Sunday marks the unofficial start to my favorite four months of the year, summer!
Sunday also is one of my favorite days of summer. My second favorite NASCAR race in the evening, the Coke 600.
And my favorite race, in any series, on any continent, to kick the day off. The Indy 500.
I wish I was going this year, but sadly I can't. So I hope to do the next best thing: watch it on a 40 inch flat screen on the back deck, occasionally hopping in the pool to cool off. I definitely plan to make up for missing this weekend by heading up for the Brickyard in late July though. Especially since the Brickyard falls on a payday weekend (hooray!) And it also helps that a week from Saturday, this scene is highly likely to be playing out:
(steve) (sprawled out on metal bleachers at kansas speedway)
(steve) (cracks open budweiser numero ocho)
(steve) (no shoes, no shirt, no problems)
(weather) (88 and sunny)
(steve) woo racing! woo! (fist pump!) woo!
(dusty) jesus, shut up already! They're still on the pace lap for f*cks sake!
This year's qualifying saw the return of a true Indy tradition: a legitimate "Billy Boat Memorial" Bump Day, as drivers kept knocking themselves out of the field. Danica, for instance, was the next to last one to qualify -- she made it in with literally 3 minutes to spare. The last one to qualify, literally after the gun had sounded to close the track for the day? Uum ... we'll get to him in a little bit.
A number of big names that routinely are near the top of the Pole are not in this year's field as well. Best of all though, the "no really, you mean he didn't win in 2002?!?!" runner-up is back, after swearing when the decision went against him to "never step foot in that sh*thole again!" Welcome back, Paul! We've missed you. OK, ok, I've missed you. So, in the time honored tradition of any race I attend, here is my predicted order of finish for the Centennial running of the Greatest Spectacle in Motorsports.
Key: Predicted Finish. Car Number, Driver, Starting Position. Smart Ass Comments and, on occasion, Meaningful Insights.
33. Pippa Mann, #36, starting 31st. She's no mann baby, but she is definitely a 3:1 favorite in "who causes the lap 2 debacle in turn three?" pool.
32. Charlie Kimball, #83, starting 28th. Definitely not as recognizable as Chuck E. Cheese. And I'm guessing this Cheese guy could finish better than 32nd.
31. Simona de Silvestro, #78, starting 23rd. Feel good story, but you gotta figure the fact half of her body was literally on fire two weeks ago might indicate a rough ride on Sunday.
30. Jay Howard, #88, starting 20th. The car number does him in -- the NASCAR 88 hasn't seen success at this track since the Dale Jarrett era.
29. Ana Beatriz, #24, starting 32nd. If she's still on the track come lap 60, that's a good day for her.
28. Alex Lloyd, #19, starting 30th. If he's still on the track come lap 60, its a very good day for him.
27. John Andretti, #43, starting 17th. If you're going to wager on an Andretti to win on Sunday ... well, it's simpler and less painful to just find a toilet and flush your money down the hatch. Betting on an Andretti at Indy is usually the equalivent of sending it down the crapper. But if you are gonna take a chance on an Andretti, this ain't the Andretti to maybe take a flier on.
26. James Hinchcliffe, #06, starting 13th. It's ok, I'm thinking it too. "Who in the bloody hell is James Hinchcliffe?"
25. Bertrand Baguette, #30, starting 14th. Yup. "Who in the bloody hell is Bertrand Baguette?" I'm guessing he and Hinchcliffe take each other out.
24. Ryan Hunter-Reay, #41, starting 33rd. In the interest of full disclosure, I like this kid. He's also the only American born driver to win in the IndyCar circuit since 2007. I'm guessing he doesn't post win number two starting from the back of the field in a ride he purchased because he wasn't good enough to qualify on his own.
23. Justin Wilson, #22, starting 19th. Wilson is a damned good driver ... on the road courses. Last time I checked, only the Moto GP folks drive the road course at Indy. Well, other than the partiers gathering in the Snakepit in Turn Three for Sunday's festivities, since said road course is part of the infield parking lot on 500 Day.
22. EJ Viso, #59, starting 18th. Another young talented driver I am usually impressed by. Finishing in the middle third at Indy is nothing to be embarrassed about.
21. JR Hildebrand, #4, starting 12th. Panther Racing is snake bit at this place. I picture Hildebrand running top 4, top 5 until blowing an engine on lap 122.
20. Davey Hamilton, #11, starting 15th. He'll get a long, loud standing ovation out of me when Brent Musburger introduced him Sunday morning. Helluva story, helluva comeback, but he's nowhere near the driver he used to be. Still, inspiring stuff to see him back in the cockpit every May.
