View From America (edited version also on Sky Sports week of May 21)

You could be forgiven for being exhausted even before the famous phrase of "Ladies and gentlemen, start your engines" is uttered at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway on Sunday.

The amount of hype, hoopla and attention given to this annual rev-fest is almost as astonishing as the lead-up time - all 23 days of it - taken to go through the painfully long practice and qualifying procedure.

From the Rookie Orientation Program to the 10 days of official practice, four days of qualifying and another week of pre-race speculation and discussion, it is a mind-boggling array of different ways to look at 33 cars in Speedway, Indiana (and yes, that is, really, the genuine location name of the famous track - Speedway being a suburb of Indianapolis).

We had Pole Day and Bump Day (the first Saturday of qualifying, when pole position is decided, and the second Sunday, when the final gaggle of Indy hopefuls battle to bump each other out of the last few starting spots); we had drivers "on the bubble" and "under the gun" (final qualifier Alex Tagliani was sitting in his car ready for one last lap when the gun went off to end the second Sunday's time trials); and we had more pictures of Danica Patrick in a bikini and Helio Castroneves in court.

But then this is the largest single-day sporting event in the world, when the monstrous collection of 257,000 seats is supplemented by at least another 100,000 or so who pack into the infield.
Marathon build-up

Thankfully, the US media doesn't allow us to forget these kinds of details, hence the marathon build-up just to get to start line of The Brickyard for the 93rd running of the Indy 500, live on Sky Sports 3 from 6pm.

The massive spread of coverage has also given rise to almost as many different headline stories this week, once Tagliani was confirmed as the 33rd and final entry for this year's race (being given the drive ahead of team-mate Bruno Junqueira in a frantic finish to Sunday's qualifying).

Sports Illustrated pin-up girl Patrick is predictably top of the poppets with many outlets, on the equal basis that she looks much better in a swimsuit than any other driver and is also overdue to do something special this year, having burst on to the scene with a fourth place finish in her rookie year in 2005.

Brazilian star Castroneves is equally headline material following his recent run-in with the Florida courts that ended with him firmly in Victory Lane after allegations of tax evasion were met with a 'Not Guilty' verdict from the jury.

Ever since, the Penske Racing ace has driven like a man possessed (or, at least, a man dispossessed of the notion of a spell inside), finishing seventh with virtually no practice at Long Beach, second at Kansas and then snagging pole position for Sunday's outing.

He has two previous Indy wins, during his first two years in 2001 and 2002 but, while several pundits fancy him to improve on his Kansas showing, both his previous two outings as pole-sitter ended no higher than second.

Some focus has also fallen on Antoine Rizkallah Kanaan Filho (otherwise known as Tony Kanaan - you gotta love those Brazilian monikers; not quite Edson Arantes do Nascimento - that's Pele to you and me - but a real contender).

The current IndyCar Series leader has yet to finish higher than third so far this season but his consistency deserves the respect he is re-earning after several years in the comparative doldrums following his title-winning effort of 2004.

There are no less than five Brazilians in the line-up this time, which means there is a high possibility the race announcer will tie his tongue in knots before the finish. But the presence in Sunday's outing of a British quintet has also garnered some coverage, too.

Dario Franchitti, the Flying Scot, has already put one Indy 500 trophy on his mantelpiece (in 2007), as has Dan Wheldon (2005).

Both are genuine contenders again this year, but Alex Lloyd (starting 11th), Justin Wilson (15th) and rookie Conway (27th) will all have hopes of giving the Union Jack a bit of a flutter (Wheldon started 16th the year he went onto win, so the front six rows can all harbour realistic hopes).

In fact, Lloyd is on red alert for both the race itself and the imminent arrival of his second child, as wife Samantha is almost nine months pregnant and they have contingency plans to visit the infield medical centre if necessary - although not during the 500-mile event.

As if to prove the media here really don't know which way to turn for the main story, you have to dig hard to find much about the defending champ, Australian Scott Dixon, and even then it is only to discover he considers himself the "underdog" in the face of the kaleidoscopic focus on Danica, Helio, Tony, Dario and even Alex Tagliani.

Poor Scott made a less-than stellar start to the season before bursting back into dramatic life at Kansas, where the win was enough to lift him up to fourth place in the standings.

The real 'forgotten man' in all the welter of Indy 500 coverage, though, is Ryan Briscoe, the 'other' Aussie in the line-up and the current second-placed driver in the standings.

The modest 27-year-old is currently in the shadows cast by team-mate Castroneves but has been arguably the most consistent racer in the past 12 months with three wins, including at Kansas last time out.

He also qualified just fractions of a second behind his fellow Penske driver, so no-one should be under any illusions Briscoe is perfectly capable of improving on his previous IMS best of fifth and even of taking the chequered flag.

In many ways, though, the 'story' of the Indy 500 is also one of the coverage itself. The near-month-long build-up will finally give way to a five-hour extravaganza on ABC TV, starting at midday US time, providing the 45th successive year of ABC's relationship with the epic race (the second-longest in American TV history).

They will utilise a staggering 59 cameras, including multiple, rotating 360-degree mini-cams on many of the cars themselves. High tech at high speed - and then some!

ESPN Classic will also air a stunning 10-hour grand medley of previous Indy highlights on the Saturday, just to get viewers "in the mood".

So you'll have to forgive us if we all seem a bit jaded on this side of the pond next Monday morning. It will be nothing to so with the six billion hot-dogs and two gazillion tons of chips that will be consumed during the race.

No, we will simply be all screened out after our Indy TV-athon. And probably still trying to work out if Danica is a swimsuit model who can drive or just a model driver.