These “One-Offs”—cars entered just for the Indy 500—occupy four of the first eight places, and eight of the top twenty.
Alex Tagliani, who starts on the pole, has never won an IndyCar race. Until Indy, he had never won a pole.
Meanwhile, drivers from the two dominant teams, Penske and Ganassi, are surprisingly rare in the top ten. Penske driver Will Power lies fifth, three spots behind Target-Ganassi’s Scott Dixon, whose teammate, two-time winner Dario Franchitti, starts ninth.
The other two Penske drivers, three-time winner Helio Castroneves and Ryan Briscoe, are starting 16th and 26th.
Meanwhile four of the series’ regular drivers— Sebastian Saavedra, James Jakes, Mike Conway (fifth in points,) and Raphael Matos, failed to qualify, out-performed by drivers who only race once a year.
Series regular Ryan Hunter-Reay is only on the grid—in last place—because team owner Michael Andretti cut a deal with A.J. Foyt to let Hunter-Reay drive Foyt’s #41 car—which was qualified by another one-off driver, Bruno Junquiera.
Past Champs and Winners
Some of the one-off drivers are former winners and champions. Paul Tracy has 31 IndyCar wins in his 20-year career, and won the 2003 championship (and, many (including Tracy) will argue, the 2002 Indy 500.) Tracy will be starting 24th.
Dan Wheldon, who will be starting sixth, won the 2005 Indy 50 and finished second in 2009 and 2010. Despite winning 15 races between 2002 and 2010, he could not find a full-time ride for 2011. He out-qualified all but four of the drivers who were hired instead of him.
Starting right behind Wheldon is Buddy Rice, who raced in the IndyCar series between 2002 and 2007, winning the Indy 500 in 2004.
Other veterans on the one-off list include Townsend Bell, Ed Carpenter, Tomas Scheckter, Davey Hamilton, and John Andretti.
Townsend Bell started in IndyCar in 2004, but has only landed rare rides since. Bell showed up for his one race per year—the Indy 500—and qualified fourth, ahead of almost all the series “fastest” drivers.
Ed Carpenter has eight season’s experience in IndyCar, but no team wanted him in 2011. He qualified eighth, ahead of two-time winner Dario Franchitti.
Tomas Scheckter started in IndyCars in 2002 but could only find funding for a few races in 2010, and is on the sidelines for 2011—except at Indy, where he starts 21st.
Davey Hamilton drove IndyCars from 1996 until 2001 when a horrific crash almost ended his life. He has been driving in the 500 annually since 2007—somehow keeping his skills sharp enough to out-qualify 18 other drivers.
John Andretti, cousin to Michael Andretti, raced IndyCars from 1987 through 1994, then moved to NASCAR, coming back for a race or two each year for the past five years. He qualified 17th, best of all the Andretti Autosport cars.
Next: Reign of the Rookies
Reign of the Rookies
Quite a few newer drivers out-qualified the regulars as well.
Bertrand Baguette, a rookie in 2010, couldn’t find a ride for 2011. He qualified 14th, two spots ahead of three-time Indy 500 winner Helio Castroneves.
Jay Howard, driving in his first 500 this Sunday, qualified 20th. He entered five races in 2008, but hasn’t been able to find a ride since.
Alex Lloyd, in 30th, raced for three seasons in IndyCar, but was not hired for 2011.
Finally, in 31st, Pippa Mann will be starting her first IndyCar race and her first Indy 500.
How did this happen? How did the fastest cars in the series, and the fastest drivers, end up missing the mark, while so many one-offs did so well?
How could a team like Penske Racing, with fifty years of experience, not get two-thirds of its team into the top 15?
The story with Ganassi racing is much clearer. Dario Franchitti ran out of gas on his final lap, and Scott Dixon started to—he might well have the pole if some mechanic had added a pint more of fuel.
The question here is, how could this possibly happen to a team like Ganassi Racing, with its decades of experience in several series?
Buying a Ride
Andretti Autosport, which usually fields four cars in IndyCar events, struggled to get two into the 500—plus one for one-off driver John. Ryan Hunter-Reay, who tops the team in points, couldn’t make it, while Marco Andretti barely qualified with a last-minute run.
This is a team which has sent cars to Victory Circle at Indianapolis. Yet they showed up the track barely able to make the race—team owner Michael Andretti had to buy a ride for Hunter-Reay.
Luckily A.J. Foyt was willing to deal. He had hired Hunter-Reay halfway through the 2009 season when Vision Racing folded, leaving the young American driver without a ride. He stepped in again to help, despite the Andrettis and Foyts having a multi-generation rivalry.
“We’ve been competitors for many years, but still it’s the kind of relationship, when someone is really down and out, you can’t turn your back on them—at least I can’t,” said Foyt on his website.
