FanHouse SamHornishJr.

INDIANAPOLIS -- He won the Indy 500 in 2006. So the question is, can he repeat that success this year in a stock car?

Sam Hornish Jr. joined FanHouse for a live chat from the Brickyard at Indy. Hornish discussed several topics, including how he likes his chances at Indy.

You can read the entire chat wrap after the jump.

INDIANAPOLIS - The Indianapolis Motor Speedway has kicked off its 100th birthday celebration with the closest Indy 500 starting field in history, the largest crowd in recent memory and a vibe reminiscent of the race's heyday.

Even NASCAR's "King" Richard Petty will be trackside today as Jim Nabors sings "Back Home Again in Indiana" -- to wrap up a traditional pre-race show unlike anything in sports.

Sure, the Penske and Ganassi and Andretti Green teams are odds-on favorites to win today's Indianapolis 500. But with the reunification of the two open-wheel series last year, the grid boasts a legitimate 13-14 contenders and has finally put to rest the notion that Indy has lost its competitive edge.

Let's take a quick glance at some of the Richmond post-race storylines:

"We lost the brakes."

Jimmie Johnson, as Saturday night at Richmond International Raceway proved, isn't the racing robot with a switch stuck on "Dominate" we've come to think he is after three-straight Sprint Cup titles. Nope, not even at a track where he's won three of the last four events before Saturday night's race.

In fact, it was an all-around miserable night for the No. 48 after brake problems caused him to spin once, get caught up in another crash and then race the rest of the way with a damaged race car. Unfortunately for the rest of the competition, his 36th-place finish won't be a barometer of his 2009 season.

Roger Penske is the most successful team owner in Indy car history with driver Ryan Briscoe earning Penske's 139th victory two weeks ago in the IndyCar Series opener at St. Petersburg. Penske has won the Indy 500 a staggering 14 times. His NASCAR team has 63 victories, including the 2008 Daytona 500. His sports car team won the historic 12 Hours of Sebring last year.

Penske sat down in his motor coach for a wide-ranging interview on topics as diverse as what keeps him motivated to Danica Patrick's flirt with NASCAR to the future of his NASCAR driver Sam Hornish Jr.

Excerpts from my interview with Penske after the jump.

Nearly 12 years later, a few people at the top of the open-wheel racing world finally got their heads screwed on straight.

The Indianapolis Star's Curt Cavin is reporting that sometime on Friday, both the IRL IndyCar Series and the Champ Car World Series will announce a merger effective for the coming 2008 season. From the article:

Barring an 11th-hour snag in negotiations between IRL founder Tony George and Champ Car World Series co-owner Kevin Kalkhoven, who planned to meet Thursday night, the two Indianapolis-based sanctioning bodies are expected to officially become one, potentially as soon as a 11:45 a.m. news conference Friday at Indianapolis Motor Speedway.

Cavin, as well as SPEED's Robin Miller (who, interestingly enough, departed ways from the Indianapolis Star many years ago on not-go-good terms) have been the two primary leads on the story about the two factions who split in 1996 for a few weeks now.

Cavin's "Racing Expert" blog has been a beacon of hope for open-wheel/Indianapolis 500 race fans for the past few weeks as Cavin used subtle hints to indicate he had sources telling him that a unification of the two rival series was in the works.

It's been fun to read the progress of the merger, and it brings excitement to this stock car fan to know that -- regardless of what ISC & Daytona say -- the nation's biggest race will again have some its biggest teams and drivers involved. More importantly, though, reaching 33 cars to start the race won't be as difficult of a process.

The IRL has 16 confirmed teams for 2008, and with the influx of the Champ Car folks expect that number to rise near 25.

Will the racing be great in 2008? No, but it will certainly get better as time goes on. It does leave me with a couple of questions, though.