19. Takuma Sato, #5, starting 10th. Helluva qualifying run. I'm guessing it won't translate into a helluva race day run.
18. Graham Rahal, #38, starting 29th. If anyone in the back three rows is capable of mounting a top five run ... well, they're coming out of row 9. (Seriously, row 9 is freaking loaded with talent. I've picked nearly the entire bottom half of the field, and NOBODY from row 9 has appeared yet, with good reason.) But Rahal is perfectly capable of grabbing a top 10, top 12 finish from the next to last row.
17. Buddy Rice, #44, starting 7th. Honestly? From this point forward, any of these guys and gals can win the race. This is a really deep field this year. Sadly, the bottom half is that crappy, and the top half is that solid, that there's going to be a huge disconnect in the finish. I can see 15-17 cars still on the lead two laps at the end ... and every other car at least 35 laps back. Rice is your 2004 champion of this event, by the way. It'd be a mild upset to see him win it again, but only a mild one. Not a "Ana Beatriz wins the Indianapolis 500!" heart-attack inducing upset.
16. Alex Tagliani, #77, starting on the pole. Some people believe Scott Sharp is the worst driver to ever occupy the pole at Indy. (I don't -- Bruno Junquera was worse. But not by much.) Sharp didn't make it out of turn one on race day before wrecking. (Junquera crapped out on lap 22.) Let's hope Tagliani improves on those two gentlemen's "efforts".
15. Ryan Briscoe, #6, starting 26th. Our first Row Niner! Briscoe can absolutely win this race, he's that damned good. And you know Penske is going to take him off-sequence to try to make up some ground early, and gamble that the cautions that inevitably hit around the lap 150-160 mark will get him back on schedule ahead of where he should be. Wouldn't shock me to see that move completely pay off. We've seen it before. Oh yeah.
14. Oriol Servia, #2, starting 3rd. I love this kid. He drives the hell out of the car. Which is why he's probably going to blow an engine on lap 170 while he's pushing for a top five finish.
13. Tomas "Crash" Scheckter, #07, starting 21st. And now we come to what might be my absolute favorite driver in the field, and no, that is not a joke or a typo. And it's for this reason -- you know he's going to wreck out. You know he's going to wreck out while going for the lead, or while leading the race. And you know it's not going to be a simple "one car into the wall" deal, it's going to take out multiple drivers, possibly involve multiple injuries, and potentially multiple fatalities. This kid doesn't just wreck -- he "Crashes", hence his nickname from me. If "Crash" is still out there come lap 180, and I fully expect he will be, because he almost always is, pray the driver you are rooting for (or that you have in the gambling pool) is nowhere near "Crash" on the track. Because the Big One will happen, and "Crash" will cause it. On that, you can bet the familiy farm.
12. Tony Kanaan, #82, starting 22nd. Love this guy too. Probably the best driver in the field that hasn't won this race, save for maybe Paul Tracy. (Tracy certainly is the biggest horses ass in this field that has never won it, although some of us (hey, that's me!) will go to our graves convinced Tracy won in 2002.) Kanaan will get to the front at some point. If you're looking for a dark horse / sleeper in this thing, he's one of the three I'd consider wagering everything short of my life on to be that dark horse / sleeper. (The other two we'll get to in a few more picks.)
11. Helio Castroneves, #3, starting 16th. Looking to join Rick Mears, Al Unser, and AJ Foyt as the only four time winners at Indy. He's got the talent to do it. Lord knows he's got the owner and pit crew to do it. Will be fun to watch. Plus, he gives by far and away the best post-race celebration. For all you NASCAR lovers who think there is no racing outside of NASCAR, please remember, Tony Stewart stole his "climb the fence Spiderman!" routine from Helio. He straight plagerized it. Further proof that everything good in racing begins at Indianapolis on the last Sunday in May.
10. Vitor Meira, #4, starting 11th. Meira has finished 2nd in this thing 3 times in the last 6 years. In fact, Meira has never won an IndyCar race, despite finishing 2nd an astonishing 13 times in the last 10 years. This guy is more cursed than Kasey Kahne was his first year and a half in the Cup (Kahne had 7 2nd place finishes before breaking through at Richmond his sophomore year.)
9. Townsend Bell, #99, starting 4th. I liked him better when he was driving for Effen Vodka.
8. Paul Tracy, #23, starting 24th. Let's just say, for the safety of every official at the track, let's just pray that there's no controversial finish involving Paul Tracy this time. That's still the most surreal 500 I ever remember -- the pole had Tracy winning, yet Castroneves was climbing the fence in victory celebration. Oh, and care to guess who's wreck on lap 198 caused the "who was really leading this thing" controversy? You bet your ass it was "Crash" Scheckter.
