Indy Bump Day – Mid-Day report

It's bump day — and the bumping has begun. A little after noon, AJ Foyt IV put his car into the field at 219.184, easily bumping Marty Roth from the show. However, Marty came back later and re-qualified at 218.965, bumping Buddy Lazier from the show and putting Roger Yasukawa on the bubble. Still to make qualifying runs are Mario Dominguez, who has reached 218.324, and Max Papis, who has only seen 214.549 in his rebuilt car.

Sometime after noon, American Dream Motorsports announced that they indeed were pulling out of the show. Yesterday their Panoz (formerly known as G-Force) driven by Phil Giebler backed into the wall at over 218 mph. Onboard telemetry showed an impact of over 110 G's, and Phil remains hospitalized with bruised lungs. The car — probably the last Panoz of its generation to ever run at Indy, suffered a broken tub (with much of the gearbox reduced to Chiclet-sized pieces) and will be lucky to survive as a show car. American Dream is basically a reincarnation of the Playa Del racing team (the Indy credentials even say "Play Del"), which became embroiled in lawsuits over bills that went unpaid. As such, any support that might've been given to another team was not forthcoming, and many are not sad to see them go. UPDATE — Phil Giebler was released from the hospital, but was not cleared to drive due to a cervical sprain.

Bad luck continued to plague AJ IV, as he suffered a freak accident around 2:45. He had a fuel cover come off, starting a fire at the start of the backstretch. With flames shooting out the back of the car he ended up in the SAFER barrier in turn 4. Tim Wohlford reporting from Indy