The newest IndyCar team to tackle the Indy 500, ABEL Motorsports of Louisville, KY, swept back into action Thursday at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway as preparations continued for the 107th Indy 500. “The Greatest Spectacle in Racing” goes green a week from this Sunday, on May 28.
Driver RC Enerson, 26, of New Port Richey, FL, completed a total of 68 practice laps today and notched the 28th fastest lap in the afternoon session at 225.112 mph.
The team focused today on two different tasks: working on solo speed to prepare for Pole Qualifying on the 2.5 mile oval this Saturday, while also working on race setups by maximizing proper handling in traffic.
“We did a lot of qualifying runs in the morning” commented Enerson. “Then we started trimming the car out more and we had an awesome run in the heat of the day. We showed good speed there. We brought the car back in to set up to run in traffic, and we made some laps around other cars. That was really eye-opening. It’s tough. It’s going to be a learning curve for us tomorrow too, but we’ll be ready.”
Team Manager John Brunner, celebrating his 59th birthday, noted that the ABEL team has a tough hill to climb. “We had to spend a lot of the day running (solo)…we have a lot of catching up to do. We still need to find a little bit of speed. We’re in pretty good shape but we want to be better than that. In the afternoon we did get to run in traffic which was good. We made some changes to the car in the afternoon, trying to make RC and the car happier on the race track. We’re not done changing things, I know that.”
Team Principal Bill Abel continues to be impressed with the effort and focus his squad is showing at the Brickyard. “It was a good second day. We picked up where we left off yesterday.
We’re still continuing to develop all of our processes as an IndyCar team (ABEL Motorsports competes full-time in INDY NXT, the top development level of racing under IndyCar). For us, it’s continuing to focus on effort and the process, and the results will be there. We feel pretty comfortable with where we’re at. John Brunner is orchestrating quite the symphony for us here at the Speedway.”
ABEL Motorsports and driver RC Enerson will continue their preparations for the Indy 500 in “Fast Friday” practice tomorrow, May 19, with on-track activity again scheduled for Noon-6pm ET.
ABEL Motorsports PR
