Hey Champ Car fans...
Good thing the Champ Car-IRL merger coalesced well before the Indy 500. Just in time for Champ Car fans to watch their favorite drivers get out of Long Beach, then contend for the biggest checkered flag in American open-wheel racing, right?
There is that little matter of qualifying for the race, which a grand total of ZERO "transitional" Champ Car-to-IRL drivers managed to do today with the top 11 starting positions up for grabs. The fastest was Graham Rahal, whose qualifying-lap average of 223.2 was bumped by Tomas Scheckter (who has 2 wins in 93 career IRL starts).
This reality had to be somewhat sobering to the ex-Champ Car drivers, crews and their fans, who might have been expecting a quicker ascent to the top of the new-look field. Qualifying low isn't as fatal in the IRL as much as other circuits (namely, NASCAR), but of the past 20 Indy 500 winners, only four qualified 12th or lower. Spots 12-22 are on the line today.