Saturday at St. Pete

Today’s schedule:

Time	Series	Session
7:55AM – 8:40AM	MX-5 Cup	Race 1
9:00AM – 9:45AM	INDY NXT	Practice 2
10:00AM – 11:00AM	NTT INDYCAR SERIES	Practice 2
11:15AM – 12:00PM	USF Pro 2000	Race 1
12:15PM – 1:15PM	SRO GT America	Race 2
1:35PM – 1:55PM	INDY NXT	Qualifying
1:40PM – 2:10PM	USF2000	Autograph Session – Outside Mahaffey Theater
2:15PM – 3:30PM	NTT INDYCAR SERIES	Qualifying / Firestone Fast 6
3:45PM – 4:15PM	INDY NXT	Autograph Session – Outside Mahaffey Theater
3:45PM – 4:30PM	USF2000	Race 1
4:45PM – 5:30PM	MX-5 Cup	Race 2

If yesterday’s practice is anynindication, it is going to be a very copmpetitve season. While Sc ott Dixon led the session at the end, Kyle Kirkwood was the star of the afternoon, leading for mosdt of the first practice. Kirkwood ended up fourth on the speed chart behind Dioxn, Colton Herta, and Alex Palou. Rinus VeeKay was the fastest Chevrolet in sixth place.

Kyle Kirkwood said about his run, “It’s definitely really nice to roll into the weekend with some with some peace, right? I mean, as everyone knows, the cars so close and if you’re behind by a couple of 10ths you’re really fighting to get that all weekend. Now it’s a good feeling, especially since Colton is up there too. And I think some of the other guys that ended up ahead of us Dixon and Palou . I think that they went to new tires at tthe end.”

The Friday crowd at St. Pete seems to get larger every year. Yesterday was one of the largest Fridays I’ve seen here.

I spoke qwith Jack Harvey this morning. he told me turn3 is very slippery and braking in turn 4 is tricky. Qualifying could be interesting this afternoon.

New Qualifying Procedures

For rounds 1 and 2, the first red flag stops the clock. Subsequent red flags do not. The session clock does not begin until the first car crosses the qualifying line between turns 13 and 14. This change should allow for at least one extra qualifying lap.

For the Firestone Fast Six, the cars are guarabteed the full six minutes.