Trifeca Preview

It's that time of year again!  Memorial Day Weekend means the annual Triple Crown of Racing, including the Monaco Grand Prix, Indy 500 and NASCAR's Coca-Cola 600!

In years past, I usually did a separate Indy 500 preview, but I decided to include it with the other series for this year.

MONACO GRAND PRIX
Wake up Sunday morning around 7:30am, about a half-hour before the start of the prestigious Monaco Grand Prix on the streets of Monte Carlo.  Nico Rosberg dominated the race the last 2 years, while Mercedes has dominated Formula One.  Rosberg, coming off an impressive performance by winning in Spain 2 weeks ago, will look to 3-peat in Monaco for the first time since Ayrton Senna did it from 1989-93.  However, Lewis Hamilton still leads the points standings and hasn't won at Monte Carlo since 2008, so once again I think it will be another strong performance by Mercedes and I'll give the win to Rosberg.


INDIANAPOLIS 500
About 2 hours after the finish in Monaco, we'll hear Indiana group Straight No Chaser (replacing Jim Nabors who retired after last year's race) performing Back Home Again in Indiana, then we'll see Jeff Gordon driving the pace car and after that 33 cars will take the green flag for the 99th Indianapolis 500.

After Will Power dominated the Angie's List GP of Indianapolis, the teams focused on the 500, and there's been plenty of drama, including 4 serious wrecks resulting in cars flipping over.   Crash victims include James Hinchcliffe, who crashed in turn 3 earlier today, qualified 23rd, will not race.  Former Indy 500 winner Scott Dixon won the pole during rain/crash-plagued qualifying, and joining him on the front row are Power & Simon Pagenaud.  Tony Kanaan, Helio Castroneves and Andretti driver Justin Wilson will start on row 2.  Sebastien Bourdais, Marco Andretti & Josef Newgarden will be on row 3.  Other notable qualifiers include Juan Pablo Montoya (15th), Ryan Hunter-Reay (16th), Graham Rahal (17th), Sage Karam (22nd), Simona de Silvestro (19th), Gabby Chanves (28th) and Stefano Coletti (31st).

In my opinion, the new aeropackage kit that was designed for superspeedways will not work.  The cars will definitely be loose and we could see some more crazy incidents if not on Friday's Carb Day, but could happen during the race.  However, the racing will definitely be exciting.  Just like in year's past, I'm going with Kanaan.


COCA-COLA 600
Well after the finish in Indy around 3:30pm, we'll wait about nearly 3 hours for the start of NASCAR's longest race of the season, the Coca-Cola 600 at Charlotte Motor Speedway.

After Jimmie Johnson gambled on pit strategy by staying out to win at Kansas, Denny Hamlin won the annual All-Star race last weekend, and now everyone is ready to go back to racing.  So far this year, Johnson and Kevin Harvick have dominated on 1.5 mile tracks, but this Charlotte race will be very interesting because some cars will be better as the race goes on as darkness will fall.  It will be entertaining, lot of good racing and now with Kyle Busch returning from knee injury, he will definitely be a contender for the rest of 2015.  I'm going with Rowdy to win at Charlotte.