(5-21-05) 32 cars completed an amazing 2,828 laps yesterday, or 7,070 miles, crash free, but not without at least one engine failure, as Danica Patrick was reported to have lost an engine in the #15T  Panoz Honda. This is the Buddy Rice car that was involved in the crash that took him out of the Indy 500, and shows just how resilient and repairable these cars are. I'm not saying that this isn't an expensive proposition, but there are three "sections" to these cars, the tub, the engine, and the bell housing/gearbox. The front suspension bolts to the tub, the rear suspension mounts to the gearbox, as does the  rear wing supports. In a hard frontal crash, there is always the possibility that the front suspension could be torn away from the tub and damaging it, sometimes beyond repair. In a back-end-first accident like Rice had, unless the engine mounts are somehow damaged, you split the car at the tub and replace the engine, gearbox and all the related items, plus any other crash related body parts, undertray, sidepod, electronics or front suspension damage, paint where needed, and write a very large check. 

There was one other engine related issue, the one that caused Arie Luyendyk Jr. to lose most of his day's ROP time. There are too many conflicting reports to go into more detail than simply saying the engine was replaced. 

The usual Andretti Green trio of Kanaan, Wheldon and Franchitti, found at the top of too many speed charts, "won" the day, but instead of eye-opening speeds, TK posted a respectable 226.490 to win the "day-money." As with everything involving Indy 500 practice, there are always mind games being played. Everyone is working on race setups, and AGR is trying to convince everyone that they can run 226's all day, and trying to get others to run close to that pace as well. IIRC, last year's race pace was in the 213-217 range, 5-9 mph below the pole speed, I expect the same decline this year, doing the math, I expect a race pace of 217-220 mph. yes, if a driver has trouble and is in catch up mode, there could be a reason to run faster, and that's reason enough to see how fast they can go with these setups when needed.

Again on Friday there was little speed shown by those not yet in the 500 field, and I didn't expect any. In fact Kenny Brack, who had ran 225's on Wednesday, only posted a fast speed of 224'8 on Friday, but he did run another 350 miles, turning the most laps of the day.

Ryan Briscoe ran a 223.2, 2nd fastest of those not in the field, followed by Patrick Carpentier at 221.3 and Marty Roth, running 220.8's every day.

All O/IRR photo's by aXe

Dan Wheldon leads Bryan Herta in IMS practice Friday.

How many "noses" does Scott Sharp need? The nose pieces are probably not spares. I expect that they are of different lengths, moving the wings either further forward or towards the rear, changing the "leverage," and requiring more or less wing angle. They also change the "feel" and balance of the car. The smaller the wing angle, the less the aero drag on the car. To an extent, wing side plates are optional, and aXe says that "these are the only ones he has seen like this."

Here is the final Friday speed chart, as posted by IndyCar T&S. Of interest to me here is the "groupings," with the first three cars being Dallara Honda's, the next five are Panoz Honda's and then in 9th, the Sam Hornish MTP Dallara Toyota. After the Dallara Honda of Bryan Herta we see two Chevy's, the Panoz Chevy of Richie Hearn, followed by the Dallara Chevy of Buddy Lazier. You don't see a Panoz Toyota until Ryan Briscoe, 16th on the charts, and almost in lockstep with TCGR teammates Darren Manning and Scott Dixon. Interestingly, Dixon is show on the T&S report as "working" the Dallara again. Further down the chart, we are beginning to see some gap between the Team Cheever cars and the rest of the Toyota also-rans.

(8:00 AM, IMS time) Yes, I know that there are two days on Indy 500 qualifying left this weekend, but what we will see this Sunday could be the downside to the great new four-day Indy 500 qualifying package. That is unless we see a return of the Bump Day deal making that has eluded the 500 qualifying process the past two years. In 2003 and 2004 there were Bump Day deals, but instead of deals made to attempt to unseat a qualified car, the deals made were just to fill the field of 33.

This morning, as I surf my laundry list of weather forecasting sites, looking for one that gives me the warm-fuzzy IMS expectation that I love so much, it is clear that Saturday’s weather conditions are close to picture perfect, with almost no chance of rain, and temperatures in the mid-70’s. On Sunday, there is a chance of “scattered thunder storms,” and this year, if there has been any chance of rain at all, it seems like we got it.

