ABC To Be Exclusive Broadcast Network Partner for IZOD IndyCar Series

 A Memorial Day weekend television tradition will continue with a new, six-year rights agreement that will keep the Indianapolis 500 on ABC through 2018, extending one of the longest-running relationships between a sporting event and a television network past the half-century mark.

ESPN on ABC will broadcast the 500 Mile Race for the 48^th consecutive year on May 27, 2012, and, with the new agreement taking effect in 2013, also will televise the 100^th running of “The Greatest Spectacle in Racing” in 2016.

As part of the new agreement, ABC will be the exclusive broadcast network partner for the IZOD IndyCar Series from 2013-2018 and will continue to televise four races each year in addition to the Indianapolis 500. The worldwide presence of the Indianapolis 500 and the series on television will continue as ESPN also has international syndication rights for all IZOD IndyCar Series races.

“The Indianapolis 500 and ABC have been together since 1965 and we are very proud to extend the relationship with this new agreement,” said George Bodenheimer, president of ESPN and ABC Sports. “The 500 is a uniquely American event and a Memorial Day tradition, and we especially look forward to televising the 100^th edition of the race in 2016.”

The Indianapolis 500 aired as part of ABC’s “Wide World of Sports” from 1965 until 1971, when it was broadcast for the first time as a same-day, stand-alone, tape-delayed telecast in prime time. It was shown on a delayed basis until the first live telecast in 1986. This past May, ESPN’s production of the Indianapolis 500 telecast used 64 high definition cameras, a satellite-activated effects system and more of the most modern television technology available.

Beginning in 2012, ABC’s coverage of the Indianapolis 500 and the IZOD IndyCar Series will be expanded to include live streaming of ABC’s onboard cameras on ESPN3.com, ESPN’s signature broadband sports network. The streaming of the onboard cameras also will be available to ESPN3 subscribers via www.indycar.com.

“We value our partnership with ABC and ESPN and are pleased that the relationship will continue into the future,” said Jeff Belskus, Indianapolis Motor Speedway Corporation president and CEO. “Along with a vast understanding of the Indianapolis 500 and the sport of IndyCar racing, ESPN’s production team continues to seek out innovative ways to televise our sport. As broadcast technology advances and opportunities arise to implement new technology, we can count on ESPN to bring the best quality production to our viewers.”

ABC has televised IZOD IndyCar Series races every year since the formation of the series in 1996 and has aired five races each year under the current agreement, which began in 2009 and runs through the 2012 season.

“INDYCAR is very excited about our continued relationship with ABC,” said Randy Bernard, CEO, INDYCAR. “This allows the series long-term growth on the network. This new contract also helps us expand our presence around the world with ESPN representing our international rights. I want to thank ABC for their strong confidence and commitment in our brand and series. This deal will help our series, team owners, sponsors and fans for the long term with a much more solid foundation.”

ESPN also has highlight rights for the ABC races across all ESPN platforms. The next IZOD IndyCar Series race airing on ABC will be at New Hampshire Motor Speedway in Loudon, N.H., on Sunday, Aug. 14, at 3:30 p.m. ET.

-30-

On the 100^th Anniversary of “The Greatest Spectacle in Racing,” listeners nationwide get live race broadcast plus extensive pre- and post-race coverage

Danica Patrick, Dario Franchitti and Helio Castroneves guest DJ on SiriusXM music channels throughout the weekend

NEW YORK – May 26, 2011 – Sirius XM Radio (NASDAQ: SIRI), the Official Satellite Radio Partner of INDYCAR, the sanctioning body for the IZOD IndyCar® Series and Firestone Indy Lights, announced today that it will celebrate the 100^th anniversary of the world-renowned Indianapolis 500 with comprehensive coverage of the race and the events leading up to it.

SiriusXM listeners will have access to the live call of “The Greatest Spectacle in Racing” from Indianapolis Motor Speedway this Sunday, May 29, on channel 94 on XM and channel 212 on Sirius Premier (formerly known as “The Best of XM”).  Motorsports fans will hear pre-race programming, including expert commentary and analysis, interviews with drivers and live coverage of driver introductions.  When the green flag drops at 12:00 pm ET, SiriusXM listeners will hear the race live in its entirety, followed by a post-race recap and interviews.

In addition to the Indianapolis 500, SiriusXM will broadcast the Firestone Freedom 100 race featuring the Firestone Indy Lights at 12:00 pm ET on Friday, May 27.  The 100-mile race from INDYCAR’s developmental series features some of the world’s best young open-wheel drivers.  After the Firestone Freedom 100, SiriusXM will air the IZOD Indy 500 Pit Stop Challenge and a recap of the day’s Indy 500 practice.  All broadcasts air nationwide on channel 94 on XM and channel 212 on Sirius Premier.

IZOD IndyCar Series drivers Danica Patrick, Dario Franchitti and Helio Castroneves stopped by the SiriusXM studios in New York this week to discuss the centennial anniversary race at the Brickyard and also serve as guest DJs on various SiriusXM music channels.

Patrick was a guest DJ on Lithium, channel 34, SiriusXM’s 90s alternative rock channel, Franchitti played his favorite songs on SiriusXM’s 90s on 9 channel, and Castroneves played rock and pop hits from the 2000s and today on The Pulse, channel 10.  The guest DJ sessions will air on their respective channels starting Friday, May 27, and replay throughout the weekend.

SiriusXM’s motor racing coverage on Sunday, May 29, will also include the Coca-Cola 600 NASCAR Sprint Cup Series race from Charlotte Motor Speedway, 6:00 pm ET on channel 90 on Sirius and XM Premier (formerly known at “The Best of Sirius”), as well as the Formula One™ Grand Prix of Monaco, 8:00 am ET on channel 94 on Sirius and channel 208 on XM.

For more information, please visit http://www.siriusxm.com.

Photo attached: IZOD IndyCar Series drivers Dario Franchitti, Danica Patrick and Helio Castroneves at the SiriusXM Radio studios on May 23.  (photo credit: Maro Hagopian)

###

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.

