In Driver’s Eye with James Hinchcliffe, the six-time INDYCAR winner will bring you inside the mind of a racer while breaking down the nuts and bolts of the sport for fans.
The Indianapolis 500 is the biggest race in the world. More than 300,000 people show up on race day. Millions more watch on TV. The pre-race ceremonies last an hour and build up the anticipation for the start of The Greatest Spectacle in Racing.Â
It’s unlike any other sporting event on the planet.Â
But before you get the privilege of experiencing that moment on the starting grid of the Indy 500, you first must qualify for the race. The stakes, and the speeds, will never be higher.
The Indy 500 is unique in many ways, but one of the most famous is the tradition of starting 11 rows of three cars. Thirty-three drivers in 33 cars take the green flag after the field is set in qualifying.Â
And that qualifying session is, by far, the most intense, most terrifying but most rewarding thing an INDYCAR driver will do all season.Â
Qualifying for the Indy 500 is done by posting your best average speed of a four-lap run around Indianapolis Motor Speedway’s iconic 2.5-mile oval. Speed is measured down to one-thousandth of a mile an hour, and sometimes that makes the difference.Â
Were talking about four laps, 10 miles, faster than 230 miles per hour, and every thousandth counts.Â
The level of preparation for teams’ speedway cars for those four laps â and the Indy 500 itself â cannot be overstated. Countless hours are dedicated to special body work on the cars to reduce and eliminate every seam and every gap. Teams build special uprights to allow the wheels to turn freely and gearboxes with less internal friction to transfer more of the power from the engine to the rear wheels.Â
These parts arent built to last. They are built to go as fast as possible for exactly four laps around IMS.
When it comes time to make your qualifying run, its just you, the car and the track. You have the speedway all to yourself and the pressure is immense.Â
There is no point in the year when the speeds will be higher than this moment. With faster speeds comes higher risk, and the driver needs to be willing to risk it all to come out on top.
In my career, I ran the gambit of emotions during qualifying. Ive started near the front, in the middle, on the last row. One year I didnt qualify for the Indy 500, which was one of the hardest days of my career. On the other hand, I was lucky enough to start the famed race from the pole position back in 2016.
Starting on pole for the Indy 500 is a big deal for these teams and drivers. Because of all the work that goes into building the cars, if you build the fastest one, every member of the team feels tremendous pride that their hard work paid off.Â
For the drivers, its the fastest you go all year. Under colossal pressure, a slight misstep could end in the biggest wreck of your career. So to come out on top â to be the one who walked the line between victory and tragedy the finest â its something to be proud of.Â
For sure, in a 500-mile race, starting up front is neither a guarantee of, nor a prerequisite for, success on race day.Â
But it definitely helps your chances by keeping you up front and out of some of the potential trouble that could be brewing mid-field or further back.
[VICTORS AND HOPEFULS: <a href="https://www.foxsports.com/stories/motor/what-makes-indy-500-so-hard-win" target="_
