Morning Update No. 2 From Mid-Ohio
Josef Newgarden lead early Saturday's IndyCar morning practice, followed by Marco Andretti, EJ Viso, James Hinchcliffe.
The track was still green from rains that started last night and continued into the morning hours (about 12 hours), and had wet spots for this practice session. The session was interrupted three times — Sato went off in the turn 2 "Keyhole" turn at the start of session. Later both Kimball and Hinchcliffe had shunts, with Hinchcliffe's trip into the turn 10 tires ending the session.
The weather forecast for tomorrow's race does NOT call for rain. On the other hand, it wasn't supposed to rain last night….
Practice Results
| Rank | Car Driver Name | Engine | Time | Speed | Diff | Gap |
| 1 | 67 Newgarden, Josef | HONDA | 01:06.6536 | 121.956 | –.—- | –.—- |
| 2 | 25 Andretti, Marco | CHEVY | 01:06.7244 | 121.826 | 0.0708 | 0.0708 |
| 3 | 5 Viso, EJ | CHEVY | 01:06.7339 | 121.809 | 0.0803 | 0.0095 |
| 4 | 27 Hinchcliffe, James | CHEVY | 01:06.7810 | 121.723 | 0.1274 | 0.0471 |
| 5 | 19 Wilson, Justin | HONDA | 01:06.9410 | 121.432 | 0.2874 | 0.1600 |
| 6 | 1 Hunter-Reay, Ryan | CHEVY | 01:06.9524 | 121.412 | 0.2988 | 0.0114 |
| 7 | 9 Dixon, Scott | HONDA | 01:06.9599 | 121.398 | 0.3063 | 0.0075 |
| 8 | 3 Castroneves, Helio | CHEVY | 01:07.0782 | 121.184 | 0.4246 | 0.1183 |
| 9 | 11 Kanaan, Tony | CHEVY | 01:07.0794 | 121.182 | 0.4258 | 0.0012 |
| 10 | 78 De Silvestro, Simona | CHEVY | 01:07.0841 | 121.173 | 0.4305 | 0.0047 |
| 11 | 4 Servia, Oriol | CHEVY | 01:07.1549 | 121.046 | 0.5013 | 0.0708 |
| 12 | 12 Power, Will | CHEVY | 01:07.2463 | 120.881 | 0.5927 | 0.0914 |
| 13 | 55 Vautier, Tristan (R) | HONDA | 01:07.2890 | 120.804 | 0.6354 | 0.0427 |
| 14 | 77 Pagenaud, Simon | HONDA | 01:07.4313 | 120.549 | 0.7777 | 0.1423 |
| 15 | 6 Saavedra, Sebastian | CHEVY | 01:07.5849 | 120.275 | 0.9313 | 0.1536 |
| 16 | 15 Rahal, Graham | HONDA | 01:07.6899 | 120.089 | 1.0363 | 0.1050 |
| 17 | 18 Davison, James (R) | HONDA | 01:07.7466 | 119.988 | 1.0930 | 0.0567 |
| 18 | 7 Bourdais, Sebastien | CHEVY | 01:07.7529 | 119.977 | 1.0993 | 0.0063 |
| 19 | 16 Jakes, James | HONDA | 01:07.7681 | 119.950 | 1.1145 | 0.0152 |
| 20 | 10 Franchitti, Dario | HONDA | 01:08.1657 | 119.251 | 1.5121 | 0.3976 |
| 21 | 98 Filippi, Luca (R) | HONDA | 01:08.5362 | 118.606 | 1.8826 | 0.3705 |
| 22 | 20 Carpenter, Ed | CHEVY | 01:08.5779 | 118.534 | 1.9243 | 0.0417 |
| 23 | 83 Kimball, Charlie | HONDA | 01:10.3230 | 115.592 | 3.6694 | 1.7451 |
| 24 | 14 Sato, Takuma | HONDA | 01:15.4948 | 107.674 | 8.8412 | 5.1718 |
– Say goodbye to Speed Channel. I don't mean, "Watch it fade away." I mean, say Goodbye in two weeks, completely. Racing-related staff is being fired, and long-standing shows are winding up with only 2 more shows left in most cases. Even programs like "My Classic Car" are gone in 2 weeks.
The programming decisions are being made by Fox execs in Los Angeles, and we all know how LA types feel about auto racing — they'd rather watch soccer, which is what we'll be seeing a lot of on Fox in the future. Fox angered most in the racing community when it first came into NASCAR, moving programming to channels that weren't available in many places, openly seeking to "not feature" cars whose sponsors didn't buy ads on Fox, and in general making themselves hated in media centers. And in its first race, it broke from the Dale Earnhardt Sr wreck early to cover XFL football — and was caught flat-footed by the news that followed. It took them years to recover from those early mistakes.
Worse yet for race fans, rumor has it that ESPN is looking for some soccer programming, like NBC and Fox have coming on their channels. ABC/ESPN won't be a part of NASCAR starting 2014, and there is no word on ABC's coverage of the Brickyard 400 past 2014. It is tough to imagine that they'll suddenly devote more resources to IndyCar while they cut NASCAR coverage.
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We caught up with Bryan Herta this morning before first practice, to talk about his first-weekend driver Luca Filippi. "It's a matter of managing expectations" he said, which is now a bit more difficult after fast runs yesterday. However, smiles abound in that pit.
Likewise Dale Coyne is happy with James Davison's performance so far this weekend. "He hasn't been on the track in an open wheel car in four years" Dale explained, and "It's difficult to jump in mid-season when everyone else is in mid-season form."
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Mid-Ohio people tell us that their date is locked in for next year. This isn't surprising, since the track is an easy trip for Honda officials who have a huge manufacturing presence in Ohio. It's also an easy trip for the Firestone people in Akron. And more than a few big-whig GM people are making the trip from Detroit as well.
— Tim Wohlford, reporting from Mid-Ohio!!