'Home' debut for Heritage boss Mecom Jr.
Co-owner of first year Indy Racing Northern Light Series team Heritage Motorsports John Mecom Jr will watch one of his cars race in his home state of Texas for the first time this weekend and both team and driver Jeff Ward will be looking to bounce back from their Indy 500 disappointment.
Co-owner of first year Indy Racing Northern Light Series team Heritage Motorsports John Mecom Jr will watch one of his cars race in his home state of Texas for the first time this weekend and both team and driver Jeff Ward will be looking to bounce back from their Indy 500 disappointment.
The June 9 Casino Magic 500 will be a milestone for long-time Indy Car owner John Mecom, Jr. of Houston. After nearly four decades of owning race teams in various series, it will be the first time he will ever see one of his professional race teams compete in his home state. Mecom, Jr. is co-owner of Heritage Motorsports, along with his son John Mecom III, Jim Rathmann, Jr., and Jim Rathmann, Sr., winner of the 1960 Indy 500.
Many of the top names in Indy Racing history, including A.J. Foyt, Parnelli Jones, Al Unser, Sr., Mario Andretti and Roger Penske have all driven for Mecom.
"Just the fact alone that we're racing in Texas shows how much the sport has grown," said Mecom. "It's a professionally run track capable of hosting all major racing events. There are a lot of reasons why I'm thrilled to be competing at Texas Motor Speedway, most important, it's home. It's nice to be coming home to race."
Driver Jeff Ward will be piloting the Heritage Motorsports entry in this year's Casino Magic 500 and he will be attempting to improve on a disappointing 19th place finish in last year's event when he drove for AJ Foyt Enterprises.
Ward and his new team have made an excellent start to their first year of competition together with Ward finishing inside the top ten in the opening three races of the season and scoring one pole position. However things came a bit unstuck at Indy despite securing a one-off sponsorship deal with Rock group Aerosmith and Ward was forced out of the running by an engine failure and was classified 24th.
Ward sits in sixth spot overall in the IRNLS standings heading into Saturday night's event, one point behind fifth placed Buzz Calkins but a massive 64 behind current series leader Sam Hornish Jr.
