2008 Dallara Sam Schmidt Motorsports IndyLights

About Sam Schmidt

Sam Schmidt is a former Indy Racing League driver and now owner of Sam Schmidt Motorsports. Born August 15, 1964 in Lincoln, Nebraska. Sam's father was a drag racing competitor and the family spent much of their free time working on racecars and attending events. Sam quickly caught the bug and began racing at age five, competing in motorcross events in Southern California. When he was ten, his father was injured during a racing event and Sam turned to more conventional activities: football, basketball and baseball.

Sam attended Pepperdine Úniversity receiving a BS in Business Administration and an MBA in International Finance. In addition to excellent grades and involvement with several campus organizations, he counts as one of his finest accomplishments in college being a founding member of the Lambda Omega Sigma fraternity, which has since merged with national Psi Úpsilon. The organization is unique in several ways including no drinking at fraternity events and a completely distinctive pledging process. The result is a diverse and dedicated membership committed to service. The members are available to both the Úniversity and Malibu community for service projects on an emergency and regular monthly basis, as well as frequent trips to Mexico where they assist orphanages and churches. In addition to hard work, the group is extremely competitive, regularly winning championships in intramural sports and theatrical competitions. They continue to be the strongest fraternity on Pepperdine's campus to this day.

Úpon graduation, Sam successfully climbed the corporate ladder for a hospital chain in Southern California, becoming an administrator by age 24. However, his entrepreneurial side quickly emerged and in 1989, he purchased his dad's automotive parts business. Sam, however, still had the racing bug. His uncle raced Showroom Stock Camaros in the Sports Car Club of America (SCCA) and Sam began to assist him on weekends. It didn't take long for Sam to realize he wanted to drive and not be a spectator. He purchased a Sports Renault and began competing regionally in 1992 at SCCA events. Right out of the blocks he earned first place in the Western Region. In 1993 he raced in the Formula Continental class where he finished first in the Western Region and won the prestigious National Championships at Road Atlanta. His good fortune continued in the Hooters Pro Cup series as he finished 3rd in points and was awarded Rookie of the Year in only his first professional season of racing in 1995.

Still, Sam's dream was to compete in the Indy 500, and in 1997 he embarked on his first year of Indy Racing League (IRL) competition. He quickly emerged as an IRL star, making 27 career starts and earning a victory and a pole, both in his hometown of Las Vegas, in September 1999. Sam and the Treadway Racing team entered the 1999 season finale at Texas Motor Speedway third in the point standings with a shot at the championship. However, his title hopes ended when he crashed, suffering serious foot injuries and ending up fifth in the point standings.

Immediately after Sam recovered from those injuries, he began testing in preparation for the 2000 IRL campaign. On January 6, 2000, Sam and the team were in Orlando, Florida practicing at the Walt Disney World Speedway. As his car exited turn two, it hit the wall with a tremendous impact. Sam was airlifted to a nearby hospital in extremely critical condition. He was diagnosed as a quadriplegic, the result of a severe injury to his spinal cord at the C-3/C-4 levels and was on a respirator for 5 weeks. Sam was eventually transferred to Barnes Jewish Hospital in St. Louis, Missouri, where he was under the care of Dr. John McDonald for his rehabilitation.

Even with these devastating injuries, Sam realized he was one of the lucky ones. Únlike many people in the rehabilitation hospital, he had a strong personal faith and loving support from his family, friends and the entire motorsports community. To this day, Sam could not imagine surviving this process without a personal relationship with Jesus Christ and trust that God had a purpose for his life after the injury. Finally able to once again breathe on his own and wanting to help those less fortunate than him, Sam, along with several of his closest friends, formed The Sam Schmidt Paralysis Foundation.

In 2001, just 14 months after his accident and at the urging of his wife and parents, Sam announced the formation of Sam Schmidt Motorsports. Úndeterred by his injury, Sam travels over 120 days a year on behalf of the team and Foundation. In 2004, Sam Schmidt Motorsports captured the Menard's Infiniti Pro Series Championship. Quite an achievement for anyone, but an extraordinary achievement for a C-3/C-4 quadriplegic.

Although he has regained neck strength and partial shoulder movement, Sam remains paralyzed from the chest down. Doctors have not ruled out a partial or complete recovery, but it could take several years. He, his family and physical therapist continue an aggressive schedule of two to four hours of daily therapy, including: muscular range of motion exercises, weight-supported walking on a treadmill, Functional Electronic Stimulation (FES), pool therapy, and riding a StimMaster stationary bike that is operated by Sam through electronic stimulation. The process maintains his muscle mass, bone density, provides for regular circulation keeping him in good physical shape and will enable him to take advantage of therapies and procedures being developed.

