Pato O'Ward looking to change his Indianapolis 500 thirst for victory by finding a cow to milk
The former winners of the Indianapolis 500, top row, left to right, Alexander Rossi, Ryan Hunter-Reay, Helio Castroneves, of Brazil, and Marcus Ericsson, of Sweden, bottom bottom row, Will Power, of Australia, Josef Newgarden, Scott Dixon, of New Zealand, and Takuma Sato, of Japan, pose for a photo on the start/finish line before practice for the Indianapolis 500 auto race at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway in Indianapolis, Monday, May 19, 2025. (AP Photo/Michael Conroy)
Colton Herta prepares climbs out of his car during qualifications for the Indianapolis 500 auto race at Indianapolis Motor Speedway in Indianapolis, Saturday, May 17, 2025. (AP Photo/Michael Conroy)
The car driven by Colton Herta slides along the track after becoming airborne after hitting the wall in the first turn during a qualification attempt for the Indianapolis 500 auto race at Indianapolis Motor Speedway in Indianapolis, Saturday, May 17, 2025. (AP Photo/Kirk DeBrunner)
Ryan Hunter-Reay, left, and Alexander Rossi talk as they wait for their turn during qualification for the Indianapolis 500 auto race at Indianapolis Motor Speedway in Indianapolis, Saturday, May 17, 2025. (AP Photo/Michael Conroy)
Pato O'Ward, of Mexico, waves to fans before the start of practice for the Indianapolis 500 auto race at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway in Indianapolis, Monday, May 19, 2025. (AP Photo/Michael Conroy)
Pato O'Ward, of Mexico, waves to fans before the start of practice for the Indianapolis 500 auto race at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway in Indianapolis, Monday, May 19, 2025. (AP Photo/Michael Conroy)
The former winners of the Indianapolis 500, top row, left to right, Alexander Rossi, Ryan Hunter-Reay, Helio Castroneves, of Brazil, and Marcus Ericsson, of Sweden, bottom bottom row, Will Power, of Australia, Josef Newgarden, Scott Dixon, of New Zealand, and Takuma Sato, of Japan, pose for a photo on the start/finish line before practice for the Indianapolis 500 auto race at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway in Indianapolis, Monday, May 19, 2025. (AP Photo/Michael Conroy)
Colton Herta prepares climbs out of his car during qualifications for the Indianapolis 500 auto race at Indianapolis Motor Speedway in Indianapolis, Saturday, May 17, 2025. (AP Photo/Michael Conroy)
The car driven by Colton Herta slides along the track after becoming airborne after hitting the wall in the first turn during a qualification attempt for the Indianapolis 500 auto race at Indianapolis Motor Speedway in Indianapolis, Saturday, May 17, 2025. (AP Photo/Kirk DeBrunner)
Ryan Hunter-Reay, left, and Alexander Rossi talk as they wait for their turn during qualification for the Indianapolis 500 auto race at Indianapolis Motor Speedway in Indianapolis, Saturday, May 17, 2025. (AP Photo/Michael Conroy)
Pato O'Ward, of Mexico, waves to fans before the start of practice for the Indianapolis 500 auto race at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway in Indianapolis, Monday, May 19, 2025. (AP Photo/Michael Conroy)
INDIANAPOLIS (AP) — IndyCar driver Pato O'Ward understands winners drink milk at the Indianapolis 500.
He just doesn't want a small oversight to cause him any more race day consternation. So during Thursday's media day, O'Ward said he plans to participate in a superstition that he hopes will end the tough spills he's endured in his first five Indy 500 starts.
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Pole winner Robert Shwartzman recounted how after last weekend's qualifying, he took part in the rookie tradition of milking a cow — and the role it's believed to play in who quenches their thirst in victory lane.
'The woman, she came to me and said, 'The people who didn't milk the cow, they never won the Indy 500,' and they were like (did not finish). It's bad luck,' Shwartzman said. 'Whoever milks the cow. Alexander Rossi did it. He won the 500. You have to milk the cow.'
Shwartzman described his personal experience with a 'very calm, cute' cow named Indy.
O'Ward never got his chance to squeeze an udder because his rookie start came in 2020 during the COVID-19 pandemic, when the race was run in August with no fans and the milking tradition was put on hold.
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Since then, he's finished sixth, fourth, second, 24th and second.
Two-time race winner Takuma Sato claimed he never took part in the tradition, but that didn't seem to impress O'Ward, who eventually asked: 'Are they always ready to just...?"
Finally, after Shwartzman suggested O'Ward wait until next year to make it right, O'Ward said he wasn't content to have yet another race day spoiled. He wanted to milk a cow immediately.
The Indiana Dairy Association was quick to offer help.
'We know some farmers who know some cows who can make that happen,' the group posted on X.
Playing hooky
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Ryan Hunter-Reay brought a special guest to the dais Thursday — his oldest son, Ryden.
The soon-to-be-sixth-grader wore a baseball cap, shorts and, of course, No. 23 socks to honor his dad, the 2014 Indy 500 winner.
Spending race week in Indianapolis was only part of the treat for Ryden Hunter-Reay. He also got to miss his last week of school.
'I think it's better (here),' he said when asked about his absence from class.
And who does he think will win Sunday's race?
'My dad,' he said.
