....and RoGro is on pole for the Indy GP!!! That's one hell of a change up from being on fire last year.



Race is on at 2 PM Eastern of regular NBC.

^^^^^


The Phoenix rises if not fully risen.

More good news for IndyCar, ex-F1 driver brings that much more attention. IndyCar has a broad international reach now, carried into countries all over the world, highly visible.

Watching F1 a couple races back, the announce team were mocking IndyCars exceeding track limits at COTA, as if it negated the whole series. I interpret that as F1 feeling some heat from IndyCar, knowing IC has more and more carriers around the world. If IndyCar isn't the epitome of technology, the racing is head and shoulders above F1.

Good race so far

Score another one for the little guys. Rinus Veekay with Ed Carpenter Racing gets the win with an air powered car. Grosjean looked really good, but pit strategy still got him to 2nd.

It's still Scott Dixon's championship to lose, but the shocker is Alex Palou. He had a hum drum rookie season, gets the Ganassi drive, and has finished near the front the whole year. While Ganassi is one of the top teams, it's not an automatic winner like a Mercedes drive. Ever since Dario Franchitti retired, the #10 team has been out in the weeds. It's nice to see them back again.

Indy 500 Qualifying is next week and the biggest race of the year is May 30.

Qualifying in on Peacock right now and will be going to NBC at 2pm Eastern and to NBCSN after 3pm.

And of no surprise, Marco Andretti is currently last behind Stefan Wilson who hasn't raced an IndyCar for several years.

Penske cars are really struggling too.
The Honda's seem to have an advantage for the second year.

Rosenqvist seems to be OK after a really big hit into a barrier from a stuck throttle in yesterday's race at Detroit.
Video here, the action starts around the 1 minute mark. Turn on sound in upper left and watch the in-car full screen.
Ouch!!
Amazing how safe they are and a credit to great engineering.

https://motorsports.nbcsports....belle-isle-red-flag/

A fantastic couple of days of racing at Detroit racing. Belle Isle is a super fast "street" course with passing possible throughout the lap. Bullets dodged, less than fun for all. Will Power has the first race won only to be poleaxed by stupid rules. He was hot post race and Rossi, who can get worked up himself, comes to Power's rescue (I can't embed this) --

https://streamable.com/yppc1h

NBC totally screwed up the broadcast today since they were also covering the French Open tennis so they joined the race when it was about 1/2 over.
As luck would have it, the last 10-15 laps were outstanding.

Both races were excellent. I'm sure Will Power and Colton Herta would disagree.

Jim

Turns out Will Power's ECU didn't overheat while he was forced to wait for cars to stage behind him. A specific shut down procedure must be followed or things lock up, made all the trickier in the heat of a race setting. If the pit crew knew what to look for, MAYBE the car could have been refired. Kinda Power's fault, kinda not.

Penske investigation reveals cause of Power's Detroit failure

FTA - ...The reason for the ECU problem stemmed from the car’s “Intelligent Power System” made by Cosworth. According to a number of data acquisition specialists on pit lane, the IPS – which manages all of the car’s power – can trip the ECU into boot mode if anything other than the correct start or shut-down sequence is performed. The three-phase toggle switch has Position 0 (P0), which is off, P1 which turns on most of the car’s electronics, and P2, which is ignition...

Magnussen in for Rosenqvist for Road America at AMSP.
He drives for Ganassi in the Caddy but this is a good opportunity for him and them.

Another super entertaining race at Road America this past weekend.
Everyone was hip-checking and throwing elbows, Grosjean is settling in nicely. Three races in a row, Penske wins Oh wait, Lucy and the football. Again. Well, they shoulda won, yikes, what a season for them.

IndyCar is actually a lot of fun this year. I’m enjoying all the great drivers, passing, etc. Romain is showing everyone how quick he can be - but so is Palou, O’Ward, Dixon…well you get the idea. Magnussen put in a very good showing - some real talent coming into the grid.

Poor Jimmy needs to chalk this up to a learning experience after the end of the season and move on. Great driver, not an IndyCar driver IMHO.

Definitely better than Paul Ricard. This race proved again that Road America is one of the greatest race tracks in the world. There’s a couple of news sites out there wanting F1 to go back to gravel traps and grass near the track to keep drivers from getting lazy.

There’s also been a lot of complaints about NBC’s coverage. Personally, I’ll take Nothing But Commercials over Always Bad Coverage anytime. Bestwick, Goodyear, and Cheever could make any race boring.



Points are still tight:

1) Palou - 349
2) O’Ward - 321
3) Dixon - 296

Dixon is going to sneak his way to #7, and his best track is coming up at Mid-Ohio on the 4th of July.