7. Danica Patrick, #7, starting 25th. She's never finished worse than 7th. Until she does, I will never pick her worse than 7th. My favorite moment ever at this race ... well, was Kenny Brack winning in 1999. Steve's favorite driver beats asshat Robby Gordon for the win. Great stuff. But the most goose-bump inducing moment I've ever witnessed was when Danica passed Dan Wheldon on the lap 189 restart in 2005. I have never in my life heard anything louder than the Speedway for the next three laps. Hell, I was rooting for the guy in 3rd place behind her and Wheldon (Sebastian Bourdais), and even I got caught up in cheering for Danica. I'm hoping for a few more "holy f*cking sh*t!!!" moments like that one was, on Sunday. If any track is guaranteed to deliver them, it's that piece of heaven on earth located at 16th and Georgetown.
6. Will Power, #12, starting 5th. The third entry for The Captain, and I'm betting it'll be his highest finisher. Power will probably be solidly in the second pack on the lead lap, if not leading that second pack, when this one ends. I can't envision him winning it ... but I can't envision him finishing much worse than 8th or 9th. Rock solid driver who will win this thing someday. Just not Sunday.
5. Dan Wheldon, #98, starting 6th. Your 2005 winner, to the immense disappointment of 300,000 plus of us who were there that day. Figures to be where he usually is at Indy -- in the short list of contending cars as the white flag drops.
4. Ed Carpenter, #67, starting 8th. There's a huge part of me that wants Carpenter to win this, just so Tony George (Ed's uncle) can raise two middle fingers at the awards podium towards his sister and his mother, who kicked him to the curb two years ago. As a big Tony George fan, I'm still incensed at the coup d'etat. Would love to see him stick it to the family by having his chosen nephew win this thing.
3. Dario Franchitti, #10, starting 9th. Your defending champion. Also won this race in 2007, a race best known for Ashley Judd sprinting in a driving rainstorm to congratulate her husband while wearing a very showy sun dress. (Let's just say, that sequence had "DO NOT DELETE" status on my UltimaTV for a long, long while.) He'll be there at the end. He'll come damned close to posting a back-to-back, something few drivers have done. But he'll come up just short.
2. Scott Dixon, #6, starting 2nd. One of the few to actually do the back-to-back, he won in 2008 and 2009, and was a factor last year as well, finishing 3rd. He'll be up front all day long. But I'm picking who I'm picking to win for a specific reason, and Dixon doesn't factor into that reason.
So ... that leaves one driver I haven't slotted yet. Have you figured out who I think "is in it to win it!" (Every reader rapidly checking their starting lineup cards.) Give up?
OK, I will freely admit, this is a huge, hu-yuge dark horse. I mean, this is the 35:1 long shot that I'm gambling is going to pay off. (No, it's not Sarah Fisher. She's not even in the field, thank God above.) Although some would argue this is a riskier pick than Sarah Fisher, simply because of what his name is. To which I say, screw it. Ignore the name and look at the talent. This will be this driver's 6th Indy 500. He has three top 3's already, including two second place finishes, one of those seconds occurring when he got passed with literally 100 feet to go by Sam Hornish Jr. in 2006.
(Most folks now know who I’m talking about. If not, keep reading …)
The loudest I've ever heard Indy get was when Danica took the lead in 2005. The second loudest I've ever heard Indy get was when my “pick to win it”’s father took the lead with three to go in 2006. (And when the kid took the lead from his dad with two to go, it was just as loud. Or to put it another way, I went to the 2006 race with my good buddy Dusty. He is anything but a racing fan. And even he was completely captivated with the last 5 laps of that race. Again, anything but a racing fan, the only reason he goes now is because he's married to a racing fan and her family. But even HE admits "everyone should do Indy once". That 2006 race was some kind of special, just awesome stuff.)
Sunday, on the Centennial Running of the Greatest Spectacle in Motorsports, there is noone, and I mean noone, who deserves to take pride in a championship run more than this kid, his father and his grandpa.
My pick to win the Centennial Running of the Indianapolis 500 is ...
1. Marco Andretti, #26, starting 27th. I'm a sucker for a feel good, bring tears to the eyes story. And I guarantee you, if Marco pulls this off, I will be crying. I don't care who sees it, I don't care who makes fun of it, if an Andretti finally wins this damned race, I will tear up. As will anyone with any ounce of appreciation for what this track and that family mean to motorsports.
Of course, a Marco tearful celebration would be at least the fifth time I will have cried on Sunday, as I'm guaranteed to tear up for Taps (never fails to move me how quiet it gets, never fails to move me), guaranteed to pull up Florence Henderson on Youtube! (since ABC always cuts to commercial during her performance of "God Bless America", damned ABC. Damn you ABC. Show Flo! Show Flo!) just so I can cry during the most moving version of that classic you will ever hear, guaranteed to tear up as we welcome "our good friend, Mr. Jim Nabors!" to the Bombardier Pagoda stage, and I will be an emotional blubbering mess when the balloons launch while we "dream about the moonlight on the Wabash". To say nothing of 436 year old Mari Hulman George giving the most famous words in motorsports.
Oh, how I long for my Indiana home ...
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