ST. PETERSBURG, Florida – It wasn’t the best of weekends for Aaron Telitz at the season-opening Indy Lights presented by Cooper Tires doubleheader on the streets of St. Petersburg, but the spirit of the series paddock came shining through.
Telitz won the pole position in Friday’s qualifying for Race 1, but crashed his No. 9 Belardi Auto Racing Mazda/Dallara IL-15 in Race 2 qualifying Saturday morning. Telitz was fortunately uninjured, but the car was too severely damaged to take the green flag for the first race later that day.
Since the team had no backup car ready, the chances of Telitz racing on what began as such a promising weekend looked bleak at best. That’s when the rest of the paddock in Indy Lights, the top rung of the Mazda Road to Indy presented by Cooper Tires development ladder, stepped up.
Belardi team manager John Brunner approached team owner Trevor Carlin and team manager Colin Hale from Carlin – which mothballed its Indy Lights program this year as it moved up to the Verizon Indy Car Series – about getting one of the team’s Indy Lights cars.
Carlin quickly agreed, but it left one more problem: how to get the chassis from the Carlin shop 200 miles away in Delray Beach, Florida. Enter Gregg Borland, the owner of Cooper Tires USF2000 Championship entry ArmsUp Motorsports, with whom Telitz raced in 2014.
“As soon as they found out that there was a car available, we reached out to Brunner and said, ‘We have a truck and a trailer here and if you need it, it’s available to you,’” Borland said. “They’d do the same for us, so we’d absolutely bend over backward to help them out.”
Borland wasted no time in making the offer to the Belardi team, and backed up the offer with quick action.
“By the time I got over (to the ArmsUp compound in St. Pete), they actually already had the trailer hooked up, ready for me and off I went,” said Belardi’s Brunner, who made the 400-mile round trip in nine hours, including time to load the car and make two “pit stops” for fuel.
“It was boring, maybe it was peaceful, I don’t know,” said Brunner. “I had four hours (each way) to think of every little thing (for the crew to have ready to prep the car), and I bugged my guys and they had it covered. I didn’t come up with one thing they didn’t already have covered.”
The work began in earnest for the Belardi team when Brunner arrived with the spare car late Saturday around midnight. The crew toiled on the car through the night and slept in shifts. Telitz was granted an installation lap prior early Sunday morning to make sure all systems checked out.
Trevor Carlin was glad his team could provide the car.
“They worked all night and got it done, they did a fantastic job and we were very pleased to help them,” said Carlin. “One day someone might have to help us, so they’re great guys, the Belardi guys, and we’re very pleased to help them.”
Belardi team owner Brian Belardi expressed his appreciation as well.
“I can’t thank Trevor Carlin and Colin Hale enough, quite honestly,” Belardi said. “ArmsUp as well for lending us the transportation to go and get the car. The crew just working away, it was a team effort.”
Telitz started third in Sunday’s Indy Lights race but had his day unfortunately end early when contact with another car forced him into the Turn 2 wall on the opening lap, breaking the left rear suspension on Telitz’s car. While the result was disappointing, it couldn’t overshadow the true camaraderie shown in the paddock.
“The teams in the Mazda Road to Indy are fierce competitors on track, but we are a community off the track,” said Dan Andersen, owner and CEO of Andersen Promotions that operates the INDYCAR-sanctioned Mazda Road to Indy. “There have been many examples over the years where one team has quietly stepped in to assist another, and this is just the latest example.
“Belardi Auto Racing was in need of a spare car. Even though Carlin isn’t currently competing in Indy Lights, Trevor Carlin offered up one of his at its shop in Delray Beach. Then ArmsUp Motorsports generously volunteered a truck and trailer to transport the car from Delray Beach to St. Petersburg. We are proud to call each of these teams a part of the Mazda Road to Indy family.”
The Mazda Road to Indy is idle until Indy Lights and the Pro Mazda Championship presented by Cooper Tires each compete in doubleheader race weekends at Barber Motorsports Park in Alabama on April 20-22.