Indy 500 draws wide-open variation in skill, experience, incentive
INDIANAPOLIS, IND.—The levels of motivation range greatly from the first row to the 11th, but all 33 drivers in today’s 85th Indianapolis 500 agree that winning this race is the biggest thing in their lives.
You could call Saturday the lull before the storm at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway with the usual downtown parade putting all 33 drivers on display, although actually it was more like the lull DURING the storm, because the rain that has persisted throughout the Midwest for the past week sprinkled on and off at Indy. It also threatens to diddle with the 11 a.m. starting time of today’s 500-mile race, which could cause Stewart all sorts of problems.
Arie Luyendyk, a two-time Indy winner making a comeback after retiring for a year, watched the showers come and go and said: “Every drop of rain that falls today can’t fall on Sunday morning.”
Consider Buddy Lazier, who is trying to become the first two-time winner of the 500 under IRL auspices, which dates back to his first victory, in 1996. It’s big to Sarah Fisher, who, at age 20, is carrying the hopes of all young girls who ever thought that they, too, might someday like to try racing against the fastest men in the world.
It’s big to the IRL regulars, who are intensely proud of how their rebel league started giving the chance to less-known drivers with smaller budgets, and has grown enough to attract some CART teams back to Indy, which means the IRL drivers can prove they can beat the high-profile CART racers. Likewise, it’s big to the CART teams of Chip Ganassi, Roger Penske and Barry Green, who have combined to put seven drivers into the field in hopes of duplicating the victory Juan Montoya brought Ganassi last year.
It’s big for Team Menard’s, which has dominated in IRL, but has never provided Wisconsin businessman John Menard with an Indy victory. It’s big for Eddie Cheever, who won this race in 1998, and now heads the Infiniti engine brigade with Scott Goodyear and Robbie Buhl as three variants from the Olds Aurora masses.
And it’s enormous to Tony George, the rebellious CEO of the track, whose bold venture to start the IRL and split off from the established CART teams in 1996 led to a split in open-wheeled racing. This year is expected to be the race that heals it, but qualifying turnouts were alarmingly low, and reports are that there is so little clamor for tickets that various giveaways have been done to try to add to the raceday crowd, but nothing like the 450,000 mobs of the early ’90s is anticipated.
All 33 drivers face challenges of the unknown, but none greater than Tony Stewart, who will drive one of four Ganassi/Target cars at Indy, but must heed a firm commitment to drive his regular Joe Gibbs car in the NASCAR Winston Cup Coca Cola 600 at Charlotte later in the day. Stewart won’t say what his cutoff time is, but if Indy runs long, he will have to get out of the Indy car, be whisked by helicopter to the airport and flown to Charlotte. Richie Hearn will be waiting to jump in as his Indy relief driver.
The field has a difference of less than 5 mph from first to 33rd, indicating a wide-open 500. The cars and engines are all similar, but the personalities run the gamut. Sharp, on the pole, has surprised himself with his speed, as the only driver to top 226 miles per hour in qualifying, and is always cool and precise. Ray, in the middle of the front row, is quiet and determined, and always fast at Indy. Then there is Robby Gordon, in a Foyt car on the outside of the front row, who is considered by some to be a loose cannon — a driver who is always fast but sometimes pushes the edge too far.
Consider Gordon’s comments after qualifying. “I’m excited to be in the front row,” Gordon said. “I’m going to beat Greg Ray into Turn 1 this year.” Moments later, in the same interview session, Gordon said: “My race strategy is to go out, sit back, and cruise, and with 75 or 50 laps to go, I’ll turn it up.”
Only in Gordon’s mind does it seem rational to predict that he will both sit back and cruise, and make a banzai start to beat Ray into Turn 1.
Fisher, who overcame the illusion that her presence as a 19-year-old was only a gimmick last year, draws hordes of squealing teenage girls wherever she goes and is leading the field in sales of merchandise. She is 15th on the grid, but someone asked why she waved off her first qualifying bid. “It wasn’t a matter of choice,” she said. “My headrest popped off and got stuck in the air intake. Since it was in the back, it just about pulled my head off.”
No problem. She kept control, brought the car in, and went back out and qualified solidly. “I’m very hard on myself, because there are a lot of drivers out there like Tony [Stewart], Gil [deFerran], and Michael [Andretti], who have an amazing amount of talent,” Fisher added. “This year is harder compared to last year because the competition has been stepped up about 10 notches, but I’m definitely having a lot more fun this year.”
