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Townsend Bell
fastest in Indy 500 qualifying today, Marty Roth fills the 500
field (subject to bumping)... |
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Please note
that everything posted on this page will be in a latest news
first format...
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It's a wrap, the story of the day
and lineup are shown below, I made a final lap of the garage
area and learned a few things and took a few more pictures. The
first stop I made was at the American Dream garage to check on
Phil Giebler, he has some back and neck pain from what was a
pretty tough hit. The car can not be repaired. "The owners are
trying to buy something," is the word I got, "but there isn't
that much available." The same crewmember said both "PCM and the
Schmidt crew were looking to buy a car this afternoon."
Apparently the #44 crew was looking for a spare car to
"part-out, and the got one of last year's SAMAX cars. OK I
mentioned and pictured this car earlier, here are a couple of
later shots: |
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I couldn't resist, I walked over
to a guy of-camera and asked, "what's going on here guy's, this
looks an awful lot like a thrash by a them that has two cars
safely in the race." "No, we're just getting the spare car ready
for Milwaukee." That could be the case, it's the Junqueira
backup car Bruno told me yesterday "was a 2003 Dallara, the
oldest car we have." Then again, with Dallara's at a premium, if
you had one with the wheels on it tomorrow, ready to run, you
might be able to do a program for someone, or sell a "very old
Dallara." I don't see five or six guys huddled over a car
getting it ready for a race two weeks away, when they have two
qualified cars that need to be made ready to do race setup runs
on Sunday. OBTW, there was a crewmember from another team (still
in uniform) standing to the left of the big guy that I cropped
out, watching the work being done. |
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While the original Penske team may
have had the market covered on highly polished chrome wheels,
the "new" Penske operation (the Scheckter car) has kicked it up
a notch, flat black wheels, each custom pinstriped. |
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Ah, the replacements, these look
much better. You have to be impressed with the efforts of the
PCM crew, while Dominquez crashed early, they rolled the car out
to run at close to 5:00 p.m. Mario had knocked two corners off
the car, and usually that means an engine change as well. I've
seen major teams take longer than that. OBTW, the AGR crew
looked to be well along on the repairs to the Mutoh car. |
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Keeping a promise, the girls,
what, no fantlers? Hot, hot, hot!!! |
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It is now late in Happy Hour,
only 20 minutes left and qualifying is about to resume with a
run by AJ Foyt IV, here is the entire field as it stands now...
Foyt went out and made a lap and came back in, and the crew
is now working at the back of the car. Meanwhile Marty Roth is
on the track to make what looks like the final run of the day.
Roth's target should be something faster than the 219.422 of
Enrique Bernoldi, that would make bump proof, not just in the
field. Roth's warm up lap was terrible and his first lap was
only 216-mph. Roth fills the field at an abysmal 215.506
mph. The Foyt IV car had gearbox troubles, and couldn't be
repaired in time to make a final run. Tomorrow looks to be
mostly dry now, the "Q" session has ended. Here is the Indy
500 field as it stands now...
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1.
#9, Scott Dixon, 226.366 |
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2.. #10, Dan
Wheldon, 226.110 |
3..
#6,
Ryan Briscoe,
226.080
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4. #3, Helio
Castroneves, 225.733 |
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5.
#7, Danica Patrick, 225.197 |
6.
#11, Tony Kanaan, 224.794
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7.
#26, Marco Andretti, 224.162 |
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8.
#4T, Vitor Meira, 224.346 |
9. #27, Hideki
Mutoh, 223.887
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10.
#20, Ed Carpenter, 223.835 |
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11.
#8, Tomas Scheckter, 223.779 |
12. #24, Townsend Bell, 222.539
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13. #06, Graham Rahal, 222.531 |
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14. #14, Darren Manning, 222.430 |
15. #18, Bruno Junqueira, 222.269
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16. #02, Justin Wilson, 222.267 |
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17. #15 Buddy Rice, 222.101 |
18. #22, Davey Hamilton, 222.017
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19. #16, Alex Lloyd, 221.778 |
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20. #17, Ryan Hunter-Reay, 221.579 |
21. #24, John Andretti, 221.550
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22. #67, Sarah Fisher, 221.246 |
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23. #8, Will Power, 221.136 |
24. #41, Jeff Simmons, 221.103
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25. #5, Oriol Servia 220.767 |
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26. #33, EJ Viso, 220.356 |
27. #23, Milka Duno, 220.305
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28. #19, Mario Moraes, 219.716 |
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29. #36, Enrique Bernoldi, 219.422 |
30. #34, Jamie Camara, 219.345
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31. #98, Roger Yasukawa, 218.010 |
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32. #91, Buddy Lazier, 217.939 |
33. #25, Marty Roth, 215.506
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Vision Racing announced today that
the Foyt #2 will have Lilly sponsorship for the remainder of the
IndyCar season. |
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Mario Dominguez has just crashed,
he was way low going into turn on and has lost one both right
side corners of the car. He had run 219-mph this morning, but
his last lap was just 206-mph, this team has struggled for speed
since the track opened. They do have an extra tub in their
garage, but it would take more time to build it up than repair
this one. This looks like a Sunday effort at best for this team.
