Pre-Race - 105th Indianapolis 500

Doc Austin said:
What's up with those slow Penskes?
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I wanna know what sort of hometown sorcery ECR always have going on here. They’re so much quicker than any other Chevy team.

I’ll take TK-Dixon-VeeKay front row, Power-Simona-Karam last row. Kimball and Enerson bumped.
 
Probably hoping for too much wanting Enerson to make the field, but running 226 as a rookie on his first oval start isn't bad. Considering they had never run the car (or any Indycar), and barely ran it when they did, I think they have gotten a decent result just finding that much speed.

Power's lack of speed is simply baffling. It's not the Chevy because Carpenter's cars are fast, and it's not the chassis because everyone else is running one. What is Penske doing that's so different it's hurting them?
 
Doc Austin said:
Probably hoping for too much wanting Enerson to make the field, but running 226 as a rookie on his first oval start isn't bad. Considering they had never run the car (or any Indycar), and barely ran it when they did, I think they have gotten a decent result just finding that much speed.

Power's lack of speed is simply baffling. It's not the Chevy because Carpenter's cars are fast, and it's not the chassis because everyone else is running one. What is Penske doing that's so different it's hurting them?
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I’m sure they’ll be better in race trim but ultimately just not fast enough still. It’s exacerbated by qualifying boost IMO, they went to +90 HP starting last year because of the aero screen added weight. Chevy don’t seem to have it at the top end - including August, that’s 15 Honda and 3 Chevy in the two Fast Nine shootouts with this boost level. When you don’t have the horsepower and you try to compensate for it with trim levels and everything it just snowballs I think.
 
Rooting for Power if only because the boss man will not be happy if he misses, and has already hinted at favoring a lock-in before.
 


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Herta's girls got ahead of themselves with their celebration.

Dixon is a machine. POLE!
 
Scott Dixon? Really? Who the heck let him in here? You mean he's actually going to be racing??

🙄🙄
 
I think I like Sato in this race, but it's a tough call. It would be silly to bet against Dixon, but if I did it would be the guy who beat him last year. Sato has this place figured out. He's been a great champion and it would not kill me to see him be champion another year.

Of course thee are lots of other guys running well under the radar like Helio, and don't forget JPM.

Maybe Carpenter is in a good position. His teammate out qualified him, and maybe people are overlooking him a bit because of that. Still, he's a guy with as much Indy experience as anyone in the field and knows how to go fast here.

Maybe the guy no one is paying too much attention to is Tony Kannan. Fifth fast after a smooth month isn't a bad way to go into this race, especially in a Ganassi car. Tony was top five for most of the month and I believe one day was the fastest. No one is talking about him and that could be a mistake.

It's too much to go into because the field is so utterly stacked. There are so many guys who can win this race. It's been so weird though that I think this is going to be the veteran's race. I've just got that feeling experience is going to win this one. There's plenty of new guys who are fast enough, but are they experienced enough?

Lots of weird stuff going on. I fully expected Bourdais to be better but everything has gone wrong all year long.

What did Penske miss? Carpenter's chevys are fast so it's not the motor. It's the same chassis everyone else has to deal with, so it's not that either. How are they so down on top speed? I'm sure the extra boost played to the Hondas and Chevy will be better in race trim, but still, why was Penske hurt more than the other Chevys?

One thing worth mentioning is that no one has said a word about Marco all month, almost like he's not even there. Every time I checked, he was literally 25th....... literally all week long, buried in the pack and invisible. Now, he could turn it around and make me look stupid for saying this, but Marco is better off not even bothering. I think he's taking the year off (except Indy) to lose his Platinum driver rating and go pro/am racing with Jared...... and I think that's a sold move. When Marco was running the Acura sportscar he was on fire and the fastest guy around, so the question is what the hell happened to this guy? Every year I hope Marco will turn it around and he never does. I hope he can make a great sportscar career for himself.

Finally there's Top Gun racing. I don't believe they have ever raced anything, but they show up at Indy a month after they get the car and put up some good numbers. They had no technical assistance from anyone, didn't put a scratch on the car all month and still got a lot closer to making the field than they should have considering what they were up against. This was simply a sterling performance that shouldn't be overlooked and I hope they can come back soon.
 
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