Watkins Glen: AJ Foyt Racing race report

After a season-best starting position of 8th AJ Foyt Racing's Darren Manning finished a career-best second place at last weekend's race in Watkins Glen. He led a few laps under caution, but he was no match for the hard-charging Ryan Hunter-Reay. After Hunter-Reay passed him for the lead Manning coaxed his car home for a second-place finish.

The race did not start out great for Manning. He was caught in the middle of the shuffle on the first lap, but did not sustain any damage to his car. He also experienced radio problems throughout the race. After being stuck behind Vitor Meira the team decided to change his pit strategy. On lap 38 Manning made his final pit stop. Laps later a caution came out and everyone else pitted he inherited the lead.

Fuel strategy began to go his way as the caution periods kept coming out. On the restart Manning did not get a good jump on Hunter-Reay; Hunter-Reay did and that caused Manning to lose the lead. He fought until the end, but just did not have enough to catch Hunter-Reay. This was not the first time Hunter-Reay and Manning finished 1-2. When Hunter-Reay scored his first Champ Car victory down in Surfer's Paradise, Australia it was Manning who finished second.

“This strong finish doesn’t surprise me because we’ve proved it to ourselves every now and then but it’s nice to validate it on a weekend like this to everyone else,” said Manning. “I was a sitting duck on the first restart because I knew I’d have to save fuel and was hoping to hold off as many as I could,” said Manning. “With the yellows that followed I knew we’d be golden and I was just waiting to hear the words from A.J. to go full rich on my fuel trim. But it’s good for us. It’s good for ABC Supply. We’ve been struggling the last couple races and we know we’re always quick on these road courses so it’s good there’s a few coming up.”

Manning and the rest of AJ Foyt Racing will have to wait a little bit to return to a road course as the IndyCar Series races goes back to the oval in Nashville this Saturday night.

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