Previewing Alabama 2014

Hello Internet! This is Guido, back in the saddle with another Scoring Indy update. This week, I'll take a look at last year at Barber Motorsports Park, and look forward to this year. I'll also give a quick update on my quest for a new (and completely arbitrary) favorite IndyCar driver: the Chase for my Heart. Let's get to it!


Alabama 2013

Here's how things looked last year there at Barber:

Finish	Driver	Grid	Led	Completed	Score
1	Hunter-Reay	1	53	90	85.57
2	Dixon	4	0	90	63.50
3	Castroneves	6	25	90	72.38
4	Kimball	5	3	90	61.81
5	Power	2	9	90	55.85
6	Pagenaud	13	0	90	58.87
7	Andretti	7	0	90	51.00
8	Wilson	8	0	90	36.54
9	Newgarden	22	0	90	59.62
10	Vautier	3	0	90	19.23
11	Tagliani	15	0	90	38.46
12	Viso	16	0	90	36.54
13	Kanaan	19	0	90	38.46
14	Sato	12	0	90	21.15
15	Servia	18	0	90	28.85
16	Bourdais	23	0	90	34.62
17	Hildebrand	24	0	90	32.69
18	de Silvestro	14	0	90	9.62
19	Allmendinger	10	0	90	-1.92
20	Saavadra	9	0	90	-7.69
21	Rahal	21	0	90	11.54
22	Carpenter	26	0	89	17.22
23	Jakes	11	0	86	-14.36
24	Beatriz	25	0	65	7.16
25	Franchitti	17	0	42	-3.33
26	Hinchcliffe	25	0	3	1.86

Observations

- For all the improvements that the IR/DW-12 chassis has made to the racing at Barber, it is still a racer's racetrack, and it is still dang hard to make up positions on that circuit. Only two of the Top 10 finishers started outside those Top 10 grid spots in 2013, and those were occupied by two drivers in Pagenaud and Newgarden that no one would say got there by chance over skill. (2012 was similar, with only 3 of the Top 10, starting outside the first 5 rows.)

- Based on that, if you're looking for top finishers at this year's Alabama race, look at the top qualifiers. And, if there's anyone who can make up spots I'd suggest the two gentlemen above. If both of them start high in the field, I'd suggest Tony Kanaan or Sebastien Bourdais based on last year's performance. (Bourdais also looked good at Barber in 2012, and that was with a Lotus engine.)

- The seeds of Kimball's Mid-Ohio win were sown on the undulating hills of Barber Motorsports Park. Maybe (and I feel like I'm way out on a limb here) this race can turn around Kimball's unsatisfactory start to the 2014 campaign.

The Chase for my Heart

Here's where we stand with the Chase for my Heart going into the Grand Prix of Alabama:

Chaser	LBH (Race Finish)	ALA (A.R.P.)
Power	2
Munoz	3
Pagenaud	5
Andretti	8
Castroneves	11
Dixon	12
Rahal	13
Bourdais	14
Wilson	16
Briscoe	17
Kanaan	18
Newgarden	19
Hunter-Reay	20
Hinchcliffe	21
Sato	22
Kimball	23
Key:	BEST
	SAFE
	ELIMINATED

This leaves us with a Chase field of the following 12 drivers:

- Will Power

- Carlos Munoz

- Simon Pagenaud

- Marco Andretti

- Helio Castroneves

- Scott Dixon

- Graham Rahal

- Sebastien Bourdais

- Justin Wilson

- Ryan Briscoe

- Tony Kanaan

- Josef Newgarden

And, this weekend I will make the cut from 12 drivers down to 8. That determination will be made based on Average Running Position (regardless of laps completed). So, if one of these 12 drivers grabs the pole; finishes Lap 1 in the lead; and then parks it in the grass citing something "mechanical" I'll know that it's done out of love for me.

Stay Tuned

As always, follow @ScoringIndy on Twitter to receive my truly terrible race predictions, which will be up sometime after qualifying. If you follow me there, you'll also get blog updates. And, I can promise you that those are WAY better than my race predictions.

Let's go racing!

-- Guido