-30-

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.”

-30-

As Indianapolis Motor Speedway celebrates the 100^th anniversary of the Indianapolis 500 with the May 29 “Greatest Spectacle in Racing,” ESPN’s flagship news and information program SportsCenter will join the celebration throughout the Month of May.

Starting Sunday, May 1, and running every day through the morning of the race, SportsCenter will televise a series of Indianapolis 500 Centennial Moments. The video segments will look back on some of the greatest moments and biggest heroes over the history of the race. There will be a new segment each day and each will run a minimum of three times a day, included in the daytime, prime time and West Coast prime time programs. The moments also will be available for viewing on ESPN.com.

The Indianapolis 500 will air on ABC for the 47^th consecutive year on May 29. Coverage is presented by GoDaddy.com and begins at 11 a.m. ET.

-30-

A media conference call was held today to discuss ESPN on ABC’s live telecast of the Indianapolis 500 on Sunday, May 30, beginning at noon ET. Participants on the call were ESPN vice president, motorsports, event and studio production Rich Feinberg, 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 46^th consecutive year that the Indianapolis 500 will air on ABC. A recording of the entire conference call can be heard HERE.

Q – Rich, you’ve been working on the Indy 500 project for quite a while now.  What kind of show do you have in store for Sunday?

RICH FEINBERG: We’re excited … we’ve been working behind the scenes on the planning of our coverage of the Indy 500 for many months now, a small army of production folks, talented operations crews headed into town to get ready. Looking forward to doing this for what’s now the 46th year now on ABC.

Q – Marty Reid, you’ll be in the anchor booth.  This will be your fifth‑year calling the Indy 500.  What do you look forward to for Sunday?

MARTY REID: A great race.  There’s so many great stories.  Obviously, Helio Castroneves going for number four, the battle between Ganassi and Penske.  The ones that intrigue me is people like Alex Tagliani who has been fast, Graham Rahal in a car that hasn’t been on the track for one full year.  The last time that car raced was last year at Indy.  He goes out and puts it in the No. 7 position.  Then you’ve got the four women led by Ana Beatriz.  You want to talk about personality, she and Simona De Silvestro upstaging Danica at Danica’s best platform.  I think it lends itself to so many interesting stories that will develop throughout the day.  I really can’t wait for Sunday to get here.

Q – Scott Goodyear, of course you raced at Indy many times, had a lot of great runs there.  What are you looking forward to about Sunday?

SCOTT GOODYEAR: To add on to what Marty was saying, all those interesting stories.  It’s interesting to see how we really expected a lot out of Andretti Autosport with their four usual drivers, the addition of John Andretti, then KV, a team growing, really took over the third slot as far as the top three teams were concerned behind Penske and Ganassi.  Andretti Autosports seemed to fall out of favor and KV was getting stronger.

Both of them have really not put their best foot forward here in the month of May.  As we’ve seen, both teams crashing cars.  It’s given teams like Marty spoke about, like Alex Tagliani, then also Graham has come along, even Ed Carpenter joining up with the Panther folks to really have an opportunity to show through and shine through here.

I think that’s the interesting side that I see from a driver point of view, that there’s some drivers here with equipment that probably isn’t at the same level as Penske and Ganassi, and qualifying is a day all to itself, but race day is something separate.

I’m sure as Eddie could attest to, you might not have the best package underneath you in a qualifying format, but come race day over 500 miles, sometimes you don’t necessarily need that to be able to stand in Victory Lane at the end of the day.

Q – Eddie, the 1998 Indy 500 winner, has tasted the milk in Victory Lane.  Your thoughts as we head into the race on Sunday?

EDDIE CHEEVER: I agree with what everybody said.  There’s always a million different stories that develop.  I really think it’s going to be a battle between Darth Penske and Darth Ganassi, who is going to control Indianapolis.  Both of those teams are so strong.  I think Ganassi is going to do everything he possibly can to make sure he trips up the Penske drivers.  Helio has won three of them for the very specific reason that he is with the best team and he tends to avoid problems.  I would not bet against him.

As always, so many things develop during the race.  This is a race you can prepare for years for that one special moment and something out of your control can get in the way.  It will be quite an event.  I think it will be an historical ending to all this.  My money is on Helio Castroneves being the one to beat.

Q.  Rich, what, if anything, is sort of new about the production?  Looking at the release, it talks about the track cam, which I think you’ve had before.  Tell me about anything that might be different about the production.

RICH FEINBERG: Yeah, as I said in my opening statement, we’ve been working for months now in planning, deploy our sort of historical package, which is quite substantial.  In total, 51 cameras will be used to document this year’s Indy 500.

A couple of those we’re going to try with super slow‑mos which we haven’t had in the past few years.  As you mentioned, we call it back cam, which is a cable cam going from the frontstretch all the way to turn one, back again this year.

We have at least as of this morning 9 of the 33 cars will have high‑def onboard, 360 cameras, and those will include Helio Castroneves, which we’re excited about, Scott Dixon, Tony Kanaan, John Andretti, Marco Andretti, Dan Wheldon, Dario Franchitti, Danica Patrick, and Ryan Hunter‑Reay.  Brent Musburger is going to host our pregame show.  We have a number of features we’ve been working on there, Helio Castroneves reflecting on his journey.  Last year in 2009, some would say a storybook ending.  Danica Patrick did a lengthy sit down with Good Morning America’s Robin Roberts who will be driving the pace car this year.  We’ve been working on a piece that does a sort of technical comparison between Indy drivers and jet fighter pilots, some of the humanistic characteristics they go through in doing what they do, the similarities.

So we’re excited.  As always, the pregame is one thing but the race is another.  We look forward to just great competition.  I think you saw over qualifying and practice weekends tremendous speeds.  Hopefully a lot of side‑by‑side racing.

Q.  A lot was made last week, booing of Danica Patrick at the track.  Are we seeing any sort of Danica backlash at this point?  Is this the start of something?

