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Pre Indy 500 Notes And News
- Updated: May 24, 2013
Speedway, IN – May, 24, 2013
• Final practice for the 97th Indianapolis 500 saw Simon Pagenaud post the fastest speed Friday as he recorded a lap of 225.827 mph during a session that saw Ana Beatriz and Carlos Munoz make incidental contact while entering the pit lane.
Pagenaud, who will start 21st in Sunday’s 500, led a Honda resurgence as six of today’s fastest ten drivers were powered by Honda.
“Honda has done a lot of work before and after qualifying, and Honda’s mentality is to go racing and that’s exactly what they’re doing,” noted the Frenchman who will be starting his second 500.
Chevrolet dominated qualifying a week ago, grabbing the top-ten spots, but Honda has been determined to repeat the 2012 race that saw Dario Franchitti’s Honda win over a strong Chevrolet field.
“They provided us with an engine that is clearly a lot better,” explained Pagenaud, “so it’s a good sign for the race.”
Following Pagenaud on the Carb Day speed charts were EJ Viso (Chevrolet), Ryan Hunter-Reay (C), Scott Dixon (H), Sebastien Bourdais (C) and 2012 500 winner Franchitti (H).
Pole winner Ed Carpenter, who won the Indy Car series last 500 mile race at Fontana in fall, feels equally confident that his Fuzzy’s Vodka Chevrolet has what it takes to make it two in a row.
“We were going to run 20-25 laps today, but the car felt so good we did a couple of pit stops and parked it,” The smart thing to do is to just put the car away and prepare for Sunday.”
The caution flag waved three times during the session with the contact between Beatriz and Munoz being the most serious incident.
As the flag fell to end practice, the engine on Ryan Briscoe’s Target Ganassi Honda let go on the main straight.
“I’m really happy with the way the car was feeling. We were actually on a huge lap, coming to the checkered flag before the engine went. It’s better to happen now than the first couple laps of the race,” said the Aussie veteran. “We’ll be able to put in a fresh engine without a penalty for the start of the race.”
• Indy Car series’ regular pace car driver Johnny Rutherford had a short time frame to get the 500’s celebrity driver up to speed.
Jim Harbaugh, coach of the NFL’s San Francisco 49’s, arrived at 2:30 am this morning, and Rutherford had him on the track by 7:30am to coach the coach on what to do on race day. “I was thrilled when they told me they were considering me. Mr. Rutherford took me around the track this morning and showed me how to do it. Then he let me do it for four or five laps,” the former Indianapolis Colts quarterback noted. “I need some work, but I’ll get it down with him in my corner.”
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Alex Zanardi was presented the Reynard 961/Honda that he drove to victory in the CART race at Laguna Seca in 1996. [Russ Lake Photo]
• In a moving ceremony on a sunny but chilly morning, former 1997-1998 CART champion Alex Zanardi was presented the Reynard 961/Honda that he drove to victory in the CART race at Laguna Seca in September, 1996. The gift from Target Ganassi owner Chip Ganassi commemorated Zanardi’s famed “Corkscrew” turn pass of Bryan Herta on the last lap of his most famous victory.
Zanardi suffered severe injuries in a racing crash in September, 2001, at Lausitz, Germany, that resulted in the amputation of both legs above the knee.
“It’s difficult to put into words. I’m lucky I had a long career, along with the two championships we won with Chip,” said the Italian who never got a chance to race at Indianapolis. “I was very lucky that day (at Laguna Seca), but had I not tried that move, who knows what my racing career would have been. For sure it changed a lot of things. I’m sure I won a lot of fans that day and caused some controversy as well.”
NOTES: Thirty-three cars turned 1,305 laps on Carb Day and 15,221 laps this month.
• Helio Castroneves’ Shell/Pennzoil Penske Chevrolet won the $50,000 first prize in today’s Indy 500 Pit Stop Challenge at IMS. The team defeated Dario Franchitti’s Target Ganassi entry by 0.4 sec in the final.
• INDYCAR will open the door to increased technical innovation in its cars and continue its longstanding effort to improve safety in open wheel racing, Hulman & Co. CEO Mark Miles and incoming INDYCAR President of Operations and Competition Derrick Walker announced yesterday.
“In the short term, we’ll look for incremental changes to our cars through components such as aerodynamics, horsepower and tires,” Walker said. “Indy cars have always been about innovation and speed, and our goal is to open the door for that again. We’ll start with our current car platform and give our teams and suppliers more ability to affect how they race.
“By managing improvements in certain components, speeds will gradually increase, and we could break the Indianapolis Motor Speedway track record by our 1100th running in 2016.”
It has been 17 years since Arie Luyendyk broke set the last record at the track.
• One of the largest crowds in recent memory attended today’s Coors Light Carb Day. The rock group Poison entertained the infield crowd after track activities ended,
• After almost winning the 2012 500, I’m going with Takuma Sato to take the 97th running. My dark horse choice will be pole winner Ed Carpenter. Hopefully a first-time winner will take the checkered flag.
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.”