Make wishtv.com your home page

500 qualifying a washout

INDIANAPOLIS (WISH) – Open wheel racing fans were ready to see if Ed Carpenter could take a third consecutive 500 poll, or if it would be another Penske-Ganassi duel.

Race fans will have to wait until Sunday to see it all unfold at IMS.

A wet track pushed qualifying back. After Carlos Huertas and Ryan Hunter-Reay put up times, the rain started to come down in sheets.

The scramble was on with water pooling on the front straightaway, and when the radar showed more rain was headed towards the IMS, officials called off the qualifications.

The times put up by Huertas and Hunter-Reay were wiped out, which pushed back qualifying until Sunday.

“The good thing about this always stressful moment, is now it’s going to be one day,” said three time 500 champion, Helio Castroneves. “In the past, we have today, sleep on it and then we gotta go back tomorrow. So, at least you cut a little bit of that kind of a scenario. Still, we saw a little bit of what our competitors are doing and we felt very strong on my Shell-V Power Nitro Plus. So, hopefully we continue doing what we are doing and we can put up big numbers again.”

Ed Carpenter won the last two poles and said on Saturday, “The good thing about a situation like tomorrow is if you play your hand right and play your cards right in that one run, you can make something happen. When you have the pressure of only one opportunity, and you’ve gotta balance being aggressive enough to get in and not being too aggressive to throw it all out the window, different people respond in different ways to that and I feel like in the past, I’ve responded well to that type of pressure.”

The hottest driver in the paddock might be Graham Rahal, who finished second in the last two races.

“We’ll be early in the day, I think right at 10:30 or something like that by the time we get running. So, I feel pretty good about our chances. We’ll just have to see how it all plays out. Definitely the guys that are going to be two hours into the session, they are going to be facing a little bit of a warmer track. So, hopefully that plays to our advantage,” said Rahal.