The field is set

Your starting field of 33 is locked in for Sunday’s race. I’m not sure this video does it justice, but Bump Day provided some truly great drama yesterday at the Motor Speedway. As the closing gun sounded 2008 Rookie of the year Ryan Hunter-Reay bumped his way into the field by four hundedths of a mile per hour.  The stunning development devestated veteran Champ Car driver Alex Tagliani, who found himself without a spot in the 500 mile event.  But the drama wasn’t over:  Conquest Racing owner Eric Bachelart subsequently made the controversial decision to pull driver Bruno Junqueira out of his qualifying position and insert his number one driver Tagliani.  Ouch. 

Random IndyCar thoughts (don’t fall asleep on me):

• I’m going to attend the Indianapolis 500 for the first time since 2002.  I can’t believe it has been that long.  Not cool.  Taking my wife and her two younger brothers.  I found four $85 seats in glorious Turn 4 for $207 on Ebay. 
• Wait… they have thought of something that could get me to visit Cleveland?  I honestly don’t believe it.
• Here’s a reward for reading the first two items without navigating away or closing the page.
• “You just don’t know what Indy means.”
• Many of us grew up during the absolute heydey of this event.  People 25 and under probably won’t ever know what a big deal the 500 was both locally and nationally.  I hate what has happened to it, but honestly nothing can change much I love The Race itself.  The size and scope of the event is overwhelming in person.  I’ll try to post something every day until Sunday to get you psyched up, too.

Finally, here are nine things that I’ve decided to do now that I’m a legit journalist:

1.)  Indianapolis needs a fourth sports talk radio station?  Done and done. 

2.)  Violate every unwritten pressbox rule. 

3.)  Alienate myself from Bill Polian.

4.)  Start a twitter account and tweet about how I don’t know how to use it. 

5.)  Get a terrible headshot taken that will be printed next to my work, unchanged, for the next 25 years.

6.)  Mock the web’s anonymous word butchers as the untrained scallywags they are. 

7.)  Develop a left-wing bias so deeply ingrained that I’m not even aware of it. 

8.)  Spend my whole life around sports without once caring who wins the game. 

9.)  Drink heavily.