Rinus VeeKay came into this weekend’s BITNILE.com Grand Prix of Portland with some of his swagger back. The Dutch driver had finished 11th in each of the last two races and in fact, improved from 18th to 14th to 11th to 11th again in the last four overall. That trend upwards continued in Sunday’s 110 lap race for which VeeKay brought his No. 21 Dallara-Chevrolet home a season-best sixth.

“It was very nice to use our speed to move forward,” VeeKay said. “Kudos to the No. 21 BITNILE.COM Chevrolet crew! The car felt really good and allowed me to drive aggressively.

“It really suited my driving style and allowed me to pass cars, which you have to be able to do here. We weren’t incredibly lucky today, we got to the front on pace. Everyone has seen it, we’ve had a very tough season. We’ve not been happy with our pace in general so to be able to make this kind of progress before the end of the season is very nice. A great big thank you to Ed Carpenter Racing! And, it’s great to have my best finish of the season so far at the BITNILE.COM Grand Prix of Portland!”

It was his 19th career top 10 result in his 62nd career start.

The No. 21 BITNILE.COM Chevrolet was fast in each practice leading up to today’s race, with Rinus VeeKay turning the 8th, 6th and 7th-quickest laps of each session, respectively. He narrowly missed advancing to the second round of qualifying and rolled off 13th for the 110-lap race at Portland International Raceway.

In less than two laps, VeeKay had gained four positions. He stayed out on his opening set of red tires until Lap 17. Switching to a set of black Firestone Firehawks, he managed his tires until his next stop on Lap 48.

VeeKay made several excellent passes, racing solidly up into the 6th position. He stayed there through his third and final pit stop, which occurred on Lap 79. VeeKay slotted back into 6th and held the position through the checkered flag. His result in the BITNILE.COM Grand Prix of Portland is now his best finish of the 2023 NTT INDYCAR SERIES season.