Pole Day

Ed Carpenter will be on pole for the 97th Indianapolis 500!

 

 

His average four lap speed was 228.762

He is the first American pole sitter since Sam Hornish, Jr. in 2006.

He is the first Indiana born pole winner since Pat O'Connor in 1957.

Carpenter is the step son of Indy Racing League Founder Tony George, the grandson of Tony Hulman who brought the Indianapolis Motor Speedway back from near ruin after WWII.

Carpenter is on a one car team that he owns.

Marco Andretti and 21 year old rookie Carlos Munoz will join Carpenter on the front row.

All 5 Andretti Autosport cars as well as 3 Penske Racing cars were in the Fast Nine and had a chance at the pole position.

All Fast 9 Cars were Chevy powered.

For the complete list of who filled the top 24 positions for the race click here.

Ten drivers will compete tomorrow for the remaining nine positions in the race, since Katherine Legge was added as a late addition in the #81 car for Schmidt Peterson Motorsports.

Marco Andretti

Here are some fun facts on Marco Andretti

 

 

 Marco was nice enough to answer some questions for us about himself.

 

*Doesn't have his own pets because of traveling, but takes care of his moms dogs Bo, Dallara, and Manola when he is home

 *He said his worst habit is sleeping in

                                                                           

 *His least favorite childhood chore was picking up the leaves

 

*If he was stranded on a deserted island and had to pick a driver to stay with him,

    he would pick James Hinchcliffe, because Hinch is funny

 

*Was the 2006 Indy 500 and the Indycar series rookie of the year

 

*Finished second in the 2006 Indianapolis 500 as a rookie, after getting passed on the 4th turn of the last lap by Sam Hornish Jr

*Became the 4th Andretti to win the Rookie of the year award

 

 

 

 

 



 

 

 

 

 

 



Entrant list for the 2013 Indy 500

This weekend all of these drivers will be attempting to qualify for the 97th running of the Indy 500.

 NBC Sports Network will have coverage
 

Saturday 11:00 - 2:30 & 4:30 - 6:30
Sunday noon - 6:30

 

Former Winners

 

Helio Castroneves (2001, 02, 09)   *226.988

 

Dario Franchitti (2007, 2010, 2012)   *227.080

   

Buddy Lazier (1996)    *222.464

 

Scott Dixon (2008)    *226.162

 

Rookies

 

AJ Allmendinger    *227.199

 

Conor Daly    *220.780

 

Carlos Munoz    *228.520

 

Tristan Vautier    *223.369

 

Indy 500 Veterans

 

Marco Andretti    *228.754

 

Ana Beatriz    *224.476

 

Townsend Bell    *227.160

 

Sebastien Bourdais    *226.736

 

Ryan Briscoe   *225.265

 

Ed Carpenter    *226.768

 

Simona de Silvestro    *225.518

 

JR Hildebrand    *227.549

 

James Hinchcliffe    *226.983

 

Ryan Hunter-Reay    *226.919

 

James Jakes    *224.632

 

Michel Jourdain, Jr.    *223.266

 

Tony Kanaan    *226.822

 

Charlie Kimball    *225.616

 

Pippa Mann    *225.077

 

Josef Newgarden    *226.372

 

Simon Pagenaud    *225.853

 

Will Power    *228.401

 

Graham Rahal    *226.152

 

Sebastian Saavedra    *222.127

 

Takuma Sato    *227.038

 

Oriol Servia    *227.237

 

Alex Tagliani    *226.812

 

E. J. Viso    *229.537

 

Justin Wilson    *226.043

                                                                                                                             

* fastest practice lap of the month

 

The Andretti cars are looking strong with E.J. Viso and Marco Andretti posting the fastest two times of the month. 

There are currently two additional cars slated to qualify, #40 and #99, that do not have a driver assigned to them.

 

Rain ended qualifying at 3:00 on Friday making it a green track for Saturday's qualifying. 

 

According to the weather channel there is a 30-40% chance of scattered thunderstorms in Indianapolis tomorrow during qualifying.

 

 

 

Gates open at the track at 6:30 am.

Cars will be on the track for practice 8:00 - 10:00.

Qualifying begins at 11:00.

Here is a list of the Qualifying Order.

 

                                                                                                            





Race Car Decanters

 

 Pappy always had old Indycars on a shelf in the living room.

Turns out they were liquor decanters.

 

 

 

  

Our mom said that every year when she and mammy and pappy went to Indy they stopped at practically every liquor store in the area so pappy could run in the stores and find race car decanters. 



Bobby Unser

Mom put these two together and asked what year finish it was, and who were the drivers.
I got pretty close to getting the drivers right.
( hint: The 40 car was a somewhat different color scheme that year)
 

 

Mom's Thoughts

Keeping up with the action at the track in the 21st century. 

 

 How cool is technology that you can just turn on your computer wherever you are and watch live practice at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway?

 I will admit, we keep the live feed from the speedway on in the background as the kids are doing schoolwork and stuff (one of the benefits of homeschooling) because I just love the sounds of the cars on the track and hearing the announcers.

Of course my kids think nothing of it, it's all they know. 

So to help them appreciate the how lucky they are, I've told them about the 'old days'.

To keep up with what was happening at the track in the 70's and 80's my dad got a May monthly subscription to the Indianapolis Star newspaper.   Problem with that was that till the mail delivered them here to Eastern Pennsylvania it was three or four days old.  
I'm not complaining though, it was still great and I read the all the Indy news as soon as I got home from school each day.  My favorite columnist was Robin Miller because he knew lots of drivers and had the inside scoop of what was going on behind the scenes.
Now the inside scoop comes from drivers themselves from facebook, twitter or videos, which is fine with us, since we can never get enough of Indy.