VeeKay battles to another top ten finish at Milwaukee
Rinus ‘VeeKay’ van Kalmthout stepped into the spotlight by claiming another top-ten finish in the two-day Milwaukee Mile event, the 23-year-old Dutchman crossing the line in seventh place in the Hy-Vee Milwaukee Mile 250 race on Sunday.
While the four dominant teams have been calling the shots all year, VeeKay’s team Ed Carpenter Racing saw the front half of the midfield move away in the early months of the NTT IndyCar Series season, with VeeKay regularly having to pull out all the stops to fight for positions that IndyCar fans are not used to seeing him in.
Since the beginning of July, however, the team has taken a step forward to better reward the Dutchman’s efforts, as VeeKay scored four top-ten finishes in a row, finishing fifth and ninth in the Iowa doubleheader, eighth in Toronto and tenth at Gateway. Eleventh place at Portland was not bad either. Beforehand, Ed Carpenter Racing would have signed up for such a points-scoring run of results.
Before concluding the IndyCar season with a race at Nashville Superspeedway, VeeKay and his fellow IndyCar drivers travelled to West Allis, Wisconsin, the home of the Milwaukee Mile, one of the oldest circuits in the world and a new addition to the IndyCar calendar since 2015. This was perhaps a gift for VeeKay and Ed Carpenter Racing, as they also performed well on the short ovals of Iowa and Gateway.
After qualifying in the middle of the field, VeeKay started the first race at the Milwaukee Mile (Saturday night Dutch time) in a strong fifth position, but was forced to watch as his rivals overtook him on tyre strategy in the closing stages. Despite a strong start and a maximising driver, VeeKay had to settle for 14th in his #21 Chevrolet.
With the lessons of Saturday’s race in mind, ECR decided to take a different approach in Sunday’s second race. VeeKay once again showed his fighting spirit by making strong overtaking moves and gradually working his way to the front. One of the few drivers to cross the line in the lead lap, VeeKay finished in a superb seventh place to score another big points haul.
“We made it a good weekend”, VeeKay grinned as he reflected on the two races at the Milwaukee Mile. “What a tricky track that is! In the end I crossed the line in seventh place and I am obviously very happy with that. Another top-ten finish, all the hard work is starting to pay off.”
“We didn't expect it to be so chaotic,” says VeeKay, referring to the second race in particular. “So we decided to use a few more sets of the new tyre in practice, but it meant we had nothing left for the race. It cost me a couple of places, because when I got the ‘newer’ tyres for the last stint, they turned out to be 25 laps old.”
“That’s a lesson for next time, but for now I’m incredibly grateful to my crew. Especially at the very last pitstop, they were really rock solid, as I overtook Grosjean thanks to a quick tyre change. Sunday’s race was really good, we pushed hard and made a good choice on strategy. I have now seven top-ten finishes in 16 races, so we have seen a big improvement compared to last year. The important thing now is to finish the season strongly,” VeeKay concluded.
The Big Machine Music City Grand Prix at Nashville Superspeedway in Lebanon, Tennessee, will be the 17th and final championship-clinching IndyCar race of 2024. The race will take place on Sunday 15 September at 21:30 Dutch time.