Because of the new qualifying format, the teams have nothing to loose my going out and posting a number on the scoreboard, good or bad. Once the speed number is up, if it is threatened, or surpassed, and the car is bumped from the day’s top-eleven, they get two more attempts to bump back in. The format works best on Pole Day, with the “carrot” being the opportunity to win the pole position, even if, as we saw last Sunday, the qualified car was to be withdrawn to make another run at the pole. If we were fortunate enough to have gotten both “Q” days in last weekend, the Sunday battle to be in positions 12-22 would have been interesting as well, because nobody wants to be a 2^nd weekend qualifier. The abbreviated second week of practice is best suited for working on race setups, not risking the car trying to build speeds the teams should already have. Of all of the speeds posted last Sunday, even Alex Barron’s 220 mph lap appears to be bump-safe. Now let’s look at Saturday, the third day of qualifying, it’s another nothing to lose situation, post the best speed you can and hope it sticks. Don’t expect any cars to post a speed and withdraw the car to re-qualify, unless there is news of impending Bump Day deals. As of today (Friday) there are only 11 cars left that haven’t qualified for the 500; and 11 spots to fill.

Let’s look at who is not in the field yet, and what to expect this weekend. As further proof of total engine domination, there is only one Honda powered car not yet in the 500 field, and that is only because Buddy Rice crashed last week and couldn’t qualify the car last Sunday. Rice wasn’t able to get the medical clearance required to race in the 500; and will be replaced by the return of Kenny Brack to the IndyCar Series and Indy 500. On Wednesday Brack ran over 320 miles, with a best speed of 225 mph. Kenny has to be considered a lock to set fast speed on Saturday. In taking a further look at the Honda advantage, the slowest Honda speed posted was by Jeff Bucknum, who posted a “safe” speed of 221.5 mph, Bucknum has no chance of being bumped from the field at that speed. Jeff is a rookie, and I’m thinking the D&R team wasn’t planning to make a qualifying attempt Sunday until they saw he could run above 221 in practice, and there were several others that couldn’t. Besides, again, with nothing to loose, why not give the rookie a pass through the qualifying process? The run resulted in a decent speed.

Getting back to Saturday expectations, much has been said about Target Chip Ganassi Racing not getting the same engines as Team Penske, and by now we know that is because MTP builds their own engines. Looking past the engine issue and the TCGR position because the Ganassi team is so good, they are in far better shape than the rest of the Toyota entries. It appears that there is a three-tier Toyota effort, and I’m thinking that once past Team Penske, they all get the same TRD prepared engines, and it is what they do with them in the cars that is the issue. While the Toyota pecking order starts with MTP, followed by TCGR, the rest of the Toyota cars rank like this, Team Cheever, Playa del Ray, AJ Foyt and a tossup between the futility of the Vision and Ethanol Hemelgarn efforts. Team Cheever, Foyt and “Playa” are close to being in lockstep; ED Carpenter, Jeff Ward and Jimmy Kite in the Ethanol Hemelgarn car, are racing for the 11^th row.

There are two Chevy powered cars not yet in the field as well, the PDM Racing supported Marty Roth effort, and the Curb/Agajanian/Beck car assigned to rookie Arie Luyendyk Jr. Arie has ROP issues, and is slated to take to the track at 11:00 AM on Friday, Indy time, weather permitting, to attempt to get ROP approval. This is not going to be an easy task; the car has yet to run, so they are starting from scratch in more ways than one, all the while under the time clock. The Chevy engine is an asset though, Marty Roth has already surpassed the 220-mph mark, and last year the best he could do was hang on through four laps to post a 211-mph qualifying average. If young Luyendyk can keep the #98 car out of the fence, he should escape the last row, as should Roth. I’m still holding out hope for Indy veteran Jeff Ward, but there appears to be a power (?) struggle at Vision Racing on the mechanical side. I have been told that Owen Snyder has been “borrowed” from USAC to “engineer” the Vision cars, or at least Ward’s, and Snyder and Larry Curry aren’t agreeing on the setups.

In looking at the Wednesday speed chart, Besides Brack at 225.7, Briscoe posted a 222.4, Jaques Lazier was at 221.972 mph, Patrick Carpentier a 220.9 and both Foyt’s were above 220. Now Wednesday was not the day to risk a non-qualified car, and while I don’t buy into the “tow” concept at the top of the charts with the quality cars, it sure is a factor with those without speed. I expect that the 11^th row qualifiers will run 219’s, and that is unless there are some Bump Day deals, and that should be what Bump Day is all about. Last year I said that “unless IndyCar could find a way to return to a meaningful Bump Day, I would rather see the return of the Roadster’s.” For a while it looked like there would be at least one bump attempt, but not a very “meaningful” one, then PDM and Roth combined efforts and left us with 33 entries. The new qualifying effort may have “wet my whistle,” but I want my Bump Day back!

Later in the day I will recap today's practice and ROP results here.

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