Others were less gracious about the infusion of CART talent. Lazier, who grew up and still lives in Vail, Colo., but whose parents both grew up in the Twin Cities, both dismissed and underscored the difference. He said everybody at Indy is an IRL team, “because they’ve got IRL equipment and they’re racing under IRL rules.”
The current IRL cars have made enormous improvements in four years. Lazier praises the safety of the current cars, although he still has concerns after being injured in a first-year IRL practice crash at Phoenix. “I just wonder personally about going backwards into the wall, because I broke my back in 30-some-odd places going backwards into the wall,” he said. “But I have an awesome racing seat that was designed for me after my accident, to really cradle my back.”
Two months after that horrendous crash at Phoenix, Lazier that new seat cradled his back to victory at the 1996 Indy 500.
The return of drivers like Andretti and the Penske tandem of Gil deFerran and Helio Castroneves have improved the image of the race, which has suffered with a minor-league tag for five years. Andretti offered a more historical perspective.
“Indianapolis is very, very different on race day, especially for rookies,” said Andretti. “The rookies have no clue what they’re in store for, especially the first few laps, with all the turbulence they’re going to experience out there. It’s a bit of a shock. There’s a lot of guys that are really good at running four laps by themselves in clean air, but there’s only probably half the field that will be able to be strong in traffic all day long.”
Andretti will see more turbulence than he’d like, because he will start on the outside of Row 7. “It’s no fun, starting back there,” he said. “It’s just incredible the way the cars just fly all over the place from all the wind out there.”
The success of CART drivers at Indy is notable because they drive all year in CART cars, and get into the IRL car just for this race, “An IRL car has about 200 or 300 less horsepower,” Andretti said. “So when you make changes, you have to be very careful not to scrub off speed in the corner. If you get a little too much understeer, you can scrub off a little bit too much speed, and you don’t have the horsepower to pull you out of it.
“The feel of the car is different because you have these engines that are very high center of gravity. There’s a lot of weight up high, and then you have the gearbox that goes out beyond the centerline of the rear wheels pretty far, and it’s pretty heavy. So when you go into a corner, it’s sort of a heavy feeling in the back end. When you turn in, there’s like a delay, and then the back end follows it and takes a set, which is quite different from the CART cars, which are very responsive. These IRL cars are a little lazy in the way they respond, and you have to set up for that.
“Cosmetically, the place is a lot different, with the Formula 1 thing and stuff they’ve done here and improvements they’ve made. But it’s still the same old Indy. I think I appreciate it a lot more now than I ever have. I think I took it for granted when we knew we were coming back here every year. Not being here for five years, you realize how big this event is, and I appreciate it that much more now.”
Entire Penske team caught up in infectious Castroneves glee
INDIANAPOLIS, IND.—They came, they stayed low-key, they even took their sponsor’s name off their race cars. But make no mistake about it, when it came time to conquer, Roger Penske’s race drivers did it in style. Helio Castroneves beat Gil de Ferran to the finish line in Sunday’s Indianapolis 500, meaning Castroneves won $1,270,475 from the richest purse of $9,615,325.
Castroneves and de Ferran both qualify as the “boys from Brazil,” hailing from Sao Paolo, and after being brought together on Penske’s team in the aftermath of tragedy, they have become fast friends, even though they couldn’t be more different in personalities.
When de Ferran wins a race, as he’s done frequently, en route to winning last season’s CART championship, he remains coolly composed. When Castroneves wins a race — as he has done also with great frequency since joining the team as replacement for Greg Moore, who was killed in a race crash shortly after being named to the Penske team — his outbursts of emotion are both spontaneous and genuine.
Castroneves held off de Ferran for a 1-2 finish at Sunday’s Indianapolis 500, and those who know Castroneves wondered what would be coming. They didn’t have to wait long. He circled the track one last time, waving wildly to the crowd, then parked his Dallara-Aurora at the start-finish line, popped himself free of his seat harness, climbed out and dashed across to the outside of the track. He jumped up on the concrete guardrail, and started to climb up the fencing above it, all the while waving to the appreciative crowd.
To say Castroneves’ exuberance is contagious, or infectious, is obvious. It became more obvious when the Penske crew ran across the track after him, and they, too, jumped up on the fence in a mob scene of celebration.