Feeling better
Colton Herta canceled his local Community Day appearance Wednesday because he was under the weather.
By Thursday, he was feeling well enough to show up for his media day interview.
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While Herta seems to be on the mend or Sunday's race, he would feel much better with a higher starting spot. He qualified 29th Saturday, just 4 1/2 hours after crashing on his first qualifying attempt. He'll start 27th because of the penalties assessed to two Team Penske cars.
At least he's comfortable in the backup car his team scrambled to set up Saturday.
'It's just like being in the other car, they patched everything pretty perfectly, which for me has never happened before, so it was a surprise,' Herta said. 'It filled me with a lot of confidence, made it easier to get back to work.'
Drive for five
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Helio Castroneves is the fourth and most recent member of Indy's four-time winners club. His quest to become the race's first five-time champion has been overshadowed by Kyle Larson's second attempt at running the Indy 500 and Coca-Cola 600 on the same day, and by the Team Penske scandal.
The longtime Penske driver who now drives for Meyer Shank Racing will start 22nd after moving up two spots on the starting grid because of the penalties assessed to his two ex-teammates. It's the third-lowest starting position of his 25 career Indy starts after he qualified 28th in 2020 and 27th in 2022.
The 50-year-old Brazilian also is completing his own double this season by competing in the Daytona 500 and the Indy 500 in the same year.
'This place has been good to me, this place is amazing and I'm trying to get something special, to rewrite history,' Castroneves said. 'So we're going to have hard work to do, but I feel like we're going to be up front very soon.'
___
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27 minutes ago
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But to understand what, exactly, can be learned at an event like the PPIHC—or, as Daryl Brockman, director of global sales, marketing, and product planning at Optima added—the King of the Hammers and the Baja 1000—you must look at this race's extremely unique environment. Sure, you want your race cars to be durable, but Brockman explained that the PPIHC raises a frankly fascinating challenge, one that I experienced myself with the aforementioned salty snack. I bought a bag of chips down in Colorado Springs, which sits at an altitude of just over 6,000 feet. It sat, unopened, in the front seat with me as I crossed the race's starting line at 9,390 feet, and made the slow ascent up Pikes Peak to the summit, which stands at 14,115 feet of elevation. A sealed container like that bag of chips will undergo a wild change: It swells and expands. That's because the air pressure inside the bag remains the same as it was when it was sealed closer to sea level, while the air pressure outside the bag decreases. The internal air wants to push outside of the bag, which causes some extreme surface tension. Scientists call this Boyle's Law. Optima Just like the chip bag, batteries are also fully sealed containers, and the altitude change during the race is going to impact the battery the same way it impacts your chip bag: Namely, as you ascend higher up a mountain, the external air pressure is going to drop, but the internal air pressure in your battery will remain the same. Pressure changes can impact the structural integrity of a sealed lithium battery pack, which can cause your battery to leak or even explode, while decreases in cooling efficiency mean your battery can overheat. It should go without saying that all of these impacts are bad, but they become particularly concerning when those batteries are mated to purpose-built cars that are trying to race up a huge mountain in 10 minutes or less. 'Our batteries actually have a breather valve that allows the pressure inside the battery to equalize compared to the atmospheric air pressure,' Brockman told me. 'It's one of the small details that our batteries have that some of our other competitors may not have considered.' Elizabeth Blackstock And it's a detail that can't be replicated through lab conditions—not really. Brockman pointed out that the OrangeTop QH6 spent a year and a half in the lab, during which time the Optima development crew worked out any initial kinks. The next step is actually crafting pre-production prototypes that Optima has distributed to race teams and other enthusiasts who will really put those batteries to the test. 'A lab test is a controlled environment, so the assumptions don't always match reality,' Brockman explained. 'You'll have assumptions on how much power it takes to start the vehicle, which can vary wildly from one vehicle to another; the amount of cranking time; the differences in how a vehicle starts when the engine's cold versus when it's hot. Sometimes you'll find things outside of your initial assumptions, and those are the things we learned along the way to make sure that we have a product that will always perform.' Elizabeth Blackstock, Optima A breather valve is a fairly simple feature; under sea-level atmospheric conditions, this valve remains a sealed component of the battery. But as you climb further up a mountain and the pressure inside the battery builds, it compresses the valve and allows that air pressure to escape. When the air pressure inside and outside of the battery is equalized, the valve shuts. If my chip bag had a similar feature, it wouldn't look like it was bursting at the seams up at the summit of Pikes Peak. The valve may be small, but the OrangeTop QH6 is also outfitted with a load of sensors that monitor battery health, all of which can be transmitted to an app on your phone via Bluetooth. Without the breather valve, Optima could see exactly how sudden changes in elevation and atmospheric pressure compromised battery integrity and lifespan. Add in the breather valve, and the data showed a dramatically different story, though the Optima crew was reluctant to hand off any proprietary details. So, while the 2025 running of the PPIHC was the first time Optima had officially debuted its OrangeTop QH6 battery in a race car as a final product, it wasn't the first time a car had carried some version of that battery up a mountain; its adventure-focused product testers had been enthusiastically scaling summits for about a year before the company knew it had a battery that could withstand the pressures of competition. The difference is that now, Optima has completed the testing of its prototypes and feels confident enough to offer it to consumers. Got a tip? Email us at tips@