Also, how about this tearjerker for Sam Schmidt:

https://www.msn.com/en-us/spor...-AALjyQu?li=BB15ms5q

IndyCar Team Owner Sam Schmidt Walks for First Time in 21 Years, Dances With Daughter at Wedding

INDIANAPOLIS — Savannah Boehrer is standing in her wedding gown, waiting. She's been waiting for 21 years.

"Now for the father-daughter dance," the DJ announces. The song starts playing: "Daddy Dance With Me."

Since she was two years old, Boehrer has wanted that so badly. But her dad Sam Schmidt couldn't dance. He couldn't walk.

On this day in April, though, as the words "I know what you see when you look at me...as we walk down the aisle" play out, she sees something remarkable.

Boehrer's hand goes to her mouth. She starts crying. Everyone in the reception hall starts crying. There are cheers, gasps and wonder.

For the first time since 2000, when a crash paralyzed Schmidt from the neck down, he dances with his daughter — with the aid of an exoskeleton.

"I always dreamed this day would come," said Boehrer. "So, for this one dance, it was incredible just to be his daughter, and for him just to be my dad. For us to get to have the daddy-daughter dance that every little girl dreams of. For me to actually look up at him, to hold his hands and just dance."

"It was the best day in the last 21 years period," Schmidt said this week. "Bar none."

Schmidt was testing in Florida in January 2000, preparing for the IRL season opener Indy 200 later that month. He was in his Treadway Racing G Force-Aurora at Walt Disney World Speedway when he spun and hit the retaining wall.

He doesn't remember it happening.

Schmidt blew apart his C3 and C4 vertebrae and wasn't breathing for almost four minutes. Because it was an IndyCar test, the safety crew was there, which to this day Schmidt contends saved his life. The crew pulled him out, resuscitated Schmidt and put him in a helicopter to Orlando.

What followed were days and weeks in a hospital, filled with disbelief and devastation.

On a hospital television, a story flashed across SportsCenter. "It's a lot worse than we first thought," a spokesperson for Schmidt's Treadway Racing team told ESPN. "He has the same injury as Christopher Reeve."

Doctors told his wife, Sheila, to start looking at nursing homes, that her 35-year-old husband might not live to 40, that he would remain on a ventilator. If Superman couldn't get out of this, Schmidt almost certainly couldn't.

But Schmidt, now 56, got off the ventilator. He founded Schmidt Peterson Motorsports, now known as Arrow McLaren SP. He started the foundation Conquer Paralysis Now. He learned how to live life in a wheelchair.

And for two decades, in the back of his mind, Schmidt had a dream. To walk at his daughter's wedding.

The journey goes back to 2013, with Schmidt's dream to drive again. He started a project with Arrow Electronics which, with its team of engineers, modified a Corvette to allow Schmidt to drive using only the motion of his head.

Seven months later in 2014, Schmidt drove on Carb Day in Indy and went 107 miles an hour.

"Just joking around I said, 'You know if we're successful with this Corvette when my daughter is ready to get married, you're going to have to create something for me to walk her down the aisle and be part of the wedding,'" Schmidt said. "And 'ha ha ha, laugh, laugh, laugh.'"

But Schmidt wasn't joking.

Boehrer, now 23, was two and a half when Schmidt was injured. His son Spencer was six months old.

"We were just getting into life. It was that time in life where I could take her to swim lessons...just have fun and then I got in the accident," he said. "They've only really known me in the wheelchair. I just missed a lot of full body hugs and those moments."

In 2019, Boehrer had been dating her now-husband Adam Boehrer for about two years.

"I kind of got the feeling things were headed that direction and he was about to ask," Schmidt said. So he went to Arrow. "And I said, 'I don't know how much time we have, but it's not a lot. We've got to get going.'"

Arrow got on it with the same passion, force and ingenuity it had with the Corvette, Schmidt said. Four engineers were assigned solely to design an exoskeleton that would allow Schmidt to walk.

They took an existing exoskeleton product that was tried and proven then adapted it, added technology and customizing it for Schmidt's level of injury, which is much higher than most exoskeletons are designed for.

The device goes on from the waist down and has motors at the knees and hips to simulate walking.

Walking. Schmidt had to get to the gym. Bone density and atrophy can be issues after sitting for two decades. He hadn't used any of those muscles. He had to make sure they were strong enough.

He spent four to five days a week, two hours a day doing exercises, losing weight.

"It culminated on April 25 in Laguna, California," he said. "And we shocked a lot of people."

'It was crazy. It was chaotic'

The wedding took place outside in a 120-year-old grove of trees. Schmidt had hoped to walk Boehrer down the aisle, but it was rough ground, even getting his wheelchair around was difficult.

"And frankly walking down the aisle should really be about her and not about me," he said. "And she was gorgeous."

After the wedding, Boehrer was in that reception hall waiting. The exoskeleton requires a person to balance Schmidt from behind.

"And we walked in together and that was the first time she had seen me standing and walking at all," he said. "So to say there wasn't a dry eye in the room was pretty much an understatement."