“I knew he’d do something stupid,” laughed de Ferran. “I just didn’t know what.”
Roger Penske himself wasn’t sure, either. But he owes one to Castroneves now.
“I promised him I’d climb the fence with him if he won,” said Penske. “I just don’t know when I’m going to do it. Maybe in the dark of night.”
Castroneves says that his first name should be pronounced “EE-lee-oh,” with the “H” silent. He picked a good forum to stress it, because he and de Ferran are the type of drivers who casual fans say are “no-names.” After running 1-2 in the Indy 500, a lot of CART adversaries and IRL loyalists will have a clue just who these guys are.
With the team’s first effort with the IRL Aurora engine, prepared by Ilmor Engineering, de Ferran explained how close he came to being the “1” instead of the “2.” He did try to jump him on the last restart, but Castroneves held his line and de Ferran backed off, rather than trying to squeeze his teammate down to the grass. There were no team rules, however. They race heads-up. That was obvious even in the pits.
“The last two times we came out of the pits at the same time, and both times I tried to beat him but my engine coughed,” de Ferran said. “The second time, I thought I had him. I was on the outside, but when the engine coughed, just a little, he got by.”
The other close call came when Robbie Buhl spun out while running second to Castroneves, just ahead of de Ferran. “Buhl spun right in front of me, and I had no idea where he was going,” said de Ferran. “I could see nothing but smoke and I got on the brakes. When the smoke cleared, I saw him veering off to the left and I got on the power and got through.
“If Rob Buhl hadn’t spun out, I don’t know what would have happened. He passed me, and he was really hooked up. My car had a lot of push, and I couldn’t keep up with Helio, but Buhl could. Had he passed Helio, he probably would have checked out.”
Checking out is race terminology for pulling away. Instead, Buhl spun charging for the lead.
EMBARRASSING MOMENTS
The month had belonged to Scott Sharp. He was fastest qualifier, his crew won the fastest-pit-stop competition, and he was fastest practicing with full fuel tanks on Thursday. He also started from the pole Sunday in pursuit of racing’s biggest prize. When the race started, it was cool, and even though the racers had gone two warm-up laps, swerving back and forth to try to heat up the tires, it seems obvious they weren’t warmed up to maximum stickiness.
Sharp took the lead, then cut down into Turn 1. The front tires seemed to bite, but the rears didn’t, and his car fishtailed, big-time. Sharp caught it, before it could spin around, but he had lost the groove, and the car veered to the right, skidding up, up, up until it crashed into the outer wall. His dream race had gone precisely according to form, but only from the starting line to Turn 1.
It took six laps under caution to clean up the mess, and when the restart was signaled, Sarah Fisher, the talented 20-year-old woman making her second Indy start, did exactly the same thing, hooking the front tires in, while the rear came around to the outside. Her car spun violently, and crashed, rear-first, into the outer wall, collecting Scott Goodyear’s car as it went into the wall. It took 10 laps to clear that mess, and on the restart, once again a driver hooked the fronts but lost the rears. This time it was Sam Hornish, and he spun hard.
Al Unser Jr., who hit the outer wall trying to elude Hornish’s spinning racer, had a simple explanation. “We’re just not getting up to speed,” said Unser. “These are the tires we qualified on, so they’ve been setting here for a couple of weeks. It’s not just that they’re cold. But we haven’t gotten up enough speed to get enough downforce for the turns.”
ANDRETTI RECORD
Michael Andretti led for 12 laps, giving him 398 laps led at Indy, which is 12th all-time and more than any other driver who has yet to win the 500. “What I want to know is, why did Penske cpome back the same time I did?” said Andretti, who finished third, only 5.7 seconds back of Castroneves and 4 seconds behind de Ferran. Obviously, without the two Penske cars, Andretti would have been first.
Andretti ran in contention all day, but a last-pit-stop move was costly. The crew put on new tires, and he asked for more front wing, which would increase the downforce of the nose. “The combination of the two made me really loose in the last stint,” said Andretti. “So I really couldn’t fight there in the end. So it was quite disappointing.
“I don’t know what the deal was because a lot of guys were crashing, and I had some real close ones today. One with Sarah Fisher was really close, and one with Sam [Hornish] when he spun, and I thought, ‘I’m done.’ Al Unser and I were racing right together that time, and I went left and Al went right. Al got caught in it.”
