Indianapolis 500 Preview – Part 1

A Centennial- Era Celebration, the largest crowd in years and an exciting last lap win by Dan Wheldon were highlights of the 2011 Indianapolis 500. With new chassis and engines, a strong rookie class and a deep field of competitors, can the 96th 500 come close to matching last year’s race, or will a few dark clouds try to spoil the party?

For the 2012 Izod IndyCar series, Dallara has come up with a new chassis that has proven reliable and safe during the four road course events run to date. But testing on ovals leading up to the May 12th track opening at Indianapolis has shown the car to be slower than expected.
An April 4th test for veteran drivers at IMS saw top speeds in the 218 mph range, while the pole speed for Alex Tagliani one year ago was 227.472 mph.

Chevrolet, Honda and Lotus are the engine suppliers this year and so far Chevy has dominated the early competition with Team Penske drivers Will Power (3) and Helio Castroneves (1), winning all four IIC events. Honda has been given a rule change to allow the use of a different compressor cover on their single turbocharger in an effort to level the competitive playing field. An appeal of this change filed by Chevrolet was disallowed and an appeal of that decision was denied on May 11th. Chevrolet makes use of a twin turbo unit. Many feel that this change for Honda will make them competitive with Chevy, especially down the long IMS straightaways.

Lotus was late to develop and test their motor and they have not been competitive in the early going. Several teams have broken ranks with Lotus and have signed with Chevy or Honda. Only the Fan Force United team for Ferrari F1 veteran Jean Alesi and the HVM team for Simona de Silvestro are entered with Lotus power. Dragon Racing is still trying to land an engine deal for Katherine Legge and Sebastien Bourdais, but their move to Chevrolet is being delayed due to pending legal action that the Jay Penske- owned team hopes will be resolved early this week.

Engines for all three makers are in somewhat short supply due to the new regulations for 2012. There is some speculation that because of this, practice during the month may see limited numbers of cars on the track as teams prepare for time trials on May 19- 20.

One attempt to increase qualifying speed came today as IndyCar announced an increase in boost pressure for all three engine packages, to be used by the teams only on “Fast Friday” (May 18) and for the two time trial days. The change in pressure from 130 kPa to 140 is thought to add 40- 50 hp and may result in a 4- 5 mph speed increase for qualifying. The 130 kPa boost level will still be used during all other practice days.

Next time we’ll take a look at the entry list for the race and especially discuss the rookies and former race winners who are among the 34 car/driver combinations entered.

Paul Gohde

Paul Gohde heard the sound of race cars early in his life.

Growing up in suburban Milwaukee, just north of Wisconsin State Fair Park in the 1950’s, Paul had no idea what “that noise” was all about that he heard several times a year. Finally, through prodding by friends of his parents, he was taken to several Thursday night modified stock car races on the old quarter-mile dirt track that was in the infield of the one-mile oval -and he was hooked.

The first Milwaukee Mile event that he attended was the 1959 Rex Mays Classic won by Johnny Thomson in the pink Racing Associates lay-down Offy built by the legendary Lujie Lesovsky. After the 100-miler Gohde got the winner’s autograph in the pits, something he couldn’t do when he saw Hank Aaron hit a home run at County Stadium, and, again, he was hooked.

Paul began attending the Indianapolis 500 in 1961, and saw A. J. Foyt’s first Indy win. He began covering races in 1965 for Racing Wheels newspaper in Vancouver, WA as a reporter/photographer and his first credentialed race was Jim Clark’s historic Indy win.Paul has also done reporting, columns and photography for Midwest Racing News since the mid-sixties, with the 1967 Hoosier 100 being his first big race to report for them.

He is a retired middle-grade teacher, an avid collector of vintage racing memorabilia, and a tour guide at Miller Park. Paul loves to explore abandoned race tracks both here and in Europe, with the Brooklands track in Weybridge England being his favorite. Married to Paula, they have three adult children and two cats.

Paul loves the diversity of all types of racing, “a factor that got me hooked in the first place.”

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