{"id":7504,"date":"2024-08-31T11:30:49","date_gmt":"2024-08-31T15:30:49","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sundaymanagement.com\/?p=7504"},"modified":"2024-09-01T11:32:26","modified_gmt":"2024-09-01T15:32:26","slug":"podium-finish-for-abel-motorsports-at-milwaukee","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sundaymanagement.com\/index.php\/2024\/08\/31\/podium-finish-for-abel-motorsports-at-milwaukee\/","title":{"rendered":"Podium finish for ABEL Motorsports at Milwaukee"},"content":{"rendered":"

Jacob\u00a0Abel earns his 10th podium of the year to clinch second in the championship, while Wisconsin native Yuven Sundaramoorthy delivers a hard-fought seventh top 10 finish<\/em><\/p>\n

MILWAUKEE, Wis. (August 31, 2024) \u2013 ABEL Motorsports delivered two outstanding finishes in Saturday\u2019s closely contested INDY NXT by Firestone Milwaukee 100 at the famed Milwaukee Mile, as Jacob Abel captured his third second-place finish of the season while Yuven Sundaramoorthy brought his car home in seventh position in his first race carrying the OPTIMA Batteries colors.<\/p>\n

Both cars survived multiple wheel-to-wheel knocks through the race, with Sundaramoorthy surviving more than his share but keeping the pedal to the metal as he earned a solid finish in front of his hometown crowd. For Abel (Louisville, Ky.), the finish cemented his second-place finish in the INDY NXT series championship title chase.<\/p>\n

The pair were at the top of the charts in on-track passes \u2013 Abel with 11 and Sundaramoorthy with 10.<\/p>\n

Even before the on-track activities began, Sundaramoorthy, from nearby Oconomowoc, Wis. had established himself as the hometown hero. The Wisconsin graduate sported a racing helmet design that replicated the Badgers football helmet, carried the colors of Wisconsin-based global battery giant OPTIMA, and attended the Badgers season opener Friday night, enjoying pre-game festivities from the field. But once inside that helmet, Sundaramoorthy was determined to give the local fans someone to cheer for.<\/p>\n

The pair of drivers had a single 45-minute practice session to reacquaint themselves on the Mile\u2019s tricky setup, with less than 10 degrees of banking and wide straightaways. With the team fine tuning throughout, the session ended with Abel third and Sundaramoorthy sixth. In qualifying early Saturday afternoon, Sundaramoorthy put together a solid two-lap run to put the No. 22 OPTIMA Batteries\/ABEL Motorsports Dallara into the ninth starting position with a two-lap average of 148.651 mph. Abel, the next to last car to qualify (with the qualifying order based on points), posted an average speed of 150.824 mph to start the No. 51 ABEL Construction Dallara on the outside of row one.<\/p>\n

When the green flag fell, Abel had to check up next to the late-starting pole sitter, allowing two cars to surge from behind on the outside and one on the inside. The inside car took Abel high, sending him into the two cars on the outside. Fighting for control, Abel was fully sideways before righting the car and re-entering the fray \u2013 albeit in sixth position, as Sundaramoorthy held his ground in ninth.<\/p>\n

Abel made a move for fifth position early while Sundaramoorthy grabbed eighth but as the race settled in the field spread out, with neither driver able to gain ground until a caution flag on lap 29 brought the field back together.<\/p>\n

On the restart, Abel slid to the inside and made the pass for fourth stick, then made the same move on lap 38 to take third. On lap 45, Sundaramoorthy, in a three-car dog fight, made a pass for seventh and set his sights ahead.<\/p>\n

With his rear tires beginning to fade, Sundaramoorthy fell to seventh, but he was able to maintain control as James Roe, on the inside, slid up into him on lap 60, putting him back to eighth. On lap 65, he pulled alongside Roe, who again took him high as the pair banged wheels \u2013 with Sundaramoorthy doing a masterful job to keep the car under control and in the race.<\/p>\n

Abel continued to take the measure of Salvador de Alba ahead and with three laps to go, made the outside move in Turn 4 for second position. At the checkered flag, had earned his 10th podium of the season, with Sundaramoorthy taking a hard fought and somewhat battered seventh.<\/p>\n

\u201cLouis Foster (pole sitter) went a lot later than I was expecting and he was kind of slowing down before that a little bit,\u201d said Abel. \u201cI had to check up so I didn’t get ahead of him, and obviously lost a lot of ground there. I honestly don’t even know what happened after that \u2013 there were a few hits and I saved it, but mostly I was really frustrated because we lost six positions. It\u2019s especially frustrating because we had a really strong race car. We moved forward really well, especially in the beginning, and I was just balancing saving the Firestone tires versus trying to get more track position. I think we did a good job with that; we just ran out a little bit at the end. But I think we made some of the most ground up out of anyone so we’re definitely proud of that.”<\/p>\n

\u201cI honestly think it’s the hardest oval we go to all year,\u201d said Sundaramoorthy. \u201cBut I’m super happy to be back in Milwaukee \u2013 I think this is amazing for the sport and I love the Wisconsin crowd. It was a tough race but I\u2019ll take the top 10 finish. I think we could have gotten a podium if we\u2019d managed to move up more quickly but just kind of got stuck and that was where it ended. But the track raced really well and I was really happy about that. Obviously, I wish I could have gotten a better result for the hometown fans but I\u2019m happy that we’re back in Milwaukee and really happy with the way this week has gone.\u201d<\/p>\n

ABEL Motorsports thanks partners ABEL Construction Company, Advance Ready Mix,\u00a0Boyd Cat\u00ae, OPTIMA Batteries, S Team Motorsports, Quest Global and OMP for their continued support.<\/p>\n

The season finale for ABEL Motorsports and the INDY NXT by Firestone will be the Music City Grand Prix, Sunday, September 15 at 11:50 a.m. ET.\u00a0The 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":"

Jacob\u00a0Abel earns his 10th podium of the year to clinch second in the championship, while Wisconsin native Yuven Sundaramoorthy delivers a hard-fought seventh top 10 finish [\u2026]<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":7505,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[19,73],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-7504","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\/7504","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=7504"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/sundaymanagement.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7504\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7506,"href":"https:\/\/sundaymanagement.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7504\/revisions\/7506"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sundaymanagement.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/7505"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sundaymanagement.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7504"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sundaymanagement.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7504"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sundaymanagement.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7504"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}