Practice and Qualifying

 

May 23, 2022

Practice and Qualifying

Practice for the 106^th Indianapolis 500 began on the Tuesday following the Indy Grand Prix and the day after I returned from my quick visit to Chicago. I spent as much time as possible during the week, watching practice, hanging out in the suites eating fried chicken and other delicious catered menu items from the famous Jug’s catering- which has been at the Speedway as long as I can remember.

It is just a pleasure to me to be able to roam the garage area and pit lane, greeting my friends who work with some Indy Car related job or who just happen top love Indy Cars as much as I do. Being able to head up to the suite with food, drinks and always full of friends is pretty cool too.

The suite is actually a double suite and includes two bars, plenty of comfortable couches and seats, as well as seating outside overlooking the pits and main straight. There are multiple close circuit televisions and timing and scoring directly from the track, so you are always up0 to date on what is happening and you are under cover when it rains, which is great as are the private bathrooms,

The practices were pretty intense, especially since one of the practice days was a complete washout due to rain. There was a lot of pack running with 15-25 cars zipping around continually passing and repassing each other. This made the speeds of some of the cars shoot up due to the tows that they were getting from the train of cars in front of them. It seemed like every day, Takuma Sato would end up at the top of the speed chart, but if you looked behind the numbers at the non-tow speeds, you would not find him on that list at all.

 The fastest 12 drivers included Scott Dixon, Marcus Ericsson, Jimmie Johnson, Ed Carpenter, Pato O'Ward, Alex Palou, Rinus VeeKay, Romain Grosjean, Will Power, Felix Rosenqvist, Tony Kanaan and Takuma Sato. Rinus VeeKay was the fastest on Saturday and all five drivers from Chip Ganassi Racing made it through to the final 12. 

I split Saturday between being in the pits to get in on the official qualifying photo taking and relaxing in the suite to watch the action. Then watched almost the entire show on Sunday from the suite. Sunday they had each of the top twelve drivers qualify in reverse order from slowest (Sato) to fastest (VeeKay) with the top six each getting one final shot for the pole and top six spots.

It is a rather convoluted way to determine things but I guess it created enough simulated drama to keep fans happy who may have been missing bumping. Four Ganassi cars and two from Ed Carpenter Racing advanced to the fast six, with Scott Dixon grabbing the pole with the second fastest qualifying speed ever, and fastest for a pole sitter, of 234.046 mph.  Alex Palou and VeeKay rounded out the front row as Dixon captured his fifth pole position.

Finally I was able to take in my annual dinner with the ladies on Friday evening. This annual tradition has been ongoing for about 15-20 years or so and is one of the things that I always look forward to the most each year as I get to catch up with some of my oldest and dearest friends. This year we made a repeat visit to Half Liter restaurant, which is rare as we seldom revisit the same place, but it is good and easy to access. My friends Amanda, Jody, Kristi and Stephanie joined me this year and we had another awesome evening sharing stories, catching up and having fun.