MARTY REID: Truthfully I talked to some of the fans that were there.  There is a bit of a resentment she went over to NASCAR by some of them.  There’s those that felt like she threw her team under the bus.  As Tony Kanaan pointed out, that’s the same group of guys that helped her to fifth in the championship last year, and a lot of those guys were on her car when she won at Motegi.  Yes, I think to some degree there is a bit.

Our sports world is just like everything else in business:  What have you done for me lately?  I think there are some fans out there that are going to be demanding her to do well and not just to finish in the top 10 but she’s got to have podium, she’s got to win.  They’re going to keep putting that pressure on as time goes on.

Q.  You mentioned in other parts of the world.  Is this like with a celebrity who gets way too big and all of a sudden the media starts turning against them?

MARTY REID: I haven’t seen it so much in the media.  Honest to goodness, I was really surprised when I talked to a number of traditional IndyCar open‑wheel fans and they didn’t like the fact she was dipping her toes in the waters of NASCAR.  They’re looking ahead and saying she’s already gone.  As far as they’re concerned, she’s made her jump to NASCAR.

You know, I was really surprised by that because I would have thought that, like myself, and I think many others, she’s bringing attention back to IndyCar after being over there.  Some stock car people that I’ve talked to when I’ve been at those events covering the Nationwide Series are actually saying, I’m following IndyCar more because I want to see how she does so when she comes back again, I know more about her.  It’s really an interesting dichotomy.

Q.  Scott and Eddie, could you tell fans what goes through a driver’s mind when they’re told, Gentlemen, start your engines.  What is your emotional tone, the set of your mind at that point?

SCOTT GOODYEAR: I guess for me probably over the years of being there, it was really relief.  I say that from many different angles.  We used to have a couple weeks there of running before you would have the week off before the race, so a total of three weeks being involved in the city, doing a lot of great things, but being very busy.

If you had a great month of May where you had a good car underneath you, you were still very busy.  Can be somewhat slowed down or drawn down just from getting tired from all the activities.  You’re sort of happy to get into the racecar.

If you have had a month, almost like Tony Kanaan has had at this point in time, I’ve had some of those months before in the 11 years that I did it, you know, it really honestly is sliding inside the cockpit, putting your helmet on, just sitting there quietly by yourself amongst 300,000 plus other people, but you’re really inside your cockpit, inside your office, and it really is relief you now get a chance to go off and race the car, because that’s what as a driver you’re there for.  You’ve enjoyed everything else and all the fanfare that goes with it, but now it’s time to get down to business, go off there, take the thrill of going around there at high speed and entering into turn one at the start.

EDDIE CHEEVER: I think what you feel as a driver really evolves from your first race to your last race.  My first race I had no idea what it meant to do 500 miles.  The most laps I had done without coming in for a pit stop I think was 30 or 40.  I was very anxious of the length of the race.

The last race I fell asleep before the start.  The guys had to wake me up.  Okay, here we go.  Really, it just depends on your frame of mind.

You cannot get involved in all of the emotion of all the team, the fans and the race and everything because you have a job to do.  So when you’re sitting in the car, you’re going to be busy for three and a half hours.  I always tried to just harness whatever energy I could and aimed it at driving because it was going to be a long and grueling race.

Q.  Scott, could you put Helio going for four in a row, put it in a historical context, how he stacks up with Mears, A.J., Unser?  Eddie, having been on the track against him probably most recently, talk about what makes Helio as successful as he’s been and so tough on the track.

SCOTT GOODYEAR: I think that for Helio it’s remarkable in the sense that he has an opportunity now to really hit his fourth.  When you think about when he arrived here back in 2001, just how special it was for him finishing second, if I’m not mistaken, in 2003.  He’s been very close every time he’s been there unless he’s had a problem, like, for instance, the crash.

Overall he’s with the best team.  He knows that.  He expects a lot out of himself.  He knows he can get everything he needs out of his team.  I’ve spoken to him many times this month.  He is firing on all cylinders.  He has a total belief, total belief, in his engineer Ron Ruzewski.  Anything that Ron tells him is going to happen with the car, there is no question in Helio’s mind that the car is going to go out and do that.  I think we saw that in the weekend with changes getting ready for qualifying, especially phase two.  That’s very special for a driver because you know you’re putting the life in the hands of the engineer and team every time you strap into the car.

At the length of a football in under a second around that place, you have to have full trust and full confidence.  I think that’s what he has now more so than ever.

I asked Tim Cindric what made him click.  He says, he just sees a different Helio when it comes time to come to the Indianapolis 500.  He said, don’t know what it is, but he just loves to be here.  He probably could come here three or four times a year.  It does not drain him like it does some other people and take energy away from him.  Helio actually thrives on it.

Q.  In a historical context, how do you rate him with the greats?

SCOTT GOODYEAR:  Always different eras.  I always shy away from answering that simply from the fact that I don’t think you can do that justice and go against other drivers in different eras.  I don’t think it’s fair with that.  I see that in all different sports.  We’ve heard that with Michael Jordan, LeBron James, what have you.

The game obviously evolves, is different.  The same with racing.  We have different equipment now.  Some people say this is more impressive because everybody has pretty much the same car, same package, there’s no advantage of a Penske‑tuned chassis that he made himself or going off and doing the tire testing like he used to do for many years for Goodyear, then getting those tires developed around their current chassis, to having no testing rules where those guys were out all the time compared to other teams that could for the afford it.  How do you rate and stock all those up.

Some people think Helio has done just a tremendous job.  I would argue the point he still has Penske in his back pocket and Penske probably is being able to spend more time and money in wind tunnels, shaker rigs getting the most out of their cars.  I was in the Penske wind tunnel just a few years ago.  I said to the guys when I was visiting over there, How long would you spend with this car in here working on things?  The guy looked at me like I was crazy to ask the question.  He goes, Well, as long as it takes.  We’re here to perform our job.  Whether it’s three days or seven days, we spend as much time in the tunnel as we like to.  That’s because they have their own wind tunnel.  Ganassi has access to his own wind tunnel, too.

