A media conference call was held today to discuss ESPN on ABC’s live telecast of the Indianapolis 500 on Sunday, May 29, beginning at 11 a.m. ET. Participants on the call were ESPN senior vice president and executive producer Jed Drake, along with the three members of ESPN’s booth for the telecast: lap-by-lap announcer Marty Reid and analysts Scott Goodyear and Eddie Cheever. This is the 47^th consecutive year that the Indianapolis 500 will air on ABC.

JED DRAKE: Do you know where you and what you were doing in 1965? ABC was televising the Indy 500 and it’s a legacy that means so much to all of us today. We have put together an outstanding team for producing this telecast, and the three gentlemen on the call today are part of it. With Marty calling the race, he is the very best at this type of race, and with Scott, one of the great experts and strategists of what happens.  And with Eddie, you know, you’ve got one of the most interesting guys on the planet.  Eddie, sorry to talk about you in third person here, but I’ve often said that you can bring up any topic with Eddie and find yourself an hour having gone anyplace, and it was all thoughtful, meaningful and poignant conversation.

Q – What is standing out for you going into Sunday’s race?

MARTY REID: Coming off of qualifying, it’s no shoe-in for anybody.  And I think that’s something that we haven’t been able to say for quite a number of years.  And I think it adds an element of excitement.  In fact, with the double file restarts, I honestly believe that we could have a really big surprise at the end, because you never know what’s going to happen right now. These guys haven’t figured out those double file restarts. And if they don’t do it there, it could get extremely messy. So I think it’s going to be one of those races that there’s no way of predicting exactly what’s going to happen.  Unlike a few years ago when we were all talking about Helio, and he was so strong the whole month and sure enough he goes out and wins his third.

EDDIE CHEEVER: I think it’s been a really interesting month so far, and I agree with everything Marty said.  It’s very hard to actually sit back and pick a favorite.  I think with the fact that this is going to be the last year they’re probably going to run this equipment, everybody’s pulled out all the stops.  They’ve had some great surprises in qualifying. I hope that they’ve learned how to do the restarts a little better than St. Pete or we won’t have any cars left after 10 laps.  It’s going to be different.  So it’s just all up in the air.

We have a bunch of wars between a bunch of different teams and there are some new players on the block that went incredibly well.  Tagliani did incredibly well in qualifying.  So it will be an exciting race.

I love being here.  It’s kind of like driving for Ferrari in Formula 1.  When you’re with ABC, it just makes everything you’re doing so much easier because there is such a rich history in this sport.  So I’m excited to be here.

SCOTT GOODYEAR: Much as the other two folks said, the thing that is interesting is we’ve got guys coming back that don’t have full time rides, obviously, like Dan Wheldon, guys that just show up for the Indy 500, Townsend Bell.  You’ve got Buddy Rice who has been away for a couple of years.  It’s remarkable that they’re able to come in here with teams that are maybe not as strong or perceived to be not as strong as a Ganassi or a Penske, and they’re getting the job done. When you look at the grid right now with how well those guys have performed, Wheldon has a shot at winning this event again, so does Buddy Rice.  Townsend Bell is always strong.  Remarkable they’ve been able to come in here and go against the power houses and really to know they have an opportunity to run up front. I will tell from you talking to drivers and crew people in the garage this past week, those are names that are coming to the forefront, and they expect that they’ll be contenders if they’re around at the end.  And I think that’s going to make it interesting for us, interesting for our viewers.  Got some wonderful stories with Sarah Fisher who has stepped up and has a small team.  If you recall, couldn’t get a sponsor, then finally got one that didn’t send a check.  She ran anyways, got involved in an accident with Tony Kanaan.  They felt bad.  They gave her team some parts from Andretti at that point in time.  Comes along with Ed Carpenter with his tie to the speedway, and you know, he’s sitting in the middle of row three.  A lot of good stories, and I think a lot of racing will be coming out on race day that’s going to be, really, really strong.

Q. – Eddie, I’m working on a story on Roger Penske and his staying power at Indy and just in Motorsports in general.  How incredible is it for a 74 year old who is worth more than a billion dollars to still be seeing him on pit road with the headset on still pulling the strings and making the calls for his teams?  Talk a little about his staying power and what it’s meant to the sport.

EDDIE CHEEVER: I think that’s a great question.  I had a really good visual of that the other day when I was in the museum.  I went with my son’s 5 year old class to visit the museum on field day.  And I started at one end of the museum to the other.  And some kid kept asking me why are these Penske cars always there?  He’s been prevalent in almost every era that he’s been involved in, he’s been a winner.  It’s unbelievable he’s been as successful as he has been in business and in racing.  So I think whenever somebody starts a racing team in the United States, you almost look up at the top of the ladder and you inevitably see Penske. The latest era he’s been fighting with Ganassi on the track, then it was Carl Haas, and it was somebody else.  He’s managed to get better and better as the years went on.  It’s just incredible.  I look at him as America’s version of Ferrari, of something that is just incredibly successful that their presence is felt all over racing in the States.

Q. – I wonder if you could assess Danica’s career, where she is now.  Does she have to win soon to gain a little more stature?  Also comment on Simona De Silvestro.  I know a lot of people think she’s a real talent.

MARTY REID: Sure, I’m impressed with the fact that no matter what is thrown at her, and some of it is good, some of it is bad, she’s become much more resilient.  She is extremely focused.  She’s realistic when she knows what she has underneath her. Yes, she’ll be the first to tell you that she likes a car that has a lot of grip, and that is something that she’s learned over on the NASCAR side is how to drive a loose race car.  If you’ve noticed here in the second year of that effort, she’s had her best finishes in the two years that she’s been doing that. What’s going to happen in the 500?  It’s going to be interesting.  I think she’ll race herself into position.  Can she win from 26th?  Well, it’s been done, Johnny Rutherford did it.  He won from 25th.  But it’s going to be tough.  They may have to go out of sequence. As far as Simona is concerned, I don’t think anybody truly appreciates or understands the pain that this young woman has gone through to wrap those hands and to be able to climb into that car and to make it run as fast as she made it run. Years ago I had second degree burns on just one hand, and I can tell you, I tried to imagine what it would be like climbing into that car and trying to do what she was doing.  I couldn’t really think that I could do that.  I honest to goodness don’t know that I could.  The pain is pretty darn excruciating.

What she’s accomplished, we showed her at St. Petersburg, and she was tracking down Tony Kanaan, and everybody that you talk to will say the same thing.  She’s the real deal.

SCOTT GOODYEAR: I absolutely agree.  Marty and I probably spent 20 or 30 minutes with (Danica) in the garage the other day during one of the rain delays.  I do not see her as frequently as Marty does, and had not seen her since St. Pete, but for only a few minutes before that event.  But I will echo what Marty says in the sense that she’s become much more confident, much more resilient.  Maybe she’s just used to the pressure all the way around. When I say that, we all have our home races, and for me the Canadian race being Toronto where I was born and also Vancouver, the amount of focus you have on you and the amount of time that is required for you to do all the PR is immense. Danica has that everywhere she goes and on both sides.  When I think about what she’s been able to do, and how she has been able to really manage her life which is so important and manage her time and just her thoughts.  It’s great when you can get in the car on race day and put your helmet on because that’s why we drive.  That’s why we love the fun, we love the danger element, and we love the speed and all the things that go with it.  But it’s the workload that’s before that that makes that happen.  I don’t care what sport you talk about, you have your top player in football, basketball or hockey, and I don’t think that they have the pressure and the commitments that she does, and she’s done terrifically.

Q. – I’m interested in gauging the staying power of an event like this in today’s sports TV world.  Historically you can compare it to a Kentucky Derby or a Rose Bowl.  But I wonder do younger viewers get drawn into this, the kind of viewers that have X Games and MMA mentality on their radar?  Even if you can get a comparable adrenaline rush from watching an event like this, are younger viewers getting into this stuff?

JED DRAKE: That’s always the challenge for drawing a younger audience like this.  You want to keep it turning over and over as at the years go by.  But I do believe this event has staying power and it is on a growth curve. That is my prediction and I’ll just say it.  I’m not going to give you any ratings numbers specifically, but I think we are going to see that. And the reason I say that is say what you will about the other events that you mentioned, and the X Games fall under my watch as well, but there is truly something special about this race.  Rich Feinberg (ESPN vice president, motorsports) mentioned it significantly last week when the announcers on the call and others that he met with.  He likened it, I believe, to the Masters where there may be only one golf event that a large portion of our population watches each year.  If that’s the case, then it is the Masters.  I think the same thing goes for those that watch the Indy 500.  It is something that absolutely, positively exceeds the notion of it being just a Motorsports event.  It’s the spectacle, it’s the element of danger, It’s all of the things that we know.

I think that transcends age, and, in fact, I think it probably plays pretty well to the youth angle, because once they do start watching it, I think that there is an amazement about it.  Like I said, I’m looking for us to start growing again, and I think that that will be with youth.  So check with me next week, but I’m pretty bullish on it, and I think that is the direction we’re going.

