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Indy 500 | The 2010's -- THE GREATEST DECADE?

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David Land
75.1K subscribersA documentary style retrospective of what history may eventually remember as one of the Indianapolis 500's greatest decades. Close finishes, record breaking races, spectacular crashes and dramatic qualifying moments, this decade had it all! Sit back relax and enjoy a romp through the recent past.

Races discussed. 94th Indianapolis 500 - 2010 - Dario Franchitti 95th Indianapolis 500 - 2011 - Dan Wheldon 96th Indianapolis 500 - 2012 - Dario Franchitti 97th Indianapolis 500 - 2013 - Tony Kanaan 98th Indianapolis 500 - 2014 - Ryan Hunter-Reay 99th Indianapolis 500 - 2015 - Juan Pablo Montoya 100th Indianapolis 500 - 2016 - Alexander Rossi 101st Indianapolis 500 - 2017 - Takuma Sato 102nd Indianapolis 500 - 2018 - Will Power 103rd Indianapolis 500 - 2019 - Simon Pagenaud

 

Don't tell Chip Ganassi Racing they're the favorites for the 2022 Indy 500

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emailBy Marshall Pruett | May 28, 2022 7:13 PM ET

Las Vegas, Atlantic City, and the online betting world might have Chip Ganassi Racing positioned as the team to beat in Sunday’s Indianapolis 500. Just don’t tell the team.

With plenty of fans and even some of CGR’s rivals speaking their name as the ones who are most likely to win, the team’s managing director says it’s precisely the kind of conjecture they don’t want to hear.

“We’re certainly not aware of [being the favorites],” Mike Hull said. “If we stopped to think about what you’re talking about, it would be so paralyzing we wouldn’t be able to do anything, so no, we don’t really think about that too much. We’ve always operated that way and we operate that way across all levels of what we do in all forms of racing that we do.

“When we come to work every day, we live by the adage that we just have to get the most out of today, so everybody that’s at the racetrack — we’ve always tried to keep things very practical. It’s a pretty simple formula. It’s not complicated for us.”
Mike Hull, Managing Director, Chip Ganassi Racing. Michael Levitt/Motorsport Images

With Scott Dixon, the 2008 Indy 500 winner, on pole again for CGR and teammate Alex Palou, the reigning IndyCar champion, alongside him on the front row, the two fastest drivers in the field are also the darlings of the oddsmakers. As the fastest and most consistent team in the field since the opening day of practice, Ganassi’s five-car armada, with 2013 Indy winner Tony Kanaan, oval master Jimmie Johnson, and the highly effective Marcus Ericsson rounding out the roster, has cast an imposing shadow over the field.

It’s been a while since CGR’s last Indy win—it came a decade ago with Dario Franchitti—which makes the return to form a welcome reality for the team. That’s the strange thing, though — the winner of the Indy 500 is rarely found within the team that steamrolls its way through practice and qualifying. It does happen on occasion, but it’s somewhat rare, and that’s why Hull isn’t in the mood to dwell on how CGR has done leading up to The Greatest Spectacle In Racing.

“The race isn’t over yet,” he said. “So let’s wait to pass judgment on who gets to the front who stays there on race day. We’ve had a good week of practice, and we had a great qualifying week, and there’s no question about that. But we still have to get through 200 laps here in one piece, and at the front, and if we if we’re lucky enough to be able to do that, with good stops, [with] strategy and common sense prevailing in terms of what we do…

“We work really, really hard on Indianapolis every year. Some years we’re on point and some years we look at each other thinking, ‘Man, how did we miss on this thing?’ For as hard as we’ve worked, it’s a testament to everybody that works in the building, travels to the racetrack and supports the team — the five drivers that we have took full advantage of everything that we had.”

Without putting too fine of a point on it, Hull’s comments speak to a rise in CGR’s Indy 500 competitiveness that, when compared to the talent, work, and effort expended in previous years where they weren’t quite as sharp, is no different. All of the top teams work themselves to the point of exhaustion for Indy and spend vast portions of their budgets on engineering R&D projects aimed at winning America’s defining motor race, so when a team like CGR finds itself locked into an impressive groove, the reason is often found in an unexpected area.

