Conquest Racing Kentucky race report

Dillon Battistini

Photo by: xpb.cc

Sparta, Kentucky – October 2, 2011 – Conquest Racing had an early end to their race today after a positive start in which Dillon Battistini took the green flag in the 25th position and had his first wheel-to-wheel fight with the 28 IZOD IndyCAr competitors as he made his series debut at the Kentucky Indy 300. Battistini, who had been feeling ill for a few days leading up to the event this weekend, held on for 124 laps at the 1.5-mile D-shaped oval but eventually decided to retire from the race as he felt it was no longer safe to continue clocking laps in excess of 210mph. The British rookie was scored in 28th position for the second to last race of the 2011 IZOD IndyCar Series season.

For Battistini this race marked a highlight in his career as he completed his climb through the Road to Indy program which took him from winning races in the Firestone Indy Lights series, including the event at Kentucky, to getting behind the wheel of an IndyCar. Despite the unfortunate outcome, the Conquest Racing crew once again had a strong showing and used their experience to coach and bring a young rookie up to speed in the fastest racing series in the world.

Conquest Racing will now head to the IZOD IndyCar World Championship presented by Honda at the Las Vegas Motor Speedway where the 2011 series champion will be crowned. The event will take place October 16th and will be televised on ABC at 3:00PM Eastern.

Dillon Battistini
Driver
No. 34 Conquest Racing/ Honda /Dallara /Firestone

“It’s obviously not the way we wanted to end the weekend. After having a strong start to the race I was getting up to speed and getting used to driving around in traffic. I haven’t been feeling well for a few days and as the race went on it got worse and worse until it got the point that it wasn’t safe to be out there anymore. I’m very excited that I had the chance to make my debut in the IZOD IndyCar Series and I look forward to coming back and pick up where we started.”