FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE:
Madison, IL. – ABEL Motorsports headed to World Wide Technology Raceway expecting incredibly high temperatures, but what was not expected was the torrential downpour that arrived at the 1.25 mile oval washing out the majority of the day on Saturday.
With the uncertainty of the schedule and not knowing how many laps the team would get ahead of the 75-lap INDY NXT Outfront Showdown, patience was a virtue. The second oval of the season and the second delayed schedule was nothing new for Jacob Abel as the series sophomore experienced much of the same at the Iowa Speedway in July.
When the word came from INDYCAR that teams would be able to finally hit the track at 7:00pm ET for a 30-minute practice session, Abel and his No. 51 ABEL Construction team knew they had no time to waste as they had to dial in their setup for the race. As the opening laps of practice kicked off under threatening skies, Abel received a bit of a scare when two cars got into the turn 1 wall and Abel had to catch his car and slow down to avoid joining in the pile. Abel would end practice in 4th.
With the lineup for the race being set on entrant points, Abel would start from the 4th position. As the opening laps got underway, Abel slid back to 8th as the field began going 3-wide throughout the pack. Once the tires came up to temperature and the field began to settle down, Abel started methodically making his moves to get back to the front of the field.
As the leaders began to hit traffic, Abel had to do everything he could to get around the lapped cars as quickly as possible to continue his push to the front. At the same time, Abel found himself locked in a battle with Louis Foster for 4th. With 20 laps to go, James Roe made contact with the turn 2 wall, bringing out a full course caution which would result in a restart. With 12 laps to go at the restart, Abel immediately went to work getting around Frost to move into 4th position. Abel then had to fight Frost off to keep his 4th place position and focus forward on the 3 cars ahead. Unfortunately for Abel, the laps ran out as he began to reel the top 3 cars in and had to settle with his 2nd 4th place finish in 2 races and his 4th top-5 finish in 4 races.
“The Abel Motorsports boys once again gave me a super-fast car, we just struggled a bit in dirty air which made it tough to hang in a pack of cars. Considering how the day unfolded with all of the rain and then a brief practice session, I am pretty happy with our result. We should be 3rd in the championship now, so now it’s on to get as many points as possible in Portland and then the double-header in Laguna,” said Jacob Abel.
Back again with ABEL Motorsports, and for the first time in his INDY NXT career on an oval, Colin Kaminsky knew the limited amount of track time would make it even harder on him to quickly get up to speed and get a feel for the No. 57 Slick Locks car in traffic. Running a total of 25 laps in practice, Kaminsky began to get a feel for his car in traffic ahead of 75-laps of racing.
Kaminsky had his hands full right of the bat, locked in a battle with fellow rookie, Jamie Chadwick for 14th. Struggling a bit for grip in traffic, and battling with 2 cars in his pack, Kaminsky was met by the leaders on lap 26. To avoid affecting the championship Kaminsky acted appropriately and let the lead cars get by him and focused his sights once more on getting around Chadwick.
As the field took the green flag on the restart, Kaminsky managed to work around series veteran Lindh to take over 13th. Kaminsky would wind up finishing in 13th a lap down to the leaders.
“Today was a pretty difficult day and losing track time with the rain made it even harder. I am still proud of what we were able to learn and also getting my first INDY NXT oval event under my belt. We had a fast car, but I had a difficult time in traffic with the way the dirty air affects the cars. I again have to thank ABEL Motorsports for not only giving me a solid car, but also the coaching and knowledge to help me. I’ll be cheering the team and Jacob on as they wrap up the 2023 season and working as hard as ever to be back in the car again in 2024,” said Colin Kaminsky.
No rest for the ABEL Motorsports crew as they head to Portland International Raceway for the INDY NXT by Firestone Grand Prix of Portland on September 3rd. From there, the team heads straight to Monterey California for the final 2 races of the 2023 season at the WeatherTech Raceway Laguna Seca. Keep up to date with all things ABEL Motorsports by following the team on social media @abelmotorsports.
Abel Motorsports including team Principal, Bill Abel, has been competing since 1972. Abel Motorsports is now on to the third generation with Jacob Abel being the flagship driver for the team. The team was able to capture the inaugural F3 Americas Championship in 2018, and currently competes in the freshly rebranded INDY NXT by Firestone series, the official development series for the NTT INDYCAR SERIES. For more information visit the official team website at: www.abelmotorsports.com