INDIANAPOLIS — Bump Day at the Indianapolis 500 is the chance for a race driver to reach deep within himself and put his courage and bravery on display as he attempts to drive a slow race car beyond its limitations.
It is a last-ditch effort to make the 33-car starting field for the world’s biggest race.
On Sunday at Indianapolis Motor Speedway, nobody displayed that bravery and courage better than Buddy Lazier and Mario Dominguez.
Lazier was the last driver to bump himself into the starting lineup for next Sunday’s 92nd Indy 500, while Dominguez pushed his car over the limit and crashed on his final qualification attempt.
Lazier has displayed bravery and courage before at Indy, when he won the 1996 500-Mile Race with a broken back that he suffered in a crash at Phoenix Int’l Raceway six weeks before.
This year, Lazier had to fight his way into this year’s field. After qualifying into the race on Saturday, Lazier knew his speed of 217.939 miles per hour would not hold up on Bump Day.
He was bumped out of the race by Marty Roth, who had been bumped by A.J. Foyt IV earlier in the day.
As the hours ticked away to the conclusion of qualifications, activity picked up dramatically in the final 30 minutes before the gun was fired to conclude qualifications at 6 p.m.
Lazier started a qualification attempt at 5:30, but after running laps at 217.272 mph, 217.204 mph and 217.097 mph, team owner Ron Hemelgarn waved off the attempt.
Dominguez went out four minutes later and put together a four-lap average of 218.620 mph that bumped Roger Yasukawa out of the race.
Yasukawa immediately went out for another attempt, but was too slow. So, as Lazier sat in his race car while his team frantically made changes to the setup of the car to make another qualification attempt, 2005 Indy 500 winner Dan Wheldon came down and gave some advice to Lazier.
At 5:47 p.m., Lazier headed onto the race track to begin his run. He put together his best speeds of the day in that car, with a four-lap average of 219.015 mph, which bumped Dominguez.
Yasukawa made a third and final attempt, but his speed of 218.476 mph was not fast enough to knock out Roth, who was now on the bubble.
That left it up to Dominguez, who began his attempt with two minutes left before the starter’s pistol was fired to conclude qualifications for 2008. After running a first lap of 219.780 mph, Dominguez appeared to be on his way to bumping himself back into the race.
But as he entered the first turn on his second lap, the car broke loose and did a half-spin almost simultaneously with the firing of the gun to close the track. The car slammed into the SAFER Barrier in turn one and Dominguez’s hopes ended in a crumpled mess.
“I feel terrible for me, for my sponsors and for the team,” Dominguez said. “The only thing that makes me feel good is that we tried until the end. We tried as hard as we could. And that’s the only thing that makes me feel good.
“At the end, we just trimmed the car out, and the car didn’t take that downforce and I lost it. I feel terrible I could not qualify for this race.”
Lazier gave credit to his team, calling the race track “wicked” because the windy and cool conditions made for poor grip on the track surface.
“They ripped it off and counter-balanced it in five minutes,” Lazier said. “It was a hairy run.”
Lazier’s team didn’t even take to the race track until last Friday, the latest of any team at Indy this year.
“If it wasn’t for all the right moves and staying very calm, it was those guys that made all the right decisions,” Lazier said.
But it also took a lot of inner-will and drive from Lazier.
“I had to reach deep,” Lazier said. “Emotions run deep here. I’ve raced here for a long time. I know what it is like to miss races here and I feel bad for those teams that fell short, I really do. But this is such a special race and it is so important to be in. If you have a smoking fast car, you get all emotional because you get everything out of your race car and get into the top three.
“Well, the emotions are the same when you get everything out of your car on a given day and it’s just enough to make the Indy 500. It was a very emotional run, a very serious run and a very on-the-edge run.”
As the last driver to qualify into the Indy 500, Lazier and his team were presented a check for $50,000.
More importantly, Bump Day was back at the Indy 500 after some lean years where it was a struggle simply to fill the field with 33 cars.