Sepharih said:

The biggest problem I foresee with this is that it might wind up removing whatever tension there is in the podrace since the viewer effectively has no idea who Anakin is as a character or why they should care about him.

One of the big problems with the Pod-race I think though is there is a lack of tension anyway, there was never a point that I didn't think Anakin would win. It's a point the Phantom Editor makes in his commentary of Attock of the Clones. That the Prequels are a bit like a bad horror film, you already know what's going to happen there isn't any suprises. Where as the OT I think often surprised you... (Well at least until RotJ).