Ryan Hunter-Reay leads a group into Turn 1 during the evening open test session at Phoenix International Raceway. [Photo by: Shawn Gritzmacher]
Desert Diamond West Valley Phoenix Grand Prix Preview
Indy car racing returns to the Arizona desert Saturday night after an eleven-year absence as the Verizon IndyCar Series Desert Diamond West Valley Phoenix Grand Prix takes the green flag at Phoenix International Raceway.
The names of previous winners at PIR are the icons of the sport; Mears, Andretti, Rutherford and Fittipaldi have won here since Indy cars first left the 1-mile Arizona State Fairgrounds dirt track in 1964 for the inaugural 100-miler at the paved PIR. AJ Foyt was the first series’ winner on the mile track at a slow speed of 107.536 (that took just over 55-minutes to complete) during a time when USAC was moving from roadsters to the rear-engine era.
Sixty-one USAC/CART/ and IRL races have been run here since that Foyt win, but lagging attendance, coupled with the popularity of the track’s two NASCAR Sprint Cup events forced an 11-year break for the open-cockpit racers after the 2005 race. But now they’re back.
With a multi-year contract and IndyCar’s need for more ovals on their schedule, the dusk-to-dark 250-miler will debut Saturday on a dog-legged track that the current drivers had never raced on until a recent February practice.
All 21 test-participants broke Arie Luyendyk’s 1996 track record speed (183.599mph). The low-banked mile has stretched to 1.022 miles and, along with the dogleg entering the backstretch, is a different circuit than it was two decades ago. Team Penske Chevrolet ran 1-2 as Helio Castroneves (190.894 mph) and Simon Pagenaud led Josef Newgarden and Ed Carpenter to a top-four Chevy sweep during test runs. One-third of the field topped 190 mph. All of those speeds make an interesting comparison to Jimmie Johnson’s NASCAR track record of 143.155 mph; a speed differential of 47.7mph. Will Power blew a Chevy engine during practice and Castroneves was forced to change power plants.
Indy Car comes to the Avondale, AZ desert facility southwest of Phoenix with just one 2016 event under its belt; a recent street/road course run at St. Petersburg was won by 2015 Indianapolis 500 champion Juan Pablo Montoya in yet another Penske mount. This was JPM’s second straight St. Pete victory.
Pagenaud was second there but Ryan Hunter-Reay (third) and Mikhail Aleshin (fifth) gave Honda hope for a stronger start to the season than they experienced in 2015.
The usual 21 entrants are entered for Saturday. Ed Carpenter assumes his five-race oval-track job for his team while Will Power returns to the cockpit after sitting out St. Petersburg with concussion symptoms after crashing there in practice. Rookie Spencer Pigot is scheduled to rejoin the series at Indianapolis.
No driver should have an advantage Saturday as Tony Kanaan and Castroneves are the only previous PIR winners entered, and those wins occurred on a somewhat different track configuration.
NOTES:
- Montoya leads the Verizon Series points chase with an eight-point lead over Pagenaud. Hunter-Reay is third (-15) while Castroneves (-19) and Aleshin (-21) round-out the Top Five.
- Al Unser Sr. scored an event-leading six wins during the 61 previous Indy car events at PIR.
- Conor Daly gives Honda some hope as he led a race-leading 15 laps at St. Petersburg.
- JPM’s win at St. Petersburg was his 15th career Indy car victory.
- Chevrolet leads Honda by 32 points (125-93) in their battle for the Manufacture’s championship.
- The Phoenix event, one of only five oval tracks on the 16-race Verizon IndyCar schedule, is the only one-mile facility listed.
- An estimated 3,000 fans attended the Phoenix test session back in February.
- There were 15 races run at the Arizona State Fair Grounds prior to the 1964 move to PIR. The first was won by Earl Cooper in 1915, and the other 14 were contested as AAA/USAC races from 1950-1963. The final race there was won by Rodger Ward.
- Some observers think that the high speeds recorded in practice will make passing difficult on the rather tight, low-banked Phoenix track.
- TV: NBCSN, Friday April 1-Opening practice, 1-2:15 p.m. ET/ Qualifying, 5-6:00p.m. ET. Saturday-April 2-Race coverage, 8:30p.m.ET/ Green Flag approx. 9:15.
- Prediction: If Honda drivers such as Daly, Graham Rahal, Marco Andretti and James Hinchcliffe can avoid incidents during the event, Honda could provide strong competition for Chevy. However a Penske Team driver will likely be in victory lane come Saturday night.
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