Qualifying At Indy

[Tenoch]

I'm going to the Indy 500 this year and what to be as knowledgeable about the race as I possibly can. Ihave a few questions that I was hoping you guys and girls can awnser. First of all, there's several days of qualifying how do those work? Secong do IRL teams have some sort of qualifying bonuses? Finally is it all purely qualifying, like you either make it or not and the cutoff is 33? Just some questions I had

Thanks

Tenoch

[Tim Northcutt]

Although there have been exceptions to this over the history of the Indy 500 (the "25/8 Rule", etc.) this is the best explanation of qualifying at Indy that I can give you:

1. The "qualifying" itself is for the car, and not the driver....

2. Each car is allowed three "green flag" attempts to qualify...you must take the "green" for it to be an "official" attempt....

3. a completed attempt is 4 green flag laps, or 10 miles.

Now to explain the process:

The night before qualifying begins, all of the teams draw from a bucket or "hat" a number for each of their cars entered (including backup cars) to determine a qualifying order.

On the first day, the number that you drew for a car is the order that you line it up in to make an attempt....everyone and every car (including backups) can be presented in that line....

The cars will qualify in that original "drawing order" until every car would have had an opportunity to take their spot in line to make a run....

Once that line has gone through one time, the order would be determined by the car that presents itself first into the qualifying line for the rest of the qualifying days remaining....

every car gets a couple of warm-up laps before making their attempt to qualify.

Any car that completes the 4 green flag laps and "accepts" that attempt and those speeds by taking the checkered flag has provisionally qualified....a team can "wave off" an attempt by waving the "yellow flag" at any point during the four lap attempt....

The qualifying positions are determined by the average speed of all four laps....no other race in the world (to my knowledge) does this....a car may run the fastest single qualifying lap, but if his four lap average is not the highest average speed, that car will not be on the pole.

At 6 p.m. on the first day of qualifying, the fastest car qualified is on the pole, and everyone else fills their spot on the grid...

On the second day, anyone who qualifies will line up "Behind" the slowest car to qualify on the first day....even if they are faster...and even if they are faster than the "Pole" car.....

Usually, at the end of the 2nd day, there are still spots open in the grid of 33...

Why?

Because teams that are struggling will then have a full week to get faster and to improve....

Thus, this process continues on the third and final day of qualifying until 33 cars have qualified for the race....

That is a "Full Field," and the "Bumping" process can begin....

Of the 33 cars now qualified, the car with the slowest four-lap average of the 33 (regardless of which day the car was qualified) is on the "Bubble"...that is the four-lap average speed that must be topped by anyone else who has qualifying attempts left on their car must beat to "Burst that driver's Bubble" and "Bump" him from the field of 33...

"Bumping" usually happens on the last day.....but can happen at any time during the three days of qualifying if the field has been filled with 33 qualifiers.....

If a car is "bumped," it cannot be re-qualified....but a driver can jump into as many cars as he wishes to get into the race.....provided he is not driving a car that is already qualified....

If the 34th car "Bumps" his way into the field, the slowest car is removed from the grid no matter where it is on the grid...

(even if it was the "Pole"...and it could happen, but the scenario is a strange one....that might have happened one year....but I digress)

The 34th car that "Bumped" his way in would take a spot on the grid based on his 4-lap average for the qualifiers on the same day that he bumped his way into the field.....

If the car that was "Bumped" was...as an example....a first day qualifier, everyone who qualified on the second day would move up one spot on the grid, followed by the cars that qualified on the third day....

Example:

24 cars qualify on Day 1

3 qualify on Day 2

27 of the 33 spots are filled going into the final day....

6 more qualify on the final day to fill the field of 33...

the slowest car on the first day (in spot 24) is the slowest of the 33.


the 34th car bumps his way in, and compared to the 6 other cars who also qualified with him that day, he is the fastest...

In this case, the 34th car that qualified and bumped his way in would take the 27th spot on the grid (as the fastest third-day qualifier)...and all of the second day qualifiers would move up one spot on the grid to fill the space vacated in the field by the "bumped" car....the six others who qualified on teh same day as the 34th car would fill the remaining six spots on the "New" 33 car field...

Then the car with the slowest remaining 4-lap average in the "new" 33 car field is on the "Bubble" until someone beats his 4 -lap average....

This goes on until 6 p.m. on the final day of qualifying....

If a car leaves the "line" and is rolling under its own power to get on its way to begin an attempt at any time before a gun is fired (literally -- a guy sticks his arm out the window of the tower and fires a starter's pistol) at 6 p.m. to end qualifying for that day, the car that is rolling is allowed to make an attempt.....

I've been there when a guy was on the track when the "gun" was fired and he bumped his way into the field.....

This is a VERY LONG Explanation of the process...but it almost HAS to be that thorough to understand it....

and believe me...it can be complicated....

