Every year the Indy 500 brings in celebrities and actors to make various appearances around the track, and this year's leader of them all will be one Richard Vitale. Dickie V will serve as the Grand Marshall of the 93rd running of the race, and will be joined by the likes of Mario Lopez, Melora Hardin (Jan Levinson from "The Office"), Mary Lynn Rajskub (Chloe from "24"), and the band "The Ohio Players"....

Today, 500 Festival officials are announcing a partial list of celebrities who will help celebrate the 93rd running of the Indianapolis 500. Actors, artists and iconic personalities are among those who will wave to fans in the IPL 500 Festival Parade on May 23 and make their way around town during race weekend.
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Sportscaster Dick Vitale will serve as grand marshal of the parade, and Miss America Katie Stam will take part, too. On race day, Stam, a Hoosier, is expected to sing "America the Beautiful" at the track.

Mayor Greg Ballard, Indianapolis Motor Speedway President Joie Chitwood and other officials got the monthlong celebration going Friday on Monument Circle when the 500 Festival organized a bit of lunchtime pomp.

"This really kicks off what I consider to be the best month in any city in the world," Ballard said.

(This post presented by OMDQ)

About 1/3 of the way through the Indy 500 (about 70 laps) and your leader is Tony Kanaan, with Marco Andretti, Sam Hornish Jr., and Danica Patrick all in the running.

According to the TV people who get paid to learn such things, Kanaan opted against a pit stop a few laps ago because a weather specialist hired by his team is predicting rain at some point, possibly cutting the race short, so he's racing with that in mind.

AHHHH! Milka Duno has crashed! She's done for the day. (Can there possibly be anything scarier than your car crashing and just sitting in the middle of the track? I know they slow everything down and make it as safe as possible, but come on - they're still going pretty fast out there).

Update: Check that - after Kanaan finally went into the pits, Sam Hornish Jr. took over first place.

Update: Worth mentioning - the two ladies left in the race (Danica Patrick and Sarah Fisher) are running 19 and 24. Kanaan has dropped back several positions to 12. Dario Franchitti and Sam Hornish Jr. are running 1-2.

I'll be in and out for the rest of the race (mostly out). Any additional commentary on my part will be after the jump. If anyone has any thoughts, feel free to drop them in the comments.

2:35 - Milka Duno just conducted one of the greatest interviews in recent memory. The sideline reporter (for lack of a better term), I think it was Jamie Little, asked about the crash that took her out of the race. Milka doesn't speak English very well and was pretty much incomprehensible. After she stopped talking, all Jamie Little could come up with was, "Glad to hear you're alright." Good stuff.

2:58 - This is neither here nor there, but I really enjoy that new Visa check card commercial. The one where the guy pays with cash and everything grinds to a halt was stupid because it was wrong; how often is cash slower than a card? But this one, where the lady writes a check and it takes forever? That's believable.

For the record, we have rain on the way within minutes, with Kanaan, Marco Andretti and Danica Patrick running 1-2-3.

3:03 - It's official: they're shuttin' it down for the time being, after 113 laps. The above running order still stands, so Kanaan wins if they aren't able to get going again.