Felipe Giaffone claims final spot in the Indy 500 field
source:
irl.racing-live.com
Felipe Giaffone went from shopping at the mall to
bumping into the field for the 89th running of the Indianapolis 500 in
approximately 4 hours.
Giaffone was at the mall shopping with his wife when he received a call with the
offer to attempt to qualify a car for A.J. Foyt Racing. Giaffone had been at the
track most of the week looking for a ride but when no opportunity materialized,
he decided to pass on sitting through the final hours of qualifications rideless.
At 1:30 p.m. Indianapolis time he received a call with the offer. The field for
the race was still one short of the 33 car starting grid and Arie Luyendyk Jr.
had yet to find enough speed to make an attempt to qualify.
"It was a weird day. As far as two hours ago, I had no hard card. I wasn't
cleared to drive, and I was just packing and shopping and getting ready to go
home tomorrow," commented Giaffone. "I got a call and said that there was a
chance that I could drive."
Shortly before Giaffone and the Foyt team headed to the pit lane for his first
practice laps in the Toyota powered Panoz, Luyendyk Jr. made his qualifying
attempt and ran a four-lap average of 215.039, turning his fastest laps of the
week on the attempt.
Giaffone turned 42 practice laps over the next 90 minutes, with top speeds
over 216 mph, easily over the best times turned by Luyendyk. With 24 minutes
left in qualifying Foyt sent Giaffone to the line in an attempt to bump Luyendyk
Jr.