By Dick Mittman
indy500.com
Saturday, May 10, 2003
A storm that would have swamped Noah's Ark swept across the Indianapolis Motor Speedway on May 10, and Pole Day qualifying for the Indy 500 was washed away.
Three fast drivers were brought to the MCI Media Center to talk to the press: Tony Kanaan, rookie Scott Dixon and 2000 Indy pole winner Greg Ray. Looking back at the start of this IRL IndyCarTM Series season, it would have been tough to imagine that Ray would be in this position.
In January, Ray didn't have a car, an engine or a sponsor, just the makings of a team. He did have a plan to become a car owner and a driver.
By April, he had a team assembled and was able to compete at Twin Ring Motegi in Japan, driving from a 23rd starting spot to a solid ninth-place finish in the race.
At Indy, his Access Motorsports team is one of the small teams compared those fielding Dixon (Target Chip Ganassi) and Kanaan (Andretti Green Racing). But after morning practice before the Pole Day washout, there was Ray's speed, just a whisker under 230 mph. That was 4 mph slower than Dixon, but considering where his team has come from barely weeks ago, it wasn't out of the ballpark.
"I'm happy with where we are," said Ray, who shares team ownership with Jamie Nanny. "I'm thinking we're making nice progression.
"I wouldn't be surprised if we were the quickest car out there running for the pole. That wouldn't surprise me. We are here to do that. That means we've got it right. So far, we're still working on it, and we're being a little bit conservative.
"We haven't got it just right. That's going to take more time, more resources and a little more comfort level to where we can take that risk."
What Ray is saying is, he can't put his No. 13 TrimSpa Special Panoz G Force/Honda/Firestone totally on the edge because the team, headed by veteran Ted Bitting, has no backup car.
"We know we cannot make a mistake with our primary car," Ray said.
Secondly, Ray's young team has not had the opportunity to do the thousands of miles of preseason testing that other teams have done. He said Access engineers and mechanics are still learning about the car, which is new this year. They haven't done a full check of shocks, springs, ride height and rate testing.
He admitted it's frustrating, but at the same time the team has set what he calls realistic expectations.
"We're just trying to do the best we can," he said. "We know realistically we have a top-10 car in qualifying. Certainly a lot better than that if we get it right. We're probably missing a few parts on the car that some of the other teams have."
One thing Ray does have is experience. He came to Indy for the first time with the small Thomas Knapp team in 1997 and squeezed into the field in 30th place. The next year he was up on the front row in second, again with Knapp. He then switched to the strong John Menard team and started second again in 1999, snatched the pole in 2000 and fell back to second again 2001. He settled for a 31st starting position last May driving an A.J. Foyt car.
Ray is the IndyCar Series leader in career MBNA Poles with 13. It just happens he carries that number on his car.
He saw a small ray of sunshine in Saturday's downpour.
"We knew some other teams were very, very quick this morning (in pre-qualifying practice)," he said. "Obviously, quicker than us.
"But they have to do four laps at those speeds to hold up. The good thing maybe tomorrow for us as a small team is (track) conditions are going to change. Maybe we can adjust ourselves closer to the big teams."
Ray, 36, was a businessman running the family marina in Texas before choosing to become a race driver at the age of 25. Now he hopes to make his second start as a team owner, also eager to continue as a driver while Michael Andretti is ending his driving career at the "500" to concentrate on his team owner duties.
"Whatever time I spend in the cockpit, I'm a driver," Ray said. "I spend every other minute as an owner, so the owner's task is much more difficult, much more stressful.
"It's not nearly as much fun, but it is rewarding. It is for me. I've always owned my own companies when I was a young man. It is a lot different than I thought it would be, a lot more stressful."
Ray said Sunday's qualifying and practice next week are very critical, noting that a couple of bad days could be "very painful." The team is trying to make good decisions to avoid trouble, he said.
"But when we're able to get it all put together, we can have those days where we can be a pole qualifier, a race winner, a race leader," he said.
"To be a small team competing with the best of the best, that is very gratifying, very rewarding. And, quite frankly, although we're working so hard and it's so stressful, we're having a lot of fun."
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