Doyel: Will Power makes Last Chance Qualifying at Indy 500 look easy, then admits it was not
INDIANAPOLIS – The guy with the television camera keeps getting close to Will Power. There’s never a good time to irritate Will Power, but this would seem a particularly bad one. Power is sitting in the cockpit of his No. 12 racecar, part of this made-for-TV spectacle called Last Chance Qualifying, the five slowest cars from Saturday's Indy 500 qualifying having to go back onto the track Sunday for a spot in the final row. Five cars here. Only three will qualify.
And the guy with the TV camera, he keeps getting closer.
Power is sitting there, motionless, a thick hose snaking into his cockpit and attaching to his driver’s suit to aid the hydration cycle. You know what I’m trying to say. The guy with the TV camera, working for NBC Sports Network, creeps closer and closer to the cockpit until his camera is nearly touching the windscreen to Power’s right.
Now Power is moving. His head is bobbing back and forth. I’d say he looks angry, but I don’t know that for sure. His visor is tinted so you can’t see if he’s talking, and if he is, you couldn’t possibly hear what he’s saying.
But you can imagine.
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This is stressful, and to be honest, it’s shocking. Will Power won the 2018 Indianapolis 500, remember. He drives for Roger Penske, not just the most successful team owner in IndyCar history, but since November 2019 the owner of the entire series. Power has 39 career victories, tied for fifth in IndyCar history.
Now he’s waiting to see if he’ll be bumped from the 105th Indianapolis 500, and the guy with the TV camera keeps getting next to his windscreen, and his crew chief is pacing circles around the car, and it’s just too much. In fact, I’ll do you a favor and end the tension right now. He qualified! He wasn’t the fastest of the five cars Sunday, but he was second to Sage Karam, which means Power will start the Indy 500 in the middle of the 11th and final row, between Karam and Simona De Silvestro.
Charlie Kimball and RC Enerson were bumped. Enerson is a 24-year-old rookie with four career IndyCar starts. Last Chance Qualifying was designed with someone like him in mind. Not so much Kimball, the classy Indianapolis native who has Type 1 diabetes and uses his platform – he raced in every Indy 500 from 2011-20, with four top-10 finishes – to motivate others with diabetes, and who used his on-track interview Sunday to fire up the crowd at Indianapolis Motor Speedway, which gave him a standing ovation.
Last Chance Qualifying definitely wasn’t conceived with Will Power in mind. But it happened. Here’s how those three stressful hours on Sunday looked.
Will Power's crew is having a good old time
It’s 11:20 a.m., toward the end of the 30-minute practice time allotted for Last Chance Qualifying, and there’s no movement at Will Power’s assigned spot along pit row at Indianapolis Motor Speedway. No car. No crew members. Nothing. Three of the five cars relegated to this final qualifying attempt are practicing, but not Sage Karam. And not Will Power. This is what confidence looks like.
Power had sounded almost unconcerned on Saturday, saying: “I think if we run conservative (Sunday), we can get in.”
Along Gasoline Alley, though, five Will Power crew members inside Bay 21 are working furiously on the No. 12 car. The car is up on a lift, the tires off, with one crew member lying underneath the engine and four others working above. There is no talk, just the clicking sound of wrenches doing their work.
Wait, is there a second man under the car? I’m thinking maybe, so I crouch to my knees, looking past one crew member under the car – and sure enough, there it is. There’s a third hand down there. And it’s, ahem, waving at me.
Startled, maybe a bit embarrassed, I rise to my feet and take a step back and land on something. It’s a water hose, no big deal really, except that a man from Power’s garage is winding it up, and he can’t. Because someone’s standing on it.
“You did that on purpose,” he tells me. He’s smiling – he’s kidding – and between the mechanic waving at me from beneath the car and now this guy cracking jokes, you’d never know that Will Power’s No. 12 car is fighting for its 2021 Indy 500 life.
ince we’re all so relaxed here, I’m asking my new friend where Power is.
“In the engineering room,” he says, gesturing at the wall at the back of the garage. Behind that wall, he’s saying. Will Power is back there.
Probably taking a nap.
