IndyCar: Afternoon update from Barber

Takuma Sato

Thunderstorms moved through Barber Motorsports park in early afternoon. The downtime between sessions provided an opportunity to admire various sculptures around the track – you might say that, here at Barber, animals strike curious poses.

IndyCar practice started at 4 pm. We still have not used the new rain tire on any track since it was redesigned last year. Afternoon practice started on a damp track but dry tires were in order. Everyone is so close together and tires make a big difference here. It depends how many sets of new tires you will have for qualifying and the race, so saving tires was the order of the day today.

Both of the AJ Foyt racing cars are on the top of the timing chart. Sato and Hawksworth are both seasoned road course drivers and it really showed today. Hawksworth loves this course because it really shows what the IndyCar can do.

The interesting thing will be qualifying tomorrow. Will the Hondas make the first few positions on the timing charts? Or will the Chevys continue their run for the pole position?

Still talk about one aero kit for everyone. They do not want to go back to the original Dallara kit because there have been some good advancements they do not want to lose. We reported this in Long Beach and it sounds like everyone will be buying a new kit (who will design it?), but it will be the last one.

An estimated $30 million has been spent on aero kits to-date collectively between all teams. Imagine if that $30 million was spent to put 100% of the races on network TV? It would have been a big boost to the sport.

Was former Ford Motorsports boss Dan Davis brought on as a race official with the hope of helping IndyCar convince Ford to come back into IndyCar racing? Hmm……

Today is considered a promoter test day so each car is limited to using three sets of Firestone primary (black-sidewall) tires for the two practice sessions. Teams must return at least two sets at the end of the day but may keep one used set for the Saturday morning practice session. If teams keep that one set for Saturday, it must be returned following the Saturday morning session.

Each car receives seven sets of primary tires for the weekend, but can earn an eighth set by running at least five laps on one set in the first 20 minutes of green flag time during the first practice session today. Each car also receives three sets of alternate (red-sidewall) tires but cannot use them until Saturday or Sunday.

If a car is involved in more than one red-flag incident in a practice session, it will be assessed a 10-minute penalty of green-flag time in that session.

Conor Daly and Alexander Rossi may be Verizon IndyCar Series rookies, but the pair got a whole new experience in a visit to the U.S. Rocket and Science Center in Huntsville, Ala.,

The two Sunoco Rookie of the Year contenders experienced a day as astronauts that included landing an Orion capsule on the Martian moon of Phobos, suiting up in spacesuits to work in zero gravity, and repairing the space station. They even took a turn on a multi-access trainer that spun and flipped them around and got an up-close look at the Saturn V rocket that help power NASA astronauts to the Moon.

"If it was possible to have any more respect for (astronauts) than I already do, I definitely gained that today," Rossi said. "It’s a pretty crazy thing with very small margins of error. It was a spectacular experience and I’m glad we got to be here today."

Daly joked he prepared for his visit to Space Camp at by watching "The Martian," the 2015 film starring Matt Damon as an astronaut left behind on Mars.

"I loved being here," Daly said. “I really wanted to go to space before I came here, and now I really want to go even more. It’s so cool. I love everything about NASA and the idea of space travel. It was a really fun experience." Lucille Dust reporting from Barber Motorsports Park