Two rookies ready for shot at Indy 500

INDIANAPOLIS (AP) — Will Power and Oriol Servia spent last Saturday flirting with a spot in the top 11 for the Indianapolis 500.

The two Indy rookies from KV Racing Technologies knew it was an almost impossible task. Even so, it was a blow when they came up just short.

“Even though we knew it probably wouldn’t happen, we focused on that 11th spot and, at the end of the day, it was harder to take than we thought it would be,” said Servia, once a runner-up in the defunct Champ Car World Series. “But we weren’t that far off, so that’s encouraging for everybody on the team.”

With the second day of qualifying for the May 25 race rained out Sunday, KV Racing and the other teams that made the move from Champ Car to the IRL’s IndyCar Series had to split their practice time this week working on qualifying and race-day setups.

Then this weekend, they’ll try to put their cars into the 33-car lineup.

“It’s going to be a matter of good planning and hoping for the best,” Servia said. “I know we have the speed to qualify, so it’s no big deal. It just kind of messes up the planning and complicates things.”

The weather hasn’t been kind to the new IRL teams so far this month, with rain also washing out 21‚Ñ2 days of practice in the opening week.

“The days that you don’t run, they drain you,” Servia said. “You’re here working with the engineers and you’re in that room all day just talking and you’re here to drive and try things. So it’s tough. But, again, it’s the same for the guys in other garages.”

Still, everything at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway is new to the KV drivers and most of the other team members. Their biggest learning curve comes with the Dallara-Honda cars KV and the other former Champ Car teams have struggled to put together and figure out since the long-awaited unification of the two American open-wheel series’ in February.

Mark Johnson, general manager of the team co-owned by former racing star Jimmy Vasser and former Champ Car co-owner Kevin Kalkhoven, understands just how difficult this transition is, particularly at the famed Brickyard.

“You know, Jimmy’s been to the speedway a lot of times, but I’ve been here one time before this,” Johnson said. “We’ve got a lot of guys who have never seen the speedway before. So, for us to get in and understand the procedures, what it’s like to get through tech, what it’s like to go through the [qualifying] line, we’ve tried to do it as right as we know how.

“When rookie orientation rolled out [last week], we were the first two cars on the track. We ran more miles than anybody over the two days. Our guys had to learn how to manage tires, manage engine miles — we only get one engine for each car for the month. It’s all new to us.”

One of the biggest problems for the former Champ Car teams has been the slow trickle of cars into their shops, as well as the even slower flow of parts and pieces for those cars.

“We’ve got two cars we can use right now,” Johnson said. “But, for the first time in my career, we’re going to the track with no backup. I’ve never functioned in that environment before.”

“At the end of every day,” Vasser said, “we feel like we’re way behind and we’re frustrated that we’re not running better — and then we have to remind ourselves that, ‘Hey, you know, we’re less than three months into this, we’ve got two cars in the top eight in points and we won a race at Long Beach.’ We just haven’t had any time to lift our heads and appreciate the fact that we have done a great job.”