Three young Americans test Indy Pro Series car source: indycar.com / Tim Harms While much of Colorado was under a blizzard warning on Oct. 26, 17-year-old Monument, Colo., native Adrian Carrio was in South Florida with two young Californians. You might expect that they would have been on the beach enjoying the 85-degree weather. Instead they were at Homestead-Miami Speedway strapped into 450-horsepower Indy Pro Series machines for the first time. Nothing could have been better. Carrio, the 2006 Star Mazda champion, was joined by 18-year-old JR Hildebrand, a Sausalito, Calif., native who won this year's Cooper Tires Formula Ford Zetec championship, and 21-year-old Palo Alto, Calif., native Reed Stevens, who was the top race winner in Formula BMW USA. By rights of their racing accomplishments in 2006, they were awarded a free test in a Sam Schmidt Motorsports-prepared Indy Pro Series car. "There's a reason these three guys were champions and race winners in their respective series," said Roger Bailey, executive director of the Indy Pro Series, who was on hand to witness the trio navigate the 2.21-mile road course. "They all displayed quite a lot of talent, speed and consistency. They have the makings of future race winners in the Indy Pro Series." Carrio and Stevens drove the No. 77 and No. 27 cars, respectively, in the morning. "It was really good," said Carrio, who just started his senior year of high school. "I actually just drove (the final Star Mazda race) a couple of days ago, so I was pretty fresh in the car. I got acclimated pretty quickly. It was just a couple of changes, the car, the horsepower mainly. I just concentrated on keeping it on the track and getting a good, general overview of how the car felt. It's really well-balanced."
Recent Articles
|
Racing Multimedia
Recommendations |