The agony of defeat

Well, Bump Day didn't feature much bumping. Isn't it ironic? Don'tcha think? (Sorry.)

The hardest part about watching the late telecast was seeing two teams featuring Jimmy Kite and PJ Jones trying to find enough speed to bump out Moto Marty Roth (pictured, relieved and bewildered), Backmarker Extraordinaire. Despite the endless barrage of commentary relating to mortgaged homes and maximum laps - alright, we get it - neither Kite nor Jones was going to be bumping anyone.

You know it's bad when on live TV Brian Barnhart is giving your driver instructions that do not include "give me four good one's and put her in the show", but rather he's telling you to "recognize the hand you are dealt". Ouch.

By the way, I'd like to cast a vote in favor of televising the Barnhart instructions. Sure, that could be repetitious, but from the opening scene last Saturday with Buddy Rice to Jimmy Kite's last ditch run today that was showing the viewers something they don't otherwise witness. It wasn't funny like Dario's pie-eating contest yesterday, but it was still gripping on days were there was a lot of lulls in the action.

Also difficult to handle was the total lack of extra deals. If the last year has taught us anything it's that PJ Chesson is synonymous with the words "no deal". Judging that both PJ's ran into various forms of hard luck, I would suggest to them they immediately change their names to "Buddy". Just a thought.

And in case you didn't know and are reading this before anyone else: Milka got in. Three ladies. Three Andrettis. Three feet of bricks.

3 Hélio Castroneves
11 Tony Kanaan
27 Dario Franchitti

9 Scott Dixon
6 Sam Hornish, Jr.
10 Dan Wheldon

12 Ryan Briscoe
7 Danica Patrick
26 Marco Andretti

2 Tomas Scheckter
39 Michael Andretti
8 Scott Sharp

17 Jeff Simmons
20 Ed Carpenter
14 Darren Manning

15 Buddy Rice
55 Kosuke Matsuura
22 A. J. Foyt, IV

4 Vitor Meira
02 Davey Hamilton
5 Sarah Fisher

99 Buddy Lazier
24 Roger Yasukawa
33 John Andretti

50 Al Unser, Jr.
98 Alex Barron
19 Jon Herb

21 Jaques Lazier
23 Milka Duno (R)
25 Marty Roth

77 Roberto Moreno
91 Richie Hearn
31 Phil Giebler (R)