Indianapolis 500 Pole Day will shift from its traditional Saturday date to Sunday this year, according to a report by Curt Cavin of the Indianapolis Star.
Report: Indianapolis 500 Pole Day Moved to Sunday
Changes are officially coming to the Indianapolis 500 qualifying procedure according to a report in the Indianapolis Star.
Jamie Squire
While details were not revealed, the IndyCar Series is expected to unveil the particulars of qualifying weekend at a later date. Cavin wrote that IndyCar officials had hoped to present final details to teams later in the week at a regularly scheduled meeting but that will not be the case according to sources.
The most recent Indianapolis 500 pole qualifying procedure involved a two-day process where the pole position was determined on Saturday with bumping (when applicable) occured on Sunday. The pole process involved locking-in the fastest nine qualifiers on Saturday and placing them into a “Fast Nine Shootout” to determine the top spot.
Last year’s Shootout was shortened by rain and featured just a single attempt per team. Ed Carpenter is the defending pole winner of the race.
The decision to move Pole Day to Sunday has been led by Hulman & Co. (parent company of IndyCar) CEO Mark Miles, whose brief tenure has been defined somewhat by a desire to provide more excitement and content to the month of May leading up to the Indianapolis 500.
His first major alteration to the Indianapolis 500 festivities was the addition of a second points paying at Indianapolis Motor Speedway -- or the road course -- to kick-off festivities for the Greatest Spectacle in Racing.
Miles outlined a plan to change qualifying in November but it is not known if those changes were the ones IndyCar will implement.
Under his proposed qualifying procedure, Saturday would see all spots 1-33 filled, but all qualifying speeds provisional and the order not finalized. Sunday would see the order 1-33 determined, with spots 10-33 decided by a second day’s run and spots 1-9 again run in the final session to build excitement for the top spot.
Long-time TV partner ABC will televise all the major IndyCar Series portions of the month of May, including the Grand Prix of Indianapolis, both days of Indianapolis 500 qualifying and the Greatest Spectacle in Racing itself on May 25.
What changes (if any at all) would you like to see added to the month of May and Pole Qualifying? Tell us in the comments section below.
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