8 Indy wins coming and going yesterday at noon when the track opened for regular practice.

***

OK, this is what I have heard today or was able to confirm.
AJ Foyt has one Panoz (Larry Foyt) and three Dallara's (Giaffone and perhaps AJ Foyt IV plus a spare). He also has one Dallara tub that went out to repair yesterday... The Airton Dare to Sam Schmidt Motorsports deal was finalized today. The PDM/Thiago Medeiros car must be out for paint, because what you see below is all that I saw in the garage.

D&R Racing has three cars on the property here, and another almost finished in the shop. The story is that they could start working on a 3rd entry as early as Friday... The other deal that was finalized today was the Jeff Bucknum car from Hemelgarn racing, a team that has yet to show it can get Chesson above 216 (it's still early, and even though they have a full engine deal, it looks like a 2nd week qualifier anyway...

***

(4:00 PM) The session ending rain storm started about an hour ago, and before I got back to the press room I got my fist Indy soaking of the year. Nothing new to me, God's water is as pure as we can get, and if I'm at IMS and I have things to do and see, wet only means they're not running. There were no engine change games today like the way Team Penske ran all 4 cars in one day by doing engine swaps. Vitor Meira did go out in what is designated as his #4T, the primary car, used yesterday, is in the garage though, sans engine of course. Vitor finished 13th on the day in the "T" car running 222.934, Tuesday Vitor ran a best lap of 222.246 in the primary car.  Late in the running Sam Hornish edged Dan Wheldon for top speed, but for the 2nd day in a row, rain prevented TCGR from getting in the last word/run. Here's Sam picking up the day money check from Ethanol...

Kosuke Matsuura got his fast lap in early and only Hornish moved him back on the chart. It was a better day for AGR, with Kanaan and Herta in the top five. Michael Andretti played a roll in Wheldon's "tow" but didn't run fast all day. 4 AGR cars made it into the top ten today, and the team has to be happy with Marco's runs. Here's Michael's car.

I still feel that the smart team's and drivers are staying out of the bad air and avoiding tow numbers while running 222's, the speed they'll need to race at. While Danica Patrick did show more speed today than Buddy Rice today, they were both at what you would consider to be race pace.

Scott Roembke, seen above, is the CEO of Rahal Letterman Racing and he has been ill and away from the team for a few months. First it is great to see Scott back for Indy and I would like to thank him for allowing me to take this picture to show all his friends he is recovering well and is back and ready to race. Although he still has to take it easy, he's helping wherever he can. I asked Scott about my theory about the race pace being in the 222-223 mph range, and he smiled/agreed and brought up Buddy Rice running that way in 2004 in practice and than having a car nobody could catch in the race. I had heard rumors of a Dallara run here at Indy by one of the RLR driver's, so I asked Scott about the story that the team had one Dallara ready and would test it this week. He said "they did have a Dallara, but they were OK here with the Panoz and there wasn't time or an engine to look at the Dallara." He also said "they were looking at the Dallara for use at the 1.5 mile ovals." While I didn't hear it from Scott, and didn't want to put him on a spot by having to confirm or deny the story, I have learned that RLR will have three Dallara's by the end of the week! Roembke did say "the Panoz was a heck of a road racer," and agreed with my contention that IMS was user-friendly to good road race cars and drivers. While on the subject of RLR, they did get Simmons's car repaired and back on the track this afternoon, and he managed to run 33 more laps without getting into any more trouble, and he bumped his early in the day speed up to 220. Here's the final chart and numbers. There were six cars above 224 mph, and a total of 19 over 220. Buddy Lazier and Al Unser got some business done as well, getting the D&R equipment up to 218 mph today, a nice gain considering the team hasn't ran well all year.

Pos

Driver

 

Best Time

Best Speed

 

 

 

Last Lap

 

 

1

Sam Hornish Jr (6)

 

39.8132

226.056

 

 

 

44

 

 

2

Dan Wheldon (10)

 

39.8872

225.636

 

 

 

56

 

 

3

Kosuke Matsuura (55)

 

39.9752

225.140

 

 

 

36

 

 

4

Tony Kanaan (11)

 

40.0890

224.500

 

 

 

48

 

 

5

Bryan Herta (7)

 

40.1263

224.292

 

 

 

31

 

 

6

Helio Castroneves (3)

 

40.1324

224.258

 

 

 

42

 

 

7

Scott Sharp (8)

 

40.1791

223.997

 

 

 

45

 

 

8

Scott Dixon (9)

 

40.2091

223.830

 

 

 

49

 

 

9

Dario Franchitti (27)

 

40.2825

223.422

 

 

 

49

 

 

10

Marco Andretti (26)

 

40.3061

223.291

 

 

 

24

 

 

11

Tomas Scheckter (2)

 

40.3395

223.106

 

 

 

27

 

 

12

Danica Patrick (16)

 

40.3436

223.084

 

 

 

66

 

 

13

Vitor Meira (4T)

 

40.3707

222.934

 

 

 

45

 

 

14

Michael Andretti (1)

 

40.4429

222.536

 

 

 

40

 

 

15

Buddy Rice (15)

 

40.4796

222.334

 

 

 

71

 

 

16

Townsend Bell (90)

 

40.6029

221.659

 

 

 

24

 

 

17

Eddie Cheever Jr. (51)

 

40.6080

221.631

 

 

 

30

 

 

18

Ed Carpenter (20)

 

40.7865

220.661

 

 

 

20

 

 

19

Jeff Simmons (17)

 

40.9030

220.033

 

 

 

36

 

 

20

Buddy Lazier (5)

 

41.1590

218.664

 

 

 

48

 

 

21

Al Unser Jr. (31)

 

41.2735

218.058

 

 

 

26

 

 

22

PJ Chesson (91)

 

41.7068

215.792

 

 

 

30

 

 

23

Marty Roth (25)

 

42.2522

213.007

 

 

 

65

 

 

We just had another short "moisture" caution, here's another chart. Note that I added the "last lap" number, I'm going to start keeping an ongoing total lap count this week.

Pos

Driver

 

Best Time

Best Speed

 

 

 

Last Lap

 

 

1

Dan Wheldon (10)

 

39.8872

225.636

 

 

 

50

 

 

2

Kosuke Matsuura (55)

 

39.9752

225.140

 

 

 

31