In most forms of motor racing qualifying is relatively simple task; an hour long open session where those who fail to make the grade are sent home with their heads hung low. In the Indianapolis 500 however the event is a two-week marathon, where tactical intuition and last minute bargaining can prove just as important in making the great race as outright performance. Over the years Indy’s qualifying format has claimed a number of high-profile scalps, with arguably its biggest coming in 1995 in one of the darkest moments of Roger Penske’s racing career.

Prior to the 1995 Indianapolis 500, Penske Racing found themselves positioned securely atop of the Indycar racing pyramid. The Pennsylvania based team had been one of the powerhouses of the sport for the past two decades, and in 1994 managed to achieve one of the most successful seasons ever seen in Indycar racing, winning 12 of the year’s 16 races including a dominant win at the Indianapolis 500 with the infamous Mercedes 500i pushrod engine (more on that to come). Despite driver Paul Tracy deciding to leave the team to drive for Newman-Haas Racing, and rule changes outlawing the 500i from competition, Penske remained confident of building on their recent success going into the 1995 season, and after Al Unser Jr and Emerson Fittipaldi had both claimed victories at Long Beach and Nazareth respectively Penske traveled to Indianapolis as one of the favourites for victory.

Despite the outward appearance that the team was still at the top of their game entering Indianapolis, insiders at Team Penske began to grow apprehensive about the team’s hopes for the race. A private testing session for the team yielded poor results related to the chassis handling, and it was becoming increasingly apparent that the team had lost considerable ground after losing the use of the 500I. Although figures in the team remained confident that the crew would still be able to get both cars safely in the race, it soon became clear that they would do so well away from their proverbial position at the front of the field. The truth for the team however would be much worse.

Whilst the Team Menard entries of Scott Brayton and Arie Luyendyk dominated the early running during the month of May, setting lap times at speeds of over 234mph throughout the first week of practice, Penske struggled to get their PC-24 chassis up to speed around the Brickyard, despite turning over 150 laps of practice in four team cars, neither of the Penske drivers was able to hit 220mph, with Al Unser Jr’s woes in the machine being such that the New Mexico native was the slowest machine throughout the entire first week of practice, and leading Penske to make the decision to scrap their failing 1995 chassis in favour of the year-old PC-23 that had dominated the 500 so comprehensively in 1994, with Penske going as far as to provide Al Unser Jr with the exact same chassis that he used to win the race just 12 months previously. Despite this however the car’s still remained in the 220mph range, and leading some critics to go as far to put Penske’s place in the 500 itself firmly into doubt.

Desperate for speed and running out of time, Penske began to resort to desperate measures, and on the 17th of May Rahal-Hogan Racing announced that they would supply with back-up Lola chassis used by drivers Bobby Rahal and Raul Boesel throughout the month of May. Penske had loaned chassis to Rahal’s team when they were struggling to make the race in 1994, and the decision from the veteran owner-driver was seen as a goodwill gesture for the help that Penske had provided him in avoiding a second year of failure after missing the race in 1993.

With it’s Marlboro sponsor quickly tacked onto the black and gold Rahal machines, Fittipaldi was quickly able to get up to speed, turning laps of over 227mph whilst Unser finally called it quits on the 1994 Penske at a speed in the 218 range, quickly joining Fittipaldi in using the Rahal Lola’s in attempting to qualify for the race itself. Despite the comparatively impressive times set by Fittipaldi in practice, the first official qualifying runs for the team continued to prove troublesome; Unser ran laps at 224mph before suffering an engine failure at the start of his third lap, whilst Fittipaldi ran laps in the low 226 range before Penske controversially decided to wave off his time believing that it would not be strong enough to make the race (a time which in retrospect would have been fast enough to make the field for the race. All of this meaning that the team of Former F1 champions and 500 winners would be forced to endure the lottery of bump day if they wished to grace the 500.

After Scott Sharp managed to comfortably get into the race with a backup Foyt machine, Fittipaldi was the next to take to the track, his four-lap average of 224.907mph making him the slowest car in the field at the time and facing the realistic prospect of being bumped from the race should anyone be able to better his time. After Jeff Ward and Frank Freon both failed to reach Fittipaldi’s speed, Al Unser Jr was next onto the track for his third and final attempt with the Rahal Lola, knowing that his four lap average would either see him missing out on the race which he won 12 months ago or providing the fatal blow to his veteran team-mate’s chances of making the race. Unser’s first lap of 221.992 mph drastically pulled down his average, and despite improving his time throughout the rest of his run his speed was too slow to bump out Fittipaldi.

Throughout the next 15 minutes, Fittipaldi survived three more attempts to bump him from the field, until with 12 minutes left in the day; Team Bettenhausen’s Stefan Johansson took to the track, his four lap average of 225.547 mph enough to bump Fittipaldi out of the field for the race. Ironically, Johansson had entered the month of May using a year old Penske chassis, but after realising the car’s lack of performance quickly purchased the Reynard which got him into the race at the expense of Roger’s outfit. The Penske team had three cars left in the qualifying line, but none had a realistic chance of bumping their way in, or even making it to the front of the line. As the 6 o’clock gun sounded, Fittipaldi and Unser, Jr., the winners of the previous three Indy 500s, were out of time, and had failed to qualify.

The impact of Penske’s failure to qualify for the race came to have long term ramifications for many in the team. The previously dominant Penske chassis program was called into question, leading to it’s eventual demise following a disastrous season in the CART series in 1999, whilst Al Unser Jr’s disillusionment over his failure to make the race began to have an adverse effect on his personal life, including a highly-publicized battle with alcoholism and the deterioration of his marriage. In the short-term, it led to the carefully crafted aura of dominance that Roger Penske had crafted for his team to be destroyed. In the space of one weekend of ill-fortune and poor decision making Penske had gone from being an all-conquering power-horse of the speedway to just another Indycar team.

For today’s video there’s nothing else that I could show you but that year’s bump day, arguably one of the most dramatic ever seen at the Brickyard.