First things first, I attended Pole Day for the 2010 Indianapolis 500 yesterday with my son. He is only 5, and we did not get to stay all day. Had I been a little smarter, we would have attended just the shootout at the end of the day. Since I am a moron of the highest order, we showed up at the peak of temperature and boredom (almost every team tuning their cars in the pits and never more than 2 cars on the track at once)…the little man was telling me how bored he was before we even finished lunch. In fact, I think the lunch was one of the best parts of the trip for him — every supermarket in town sells “Track Pack” box lunches around this time of year…you get a sandwich, 2 pieces of fried chicken, chips, baked beans and a cookie, all in a cardboard box with checkered flags all over it. Let’s just say that my 5-year-old did not hate the Track Pack. It’s not exactly “sports”, but there is more to come on the food and beverage front later.

Other items of note from my son – the noise and the crowd were minuses; the Track Pack, the race cars, the 2 crashes we saw, and urinating in a trough were pluses. In fact, if pressed, he might tell you that peeing in the trough was the coolest thing he has ever done.

So, without further ado, here are the random thoughts from Pole Day for the 2010 Indianapolis 500.

New Format. I love the new format. All fans love the new format, except for the ones that are old enough or deluded enough to be a “traditionalist”, which is a fancy word for “fuddy-duddy” or alternately, “asshole”. All drivers not named Helio do NOT like the new format. But make no mistake — it took the entertain-O-meter off the charts…and that was watching it at home. I could only imagine how cool it would have been to be at the track for that…if only I were not so stupid.

Danica Patrick. “She found a mountain that was far too high – And when she found out she couldn’t fly – It was too late – It’s too late – She’s gone too far – She’s lost the sun – She’s come undone.” Any time you can work The Guess Who into a sports blog post in 2010, you have to do it, right? Anyway, for some reason, that song kept popping into my head as I watched Danica throw her engineers under the bus yesterday. (That link is for the “damage control” interview later in the day — I’ll try to re-post once I find the original interview where she blamed everyone except herself.) For anyone that lives in a decent-sized city that clicked that link and watched our local sports media here in Indy do their level best, we are sorry, and we know how bad they are…no need to remind us. Thank you.

Now, I am normally a pretty big fan of Derek Daly, but he is just plain wrong with his take at the end of that clip. Danica ABSOLUTELY meant to throw her team under the bus. She was emotional and frustrated…and like most professional athletes, especially those that have been handled with kid gloves ever since they demonstrated a level of ability not often seen (yes, Danica qualifies under those guidelines — read a little about her early career and you will understand), she handled the situation with the grace and class of an overtired 3-year-old. I don’t really fault her for that – in fact, I think it is probably a predictable reaction from someone with her coping skills under those conditions. I do, however, have a HUGE problem with people like Daly accommodating Danica and giving her a free pass. Even though acting like a child, she is an adult and should be held accountable for her actions.

One more thought about this one — if the Indy 500 crowd booed her with gusto when she failed to accept any responsibility whatsoever, how do you think the NASCAR crowd would react to something like this? As for myself, I think you can’t really blame Danica – after all, it’s not like she was the one in control of the car during the qualification run or anything…oh, wait.

Beer WTF. I stumbled upon an absolute traveshamockery yesterday. Since all good stories start out this way…so there I was, enjoying an ice cold Red Stripe kinger at the track. For those of you that are too young to know what a kinger is, it’s a 16-oz can of beer, also knows as a tallboy. Anyway, I was thoroughly enjoying being at the track with my son, enjoying the Track Packs (see above), enjoying just about everything, but especially enjoying the lovely Red Stripe.

It even sparked a pretty good conversation with the guy sitting in front of me about us both loving Red Stripe. I yanked one out of the cooler for him (before you think I was being completely magnanimous, it was 16 ounces less I had to pack out from the stands to the truck) and we toasted to our good fortune. I told him how lucky I had been to honeymoon in Jamaica and have fresh Red Stripe on draft at the resort. For some reason, I couldn’t remember the name of the two dudes that started the brewery down there (Denoes & Geddes, FYI)…so I said, “I’ll bet it’s on the can.”

What I saw next can only be described as a huge disappointment. Perhaps not as big of a disappointment as the two HRs that earned Bucky Dent and Aaron Boone their middle names among members of the Nation, but a HUGE disappointment nonetheless. I am not sure if I can even continue to write about it here…let’s just show the damn picture of the back of the can.

In case you can’t read it, here is what it says. “Imported by Diageo Guinness USA, Norwalk, CT (Good so far) Brewed and canned by Guinness Brewing Company (What), Saint John (uh-oh), New Brunswick, Canada (WTF?!?!?!) – Product of Canada” Freakin’ Canada? Are you kidding me?

