2019 Indy 500 Practice | May 16-17, 2019

Spent the latter part of today at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway watching practice, walking the garage and the alley behind the pit lane.  Could not believe how close I was to everything.  The Bronze Badge is the Indy equivalent of the Willy Wonka Golden Ticket.  Here are some pics:

Hung around the McLaren garage for a bit; you could feel the tension as they diligently worked on the back up car. This Dallara is from Carlin, hopefully they can get it ready for qualifying on Saturday and make the show.


Look who I spotted in the back of the McLaren garage!  Lone Star JR


Last year's winner Will Power emerges from his car.






Dario Franchitti


Love this shirt


The Pagoda shortly after a torrential rainstorm passed through. This essentially ended track action one hour early; I'll be back tomorrow for Fast Friday, so no worries


Track is closed, but the search for speed continues...

Love that place. Great pics.

Awesome!  

Would have traded our pic with Villeneuve jr. for one with Rutherford any day man  

P.S. If you get a chance, can you take a pic that shows how the space between the main grandstands and the main stretch looks like? I have been going nuts in the past to find a clear pic of the front of the grandstands in that area, to check how high it is from the ground, and if its solid wall or girders. I know there are stairs there to go from the sidewalk upwards, and grass between sidewalk and track wall, but not how it all looks like in the grandstands base.

P.S.2: Franchitti is my hero, but not for his indycar career but for bedding Ashely Judd

That's the first time I've seen you carry an interest in something named Judd.

Awesome! Keep posting such pictures

Btw, I guess it's getting really bad in the McLaren garage. At this point, I wonder whether Alonso will even qualify. Yes, he's 22nd on the no-tow speed chart, but they failed even to shake down the backup car. And all the focus will be on running qualifying setup with higher boost today. Seriously, what's going on there? Such team as McLaren isn't able to build an Indycar in two days? I wonder if they leased only one engine and it got damaged in that crash...?

This was doomed from the beginning, Alonso was completely fooled by having been in one of the top teams in 2017 that made things look waaaaaay easier than what they really are. He was naive enough to think Mclaren with all its F1 technology and computers could go to the speedway and give him a winning car (As he obviously would never have risked his neck on such a dangerous venue for just being a mid-fielder), how hard could that be when it's a spec series and you only have to turn left at full throttle all the time?

Well, now he is either having to suffer with the official McLaren branding the ignominy of not even qualifying, or worse even, risk his neck running in the back of the field for nothing.

The only positive thing, I hope this enrages him and shows him that this series can be a real challenge and that winning it is not just winning a second rate championship with weird round tracks in the schedule - giving him the motivation to join it full time and do a real challenge of a triple crown, i.e. winning the three championships and not just three iconic isolated races.

If alonso does that, he will wipe the floor with everybody, and at this point, i don't know if the indycar establishment even want that. He could get a place in any team tomorrow, but politics might prevent that, since he will just make everybody else look like fools. I am sure they enjoy the added exposure of him crashing or making indy atempts, but i don't thnk they would if he would just waltz to the championship first time out.

And make no mistake, he would.

Alberto, I like your thinking and it certailny would be great to see him full time in the series. Unfortunately, I read that McLaren will decide (whether to go full time or not) based on results in this year's Indy. And if they won't even qualify or finish deep in the field, the chance will get slimmer.

Quote :

If alonso does that, he will wipe the floor with everybody, and at this point, i don't know if the indycar establishment even want that. He could get a place in any team tomorrow, but politics might prevent that, since he will just make everybody else look like fools. I am sure they enjoy the added exposure of him crashing or making indy atempts, but i don't thnk they would if he would just waltz to the championship first time out.

And make no mistake, he would.

