|
Los Angeles, CA. - INDY 500 QUALIFYING: The two weekends of qualifying for the 2009 Indianapolis 500 proved to be dramatic, exciting television fare for fans of Indy Car racing. That was due in no small part to the Indy Racing League's new TV partner—the Versus network. Versus TV coverage is a major improvement over ESPN's effort in recent years. The four letter network would bounce their coverage between ESPN2 and ESPN and even ABC. Versus presented 6.5 hours live on the same channel from 9:00 am to 3:30 pm PDT. The on-air talent on Versus was superior in every way to the ESPN on-air team of Marty Reid and Scott Goodyear in the booth. Knowledgeable Bob Jenkins handled play-by-play in the booth, with analysts and ex-drivers Robbie Buhl and Jon Beekhuis providing outstanding insights and technical information. Additionally, Buhl is co-owner of the Dreyer-Reinbold team and the travails of a current team owner at the Indy 500 were brought home vividly as three of his four cars struggled to make the race. All four cars finally made the race to the relief of veteran Indy 500 driver Buhl.
The Versus crew of pit reporters included strategist Jack Arute, an almost three decades veteran of Indy 500 pit reporting on ESPN/ABC. His knowledge and easy-going friendship with drivers and team personnel leads to excellent on-air rapport with his interview subjects. The Versus Network two newcomers to Indy 500 pit reporting were Robbie Floyd and Lindy Thackston. They both proved to be excellent pit reporters in the tradition of ESPN/ABC veteran pit reporters Vince Welch and Jamie Little. Versus TV graphics, crash replays, explanations of procedures and recaps were excellent as well. Interviews were conducted with Richard Petty and others you would expect. The two in booth analysts played well off each other. They both provided excellent technical data from their first-hand knowledge of current Indy cars. For example, they clearly explained front bar and weight jacker buttons and effect, dash instrumentation and indicator lights, pit lane speed limiters, and taping leading edges of Indy car wings as is done in the aircraft industry. Jack Arute's “interrogation-style” taped interviews with Paul Tracy and Helio Castroneves on his return to racing following his six week trial and April 17 acquittal on federal income tax evasion charges were well done.
Bumping each day to qualify only the fastest 11 cars that day for P. 1-11 (May 9), P. 12-22 (May 10), P. 23-33 (May 16) and “Bump Day” (May 17) provided much bumping and re-qualifying each day as cars had three qualifying attempts available each day. Many people say this procedure is contrived and places drivers and car owner investments at risk. “That is quite true” as A. J. Foyt answers to many questions. It gave the estimated 15,000 to 20,000 persons present at the IMS on pole day action all day. Unlike the past couple of seasons this qualifying system has been used, there were no complete wash-out days of qualifying this year because of Indy's pesky May rainstorms. Many people, me included, would like to see qualifying for the Indy 500 reduced from two weekends to one weekend with all pole day qualifiers having their qualifying times count. If teams thought they could re-qualify faster they should be able to do so. More than 11 cars should be locked in, perhaps the fastest 22, leaving the final 11 starting positions open to “Bump Day” qualifiers. IRL should run another pre-Indy 500 race on an oval on the first weekend of May (this year May 2-3) with an open weekend (May 9-10) as the rain date. More tracks want IRL race dates and this would be one way to gain another race weekend.
