TAMMY: I'll be watching ... with one eye, while watching my writing with the other (damn, these deadlines). I expect it to be a lot of things, including sad (as they celebrate last year's winner, Dan Wheldon), intriguing (as they cover the penalties handed out to 13 teams for rules violations), relevatory (as several teams race brand new engines after switching manufacturers to get away from the under-performing Lotus), and exciting (because, come on, Indy!). But I'm not sure I expect it to be a good race. This car and the engine packages are still very new. Plus, how often does a finish like last year's (when Wheldon won in the last turn because rookie J.R. Hildebrand hit the wall) happen? Not very.
SIMON: Yeah, I'll be watching betweening editing session. I don't know what kind of race we can expect. The 500 is like that. My eye will be on Sara Fisher's team. She has a promising driver in Josef Newgarden. I think the most interesting thing is whether Honda can compete with Chevy. It looked as if they were catching up, but Chevy's engines are the thing to beat this year.
TAMMY: I agree with you on the promising drivers. I like Newgarden also, and James Hinchcliff is absolutely hilarious out of the car ... so far he's translating that charisma into talent in-car as well. I'm also with you: I think it'll be a Chevy getting milk-doused at the end.
What do our readers think? Do you agree with us? What are you excited to see?
I like Hinchcliffe. I've been impressed by him all month, but I'm always worried when a rookie starts in the front row. Bad things tend to happen when newbies start that far up.
ReplyDeleteI think this is the year that Marco breaks the Andretti Curse and guzzles milk. I'm not very happy about it, though, since Marco appears to be about as big a brat as I've seen in a race car over my forty years watching and driving (with the possible exception of Kyle Busch), but in late practice on Sunday he led all the 30 lb boost drivers. We'll see how he goes in Carb Day practice today.
I would love to see J.R. Hildebrand get another shot at the checkers after his heartbreak last year. Another instance in which a split second loss of concentration by a rookie led to disaster.
And then there's Helio, gunning to join the Four Time Club. He's still just as personable and likeable as he was in 2001.
While I think that Marco is going to win, my personal favorite is Tony Kanaan. When the green flag drops on Sunday, I'll be rooting for TK all the way.
I'm a Hincliffe fan too, Rick.
ReplyDeleteI think it's interesting that Helio is such a nice guy. When he raced in the UK, he seemed to be always whining.