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EverythingIndy2006
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Kasey Kahne from
Charlotte regarding the Indy 500...
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In Charlotte the day after the
Indy 500/World 600, I picked up a copy of THE CHARLOTTE
OBSERVER to check out their reaction's to both races. I have
a "relative" interest in Evernham Motorsports results,
so with Kahne winning the 600 I wanted to see what he had to
say. In the first sentence of the lead story; Kasey was quoted
as saying "what a race," and he wasn't talking about
the race he had just won, he was talking about the finish of the
Indy
500. Kasey also said how much he would "love to run in the
500 someday." That same quote also got it's own
SportsCenter moment Monday as well , but that's not all. People
have been talking about Indy since the race ended with a Hornish
Jr. win. I work a golf course job here at home, simply because I
don't have to spend good money to play crappy golf, this morning
was my first day back. I was working the snack bar today when
two golfers came in raving about the great finish in the Indy
500. I told them about this site, turned my laptop around
on the counter and showed them the home page and they read the
recap. The next remarks out of them were Danica questions, and I
told them "she took a 15th place car that was easily
crashed and finished 8th after running in the top five." I
felt "it was her best ever IndyCar result, a much bigger
accomplishment than her 4th place finish at Indy last
year."
In Danica's last three races
she has three solid finishes that were better than it was
reasonable to expect from her. She will run the Panoz again this
weekend at Watkins Glen in what should be a heck of a road race.
Beginning at TMS the following weekend, Danica and her
teammates, Buddy Rice and Jeff Simmons should race new
Dallara's, and I can't wait to see how well she will do with
cars that are equal too. I don't expect a steep learning curve
for RLR either. Last year TCGR tried Dallara's and quit on them,
but at PIR testing their first time out this season, the
"won" the day. RLR will get plenty of setup help with
the Dallara, and the team has run them before. If I didn't have
two "day jobs," one that requires weekend work, I'd be
at TMS a week from Sunday to see what could be an all-Dallara
field. O/IRR should have Dennis Sylvia at TMS for the race
coverage.
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aXe's
Race Day Pictures
can be found here.
(large download)
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Sam
Hornish Jr. wins his first at Indy, the 500 is alive and well...
5-28-06
Sam
Hornish may have made a miraculous recovery from a pit road
refueling incident to win the 90th running of the Indy 500
today, but if sometime in Indy 500 history they look back and
try to define a rebound or comeback race, 2006 may just be it.
In a race that had everything from penalties to tough decisions,
from a runaway lead to a close finish, this was the best Indy
500 I have seen in years. Watching from the penalty box, I feel
that IndyCar officials got all the calls right, and as tough as
the rulings were, they left everyone penalized still in
contention.
While early traffic and a huge speed disparity was certainly
dangerous, it appears IndyCar officials worked behind the scenes
to get the slowest off the track. Between laps 43 and 54 three
cars, those of Larry Foyt, Stephan Gregoire and Arie Luyendyk
Jr. left the race with "handling" issues, 19 laps
earlier Thiago Medeiros
exited the race with
"electrical" problems. None of the four turned a race
lap above 209 mph.
On the final restart it looked like Michael Andretti would win
by default, having pitted late enough to be the only other
driver besides the penalized Hornish with enough fuel to go the
rest of the race distance. That may have been the case if Felipe
Giaffone didn't see a charging Tony Kanaan, back on the track
after a too slow "splash and go" for fuel that allowed
AGR teammate Dario Franchitti to pass him on pit road. Giaffone
moved out to let Kanaan past, got caught up in the
"marbles" and pushed up into the fence. That brought
out a caution flag that left Michael Andretti in the lead and
Marco Andretti 2nd. Hornish was further back and flying after
the green flag. No sooner than I told everyone watching the race
with me that Marco wouldn't dare pass his father than pass he
did, easily. With little less than a lap and a half left in the
race, a charging Hornish tried Marco low going into three in a
move I thought cost him the race. Marco did a mini-block and it
looked like Hornish lost enough momentum to cost him the race.