I headed to the garage area to get the pictures, but before I
left, Microsoft threw an update at me that installed new Works
Suite software that prevented me from accessing my everyday
stuff, and it crippled me. I did a system restore and headed for
the pits, and by then, on the back of the wrecker was the Max
Papis car. I have just learned that Max crashed in turn three,
"making heavy contact with the left rear." Papis has never had
much in speed since the track opened |
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(4:30, 90 minutes remaining) Phil
Giebler has crashed hard in turn one, he was taken out of the
car, placed in an ambulance and taken to the Infield Care
Center. Getting Giebler out of the car was time consuming, and
the car was extensively damaged. Being a Panoz, you might think
parts would be hard to come by, but that won't be the case if
the car is repairable. There are several Panoz cars in the Indy
area, and even TCGR may still have some Panoz parts. Giebler has
not yet been cleared to run. That said, Phil's last lap was only
214-mph, and that was the one he completed just before the
crash.
There has been a Giebler update, the news he had been cleared
was incorrect, he has been transported to Methodist Hospital for
further evaluation.
I had been out doing a walk-about and was munching on a corn dog
or three when I heard Hideki Mutoh had crashed. That was a
qualified car, so I thought I would check out the damage: |
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Other than sudden stop and engine
counter-rotation issues, a team with the resources of AGR would
have the broken pieces replaced and the car running in a couple
of hours. This was NOT a crash that will necessitate the use of
a backup car and placement of the car at the back of the 500
field.
One of the reasons I set out on a garage area tour was that I
wanted to check out the status of the cars damaged earlier in
practice, and I just may have stumbled onto something along the
way. First lets talk about the TV crew frenzy around the damaged
car of Max Papis. They had brought Max out for interviews with
the car owners, which Included Jason Priestly, hence the large
turnout. Papis was asked about crashing as the checkered flag
came out, and he said "the green light was still on, and I would
have taken the checkered flag in less than half a lap." The car
was well on the way to being repaired, and Jim Freudenberg, one
of the owners, claimed there were plenty of parts, I have one
photo posted here, and then the rest of the story. |
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The Rubicon team is hard at work
on the damaged #44, and it should be ready in the morning.
Interestingly, while the TV types were focused on Freudenberg,
Priestly and Papis, slipping into the garage under the radar was
a small driver in a yellow firesuit, that driver was Mario
Dominguez. There must have been a cell phone call that came
next, because moments later someone came out of the garage and
beckoned for a couple of other men to come into the garage too.
What I think I saw there was at least the beginnings of a deal
that might put Dominguez in the #44 car, we'll see. Meanwhile
over at PCM garage they were hard at repairing Mario's damaged
car, shooting for a shake down run before the track closes
tonight. A PCM update, the crew rolled out the repaired car
just as the track closed. |
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These are the sidepods for the
damaged #96, the one closest to us is badly cracked. The
undertray was damaged as well, but the team had a replacement.
While in the garage area I also checked all the garages of the
usual Bump Day Players, and saw almost nothing. I also saw
Jaques Lazier and asked him "if he had anything working?" He
shrugged his shoulders and said nothing at all. That might
change if his brother Buddy wasn't badly on the bubble and about
to be bumped from the field. I did see one very strange thing,
the Coyne crew had pulled this "partial" out of one of their
garages and had three guys doing a inside-out cleanup on it: |
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That's a strange thing to see with
both of the other cars out on pit road doing race day setups.
