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Ana Beatriz out to become more than ‘the next Danica’

Brazilian driver looks back on her history-making first win

Firestone Indy Lights competitor Ana Beatriz certainly made a lot of headlines with her victory last Saturday at Nashville Superspeedway, but she may have to win a few more races in order to solve an ‘identity crisis’ of sorts.

Back in her native country of Brazil, Beatriz (full name: Ana Beatriz Caselato Gomes de Figueiredo) is known as Bia Figueiredo, with ‘Bia’ being her regular nickname. But when the time came to race in America, no one could pronounce it.

With that in mind, she decided to go under the easier ‘Ana Beatriz’, but do an internet search with that and you’ll get pictures of the comely supermodel Ana Beatriz Barros. It can make for a humorous misunderstanding as the Sam Schmidt Motorsports driver explained in the IRL’s weekly teleconference:

“A lot of people put in Google ‘Ana Beatriz,’ and it shows Ana Beatriz Barros with bikinis and she’s gorgeous, as well. People are like, ‘Wow, Ana Beatriz [is] like that.’ No, that’s not me. It’s a funny thing.”

Indeed. But Beatriz, whose win in the Music City made her the first female driver ever to win in the series, is serious about realizing her ultimate hope:

“My long‑term goal is become a top driver in IndyCars.”

Beatriz’ win on the 1.33-mile concrete oval pushed her to third in Lights standings at 39 points behind leader Richard Antinucci. A key two-race doubleheader is scheduled for this weekend at Mid-Ohio Sports Car Course.

Earlier this month at Watkins Glen, she scored a pair of top-5 finishes, which served notice that she will be a threat for the podiums on M-O’s natural-terrain road course.

With her background of karting and road racing, the Brazilian admitted that she was surprised that her first victory came on an oval, especially one as tough as Nashville. She credited her SSM team as well as her podium finish at Iowa for giving her more confidence, but perhaps the most important thing that contributed to her breakthrough win was good, old-fashioned studying.

Through watching videotapes of last year’s performances from 2007 FIL champion and former Schmidt driver Alex Lloyd, Beatriz noted the little things that go with high-speed oval racing. She felt that it has paid off:

“It’s just more the steering wheel, how you can scrap less speed and gain more speed in the exit of the corners. There’s so much details, it’s hard to explain. But I was getting all these things, and I put it together and I could learn it. And we finally did really well and won Nashville.”

With a championship still in sight, Beatriz will have enough pressure in the next few races to pull closer to Antinucci and second-place man Raphael Matos, who’s currently 15 points back. But with her victory at Nashville, more outside distractions may emerge as more people start to discover her in the wake of that triumph. A likely side effect will be comparisons to her more famous IndyCar Series counterpart, Danica Patrick.

Time will tell if she ends up resenting those comparisons, but for now, she feels that both herself and Patrick are united in the cause of showing women that they can not only be competitive in motorsports, but be winners.

She said that she hoped that she could be a role model for them and that female drivers can become more prevalent on future starting grids:

“I think little girls, they don’t realize that they can do it. When they see Danica (Patrick) winning, or now I won, and they can realize, ‘Oh, I can do it and that sport is amazing, I want to start and everything,’ so I think in the future, we’re going to see more and more female drivers coming.”

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Sarah Fisher joins the Dollar General army

After almost seeing her race team go down for the count after wrecking in the 92nd Indianapolis 500, owner/driver Sarah Fisher will be able to drive at Kentucky Speedway on Aug. 9 and the season finale on Sept. 7 at Chicagoland Speedway.

But instead of driving defensively to save her only car, Fisher told the Indianapolis Business Journal’s Anthony Schoettle that thanks to new sponsor Dollar General, she’ll be going full-tilt and not have to worry about being able to fix her No. 67 car when SFR returns to the track next month. She told Schoettle:

“We’re not going out there to just run around in circles. We have to have a good result. And we have to make sure Dollar General has a good experience.”

After four years of serving as a sponsor in the NASCAR Nationwide Series, this will be the company’s first foray into open-wheel racing. The car will also be co-sponsored by a litany of Dollar General’s vendors — similar to what Target does with its sponsorship of Chip Ganassi’s IndyCar outfit.

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Castroneves scores ‘Auto Racer of the Year’ award

Spanish-language broadcasting giant Univision is getting into the sports awards business this year with their ‘Premios Deportes Awards’ ceremony, which will be aired on Univision July 20.

Created to honor Latin athletes and with winners determined by a mix of athletes and writers, the inaugural show took place on Monday night and the IndyCar Series was represented by two drivers in the ‘Auto Racer of the Year’ category: Helio Castroneves and Milka Duno.

In the end, it was the two-time Indy 500 champion Castroneves who won the honor. But that wasn’t the end of his awards appearances, as he served as a presenter for tonight’s ESPYs ceremony in L.A. The show will be aired Sunday night on ESPN.

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Other cool stuff

A new contract with Target Chip Ganassi Racing for Dan Wheldon appears imminent…

E.J. Viso and HVM Racing will return to action at M-O after Viso came down with the mumps virus before last weekend’s race at Nashville, putting his team out of the event…

Four-time Indy 500 winner Al Unser Sr. has filed suit against several Bernalillo County (N.M.) law enforcement figures, alleging that he got roughed up by sheriff’s deputies before being arrested for resisting police orders to leave a roadblock near a crime scene in August of 2006…

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All quotes used in this article were taken from today’s IRL teleconference, except where noted. Those quotes have been attributed to their proper subjects, writers and publications.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, July 16th, 2008 at 10:11 pm and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.