Wait...is that the right picture? It's either the front stretch at Texas Motor Speedway, or Iceland's Eyjafjallajokull volcano...the temperatures will be roughly the same, at any rate. The latest predictions for Fort Worth, Texas, have three digits underneath the word "temperature", so look out for that.
The major trick as the cars zoom around the Texas bullring tomorrow evening will be the fact that, while everything will start out hot as blazes, shadows will creep from the entrance of turn 1 and across the track as the race goes on. Once the bright sunshine is removed from the surface, every possible aspect of the race will change. The track temperature will have gone from something in the 130-to-140-degree range to about 90 degrees, and the air temperature could drop as much as 15 degrees; a race car that was ideal during practice and qualifying today may very well drive like a brick dragging an aircraft carrier across an ice sheet by lap 228 tomorrow.
Unfortunately for those who might be looking for a little parity in the world of IndyCar racing, the teams that are best-suited to deal with such vast changes in the track conditions are those two with all of the resources and prize money -- I think you know who I'm talking about. To make an upset even more unlikely, one of those teams has all the momentum, while the other is looking to bounce back from an uncharacteristically awful Indianapolis "500".
Therefore...
Winner: Helio Castroneves. There's no real rhyme or reason to why I picked Helio; you could have thrown all five Penske and Ganassi drivers' names into a hat and picked one. The only things that I think will help Helio this week are a) that awful "500" his team is more than capable of bouncing back from, and b) he won here last year.
Dark Horse: Marco Andretti. I'm not a hundred percent sure why I put Marco's name here, but something draws me to Marco at this track. In past races here, he's been more than comfortable running up in Sam Hornish's old territory on the way-outside line and making it stick. With the cars as planted as they are, the guys (or girls) leading the charge can run the white line all the way around the track. That makes the outside line the possible winning line.
Ninja Dark Horse: Alex Lloyd. After qualifying, I had a hard time picking this one. On one hand, you had Alex Lloyd, who was coming off a huge (albeit gained more by fuel strategy than anything) fourth place at Indianapolis and used that momentum to pick up sixth on the Texas grid. On the other, you have Hideki Mutoh, who drives for a team that still has a few trips to victory lane left in it and wrangled his car to seventh on the grid. As much as I like Newman/Haas and young Hideki-san, I gotta go with the momentum that Lloyd is taking into this weekend as a possible catalyst for a good finish.
The Ladies: Like last week, there are four of them in the field. Unlike last week, one of them is Milka Duno. Before you groan too hard, though, I direct your attention to the sixth name on the list of practice times from the afternoon session at Texas: Duno, Milka; 214.727 m.p.h. She didn't have a terrible qualifying session, either, putting herself 17th on the grid with some pretty good names behind her. Of course, I still think she'll finish outside the top 20. Simona didn't seem entirely comfortable on the track and she's starting way back in the field -- I expect her to stay there in her first race at this track. Sarah had a decent qualifying run and she's had top-10 runs at this track before, but I don't see her car being too helpful and she'll probably sit back in the top-20. Danica Patrick is the only lady I really have confidence in at this track; she's done well here before and I think she could pull in a top-5 finish when all is said and done.
One final note: Tony Kanaan, winner of the fans' hearts as he charged from 33rd to 2nd at Indianapolis before a late fuel stop, will head to Rossburg, OH, on Wednesday for perhaps the coolest non-"500" event in racing: The Prelude to the Dream. Tony Stewart's big charity event at his Eldora Speedway attracts many NASCAR drivers and a couple of moto-crossers to drive late-model dirt stock cars on the half-mile, high-banked oval. Kanaan will be the first driver to fly the IndyCar flag at the Prelude, and it'll be a big crock o' fun to watch a Brazilian open-wheel star wrestle a big dirt car. The race is live on HBO Pay-Per-View ($25), but will be replayed later in the summer on the Speed Channel.
The engines fire at Texas in about 26 hours. I'll see you then!
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