EDDIE CHEEVER: What I found to be the most amazing thing about the 500, and I’ve been lucky enough to race all around the world, is you don’t have to explain it to anybody.  Wherever you’re at, whatever setting you’re at, racing or not racing, everybody wants to know who the Indy 500 champion is that year.  It has such a broad appeal. This being the 100th race of a nation that really isn’t that old, it really plays an important part in our history.  I know that all the drivers, everybody is pulling out all the stops.  Because I think to be the winner of the 100th Indianapolis 500 will be a very important thing.  And I’m quite confident the public is sensing exactly the same thing.

SCOTT GOODYEAR: If I can add on that, I think things have changed dramatically in this last year around the IndyCar Series and Indianapolis Motor Speedway.  When I say that, maybe it’s a combination of IZOD coming on board. But I’ve got young kids, and I just noticed through some of their friends that aren’t necessarily racing people, and it’s the IZOD brand that gets something now in the store that has something Motorsport oriented on it. I think the marketing has been stepped up.  I don’t know if there was honestly any marketing going on in the last few years, because we’ve had different sponsors, Northern Lights, things that people don’t know of the name or associate with.  And now I think we’ve got something that is a brand that somebody recognizes, and they’re doing a terrific job. Even yesterday making the drivers go around to different places around the country I thought was maybe a bit better of an idea than channeling them all off to New York.  All of the different ideas and people they have in place I think are making a difference along with IZOD, and there are people focusing on the marketing side of this sport rather than just the nuts and bolts in the cars.  So I think the interest level has been tenfold this year, so I think it’s on the right track.  It’s great.

Q. – Technology wise what kinds of things are we going to see in the telecast that gives the viewers a cutting edge experience?

JED DRAKE: In terms of what we’re going to be doing technologically starting with 64 cameras, we’ll have 12 in car camera systems.  We have upped the game on our radio components.  So the kind of audio that we’ve heard to some degree at Indy is going to be better now, and probably more akin to what people have become accustomed to our NASCAR coverage.  We’ll have Bat Cam in position again, which is the very long run that goes over the pits, all the way down close to turn 1.  We have two super slow mos that we’re going to be using, which are new that will give us really good coverage in the corners and on the short shoots.  And we’ll be doing audio in 5.1 Dolby for the first time, which for an event that is filled with the kinds of sounds that the Indianapolis 500 is filled with, I believe that those that are capable of listening to that audio will hear this race like they’ve never heard it before, and that is it.

Q. – I guess Eddie or Scott, the past couple of years we’ve had unification, we’ve had now significant bumping at Indy, big full fields elsewhere.  How is the sport better, or worse, or different than it was pre split?

SCOTT GOODYEAR: I think when the split was here there was confusion.  I can almost guarantee you that because I drove for teams with sponsors, but I always try to go out and bring in associate sponsors knowing that it would do two things, help the bottom line with the team but allow more testing. When the split happened, you are going into corporate America.  When it first originally happened there weren’t many questions, people weren’t aware of it.  As it started to grow through the ’96 season what ended up happening is one of the first questions you’d get either on the phone or when you walked in the door was what series are you with?  And really that was the point where I think I looked at it and said we have a huge problem here.  A lot of times I will tell you that I was actually    I’ll tell you the name, Best Buy.  I was in Best Buy working with something with them along with Radio Shack on a vendor program through 1996.  I probably had six going on seven months with it, and they were just worried about getting involved in the series because they didn’t know if they wanted to go to Indy or what they perceived as maybe being the bigger series with all what they perceived were the bigger names.  So these were all thing that’s came to me at that point in time.  The gentleman’s name was Maynard, I believe, that was up there, I can’t remember his first name.  But it came to a halt, basically, and that’s because there was a split.  There was confusion in the program.  As a matter of fact, even at the end of ’95, I got on a plane, came over here and did an opening for Incredible Universe, which is over here in a place called Fishers, Indiana because it was all done through Radio Shack and another program I was working on.  And over that winter, as a matter of fact, November of that year, the program stopped.  It was because they did not feel confident getting involved in something they felt was fragmented.  Today unification couldn’t have happened soon enough.  I think it’s been a positive.  And I think moving forward there is no confusion not only for the sponsors, but more importantly probably the fans.  Now they believe they are watching everybody on one track, they are watching the best, and there is no controversy about what they’re looking at.

Q. – So not to put words in your mouth.  But you’ve taken a 14-year detour that’s taken us right back where we were?

SCOTT GOODYEAR: Absolutely.  And will I go back further.  When I was looking at getting involved in IndyCars, I was visiting a few of these tracks, spending a lot of time in the ’80s driving for factory teams.  But when I had my chance in 1990 to come to the speedway and went to different tracks around the country in the CART era, you’d get off the plane in Phoenix and walk to a 7 Eleven and there would be a Bobby Rahal or a Danny Sullivan stand up promoting the beer or the race and everything like that.  No doubt the race was in town.  And it changed. Now everybody knows the NASCAR sponsors, the NASCAR names, but that seems to maybe hit its peak or what have you, or now IndyCar is starting to raise its level.  There is no doubt it’s getting back to being popular.  The reason why, maybe the things we just spoke about, not sure, but loving it.  The interest level is really, really big right now.  Not only from the people in the industry that are on the edge ever it, but also people that you bump into getting gas, having food.  Doesn’t have to be in this city, it could be anywhere. I was in Toronto recently, and they were all hopeful that Paul Tracy would get a ride.  Obviously knowing the name, but they’re paying attention to it.  That’s what we need in this sport.  I’m excited where it’s going to be not only next year, but two or three years from now and three to five years from now.

EDDIE CHEEVER: Let me add to something that Scott just said.  I think from a fan’s perspective he encapsulated very clearly what happened.  Obviously having a division with some racing in one place, and some racing in another was not positive for open wheel racing at all on any side of the aisle.

But we have to go back to remember what the arguments were about.  The arguments were about the racing teams running the series.  So it is true we’ve gone through a 14 year evolution, but the actual decisions on how IndyCar is run is not made by a public company.  It’s made by a private company.

I think now that you seem to have a much of more aggressive manner of running it, you’ll maybe see decisions that enhance what the fans are going to see.  So it is definitely a positive. But the structure of how the sport was being run remained the way they wanted it to happen before the split occurred.  So there were a lot of changes and a lot of evolutions that we had to go through to get to this point.

Q. – Jed, since this is the 100th anniversary of the race and since you’ve had it all the way back since the ’60s, will there be a lot of little drop ins of historical mentions throughout the race or little features that you can pull from since you have all that wonderful archival footage of the great days of the ABC sports franchise?

JED DRAKE: Yeah, absolutely.  I think that is one of the great delights in doing this race is that be only does the race have the history, but we have the history with it.  Those moments are the opportunity to watch the Indy 500 is not just simply about the spectacle of it, but it’s recognizing that you have the opportunity to watch history unfold in front of your eyes.  And the chapters that have unfolded so many times speak to that.  It’s not just a statement, it’s fact.  So when you think about the coverage on the day, you think about those moments that are appropriate.  Again, with the centennial, this great production team has put together 100 years by American Presidents.  We’re going to have a whole pregame piece that’s devoted to the journey.  One of our staffers must have way too much time on their hand because they’ve determined there are 876,600 hours since the first race, so we’ll actually chronicle some of the things that have gone on in the world, and certainly in our country since then with World War I, the Great Depression, a woman flies across the Atlantic.  I’m reading a list here, I apologize.  The 200,000 plus march on Washington for Civil Rights, the assassination of Kennedy, and men walking on the moon, September 11th and all other matters in between. So we recognize the importance of this event for the event itself, but also by addition, the historical significance of itself and the period of time. I was sitting with Brent (Musburger) a few years ago when we were talking about sort of the scene set.  And I reminded him that if you really want to put this race in perspective, think about this:  The Civil War had only been over I think it was about 50 years.  The Civil War had only been over 50 years when the first race was held.  That really does put it in context.

Q. — To the panel, obviously we’re just talking about the history of it.  What were some of your favorite drivers as you were getting into the racing series or maybe even not necessarily there yet that still gives you memories of Indy as a kid growing up?

MARTY REID: Well, obviously as a young man, I was enamored with A.J. Foyt for more than one reason, but then this guy in ’65 named Jimmy Clark comes over here, and that rear engine Lotus, and I mean it was an evolution, or in some cases, a revolution in the sport.  He became a driver, and unfortunately he was killed not too long after that. I just cannot get out of my mind watching that ’65 just zipping around the track, and then all the developments along the way.  I remember the turbine just like everybody else and you watch the evolution of the whole automobile.  I think that’s what’s got the fans excited about this new car, and the fact that you’ll have multiple engine manufacturers and that is down the road.  Right now everybody has brought out every car that they’ve got.  That’s why we’ve had so many trying to make the show, and it was great.  I think the race is going to be just as great.  I think, Scott, you pointed out on our conference call this morning, this is the closest field ever   like two and a half seconds between first and 33rd.

