by Lynne Huntting
Jeff Horton, the Indy Racing League's director of engineering, is also in charge of the certification process for the IndyCars at each round, a job he's held for the past six years.
Horton wears a blue IRL shirt, indicating that he's a full time employee, overseeing the safety inspection process. On race weekends, his staff is supplemented by weekend warriors, who wear red shirts. For the Indy 500, there are up to 50 inspectors, as compared to the 12-15 who attend the regular IRL races and take up but a small proportion of the two 56-seat corporate jets it takes to transport the IRL staff.
Horton's 22 years of experience include engineering work with Buick, Chevrolet, and Mercedes-Benz, before he went over to 'the other side' and became chief inspector for the Indy Lights series and then IRL. He jokes that it was the theory of who better to oversee scrutineering than someone who used to push the envelope. During the 'month of May', however, he reckons that he's at the track pretty much 24/7.
The IRL has a thorough inspection process, which includes cars being presented for scrutineering before the weekend begins, before and after qualifying and, again, after the race. For the Indy 500, after a car is cleared to qualify on the 'Tech Rack', a technical inspector is assigned to go with the car. The League does not comment on how many cars fail the process, although Horton would say that it's less than with NASCAR, which is very public in announcing cars, teams, or drivers who don't pass.
Before the cars go through scrutineering, they receive a safety inspection. Among the things checked are the yellow caution light, which is on the dash or steering wheel of each car so that a driver knows immediately when the course is under caution. The lights are activated by race control.
![Alex Lloyd crashes out of practice at Indianapolis [pic credit: IRL/Young]](http://pix.crash.net/thumbs/437090.jpg)
