{"id":7295,"date":"2024-07-14T03:58:51","date_gmt":"2024-07-14T07:58:51","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sundaymanagement.com\/?p=7295"},"modified":"2024-07-15T03:59:44","modified_gmt":"2024-07-15T07:59:44","slug":"difficult-day-at-iowa-for-abel-motorsports","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sundaymanagement.com\/index.php\/2024\/07\/14\/difficult-day-at-iowa-for-abel-motorsports\/","title":{"rendered":"Difficult day at Iowa for ABEL Motorsports"},"content":{"rendered":"

NEWTON, Iowa. (July 14, 2024)\u00a0\u2013 The ABEL Motorsports team fought through a myriad of outside issues during Saturday\u2019s INDY NXT by Firestone Iowa 100, with Yuven Sundaramoorthy leading the driver trio with his fourth top 10 finish in the past five races.<\/p>\n

Racing on a recently partially repaved circuit, several teams experienced tire blistering during Friday\u2019s practice session, prompting INDYCAR \u2013 in consultation with series partner Firestone \u2013 to make several updates to Saturday\u2019s race format. The race distance was adjusted from 75 to 55 laps, with a 10-lap competition yellow after the leader completed Lap 15.<\/p>\n

Jacob Abel (No. 51 ABEL Construction), second in INDY NXT points, took the green flag in seventh position, with Sundaramoorthy (No. 22 S Team Motorsports) in 14th and Taylor Ferns (No. 55 Bradford Allen) \u2013 in her series debut \u2013 in 18th.<\/p>\n

With track temperatures nearing 120F, the trio knew that tire management would be key. Abel opted for caution at the start, tucking into eighth position, as Sundaramoorthy and Ferns held their ground.<\/p>\n

Two cars tangled in Turn 2 on Lap 13, with the field navigating a significant debris field as the yellow came out. Once the debris and resulting oil dry finally cleaned, the race returned to green with 10 laps remaining. As soon as he got back up to speed, Abel knew he had an issue, coming to pit lane to replace a punctured right rear tire. Sundaramoorthy and Taylor continued to battle, but the race went back to yellow with two laps remaining when another car found the wall. At the checkered flag, Sundaramoorthy had come home in 10th, with Abel 15th and Ferns 16th.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe set up the car for long run pace in qualifying, which ended up starting us in the back,\u201d said Sundaramoorthy. \u201cBut we were hoping we would get a long run to work our way forward. It didn’t quite happen that way with the yellows, which was a little unfortunate, but we had pace, so just going to look on the bright side today. There\u2019s a lot of luck that goes into this sport and we didn’t get on the good side of luck today, so maybe next time.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWe were fine early on, just saving our tires, and obviously the puncture was pretty bad luck,\u201d said Abel. \u201cWe were going too slow during the yellow so it wasn\u2019t apparent until we went back to green. Just a really frustrating day.”<\/p>\n

\u201cWe lost the test day to rain but\u00a0I had confidence in myself going into the weekend that we\u2019d be alright,\u201d said Ferns. \u201cUnfortunately, the negative circumstances kept tumble-weeding, things that were out of our control. But the team worked with me, they were patient with me \u2013 more patient than I am with myself. I wouldn’t be doing this if I didn’t think I could be competitive, but we knew it was going to be a battle. I’m not out here whipping my sprint car around, and there are so many more variables. I\u2019m really disappointed but we\u2019ll be back.\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

Next up for ABEL Motorsports and the INDY NXT by Firestone will be the Outfront Showdown at World Wide Technology Raceway near St. Louis, MO., August 17 at 3:55 p.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":"

NEWTON, Iowa. (July 14, 2024)\u00a0\u2013 The ABEL Motorsports team fought through a myriad of outside issues during Saturday\u2019s INDY NXT by Firestone Iowa 100, with Yuven [\u2026]<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":7296,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-7295","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sundaymanagement.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7295","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=7295"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/sundaymanagement.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7295\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7297,"href":"https:\/\/sundaymanagement.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7295\/revisions\/7297"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sundaymanagement.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/7296"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sundaymanagement.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7295"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sundaymanagement.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7295"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sundaymanagement.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7295"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}