Marco lost some momentum as well, and Sam was quicker to
recover. The next time around Sam was on Marco's rear wing going
through the north turns and passed on the run to the checkered
flag to win by a margin .0635 seconds, not one for the record
books. Sam's final lap was 219.935, while all Marco could run
was 214.643, that should serve as the tale of the tape. Michael
Andretti even ran a faster final lap than his son, running
216.063. Dan Wheldon ended up needing a fuel and tire stop that
dictated Kanaan's strategy in one of those deals where the first
to pit is usually wrong. Wheldon would end up finishing 4th.
Kanaan was 2nd only to Hornish in post-caution speed and gained
positions lost
to Dixon and Franchitti. RLR did what they had to
with Danica's Panoz, standing up the wings so much that it ate
up her fuel mileage. She was the first to stop for late fuel and
never recovered. No sooner than Patrick stopped than it was
Wheldon in next, I don't know what his fuel data was, but I
guess there was enough race left that TCGR felt the car with the
fresh tires AND fuel would stand a better chance of winning, and
had Dixon to try the other option.
Ten cars finished the race on the lead lap, and 19 were still
running at the finish. The all-Honda field provided very close
running once traffic around the back markers was eliminated.
There was no engine failures, I'll leave it up to Donald
Davidson to figure out if that is a record or not.
I'm sitting here in North Carolina, not 25 miles from LMS, and I
seriously doubt "the double" attempt would have worked
today. Earlier in the weekend Robby Gordon said he wanted to try
it again next rear. As I finish the spell check on this report
they started the engines, 114 minutes after Indy ended.
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It's RACE
DAY!
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5-28-06 While
the weather/heat makes today's Indy 500 somewhat of a crap
shoot, anything that makes running the race more difficult plays
right into the hands of the big four teams. With AGR not being
able to answer the MTP/TCGR challenge so far this season, the
heat and their inability to run loose as well as the other two
teams lessens their chances of winning. The reason the Panoz
cars used mainly by Rahal Letterman Racing does so well at some
tracks and race situations is that I still believe it has more
downforce, but with that comes increased drag penalties. When
they have to try to post speed numbers and circumvent the
downforce/drag, then the cars become hard to handle and rookie
driver Jeff Simmons has found out too often since replacing Paul
Dana.
The heat would be an even bigger issue had the track been used
hard in month long dry conditions and was going to be slick and
greasy to start the race, but there was just enough rubber laid
down on Friday to provide a good surface to start the race on.
The winner today will be the driver/team that will do the best
job at adjusting to deteriorating track conditions, and the
driver that can maintain as much speed as possible when the car
isn't handling well or the team missed on an adjustment. I think
teams that have the rear wing adjusters on their cars will be at
an advantage, had I been there all week I would have posted a
list of them. Team Penske just won an award for their high-tech
wing adjuster, that only goes to show how little technical
innovation there is in the sport today, a guy and a wrench can
do the same thing in the same amount of time. Because the track
is in fairly good condition for the start, teams won't be able
to simply stand the wings up and go racing. I expect an early
race rabbit run that would leave the high downforce cars in
danger of being lapped before the first pit stop.
That means this will also be a veteran's race, and the best of
those was probably going to win anyway. In order to derail the
Team Penske juggernaut I feel you have to force them to at least
send one car out to chase the rabbit, one or more drivers from
each team that will have to try to set a pace Team Penske might
not want to run. Some might want to point out that Sam Hornish
set the pace for the first half of last years race, but it
wasn't a very fast pace, and AGR was willing to let him lead.
