Laying It On The Line At Indy

By: Bert Beiswanger

If you want to truly understand what qualifying for the Indy 500 means to teams and drivers, you needn’t look any further than at what transpired on Bump Day Sunday. Bravado is what qualifying for Indy has been known for during its rich history. It’s about laying everything on the line to make the field; leaving nothing on the track. If a team goes home, it won’t be because it didn’t maximize effort and resources.

It all played out with storybook and heartbreaking endings Sunday as cars swapped spots in the field during the final hour of qualifying for “The Greatest Spectacle in Racing” on May 25. At the end of the day, five cars were involved in a fight for the final two spots in the 33 car field.

Pacific Coast Motorsports presents a great example of the kind of effort a team puts forth to try to make the Indy 500. During practice on Saturday, driver Mario Dominguez crashed his No. 98 Visit Mexico City PCM Racing car. Pacific Coast Motorsports materialized as a team just three weeks ago and spare car parts have sometimes been hard to come by this month. The team was now challenged with re-building its car in time for Sunday. By the end of Saturday, though, the car was ready. It was quite an impressive effort. “The crew did an unbelievable job,” said owner Tyler Tadevic. “I’ll be honest with you: I think we have some brake rotors on there from Dale Coyne Racing. I think we’ve got some parts on there from a couple of other teams, including a radiator from Andretti Green. They were able to help us get what we need to put it all back together, but certainly it’s not all brand-new stuff, and it didn’t all come from one place; that’s for sure.”

What added to the excitement and intrigue was the fact that each car gets three qualifying attempts per day to put it in the show. In addition, gusty winds (the worst of the month by many driver accounts) made conditions downright frightening for the drivers laying it on the line. “It’s very difficult to find the balance of the car with this wind because it really changes corner to corner,” said Dominguez earlier in the day. “Some corners I have understeer, some oversteer, so it’s going to be a tough qualifying day for everybody.” Man, was Mario right.

Drivers say qualifying at Indy is one of the toughest things in motorsports. Cars are so trimmed-out (low downforce) to gain every little bit of speed, handling the car for four laps becomes an adventure. “You know, every time we go out to qualify, we’re hanging our ass out, man,” driver Davey Hamilton said after he qualified on Saturday. “It’s the four toughest laps in motorsports.”

When you add inconsistent wind gusts and direction to the mix, it becomes a cross your fingers and pray proposition. It provided for plenty of action and drama during the final half hour on Sunday. Here’s a re-cap:

• 5:30 p.m. - 1996 Indy 500 winner Buddy Lazier, having been bumped out of the field earlier in the day by the No. 25 car of Marty Roth, took a crack at re-qualifying the No. 91 car. Lazier’s Hemelgarn Johnson Racing team didn’t get on track for practice until Friday and conditions and time were not in their favor. One of the most underrated drivers in Indy history couldn’t find the speed to make the field.
• 5:34 p.m. - Mario Dominguez qualified. He was now on the bubble in the 33rd spot with an average speed of 218.620 mph. He bumped the No. 98 car of Roger Yasukawa out of the field.
• 5:38 p.m. - Yasukawa took a shot at bumping Dominguez out of the field. His average speed after three laps was identical to the four-lap average of Dominguez! However, the fourth lap was too slow. Dominguez was safe - for now.
• 5:47 p.m. - The performance of the day; no, the year. Lazier’s team takes as much downforce out of the car as possible. On the warm-up lap, the bulldog Lazier asked his crew over the radio, “Will it stick?” Would the car stick to the track? His crew assured him it would. On his first lap, he was amazingly two miles per hour quicker than his previous attempt. A roar came from the crowd. The run remained consistent throughout the four laps. He kept the car off the wall and put it back in the field with a four-lap average of 219.015 mph. The crowd cheered the former champion. Emotions were running higher than Lazier’s speed. Lazier asked his wife to make sure she had his sunglasses ready when he got out of the car. He wanted to mask the tears when the television cameras were on him. Dominguez was out of the field and Marty Roth was now on the bubble with an average speed of 218. 965 mph.
• 5:52 p.m. - Yasukawa takes one more shot. He doesn’t have the speed to make it back in. That leaves time for only one more qualifying attempt.
• 5:58 p.m. - Dominguez takes to the 2-1/2 mile oval for one more attempt. The team took even more downforce out of the car in hopes of finding enough speed. At that moment, one prominent motorsports journalist said to me, “If I know Mario Dominguez the way I think I know Mario Dominguez, he’ll either put it in the show or in the wall.” Dominguez completed lap one: 219.780 mph!
• 6 p.m. - Dominguez lost control exiting Turn 1 and crashed. The car didn’t stick. The gun sounded, ending qualifying. Dominguez was out, Roth was in and the field was set for the 92^nd running of the Indianapolis 500.

Asked if he could put into words what he was going through, Dominguez struggled. “No, it’s not possible,” Dominguez said. “I feel terrible for me, for my sponsors, for the team. The only thing that makes me feel good is that we tried until the end. We tried as hard as we could. And that’s the only thing that makes me feel good. We gave it our best effort. At the end, we just trimmed the car out, and the car didn’t take that downforce, and I just lost it.”

Buddy Lazier represented the other end of the spectrum. He summed it all up in the post-qualifying press conference:

“Deep. Emotions are running deep, you know. I’ve raced here; I think it’s my 15th or 16th start and knowing what it’s like to be second. When I first started I had cars that weren’t very — they were just last-minute shoestring deals, and we missed a few races. I know that feeling. I really feel bad for those guys that they’re very good race teams and very good race drivers but they just fell short. I feel bad for those guys right now, I really do. But it’s such a special race and so important to be in. You know, if you have a smoking-fast car, you feel emotional because you get all your race car. You get everything out of it, and you finish in the top three. Well, I think emotions are the same when you get everything out of what you have on a given day and it’s just enough to make the Indy 500. So very emotional run, very serious run, very on-the-edge run, for sure, very much on the edge. But the guys did what they needed to do. I mean the car did it and it wasn’t going to do it before that; so, really quick thinking. I came in at 3:30 in the morning, I think Thursday night, and the guys we were doing a seat fit at 3:30, I came back at 3 the next day — I guess it was Wednesday night. 3 the next day, they were all still there. They never went to bed, they never left the shop. So I’ve got to hand it to them because it took so much effort just to get us here on Friday, let alone to catch up and get it to where it needed to be to make the race. Hats off to those guys, really.”

The day was the ultimate example of what making this race – and missing this race - is all about. Some teams mortgage their future to be part of the event. Drivers drive the car on the edge to make it. If Bump Day is any indication of what the race will be like this Sunday, we’re in for a special day.

Tags: Buddy Lazier, Bump Day, Davey Hamilton, Indianapolis 500, Mario Dominguez, Marty Roth, Roger Yasukawa

Bert is a freelance writer and passionate and knowledgeable Midwest sports fan. Having lived his entire life in Central Indiana, he ranks the Indy 500, "The Greatest Spectacle in Racing," as the single best sports event in the world.

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1 Comment

1. Very good article - very nice story. It brought chills just thinking about the history of Indy and seeing qualifying. Can’t wait ’til the race.

   Comment by Tony on May 21, 2008

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