KANSAS CITY, Kan. — There’s a new winner in the Firestone Indy Lights Series. J.R. Hildebrand scored his first victory in the series at Sunday’s Kansas Lottery 100 at Kansas Speedway. 
Hildebrand led twice for 47 laps, including the final 40 circuits around the 1.5-mile oval. The race featured plenty of wheel-to-wheel racing throughout the field, including a frantic, final seven laps.
Hildebrand defeated Robbie Pecorari by just 0.0553-second for the eighth-closest finish in series history and the closest Indy Lights race at Kansas Speedway.
“I was probably looking backwards more than I was looking forward,” Hildebrand said. “He (Pecorari) raced me clean. My car was good right at the bottom, so I was able to stay there and keep him behind me. We ended up pulling it off at the line.
“Oh man, it was great. We were running really well on our own. The car was really good in the draft. So, it’s the first win for the team, I can’t thank them enough. They’ve just done an awesome job.”

J.R. Hildebrand

While Hildebrand won an exciting race, the contest was marred by five yellow flags, which caused 30 of the race’s 67 laps to be run under caution. None of the incidents were major, however.
Pecorari’s second-place finish was an improvement of 21 positions for the greatest advance from start to finish in Indy Lights history. The previous mark was held by Jaime Camara, who improved 20 places at Homestead-Miami Speedway in 2007.
“Starting 23rd out of 24 cars, we knew we had a decent race car, and we could run to the front,” Pecorari said. “For our car, we could run from the white line to around the outside three-wide in turns three and four. For us, we could run anywhere behind traffic, just a great car overall.”
Arie Luyendyk, Jr. was third, followed by Dillon Battistini and Wade Cunningham.
“To be able to come away with a win in just the fourth race has put us in a really good spot for the championship,” Hildebrand said. “I didn’t think our first win would come on an oval, but we’ll take it and keep going from Indy coming up and then the height of the season.
“We’ve progressed and improved our finishing         position with every race and now I’m on the top step of the podium.”
The finish:
J.R. Hildebrand, Robbie Pecorari, Arie Luyendyk, Jr., Dillon Battistini, Wade Cunningham, Sean Guthrie, Jeff Simmons, Brent Sherman, Bobby Wilson, Al Unser III, James Davison, Pablo Donoso, Richard Antinucci, Ana Beatriz, Logan Gomez, Chris Festa, Jake Slotten, Mark Olson, Raphael Matos, Micky Gilbert, Jon Brownson, Cyndie Alleman, Andrew Prendeville, Juan Manuel Polar.