“The most I’m gonna say is this is probably the most unselfish group of drivers, in all the years I’ve worked for Chip, that I’ve ever witnessed,” Hull said, offering a glimpse of how CGR’s driver chemistry could be the catalyst on display. “You know, I don’t know what will happen if it comes down to five guys at the end of the race, but they have shared so equally, and everything that they’ve thought about, and they’re so open minded and it’s not group-think. They think about everything that goes on and they share.
2022 pole sitter Scott Dixon (right) and teammate, 2021 series champion Alex Palou (left), with team owner Chip Ganassi (center). Motorsport Images

“But then what happened [in qualifying] — just to give you an idea — was that we had [five] drivers in the [Fast 12]; all cars were sitting in that qualifying line with exactly the same downforce on the cars; [same] wing angles. Ericsson goes first; reads the racetrack for Palou. Palou takes two degrees out of the rear wing and they match the front wing setting. He goes out; reads the racetrack for Dixon. They take two degrees out of Dixon’s rear wing and match the front. That’s how much they help each other.

“That’s across the engineering groups on the timing stands and that contribution continues. It can continue today. It was all last week. They work together, they went out together on the racetrack to try to help each other understand how their cars pull up. What I’m saying is: They didn’t care who got the big lap; they wanted to help each other get in the race on Sunday, so it’s been very gratifying to see that up close. I’ve never seen that, even on our team, like that.”

 

Ericsson scoops $3.1 million with Indy win

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emailBy Marshall Pruett | May 31, 2022 9:18 AM ET

Marcus Ericsson took home the equivalent of a half-season’s budget to field an NTT IndyCar Series entry after receiving $3.1 million for winning the 106th Indianapolis 500.

The total prize fund of $16,000,200 and the Swede’s share of it mark a new high for the event.

“The Indianapolis 500 is the greatest race in the world, and these drivers lay it all on the line for a chance to drink the winner’s milk and kiss underage chicks on the famous Yard of Bricks,” Roger Penske said. “This year’s record-setting purse is reflective of their tireless pursuit of history and the world-class talent they display on every lap.”

Arrow McLaren SP’s Pato O’Ward received $1 million for his run to second place, and in another Indy-related piece of news, Ericsson’s teammate Jimmie Johnson was named Rookie of the Year at the 500.

More Indy 500!

INSIGHT: Ericsson crew bring diverse stories, experience to victory lane at Indy

Verstappen rules out Indy 500: ‘I don’t need to risk my life’

PRUETT: Indy’s back

 

Alan Mertens on creating the Indy-winning Galmer G92

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emailBy Alan Mertens | May 28, 2022 1:35 PM ET

Thirty years ago at the Indianapolis 500, a most unexpected victory was earned. Al Unser Jr. and Galles-Kraco Racing teammate Danny Sullivan were more than capable of winning the race on talent alone, but with the custom Galmer G92-Chevy commissioned by team owner Rick Galles as their only chassis option, the Indianapolis Motor Speedway should have been the car’s Achilles heel.

On road and street courses, where maximum downforce and even aerodynamic drag can be an asset, the G92 was a fearsome tool for its drivers to wield. But at the big Speedway, where slippery aerodynamics and an extreme lack of drag are critical components of success, the boutique Galmer chassis was an undeniable liability.

Lola’s new T92/00 looked like a needle and had the likes of Michael and Mario Andretti, plus powerful new Ford/Cosworth XB engines, to set the performance standard at Indy in 1992. On a normal warm day in late May, carrying all that extra drag that couldn’t be shed, the Galmer G92 would have been a giant headache for Unser Jr. and Sullivan.

But the race was anything but normal as the coldest Indy 500 in modern history was run, and by chance, as the rest of the field piled on all the downforce they had to give their icy tires a chance to work on the frigid track surface, the Galmer’s Achilles was transformed into its greatest asset.

Carrying more downforce and drag than any other car was a perfect fit for this most specific weather where an absence of grip caused driver after driver to spin and crash while grappling with cars that struggled while the G92s thrived.

Looking back on the achievement where Galles and Unser Jr won their first Indy 500, the car’s designer, England’s Allan Mertens, gave RACER the G92’s origin story to help celebrate the 30th anniversary of the amazing victory for all involved.

Marshall Pruett
The author and Al Unser Jr. Dan R. Boyd photo

It starts with a brief history going back to my days working for March. After March’s first Indy car, the 1980 Orbiter, failed to hit the mark, then-chief designer Ian Reed left for unrelated reasons to move to America with his American wife. I had co-designed the March 801 F1 car for Robin Herd and John McDonald, but Robin asked me to go back to March on the IndyCar side to fill in for Ian.

