The Rahal Letterman squad had hoped to capitalise on the speed it found in Friday's final practice, but changing weather conditions left Ryan Hunter-Reay just shy of locking in one of the spots awarded on Pole Day.
After his first four-lap run turned in a qualifying average of 223.102mph, Hunter-Reay went back out with 45 minutes left in the session, needing to find less than a single mile an hour to punch his ticket for the 92nd Indianapolis 500. Although his first lap left him shy of qualifying, he kept his foot in it to milk every last drop of speed out of the Ethanol-backed Dallara, but it would not be enough. The car spun in Turn Three and backed into the SAFER barrier, ending Hunter-Reay's chances of qualifying on the first day.
“We had the speed yesterday so we had a taste of it, but we just couldn't recreate it today,” the uninjured driver lamented, “I was trying to tune the car like we did yesterday from inside the cockpit, but we just didn't have it.
“We wanted to make it a little better on the exit because that is where we were having trouble, but we were on the edge and we just went over. I knew that it was going to be very close to being trouble, but I'm a race car driver and I just wanted to get everything I could out of it. I've been in the Ethanol car for six or seven months and this is our first crash, and I'm happy to be able to walk away from it.
"I had chills going down my back before I went out, and then, when I found out how the car was handling, it went to frustration pretty quick. These cars, with the aerodynamics on them, it's hard to predict where they'll go. Someone like Danica [Patrick] nailed it and probably went quicker than she did this morning, and we went the other way. That's unfortunate, but that's racing. The car just wouldn't turn, and I was trying to knock down the fence in every corner"
![Graham Rahal - Newman/Haas/Lanigan Racing [pic credit: IRL/Payne]](http://pix.crash.net/thumbs/436622.jpg)
