Changes, Changes, Changes....
- Qualifying Procedure: Lots of changes both in time frame and how cars qualify.
- One Weekend: Instead of the traditional 2 weekends of qualifying, it was compressed to just one weekend which was preceded by a solid week of practice. This significantly affected the time that drivers and crews had to get their cars dialed in. As qualifying played out, it seemed that several teams spent too much time working on their race set-up and not enough in qualifying trim. The weather also played a major factor as most the practice time was cool (60's) while the qualifying weekend got hot.
- Pole: The new procedure allowed all eligible cars to try to qualify with the 24 fastest making the provisional field after the first day. This phase ended at 4 pm and then the 9 fastest cars would then have their speeds erased and they would 're-qualify' to determine the Pole as well as the top 9 order. As the fastest qualifier, Helio chose to go out first and blew away the other 8 cars by averaging almost 288 mph and easily won the $175,000 Pole Award.
The rest of the 90 minutes were consumed by the Target Gianassi, the two other Penske cars, and Alex Tagliani vying for the rest of the spots in the first two rows. Penske would have really liked to occupy the entire front row but Dario Franchetti pushed Ryan Briscoe to 4th while 3rd Penske driver, Will Power, will start along side Helio. Tagliani will start on outside of row 2.
- Bump Day: For the second day in a row, Tony Kanaan crashed which put Andretti Racing in a big pinch. There were lots of qualifying attempts and a number of bumps and voluntary withdrawals (to attempt to re-qualify with a faster speed). For the second day in a row, the decent crowd stayed until qualifying ended at 6. As I walked back to the garage area from the Pagoda, the fans leaving was the heaviest at the end of a qualifying day in many years.
Easily the biggest name left on the outside of the field looking in was Paul Tracy. Even when working with a well-established (and mature) car I think it points out how difficult for a team and driver to get things sorted out just for one race.
The new qualifying procedure was a clear success. Perhaps the only obvious tweak would be to invert the Top 9 qualifying order to have the fastest car go out 9th for the first opportunity.
Row 3 - Overachievers, at least for Qualifying: The starters in Row 3 are Graham Rahal, Ed Carpenter, and Hideki Mutoh. Rahal and Carpenter are racing in their first race of the year so it was really a surprise to see them do so well. Mutoh is with a new team this year, Newman/Haas, so his speed was also impressive. These three went faster than a lot of better financed teams. btw, Townsend Bell, driving for another small team, Sam Schmidt Racing (with assistance from Ganassi), barely missed the top 9 shootout.
How Far has Andretti Racing Fallen? The third of the best financed teams, Andretti Racing, fastest qualifier was Marco Andretti at 16th. Normally all four drivers - Marco, Kanaan, Danica, and Ryan Hunter-Reay - would be serious contenders for the top 9 and even the front row. All of them expressed concern and criticism (check out Danica's "It's not my fault." statement after qualifying) over the looseness of their cars - they just wouldn't stick well going through the corners. Instead of the top 9 the four cars qualified 16th, 17th (Ryan) 23rd (Danica), and 33rd (Kanaan). They have had a number of engineers and mechanics leave the team over the past several years but so far this month, the team's performance can only be deemed dismal.
Girls, Girls - 4 out of possible 5 made the race: Rookies Ana Beatriz and Simona de Silvestro qualified faster than Danica in 21st and 22nd with Sarah Fisher 29th. Milka Duno failed to make the field this year. To hope that one of them cracks the top 10 finishers is that - just a hope. Danica has shown in the past that she can challenge at Indy but unless her car suddenly starts to handle well, she'll be a mid-pack racer. It would be great publicity for the sport (and erase her critical post-qualifying comments) for the sport but it probably won't happen.
Driver-Owners: I read in one of the track media releases that out of the 17 race team owners here at the Speedway, 11 of them are either current or past drivers here at the 500. It's certainly a way to continue involvement with the sport but perhaps it a sign of the times that drivers today have to be almost as good as securing sponsorship as driving a race car fast.
Race Day Bits: Robin Roberts from Good Morning America will be driving the Camaro Pace Car to start the race and Jack Nicholson will be waving the Green Flag. I've heard that ticket sales are ahead of last year so there should be a big crowd to be entertained Sunday. A bit trivia: Helicopter tape: The high-tech tape was developed to protect the leading edge of helicopter blades and teams use it to seal the seams between the body parts and also to protect the leading edges of wings and scoops from debris. Every team uses it extensively but it's pretty expensive 'duct' tape at upwards of $300/roll.
A short bit from Carb Day Practice: The top speed in the one hour practice Friday was in the mid-225 with most drivers in the 222-221 mph range. The 225's may well have benefited from a "tow". The draft of a leading car is good for at least 1 mph and the trailing car can benefit from being within a couple hundred feet of the leading car. These speeds are in contrast to Helio's Pole Speed of 227.9. With the temperature expected to be in the mid- to upper-80's, I would expect race leading speeds in the 223-224 range, maybe even slower.
Push-to-Pass: This will be the first 500 that drivers can utilize the push-to-pass engine feature. The engine management software is modified to deliver a 18 second burst of extra horsepower when the driver pushes a button on the steering wheel. Each driver can use this 15 times during the race. The 'push' isn't enough by itself to assure a pass - the driver still has to have the draft set-up and be in the right position. This will be a major strategy point if there are several drivers are competing for the lead late in the race. How many 'pushes' does each driver have left?
Who's Going to win? Helio seems to have everything going his way so he's clearly the favorite to win his fourth 500 and joining A.J., Al Unser, Sr., and Rick Mears in that select company. Of course there are many twists and turns during each race which are out of control of any driver so just being the clear favorite doesn't assure victory. It seems much more likely that a driver from either Penske or Ganassi will win. Helio, Will Power, Ryan Briscoe from Penske and Dario Franchitti and Scott Dixon from Target Ganassi occupy 5 of the top 6 qualifying spots which one would expect from the 2 biggest budget teams. These teams can afford to do more testing, wind tunnel work, more computer simulation than others and it shows. They've won every oval race since mid-2008 and that streak will continue Sunday.
There are plenty of very good drivers that are talented enough to win but the resources backing them probably isn't enough to to win.
Drivers who, at some point of the race, may well challenge for the lead include Dan Wheldon, Alex Tagliani, Townsend Bell, Tomas Scheckter, Tony Kanaan, Ryan Hunter-Reay, Bruno Junqueira, and Graham Rahal. Dan is a former Ganassi driver now driving for Panther Racing which is easily the best single car team in the league. He's excellent driver and seldom makes a mistake so a top-5 finish or better would not be a big surprise. Tagliani is a part-owner for the FAZZT team and his been very impressive so far this month but it's a new team so one has to wonder how they will deal with the sudden changes and opportunities during the race. Townsend is driving for Sam Schmidt but has technical support from Ganassi so one has to keep an eye on him. Tomas Scheckter is always very fast, especially early in races but this is a one-race deal so it's been awhile since he's driven in traffic. The same limitation holds for Bruno and Graham. I wouldn't be surprised if one of these drivers are near the front but it's going to be tough to beat Penske or Target.
40 years: This will be my 40th as member of the Safety Patrol. Time really does fly by. I did it the first year as sort of a lark because I was intrigued by the mechanical complexity of the cars. Over the years my focus has moved to more of the people side. It's a fascinating laboratory to watch how different folks response to pressure, extreme highs and lows in a matter of seconds sometimes. I've been very fortunate and still get excited at every race start.
Let's go Racing!!
Steve
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