Sam was the rabbit last year, but there was a huge power
disparity between his Toyota and the Honda's. Late race pace
last year was close to the pole speeds, with several Honda
drivers running 227/228 mph laps. If we see that today it would
have to come from Hornish in either catch-up or horizon job
mode. A rabbit run may backfire in a fuel mileage race, but with
the number of drivers in the field that either haven't practiced
enough at speed or have been several seasons away the sport, I
expect there will be enough caution periods to allow ample
fueling opportunities. The fast rookies in the race are Townsend
Bell and Marco Andretti. Simmons is NOT an Indy 500 rookie, and
IIRC, this will be only his 4th IndyCar start. Simmons was a
surprise runner two years ago as an Indy rookie. I see no
surprises from the rookies today, Marco should finish in the top
ten, as for Bell, he has a history of fast speeds and in-race
crashes caused by poor judgment, that's why he doesn't have a
regular ride.
Everyone wants to talk about Danica, so here's my take; she
could run top ten today, but she has yet to show me that she can
run fast enough with a poor car to minimize lost track position.
Danica had enough additional/select Honda power last year to
power through additional downforce, but that is also why Wheldon
was able to drive around her when he decided to.
The other crap shoot in the race is the engine draw, if all of
them are within the supposed 1.5%, handling and driver can make
up the difference. Should Hornish, Castroneves, Wheldon and
Dixon get the weakest four engines, I doubt you would ever
notice. As for reliability, there is a better than even money
chance that we could have an engine failure free 500 today, I
doubt that's ever happened in the Indy 500, but I also suspect
its happened often in NASCAR 500 mile races, mainly because they
have so many.
One more opinion, through his entire Indy History Michael
Andretti has always raced like his father, jump into the lead,
run as hard as he can and dare the car to break, more often than
not the car or conditions accommodated him. Starting 13th today,
he is too far back to be an early rabbit, but given a chance, he
probably would. The only rabbit candidates I see today close to
the front is Dixon and Kanaan. Scheckter could have played the
roll in the past, but lately he has run smarter races.
Here are my Top 10 Picks for today's 90th
Indianapolis 500 Mile Race:
1. Hornish, car/tire/engine failures are the only way he
loses.
2. Castroneves, 2nd best in the field today.
3. Wheldon, he's always "there," he rarely
crashes out of a race.
4. Dixon, a great racer, close but no cigar.
5. Franchitti, Indy loves road racers, Dario and Dixon
are series best, Dixon has the better team at the moment.
6. Kanaan, wants to win Indy badly, the team might let
him down.
7. Sharp, has sought traffic and passing opps all month.
8. Meira, the best driver never to win an IndyCar race,
not today Vitor, soon I hope.
9. Michael Andretti, a year late, AGR dominated last
year, would team orders have given him his Indy?
10. Buddy Rice, not enough Panoz.
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Early
Carb Day Coverage at IMS by aXe...
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During last weekend we learned that these fresh engines
aren't very fast until they are run in. I expect with over 20
for Honda to rebuild and be made ready, dyno time wasn't all
that long. You may see more Carb Day running from the teams than
the normal leak checks. That's what I would, run them long and
hard, if there are to be troubles or failures, they would come
early...
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Around 9:00 am the sky opened up and dropped
some rain here. Now the jet dryers are out and the Safety trucks are also.
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The car with the red and blue is the PJ ride;
their attempt to mimic Calhoun of his dad's years, it isn't going to
cut it for me, no pearlesence.
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This guy is Chris Festa; he sure fools a
lot of people thinking he is Vitor Meira.
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This is Wade Cunningham: quick time in the
Pro Series cars.
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Thursday
Coverage at IMS by aXe...
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5-25-06 Very slow day today for the Indy car
drivers. Crews are finishing up the cars, getting them ready for Carburetion
Day tomorrow. It will be the final tune up before Sunday's race.
It is the last time to check all operating functions of the
cars, check for leaks proper pressure numbers and such.
The biggest thing I saw was the plane flying around towing a PR
spot for Danica's New Secret, her sponsor's new video game.
It is scheduled for a release here this afternoon. The title of it is
"Danica's Secret 500 Challenge". This game can be found at
www.secret.com by the fans who want to play it.
Pro Series Update
The Pro series is about to qualify. There are 19 entries at this point and one more still in the shadows. Hopefully a deal can make that one happen?