I can’t give you an honest answer.  Is it a yes, probably so.  To win it once, as Eddie will tell you, is very special.  To be a multiple winner, is incredible.  We’re talking about his fourth.  But I think once Helio has this, I don’t see anything standing in way of his fifth or more.

Roger Penske made a very interesting comment at the press conference one morning last week when they had all the drivers and Tim Cindric.  He said, We will always have a car available for Helio to go and chase his fifth.  I think they’re planning on big things.

Q.  Eddie, what sets Helio apart?

EDDIE CHEEVER: I’m going to look at it from a different perspective.  If you take all of the three current Indy 500 winners that have won it four times, they’ve all done it in different circumstances.

Rick Mears was the first one to totally under the might of Penske to start an incredible run of wins, and he won four with that same team.

If you look at A.J. Foyt, he did it in a different period, but three of them as a team owner.  Again, he had a different set of circumstances to deal with.

If you take Al, Sr., I’m not sure how he won them, but I’m sure he won them in multiple teams, different environments, and systems.

When you take a current Penske team, you take a driver who is a consummate professional like Helio Castroneves, he becomes a final ingredient to make all of that go even better than it has in the past.  To develop on what Scott was just saying about the wind tunnel, Penske takes that approach to everything he does.  All the work they put together, if you have a driver that fails when he’s under pressure or makes mistakes, it goes out the window.

If Helio can win last year after all the problems he had coming up to the race, to survive, winning his third, I think this year is going to be I wouldn’t say a walk in the park but easier than last year.  The Penske organization is stronger than the year before.  Every year they come to the track, they’re a little bit better than they were before.  It’s a very different combination to beat.

Q.  The drivers were in Bristol yesterday, today they’re in Midtown Manhattan.  How important is the introduction, the presentation of the drivers and the personalities, to getting people tuned into IndyCar racing and reestablishing the brand of the Indy 500 as the preeminent race in America?

MARTY REID: It’s essential.  I don’t know who gets all the credit.  I’m sure it spread around.  I think what happened at corporate headquarters in Bristol was absolutely spot on.  I think exposing everybody, when you can get the Brazilian drivers on our ESPN Deportes, I was watching Mike and Mike trying to do a tire change, I think it took Greenie about 10 minutes to do a tire change.  Man, I tell you, the field would have lapped him, believe me.  That’s the kind of stuff.

It’s a dual thing.  Auto racing is one of those sports where a lot of our guys up in Bristol, our staff, you know, they don’t get exposed to a lot of races.  Everybody grows up playing football, baseball, shooting hoops.  How many actually climb behind the wheel of a racecar and hang it out?  That’s always been one of those interesting things.  For our people to get exposed to these 33 talented drivers, the country gets exposed, what Izod is doing with the commercials, all the promotions, all the things they’re driving from their end, that’s what this whole project has needed for a long time.

NASCAR has proven you are driven by your personalities.  I think yesterday was just an absolute home run for the series, for everybody involved.

Q.  I think it’s a wonderful opportunity.  When I was a kid, you took your transistor radios with you to school with you to listen to the Indy 500.  I hope someday it gets back to that.

RICH FEINBERG: First I’ll comment on the day in Bristol yesterday.  I was there all day yesterday.  I just came to Indianapolis today.

The energy and environment that sort of surrounded those drivers wherever they went, whether it’s our dot‑com folks, ESPNEWS, morning shows, SportsCenter, ESPN First Take, I think there was a moment on SportsNation where all 33 drivers were in the show at the same time.  It was just a very, very exciting day, not only from a marketing point of view which is critical in this day and age when there’s so many entertainment choices folks can make in their lives, but it was really exciting to see the drivers together, their interplay between each other, the camaraderie between them.

I know that gets put aside when we get to competition on the racetrack.  But for that one brief day, the energy was as high as I sort of felt it, and I’ve been around this for a bit.

One of the other pieces we’re doing is we went back through the decades and cherry picked a bunch of special moments through the years that ABC viewers have experienced watching the Indy 500 and the great tradition of Memorial Day weekend.  Some of those clips you’ll get a chance to relive with a bunch of different and familiar faces as we proceed through the show on Sunday.

Q.  Eddie and Scott, when you move from the car to the broadcast booth, what happens to the relationships, the friendships, the rivalries that you might have developed with different drivers during your careers?  In other words, do you make an effort to filter those out of your comments or do you feel, I’m being paid for my opinion, and if my opinion is this person might whine a little bit or this person might cut you off, then I should say so?  How do you handle those personality things you might have from your career?

EDDIE CHEEVER: I’ve had quite a few of those, so I’ve had to work very hard to ensure that I park those.

I never raced with the intent of making friends.  I was very good at not making them.  But watching the races and trying to add value to what people are seeing on the screen, there is so much coming at you, you have to be so quick at analyzing and adding something to that picture, there really is no room at all for anything but what is coming at you on the screen.

I think it’s an honor to work with ABC.  It’s such a great group.  More than that, I like the fact we’re a conduit for all the millions of people around the world that watch the race.  It is truly an example of an American sport being an icon because there is nothing like the Indianapolis 500 anywhere in the world.  There’s just so many things going on, we’re so busy, that I think you’d have to be very slow if you were to go back in your past history and wonder about somebody that cut you off at a corner 25 years ago.

It’s a very good question.  The first year I did it, I struggled very much with that.

SCOTT GOODYEAR: Actually, the guy I had the most problem with I’m working with in the booth (laughter).  I’ll tell you a quick story.  Eddie and I chuckle at this now.  In 1990 when I came to IndyCar full‑time, Eddie transferred over from F1, he likes to tell a different version of this version, but I’ll tell the correct version, the Detroit Grand Prix on the old Detroit course, not the one that actually has been until a couple of years ago currently on the island, I was probably third or fourth or fifth from pit exit, Eddie was somewhere in the middle.  Friday morning the session starts.  You go out there on a green, dusty, dirty track.  We get down to turn one, slipping, sliding, warming up your car a little bit waiting for the engine and gearbox to warm up.  I have this car slicing in front of me, driving over my wing, then taking off and going around a 180 and up the straight.  I just couldn’t believe it.  A few choice words came out.  I go a few more turns, I see a car going slow with a flat tire.  It was my buddy Eddie because he had run over my wing.

