Las Vegas Sun

March 29, 2024

Summer of Sam

For the first time in his three-year Indy Racing League career, Sam Schmidt said he believes he is on the verge of collecting his first victory.

The Henderson resident already is collecting his first regular paycheck as an IRL driver after he gave up running his own team to replace Arie Luyendyk as the pilot of the Treadway Racing/Sprint PCS G-Force/Aurora.

Schmidt has rewarded team owner Fred Treadway with a third- and second-place finish in the past two races and the team has vaulted from 26th to 11th in the series point standings.

Despite his success this summer, Schmidt said this is not the most fun he has had since he got back into racing full-time in 1992.

Even during the past two seasons, when Schmidt was running on a shoestring budget and scraping by just to make each IRL race, the 34-year-old was having the time of his life.

"Every year I've raced, I've had a lot of fun," Schmidt said. "It's just different this year. Last year, we had a team that was kind of like a family and less of a business. We didn't have the financial backing we needed, but we made it happy and there was some feeling of accomplishment for everybody to do that.

"All in all, last year was a good season. It's hard for me to remember the negatives because I can only think of the positive that if I hadn't endured that, then I wouldn't be where I am today, and that's a very positive thing."

Although his second-place finish at Pikes Peak two weeks ago certainly was the highlight of Schmidt's season, it probably didn't match the sense of accomplishment he felt after taking second in the 1998 season finale at Las Vegas Motor Speedway.

Despite running an under-funded operation, Schmidt was able to run with Luyendyk in the closing laps of the race and ultimately finished second to the team he would join less than two months later.

"Certainly, the way we ended it at Vegas with a second place was just a huge high to end that whole two-year relationship and left us with a feeling of great accomplishment," Schmidt said. "You kind of forget about all the trials and tribulations along the way.

"This is more of a business ... but when you start your professional racing career, this is what you aspire to do, so this is fun, too. It's just a different type of deal (but) this is definitely the way you prefer to do it because you're getting paid."

After two seasons of fielding his own car -- and footing all the bills -- Schmidt opted to join Treadway Racing when it became clear he wouldn't be able to land a primary sponsor on his own car for this season.

He began talking with Treadway, who already had Luyendyk in one car, last August in hopes of fielding a second car for the team this season. Then, not entirely unexpectedly, Luyendyk announced his retirement last winter and Schmidt got the nod to replace the two-time Indianapolis 500 winner for Treadway Racing.

Despite a bumpy start to the season, Schmidt and Treadway Racing have been hitting on all cylinders this summer.

Schmidt crashed early in the first race of the season at Walt Disney World after qualifying seventh and finished 27th. They went to Phoenix, suffered a pre-qualifying fire and started 20th, but Schmidt brought the car home in ninth place.

Schmidt was running in the top five at Lowe's Motor Speedway in Charlotte when the race was canceled due to the deaths of three spectators after a crash sent debris into the grandstands. He qualified seventh for the Indianapolis 500, but crashed while running in the top five and finished 30th.

Since Indy, Schmidt has qualified sixth at Texas Motor Speedway and fourth at Pike Peak International Raceway, and posted his two best finishes of the season.

"We haven't done anything different the last two races that we have done since Phoenix, it has just kind of been a little bit of luck, mainly," Schmidt said of his recent success. "Texas and Colorado have really just been the same thing we've been doing since Phoenix, we just finished (the past two races)."

With races remaining in Atlanta, Dover, Pikes Peak, Las Vegas and Texas, Schmidt said he has reason to believe that he can realize his preseason goal of winning at least one race and finishing in the top five in the season point standings.

"I think the team is one of the best teams in the IRL and has an opportunity to win races every time we go out," Schmidt said. "I think the team is definitely capable of winning races and every time we go out, we gain a little more confidence.

"I think we're not only in position to win a race, but I think we're definitely in position to finish in the top five in points. Looking at the tracks we still have to run, there is not a situation going forward that I won't look forward to racing at. I think it's going to be very exciting the last half of the year."

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