Indy 500: Scott Dixon Tops Fast Friday Practice
May 09, 2008
Ron McQueeney/IMS
INDIANAPOLIS – Fast Friday at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway lived up to its name as a familiar name topped the charts.
Target Chip Ganassi Racing’s Scott Dixon turned the fastest lap of the month to date (39.6531 seconds; 226.968 mph) to lead practice the day before Pole Day for the second consecutive year.
Thirty-three cars totaled 1,033 laps on a day sliced almost in half because of rain for the third consecutive day. The first- and 11th-best times (Helio Castroneves; 40.1757 seconds/224.016 mph) were separated by 0.5226 of a second, and there was only a 0.8701 of a second difference between first and 22nd (EJ Viso; 40.5232 seconds/222.095 mph).
Marco Andretti, who posted the quickest time May 6, the last day cars were on the track, was second-fastest (39.6983 seconds; 226.710 mph) in the No. 26 Indiana Jones car for Andretti Green Racing.
Tony Kanaan (39.7022; 226.688) was third in the No. 11 Team 7-Eleven car, while the other two AGR cars were fifth (Hideki Mutoh, 225.990) and eighth (Danica Patrick, 224.744). 2005 Indianapolis 500 winner Dan Wheldon (225.674) was sixth, Panther Racing’s Vitor Meira (224.811) seventh, Luczo Dragon Racing’s Tomas Scheckter (224.712) ninth, and Rahal Letterman Racing’s Ryan Hunter-Reay (224.125) 10th.
Two on-track incidents brought out yellow flags during practice. The No. 96 entry driven by Mario Dominguez spun exiting pit lane and made light contact with the inside wall. The No. 16 car driven by Alex Lloyd spun in Turn 1 and made heavy contact with the SAFER Barrier. Lloyd remained at Methodist Hospital for observation in the early evening after X-rays of his neck showed no fractures. Dominguez was uninjured.
SCOTT DIXON (No. 9 Target Chip Ganassi Racing): “It’s been a great start for our team, in general. Two wins, and I think we could have a lot more throughout the season. To be fast on Fast Friday, I’ve been in that spot before, and it didn’t work out well in the past. Hopefully, we don’t carry that tradition on. Today, as these guys said earlier, was kind of a tow-fest. It was very hard to get clear laps. I maybe had a couple of clear laps the whole day today, and I think we could see everybody’s speed fell off when they were by themselves. The team seems pretty focused. I think in the morning we need to decide if we have a legit shot at pole and whether we’re going to go for it. I don’t think we’re going to waste tires and energy going for it if we don’t think we have a clear shot at it. I think last year we worked on it in the morning session, and we struggled a little bit for qualifyin g because of the weather conditions. I think we sort of planned to be a little more safe so far, and that’s going to help us tomorrow for the balance and things like that. We’ll just have to see how it goes. Right now, we’re happy being in the top three on both days. It’s a shame we haven’t had more clear weather so we don’t have everyone running on the track.” (About potential of re-qualifying): “Most people are going to throw one in the bag try to put up a good, solid effort. I know we did that last year. This year is going to be such a mess. The problem isn’t going to be us running for the pole. The problem for our teams and people in our same situation are the 20 or 22 or more cars running for 11th spot. They’re going to clog up the lines, so we’re going for a safe one early on. Well, that’s what I want to do. I’ll have to check with the team on what we would like to do, and then we’ll come back and gamble later. But that’s if we’re happy with the first attemp t and then feel like we can come back later. The weather goi! ng to be cooler, and the track condition will be nice, so you may see some big time numbers later.”