The Essentials
Coverage: ESPN on ABC @ 3:00pm/ET
Green Flag: 3:45pm/ET
Distance: 312 laps/312 miles/500 kilometers
Other: Follow it on ESPN360 if available
Venue: Phoenix Int'l Raceway, sold out

Keep These in Mind...
1) Chasing Dreams - The second-to-last round of the Jeff and Jimmie Show: 2007 gets underway with the green flag. It's simple, Jeff Gordon has to overcome a 30-point margin in the next two races to win his fifth Nextel Cup title. Johnson has to beat him to claim his second.

Johnson averages a finish of one spot higher than Gordon at Phoenix, but Gordon was the last to win at the track in April.

2) Three-peat? Kyle Busch could become the first driver in NASCAR history to win in all three divisions on the same weekend. Busch took the victory in Friday night's Craftsman Truck Series race and followed that up with a Busch Series win Saturday night at PIR.

He starts 38th Sunday at Phoenix in the Nextel Cup race.

3) A Flavor of Indy in the Desert - For just the third time in history (thanks, Jayski!), three former winners of the Indianapolis 500 are in Sunday's race. Sam Hornish Jr., Juan Pablo Montoya, and Jacques Villeneuve all made the field.

Add in former open wheel drivers Patrick Carpentier, Casey Mears, Robby Gordon, and Tony Stewart and you see very quickly how quickly NASCAR has become the all-around proving ground for drivers.

4) Truex Strong in Practice - Martin Truex Jr. starts second at Phoenix but had the car to beat in Happy Hour practice yesterday. He ran the fastest lap of the session, followed by Kasey Kahne, Casey Mears, David Stremme and Jeff Gordon.

Chase point leader Jimmie Johnson was seventh on the time sheet.

Carl Edwards has quietly allowed the brouhaha with fellow Roush driver Matt Kenseth to slowly disappear in the media in good fashion.

Quietly enough, in fact, that he won the pole at Phoenix and no really seemed to care -- nor bring the topic up. After all, there are two races left in the "Hendrick Motorsports Trophy Deciding Circus" and three former winners of the Indianapolis 500 are in the show.

But yes, Edwards did in fact win the pole with a lap of 132.773mph. It's his first of the season and guarantees the No. 99 Ford a spot in the 2008 Budweiser Shootout at Daytona. Edwards bested Martin Truex Jr. for the top spot by just three one-thousandths of a second.

"I told them after that lap, I said, 'That was a blast.' The guys did a great job with the car -- everybody," said Edwards.

The pole for Edwards was his first since he started on the point in the 2005 Ford 400 at Homestead-Miami Speedway.

As for "The Jeff and Jimmie Show", Jeff Gordon will start right behind Edwards in third while Johnson will roll off the grid from the sixth position.

The list of past Indianapolis 500 winners is indeed well-represented in the Nextel Cup grid. Juan Pablo Montoya starts 14th, Sam Hornish Jr. made his first Nextel Cup race and starts 26th and fellow '500' winner Jacques Villeneuve lines up 27th.

The going home list includes all three Michael Waltrip Racing cars, A.J. Allmendinger, John Andretti and Ward Burton.

Sam Hornish Jr. is about ready to bite the lure of NASCAR, it seems.

The 3-time IndyCar Series Champion and 2006 Indianapolis 500 winner talked Friday about his interest in NASCAR.

"One of the main reasons that I would even consider doing a stock-car program is again getting to the point that it's racing but it's still not the same thing," said Hornish.

Being a driver with Penske Racing, Hornish is really in a good boat. Even if the IndyCar champ doesn't find NASCAR to be a glass slipper in 2008, Penske still has opportunities in both series for the Defiance, Ohio driver.

For one, though, Hornish is coming into his potential with NASCAR with a nice touch of humility.

"It's a different discipline you have to learn, the tools you have to use are different. There's a lot of little things that you need to consider and adjust yourself for to be able to be competitive in that series."

That's a long way from years back when the open-wheel guys thought NASCAR was nothing more than a bunch of taxi-cabs running circles in the south.