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Never pay any attention to what I say. I thought this morning’s practice started at 10:55 am. Well, that’s correct if you live in the Eastern Time Zone. Road America, however, on in Central time. You’d think living in the Central Time Zone in Nashville, I’d be used to making the mental conversion. We arrived at the track this morning at 10:20, thinking we had plenty of time for the 10:55 practice. I told Susan that the cars on track sounded like Indy cars. They were.

As we entered the Media Center, everyone looked at us like “Where have you been?” Someone said to me “You missed all the action” Turns out Alex Palou slapped the outside wall in Turn 14 and Scott Dixon and Will Power tangled in Canada Corner. Most of you reading this have probably seen this, but I haven’t. After double-checking, qualifying begins at 12:55 pm local time, 1:55 EDT.

Yesterday morning there were more clouds than sun, as we made our way from our hotel to Road America. Those clouds soon went away around noon, giving way to a sunny afternoon. Such was not the case today, as we had brilliant sunshine escorting us into the track. It was a brisk 52° when we awoke, getting rid of any notion of wearing shorts. However, I did throw a pair in the trunk – just in case. Once again, here is the updated weekend forecast from IndyCar Weatherman (@IndyCar_Wxman) on Twitter.

Yesterday was probably the busiest Friday we’ve seen in the eight straight years we’ve been coming to Road America. With the beautiful weather on tap, I expect a lot more people today. As I keep saying; the secret seems to be out on Road America, if there was any real secret about it at all.

It was good to meet longtime reader and commentator “Tony D” from Tulsa, Oklahoma. We were getting something to eat yesterday, and he spotted me in line at the concession stand and introduced himself. I also had a good conversation with a couple of other readers from Indianapolis in the Turn Five area, but unfortunately I forget their names. I’m always glad when people spot me and chat it up. I’m always interested in where they are from. No offense to the Indianapolis-based readers, but it’s good to meet hard-core IndyCar fans like Tony D from outside the Midwest – the area of most of the IndyCar fan base.

While Susan and I did a lot of exploring yesterday, and taking in the whole experience; today I’m going to be more focused on the racing. After all, isn’t that why we came here in the first place?

I’m not sure how much you can take from the initial practice yesterday, but one thing I wanted to watch for in this morning’s practice is if the Penske cars would find speed. They didn’t, at least not as much as they were hoping and they may have cause for concern with qualifying just a couple of hours later. Scott McLaughlin was the fastest Penske car, and was ninth quick. Josef Newgarden was only twelfth quick, moving up from sixteenth yesterday.

Yesterday, all four Ganassi cars were in the Top-Ten In speed. They weren’t as impressive today with Dixon and Palou crashing and Marcus Ericsson being only twenty-third quick. Marcus Armstrong was the only Ganassi representative in the Top-Ten in fifth.

Today, Alexander Rossi set the top speed again, as all three Arrow McLaren cars were in the Top-Ten, with Rossi first, Felix Rosenqvist third and Pato O’Ward seventh quick.

The Andretti Autosport team made improvements overnight. Colton Herta was second quick, and Kyle Kirkwood was eighth quick.

One team that should be mentioned is Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing (RLLR). Christian Lundgaard was eleventh quick, in a livery that resembles Danica Patrick’s GoDaddy scheme. Jack Harvey was thirteenth quick this morning and Graham Rahal was fifteenth on the scoring pylon (which they don’t really have here, but it sounds good). They aren’t blindingly fast, but they are solid and are moving in the right direction with some leadership and engineering changes over the off-weekend.

Rinus VeeKay jumped up from twenty-sixth yesterday, to tenth today. Ryan Hunter-Reay was a respectable nineteenth, in his debut weekend with Ed Carpenter Racing. Worth mentioning is that Santino Ferrucci was sixth quick in AJ Foyt’s famous No.14. That’s worth mentioning because that team historically does not do well on non-ovals.

Susan will have a midday post sometime today, and then I’ll be back with a wrap-up of qualifying later this afternoon. It looks to be another glorious day at America’s National Park of Speed – Road America. Please check back later.

George Phillips

This entry was posted on June 17, 2023 at 11:30 am and is filed under IndyCar. 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.