[MLM]

It can be complicated, but Tim did a very good job explaining it(kudos, hon! )
It's like Daytona....it's complicated and confusing at first, but once you get used to it, it's not.
Don't feel bad, Tenoch. I'm a long time Indy goer and I have to do a quick review each May (and Feb. for the Daytona 500 )

[Tenoch]

Wow, so its all of that. Thanks alot TIm!!

[rustyfan]

Originally posted by MLM
It can be complicated, but Tim did a very good job explaining it(kudos, hon! )
It's like Daytona....it's complicated and confusing at first, but once you get used to it, it's not.
Don't feel bad, Tenoch. I'm a long time Indy goer and I have to do a quick review each May (and Feb. for the Daytona 500 )

Understanding the qualifying procedure for the Daytona 500 is easy compared to trying to understand the qualifying procedure for the Indianapolis 500 lol - I have been following the Indy 500 for some time now, and still I learned something new after reading Tim's description (thanks for that!)

[BootsOntheSide]

Excellent description Tim. You must've spent a lot of time getting that precisely right. Hopefully anyone who is new to the 500 will get a lot from this. Tehre is every case for making it a hot topic once May starts, with a title indicating just how complete it is.

[Testure]

Why is it so complicated?

[Tim Northcutt]

The reasons are many, and when they are explained by individual points each makes sense....

Overall, it is an incredibly interesting process to watch....

Especially on "Bump Day" in the final few hours....

The great thing about the Qualifying Days is that for one price (I think it's $20 now), you can sit anywhere in the facility to watch the events of the day...

There's only one place to be on "Bump Day" -- the Tower Terrace seats right in front of the pits.....especially in the final hours....

You see drivers trying to get up to speed, guys cutting deals after they've been bumped to get into another ride to try to get back in, and everyone watches the person on the "Bubble"....the emotions they are going through are obvious to everyone in the place as they watch...

Just ask Billy Boat....he's been there and survived it a couple of year in a row....

At some point, I'll get into some exceptions....most of them have to do with how weather affects the qualifying process....

But to start that off....

Let's say that on Pole Day, everyone lines up in the "original line" that they drew numbers for at 11 a.m. on Saturday....

8 cars qualify between 11 a.m. and noon, before the sky opens up and it pours rain...washing out the rest of the day for qualifying....

At one time, what I'm about to tell you was not the case, but it is now....

Those 8 cars will retain their times, but the fastest one won't necessarily be on the "Pole"....

The entire "original line"...if they were in their spot in line when qualifications were suspended due to weather, will get the opportunity to qualify for the pole.....

One year in teh 1990s, I saw some cars qualify, then rain hit, then the track gets dried (takes about 3 hours to do it), and qualifications resumed until 6 p.m....but the "original line" did not get all of the way through, and 4 cars were still in it when 6 p.m. hit....

On Sunday, those four cars were the first four in line, and they had the opportunity to run for the "pole" ......even though it was the next day....because the original line had not cycled through once yet....

*******************************************************

Years ago, this was not the case...it was based on the "Day"....

and it would have led to the situation I mentioned earlier...where a "pole sitter" would have ultimately been "Bumped" from the field...

In the 1960s (I think it was 1969), a guy by the name of "Jigger Sirois" was the first in line on Saturday....it rained almost all day long....but they got the track dried and ready for qualifications shortly before 6 p.m.

Jigger took to the track, but his team did not accept his four-lap average and waved off the attempt...the gun fired shortly after his waved-off attempt and no one qualified on the first day...

If he would have taken that run, he would have been on the Pole (under the old guidelines)....but as it turned out, his four-lap average would have been the slowest of a full 33-car field....the next guy out would have bumped Jigger from the pole....

Jigger did not make the race that year....in fact, I would have to look back at old race results for that era, but I don't believe he ever made the 33 car field....

Just a note....

I'll share more, and I'll answer questions if some things do come up this year....

Even people who live in Indy sometimes don't quite grasp how it works....but most know the basics....

[fiona]

thats the best explantion i've seen and i've been trying to udnerstand it for years, being in the UK its not often that the Indy 500 is talked about here and it tends to concentrate on the race
but this year i will have a better understanding of qualifying, thanks Tim

[Tim Northcutt]

You're most welcome....

One other Note:

If you get ESPN or ESPN2 via satellite, kepp an eye on who is "In Line," but doesn not get to qualify on the second day of qualifications.....

That "Line" will be carried over to the final day of qualifying on the following Sunday.....

If the weather is bad on that final day of quals, who is in that line and who is not might prove to be very important.....

Why?


If that final Sunday is a complete washout, the way I understnad it, only the cars that were in that line that would carry over would get the opportunity to qualify for the field on the next available day with good weather....

I'm not sure if cars can line up in the rain on that final Sunday or not, which may make that point moot, but just so that you know, that line order will carry oveer to the following weekend....