Five Burning Questions

Thursday, May 25, 2006 | 7:17 a.m.

With virtually every auto racing series in action on Memorial Day weekend, Sunday is shaping up to be every gearhead's version of Christmas morning.

Weather permitting on this continent and across the pond, the day will start with the 52nd running of Formula One's most prestigious event, the Monaco Grand Prix on the streets of Monte Carlo, continue with the 90th Indianapolis 500 and conclude with NASCAR's longest race of the season, the Coca-Cola 600 from Lowe's Motor Speedway near Charlotte, N.C.

Here are the answers to some burning questions heading into racing's version of Super Sunday:

1. Do Henderson residents Al Unser Jr., as a driver, or Sam Schmidt, as an owner, have a realistic chance to win the Indianapolis 500?

No. Although Unser is the most experienced driver in the field (with 17 previous starts in the 500) and a two-time winner, his Dreyer & Reinbold team has struggled to find speed all month at Indy. Ditto for Schmidt's team, which is fielding a car for Brazilian driver Airton Dare.

Unser starts 27th and Dare 29th in the 33-car field and both will have their hands full just trying to stay on the lead lap until the first caution. Schmidt said he would be pleased with a top-12 finish while Unser believes he can win if everything goes his way.

2. Can Danica Patrick win the Indy 500?

Can she? Yes.

Will she? Probably not.

Although she is the fastest of the three Rahal Letterman Racing drivers (for the second year in a row), everybody seems to be playing catch-up to the cars owned by Roger Penske and Chip Ganassi. But it's a 500-mile race and the fastest car does not always win .

3. Can Jimmie Johnson win his fourth straight Coca-Cola 600 and his fifth straight at Lowe's Motor Speedway?

Don't bet against him. If he can stay out of trouble, which he did in winning Saturday night's all-star race, nobody has been better at Lowe's the past three years than Johnson. In the past eight points races at Lowe's, Johnson has five victories and has not finished worse than seventh.

4. Isn't lumping the Formula One race in with the Indy 500 and the Coca-Cola 600 a bit of a stretch?

No. Although interest in F1 racing (and open-wheel racing in general) pales in comparison to NASCAR in the U.S., more people internationally will tune in and watch the Monaco Grand Prix than will watch the Indy 500 and the Coca-Cola 600 combined in America.

5. Tony Stewart called last weekend's all-star race at Lowe's Motor Speedway a "crashfest." Was that an indication of what to expect in the 600-mile Nextel Cup race?

Yes. After all the tire problems the Cup cars suffered last fall, Goodyear developed a harder tire for the newly paved track. But the new tire sacrifices grip - the car's ability to stick to the racing surface - for durability, which led to numerous crashes last weekend.

"When the car loses grip, it loses grip all at once," Stewart said. "The tire is so hard, it just can't grip the track, so it's making things pretty difficult right now."