Now, That Was More Like It
The weatherman pulled a fast one on us. When Tuesday’s practice was called around 2:30, the general consensus was that Wednesday was going to be a beautiful day. It wasn’t.
I woke up around 6:45 this morning to go eat the free hotel breakfast before hopping in the shower and making my way to the track to be settled in by the time cars hit the track at 10:00. I then looked outside.
It was pouring! The radar looked strange, almost like the remnants of a hurricane, and Indianapolis was in the center. I lounged around, but got bored being in my room. I showered and headed to the track and arrived around 10:00. It was still raining and showed no signs of letting up.
Around Noon, the fleet of emergency vehicles started parading around the track, in an effort to dry the track, They were making great progress, before a cloudburst opened up for about five minutes and eliminated all of their hard work.
But the sun came out and they finally got the track dried out. Likewise, fans came out of hiding and were suddenly everywhere. I went to the garage area when it became obvious we would be running. I saw the garage of Kyle Larson, with a gaggle of fans gathered around. This is going to be a normal for the month.
As I walked, I ran into a couple of friends – “Mike from Vernon Hills” and Patti Nolan of I Kissed the Bricks. We stopped and visited for quite a while as several drivers went past us, including Augustin Canapino who almost ran me down on his scooter. Patti flagged someone down and had him take our picture.
At 3:05, the green-flag flew and it didn’t take long for all 34 cars to record at least one lap. After being in town for over 24-hours, it was a great relief to finally see cars on-track.
They got in three hours and twenty minutes, before it started sprinkling. It was bad enough to run inside, but it was enough to bring out the yellow flag. It was back and forth whether they might bring out the green flag, but at 6:54 pm, they called it a day.
While no one seemed to be working on qualifying speed, Scott McLaughlin posted the quickest time of the day and the month, with a speed of 229.493 mph. Will Power was a somewhat distant second with a top speed of 228.767 mph. Colton Herta was third and Josef Newgarden had the fourth quickest time, giving the Penske cars three of the top four places on the scoring pylon. Alexander Rossi rounded out the Top-Five.
At the other end of the spectrum, Canapino was the slowest car and thirty-forth quick on the day with a top speed of 221.628 mph. From thirtieth to thirty-third, those drivers were Sting Ray Robb, Katherine Legge, Nolan Siegel and Santino Ferrucci. Any driver that spends every day in the bottom five, should be concerned that they might be the unlucky one who gets sent home on Sunday.
That will do it for tonight. Tomorrow’s practice is scheduled to run from 10:00 am to 6:00 pm and shown live on Peacock. I will be dining at Dawson’s with my friend John Oreovicz. A breaded pork tenderloin is probably in my immediate future.
I will close with some photos that I was able to take on pit lane, including one of the great AJ Foyt on the pit stand; a video to show how I spend my vacations, as well as the post-practice press conference that featured the fastest driver of the month – Scott McLaughlin.
George Phillips
Reminder: The answers for the Trivia Contest are due on Tue May 21. If you missed it, you can find the questions here.
Oilpressure 
May 15, 2024 at 9:28 pm
George, what’s your thoughts on Nashville oval race now happening. Titans schedule released and Titans at home against Jets 1:00 kickoff day of Nashville race.