Focus on speed and skill development continues for Mazda Road to Indy driver
MANSFIELD, OHIO – When Texan Bobby Eberle made the commitment to take a run at the National class title in the 2016 Pro Mazda Championship Presented Cooper Tires, he did so with a renewed focus on pushing his skills to the next level. Over the past five months, Eberle has elevated his game significantly, while working with JDC MotorSports and his coach Charles Crews, and his on-track performances have been tremendous. This past weekend, the 48-year-old competed at the 2.258-mile, 13-turn Mid-Ohio Sports Car Course as part of the Verizon IndyCar Series weekend and he came away with two more victories and a commanding lead in the championship heading to the finale in September in Monterey, California.
“This was a very challenging weekend for me,” Eberle commented. “Mid-Ohio is one of my favorite tracks, and we had a really great test here last month, so I was expecting even better results. However, I was suffering through a flu bug that really set me back. During the test sessions on Thursday, I had to take a break, remove my helmet and get water, which is something I never need to do. The lack of real progress on the test day set us back for practice and qualifying, but we made up for it with breakthroughs in the races. I continued to improve my racecraft, and I ended the weekend with a career-best sixth place overall finish. There is so much more we need to work on, and the weekend helped bring those areas to light. I’m really excited to get back in the car and to keep improving.”
After three test sessions on Thursday and an official practice session on Friday morning, Eberle rolled into qualifying at Mid-Ohio and laid down his best time of the week with a 1:20.708. The Pro Mazda Championship ran both of their races on Saturday, one early in the morning and the other capping off the day’s action, so avoiding the chaos of the first race start was key. Eberle did not want to damage the car in the first event, which would have left his team scrambling to make repairs for Race 2.
In the first main event, a 30-minute timed race, Eberle got off to a slow start but hounded the leader – Bob Kaminsky – all race long until Bobby executed a great pass in Turn 4 with two to go to score his seventh National win of the year. The second race, a 40-minute battle, was run under varying conditions, as a storm front blew through the area after the race had started, bringing light rain, sending the race into a full course caution period. The cars circled the track as the rain subsided, and once the surface was dry, they went back to green flag racing. Eberle passed his competition on the opening lap and would go on to take sixth overall, winning his second National class race of the weekend.
“Bobby's rate of improvement is absolutely incredible, every weekend we get closer to the front of the grid,” added Charles Crews, Eberle’s driver coach. “Our test went extraordinarily well last month and we knew going in that Mid-Ohio would likely be one of our strongest venues. However, Bobby came down with a bit of a bug during our first two days of the race weekend, which compromised our pace and qualifying results. Come Saturday, he was feeling much better and demonstrated his massively improved race craft, driving up through the field in both races. We missed out on our first top-five by a matter of a few seconds. We will take everything we learned in Mid-Ohio and apply it to our upcoming tests, as well as the Mazda Raceway Laguna Seca finale.”
The season finale is set for September 9-11 in Monterey, California at the popular Mazda Raceway Laguna Seca, the home of the famous ‘Corkscrew’ corner. Eberle’s friends and fans can watch the weekend sessions live on www.promazda.com or on their mobile devices by downloading the Mazda Road to Indy app from the Apple Store or Google Play.
DRIVER PERFORMANCE - BOBBY EBERLE
#13 PRO MAZDA / JDC MOTORSPORTS
MID-OHIO SPORTS CAR COURSE – MANSFIELD, OHIO
JULY 29-31, 2016
Qualifying: 8th – 1:13.6069
Race 1: 7th
Race 2: 8th
SOCIAL MEDIA:
Twitter: @BobbyEberle13
Instagram: @BobbyEberle13
###
About Bobby Eberle: Dr. Bobby Eberle is a former aerospace engineer who then moved over to the world of politics. Dr. Eberle uses his experience and analytical training to present editorial views on current affairs to over one million email subscribers daily with updates on political news and commentary. Eberle has appeared on FoxNews.com's Strategy Room, MSNBC with Joe Scarborough, NBC Houston, and has been a guest on numerous radio programs including Sirius/XM Satellite Radio, Bloomberg Radio, the G. Gordon Liddy Show, Fox Radio and Dennis Miller. Bobby has a B.S. degree in aerospace engineering from Texas A&M University as well as M.S. and Ph.D. degrees in mechanical engineering from Rice University, and was a former nationally ranked tennis player. Bobby competed in the 2013 Skip Barber Winter Series and finished 9th overall out of 75 drivers and was the Masters Class Champion. In the Skip Barber race series, Bobby had 1 win, 5 podiums, and countless Top 10s. He then turned his attention to the Formula Car Challenge where he finished third in the overall championship in 2013 with 3 podiums and 8 top-five finishes. In 2014, Bobby finished 16th overall in the Pro Mazda Championship and was the Expert Class Champion with 3 in-class wins. In 2015, Bobby finished 15th overall and was again Expert Class Champion with 11 in-class wins.