SCOTT GOODYEAR: I guess I didn’t think about that until I read it, and I thought wow it just shows how close the field is.  But speaking of the history to it, I think being there the last 10 days and being around the track and seeing all the events and the marketing machine now revved up for the series and for the Indianapolis Motor Speedway, the centennial, just all the pace cars that have returned. They had an event for the pace car owners.  That sort of thing tells you exactly how this event here is growing and continuing to grow, and the historical significance that it has. I think for me it was definitely Mario Andretti because I was a big Formula 1 fan growing up in Toronto, Canada.  We have a big Formula 1 following up there.  And having the opportunity for one of my other heroes, Gilles Villeneuve, watching those guys grow up.  And watching the IndyCar stuff with Mario was really enlightening, and probably giving me the opportunity to think that if I couldn’t get going in Europe, I’d like to go off and compete in IndyCar.  Mario was the one that I was watching.  I even watched Eddie in a Formula 1 car when I was growing up.

Q. — He got you there.

EDDIE CHEEVER: I’m just trying to understand why I don’t like Scott so much.  I didn’t know you were a secret Mario Andretti fan. My family moved to Europe when I was 4, and the only connection I had was through the 500.  And my father thought very highly of Foyt, and all of his colloquialisms were not spared on me as I was growing up. Like Marty, when I started racing, Jackie Stewart and Jim Clark were the ones that I followed the most.  You know, there are just so many different things.  Before I came here, those were names that I tended to recognize. But when you sit down and look at the history of the 500, and look at a family like the Unsers where a father has won four, his brother has won three, and his son has won two, and one family has a total of nine, it is incredible. There are so many things you want to pick up.  You could spend the rest of your life writing stories that have occurred in the Indianapolis 500 and never repeat yourself.  So I think it was back to not so much about the drivers, but the aura of the place, that it’s so fast, and so dangerous.  And if you make a mistake, you pay for it dearly.  Yet, if you win, you’re projected into the future as a winner of the Indianapolis 500. I’ve always been in love with the place.  I like Indy.  I like the four different corners.  I like the fact that the walls are hard.  I think it’s good that it doesn’t become too easy.  And throughout all of its history, you can always see the jumps that humans have taken forward with cars. Not to keep talking about this year’s race, but I think this year’s race is going to be particularly interesting for a variety of reasons, none of which is more important than the fact that Indy is 100 years old.

Q. – Talk to me about Sam Schmidt.  How cool is this with all he’s gone through and all his struggles and who he is, the driver on the pole.  Talk about your thoughts on Sam Schmidt?

EDDIE CHEEVER: I raced with Sam when there was a split in open wheel racing, and I spent a few years with Sam on the road and we raced together.  I was actually at the track when he had that horrible accident.  I think 99.9% of the people that I have met in my life in those conditions would have disappeared.  Would have disappeared inside of himself because he’s had to deal with not being able to do the things that he did before.  Now he lives in a wheelchair.  I am astounded of his pragmatic march that he is on of building a group of people and making himself as successful as he has been and winning the pole position at Indy. He is an attribute.  He is an incredible person.  I have to admit that it brought tears to my eyes when I saw the look on his face when Tag won the pole position.  It was incredible.  He is an incredible person.  I think it makes our racing history to have somebody like Sam involved in it.  I cannot wish him well enough with the Indy 50.  What he’s achieved is incredible.

Q. — He was a pretty fair country driver too, wasn’t he?

EDDIE CHEEVER: He was feisty; he was very feisty.  I’ve argued with a few people, and I think he was on my list also that I argued with at the racetrack.  I think he used to call himself superman when we raced.  But I just enjoyed being around him.  I enjoyed watching his success now.  I don’t think anybody should discount him on Sunday, his team on Sunday.  And I definitely would not discount him on this new future for IndyCars that will be arriving soon for the new cars.

Q. – Scott, what’s been the difference, he would have one car a year, one race a year at Indy and then be in Indy Lights.  What is the difference this year?

SCOTT GOODYEAR: As I asked him the other day, he said he was just lucky to be able to acquire a group that was put together so well, being the old FAZZT race team, and a driver like Alex and the group they have over there and led by Rob Edwards and Alan McDonald engineering.  I think honestly you have to give him a lot of credit.  And I said this to him, you knew a diamond on in the rough because they were showing opportunities in front of them and some brilliance along the way.  They were looking for money.  Didn’t know if they’d get going through the winter or throughout the winter.  There were many times last fall, the last five or six races where you’d start to hear it strongly.  They were almost race to race, and over the winter nobody knew if they’d come out.  I think he took advantage or got involved in a perfect opportunity.  And that being said, with Eddie with what he was talking about there, I stood there on the weekend with all the qualifying going on, and I felt that them.  I thought here’s this fast nine.  You don’t get multiple tries because of the rain delays.  So the format’s not working as originally scheduled, so everybody’s getting one shot. I love the fact that they started from nine and worked their way backwards, so it was Alex that had the one last try.  I really felt for him.  I thought I hope you get it.  Because I know Alex very well, and a lot of people from the FAZZT Team, and especially for Sam.  When it came through, it was terrific.  I stood there and I thought I think this is the beginning of the next Ganassi Team that’s coming along to knock the other guys off the podium, and I really feel that.  I think in a couple of years from now we’ll be counting how many wins Sam and his drivers are accumulating.

Q. – Scott, with all the talk about history, I wanted to ask about the history you made there.  I believe the finish in ’92 was still the closest.  Can you walk me through coming on off the fourth turn and talk about the impact that had on your life?  I assume that day sucked, but does it still suck when you think about it?

SCOTT GOODYEAR: They say winning the race changes your life.  I think for me finishing second changed my life.  We talked a lot about that event this whole year leading up to Indy.  But realistically I looked at it as a positive.  A lot of people said it’s a shame you didn’t win, but for a couple of reasons, number one, I didn’t do ovals in training cars at all.  I went up to the Formula Ford ranks and Formula Atlantic and all that stuff did not have oval racing, the sports car stuff in Europe and did not have the opportunity to race in ovals.  My real oval experience, the first car oval experience was testing the IndyCar at Phoenix in January of 1990, my rookie season doing the full cart year and getting to Indy.

So when I got to Indy that year, I think Indy was my third event in 1990.  They had five or six oval events a year, so in ’92 when I got to Indy, it was probably my 12th to 14th oval race in my life.  And I just said this in a speech recently, now looking back on it, I did not have the knowledge or experience of really what to do with a car on an oval to properly take advantage of getting past Al.  I say that.  I’m sitting in my office and I have a picture of the finish where his rear wheels are going across and my front wheels are going across at the same time.  The neat thing about that though is coming from 33rd, the extreme cold conditions.  And probably starting 33rd was lucky.  If you remember, Guerrero spun the car and he was on pole.  Just before that happened, I was in the back, so I got extra room.  I’m warming the tires up, and the car stood up from underneath me.  Obviously we had a lot of horsepower back then compared to now.  And I got on the radio and said to Derek Walker, I can’t believe how cold this track is.  I can’t even get the tires warm, and we’re coming up to the start.  Two laps later, Guerrero spun and did their thing.  And Derek Walker comes on the radio and says, Is that you?  Is that you?  I said, What, what?  He said, There is a yellow.  And I saw what happened.  I said, No, somebody’s spun off inside the wall.

I think that was a positive because from that point onwards, I thought I’m going to take my time.  I’m not going to be as aggressive on the starts as I usually would, and people were just sort of running around in front of me.  I knew we had a good car.  Probably didn’t know how to take advantage of it, and years late certainly did.  On the other side of that, Junior had many years of oval experience, and he had been there since 1983 so I guess I just went to school on that race.  Got a lot of lessons, I think.

Q. – He told me coming off of four when he got a little loose and as he was coming down the front stretch he thought I lost the race.  Did you have the inverse of that?  Did you think you were going to get him?

SCOTT GOODYEAR: I thought I had a good run off of it and his car moved a little bit.  And I thought here’s an opportunity.  And did not have that in the previous laps.  When I go back and look at it I was searching around.  The car was sliding, and I didn’t know enough how to handle the car.  Going to three, to get a good run coming out of four.  It’s ironic.  I do some work in the automotive business, and we’ve just hired Al Jr. six weeks ago or two months ago to come work on our program with us.  He and I got to spent a few days riding back and forth to the track, and we touched on so many different things.  It was really a good time.  We talked about ’92, and we laughed about it.  I just saw him the other day riding behind the scooter and I was coming up behind him on a golf cart.  I yelled to him and I do this all the time.  I go, “objects in your mirror are closer than they appear.”  He knew exactly what it was right away and he turned around and laughed.  That’s what we talk about coming down to the run all the time.  He says I looked in my mirror and all I could see was the blue and silver, and I thought oh, man I think I’ve blown it.  So I loved to kid him all the time.

Q. – Scott and Eddie, in reference to new fans or casual fans.  Where do you think the biggest challenge is to Motorsports media right now and when do you think your past driving experience is most valuable in bringing the best to fans?

