MVN - Most Valuable Network

Indy 500 Notes: So far, so good for Andretti, Kanaan

Andretti Green teammates go 1-2 in first Indy 500 practice

Marco Andretti fans, cue the music. Your boy appears ready to be a Indianapolis 500 pole contender.

Sure, his 226.599 m.p.h. lap came off a tow from Team Penske’s Helio Castroneves. However, it still got him bragging rights on the opening day of veterans’ practice at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway. The driver of the No. 26 Indiana Jones/Blockbuster machine led a trio of Andretti Green Racing drivers in the top ten, with Tony Kanaan in second (225.299) and Danica Patrick in ninth (224.095).

Andretti knows it’s just the start of a long process though. Give him props for recognizing that after a day in which he took just 25 spins around the 2.5-mile oval:

“The Indiana Jones car is on it so far, but unfortunately it’s still early. But we’ll take it. Obviously I had a very big tow, but I think you need the mechanical balance to be able to stay flat so you can get a (good) time. I’ve been very pleased with the guys so far. It was a good start, but this place changes.”

Considering that the 21-year-old got a bit of help on his hot lap, you could put Kanaan as the true “P1.” The Brazilian didn’t take many more laps (32) than his American teammate, but he still felt that in the face of oncoming weather problems, his team managed to get valuable work done today:

“It was a very productive day for 7-Eleven team. It seems like we will get some rain tomorrow, so we tried to run as many laps as possible. There are a few improvements we need to make on the car, but I am pretty pleased with it. I was glad Marco (Andretti) did a good job out there. It was a good day for AGR today.”

It was also a good day for Target Chip Ganassi Racing, who always come loaded for bare at the Speedway. Scott Dixon is looking to erase two near-misses at Motegi and Kansas with a win in the “Greatest Spectacle in Racing.” He got off to a nice start, placing third on the speed charts at 225.011 m.p.h. in the No. 9 machine.

Teammate and 2005 Indy 500 winner Dan Wheldon has momentum entering this month after breaking a year-long winless drought last month at Kansas. He placed fifth today on the charts at 224.727 m.p.h. in the No. 10 car.

Splitting the TCGR drivers was Team Penske’s Ryan Briscoe, who’s had an up-and-down start to the season. The Australian was on his game today, posting the fourth-fastest lap of the session at 224.804 m.p.h. Like at his Penske debut in March at Homestead, Briscoe went out with a conservative set-up on his No. 6 machine and worked from there.

“We tried to start with a comfortable setup on the car today and just turn some laps to see if we could learn anything new. We really haven’t done a lot in terms of trimming the car out to go for pure speed, but I’m sure that will come as the week goes on. Today was really about me getting comfortable with my crew and my engineer on this track and learning how to communicate what I need from the car here.

“The good news is that we were in pretty good shape on the speed charts, so we’re pleased with what we accomplished today.”

His teammate, Helio Castroneves, ran sixth in the session today at 224.576 m.p.h., followed by Tomas Scheckter in the No. 12 Luczo-Dragon Racing car (224.436).

Eighth place went to 2004 Indy winner Buddy Rice (224.170), who credited solid handling on his No. 15 Dreyer and Reinbold Racing machine for his quick lap:

“Even though the result wasn’t good at Kansas, we were able to take the handling settings that we had there and move them to here. The car was pretty good at Kansas, and we can see that momentum shaping up here.”

Patrick used a late run to go up to ninth place on the charts, knocking fastest rookie Will Power out of the top ten. After her run, she said that she felt confident in making a run for the pole position on Saturday. She also credited teammate Andretti for helping her team make changes to her car that worked well for her final laps of the day:

“The car was very difficult to drive, so thanks to Marco’s good work, we went and stole a few ideas from him and went back out at the very end and found a car that was much closer to what it needed to be. It wasn’t perfect and still had some tendencies that it did earlier, but it was closer.

“At this place, you can stumble…but you can find things that unlock speed here. I have no doubt that a lot of us will do that over the next few days. A pole run is not out of the question at all.”

Castroneves rounded out the top ten with a 223.893 m.p.h. lap in his backup car, the No. 3T.

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Still Power-ful: Aussie driver leads rookie pack on Tuesday

KV Racing Technology driver Will Power continued his search for speed today at the Brickyard, and he was able to find enough to keep him not just on top of the rookie class, but in the top ten for most of the afternoon.

Power ran a fast lap of 223.850 m.p.h. in the No. 8 Aussie Vineyards car, the end result of a tricky day for the team in terms of car balance. His post-practice comments:

“It was a good day considering we started off with pretty bad balance…We were able to come back at the end of the day with very nice balance, very neutral. The KVRT team has just got to work on the little bits now — try and find little bits of speed everywhere, because I want to get up there and try and qualify in that top 11 on Saturday.”

His closest pursuer amongst the newcomers was Newman/Haas/Lanigan’s Justin Wilson in 12th at 223.461 m.p.h. in the No. 02 McDonald’s car.

The British driver wasn’t quite as happy as Power; instead, like many Indy rookies that came before him, he seemed baffled at his fortunes:

“I felt like we made a little bit of progress on the McDonald’s car early in the session. I felt a little confused by the end of the day and was thinking we hadn’t actually learned anything. I was hoping for more and hoping to get the car a bit more stable and more comfortable to drive, but we didn’t manage to fix anything. I guess we’ll think about it tonight and have another go tomorrow.”

For the most part, the rookies turned in good, uneventful work, but Graham Rahal spiced things up with a sick save of his No. 06 machine during the session:

“I think I had the save of the month. I came out of Turn 1, and the car had understeered there every single lap except for this one and the thing snapped on me. It was close. They showed it on the screens all over the track. The car snapped, and I had a full lock on it (steering wheel), and it just came back to me.”

Rahal was 19th on the speed charts at 222.552 m.p.h.

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Hillary Clinton gives Sarah Fisher her endorsement

Hours before she engaged in a spirited duel with Barack Obama for the hearts of Indiana voters, Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton visited Sarah Fisher and her team at the Speedway before Tuesday practice began.

After getting a crash course in IndyCar from Fisher, the presidential hopeful received an autographed helmet from the owner/driver of the No. 67 car. She portrayed the Ohio racer as a trailblazer and said that she hoped “to be a trailblazer [herself].”

Of course, she wouldn’t be a real politician if she didn’t rattle off a couple of metaphors pertaining to her surroundings. The New York senator didn’t disappoint, telling The Indianapolis Star and voters not to go for Republican candidate Sen. John McCain:

“If you want to go forward, you put it in D; if you want to go back, you put it in R.”

I wonder if she paid one of her speech writers for that. Read this piece from the Star and I think you’ll agree with me that she should have gave more cash for a better one-liner.

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Other stuff

Turns out that strange color on Townsend Bell’s No. 99 car is army green…Curb/Agajanian/Beck Motorsports will announce a driver this weekend for their No. 98 machine. Roger Yasukawa, Jaques Lazier and Alex Barron are in the running…The Pavilion at the Brickyard Crossing Inn will hold a memorial service for Newman/Haas/Lanigan mechanic Davey Evans on Wednesday evening.

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All quotes were taken from today’s trackside report unless otherwise noted. Those quotes have been attributed to their proper writers and/or organizations.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, May 6th, 2008 at 11:25 pm and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.