Indy 500 Track Report - May 15

The AJ Foyt Racing team was busy making changes -- good ones -- today and they found some speed, so there were more smiles in the garage after practice. Conway ran 29 laps with a quick speed of 218.6 mph while Cunningham ran 50 laps with a quick speed of 218.5 mph.

Mike Conway:

“We’ve been improving every day in terms of car balance and feel and slowly picking up speed. I don’t think we are quite as trimmed out as the others. Hopefully there’s still some time in our pocket that we need to explore tomorrow. We’re still figuring out this car as much as we can before we need to start going fast I suppose. The good weather has enabled us to do that."

Wade Cunningham:

“We made a few improvements later in the day. We lost some time earlier with a mechanical issue with the car that we didn’t catch until three runs in so that was unfortunate because tires and miles are so valuable.  We improved the car a little bit and the speed but it doesn’t really show in the time chart because the draft is so important to get a good time and we were under-geared so we just ran out of gearing. So basically what we ran in a draft is only slightly better than what we could run by ourselves. I think that’s why Mike and I were so close on the timesheets because we’ve got the same gear so we’re stuck at roughly the same speed. A relatively good day, a bit more positive than yesterday, and I don’t think where we are on the speedchart reflects the progress we’ve made but that’s why it’s only practice and it doesn’t count.”

Indy 500 Daily Track Report – May 13

Both Mike Conway and Wade Cunningham saw track action today at Indy. Logging 58 laps in the No. 41 ecat/ABC Supply Honda, Cunningham ran twice as many laps as Conway who ran 28 laps in the No. 14 ABC Supply Honda. Cunningham also completed the final phase of his rookie test at about 1:30pm this afternoon.

Conway’s top speed for the day was 215.725mph which was only slightly quicker than yesterday’s top speed in the No. 14.  Cunningham participated in Happy Hour and posted a 216.657mph lap--his quickest lap to date.

Conway:  “We didn’t really find any speed today but we got through quite a few changes which was good to feel what they do because it’s the first time we really explored some different areas. The ABC Supply car is better, it feels better every time we go out with the changes but we just have to find more speed. We looked for it at the end there but we went slower so we have to find out what’s going on with the rear of the car because we seem to be wearing the rear brakes and I’m sure that’s causing some drag. It could be part of it. We should be a bit quicker than we are. So we’ll explore that tonight and see what we find.”

Cunningham: “Today was productive. We struggled with rookie orientation last Thursday because we had a massive imbalance in the car which we looked at and found at the end of the day. I was a bit leery going in this morning, but from the outlap I could tell we had made improvements in the car, so I was comfortable straightaway. We had to go through the last phase of rookie orientation so we had to stay under 215. Then we started on the ecat/ABC Supply car for the day. It got hotter in the afternoon so I lost a bit of speed but we focused mostly on running by ourselves. Basically just trying to learn the car because we have no knowledge or background with the car so we’re doing basic mechanical changes and trying to find what the car needs. We weren’t setting the world on fire, we didn’t try but we made gains and I think we have a decent handle on what we need from the car and how it needs to be driven. It’s new for me and new for the team so a relatively happy day.”