By Bruce Martin SportsTicker Contributing Editor

INDIANAPOLIS (Ticker) -- Tomas Scheckter, rapidly becoming the Indy Racing League's "Bad Boy," finally was able to take the track Wednesday after serving a three-day penalty for rough driving.

The 21-year-old from Capetown, South Africa who lives in Indianapolis had the 16th-fastest speed during Wednesday's rain-delayed practice session. Scheckter turned a lap at 225.803 miles per hour in a Dallara/Infiniti around the 2 1/2-mile Indianapolis Motor Speedway.

Scott Sharp had the fastest lap of the day at 228.350 mph in a Dallara/Chevrolet. French rookie Laurent Redon continues to have the top speed in the week of practice leading up to Saturday's pole day for the 86th Indianapolis 500. On Tuesday, Redon turned a lap at 229.808 mph in a Dallara/Infiniti.

Practice started at 3:26 p.m. EDT, nearly 3 1/2 hours late.

Scheckter's long wait finally was over.

"I'm trying to take this as another race track with four corners and try drive it," he said. "We've come to other tracks with miles less testing. I don't feel if I'm at a disadvantage, even if I did miss three days.

"I just drive. There is a piece of black tarmac and a car and I drive. I'm going to drive fast enough until the car is sliding. Yes, there is a massive amount of history here and when you are out of the car and you think about it and you see videos and the past champions, it's unbelievable. But when you get out there, you just drive. And that's what I want to do."

Scheckter admitted IRL officials were able to get his attention and the penalty was enough to help him evaluate his situation. His penalty may have been minimized to a degree because the past three days have been severely abbreviated due to rain.

"What helped us on the problem is anytime you are off the track, you are penalized," said Owen Snyder, chief mechanic for Cheever Indy Racing. "I think it was a full, three-day, fair penalty as far as the IRL was concerned. He learned a lot, he had to walk around. Al Unser spent two days with him and Johnny Rutherford spent a day with him.

"I'll tell you how we made up for it, though. We have Eddie Cheever's car and we have Max Papis' car. We have data from them and we used it. We applied everything they learned the first two or three days, we put it on Tomas' car to start out and now we are starting to bring him up to speed. The three days he wasn't on the track hurt, but we countered it."

Snyder said he believes the IRL proved its point to the rookie driver.

"You do the crime, you do the time," Snyder added. "He did excellent today. I was proud of him. They did everything we said. He was very good with feedback on what the car was doing and he exceeded the speed we thought we would run the first day.

"Hopefully, he has learned what it takes to finish the race. You have to be patient and not be so aggressive. You have to know where you are at in the race. He has been in some incidents and after a while, they can't all be the other driver's fault. I think we go on now."

In the first four IRL races, Scheckter crashed the boss, owner-driver Eddie Cheever, at Homestead, stayed out of trouble at Phoenix, was crashed into by Hideki Noda after Scheckter's Infiniti engine blew at California, then ran into the back of Jaques Lazier at Nazareth.

Lazier suffered a broken lower back and likely is out for the rest of the IRL season.

"We've totaled two cars this season," Snyder said. "He's young. A driver that aggressive in this oval series, running wheel-to-wheel, that's going to happen. That's part of getting race experience."

Snyder is helping oversee a three-driver effort for the Indy 500 that includes Cheever, Papis and Scheckter.

"Tomas has many more miles in an IRL car," Snyder said. "Max Papis has to break some habits and ideas that he has had for the last three or four years with a different car in CART. Tomas ran (the rookie orientation program) in late April and ran 226 then. He has a pretty good feel of what the car feels like."

Scheckter comes from a road racing background and was the test driver for the Jaguar Formula One team last year before he was released following a personal incident.

Bobby Rahal, the 1986 Indianapolis 500 winner, was in management with the F1 team at the time and is impressed with Scheckter's development.

"He's brave," Rahal said. "I like Tomas a lot. He's a good kid. I think he is a very talented guy. He's young, doesn't have a lot of experience and he can't wait to get in a car and go fast. There is a lot to be said for that. He's not the first guy who has had an incident like that at Nazareth. I've seen that happen several times before with people who have a lot more experience."

Cheever is hopeful that the three days off did not affect Scheckter's progress at the world's most famous speedway.

"Tomas did some running around here and he's comfortable with this place," Cheever said. "He got off to a good time, we'll check the data and now we will get him to go quicker. Going through the data is like sifting through sand and pulling it out of the box and coming up with the magic setup."

Scheckter has been fast and impressive, but his reputation in the IRL has been damaged because of a propensity to drive over the edge and crash.

He has proven himself to be fast; now he wants to prove he is competent enough to drive a car up front without putting it -- or another driver -- into the wall.

"I need it for myself," Scheckter said. "I've never had a problem with this in my racing career. I've always been very consistent. I think one of the reasons is that these guys have given me an unbelievable car. Every time I've been out there, I've really felt like I could pass anybody at any time. I've never felt like this anywhere. The team is doing a good job and I should put the car in the front because that is what the team deserves.

"Maybe I'm trying too much. I just have to slow down and learn patience."

Scheckter is the son of 1979 Formula One champion Jodie Scheckter. His father never raced here and he was a little concerned when he learned his son was going to drive at Indy. But the younger Scheckter has proven to be his own man, even though he realizes how mighty the Indianapolis Motor Speedway can be.

"This is the oval," Scheckter said. "Owen Snyder calls it `The Big House.' Maybe it suits me because it has a little less banking. But it's still a very tough track.

"This is a marathon and we've just run the first 500 meters. We have to keep on running because if you start to sprint now, you might pull a muscle. We're going to keep working at it slowly."