Growing up, Boehrer said, no part of her family's life was "normal," at least not in the traditional sense.

"My brother and I have come to love and cherish all of the ways our childhood and now adulthood were different, and we would not change our circumstances for anything," she said. "That being said...to be able to dance with my dad at my wedding was more than a dream come true."

Schmidt danced the first dance with Boehrer and the second with his wife to the song "Stand By Me."

"When my mom came up to have the next dance with him, that was when the emotion crashed over the room," Boehrer said. "It had been over 21 years since my mom had been able to experience standing and dancing with my dad. In that moment, even just for a dance, she was able to get back. (It was) the most special moment I have ever witnessed."

For the third, fourth and fifth dance the rest of the wedding crowd joined in.

"It was crazy. It was chaotic," Schmidt said. "It was better than anybody could have ever planned."

He is running out of words to describe what it's like to walk. How do you describe what it's like to sit for 21 years and then stand up and take steps?

"It's euphoric. I had forgotten what the view was like up there," Schmidt said. "Because I'm sitting here looking at people's waists for 21 years and then I stand up and I'm looking at the tops of their heads."

Schmidt is 6-1, but he had forgotten what it felt like to be that tall.

Weeks after the wedding, Schmidt had another emotional moment walking. He was at Indianapolis Motor Speedway for the GMR Grand Prix on May 10.

Tim Baughman, IndyCar manager of track safety, is the man who pulled Schmidt from the car in Florida after his crash.

Schmidt found him at IMS that day — and he walked up behind him. Baughman turned around "and he just started bawling. He just lost it," Schmidt said.

The two hugged.

The exoskeleton now is version 1.0, Schmidt said, the goal to get him upright and walking. The way the unit works, it requires his body to shift weight to the left and right to move his legs. Schmidt can't do that shift.

Arrow is working on version 2.0 that will use voice command to allow Schmidt to initiate the steps and not require the body shift.

"The big hurdle of step 3 would be hands-off," he said. "Me doing it myself."

A final moment of awe for Schmidt came the day after the Indy 500. He was at a friend's house for a barbecue. The friend had taped the race and Schmidt was watching it when, after the checkered flag, an Arrow commercial came on.

Schmidt had no idea it was coming.

Footage of his crash in Florida, Schmidt in the hospital, the Corvette going 100 miles an hour and then Schmidt standing up from his wheelchair, walking toward the car and driving away.

Before his eyes, the past 21 years of his life played out. A life he never imagined he would have.

"The sky's the limit," he said.

Boehrer feels the exact same way.

"Our family motto is 'It is not if, but when he will walk again,'" she said. "And this is just the beginning."

Follow IndyStar sports reporter Dana Benbow on Twitter: @DanaBenbow. Reach her via email: dbenbow@indystar.com.

^^^^
Thank you, DanH

quote:

Originally posted by Ripley:
^^^^
Thank you, DanH

Yes, thanks for posting.
Nobody works harder or is more persistent than Sam. Although I'm sure he would have liked to do it completely under his own power, this is still an amazing accomplishment.
His family have also made a lot of sacrifices without ever complaining or feeling sorry for themselves.

Thank you DanH for that - I missed that. I have a soft spot for Sam Schmidt and nothing but extreme respect for him. I followed him as he moved his team up into IndyCar, then a few years ago had a chance to be hosted by him and the team at the St. Pete Grand Prix kickoff.

This included getting a chance to drive his Z06 that was modified to only work with head movements and a blowpipe for stop/start/accelerate. Same car he used on Pike’s Peak - watch that video and you will never doubt his stones.

That car was ridiculously hard to drive around an AutoX course, but I did get get it up past 80 and a bit a slip (good slip) in a few turns - got the instructor’s attention . Met Sam later - a bunch of folks in the morning were talking to him, he was in his chair talking and entertaining but then everyone moved on. I had gone to the garages and was walking back and noticed he was sitting by himself - took a chance to introduce myself and talk with him. Got a solid 30 minutes on race day with him talking cars, building up the team, future of Indy.

Here he is - Quadriplegic in a chair he controls with his head and breathing - but he had passion, crazy smarts, and shine in his eye. I am not easily impressed, don’t throw around “hero” - and have a small list of folks I respect. In his own way, on his own path he is very heroic and sets an example - though that is not his goal. Seeing what DanH posted brings a tear to my eyes and nothing but best wishes for one of the hardest working men in Racing.

Something cool this year is that Romain Grosjean’s YouTube channel has been posting Driver POV laps of the race tracks he’s driven in. This week is Mid Ohio which is great roller coaster track for those unknown to it.



Also, Newgarden beats Colton Herta to pole by 0.03 seconds.

Good race this weekend. I usually like to see pure racing win but it was interesting to see the various strategies come together in the last 20ish laps. Some smart folks managing those races.