Rain pushes back Indy 500 qualifying
5/12/2008INDIANAPOLIS Yesterday s second round of qualifying for the Indianapolis 500 was washed out by an all-day rain and now will be combined with the session already scheduled for Saturday.
Positions 12 through 22 in the Indy 500 field were to be determined in yesterday s qualifying, but the revised format calls for positions 12 through 33 to be decided on Saturday. Sunday will be Bump Day, when any remaining cars can attempt to post a time that pushes the slowest car from the field.
The pole and the first 11 positions were set Saturday with Scott Dixon taking the pole.
PENSKE POSITIVE: Team Penske owner Roger Penske has watched his drivers win the Indy 500 14 times, so when he speaks, people usually listen. Penske said during the weekend s first round of qualifying for the Indy 500 on May 25 that he is beginning to see constructive results from the recent merger of the two open-wheel racing series.
I think it s very positive. A lot of people have been bruised because of the split, and now I m seeing some momentum, Penske said. I don t think this is going to be a rocket going off overnight, but I think there s a lot of positive comments.
Penske last won the Indy 500 in 2006 with Defiance native Sam Hornish Jr. driving the winning car.
PORTLAND TOO: IndyCar Series team owner Bobby Rahal, who won the Indianapolis 500 as a driver in 1986, said the more than two decades that have passed since that victory have done nothing to diminish its significance.
This race and how it changed my life well, it probably changed it irrevocably in the sense from a commercial standpoint and from a professional standpoint, Rahal said.
Things are never the same they re better. For the rest of your life, or at least it certainly seems to be the case, you re always introduced as the Indianapolis 500 winner. I won a lot of other races, some of which were maybe even a little bit more difficult to win, but I m never introduced as the winner of the Portland 200 with all due respect to Portland. It s always the Indianapolis 500. That s just the stature of this event.