Rain delays Indy practice

A persistent drizzle has delayed the start of practice at the Indy Speedway today and the forecast is for rain the next 3 to 4 days meaning those who are not qualified are essentially screwed as they will have little time to work on qualifying setups to make the race let alone work on race setups.

Trucks have been out drying the track for more than two hours, but officials said Indianapolis Motor Speedway is not expected to open until about 2 p.m.

Practice was scheduled to run from noon to 6 p.m.

Today’s session could also end early. There is a 50 percent chance of more rain coming this afternoon, according to the National Weather Service.

If not for the downright idiotic IRL qualifying rules that only allow 11 cars to qualify each day, 21 cars would be qualified already instead of only 11. There should be two qualifying days – pole day and bump day on consecutive weekend days or the first available days weather permitting. We would prefer to see some sort of qualifying race or races like NASCAR does than the sheer boredom of 4 lap runs spread out over two weekends where drivers can try to requalify over and over again. This causes other drivers/teams to have to worry about getting bumped and not focus on their race day setups. And of course the drivers that try umpteen times to requalify are wasting valuable time that could go towards race day setups. Pole day could be the first weekend and the qualifying races, say twin 100 milers (40 laps), should run on the 2nd weekend – they would actually draw a crowd, unlike the 4-lap runs.