HUNTER-REAY CONTINUES TO FIND SPEED AS RAHAL LETTERMAN RACING PREPS FOR POLE DAY

INDIANAPOLIS-  The Indianapolis Motor Speedway is and always been about lightning-quick, greasy-fast speed. You will hear drivers talk about handling and the wizened railbirds will tell you that luck plays as big a part as anything here at the monstrous 2.5-mile oval, but speed is king.

Speed is so important here that the paddock vernacular here changes to reflect it. Every other track you go to on the IndyCar Series tour, the garage talk about lap times are always reflected as times - as in “We’re going to need a 24.6 (seconds) to qualify up front.” or “did you see Driver X turn a 34.2?”

At Indy, it’s all about speed. Nearly every fan in the place could tell you that last year’s pole speed was 225.8 mph, but very few could give you the time in seconds.  And teams cringe when they hear of guys running 222 mph when they are at 215.

So it was on a sunny Tuesday morning at Indianapolis that the Rahal Letterman Racing team attacked the venerable oval in its search for speed, as they prepare for the ultimate test of speed - Indy 500 Pole Day.

Ryan Hunter-Reay (#17 Ethanol Dallara/Honda/Firestone) and Alex Lloyd (#16 Rahal Letterman Chip Ganassi Dallara/Honda/Firestone) had successful days and continued to make their cars better for Saturday’s four-lap qualifying procedure. Hunter-Reay snapped off his fastest lap of the month by logging a best trip of 221.640 mph (40.6063 seconds).

“We know that we are going to be better than where we are right now,” said Hunter-Reay after posting the 23rd-best time of the day. “We have been to a couple tracks this year where we haven’t been that great on the first days but we end up being right there during qualifying and race day. The Rahal Letterman Racing team has a great history here. It’s a long month and you can drive yourself crazy getting caught up in speeds so early.”

Marco Andretti carded the fastest lap of the day with a best speed of 226.599 mph (39.7177 seconds) which he admitted was logged with the help of a drafting tow from Graham Rahal. Hunter-Reay turned 39 laps on the day while Lloyd ran 52 laps - which included some in and out laps to practice pit stops late in the afternoon.

Practice continues tomorrow at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway with cars taking the track from noon to 6 p.m. Qualifying gets underway Saturday afternoon to set the first 11 cars in the field for the May 25 race.

SECOND DAY OF INDY PRACTICE: HUNTER-REAY TOPS 220 MPH

INDIANAPOLIS-  The first rudimentary steps of driving in the Indianapolis 500 having been completed yesterday, the Rahal Letterman Racing/Chip Ganassi duo of Ryan Hunter-Reay (#17 Ethanol Dallara/Honda/Firestone) and Alex Lloyd (#16 Rahal Letterman Chip Ganassi Dallara/Honda/Firestone) got down to business on a Chamber-of-Commerce weather Monday in Central Indiana.

Lloyd and Hunter-Reay took advantage of the final day of rookie practice and made big gains in speed from yesterday’s tentative ROP program. Hunter-Reay kept pace all day despite running in his backup #17 machine, turning his best lap of 220.839 mph (40.7537 seconds) on his final flying lap of the afternoon.

“We are just going through our checklist, our second day on the track,” Hunter-Reay said. “We’d like to be faster but we have steadily improved the car over the day and ran our best time on our last lap so that is something positive to build on for tomorrow.”

The RLR squads both did their first full-speed pit-stop practices at the end of the day, with each team doing a handful of simulated stops as the clouds rolled in at the end of the day. Things will pick up tomorrow as the entire prospective field will start practicing on the 2.5-mile Indianapolis oval and teams begin the quest for speed.

The pole for the 92nd Indianapolis 500 will be determined during Saturday’s qualifying, along with the first eleven spots on the grid. Positions 12-22 will be locked in on Sunday, with the rest of the field to be determined next weekend.