Conquest Racing Champ Car rookie Matt Halliday scored the first finish of his Champ Car career in the 42 Below machine on Sunday in the Grand Prix of Houston. source: conquestracing.com The New Zealander was classified in fourteenth position at the checkered flag after losing time in the pits for repairs that were needed when an overly optimistic competitor crashed Halliday off course. The Conquest Racing crew worked quickly to fix the suspension on the 42 Below machine, but Halliday lost several laps while on pit lane before rejoining the race. The 42 Below car was unable to match the pace it set in the early laps of the race, but Halliday hung on to bring the Conquest Racing entry to the checkered flag for his first Champ Car finish. "I guess we got crashed into," said a frustrated Halliday. "We were running at a good pace to start with and saving fuel and then Moreno came by me and tried passing on the inside. We hit and that was the end of the story for us. Moreno is an old man and he should know better. The crew did a good job of getting everything fixed but we lost a lot of time and then I had to just cruise around. We just took it easy to get some points at the end." The Houston race weekend marked the last of three consecutive race weekends to open up the 2007 Champ Car season. Despite working with a rookie driver and a brand new race car with the Panoz DP01, Conquest Racing proved to be up to the challenge and is looking forward to competing in more Champ Car races this season. "I was happy with the first stint Matt had going but of course he got hit before he even got to his first pit stop and that obviously compromised our entire race," said Bachelart. "He did a good job to just bring the car home at the end but it is a shame what happened because we could have capitalized on this race for more points." The Champ Car World Series will race again at Portland International Raceway on June 10th for round four of the 2007 season.
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