Oilpressure

But it’s only Thursday! At the beginning of this week, I was not sure if either of us were even going to be able to attend the Open Test in Indianapolis. This week started with us in Louisville to be seen by Susan’s surgeon, to evaluate her for a procedure. We didn’t know if they were going to do it sometime this week or not. Once we found out it would be in a week or two, we went home. Tuesday night, Susan was so tired from the Louisville trip – I wasn’t sure if she would be coming with me or not.

Being the trooper she is, she got up early with me and made the trip. There were times when she wasn’t sure if she made the right decision, but she ended up being glad she came. I certainly am, even though part of her fear was that she was going to slow me down. I would rather have her along, then to be unfettered. We have too much history here together. Hopefully, this procedure will be done soon, and she will get her stamina back when we return for the Grand Prix in May.

There was a lot of running over the last couple of days. Keep in mind, this will be the first Indianapolis 500 to be run with the hybrid component. The extra weight changes all sorts of things. Some people I spoke with this morning were blaming the hybrid with the added boost for causing the two crashes we saw this morning. I don’t know enough to make an intelligent comment, but I don’t think you can totally dismiss it.

One thing to take away from these two days is that Honda has made strides since last May. Perhaps things will be different in May, but right now – the Chevys have been pretty far from the top of the charts.

One of the many reasons I’m happy to have her here is for her photos. She has a much better eye for photos than I do. When the afternoon session began at 2:00 pm, we positioned ourselves at pit-out and get photos of the cars. There are many new liveries for the 500 on display for the Open Test. Not all teams were in their May liveries. Some cars had blank sidepods (Louis Foster), some of the Andretti cars simply said “Andretti” on the sidepods. Marcus Armstrong was in a solid black car with XM Sirius in white lettering on the sidepods. I doubt that is how his car will look in May.

But many cars were sporting new looks that they will be wearing for May. They will go back to their standard looks for Barber next week. Some will even have their standard look for the Grand Prix, but when 500 practice opens up on May 13, they will be showing these schemes off for real.

The first photo is one that I took this morning, because it did not run until we left that spot. It is the car of Helio Castroneves, which has had a not so pretty shade of green added.

The rest of these were taken by Susan. There weren’t all the cars, but it was most of them. Thanks to Susan for sticking with it, even as her stamina gave out. This will do it for our two-day visit to IMS. It’s a great way to end the week (even though it is only Thursday). Unfortunately, I have to go to work at the day job tomorrow. This trip reinvigorated me to be back to the place where my love affair with this sport began 60 years ago next month. Thanks to everyone for following along.

George Phillips

Susan in her spot.

Jacob Abel

Marcus Armstrong

Conor Daly

Scott Dixon

Devlin DeFrancesco

Ed Carpenter

Marcus Ericsson

Santino Ferrucci

Colton Herta

Callum Ilott

Christian Lundgaard

David Malukas

Marco Andretti

Josef Newgarden

Nolan Siegel

Pato O’Ward

Scott McLaughlin

Will Power

Graham Rahal

Christian Rasmussen

Ryan Hunter-Reay

Felix Rosenqvist

Alexander Rossi

Robert Shwartzman

Kyffin Simpson

Sting Ray Robb

Rinus VeeKay

This entry was posted on April 24, 2025 at 4:14 pm 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.