 The Autoweek Dispatch: The Indy 500 Is Here! Hopefully the 104th 500 is another classic. BY WES RAYNAL Seems like we've been waiting forever, but the Indy 500 is upon us. Wouldn't it be wonderful if the race turns out to be a sign things might be finally returning to normal? At this point I'll take semi-normal. Here's what's happening in the car world: QUOTE OF THE WEEK "I think people want to hear that somebody told us no (and) that wouldn't be correct. We got to the place where we couldn't wait any longer. We were a week or so to beginning to have cars on track. At that point we had to make a decision. I think it was clearly the right one. Sitting here today some of the metrics are slightly improved but not where they should be. I think the realities on the ground with respect to public health made the decision. I think both the city and the state were as disappointed as we were not to be able to welcome fans, but appreciative of the call that got made at the end." —Penske Entertainment Corp. president and CEO Mark Miles explaining the decision to run an Indy 500 without any fans in the stands.
FROM THE EDITOR'S DESK Well, the Indy 500 is finally here. There won't be fans in the stands of course, no turn 4 craziness, no miles-long lines to get inside, it's August, not Memorial Day weekend—frankly I'm not sure how I feel about the strangest 500 in a long time, if ever. Part of me thinks we should all be happy Roger Penske and his team are even holding the race this year considering all the other canceled or postponed events around the world. But part of me also thinks a huge part of the 500's appeal is the pageantry, the build-up Sunday morning, the Purdue marching band and especially the quarter of a million screaming fans … The old place looks surreal in photos, and it's weird seeing all the drivers walking around with masks on. I wonder if Mr. Penske and crew should have waited and rolled the dice in, say, October. Maybe two more months would have made a difference. Maybe not. Anyway, we spent the week calling around to find out what the IndyCar community thought. "It's really weird," Indianapolis Motor Speedway president J. Douglas Boles told Autoweek. "I spent a little bit of time (on Pole Day) just outside the grounds watching qualifying with the fans, just trying to do my normal thing. It's amazing how passionate people really are about the place that they'll come hang out in the heat, sit on a gravel parking lot and watch a video board 200 yards away. They've come out here for so many years, and even though they can't get in, they just want to be here, be around the place. I think Sunday we'll have thousands of people just outside the grounds, just because they want to be close." We asked Boles if he was worried about that, since "thousands of people" gathering in one place is exactly what health officials are trying to guard against. Boles told us he hasn't heard from the state or the city. "I don't think they've even thought about it as something that might happen. Honestly, I don't know how you'd stop them. We're not going to open our parking lots to cars but people park in the neighborhoods and just walk over. It's a public sidewalk. It's a busy road. I don't know how you'd stop it. I understand how important the Indy 500 is to people, and I think we just have to embrace it and remind people to be safe." Penske Corp. president and Team Penske executive VP Bud Denker told Autoweek he left Pole Day with a bit of an empty feeling. "This past weekend being there without fans, you felt a real shallow place of emptiness by not having the fans there. Just the energy level, the excitement of having the fans around, was certainly difficult." The drivers are feeling the differences too, of course. "We usually have the road course race before and having a race before the big one helps a lot," three-time 500 winner Helio Castroneves told us, referring to the Indy GP, the road-course race at the Speedway usually held before the 500. "This year we only get a few days to prepare and not just me but the crew as well. They're all incredible guys, though, and we're all in the same boat so we feel ready and it will be fun." As for no fans, Castroneves told us "it will feel like an open test. Not many people around. But we're going to be so busy for those few days that, we might not even notice that much, everyone is going to be extremely focused. Remember, it's not just fewer test days, but also unknown weather. We'll have to take every advantage of time on the racetrack. "Yes, it's frustrating. You want to have the fans. It's all about tradition and the combination of The Great Spectacle (in) Racing, as well as the history. This will be a new history, I guess. But the good news is we are going to have a race. I believe everyone has to agree; at least we are going to have a race. "I think many people will be happy to scratch 2020 off their calendar and just start over in 2021. Hopefully not me because I win this year!" Fernando Alonso, perhaps running his last Indy 500 (he's returning to the Renault Formula 1 team next year) also talked about the shortened schedule. "It's affected everyone," he told us. "There's less time to prepare than I thought I'd have. I originally thought I could have a race to prepare and more time to drive. The last time I drove a race car was in the Dakar Rally. This