Times from the first 2 practices were
1 car #1 Wade Cunningham 187.839 mph
2 car #7 Jay Howard 187.311 mph
These 2 times show that a battle for the pole will run shortly this afternoon.
Here is rest of the field:
41 Sean Guthrie
11 Jamie Camara - last year's race winner
51 Chris Festa
76 James Chesson
24 Bobby Wilson
26 Lloyd Alex
9 Tom Wieringa
27 Jonathan Klien
25 Tyce Carlson
8 Mishael Abbott
4 Phil Giebler
3 Brett Van Blankers
6 Geoff Dodge
52 Nick Bussel
2 Matthew Hamilton
42 Tom Wood
...and there is one more car on the grounds that has the possibilities
to run ?
Fastest qualifier is Wade Cunningham for Freedom 100.
Out side front row with him is Car 7 Jay Howard.
Just released here was an announcement that Panther would announce a new sponsor tomorrow.
Headed out now for sprint cars at Kokomo.
aXe
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It's official, after the Marty
Roth crash used up too much time the Foyt/Briscoe car will not
run, the 2006 Indy 500 field is full. The back row this
year will include Arie Luyendyk Jr., PJ Jones and Thiago
Medeiros. The idea that there could be a 13.25 mph speed
differential in the field of 33 for the Indy 500 that was so
reprehensible to me yesterday, is a little more palpable now
that the field is full and I have had time to digest the
possibility. All Bump Day
coverage can be found here...
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Hey buddy, great seats, looks like
we're in the front row!!!
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Although things change quickly on
Bump Day at IMS, right now there are only two potential Bump Day
runners, Marty Roth and whatever deal PDM can come up with. Roth
found 219-mph Saturday, but has shown a propensity for spinning
out and not hitting stuff. I think Roth's spin-count is up to
three now, I doubt he can dodge the contact bullet much
longer. Bump Day
coverage can be found here...
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Qualifying coverage is
underway and can
be found here...
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Not even impending rain ever
allowed them to qualify so many cars as fast as they did today.
Essentially, once Dario fesses up to not having a chance at the
pole and qualifies his car, we will have three spots open and
other than PJ Jones, no one good enough at this moment to fill
them. That wouldn't be the first time that ever happened at Indy
with a 9-hour qualifying window still open.. The race pays a lot
of start money, but half would go to Honda for an engine, the
rest for tires if they really paid for them. So what we are
talking about here is "bragging rights," the ability
to say "I once had or driven a car in the Indy 500. Where
could we expect help between now and Sunday evening? There is
the #33 Ganassi car for one, all sorts of backup cars, and
although not wanting to eliminate Roth, a new IndyCar series
regular, Tony George could trot out Roberto Moreno to eliminate
a Roth 213 mph avg. There is still more than 2 hours left for
things to happen at Indy, don't forget that today's coverage can
still be found here...
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(2:00 IMS time) Good afternoon,
just got home about an hour ago and had to tend to some details.
There have been two caution periods that I know of, and I guess
Team Penske is doing some drafting practice as well. There was
about 30 minutes between the two caution periods I'm posting
charts from, but it appears that Dan Wheldon's fast speed came
early, on his 22nd lap. Vitor Meira has made two runs at him in
bumping his fast speed of the month by a half-mph. Vitor has
always been honest with me, and when I asked him how much more
was left in the car on Wednesday, his eye's lit up and he said
"a lot." Today's
Fast Friday II coverage can be found here... That said, the
answer to the headline question may be NO! It's clouding up!!!
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(3:50 IMS time) Link up to the T&S,
they're running, and Arie Jr just got in trouble. He came out of
turn one and looked low and lake and the back end stepped out on
him. He's ok and the car can be fixed. It looks like he got the
rear wing, perhaps the gearbox, the left rear "corner and
the nose.
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A weather update... Although we
haven't any further rain, we still don't have a dry track, and
the latest word is that we should be ready to run by 12:30 EDT,
a 30-mimute delay. That isn't to say we're completely safe
and dry, as the sky is ugly and we have already dodged several
breakout's of rain in the area...
