Oilpressure

When IndyCar scheduled the Open Test at IMS for Tuesday March 27, I was not happy. I thought that the test should be conducted on a weekend so that fans that lived out of town (like me) could go and get a little taste of May in March. As luck would have it, that test was postponed due to a horrible forecast for that entire week. The forecast turned out to be accurate. The postponement date was today Monday April 30.

As that date has approached, I’ve been getting the itch to burn a vacation day and go. Even while we were waiting out the rain at Barber Motorsports last weekend, I was checking the forecast in Indianapolis for today. It looked perfect then and has continued to do so all this past week. So today, I’m going.

I actually drove up last night. My good friend Paul Dalbey, from More Front Wing, and I split a hotel room relatively close to the track and we are headed to IMS this morning for a full day at the track – after breakfast at Charlie Brown’s, of course.

I am also planning to pick up my “green chair” that I ordered from IMS last month. I was too cheap to pay the additional $55 for shipping, so I opted to pick it up later. Today is later.

The IMS Media Center is going to be open and operating and there will be drivers available at various times for interviews. The test session begins at 10:00 EDT and will continue until 5:00, with a break for lunch at noon.

Tomorrow there will be Rookie Orientation and a refresher for veterans like Oriel Servia and Danica Patrick. The lunch break on Tuesday will be at 1:00. Wednesday will be a private manufacturer’s test.

Today and Tuesday will be open to the public for free if you live in the Indianapolis area. The weather looks to be spectacular for a day at the track. There will also be live streaming on IndyCar.com with Kevin Lee and various guests throughout the day on both Monday and Tuesday. There will be no live streaming on Wednesday since it is a private test and I’m not even sure if Wednesday is open to the public or not.

This will be an important test, since it looks like teams will get a full day of running in. That’s particularly significant this year, because one full day of practice has been lopped off the week of practice before Qualifying Weekend. Practice for the Indianapolis 500 does not start until Tuesday this year. Any time lost due to rain that week will become even more important, so teams will want to learn as much as they can about this new body kit today.

With temperatures predicted to be around seventy today, there is a good chance that today’s conditions could be identical to Race Day in less than four weeks. That works out a lot better than the original test date of March 27. If I recall, that day was cold and had snow lingering. That’s not too likely for Memorial Day weekend.

I will be at the track all day today. I will post mostly pictures here at the end of the day, before heading back to Nashville this evening. So, check back here shortly after the test is over this afternoon for a bunch of photos and a few abbreviated comments.

I can’t think of a better way to start the Month of May. My hope is that in the future, they will set this test up on a weekend so that more fans can take advantage of it without burning a vacation day. But with it being on a Monday, I was willing to give up one at least for this year. Is it May yet? It will be tomorrow.

George Phillips

Please Note: Don’t forget that starting tomorrow, May 1, I will be posting here every weekday and track-activity weekends up through Memorial Day. So get in the habit of coming here every day starting today.

This entry was posted on April 30, 2018 at 4:05 am and is filed under Indianapolis 500. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.