Honda Car Forum

Hearn, Giebler Complete Indy Starting Field

Veteran Roberto Moreno led the way in final qualifying Sunday for the Indianapolis
500, and provided most of the "Bump Day" excitement by withdrawing
his previous day's qualifying run of 216.229 mph and then re-qualifying
more than four miles an hour faster to secure his place in the 91st running
of the Memorial Day Classic.

For the second consecutive year, the Honda Indy V-8 engine powered the entire
field of race hopefuls for two weeks of practice and qualifying, with 36 drivers
and teams recording 12,799 laps [31,997.5 miles] around the historic 2.5-mile
oval since the track opened for rookie practice on May 6.

Once again, clear blue skies and near-perfect weather conditions ruled the
day at Indianapolis, in stark contrast to the previous two seasons when rain
frequently interrupted both practice and qualifying.

Highlight of the day came with just less than one hour remaining, as Roberto
Moreno withdrew his previous day's qualifying run before he could be "bumped",
and then succeeded in re-qualifying his Chastain Motorsports Honda Panoz at
a much quicker 220.299 mph. Moreno himself was a second-week replacement for
original driver Stephane Gregoire, who suffered a back injury in a crash on
May 17.

The 33-car starting field was completed by veteran Richie Hearn & rookie
Phil Giebler, who bumped slowest qualifier Jimmy Kite to make his first "500"
start. Giebler became the second rookie to qualify for this year's race,
joining sports car racer Milka Duno who made her successful qualifying run on
Saturday.

The speed differential of just 6.9 mph between the fastest qualifying run of
Helio Castroneves and Marty Roth's slowest run is also much closer than
2006, when the spread was 13.3 mph.

Activities at Indianapolis Motor Speedway resume on Friday with the traditional
final practice session, known as "Carb Day". The 91st running of
the Indianapolis 500 Mile Race starts at 1 p.m. EDT Sunday, May 27. with live
television coverage beginning at 12 noon on ABC.

Robert Clarke (President, Honda Performance Development) on Honda powering
the entire Indianapolis 500 starting field for the second consecutive year:
"Once again, we've accomplished our first goal for the 'Month
of May' providing the full field of 33 qualified cars and drivers with
equal Honda Indy V-8 engines. I'm impressed by the quality of this year's
starting grid and the closeness of the competition, the speed differential from
first to last is much closer than in '06. I'd like to thank all
of our associates at HPD and our technical partners at Ilmor for their hard
work and attention to detail in making this program operate so smoothly. Now
we're looking forward to a sucessful and exciting race on Sunday."