That was the beginning of him and I not chatting with each other probably for umpteen years until we both got involved in the IRL and the high‑speed ovals.  Eddie, and I give him full credit for this, came up to me in the pit lane, I can’t remember what track it was, maybe it was Texas, said, Both of us have not been happy with each other over the years, words to that effect, just said, At these speeds that we’re doing, 215, 218, high banks, 24 degrees, we can’t have that because we’re going to kill each other.

I said, Absolutely.  I agreed.  When you ask that question, I guess the guy I had the most problem with over the years is the guy I’m sitting beside in the booth.

But to echo what Eddie is saying, you don’t think about that.  I think probably for both of us, if we did have issues with drivers, there’s been a changing of the guard happening right now, so there’s not really any of those scenarios going on.

I will tell you that you can just tell from the personalities of the drivers and their body language when you’ve said something about them that they are not fond of at a particular event, you get to the next race weekend, you can certainly tell that they’re not very happy with you, would rather not see you and would rather not talk to you.  That goes away after another race or two.

Q.  Scott and Eddie, there was a piece online today reflecting I guess the IndyCar version of the Car of Tomorrow is coming in two years.  A couple of people, specifically Scott Dixon’s crew chief and Dennis Reinbold were quoted as saying they thought the Indy Racing League could probably help itself best by reestablishing sort of a tie between the IndyCar and the kinds of cars that the average Joe drives.  I was wondering if you could speak to that notion.

EDDIE CHEEVER: I think you’re going to see we’re in a period of evolution right now where there’s a lot of ideas, a lot of opportunities out there, because IndyCar has said they’re assessing their current designs, trying to come up with something to go forward with in, like you said, a two‑year period.

I don’t think, this is just my opinion, one of many, I don’t think IndyCars should try to make their racecars look like cars that we drive every day.  That’s NASCAR’s domain.  IndyCars to me are very technical.  They have sleek aerodynamic shapes.  They have one called a delta wing that’s out there now, that my four‑year‑old son thought it was a Batmobile.  There’s a variety of other ideas out there.

I think we have reached a point in time, though, and I think the management of IndyCar are very wise in doing it, where they should assess the look of the car and come up with something innovative or something different.

Q.  I don’t mean to suggest the actual look of the car.  What they were saying, things like maybe going with more green technology, smaller engines, lighter cars, things like that, not specifically the look.

EDDIE CHEEVER: When you reassess a formula, there’s different angles you can come at it with.  I’m sure there will be new designs on engines that are more fuel efficient.  I’m sure there will be different fuels.  IndyCars were one of the first to change their fuel.  They’ve been very successful at it.

It’s just so full of opportunities right now for them to decide what they’re going to do.  Being a very technically based series, they can have a wider deck of playing cards to pick from.

But the cars have to be safe.  Making an engine last for 500 miles is not easy.  When you bring new engines in, you open up Pandora’s box.  Scott will tell you when we started racing this current formula, it was very difficult to get engines to do 150 miles, much less 500 miles.  There’s a lot of safety in the current system they have now that when you go to new technology you’ll have to start all over again.

SCOTT GOODYEAR: I think IndyCar needs to be seen as a leader in technology because I think we have seen that in the past.  We’ve got very technically advanced cars and engines.  NASCAR still to this day obviously has carburetors on their cars and brakes that have a hard time slowing down a normal passenger car, let alone something that’s doing 140 or 160 miles an hour, or high speeds they do on some of the ovals, the brakes are not state‑of‑the‑art on those things.  I think IndyCar has to be the leader.

They’ve done that with driver safety, with the way they’ve done the technology of the foam around not only in the seats but also in the head surrounds that they’ve done, all the money they’ve paid to do studies to actually make that better, making sure the drivers are using the HANS device.  Outside the car also obviously with Tony George and the George family, the Speedway funding and coming up with a SAFER barrier.  That was all their program.  They’ve asked for nothing in return, just that people pay for the materials to put it in all of the racetracks.  NASCAR has implemented that in all their racetracks.

I think we have to be continuously looking at ways to be advancing the automobile, doesn’t matter if it’s safety belts or rearview mirror which first arrived at Indy.  I think that’s where the league is going at this day and age.  I’m not speaking for them, but sort of reading between the lines when I think of the smaller displacement motors, turbo charger or twin turbos.  You can see leading companies like BMW going away from big V8s and starting to put a twin turbo engine in some of their popular mainstay cars like the 3 series.  You can already see it’s going that way.

Where would we be if we designed a car wrapped around a fuel‑guzzling V8 today?  Certainly there’s going to be change coming in the future, whether it’s two or three years, and there are going to be people that agree with it and people that do not agree with it.

Eddie said something about what his son thought about the delta wing car.  I purposefully did a program with my son, Michael, who races go‑karts.  I showed him in the computer a couple months ago, Look at these cars that the IndyCar Series is looking at for a couple of years from now.  I showed him the new Dallara, the Swift, Lola.  There’s one more, Look at this here.  The previous three he said, That’s fine.  Then I showed him the delta wing car.  He goes, Dad, that is really cool.

Who are we trying to sell to in the future?  Do we make small changes from the car or do a radical change?  I don’t know.  I’m not sure that I have a final opinion on that.  But I think we just have to be ready for change ’cause it’s coming here in two or three years.

Q.  Eddie, as a competitor and winner at Indy, how do you kind of put into perspective what Chip Ganassi could do this year by winning Indy as well as the Daytona 500?  In terms of branding Indy, do you feel like it needs to get back to a point where multiple manufacturers are in so people can kind of root for their car brands like they do in NASCAR?

