July 19, 2024 (Indianapolis, Indiana) – What once was a dirt track built for horse racing is now what many call Lucas Oil Indianapolis Raceway Park, a 0.686-mile short track. Venturini Motorsports has had great success at Lucas Oil with winning the past five times at the track. On Friday the team showed great strength and speed during practice as Gio Ruggiero led most of it. By the end of practice, Toni Breidinger was fourth fastest with Ruggiero right behind her.
With 31 cars to round out the field, the green flag dropped at around 5:30 PM ET on FS1. The VMS starting lineup was Ruggiero in fifth, Breidinger in seventh, Kris Wright in eighth, Dean Thompson in ninth, and Balcaen in fifteenth.
Ruggiero, Breidinger, Thompson, and Wright ran inside the top-10 the majority of the race. After the halfway point of the 200 lap race, Ruggiero and Breidinger battled with the No. 33 of Alan for the fifth position. Throughout the whole race, all spotters were in constant communication with the drivers and pit crew to get the cars perfect as the track had changed drastically from practice to the race as stated by Breidinger.
On lap 172, the No. 33 of Alan got loose and tapped Breidinger in the back left quarter, which sent her to the wall and also collected the No. 96 of Jackson McLerran. It was a tough break as this ended the night for Breidinger. She was running in the sixth position at the time of the incident as she worked her way to the top-5.
The final results for the Circle City 200 were Ruggiero in fifth, Wright in sixth, Thompson in ninth, Balcaen in thirteenth, and Brieidnger in twenty-fourth.
Fifth place finisher Gio Ruggiero, driver of the No. 20 JBL, stated that he “learned a little bit of what we need to do to be better next year, so just looking forward to the next one and getting things turned around and get the car a little better and get me a little better.”
Several of the drivers struggled with their cars being tight in the corners. “We were super tight for the whole first half. We tried everything and just couldn’t get anything to work, so we made a big swing there at the break and then made up a lot of ground there after the half,” said Kris Wright, driver of the No. 15 FNB Corporation. Wright went on to finish sixth after a tough start to the race.
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