Here are some interesting facts for this year’s race:

• Ryan Briscoe will start from the pole for the first time, edging out James Hinchcliffe by the slim margin of .003 seconds.
• Andretti Autosport drivers James Hinchcliffe, Ryan Hunter-Reay and Marco Andretti will start 2^nd, 3^rd and 4^th respectively after the team struggled to get their racecars into last year’s field.
• Five of this year’s starters, Rubens Barrichello, Takuma Sato, Justin Wilson, Sebastien Bourdais and Jean Alesi, have Formula 1 experience.
• Three women, Ana Beatriz, Katherine Legge and Simona De Silvestro will start this year’s race.
• Last year Charlie Kimball became the first driver in history with diabetes to qualify, start and finish the Indianapolis 500. Charlie will be starting 14^th for this year’s race.
• For the past six years Honda was the sole engine supplier for the Indy 500. This year, Chevrolet and Lotus join Honda to once again provide engine competition for the race.
• There are 3 past winners and 8 rookies in this year’s field.
• There are 3 Fanimation customers in this year’s field: Alex Tagliani–#98 Team Barracuda-BHA Honda, Ryan Hunter-Reay–#28 Team DHL/Sun Drop Citrus Soda Chevrolet & Graham Rahal–#38 Service Central Honda.

Graham Rahal is a second generation IndyCar driver. His dad, Bobby Rahal, won the 1986 Indy 500 and the 1992 IndyCar Championship. That ’86 race was Bobby’s 5^th Indy 500 start and this year will be Graham’s 5^th. Perhaps #5 is a lucky one for the Rahal family.

Graham Rahal outside his Indianapolis Motor Speedway garage.

In 2010 when Graham, an Ohio native, signed to race for Indianapolis-based Chip Ganassi Racing, he decided to move to the Indy area to be close to the team and set out to build a house.  He tweeted (a post on Twitter) about going to a local lighting store to pick out a ceiling fan and, within minutes, several of his followers tweeted back that he should check out Fanimation fans. Graham wound up purchasing Fanimation’s The Andover and a few days later added The Huxley and The Benito, The Fitzgerald and a Fargo to his list of Fanimation fans. Almost a year later Graham added The Keistone, a DC motor powered fan, to his collection of Fanimation fans.

Graham Rahal’s Fanimation “The Andover” fan. (Photo by Laken Kurtz)

Graham Rahal’s Fanimation “TheHuxley” fan. (Photo by Laken Kurtz)

Graham Rahal’s Fanimation “TheBenito” fan. (Photo by Laken Kurtz)

Graham Rahal’s Fanimation “The Keistone” fan. (Photo by Laken Kurtz)

Personally, I’d love to see Graham win this year. He’s a likeable young man (I feel weird calling him a young man—makes me feel old—but he is) and gives back through his Graham Rahal Foundation. Go get ‘em Graham! We’ll also be pulling for RHR (Ryan Hunter-Reay) and Tag (Alex Tagliani). Here’s wishing for a safe and exciting Indy 500! If you’d like to watch the race, tune in to your local ABC station at 12:00PM EDT.

While love of the 500 is probably strongest in Indiana, there is a reverence for the event across the country and around the world. I’m a Southern California native, having grown up in Pasadena, and my love of the 500 started at a very young age.  Several months before I was born, my dad took my brother, then 2 1/2 years old, to the Toyota Grand Prix of Long Beach, a Formula 1 race at the time. Mario Andretti won that race in front of his fellow countrymen and my dad, having witnessed it, became a life-long Andretti fan. So, I was born an Andretti fan.  Barring one year, 1979, Mario Andretti raced in every Indy 500 of my childhood. Each Sunday of Memorial Day Weekend, Dad would wake me up and we’d head to our living room to watch pre-race coverage and then the race.

The Indy 500 is steeped in tradition and this year will mark the 101st anniversary of the first race. I grew to appreciate the history and tradition of the 500 and had the chance to attend my first Indy 500 at the age of 23. Nothing I saw on television could prepare me for experiencing the 500-mile race in person. The race-day crowd numbers in the hundreds of thousands; the largest single-day sporting event in the world. Hearing the call, “lady and gentlemen start your engines” sent chills through me and those chills only increased as the field of 33 passed in front of me for the first time. There’s nothing, mark my words, nothing like watching the Indy 500 from the stands at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway.

I made the Memorial Day Weekend pilgrimage to IMS a yearly tradition and attended my first Indy 500 as a resident of Indiana in 2007. At the end of 2009 I attended an off season IndyCar fan event (coincidentally planned by my future wife), which brought me closer to the sport. In 2011 my wife helped plan a charity event for Racing For Cancer a few days prior to the Indy 500. Racing for Cancer champions cancer screening and cancer awareness through IndyCar racing. Fanimation partnered with Andretti Autosport to create a truly unique Enigma for the event’s silent auction. The fan was painted to match the Andretti Autosport car of Racing for Cancer co-founder and ambassador Ryan Hunter-Reay, who lost his mom to Cancer in 2009.

This year Fanimation will donate two desk fans to the event, now known as The Yellow Party . The fans will be a Fitzgerald painted to match Hunter-Reay’s 2012 Chevrolet IndyCar, which will start from the front row of this year’s race and a Fargo painted to match fellow IndyCar driver Alex Tagliani’s Bryan Herta Autosport Honda. Fanimation has also stepped up to sponsor a table at the event. This event gives Fanimation a chance to be involved in the Month-of-May festivities while helping raise money to fight Pediatric Cancer, this year’s focus for The Yellow Party. For more info on the event and to find out how you can participate or donate, visit www.theyellowparty.org. Hopefully we’ll see you there!

If you’ve never watched the Indy 500, tune in to ABC at 12PM EST on May 27th. You won’t regret it!