LIVE BLOG: 2014 Chevrolet Indy Dual in Detroit

8:32 AM ET — One more quick note before qualifying gets under way: the Takuma Sato Indy 500 helmet auction benefiting With You Japan begins today. From AJ Foyt Racing:

For 500 miles Takuma Sato’s helmet protected him as he raced at speeds over 220mph in A.J. Foyt’s famed No. 14 Indy car in this year’s Indianapolis 500. Bearing the pockmarks, grease and dirt of the grueling speed contest, the specially-designed, race-worn helmet will be auctioned off to aid the children affected by the 2011 tsunami in Japan.

The helmet also bears the gold-leaf autograph of the Japanese driver who hasn’t forgotten the most vulnerable victims of the tsunami that struck his homeland over three years ago, and of his team owner, AJ Foyt. All of the proceeds will benefit ‘With you Japan’ which is the foundation that Sato founded in the aftermath of one of the worse natural disasters to strike his country.

Race fans and serious collectors can bid for the helmet at www.501auctions.com/takumasato, a safe and secure website which will go live today, May 31, 2014 at 12:00 Midnight JST or 11:00am EDT. The bidding will close on Monday, June 9 at 11:59:59pm JST or 10:59:59am EDT. The globally accessible website will allow Sato’s fans from across the world to bid on the helmet which is expected to draw serious interest.

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8:17 AM ET — Good morning from Belle Isle, where race day number one of the Chevrolet Indy Dual in Detroit is about to get under way! Qualifying for today’s race gets going at 8:35 AM ET. You can find the qualifying groups and the time sheets from yesterday’s practice sessions in our Chevrolet Indy Dual in Detroit Event Summary.

Also, if you’re headed to the island today and aren’t sure where to sit, I compiled our Chevrolet Detroit Belle Isle Grand Prix Spectator Seating Guide last night. There, you’ll find photos of the views from every grandstand on the grounds to help you make your ticket purchasing decisions.

Last night was pretty low-key — I headed back into Canada and had dinner at Swiss Chalet with my husband and daughter before heading back to the hotel to put her to bed and finish up on work. (Swiss Chalet is a family restaurant that serves rotisserie chicken with a dipping sauce that’s hard to describe. It’s a very Canadian thing, and I’m told it’s an acquired taste. Pro tip: once you acquire the aforementioned taste for Chalet sauce, you can unlock the super-secret most-Canadian-thing-ever Swiss Chalet Poutine. But you’ll need a Canuck’s help to pull it off because you have to go to very specific places to get it. Once you get that figured out, you might as well apply for citizenship.)

Coming back into the track was pretty easy again this morning, though I’m sure the early arrival helped with that. One quirky thing about this track is that there are golf carts everywhere shuttling people from the parking lots to the pedestrian bridge and then from the bridge to the chalets, the media center, or the paddocks. I offhandedly asked my golf cart driver this morning where they all possibly could have come from. “There’s no golf happening anywhere in the state of Michigan this weekend,” he joked. That’s probably a slight exaggeration, but it might actually be realistic to guess there’s no golf happening in the metropolitan Detroit area!

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