Pre-race: 102nd Running of the Indianapolis 500

Jimmy W1 said:
Ouch!! I don't know why he didn't go back out earlier. Couldn't he have done that? Other drivers were.

:(
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Way too confident in their time. They should've been in the priority lane with Servia and the DCR drivers. I thought it was apparent from when he set that time earlier in the day it would be fringe.
 
I wonder what the vibration was in his car. Guess we'll find out later.
 
It's kinda early but the weather forecast over there next weekend doesn't look too good. Either way- I'll be there
 
What a bummer for Hinch and SPM. That is a shocker. Is Indy still a double points race? Their whole season is trashed, if so.
 
DUN24 said:
What a bummer for Hinch and SPM. That is a shocker. Is Indy still a double points race? Their whole season is trashed, if so.
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Well, they still have Wickens coming in off the bench.

:D
 
Jimmy W1 said:
Well, they still have Wickens coming in off the bench.

:D
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True, I’ve also heard of them buying him a ride elsewhere so the championship may not be out of the question after all.
 
Hate it for Hinch . It will make them better in the long run. The team still has 2 cars in the show.
In 1995 , non of the Penske cars (2 -Emo and Al Jr.) qualified for the race. NON. Two past winners
packed up, sent home.

Danica , Danica, Danica. Fast 9. Just wow. WTGG! (way to go girl)
 
DUN24 said:
What a bummer for Hinch and SPM. That is a shocker. Is Indy still a double points race? Their whole season is trashed, if so.
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Yeah it is, so pretty much. I guess Sam could try to put him in his #7 but they'd have to give Howard and his sponsors some nice compensation. And Honda, featuring Hinch in their national ads now, probably wants him in too.

I'd hate to see it though. They screwed it up, badly, and it should have consequences.
 
Dwayne said:
Why did they change the qualifying time from 6pm to 5:50? :idunno:o_O
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Supposedly it's an ABC thing so it doesn't affect local news. I'd suspect NBC would do the same next year. I know in the years before ABC picked it up it was on NBCSN/Versus so it ran all the way through 6.

Kinda lame, but the teams should know this. Hinch said he thought he was good because he'd have ten minutes to work with.
 
FLRacingFan said:
Supposedly it's an ABC thing so it doesn't affect local news. I'd suspect NBC would do the same next year. I know in the years before ABC picked it up it was on NBCSN/Versus so it ran all the way through 6.

Kinda lame, but the teams should know this. Hinch said he thought he was good because he'd have ten minutes to work with.
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Forgot that the Preakness will be on NBC this time next year so qualifying probably back on NBCSN.
 
Shame to admit it , but after seeing the Fuzzy Zoeller interview, I now know Fuzzy's Vodka was started by him . Never knew.
 
Today's coverage starts at 2:30 on ESPN and at 4:00 EST switches over to CBS for the final two hours.

:)
 
Hinchcliffe's 500 options dwindle
https://racer.com/2018/05/20/hinchcliffes-500-options-dwindle/

So let’s look at the rumors/possibilities:

Take over teammate Jay Howard’s car. “Not for any amount of money,” said Howard, who did a splendid job of qualifying fastest among the three SPM cars.

Take over Jack Harvey’s car since Mike Shank is partnering with SPM. “The ride is not for sale,” said Shank, whose AutoNation/Sirius XM sponsors love the 25-year-old British driver.

Take over rookie Zachary Claman De Melo’s car. “Make that 3” tweeted De Melo in response to a report there were four viable options for Hinchcliffe. De Melo turned in a fine qualifying run in his oval-track debut as Pietro Fittipaldi’s replacement.

Take over Oriol Servia’s ride at Rahal/Letterman/Lanigan. “Nobody has called me but nothing is for sale on our team,” said Rahal, the 1986 Indianapolis 500 winner who got bumped in 1993 and didn’t try to buy his way into the race.

Take over Conor Daly’s ride with the caveat the second-generation driver can run other races in 2018 for SPM. “Conor got called and offered two or three races but there isn’t enough money,” said Coyne, who leases equipment to Thom Burns.
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FLRacingFan said:
I'm going to miss Danica. I really wish she had stayed in IndyCar.

Listen to that, she's giving so much more valuable feedback than she ever could have in NASCAR.
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2nd that. I guess it was the money thing. But I think she could have been a great IndyCar driver. I guess she wanted the money over success of being a winner. She's worth 60 million dollars, so.........

