Buddy Rice

Buddy Rice 2007

Panoz GF09B, Rice's winning vehicle at the Indianapolis 500

Rice at the 2008 Indianapolis 500

Buddy Rice (born January 31, 1976 in Phoenix , Arizona ) is a retired American racing driver . He was champion of the Atlantic Championship in 2000 . He appeared intermittently from 2002 to 2011 in the IndyCar Series . He won the Indianapolis 500 there in 2004 . His best overall placement in the IndyCar Series was third in 2004.

Career

Rice began his motorsport career in 1989 in karting , in which he was active until 1995. In the further course of his career, Rice took part in a few kart races. In 1996 he switched to formula racing and took part in a race for the US Formula Ford . In 1997 he took full part in this championship and was fourth overall.

In 1998 Rice moved to the Atlantic Championship . With a win he ended his first season in seventh place overall. In 1999 he stayed in the Atlantic Championship. Although he didn't win a race, he improved to fifth place in the drivers' standings with a total of four podium finishes. In 2000 Rice completed his third season in the Atlantic Championship. Starting for DSTP Motorsports , he won five races and won the championship title ahead of Dan Wheldon . Rice was on the podium in ten out of twelve races.

After a season without racing, Rice completed races again. He made his debut in the Grand-Am Sports Car Series and returned for five races in the Atlantic Championship, in which he was 17th.

In August 2002 , Rice made his debut in the Indy Racing League (IRL). He completed his first race for Red Bull Cheever Racing in Brooklyn . Originally he was supposed to replace Tomas Scheckter , who had fallen out of favor with team boss and colleague Eddie Cheever after various collisions . However, Cheever had to use Scheckter due to his contract. Therefore, the team put a third car in for Rice and gave him the best equipment and the best mechanics on the team. Nevertheless, Scheckter won the race ahead of Rice, who finished his first race in second place on the podium. Rice completed five races and finished four times among the top ten pilots. In the overall ranking he was 22nd.

In 2003 , Rice kept his cockpit at Red Bull Cheever Racing. The championship had since been renamed the IndyCar Series . His team only used one vehicle this season. Rice achieved four top 10 finishes and was replaced by the more experienced Alex Barron three races before the end of the season . In the championship, Rice was 16.

In 2004 Rice moved to Rahal Letterman Racing . He replaced Kenny Bräck , who was injured after an accident at the 2003 season finale. For the third race, Rice got another team-mate in Vitor Meira . Rice scored his first win at the Indianapolis 500 . He started the prestigious race from pole position and led it for most of the laps. Later in the season, two more victories followed in Kansas City and Brooklyn. In every race he finished, he finished in the top ten drivers. He finished the championship as the best American pilot in third place.

In 2005 , Rice got another teammate with Danica Patrick , as Rahal Letterman Racing fielded three cars. Rice achieved two podium finishes and ended the season as the worst driver of his team on the 15th championship course. At the Indianapolis 500 he had to take a break due to an injury and was replaced by his predecessor Bräck. In 2006 , Rice and Patrick were withdrawn from the first race at Homestead because their new teammate Paul Dana had a fatal accident during training. Jeff Simmons then added to the team. Rice could not keep up with Patrick again and finished the season one position ahead of Simmons on the 15th championship course. Rice also took part in a champ car race for Forsythe Racing .

In 2007 Rice moved to Dreyer & Reinbold Racing , where he became a team-mate of Sarah Fisher . In contrast to Fisher, Rice regularly achieved top 10 placements and finished the season with fourth place as the best result in ninth place in the championship. In addition, Rice took part in two race weekends of the A1 Grand Prix , but, unlike his successor Jonathan Summerton, remained without points. In 2008 Rice stayed in the IndyCar Series with Dreyer & Reinbold Racing. With fourth place as the best result, he was 16th in the drivers' standings. Within the team, he prevailed against his teammates Townsend Bell and Milka Duno , who shared a cockpit.

