Townsend Bell - Q&A

It may only have been a one-off, second-week effort, but Townsend Bell's run to fourth place in the Indianapolis 500 put him firmly in the shop window should any team require a stand-in later in the season.

Pat Sullivan - MC
Listen, folks, I conned Townsend into sticking around because I believe we should talk to him about the incredible run he's had.... so any questions?

Q:
Townsend, I think in the very early part - and after your first pit-stop - you lost a lot of positions, eight or nine very early, 20, 22 laps, and then you stormed back with this great result. Do you think that it's maybe a restart for your career in open-wheel racing or you've become hungry to do more races?

Townsend Bell:
My career seems to have been a series of starts and restarts for six years. But doesn't matter, this was a great day for us. We did have some problems, I don't know what happened on the first pit-stop. The fuel wasn't going in, or something, so we had to go to the back. We had a good start, stayed out of trouble, got up to twelfth or something, I think, before the first pit-stop and then had to go to the back and fight our way back up. It was fun.

This was a great race team. This KV team deserves to be in the top five at the Indy 500. They worked tremendously hard. We've got a great sponsor in Herbalife. Those guys are pretty fired up, as you can imagine. I had a blast out there. It seems, strangely enough, that the diciest racing I had was with Paul Tracy. Twice I kind of bobbled it a bit on a restart, and I would just go straight for the inside because I wasn't going to give him an inch there. He went to the outside and, man, we went through [turn] one side-by-side. I didn't lift, he didn't lift. I know we're team-mates, but we've become such good friends the last year or so that it's like playing a video game with your buddy. You're just like no way am I going to give up.

It happened going into [turn] three also. I kind of knew where his set-up was on his car, was a little different than what I was running, I thought I would be a little quicker on longer runs and I didn't want to get caught behind him. I'm glad I stuck with it. We left each other room, but there were good times.

Q:
Townsend, with this good finish, do you feel that maybe you do have a shot to run, even if it's the road courses, maybe a lot more races a season because it would be great to see you back in the series?

Townsend Bell:
You're only as good as your last race, that's what they say, right? So we'll see. I've been doing it long enough to not plan or feel like I deserve anything, you just work hard and hope that things turn out. It was fun, you know. There at the end I'm running with Dan Wheldon - he and I raced in Indy Lights, and Scott Dixon, I think, was behind me. Danica I've known for a while, and these are people I know I can compete with in equal equipment. I'm just thrilled that I had the chance to do that today.

Q:
Townsend, follow up on that on the equal equipment side of that. How do you feel, you and Paul pretty much shared crews to get qualified and you guys both wound up in the top ten?

Townsend Bell:
We definitely get the trophy for making the most of what we had. Paul qualified the first weekend and I took his crew for the second week to get into the show and then, you know, we cobbled together the crew for the stops. I've got to thank my engineer, Gerald Tyler, who, by the way, I won the Indy Lights championship with. Been trying to figure out a way for years to work with him again and he came in the last minute to help out.

What happened, after Mario - I don't know what happened to him at the start, but obviously he hit something big - what they did was actually took his crew, which are the full-time, full-season KV guys that work together all the time and they moved some or most of those guys to my car. I haven't even had a chance to ask. But that made a big difference. The only bummer for us was because we qualified second week, we were way down at the end of the pit-lane. I mean, damn near the end. So what happens, of course, is we had great stops but I pop out, I've got to go all the way down pit-lane and give everybody in front of me a chance to pull out and block. Danica, bless her, her rear was a little wide on pit-lane, and I mean that in the nicest way.

They know what they're doing and when they throw their car out of the pits and you swing your right rear out into the high line, Wheldon did the same thing. I have to lift or I'm going to punt them, which is not good for anybody. And when you lift, that's it, you're going to lose a spot. As Dan said, it was a little frustrating at the end to know you were ahead of a couple of cars, but hey, all in all, it was a great month for us.

Q:
What does the meaning of the 100-year anniversary of the Indianapolis Motor Speedway mean to you?

Townsend Bell:
Yeah, Indianapolis is truly a special place. Mr George told me one time that he felt that his responsibility was really as a steward, as a caretaker for the track going forward, that it was just sort of his turn to watch over this great place. That's how I feel. I think that the fact that the bricks reared its head this month during practice is kind of cool in a way. It's sort of barking out to us. When that happened, we walked out on the front straightaway because my teammate was one of the guys that hit the loose bricks. And you stand there and think, wow, these guys were super brave back in the day to be running around the Brickyard. To think what an absolutely beautifully smooth, well manicured, well maintained facility it is today is so cool. I feel so privileged to be part of this event every year.

Q:
Let me follow up on the KV part of it. They're a new team to the series. They made huge strides. How did you come to be racing with them, and what do you think of doing that much that quickly?

Townsend Bell:
Well, my first race in the big cars as I say when I was a CART rookie, was 2001. It was Lausitzring, and it was kind of a last-second deal, crazy circumstances. Another story for another time. But I showed up as a third driver with Patrick Racing. My team-mate was Jimmy Vasser. And I signed a contract to race in 2002 thinking Jimmy was going to be my team-mate. It didn't happen. I ended up as a rookie on a one-car team. The bummer was Jimmy had a great reputation as an excellent team-mate. He helped Juan [Pablo Montoya], and he helped [Alex] Zanardi, so I was really looking forward to that. So to finally have an opportunity eight, nine years later to work with Jimmy is just awesome. Also Kevin Kalkhoven, I cold-called Kevin Kalkhoven eight years ago and asked him to help me get in Formula One. He's an incredible guy. I've known him since then. So to have a chance to race with those guys is just great.

Pat Sullivan - MC
Townsend, thank you for coming in. Congratulations on a great run.

Townsend Bell:
Thanks. Appreciate it.