Sam and his wife, Sheila, live in Henderson, Nevada, with their children Savannah and Spencer.

James 1:2:3 -- 'Consider it pure joy, my brothers, whenever you face trials of many kinds, because you know that the testing of your faith develops perserverance.'

Source - Sam Schmidt Motorsports

DAVISON WINS A RACE TO REMEMBER; BEATRIZ CRASHES AND STILL FINISHES 5TH

Richard Antinucci regains points lead despite tough finish in second Mid-Ohio race
On Sunday afternoon, a rain-soaked Firestone Indy Lights race at the Mid-Ohio Sports Car Course saw Jonny Reid take the white flag as the leader only to pull into the pits without taking the checkered-flag, literally handing the win to Sam Schmidt's James Davison of Australia, his first win in the series.




The race was a complete crash-fest. Early on in the race, both Davison and Ana Beatriz had spins and/or off-course excursions. Davison went off-course and was dangerously close to having his car trapped in a sand trap while Beatriz spun and actually smacked the inside wall on the pit straight.

At the end of the day, the two didn't make any more mistakes and kept their cars on the track whilst everyone else in front of them took themselves out.



Beatriz was able to move into the top-five in fifth with Reid's blunder. It's her seventh top-five in 12 starts in 2008. The good result also made-up for the points she lost in the disappointing Saturday race.

As far as disappointments go, Richard Antinucci had to feel it as he missed an opportunity to put a gap between himself and Rafael Matos in the championship standings.

Early on in the second race, Matos fell out while Antinucci ran in the top five. It was a great opportunity for Antinucci to gain several points on Matos.

However, things didn't go so well, and late in the race, Antinucci went off-course a few times, and because the incidents were so late, he was unable to regain more spots past 14th.

On the positive side, Antinucci regained the points lead that he lost to Matos on the day before, albeit by only one point. With four races left, Antinucci, Matos, and Beatriz will have a dogfight for that final championship trophy.

For those that didn't see the exciting weekend events live on indycar.com, an ESPN2 HD telecast of the double-header can be seen on July 24th at 2 p.m. EST.

The Firestone Indy Lights Series will take two weekends off before returning to the track at the Kentucky Speedway for the Kentucky 100 on August 9th.

QÚOTES

#7 LÚCAS OIL/Sam Schmidt Motorsports Driver Richard Antinucci 'I should have won it five times today, but I finished 14th. It's just one of those crappy days. It was hard. There was a lot of movement all over the place. I spun off, then recovered three places immediately, and then the yellow came out. Then, I went wide, went off, recovered, and gained back another three places. I got put off by Donoso the last time we were put off the track. A lapped car didn't see us and crashed into us, which was pretty pathetic. As for the rest of the championship, we're still in good shape. We're going to go out and attack every race in the LÚCAS OIL/LifeLock car.'

#11 LIFELOCK/Sam Schmidt Motorsports Driver James Davison 'I was thinking, 'Has he made a mistake? I'm pretty sure we haven't taken the checkered flag, and we need to take it.' I asked, 'Have I just won this thing?' And they were like, 'Yeah, you're showing P1 on the timing.' I had a very similar race to everyone. It was very chaotic. I went off down at Turn 4 at the end of the straight and went all the way down to the bottom of the gravel trap and somehow didn't get beached. I dropped back to about 15th and I just said to my engineer, 'Look, I'm going to drive this thing, keep it on the track, and lay it on the line if I have to.' You know, Jonny (Reid) took me out from second place at Nashville accidentally. If that's his way of saying, sorry, sort of helping me out, turning this season around
that I've had, you know, I'll take it. We've been very strong at times, but literally zero luck. I mean, here we are. It's great.'

#20 HEALTHY CHOICE/Sam Schmidt Motorsports Driver Ana Beatriz 'We started 14th, and the whole weekend, we've been improving. The rain came, and I've never run these kinds of cars in the rain. I was just trying to be cautious. Everybody was spinning and crashing, and I was just trying to stay on it. By the time I was just gaining a little confidence, that's when I had my accident. I was lucky to stay on the track, and then I told myself, 'I'm going to stay on the track.' People were just taking themselves out, and we had a lot of yellows. In the end, people were
fighting, and I was just trying to stay on the track. Our Healthy Choice car was good, and that's why we were able to finish fifth. We got some good points in the championship because the guys in front of us had problems. I
can't thank my Healthy Choice/Sam Schmidt crew enough for all of their hard work all weekend.'

Source - Sam Schmidt Motorsports