Again, Rain and Hornish Make Indy Headlines
Written by: Jeff Olson Indianapolis, Ind. - 5/17/2006

Poor weather shaved some 90 minutes off practice, but Hornish still
found the time to top the charts one more time. (LAT Photo)

Aside from the speed, little about Wednesday's practice at Indianapolis
Motor Speedway changed from the previous week. Sam Hornish Jr. is still
fastest, his teammate isn't far behind, and rain is still toying with
preparations for the 90th Indianapolis 500.

All but three of the 34 drivers who will attempt to qualify this
weekend practiced Wednesday, the first chance teams had to circle the
track since both days of qualifying were rained out last weekend. Top
teams concentrated primarily on race setups, causing a noticeable drop
in speed from last week, when teams were focused on qualifying.

Once again, Hornish and his No. 6 Marlboro Team Penske Honda/Dallara
were fastest of the day with a lap of 224.381 mph, followed closely by
Helio Castroneves and the No. 3T Penske Honda/Dallara. Once again, rain
brought a premature end to the session, as a thunderstorm cut about 90
minutes off the practice time.

"We're just trying to make sure we've got everything lined up for race
day," Hornish said. "The rain we had last week threw a wrench into
everything. Today was a lot of trying to figure out the right place to
be and just trying to be consistent."

The rain didn't prevent 31 cars from recording 1,466 practice laps
Wednesday, by far the busiest day since the Speedway opened May 7. Only
Max Papis, who was named to a second Cheever Racing car Tuesday, P.J.
Jones and P.J. Chesson didn't get on the track.
Hornish, who missed the first few hours of the practice session to
attend the funeral of his grandmother, got up to speed quickly. He ran
just 57 laps, keeping him well under the 1,200-mile limit. It also was
the first track time of the month for several second-week entries,
including Jon Herb, Airton Dare, Jeff Bucknum and Jaques Lazier.

"There were a couple of times when I came up on some guys pretty
quickly," Hornish said. "You just have to figure out which side to
take. It's part of this whole deal. Seat time is the most valuable
thing you can have in racing."

Others who recorded strong laps Wednesday included Scott Sharp, who
went 223.293 mph in the No. 8 Delphi Fernandez Racing Honda/Dallara,
and Buddy Rice and Dan Wheldon, who, like Castroneves, worked with
their T-cars Wednesday. Townsend Bell, Tony Kanaan, Scott Dixon, Dario
Franchitti and Tomas Scheckter rounded out Wednesday's top 10.

More afternoon showers are expected Thursday, but weather forecasts
show clear, dry conditions for Friday's practice and Saturday's
qualifying session.

"If we get a couple of more hours of this, we're going to be in
trouble," Dario Franchitti said as Wednesday's thunderstorm chased team
members to Gasoline Alley. "Every chance we get, we've got to focus on
the race and work on our setup. I don't think we've got the time to
make any inroads in our qualifying setup."

http://speedtv.com/articles/auto/indycar/24378/