NAMELESS WINNERS
A sidelight to Penske’s victory is that for years his teams have been sponsored by Marlboro cigarettes, and the cars have been white, with a bright red-orange chevron of color on the nose and tail. In the settlement between U.S. states and the tobacco industry, organizations have had to indicate their place of promotion. For Penske’s team, that’s the CART race series. So when his two drivers qualified for Indy, the states’ attorneys general came after the team. Penske’s team agreed to take the Marlboro name off the cars.
Interestingly, they looked stark white without the name in black, and the fact of the removal became a news item. Now that they finished 1-2 at Indy, it is more of a news item. It may take some calculation, but Marlboro may end up with more mentions out of explanation on television and news accounts by having the name removed than it would have gotten with the name still in place.
Castroneves leads de Ferran to 1-2 Penske sweep at Indy 500
INDIANAPOLIS, IND.—Helio Castroneves is as calm behind the wheel of a race car as he is extroverted when happiness sends him to emotional overload. Both sides were put on worldwide display Sunday, when his calmness won the 85th Indianapolis 500 to set loose the wild and crazy side as Castroneves leaped from his race car, scaled the main grandstand fence to celebrate with a large portion of the 300,000 fans in attendance, then knelt down on the track to kiss the row of bricks still in place at the finish line.
“I’m waiting, girls, I’m the winner now,” gushed Castroneves, who had been quoted earlier saying he didn’t want to kiss any more walls, just girls. And, presumably, bricks. “I’m amazed at this crowd. It’s unbelievable. I’m just so happy to win it.”
When Castroneves was then handed the traditional winner’s bottle of milk, he turned to his crew and said: “Look at this, guys! I’ve been dreaming of this. This is a fantastic team effort. These guys worked so hard. Everybody.”
Castroneves, 26, led teammate Gil de Ferran across the finish line in a 1-2 finish for Roger Penske’s teammates, and also a 1-2 finish for Brazilian drivers and Championship Auto Racing Teams entries. In fact, while CART racers spoke nothing but exalted tributes to the pinnacle of racing at Indy, and while they absorbed a few barbs from the “hometown” Indy Racing League stalwarts during the month, it was impossible to overlook one fact: CART drivers finished first through sixth.
Castroneves, an Indy rookie, averaged 153.601 miles per hour for his 200 trips around the 2.5-mile oval. He finished 1.7373 seconds ahead of de Ferran, whose only previous Indy start was marred by a first-lap crash that left him 29th in 1995. The Penske tandem was followed to the checkered flag by Michael Andretti from Barry Green’s team, then a triumverate of Chip Ganassi/Target drivers — Jimmy Vasser, Bruno Junqueira and Tony Stewart. Those six were the only ones who completed all 200 laps. Nicolas Minassian, driving the fourth Ganassi/Target car, went out after 74 of the 200 laps when the gearbox on his G-Force/Oldsmobile seized up.
The highest-finishers among the IRL segment were Eliseo Salazar, Airton Dare, Billy Boat, Felipe Giaffone and Rob McGehee, who finished 7th through 11th, all one lap in arrears. The race had a little bit of everything, including a 16-minute interruption when the race was red-flagged for a rain shower just after the halfway point, but that was nothing compared to the nightmarish start to the race for some of the IRL’s top contenders.
Pole-sitter Scott Sharp was the most stunning early departure. He planned to be calm at the start, and might have been one of several victims of tires that couldn’t warm to their task because of the morning chill. Sharp jumped into the lead at the green flag, but his race lasted about five seconds, because he spun out in Turn 1 on the first lap and destroyed his car against the wall. Gordon inherited the lead for six caution laps.
When the green waved on Lap 7, after that cleanup, Sarah Fisher spun almost identically and crashed into Scott Goodyear’s car when its trajectory reached the wall coming out of Turn 2. That cleanup took until Lap 17, and when the green flew again, IRL points leader Sam Hornish Jr., winner of the IRL’s first two races this season, spun out — again, identically — coming out of Turn 4. Hornish caught his spinning racer before it hit the outer wall, but Al Unser Jr., a former CART and now IRL driver, swerved to miss him and crashed into the outer wall.
That meant that only two of the first 21 laps were run without the necessary yellow caution, and as of the 16th lap, Sharp, Fisher and Unser were through, while Hornish’s crew amazingly rebuilt his car and he finished 14th, four laps behind.
