(Vitor Meira is uninjured by a pit lane BBQ during the Indy 500 – photo from Gawker.com)

Dateline: Indianapolis Motor Speedway

By now, if you have interest in the Greatest Spectacle in Racing, you already know the highlights of the event. On the World’s biggest stage, Helio Castroneves becomes part of an elite group of race car drivers who can say they have won the Indy 500 three times. Only three men: Rick Mears, Al Unser and AJ Foyt have won it more with 4 victories.

It’s not much of a story that the fastest guy all month, the pole sitter, the pit stop champion, and a two time winner gets to drink the milk in victory lane. That’s the way it should go down, especially on one of the sports wealthiest teams in Team Penske. What makes this 500 one that will go down as a legendary race? The fact that just 7 weeks ago, Helio Castroneves was submersed into a Tax Evasion trial with the Internal Revenue Service, helps a bit. On the day those verdicts were read, if Helio would have been found guilty, he could very well have been in a Federal Prison on Memorial Day. Instead, he ran a brilliant race and stayed near the front all day. With about 50 laps to go, he made a pass for the lead and was off to the races. No one would be able to catch the fiery Brazilian, but it didn’t even matter that he won by nearly 2 seconds over Dan Wheldon, it was the victory itself that was so mesmerizing.

Also of note is that Danica Patrick, who finished third behind Wheldon, became the highest finishing female driver in Indianapolis 500 history. If she could have gotten around Wheldon, who knows what she would have had for Helio…but she didn’t and wound up in third. Major MSF props go to Danica and the Boost Mobile #7 of Andretti Green Racing. You guys were fun to watch all day long.

Alex Tagliani, who was inserted in the 33th position when he replaced Bruno Junquiera in the Conquest Racing car, finished 11th and walked away with Rookie of The Year honors. Way to go TAGS!

The race was slowed by over 60 laps of yellow flags from accidents and debris, but fortunately most of them were single car accidents. One of the not so lucky ones was Vitor Meira (pictured above). Vitor Meira and Rapha Matos tangled going into turn one and Meira took a hard impact into the SAFER barrier, sliding alongside the wall on two wheels. He stopped skidding in front of where we were seated in the entrance to turn two. Vitor is out for the year, he suffered a broken back which is not going to require surgery, but will have him in a back brace and therapy until the 2010 season. Matos escaped with little injuries. Tony Kanaan was involved in a very heave single car accident when something in the right rear of the car broke, throwing his 7/11 Andretti Green car into the retaining wall. He suffered a few broken ribs and some pretty rough bruising from the accident.

The weather, almost always a factor on race day, was perfect. Sun shined on turn two for the majority of the event and I have the sunburn to prove it. The forecast had called for as high as a 60% chance of rain throughout the day, yet in reality we didn’t get a drop of rain until Monday morning. This year’s weather is just another thing that made the race so special. When the forecasters, just the day before, are concerned about the race getting in…or being delayed because of weather, you can always feel a bit of apprehension in the crowd. From the moment we arrived in the “Coke Lot”, the weather would not be an issue…and was just perfect.

In the theater of drama, known commonly as the Indianapolis Motor Speedway, there are so many things I take away when we leave the famous intersection of 16th and Georgetown behind, and head for home on the north side of Indy. This year, I will remember sitting by my sister the most. Though she has been to the 500 before, we had not sat together until Sunday. I think, that’s the thing about Indy. It’s a race…it’s a party…and it’s a family. My family has three generations that have now been to that wonderful place during the month of May, and it really is a special place to us. As Taps began to play, just minutes before the command to start engines, I got teary eyed. I looked over at my sister, sitting to my right, and saw she too had teared up. We smiled, wiping our eyes dry, thinking quietly that I couldn’t believe we were crying because of a race…but I know it’s much more than that. In many ways, it’s who we are.

Here are the full results of the 93rd Running of the Indianapolis 500.