SCOTT GOODYEAR: I think the key thing for us whether we’re talking to fans on the racetrack or out having dinner or at the gas station and especially on air is to sort of let them understand what it was like for us in the cockpit.  That’s probably why I love the onboard cameras that we have.  It takes the fan that is sitting at home watching it, it takes them into the driver’s seat as much as possible.  Sometimes we’re able to use nose cams that we have, sometimes we’re able to use tail cams.  I love all those shots because it puts us as a driver, both Eddie and I, back to where we were before.  So we get the opportunity to share that with the folks at home.  When I say that, what the car is doing, what it’s feeling like and what the driver is thinking, what he’s planning to do to get ahead of the person that’s in front of him.  Or now if he’s in a situation where he’s saving fuel, what does he need to do, his strategy of trying to make it through the next fuel segment, and basically if the car’s not working.  If they get on the radio and shout out if there’s understeer, oversteer or any of the terms that are coming along, I think it’s our duty to tell the fans at home and especially at the Indy 500.  Because we are aware there are a lot of people watching the telecast on Sunday, that it might be the one and only race that they watch all year, just so they feel knowledgeable about it and they understand the terms that they don’t feel left out of the conversation, if you will, with us being on air.

EDDIE CHEEVER: I really just try to add to what you can see and what you can hear.  Racing is very complicated, and Scott and I both have certain industry of the lessons that we learned throughout our racing that we can just deliver and maybe sometimes add a nuance to the TV screen that you cannot just see.  It’s always nice to be able to project forward and tell somebody what you think is going to happen.  When you get it right, it’s even fun sometimes.  It is a very difficult job.  I have to say at the end of one of these 500s when I’m done sitting in the booth, I’m almost as tired as I was when I was driving.

Q. – A.J. Foyt is driving the pace car, I believe, on the 50th anniversary of his first victory.  I didn’t know if there is any way to sort of sum up what his place is, and sort of the pantheon of what Indy represents to you and what it represents, what he represents to racing on this sort of signature year for him?

EDDIE CHEEVER: I had the good fortune of driving against Foyt.  And it was a bizarre situation because it was a driver that my father had talked about a lot when I was living in Europe.  That was my connection to racing in the States.  When you participate at Indy and you go to a place like Indy, there is a lot of downtime so you’re always hearing stories of the past and what other drivers have done.  As a race car driver you want to absorb as many of these as you can. But in this particular event and I had raced everywhere else in the world, 90% of the stories, good or bad, were about Foyt.  Now I think it’s great that he’s driving the pace car, because he does represent a period in American history where we came out of the second World War victorious, and we build up everything that we’ve built up in the States.  And Foyt and many of the drivers of that era represented kind of what America was all about.  So when you look at Foyt you’re actually looking at a segment of our history, and he personifies that so incredibly well.  I think as a race car driver I believe, and this is obviously kind of like Monday quarterbacking.  I believe that Foyt was the greatest American race car driver of all time because he ran his teams.  He was as successful as he was at Indy.  I’m not sure I got the number right, but I believe he qualified for Indy 36 or 37 times in a row.  That is quite an accomplishment.  To have won it four times is another great accomplishment.

When you talk about the Indianapolis 500, it’s almost logical, almost instinctive that the name Foyt comes up.

SCOTT GOODYEAR: I remember watching A.J. Foyt when I was still racing my Formula Ford.  And I went to a Formula Ford race over in Pocono, and they run in IndyCars at the Pocono Raceway.  First chance for me to get to see them on the oval.  You know, I snuck in the back of the pits there and watched A.J.  The thing that amazed me is that he was old school, I guess, Eddie even said that.  In the sense had a that he got out, stopped in the pit lane, got out and worked on his car, discussions with his crew members, got back in it and drove around and got back up in the racetrack. That was amazing to me.  Following Formula 1 and the difference that the drivers have over there, but the way they seem to work or not work on their cars and everything of that nature, A.J. Foyt was somebody that really stood out for me.  And I was very young at that time, racing Formula Fords for my teams.  It was somebody I always watched and admired.  I had never met him until I got involved in IndyCar Racing.  So it was really an honor and a pleasure to see him.  Today, for me, it’s A.J. Foyt and Mario, and guys like that, I mean, it’s    I guess I’ll use an English term since we just had the royal wedding, it’s really like being around royalty.

They have a place in history, deservedly so, and I think that everybody should just really admire it forever.  They are just a couple of tremendous individuals.

Q. – Eddie, you’ve run your own race team.  What is your perspective of what’s going on with Andretti Autosport now?  They had a disappointing qualifying, and obviously some inner turmoil on that team.  What do you think’s happening and what do you see as the future for that team?

EDDIE CHEEVER: They’re up against some very tough competition.  They’re the ones that everybody thinks is going to put the most pressure on Penske and Ganassi.  I think they gave it their best shot, and it was kind of when Marty and I were sitting and watching qualifying.  I turned to Marty and said this is like watching the Titanic sink.  It was a slow, sinking process.  When that happens in racing and you’ve really rolled your dice and the cars are not quick and you don’t have enough time to figure it out and all the team members start bickering, it becomes very complicated.  I think it will be a difficult time for Andretti Autosports to pull out of it.  I have no doubt that they will, it’s just a question of trying to understand what happened.  This is a tough game.  It’s a very tough sport.  You have your up days and you have your down days.  What I would have liked to have been is a fly on the wall when the Andretti clan got together and somebody came up with the idea of let’s go ask Foyt if he’ll sell us a car.  I would have paid a hundred bucks to hear the first response to that one.  It was a very good move, a brilliant move.  So the Andrettis have played a very important part at the speedway, and I’m sure they’ll continue to do so.  That’s just par for the course, days like that happen.

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The 100^th anniversary edition of the Indianapolis 500 will continue a Memorial Day weekend TV tradition that has been part of America since 1965 when the “Greatest Spectacle in Racing” airs on ABC for the 47^th consecutive year on Sunday, May 29. ESPN on ABC’s coverage from Indianapolis Motor Speedway begins at 11 a.m. ET with The Indianapolis 500 – A Centennial Celebration presented by Honda. The race telecast is presented by GoDaddy.com and begins at noon, with the race’s green flag at 12:12 p.m.

What began as highlights on ABC’s Wide World of Sports in 1965 moved to a same-day, prime time program in 1971 and finally became a live telecast (except in Indianapolis) in 1986.

“It is an honor for us to televise the Indianapolis 500 every year,” said Jed Drake, ESPN senior vice president and executive producer. “It’s with great pride that we carry on the stewardship of ABC’s history with this marquee event in the world of sports and look forward to bringing it to our viewers around the world.”

ESPN’s production will use 64 cameras to televise the premier race of the IZOD IndyCar Series, including a 360-degree rotating onboard camera mounted behind the driver on multiple cars. Unique views will be provided by Batcam, a high definition camera running on a cable over pit road and the frontstretch that can move at more than 80 mph. All 33 cars will carry GPS boxes for the Sportvision RaceFX system to provide telemetry and pointers to help identify the cars for viewers. ESPN will use a radio replay system that can record, play back and edit radios from any of the 33 drivers and viewers will learn more about the technical aspects of the sport with segments from the Emmy-winning ESPN Craftsman Tech Garage.

Marty Reid will call the race with analysis by former IZOD IndyCar Series star Scott Goodyear and 1998 Indy 500 winner Eddie Cheever. Reporting from the pits will be Rick DeBruhl, Jamie Little, Dr. Jerry Punch and Vince Welch while Brent Musburger will host. ESPN’s Indianapolis 500 coverage will be produced under the oversight of ESPN vice president, motorsports, Rich Feinberg. James Shiftan will produce the race telecast and Bruce Watson will direct.