Meanwhile, in the next bay on Gasoline Alley – Bay 20 – there’s another No. 12 car. While six crew members are working furiously on the No. 12 car in Bay 21, this one is parked in silence. Even the bay’s lights are turned down. The car is there in the dark, like a racehorse resting before a race.
Turns out, this is the car Will Power will take onto the track. The other car, in Bay 21? That’s his backup. The crew is getting it ready for the future, not today. The car in Bay 20, sleeping there, resting up, hasn’t received much attention since Power climbed out of it on Saturday afternoon. Power’s team is confident they have the speed, and they know they have the driver.
On NBC Sports Network, with Last Chance Qualifying soon to begin, they’ve grabbed Indianapolis’ Ed Carpenter for his thoughts entering the Fast Nine Shootout later in the day. Eventually the topic comes around to the story of the day – Will Power is in danger of missing the 2021 Indy 500 – and Carpenter is asked for his thoughts.
He has no idea what to say.
“I don’t …” he starts, then stops.
“I …” he says, trying again, stopping again.
“I haven’t …” Carpenter stops for a third time before finishing his thought.
“I’ll be curious as to why the (Penske) cars are struggling,” Carpenter says. “Certainly pulling for Will to get in there, and I’m sure he will.”
We’ll see. As for you, pretend I haven’t already told you how this story ends. Because on the track, in real time, the tension is building.
Will Power just hit the wall!
Will Power is sitting inside his car, second in line. Sage Karam will go first. Power is next. Over the IMS loudspeakers, they’re playing a song by Sugar Ray.
“I just want to fly,” Sugar Ray is singing.
Power isn’t moving. His car is, though, as Karam guns off for his run and Power’s No. 12 is rolled up to take Karam’s place. He’ll be next. This whole turn of events is big – Will Power, fighting to qualify for the Indy 500 – and it’s weird, which may explain the IndyCar Who’s Who in the vicinity. IndyCar circuit CEO Mark Miles is standing nearby, getting an eyeful. So is Tim Cindric, president of Team Penske, who walks onto the track and stands in front of Power’s car.
With Karam finishing his four-lap qualifying attempt, IndyCar gives Power the OK to take off. Cindric leans closer to the windscreen, turn his right hand into a finger gun, fires it at Power and steps out of the way.
And he’s off.
Power has to beat two of the four other cars to qualify, but he won’t beat Karam, who went first. That seems clear, three laps into Power’s run, but now his car is giving a little wiggle, a shimmy, and he’s coming wide out of a turn and WATCH OUT FOR THAT WALL!!!
Power brushes the wall with his right rear tire, triggering an explosion of smoke as his team erupts on pit row.
On the track, Power maintains control of his car and finishes at 228.876 mph. Second to Karam, he returns to pit row and clicks off his car as it rolls silently to a stop. He doesn’t get out of the car, though. Power might be done, but he might not. Enerson, De Silvestro and Kimball have yet to go. If two of them post a faster time than Power, he’ll go back onto the track … if there’s time.
He sits in his car as Enerson goes. Nope, too slow. Now it’s De Silvestro. She’s faster than Enerson, but not Power. Now it’s Kimball’s turn, and he’s behind Power (and De Silvestro) as well.
Now, we wait. Enerson and Kimball have taken their cars back to Gasoline Alley for more work. Power remains in his car, with that thick hose snaking into the cockpit, with that NBC Sports Network camera getting closer, closer. Qualifying will end at 2:30, and Enerson and Kimball are pushing it to the end, meaning Power won’t have time to make one more run if he needs it. This is why his crew chief is pacing.
Soon it is over, Enerson and Kimball coming up short in their second attempts, and Power is removing the steering wheel from his car. He climbs out, bumps fists with Cindric, and hugs his wife. He’s smiling, but he keeps running his hand through his hair. The stress is on his face. This was not easy. He was not, I’m guessing, napping in the engineering room a few hours earlier.
Sounds like he barely slept Saturday night.
“Mmmmm,” Power was saying afterward, trying to put into words what he’d been feeling as he contemplated missing out on the race he won in 2018. “It’s a more nervous feeling than going for the pole, honestly. Definitely lost a little bit of sleep the night before.”
Find IndyStar columnist Gregg Doyel on Twitter at @GreggDoyelStar or at www.facebook.com/gregg.doyel.