{"id":7246,"date":"2024-07-01T10:42:17","date_gmt":"2024-07-01T14:42:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sundaymanagement.com\/?p=7246"},"modified":"2024-07-01T10:42:17","modified_gmt":"2024-07-01T14:42:17","slug":"abel-motorsports-heads-back-to-familiar-territory-at-mid-ohio","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sundaymanagement.com\/index.php\/2024\/07\/01\/abel-motorsports-heads-back-to-familiar-territory-at-mid-ohio\/","title":{"rendered":"ABEL Motorsports heads back to familiar territory at Mid-Ohio"},"content":{"rendered":"

Abel, Sundaramoorthy and Missig have 61 junior formula races between them at the central Ohio circuit<\/em><\/p>\n

Abel also spent a season as an instructor at The Mid-Ohio School<\/em><\/p>\n

SPEEDWAY, Ind. (July 1, 2024) \u2013 The ABEL Motorsports\u2019 trio of Jacob Abel, Yuven Sundaramoorthy and Jordan Missig head to the INDY NXT by Firestone Grand Prix of Mid-Ohio this weekend as three of the field\u2019s most experienced drivers on the central Ohio circuit.<\/p>\n

All three drivers consider Mid-Ohio one of their \u201chome\u201d tracks, having raced there in each\u00a0 of their junior formula series seasons. Sundaramoorthy (Oconomowoc, Wis.) has 27 races at the central Ohio circuit, with a victory in F1600 in 2017, a win in USF2000 in 2021, seven podiums, and 16 top 10 finishes. Abel (Louisville, Ky.) scored 13 top 10s and two podiums in 23 races, while Missig (Joliet, Ill.) earned a podium and five top 10s in 11 races.<\/p>\n

But Abel, currently second in the INDY NXT point standings, has more than just racing miles at Mid-Ohio. Not only has he \u201cdriven there in just about everything in my career,\u201d in 2017 a 16-year-old Abel spent a season as an instructor at the\u00a0The Mid-Ohio School<\/a>. As a student at the school, he came under the tutelage of former INDYCAR driver Scott Harrington, and the next season, joined the cadre of instructors.<\/p>\n

\u201cI got to spend a lot of time at the track, teaching a wide range of people, when I was still quite young,\u201d said Abel. \u201cIt was a very cool experience, one that makes Mid-Ohio one of my self-proclaimed home tracks. The instructors teach everything: Defensive Driving (including the teen driving course) and High Performance, which includes racing schools. We taught them how to drive on the racetrack, how to be around other cars and all of that.<\/p>\n

\u201cLearning the intricacies of the track and at a very base level like that kind of kept me honest in a way. It made me aware of even the smallest little things that you don’t always think of as a professional race car driver. Like the USF Juniors coaching I do (with VRD Racing, which includes championship points leader Sebastian Wheldon) \u2013 the drivers are fast but still have things to learn, so it brings me back to the basics a little bit.\u201d<\/p>\n

Sundaramoorthy has also raced at Mid-Ohio in every single racing series in which he has competed. While the recent re-pave reduces the knowledge base slightly, he feels as though familiarity with how to set a pass is key.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s a little more of an even playing field this year, but at Mid-Ohio, it\u2019s all about knowing where to make passes and how to set them up,\u201d said Sundaramoorthy. \u201cThat\u2019s the hardest part at Mid-Ohio, just setting yourself up to make a move. There are no hard braking areas, but passes are makeable if you know how to put your car in the right spot. And it\u2019s a relatively short track, so you have opportunities to really work on each corner. And for me now, over the last couple of races, we\u2019ve been able to show our pace. There\u2019s more work to do but it gives me confidence going forward \u2013 it\u2019s good to have those results (two fourth place finishes at WeatherTech Raceway Laguna Seca two weeks ago) out of the way.\u201d<\/p>\n

Missig tested the ABEL INDY NXT car for the first time at Mid-Ohio back in May, and he found that the repaved surface has significantly upped the grip quotient. He also appreciates that Mid-Ohio figures prominently in most of the \u201cfirsts\u201d of his career.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey say that all roads lead to Indy but in our cases, we have to make our stop at Mid-Ohio first!\u201d said Missig. \u201cI got my start in just about everything there: first open wheel race in FR Americas, first USF Pro race, first INDY NXT test. It would be great to get my first series win here! This weekend will be sort of a reset for this track, since it\u2019s completely repaved now. Times could drop as much as three seconds a lap. Several turns have gained tremendously in terms of grip, and that was one of the things I found valuable at the test, that you can roll much more speed into, say, Turn 4 and the car is able to stick. I think that will create a little bit more passing opportunities and a little bit more side by side racing.\u201d<\/p>\n

ABEL Motorsports thanks partners ABEL Construction Company, Advance Ready Mix, Boyd Cat\u00ae, S Team Motorsports, Quest Global and OMP for their continued support.<\/p>\n

The INDY NXT by Firestone Grand Prix at Mid-Ohio takes the green flag Sunday, July 7 at 11:15 a.m. ET. The race will be streamed live in the U.S. on Peacock, while international viewers can watch via\u00a0INDYCARLIVE<\/a>, with INDYCAR Radio available at\u00a0indycar.com<\/a>\u00a0and on\u00a0Sirius XM<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Abel, Sundaramoorthy and Missig have 61 junior formula races between them at the central Ohio circuit Abel also spent a season as an instructor at The [\u2026]<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":7247,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[19,73],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-7246","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","category-abel-motorsports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sundaymanagement.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7246","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sundaymanagement.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sundaymanagement.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sundaymanagement.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sundaymanagement.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7246"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/sundaymanagement.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7246\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7248,"href":"https:\/\/sundaymanagement.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7246\/revisions\/7248"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sundaymanagement.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/7247"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sundaymanagement.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7246"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sundaymanagement.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7246"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sundaymanagement.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7246"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}