3 Area Drivers Qualify

Three Southern Californians -- Alex Barron of Menifee, Bryan Herta of Valencia and Tora Takagi of Los Angeles -- drove their way into the Indianapolis 500 with second-day qualifying efforts Sunday at Indianapolis Motor Speedway.

When Brazilian Felipe Giaffone qualified at the end of the day, it upped the field count to 26, seven shy of the traditional 33-car starting field. The only opportunity remaining to qualify is next Sunday.

Barron, Herta and Giaffone were coming back after having crashed during Saturday’s first day of time trials.

Herta, in the fourth of the Andretti Green Racing cars, was fastest with a four-lap average of 219.871 mph. Had he done it Saturday, he would be starting 13th, on the inside of the fifth row. But because it occurred on the second day, he is in the 23rd spot.

“I knew that it would take a couple of laps in the morning to get the feelings back and put yesterday’s crash out of my mind,” said Herta, who credited the new soft walls for feeling fit enough to drive so soon after the vicious hit. “I told my engineer to just give me a comfortable car to start with, and he did that.

“We just wanted to get in comfortably and move on to the next phase of the week, which was working on race setup with my teammates.”

For Barron, who did 218.836, it was his third and last attempt to get the Red Bull Cheever car into the field. He waved off one try Saturday and crashed in the other.

A number of qualified drivers took practice laps and Herta’s 220.073 was fastest. Almost all of their laps were taken with full fuel loads. Bruno Junqueira ran 137 laps in his last outing before Carburetion Day a week from Thursday. He will be in Monterrey, Mexico, this weekend for a Champ Car race.

A number of drivers, two-time winner Arie Luyendyk among them, were wandering the garages, sniffing around for a possible ride.

“I’m not really looking,” said Luyendyk, “so probably nothing will happen. For the right reason and the right deal I would get in a car. But I wouldn’t do it just to make up the field.”

Among those looking were Roberto Moreno, Memo Gidley, Oriel Servia, Robby McGehee and Jaques Lazier.

Greg Beck announced that he would field a Dallara-Chevrolet for P.J. Jones, a rookie. The son of 1963 winner Parnelli Jones had a ride two years ago as a replacement for the injured Lazier, but he crashed in practice and did not qualify.

“This means a lot to P.J.,” Parnelli Jones said.

Jones is expected to be on the track Wednesday.