Hinchcliffe Clenches Pole

INDIANAPOLIS, Ind. –Hinchcliffe gets the first pole of his career for the 100th Running of The Indianapolis 500.

Qualifying was a nail-biter to the very end, when Josef Newgarden lost P1 to James Hinchcliffe in the very last run of the day.  In the end, only .06 mph separated the two men’s runs.  Of his opponent’s effort, Newgarden said, “They deserve everything they got today.”

“I was there a year ago and he was not nearly as pretty as he is now,” said Hinchcliffe’s team owner, Sam Schmidt — a reference to Hincliffe’s life-threatening accident in May of last year, which sidelined the Canadian driver for the rest of the season.  Winning the pole at Indy marks the Mayor of Hinchtown going from the lowest point of his career, to perhaps his highest height yet.

When asked about his story of recovery-to-pole-position being added as one the iconic stories of The Indianapolis 500, Hinch said, “I try not to think about that…it’s incredible what difference a year makes.”

Scott Dixon had to swap out car engines after practice today — a process that would normally have taken until sunset. Yet his team managed to get it done in about two hours, just making the 2:45 p.m. cut-off time for technical inspection. Alex Tagliani, who complained about the driveability of his car yesterday, crashed on the warm-up lap of his qualifying attempt.  He’ll start at the back of the field. Juan Pablo Montoya ran over a trash bag during his initial qualifying attempt, so IndyCar gave him a second chance.  That news gave Montoya’s normally-stoic team owner, Roger Penske, a chuckle. The issue left Montoya’s original qualifying speed at an unimpressive 213.968 mph, but the second qualifying speed that set where he will start on next Sunday was 227.684 mph — that puts him right in the middle of the 33-car field.  This will be the first year that neither IndyCar’s dominant Penske nor Ganassi teams has a car starting from the front row since 2001.

The question now is: Who will be celebrating in Winner’s Circle one week from today?