IRL Feature - Sunday Is Bump Day
21/05/2007
Jimmy Kite found out what “Bump Day” truly meant at Indianapolis on Sunday… and he won’t be starting the 91st Indy 500 on Memorial Day weekend.
After losing his position on the grid earlier in the day, Kite got back in his car and tried to get back into the field for the race. However, as time ran out on the final day of qualifying, Kite couldn't find the speed and waved off his attempt.
"The speed we expected just wasn't there," Kite said. "It wasn't like the car wasn't handling or the engineers didn't work their tails off. It just didn't have the speed."
Kite lost his position when Phil Giebler, who crashed during a qualifying attempt Saturday, got his repaired No. 31 Playa Del Racing Panoz/Honda into the field Sunday afternoon. Kite, who had grabbed the 32nd position Saturday with a four-lap average of 214.528 mph, was bumped from the grid.
With five minutes remaining in Sunday's session, Kite got back in the car. It hadn't topped 215 mph in practice, and it didn't reach that speed on his first qualifying lap. "It falls squarely on my shoulders that we didn't make the show," said Paul Diatlovich, PDM's owner.
That left just two changes on the grid during the final day of qualifying for next Sunday's race. Giebler made it in and will start 33rd, and Richie Hearn will start 32nd.
"We could finish in the top 15," Hearn said. "You have to be optimistic. You don't want to say that your goal is to finish in the top 15 because you come here to win. But I'm not going to beat the other teams that do this all the time. Something really bad would have to happen to them for us to win."
Giebler's team rebuilt his Panoz and got him back on track for a four-lap average of 219.631 mph. "They were here until 1:00 am last night and they were here again when the garage opened this morning," Giebler said. "Basically, they had to tear the whole car apart and check every nut and bolt. It was like building a whole new car."
Marty Roth ended up on the bubble, in jeopardy of being bumped out of the field if Kite could have reached 219 mph. On Saturday, Roth nearly re-qualified after being disappointed with his four-lap average of 218.922 mph. Instead, he held on to the 30th starting position.
"The price to pay is that you fall to the bubble," Roth said.
Roberto Moreno put Roth in that position by withdrawing his effort of 216.229 mph from Saturday and posting an impressive run of 220.299 mph in a Chastain Motorsports Panoz that had been rebuilt after Stephan Gregoire crashed on Thursday.
Moreno, the 48-year-old veteran of Formula One, Champ Car, IndyCars and sports cars, wept after Sunday's run. "It's very difficult to describe," Moreno said, fighting back tears after qualifying. "You can't understand what this means without being in my position."
The effort didn't advance Moreno's position on the grid, but it gave him an extra 4mph in protection against a bump attempt. It also was a better speed than Roth, putting him in the bubble instead.
Chastain, who's funding the effort out-of-pocket, got help from Rahal Letterman Racing and other teams in the effort to rebuild the car. Chastain bought two Panoz chassis from RLR, which then helped him with setup and other aspects of getting the cars race ready.
"They could have turned their back on a smaller team, but they didn't," Chastain said. "They even painted the cars for us."
Besides the bumping, the bulk of Sunday's action was the final serious practice for the top contenders, including the three teams that are favored to win - Target Chip Ganassi Racing, Team Penske and Andretti Green Racing.
Ganassi's Dan Wheldon and Scott Dixon led the way with laps in the 222.7 mph range, followed by AGR drivers Dario Franchitti, Tony Kanaan and Marco Andretti.
Drivers will have one final practice during Friday's Carb Day activities before Sunday's race.