The one-hour pre-race show will include interviews with many of the 33 starting drivers. Some of the special features that are scheduled to air in either pre-race or in SportsCenter’s Indy 500 coverage include:

• Viewers will take a journey through time of the last 100 years in American and Indianapolis 500 history. The feature will tell the story of the history of America and the Indianapolis 500 in chronological order, from 1911 to now. It will be driven by quotes from the American Presidents who served during the period. The quotes will either be spoken by the corresponding president or written graphically on the screen. The previous presidents have elicited countless words of wisdom that translate into American and Indianapolis 500 history.
• Dario Franchitti is a two-time Indy 500 winner and a three-time IZOD IndyCar champion. In a juxtaposition of the chaos of his racing profession, viewers find out he is just a guy from a small town in Scotland close to Edinburgh. In a piece that is  part all-access and part bio, Franchitti takes ESPN’s Chris Connelly around to some special locations of his youth in Scotland (kart track where he learned to drive, boyhood home, lunch with his best friends) to gain a deeper understand and appreciation for the defending Indy 500 champion. His wife, actress Ashley Judd, discusses their relationship in an exclusive interview.
• Alex Tagliani and his car owner, Sam Schmidt, speak at the famed “Yard of Bricks” at Indianapolis about the individual journeys that brought them together to be on the coveted pole for the 100^th anniversary Indy 500..
• An ensemble cast of race car drivers explain why lifting off the throttle at the Indy 500 isn’t just about letting off the gas. They explain how they determine risk vs. reward. When facing great danger is the only way to put your face on the Borg Warner Trophy, they “Don’t’ Lift”.
• Simona De Silvestro discusses the odds she had to overcome in qualifying for the Centennial Indianapolis 500 after a frightening practice crash left her with second degree burns on one of her hands.
• Collin Allen is 11 years old. And in 2005, his father died while serving in Iraq. Collin will write a letter describing his own father and explaining what Memorial Day means to him.  At the end of the journey viewers will see photos of other children whose parents have made the ultimate sacrifice for their country.
• On the last lap of last year’s Indianapolis 500, driver Mike Conway was involved in a terrifying crash. He was badly injured, but he survived and is back behind the wheel this season because of safety features that have been added to both cars and tracks over the years. ESPN Sport Science will analyze what happens to both car and driver in a crash like Conway’s, and examine how modifications and innovations continue to improve the safety of the sport.
• In his own words, Helio Castroneves describes what it’s like chasing a milestone and record that only few have been able to attain. Just three drivers have been crowned winner of the Indianapolis 500 four times: A.J. Foyt, Al Unser and Rick Mears. Castroneves talks about the improbability of ever winning the prestigious race and now with three victories under his belt what it’s like to be on the verge of joining such an elite fraternity of legendary drivers.
• Charlie Kimball is the first licensed IndyCar driver with diabetes to race in competitive open wheel racing. ESPN will explore the dynamics of driving more than 230 mile per hour while keeping tabs on the drivers’ blood sugar, including the unique technology that his doctors and team monitor during the race.
• Danica Patrick appears from the outside to be a complex woman. Viewers have seen her in so many different lights over the years. She was a rookie darling in the lead at Indy in 2005. She is a sex symbol as the GoDaddy Girl. She is not afraid of the drivers in NASCAR. But one thing that stays consistent is that she is a race car driver who wants to win. In an ode to a well-known commercial with Charlize Theron, a glamorized Patrick unmasks herself and, in the process, reveals her many sides.
• Great drivers and other figures from Indy 500 history reveal their special Indy 500 moment, including Foyt, Mears, Sullivan, the Unsers, Fittipaldi, Jackie Stewart and more.
• Hockey has the Stanley Cup. There’s the Green Jacket at Augusta, the Kentucky Derby’s Blanket of Roses. And then there’s the Bottle of Milk that goes to the winner of the Indianapolis 500. To honor the history of this classic Indy 500 tradition, viewers will see the actual milk delivery process in a fun and informational way. From the cow farms in Indiana, to the police escorted milk men carrying the milk jugs into the track.

The opening segment will celebrate the 100th Anniversary of the first Indianapolis 500 with motion picture actor William Fichtner walking a lap around the track to remember the greatest moments and fantastic drivers throughout history. As Fichtner, who appeared in Black Hawk Down, Armageddon, Crash and The Dark Knight, walks the track, these great moments come alive around him. In the last scene, he is joined by three of the race’s biggest stars: Dario Franchitti, Helio Castroneves and Danica Patrick.

After the race, ABC will televise IZOD presents Hot Wheels Fearless at the 500 at 3:30 p.m. Inside the Speedway, a stunt driver from Team Hot Wheels will try to set a world record for a distance jump in a four-wheel vehicle. The current record is 302 feet.

Other ESPN Platforms

In addition to the live telecast on ABC, the Indianapolis 500 will receive ESPN multiplatform coverage on the following outlets:

ESPN International’s network and joint ventures’ reach is over 207 million homes in 143 countries and territories. Add to that syndication (31 countries and 31.4 million homes), ABC’s U.S. reach of 115,900,000 and television distribution exceeds 354.3 million homes in 176 countries worldwide. In addition, U.S. troops serving overseas and on Navy vessels around the world will watch live via a broadcast agreement between ESPN and the American Forces Network, bringing the total to 213 countries and territories around the world.

ESPN.com will provide surround coverage of the Indy 500 with senior motorsports writers Ed Hinton and Terry Blount, IndyCar correspondent John Oreovicz, pit reporter Jamie Little and motorsports editors K. Lee Davis and Joe Breeze for the 100th anniversary running of “The Greatest Spectacle in Racing.” The staff has been busy in May running down the 100-year history of the race as well as naming the Field of the Century, the 33 drivers (and five additional pioneers) that best exemplify the spirit of the 500-mile race. ESPN.com staff will cap off the coverage on race day with Racing Live! Indianapolis 500 on ESPN.com as the writers, editors and fans interact on every aspect of the race. In addition, anchor Marty Reid and analysts Scott Goodyear and Eddie Cheever will provide exclusive digital coverage leading up to and after the race.

On television, extensive reports, interviews and highlights will air on SportsCenter and ESPNEWS.

SportsCenter has been celebrating the 100^th anniversary of the Indianapolis 500 throughout the month of May with a series of Indianapolis 500 Centennial Moments. The video segments look back on some of the greatest moments and biggest heroes over the history of the race. There is a new segment each day and each runs a minimum of three times a day, included in the daytime, prime time and West Coast prime time programs. The moments also are available for viewing on ESPN.com.

ESPN Classic will present a week-long tribute in honor of the 100^th anniversary of the Indianapolis 500. All week long beginning Monday, May 23, ESPN Classic will air classic Indy 500 races and SportsCentury programming. On the actual 100^th anniversary, May 30, ESPN Classic will present a 22-hour marathon anchored by a re-air of the 2011 race.

ESPN Radio’s Saturday RaceDay starts its engines at 6 a.m. with an hour of news, previews and analysis. ESPN Radio also provides auto racing fans the comprehensive Sunday RaceDay (6-7 a.m. Sundays), which covers the auto racing world.

ESPN Deportes, ESPN’s Spanish-language television, radio and Internet in the U.S., will cover the Indy 500 via SportsCenter, the network’s flagship news and information program. The network’s motorsports expert Andres Agulla and former professional driver Alex Pombo, will provide special reports and interviews with the racers directly from Indianapolis. In addition, ESPNdeportes.com will provide comprehensive coverage with previews, qualifying, photo galleries, videos and live chats with Agulla and Pombo.

ESPN the Magazine’s “Busted” issue, which went on sale May 20, contains an in-depth feature with driver Marco Andretti. Andretti is an outsize name in racing. But Marco Andretti is beginning to like the way it fits. Award-winning ESPN the Magazine senior writer Ryan McGee profiles the third-generation driving star. Also included in the issue is a fun image of “The Five Widest and Tightest Gaps Between Indy 500 Winner and Runner-Up.”

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Transcript of ESPN on ABC Indianapolis 500 Media Conference Call

EDITOR’S NOTE – A media conference call was held today to discuss ESPN on ABC’s live telecast of the Indianapolis 500 on Sunday, May 24, beginning at noon ET. Participants on the call were ESPN senior vice president and executive producer, Jed Drake, along with the three members of ESPN’s booth for the telecast: lap-by-lap announcer Marty Reid and analysts Scott Goodyear and Eddie Cheever. this is the 45^th consecutive year that the Indianapolis 500 has aired on ABC.

JED DRAKE: I wanted to give everybody just a sense from the entire production team that is fortunate enough to be doing this event again this year and now for another four years, that it is truly a special event. There are very few events that you can just throw out their name and where there are images that stand in your mind that are vibrant and powerful and have that lasting memory. And the Indy 500 is absolutely positively one of those.

For me there are certain events that have that cache and for others I’m sure there are others. But given the nature of this event and its special quality that when virtually anybody hears the Indianapolis 500, it resonates a very powerful image for them. It certainly does for me and it certainly does for everybody that’s involved in our coverage.

We treat this event with the kind of attention and care that it deserves and it is at the absolute top of our priorities each year in terms of what we bring to it, and certainly the announce team that we have assembled again for this year, with Marty, Scott and Eddie, and a great group of pit reporters, is a good testament to that.

I could go through all the images that are in my mind, but it’s like a movie trailer in terms of those striking, lasting images. And I’m very pleased to be able to be at Indy again this year for the event.  I’ll just close by saying that I hope that our coverage lives up to the responsibilities that we have in televising it and we all walk in quite confident that that will be the case.

Q – Marty, what are your thoughts as you are again in the seat that people like Jim McKay and Keith Jackson and others have held over the years during ABC’s 45 years at Indy?

MARTY REID: I think you touched on it and so did Jed. It’s the legacy. For us it’s 45 years and here we are celebrating the Centennial Era for the next few at the Speedway. When you realize you’re a small piece of the chain that started back with Charlie Brockman in ’65 through Chris Schenkel, Jim McKay and Keith Jackson, Jackie Stewart, Paul Page, Bob Jenkins, I mean, it’s a huge responsibility, and, as Jed said, we take it very seriously. And we still want to have fun, but it’s not just another race. It never will be.

