This is May! The Indianapolis Motor Speedway is ensuring that folks for miles around are aware that the Brickyard is the Racing Capital of the World. Signage is everywhere, in town and at the track. The month officially opened Thursday at the track with all the Mazda Road To Indy support series practicing, while the Verizon IndyCar series was in setup mode.
The garage signage wasn’t all up, but it was a work-in-progress. The Ed Carpenter three-car team had three-dimensional signs.
Over in the Dale Coyne Racing garages the signage was not up yet, but the name of the replacement driver for No.19 PaySafe Honda was already on the car. Rookie Zachary Claman De Melo was tapped Wednesday to drive for the injured Pietro Fittipaldi, who suffered severe fractures after a crash during WEC qualifying at Spa last weekend. De Melo has already run three races with DCR, and Fittipaldo ran the Phoenix race.
Schmidt Peterson Motorsports is again decking their halls with garage art. They have large photo-quality art murals plastered over every available wall space in their garages. The theme this year is honoring garage mechanics, and it is a fortunate coincidence that a new sponsor was just signed – Gear Wrench – to provide tools for the team. The opportune timing allowed the sponsor to be incorporated into the wall art. It took about two weeks to completely install the decals, and a time-lapse video showing the installation will be released this weekend. This is the third year for the art, and the third year for the teams displaying their cars horizontally in the garages – the only team to do so. So when onlookers are viewing from outside the garage in Gasoline Alley, they see the side view of the race car, not the rear end as with the other teams. The SPM mechanics tell me they easily got used to working in the new configuration and it’s no more difficult than the previous position. The SPM cars are noticeable for their colorful and shiny chrome-like decal livery which glistens in sunlight.
Thursday was a casual day for most of the VICS drivers, with some at the track for media appearances and/or just hanging out with friends.
Sebastien Bourdais/No.18 Team SealMaster Dale Coyne Racing Honda was asked if it was difficult to concentrate on the IndyCar Grand Prix when he knows he’s got the big race coming up in a couple of weeks. “Yes and no. I mean, at the end of the day, we don’t need 10 days to concentrate for the 500. You know, the Grand Prix is a two-day event Friday and Saturday. It’s just hard for the teams more than for us really, just turning the equipment around. Obviously the car configuration is very different. For the smaller guys, it’s always a big challenge to get a 500 car set aside, especially this year with the new kit and all the parts that you have to get. It’s been a bit of a challenge. But for sure it’s much harder for the teams than for us, I think.”
The VICS teams were prepping their cars and getting them through Scrutineering.
Out in Pit Lane, all the VICS teams had set up their Pit Lane equipment, and the MRTI series were utilizing the area without encroaching.
Friday the 24 IndyCar drivers practice and qualify for Saturday’s road course race, while the MRTI series qualify and race.
