IRL, Indy 500: Greg Ray Fastest on Opening Day at Indy
17 May 1999
Greg Ray#2 Glidden-Menards Dallara/Aurora/Firestone
Practice Notes/Quotes - Saturday, May 15, 1999
The 83rd Indianapolis 500
Indianapolis Motor Speedway
Greg Ray and his backup #2 Glidden-Menards Dallara/Aurora/Firestone entry topped the speed charts on opening day of practice for the 83rd Indianapolis 500 under warm and sunny conditions today. Ray recorded a fast lap of 225.887 mph around the 2.5-mile Indianapolis Motor Speedway oval some 90 minutes before the conclusion of practice. He outran Arie Luyendyk, who started practice for his final Indy 500 with the second-fastest lap of the day at 225.163 mph. Both Ray and Luyendyk topped the previous lap record of 224.573 mph set by Billy Boat last year for modern-day IRL cars at the Speedway. It was the 24th time since 1994 that a Team Menard car recorded the fastest practice lap of the day for the Indy 500. Ray logged 64 practice laps during the day, which got off to a rather inauspicious start when the engine failed in his primary car a little more than an hour into today's seven-hour practice session. In all, 33 drivers in 37 cars completed 1,553 practice laps today, the second-highest total of cars and practice laps recorded on opening day in Speedway history.
GREG RAY - "You have to be comfortable to go fast. I have a high regard for this place, and it can get away from you in a hurry. I was a little concerned when we had our engine problem early in the day. But that motor had close to 500 miles on it and we were trying to test some high-mileage motors here. We'll take that one back to the shop and see what happened. Later in the day, we were still struggling a little bit. The track conditions got better for everybody so everybody went quicker. But there is still a lot of work to be done on the cars. We thought we were capable of a 226 today. We think at least one of your laps will have to be up there on pole day. I don't know if you could run 226 for four consecutive laps. That's a big number. It was a very clean lap. I was flat for four laps in a row. Hanging it out there. There was nothing left."
THOMAS KNAPP (Team Manager) - "Despite our problems early on, we were able to work though our test plan and we're very much on schedule. We're pleased with the results."
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