99th Indianpolis 500 - May 24th

  • Thread starter Earth
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Earth

Earth

7,986
GTP_Royalton
CAMikaze
I'll just leave these PDF links here. :D


You can add these to the OP post if you want. :)
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First Day of practice



Entry List

AJ FOYT RACING (Honda)
#14 Takuma Sato
#41 Jack Hawksworth
#48 Alex Tagliani

ANDRETTI AUTOSPORT (Honda)
#25 Justin Wilson
#26 Carlos Munoz
#27 Marco Andretti
#28 Ryan Hunter-Reay
#29 Simona de Silvestro

BRYAN HERTA AUTOSPORT (Honda)
#98 Gabby Chaves

CFH RACING (Chevy)
#6 JR Hildebrand
#20 Ed Carpenter
#67 Josef Newgarden

CHIP GANASSI RACING (Chevy)
#8 Sage Karam
#9 Scott Dixon
#10 Tony Kanaan
#83 Charlie Kimball
#tba Sebastian Saavedra

DALE COYNE RACING (Honda)
#63 Pippa Mann

DREYER & REINBOLD - KINGDOM RACING (Chevy)
#24 Townsend Bell

JONATHAN BYRD'S RACING (Chevy)
#88 Bryan Clauson

KV RACING TECHNOLOGY (Chevy)
#4 Stefano Coletti
#11 Sebastien Bourdais

LAZIER PARTNERS RACING (Chevy)
#91 Buddy Lazier

TEAM PENSKE (Chevy)
#1 Will Power
#2 Juan Pablo Montoya
#3 Helio Castroneves
#22 Simon Pagenaud

RAHAL LETTERMAN LANIGAN RACING (Honda)
#15 Graham Rahal
#16 Oriol Servia

SCHMIDT PETERSON MOTORSPORT (Honda)
#7 James Jakes
#43 Conor Daly
#77 James Hinchcliffe
 
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GTPorsche
That poorly cropped logo is almost clear enough to read...
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Here's one I made in 30 seconds.

indy500.png
 
these cars become more ugly and wierd every year... :yuck:

Hope for a good race tho...last year was great!




Spy.
 
You think that's bad...

From the '2015 Verizon IndyCar Series' thread
Furinkazen
So someone in the Aero Kit department forgot that air will raise a giant middle finger to any design if a 600kg car goes backwards at over 150mph.



Least it woke the commentator up.
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RACECAR
As bad as that was, its even scarier from onboard:



And here's some haunting irony for you as pointed out from another forum:
Very strange coincidence in that today is the 10 year anniversary of Sam Hornish Jr. flipping in Indy 500 practice. Hornish Jr. was also driving a Team Penske car, and Helio was his teammate that year.
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First car out Bryan Clausen hits 225.2 w/o a tow. The extra boost should be worth a 233-234 in a Penske or Ganassi.
 
IforceV8
First car out Bryan Clausen hits 225.2 w/o a tow. The extra boost should be worth a 233-234 in a Penske or Ganassi.
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Hopefully if they ever beat Luyendyk's speed record its done without a cheap boost increase
 
Earth
Hopefully if they ever beat Luyendyk's speed record its done without a cheap boost increase
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That '96 record was nothing but a PR grab since all of the real Indycar teams were at the U.S. 500 in Michigan.
 
So anytime a Chevy spins it will get airborne?

That is extremely dangerous and has me very worried. A flying car is unpredictable, it makes alot of satey features useless because of the bizarre angles
 
Earth
So anytime a Chevy spins it will get airborne?

That is extremely dangerous and has me very worried. A flying car is unpredictable, it makes alot of satey features useless because of the bizarre angles
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You aren't the only one who is worried.

Helio blamed his flip on an experimental setup and the front wicker, with admittedly changing track conditions playing a role.

