The INDYCAR Grand Prix on the Indianapolis Motor Speedway road course is an intriguing event, and not just because the cars turn both right and left on the hallowed grounds of The Speedway! But, going in to its sixth running, one driver has been clearly masterful on the IMS road course – Will Power.

So, when picking my Fantasy Challenge driven by Firestone drivers for Saturday’s race, Power was easily my #1 lock. He’s won three of the five previous running’s of this event. In fact, he also has three poles in those same races (2015, 2017, 2018). So, Will was the easy pick this week, I just don’t like fighting a trend line like that. Plus, Will’s only going for $29.00 for this race – that’s behind Alexander Rossi, Josef Newgarden, Scott Dixon and tied with Ryan Hunter-Reay. I get that prices take the current season in to account, but to not go in to the weekend will Power as the favorite is a surprise. I’ll take it (and him)!

My next pick relies on 2019 trends instead of past history and that is how I came to add Takuma Sato to my foursome. At $27.00 he seems priced about right in light of his strong win at Barber Motorsports Park earlier this year. While Barber features a bunch of elevation changes and the IMS road course is basically flat, the tracks do share some similarities.

Both tracks feature some long straights (of course IMS wins that by a large margin) and both are very smooth. I believe that Sato’s Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing team has their set-up figured out for tracks like this, and seeing Sato repeat his Barber performance is not out of the question.

Unfortunately, now things get a little harder for the next two picks. I like Rossi and Dixon a lot for this race, but their too expensive. So, instead I decided to fill my fourth spot before deciding on number three.

And again, I’m going with the rookie, Colton Herta. He’s been fast all year at tracks like this (big, open, smooth), and picked up the win in Austin at Circuit of the America’s. No reason at all not to expect him to be fast on Saturday!

So, after adding in Herta’s way too cheap $19.00 salary I’m left with $25 to spend. For me, that’s a coin flip between Grahal Rahal ($23 and Sato’s teammate) and James Hinchcliffe ($24).

For James, the concern is he has a 20^th (when he was injured by debris in 2014), a 12^th in 2015, and a 13^th in 2017. So he’s had some higher finishes to go along with 3^rd in 2016 and 7^th last year.

For Graham, he was 21^st in 2014, but has gone 2, 4, 6 and 9^th in the last four races. All solid finishes, but also a trend line going the wrong way. So, I’m going to have to ignore that trend (not something I like doing), and bank on Graham Rahal and RLLR’s 2019 set-up prowess to keep Graham in the Top 10 – or ideally much better than that.

All in all, I’m thinking we should have a good race this weekend. There are several driver’s not even mentioned here that have a legit shot at taking the win on Saturday, but these are my picks – what are yours?