following the pit stop, Tagliani spun on cold tires losing several laps. Tagliani resumed five laps down to the leaders, but was running a strong pace initially.

A climbing gearbox temperature ultimately ended the Canadian’s day for good on lap 156.

“It’s been a couple tough weeks in a row here for the Barracuda Racing guys,” said Tagliani. “I’m disappointed for our fans and our supporters at Barracuda Networks, Bowers and Wilkins, Oasis, Curb Records, and Honda. We will come back next week stronger.”

“A difficult day all around really,” added Herta. “Things looked really good at the beginning, but came unraveled pretty quickly on the restart. We will be conducting a thorough review of the data to understand exactly what happened out there.”

The Milwaukee IndyFest weekend was the seventh of a consecutive eight weekends on track for Tagliani and the rest of the IZOD IndyCar Series. Next week, the series heads to Iowa Speedway for the Iowa Corn Indy 250.

Tagliani will attempt to move up in the championship points with a strong finish on the 7/8-mile oval. The 250-lap competition will be broadcast Sunday, June 23 from 2:30-5 p.m. ET on ABC.