The 215-m.p.h. Race Is On Today for the Pole at Indy

When Rene Thomas drove his Ballot around the Indianapolis Motor Speedway in 1919 at 104.78 m.p.h.--the first to better 100 m.p.h. here--there was a great wringing of hands among racing officials that the cars were going too fast.

When Parnelli Jones broke the 150-m.p.h. barrier in J.C. Agajanian’s roadster in 1962, there was more wringing of the hands about how a car could run at twice the speeds for which the low-banked, 2 1/2-mile track was designed in 1909.

When Tom Sneva was the first to surpass 200 m.p.h. in a McLaren in 1977, Sneva was barely out of the car when he was saying that the cars were running too fast.

Nearly every year since Thomas raised the record speed from 99 to 104, rules have been made to reduce speeds. First the cubic inch displacement was reduced from Thomas’ 300 to 183, then 122 and later 91.5.

The next idea was to restrict fuel, permitting as little as 37.5 gallons in 1936. That was dropped when seven leading cars ran out of gas before reaching the finish line, making the 500 more an economy run than a race.

United States Auto Club officials even went to the extremes of banning a car, Andy Granatelli’s turbine, in 1967, not because of what it did, but because of its potential.

Nothing, though, has been a lasting deterrent to the escalation of speed.

Today, when the first day of qualifying is held for the 500 mile race May 25, the pole winner is expected to run between 213 and 215 m.p.h.

Forty-seven of the 50 cars registered at the Speedway this year have bettered 200 m.p.h. since practice began last Saturday, and four drivers--Rick Mears, Mario Andretti, Bobby Rahal and Danny Sullivan--have exceeded the record lap of 214.199 set last year by Scott Brayton in a Buick-powered March.

Mears had the week’s fastest unofficial lap caught by the speedway timer, 214.694, but car owner Roger Penske’s clocks caught him at 215.4.

“We want it,” Mears said of the pole, which is worth $35,000 to the driver and a million dollars worth of publicity for the sponsor. “The pole is a separate race. You finish with it and then you start preparing for 500 miles, not just 10.”

Qualifying is determined by the average speed of four laps, a total of 10 miles. Pancho Carter set the four-lap record last year of 212.583 m.p.h. in another March-Buick.

After last year, when the 33-car field averaged 208.138, a jump of 4.452 m.p.h. over the previous year, the USAC rules committee tried again to reduce speeds.

The front wing was raised to reduce frontal downforce, and the amount of air permitted through the car’s side pods was reduced to take something away from cars’ ground effects.

“It ended up a joke,” Sneva said. “The rules committee asked the engineers to develop the rules and they only told about half what they knew. So, instead of a 25% reduction in downforce, which is what the committee said it wanted, we have a 10% gain.”

Sneva, who has broken the one-lap record at Indianapolis on three occasions, is racing’s most outspoken critic of today’s speeds. As he has been since his own first 200 lap.

“Realistically, we ought to have one or two guys over 200 tomorrow,” he said after posting a 214.030 lap in his March. “That way, 200 would still be the magical number. The way it is now, 200 doesn’t mean a thing.

“Frankly, I don’t enjoy speed. That’s not why I race. I enjoy it for the competition, the closeness. That’s what racing is all about. The spectators can’t tell the difference between 200 or 170 until they hear the announcer tell them.

“But if there’s 10 cars on the track, running nose to tail, they’re all standing up watching. If there’s one or two and they’re a lap apart, even if they’re going 215, they’re all down at the hot dog stand getting a dog and a beer.”

Car owners, drivers--even Sneva--and mechanics agree, however, that if the rules hadn’t been changed last year, today’s speeds would be in the 218 range.

“As soon as the rules committee makes a change, there’s about 200 engineers out there trying to figure out how to get around it,” said Bill Kamphausen, CART associate technical director.

A major factor in the rash of 200-m.p.h. cars is the emergence of team design engineers for each car. Until about three years ago, the key personnel were a car owner, driver, chief mechanic and engine man.

Now, any team with expectations of running up front has its own engineer, or several of them. It all became popular when Teo Fabi came from Italy as a rookie and ran a record speed to take the pole in 1983. Much of the credit went to Robin Herd, owner and engineer of the March factory in England where the car was built.

Herd is working this year with Danny Ongais in a March powered by a Buick V6 engine. Ongais’ best lap is 212.164.

Michael Andretti, after winning his first Indy car race at Long Beach, gave credit to Anthony Newey, the design engineer Kraco hired to streamline Andretti’s Lean Machine. Newey is the engineer who designed the 1986 March.

Last year, Newey was the engineer for Jim Trueman’s team when Bobby Rahal won three races and finished third in season points.

“I think it’s obvious how much having Newey has helped us,” said young Andretti.

With engineers came wind tunnels, where the car’s body and wings are tested to measure the amount of downforce on specific areas of the car. Downforce is what enables a car to go through the four corners of Indy’s rectangular-oval at high speed and still maintain its stability.

“Cars have become so much more stable, even at higher speeds, that it has made driving much safer,” national champion Al Unser said. “There’s no way you can compare cars of 10 years ago, even five years, with the ones we’re in today.”

Owners and rules makers point to the minimum of injury accidents this year at the Speedway as evidence of car safety despite record speeds.

Only one driver, Herm Johnson, a 35-year-old journeyman from Eau Claire, Wis., has been injured. Johnson, who hit the wall head-on in the first turn Tuesday at approximately 190 m.p.h., had both feet and ankles shattered from the impact.

Even though the accident will sideline Johnson for at least a year, observers said it would have been much worse, perhaps fatal, before this year, when new bulkheads were installed in front of the driver’s feet and a four-inch energy-absorbing extension was built into the nose of the chassis.

“Two years ago that accident might have been fatal and three years ago I’m sure it would have been fatal,” Dr. Steve Olvey, the CART medical director who helped get Johnson out of his car, told the Indianapolis Star.

“The fact that he was not unconscious means he absorbed less than 25Gs into his body. Considering he rode a 1,500-pound car at close to 200 miles per hour into a concrete wall tells me the car is built pretty well.”

Johnson, who underwent six hours of surgery Tuesday to stem bleeding, had more surgery Friday, but Olvey said that it was only for inspection and re-dressing.