• Indianapolis 500

Bump Day proves thrilling once more

Tony Kanaan hugs a member of his crew after he made the field in the closing minutes on the final day of qualification © Associated Press

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Plenty of tears were shed Sunday at Indianapolis Motor Speedway.

Former IndyCar Series champion Tony Kanaan shed tears of joy after crashing two cars in the space of 24 hours and barely scraping into the Indianapolis 500 field. Rookie Sebastian Saavedra's tears were pain-induced after he crashed late in the day trying to find enough speed to defend his position in the field if he needed to.

Paul Tracy and Jay Howard were just left crying after they withdrew their qualified entries from the field and failed to go fast enough to get back in, reinstating Saavedra even though his Bryan Herta Autosport car was a wreck and the 19-year-old Colombian was in the IMS infield care center nursing a sore back. And owner/driver Sarah Fisher was left with tears of desperation, because having Howard in the Indianapolis field was a key plank in Sarah Fisher Racing's business plan.

In short, the drama returned to Indy 500 Bump Day this year. There may have been only 37 entries competing for the 33 grid positions, but what was lacking in quantity was made up for in quality after an emotional final hour at the old Brickyard. Tracy, the 41-year-old charger who was trying to settle an old score with the Speedway, was literally left sobbing after becoming the biggest name to fail to qualify for the 500 since Team Penske's Al Unser Jr. and Emerson Fittipaldi fell short in 1995. He withdrew his 223.892 mph speed and elected to try to requalify at 5:50 p.m., just 10 minutes before the final gun. But after nearly swiping the wall on his first lap, Tracy couldn't top 223.7 mph and Saveedra's 223.634 mph run returned to the bubble.

Then at 5:58, fearing a successful attempt from Tracy, who was immediately behind him in the qualifying line, Howard withdrew his 223.824 mph run but failed to top 222 mph in a banzai last effort. Once again, Saveedra was back in -- a $250,000 birthday present for team owner Bryan Herta.

Meanwhile, Tracy was left to ruminate on what should have been. One of the most popular stars in CART and Champ Car from 1992 to 2007, Tracy never landed a full-time ride when American open-wheel racing was unified and some thought his top-level open-wheel days were in the past. He's run a limited schedule the last couple of years but still managed to deliver a number of top-10 finishes. For Indy this year, he was reunited with former team owner Barry Green at KV Racing Technology. But the comeback story didn't have a happy ending when KV was unable to tune the car to suit Sunday's conditions, which were much hotter than they had been all week. "I'm a little bit numb now," Tracy said upon meeting the media. "It's disappointing. We were in the car out there trying."

Tracy then lost his composure and struggled to continue addressing the press. "It's hard to walk away," he said, choking back tears. "The frustrating part for us is that the speed was in the car at various parts of the day. We ran a 225 this morning and 225s and 226s at other times this week. But when the temperature came up, we lost the handle on the car. Just like that. It wasn't for a lack of trying. We changed a lot of things on the car -- spring dampers, aero. It was just skating around out there, but we worked together as a team all week, and we win or lose as a team."

Kanaan and Andretti Autosport were also put to the test and the Brazilian came sensationally close to not qualifying for a race he has led six times. He finally managed 224.178 mph, the third-slowest speed in the field. "I was on the pole for this race in 2005 and I think I'm more excited about the fact that I'm going to start 32nd," Kanaan said. "We had a good car this week. Not to have a shot at the pole but to be in the top nine easy. But I got too greedy and we crashed. Then today was a nightmare."

Kanaan went out for a qualifying simulation this morning and practically duplicated his Turn 1 crash from the day before. "We don't know what happened," he said. "Lucky enough, it was a slow crash and they were able to fix the car. It was a tough day for me emotionally. The crowd cheering for me made me very emotional. I probably lost five days of my life today. Fortunately, I didn't have much hair to lose."

But rather than throw the engineering staff under the bus like his teammate Danica Patrick did on Saturday, Kanaan had nothing but praise for Andretti Autosport. "I have nothing to say but good things about my team," Kanaan said. "The guys built three cars in 24 hours. I can count on one hand the number of teams that could do that."

The most positive story of the day came out of the FAZZT Race Team, which after landing lead driver Alex Tagliani fifth on the grid on Pole Day, put its second car on the track and watched Bruno Junqueira claim fast time of the day honors with a 225.662 mph run that was nearly a full mph quicker than anyone else ran on Sunday.

"I think this year I broke my own record," joked Junqueira. "Last year I ran 12 laps of practice, this year I ran seven laps. So next year I think we'll go straight to the car for qualifying."

John Oreovicz covers open-wheel racing for ESPN.com

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