EDDIE CHEEVER:  Those are two hard questions.

I have only the utmost respect for everything that Ganassi has managed to do in racing.  If it wasn’t for Ganassi, I would have to assume that Penske would be in the 20s with his wins here at Indy.  He has put together a group that’s capable of winning at the Indianapolis 500 and obviously winning on superspeedways like Daytona.

To accomplish that and to win both those races on the same day, occurring Memorial Day, I think would be incredible.  It’s never happened.  The math is pointed against it, but it would be a great technical accomplishment because you’re doing it from two totally separate perspectives.

There are very few things that are similar in a NASCAR (car) that you have in an IndyCar.  To have a group so successful in both is incredible.

Getting to your question on the engine manufacturers, the IRL has gotten to the point it is because certain decisions were pushed on them, a changing economy, they wanted to make sure that all of the competitors had an opportunity to win races, so they ended up with a common engine and a common car.

I think it would be a lot healthier ‑ and this is very difficult to regulate ‑ to do exactly what you said, to have more manufacturers and technology that comes into it.

What NASCAR is very good at doing is making sure that the playing field, although certain teams do win more than others, the playing field remains relatively consistent so everybody can have a chance at winning races.  In IndyCar, where technology is so prevalent, one of those engine manufacturers would have a big advantage on another.  It’s very difficult to regulate that.  So all of a sudden you have Honda winning all the races and Toyota and GM not winning any.  That proves to be a problem for the other manufacturers’ marketing department.

I agree with you, it would be good to have more manufacturers involved in IndyCar racing.

Q.  This idea of separate road and oval course champions, do you think that’s a good thing or do you think it’s something that was done to maybe placate those who were followers of CART and those who liked the oval races with the IRL?

EDDIE CHEEVER: When I think of IndyCars, I think of Indianapolis 500.  I’m not saying that a race at Long Beach has less value, but I don’t think the public identifies with that, at least not yet.  There is a history of road racing with CART and now IndyCars are going to road racing.

You know, I’m not really enamored with this idea of two separate championships or two divisions inside of a championship.  But there are marketers that I’m sure have gone through all the various details of it.  I am tied emotionally to the Indy 500 when I look at IndyCars, not to a road race in Brazil or a road race in Detroit or wherever it may be.

Q.  Any of the announcers.  You talked before about Danica Patrick.  She appears extremely frazzled.  I’m wondering how you think she could have handled things differently with her comments about her crew the other day.

SCOTT GOODYEAR: I think it doesn’t matter if it’s a male, female or if it’s a driver at the front or the middle or the pack third of the grid, you want to go there and perform the best that you can.  I think what we saw from her the other day was just the frustration of not being able to perform to her expectations and probably to the expectations of her fans and obviously her team and sponsors.

I mean, there’s a lot of weight that goes on the driver.  Although this is a team effort, driving a racecar, you know, you are still judged as an individual when you’re in the racecar going around there by yourself.  I think what I saw with her the other day was just the frustration coming out and the realization that this is the speed that I have and I probably really don’t have a shot at being up the front couple of rows or especially being in the top nine.  I think that was just the frustration level coming out from her.

EDDIE CHEEVER: I think it was a childish tantrum that she’ll get over in a hurry.  The beautiful thing about racing is you can go from being the village idiot to the world champion in one afternoon.  She has a great race, it will all go behind her.

Q.  Rich, I think in the past it’s almost like a Tiger Woods effect with Danica in terms of whether she was in contention or not.  Because of the audience, you had to keep tabs on where she was in the race.  Do you feel that’s still true with her?  If she’s out of contention, how frequently would you try to update her status?

RICH FEINBERG: I think she’s one of the major stories in the race, a lot of them as Scott and Marty pointed out at the beginning of the call.  Clearly her performance will dictate and the story which she goes through the event will dictate our volume of coverage.

I do think, as we think about the Indy 500, sort of balance it out with other IndyCar races we do, we feel confident there is a large amount of our viewing audience that this may be the only, if not one of very few IndyCar races, they watch this year.  We bring to the production a sense of explanation and broader‑based story telling.

Danica has had quite a year, and it would seem to me in terms of interest levels, not necessarily on‑track performance, but in terms of the curiosity factor, we think there will be a lot of people who watch that race that will have that curiosity factor, just like when she raced in Daytona, Fontana and Las Vegas in her Nationwide races.  Our job is to balance that story with all the others but make sure we feed that curiosity factor in hope of building a larger fan base and bringing people to other IndyCar telecasts down the road.

Q.  Scott and Eddie, when you talk about how similar all of the cars are right now, does that make Helio’s accomplishments at Indianapolis Motor Speedway that much more impressive that he’s been able to do that with bunched‑up fields, everybody driving similar cars?

SCOTT GOODYEAR: I touched on it briefly a moment ago, how do you come up and assess that when we were talking about the four‑time winners, if Helio wins a fourth?  I think Eddie’s comment was really right on head with that.  Because he’s still driving for one of the best teams, he is certainly having all the luxuries of putting all the pieces of the puzzle together.  As I mentioned, just being around their facility in North Carolina, seeing their wind tunnel, it is hard to realize how other teams that don’t have all those tools at their disposal can compete on the same level as a Penske or also a Chip Ganassi, because he has much the same type of program in place.

I say that wrapped around going around in qualifying because the race is a completely different animal as we’ve always seen before.  There’s much talk right now about Tony Kanaan is totally out of it.  Well, no, he’s not.  I started on the back row and ended up second, from 33rd to second.  Tony is starting 33rd because he’s going to have a change of cars.

All that said, it’s 500 miles.  It’s a long day.  For Helio to come through, be there, have a shot at winning the fourth, impressive as it may be, to say that he’s done it and he’s better at it because all the cars are the same, I just don’t know how you answer that.

It’s still impressive because he’s still doing the job, but it’s still very impressive because you have to weigh that he’s with the best team.  I think Eddie gave a great chronicled understanding of the other drivers that have won four.  I don’t know that I really can give you an honest black and white opinion on that.  Maybe Eddie might want to add more.

