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Bia Is Back - & In Victory Lane!
By Andrew Cutler
June 21 2009
After finishing third in the 2008 Firestone Indy Lights championship chase, Ana Beatriz had to be considered among the front-runners for the 2009 FIL title. Three top-five finishes in the first four races kept her somewhat in the hunt, but a massive wreck during the Freedom 100 at Indianapolis in May nearly put her out for the balance of the season.

Facing a sudden loss of funding, "Bia" was forced to skip the FIL race at Milwaukee as she flew home to Brazil to hunt for new sources of revenue. She made it back in time for the Miller Lite 100 at Iowa Speedway and promptly qualified in a respectable sixth.

Keeping the leaders - which meant her Sam Schmidt Motorsports teammate Wade Cunningham for most of the race - in sight, Ana took advantage of an incident between two other competitors to vault herself into the 2nd spot in the closing laps, and then used a lapped car as a "pick" to move around the Kiwi and take the lead. Cunningham gave chase, but could not retake the lead. Beatriz notched her second FIL victory, the first having come at Nashville last year.

The win moves Ana back into 8th in the points standings, with just over one half of the season remaining. While a championship is probably out of reach at this point, a few more showings like this will certainly ignite talk of her potential to advance to the IndyCar series for 2010.  

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Bia Is Back!
Posted by: Indy Racing League (IP Logged)
Date: 21/06/2009 03:20

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