I remain outraged. Not so outraged that did not drink the Red Stripe kingers yesterday, and will be doing so again today, but it was still a kick in the ‘nads to realize that I was getting my Red Stripe from New Brunswick.

Don’t Close the Book on T.K. What a huge disappointment for Tony Kanaan yesterday. But don’t feel too sorry for him. He is a great driver with a great team. Besides, where’s the drama in winning the Indy 500 from the front row? How about T.K. winning from the middle of the pack next Sunday? Now THAT would be awesome. He is still the only driver in history to finish every lap of every race for ANY major professional automobile racing circuit. Plus, he is my favorite open-wheel driver. Don’t bet against him.

Sentimental Fool. Call me whatever you want, but I do not know if it gets better than sharing a sports moment with your son for the first time. Sure, he got a little bored with there only being one car on the track at a time, and he is probably too young to endure a race-day crowd (unless I can score tickets to a suite) but watching my son’s wide-eyed amazement the first time he saw an Indy car zip past him at 225 MPH made yesterday infinitely more special than the first time I saw it myself.

I am not going out on a limb with my prediction, because I think this is one of the cases where all the talking heads are correct. There are basically only 6 drivers (all on the 3 best teams) that have a legitimate chance to win on Sunday. Granted, it is the Indy 500, and anything can happen, and if someone outside of Target Chip Ganassi, Andretti Green, and Team Penske happened to win, he would not be the first dark horse to do so…but the smart money is not there.

So, here are the 6 drivers that collectively have an 80% chance of winning the race:

Marco Andretti – Andretti Green Racing

Helio Castroneves – Team Penske

Scott Dixon – Target Chip Ganassi Racing

Tony Kanaan – Andretti Green Racing

Danica Patrick – Andretti Green Racing

Dan Wheldon – Target Chip Ganassi Racing

Seriously, the other 27 drivers, as a group, probably have a < 20% chance of winning the race. In case you have not been bombarded by this over the entire month of May, like everyone who lives here in Indy, let me fill you in on what it is going to take to win this year:

- You have to be on one of the best teams…your engineers are going to have to dial in your car for an 84-degree, calm, high-humidity day…after the crummy weather and asinine schedule have combined to offer you very limited practice in cold and windy weather over the last several weeks.

- You have to be one of the more experienced drivers, for the same reason mentioned above…I would say that to have a legitimate shot, a driver needs to have had at least one Top 10 in Indy under similar conditions.

- You have to be able to dial in your car over the course of the race…under those conditions…which pretty much means that you need both of the things already mentioned.

So, my pick is Tony Kanaan. He meets all of the criteria listed above, and there is no other driver in the entire circuit right now that is better than he is at working with his team to dial in a car over the course of a race. In 2004, he completed every single lap of every single race over an entire season. That’s the only time that has ever been done in any major auto racing league, and it did not happen by accident. The dude can drive. That would also be a great story for racing enthusiasts…kind of like when Hefty Mickelson won The Masters…Kanaan is widely regarded as the best driver to have never won at Indy.

I will also predict a dark horse — Tomas Scheckter. He does not have a great team behind him, but he is a great driver who has always done well, when he keeps the car off the wall. This could be the year that he avoids trouble, hangs around to the end and just decides to sack up, seize the moment and out-drive everyone over the last 20 laps. He has the skills — he has finished in the Top 10 in points each of the last two seasons. I’ll be rooting for him on Sunday.

One last thing about the race this weekend –> do not be in the crapper, or getting a sandwich, or doing anything other than closely watching the television when the race starts. First of all, Emerson Fittipaldi is driving the pace car, an ethanol-powered Corvette Z06…and when he sees the green flag, he might just put his foot on the floor instead of heading for the pits and try to lead everyone into turn 1, just like the old days…not likely, but you have to admit that would be kind of cool.

Here’s something that is much more likely, and a lot less cool…one of the worst wrecks in the history of the Indy 500 within the first few laps. There are 11 rookies that have never, ever driven an Indy car on that track under the conditions they will be facing on Sunday, or anything even close…and none of them really has a great team behind them…which means that none of them will have a car that is even close to race ready for those conditions. The position of “Indy Car Racing Team Engineer” is like any other job…the teams with the least amount of money have the crummiest engineers.

I will be hoping that everyone makes it through the race safely, but I would not be surprised to see some serious carnage in the early part of this year’s race.

As always, welcome race fans, and thanks for bringing all your money to our town — what time should I set your wakeup call on Monday, so you can go the hell away?