250 mph at IMS? Bring it on, say drivers
This whole endeavor began 106 years ago when Carl Fisher decided to blanket his 21/2-mile oval on Indianapolis' Westside with a gooey consolidation of gravel, limestone, tar and asphalt. That first surface of the Indianapolis Motor Speedway? It was paved with the assistance of 300 mules.
Then it backfired. Quickly. The surface disintegrated during the first automobile race held at the venue. Two drivers died. Two mechanics died. Two spectators died. Thus came the initial amendments — bricks. More than three million of them. Finally, mercifully, asphalt was poured in 1936.
What has followed: a century's worth of revisions and renovations, not to mention 98 editions of the Indianapolis 500. The one constant has been Fisher's layout. It has never changed. From his rectangular oval to the straightaways that stretch five-eighths of a mile to the turns that bank nine degrees, all have remained largely untouched over the course of a century.
That fact remains central to the race's considerable charm: Wilbur Shaw made the same turns in his Maserati as Ray Harroun did in his Marmon Wasp; Tony Kanaan now navigates the same short chutes that Parnelli Jones did in the 1960s; Helio Castroneves barrels down the same backstretch as Rick Mears did decades prior.
"The constraints haven't changed," says Kevin Forbes, IMS's director of engineering for 24 years. "The constraint is the track. You have to design within the track. That's your biggest constraint. And it should be."
Evolution, then, came in the form of the track's most identifiable entity: speed. Fisher's oval became the world's preeminent automotive proving ground, an annual measuring stick of innovation and audacity. Consider: After the first 500 in 1911, the town the track was built in took all of one year to settle on an appropriate name. They called it Speedway.
Indy has been, always will be, about going fast.
Its cars became the leading symbol of speed. Of power. Of advancement. Barriers crumbled on its asphalt — 100 mph in 1919; 150 in 1962; 200 in 1977. Speeds soared into the 1990s, when brutally powerful machines heavy in horsepower screamed around the Speedway at more than 230 mph. "A newwww trrrackkk rrrecorddd!" legendary announcer Tom Carnegie would bellow each time Indy's speed record fell. Back then, it felt like an annual rite.
But where would it end? 250? 275?
How fast was too fast?
Safety catches up with speed
The question lingers two decades later, but a bevy of factors have slowed the cars since Arie Luyendyk's record-setting run in 1996. He averaged 236.986 mph over four laps. (He later hit a record 239.260 mph on a practice lap.) Nineteen years later, Luyendyk can still recall his ears popping on the homestretch, not unlike yours do on an airplane. It was that fast. Ear-popping fast.
"I think I drove the best car that was ever on the Speedway," he says now.
The best. Not necessarily the safest. A year after Luyendyk blitzed around the track faster than any man in history, life at the Speedway slowed. The Indy Racing League/CART split watered down competition while much-needed safety provisions caught up with the mind-numbing speeds.
Luyendyk won the pole at Indianapolis a year later. His time was 18 mph slower. The "How fast is too fast?" conundrum stalled.
By any measure, a driver competing in the 2015 Indianapolis 500 is safer than drivers were in Luyendyk's era. Everything is different, from the way a driver sits in the car to the helmets they wear to the walls they (hopefully don't) crash into. Horsepower has been trimmed. Engines don't labor like they used to. Cars attain speed in a much different, more efficient way.
The raw power that defined the '80s and '90s is a thing of the past.
"Those were exciting days, to be sure," says Bobby Rahal, the 1986 Indianapolis 500 champ and now a team owner. "But where do you stop? 240? 245?"
Cars won't hit 240 or 245 mph anytime soon. In today's era, the quest for speed is smarter, safer.
"Would people be interested if the cars were running around here at 200? Probably not," Rahal explains. "But for me, as an owner, as you go up in speed, the risk goes up. Certainly things like the SAFER wall have made racing on ovals much, much safer than it was in my era."
Now that the safety has caught up with the speed, are the cars more well-positioned than ever to push the limits? This is Indianapolis, after all. Speed reigns. Drivers want faster. Fans want faster. Shouldn't they be chasing Luyendyk's record?
This past weekend did little to quench their appetite.
The winning four-lap average of the 2015 pole sitter, Scott Dixon, came in at 226.760 mph, more than a four-mph dip from Ed Carpenter's 231.067 a year ago. The pole speed had been climbing and climbing in recent years, inching closer to its 1996 peak, until this year, when IndyCar officials decided Sunday to reduce horsepower in qualifying to race-day levels. The reason: a scary crash from Carpenter earlier in the morning, the third of its kind in less than a week.
Thus, much of the allure of pole day — the cars topping out at full throttle down the homestretch, the slim chance of a new track record for the first time in 19 years — evaporated right then and there. After accelerating forward for years, pole day suddenly shifted into reverse.
