A Trip Back to the Barber Shop

Welcome back, internet! (Or, should I be welcoming myself back out of my Holy Week cloister?) In any event, I returneth, and just in time for Barber, too. So, to get us all prepared for the Elevation-Change Circus that is Round Two of the IndyCar schedule, here is last year's hurley-burley of data:

Race Finish	Driver	Starting Position	Laps Led	Laps Completed	Race Score
1	Power	9	22	90	77.61
2	Dixon	3	38	90	71.11
3	Castroneves	1	28	90	57.86
4	Rahal	8	1	90	52.48
5	Pagenaud	10	0	90	51.92
6	Hinchcliffe	2	1	90	33.25
7	Conway	4	0	90	32.69
8	Barrichello	14	0	90	48.08
9	Bourdais	17	0	90	50.00
10	Franchitti	18	0	90	48.08
11	Andretti	13	0	90	34.62
12	Hunter-Reay	11	0	90	26.92
13	Servia	26	0	90	51.92
14	Briscoe	12	0	90	21.15
15	Hildebrand	5	0	90	3.85
16	Jakes	20	0	90	28.85
17	Newgarten	15	0	90	15.38
18	Viso	7	0	89	-3.61
19	Wilson	19	0	89	15.38
20	de Silvestro	21	0	89	15.36
21	Kanaan	6	0	89	-16.99
22	Carpenter	23	0	88	11.50
23	Legge	24	0	85	9.51
24	Sato	16	0	52	-3.12
25	Kimball	22	0	45	0.96
26	Tagliani	25	0	0	1.92

So, here are my thoughts:

- It seems that you can pass at Barber now. (Compare last year with 3 drivers leading 20+ laps to 2011, when Will Power lead every lap from the pole: a 100 point Race Score, and you quickly see my point.) So, we could see some people putting up big numbers by coming up through the field. See Viso and Dixon in St. Pete, and Power last year here at Barber.

- Is it possible for Will Power to run for Mayor of Leeds, Alabama? He has two of the three poles and two of the three wins. Expect him to have a car to be right up there again this weekend. I'd go so far as to say that he should win, provided he doesn't get run over again. Don't text and drive! (Yes, I know I'm going way out on a limb here...)

- Sam Schmidt's car looked good last year at Barber with Pagenaud. Vautier looked very good in his first IndyCar Series race. At least one of them ought to be quite competitive this weekend.

- KV also looked good last year in Alabama and two weeks ago in Florida. TK and Simona are in a good position to make real noise at the Alabama GP.

- I'm excited to spend the weekend saying the word "Allmendinger."

- Finally, stay tuned to @ScoringIndy on Twitter. After qualifying, I'll be posting some race predictions, as well as predictions specific to the Race Score World Championship.

That's all I've got for today, I'll be tweeting this weekend, and blogging on Sunday night or Monday morning. Let's go racing, Alabama!

-- Guido