A fair chunk of Sunday afternoon was spent assembling a kitchen island
for my wife. Of course, I would’ve rather have been at the track on a beautiful
and busy opening day.
But with Mother’s Day and a trip to the Angie’s List Grand Prix of
Indianapolis coming up, a bit of domestic engineering was in order.
Fortunately, I was able to watch and listen to the feed from the track,
which is much appreciated by us Indianapolis ex-patriates. While wrenching on
this kitchen island, pretending it were an Offy, I noted the progress of Marco
Andretti up the speed charts.
The third-generation driver wound up third-fastest, behind Team
Penske’s Juan Pablo Montoya and Helio Castroneves. Each had a lap above 226
mph; Ed Carpenter took the pole last year with an average above 231 mph. The
entire list of Sunday’s practice speeds is here.
Of course, we’re talking about practice and specifically aero kit
testing, so drawing any conclusions is a risky proposition.
Still, it reinforces the notion that Andretti, often lackluster at
other venues, gets around the Indianapolis Motor Speedway pretty well.
Here’s the data of his entire IndyCar career, according to
racing-reference.info:
- Average start: 11.1
- Average finish: 11.7
- Wins: Two in 155 races over nine-plus years
- Poles: Four
- Laps led: 930
- Average start: 9.8
- Average finish: 11.3
- Wins: Zero (thanks to Sam Hornish Jr.)
- Poles: Zero
- Laps led: 141
Not much difference on the surface, right?
A closer look, though, shows seven top-10 starts in nine races and six
top-10 finishes, including five in the top four.
I’m not sure how much of a lift an Andretti win in the Indianapolis 500
would give to the event, the sport and the series, but it would be fun to find
out.
Photo credit: Walter Kuhn/Indianapolis Motor Speedway
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