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In the show at
last
By A.J.
Foyt
Qualifying for this year's Indianapolis 500 took me a little longer
than usual. In fact it is only the second time in my 45 years straight
here that I didn't have a car in the field after the first weekend.
We should have qualified our Harrah's Dallara cars easily on Pole Day.
My new driver Greg Ray had run a high 227mph lap the day before but he
couldn't get over 226 on Pole Day. It turns out a front shock absorber
failed and we didn't discover it until Saturday evening.
Airton Dare's case was a little different. He never got a hot lap in
the Harrah's No. 14 car in that morning practice. I was being
cautious. I didn't let him go out in the first part of the morning
practice other than to run slow to check for oil leaks. I figured the
track was cold at 8 a.m. and there was another practice at 9 a.m.
which would be closer to the track conditions for qualifying. What I
didn't count on were the problems that other people had, which
effectively cut the practice to about five minutes of actual running.
Airton's first hot lap came on his qualifying run and it wasn't fast
enough. As it turned out, we missed on the gear ratio.
Unfortunately, qualifying rained out the next day, so we had to go the
whole week being on the outside looking in at this race. The last time
that happened to me was in 1978, the year after I had won the race for
the fourth time. That year we were blowing a lot of engines. You just
don't sleep well when most of the field is set and you're not part of
it.
That Sunday morning I also found out some stuff that was going on with
the aerodynamics that hurt our speed. We made the corrections and when
we finally did get back on the track on Wednesday we were fastest of
the day. We continued to maintain the top speed right up to Bump Day.
In the Bump Day morning practice (this time I did let Airton have some
hot laps early), Airton ran a 229 mph lap in the No. 14 Harrah's
Dallara right before the rain came which cut the practice short. We
all felt better about that because we knew we had the speed.
Unfortunately, Greg Ray waited to go out and he didn't get a hot lap
in before the rain. The rain did let up and qualifying began an hour
late, at 1 p.m.
This time it was Greg's turn to go out "cold turkey" but he managed to
turn a four-lap average speed of 227.155 mph which was good enough.
He'll start 31st. Airton went out immediately after and clicked off a
227.760 mph four-lap average. He'll start 30th, outside row 10.
We wondered where the speed went. We figured out later that we had the
cars taped off too much for the 62-degree weather. The oil and water
got hot and the electronic control unit box compensated by richening
up the fuel. So long to the power. My boys were flat-footed around the
track but they couldn't squeeze out anymore speed. I was mad but I was
also relieved to be in the show. Back where we're starting, it really
doesn't make that much of a difference.
I also offered Donnie Beechler my third car and he got some practice
in that week. We struggled a little bit finding a set-up he liked. It
all came together on Bump Day when he ran a 227 mph lap in the
afternoon practice. I put him in line to qualify. Unfortunately, the
rain came and he never got a chance to go out. His disappointment was
obvious but he was pretty philosophical about it, saying that it just
wasn't meant to be.
So this week we will tear the Harrah's cars apart, install the race
engines and check our race set-up on Thursday which is the final
practice before the race on Sunday.
I'm looking forward to being part of the show for the 45th straight
year. |
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