INDIANAPOLIS Engineers manage to overcome limits

The track opens for Indianapolis 500 practice on Sunday.
INDIANAPOLIS (AP) -- The rules makers can cut the fuel, limit the horsepower and tinker with the downforce all they want.
The only sure way to slow the cars at Indianapolis in the long run is to post a speed limit and station a cop with a radar gun at each turn. As a desperate measure, they could always put a speed bump across the strip of bricks at the start-finish line.
It seems that no matter what is done to control speed for safety's sake, the engineering geniuses will find a way to make the cars go faster, and the teams and drivers will continue to push the limits. It's why they race.
"I remember a few years ago, they knocked us down to 212, 213 [mph] when they went to a different spec," driver Robby Gordon said. "By last year, we were already back up to the 230s again."
Tall task
"With the engineers and the technology that IndyCar racing has, the IRL will slow us down, and we'll go to work to figure out how to go faster."
That's the way it's always been.
The first Indianapolis 500 was in 1911, and the day after the race a newspaper questioned whether the speeds were already too fast. Mind you, Ray Harroun won that race at a then-fantastic average of 74.6 mph.
"It is to be hoped we have seen the last of these 500-mile contests," read The Indianapolis News editorial. "The winning driver said that the limit had been reached and that the strain on the participants was far too great. ... So it seems we have gone too far in this form of sports."
Too far? At last year's pole speed of just under 232 mph, Helio Castroneves could have completed three laps in the time it took Harroun to drive just once around the same 21/2-mile oval.
The speed climbed steadily and was nearing 150 by the early 1960s, when the front-engine roadsters gave way to a rear-engine revolution of speed and technology. By the end of that decade, speeds were up to nearly 170, and it took just four more years to reach the high 190s.
Deadly year
The deadly 1973 race, when two drivers and a crewman were killed, prompted another effort to cut speeds, but by 1977 they were just under 199. The next year, Tom Sneva became the first to qualify at more than 200, and over the next 18 years the pole speeds rose to Arie Luyendyk's record 236.986 mph.
The IRL, which began operation in 1996, introduced new chassis and non-turbocharged engines in 1997 and reduced speeds almost 20 mph. But once again, it didn't last long.
By 2002, the top cars were over 230 mph again, and the field averaged a record 228.648 in qualifying. Last year, the average was 227.125 mph, but Castroneves won the pole at 231.725 -- the fastest since Luyendyk set the record.
This year, with an engine reduction from 3.5 liters to 3.0, new restrictions on fuel and another change in the aerodynamic package, speeds were expected to be cut by about 10 mph. The fastest laps during open tests last week were more than 220 mph by Castroneves and Penske teammate Sam Hornish Jr.
"This track is so hard to pass," Hornish said. "It's always been about keeping your momentum up and keeping your moves at the right time. This year, it's going to be even more about that. You get behind the slower car, it's going to be real hard to get by."
The track opens for practice Sunday, with qualifications May 15-16 and May 23.