Castroneves, Patrick move on in Indy qualifying

INDIANAPOLIS – IndyCar’s marquee names turned a day of qualifying for the “Greatest Spectacle in Racing” into a throwback, nail-biting, bumping affair.

Helio Castroneves, seeking a redemptive record-tying fourth victory, was fastest around Indianapolis Motor Speedway. Danica Patrick was fast, too, and she averaged 227.610 mph to snag the ninth and final spot in the next round of qualifying, the Fast Nine. But this was a full field for the first time in years, and it meant two drivers weren’t making next Sunday’s show.

Never did the renewed bumping expect to be a threat to James Hinchcliffe, one of IndyCar’s top drivers, a popular Canadian, and a celebrity from his stint as runner-up on ABC’s “Dancing With the Stars” show.

Add in this is the final Indy 500 on ABC, ending a partnership that started in 1965 and is second in sports only to CBS and the Masters. The network has been a strong partner for tiny IndyCar, and it helped turn Hinchcliffe and Castroneves into crossover stars.

And no one expected trouble for Pippa Mann, a perennial presence in the Indy 500. The British driver spends her entire year working to raise the money to run the Indy 500.

Yet after a day of bumping, it was Hinchcliffe and Mann who were surprisingly sidelined.

“It was devastating in every way possible,” said Hinchcliffe, who is fifth in the IndyCar standings and a full-time racer for an anchor team. “We came here with big expectations and high hopes. We didn’t have Fast Nine speed but we didn’t think we’d miss the race.

“It’s Indy and we finally have bumping again and everyone was thrilled about it. Well, I’m a lot less thrilled about it.”

Hinchcliffe nearly lost his life at Indy in a 2015 crash in which he was pierced in an artery and would have bled to death if not for IndyCar’s standard-setting medical staff. He missed the race that year, but otherwise is a staple of the series.

Mann is a one-off. Without her in the field, the Indy 500 will have just one woman, Patrick, at the time her return to American open wheel’s crown jewel event is being celebrated. Patrick is retiring after this Indy 500, her first since 2011 because of a brief and unsuccessful move to NASCAR. Back for the second leg of a farewell in “The Danica Double” she’s bookended Indy with the Daytona 500 on a two-race goodbye tour.

There’s a chance IndyCar could intervene. The standard is 33 cars, but the Indy 500 is the only race that matters to the IndyCar elite and it had a 35 car field in 1997.