It was a busy day at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway Friday after two days of cold, windy weather as 31 drivers took to the racing surface in the final full session of practice.
The trio of Dreyer & Reinbold drivers — Roger Yasukawa, Buddy Rice and Sarah Fisher — worked through their respective objectives with Yasukawa clocking 47 laps, Rice turning 63 laps and Fisher being the busiest DRR pilot with 71 circuits on the sunny Indiana day.
With Yasukawa still in search of a position in the 33-car field this weekend, the Wellman-Corbier Custom Homes team concentrated on qualifying setup throughout the day and the Los Angeles recorded the tenth fastest speed at 222.409 miles per hour. Among the non-qualifiers on track today, Yasukawa’s speed was second only to John Andretti’s 222.830 m. p.h.
Yasukawa is scheduled to make his four-lap qualifying attempt Saturday afternoon as the weather is expected to be in the mid-70s.
Rice took his No. 15 A1 TEAM USA/DDR Honda Dallara machine out for the first time this week and work with his crew on “race-day” conditions including full fuel tank runs on used tires. Rice’s best speed in his 63 laps was 221.218 m. p.h. Friday. Rice is expected to continue pre-race tests tomorrow.
Fisher had her No. 5 AAMCO Transmissions Honda Dallara in “race-trim” and posted a speed of 222.057, 13th best on the day. Sarah is scheduled to run more testing this weekend.
Defending Indy 500 champion Sam Hornish Jr. took the top speed of the day with an impressive 225.006 mark followed by Scott Dixon at 224.468 and Tony Kanaan at 224.340.
Qualifying for the last eleven positions in the field is set for noon on Saturday.
TEAM QUOTES:
ROGER YASUKAWA (#24 Wellman-Corbier Custom Homes/DRR Honda Dallara): “It’s a great day for the Wellman-Corbier Dreyer & Reinbold Racing car. We started this morning trying to get up to the front. The car was very comfortable in traffic and I’m really happy with the race set-up. In the afternoon we did a little bit of qualifying trim and I think we have a pretty good speed. Tomorrow we’re just going to focus on getting the car in the show and if we can be 23rd quickest that would be great but otherwise once we get in the show we just want to focus again on making the car better for the race. Everything is going smoothly and the crew is doing a great job. I’m looking forward to tomorrow. ”
SARAH FISHER (#5 AAMCO Transmissions/DRR Honda Dallara): “Today went pretty good. We worked on our race set-up pretty heavily and got a car that‘s comfortably flat everywhere. We’re just trying to trim it out the last little bit right now and looking to run in traffic. Tomorrow I’m sure both the 15 car and the 5 car will run together and probably the 24 car too.
BUDDY RICE (#15 A1 TEAM USA/DRR Honda Dallara): “We’re just basically trying to set-up for the race really. We’re trying to make sure that we are out there running with people and the weather needs to be as close to the race weather as possible and that’s why we waited until today and we’ll just see what happens. We’ll run some more tomorrow and go from there. We don’t want to chase the weather too much. We just want to make sure we have a comfortable car. ”
| 
|