If you are looking for an American driver in online betting odds to win the Indy 500 you might want to keep looking.U.S. drivers simply don’t win the Indy 500 anymore and not many are even considered serious long shots in Internet betting.Online betting odds list nine Americans in the Indy 500 and none of them have a realistic chance to win. It didn’t use to be that way. The Indy 500 was first run in 1911. From 1921 to 1941 and American won the race every year. Not many non-American’s won the race for the next 30 years after that. If you go forward to the last 20 years though, American wins have been few and far between. There are only nine U.S. drivers in the race this year and that is a record low number. In the past 21 Indy 500’s a U.S. driver has won only seven times.
Top U.S. drivers simply don’t run Indy Car races because the money is in NASCAR. That is where Sam Hornish Jr. went and he was one of the best Indy Car drivers. It should also be noted that Indy Car is now dominated by the Penske and Ganassi teams and Penske has Brazilian Helio Castroneves. He is trying to become the fourth four-time winner of the race and he is favored in Internet betting odds to win again. If Castroneves doesn’t win for Penske then it could be Will Power or Ryan Briscoe and they are both Australians. Ganassi has the other two leading contenders to win the Indy 500 in New Zealand’s Scott Dixon and Scotland’s Dario Franchitti. Franchitti starts third while Dixon starts sixth.
There really is not an American driver who has a realistic shot to win on Sunday. Townsend Bell could be the top American driver but he is unlikely to win. Graham Rahal starts 7th but he is never does well at Indy. Andretti and Auto sport has been a disaster. Four of the American’s are on that team and none are expected to win. Danica Patrick has been perhaps the biggest bust in the history of Indy Car and not far behind is Marco Andretti, John Andretti and Ryan Hunter-Reay. A better hope for an American win would be Ed Carpenter who was fifth in 2008.