is a completely different animal. We thought we'd have a prep race and a couple days in the simulator and arrive to the 500 as best prepared as we could." The good news is there are a few things that won't change. One of them is, I think it would again this year be unwise to judge an engine's performance based on qualifying. Honda has dominated practice sessions and qualifying, but Alonso told us it looks different from inside and that there's "not a big difference in race pace." Scott Dixon told us the same thing. Another thing that will stay the same is that with eight former winners, the most in more than a couple decades, it should be an ultra-competitive race. "It's a place where the track picks you," Castroneves told us. "You can do everything right, your team can do everything right. Car, equipment, experience, everything is good, but sometimes you can be the fastest guy out there and it's just not your day." That's how it usually goes at the legendary speedway. Yes, there's going to be an Indy 500 Sunday, and a few things will be familiar. Without fans and all the pageantry I'm just not sure it's going to be The Greatest Spectacle in Racing. CAR NEWS AND NOTES In our eighth In the Car With, Autoweek Managing Editor Robin Warner sits down with a very special guest: Maurizio Reggiani, Lamborghini's chief technical officer. Audi might own Lamborghini, but the Sant'Agata Bolognese company retains all of its Italian charm and, these days, is building one limited-edition supercar after another. Check out the video and get this remarkable engineer's background and learn a thing or two about what makes Lambos special. We also cranked out Quick Spin No. 5 this week, featuring Mark Vaughn and the refreshed Lamborghini Huracan, now adding the "Evo" tag to its name. That basically means Lamborghini has taken the Huracan to the next level. Indeed, the Italian automaker has recently added a lighter, enthusiast-focused rear-wheel-drive model to the Huracan line. Tune in to see how big a grin the new Lambo put on Vaughn's mug. More supercar news: AMG has taken its mighty Project One off the static test stand and is moving to on-track testing. According to Mercedes it's the first time the company's testers can go full bore with the Project One's 1.6-liter turbo V6 and four electric motors. "The adaptation of a complete Formula 1 drive unit for a road-legal hypercar is a tremendous undertaking," says Mercedes. Ya think ?!? Project One next takes its talents to the Nürburgring to see if it can knock the Lamborghini Aventador SVJ off the leaderboard. Can't wait to see that video! Check out our intro story on the Project One here, and more on the powertrain here. RACING LINES Sunday's lead-up to the Indy 500 dominates the racing headlines this week, but NASCAR had an interesting—and successful—debut in Daytona: The stockers ran on the speedway's road course, using basically the Rolex 24 course with a chicane out of the oval's turn 4. The Daytona Grand Prix Weekend replaced the canceled Watkins Glen round, and the four touring classes ran on the road course impressively incident free. NASCAR senior vice president of competition Scott Miller called it a "heck of a show" (Hendrick Racing's Chase Elliott won the Cup race) and says the sanctioning body could run on the road course more in the future.
WHAT WE'RE DRIVING Mark Vaughn's Quick Spin subject, the Huracan EVO RWD, has the least horsepower, the slowest 0-60 time and the lowest sticker price of any Lamborghini. But as the name implies the car has something no other Lambo has had in a while: rear-wheel drive. That makes it, perhaps ironically, the most fun to drive. Besides, the car's 602 hp ain't exactly chopped liver ...
MOSTLY ODDS, SOME ENDS Ford invited us out to Holly, Michigan, last week to celebrate the Bronco's 55th birthday and to enjoy a ride in both the new Bronco Sport and Bronco 2-door at a soon-to-be-opened off-road park (socially distanced and masked-up, of course). It was our first experience inside the new Wrangler-fighter and from what we saw and felt, the new Broncos promise to be the perfect tool for tackling dust, sand, rocks and water. We got a quick lap in the original Bronco race car that Rod Hall won the Baja 1000 with, and Hall's granddaughter Shelby gave us a hot lap of the hilly and sandy course. So cool!
LISTEN UP On this episode of the Autoweek Podcast, No. 123, I talk with Wesley Wren and Robin Warner about Porsche toppling the fastest lap around the Nürburgring in an executive car with an upcoming Panamera model. We also talk about Ram's latest entry into the growing off-road battle: the Ford Raptor-fighting Ram 1500 TRX. Later in the show Warner talks with racing legend Helio Castroneves ahead of the Indianapolis 500, discussing the fan-less 500, his IMSA performance and what he's looking forward to next year. Music: Well, at least I'm not vaping by Summerbruise. Tune in here, on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, Stitcher or wherever podcasts are played. WHAT'S AHEAD As always we're on the case this weekend, monitoring and reporting on the automakers' and sanctioning bodies' latest happenings. We'll continually update the site of course -- you'll know what's happening when we do. Check back often! Thanks for reading Autoweek and please stay safe.
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