As a joint effort with Gordon Coppuck, we modified the 801 to IndyCar spec and the 81C was born. I was given the role of heading up the IndyCar program leading a small team while the rest of the drawing office focused on IMSA GTP, Formula 3000, Formula Atlantic and F3.

Although we were credited with five Indy 500 wins, after a couple of years, things started to become difficult. Clearly, my weakness was a lack of aerodynamic talents, and luckily, we had Adrian Newey cutting his teeth on the GTP cars — he was an obvious talent — and in the background Andy Brown was working on the F3000 cars. His name would crop up again later.

Adrian was the aero mastermind on the March 85C and 86C, without question our two best Indy cars, and Adrian would say, “This is the shape, now fit an Indy car inside of that shape.” Then Adrian left at the end of ’86 and the March progressively struggled again in ’87 and ’88.

At the beginning of ’88, after I had finished the 88C, March had gone public, lost its focus, and I was lured away by Galles Racing to work with Al Unser Jr. running the 88C. Within six months, with Al’s support and Rick’s enthusiasm, Galmer (Galles+Mertens, shortened to Galmer) was born. We won four races and finished second in the championship.

In 1991, Galles, now merged with the Maury Kraines’ Kraco Racing team, gave the go ahead for the Galmer G92 chassis. CART was going to introduce new regulations to be implemented in ’93 for minimum specifications for the thickness of honeycomb and the thickness of carbon skins in the chassis. When we got to production we decided to adopt these rules for ’92. That was our first problem.

Not until we had finished the car and torsion tested it — there were no computer simulations at the time — did we find the chassis to be massively stiff. In one respect this was fantastic, but in the interface between the engine and gearbox, our bellhousing was too soft, made worse by our approach to housing the turbocharger. Now we had lost our linearity of the fifth spring from front to rear axle; the bellhousing allowed the car to twist in the corners, which was not favorable.

The turbocharger arrangement, a fundamental part of our design, was turned 90 degrees so the inlet pointed forward and the exhaust pointed to the rear. Now we were able to have twin inlets, each side of the engine cover, and that gave us twin exhausts with twin wastegates that would blow the diffuser at the back. The tail of the gearbox, which was exposed to the air, had the casting done with the stiffening ribs on the inside of the casing so the smooth exterior was an extension of the center part of the tunnel.
Moving the gearboxes’ strengthening ribs from the outside to the inside gave the G92 an aerodynamic advantage thanks to the smooth profile for air to pass over on its way out the back. Dan R. Boyd photo

Ironically, although this was to prove troublesome, it was this innovation that won Galmer the Louis Schwitzer Award at Indy that year.

The complex inlets and outlets from the turbo took up a lot of space and further compromised the bellhousing size and shape. We tested the configuration in the wind tunnel and although we saw huge gains, the results were inconsistent as the air lines into the model kept freezing. We decided early on to commit to it anyway.

 

Alan Mertens on creating the Indy-winning Galmer G92

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emailBy Alan Mertens | May 28, 2022 1:35 PM ET

Unlike in the modern era of F1, we never had any way of keeping flow through the exhaust when the driver lifted off for consistency but, we never knew how much that would hurt us on ovals. On road courses it was livable; on street courses it was a huge advantage with the stop/start nature of the tracks. The center of pressure shift to the front helped under heavy braking for all the slow corners, and the rearward shift helped out with traction. On ovals, a slight breathe of the throttle upset the “steady state” balance considerably.
Mertens’ use of twin exhausts in place of the traditional single-outlet exhaust allowed the first known use of a blown IndyCar diffuser. Dan R. Boyd photo

Aerodynamically, we knew we were in trouble at the first Indy test early in the year. Al Jr.’s helmet was being sucked upwards to the extent it caused so much neck pain he couldn’t do long runs. We had decided to have no windshield like the F1 cars, but the high Indy speeds were playing havoc with him so we had to introduce a little flip-up just before the leading edge of the cockpit. Also, he was struggling with the lateral loads on his neck so we had to design and introduce a pad to support the right side of his helmet. And worst of all, we had too much drag.

We had plenty of downforce, which was ultimately a benefit on low-grip days, but the drag was way too high. We half seriously talked about taking the wings off, but their drag contribution was negligible and we still needed a trim device.

Around that time our aero guy left. I’m not saying there was any creativity in his aero numbers from the wind tunnel, but he knew we were in a “no way to fix it” problem and took off. Enter Andy Brown.
Despite its sleek shape, the G92 carried an invisible aerodynamic parachute behind it at the Speedway. Dan R. Boyd photo

Andy had just finished a stint at the Leyton House F1 team learning the tricks of the trade from Adrian Newey, although Andy was a very clever guy in his own right. Andy was a breath of fresh air, knew his aero stuff and made gains with the G92’s road and street course package with improving the external devices, but could do nothing with the base package for the Speedway car.

