Qualifications for the 107th running of the Indianapolis 500. I was not able to attend in person, but thanks to the marvel of modern subscriptions in television viewing, I got to see most of it.
All the top ten drivers qualified for the race next weekend are hitting speeds above 233.+ mph/375kph. That is an average of four laps. This year, if you were not hitting 231mph, you got bumped.
There is a lady in this year's race, Katherine Legge running 231mph and barely made it at the 30th spot.
They set the top thirty spots on Saturday and leave three spots open for tomorrow for qualifying. Her last spot is safe; she's in the race.
Those final three spots will be filled with the qualification period tomorrow. Also called bump day or bubble day, because you could possibly qualify and someone could burst your bubble by qualifying faster than your speed.
The cars are so different this year from just last year! For instance they have skinnied down the tires, which my wife mentioned months ago, since she has to load those damn tires onto her Early AM Air Delivery truck, frequently this time of year.
Being a "captain" on her Overnight Air truck routes, she sees it all.
Another thing that has come up again is that the straightaway speeds are above 240mph again. I saw the pole sitter, Swede, hit 246mph on one of his laps. HOLY FUCK!!
Every time that happens the league slows the cars down again and sends the mechanics back to the drawing boards to work on making them even faster with less boost, smaller engines, skinny tires, less wing and downforce, etc.
All in all, it was an "edge of the seat" day of television for me. Wish I could have attended again, but ...
We even had a competitor from our town qualify in 22nd spot.
He's in the race at 232.494mph!
Yeah, that is a close field of super fast race cars. 233.9mph for the pole sitter, fastest car, and 232.4mph takes twenty two spots back in the field. Close race!
It is an amazingly balanced field. Any one of these racers can win the thing; they are that closely matched.
I'm actually a little tired and all I did was watch.
