It was an arctic wind blowing Wednesday morning at Indianapolis Motor Speedway. It wasn’t as gusty as was Tuesday’s, but the chill cut to the bone. It was more conducive for the Preferred Freezer Polar Bear outside the garage of JR Hildebrand/No.6 CFH Racing Chevrolet.
The schedule calls for more of the same – Verizon IndyCar practice for the Indianapolis 500 race, noon to 6pm ET. The weather forecast is for sun all day. There’s not a cloud in the sky, and thanks to the winds, the visibility is 10 miles.
In Pit Lane the teams have an anemometer aka wind indicator. Wednesday morning they were swirling away, although my little PAS camera still-stopped the action.
James Jakes/No.7 Schmidt Peterson Motorsports Honda blew an engine Tuesday during afternoon practice. The team installed a new engine Tuesday night and he will be ready to go Wednesday. A crew member said it was too bad as it was a new engine with only 100 miles or so on it. The newly installed engine will be engine #3 for the driver. They are allowed four for the season, with each engine required to run 2500 miles. There are penalties for early changes.
Outside the Chip Ganassi garage, Scott Dixon/No.9 Target Chevrolet and Tony Kanaan/No.10 NTT Data Chevrolet were live on the Bob & Tom Radio Show broadcast locally in Indianapolis.
Monday afternoon there were 34 drivers listed on the Timing & Scoring results, but there actually were only 33 drivers. Buddy Lazier/No.91 Wynn Iowa Vision Research Lazier Racing Chevrolet is on the only short program of this year’s Indy 500. He will be on track as of Thursday.
Marco Andretti/No.27 Snapple drove his Andretti Autosport Honda 63 laps Tuesday afternoon, running 226.354 mph, in ninth place. He then got permission from the Verizon IndyCAr Series officials to run the car of his teammate, Carlos Munoz/No.26 AndrettiTV.com Honda. The third generation Andretti was running a standard and Munoz was running a negative camber, and Andretti wanted to see the difference, if he liked it or not. Andretti was issued a separate transponder, and his time in Munoz’s Honda was 222.879 mph, for twenty-seventh overall position. He seemed to like it, so far. Munoz, meanwhile, ran a 226.199 mph for tenth place.
Gasoline Alley was busy with quiet efficiency. There was no running or scrambling, just methodical working away. The Yellow Shirts were kept busy directing traffic and keeping folks from being run over.
