While sitting here and scanning driver tweets during the Public Drivers Meeting (yes, we all know you are at the Driver's Meeting - say something interesting!) at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway, my colleague Paul Dalbey from Planet-IRL.com and I have come up with a brilliant idea - betting on the Indy 500. Super Bowl-style, no-holds-barred sports betting.

We've devised a list of 33 Sports Wagers related to the Indy 500. Hey, if the Super Bowl can have it (can I type Super Bowl without someone suing?), why can't we....it's the Greatest Spectacle in Racing, let's also make it the Greatest Spectacle in Race Betting.

Here are our 2010 Inaugural 33-Bet Indy 500 Field, feel free to post your own picks in the comments section.

1. Winner - Dario Franchitti (DN); Ryan Briscoe (PD)
2. Rookie of the Year - Bertrand Baguette (DN); Simona DeSilvestro (PD)
3. Hardest Charger - Vitor Meira (DN); Bruno Junqueira (PD)
4. Halfway Leader - Scott Dixon (DN); Dario Franchitti (PD)
5. Most Laps Led - Helio Castroneves (DN); Dario Franchitti (PD)
6. Highest Finishing Female - Simona DeSilvestro (DN); Ana Beatriz (PD)
7. First In Class (Highest Finishing non-Penske/Ganassi Car) - Ryan Hunter-Reay (DN); Hideki Mutoh (PD)
8. Fastest Race Lap - Ryan Briscoe (DN); Will Power (PD)
9. First Pass on Lap 3 - Marco Andretti (DN); Tomas Scheckter (PD)
10. Highest Finishing American - Ryan Hunter-Reay (DN); Ed Carpenter (PD)
11. Highest Finishing Full Season Firestone IndyLights Alum - Alex Lloyd (DN): Rafa Matos (PD)
12. Highest Placing Non-Tweeting Driver - Dario Franchitti (DN); Will Power (PD)
13. First Post-Race Tweet - Mario Moraes (DN); Graham Rahal (PD)
14. First Driver to Whitewall Out of Turn 4 - Graham Rahal (DN); Mario Romancini (PD)
15. First Stall on Pit Lane - Tomas Scheckter (DN); Sebastian Saavedra (PD)
16. First Rookie Out of Race - Takuma Sato (DN, PD)
17. First Woman Out of Race - Danica Patrick (DN); Sarah Fisher (PD)
18. First Driver to Be Lapped - John Andretti (DN); Sebastian Saavedra (PD)
19. First Mechanical Out - Mike Conway (DN); Bertrand Baguette (PD)
20. First Driver in the Wall - Takuma Sato (DN); Mario Moraes (PD)
21. Danica's Position After Lap 10 - P19 (DN); P21 (PD)
22. Overly Optimistic Move of the Race - Raphael Matos (DN); Dan Wheldon (PD)

Over/Under:
23. Average Winning Speed +/- 152.056 MPH (Under DN); (Over PD)
24. Margin of Victory +/- 1.5 seconds (Under DN); (Over PD)
25. Number of Cautions in Race +/- 7.5 (Over DN); (Under PD)
26. First Caution Lap +/- 13.5 laps (Under DN); (Over PD)
27. Penske & Ganassi Combined Laps Led +/- 190 laps (Over DN, PD)
28. Leaders Green Flag Pit Stops +/- 2.5 (Over DN); (Under PD)
29. Number of Passes by Tony Kanaan on Lap 1 +/- 4.5 (Over DN); (Under PD)
30. Number of Penske & Ganassi Cars in Top 10 (*including Townsend Bell) +/- 3.5 (Over DN; PD)
31. Number of Crashes by KV Racing Drivers +/- 1.5 (Over DN; PD)
32. Lap Number of Marco Andretti Crash (*can be caused by other driver) +/- 124.5 (Over DN; PD)
33. Number of Laps Completed by Graham Rahal +/- 74.5 (Under DN); (Over PD)

To check out what an actual sports book line for the Indy 500 looks like, we found this one on Bodog.com. We didn't really look at this until after completing our own 33-bet field; so the comparisons are interesting.

You can check out Paul's article here at Planet-IRL.com.

Considering Graham's stint with SFR is done and Bobby's team has been moth-balled, it shouldn't be surprising that...

1986 Indianapolis 500 champion Bobby Rahal and his Rahal Letterman Racing team announced today that its entry in the 2010 Indy 500 would be piloted by his son Graham.

Graham, who is the youngest driver ever to win an Indy Car race, will be racing for his father's Ohio-based team for the first time in Indy Cars, although the 21-year-old Rahal has raced with RLR in its sportscar programs in past seasons.

"I am extremely excited to be racing with my father and with this team," grinned the younger Rahal. "I have known a lot of the guys on this team since I was very young and to go after the dream of winning Indianapolis with them means a lot to me and my family. I know we can put together a quality effort and we expect to be competitive."