93rd Indianapolis 500 – Race Results
Rank	Car No.	Driver	Car Name	Laps/Retired	Grid	Laps Led	Points
1	3	Hélio Castroneves	Team Penske	200	1	66	51
2	4	Dan Wheldon	National Guard Panther Racing	200	18	0	40
3	7	Danica Patrick	Boost Mobile/Motorola (Andretti Green Racing)	200	10	0	35
4	8	Townsend Bell	Herbalife–KV Racing Technology	200	24	0	32
5	12	Will Power	Verizon Wireless (Team Penske)	200	9	0	30
6	9	Scott Dixon	Target Chip Ganassi Racing	200	5	73	30
7	10	Dario Franchitti	Target Chip Ganassi Racing	200	3	50	26
8	20	Ed Carpenter	Menards/Vision Racing	200	17	0	24
9	15	Paul Tracy	GEICO/KV Racing Technology	200	13	0	22
10	27	Hideki Mutoh	Formula Dream (Andretti Green Racing)	200	16	0	20
11	36	Alex Tagliani (R)	(All Sport) Conquest Racing	200	33	0	19
12	19	Tomas Scheckter	Mona Vie (Dale Coyne Racing)	200	26	0	18
13	99	Alex Lloyd	HER CGR/SSM Racing	200	11	0	17
14	16	Scott Sharp	Tequila Patrón Panther Racing	200	20	0	16
15	6	Ryan Briscoe	Team Penske	200	2	11	15
16	41	A.J. Foyt IV	ABC Supply/Foyt-Greer Racing	200	19	0	14
17	67	Sarah Fisher	Dollar General/Sarah Fisher Racing	200	21	0	13
18	24	Mike Conway (R)	(Purex) Dreyer & Reinbold Racing	200	27	0	12
19	43	John Andretti	Window World (Dreyer & Reinbold Racing/Richard Petty Motorsports)	200	28	0	12
20	23	Milka Duno	CITGO/Dreyer & Reinbold Racing	199	30	0	12
21	14	Vitor Meira	ABC Supply Co. A.J. Foyt Racing	173 (Contact)	14	0	12
22	2	Raphael Matos (R)	US Air Force Luczo Dragon	173 (Contact)	12	0	12
23	18	Justin Wilson	Z-Line Designs (Dale Coyne Racing)	160 (Contact)	15	0	12
24	13	E.J. Viso	PDVSA HVM Racing	139 (Steering)[39]	29	0	12
25	00	Nelson Philippe (R)	i drive green HVM Racing	130 (Contact)	31	0	10
26	17	Oriol Servia	The Rahal Letterman DAFCA Special	98 (Fuel Pump)[40]	25	0	10
27	11	Tony Kanaan	Team 7-Eleven (Andretti Green Racing)	97 (Contact)	6	0	10
28	06	Robert Doornbos (R)	(Hole in the Wall Camps) Newman/Haas/Lanigan Racing	85 (Contact)	23	0	10
29	44	Davey Hamilton	Hewlett Packard (Dreyer & Reinbold Racing/Kingdom Racing)	79 (Contact)	22	0	10
30	26	Marco Andretti	Team Venom Energy (Andretti Green Racing)	56 (Handling)	8	0	10
31	02	Graham Rahal	McDonald’s Racing Team (Newman/Haas/Lanigan Racing)	55 (Contact)	4	0	10
32	21	Ryan Hunter-Reay	IZOD/William Rast/Vision Racing	19 (Contact)	32	0	10
33	5	Mario Moraes	Azul Tequila–Votorantim–KV Racing Technology	0 (Contact)	7	0	10
Race average speed: 150.318 mph (241.913 km/h)

Next Up:

The ABC Supply Co. AJ FOYT 225 at Milwaukee

Qualifying: Saturday May 30 (6pm on VERSUS)

Race: Sunday May 31 (3:30pm on ABC)

We will have a pre-race update right here on Midwest Sports Fans!

After you make your UFC 98 odds picks for Saturday night, you can get in on the Indy 500 betting action Sunday afternoon for the “Greatest Spectacle In Racing,” which will begin at 1:00 PM ET. Scott Dixon is the defending race winner and favorite in your online sports book, but another former winner will take the checkered flag.

Dixon has Indy 500 odds of +350, and the defending series champion will roll off fifth, in the middle of the second row. Dixon hasn’t finished lower than sixth in his last three 500s. He also won the last IndyCar race at Kansas after two disappointing results at St. Petersburg and Long Beach, and another win would give him a lot of momentum heading into the summer months.

Ryan Briscoe isn’t the most well-known IndyCar driver, and he’s probably most recognized for tangling with Danica Patrick on pit road in last year’s 500, taking them both out of the race. Briscoe has Indy 500 odds of +600 after winning at St. Petersburg and coming in fourth at Kansas, and he ran fifth at the Brickyard in 2007. He starts in the middle on the front row.

Points leader Tony Kanaan, who starts on the outside of the middle row, and 2007 500 winner Dario Franchitti are rated at +700. Kanaan has a series title from 2004 and he’d love to add an Indy win to his resume with four top-10s in seven trips to the Brickyard. Franchitti returns after sponsorship problems ended his NASCAR stint, and he’ll be looking for a good run after an 18th-place result at Kansas. Franchitti also won Long Beach, and starts on the outside of the front row.

Of course, you have to mention Danica Patrick Indy 500 odds, which are set at +1000. She’s followed up a 19th-place run at St. Petersburg with two straight top-fives, and she’s good at Indy as well, racking up a pair of top-fives and an eighth-place result in three visits to the Brickyard. IndyCar’s most popular driver rolls off 10th, on the outside of the fourth row.

However, this year’s winner is accustomed to the tradition of drinking milk in Victory Lane at Indy, as Helio Castroneves is the last driver to win back-to-back 500s in 2001 and 2002. Castroneves thought he’d be watching this race from a jail cell, but he beat his tax-evasion case, and came back with a seventh-place and runner-up finish since then. No one is happier to be back in the driver’s seat than Castroneves, who is starting from the pole and rated at +400, and he gives you a solid chance to win. Take Helio Castroneves’ Indy 500 odds on Sunday.