Still, nobody from CART was going to gloat.
“We don’t need statistics to say this was a CART win or an IRL win,” said Penske. “There were a number of fellows out there who could drive one of our cars. We need to have one series where everybody can come here and run. Everyone on our team should give thanks to the way the fans welcomed us back.”
It was typically gracious stuff from Penske, who won the Indy 500 for the 11th time, but whose last previous appearance at Indy was when he left, embarrassed of having two new cars for past champions Emerson Fittipaldi and Al Unser Jr. fail to qualify in 1995. Since then, Penske has been racing with the rival Championship Auto Racing Teams. But last year, when Ganassi came back to Indy and won the race with Juan Montoya, the idea spread, and Penske returned triumphantly.
“This takes away the pain we had in 1995, when we didn’t make the field,” said Penske, who said that when de Ferran produced his 100th victory last year, and this race, were among his biggest thrills. “I’ve had a lot of time to get over ’95.”
The stately, businesslike stature of Penske’s race teams is in stark contrast to Castroneves’ exuberance. After qualifying two weeks ago, he was challenged by some in the media about his expressiveness. “It’s something inside me,” Castroneves explained. “A lot of people show emotion when they have anger, I show emotion when I’m happy.”
Rarely has Castroneves been happier. He never had the lead until the 149th lap, following various instructions he sought out and digested from former winners such as Rick Mears, Al Unser Sr. and Bobby Unser. He started 11th, and didn’t show any impatience in letting Sharp, Robby Gordon, Greg Ray, Stewart, Arie Luyendyk, Andretti, Mark Dismore, and de Ferran take turns sharing the lead through the first three-fourths of the race.
“I talk to Rick Mears, and said, ‘Rick, you need to help me,’ ” Castroneves said. “And Al Sr. and Bobby Unser, [Johnny] Rutherford — all the champions — and I was always trying to make sure that I listened. If you wait, things are going to happen for you. My car wasn’t the fastest by itself, but it was very consistent on the race track.”
His patience matched up well with his Dallara-Oldsmobile’s consistency. And when the race came around to him, Castroneves took firm command. Once in front, Castroneves twice narrowly beat de Ferran out of the pits, and once they both swerved out from their adjacent pit into the fast lane, so race officials put both Castroneves and de Ferran behind Stewart. Neither that, nor a late challenge from Robbie Buhl could stop Castroneves. Stewart led from Lap 137 until he was called in for another pit stop on Lap 149, and Buhl brushed the wall going for a late-race pass and required repairs to finish 15th.
“We were running second, and we didn’t want to run second; we wanted to lead,” said Buhl, who showed impressive power from his new Infiniti engine, one of only three in the field. “I laid down a gear just trying to get a run on Castroneves, and it got loose. There was a slower car in front of Castroneves, and I thought I could get a run on him if he got caught up by the slower car. I didn’t spin trying to hold on, I spun trying to go for the lead. I don’t have any regrets for that. That’s why we’re there — to get the lead and win the Indy 500.”
Stewart said he made the call to take off some downforce, hoping to be set up for a late-lap shootout. “I gambled and lost today,” said Stewart. “It’s easy to see why this team won last year. They had a driver who made too many mistakes today, so it’s my fault.”
With that, Stewart was whisked by helicopter to catch a private jet to Charlotte, N.C., where he arrived in time to start the Coca Cola 600 NASCAR Winston Cup race. As luck would have it, Stewart spun out on the first lap at Charlotte, which was shown on television in the media room before the Indy 500 interviews had concluded.
Get ready for Indy
INDIANAPOLIS, IND.—If Scott Sharp is correct, any of more than 20 entries could win Sunday’s 85th running of the Indianapolis 500. But the three cars starting from the front row have a clearcut advantage.
The front row — where Sharp has the inside spot, Greg Ray will start in the middle, and Robby Gordon from the outside — will be the focal point of the start of the race, and of the finish, too, if Sharp, Ray and Gordon have anything to say about it.
The three are interrelated in historical ways. Sharp grew up road-racing and moved up to the Trans-Am sedan series with a part-time performance in 1988, then won his first Trans-Am race in 1990, and won the Trans-Am season championship in 1991, was second in 1992, and won the title again in 1993. Sharp had to beat Gordon during his early years in Trans-Am, and after moving on to CART, then to the IRL, Sharp drove for A.J. Foyt, which happens to be the owner Gordon now races for.