This move has raised the ire of hordes of fans who feel that drivers should earn the right to race in the Indy 500—Go Fast or Go Home, as the adage runs.
Nonetheless, for decades the rules at the Indianapolis 500 have been that the car qualifies, not the driver. Once a car is in the race, anyone can drive it.
In 2009, Alex Tagliani, this year’s pole-sitter, took Bruno Junquiera’s ride at Conquest racing after he failed to qualify his own car.
Rumor has it that Foyt will provide Junqueira with a ride for the rest of the season as compensation for stepping aside. This has yet to be confirmed.
Next: The Starting Grid
| 2011 Indianapolis 500 Starting Grid | ||||
|
| # | Driver | Sponsors | Entrant |
| 1 | 77 | Alex Tagliani | Bowers & Wilkins/Sam Schmidt Motorsports | Sam Schmidt Motorsports |
| 2 | 9 | Scott Dixon (W) | Target Chip Ganassi Racing | Target Chip Ganassi Racing |
| 3 | 2 | Oriol Servia | Telemundo Newman/Haas Racing | Newman/Haas Racing |
| 4 | 99 | Townsend Bell ♦ | Herbalife Schmidt Pelfrey Racing | Sam Schmidt Motorsports |
| 5 | 12 | Will Power | Verizon Team Penske | Team Penske |
| 6 | 98 | Dan Wheldon (W) ♦ | William Rast-CURB/Big Machine | Bryan Herta Autosport with Curb/Agajanian |
| 7 | 44 | Buddy Rice (W) ♦ | Fuzzy’s Vodka/Panther Racing | Panther Racing |
| 8 | 67 | Ed Carpenter ♦ | Dollar General/Sarah Fisher Racing | Sarah Fisher Racing |
| 9 | 10 | Dario Franchitti (W) | Target Chip Ganassi Racing | Target Chip Ganassi Racing |
| 10 | 5 | Takuma Sato | Monavie-Panasonic-KVRT-Lotus | KV Racing Technology-Lotus |
| 11 | 14 | Vitor Meira | ABC Supply/A.J. Foyt Racing | A.J. Foyt Enterprises |
| 12 | 4 | JR Hildebrand (R) | National Guard Panther Racing | Panther Racing |
| 13 | 06 | James Hinchcliffe (R) | Sprott Newman/Haas Racing | Newman/Haas Racing |
| 14 | 30 | Bertrand Baguette ♦ | The RACB/Aspria RLL Special | Rahal Letterman Lanigan LLC |
| 15 | 11 | Davey Hamilton ♦ | HP/Dreyer & Reinbold Racing | Dreyer & Reinbold Racing |
| 16 | 3 | Helio Castroneves (W) | Shell V-Power/Pennzoil Ultra Team Penske | Team Penske |
| 17 | 43 | John Andretti ♦ | Team Window World | Andretti Autosport |
| 18 | 59 | E.J. Viso | PDVSA-KV Racing Technology-Lotus | KV Racing Technology-Lotus |
| 19 | 22 | Justin Wilson | Z-Line Designs/Dreyer & Reinbold | Dreyer & Reinbold Racing |
| 20 | 88 | Jay Howard (R) ♦ | Service Central Schmidt-RLL Racing | Sam Schmidt - RLL Racing |
| 21 | 07 | Tomas Scheckter ♦ | Team REDLINE Xtreme - Circle K | KV Racing Technology-SH Racing |
| 22 | 82 | Tony Kanaan | GEICO-KV Racing Technology-Lotus | KV Racing Technology - Lotus |
| 23 | 78T | Simona De Silvestro | Nuclear Clean Air Energy/HVM Racing | HVM Racing |
| 24 | 23 | Paul Tracy ♦ | WIX Filters/Dreyer & Reinbold Racing | Dreyer & Reinbold Racing |
| 25 | 7 | Danica Patrick | Team GoDaddy | Andretti Autosport |
| 26 | 6T | Ryan Briscoe | IZOD Team Penske | Team Penske |
| 27 | 26 | Marco Andretti | Team Venom | Andretti Autosport |
| 28 | 83 | Charlie Kimball (R) | Levemir and NovoLog FlexPen | Novo Nordisk Chip Ganassi Racing |
| 29 | 38 | Graham Rahal | Service Central | Service Central Chip Ganassi Racing |
| 30 | 19 | Alex Lloyd&♦ | Boy Scouts of America | Dale Coyne Racing |
| 31 | 36 | Pippa Mann (R) ♦ | Conquest Racing | Conquest Racing |
| 32 | 24 | Ana Beatriz | Team Ipiranga/Dreyer & Reinbold Racing | Dreyer & Reinbold Racing |
| 33 | 41 | Ryan Hunter-Reay* | ABC Supply/DHL/Sun Drop | A.J. Foyt Enterprises |
♦=One-off
(W)=Past winner
(R)=Rookie
*=Traded ride