The #30 Dallara/Honda/Firestone expects to be announcing further details concerning its livery and potential sponsorship for the 500 in the coming week.

If anyone has any sponsor suggestions now might be a good time to speak up. Which begs the question: is Red Roof Inns still in business?

Photo: TrackSide Online

Yeah, I know, I’ve been gone a while. I could try to explain my absence but there’s little fun in such, much as there’s little fun in explaining how Butler missed defeating Duke by roughly the same margin Ed Carpenter missed defeating Ryan Briscoe last fall. (DAMMIT!!!)

It would be more exciting to envision my departure as a 10-day penalty served for an inadvertent word butcher attack on Graham Rahal. And an involuntary departure at that. Say, something like I was rendered unconscious while out for a stroll, waking up a dozen hours later in a dumpster in Columbus with the word “OBVIOUSLY” tattooed on my forehead. But that didn’t happen, I swear. Speaking of, pardon me while I take care of an administrative requirement once and for all.

Dear Mr Rahal,
Please accept my apology as I sincerely promise never to make light of any words you may or may not overuse. You are a fine young driver with a great future, one in whom Americans will take great pride for many years. In fact, to represent this I will heretofore refer to you most respectfully as “The Grahamerican”. And I’ll never, ever, EVER mention the O-word again.
Sincerely, Iannucci

OK, with that out of the way, the IRL is now rolling along towards race number three, which in all likelihood will have difficulty living up to the excitement of the first two. Brazil – which by the way is having even more calamitous weather problems than it did last month – was an unprecedented festival of street race passing, and the subsequent race in St Pete was a spectacle of the future of racing. Marco and Viso each led, The Grahamerican and Simona were racy near the front, and Rafa notched another quality finish that has him 5th in the championship standings. If only these drivers could start winning some races we’d be on to something.

However, race number three appears like it might well be the first snoozer of the season. Oh, there’s a beautiful track with a beautiful museum smack dab in a part of America that isn’t known for it’s IndyCar fanbase (Will McCarty aside). There’s even a chance that bona fide “road course specialist” Justin Wilson could give Dreyer & Reinbold their first win since the Clinton Administration. But there’s little if any chance for passing, as I may have mentioned a year ago and Dylan is mentioning now. With the track’s current configuration it looks nothing will help - not Charles Barkley, not Taylor Hicks, not even that creepy giant metal spider that lurks at the facility.

But no matter, because today’s news relates to a better place, as fan-friendly Vision Racing has announced a partnership with Panther Racing that will allow Ed Carpenter a chance to extend his streak of two-straight top-8 finishes at IMS. (And yes, two can be considered a streak.) Added to last week’s announcements of John Andretti’s ride with his cousin’s team and Alex Tagliani’s über-classy addition of Bruno Junqueira the total number of entries for this year’s running of the Greatest Spectacle in Racing looks almost...quantitative.

Here’s the unscientific but up-to-the minute tally of entries:
5 from Andretti Autosport (M Andretti, J Andretti, Kanaan, Hunter-Reay, Patrick)
4 from KV Racing Technologies (Moraes, Sato, Tracy, Viso)
3 from Target Chip Ganassi Racing (Bell, Dixon, Franchitti)
3 from Team Penske (Briscoe, Castroneves, Power)
2 from Dale Coyne Racing (Duno, Lloyd)
2 from De Ferran Luczo Whatever (Hamilton, Matos)
2 from Dreyer & Reinbold (Conway, Wilson)
2 from FAZZT Racing (Tagliani, Junqueira)
2 from HVM (Baguette, de Silvestro)
2 from Panther Racing (Carpenter, Wheldon)
2 from Sarah Fisher Racing (Fisher, Howard)
1 from Bryan Herta Autosport (Saavedra)
1 from Conquest Racing (Romancini)
1 from Foyt Racing (Meira)
1 from Newman/Haas/Lanigan (Mutoh)
1 from Walker Racing (Gordon) – this could partner with another team

That’s 34, and that doesn’t even count the The Grahamerican, who at the very least has GOTTA be with a Rahal Letterman entry. Add another from Team 3G for my very distant cousin named Antinucci, a ride for AJ Foyt IV at grandpa’s team, and maybe a third D&R car for Ana Beatriz or Tomas Scheckter and we’re up to 38 – and a very probable 38 at that. We’re just a Roger Yasukawa and an Oriol Servia away from 40.

And (Jack Arute voice) this is one of the rare instances in life when it’s considered good to be over 40...and yes, that punchline totally deserves an eye roll and a groan.

At this point it's just a rumor according to Robin, but...

Graham Rahal rejoins the IZOD IndyCar series this weekend at St. Petersburg in Sarah Fisher's car but the 21-year-old second generation star is poised be reunited with the Newman/Haas/Lanigan team for the rest of 2010.

SPEEDtv.com has learned that young Rahal secured sponsorship that will likely put him back with the Chicago-based squad he's driven for since 2007 - beginning at Long Beach next month.

