DREYER & REINBOLD RACING COMPLETES KANSAS WEEKEND

KANSAS CITY, Kan. – Under windy and chilly conditions, Dreyer & Reinbold Racing's drivers Milka Duno and Buddy Rice took part in Sunday afternoon's Road Runner Turbo Indy 300 at the Kansas Speedway. Duno finished 16th while Rice finished 20th.

At the start of the race, the two team cars ran near each other for most of the first fuel stint. Towards the end of the stint, Rice began to pull away. As the race progressed, both found a comfortable rhythm to settle into and continued to run laps.

In the middle of the race, an incident occurred on pit lane when Duno was exiting her pits, and while trying to avoid debris, she lost control. She did a half spin and stalled the car in Rice's pit.

The #23 CITGO crew had to bring Duno back to her pit to restart her car. The ensuing time lost cost her three laps on the track.
Meanwhile, Rice continued to run his steady pace and one-by-one, moved his car into the top ten. After his fourth pit stop, Rice went back onto the track, but within a couple of laps, a suspension piece broke on his right front and sent him into the outside wall. The resulting damage ended his day with a disappointing finish.

Duno continued her race and gained valuable experience. Other than the pit mishap, she made no serious errors on the race track, and the team feels confident that her constant learning and experience gained will aid her greatly at the team's next race -- the 92nd Indianapolis 500.

Until then, the team will head back to Indianapolis on Monday and move its equipment into the historic Indianapolis Motor Speedway this weekend to begin practice on Tuesday, May 6th.

#23 CITGO/Dreyer & Reinbold Racing Driver Milka Duno
Started 24th, Finished 16th (Five laps down)

"We had a very good race car today. I had some small problems with the brakes, but I only needed to worry about that when coming into the pits. I couldn't be precise with the pedal in the pits, but I knew from the beginning that I'd have this problem all day. On the warm-up laps, I felt that the pressure wasn't right. I have to say thank you to my Dreyer and Reinbold team and CITGO, my sponsor, because the race car was so good. I was a little upset because I didn't qualify well, but I knew we'd have a really, really good race car. Everybody did a good job this weekend. My spotter, Dane Carter, did a good job of telling me how to work in traffic, and Robbie Buhl was also very helpful in giving me advice this weekend. Our result did not properly show how good my car was today."

#15 Dreyer & Reinbold Racing Driver Buddy Rice
Started 21st, Finished 20th (Mechanical Failure)

"Unfortunately, we had a right front suspension failure. We were running inside the top ten, finally, just before that set of pit stops. That was our goal for the day, but the car is toast now."

Team Co-Owner, Dennis Reinbold
About Rice's Race: "That was a disappointing end to our weekend. Our guys did a great job putting Buddy's car together with the quick turn around from Japan. I thought we may have gotten over some of our recent bad luck, but unfortunately, it seemed to bite us here. All we can do is re-group and start to turn things around at Indy."

Team Co-Owner, Robbie Buhl
About Duno's Race: "Milka is continuing to improve. We still need to work on her race craft a bit and handling traffic. We've got the whole month of May to get her some more track time and get her turning laps. The big thing here today is that she finished, gained experience, and other than the pit mishap, we didn't have any big mistakes. As we continue to polish her race craft, she'll be getting better and better. She's improving every time out on the race course."

FAST FACTS
Duno's #23 CITGO crew had some new members this weekend. David Janquart took over duties as crew chief, replacing Fran Reilly who left the team to pursue other opportunities, while Bud Bivens had been added on as a mechanic.

There are two tracks on the 2008 IndyCar Series schedule where Rice is a previous winner: Kansas Speedway, and of course, the Indianapolis Motor Speedway.

For more information on Milka Duno, please visit www.milkaduno.com. For more information on Dreyer & Reinbold, please visit www.dreyerreinbold.com.

 

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