No sooner than I posted that then one of those rain bursts hit
and ran, but we lost the track again... My built-in Indy-in-the-
rain time clock tells me that if it doesn't rain again, they'll
run at 2:00 PM.
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One of two file photos,
good day/bad day, just pick and click.
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That's the bad news, the good news is that
we will probably find it again before noon when practice begins again.. I
woke up this morning to an almost cloudless day. Staying at the home of
Dennis' family, we headed for "Charlie Brown's" restaurant for
breakfast as the clouds started to build. In no more time than it took to
eat we were in hard rain. An hour later I'm in the press room and we have
sun and the track is drying... I'm heading off to get more stories and
pictures, Thursday
coverage can be seen here...
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Before I pick apart the results
I'll say this, these teams sure aren't afraid to pile up the
miles on engines they have to qualify with on Saturday. Read
more about another rain shortened session and see fresh images
like the one below here...
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The Playa Del Racing car of IPS
driver Jon Herb...
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(5-17-06) An update, crank up
the T&S and download the stream, they're going 15 minutes
early, it'll be rookies, "refreshers, and 2nd week
program's warming up first.
As you can see from the
picture, it's a beautiful day at IMS. I had cause for concern
flying in as the entire area was fog shrouded, but it burned off
in a hurry and the sky is almost cloudless. Traditionally there
is little speed on this 2nd Wednesday of practice, but the teams
and drivers doing 2nd week programs will take to the track
today. Two drivers, Airton Dare and Stefan Gregoire will have to
do refresher tests.. Watch for further coverage and more
pictures here...
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(5/16/06, 4:45 PM IMS time,
first an update) I mentioned below that Davey Hamilton would
return to the IndyCar's for The Indy 500 in the Eddie Cheever
#52, now I am hearing from more than once source that might not
be the case, but the car will still run.
Thanks to Dennis Sylvia, our often soaked man at IMS, we've
gotten some pictures today of cars that are on 2nd week P&Q
programs, and for the next couple of hours I'll be posting them,
so check back often. Here's the first of many. Watch for more
of today's
pictures as I build the photo album and update the
"Q" chart here...
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Two views of the Jaques Lazier,
Playa Del Racing #21 Panoz Honda. You will notice it isn't
raining at Indy when these pictures were taken, and the concrete
is dry.
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(5/16/06) Now that we
apparently have more entries than it takes to fill the field for
the 2006 Indy 500, lets take a look at how many qualifying
attempts there may be on Saturday's Pole day III. That is if the
bothersome and almost never-ending rains will cease, IMS dries
out and everyone avoids serious SAFER contact. Check out the
latest O/IRR "Q" chart here...
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(An update) It's a washout,
next practice on Wednesday, qualifying 33 on Saturday, I like
that better than "Q" runs on the next clear day, which
may be next Saturday anyway, or the 2nd Saturday in August.
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I've posted Pole Day practice
T&S charts and plenty of pictures here...
Whenever the rain clouds that
are lingering over Central Indiana depart, one or more Indy 500
traditions are going to take a beating, and if not broken, will
end up badly bent. In the past one of the most exciting aspects
of Pole Day was the frantic morning practice session, with
drivers jumping in and out of their primary and backup cars
trying to see which was the fastest. That's not going to happen
this time whenever the rain stops, this all-Honda series
requires a tremendous number of engines for both practice and
the race. Honda has over 80 of them, but that's only enough to
furnish one practice and qualifying engine per entrant (primary
and "T"). For that reason, the second team car is in
the garage, either split in half or employing an engine spacer
to allow the car to sit on it's wheels. So the first tradition
we will miss badly is a practice session where both cars are
wrung out.
