IPS: Chicagoland: Sam Schmidt Motorsports preview

SAM SCHMIDT MOTORSPORTS CHICAGOLAND 100 PREVIEW

JOLIET, Ill. -- Sam Schmidt Motorsports heads into this weekend's event at the Chicagoland Speedway with a four-car juggernaut lead by 2007 Indy Pro Series Champion, Alex Lloyd, returning driver Leilani Munter, and teammates Logan Gomez and Ryan Justice.

The team has run strong on ovals all-season, especially at the last oval event at the Kentucky Speedway where all four Sam Schmidt entries had stints in the top five at different points in the race.

Thus, there are high expectations for all four drivers.

Lloyd looks to cap off his Indy Pro Series Championship season and career with a win in his final Indy Pro Series race.

Munter looks to continue her hard-charging run from Kentucky and dazzle those watching with her talent and ability to quickly adapt to her new surroundings.

Gomez and Justice are both coming off of top five finishes in the most recent Indy Pro Series event, and with both running well lately on the ovals, they each feel they have a chance at ending their race in victory lane.

The first practice session takes place on Saturday morning from 10:15-10:45. The second practice will be from 3:30-4:15. Qualifying takes place that evening at 5:45.

The race itself will be Sunday morning at 11:45. All session times are in the central daylight time zone.

All sessions can be viewed live on IndyCar.com. The ESPN2 tape-delayed broadcast of the race will be on September 13th at 5 p.m. edt.

#7 LUCAS OIL/Isilon Systems Driver Alex Lloyd

"This is the weekend I'm looking forward to most all year. There's no pressure going into it. We've won the championship and everything we've needed to do. We can just go in and have fun. When we enter a race in a non-pressure environment, we can just go straight out for the win, and hopefully we can finish off the year with the way we started. I'm looking forward to it."

#23 Isilon System/FlaCondos.net Driver Logan Gomez

"I'm looking forward to another high-banked oval to race on. We should be good there. We were good at Homestead and up to speed. We had the speed there and other places. We had some bad luck at Kentucky, but other than that, coming off the best race we've seen in awhile, there are still some points to makeup, and hopefully with a good run here, we can makeup some spots right at the end in the championship."

#38 LifeLock/LUCAS OIL Driver Ryan Justice

"I've never been to Chicagoland, but I hear it's a real high speed track, and the racing is really close. I'm really looking forward to improving on my second-place result from Sonoma and hopefully cap off the season with a win."

#57 SMART Papers/LUCAS OIL Driver Leilani Munter

"I think I have higher expectations going into Chicagoland than I did going into Kentucky because I felt like, at Kentucky, we had a top five car. So, more so than before, I'm expecting to run up front. Obviously, I was hoping to run up front in Kentucky, but I didn't quite know what to expect since I hadn't been around all those cars before. I have pretty high expectations. I feel like now I have some experience under my belt. I know how the car feels in traffic. I feel a lot more confident. Now I've gone through a weekend, I know how everything goes with qualifying and just getting the whole first weekend out of the way makes me much more calmer and confident going into Chicagoland."

-credit: smm