INDIANAPOLIS — After a glorious day on Saturday’s Pole Day for the 92nd Indianapolis 500, rain returned to Indianapolis Motor Speedway overnight and continued through Sunday, forcing IndyCar Series officials to cancel Sunday’s second round of qualifications.
Positions 12-22 on the starting grid were supposed to be filled on Sunday. Because of the cancellation, positions 12-33 will be filled next Saturday during the round of qualifications with Bump Day scheduled for next Sunday, when teams can bump out the slowest-qualified driver in the field.
IndyCar President of competition Brian Barnhart expects 37-38 cars to contend for the 33-car starting lineup before qualifications for the May 25 race conclude next Sunday.
Sunday’s qualifications were set to begin at noon, but with heavy rain not allowing any of the teams to practice on Sunday morning, officials called off the day’s activities at 12:45 p.m.
It was the first time a qualification day has been rained out since 2006, but it’s the third day this month that rain has forced the cancellation of all on-track activity.
“It’s really unfortunate,” said Barnhart. “We didn’t have to have this conversation last year. It’s a shame because it certainly alters everyone’s plans for the week. It’s been a bit of a challenge losing both Wednesday and Thursday and a half day Friday and now Sunday. The teams are going to be really anxious to get some quality track time Wednesday through Friday and even in between qualification runs next weekend.
“I anticipate a lot of track activity as teams are working on full tanks in preparation for the Indianapolis 500.”
Joie Chitwood III is the president and chief operating officer of Indianapolis Motor Speedway and has spent as much time getting water off the race course as seeing the large field of cars get a chance to prepare for qualifications.
But Chitwood was quite happy to see Saturday’s Pole Day play out in front under warm, sunny conditions that brought out one of the larger crowds for the first day of qualifications since the IndyCar split began in 1996.
“As much as I know you would love for me to tell you numbers and talk about actual attendance, we don’t really do that here at the Speedway,” Chitwood said. “I will tell you that I was ecstatic with the crowd yesterday.
“I was a little bit nervous early in the morning. About 8:30 a.m., I was in Pagoda Command and looking at the cameras that we actually have stationed to look at the traffic out on 16th and Crawfordsville and I thought to myself, ‘Maybe people think it’s still going to rain today or something.’ But by 11 a.m., we had some great traffic, as much as you can call traffic great. I was pleased because there were a lot of people lined up to come in. I thought there was great energy yesterday.”