Gordon, meanwhile, finished fourth in 1999 and sixth last year, driving for Team Menard’s, the perennial IRL power under Wisconsin home-repair businessman John Menard, which happens to be the outfit Ray now drives for. Gordon’s feat also means this is the fourth year in a row that a Foyt race car has started the 500 from the front row, with Billy Boat starting there in 1998 and ’99, and Eliseo Salazar starting from Row 1 last year. Ray’s position is his record 20th IRL start from the front row, and this is the fourth straight year Ray will start at Indy from the front row, having started second in 1998, 1999 and this year, and starting from the pole last year.
But no Menard’s car has ever won the Indy 500. Sharp’s 226.037 qualifying speed held off Ray’s 225.194 and Gordon’s 224.994, and all three are optimistic about their chances in the race, based on where they’re starting.
“In all those pictures you see about the start of the Indy 500, you can see that the cars at the back are in a haze,” said Ray. “You can’t breathe back there. Up front, you’ve got clean air. In 1997, I ran out of gas on one qualifying run, then I blew an engine on another, so I had to start from the last row. I never want to be back there again.”
All three front-row starters will be holding position as the cars come out of Turn 4 anticipating the green flag, and all three will try to time it just right, to have maximum power to win the sprint into Turn 1 on the first lap. All three also know that the race can’t be won on the first lap. Because the pole sitter can establish the actual pace coming down to the green flag, Sharp is likely to grab the lead at the start. That would not be surprising.
“It has been a blessed month for us,” said Sharp on Thursday, the last day that any of the 33 drivers can run their race cars on the 2.5-mile oval,
First, Sharp won the pole position for the 11 a.m. start with an average speed of 226.037 miles per hour. That was over four laps, and the race will require 200 such laps before a winner is determined. Along the way, drivers will make about eight pit stops, and many of the top contenders insist that how teams handle those pit stops might very well determine the winner.
So, on Thursday, the annual pit-crew contest was held with cars in race form doing a quick-start, quick-stop test, after which their crews change all four tires and the drivers speed away. It is conducted in elimination form. It was won by —Scott Sharp and his team.
Sure enough, Sharp’s crew beat Gil de Ferran in Roger Penske’s Marlboro racer with a 9.31-second change in the semifinals, then they beat Al Unser Jr. in Rick Galles’ entry with a 9.2 clocking. “The race is going to come down to pit stops,” said Unser. “And we showed we’ll be competitive.”
By winning, Sharp and his crew earned $42,500 more, and left themselves with only one thing they haven’t won so far this month, and that is the race itself.
Sharp surprised himself by winning the pole. He spent his time practicing, but conditions were never right for him to run a sustained four-lap dash to fully prepare for qualifying. Then, on Saturday morning before his run for the pole, Sharp and his crew decided to leave the car parked, knowing conditions would change by qualifying time. They said they didn’t want to psyche themselves into making a change from what they thought was a perfect set-up. Turns out, they were right.
But after Sharp set his fast time, he proclaimed he and his crew were pretty sure they wouldn’t hold it. He anticipated Ray, driving Team Menard’s car, would be fastest. Ray clocked a 225.194 for second-best, paid tribute to Sharp. “They had about 30 pounds more of drag, if you look at all the downforce pieces and appendages on the race car,” said Ray. “So for them to be more stuck to the ground and be faster too, that’s pretty impressive. So they have something really big in the back.”
Ray meant in the engine compartment. Generally, at Indy or any other high-speed track, teams must choose between top speed on the straightaways, which means trimming out the drag for the slipperiest shape, or striving for top speed in the corners, which means adjusting all the wings for maximum downforce, trading away some straightaway speed for the ability to stick to the track better in the turns.
The reason Sharp’s team, run by Tom Kelley, was able to get extra power might have been the fact that Ilmor Engineering decided this year to start building Olds Aurora engines to IRL specifications. “They’ve done a fantastic job for us when you think about the fact that most engine-builders have had a lot of time and effort with these engines the last four years,” said Sharp. “And Ilmor had just had a motor on the dyno for the first time in December. They told us by Indy we would be where we needed to be. And we are. So, obviously, big hats off to them and the job they’ve done.”
