A Baseball Hall of Fame inductee will set up The Greatest Spectacle in Racing, the Indy 500, on Sunday, May 26.
Indianapolis Motor Speedway has announced that Ken Griffey Jr. will take on the role of honorary pace car driver for the 108th running of the Indianapolis 500. He will drive the Chevrolet Corvette E-Ray while leading the field of 33 competitors to the green flag.
Griffey is one of MLB’s most prolific players. He hit the seventh-most home runs in history (630) and earned 10 Gold Glove Awards for his defensive play in center field. A 13-time All-Star, Griffey also broke Tom Seaver’s MLB record for receiving the highest percentage of Hall of Fame votes.
Seaver’s record was 98.84% in 1992 and Griffey received 99.32% of the vote in 2016.
“Every baseball fan knows Ken Griffey Jr.,” IMS President J. Douglas Boles said in a statement. “Two legends will come together as Griffey hops into the Corvette E-Ray to lead the field at the Racing Capital of the World.”
Griffey will line up ahead of the Penske trio
When Griffey climbs behind the wheel of the Corvette E-Ray, he will line up ahead of three drivers from the same organization — Team Penske.
Indy 500 qualifying took place last weekend and set the lineup for the prestigious race. This process unfolded over multiple days as drivers completed multiple laps around Indianapolis Motor Speedway in pursuit of a spot in the first two rows.
Qualifying began on Saturday, May 18. All of the drivers hoping to qualify for the Indy 500 completed four laps. The fastest 12 moved on to Sunday’s qualifying sessions, as did the slowest four. Saturday’s session determined the starting lineup for rows five through 10.
The second day of qualifying featured three sessions. The four slowest drivers competed for three spots on row 11. Graham Rahal, Marcus Ericsson, and Katherine Legge all advanced to the Indy 500. Rookie Nolan Siegel crashed in his qualifying session and failed to make the race.
The fastest 12 drivers qualified in the morning. Six moved on to the evening session, which determined the front two rows. The slower six drivers qualified for rows three and four.
Scott McLaughlin, driver of the No. 3 Team Penske Chevrolet, won the pole. He set the fastest four-lap average at 234.220 mph. Team Penske teammate Will Power, winner of the 2018 Indy 500 and two NTT IndyCar Series championships, posted the second-fastest time with an average speed of 233.917 mph.
Two-time IndyCar champion Josef Newgarden took the third spot on the front row to secure the Team Penske sweep. He had the third-fastest time with an average speed of 233.808 mph.
Arrow McLaren driver Alexander Rossi, 2021 NASCAR Cup Series champion Kyle Larson, and A.J. Foyt Enterprises driver Santino Ferrucci qualified on the second row.
Larson, who qualified fifth in his first-ever Indy 500 attempt, will try to complete a historic feat on May 26. Larson will start the day trying to complete all 500 miles of the Indy 500 and then he will fly to Charlotte to attempt to complete all 600 miles of the Coca-Cola 600 NASCAR Cup Series race.