Ask not for whom the Bell tolls

This year he tolls for Sam Schmidt Motorsports.

For the second consecutive year, Sam Schmidt Motorsports and Chip Ganassi Racing will team up to compete in the Indianapolis 500.

The No. 99 SSM/CGR entry will be driven by IZOD IndyCar Series veteran Townsend Bell of San Luis Obispo, Calif.

Bell, the 2001 Indy Lights champion, will seek to make his fourth start in "The Greatest Spectacle in Racing." His best finish was fourth in 2009, giving KV Racing Technology its highest finish ever in the race.

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Four teams in four attempts, but this is no typical journeyman. Consider Townsend's brief Indy 500 career (Team/Start/Finish):
2006: Vision/15th/22nd
2007: (involuntary sabbatical)
2008: D&R/12th/10th
2009: KVRT/24th/4th

Put it this way, if you are going to draw names out of a hat for your office pool, you could certainly do a lot worse. And when you consider he'll be in a car that qualified in the Top 11 last year, well, I'm certain I won't be the only one slotting in Bell for my TrackSide Online fantasy team that week. Dude gets it done in the race that matters most, which may be why he's able to race so infrequently and still have such a swank pad.