The Race to 33

Tony Kanaan celebrating his 2013 Indy 500 win.

Remember when there use to be 50 entries for the Indianapolis 500? Remember when Al Unser, Jr. and Emerson Fittipaldi failed to qualify the Penske cars in 1995? Does anyone remember Willy T. Ribbs' celebration in 1991 when he became the first African-American to qualify for the Indianapolis 500?

We do.

That won't be the case in 2014. As of now, we count 32 entries, 30 of which are confirmed (Dale Coyne hasn't confirmed Pippa Mann and Carlos Huertas, although we expect him to run both).

Below is a list of entries divided by manufacturer. We imagine the Hulman-George family will do what it takes to insure a field of 33 and avoid the negative publicity that would come as a result. Again, as we have documented in our three-part series The IndyCar Malaise. For more on this see Part 1: Why the public is indifferent and Part 2: IndyCar is its own worst enemy, both currently on the AR1 home page.

Yes, as AR1 readers know IMS and IndyCar tactically treat the symptoms of what ails the sport rather than strategically addressing the fundamental problems. All the while, the sport suffers and continues its downward slide to irrelevance.

In the meantime, here are the confirmed entries for this year's 98th running of the Indianapolis 500:

Chevrolet

2-Juan Pablo Montoya (W)
3-Helio Castroneves (W)
6-Townsend Bell
8-Ryan Briscoe
9-Scott Dixon (W)
10-Tony Kanaan (W)
11-Sebastien Bourdais
12-Will Power
17-Sebastian Saavedra
20-Ed Carpenter
21-J.R. Hildebrand
22-Sage Karam (R)
83-Charlie Kimball
91-Buddy Lazier (W)

Honda:

5-Jacques Villeneuve (W)
7-Mikhail Aleshin (R)
14-Takuma Sato
15-Graham Rahal
16-Oriol Servia
18-Carlos Huertas (R) (will happen although not confirmed)
19-Justin Wilson
25-Marco Andretti
26-Kurt Busch (R)
27-James Hinchcliffe
28-Ryan Hunter-Reay
34-Carlos Munoz
41-Martin Plowman (R)
63-Pippa Mann (not confirmed yet)
67-Josef Newgarden
68-Alex Tagliani
77-Simon Pagenaud
98-Jack Hawksworth (R)

AR1 Staff