Sunday could be interesting.
As of Friday morning, two days before the 103rd running of the Indianapolis, the current forecast for Sunday’s race has a 75% chance of rain around the green flag at 12:45 p.m. ET, according to the hourly forecast on the Wunderground.com website.
Indianapolis Motor Speedway president Doug Boles said track officials are monitoring Sunday’s weather daily but won’t discuss any potential contingency plans until Saturday night. Regardless of whether it’s raining Sunday morning, some pre-race ceremonies likely will remain in place.
“It’s hard to speculate on what’s going to happen,” he said. “It’s likely Sunday morning will be the first time that we have any definitive statement on what we think is going to happen. Instead of giving you information that we don’t know what it’s going to be like, I’d rather wait until that Sunday when we see the conditions, and we’ll let you know.
“Obviously, if it’s raining, and then we’ll have to decide what the next steps are.”
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Boles said Indiana weather traditionally is unpredictable, noting that qualifying was completed last Sunday despite predictions of a complete washout.
“Last year the prediction was it was going to rain on race day, we got up next morning, and it was perfect,” Boles said. “It just changes so rapidly around here.”
Should it rain, IndyCar officials will make every reasonable attempt to run the Indy 500 on-time, with the race scheduled to begin at 12:45 p.m. ET on NBC. The Indianapolis Motor Speedway also recently used a new sealant on the track surface which makes it quicker to dry the racing surface.
So what happens if it does rain? Some options:
Rain-shortened race
The Indy 500 could turn into the Indy 255. If more than 255 miles (102 laps) are completed in Sunday’s race, the race can be deemed official if heavy rains halt all on-track activity. If the race is called, driver’s finishing positions are based on their position in the race at the time of the caution flag for rain coming out.
The Indy 500 has been shortened by rain only seven times, most recently in 2007. The race was stopped for rain nearly three hours because of rain on Lap 113 and was declared officially over when rain once again forced the race to come to a halt at the 415-mile mark.
Partial postponement
If less than 102 laps are completed Sunday, the race will resume on the next dry day. With most Americans off-work on Monday due to Memorial Day, a partial postponement would not be the end of the world to fans at the track and watching on NBC.
The race has only been partially postponed twice in the 102 previous runnings, in 1967 and 1973.
Complete postponement
Fans shouldn’t worry too much about a complete postponement of the race, as it has only happened three times, most recently in 1997. If rain completely postpones the Indy 500, the race will be rescheduled for the next day, with start time dependent on the forecast.
The 1997 race ran 15 laps on Monday, before rains once again postponed the remainder of the race until Tuesday. The 1915 and 1986 runnings were postponed until the following Saturday.