Mid-Ohio Preview

Hello Internet! It's Guido here with a Scoring Indy race preview for the Honda Indy 200 at Mid-Ohio. I realize that I owe you a couple of explanations. So, here they are really quickly:

1) I didn't get my hoped-for mega post on driver evaluation using Average Race Score, RSWC Points, and Series Points done for last week like I had hoped. Turns out the last 10 days have been full of action at Casa de Guido, with Mama Guido coming to visit as well as the Senior Pastor at my parish going on Sabbatical (have fun, David!!) Anyway, what with all the tumult, the sheer mega-ness of that mega-post just wasn't going to get done justice, so I punted on it. Expect that to be a major linchpin of my post season coverage, however.

2) This is a day late because I wasn't near enough to a computer to type all day yesterday. I can tweet from my phone, but writing a blog post (even a short preview) not so much.

So, now that I've unburdened my heart to you, let's get down to it. Here's how Mid-Ohio looked in 2013:


Mid-Ohio 2013 Race Scores

Finish	Driver	Qualy	Grid	Led	Completed	A.R.S.
1	Kimball	5	5	46	90	86.79
2	Pagenaud	8	8	14	90	74.78
3	Franchitti	6	6	0	90	61.82
4	Power	2	2	0	90	55.57
5	Hunter-Reay	1	1	30	90	62.98
6	Castroneves	15	14	0	90	59.68
7	Dixon	3	3	0	90	45.83
8	Wilson	7	7	0	90	46.13
9	Andretti	4	4	0	90	37.62
10	Hinchcliffe	13	12	0	90	45.59
11	de Silvestro	9	9	0	90	38.27
12	Bourdais	14	13	0	90	38.78
13	Jakes	10	10	0	90	30.00
14	Servia	18	17	0	90	30.37
15	Davison	17	16	0	90	30.77
16	Filippi	24	24	0	90	34.80
17	Viso	12	11	0	89	16.67
18	Rahal	22	22	0	89	23.95
19	Saavedra	21	20	0	89	21.47
20	Carpenter	23	23	0	89	16.62
21	Vautier	11	21	0	89	3.29
22	Sato	16	15	0	89	-0.83
23	Newgarden	19	18	0	88	1.48
24	Kanaan	20	19	0	64	5.42

Predictive Observations

- Last year's win was the gamer-est of gamer wins for Charlie Kimball. Expect plenty of drivers to be willing to experiment with a variety of strategies, especially seeing how caution-free Mid-Ohio has been lately (that is to say, completely).

- That said, it can't be completely caution free three years in a row, can it?

- Just like last time, here are four drivers to watch this weekend, based on past performance at Mid-Ohio:

- Scott Dixon -- Dixon drives Mid-Ohio very well. He beat Will Power there in 2012, a season when Power looked about as invincible as you can in the fragility of an IndyCar. And, the only reason for Dixon's lack of showing last year is a poor strategy call, that led him to bail on his original 2-stop strategy in no-man's land. All in all, Dixon has 4 Mid-Ohio (together with a P3 finish in 2008, and a P2 in Lights in 2000). It's safe to say the track suits him.

- Marco Andretti -- Don't look now, but Marco has had two solid-if-not-spectacular performances in the last two years at Mid-Ohio. Last year, he qualified very well, only to lose track position during his first stint, due to starting on blacks, and in 2012, he held station right up in the top third of the field. I'm willing to say that Andretti has been the most consistent driver at Andretti Autosport since the advent of the DW-12, and one of these days, that's going to turn into wins.

- Graham Rahal -- I'm guessing that Rahal, the Verizon IndyCar Series' resident Ohian (spell-check wants me to correct this to Ohioan. I won't. Ohian sounds better) would like nothing more than to win at Mid-Ohio. And, in credit to Graham he carved up the field in a green race in 2012 to move from P21 to P11. Last year, however he was unable to mount so mighty of a charge only gaining 4 spots on track. I would say that if (and this is the biggest of ifs) Graham can qualify up in the top half of the field, he's a threat to contend for a podium. However, it seems like if there's a break to be had, it refuses to fall Graham's way.

- Simon Pagenaud -- Sleep not on Simon Pagenaud. This track suits him, and he's been fast all year. If Pagenaud wants to make a push to insinuate himself into the Series Championship picture. This is the time. For one thing, he's running out of races. And for another, of the four events remaining, this one suits Simon the best.

- Bonus Observations because I have to -- Expect zero worlds to be destroyed this weekend. Mike Conway is not a "sweeping road course" kind of guy. And, that's exactly what Mid-Ohio is. Also, I know I talked about a lot of drivers up there, but My Australian Overlord, Will Power is gearing up for a dominate weekend, the tales of which will be sung by bards across the tattered landscape of this world long after civilization as we know it has collapsed.

Stay Tuned

I'm likely to throw out some race predictions on Twitter later this afternoon. Be sure to follow @ScoringIndy on Twitter to see those, as well as future blog updates. See you later!

-- Guido