Venue: Texas Motor Speedway, 1.5-mile oval, Ft. Worth, Texas
No. 13 PDVSA HVM Racing Honda Dallara - E.J. Viso
Starting Position: 21st
Finishing Position: 24th
Notes:
The green flag had barely waved in the Bombardier Learjet 550k when HVM Racing’s E.J. Viso got caught in the wrong place at the wrong time. Viso was the victim of an accident on Lap 2 when the No. 13 PDVSA HVM Racing Honda Dallara was collected by a spinning car immediately in front of him, knocking him out of the race as it was just getting under way.
Starting in the 21st position, Viso took off with a fast car and was moving up the field during the first lap. But on the second lap of the race, Graham Rahal’s No. 02 went sideways coming out of Turn 2. Viso was directly behind him with nowhere to go, and both cars spun into the No. 23 car of Milka Duno. Viso was taken to the infield care center, where he was evaluated and cleared.
The HVM team was looking to bounce back from previous disappointing results this season and was excited to race under the lights at Texas Motor Speedway. But circumstances beyond the team’s control led to an early exit and a 24th-place finish.
Comments from HVM Racing Team Principal and Owner Keith Wiggins after Saturday's race at Texas Motor Speedway:
“Obviously we’re quite frustrated right now. We put a lot of time and effort into preparing the car for this race and, even though we didn’t qualify as well as we’d hoped, we were still optimistic about running well tonight.
“We didn’t even have an opportunity to see what the car could do. We were just victims.”
Comments from PDVSA HVM Racing Team Driver E.J. Viso after Saturday's race at Texas Motor Speedway:
“We started the race and the car felt good straight away. I was able to move up some positions really fast. I was excited. We’ve been working so hard to get back up and have a good performance in the race and I think we were having it so far, and this thing happened. It was obviously out of our hands.
“I couldn’t do anything. I was driving into Corner 1, then out of Corner 2, and I found that (Graham) Rahal was wiggling and suddenly he just had his car sideways and I had nowhere to go.”
HVM is based in Indianapolis, Indiana. In its eight years of competition, the team has earned six wins, two pole positions, and an additional 16 podiums since 2001. The team finished fourth and third, respectively, in the Champ Car championship standings in 2006 and 2007, and earned its drivers Mario Dominguez and Robert Doornbos Rookie of the Year honors in 2002 and 2007, respectively. In 2008 with driver E.J. Viso, the team earned seven top-10 finishes, including a fourth at St. Petersburgin its inaugural year in the IRL Championship.
