Review: "500" Opening Weekend

photo courtesy indy500.com

The green flags have waved, and the new, fortnight-style Month of May is on!

As ended up being the case last year at this time, the big story revolves around Team Penske's #3 car. All of last year's controversy far behind him, Helio Castroneves has returned to his ways of all-out speed, putting up a marker of 227.046-m.p.h. with the help of the slipstream. As of right now, Helio's lap is the strongest of the month, and the only lap over 227 miles-per-hour. What's most notable about Helio's speed, and many other speeds at the top of the leaderboard, is that many cars are already faster than Helio's 2009 pole speed of just under 225-m.p.h. In fairness, though, it was relatively chilly and overcast for a large portion of the weekend, which would have allowed the engines a little more power. The current forecast for Pole Day calls for temperatures in the mid-80's, so we shall see how that affects things.

Of note for the full practices for the veterans was the speed of Mario Moraes, who threw an early gauntlet on Sunday in the 224-m.p.h. range, then hit the top of the leaderboard again later on with the day's first 225-m.p.h. lap. Moraes was fast during May, 2009, but his race day ended after about half a mile when he and Marco Andretti collided. If his car stays in one piece, he could be a factor on May 30.

Also of note was the relative lack of speed from Ryan Briscoe. As I say, this is a relative term, as Briscoe still had a top-10 time on both days of practice. However, being a Penske driver and a rather good oval driver, Briscoe probably should have been closer to Castroneves on the charts. Instead, he ranked behind the likes of Moraes, Wheldon, Kanaan, and Ed Carpenter (!) when he should be with his teammates and the chief rivals at Ganassi Racing at the top.

In the meantime, all of the rookies entered in the field so far have passed their rookie tests, meaning they have proven themselves capable of averaging over 215 miles-per-hour for a sustained period of time. To the surprise of literally no one, I'm assuming, the fastest rookie during the orientation program was Simona de Silvestro, who I think may become a bit of a media sensation as the month goes on (though to nowhere near the extent of Danicamania).

What may have been surprising was the speed of Ana Beatriz, who ended up putting up the fastest overall rookie time during the second full practice. Ana was definitely quick in her Indy Lights starts at the Speedway, but these cars are 30-40-m.p.h. faster than the Lights cars, so it is certainly impressive to see her do so well.

Saturday was incident-free, while Sunday featured two incidents: Ryan Hunter-Reay gave it a little too much gas leaving the pit lane and spun onto the MotoGP course inside of Turn 1, and Dan Wheldon clouted the wall at the exit of Turn 4 (narrowly missing Scott Dixon as he spun).

Finally, the other big story of the weekend and, indeed, the week to come appears to be another of the great Month of May traditions: rain. Both days of practice over the weekend experienced some short delays for sprinkles and there's a large low-pressure system hanging out over northern Kentucky that will dump water on the track today and tomorrow. However, fingers are crossed for a delightful weekend of qualifying.

I'll try to provide updates throughout the fortnight as interesting things happen!

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