500 Champions Already Have One Eye on New-Look Month of May
February 17, 2015 | By John Schwarb
Five Verizon IndyCar Series regulars will come to the Indianapolis Motor Speedway in May looking to add to their champion resumes at the Indianapolis 500.
But three months from now they won’t be able to pull out previous years’ notes or data from previous successes at Indy. Draw on the good vibes, yes. But old Dallara information for previous winners Helio Castroneves, Scott Dixon, Ryan Hunter-Reay, Tony Kanaan and Juan Pablo Montoya? Not likely to take them too far.
When the aero kits debut on Opening Day at IMS on May 3, they will mark a new look on Honda- and Chevrolet-badged Dallaras and a whole new learning curve even for drivers with their faces already on the Borg-Warner Trophy. Look for high speeds and …
“Massive anxiety,” said defending champion Hunter-Reay of Andretti Autosport. “As it has been, you kind of have a package that you know, and you go out that first run and you’re pretty comfortable. It’s going to be somewhere within that comfort zone.
“Now going out it’s going to be, ‘what are you going to have going into Turn 1? What’s it going to do in Turn 2?’ You have no idea.”
On Tuesday at IMS, Chevrolet revealed its road/street course aero kits, featuring more than 120 parts including sculpted “wheel wedges” in front of the rear tires, larger rear bumper pods and a multi-element rear wing.
Some of the design concepts will likely carry over to the oval aero kits, though none have been unveiled yet. So an element of mystery remains, and will remain even when cars hit the famed 2.5-mile oval.
“It’ll be interesting to see what the manufacturers have done and obviously to see how it plays out performance-wise,” said Dixon, the 2008 champion for Chip Ganassi Racing.
One of the goals for the Verizon IndyCar Series in employing the kits at Indianapolis is to increase speeds, perhaps to the point of surpassing Arie Luyendyk’s 19-year-old qualifying record of 236.986 mph (his fastest lap of 237.498 mph is also a record).
Don’t think that the former champions won’t want to grab that record for themselves, if it’s there for the taking.
“You’re always on edge here, you’ve got to be on edge to be good here,” said Montoya of Team Penske, a winner in 2000 while driving for Ganassi.
“You’re always at knife edge, you’re always trying to get the most out of the car,” Dixon added. “The speed, especially if we’re going for a chance at breaking that record, it’s a great talking topic. It’s exciting because it has been so long since we’ve done that.”
May 3 can’t arrive fast enough, and then when regular Indianapolis 500 practice resumes on May 11 after the Angie’s List Grand Prix of Indianapolis, the daily watch of “who’s fastest” at IMS promises to be a thrilling show.
“We’ll be holding our breath big-time. Those first couple days on track here, it’s going to be the first time in a very long time that everyone is actually glued to the timing screens,” Hunter-Reay said. “Years of work have gone into that point. Whoever has the first leap forward there is probably going to have a pretty good month.”