Indy drivers are more than meets the eye.

The starting grid for the Casino Magic 500 at Texas Motor Speedway will feature some of the top open-wheel drivers in the world, but Indy Racing has assembled an impressive collection of talented and entertaining field of competitors off the race track as well as on it.

Whilst many of the field are winners in some form of racing or another, there is another side to their talents. For instance, few race fans will be aware that last year's Casino Magic winner Scott Sharp has a finance and investments degree from Babson College and says, if he were not racing, he would be working in mergers and acquisitions.

At age 20, Sarah Fisher is still something of a scholar, and attends an Indianapolis college part-time with the intention of majoring in mechanical engineering and business. Likewise, Indy Racing rookie Brandon Erwin, the local boy for Texas Motor Speedway, has been attending the University of North Texas where he is majoring in business marketing.

On a more leisurely tack, Robbie Buhl is an avid ice hockey fan, having played in high school, and currently finds time to lace up the skates with The Grosse Pointe Old Devils. Buzz Calkins has run in the Chicago Marathon the past two years, posting a best time of three hours, 41 minutes and eleven seconds in the gruelling 26.2mile footrace, and Indy Racing Northern Light Series champion Buddy Lazier was a national ski racer from 1982-87 and considered an Olympic hopeful.

Not everyone has a talent that can be put to good use anywhere else but in his own domain, however. Superstitious driver Eliseo Salazar wears a red left shoe, blue right shoe, blue left driving glove and red right driving glove. The colour scheme represents a cross and also represents the colours of the flag of his native Chile.