EDDIE CHEEVER: I think we both covered it well.  That’s a really good question.  We’re at a point now with Helio Castroneves where you can go back and talk, in baseball terms, talk about Babe Ruth.  Here he’s being compared to three of the greatest American racecar drivers ever to drive on an oval, Al Sr., A.J. and Rick Mears.  I think that Helio Castroneves just took the absolute advantage of perfect circumstances that were delivered to him.  Many other drivers, maybe there were other drivers in the same circumstances that didn’t achieve what he did.  He’s executed perfectly.

If he wins, he will be, first of all, the only non‑American to be in that group that have won four.  What Scott said earlier, there’s no reason that if he wins four he can’t go win five.  The team isn’t going to get any worse.  He’s only getting better.  It is true that it’s 500 miles, but Penskes have executed this 500 miles so many times flawlessly, they have such depth, racing is never a foregone conclusion, but I would not bet against him.

As Scott said, Kanaan starting 33rd, he could win the race, I agree.  I’m sure if you were to ask Helio Castroneves if he would rather start last, he’d probably tell you no.

Q.  Scott, how much patience would it take for a guy like Tony to move his way up through the field and get to the front?

SCOTT GOODYEAR: Well, Tony has known when that when he’s had to start at the back of other races he had to really work his way through traffic very quickly, on ovals when he has had a change in engine or car, what have you.  But the mile‑and‑a‑half formats, the banking, are completely different track than what we have here at Indianapolis.

As I mentioned, I’ve started on the front row and back row and many in between.  The back row, I think the first year I went there I started on the seventh row, I found it almost unimaginable, undriveable with your car.  A couple years later after I started on the back row with changing cars, it was a scenario where you take your foot off the gas and you’re sucked along like somebody is pulling you along in a vacuum cleaner, the dirt and dust coming up in your shield, the smell of fumes burning your eyes and throat, it’s hard to get through a couple of laps.  Although you want to be patient, you go for it.  You still think as a racecar driver, I have to pass as many cars as I can at the very beginning.  We’ve seen Tony do that numerous times when he started at the back.  Like I said, the track is a different format.

This track can be confrontational at both ends.  One needs to be very careful, as we saw at the beginning of the race last year with Marco.  I think Tony knows that.  He certainly has the patience.  The team will do a good job on strategy to move him forward.

But irregardless, you can’t take your time at some points in time because you don’t want to go down a lap, obviously.  It will be interesting just to watch Tony.  I think we’re going to follow him a little bit at the beginning because he is a driver that is aggressive.

I did a radio thing today and somebody asked me what I thought Tony would be thinking right now.  I think he’s mad.  I think it’s like going up and kicking a beehive.  I think the bees are angry and I think Tony is angry.  I think he wants to go out and prove something.  Don’t expect him to stay back there very long.

Q.  Qualifying at Indy this year was a radical departure from years past, by all accounts very successful and dramatic.  Given there’s a new CEO in the IRL, some new marketing ventures, do you see further changes in qualifying and possibly even race format in the future?

MARTY REID: Well, I would certainly think they probably might consider tweaking the qualifying format.  I don’t think you’re going to see a change in the race.  That is a tradition that I don’t think you will ever see change.

I think, you know, what they do with tweaking the system, there were a lot of ideas floating around there, like inverting the order so that Helio doesn’t go out there and stand everybody on their ear, it’s basically, holy smokes, can anybody match that.

There were other ideas if you do withdraw your time or if you do go out again, you have to withdraw your time.  That would create some interesting situations.  I’m sure they’re going to listen to all the feedback.  They may do a tweak or two.

As I told everybody from the very get‑go, it was great for television, it was great for the fans, and it was scary as you know what for everybody that had to climb behind the wheel.

XM subscribers and SIRIUS subscribers with the “Best of XM” will hear live broadcast of “The Greatest Spectacle in Racing,” plus extensive pre- and post-race programming

NEW YORK – May 25, 2010 – SIRIUS XM Radio (NASDAQ: SIRI), the Official Satellite Radio Partner of the Indy Racing League, the sanctioning body for the IZOD IndyCar® Series and Firestone Indy Lights, announced today that it will offer comprehensive coverage of the world-renowned Indianapolis 500.

SIRIUS XM listeners will have access to “The Greatest Spectacle in Racing” live from Indianapolis Motor Speedway on May 30 on XM channel 145 and SIRIUS channel 211 (part of the “Best of XM”).  Motorsports fans will hear pre-race programming, including expert commentary and analysis, interviews with drivers and live coverage of driver introductions.  When the green flag drops at 1:00 pm ET, SIRIUS XM listeners will hear the race live in its entirety, followed by a post-race recap and interviews.

In addition to the Indianapolis 500, SIRIUS XM will broadcast the Firestone Freedom 100 race featuring the Firestone Indy Lights at noon ET on Friday, May 28.  The 100-mile race from the Indy Racing League’s developmental series features some of the world’s best young open-wheel drivers.  After the Freedom 100, SIRIUS XM will air the Indy 500 Pit Stop Challenge, plus a recap of the day’s Indy 500 practice.  All broadcasts air nationwide on XM channel 145 and SIRIUS channel 211 (“Best of XM”).

For more information, please visit http://www.xmradio.com/indycarseriesracing.

SIRIUS XM’s motor racing coverage on Sunday, May 30 will also include the Coca-Cola 600 NASCAR Sprint Cup Series race from Charlotte Motor Speedway (6:30 pm ET on SIRIUS channel 128 and XM channel 128 with the “Best of SIRIUS”) as well as the Formula One™ Turkish Grand Prix (8:00 am ET on SIRIUS channel 127 and XM channel 242).

###

Indianapolis

A  Memorial Day weekend TV tradition since 1965 continues on Sunday, May 30, when the Indianapolis 500 airs on ABC for the 46^th consecutive year. ESPN on ABC’s live, high definition telecast from Indianapolis Motor Speedway is presented by GoDaddy.com and begins with a one-hour pre-race show at noon ET. The race coverage begins at 1 p.m.