On pole day 66 cars (including T cars or backups) drew positions in the qualifying order. Q position 1 (No. 18 J. Wilson) went out first at two minutes after the track opened for qualifying and he became the first qualifier. Next on the track was Q. draw position # 4—Marco Andretti—and he also qualified. It only took a couple of hours to work through the qualifying order, so teams could practice or go out to qualify at will. When the 6:00 pm gun went off (3:00 PDT because Indy went on the eastern time zone) everyone had ample time to qualify. At the end of “pole day” 26 qualifying attempts had been made to set the fastest 11 qualifiers. The drama of re-qualifying runs by R. Briscoe and H. Castroneves, T. Kanaan, G. Rahal, M. Andretti, S. Dixon and Mario Moreas added excitement. Second year starter Alex “Pink” Lloyd (222.622 mph) got one of the coveted top 11 qualifying berths over Hideki Mutoh's 222.581 mph. Justin Wilson's second qualifying run of the day at the 6:00 deadline came up short at 222.476 mph, the 13th fastest speed of the 16 fastest qualifiers. Kanaan's sixth fastest time overall was his eighth time in the top six qualifiers in his first eight years at Indy. That's consistency. Kanaan had persistent problems with his entered No. 11 car and used teammate Mutoh's backup car painted in his 7-Eleven team colors. Kanaan told a TV interviewer that Mutoh calls his race cars his girl friends and he “took Hideki's girl friend to qualify.” When interviewed later, Mutoh said, “she's not my girl friend anymore.” Qualification day two (Sun. May 10) had Sarah Fisher go out to qualify first, one minute after the track opened at noon (9 am PDT). Her mom Reba was the crew member who waved the green flag at the start of the front straight. Then Milka Duno became the second consecutive female qualifier and joined Sarah in the 219+ mph bracket. Both had to re-qualify with faster speeds later to make the 500. Interesting items on the Versus telecast: The silver Borg-Warner trophy weighs 110 pounds and had an initial value of $10,000. The current value is $1,000,000+. Sunday May 10 was Mother's Day and TV had an interview with Danica Patrick and her mom Bev, who said Danica's original career goals were singer, dancer or veterinarian. Once she tried kart racing and the instant gratification of improving lap times/speeds, professional race car driver became her career goal.
Ryan Hunter-Reay, 28, started 21st and finished sixth in the 2008 Indy 500 and won rookie of the year in a huge field of 11 rookies because of the reunification of Champ Car and IRL teams. This year at the Long Beach GP in April, Ryan became engaged to Becky Gordon, sister of Indy 500 and NASCAR Cup veteran Robby Gordon. This year Ryan experienced major handling problems with his IZOD-backed Vision Racing No. 21. He became the final and slowest (33rd) qualifier as the 6:00 pm gun sounded to end time trials May 17. It's a good thing the young American driver squeezed into the field because he is the IRL driver on IZOD Indy car TV commercials. The desperation drive of the first qualifying weekend was Scott Sharp's third and final qualification attempt of May 10 as the 6:00 pm gun ending time trials was about to sound. He qualified at 222.162 mph in the No. 16 Patron car. He had to race his season-long sports car ride in the American LeMans Series at Miller Motor-sports Park in Tooele, Utah the following weekend. If he had not qualified successfully on May 10, Scott would've had to rent a plane and fly back to Indy to qualify Saturday, May 16 at extra expense of course. He bumped E. J. Viso's 221.745 mph with five minutes to spare. With five minutes remaining in the session Alex Tagliani ran one lap at 218.082 mph and pulled in. Then hopeful qualifiers Viso, Davey Hamilton and Fisher sportingly pulled out of the qualifying line to allow the fourth car in line—Sharp's No. 16—to leave to pit two minutes before the gun ending qualifying that day sounded. Sharp's son Jackson (about 13) was in the pits and shared his dad's cliff-hanger success. Scott's wife and daughter were at home watching on TV with a new baby.
