So Who is Going to Win the 100th Indy 500? Good Luck Picking Just One
May 29, 2016 | By Phillip B. Wilson
Historical significance demanded everything possible be prepared to present the stage for an epic experience at Sunday’s 100th Running of the Indianapolis 500 presented by PennGrade Motor Oil.
The “Greatest Spectacle in Racing” was hyped and promoted from the moment last year’s event ended. Indianapolis Motor Speedway underwent a series of Project 100 upgrades including an impressive Gate 1 Plaza and a refurbishing of the popular upper deck on the famed front straightaway and Turn 1.
Fans responded by purchasing all of the tickets, a sellout that eliminates the local TV blackout for the first time since 1950. Drivers said they noticed twice as many fans in Gasoline Alley during practice days for the Month of May.
Who better to drive the Pace Car than legendary car owner Roger Penske? He celebrates his 50th anniversary in racing and fields four of the fastest cars in pursuit of a 17th visit to Victory Lane.
After all that, when the checkered flag finally drops to start a 200-lap challenge that requires patience, talent, teamwork and perhaps some luck, what remains for a 33-car field in which 23 of the qualifiers were separated by less than three seconds over 10 miles?
“This could be the toughest race ever,” said Scott Dixon, 2008 Indy 500 winner for Target Chip Ganassi Racing.
Andretti Autosport’s Ryan Hunter-Reay, the 2013 Indy 500 winner, echoes that assessment.
“There’s no clear favorite right now,” he said. “Usually you have two or three guys that you think, ‘Yeah, it’s going to be between them.’ Right now, I could name easily 15 that have a shot of winning it. It’s going to very, very tough. I came from 19th in 2014. If you can have someone come from 19th, who knows where they’ll come from this year.”
Dixon and Hunter-Reay are among six former winners. Team Penske’s Juan Pablo Montoya won for the second time last year. Teammate Helio Castroneves is still looking to join A.J. Foyt, Al Unser and Rick Mears as the only four-time winners. Dixon teammate Tony Kanaan was one of the most popular champions in 2013. And 1996 Indy 500 winner Buddy Lazier didn’t want to miss this historic race.
After Chevrolet-powered cars claimed all five of the previous Verizon IndyCar Series races this season — four by Team Penske and one by Dixon — a resurgent Honda engine enabled Schmidt Peterson Motorsports driver James Hinchcliffe to seize the Indy 500 pole.
That’s another script that couldn’t have been more compelling. The popular Canadian known as “Hinch” nearly died in an Indy 500 practice crash last year. Now, as he says, he has “the best seat in the house” for what could be the most important race of his life.
“If that’s how it all unfolds, and that’s a big if,” Hinchcliffe said of possibly winning, “you can say that if you told me that 12 months prior when I was still sitting in a hospital, that would have been tough to believe.”
The man most of the drivers are concerned about is a fun-loving Frenchman who qualified eighth for Penske. Simon Pagenaud isn’t just the series leader by a whopping 76-point margin, he’s won the last three series races after finishing second in the first two. He has dominated.
Strange as it might sound, Pagenaud is out for revenge. He had a Penske car that could have won last year, but he misjudged a pass and broke his front wing. He raced from the back of the field to finish 10th, yet acknowledges, “I should have done better, for sure.”
He’s been waiting for this race for a year.
“The competition is stronger,” Pagenaud said, “so it’s going to be harder.”
Montoya arrived in Indianapolis with the same joke he repeated Thursday, that his two Indy 500 wins in three starts were the result of “beginner’s luck.” There’s no mistaking the Colombian’s talent.
“I just want a shot at it,” he said.
Castroneves and Kanaan have suggested the 2.5-mile oval has a way of choosing the winner.
“I say, ‘You can keep waiting. I’m going to go for it,’” Montoya said.
Many will be keeping a close eye on the Penske cars, which also includes 2014 series champion Will Power, who finished a career-best second in last year’s Indy 500.
Eddie Cheever, the 1998 Indy 500 winner and now an ABC/ESPN racing analyst, put into perspective Penske’s place in racing history.
“I was raised in Italy and there was Mr. Enzo Ferrari. Mr. Ferrari was everything about cars and motor racing. Roger Penske is the same thing for the United States,” Cheever said. “We are obviously a much more business-orientated environment than Europe is, and this guy is a world icon. He did exactly the opposite. He started with a small fortune in racing and made a frigging big fortune out of racing.
“He’s who everybody looks at. I sit when I watch him now and I’m thinking, ‘How did I ever think I was going to beat Team Penske when we were racing?’”
Who else could pull this off to ensure racing immortality with their likeness on the Borg-Warner Trophy? Take your pick.
Team owner Michael Andretti has five cars in the field and they each qualified inside the first 14 spots, including Hunter-Reay in third, Townsend Bell fourth and Carlos Munoz fifth.
Ed Carpenter Racing’s Josef Newgarden was edged out for the pole by fractions of a second. The winner of his first two series races last season will roll off the line in second, by far his best qualifying position in five Indy 500 starts.
One of the strongest Honda drivers this season has been Graham Rahal, who was disappointed after qualifying 25th. But that was last weekend. The son of 1986 Indy 500 winner Bobby Rahal is confident in his race engine and setup.
“This is the best car I have ever had going into the Indy 500,” Graham Rahal said after Friday’s Carb Day practice.
Kanaan turned the fastest lap in the final one-hour practice. What also had him excited was one of the largest crowds for Carb Day in two decades.
“I’m amazed how many people are here today,” the Brazilian said. “I thought in all of my 15 years I had seen it all here, and clearly I didn’t.
“I can’t wait until Sunday.”