A Rain Out... Sort Of
By Andrew Cutler
June 21 2009
How embarrassing. After being able to get a full morning and afternoon's worth of IndyCar and Firestone Indy Lights practice - the Lights also qualified for their race - in, the water returned to spoil the IndyCar qualifying: And no, I am not talking about rain!
There had been plenty of rain in the Newton, Iowa area lately - and indeed all across the North Central and Great Lakes regions of the US - including a line of storms on Friday evening, but none on Saturday. Nonetheless, the soaked ground had reached it's saturation point, and as qualification time approached water began to bubble up through tiny cracks in the Iowa Speedway track pavement, forming tiny little streams, known as "weepers".
Water and slick tires do not mix well, and any sort of groved/rain tires are not going to hold up to the constant stresses encountered in oval racing, so the IndyCar qualifications session was called off. The grid for Sunday's race will be set by car entrant points, as opposed to current driver championship points.
This puts Helio Castroneves' #3 car on the pole, as opposed to the #6 of his Penske teammate, Ryan Briscoe, who will start 2nd. As the #3 was driven by Will Power in the season opener at St. Petersburg FL - while Castroneves' tax evasion trial was still underway - the affable Brazilain insisted that the Aussie (Power, not Briscoe) join him in accepting the pole award.
"Those points definitely kept me in the front of the pits and now gave me the pole position at Iowa. Unfortunately for the fans, they didn't get to see the excitement of qualifying. Fortunately, I ended up getting a great situation here with a good starting position. Now that we have a Team Penske front row, we'll go for the win."
Team Penske announced earlier in the month that Will Power will get to drive for them five more times this season in a third car, but have yet to specify which events he will participate in.
The Iowa Corn Indy 250 will be run on Sunday at 1pm ET/5pm GMT. here is the complete starting lineup:http://www.indycar.com/news/2009/iowa/IA-ICS_lineup.pdf
The Firestone Indy Lights race is scheduled to run yet on Saturday evening, provided that the "weepers" can be delt with in time.