An adventurous day in pit-lane at Iowa Speedway put paid to what could have been another promising performance for Vitor Meira and Panther Racing, with the Brazilian holding his hand up to the errors.

Restricted to starting twelfth after rain forced the cancellation of qualifying for the Iowa Corn 250, Meira found himself caught in the traditional midfield melee at the short Iowa oval, dropping to 15th early on before being able to claw his back into the top ten. However, two penalties in pit-lane - the second of which stuck the veteran two laps down and unable to advance any further up the field - quickly soured the day.

The first mishap came as Meira exited the pits after his first stop, the #4 Delphi/American Guard car running over an air hose belonging to AJ Foyt IV's Vision Racing crew. That resulted in a penalty which sent Meira to the back of the field at the next restart, but he was soon moving forward again, rising from 22nd to tenth before pitting for a second time on lap 160.

This time, the #4 car clipped the right-front tire of EJ Viso as Meira entered the pits, sending the Brazilian into the inside pit wall. The time it took to replace the front wing, added to the subsequent drive-through penalty, proved to be the final straw as it put the Panther team two laps down.

"Our car was fast today - unbelievably fast," Meira lamented, "I told my guys we had a top three car today, but I just made a mistake in the pits that hurt our chances.

"I apologised to the Delphi/National Guard crew but, mainly, I'm just glad that nobody was hurt. We had a great package today, and we know we'll have a great package at Richmond.”