And your winner is ...

 Look, I know how it goes, down there in the Mecca of Speed. Sentiment will get you a boot in the glutes.

That's the bone truth of these ancient two-and-a-half miles of ring road at the corner of 16th Street and Georgetown Road, and everyone knows it. It's a hard old place crowded with ghosts, and they walk there as a reminder that hopes and dreams and, yes, sentiment more often than not get ground to dust there.

Which is to say, I want Tony Kanaan to win the Indianapolis 500 today.

Which is also to say I'm not going to pick him. 

I want TK to win the 107th running because it's his last running, and because he's one of the best people in motorsports, and. also because I was a sportswriter for most of my life. We are a selfish lot, you see. TK winning his last 500?

Hell. That's the Column That Writes Itself of myth and legend.

It's also why you can probably forget about it, because the sportswriting gods are rarely so accommodating. He's got one of those McLaren rocket ships under him, and he starts way up there on the outside of Row 3, but ... well, it comes down to this: We couldn't get that lucky.

So who then?

If you want to be cagey about it, you might pick Santino Ferrucci, who drives for A.J. Foyt and starts on the inside of the second row. Ferrucci has never started the 500 on such a lofty perch, which bodes well because he always finishes better than he starts. In four previous 500s he's started 23rd, 19th, 23rd and 15th; he's finished seventh, fourth, sixth and 10th.

Plus, winning for A.J. would be another Column That Writes Itself. But I've already told you about the sportswriting gods.

And so let's keep looking, because there's a lot to look at. There's Scott Dixon, the best IndyCar driver of his generation, starting on the outside of Row 2 and 14 years overdue for his second bottle of milk. There's two-time winner Takuma Sato next to TK in the middle of Row 3, with one of Chip Ganassi's dominant rides under him. There's defending champ Marcus Ericsson one row back, and 2016 winner Alexander Rossi next to Sato on the inside of Row 3, and Alex Palou on the pole.

Palou is going to win this race someday, and it could well be today. After all, the stars are aligned for him: A dominant win in the Indy Grand Prix two weeks ago, then the fastest pole run since Arie Luyendyk in that different time that was 1996. A win today completes the May trifecta.

I'm going to regret not picking him. I can feel it already.

But today I'm riding with Pato O'Ward, whose McLaren goes off in the middle of Row 2. I'm picking him because in three previous starts he's never finished lower than sixth, and he's gotten closer every year: Sixth in 2020, fourth in 2021, chasing Ericsson to the checkers in second last year. And today he's starting fifth in car No. 5, if you're into the numerology thing.

I am not. I'm simply guessing he'll be up there at the finish again today, and sooner or later a guy who's up there at the finish is going to draw the winning card.

Of course, if that sort of logic weren't deeply flawed, I'd be much better at the picking the winner than I am. And I'm not very good at it.

Still ...

 I stand by my pick.

Pato for the win.