INDIANAPOLIS 500 / DAILY REPORT : Goodyear Benefits From Enhanced Engine

When Scott Goodyear qualified on the front row for the Indy 500 with a Honda engine one year after Bobby Rahal abandoned the engine to make the 1994 race, it raised eyebrows among Indy veterans.

“If Rahal couldn’t make the Honda work, how come it’s going so fast for [Tasman team owner] Steve Horne and his drivers?” they asked.

The answer is that the HRH engine is very different. The one in Goodyear’s and rookie Andre Ribeiro’s cars is a new aluminum block V-8 instead of the iron block used by Rahal and the Tasman team in the first five races this season.

“All you needed was to look at Honda’s worldwide racing record and you knew they would come up with something really good,” Horne said.

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Only three former 500 winners, Danny Sullivan, Arie Luyendyk and Bobby Rahal, are in Sunday’s race. This is the smallest number since 1970, when the only ex-winners were Mario Andretti, A.J. Foyt and Bobby Unser.

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Michael Andretti, on the retirement of his father, Mario, who is on the sidelines this year for only the second time since 1962:

“He’s dying. He misses not being out there. And I miss not being able to go back to the hotel and bounce things off him.”