Years ago Dale Coyne was always a Bump Day Player. As for the
rest of the Bump Day haunts. |
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(5-17-08, 2:25 P.M., EDT) There
are 31 cars in the Indy 500 field for the moment, and it easily
could have been a full field except someone on the AJ Foyt team
lost track of the number of Jeff Simmons warm up laps and failed
to wave the pit road green flag. Not seeing a signal from the
crew, the IMS flagman didn't throw the green flag to start the
run and turned on the yellow lights... Simmons later returned to
the track and qualified in what is now 24th position...
Essentially that means that with 37 entries for the 500, once
one more spot is filled it will be bumping only from then until
the end of Sunday qualifying. One would think that the most
likely qualifier to fill the field would be AJ Foyt IV, who
nearly spun on the 2nd lap of his first attempt.
There is one other thing to consider as well, after the field is
full, there are only 4 more entries left without a surprise
entry or two that are left to bump back in, that means anyone
29th or better when the field is full is in the 92bd running of
the Indy 500. Right now the driver in that position is Enrique
Bernoldi. The five drivers left to qualify are AJ Foyt IV,
(220.972), Marty Roth, 222.126, Max Papis, with crash damage
(221.330) Mario Dominguez, also with a damaged car at 219.023,
and Phil Giebler, yet to get up to speed. |
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Danica Patrick |
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Graham Rahal |
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Oriol Servia |
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Vitor Meira |
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Helio Castroneves (3T) and Scott
Dixon (9), Dixon is the pole position winner for the 500... |
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The Team Penske cars of Ryan
Briscoe (6T) and Helio Castroneves (3T) in practice yesterday
before Briscoe crashed his car in practice yesterday |
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Townsend Bell... |
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The Roger Yasukawa car...
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(9:30 a.m. EDT) An update...
From 7:00 last night to 8:00 this morning the #8 Aussie
vineyards Dallara Honda of Will Power went from what you see in
the top photo to this in the photo below... |
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While the "view never improves" if
you look at things from the backside all the time, and Indy
sometime that's all you get. |
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Also EJ Viso's car is repaired as
well |
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The sounds of Honda came from the
Phil Giebler, American Dream Racing Panoz for the first time
this morning, but again today it looks like they won't see the
track until long after the first run through the "Q" line has
ended. |
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(5-17-08, 6:00 a.m., EDT) Almost
everyone played there rolls at the Speedway well Friday, so well
in fact that as I have often predicted, the talk of the Internet
forums is where has the speed gone? Believe me, if needed, there
is some there, but there is no longer need to post hero-numbers.
Will Power proved yesterday that the risks don't outweigh the
need, as he took the left side off his only car going hard into
the turn one SAFER backwards, within a quarter-mile of the yard of
bricks. Power had just posted a 223.39 mph lap. That lap turned
out to be the 4th fastest lap of the busiest days of the month,
when 25% of all laps run since the track opened were run in that
one day. That did Power and the KVRT team a heck of a lot more
harm than they needed to endure. This is the latest "update" on
the status of the Power Dallara Honda as of 7:00 p.m. last
evening: |
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That is a fresh engine, it was a
precautionary change, the car, going backwards and SAFER-bound, in
all likelihood had it's engine still running and it's clutch
engaged. That means the engine was running backwards at the time
of it's sudden stop. Engines don't like that, and no sooner than
you restart one later, they begin to hurt themselves. EJ Viso also
"adjusted" his ONLY car yesterday, but that was only a "tweak"
compared to the "major overhaul" Power did to his car. Here is the
Viso car: |
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OK, things were scripted "slow"
yesterday, almost everyone running full tanks, lots of downforce,
working on race setups for a race of them may never qualify for.
If you are one of those drivers that has yet to turn a lap above
221-mph,while it is NEVER a good time to panic at Indy, it is a
perfect time to become very concerned. That
list includes; Enrique Bernoldi, Mario Dominguez, Marty Roth,
Roger Yasukawa, Jamie Camara, Buddy Lazier and Ryan Hunter-Ray in
his replacement #17T.
That isn't to say a 221-mph lap is a must-do to make the field, as
time runs out, the need for a 221-mph "Q" lap lessens
exponentially. Time is running out too, because as I look out at
the sunrise, it is cold and windy out there, clear to the east,
trouble in the form of rain on the way from the west that could
arrive by 3:00 this afternoon. here is another "list," that one
showing a
garbled "Q" order. Forget most of the "T" numbers, except in
the case of drivers like Lloyd, Hunter-Reay, Camara and those with
cars already in the field other than Vitor Meira. |
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