Tragically, Paul Morgan, the “mor” half of Ilmor along with Mario Illien, was killed in a plane crash in England on the first day of qualifying, when Sharp won the pole.
But if Ilmor engines give a boost to Sharp, and to his teammate, Mark Dismore, who starts fourth, right behind Sharp on the inside of Row 2, the other front-row sitters also have plenty of power. Ray’s Aurora engine is built by Menard’s team itself, and Gordon drives for A.J. Foyt, who builds his own Aurora engines.
None of the three has won at Indy, but Gordon came closest. Two years ago, he led from lap 171 through lap 198, but he forfeited victory when he had to make a pit stop for fuel on lap 199.
“Pretty simple, if we would have stopped for a splash of fuel, we still would have been the first car back on the race track,” said Gordon. “We played most of the day, and when we decided to run hard at the end, we were running 220 laps in the race, and we were really strong. We shouldn’t have gambled. Who would think that the last 40 laps of the Indy 500 would go caution-free? We had all that stuff printed out. We felt we were very well prepared and it bit us. You can’t count on anything here, because the next minute it changes.”
Anticipation of Indy returns
INDIANAPOLIS, IND.—The anticipation returned to Indianapolis 500 race qualifying Saturday, along with some startling results, not the least of which was Scott Sharp snatching the pole position with a four-lap qualifying run at 226.037 miles per hour.
“This is the greatest accomplishment of my racing career to date,” said Sharp, a former road-racer who could be the poster-boy for the Indy Racing League because he got a chance to drive at the sport’s major league level far sooner because of the IRL’s more grassroots approach. “This is my favorite race track, and the feeling I got every time I came around on my qualifying run was hard to describe.”
The Indianapolis 500 could regain a large chunk of the magic that dissipated when the IRL split apart from the dominant Championship Auto Racing Teams. But with several CART drivers and teams back at Indy to try to win the May 27 race, the 500 also has returned this year to two full weekends of qualifying, with the first day dedicated to trying to win the pole position. Pole-day once attracted 200,000 spectators to watch drivers go four laps, one at a time, and much of the drama returned Saturday, if not the big crowd.
CART’s strongest showings were by the Roger Penske and Chip Ganassi teams, but it was the “hometown” IRL pilots who stole the day. Sharp was joined on the front row by Team Menard’s ace Greg Ray, who waved off an early run and came back at the end of the day with a 225.194 mph bid to claim the second-fastest run of the day. Robby Gordon (224.994) and Mark Dismore (224.964) also squeezed in ahead of Team Penske’s Gil deFerran — last year’s CART champion — to take the third and fourth spots on the grid.
It was left to Eddie Cheever, a former Indy winner and IRL stalwart who had an engine breakdown and qualified his backup car far back in the field, to fire off the only real torpedo of the day, and, typically, Cheever did it with the artfulness of a surgeon. “Technically, the IRL has made some large improvements in the last year,” said Cheever. “I think the other series should concentrate on road-racing, but I think that if CART is coming to the 500 to battle the IRL, it’s a great story. I think that’s what the Indy 500 should be for. In fact, I wish there weren’t a NASCAR race the same day, because some of those drivers might come here, too.
“The trend of the IRL is definitely up,” Cheever added. “And if I was owning any CART stock, I’d be selling it.”
Two of the biggest names at Indy before the IRL split away from the dominant CART were Michael Andretti and Al Unser Jr. Unser, who ran an IRL car last year, and Andretti both qualified Saturday, although Unser is only 19th and Andretti 24tth. Andretti, still a top contended in CART, averaged only 220.747 mph in his Barry Green Motorola-Dallara, while Unser accepted a 221.615. Both expressed hope their speeds would stand up to make the 33-car field, and stressed that order in the starting field wouldn’t matter.
Among drivers qualified faster than Unser and Andretti are several well-known racers, like Arie Luyendyk, Robbie Buhl, Buddy Lazier, deFerran, and Helio Castroneves, but also quicker was Sarah Fisher, 19, who became the youngest woman to make the field at age 19 a year ago, as well as Sam Hornish, Brazilian Felipe Giaffone, Jaques Lazier, and Jon Herb. Those qualifiers all ran early in the day, and after several hours of inactivity, the other hot runners came out in the final hour.