Q – Scott Goodyear, you know very well this is not just another race. What are your thoughts as we go into another Indy for you in the broadcast booth?

SCOTT GOODYEAR: As a driver you always get that feeling in your stomach, the butterflies when you go through the tunnel the very first time you arrive there in May knowing that you have a chance to drive the track.

And I probably said this last year also, that it became a new sensation for me when I started television in 2002, because I got a chance to see all the pageantry that went on for the Indianapolis 500 from the television booth up off in the grandstand in 2002, something that obviously went on all those years that I drove there but I never saw because I was so tuned into just driving the race car.

So I think I have a better understanding and more appreciation for the Indianapolis 500 and the rich history that it has now that I’m involved in television, seeing it maybe through television eyes or spectator eyes, if you will, than I did when I was driving it as a race car driver.

And that appreciation I felt again this month when I drove underneath the tunnel to go to the Speedway when they were opening up for practice. And although I live in Indianapolis, with the exception of the month of May, I might drop down there once or twice a year. You go down maybe for meetings or around that area. You go past the Speedway, but the only time I think I ever really go inside the tunnel is to go to the museum maybe once a year in December to get some Christmas gifts out of the gift shop and what have you. So it certainly hits home again every time you pull in there in the month of May, and it’s a very neat feeling.

Q – Eddie Cheever, last year we called you the rookie of the group.  Now in your second year, did working as an analyst last year give you a new perspective and a new appreciation of the event?

EDDIE CHEEVER: Yes, yes, I did. It’s obviously different than driving it, but if you’ve been going long enough, watching how the whole TV show was put together and all the effort that’s put into it, it was definitely different perspective. I’m the cleanup crew. I always get to go last. There’s not much left to say, but I agree with what everybody has said. It’s an unbelievable event.

And at the end of it, it really comes down to we will be celebrating a new winner for the Indianapolis 500 and every sports fan or definitely every racing fan all over the world will know who it is probably five minutes after the event is over. So it’s fun to be a part of that.

Q – Scott and Eddie, on what is the IRL’s biggest day and how important is it that the two biggest stars, Helio and Danica, have an impact on this race?  I mean, in terms of the livelihood of the sport in these times.

SCOTT GOODYEAR: I know we expect a lot out of those drivers and they out of themselves. From Helio’s point of view no doubt we’re paying attention to him simply because of what he’s gone through in his personal life during this last little while. But I think it’s fair to say that he’s now back and maybe not so much at Long Beach or Kansas, but now that he’s been here for the whole month and he didn’t go back home throughout the month at all, he just stayed in this local area of Indianapolis. He’s back and enjoying motor racing.

I think he’s got more intensity and more love for the sport and driving race cars than he had before the issues that he had with the government. And I gotta put him at the top of the favorite list, not only just because of the fact he won twice and he’s on the pole, but just watching his race car all around the racetrack over the past few practice days, it’s really remarkable. I think he’s got one of the best cars, along with Scott Dixon. Both those guys have great cars.

But, as you know, it’s not just the fastest car that wins this race. And driving before, it’s the case of what you have around you with the team, and he’s got a great team, as many people do.

Danica struggled in the last couple of days with speed with a full tank. I’m not sure you would put her on the A‑plus list as far as the group to win the event. She might be listed as an A.

But without a doubt I think those are the two names that people are going to be watching for on race day. I don’t think they’ll disappoint in one way or another. I think that we’ll still be riveted to the TV because of what’s going on on the track. 225 miles an hour, especially with those two players.

Q – Along the same lines, Danica and Helio are the easy stories.  Are there some other stories you see emerging in this race that folks aren’t looking at?

EDDIE CHEEVER: I think every Indy 500 as it develops, there’s always a multitude of stories. And I think one of the hardest jobs we have in the booth is trying to figure out what is going to be happening in the next five laps or 10 laps as the race develops.

There are a multitude of drivers and teams that will be trying to knock Ganassi and Penske off their perch, because those teams have been the strongest in qualifying and have the strongest history in the race.  And now that this unification is one year into it, you will see other people come through.

I think Graham Rahal can do very well. I think Kanaan is very due ‑‑ is more than due for a win.  There are other stories that will develop that will show. It’s not just a Helio Castroneves and a Danica Patrick based series. Although they are the drivers that get the most attention, there are a lot of drivers there that have the opportunity to do well.

And this race is the most difficult race any of them will do in the year. And it’s not just about a driver or a team; it’s about somebody getting everything right that weekend and Sunday.

Q – Marty, read you once went toe to toe with Woody Hayes. Have you ever been toe to toe with A.J. Foyt?  Does anyone in the IndyCar community remind you at all of some of those kind of characters?

MARTY REID: A.J. does, but A.J. and I got together early. And in fact it was because of my experience with Woody. What happened was I asked him (Hayes) a question for his reaction and I got it. And everybody’s camera was rolling. So that’s the short, abbreviated version for anybody who may not remember. It’s been a while.

But after that, when I was starting to do races three years later for ESPN and the first time I saw A.J., I said:  ‘look, I know you’ve got a temper.’  I said, ‘I don’t want to embarrass you and I don’t want to embarrass myself.’  And so we worked up this system. I would catch his eye. If it worked for us, we were at Miami at the Grand Prix, and the car was a real mess, a handful. And I caught his eye and he just shook his head no and I gave him a little time and he finally nodded and I got the camera man and we went in and did the interview and it was a lot better for both of us. So A.J. is the closest that comes to mind there.  But I’m sure that down the road we can get a few people up on the tire.

And to go back to that other question, watch out for Mario Moraes. This kid has been impressive throughout the month. I think we could see something from him in the month too.

Q – Do you think IndyCar needs a few characters, though, like I was just talking about, like A.J.? Obviously he’s still irascible, but he’s getting long in the tooth. Do you need characters like that? Like last year, nobody’s going to forget Danica Patrick’s stalking down pit lane until she’s intercepted heading for Ryan Briscoe’s pit. Do you think IndyCar needs that kind of stuff?

MARTY REID: Absolutely. Look at Kyle Busch. You can wear the black hat as long as you can back it up on the racetrack. Kyle Busch backs it up on the racetrack. And, yes, IndyCar needs that, and to a degree we’ve had that. Danica and Dan Wheldon getting into the shoving match in Milwaukee, that was another example. How about when Sam Hornish, Jr. and Tony Kanaan get into it at Watkins Glen and we end up with his dad being pushed down and people rolling all over the place? For some reason that stuff hasn’t gotten the kind of media attention that NASCAR gets.  But IndyCar has had its moments and, yes, you do need those characters.

Q – Scott, Paul Tracy is back for the first time since 2002.  And what his chances are, who knows, but you’re one of those guys who from a technicality standpoint had an Indy 500 win taken away from you. Unless he wins this race, will this stick with him in his brain forever, no matter what he says about it? And how did you finally through the years learn to kind of compartmentalize that?

SCOTT GOODYEAR: First off, I don’t think you can say you ever forget it. When I was driving, in ’92 it was so close and deserved to finish 2nd because I raced to 2nd. In ’95 I didn’t agree with it then and don’t agree with it now.

But, you know, there’s always more races to come. You are focused on the next race or the next time you come to the Indy 500. And I think it probably feels more jolted to me now that I’m retired about getting disqualified in ’95 than it did in ’95 or subsequent years after because I was still racing. And obviously the situation in ’97 with 2nd place there with the flag and the lights scenario, that wasn’t correct also.

Even then I look at it and I go: I’m always close when I’m here. I know I’m going to win one of these one day. So that’s your focus. That’s what you’re coming back and chasing. And then after, when you retire, you start to think about it afterwards, and it probably gets underneath your collar a little bit more in retirement than it does when you’re driving.

So but to Paul’s defense, I talked to him a fair amount a few weeks ago when he first arrived in town at our ABC studio shoot and then at the track, obviously. Never has he brought that up. I don’t know if he’s doing that purposely because of my situation, but, you know, I know that other people he’s mentioned it to.

I think he seems to be focused and on the event. But that is my scenario with it. And maybe he might be a little more vocal than what he is now the day he’s no longer driving in the car.

But on top of that I will tell you in my conversation with him, I asked him about full‑time riding. He said: ‘I don’t know what it takes. I really don’t know what it takes to come over here and to be accepted to run full time because I thought what I did at Edmonton, not being in a car, finishing fourth there, being competitive, I thought that would get me a full‑time ride. But what did it get me? It got me nothing.’ I think he’s now more focused on today than what happened in 2002.

Q – Eddie, you watched this series pretty closely now. Graham Rahal, compare where he is right now, so to speak, maturity‑wise, everything else, to maybe where he was a year ago, and have you seen progress in him? Have you seen things you like about his progress and do you think it gives him a shot, legitimate shot on Sunday?

EDDIE CHEEVER: I think he was disappointed last year. Obviously he was disappointed when he had the problem as early as he did in the race. And he made probably a rookie mistake. And he got over that very quickly.  When I look at a driver like Rahal whose father has done as much as he has winning Indy and other things, you have to assume he’s heard all the stories at the dinner table and his learning curve is probably faster than the driver that just comes on to the racing scene.

