Indy Faithful Hold Good Friday Vigil

Note to the gullible: this is all made up.

Tens of hundreds of Indy Faithful chanting "I am MINDY" converged on the historic Indianapolis Motor Speedway on Good Friday to hold a vigil for any of a dozen drivers they hope will be on the starting grid on May 28.

The occasion was the release of the entry list for the 90th annual Greatest Spectacle in Racing. Along with the expected drivers were cars for 17 "TBA" drivers. The Good Friday outpouring is considered part of the pre-May ritual of trying to guess which drivers will be in the 13 or so "Indy only" cars.

Three-time IRL most popular driver Sarah Fisher had her usually strong contingent at the event. The president of Fisher's fan club was briefly detained by yellow-shirted track security for threatening to chain himself to the track's famous scoring pylon until Fisher secured one of the 17 TBA rides. Security let him go, however, when the saw he didn't have a chain.

"All I'm saying," said the Fisher Fans president, "is Doug 'We Got Screwed' Boles (from Panther racing) and Sarah? Magic. People will be saying, 'Danica who?' " Panther racing has one extra car entered besides one for their regular driver, Vitor Meira. Rumors swirled that Panther was thinking about adding Fisher to the team to form the "Payback's a Bitch" team.

The theory went that after Meira lived in the shadow of Rookie of the Year Sensation Danica Patrick (5'2", 100 pounds) in 2005 and Fisher felt the diss of Danica back in 2004, the duo would be motivated to lap her much-photographed bottom.

"It would be a great story line," said one Fisher Fan. "Tony George, baby, think about it. I'm talking massive ticket sales. And what about those extra Vision cars?"

The vigil was remarkably peaceful. Mostly the fans milled around with homemade signs for their favorite drivers. Jimmy Kite had a strong contingent in the crowd, as did Mark Dismore, Alex Barron, Roberto Moreno, Max Papis and Tora-Tora-Tora Takagi (just to make it interesting). Most people in the crowds carried laptop computers so they could periodically post to message boards.