It was then, after the sun had drifted beyond the roof of the main grandstand, casting a cooling shadow on the main straightaway to create the optimum combustion and traction conditions that generate faster speeds for the legendary “happy hour,” that Dismore, Robby Gordon, Jeff Ward, Scott Goodyear, Greg Ray, and Robby McGehee also qualified substantially ahead of Unser and Andretti.
“It’s the biggest race in the world,” said Andretti. “The history of Indianapolis is that it draws all the best drivers, from here, from Europe, from Formula 1, which is what makes it the biggest event. I’m a little older now, and hopefully a little wiser. You have to be around at the end, have good pit strategy, and have to be a little patient.”
First on the track to try to qualify, shortly after 11 a.m., was Luyendyk, the Dutchman who retired after the 1999 race after winning the 1990 and 1992 Indy 500s. Luyendyk put his Meijer G-Force-Oldsmobile into the field with an outstanding opening bid of 224.257 mph. A short time later, Unser and deFerran came out back-to-back. Unser was a CART star who suffered through several uncompetitive years before owner Roger Penske dismissed him, and he resurfaced in the IRL driving for Rick Galles. There were all sorts of accusations spread in Unser’s defense that Penske’s cars weren’t good enough any more, but as soon as Unser left, Penske hired deFerran and Helio Castroneves and promptly returned to victories and the CART championship.
Saturday, Unser drove four laps at 221.615 in a G-Force-Olds. “I think we’re in the show real solid,” said Unser. When deFerran followed him out, his Dallara-Olds flying Penske’s Marlboro colors took the early hold on the pole at 224.406 mph.
“Indianapolis has always been the arena where all the best come from all different race series,” said deFerran, a Brazilian. “What gave this race so much prestige was exactly that — it brought in the best drivers from all series. You can just feel the fantastic atmosphere created over the years, and the more talent the better.”
As for the notion that the CART race cars are far more sophisticated than the IRL racers, deFerran indicated that Dallara and G-Force had pretty well caught up to the CART car level. “There is a slightly different feel, but the definitely hasn’t been that big a difference in how the cars feel, compared to our CART racers,” deFerran said. “On this track, you’re going mostly wide-open, so all you feel is being on the edge the whole time.”
While deFerran was being interrogated in the media room, the television monitor showed Sharp’s car on the track, and as he spoke, deFerran occasionally glanced from the podium to the monitor. Sharp’s run was spectacular, and deFerran turned with a shrug and said: “I’m not on the pole anymore.”
Tony Stewart was the next man up, and he, too, ran off four hot laps, with a 224.248 average for his four laps to come in just under deFerran.
Stewart finds himself in the unique position of representing CART owner Chip Ganassi. While Stewart drove Sprint cars in his development years, he rose to stardom in the fledgling IRL, and left to now race in NASCAR stock cars. But Ganassi, who hired too rookie drivers for the CART series this year, after losing CART and last year’s Indy 500 winner Juan Montoya to Formula 1, and releasing Jimmy Vasser, hired Stewart and Vasser to drive two of his Target cars at Indy.
“I’m really proud of the Ganassi team,” said Stewart. “Here I am, having never driven for Ganassi, and with an engineer I never even met until I got to the track here, and they’ve worked really hard to see if they could be better than their team was last year here.”
Stewart is going to try for the second time what he said he’d never do again — race in the Indy 500 at noon and then fly to Charlotte to race in the World 600 NASCAR race later that afternoon. Ganassi, always the master of covering all his options, bought and prepared two Dallaras and two G-Force race cars, just in case one proved to be better. Ganassi qualified in a G-Force racer, as did Vasser — at 223.455 mph — which meant Ganassi had two other race-ready cars sitting idle. So he made a move.
Bruno Junqueira and Nicolas Minassian, Ganassi’s two rookie CART drivers, have been summoned to Indy and will try to qualify the other two Ganassi-Target race cars, which would give Ganassi four cars in the field if they can pull it off
About the Author
John Gilbert is a lifetime Minnesotan and career journalist, specializing in cars and sports during and since spending 30 years at the Minneapolis Tribune, now the Star Tribune. More recently, he has continued translating the high-tech world of autos and sharing his passionate insights as a freelance writer/photographer/broadcaster. A member of the prestigious North American Car and Truck of the Year jury since 1993. John can be heard Monday-Friday from 9-11am on 610 KDAL(www.kdal610.com) on the "John Gilbert Show," and writes a column in the Duluth Reader.
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