Put Jacob Abel into the Indianapolis 500 in a 34th spot.
That’s what the NTT IndyCar Series should do to make right over this controversy created at the hands of Team Penske — a mess created by a 20-time Indy 500 winning operation.
Yes, add Abel into the starting lineup for Sunday’s (May 25) Greatest Spectacle in Racing.
I’ll say this, I don’t like it. Not at all. It goes against everything in my inner being, which longs for that insatiable desire to see the 33 fastest compete for 500 glory, to have their faces enshrined in silver.
However, it seems that powers outside of Dale Coyne Racing and the young American driver worked against him in his uphill battle to make the greatest race in the world.
It’s downright unfair. Which is life. Every day, humans walk this planet facing obstacles that make life worthy of living. Without the pain and challenges, then everything would be too easy.
The Indianapolis 500 isn’t easy either. It’s the pinnacle of motorsports agony at times. Abel experienced that outright when he took his last run close to 6 p.m. ET on Sunday (May 18). His small DCR team is a racing version of “The Little Engine That Could.” Instead of chugging up a steep slope, it’s trying to overcome the slight aero inadequacies that alter its car’s balance or rob it of speed.
Unfortunately for Abel and company, they couldn’t find it. The history of the Indianapolis 500 is littered like the Snake Pit post-race with various drivers who experienced what Abel did — from World Champions like Emerson Fittipaldi and Fernando Alonso to one-and-dones like Scott Speed. Experienced Indy-specialists have lived through this torment, like Pippa Mann and even Scott Goodyear went through it in 1992.
Abel joins a fraternity (and sorority) that no one wants to join. All the odds were against him, and the team couldn’t make it happen.
But was it fair?
No.
Team Penske’s decision to break the rules, modify equipment that it wasn’t allowed to and swing a performance edge, unknown as it were, in its favor poisons the spirit of fair competition to make this great spectacle. It’s doubtful that, without the advantage gained by Penske, it was going to swing the team so far back to be a contender for the last row. The mere act of doing it as a team already overwhelmed with resources compared to DCR’s operation, who runs a shoestring budget so tight it probably can’t afford actual shoestrings, screams class warfare.
The deck was stacked against DCR. Even if it wouldn’t make a difference, and even with penalties to Team Penske — who now starts in the last row, the same row that Abel would have been in — that’s not enough.
IndyCar should put Abel in the race.
That’s my opinion, and hats off to Abel, who clearly doesn’t share that sentiment, as related to Frontstretch’s Christopher DeHarde.
“You never want to get into something because of someone else’s mistake or error or malicious intent or something like that,” Abel said. “I think we wanted to qualify and be in the race like we should have done. We knew how fast we had to go, and we didn’t do that.”
“So I mean, if something were to happen, of course I would get in the car and drive it, and I would be ecstatic to do so. I opened that statement with saying I want to be in the Indy 500 more than anything else in the world, so I don’t want it to sound like I don’t wanna be in the race. But I just wish that we would’ve executed yesterday and Saturday and been in there deep in the field where we should be.”
Outstanding. Hats off to that man for living by the spirit of competition and desiring to make the race on his and his team’s own merits.
Unfortunately, others didn’t operate that way.
It’s a tough call to say the traditional 33-car field should be expanded by one more. And Abel and Coyne were clearly not fast enough. But there is too much controversy and doubt over the integrity of the competition, regardless of penalties to Penske’s cars.
With the intrepid media sleuths digging into whether these modifications were run before — it seems they were — and INDYCAR clearly passing the cars through inspection previously, the fault of this could be shared. Yes, Penske broke the rules. But if INDYCAR is saying the cars passed inspection, what it isn’t saying is, “We can confirm those modifications weren’t made previously.”
That’s the crux. Passing inspection doesn’t mean those changes weren’t missed, and that hasn’t been clearly confirmed. Even Will Power‘s car made it through inspection successfully on Sunday (May 18), even with the modifications. What has been stated is the cars passed through inspection during prior go-throughs. Right now, that isn’t reassuring.
That’s why I say put Abel in, because while Penske will get the brunt of the negative reaction, we can’t sit here and say affirmatively that its cars didn’t have this before and the technical team missed it.
Share the blame around, folks.
There’s too much at stake to make the Indianapolis 500 than to let human error on the administrative part of the series, the side of the bargain that they must uphold, possibly let a failure like this to happen.
The series shouldn’t let its possible overlook — which played no role in Abel missing the race, just didn’t ensure complete integrity and fair balance — be a what-if.
In 1997, after a SNAFU over the 25/8 rule, which was being eliminated the next year, United States Auto Club expanded the field for two cars who were faster than the slowest locked-in entry, enlarging the field to 35.
It can be done again. And just like 1997, when an administrative issue was the culprit, the series is facing the same thing now.
So do it INDYCAR. Put Abel in.
Christopher DeHarde contributed to this story.
Tom is an IndyCar writer at Frontstretch, joining in March 2023. Besides writing the IndyCar Previews and frequent editions of Inside IndyCar, he will hop on as a fill-in guest on the Open Wheel podcast The Pit Straight. A native Hoosier, he calls Fort Wayne home. Follow Tom on Twitter @TomBlackburn42.