Options narrowing for 33rd Indy 500 entry

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emailBy Marshall Pruett | April 4, 2022 3:41 PM ET

The dominoes continue to fall in the NTT IndyCar Series’ quest to land its 33rd entry and fill the grid for the Indianapolis 500. Since our last update, the pool of candidates has gotten smaller as two potential entrants tell RACER they’re out of the running to take part in the month of May’s Speedway activities.

On the positive side, IndyCar continues to take a proactive approach towards solving the problem. Meetings with multiple teams took place during the recent Texas Motor Speedway event to search for assistance in fielding an extra car to break the deadlock of 32 cars for the May 29 race, and as we’ve moved into April, those efforts will continue as more meetings are expected to be held this weekend in Long Beach.

Nonetheless, finding a willing team to help IndyCar fill its 11 rows of three has been unfathomably hard: A.J. Foyt Racing, Dale Coyne Racing, and Juncos Hollinger Racing are said to be among the teams that have been approached. Of the many reasons behind the struggles, one consistent comment from full-time teams about their disinterest in taking on another entry has been the lack of experienced crew to run the car. Even for the teams with extra Speedway cars sitting in their shop, the absence of trained staff to handle all aspect of the program — from performing pit stops to engineering the car — has been the greatest limitation.

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Assuming IndyCar will be successful in finding a team to put another car in the field, the next order of business will be to attach a funded driver to the entry and pay the team for its services.

Of the known options, RACER has learned two-time Indy 500 starter Katherine Legge will not be on the entry list after a considerable amount of support, including crew spanning IndyCar and IMSA and the use of Honda’s 18th and final engine, came to naught after the opportunity to lease a Honda-ready chassis fell through.

A plan to run former Andretti Autosport driver Zach Veach, which had an engine lease from Chevy on deck and a team willing to make a Dallara DW12 available, has also confirmed its quest to be on the entry list met its end after a major backer withdrew.

With their absences, the pool of candidates to fund and race a 33rd entry is down to Paretta Autosport/Simona De Silvestro and Cusick Motorsports/Stefan Wilson.

Taking a brief detour before we return to those camps, it’s believed the ongoing saga of ‘Who owns the cars that Top Gun Racing has at its shop?’ remains unresolved. Top Gun and Neil Enerson, father of its former driver RC Enerson, continue to fight over custody of the No. 75 DW12 that contested the second Indy road course event last year and a spare car that sits unassembled.
Top Gun has a few administrative hurdles to clear – like figuring out who owns the car – before the team can start planning to race again. Barry Cantrell/Motorsport Images

Both claim ownership of the vehicles, and until the matter is resolved — or Top Gun exercises a clause to buy the cars for a seven-figure sum — and a budget is then raised to run the car at Indy, the No. 75 will not enter the conversation as a real prospect to take part in the show. The Indy Open Test is 16 days away as of this writing and the green flag for the race is 54 days away and counting.

That leaves two serious options to take the 33rd entry in Paretta and Cusick. As RACER noted in its last Indy 500 update, there was a strong possibility of one or both parties taking a pass on this year’s Indy 500 to focus on doing a few races later in the year. At the moment, the odds of seeing Paretta and De Silvestro returning for their second Indy 500 together appear to be extremely long; rumors of a post-500 program with the Swiss driver continue to build.

It means that in the ever-changing dynamic of which entity holds the best chance of filling Indy’s final slot, Cusick and Wilson are on pole position to solve the series’ problem unless a new and unknown figure enters the mix. If it’s not Cusick and Wilson attached to the 33rd entry, there are no known alternatives with a qualified and interested driver waiting in the wings to bring a complete budget to whichever team comes through for IndyCar.

As one driver recently said, “At what point does Roger Penske wheel that fourth car out and fix the problem himself?”
Probably after you broke SOB's have waited 'til the last minute and have no cash in your pockets.

Elsewhere, chatter regarding IndyCar veteran James Hinchcliffe being in the frame to drive a third Coyne entry have circulated — with the 2016 Indy pole winner serving as NBC Sports’ in-car race reporter — but the ambitious idea lacked full funding and did not make it out of the conceptual stages.

We aren’t far from a solution to this puzzling problem, and if it isn’t Cusick and Wilson as the answer, there’s going to be one hell of an interesting story to tell about how that lone vacancy was filled.

If the damn democrats had a say, they would just screw the taxpayer and get all women or all blacks so we can be fair to
everyone and people still rich enough to still have any money left or still have a job would pay for all of it.

 

IndyCar revises Indy 500 qualifying format

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emailBy Marshall Pruett | April 26, 2022 4:00 PM ET

The 106th running of the Indianapolis 500 will feature a few revisions to its two-day qualification process.

Gone is the Fast 9, replaced by the Fast 12 followed by the Fast 6. Sooner or later someone has to make up their mind
and hopefully someone buys tickets.

