Indianapolis 500
What: 96th running of the Indianapolis 500
When: Noon on May 27
Where: Indianapolis Motor Speedway
TV: ABC
DAYTON — Their team owner, A.J. Foyt, has more Indianapolis 500 wins (four) than they have combined starts (two). But when it comes to the Greatest Spectacle in Racing, Mike Conway and rookie Wade Cunningham share their boss’s passion for Victory Lane.
“The idea is we’re supposed to be nice to each other. We’ve worked pretty well together this month,” Cunningham said of being teammates with Conway.
But if they are side-by-side coming out of Turn 4 for the checkered flag?
“I’m driving him straight into the wall,” Cunningham said without hesitation, and a smile.
The personable drivers made a pit stop at the Dayton Daily News offices Monday to promote Sunday’s race, the 96th running of the Indianapolis 500 at Indianapolis Motor Speedway. Cunningham makes his first start — he’s one of eight rookies in the 33-car field — and starts 26th after a four-lap qualifying average of 223.259 mph.
Conway returns for his third start — he’s 29th at 223.319 mph — and first since a horrific accident on the last lap of the 2010 race. Conway ran over the left side of Ryan Hunter-Reay’s car after Hunter-Reay ran out of gas, sending Conway soaring into the outside catch fence. His car disintegrated, leaving Conway with multiple fractures to his lower left leg and a compression fracture to his T3 vertebrae. He failed to qualify in 2011.
“It doesn’t really come into it, thinking about the accident,” Conway said of racing again at IMS. “It’s just great to be back at the speedway. I kind of have a love-hate relationship with this place. I love being there, but after last year not making it you kind of hate it. I’ve seen a few sides of it now. But I love coming back here.”
So does Foyt. The four-time 500 winner captured his first title as a driver in 1961 and last won as an owner in 1999 with Kenny Brack.
“I love having him on the pit wall on the radio,” Conway said. “He gets pretty vocal sometimes, but he’s passionate. It’s his team at the end of the day, and he wants the best for it.”
Conway led 15 laps in 2010 and finished 19th. He was 18th in 2009. Cunningham, meanwhile, has three Freedom 100 victories at IMS in the Indy Lights Series. How will that success in the series one step below IndyCar help him?
Zilch, Cunningham said.
“It’s not the real thing. It doesn’t even count as a half of (an Indy 500),” Cunningham said. “The laps help. Driving the Indy car is the same. But the event itself is so different. The build up, the practice, the rookie orientation. All you have to deal with. ... When you’re under pressure — you’ve got the weight of the (Indy 500) on top of you — that’s something new this year. I’ve never felt that during the Freedom 100.”
As Cunningham soaks up the Indy 500 experience, there’s one thing in particular he can’t wait for Sunday.
“Just standing on the grid. I love the American national anthem,” he said. “I get really excited when they play the anthem. As soon as you hear the music and the flyover, it’s go time.”
“It’s the only quiet time you get during the week,” added Conway.
They’ll both glady trade some quiet time for the wirlwhind media tour that awaits the winner of Sunday’s race. Both Conway and Cunningham said they have visualized what it would be like to win the Indianapolis 500 ... with a minor twist.
“I’m lactose intolerant,” Cunningham said.
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