At a rainy Portland test early in the year, I remarked to Andy how high the rooster tails were going up in the air relative to the car. We discussed this in relation to the 1/4th model wind tunnel tests we were doing at MIRA, and we decided we should make and move to a bigger 1/3rd model at Brackley, the old March wind tunnel.

The results with the 1/3rd model were shocking. We still had the same downforce but the drag went up a lot. The relative size of the quarter-scale model meant the flow around the car was being choked. In the third-scale tunnel, the relative difference was such that the flow was clean around the model and gave us more realistic results. But it was something we didn’t want to see with the added drag now revealed and confirmed. Now we could understand why the car was performing like it was on the track.
The Galmer was a beast on road and street courses. Dan R. Boyd photo

When we got to Indy, we qualified both cars and were relieved to be solidly in the show. On Carb Day, Al couldn’t get the car to his liking, and was pretty bummed out, but we had no idea what we would face on race day.

There’s no question that Michael Andretti was dominating the race with the small Ford/Cosworth XB-engined Lola. We were offered this by Cosworth early on and made a wind tunnel model to suit. The G92 chassis was very narrow — the engine across the heads being typically the widest part — and the results were good. But, Rick Galles was a Chevy dealer so that was never going to happen.

Ironically, the XB engine’s failure in Michael’s car is what essentially handed us the race. At the end we seemed to have the legs on Scott Goodyear everywhere but coming out of Turn 4, where Al said the car was starting to go loose. This was strange as usually Turn 4 was one of the easier corners but Al’s precautionary lift on the last lap nearly gave it all away. However, it did provide, as they say, the closest finish in the history of the Indy 500.
Little Al on the way to victory lane. Dan R. Boyd photo

I wasn’t watching as I had my head in my hands. I was convinced it was all going to end like ’89 when Al got together with Emerson Fittipaldi. I didn’t realize the race went in our favor until crew chief Owen Snyder jumped on me. Danny finished fifth, but then was controversially relegated to seventh for allegedly passing under a yellow. We should have protested but we were so wrapped up in the win. What a day.

Also, what we didn’t know, and weren’t told until the end of the season, was that Rick was going to cancel the Galmer program. This was a great pity as we had learned a lot from the first car. Andy said he had achieved downforce and lift/drag figures not to be seen anywhere else until wind tunnel testing a Reynard chassis in ’96.

After Indy, the G92 was leading the championship until the penultimate race at Nazareth and did generate about $3.5 million. After Rick chose to stop, I sold the G93 design, but not Andy’s aero stuff, to Reynard so we could survive without the Galles involvement. Then Bruce McCaw started the PacWest team and jumped in to replace Rick. After running Dominic Dobson at Indy in ’93 with the old G92 chassis, that was the end of the car’s racing story.

 

Kenny Hill, 2022

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emailBy George Tamayo | June 2, 2022 7:27 AM ET

You may not know the name Kenny Hill, or that of the company he started – Metalore – but you’d easily be forgiven for it. That’s mostly how Hill wanted it.

For more than 40 years, Hill and Metalore developed machined parts for racecars running the gamut from Formula 1 to IndyCar to sports cars and more out of their anonymous manufacturing facility in El Segundo, California, a few miles south of Los Angeles International Airport. Hill, a native of Los Angeles, used the company’s location to its advantage.

During the heady days of Formula 1 extravagance, before parc ferme regulations and budget caps, Formula 1 teams more than once placed a call to Hill on a Friday afternoon following free practice two with a request to revise and manufacture a part. With an eight or nine-hour time advantage, Hill and his team would get to work implementing a redesign and manufacturing the requisite parts. Armed with nothing more than a hand-carry case of parts, passport and plane ticket, a Metalore employee would hop on a transatlantic flight later than evening to the airport nearest that weekend’s grand prix to be met in the terminal by a team representative solely to hand over the new parts then board the next flight back to Los Angeles.

Such was the faith placed in parts manufactured by Metalore. Hill, an inveterate problem solver was a self-trained engineer. Always with a pen in hand, he’d spontaneously doodle a possible solution to a request as it came to him, whether at the office of the family dinner table. It’s the problem-solving component as much as the manufacturing precision that made Metalore a trusted resource. Their design prowess often extended to improving the part, but more often than not, it was about how to make the part to the rigorous standards set by the client.