"I don't want to say too much yet but it's looking good for something full-time," said Rahal on Tuesday night following his ALMS Corvette test at Sebring, Fla.

(MORE from SPEED)

Wasn't it just a few weeks ago that tongues were wagging about Graham being a third driver for Ganassi? Yeah, well, looks like we can all forget about that. At any rate, congrats to the Son of 'Stache on his return to being fully returned.

“I’m not going to be like someone else -- who you can probably figure out who...I’m not going to sit here and hang the N****R carrot over everyone’s head and say ‘Oh, well, if you guys don’t help me I’m going to just leave.’ That’s not the way it is for me. I’m committed to this.” - Graham Rahal, on his commitment to staying in the IndyCar series less than a month after the intrepid Curt Cavin reported Rahal was scheduled to meet with N****R officials.

(Thanks to pressdog for the find.)

In recent years fans of any number of sports have had unprecedented, round-the-clock coverage of sports to the point of receiving up close and personal at a near constant clip. Such is the task of the modern athlete, who probably feels they have a microphone shoved in their face every time they blink. Unfortunately this whole process of constantly seeking verbal feedback (i.e. "describe the feeling") has revealed that many athletes - like most of us - are not exactly modern-day Ciceros.

This isn't to say skilled professionals like IndyCar drivers are stupid, but rather that despite all efforts to coach the modern driver in the proper ways of conducting an interview many of them still suffer from verbal ticks manifesting themselves most often as "uhh" or "umm" or the ever-dreaded "you know". And you know who says "you know" a lot, right?

(Full disclosure: I'm not claiming to be immune to this disease. Ever notice how many times your humble host says "well", "look" or "hey"? That's not just typing - it's the way I actually speak. And actually "actually" is another one I probably overuse, but I digress.)

It's sad that it's come to this, but one IndyCar driver's problem in this area has reached a point of crisis, requiring an intervention of some sort. I'm talking about Graham Rahal and his abuse of the word "obviously", because not only did young Mr Rahal use the word "obviously" a whopping SEVENTEEN times in a teleconference with Sarah Fisher this week, but it was, in fact, the very first word out of his mouth. Here's the awful truth:

1. Obviously, it's extremely exciting for me...
2. And so obviously being that there was one race...
3. ...and obviously Dollar General for me, I just had to jump right at it.
4. Extremely excited and obviously very enthusiastic...
5. ...a lot of it has to be about the atmosphere, obviously the track.
6. ...and we're obviously going to test here at the end of this week.
7 and 8. ...it obviously looked as if we would be on the outside looking in, which it was obviously very frustrating for me.
9. And obviously for the first four months of the off‑season...
10. ...and obviously we've been in touch with various teams.
11. So for many, many years obviously known about Sarah...
12. Once we got in and we got going, obviously Dad did whatever...
13. So obviously I'm very thankful for that.
14. Well, you know, there's obviously ‑‑ there's a lot going on.
15. Because obviously, as I tell everybody, Sarah has been great...
16. ...because obviously she's already got one out of the way...
17. Obviously we want to be ‑‑ we want to be full time.

Obviously this "obviously" madness has to stop, and the best way would be for Graham to get a rubber band around his wrist so he could snap it every time he says the O-word? Here, let me finish this post by showing how this would work.

I'm obviously *snap* not mentioning this problem to pick in Graham. I'm only bringing this up because obviously *snap* he needs to overcome this issue since he's expected to be one of the faces of the league for many years. And obviously *snap* that means lots of interviews that can't be troubled with time and again inappropriately using the o-word. He's a bright young guy, so obviously *snap* I'm confident that with a little effort he can get this worked out, although it's obviously *snap* frustrating for all of us.

Please Graham, get help now. Before snarky bloggers start calling you "Captain Obvious".

UPDATE: Obviously Graham had to respond...

For those of you on my name is irl I have three words! Obviously! Obviously! Obviously! Obviously I need to learn more words just for you!

...and now, obviously, I'll have to cheer for him to win at St Pete if only for the post-race interview. I may even have to buy some GR gear now. Go Son of 'Stache!

Our long national nightmare is over. Temporarily. So sayeth the intrepid Curt Cavin:

Graham Rahal has finally landed an Izod IndyCar Series ride, and it's an unexpected pairing.

Rahal will drive Sarah Fisher's Dollar General-sponsored car at two early-season races as he prepares his program for the rest of the 2010 season.

(MORE from IndyStar.com)

Pressdog sums up the weeks of peril best: "FISHER SAVES SERIES BY GIVING RAHAL TWO-RACE RIDE". The two races are the second and third of the season on the Streets of St Pete and Barber Motorsports park respectively. After that...who knows. Maybe Randy Bernard is executing some tremendous marketing plan of having the Son of Stache drive at least once for every team this year.

Meanwhile, here's an artistic interpretation from Tony Johns that should induce an aneurysm.