STAR-DRIVEN

How big is the Indianapolis 500? Think of it as four sold-out Rose Bowls lined up side by side.

There will be about 400,000 spectators at Indianapolis Motor Speedway today for the 85th running of “The Greatest Spectacle in Racing.” Seeing the crowd ringing the 2 1/2-mile track alone is enough to justify the race’s slogan.

What they will see should be the most competitive, closely contested race among evenly matched cars than any in several decades. Maybe forever.

With an impressive list of outsiders joining the Indy Racing League regulars, there are 18-20 car-driver combinations with legitimate chances of winning the lion’s share of a $9-million purse.

Upholding the honor of the host Indy Racing League will be the pole-sitter, Scott Sharp, and alongside him, former IRL champion Greg Ray. Both will be in Olds-powered Dallaras.

Roger Penske’s cars have won the 500 a record 10 times. He is back in the race for the first time since 1994--Team Penske’s cars failed to qualify in 1995, then Championship Auto Racing Teams boycotted the 500 after speedway owner Tony George formed the IRL in ‘96--bringing CART champion Gil de Ferran and Helio Castroneves, winner of the Long Beach Grand Prix.

Also for the first time since 1994, an Andretti and an Unser will be driving in the 33-car field. CART stalwart Michael Andretti, hoping to join father Mario as a 500 winner, has led the 500 for more laps than anyone who has not won the race. Al Unser Jr., whose family has won nine races here--father Al four, Uncle Bobby three and Al Jr. two--would like No. 10 to match Penske’s record. A long-time CART driver, he jumped to the IRL last season.

Chip Ganassi, who broke with CART policy to enter two cars in the 500 last year, one driven by the winner, Juan Pablo Montoya, is back with four cars. Two rookies, Bruno Junqueira and Nicolas Minassian, are his regular CART drivers. But in hopes of repeating Montoya’s win, Ganassi borrowed Tony Stewart from NASCAR’s Winston Cup series and Jimmy Vasser, who spent five seasons with Ganassi, from CART rival Pat Patrick.

Stewart has been the most talked about driver here. A hometown favorite from nearby Rushville who started on the pole as an Indy 500 rookie and won an IRL championship before joining Joe Gibbs’ Winston Cup team, he hopes to drive 500 miles here, then take two helicopters and a private jet to reach Charlotte, N.C., in time to drive in the Coca-Cola 600 stock car race tonight.

Then there are the wild cards, Robby Gordon, Arie Luyendyk and Scott Goodyear.

Gordon, a man without a series, caught a ride in one of A.J. Foyt’s cars and put it on the outside of the front row. Only two years ago, the veteran off-road racer from Orange came within two laps of winning the 500. A miscalculation by his crew, which was counting on a yellow caution flag in the final 40 laps, forced him to pit for a splash of fuel on Lap 199, the second last, while leading. He finished fourth.

Luyendyk, a two-time winner who found himself frustrated by working in a TV booth during last year’s 500, has come out of retirement in hopes of winning No. 3 at the age of 47. Al Unser was 47, five days shy of 48, when he won in 1987.

Goodyear, another retiree, decided to try again as Eddie Cheever’s Infiniti teammate. He has twice finished second and in 1995 was the first car across the finish line but was disqualified for having passed the pace car on a Lap 191 restart. His second-place finish in 1992 behind Al Unser Jr. was by .043 of a second, the closest margin in race history.

Two small-town youngsters from Ohio, Sam Hornish Jr., 21, of Defiance, and Sarah Fisher, 20, of Commercial Point, are the future of the IRL, but from the way they’ve driven this year, the future may be now. Hornish has won two of three IRL races this year and in one, at Miami, finished only 1.8 seconds ahead of Fisher.

If either was to win today, he or she would be the youngest ever. If Fisher won, she would be the first woman. She may get some inspiration from Elaine Irwin Mellencamp, who will be the first woman to drive the 500 pace car. Actually, it’s no longer a pace car, it’s a pace vehicle.

The wife of rocker John Mellencamp will drive an Olds Bravada SUV.

“The Indianapolis 500 is really three races,” Goodyear said. “First is the qualifications, then the race to 450 miles and then going racing for the last 50 miles.”

Sharp and the Kelley Racing team won the first one, taking the pole with a four-lap average of 226.037 mph. The interval between Sharp and Billy Boat, the slowest qualifier, was only 3.24 seconds, the smallest in Indy history.

“Winning the first race is one thing, but the next race is a completely different environment,” Sharp said. “It takes a totally different setup. You need a car that the tires can last for 35-40 laps, and you can get through traffic well because even if you’re on the pole, it isn’t very long before you’re in traffic. And it stays that way all day.

“I feel there are 12 or 13 IRL cars that have the potential to run well race day, and there are another seven or eight guys from the outside who have the same capability. Together, that’s fantastic.

“It’s all going to come down to who picks the right setups, who has a good day, who gets through traffic, who has good pit stops. It could be anybody’s day.”

Eliseo Salazar, the veteran Chilean who has finished third, fourth and sixth in the 500, may have put the race in its proper perspective when he said:

“I have raced in all of the big races of the world--Formula One, including Monte Carlo, and international sports car races like the 24 Hours of Le Mans. Emerson Fittipaldi kept telling me I had to try Indy.

“Quite honestly, I watched it on TV and didn’t think much of it. But when I came here in 1995 and experienced it for the first time as a spectator, it reminded me of a Roman circus. And the drivers were the gladiators who came to do battle at such high speeds and tremendous risks.

“I think of the Indy 500 almost as a religious experience, and the Indianapolis Motor Speedway is the cathedral of motor racing.”

(BEGIN TEXT OF INFOBOX / INFOGRAPHIC)

INDIANAPOLIS 500

* When: Today, Ch. 7, 9 a.m.

* Where: Indianapolis Motor Speedway (rectangular oval,

2.5 miles, nine-degree banking in turns).

* Pole-sitter: Scott Sharp.

* Distance: 500 miles, 200 laps.

* 2000 champion: Juan Montoya.

* On the Net: https://indyracingleague.com