Ride-less drivers on the first weekend were 500 veterans Tomas Scheckter, Oriol Servia, Roger Yasukawa, Jeff Simmons, Darren Manning, Buddy Rice and P. J. Jones. The first two picked up rides for the second weekend, but the latter five drivers did not obtain Indy rides this year. The final 500 lineup had four past Indy 500 winners and five Indy 500 rookies. Tagliani was disconsolate as the 6:00 pm gun sounded while Hunter-Reay was on the track making his successful qualifying run that bumped Tag's seemingly safe 220.553 mph run. Tag had run his No. 34 at 221+ mph earlier that day, well above the bubble speed. Car owner Eric Bachelart did not think a re-qualification run was necessary, so he felt responsible for his season-long driver Tagliani not being in the 500. He put Tag in his No. 36 team car that had been qualified by veteran Bruno Junqueira in a one-off ride for Indy. Bruno was understanding and said he knew that he could be removed from his ride if Tagliani needed it. I hope he was paid well for his qualifying effort. Bobby Rahal's No. 17 Dallara color scheme with a white stripe down the center was a tribute to Dan Gurney's winning Formula One Eagle. TV announcer Bob Jenkins said it reminded him of Chapman Root's SUMAR roadsters of the 1950s that were dark blue with a white stripe down the center. Paul Tracy told VS-TV about their team telephone call to an executive of their sponsor--GEICO. They said they were thinking of re-qualifying and he said “go for it”. You have to love that corporate thinking. Paul re-qualified at 223.111 mph and improved on his 222.749 run earlier in the day. He moved from row six to row five.
John Andretti's tribulations to qualify for his tenth Indy 500 came in the Richard Petty Motor-sports No. 43 Window World (of N.C) car painted in Petty's light blue and reds colors. He lacked enough speed May 17. TV covered the under-steering problem and the team's plight close-up and even relayed the contents of a telephone call from NASCAR star Tony Stewart to his ex-IRL team manager Larry Curry (now working for Dreyer-Reinbold). Tony advised Larry to have John make a wider entry into turn one where he was scrubbing off too much speed. It worked. John's 221.316 mph was the 28th fastest speed overall. The lack of speed by 1996 Indy 500 winner Buddy Lazier's No. 91 Ron Hemelgarn car and rookie Stanton Barrett (No. 98 Greg Beck car) prevented them from making the 93rd Indy 500. The youngest driver (M. Moraes) was 20 and the oldest (Hamilton) was 46. All four of the Dreyer-Reinbold Racing cars made the race, but it wasn't easy. Only Hamilton's No. 44 qualified in its first attempt (on day two). They had two wrecked cars (Andrettis No. 43 and Mike Conway's No. 24) and a bumped car (Duno's No. 23). Conway and Duno re-qualified easily, but veteran Andretti's final qualifying run was a nail-biter. The 33-car field had the closest ever spread between the fastest and slowest qualifiers—0.178. Last year the slowest qualifier was at 218+ mph and this year it was 220.597. The 2008 33-car field average was 222.302 and the 2009 full field average was 222.480 mph.
Qualification day 3 (May 16): IRL was ready to start qualifying when rain delayed qualifying runs three and a half hours. Versus filled the time with interesting interviews. One of those was 500 winner Bobby Unser's comments on announcing the 500 with Sam Posey and how little he thought of Sam's racing expertise at Indy. Bobby also said his Dan Gurney No. 48 Olsonite Eagle decanter was good, but don't drink the contents in it because it is bad whiskey. Stanton Barrett's run at the 6:00 gun was enough to bump fellow rookie Nelson Philippe's 33rd best time of 218.034 mph after as three lap average of 218.059, but his lap four speed of 217.708 dropped his four-lap average to 217.998, only 34th best at the time. The Preakness Triple-Crown run by filly Rachel Alexandra beat 12 colts, including fast-closing Kentucky Derby 50 to 1 winner Mind That Bird. It was the first filly victory in the Preakness in 85 years. Right after that stunning victory one wag said maybe this is the year of the filly at the Indy 500 with Danica, Sarah and Milka all in the field for the second consecutive year.
