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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.
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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!
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This is the Cheever Racing #52
Dallara Honda being prepared for Wednesday practice. A few hours
ago this was supposed to be Davey Hamilton's ride, now that may
be in question.
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Davey Hamilton's day job, Stephan
Gregoire does some of this as well. For special
"commuters," big "name" drivers are used.
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Wow, the #18 PDM Racing Panoz
Honda of Thiago Medeiros was the car of many colors during ROP,
now look at it, this may very well be the best looking car in
the 500. As For IPS Champion Medeiros, he could be the next
great IndyCar driver from Brazil.
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You can't buy one of these at your
local hobby shop, and it takes a lot of time and effort to put
one together. Obviously when they "98" this car later
today or tomorrow, it won't look anything like "Old
Calhoun," in fact it will look a lot like the Arie Luyendyk
Jr. #61, because they appear to have been Adrian Fernandez
"sister" cars. I think I know the origin of the
Luyendyk Jr. car, leased from TCGR. That was Adrian's backup car
at Indy last year, so this one could/should be the car Adrian
raced (not very well) in the 2005 Indy 500. If I'm correct, it
would be an almost new Panoz with one race on it.
Lets look at the four pictures. The top photo is what is
referred to as the "tub." The round hole above the
radiator is one of the fuel cell "buckeye's" (fueling
point), there is one on either side of the car, this would be
the most common road/street race position, but to work on the
fuel cell/fuel pickup, they open both "buckeye's."
The 2nd picture is the back side of the tub, or firewall, the
engine mounts here. There is a radiator on each side of the car.
The next picture down shows both sidepods, the
"undertray" or "underwing," and the engine
cowling. The gold foil is for heat protection from the exhaust
system.
The 4th picture is of the wing and a couple of other items, the
foil covered air duct that feeds the fuel injectors and behind
that the energy absorbing attenuator/wing
mount.
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I purposely chose to show this
part of the car in a stand-alone picture to explain it better
for any gear head's that might be interested. This is the bell
housing, it mounts to the back of the engine. The purple
pushrods are part of the rear shock absorber bell crank system.
the silver tank is the oil reservoir for the engine and the
round hole in the low/center of the picture shows the throwout
bearing and it's "fork" that engage and disengage the
clutch. The gearbox mounts behind the bell housing and a shaft
from it goes through the center of the throwout bearing. Note
the electrical plug about middle-right on the oil tank, that's
for heating the oil to running temperature before qualifying.
OK, now you know where
everything goes, go out and lease a Honda engine, find the nuts
and bolts and put it all together, you can do it...
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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.
The latest news
is that PJ Jones will drive the
#98 Curb Records Special out of the Team Leader/Agajanian/Beck
Motorsports garages at IMS. Earlier this team came in under the
radar with an entry for Stephan Gregoire, "not included on
the entry list at the request of the team." This has to be
another one of those deals, I suspected something was in the
works when Gregoire was assigned the #97 by a team that last
appeared at Indy together using the colors and paint scheme of
"Old Calhoun," the Parnelli Jones roadster of the
mid-60's. One can only hope for a return of the image.
In other news, Mike King of
IMS Radio claims that his part-time IndyCar broadcast partner
Davey Hamilton will get the 2nd Team Cheever car. Hamilton has
been working with the Cheever team for several months now and
was one of several candidates left for the ride.
With an abundance of used and now un-needed and undesirable
Panoz cars to be had, who knows how many more entries "information
withheld" entries we may see.
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***
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Indy
500 Pole Day III Qualifying List.
I'll be working on this list all
morning, check back often...
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Car
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Driver
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#1
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Michael Andretti
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#2,
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Tomas Scheckter
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#3
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Helio Castroneves
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#4
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Vitor Meira
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#5
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Buddy Lazier
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#6
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Sam Hornish Jr.
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#7
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Bryan Herta
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#8
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Scott Sharp
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#9
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Scott Dixon
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#10
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Dan Wheldon
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#11
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Tony Kanaan
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#12
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Jon Herb
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#14
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Felipe Giaffone
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#15
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Buddy Rice
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#16
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Danica Patrick
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#17
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Jeff Simmons
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#18
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Thiago Medeiros
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#20
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Ed Carpenter
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#21
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Jaques Lazier
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#25
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Marty Roth
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#26
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Marco Andretti
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#27
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Dario Franchitti
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#31
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Al Unser Jr.
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#41
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Larry Foyt
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#51
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Eddie Cheever Jr.
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#52
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Davey Hamilton/Max Papis
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#55
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Kosuke Matsuura
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#61
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Arie Luyendyk Jr.
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#88
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Airton Dare
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#90
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Townsend Bell
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#91
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PJ Chesson
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#92
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Jeff Bucknum
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#97
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Stephan Gregoire
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#98 (?)
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PJ Jones
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And that's 34 Folks.
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