Duno set to join Danica, Fisher in Indy 500
Rookie from Venezuela qualifies 29th, needs to wait out Sunday's results
 Tom Strattman / AP Milka Duno hugs engineer Steve Chaliss after she qualified for the Indianapolis 500 on Saturday. |
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INDIANAPOLIS - Milka Duno made it a three-woman race Saturday.
The rookie driver from Venezuela turned some of her fastest laps all month to tentatively qualify for the May 27 Indianapolis 500 with a four-lap average of 219.228 mph.
Now all she has to do is survive one long Sunday of waiting. If she does, it would mark the first time in the 91-year history of the race three women have been in the same field.
She would join Danica Patrick and Sarah Fisher, both veterans at Indy, on the 33-car grid.
“I sleep very well tonight,” Duno said before being reminded there’s another day of qualifying. “Oh yes, another day. Now that I remembered that, it’s going to be long night.”
Whatever happens Sunday, Duno knows this much: She played the right qualifying game.
Despite running 219.514 on her first lap and getting progressively slower on each of the next three trips around the 2.5-mile oval, bottoming out at 219.083, she stayed out of trouble and followed the team’s game plan perfectly.
She qualified 29th, the middle of Row 10. With one spot still open, three unqualified cars and one of those needing to be rebuilt overnight after rookie Phil Giebler crashed on his late qualifying attempt, it would take some more late deals to force her to requalify.
“We don’t need to go 222, 223 or 224,” Duno said. “We were looking for good and safe qualifying speed.”
Patrick, the only woman to ever lead the race, qualified eighth, in the middle of the third row. Fisher, who has the fastest qualifying speed ever by a woman at Indy, is starting 21st — the outside of seventh row. Duno qualified 29th, the middle of Row 10.
The same three women also started April 29 at Kansas, with Patrick leading the way with a seventh-place finish.
Figuring out the tricky winds and changing conditions in her first trip to the historic Brickyard has been challenging for the 35-year-old.
She struggled to get comfortable last week. On May 11, the day before pole qualifying, Duno made a mistake and wound up in the turn one wall.
Then she had to wait, impatiently, to get back on the track as her team rebuilt the car.
“We have a lot of pressure coming here each day, waiting and waiting and waiting,” she said. “My guys do great job getting the car back together and we have a little pressure after last Friday.”
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With sunny skies, lighter winds and temperatures in the low 70s — ideal conditions at Indy — Duno topped 219 after just four laps of practice, parked the car and waited for qualifying to start. On her first attempt, she made it into the field and sent the trio of women into Indy history.
“I said all week there were 11 positions left for qualifying (on Saturday) and one of them is mine,” she said.
THROWBACK
The 1970s are often called Indianapolis’ glory days. So track officials tried to rekindle the spirit by borrowing a marketing tool — Throwback Day — that has proven successful in other sports venues.
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On the track, the top attraction was 1963 race winner Parnelli Jones taking a few slow laps in this year’s No. 40 car, that his son, P.J., hopes to qualify Sunday.
The younger Jones is using the same number and paint job his father had 40 years ago when he brought the turbine engine to the speedway.
MORE MEMORIES
Former Indy winner Bobby Rahal had his own throwback party Saturday, hosting a 25th anniversary celebration of Gordon Johncock’s memorable victory over Rick Mears in 1982.
Johncock won by 0.16 seconds, the third-narrowest margin in Indy history, when he held off the hard-charging Mears through the race’s last four turns. It was the only time Mears, a four-time winner, finished second at Indy.
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“I’ve always said if it would have been three or four years later, with Rick’s experience, I probably wouldn’t have won the race,” Johncock said. “I was the one who had been here a long time. But Rick became the master of the speedway.”
Johncock, a two-time race winner, also finished first in the rain-shortened race of 1973.
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