Qualification day 4 (May 17) proved to be the best day weather-wise with light 15 mph wind, 51 degree ambient and 98 track temperatures and 35% humidity. Some already qualified teams practiced for an hour and knew they were capable of running four laps faster than they had qualified. Some teams signed the IRL form and withdrew their qualification runs and re-qualified starting one minute after the track opened for qualifications at noon. Junqueira's 221.115 mph bumped John Andretti's 219.442. He was out and back in four times as cars withdrew runs and re-qualified. Hunter-Reay was in and out as were Conway, Viso and Scheckter. You have to admit, qualifying this year was fun to watch for great drama and suspense. You could tell the stress some drivers such as J. Andretti and Hunter-Reay were under to qualify their less than perfect cars. Before climbing into his cockpit for his final timed run, J. Andretti said, “I don't want to do this anymore.” His final run of 221.316 was eighth best that day. Hunter-Reay ran laps of 220.949, 220,828, 220.322 for a three lap average of 220.700. His fourth lap fell to a 220.290 and his four-lap average of 220.597 beat Tagliani's 220.553 average by a slim 0.044. Tagliani was next to go out and he had run laps of 221 earlier in the day, but the 6:00 gun prevented his chance to re-qualify. It was heart-breaking to see his reaction up close on TV when IRL's Brian Barnhart give him the news that qualifying was over and he would not be in the race. People I spoke to about Indy qualifying were happy that Americans J. Andretti and Hunter-Reay made the race. They also were glad to see 500 rookie Tagliani get back in the race, even at the expense of his teammate Junqueira when he took over his car for the 500.
TV coverage from Indy on Versus continued Monday through Friday with a one-hour show (1-2 pm PDT) about Indy 500 topics. On Friday, May 22 Versus also televised the “Carb Day” one-hour practice and pit stop contest. Versus (with anchor Bob Jenkins) covered the Saturday, May 23 Indy 500 Festival Parade for 90-minutes from downtown Indianapolis. It's always interesting to see the 33 Indy 500 drivers in 11 rows of three as they wave to parade watchers from the back of convertibles with their families or loved ones. A 500 race preview show followed the parade and set the stage for Sunday's race. ABC-TV had the actual race coverage Sunday with host Brent Musberger, chief announcer Marty Reid, analysts Scott Goodyear and Eddie Cheever, plus pit reporters Jack Arute, Vince Welch, Brienne Pedigo and Jamie Little. My pre-race predictions were: Winner—Castroneves, Briscoe, Dixon or Franchitti, with a possible dark-horse winner Graham Rahal, Will Power or even Mario Moraes. My solid rookie of the year choice was Raphael Matos, the 2008 Indy Lights champion from Brazil.
Indy 500—THE RACE: The ABC-TV telecast May 24 ran five hours (9 to 2 PDT) on air. Pre-race coverage included the expected past 500 race history, May 2009 on track action, and key interviews with two dominant car owners—Roger Penske and Chip Ganassi. The 11 rows of three drivers each were introduced and they walked to the track for the group photo of all 33 starters. Most cheers went to Sarah, Danica, Marco, Helio and Tony Kanaan. The obligatory feature on Danica and her dad, T. J. covered their days in kart racing, racing in Europe and Indy Cars lasted four minutes. The late Lloyd Ruby, who passed this year, was remembered as a great 500 driver who never won at Indy but should have. Jim Nabors singing “Back Home Again in Indiana” started in 1972 and his 2009 rendition of the song was a memorable as ever. TV cameras were on-board ten cars: Kanaan, Helio, Danica, Dario, Wheldon, Viso, Sarah, Dixon, Carpenter and J. Andretti. The first start was waved off because pole starter Helio ran away from the single file front row. The second start a minute later was allowed to stand even through Helio started early again. The first of numerous crashes was the Marco Andretti & Mario Moraes first turn crash that sidelined both on the initial lap. Scott Goodyear had a good line, “The National Anthem lasted longer than those two did.” J. Andretti's No. 43 carried Window World sponsorship. His TV commercial for the first time sponsor had him saying “Ladies and gentlemen start your savings.” On-air items included the Indy 500 first purse was $30,000 in 1911 and $14+ million last year. ABC again had its side-by-side live race coverage on the left side of the TV screen during many commercial breaks. For the second year in a row at Indy Graham Rahal hit the wall in turn four when he got high to pass a slower car.