He sure would yes, he is way better than anyone on the grid now, but he also would need a top team. A McLaren effort from zero would never give him the season in a first or probably even second attempt. To get Indy or the season, he is now well aware he would need to join Andretti, Penske or Ganassi and that was my point. That is also connected with what Peter points out, McLaren might be as of now further than in the last years from joining there full time, and Alonso even further from doing it with them. Now the question is if Alonso will be frustrated enough with the hard truth he has just realized to join Andretti, or any other top team leaving McLaren, even if it is just for Indy. For a full season no team or sponsor can give him enough money, but that might not be a factor if he is motivated, whereas for Indy he can get those but I doubt they would want to just play his game and just have him run there as extra car, pissing off their team regulars.

Politics, well it depends. Indy management is dying for the exposure as they got when Mansell arrived there, and if he wins the season in a top team that would anyway not be such a big issue. Now him winning in a dog of a car that would really make everybody look really bad. And politics for him not winning may play out anyway later on inside his own team ...

Alberto Ibañez wrote:

Indy management is dying for the exposure...

A little off topic - I understand that you need to pay to watch NBC Gold and all the premium Indycar content. But why the hell isn't this streaming avilable outside US? There are thousands of people around the globe willing to pay those 50 dollars, but Indycar won't let you. That's freakin' unbelievable. Yeah, it's not difficult to find an illegal stream. But I'd actually like to give money to Indycar, but I'm not allowed to. Ridiculous

Its the ways of capitalism, better not allow it to anyone, because there might be someone we can sell the rights to! Probably NBC only payed for the national ones.

Short term profit over long term strategy.

Oooohh, Kaiser has just hit the wall HARD. They may be done, the tub is definitely damaged. Plus there are some repairs of the track surface needed.

Marco has been practicing at over 230 mph thus far today.
Alonso has been up to 227. Yellow for a crash in T3 halted practice; green just given now ..

https://youtu.be/QUXm_YaTlpQ

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Day 2 photos.  Wasn't rained on this time and got to see some good track action.  Also went to the museum   

Mr. Potato Head (aka Bobby Rahal) in the garage


Marco Andretti heads out to practice


Alonso got up to 227 in the backup car after some tentative recon laps.


JR Hildebrand at speed.


Marco was practicing over 230 almost immediately.  I'll be watching him closely tomorrow during qualy.


I love how cavernous it is under the main grandstands.


Here is the shot of the grass Alberto wanted.


Scott Dixon-themed scooter.


Marco's car sits quietly in the garage after posting the best laps of the day.


Conor Daly's car emerges from tech inspection.


The Captain on the move

The Museum has a Mario Andretti retrospective going on.  Several cars here will interest the HSO faithful 

Mario's Lotus 79 and a Lotus Esprit done up in a JPS-like livery.



The Lotus Type 64 was supposed to be Mario's entry for the 1969 500, but he crashed it in practice.


Andretti instead drove this Hawk as a backup car, and won his only Indy 500.



Mario's final Indy Car from 1994.


Mario's '73 car is paired with a '74 car    You can imagine how over the moon I was!


1982, the year Coogan ruined Mario's race on the first start. 


1984 Beatrice Lola for Newman-Haas.


1985 Beatrice Lola, Mario finished 2nd to Sullivan in the 500 that year.

Our very own HSO reporter live from Indy!

Awesome, awesome, damnnnnnn how I envy you

Alberto Ibañez wrote:

Our very own HSO reporter live from Indy!

Awesome, awesome, damnnnnnn how I envy you

I'll just quote this since the only other thing I have to add is a big thank you to Jason for creating this thread, and all these pics. Thread of the year!!!

Great shots Jason, the 73' 74' USAC cars and the Lotus 79', awesome pics.

So is the whole museum just Mario's cars? Kinda what it looks like from the pics.

Awesome Shots man!, Also Cogan didn't ruin Mario's 82 Race, Mario ruined it himself, had he not jumped the start he wouldn't have been in the position to get tagged.

Likely won't be posting pics tomorrow, as I will be watching qualy very closely, then returning home to get ready for our 500

man fancy in future those early mid 80s ground effect indy cars to race here would be awesome
!

those cars looks so damn awesome

That's it. Alonso is dead last, slower than Hanley. It would be a miracle if they won't get bumped tomorrow.

Oh boy! Hinch in the wall! He might not make it two years in the row, that would be brutal