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Thoughts on Indy 500 Pole Day

Something felt different to Scott Dixon this time around.

After winning the pole for the 92nd Indianapolis 500-Mile Race, the first New Zealander to take the honor said that unlike other Pole Days he’s been through, he and his Target Chip Ganassi Racing team had every little thing together to give him the speed necessary to overcome even “average” laps by their standards:

“You’re still out there, you’re still on the edge, you’re still trying to go for that quick lap. But I guess today was a lot different, because I think even on an average lap for us, we still had the field covered and I think that just shows how strong the team was today. We could make runs today where we didn’t think it was quite right, but we could still be quicker than anybody else that tried to go out there.

“For a driver to know that you’ve got the equipment behind you and go out there and do it, and you’ve got a clear shot between yourself and your teammate, that’s a pretty nice feeling.”

From the get-go, it was clear that his team had given him and teammate Dan Wheldon excellent cars that were just a bit faster than the Penske and Andretti Green machines.

That’s why Chip Ganassi decided to throw out Dixon’s first qualifying attempt (which would have put him solidly in the show at fifth position) and have him go for the pole a second time. “Floyd” was rewarded handsomely as his Kiwi pilot threw down a four-lap average of 226.388 m.p.h. that no one was able to come close to.

Wheldon tried one last time for the pole in the final hour, but was only able to jump from third to second on the grid at 226.110 m.p.h. But the British pilot didn’t feel much pain afterwards:

“I don’t think we got everything, but the car was definitely fast. The guys have worked really hard to give Scott and I really fast cars. We have been close to pole in the past at Indianapolis, leading into Pole Day, but when it has become Pole Day we have not been so competitive. It is good to show we are competitive.”

Still, despite his team’s success, reporters at the Speedway wondered how Ganassi could have the cojones to throw out a perfectly good run from Dixon and have him go for a perilous attempt at the pole.

The middle of Row 2 doesn’t get you $100,000 and bragging rights like the pole does, but it saves you from having the chance of getting your car destroyed in one false move. However, Ganassi responded with confidence:

“Believe me, the fact of the matter is when your cars are good and your drivers are good, it’s easy to make calls that other people think take, you know, a lot of courage or big balls, whatever you want to call it. It’s easy to make those calls when you have great cars and great drivers and a great team behind them.

“For me, you know, it’s — we’ve been playing poker here for a lot of years and, you know, sometimes you’re holding all the aces and sometimes you’re bluffing. Just so happened today we had a good hand and we had all the aces today I guess, you know.”

Not everybody came out as winners on Pole Day.

Andretti Green Racing looked set to have one of their machines grab the top spot after great runs in practice this week from Tony Kanaan and Marco Andretti. But they and their third potential polesitter Danica Patrick were unable to approach the speeds of TCGR and Penske drivers Ryan Briscoe (third; 226.080) and Helio Castroneves (fourth; 225.733).

On the flip side, AGR managed to get all four of their drivers into the show on the first day with Patrick as the fastest of the bunch at 225.197 m.p.h., good for fifth on the grid. Kanaan wound up sixth at 224.794, Andretti placed seventh at 224.417 and rookie Hideki Mutoh turned in a stellar run at 223.887, good for ninth.

As a result, Patrick (fifth; 225.197) looked on the bright side of life, telling IndyCar.com’s Dave Lewandowski:

“I wish that [my team] could have found some more speed, but unfortunately we didn’t. Believe me, it was not from a lack of trying. My crew did a great job getting me a car that was capable of staying up front with the guys that had the fastest cars of the day. It was a great day for Andretti Green Racing, because we got all four cars in.”

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Sounding off on Mutoh, Rahal and Meira

Mutoh deserves a tip of the cap in particular for his accomplishment. While he has the best team in the paddock at his disposal, he is still a rookie and this month, he’s a rookie at the world’s most daunting race course.

His first qualifying attempt was good enough to crack the top 11, but it was disallowed after his car was found not to have a battery for the on-board camera system — despite, as MyNameIsIRL notes, being seven pounds over the league minimum. But the Japanese driver and his No. 27 team came back with another attempt later in the day and managed to break the top 11 again.

Graham Rahal was knocked off the bubble as a result of Mutoh’s resurgence, but the American had managed to stay in the top 11 for a solid period of time beforehand. Considering that his Newman/Haas/Lanigan Racing team is still building its oval program as new IndyCar Series competitors, Rahal accomplished a mean feat yesterday.

With just minutes remaining on the clock, it appeared that the 19-year-old had one last attempt at the top 11 in mind. A few minutes earlier, Tomas Scheckter had withdrawn his qualifying time and went out for another run to try and move him up from the 11th position. It failed and what’s more, he ran a slower average speed than he did in the run he threw out.

The bump speed had fallen and Rahal was itching to take Scheckter down and score a victory for the new IndyCar teams by making the show on the first day. Unfortunately, his Newman/Haas/Lanigan Racing team made a major gaffe by not putting new tires on Rahal’s No. 06 machine for the final run.

The team was forced to pull out of the qualifying line as a result, leaving their driver to stew over what might have been:

“It makes me mad, because I really feel like we could have made it. I’m frustrated, because we had a good car and definitely had the speed to [bump Scheckter]. It’s like shooting yourself in the foot. You need to be prepared for any situation even if it doesn’t look realistic that it can happen. You need to be there. You need to have your stuff there and you need to be ready to go, and we weren’t.”

ESPN’s Eddie Cheever Jr. (yes, he’s broadcasting now) said that since N/H/L was new to the IRL, they maybe didn’t deserve as much scorn as they might expect otherwise for something like this.

Too bad, Eddie; consider this as scorn. N/H/L may be new to the series, but they have been one of the top racing teams in North America for many years now. They are not a built-from-scratch squad; they are going to be legitimate contenders in the near-future.

Yesterday was a blunder for them. They could be going over potential race set-ups right now, but instead they’re doing the second day of qualifying and they have no one but themselves to blame. Still, their driver did a great job.

Panther Racing also did a great job, too. They’ll get the last “pat on the back” from me — whatever that’s worth.

After making the gutsy decision to race their backup machine instead of their chosen primary car, the 4T of driver Vitor Meira is sitting pretty in the middle of Row 3 as the best in class outside of the AGR/Penske/TCGR triumvirate.

It’s a quantum leap from their showing last year, where Meira’s No. 4 was only able to qualify 19th on the grid at Indy. What’s the difference, Vitor?:

“Our new partners allow us to go search for personnel or test days. For the first time in two years that I have been here at Panther, we went to the wind tunnel. Compared to a Penske or a Ganassi that has their programs 24/7, that makes a big difference.

“We only had four days this year, but we are catching up. It’s those small things that don’t really look like much, but at a place like here, it makes a difference.”

Good thing for them they qualified yesterday. Right now, at 11:10 a.m. ET on Sunday morning, we’ve got rain blanketing the Speedway. We’ll see if the track can catch a lull and get some Q runs in later on.

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All quotes were taken from yesterday’s pole winner’s press conference and qualifying report unless otherwise noted. Those quotes have been attributed to their proper writers and/or organizations.

This entry was posted on Sunday, May 11th, 2008 at 10:14 am 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.