Is Anyone Sandbagging in Indy 500 Practice?

From Road & Track

Be wary of winners heaping praise on their downtrodden opponents.

Honda's pace-setting speed through the first four days of practice for the 100^th Indianapolis 500 has been an anomaly in 2016. Chevy dominated the first five races of the season, earning pole positions and wins on street courses, road courses, and the one-mile Phoenix oval. It made the Bowtie's relative lack of speed in practice at Indy rather curious, and for the Honda drivers, the answer was clear: Chevy was sandbagging.

Sandbagging-the art of running slower than one's full potential-is an age-old practice in motor racing. The thinking goes something like "Why bother showing your hand to the competition until it matters?" And between Chevy and Honda, the American brand has shown a ready willingness to keep its engines dialed back just enough to have a surprise to spring on Honda in qualifying.

Through Thursday, the Chevy teams artfully dodged the question of whether they were sandbagging, and it took the observation from a veteran crew member on a Honda-powered team to clarify the situation.

"None of the Chevy guys look worried, do they?" he opined. "If they were really down on speed, if we really had them covered, they'd be crying to the press, wouldn't they."

And there's the reality of what's been happening. Chevy drivers have been complimenting Honda's speed, but the expected complaints about their own deficiencies have been lacking.

By today, with IndyCar handing teams an extra 40-50 hp though increased turbo boost to prepare for this weekend's Indy 500 qualifying, the disparity is gone. The first day where speed truly matters-where all teams need to run at full speed to get a feel for their cars in qualifying trim-Chevy's absent pace returned.

Andretti Autosport Honda driver Townsend Bell set the fastest lap of the day (so far) without the benefit of an aerodynamic tow at 231.342 mph. Team Penske Chevy's Will Power uncorked a 231.339 mph without a tow to sit just 0.003 mph off of Bell.

Of the no-tow speeds, which most accurately represent how cars will perform in single-car qualifying, Honda holds P1-3-7 while Chevy sits P2-4-5-6.

Will Chevy release the final horses from its 2.2-liter twin-turbo V6 in qualifying? Tune in this weekend on ABC.

An end to spec racing?

The other big news from Indy this week is IndyCar's possible move away from spec cars. The use of identical Dallara DW12 models, rigid engine rules, spec aerodynamics, electronics, brakes, and almost every other facet of the cars has come up for review by the series.

One could easily argue that thanks to spec cars, IndyCar's races have never been more thrilling but, as slipping TV ratings and attendance figures have suggest over almost 20 years of spec machinery, these cars have not connected with the average racing fan.

Would going away from spec provide an instant boost in interest? That part's hard to say. A generation or more have passed since Indy car were regarded as technical marvels, and it's possible today's fans just don't know-or care-about the intricacies of Chevy's electronic wastegate system and the detailed process behind choosing Honda's direct-injection vendor.

Whatever, if IndyCar is willing to bring hand-built innovation back to its series, and allow the brilliant minds on the shop floor to trade some of the off-limits spec parts for the concepts they believe could offer an advantage, I'm all for it.

"I've always thought you don't want to create a situation where this group becomes unenthused," IndyCar president of competition Jay Frye told RoadandTrack.com.

Although Frye and his companions at IndyCar have yet to decide on the areas that will be opened for team-based innovation, he shared his vision for what he hopes to see from starting the series' gradual distancing from boring, mass produced racecars.

"You award excellence," he continued. "We want to create more ability for the teams to come up with ingenuity and come up with things that can help the series grow. Again, they are very smart people out there, let them be smart and do something."