The other tradition lost or postponed will be "line
games," where both cars would be in the qualifying line,
and depending on which was fastest, a team might pull the slower
car out of line when it's turn came, and move it to the back of
the line. Or they might run it through tech to see if it would
pass, then run a couple of warm up laps to confirm the setup,
and not take the green flag. In the final hour, if not quite
ready with either car, they might run them through tech and out
for warm up laps to burn "Q" time and prevent others
time to qualify, thus saving spots in the lineup they might be
better prepared to contest on the next "Q" day. There
will be only one car per team in line today, or whenever they do
qualify.
Under the circumstances, I hate to use the old adage that
"inside every cloud there's a silver lining," but I
couldn't resist. The up-side of this is that with the great,
new-last-year qualifying rules, where every car has three
"Q" attempts per day, and even if bumped, can bump
back in, there is plenty of track action available.
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(An update) Nobody turned a
wheel at Indy Saturday, they will try to qualify 22 today. I see
nothing but rain, a perpetual motion storm the likes of which I
have never seen. It just sits there and feeds off itself.
I think that although
total practice for the week amounted to little more than what
you would see in a day, I think there was a huge amount of
sandbagging from all the best teams. I expect to see a 227-mph
average win the pole position, with one lap above 228 mph. Sam
Hornish Jr. has won every session, he wins the pole... Practice begins
at 9:00 in the east if the track is dry, but I don't expect an
on-time run. Follow Pole Day coverage, the O/IRR version of the
qualifying order and at least one surprising picture from the Panther
garage here.
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Here is the Saturday qualifying
order, just in case it ever stops raining.
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An invitation. At our O/IRR
private forum (a fighting free forum where registration
is required) we have a Indy 500 Qualifying Pick 'em contest
that offers nothing but fun and bragging rights. If you want to
play the game register and join in. I will reply to your E-mail
address when you are registered. Entry deadline for Pole
Day is the first green flag for a "Q" run. In the
event of a rain out, we'll try again.
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(AN UPDATE) It's a
washout, Fast Friday practice has been cancelled. They will have
the qualifying order draw later in the day, but be prepared for
a shocker, it won't be like any draw we have ever seen before.
Yes there will be a draw for both cars for every driver and team
that has two, put they won't be able to run both without an
engine change. While there will be the option of pulling either
the "T" or primary car out of line (in principal) and
moving it to the back, to actually do that will be impossible.
To physically do that a car would have to have passed initial
tech, and without an engine, or with an engine spacer, that
can't happen. More on that later...
I have posted several pictures from Indy here...
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I’m late
into Indy, and until I connect on a time meter from Greater
Cincinnati airport, I don’t even know what I’m missing. For
the last 45 days I’ve “lived by the sword,” on flying
standby, last night it
caught up with me.
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The only information I have came
from the T&S commentary link, they reported Buddy "out
of the car and into the safety vehicle." They also reported
"a large debris field and SAFER barrier damage." I'm
about to board a Salt Lake City flight, I'll update as long as I
can here...
IndyCar information service TrackSideOnline reported "Rice
out of the car under his own power."
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An important factor in Indy 500
weekend qualifying (or whenever they have it) will be how fresh
the engines are for the qualifying laps. While I have been told
that these engines get faster with use, with a maximum run-life
of 1200 miles, I expect that is only the case up to a certain
point, after which performance will fall off. Every day you can
look at the combined
speed chart and see the total laps run for entries where the
teams haven't used their allotted engine in both cars. As the
week goes on (if it ever stops raining long enough) more teams
will do the engine swap's needed to practice with both cars. Here's
a chart that shows which teams have used both cars, how many
total laps they have run and the car number that achieved the
best speed.
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A major O/IRR
Scoop, this one scooped everyone and was followed by denials, doubts and
attempts from other supposedly in-the-know sites to prove me wrong.
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I learned Tuesday evening from
a member of another team that already made the switch from Panoz
to the Dallara chassis that Rahal Letterman Racing will have 3
Dallara's by Friday. I talked with a RLR representative
Wednesday who confirmed the team did have one Dallara
ready to run but not for Indy, he said "they were concerned
about the 1.5 mile tracks and might try one there." Three
weeks ago I heard a RLR driver say they wouldn't rule out trying
the Dallara. I for one can't wait to see Rice and Patrick in
Dallara's. You only have to hammer me in the head so many times
with good Buddy Rice results before it finally sunk in that he's
a solid contender. As for Danica, she's
ran the two best races of her career at St. Pete and Motegi.
