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[LenAshburn]

After last weekend's dampness everybody was looking for a lot of track action today. The forecast is not good for Fast Friday but the local weather people gave us sunny weather for today. That began to change almost as soon as the track opened at noon. An ominous grey pall hung across the western sky and began to blot out what started as a sunny day.

I just checked the radar and the leading edge of moisture is just entering the Speedway area. It is nearing 2:PM and the action on the track has been swift and busy. The concensus is that the top teams are all doing raceday set ups today and will reconfigure for qualifying later. The usual suspects, Target Ganassi, Penske, and Andretti have no fear of qualifying for the race so a run for the pole does not appear to be their highest priority.

Todays highlight is Tony Kanaan and Paul Tracy posting speeds above 226 while Graham Rahal and Davey Hamilton are in the top ten this afternoon.

Times for Thursday so are are:

1. 11 Tony Kanaan 226.775 MPH
2. 15 Paul Tracy 226.322 MPH
3. 06 Hideki Motoh 226.230 MPH
4. 26 Marco Andretti 226.108 MPH
5. 4 Dan Wheldon 226.108 MPH
6. 77 Alex Tagliani 225.609 MPH
7. 30 Graham Rahal 225.559 MPH
8. 21 Davey Hamilton 225.431 MPH
9. 3 Helio Castroneves 225.323 MPH
10. 20 Ed Carpenter 225.283 MPH

Bruno Junqueira was announced as going out in the No. 29 Rast/Herta machine. Junqueira is listed for the No. 33 FAZZT machine but that team is still docked for lack of a sponsorship check.

Just before 2:15 PM the skies over Indy began to weep and the only track activity is sweeper trucks concentrating just below the outside wall which tends to accumulate all sorts of minute debris.

After about a 20 minute delay the track dried sufficient for practice to resume. That lasted for about an hour before really big drops began and practice was curtailed for the remainder of the day.

A full report will appear later on the New & Information section.
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Len in Indy