Drivers were peeved. Fans were angry. But the decision comes down to the challenge that lies at the heart of auto racing: marrying the right amount of speed with the right amount of safety. It's been a strange month at IMS: four crashes by veteran drivers (Castroneves, Carpenter, Josef Newgarden and James Hinchcliffe) during practice runs have cast a cloud of uncertainty over the Speedway.
What gives?
Few questions, to this point, have been answered. For now, the chase for record speed sits on the back burner.
There are more pressing issues at hand, including Hinchcliffe's left leg, on which he had surgery Monday after a piece of his suspension pierced through it during practice. The 500 will carry on this weekend without one of the series' most popular drivers. Indy has always been a high-risk, high-reward venture.
"I would like to think that we're not behind (in terms of safety)," Forbes says. "I would like to think that whatever they come up with — the car designers, the engine designers, the rubber tire compound designers, the drivers — we're ready. They can give somebody a car that can go 250 (mph), but can they drive it?"
The allure of Indy
Two hundred and fifty miles and hour? Bring it on, say the drivers. They do not hide their ambitions well.
"It's fun to see the big numbers," says Bobby Rahal's son, Graham, who drives for dad's team and will start 17th Sunday. "The drivers always want more."
"I think we all want to go faster," echoes Carpenter. "It's exciting when you have the prospect of breaking track records. But it hasn't happened since I was a kid."
It's one of the reasons Carpenter settled on IndyCar — besides the fact that it's in his blood. (The stepson of Tony George, he was in the stands at IMS for many of Carnegie's iconic calls.) He earned his racing stripes as a youngster in the United States Auto Club circuit. The majority of his competitors, lured by better money and better stability, have since landed in NASCAR. Not Carpenter. He became the open-wheel outlier.
"I always wanted to be here," Carpenter said of Indianapolis. "Speed's a big part of that."
Much of the same goes for JR Hildebrand, Carpenter's CFH Racing teammate. A California kid with a 4.12 GPA out of high school, Hildebrand turned down a spot at MIT to pursue a career racing cars. And not just any cars.
"I wanted to drive the fastest cars out there, and this was it," says Hildebrand, who will start 10th Sunday, two spots ahead of Carpenter. "I've always thought Indianapolis, the Speedway and this race were about one thing — going fast."
He's right. Same as it was for Wilbur Shaw and Parnelli Jones and Luyendyk. But the past week at IMS has offered another sobering lesson in the unpredictability that surrounds a sport that is constantly pushing the confines of speed.
"There are limits, to what the cars can handle and what the bodies can handle," says Carpenter.
Adds Hildebrand: "We just don't know what they are."
There's chatter in Gasoline Alley that Luyendyk's speed record could be threatened next year, which by no coincidence will mark the 100th running of the race. Still, as last weekend proved, a sure thing in this sport does not exist. This year's qualifying was a sizable step back in speed.
Will 236.986 mph live for another decade? Did Luyendyk's era define what toofast was?
"There's never going to be a number. We're never going to tell you a number. That'd be ludicrous," says Forbes. "Look how long it's taken to get remotely back (to 1990s speeds). There are too many variables. You have to marry the racetrack with tires. With chassis. With engines. With a perfect day and a driver who is on his or her top form with a team who is spot on."
But that pursuit — for speed, for four consecutive laps of perfection, for what was once considered unattainable — remains a pillar of which Indianapolis Motor Speedway made its name. That very chase, same as the track itself, has remained unchanged for a century.
Carl Fisher's 21/2-mile oval at 16th and Georgetown became world famous because of it.
Call Star reporter Zak Keefer at (317) 444-6134 and follow him on Twitter: @zkeefer.
226.760
Miles per hour for Scott Dixon's pole-setting mark for this Sunday's Indy 500.
236.986
Miles per hour for Arie Luyendyk's recording-setting mark from 1996.
239.260
Miles per hour for Luyendyk's single-lap record at IMS.
TODAY'S SCHEDULE
Admission: From $10 to $100.
8 a.m.: Gates open.
8:30-10 a.m.: Vintage car exhibition.
9 a.m.-3:30 p.m.: IMS midway open.
10-11 a.m.: Firestone pin distribution.
11 a.m.-noon: IndyCar Series practice.
12:30 p.m.: Indy Lights Freedom 100.
2-3:10 p.m.: Pit Stop Challenge.
3:30-4:15 p.m.: O.A.R. concert, Turn 4 infield stage.
4:30-5:15 p.m.: .38 Special concert, Turn 4 infield stage.
5:30-6:30 p.m.: Jane's Addiction concert, Turn 4 infield stage.
6 p.m.: Gates close.
OFF THE TRACK
•Memorial Service from noon to 1 p.m. on the north steps of the World War Memorial. Free.
•Carb Night Burger Bash at 96th Street Steakburgers, 4715 E. 96th St. Charity event features IndyCar drivers. Free family event.