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Rendering's courtesy
of Eads Graphics
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O/IRR photo by
Dennis Sylvia
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O/IRR photo by
Dennis Sylvia
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8 Indy wins (Al Unser Jr.,
Helio Castroneves, Buddy Lazier,
Eddie Cheever Jr., Buddy Rice and Dan Wheldon) coming and going yesterday at
noon when the track opened for regular practice.
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***
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It's noon here in Indy, and the
track has just opened for practice. I'm not sure we'll see 6
hours of practice before the rains come in later in the
afternoon, but I'll be thankful for whatever running we get. We
have a spin and contact by Jeff Simmons in the south short
chute. Simmons, who has been very hard on RLR equipment so
far, finished a 219 mph lap passing the yard of bricks on only
his 3rd time around and then lost the back end on the exit of
turn one. The car did a spin into the grass and across the pit
exit road and made left front wing contact with the inside wall.
The back end of the car continued to come around as it slowed
and the nose hit the wall again, a minor but costly accident
that could have been worse. Dan Wheldon to 225.3... If I
had to describe today's first 15 minutes describe of today's
practice, I'd call it fast and furious, and hot and heavy. We
are under the caution again, "for a power outage in the Pagoda
that has shut down T&S... I was able to pick up a lot of
interesting information last night and this morning as I walked
the garage area, I'll post that and more, add some pictures and
comment on today's practice (Wed.) here...
Indy
500 T&S link...
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Earlier
in the month I reported that the teams wouldn't get engine's for
their "T" cars unless something happened to the
primary car. Leave it to Team Penske to come up with a
work-around of the rule that will dictate what all the other
teams will have to do the rest of this week. Coverage
of today's rain-shortened practice
can be found here...
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O/IRR picture by
Dennis Sylvia
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Here's Townsend
Bell and his #90 Rock & Republic Vision Racing Dallara/Honda.
Bell and Al Unser Jr. will probably be the first to attempt to
make refresher runs this morning. Look for more pictures and
Monday coverage here...
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O/IRR picture by
Dennis Sylvia
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Here's the PDM/Medeiros car on pit
road today. Clearly it was/is a Super Aguri Fernandez car that
Kosuke Matsuura used. Kosuke got a Dallara for the PIR open
test, and has run very well since. If he has been back in a
Panoz I've not noticed it. It looks like SAF is dumping their
Panoz cars.
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O/IRR picture by
Dennis Sylvia
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Here's Al Jr. leaving pit road
today (Mon.), in order to get as much of a close up of the car
as I could, I cropped Al Sr. out of the shot.
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Live streaming video from IMS
all month, here's the
link... Registration is required. It is in free testing
mode today and it isn't working all that well yet. Hopefully
they'll sort it all out soon, it appears that they are having
trouble keeping up with traffic demands. I expect it will be a
PPV, but as long as it is dependable, I'm in. Once it is no
longer free I expect the traffic troubles will go away...
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IMS Photo by Ron
McQueeney
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O/IRR picture by
Dennis Sylvia
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O/IRR picture by
Dennis Sylvia
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O/IRR picture by
Dennis Sylvia
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The Al Unser Jr./D&R Racing
Dallara Honda in photos taken moments ago, remember O/IRR is the
place to be for the latest news and pictures from IMS for the
next three weeks...
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According to Dennis Sylvia, our
man at IMS, Mario Andretti made a ceremonial opening lap in one
of the Dean Van Lines cars, along with son Michael and grandson
Marco as shown above. So far on the day Marco passed all phases
of his driver's test in less than an hour, and is now running
218-mph laps. PJ Chesson has been on the track and in 12 laps
has already run a lap of 212 mph on his 12th time around.
Michael Andretti has run 12 laps with a best speed of 219.571.
