Darren plays fast and loose at Indy

9:40am Friday 16th May 2008

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RACING driver Darren Manning was born in North Yorkshire, but now lives in the USA where he races in the IndyCar series. In the first of a series of columns, he writes exclusively for The Northern Echo website as he prepares to take part in one of the world's most famous motorsports events.

"WE ended up waving off our first attempt to qualify for the Indianapolis 500 on Pole Day last Saturday.

"I just got loose and had to get out of the throttle pretty big time. I actually came out of the gas on my first lap and on the start of the second lap, going through Turn 1, had an even bigger moment.

"The grip on the tyres was even going away there, so I decided to call it off and try and come back into the pit and make some changes. But we never got a good setup back in the car where I was comfortable at all.

"It's a bit of a shame really, that we didn't get a chance to try to get it in the top 11 on the starting grid.

"Rain has kept us off the track quite a bit this month, including the second day of qualifying which was to happen on Sunday. The track was wet again Wednesday and opened for less than an hour of practice, when we turned only four laps.

"Qualifications resume Saturday, so that means for the next couple of days the A.J. Foyt Racing team has to do race setup work as well as qualifying setup work. I think even if we have a good race car, we'll have a good qualifying car when we put on new tires, low fuel and trim it out a little bit. I think we are one of the fastest cars that have yet to qualify, so that makes it a little bit more comforting.

"The difference between the 12th and 18th spot on the grid won't really mean that much because at the start of the race we're right in the middle of the pack. A few spots on the grid isn't going to hurt us too much, so we might not push as hard as we would have done to qualify in the top 11.

"Having a team-mate for this important race is going to be a big help. American driver Jeff Simmons will pilot a second ABC Supply Co./A.J. Foyt racing entry. Simmons was with a different team last season so I never got to spend much time with him, but he seems like a good guy and he's going to fit in well even though its going to be for such a short period this month.

"We struggle as a one car team getting information just from myself and one set of data, so it's going to be good that there's another driver out there giving feedback back to the team. We'll back each other up and now we can change two things on the car instead of one at a time.

"That will get us a little bit further down the line quicker, hopefully, so all this time that we've missed on track because of the rain is helped by having another car out there.

"But everybody else who hasn't qualified is in the same boat. Everybody's got do to race setup work as well as qualifying, so if we can get a good car I think we'll stand a good chance of getting a pretty good spot on the starting grid and still have a good race car."