Review: "500" Day 6

The most notable event of the day -- indeed, what will be the big story right up until Pole Day -- was of the sort that gives me the excuse to put Ernie Triplett and Deacon Litz up one more time:

Yes sir, right around 3:30 this afternoon, after two-and-a-half days of good practice, the skies opened up over the Speedway. A look at the weather report tells us that Friday won't be too much better and is expected to be a total washout.

A glance at what could be the final speed chart before the track opens for qualifications, balanced with the expectations of fans and the media, tells us that we have absolutely no clue what to expect on Saturday. The top five drivers on today's speed chart are quite a headscratcher: Kanaan (226.775 m.p.h), Tracy (!) (226.322), Mutoh (!) (226.230), M. Andretti (226.108), Wheldon (226.106). It's obviously nice to see Tony Kanaan riding atop the chart, and the speeds from Andretti and Wheldon shouldn't be too shocking, but Tracy and Mutoh? It looks like the Chrome Horn found some of that speed that teammate Moraes was exhibiting earlier in the week, and Newman/Haas appears to remember what made them so successful (without winning) in the early '90s.

Wednesday and Thursday were both relatively clean as far as cars finding the wall, which means that, in five days of practice, we've only had two cars make heavy contact with the wall. That's a beautiful statistic for us to see, but it's all going to go straight to hell on Saturday.

Every practice day this week has been relatively cool and quite cloudy, which gave the tires plenty of grip and the engines plenty of horsepower. Saturday, though, is expected to be around 80 degrees and as sunny as the surface of Mercury. Sunday is supposed to be much of the same, but ten degrees hotter. The setups that everyone have done this week will be thrown out the window as the air changes and the oils on the pavement find their way to the surface to cut down the grip. Put that together with the fact that everyone will be trying to run as fast as they possibly can, and there will be a little more black rubber on the walls.

I'll be live and in person, wandering around the facility on Saturday. I'm definitely looking forward to seeing how the Fast Nine format thing works out.

FASTEST UNOFFICIAL SPEED OF THE MONTH
#3 Helio Castroneves: 39.6395 seconds, 227.046 miles-per-hour