rpm.espn.com: Billy Boat

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Tuesday, December 4

Billy Boat
ESPN.com

Team: Curb/Agajanian/Boat Motorsports
Nationality: United States

STATS

Year
Rank
Wins
Poles
Top 5
Top 10
Money
Best finish

2001 4 0 0 4 8 $925,025 2nd, Nashville

Career 1 8 12 26 $3,946,275 1st, Texas

Billy Boat
Boat

2001 Recap
The Good: Finished an IRL career-best fourth in the standings and ninth in the Indianapolis 500 despite a limited budget. Just 10 days before the season opener in his hometown, Boat teamed with veteran mechanic/engineer/owner Greg Beck in a jointly owned operation. With Mike Curb and Cary Agajanian on board for the 2002 season to provide additional funding, the future looks even brighter.

Season Highlight: Boat survived Bump Day at Indianapolis for a second-consecutive year in dramatic fashion. As the slowest qualifier, he sweated out 12 unsuccessful attempts by eight different drivers. He also finished second at the inaugural Harrah's Indy 200 at Nashville Superspeedway on July 21, his highest finish since winning on June 6, 1998 at Texas.

The Bad: The late formation with Greg Beck made testing impossible for Boat and the limited budget put him behind the proverbial eight-ball all season long.

Season Lowlight: Completed only 31 laps at Richmond before loss of oil pressure knocked him out. It was the only race that he was not running at the finish.

Key Stat: Boat finished ninth at the Indianapolis 500, the second-best finish among IRL drivers, trailing only Eliseo Salazar's seventh-place finish..

2002 Outlook

Boat
Billy Boat was ninth in the Indianapolis 500, the second-best finish among IRL drivers.
What needs to be done: Starting his own team could be a distraction for the Arizona State University business graduate, but locating the team in his hometown of Phoenix will allow Billy "hands on" opportunities. He can leave the business end of things when he gets to the track and just concentrate upon driving.

Controlling his own destiny should help. More financial assets at his disposal will be the key. The addition of Darrell Soppe as team engineer brings a measure of package stability that was missing last season.

Prediction: If Boat can take advantage of some of the IRL's open testing opportunities, better qualifying performances should follow. His choice of Speedway Engineering to prep his Chevy powerplants will ensure reliability.

He knows how to conserve his equipment. Now he must show the same sort of aggressivenessthat first earned him an IRL ride.

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