I think Graham has enormous potential to win not only the Indy 500, but championships. And it’s just difficult to sit down and quantify how much somebody learns from one season to the other. But I would not be shocked if at the start of the race he gets into his own rhythm quickly. He gets behind a driver that’s got a lot of miles here like Helio Castroneves. So he will just immediately make that jump forward during the race, not even until after the race is over with. I think he has great potential. I would not be shocked at all if at some point he led.

Q – You were a guy that made your own way.  His dad prefers for him to at this point at least drive for somebody else’s team, not his own and the better the team, the better. Do you think that’s good for Graham also from the standpoint of kind of making his own name for himself as opposed to just riding the coattails of his dad?

EDDIE CHEEVER: I’ve been around racing since I was 15 years old, and I’m now 51, so that’s a long time. I would have to say that I’ve not met as many drivers who think through the problem of racing as well as his dad does. So if they have come to their conclusion, I know it was not done instinctively. It’s something they both mulled through. Speaking for me, I would hate to have my son drive for me. Racing is a very difficult sport and sometimes that father/son relationship would get in the way of a good judgment. And the team that he’s driving with is very successful. And they’ve embraced him as a race car driver and now they’re trying to build up their race team around him. So I think it’s ultimately the right decision. And we’ll see it. You’ll see results coming out of that.

Q – I’m wondering, the fact that all the qualifying this month has been on another network, has that presented an awkward situation for you guys? Have you been doing mock broadcasts? How have you guys been getting the rust off for this month?

MARTY REID: Eddie and I have been doing SportsCenter hits. We’re going to do a rehearsal on Friday during Carb Day. We won’t be on the air, but we’ll use to it get everybody back in the flow. But the truth of the matter is it’s impossible for the company to spend to set up a crew and a truck and everything to another race that we aren’t televising.

If it would have been my first year and Eddie’s first year and Jack Arute’s first year, I think everybody might have reason for concern. But we’ve done this race. We know what to expect. And the one thing that is different that may not make a lot of sense to everybody out there at home is this is the first year we will have control of the world feed. In the past, we could be talking about something and because someone else had control of the world feed, they might jump and the viewer’s going what are those guys talking about? And you have to transition quickly. Now the world is going to basically follow us, and that’s going to help our broadcast immensely.

JED DRAKE: I have no concern whatsoever about this group doing this race as the first race of the open wheel season for them this year. Zero.

Q – For our former drivers, do they have a sense this year that the merger really is complete and the cross‑over teams are definitely up to speed with everybody else?

EDDIE CHEEVER: Yes, I think last year was a strange year because many teams were racing there for the first time. Now they’ve got a 500 under their belt. All these cars have so much telemetry on them and they accumulate so much data they probably spent the whole winter mulling over questions. They come here a lot better prepared than they did in the past.

You cannot learn the Indianapolis 500 by watching it on television. Although watching it on the DVD, you’ve got to participate in it to feel all of the emotion that comes with the event. So I think the merger is complete. There will always be stronger teams. There will always be teams that have more money, and there will always be some dark horse that will come out of nowhere in the race for either a short period of time, and if they’re lucky to do it on the last 20 laps of the race, they may have a chance of winning it. But I think you’ll see pretty much a repeat of what you saw last year with certain teams going to the front right from the beginning.  And then as the race develops, only God knows.

SCOTT GOODYEAR: And I would agree with Eddie, because I think you brought up a very important point is that the Indy 500, with the emotion, you can go off to all the other events that are involved in this the series, and it’s almost like the same events that they were attending. They were attending Champ Car races at different various places and they come along and join us in this series and you’re going to IRL races and various different places. A lot of tracks which they attended at before. But then when you get a chance to come to the Indianapolis 500, it is a huge difference from anything you’ve ever done anywhere at any track in your life. And that is the key thing. So for a lot of them as I mentioned before, my own experience driving underneath the tunnel and going, wow, I mean, I remember asking all those guys arriving last year, for instance, like Justin Wilson, he goes I’ve been here before in Formula 1, but this is a completely different place when you’re going around a two‑and‑a‑half‑mile oval. Those are the sorts of things that you can’t, as Eddie says, get from telemetry or see on a DVD. You have to experience it.

And there will be a calmer Graham Rahal this year because he’s now got one year underneath his belt and Eddie talked about dinner table conversations. You can hear all the stories. You can have all the advice from your dad who has won the Indianapolis 500, but until you live it yourself, you will never really understand it.

And just the start itself three‑wide going into Turn 1 is something you can’t experience anywhere else. And that’s the key thing here. And I think for the teams and the drivers to have a year underneath your belt is a huge step forward.

And we have to remember that those guys didn’t plan to be involved in the series last year. It wasn’t like they did a business plan a year out and we’re now going to join the series. That series was just going down and ended up merging and they basically had a few weeks’ notice to scramble looking for cars getting things changed over.

Not only cars, but accessory parts and tools to fit the new cars. All those sorts of things. They were way behind the eight ball all year. And there was no way even a Newman/Haas would ever be able to catch up. We’re going to see that change this year.

Q – As Jed said earlier eloquently about the fact that this is such a storied race, did you get a lot of casual viewers and people who were not normally followers of this series? So as you get ready for broadcasting this event, do you look at it as knowing that you’re going to have a lot of casual race fans who are not hip to exactly what’s going on and how do you handle that situation?

JED DRAKE: You’re right. There are multiple responsibilities that we have that fall onto the entire production and announce team. And we recognize that there are casual viewers. And we will work to make sure that they are brought into the line of discussion, if you will, because inevitably we want to make sure that they can get to a level of understanding where they truly enjoy the race for what it is and not just the spectacle.

But that said, you know, one of the fascinating things about racing particularly on an oval course, I suspect, is that it’s like soccer. And I know that may sound like a very obtuse analogy, but soccer is a very complex game that looks remarkably simple, and it is at various levels remarkably simple to understand.

And racing is a remarkably complex sport that can also look remarkably simple and easy to understand. And so I think, yes, it is a spectacle and that’s why people are drawn to it. They’re drawn to it because of the extreme danger. They’re drawn to it because we’ve televised it for 45 years and it happens on the same day and it happens to be a three‑day holiday. You have all those things working for you in a very positive direction.

I think if we’re truly successful with this, we’ll televise it on a variety of different levels and do so, if not simultaneously, at various times during the race. Where there will be time to explain things to those that are less than expert to draw them in. But at the same time to not talk under, if you will, the experts.

It’s a fine line. It’s a fascinating line to draw. And in my former life as an event producer, we had that same dilemma with a different event known as the America’s Cup. Again, yachting looks pretty simple. They’re going to try to get from here to here and go around these marks and somebody is going to cross the line in front and somebody’s not.

So all of those events have sort of a certain commonality that they are simple events to understand but yet can be as complex as you can make them, and the balance is to find that groove in both areas and to satisfy a number of people. It can be done and I think we do a damn good job at it.

Q – You mentioned this is the second longest broadcast.  What’s the longest?

JED DRAKE: CBS has had the Masters for 54 years.

Q – Eddie and Scott, Eddie can you expound, Scott talked about Helio, what do you think it took for him, the roller coaster he’s been on, to Dancing With the Stars and knowing about it and going through that and then all of a sudden now he’s back on the pole? Could you talk about the focus and just how he could do this? I don’t know how many people could?

EDDIE CHEEVER: That really is a good question. And I probably had that question from 50 different angles during the month of May. I couldn’t come up with the answer because I wasn’t living in his skin.

When the Indianapolis 500 would come up on my schedule, I would clear everything two months before the race even began to make sure I had no pending issues that would take away any of my attention. Then I put myself in his shoes thinking a few weeks before practice starts I’m sitting in a courtroom with a bunch of jurors that are going to decide my fate. He very easily could have been making license plates for the next four years. I know that sounds trite, but that’s something that could have actually been a possibility. To be able to come out of all of that, put that behind himself and put himself in a race car and conform to the level that he did, I think, is incredible. I think it will go down as one of the greatest achievements, greatest poles whatsoever, not for the speed but just for the fact of what he had to deal with.

Then, of course, you have to play into part the fact that he’s the integral maybe the leading member other than Roger Penske of the racing organization, and it’s a team that came together and stood behind their driver and they had great results. Penske did not win I think in his 14 Indianapolis 500s just by chance. So I think a due diligence and a lot of preparation that that organization is known for has found its way into Helio’s way of life over the years. And to come out of that like he did I think is incredible.

Q – Scott, we haven’t really talked much about Ganassi.  Here they’ve got the defending series stamp and race champ and they bring in Dario who won the previous race and championships.  Can you talk about what makes Chip Ganassi kind of at the top of their game right now?