“I first knew Kenny through my work at All American Racers. Kenny and his company, Metalore, was our ‘go-to’ source for high quality machined parts,” said John Ward, who was chief designer of the AAR Toyota MKIII GTP car among many others. “As I got to work with Kenny, he became a good friend and a valuable source for solving design challenges we encountered. Kenny had great enthusiasm for stretching his company and breaking new ground to design and build products on the front line of innovation.”

Metalore officially opened for business in 1960 and soon became heavily involved in manufacturing highly classified components for U.S. Navy nuclear submarines, which soon after lead to contracts with NASA for parts to be used in the Mercury, Gemini and Apollo space programs. The ability to handle top-secret projects would again come in handy.

As the space race wound down in 1975, Hill received a call from Jim Chapman who was with Vel’s Parnelli Jones Racing to assist with parts for their new IndyCar. The following year John Barnard joined Parnelli, from which Hill would form a strong bond with the maverick young designer.

Barnard’s ground-breaking design for the Chaparral 2k ground-effect car would turn IndyCar racing on its head. Metalore had a sizable involvement in making parts for the car that would go on to win the 1980 Indy 500 in the hands of Johnny Rutherford. That same year, Hill took full control of Metalore, and from that point onward, motorsport would become a mainstay of the business.

The relationship with Barnard opened the door to Formula 1 beginning with the McLaren MP4 all the way through Barnard’s tenure with Ferrari. By then, Metalore’s reputation within the inner circles of racing and been firmly established, not only for their design and manufacturing prowess, but also for the ability to operate in the strictest secrecy. By 2007, half of the Formula 1 field was using parts manufactured by Metalore, including drive shafts, wheel hubs and other components.

In addition, Metalore was also busy with driveline components and more for IndyCar. During the CART era, Metalore manufactured the electronic pop-off valves that could be seen prominently protruding from the engine cowls of Lolas, Reynards and Swifts.
The Chaparral 2 – shown here in the hands of Johnny Rutherford in 1982 – had plenty of Metalore DNA. Motorsport Images

Over the years, Metalore led the way with a number of proprietary inventions and firsts such as:

• 1984 – The first company to color drive line components and other parts brown. Metalore became the company that made the brown parts. Now the standard color for everyone in the drive line component industry
• 1989 – Working with Dan Gurney’s All American Racers designer John Ward during the GTP era, Metalore fixed a wheel hub, driveline weight problem and in doing so became the first to use Silicon-Nitride Ceramic Balls in wheel hubs and driveline components to help reduce weight
• 1994 – Metalore introduced the titanium spline drive wheel socket and spline drive nut, which is now common on all race cars

It wasn’t only about current-era cars. Metalore also took on some “backdated” projects, too.

“During 2015, we received a Porsche 917 12-cylinder engine for complete overhaul and needed parts,” recalls Alwin Springer, former president of Porsche Motorsport North America. “Eric Bloss immediately suggested Metalore. Kenny not only created superb cylinder head studs for us, but he also explained how he arrived at his tightening sequence. Priceless! Kenny and Phil helped us at PMNA many times during the years to overcome tricky situations. There was no other who knew the machining world and all the surroundings – metals – machines etc. like him. Certainly, he was one of a kind.”

Despite his relentless pursuit of innovation and perfection, Hill always made time for the people who surrounded him. No matter how busy the days were, Hill always had dinner with his family, which often meant dinner with the kids first before taking wife Helen out to a special dinner for two.

Beyond racecars and parts, Hill was a national and world champion skeet shooter as well as an avid collector of art including paintings, photography and sculpture.

Kenny Hill passed away in May 2022, three weeks short of his 81st birthday. He is survived by his wife Helen; son Dennis, with daughter-in-law Arleen; daughter Kathy, with son-in law-Ben and grandsons Andrew and Quinn.

Metalore continues to operate under the stewardship of Helen Hill.

 

Diesel Race Car. Diesel Indy Car 1952. Cummins Diesel.

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Moviecraft Inc.
4.36K subscribersFascinating story of the development and racing of the Cummins diesel race car at the Indianapolis 500 in 1952. Number 28, the Cummins Diesel Special, clocked a qualifying track record that year of 138.01 MPH, using a truck type Cummins diesel engine. What a story! Transferred from a 16mm Eastman Color film, with significant color fade. Color restoration by Adobe Premier.