Walter Zoomie’s World: 2006 Indy 500 Pictorial - May 25

By Walter Zoomie

I went out to the track today even though I am not a big fan of the Indy Pro Series.

I have issues.

Seems like whenever an open wheeled car runs out at IMS, I am forced to go see. So I watched both practice sessions and qualifying, had a beer or three, took some stupid pictures, and milled around the garages a little and then went home before the typhoon hit.

Here are some gratuitous shots of some IPS rigs.

This is the car of Jaime Camaro.

He qualified 3rd with a speed of 184.681mph. Mr. Camaro is from Brazil, and his car is part of the Andretti/Green juggernaut. You’d think with a fast last name like Camaro he would have gone faster than 184.

Maybe he had better things to do.

This is the IPS racing machine of Alex Lloyd.

He starts 5th with a speed of 184.036mph. Alex is from the UK….more specifically, the Isle of Man. Now, I’m not sure exactly where the Isle of Man is, but I bet it’s somewhere near England or something. I’m sure Alex and Dan Wheldon have pints of ale and discuss English football a lot.

Heck, I would like to join them. I have a lot of interest in fine English ales!

Alex is not related to Lloyd Ruby either, probably.

Here’s the IPS racer of Sean Guthrie.

If you look closely, you will see a squad of Penske spies in the background. I bet they are trying to steal Mr. Guthrie’s race setups for race day. Those Penske spies are not very good spies because I could see them plain as day and they are in this picture too!

If I was Roger Penske, I would fire those spies.

They are not sneaky.

Sean starts 12th with a blistering average speed of 181.446mph. Sean Guthrie is the son of Indy racing legend Big Jim Guthrie, I think.

Sean is an American from Albuquerque, New Mexico. I bet he and the Unsers are neighbors, and that they feel comfortable enough knocking on one another’s doors to borrow sugar, eggs, or cigarettes anytime day or night 24/7.

That’s what I think they do often, probably.

I wonder if the Unsers hired Sean Guthrie to sweep their new museum’s floors during the off-season?

It would be honest work, at least!

This is the IPS racing mount of James Chesson.

Jimmy is the younger brother of the smokin’ hot IRL driver PJ Chesson who has lots of sizzle and is thick and swollen and tattooed and hails from New Jersey somewhere!

Jimmy starts 11th with a speed of 181.542mph. Jimmy has dreams of competing with his older brother in the Indy 500 some day, I bet.

When we were kids, my older brother used to throw shoes and stuff at me when he got mad.

I bet if PJ tries to throw a shoe at Jimmy they’d both get black-flagged and sent to their rooms and maybe even grounded too, because Brian Barnhart doesn’t play games!

That’s what happened to me and my brother anyway.

So after a while I grew weary of watching the IPS rigs, and I decided to see what the big boys were up to.

This is what Team Cheever was up to. They were practicing pit stops with a beat up old show car.

This is a close-up action shot of the right front tire changer in action!

A good action shot shows motion and movement, so this is a good action shot, I think!

The guy pictured changing the tire dropped the wheel nut once, and his team mates chided him and derided him and made fun of him. I think they just wanted him to do better next time. They weren’t being mean or anything, probably.

He better not drop the wheel nut during the race, or Eddie will probably fire him, I bet.

This is PJ Jones’ car.

It has a new paint job. They have tried to make it look like Calhoun, which was the name of PJ’s dad’s car back a long time ago when he raced at Indy and won.

All the crew needs to do now is put the engine up front on PJ’s car, and they will be all set!

Back in the olden times at Indy, they used to give the cars cool names like Calhoun, or Coyote, or Spooky Tooth, or Harvey Wallbanger.

Now all we get is Dallara or Panoz, and one of those kinda sucks sometimes, unless it’s on a road course.

Ingenuity used to be cool, I think.

Speaking of paint jobs…this next thing I saw made me openly weep right there in front of God and everybody in the garage area!

It is the freshly painted racing unit from the PDM stables, driven by Thadeus Medieros!

What a beautiful sight!

I brought a couple of 8X10s of FrankenCar 1 and FrankenCar 2 to the track today for the entire PDM/Team Thadeus crew to sign.

At first, I think the mechanics and crew were scared of me because I said I wanted them to autograph my pictures. I bet they thought I was some kinda weirdo Indy groupie or that I wanted to steal something like a 9/16 Snap-On socket from their toolbox or something.

Then I told them that they were MY heroes for doing a serious 3-day all night thrash wrenching session so that they could make the world’s greatest race!

I told them I have an appreciation for what they did because one time, on the road side, I had to bypass a busted heater hose line on my Caddy so I could get home and fix it right later.

They calmed down a bit after they realized I was sorta cool.

I met the HMFIC, Paul Diatlovich, and he was the first guy to sign my photos. He seemed pretty cool. I soon had all the mechanics gathered around and they all signed my stuff.

I even had the dude that owns Royal Spa, and also serves as the stop sign holder in the pits, sign the pics. He said he wanted some copies of the photos, so he gave me his business card so I could e-mail them to him.

Sorry, but I can’t give out info like top-secret PDM Racing email addys, so please don’t ask. It wouldn’t be very professional if I did that, I think.

Anyhoo… I guess all this kinda makes me like an Indy racing insider now, sorta.

I think I could probably go out with the PDM guys after the race for beers. That’s what I think.

Pretty soon I was getting tired and low on beer and I had to pee, but before I departed the garage area I walked back by Motorcycle Row.

This is another example of a proper motorcycle.

This is a Triumph motorcycle. These bikes are just as cool as Harleys and more cooler than Japanese bikes that look like Harleys.

This Triumph looks like it came straight outta the movie Austin Powers: International Man of Mystery. Now THAT was good cinema!

Triumphs are built “in Hinckley, in the heart of Great Britain.” That’s what the Triumph website says anyway.

Just about anything made in Great Britain is cool, like Triumphs, Jaguars, Rolls Royces, Astin Martins, Spitfires, and Elizabeth Hurley!

I bet Dan Wheldon could date Elizabeth Hurley if he wanted to!

As I was walking towards the exits today, I saw this in the Vigoda Plaza.

It is some kinda horrific tractor-pull truck thingy from hell, sponsored by Ethanol.

This is the Horrific Tractor-Pull Truck Thingy From Hell’s (HTPTFH) power plant.

It’s the only thing that’s really cool about HTPTFH.

I’m no expert, but I think it is a big-block Chevy engine.

If you look closely, you can see what appears to be a crank trigger on the dampner. Crank trigger and dampner are two cool terms real gear heads use.

Crank triggers on dampners have something to do with engine timing, I think, and are used only on the coolest and most powerful engines!

That’s what I read in Car Craft magazine anyway.

About Walter Zoomie's World: Walter Zoomie has kindly allowed a number of his entertaining tales of adventure to be published by IndianaRacing.net. You can read more at his official blog: Walter Zoomie's World. Also, be sure to check out the hundreds of fantastic vintage racing photos taken by his father Rick, a former Indianapolis newspaper reporter and photographer.