Indianapolis 500 Gettin' Serious Time - 2012 (aka Cut-and-Paste Edition)

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.

In the past, I've been tuned to some device to hear the qualifying events as they occur. This year, my family and I will attend Pole Day and despite 25 races over 33 years, I'm getting quite excited as I type. Banzai runs for myself and for all the drivers at IMS tomorrow. I plan to also catch as many of you as possible while I'm there.

Having said that, it is now time to make my qualifying predictions, in order, as I've done the previous two years. As we know there are precisely 33 entrants with motors that have tested. Will there even be any bumping? Who knows - it's Indy and it's May and nothing is over until it's over. 

I will 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: A Sandbaggers Delight - I'm going away from the Fast Friday beasts of Andretti Autosport and going with the suspiciously quiet Penske stable.  By a whisker this year for the pole... Helio Castroneves.
Pole Speed: 227.383

The Top 9: 
Row 1 - Castroneves, Andretti, Dixon, 
Row 2 - Hunter-Reay, Power, Hinchcliffe
Row 3 - Franchitti, Hildebrand, Briscoe

Mid-table Obscurity (18):
Row 4 - Kanaan, Beatriz, Newgarden
Row 5 - Carpenter, Rahal, Kimball
Row 6 - Viso, Sato, Saavedra,
Row 7 - Conway, Bell,Wilson, 
Row 8 - Jakes, Clauson, Pagenaud, 
Row 9 - Tagliani, Cunningham, Barrichello 

Danger Drives (6):
Row 10 - Servia, Jourdain, Bourdais, 
Row 11 - Legge, Alesi, DeSilvestro

____________ Bump Line _______________
Just missing out on this year's fun will be...
Only those who haven't driven to date.

I make these predictions just minutes after the conclusion of Fast Friday practice and prior to the Pole Day Qualifying draw. 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...