He signed endless sheets of paper, two hats and a package still containing a tiny toy car. Then Arie Luyendyk climbed into a cart. His wife, a member of his crew and a public-relations person shared it with him, and they left Gasoline Alley and headed toward the pits of the Indianapolis Motor Speedway.
It was just past 10 on a warm Sunday morning, a day after mechanical problems had kept Luyendyk from qualifying for next Sunday’s Indianapolis 500. He won that race a year ago, as he did in 1990, but Sunday he faced the precarious task of getting into it on Bump Day.
Only seven spots in the 33-car field had not yet been filled, but Luyendyk evinced little concern or worry. He nodded and waved to fans as he headed out for some practice laps, and then simply climbed into his car and turned this joint’s 2.5-mile oval at speeds that reached 219.127 m.p.h.
“I never had a doubt I would make the field,” said Luyendyk, whose performance simply reinforced that feeling. He knew the speeds he was reaching in practice would accomplish that easily, and that’s just how it went for him when he finally went out shortly after noon for his qualifying run.
When it counted, he turned laps of 218.335, 218.898, 219.159 and 219.352.Then he was rolling into the pits having posted what would be the 11th-best average in the field at 218.935.
“I’m glad we got it done this morning,” he said. “Just imagine if we’d had another problem this morning. We’d have to go out and try it again later in the day, and who knows what might happen? Somebody might fall down on the track. You don’t want to deal with that situation late in the afternoon on Bump Day.”
Jeff Ward, who finished third last year, was another notable who drove his way into the field Sunday. So did Raul Boesel, who’ll be appearing in his 10th Indy. Not so fortunate was Claude Bourbonnais, who failed to qualify the car he drives for the Chicago-based Blueprint Racing Team.
But the real story on this Sunday was Luyendyk, who felt he would be challenging for the pole when Indy opened for practice two Sundays ago. He had practiced here in April, then reaching speeds of 223 m.p.h. Said his owner, Fred Treadway, “We felt we’d qualify at 225. We ran so good in April, people were telling us to sandbag it a little bit. But then Monday came, we had some problems. Tuesday came, we had some problems. It’s just some things happen. You have to accept the bad with the good.”
The bad, for Luyendyk, continued right up to Saturday, Pole Day. He blew an engine in practice in the morning, and it had to be replaced before he went out late in the afternoon to make his qualifying run.
He took only one lap, a pathetically slow 214.618, and then he was cursing into the radio that connects him to his pits. “It’s the same thing that happened this morning,” he raged. “This is a great car. I could be doing 222.”
“Arie curses all the time,” Treadway said later with a chuckle. “But he was upset. We had a car to sit in the front row.”
“We missed a great opportunity yesterday,” Luyendyk said. “I wasn’t happy with that.”
His anger quickly dissipated, and by Sunday morning he was calm and composed. But Treadway suffered through a restless night, tossing, turning and remembering Roger Penske.
He owned the car Al Unser Jr. drove to victory in the 1994 Indy 500, and was the owner again when Unser failed to make the field a May later. “People kept making that comparison, so I kept thinking of that,” Treadway said. “But I tried not to. I figured it might jinx me.”
But Sunday neither jinxes nor mechanical problems would bedevil Luyendyk, who rolled onto the track at 12:22 p.m. and 164 seconds later was in the field. There would be no cursing on this afternoon, just smiles.
“When you win this race, you have certain expectations,” Luyendyk said. “From yourself, your team, your sponsors, from Fred. And that’s what we’re here for, to win this race.
“But then you have mechanical problems, and it breaks your flow. There’s always a flow to any race weekend like that, and when you’re disrupted, it’s like one step forward, two steps back.
“Yesterday we could have been up there with the fastest guys. We could have been up there at 222, 223, but the engine didn’t cooperate. It was a lost day for us.
“So I am happy to be in the field. It’s a relief.”
