Qualifying Recap/Race Preview

THAT was maybe the most topsy-turvy Pole and Bump Day in recent history and maybe of all time.


I can say that despite the all the nonsensicalness of who qualified when and where and got bumped and by whom...  I correctly predicted the outcome of qualifying...  
for one driver anyway - Vitor Meira, middle of Row 5.  I was within one spot of another 4 drivers - Dixon, Power, Junquiera, and Kimball.  It appears I have the Foyt Racing stable pretty well pegged.


I managed to get only two of the seven 'bumpees' correct - Saavedra and Jakes, meaning 5 of the drivers I had bumped made the show. I'm happy to report that Pippa Mann, Hinchcliffe, Lloyd, Howard, and Beatriz made it in but coming at the expense of very good drivers such as Andretti Autosport teammates Hunter-Reay and Conway, AFS Racing's Matos, and both Dragons Speed and Tung.


Now excitement shifts into top gear, for raceday is nearly upon us and I for one cannot wait to see what this ol' Speedway is going to give us this year... I'm foreseeing something rather special...


"Race Prediction?", you ask. 
OK, not gonna just pick a winner, but a Top 10.


Panther finally gets their first win at Indy as Buddy Rice (crazy, flat-brimmed cap and all) wins his 2nd. 

Runner-up Dixon and teammate Franchitti will have been in the Top 5 all day, but fate conspires against TCGR near the end and Rice (who history will report had had the racing gods smiling upon him that day) steps through the breach and takes the victory.

Dixon finishes 2nd, Bell 3rd, Castroneves 4th, Tagliani 5th, Wheldon 6th, Carpenter 7th, Franchitti 8th, Meira 9th, Rahal 10th.  


That's my story and I'm sticking to it.  Think I'm nuts and want to tell me so?  Please do.  Leave a comment below. It's like a type-written answering machine.  I may be listening to you, I may not.  Yep I'm a screener of my home phone.  "Leave a comment... I'll get back to you." 


Enjoy your race weekend (I know I plan to), and don't miss the 100th Anniversary edition of the Indianapolis 500!

It's "Gettin' Serious" Time

The rapidly approaching weekend means one thing and one thing only to me.  Gone are concerns for the condition of my lawn or the tidyness of my backyard from kids' toys or the amount of items crossed of my 'to do' list at home... it's qualifying weekend at Indy.


Now I DO have some unmovable commitments (not scheduled by me) for Saturday that involve driving (the family to visit some longtime friends over an hour away). This is just such an occasion that reminds me why I have satellite radio. I will command the programming be Indy Pole day coverage unless *gasp* it is rained out (perish the thought).


Having said that, I will now make my qualifying predictions, in order, as I did a year ago. I can guarantee you one thing; this list will be wrong, but such is the life of a 'seer of sooth, sayer of all'.


The PEAK Performance Polesitter: I'm going against the prohibitive favorite Penske stable this year and pick a Target Car for the pole... Dario Franchitti.
Pole Speed: 228.683


The Top 11 (plus 1): 
Row 1 - Franchitti, Castroneves, Dixon, 
Row 2 - Briscoe, M. Andretti, Power,
Row 3 - Tagliani, Rahal, Patrick,
Row 4 - Kanaan, Meira, Carpenter,


Mid-table Obscurity (15):
Row 5 - Rice, Hunter-Reay, Hildebrand, 
Row 6 - Servia, Wilson, Scheckter,
Row 7 - Conway, Junquiera, Tracy,
Row 8 - Matos, Bell, Sato, 
Row 9 - Hamilton, Tung, J. Andretti, 


Danger Drives (6):
Row 10 - Viso, DeSilvestro, Kimball,
Row 11 - Speed, Wheldon, Baguette


____________ Bump Line _______________
Just missing out on this year's fun will be...
James Jakes, Alex Lloyd, Ana Beatriz,
Seb Saavedra, Pippa Mann, Jay Howard,
James Hinchliffe


The lone chassis without a driver is the the 57 of Sarah Fisher Racing. I doubt this will see any action whatsoever.


I make these predicitons with just minutes before practice on Thursday, May 19. As always my caveat for predictions is that any mid-table or lower driver forced into a backup car (due to practice crash or what-have-you, will likely move them down a group. In the immortal words of 80s rockers Asia, only time will tell...

The Greatest 33

Being a product of my heritage (analytical Germanic-type), my time (1967-current), my geographical upbringing (Indiana), and my primary hobby (sports appreciation), my Greatest 33 drivers at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway is better than yours.

OK, I don't really believe the previous statement and a subjective list such as IMS has created will certainly stimulate arguments and debates on not only the list itself but how the participant's list was assembled. By no means is there a perfect system but I would contend that to not primarily rely on statistics allows for a fairly significant bias against drivers in the first half of IMS's century of racing who most of us never saw (i.e. pre-1960). 

As is typical with me, I employed some simple statistics to assist in selecting and ranking from hundreds of drivers. Cool, unemotional, unsympathetic numbers will tell a vast majority of what I needed to know and after a bit of deliberation, I settled on a formula which weighed wins, laps lead, number of poles, number of races, and top-5 finishes, to varying degrees. 

For me this eliminated a great deal of debate about drivers who were in the top 25-28.  The remaining 5-8 spots would require some subjectivity as there were many drivers with 1 win and some drivers with no wins who fell in very close proximity via the statistics. In an homage to the Indy Press Corps' Last Row Club, the final row of 3 was reserved for the 3 greatest drivers to never have won. All other inclusions had at least one win to their credit.

Without further ado, I submit my Greatest 33 to have raced at the Indianapolis 500:

1-Al Unser   2-AJ Foyt Jr.   3-Rick Mears

4-Wilbur Shaw   5-Bobby Unser   6-Johnny Rutherford

7-Mauri Rose   8-Louis Meyer   9-Mario Andretti

10-Gordon Johncock   11-Helio Castroneves   12-Emerson Fittipaldi

13-Bill Vukovich   14-Rodger Ward   15-Arie Luyendyk

16-Al Unser Jr.   17-Ralph DePalma   18-Parnelli Jones

19-Tommy Milton   20-Tom Sneva   21-Dario Franchitti

22-Jim Clark   23-Dan Wheldon   24-Jim Rathmann

25-Bill Holland   26-Billy Arnold   27-Bobby Rahal

28-Scott Dixon   29-Jimmy Bryan   30-Jimmy Murphy

31-Michael Andretti   32-Rex Mays   33-Ted Horn

The group of tightly-scored drivers who just missed making the list were: Danny Sullivan, Buddy Lazier, Eddie Cheever Jr., Sam Hanks, Peter DePaulo, Mark Donohue, Bill Cummings, Pat Flaherty, Troy Ruttman, and Howdy Wilcox.

Of course I don't really think my list is better than anyone else's, however I will say that a fair bit of thought and bias-reducing consideration went into the making of the formula which produced a majority of my list. 

I would love to hear what you see as major misses or unsavory inclusions that populate my list...