“As one of the world’s marquee sporting events, the Indianapolis 500 is something that sports fans look forward to every year,” said John Wildhack, ESPN executive vice president, programming & acquisitions. “We join in that enthusiasm and consider it an honor to televise the race in America and on our international platforms.”

ESPN’s production will use 59 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 Track Cam, 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. Hosting the telecast will be Brent Musburger. ESPN senior motorsports producer Neil Goldberg will produce the telecast and Bruce Watson will direct.

The one-hour pre-race show will include interviews with many of the 33 starting drivers as well as special features:

• A look at the up-and-down past year of polesitter and defending race winner Helio Castroneves, from beating tax evasion charges to winning Indy to becoming a father.
• Ryan Hunter-Reay is featured in an ESPN Sports Science piece comparing driving an Indy Car to flying a fighter jet.
• Drivers who have and have not won at Indy talk about the Blueprint for Success at the famous track.
• ABC Good Morning America host Robin Roberts, the honorary pace car driver for the Indy 500, conducted a unique sit-down interview with Danica Patrick that will appear both on GMA and in the pre-race show.
• Bobby and Graham Rahal are interviewed together in the rarely-seen basement of the Indianapolis Motor Speedway Museum, among some of the classic cars that are not normally seen by the public.
• An animated feature on the size, scope and speed of Indianapolis Motor Speedway compares the track to the George Washington Bridge, the U.S.S. Enterprise and the Rose Bowl. The animation also illustrates the speeds reached by Indy Cars.
• A look back on ABC’s 46 years at Indy, a montage of on-camera interviews with some of the iconic announcers through the years mixed with the greatest moments from those races.
• A Memorial Day tribute salute to veterans, in the words of family members of individuals who died in the line of duty.

The opening segment will have the theme of a blockbuster movie trailer, with a central character, The Keeper, that guards the coveted Borg-Warner Trophy and introduces the talented characters who will be vying for the trophy. Several IndyCar and Indianapolis Motor Speedway officials have cameo roles in the segment which also includes drivers Castroneves, Patrick, Dario Franchitti, Scott Dixon and Dan Wheldon.

Musburger will host the telecast from an IZOD IndyCar Series-branded set at pit exit. The new set also includes an 8-foot replica of the Speedway’s famous Wings and Wheels logo.

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 networks and syndication of the Indy 500 will reach more than 252 million households. In addition, U.S. troops serving overseas and on Navy vessels around the world will watch via a broadcast agreement between ESPN and the American Forces Network, bringing the total to 213 countries and territories.

ESPN.com will provide surround coverage of the Indy 500 with senior motorsports writers Ed Hinton and Terry Blount, IndyCar correspondent John Oreovicz and motorsports editor K. Lee Davis in the middle year of the Indianapolis Motor Speedway Centennial Era celebration. In addition, anchor Marty Reid and analysts Scott Goodyear and Eddie Cheever will provide exclusive digital coverage of the “The Greatest Spectacle in Racing.”

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

ESPN Classic continues airing highlights of past editions of the Greatest Spectacle in Racing throughout the Month of May and will have a 12-hour marathon beginning at noon on Saturday, May 29, the day before the race. And four-time Indy 500 winners A.J. Foyt and Al Unser, and 1969 winner Mario Andretti, are profiled in episodes of the ESPN Classic signature series SportsCentury airing on race morning starting at 9 a.m. The remaining schedule:

ESPN Radio’s Saturday RaceDay starts its engines at 6 a.m. ET 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. Drivers Dixon, Franchitti, Will Power and Marco Andretti will appear on ESPN Radio’s GameNight airing at 8 p.m. ET the night before the race.

ESPN Deportes, ESPN’s Spanish-language television, radio and Internet in the U.S., will cover the Indy 500 via SportsCenter and RPM Semanal, the network’s first news and information program completely aired online on ESPNdeportes.com. Former professional driver Alex Pombo covered the 33-driver starting field’s New York visit on Tuesday of race week. RPM Semanal will be available on ESPNdeportes.com starting Wednesday, May 26, at 1 p.m. ET. The show will offer post analysis of Indy 500 during its Wednesday, June 2 edition.

Visit www.espnmediazone.com for ESPN’s latest releases, schedules and other news, plus photos, video and audio clips and more.

-30-

The 33-driver starting field for the Indianapolis 500 will spend Monday, May 24, on the ESPN campus in Bristol, Conn., as the drivers will appear on multiple ESPN platforms and programs both domestic and international.

ESPN’s production of the Indianapolis 500 airs on ABC on Sunday, May 30, beginning at noon ET. The race is on ABC for the 46^th consecutive year, one of five IZOD IndyCar Series events on ABC this season.

On American television, drivers will appear on ESPN SportsCenter as well as ESPN2’s First Take, Mike and Mike in the Morning (simulcast on ESPN Radio) and SportsNation. ESPNEWS, ESPN Radio, ESPN.com, ESPN Mobile, SportsCenter.com, ESPN Deportes Radio and ESPNDeportes.com are other U.S. platforms that drivers will appear on, including RPM Semanal (in Spanish) on ESPNDeportes.com.

Drivers also will appear on various ESPN International platforms, including segments on SportsCenter Australia version, on Limite, ESPN Brasil’s autosports news and information program, and on ESPN360.com, ESPN’s localized broadband platforms in Brazil, Chile and Mexico.

International drivers also will appear in their native languages on the ESPN networks in Australia, the UK, Africa, and Latin America and on regional networks ESPN Dos (Mexico) and ESPN Mas (Southern Cone South America)

ESPN International’s networks and syndication of the Indy 500 will reach more than 252 million households. In addition, U.S. troops serving overseas and on Navy vessels around the world will watch via a broadcast agreement between ESPN and the American Forces Network, bringing the total to 213 countries and territories.

-30-

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.