Where recent editions of Indy 500 qualifying locked the nine fastest drivers in on Saturday and carried them over to a special session on Sunday where those nine made single runs for pole position, the group has been expanded to include one more row, locking in the 12 fastest on Saturday.

In 2021, the drivers who filled positions 10 through 30 during Saturday’s qualifying session were also locked into place for the race and would not made additional runs on Sunday to try and improve their positions. That process remains unchanged, with the only change being a shift from 10-30 to 13-30 to reflect the expanded Fast 12 group.

Are you confused yet?

A 90-minute practice session for all drivers is scheduled from 9-10:30 a.m. Saturday May 21, followed by open qualifying from 12-5:50 p.m. ET.

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Another carryover, the LCQ — Last Chance Qualifying — session is also in place to be used if more than 33 entries are filed. If 34 or more cars attempt to qualify, the drivers who are outside the top 30 on Saturday will run in a special session on Sunday to fill the last row and bump those who are unable to crack positions 31-33.

As there are no expectations for more than 33 entries, the LCQ session is unlikely to be held, and in that scenario, Saturday’s qualifying session would lock in positions 13-33 and those entries would be done for the rest of the weekend.

Assuming there will be no need for the LCQ, two hours of LCQ practice and qualifying time will go unused on Sunday. The Fast 12 will have a 90-minute practice session from 12:30-2 p.m., followed by the Fast 12 at 4 p.m. and the run for the pole with the Fast 6 starting at 5:10 p.m.

According to IndyCar: “Starting in reverse order of speeds based on Day One, each of the top 12 drivers will have a guaranteed attempt to post a traditional four-lap qualifying time starting at 4 p.m. The fastest six will advance to the Firestone Fast Six at 5:10 p.m. to determine positions one through six and compete for the NTT P1 Award for pole.

“The slowest six will fill out starting positions seven through 12 according to their recorded time. In the Firestone Fast Six, each entrant is again guaranteed one attempt and will qualify in reverse order based on their Top 12 qualification results. The fastest wins pole position, which includes a $100,000 prize, with the remaining five drivers filling out the remainder of the first two rows.”

IndyCar will continue the use of its slow lane/fast lane system on pit lane on Saturday, and for those who are taking part in Sunday’s qualifying activities, championship points will be offered.

“2022 NTT IndyCar Series championship points will be awarded for those who advance to the Top 12 qualifying session,” the series wrote. “The Indy 500 pole winner will receive 12 points, the second fastest will receive 11, and points awarded will decrease by one-point increments down to 12th fastest (one point).”

IndyCar president Jay Frye likes the changes his team has created.

“We have an incredibly deep field heading into this year’s Indianapolis 500,” he said. “The timing is right to implement a new and dramatic way to expand one of the most intense weekends on our calendar. Winning pole position for the ‘500’ is an incredible feat, and with this new format, it will be even more challenging.” Something here has been getting deep.....for sure when Indy Car was struggling to even fill out the field of 33 cars.

Qualifying weekend will be broadcast exclusively via NBC’s Peacock Premium streaming service and in audio form by the IndyCar Radio Network. Exclusively because we have been looking for a place to put it, since nobody cares about one boring car at a time doing a couple laps by themselves.

We have just been unable to sling the BS about how exciting it is to watch, like Formula One does with NINE cars in a race..... At least we can claim that we gave something to the "pay-extra-premium Streaming Service" even though almost everyone will watch the soccer games instead, while trying to get SOMETHING for the extra money. Probably we will have something worth watching by the time renewal fees roll around and won't have many people dropping out of the service due to disappointment.

The only thing worse than forcing people to watch something boring and over charging for it will be to hand it over to IMSA so their officials can mess it up like IMSA always does.



Indy 500, IndyCar

 

Indy 500 entry set with deal in place for 33rd slot...maybe...

At one time INDY was so popular there was an over supply of cars, etc and they had to qualify to be one of the 33 cars.

These days? Keep passing the hat until there's enough in there that we can find someone to take it and enter one more car.

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emailBy Marshall Pruett | April 28, 2022 1:39 PM ET

The Indianapolis 500 has received its 33rd entry.

RACER has learned the formal announcement is expected to come next week, and of the two known candidates likely to complete the field of 33, only Juncos Hollinger Racing has confirmed it is not involved in the effort. We don't know nuthin about it!

With JHR out of the picture, it’s believed a co-entry involving Cusick Motorsports and DragonSpeed has come together to field a program for three-time Indy 500 starter Stefan Wilson using a Chevy-powered Dallara DW12 chassis. Representatives from Cusick and DragonSpeed declined to comment when reached by RACER. We don't know nuthin about it!

The positive development closes (maybe) a frustrating saga for the NTT IndyCar Series and the Indianapolis Motor Speedway as a multitude of issues have pushed the arrival of the final entry for the 106th running of the Indy 500 to the dawn of May.

Maybe if there was any excitement over the 500, we would have something more interesting to report than that they finally scraped up another car