Friday, May 17, 2013

Sunoco Rides Again at Indianapolis


INDIANAPOLIS – It’s nice to see a Sunoco car on the track again.

Townsend Bell, who has had some solid performances in recent years at Indianapolis as a one-off participant, made steady progress this week in his No. 60 Chevrolet-powered machine, which also carries sponsorship for the movie “Turbo.”

Bell, who finished fourth in 2009, had a lap of 227.160 mph on Friday, eight-best of the day.

Sunoco was the primary sponsor of Roger Penske’s cars when the most successful Indianapolis 500 owner in history started entering cars in 1969. The last year of Penske’s association with Sunoco as a major sponsor at Indianapolis was in 1973 when he entered cars for defending winner Mark Donohue, Gary Bettenhausen and stock car star Bobby Allison.

Bell’s car is mainly yellow with blue trim. The Penske Sunoco machines were predominantly blue with orange or yellow trim.

Penske, Ganassi still quiet: The 2013 IndyCar season has been disappointing so far for perennial powerhouses Penske and Chip Ganassi Racing. That trend has continued this week as Helio Castroneves, Will Power, Dario Franchitti and Scott Dixon have been out of the headlines for the most part.

It seems inconceivable that these two teams, which have combined to win five of the last seven Indianapolis 500s, will remain out of the picture during qualifying for the pole today. Power has the fourth-best lap of the month at 228.401 mph.

Hey, Buddy: Buddy Lazier started on his refresher test on Friday morning before the track opened. The 1996 champion last competed in 2008, finishing 17th. He failed to qualify in 2009, so this is Lazier’s debut in the new equipment package, which debuted last year.

“The car feels incredibly good,” Lazier said. “I like this package.”

Daly game: The rain prevented rookie Conor Daly, who crashed heavily on Thursday, from shaking down his repaired A.J. Foyt Racing car.

“A.J. just had us fix the car straight up,” said Larry Curry, the team’s race strategist. “We did not go out and take apart the backup car that is out in the truck to put parts on this one.”

Daly was the only one of the 33 drivers assigned to cars not on track Friday.
 
Photo credit: Chris Jones/Indianapolis Motor Speedway

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