The Other Side - Poll of the Week

Alright, well last week, I asked which One-Off driver would qualify the highest for the big show, and, well, most of you were wrong. I picked Alex Lloyd, along with one other person. And to think, I'm last place in the UOWWB Indycar Fantasy league, someone must be cheating.

A whole bunch of you chose PT and Scott Sharp, which weren't bad ideas, except PT had a rough time of it on Pole Day, while Scott Sharps crew were probably liquored up from all that Patron and maybe Mr. Sharp himself was as well. Who knows, but, maybe that attributed to Scott's crash?

Anyways, Pink Lloyd took the show grabbing the last spot on pole day sitting 11th. Hopefully we'll have better luck guessing this weeks answer.

How many cars will be bumped on bump day?

Scroll down a bit, and on the right you'll see the poll. Make sure you vote this week, there could be a prize awarded?

Full Throttle

The Month of May has finally hit full throttle (don't worry, no Charlie's Angel's sponsorship, although that might not be a bad thing come to think of it) with the track open to all cars finally. All rookies have completed their ROP and with the green flag for practice, 28 car-driver combos have seen the track this morning.

At one point early in the session, Quattro and Meira held P1 and P2 for a few minutes which was nice to see. I'm sure Tex snapped a picture of the scoring tower for future reference.

Scott Sharp and Paul Tracy, my two one-off bets, are running respectively in the top ten early.

As for one-offs, it is safe they say they have the sexiest livery's on pit lane. I mean, it seems every one-off has a refreshing paint scheme to it, and is a nice change from the red and white we are used to seeing.

A bit concerned as to where Will Power and his number 12 car is. He is yet to take to the track this morning.

And as I type, HCN just broke 223.

I'll be back on later for more updates.

34 Confirmed

Once you count 1 Rahal-Letterman car (Servia) and the third KVRT car (Townsend Bell), we've just hit 34 cars confirmed. So we've basically confirmed bumping, unless someone doesn't make it to qualifying due to crash damage or something along those lines.

With Rookie Orientation finishing tomorrow due to the rain, we should see who is here for the full month tomorrow.

So let's recap the confirmed one offs.

• A.J. Foyt IV - A.J. Foyt Enterprises
• Buddy Lazier - Hemelgarn
• Scott Sharp - Panther
• Paul Tracy - KVRT
• Nelson Philippe - HVM
• John Andretti - D&R
• Davey Hamilton - D&R
• Alex Lloyd - Sam Schmidt
• Townsend Bell - KVRT
• Oriol Servia - RLR
• Will Power - Penske

Sure, I threw Will Power in there as a one-off, simply because the kid is in such a difficult position, and he is basically a one-off unless HCN or the Briscoe gets hurt (knock on wood) at some point during the season.

This has to be the most talented one-off fields since the split. You could make a strong argument for atleast 10 of the 11 to have a full time ride in the ICS, and you could pick 3 winners from this group (Power, Tracy and Sharp) and multiple outside bets (Servia, Lloyd, Foyt IV, and Bell). I'd be willing to bet money (with odds of course) that one of the one-offs will win this years version of the 500.

Whatever happens, this years race is shaping up to be quite a doozy. This much talent + the most historic track in the world = A Dream, and we get to live it.

Edit: Jeff over at MyNameIsIRL has informed me that Stanton Barrett's lack of sponsorship might drop him out of 500 contention.