Houston track surface delays IndyCar practice (2nd Update)

UPDATE #2 IndyCar has installed a temporary chicane before Turn 1 to slow the cars so teams can get some practice time today. Overnight a more permanent fix to the bump will be made so the chicane can be removed. Qualifying for Saturday's race will be Saturday morning and Sunday race qualifying will be Sunday morning. Because the race promoter did not get the facility to setup the track until 96 hours ago, and because that part of the track was covered with Reliant Stadium surface equipment, no one saw the bumps sooner.

"The lateness of the build of this project, which has been unprecedented, is really one of the pitfalls when you wait until the last minute to do one of these things," said Brian Barnhart, IndyCar's president of operations. "It's one of the challenges you face, but we've got a great solution in place and it's not going to affect us in a negative fashion toward a lot of drama for the two qualifying sessions and the doubleheader."

10/04/13 Word is that practice will start around 1:00 PM Central Time.

10/04/13 IndyCar practice has been delayed here in Houston because of a surface issue in Turn 1 on the 1.683-mile, 10-turn circuit.. One bump is so large the pace car driver almost lost control of his car. But didn't they know this? When Champ Car last raced here the track surface was extremely bumpy back then.

The weekend schedule (all times Eastern):

Saturday
9:35 a.m. — Firestone Indy Lights qualifying (30 minutes)
11:45 a.m. — IZOD IndyCar Series qualifying for Race 2 (30 minutes)
1:30 p.m. — Firestone Indy Lights race (50 laps)
3:30 p.m. — IZOD IndyCar Series Race 1 (90 laps)

Sunday
9:45 a.m. — IZOD IndyCar Series warm-up (30 minutes)
1:30 p.m. — IZOD IndyCar Series Race 2 (90 laps)

More later…… Mark C. reporting from Houston.