After Rice had already participated in two races of the Grand-Am Sports Car Series in 2007 and 2008, he competed in six races of this series in 2009. He succeeded, along with David Donohue , Antonio Garcia and Darren Law , the 24 Hours of Daytona win. In 2010 he took part in twelve races of the Grand-Am Sports Car Series.

In 2011 Rice returned to the IndyCar Series. He initially received a cockpit for the Indianapolis 500 at Panther Racing and was then also signed for the last two races of the season. He finished the season in 34th place overall. In addition, Rice took part in a race in the Grand-Am Sports Car Series.

Personal

Rice is married and has one daughter.

statistics

Career stations

1989–1995: karting
1996: American Formula Ford
1997: American Formula Ford (4th place)
1998: Atlantic Championship (7th place)
1999: Atlantic Championship (5th place)
2000: Atlantic Championship (champions)
2002 : IRL (22nd place)
2002: Atlantic Championship (17th place)

2002: Grand-Am Sports Car Series , SRP (16th place)
2003 : IndyCar Series (16th place)
2004 : IndyCar Series (3rd place)
2005 : IndyCar Series (15th place)
2006 : IndyCar Series (15th place)
2006 : Champ Car (23rd place)
2007 : IndyCar Series (9th place)
2007: Grand-Am Sports Car Series, DP (64th place)

2008 : A1 Grand Prix
2008 : IndyCar Series (16th place)
2008: Grand-Am Sports Car Series, DP (39th place)
2009: Grand-Am Sports Car Series, DP (25th place)
2010: Grand-Am Sports Car Series, DP (16th place)
2011 : IndyCar Series (34th place)
2011: Grand-Am Sports Car Series, DP

Individual results in the IndyCar Series

season	team	1	2	3	4th	5	6th	7th	8th	9	10	11	12	13	14th	15th	16	17th	18th	19th	Points	rank
2002	Red Bull Cheever	HMS	PHX	HAIRDRYER	NZR	INDY	TXS	PPI	RIR	KAN	NSH	MIS 2	KTY 12	STL 4	CHI 9	TX2 6					140	22nd
2003	Red Bull Cheever	HMS 16	PHX 9	MOT 13	INDY 11	TXS 14	PPI 9	RIR 9	KAN 19	NSH 18	MIS 11	STL 14	KTY 11	NZR 10	CHI	HAIRDRYER	TX2				229	16.
2004	Rahal Letterman Racing	HMS 7	PHX 9	MOT 6	INDY 1 *	TXS 15	RIR 6	KAN 1 *	NSH 6	MIL 2	MIS 1	KTY 2	PPI 22	NZR 4	CHI 14	FON 5	TX2 20				485	3.
2005	Rahal Letterman Racing	HMS 19	PHX 22	STP 7	MOT 3	INDY INJ	TXS 21	RIR 11	KAN 10	NSH 18	MIL 17	MIS 22	KTY 14	PPI 11	SNM 2	CHI 13	WGL 19	FON 12			295	15th
2006	Rahal Letterman Racing	HMS WD	STP 13	MOT 5	INDY 26	WGL 4	TXS 18	RIR 13	CAN 17	NSH 16	MIL 11	MIS 13	KTY 15	SNM 15	CHI 13						234	15th
2007	Dreyer & Reinbold Racing	HMS 10	STP 10	MOT 10	KAN 20	INDY 25	MIL 18	TXS 8	IOW 4	RIR 5	WGL 6	NSH 17	MDO 8	MIS 5	KTY 12	SNM 11	DET 7	CHI 9			360	9.
2008	Dreyer & Reinbold Racing	HMS 11	STP 15	MOT ¹ 12	LBH ¹	KAN 20	INDY 8	MIL 10	TXS 8	IOW 22	RIR 22	WGL 4	NSH 7	MDO 20	EDM 11	KTY 10	SNM 11	DET 19	CHI 25	SRF ² 10	306	16.
2011	Panther Racing	STP	ALA	LBH	SAO	INDY 18th	TXS1	TXS2	Mil	IOW	GOAL	EDM	MDO	NHA	SNM	BAL	MOT	KTY 9	LVS C		42	34.