A feel for the grooves
Home track helps Telitz climb ladder
The familiar twists of Road America helped get Aaron Telitz pointed directly toward the 2016 Pro Mazda championship.
Now the 25-year-old from Birchwood returns to Elkhart Lake as an Indy Lights driver, hoping for the same sort of weekend and another boost toward his goal of racing in the Indianapolis 500.
“And I feel better coming into the Road America race weekend this year than I did last,” Telitz said this week from his hometown in northwestern Wisconsin.
“Last year, I think I was out of the (Pro Mazda) championship by almost 60 points. This week we’re within 30 (of the Indy Lights lead).”
A dominating doubleheader sweep at Road America allowed Telitz to cut teammate Patricio O’Ward’s advantage by half and served as springboard to the Pro Mazda title and with that a $600,000 scholarship to move up to Indy Lights.
Fast forward a year and Telitz again has one victory heading into the Road America weekend. He is closer in points than last season, with 122 to Kyle Kaiser’s 151, but he also has Nico Jamin and Colton Herta between himself and the lead.
The Indy Lights Series will race at noon Saturday and 8:45 a.m. Sunday as part of the Kohler Grand Prix Verizon IndyCar Series weekend at Road America.
“It’s actually easier to make up ground in Indy Lights this year because it’s so competitive,” Telitz said. “The field is constantly getting shook up, and no one can get away from it.
“Colton looked like he had a solid lead … but then he had a couple of bad weekends and, boom, he slid back down. Then Kyle Kaiser was in the lead but he had a rough weekend at the Freedom 100. And now the championship is all tightened back up again.”
Still, the depth of the field and level of competition in Lights should make it tougher for Telitz to win once this weekend, much less twice. Seven races this season have produced five winners, with only Herta and Jamin taking more than one checkered flag.
“There’s eight or nine guys that could win any weekend,” said Telitz, who was challenged primarily by O’Ward last year. “So those wins that we’re trying to get are hard to come by. But I think we’ve got a chance of it.
“The Belardi guys have a great car, just like the Team Pelfry guys had a great car in Pro Mazda last year. I’m going to use all my home track (knowledge) to my advantage this weekend just like I did last year.”
Familiarity was worth about a full second per lap around the 4-mile course for Telitz last year. He was that much faster than anyone in the field and was never really challenged.
Telitz’s first start in a car — after karting — came at Road America in 2012, and he won it. Since then he has climbed the development ladder, using scholarships and some small sponsorships, to within one step of the Verizon IndyCar Series.
Winning the Lights title would provide seed money for an IndyCar season.
Telitz won his Lights debut on the streets of St. Petersburg, Fla. He got caught in tangles early in two races that left him with 13th-place finishes, but he comes into his home weekend on a threeweek high from a runnerup finish in the Freedom 100 at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway.
“If you win right off the bat, not necessarily you relax, but maybe you think things are going well and then you can have things turn around quickly on you,” Telitz said of his success in the opener.
“Maybe it was at the wrong time, but we’ll take wins whenever we can get them.”