But if even ace drivers and teams are somersaulting in practice, think about the chaos that could be unleashed during the 500! The very last thing that they need is a car, or parts of it, whirling over the fence and into the crowd. If they conclude this really is a serious problem, they must do something. Maybe remove or regulate some aero parts/setup, and lower the boost.
 
I always look forward to the Indy 500. The first Indy 500 I've followed was back in either 1999 or 2000. Around that time, I was still mostly learning about motorsports. I also recalled the likes of Greg Ray, Billy Boat, Eddie Cheever Jr., and others taking on Indy way back when. I think two of the three or so manufacturers then back then included Oldsmobile and Infiniti. So this year's Indy 500 is special to me as it's about the 15th Indy 500 I will get to see.

There are no favorites of mine for this year's race. There is a great deal of drama that goes on at Indy to where it's tough to determine who indeed will win. Almost anyone can win Indy.
 
So what are your thoughts on the Qualifying that took place today?

I'm thinking the GP of Indy should be a week earlier next season so that the teams get more time to practice with their Speedway spec setups before Qualifying given all the stuff that happened the last few days.
 
The silly boost increase needs to stay away, permanently. In 1996 they qualified at 236 and raced at 235. Boosting the speeds up for qualifying only and racing 10mph slower reeks of gimmick. All it does is create NASCAR style pack racing where the leader cant break away. I want to see someone dominate. This is Indy, not NASCAR plate racing.

The aero kits are not the problem. They were going 235mph in 1996 and not flipping over. People wanting to go back to spec trash make me laugh. The Chevrolet aero kit has issues. They need to resolve them. Dont cut off the hand to fix the finger nail.

I cant believe the amount of drivers who have been lobbying to go back to a spec car even before the incidents at Indy. Do they not want the Indy 500 to return to its glory years where you had 45 cars battling for 33 spots, 5-6 engines and 4-5 chassis? Because the only way Indy is ever going to become a really huge race again is when it starts to attract more manufacturers with more engineering freedom and world class drivers from multiple disciplines.
 
mustafur
Well '96 wasn't a glory year, infact it was basically the darkest year I can think of.
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But if you remember the Scott Drayton accident he went into the wall almost identically to Castroneves and the car stayed down. His death compared to Castroneves walking away shows that safety around the driver has improved massively but I think @Earth's point is that the cars were not lifting at 1996 speeds.
 
TenEightyOne
But if you remember the Scott Drayton accident he went into the wall almost identically to Castroneves and the car stayed down. His death compared to Castroneves walking away shows that safety around the driver has improved massively but I think @Earth's point is that the cars were not lifting at 1996 speeds.
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Although Tragic that was not the main reason why I said it was the darkest, it was more because of the split and the ramifications are still felt heavily in 2015.

The speeds do not need to be at record levels to ensure a good product if '96 is the benchmark.

But I think these flips are completely Aero related rather then Speed related, Honda is not having such an Issue, i would hope we can get an extensive Indy test session after this so Chevy can understand and change their speedway config safely, but they should be penalised for their bad design as Honda hasn't required the same treatment.
 
@CAMikaze
@Earth
@mustafur
@TenEightyOne

Record lap speeds at Indy, first 3 by Arie Luyendyk, 1996, Reynard-Cosworth 96i.
Practice:...239.260
1 lap:.......237.498
4 lap:...... 236.986
race lap:...236.103 (Cheever, 1996)

The stated goal of the Speedway ownership and management is to set a new speed record at the 100th running of the 500 mile race, next year, 2016

They feel this is justified by the improvements in track barriers, chassis, helmets and other safety measures since 1996.

But there is an obvious problem with the current chassis going backwards then lifting off. Marshall Pruett has blamed this on the "large underwing".

The '96 record-setting Reynard 96i had a simple Cosworth turbo engine of ~750hp, rather tall and substantial rear wing, and an underbody which I have not been able to see yet. It does not appear to be very long, wide or aggressive.

I'd like to see more data on '96 spec Indy car under-trays if anyone can find it.
 

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