Sunday Qualification – Rules changes

Mark Miles and Derrick Walker make excuses for the silly aero kits

Mark Miles and Derrick Walker announced at a recently concluded press conference that qualifications will be done in race setup and normal boost levels. What you run today, you have for the race. There also will be no Fast Nine shootout.

Already the cynics in the media center, and no doubt elsewhere, are calling this "amateur hour". However, Miles and Walker both reiterated that they had 3 cars get airborne, and that they didn't entirely understand why, and so "out of an abundance of caution" they made the rule changes. Since they didn't understand the issue entirely, they couldn't say for sure that the Honda vehicles wouldn't have the same problem, so the changes were applied to Honda as well.

Walker commented that the three crashes started for different reasons: one was due to tire pressure issues, one was due to an aero issue from the crew's settings, and the other was a good ole fashioned "I lost it" wreck. But all three ended up with a car leaving the track, and certainly they are anxious to make sure that everyone — certainly the fans in the stands — don't have to worry about an issue they can (hopefully) prevent.

Walker also was clear that, while no changes were foreseen for this week prior to the 500, he fully expected to have the issue resolved before the next big oval race.

— Tim Wohlford, reporting from IMS