Cars getting loose and hitting the wall was an all too common reason for DNFs. The hard front end wall contact by Kanaan and Vitor Meira could have been fatalities in the past according to many experts. They said current built-in IRL car safety improvements and the SAFER barrier originally commissioned by IRL/IMS headman Tony George helped tremendously in protecting both drivers. Meira's courage earlier was on display when he sat in his cockpit with flames from a fuel spill raging around him in his pit stall. Amazingly, when crewmen extinguished the blaze about lap 131 he returned to the race only to have his disastrous crash on lap 174 when R. Matos hit his car, sending both cars into the first turn wall. Meira's sliding along the wall backwards with the two left side wheels on the wall and the two right side tires on the track was memorable and highly unusual. It was clear that IRL cars this year could not pass in the turns as easily as last year. Possible causes were car or wing changes or tire development. Helio had a great month of May. He beat the Feds (IRS) in court with an acquittal and topped 32 other IRL drivers in the 500 for his third Indy 500 victory. Only A. J. Foyt, Al Unser, Sr and Rick Mears have four. At 33 Helio is much younger than those three greats were when they won their fourth 500. His talent and his powerful Team Penske (15 Indy 500 victories in the 93 races) should make him a favorite at the 500 annually and should enable Helio to tie and surpass four 500 victories before he retires. His fence climbing (almost stopped foolishly by the yellow shirt officials) and his emotional expressions in victory lane were heart-felt. “I have my life back,” Helio said as he summed up what his tax evasion trial had put in jeopardy.
TV reporter Jamie Little interviewed crashed drivers and received medical updates as expected. Replays caught key passes on restarts and on pit lane. Mutoh's move to the backstretch grass edge in traffic about lap 180 was amazing camera-work from the third turn TV camera and great car control by Mutoh. ABC went off the air after four hours, but Versus then ran a new 30-minute post-race show with on-air broadcasters Jenkins, Buhl, Beekhuis in the booth and the usual pit reporters, who interviewed top ten drivers. Jenkins summed up the feelings of most Indy 500 fans, “I can't wait for the 2010 Indy 500.” It's on May 30. The 2009 Indy 500 had eight yellow flags for 61 of the 200 laps (30.5%). There were six lead changes among four drivers—Helio, Dario, Dixon and first-time 500 leader Briscoe. Dixon led the most laps (73). The race took 3:19.34.6427 with a 150.318 mph average speed. Helio's winning margin was 1.9819 seconds over 2005 winner Wheldon. Indy's high temp was 85 on race day. Helio's magnificent month of May included his victory in court, winning the 500 pole, being the fastest driver during the one-hour practice session on “Carb Day”, winning the pit stop contest, and then winning for the third time in his ninth Indianapolis 500. Credit should go to the No. 4 Panther Racing team for finishing second in the last two Indy 500s with drivers Meira (2008) and Wheldon (2009).
Overall this race would rate a C+ grade for excitement because of all the yellow flags and lack of side-by-side racing except on restarts. The 2006 race won by Sam Hornish, Jr. over Marco Andretti with a last lap pass near the finish line has to be the most recent A+ Indy 500. This year there were 20 of 33 starters racing at the finish and 19 drivers on the lead lap. The top ten were on the front straight between turn four and the finish line at the end. That was impressive, as it was in the 2006 Indy 500. “Contact” took out ten of the 33 drivers and “mechanical” reasons retired three cars. Honda engines were bullet-proof again this year at Indy. All cars were Dallara/Honda/Firestone. It was the 11th time a car No. 3 won the Indy 500; the next highest total wins is eight by No. 2. Steady Alex Tagliani (11th place) received rookie of the year awards at the “Victory Celebration” Monday night, May 25. Sarah Fisher, who ran as high as 14th from lap 150 to about lap 180, was the surprised recipient of the annual Scott Brayton Driver Trophy. She received it for her performance that best exemplified the spirit of the late Indy 500 driver who lost his life at the track in 1996.The three female drivers ran a collective 599 laps out of 600 possible and had their personal best Indy 500 finishes. Danica was third, Sarah 17th and Milka 20th, down a lap. The total purse was $14,315,315—second highest ever behind 2008. Helio earned $3,048,005—highest ever for an Indy 500 winner.
|
|