SCOTT GOODYEAR: I think you mentioned that. I think if you asked Scott Dixon and probably even Dario, but more so Scott Dixon, he’s very happy to go and fly underneath the radar screen. It’s sort of if you had to look between a guy like Helio and Dixon, I think for sure Helio thrives off of it. Scott is now to a point where he used to tolerate it before. He’s looking like now he maybe enjoys the attention. But certainly not a guy that goes out looking for it. So I think he’s learning to live with it. But they have somewhat been quiet, but let me tell you, I know just speaking from the Ganassi guys it hurts they’re not on pole. They expected to have a good shot at it with the two top drivers, and obviously they got a satellite team with Alex Lloyd, really another Ganassi car, and I think Alex did a great job this year because he’s not really been in a car really for a year and he’s running out their third car, as you will.

And overall I think that team is going to be obviously in contention as everybody believes they will be. But I would say that Dixon is very smart race driver. They call him the Ice Man. He’s got that nickname for quite some time. A driver that will continue to just calculate where he is on the racetrack. They’ve got great people in the pit lane, obviously, to turn around and help them run a great race.

And spoke to Mike Hall in length last week in his motor home for over an hour, and an individual that just really thinks this race out. He could have been back in the office, but the team is in the garage working on the cars. There’s no traffic activity. There’s nobody around.  He’s just in his motor home just sort of calculating what they need to do and very well thought out about what they think they will have to do to win the race, and he believes that if they’re around at the end they will have a chance to win it. But he’s very quick to point out that Penske’s cars and a few others are also going to be in the hunt.

But this race this year might be a little different than the past. I think you’ve got really the young guns coming on through in Briscoe arriving now here again with Penske. It’s going to be interesting to see if everybody uses their head and they’re all around at the end or if they really want to be leading right now, can’t wait, and they are overaggressive which might cause them to make a mistake. It will play out of one of two ways: A great shootout at the end or they’ve all shot themselves before the end.

Q – How does Dario fit in with this team?

SCOTT GOODYEAR: I think he’s fitting in very well in speaking with some of the guys, they say that he’s a guy that really is so focused, adds a lot to the team. Don’t forget, he’s been wearing the Target suit now really ‑‑ this is starting his second year, because he spent a year over in NASCAR.  He’s been around the group and I think he’s happy to be back to something he’s molded to. He’s a race car driver. He went over and raced over in NASCAR, but I’m not sure that the body armor fit very well. Here, you know, he grew up in open wheel cars. He’s got the seat molded to his body and I think this is where he’s most comfortable.

Q – We were talking about how the merger is complete, been a year old and all of that. But I’m wondering with the economy the way it is and all of that, what do you think the circuit has to do now to be successful here in the near future?

EDDIE CHEEVER: I think racing ‑‑ actually, I know racing is an integral part of all the sports entertainment business in the states all around the world. The economic problems that we’re going through in this country are no different really than what’s happening everywhere else. So it will be necessary to lower costs. They’re continuously trying to do that anyways. But there’s a series of things that will have to occur. And I’m sure they can with the right forethought into them make the sport stronger than it was in the past. But I don’t see anything at all that has had a negative effect on this year’s race or the one we’ll see on Sunday. But this sport like every other sport is not immune to what happens in the economy.

Q – Eddie, following up on what you just said.  How important is it for, you know, Danica and Helio, the two biggest faces of the sport, to make a nice showing on Sunday for the viewers to see that and maybe keep going, keep watching?

EDDIE CHEEVER: We obviously ‑‑ I mean from the perspective of being in the TV booth, it is our job to talk about what is happening on the racetrack and to try to make the experience of watching this incredible show clear and better to understand. And a lot of people that turn on the television have lived through Helio Castroneves’s experience with Dancing With the Stars and his wins, and Danica obviously being the first really truly successful woman race car driver, they’re attracted to the race for those reasons. But if you were to talk to all the race car drivers or the 33, the other 31 that are in the race, they couldn’t care less about Helio Castroneves or Danica Patrick; all they want to do is win the Indy 500.

Is it important they have a good showing? Of course it is. They’re athletes. But from a purely racing perspective, their popularity does not translate into them having more opportunities at winning the race.

There are a good handful of drivers that can do well here. I speak as a father that has a daughter.  My daughter is always asking me how Danica Patrick is doing, and that’s the first question I have to answer. So I understand where your question is coming from. But there are many other drivers that are every bit as ambitious and there are many teams that will do everything they can to make sure they’re the ones that come out of the 500 the new champions.

Q – A lot has been made during the qualifying coverage of the lack of innovation at Indy these days, back to the days of the Novi and the turbine car and all the innovation, it’s been pretty much a spec series, and I know there’s plans in the years to come from different engines and different engine manufacturers. Do you think that will breathe some more life back into Indy and the IRL?

SCOTT GOODYEAR: I think the thing that we have to think about right now is that the league has done a great job in bringing a rules package together that has allowed us to have I think one of the closest fields that we’ve had in many years at the Indianapolis 500 this year. And because the rules are in place, for instance, even a simple thing for making one common length of suspension this year at 122 inches whereas last year they could use 118, 120, 122. The league is doing some cost‑cutting measures which I think are then taking away some of the options for the larger teams with the larger budgets to find some areas to improve their car that would not be available to the teams that are in the middle or in the back end of the pack.

And I think that’s why you see scenarios, for instance, like even Newman/Haas/Lanigan coming and putting Graham on the inside of Row 2 and K.V. with Mario Moraes, putting him on Row 3 and having the opportunity to do that sort of stuff. When I think about that, I think about Luczo‑Dragon with Raphael Matos as Row 4 or 5. So they’re bringing the middle closer to the front and allowing the group in the back to get closer to the middle, if you will, and I think we’re seeing that.

And with that I think it’s giving you strong races and strong results. Now, there’s no doubt that it’s a lack of innovation and all the cars sound the same. They all look the same, and I think for all the diehard that we have that it’s disappointing to them. But I’ve said this, and it’s no disrespect to them, but I’ve said this many times before, they’re not living it and breathing it and they’re not the ones having to write the checks for it.

So if we went down the path that we used to before and there was never any control over it, we would have six wheel cars here all wheel drive cars here. We’d have budgets like Formula 1 and we know what they’re going through or have been through in the last couple of years. And their costs are skyrocketing.

There needs to be, in my opinion, some innovation. And I hope with what you’re talking about, with the new rules coming on board, they say now 2012, and I’ll be honest to say I’ve not heard much of it in the last three months since the economy has gotten real bad if there’s even been continuous meetings with the automobile manufacturers.

But maybe when that happens, whether it’s ’12 or a little bit shortly thereafter, we do start to have some different engine tones, some new innovations coming out, and maybe a few races where some of the cars are a little bit stronger on street courses than the engine manufacturers and maybe the next race you go to one engine manufacturer off a better package on a one‑mile oval and high‑speed ovals maybe it could be somebody different.

That way we’ll change up everything that’s going on. But as far as the finishing order of drivers are concerned with teams, but the other thing that happens with that also is then the teams and the manufacturers start to spend a lot of money to catch up to the other group.

And I have seen this before, and I’ll take you back to the IMSA days, because I was with the Jaguar factory years and years ago and Eddie was doing the stuff over in Europe with Jaguar is that when the manufacturers decide to pull out, the series dies.

We’re seeing that a little bit like that with the American Le Mans Series where Audi and Porsche have pulled out and the car counts are down. What happens is you’ve driven out all the medium or local drivers, if you will, the medium‑sized teams, because they couldn’t compete.

So if we let the innovation go rampant, you’ll go through larger swings high to low than what we have right now, which a lot of people say it’s the boring middle, if you will, with no innovation.

Who knows the right chemistry for all that? I’m not really sure. But I was there in the IMSA days when Jaguar pulled out and Toyota pulled out and Nissan pulled out and in the space of six months from one announcement to another announcement to another IMSA died.

EDDIE CHEEVER: I’d like to follow up with that. I agree with what Scott said. What we have gained with it being a spec series is the cars and circuits have never been safer than they are now. Everybody needs to remember that we are running laps top speeds at sometimes close to 230 miles an hour. Having hit the walls at that speed, I know what it means to not be covered by a very safe car.

So it’s true the cars are spec, but they’re getting a lot safer. And if you counted how many cars finished the races now, it’s unbelievable. Unless you make a mistake mechanically, they’re almost bulletproof.

But I’d like to pick up on one thing you said. The IndyCar Series as a whole is going to have a golden opportunity here to make changes that could affect the automotive industry going forward the next three years. They’ve done that in the past. So there’s a golden opportunity in these economic problems that we have right now.

So then to come up with some new solutions that could really have a big effect on everything, on the cars we run tomorrow and the cars that will be developed on engines, on everything. They just have to make sure they make the right decisions.

SCOTT GOODYEAR: If I may add to Eddie’s excellent point, I think it’s safe to say you’ll not see a V‑8 engine in the series when they come out with the new engine package whether it’s 2012 or the year after. You’ll probably be seeing a four‑ or a six‑cylinder engine with turbo charge attached to them. So to follow up with what Eddie is saying, there’s no doubt there’s going to be a big difference going forward here with even just changing the current power plant that we have.