A weekend at a road course was just what the doctor ordered for Dreyer & Reinbold Racing as their success at Watkins Glen International Raceway continued. Mike Conway, driver of the No. 24 Dad’s Root Beer machine, finished in the top ten in Watkins Glen, New York today with a sixth place finish, while his teammate Milka Duno came home in 17th position.
The 3.37 mile circuit has been good to DRR for the past three years. They have had one car in the top six in each of the last three races at the track. This year’s Camping World Grand Prix at the Glen will mark four years in the top six with Conway’s result. In 2006, Ryan Briscoe gave the team their first podium with a third place finish.
As the green flag dropped, both drivers had a flawless start. Conway showed that he was ready to prove the point he was unable to at the two road and street course events earlier this season. The Brit went from 6th to 5th position in the first lap and continued to climb as the race progressed, running second for most of the time. With near perfect pit stops, Conway drove a good, consistent race. Unfortunately, on the last stop he dropped to fifth position, but ran strong. As the race came to an end he had some issues with the balance and on the last lap was passed by Marco Andretti, giving him a sixth place result. This event marks Conway’s best qualifying and finish of the season.
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The morning started out a little rocky for Duno. During the morning warm-up she was at the end of her tire life and went to mixture one. At that point she went too aggressively back into the throttle and lost control of the car, making contact with the wall. Luckily her luck turned around. The No.23 crew worked diligently to get her car back in race condition. As Duno continues to gain experience on the road courses, she drove a solid race, had great pit stops and brought the CITGO car home in 17th place. Duno will return to the No.23 car in Kentucky.
Dreyer & Reinbold Racing heads to Toronto for the Honda Indy Toronto.
What they had to say…
Milka Duno, #23 CITGO: “First I have to say thank you to the team, because after what happened in the warm-up this morning, they worked so hard for two hours to give me a good car for the race. We continue to improve and we will see next race.”
Mike Conway, #24 Dad’s Root Beer: “It was a great result for everybody. We ran strong all day. It was a shame that we couldn’t quite get the result in the end. It was a case of me coming out of the box and I lost a couple of seconds and gave me the gap to Justin Wilson and everyone came in between us. We were running top five and saving fuel. I struggled with the balance in the end, but we still brought the Dad’s Root Beer car home in sixth place. I just have to thank the Dad’s Root Beer crew, they did a great job all weekend and I’m looking forward to Toronto.”
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Dennis Reinbold, Dreyer & Reinbold Racing co-owner: “Today was a good day. We ended up in sixth place. We are disappointed in that, because we wanted to hold onto fifth. We struggled with the balance and Mike had to hang on in the end. As a result he lost a spot on the last lap. It’s not his fault. It’s just something that didn’t work out to our advantage. Overall we had a good solid race. We had good pit stops and we will take the points and use that to our advantage in Toronto.”
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