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A.J. Foyt
IV, 1996 Indy 500 winner Buddy Lazier, and Marty Roth made the cut
on Bump Day as the three drivers held on this past Sunday to make
the field for the
Indianapolis 500. It was a day of heartbreak for Roger Yasukawa
who made an unsuccessful attempt and for two drivers whose Indy
dream literally came crashing down to earth. Both Max Papis and
Mario Dominguez crashed, thus ending their valiant attempts for a
spot in the 33-car field. Papis crashed in practice while
Dominguez had his mishap during his third qualifying attempt of
the day. In the end, Roth held the 33rd spot in the starting
lineup while Foyt was 31st and Lazier 32nd.
Foyt, the grandson of legendary four-time
Indianapolis
winner A.J. Foyt, recorded a four-lap average of 219.184 mph
around the historic 2.5-mile oval, temporarily bumping Roth, who
had been the slowest qualifier Saturday. The young Texan later
crashed during practice when a piece flew off his car. Although he
was uninjured, the car was beyond repair if another qualifying run
would have been necessary. "I'm fine, just have a little burn on
my neck, that's all.” he said.' It wasn't until I turned into the
corner did I know stuff was going bad. It was just a mistake; we
left something off the car that was supposed to be on it, and it
broke loose going into the corner and that's what caused the
flames. I'm fine mentally, and with crashes like these, where you
know what happened and what caused it; you can brush those off
pretty quickly. It's when you snap loose and crash and don't
really know what happened, that's what gets to your head. It's
just unfortunate. It was a brand-new car we brought to Indy, and
it's destroyed right now." Foyt then went on to describe the
Vision Team's upcoming strategy for practice later on this week.”
We’re going to get the backup car out. It hasn't been on the track
this month, so they are going to go through it and see what we
have to do. We just need to go through the crashed car and see
what is going on. We definitely don't need to rush to get
something out there; we need to make sure it's right."
Roth put himself back into the field around 1:30 p.m., knocking
Lazier out of the field with a qualifying average of 218.965 mph. "My guys did a great job putting the car out, said the 49-year old
Canadian. “They've been working hard. They haven't slept in the
last two days. Today we wheeled out a car that's pretty solid. The
changes we made a lot of sense. The car has been consistent. Right
now our focus is trying to get out in traffic, put some downforce
on it and make it a race car. Hopefully we can get away from the
qualifying side of this month."
Dominguez later qualified close to the end of the session. with an
average speed of 218.620, bumping Yasukawa but was in turn bumped
13 minutes later by Lazier, who recorded an average speed of
219.015
mph. Lazier earned a $50,000 bonus from Firestone for being the final
driver to qualify for the 500-Mile Race. "It was a wicked
racetrack today, I'm sure everybody could tell," said Lazier
"There was no grip and we were having such a hard time getting a
hold of the racetrack. We were flat-out at 17s and still sideways,
not really happy. Our biggest problem was we got such a late
start. We didn't start until Friday. We're the only ones that
started that late, and it really hurt. It showed. But if it wasn't
for all the right moves and staying very calm, it was all about
those guys making good decisions, it really was."
The field for the 92nd Running of the
Indianapolis
500 is set with four past winners (Lazier, Helio Castroneves, Dan
Wheldon, and Buddy Rice) and 11 rookies. This year's rookies are
Hideki Mutoh, Graham Rahal, Justin Wilson, Alex Lloyd, Ryan
Hunter-Reay, Will Power, Oriol Servia, E.J. Viso, Mario Moraes,
Enrique Bernoldi and Jaime Camara. Mutoh is the fastest rookie at
223.887 mph.
Drivers have one final opportunity to practice (“Carburetion Day”)
on Friday, May 23 before 92nd
Indianapolis
500 on Sunday, May 25. On Thursday, it'll be the Indy Lights turn
as they take to the track for practice and qualifying in
preparation for Friday's Firestone Freedom 100. |
