There Will Be Less Grind Before Bumps Begin at Indianapolis

Depending on your point of view, the Indianapolis 500 has been streamlined, or it’s shrunk.

One week later than usual, practice begins today on Indianapolis Motor Speedway for the May 24 edition, 500 miles of open-wheel racing on the world’s most famous motor sports facility.

Sweeping changes in the buildup for the race include not only cutting a week off the practice schedule, but compressing four days--two weekends--of qualifying time trials into one weekend.

Pole day will be Saturday, with 46 driver-car combinations expected to take the green flag for four qualifying laps. Instead of waiting a week--with seven more days of practice--the 33-car field will be filled Sunday.

The means that the exciting bumping process, in which late qualifiers try to better the slowest speed of the first 33 qualifiers, and thus bump them from the field, will take place on the second day, instead of the fourth.

“It makes a big difference to the teams in money,” explained Leo Mehl, executive director of the Indy Racing League, who initiated the cutback. “In my opinion, it’s still too much. These guys will get 35 hours of practice. For all the other races, they get between four and six hours, and that never seemed to hurt them.”

To traditionalists who wring their hands over another erosion of Indy’s heritage--following the introduction of Winston Cup stock cars and the International Race of Champions to a track that had been sacred for Indy cars--Mehl points out that it is only another chapter in its evolution.

“People have short memories,” he said. “It’s still called the Brickyard, but the track is asphalt. Practice used to start on May 1, whatever day of the week it fell on. Drivers would run as many as 20 days in a row and they’d go slower each day. It was stressful for drivers and everybody associated with the speedway.”

The worldwide fuel crisis in 1974 caused the U.S. Auto Club to cut practice by a week and reduce daily track time by two hours. For years, cars could run from 9 a.m. to 6 p.m. The 1974 starting time of 11 a.m. is still in effect.

“Now we’re cutting another week off. It’s not written in stone that this will be our last change, either,” Mehl added.

Indianapolis Motor Speedway President Tony George, whose introduction of the IRL three years ago created a schism with Championship Auto Racing Teams, Inc. and marquee drivers such as Michael Andretti, Al Unser Jr. and Bobby Rahal, said he expected this year’s changes to stimulate interest.

“There will be no room for rest, relaxation or mistakes,” he said. “It’s going to be very intense.

“There’s always a right time and a wrong time to implement change. And I happen to think this is the right time. There were a lot of people who felt a part of the month of May was a strain financially and a waste of time being here.

“Some of the crowds had diminished over the last 10 years or so on certain days. What we’re trying to do is create more intensity, make qualifying just one weekend, with a lot of cars and drivers trying to make the field.”

Gone, too, is the controversial 25-and-8 rule, which guaranteed IRL drivers the first 25 qualifying berths, leaving only eight for “outsiders,” which meant CART drivers. The rule, in effect, locked out CART teams, who reacted by holding their own race at Michigan International Speedway on the same day as the Indy 500 in 1996.

“The qualification rule was necessary to get the league started,” Mehl said. “The teams that supported the IRL had to have some assurance that there was an advantage in their participation.”

If eliminating the 25-and-8 was designed to lure CART drivers back to the Indy 500, it failed. Today, on Indy’s opening day, CART teams are in Brazil for the Rio 400.

This year, CART has scheduled a race May 23--the day before the 500--at Gateway Raceway in Madison, Ill., only about 250 miles from here.

“[Dropping the 25-and-8 rule] might have made a difference if the [chassis and engine] rules had remained the same, but the way it is now, there’s no chance of our running both series,” CART veteran Rahal said during the Long Beach Grand Prix. “The cars are totally different, and it would be too expensive to develop and run separate teams.”

The big difference is in the engines. All IRL powerplants are either derivatives of production Olds Aurora or Nissan Infiniti V8 stock blocks, totally different from the turbocharged Ford Cosworth, Ilmor Mercedes, Honda and Toyota of CART.

Another change, although not so obvious, is the absence of USAC at the Indy 500 for the first time since it replaced the old AAA in 1956. Even when CART usurped USAC as the Indy car sanctioning body in 1979, USAC remained in charge at Indianapolis.

The IRL took over USAC’s role in midseason last year after several embarrassing incidents, including one in the final laps of the Indy 500 in which yellow caution lights remained flashing while the green flag was displayed on a late restart. The result was Arie Luyendyk ignoring the yellow and racing to his second win while teammate Scott Goodyear hesitated and finished second.

“We still have a lot of USAC people on our team, but this way there is just one chain of command,” Mehl said. “We believe we will operate more efficiently.”

The IRL ran the last four races last year and the first two this year, but this will be its first time in command at the 500.

“Certainly we have had our share of obstacles, but we’ve assembled a good group of people that’s allowed us to meet and overcome those obstacles,” George said. “Right now our momentum is building. We’re starting to gain respect as a series, and I think the concept has proved to be a viable one.

“I think by all accounts we’ve come a long way. I certainly have faith in what we’re doing is the right thing.”

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Indy 500 Facts

* Saturday: Pole day qualifying, 8 a.m.-3 p.m. (Ch. 7, 10-11 a.m.; ESPN, 11 a.m.-2:30 p.m.; ESPN 2, 2:30-4 p.m.).

* May 17: Bubble day qualifying, 9 a.m.-3 p.m. (Ch. 7, 11 a.m.-2:30 p.m.; ESPN2, noon-2 p.m.; ESPN, 2-4 p.m.).

* May 21: Carburetion day, final practice, 8-10 a.m.

* May 24: 82nd Indianapolis 500, 8 a.m. (Ch. 7).