Felix Rosenqvist Takes Long Beach Pole in Tight Qualifying

Rosenqvist is in a similar situation. He has only one career victory to show for his eight pole positions and is hoping this could be the springboard for a rejuvenation. So he, too, is looking for a feel-good Sunday when the green flag flies at 2:57 p.m. PT. (Coverage of the 90-lap, 177.12-mile race, televised live on FOX, will begin at 2:30 p.m. PT.)

He had said Friday, “We haven’t really had a start of the season we’ve been hoping. It’s nice to come back here, a place we know we’re quick, try to do a little reset of the season.” Of course, he still has to prove it race day, but with livery saluting the band Green Day, he said he isn’t planning to focus on their hit song “Boulevard of Broken Dreams.”

It annoys him to be having trouble converting the prime starting slot into victories, he indicated. “I’m aware of that stat. This is my seventh or eighth pole or something. I have only one win. It kind of speaks for itself,” he said.

“Race pace is literally the only thing I’ve been focusing on all off-season, all season. Like qualifying, we always feel like the speed is there. We try to really maximize the time we have to figure out how to go quicker in the races. I’ll say we’ve done some good progress in that area, especially from second part of last year and even this year. I should say qualifying has been more of an issue this year. But yeah, we’re fully aware of that,” Rosenqvist said. “I think just looking after the tires has been a thing for me many times in the situation where I have to pit early. That’s definitely something you don’t want to happen. Just keep an eye on tires, I think we’ll be good.”

Pato O’Ward.Travis Hinkle

O’Ward said he counted Saturday as “a stellar day for me in Long Beach. I’ve been happy with the car I’ve been given. I’m comfortable with it. I know I can push.”

The Mexican driver said he’s “muy contento” with his No. 2 start, four spots better than his previous best.

Rosenqvist, of Sweden, said he’s super-happy,” as well – make that "superuperjäst" in his native language.

Will Power marvels in ‘another day in the life of Bob Power'

Plenty of amazing things have happened to Will Power, but he just might have to take a back seat to dad Bob Power.

The elder Power put up a fearless struggle this past week in Australia against a would-be carjacker in the small Queensland town of Toowoomba. The police, tracking the criminal as he went on a reckless spree throughout the area, swept in just in time and halted the confrontation before Power was hurt or robbed.

“Yeah, it was probably a pretty unusual thing to happen in Toowoomba, a small town,” Will Power recounted. “But he was held up with a sawed-off shotgun. Wrestle with the guy a bit, and eventually, with the gun on his chest, he’s like, ‘All right, I’ll get out. Just let me get my dog out.’ Dad has a special affinity for all his cars. He wouldn’t let any of us kids drive his cars. So it was no surprise [he resisted]. It was a Honda-type car. So he does like the car particularly. Great PR there.” Will Power’s No. 26 entry in the NTT IndyCar Series is a Honda-powered Dallara.

Bob Power firmly told the criminal, “Don’t you shoot me. Don’t you shoot me.” The way his son described it, Bob Power wasn’t holding his hands up and begging for mercy. He was barking orders at the bad guy. He said he could see in the man’s eyes that “he was pretty crazy” and likely would have been inclined to pull the trigger.

Will Power.Penske Entertainment: Paul Hurley

“The SWAT squad had been tracing him from his previous run-ins, with what he was robbing and so on. So literally as he got out of the car, they all swarmed him [the thief]. It’s pretty crazy,” the Andretti Global racer said.

Meanwhile, Bob Power’s girlfriend was inside a café, getting them an table. She heard the commotion and yelled to the suspect, “Leave him alone!”

In all, Will Power wasn’t surprised in the least that his father had all that spunk in him. He had seen his dad’s madcap antics before.

“My dad, oh my God,” he said. Once they knew he was unhurt and, frankly, unshaken by the incident, the racer and his brothers “all kind of laughed because it was… just like, ‘Yep, that’s exactly what Dad would do. He’s like, ‘You’re not stealing my car.’ I’m like, ‘Dude, he’s got a shotgun.’ Yeah, that’s Dad. Yeah, that happens. You could do a movie on my dad.”

Will Power said, “There’s many crazy stories like that with my dad. Many. People have gone on racing trips with him. I was on one of them, and we’re driving for Phillip Island [Phillip Island Grand Prix Circuit in the Australian state of Victoria]. He’s in a trailer. And the speed limit [decreases] and there’s busy traffic. He’s not even slowing up. And suddenly I’m like, ‘There’s a traffic light!’ You see this thing locking up, and he was not going to stop. So he starts getting on the horn—beep! beep! beep! I think it was a multilane intersection, and he just went straight through, misses everything as per normal, and gets through. Typical Bob Power.

“He’s still going hard, man. Quadruple bypass. Skinny as all get-out. Swimming in his 80s, still racing at 75. But this is Dad. He’s 81,” Will Power said.

Would this IndyCar veteran who thinks nothing of zipping around a circuit at about 230 miles an hour be as brave as his father if he were the victim of a carjacking attempt?

“No,” Will Power said unhesitatingly. “I would say, ‘Just take it.’”