Morning Warm-Up: Mid-Ohio 2012

Will Power won his third pole of the season at Mid-Ohio as he beat the Hondas of Dario Franchitti, Simon Pagenaud, Alex Tagliani and Scott Dixon. His teammate and fellow Aussie, Ryan Briscoe bookend the Firestone Fast Six for Chevrolet and Team Penske. Alex Tagliani will have to serve a ten grid spot penalty and drop back to fourteenth. Just missing the Firestone Fast Six were Sebastien Bourdais, points leader Ryan Hunter-Reay and the surprise so-far this weekend, Marco Andretti. Josef Newgarden was tenth fastest. Other notable drivers were Justin Wilson in twelfth, Helio Castroneves in thirteenth, James Hinchcliffe in sixteenth, Tony Kanaan in nineteenth, Graham Rahal in twenty-second and Giorgio Pantano in twenty-fourth.

Push-2-Pass this weekend will be one hundred seconds and have the new delay feature. The extra horsepower will not kick-in until five seconds after hitting the button. This change was made a team admitted to watching timing and scoring and telling their driver when the trailing driver was on the button to easily defend their position.

Off the track, the first entry for the 2013 Indianapolis 500 was announced. Chase Austin will drive a second AJ Foyt Enterprises entry. Chase Austin was a development driver in NASCAR with Hendrick Motorsports and Rusty Wallace Racing and was the first black driver to race in a Nationwide Series oval event. Austin has ran a total of four Indy Lights races in the last two season, two at Indianapolis and two at Iowa. He has finished ninth and tenth at Indianapolis and finished tenth and eighth at Iowa.

As Kevin Lee was promoting it, the Mid-Ohio race is on ESPN on ABC powered by NBC Sports. Due to the amount of racing on ESPN this weekend (Cup at Pocono, Nationwide at Iowa, NHRA at Seattle), the NBC Sports Net crew (sans Robin Miller) is going to be the broadcast crew for this ABC race. Coverage begins at 12:30pm ET on ABC. I hope we all can take a two and a half hour break from the Olympics to watch this race.