:)??
 
Jimmy W1 said:
2nd that. I guess it was the money thing. But I think she could have been a great IndyCar driver. I guess she wanted the money over success of being a winner. She's worth 60 million dollars, so.........

:)??
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Yep. A lot richer and who's to say she wouldn't have retired after Dan died anyways? But I'm glad she's back for one last ride.
 
Jimmy W1 said:
2nd that. I guess it was the money thing. But I think she could have been a great IndyCar driver. I guess she wanted the money over success of being a winner. She's worth 60 million dollars, so.........

:)??
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IndyCar was on pretty shaking ground before she left. I'm pretty pleased with how they've turned the series back into something relevant.
 
Mr Excitement said:
At the point she left wasn't Indy racing becoming incredibly dangerous? I always thought that was part of the reason she left.
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IRL and the few years between the merger and the DW12 coming out were always kind of crazy on ovals, especially intermediates, but in her last years they were at least winding down on them. The balance of the schedule was shifting towards road courses and street circuits. Ovals were really her strong suit and that may have been one factor (of many).

Vegas was a terrible idea in so many ways and I wouldn't have been surprised if she left after that, even if she didn't already have the NASCAR deal in place (that was two months prior I think). Paul Tracy, Tomas Scheckter, and maybe some others I'm forgetting called it quits for good after that too.
 
That's what I can't understand why they want more speed now. Dixon said yesterday, " There's no downside to speed."

Yet after Vegas, they were complaining about the cars going too fast and that no one cared about safety. Now here we go again. They were hitting, what, 238 mph today?

What about the smaller tracks like Iowa and Texas? They're going to be wanting to go over 250 mph? Las Vegas all over again.
 
Iowa is .875 miles and Texas is 1.5 miles. Las Vegas was 1.5 miles. They've been saying all week that the cars aren't doing/acting like they thought they should. And now they're going to throw in 100 more horsepower?

Well we'll have to see I guess.

:)
 
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I don't rant about it until after I see it myself most of the time with these changes that constantly occur in the various racing series. It is interesting when the other two big series have lowered HP and Indycar is raising theirs.
 
Jimmy W1 said:
Am I ranting too much?
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Maybe. We going to have safer racing because they have broken up the big packs. The cars are no longer stuck down enough to run around two and three wide, and this was shown at Phoenix, if not even little too much

They may have missed it a little with the new speedway package, but remember this is the first race. I imagine they will give them some slightly bigger tunnels which will let them follow a little more closely and be upset in the turbulence less. They can only simulate so much of this on a CAD program, and then you have to prove it in the real world.

With this in mind, you are going to have little mini packs of two or three cars racing each other instead of one big traffic jam. I do think there could be a lot of trouble on the restarts until the drivers figure out the turbulence. Three cars makes a hell of a hole in the air and stirs up a bunch of it. Believe me, it was even worse with the old cars.

So, I'm guessing we will have two or three cars fighting it out in the final laps and the rest pushed back a little from the turbulence. This is going to be a smart man's race. If you are not in the top three after the final restart, you probably won't win.

Yet after Vegas, they were complaining about the cars going too fast and that no one cared about safety. Now here we go again. They were hitting, what, 238 mph today?
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The complaint was less about speed and more about how they were easily flat out. With everyone trimmed out all the way and running the same motors, they were all just locked together in a big pack, and when that goes wrong there is nowhere to hide. Actually the cars were not fast enough to get out of each other's way. If you are on the mat and two abreast, five deep, what can you do? There was nothing more to be had from the car so you had to just sit there. Vegas was a disaster because no one had enough speed to get away from each other.

Jimmy W1 said:
Iowa is .875 miles and Texas is 1.5 miles. Las Vegas was 1.5 miles. They've been saying all week that the cars aren't doing/acting like they thought they should. And now they're going to throw in 100 more horsepower
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I think they will have the aero package fine tuned pretty well by 2021 when we get the new motors. We have not even seen the speedway package race once yet, so let's give it a chance. So far, at least in practice, it's been really good.
 
aero this aero that. Areo is great until it lets go. It is sudden and there is no saving it. They can tune it until the cows come home, you go beyond it's limits and it isn't a correctable slide. unless there is plenty of runoff it is into the wall hard.
 
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