His refresher test is just a formality, and I'm sure he has
probably already "passed." There are no cars on the
track at the moment. Follow today's ROP coverage and check the
photo's as they come in here...
Please note, check and refresh the ROP page often, as I am
updating and posting pictures as fast as possible...
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Rendering courtesy
of Eads Graphics
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The Jaques
Lazier/Playa Del Racing Panoz Honda...
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That's the good news, the other
news is that he was almost the only one there. That'll change
today (Friday) as they start bringing in the cars for
ROP/Refresher tests. Here's a couple quick load links, the Indy
10-day, and weekend
weather. Dennis will shoulder the bulk of the coverage
during our favorite and best three weeks of the racing season,
but I will join him when the bulk of the field hits the track on
Tuesday. I'll only be there through Fast Thursday, then I will
return two weeks later on Community Day for the remainder of
race week. For those of you wondering what it looks like at IMS
three days before opening day, here's some pictures from a day
so beautiful that you can only wish they were out there runnin'
around, but not the way they are shown below... More
pictures here...
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They might not be running very
fast at IMS today, but they will be tomorrow... Just another
beautiful day at IMS, wish I was there...
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O/IRR photo by
Dennis Sylvia.
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This is a view from inside the
Marlboro Team Penske garages that few people other than team
members will ever get to see. This is the traditional IMS Team
Penske location, they have been there for years. There's been
several Indy 500 winner's that came from these garages. Watch
for more pictures from IMS today and Saturday here...
I have also updated my Indy
500 entry analysis to include the latest information,
including this surprise,
Sam Schmidt Motorsports... where does this leave Richie Hearn?
"#88
Airton Dare P/H/F How do I know? Even I can figure out this
much,
affirmed Daré, que correrá com um Panoz/Honda de número 88.
Also, a friend from Brazil who is staying here at my house did a
translation from the TSO link and she says that Dare will be in
the car on Thursday May 11th."
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It looked like a Happy Hour run
to me, and the resulting goose bumps on the back of my neck
served to remind me how special this place is. Check out
our coverage of the IndyCar Test yesterday here.
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(A "warmer"
update) The latest I've heard on when they will run is 11-something,
although there are cars on the track now under a "running
yellow" condition.
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Just to show you that things are
progressing, they have brought some of the cars to pit road.
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***
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While there is no doubt we'll see
action today at IMS, there may be a short delay in getting
things up to speed. It's not quite 6:00 in the morning here in
Indy, and only 37 degrees, with winds gusting to 10-mph. While
the forecast
is for a "sunny" day, 'with a high of 62 degrees,' I
hope it gets there in a hurry. Today's testing coverage and
pictures can be found here...
"Participant
List."
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(An update) look for more Indy
Open Test pictures by Amanda Grayson here...
Please note that there are also two other photo pages
relating to the test at IMS.
The historic Pace car
pictures, and
Rob's Pit Road and
Garage area pictures.
There are also pictures in daily
coverage as well.
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Usually by the time this annual
event starts, all the news that is the news has been leaked a
week in advance. That turned out to be the case this afternoon
when Rahal Letterman Racing announced that Jeff Simmons would be
the driver of the Ethanol sponsored #17 car formerly driven by
Paul Dana. We also learned that the Pace Car for The 500 would
again be a Chevrolet Corvette, but the news of the Canadian Club sponsorship
of Franchitti's car surprised
everyone and came in under the radar. That is until we walked into a conference room
under the Pagoda called the "Green Room," one that we
would normally never see, and there was the sponsor backdrop.
The car was under a black cover, but by then it didn't matter.
From Indy forward, Franchitti will drive the Klein
Tools/Canadian Club #27. Jim Beam, a "sister" brand to
CC, will be found on the Michael Andretti car at Indy. Read
more... Plus there is even more besides with these beautiful
Pace Car's from past Indy 500's, and be sure and check out
the pictures
from last night's TCGR shop tour. Find pictures from this
afternoon's test session at IMS here.
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