It’s a dry (so far) morning at Indianapolis Motor Speedway, with icy 46 degreeF weather, biting wind and a complete cloud cover. The Verizon IndyCar Series officials have extended Thursday’s Indianapolis 500 practice hours from 11am to 7pm. We’ll see how that works out. The Wednesday pm practice was cut short at 6:24pm for rain, and it bucketed long into the night – cats and dogs.
The Southeast weather pattern is even worse than Indiana, and flights were grounded Thursday morning in Charlotte for all kinds of weather problems. Hopefully Rookie KURT BUSCH/No.26 Andretti Autosport Honda will find a way to get his Cessna back in time for Thursday practice.
The teams are optimistic, at least for the start of practice. The Pit Lane has team toters fetching and delivering tires and equipment to the pits.
My contribution to Throwback Thursday is this beautifully restored 1962 Mickey Thompson Harvey AluminumSpecial driven by DAN GURNEY in the 1962 Indianapolis 500 – his first of several. He started eighth and finished 20th with rear end failure on Lap 92. It currently is on display in the Indianapolis Airport, greeting people as they debark. It has a 255 hp V8 aluminum block Buick engine. Of the three that hot rodder MICKEY THOMPSON built, only Gurney’s started the race. Mickey’s son, DANNY THOMPSON, restored the car in 2002.