This column originally appeared in the September issue of RACER magazine. –Ed.

As I write this, the race at Richmond was just a couple of nights ago. Personally, I'm reasonably content with how it went: the car was much better in the race than at any other time in the weekend and we went from 10th on the grid to finish fifth. The Andretti Green Racing cars finished 4-5-6-7 after qualifying eighth, 10th, 16th and 17th. So the result wasn't great but it was a good recovery.

But what everyone is talking about is how hard – virtually impossible, in fact – it was to pass other cars that night. And it's a problem we've been seeing too much of on the ovals this year. There's passing on the starts, and on the restarts when they clean the track off, but, everybody is scratching their heads, going “Man, what can we do to make the racing better?”

I think that until we get more manufacturers in the IndyCar Series and get some separation in performance between cars so they have strengths and weaknesses in different areas, we're stuck in a rut. Back when I started IndyCars in 2005, there were more variables – different chassis and engine combinations.

That mix forced everyone to try different setups. As I recall, because the Honda was so good, we'd add downforce and maybe not work so much on mechanical grip because we knew we had the speed to pull bigger wings through the air. Toyota drivers would set their cars up to have more mechanical grip, but because they were trimmed out, their cars would behave differently in traffic. Those little things shook the order up a lot more – not just from track to track, but from stint to stint, depending on how little or how much rubber was going down on the track.

Speaking of tires, a lot of people wonder if Firestone can come up with the golden answer to the problem. After the Richmond race, Firestone guys were asking me about the degradation, because I went  about 115 laps on my first set – one of the longest stints of the race. I told them that if you pushed too hard at the beginning, you paid the price later, but if you dropped into pace (because once you caught lapped traffic you couldn't pass them) then they were fine. So they asked, “But what can we do to help the racing?” And I'm still thinking about it!

So my opinion at the moment is that there is no easy answer, no quick fix, until there are new cars, and/or more variety of suppliers.

Because I only write for you every two months – what's up with that, huh, Mr. Editor?! – and we're going through the busiest time of the season, a lot of racing has been covered since I was last here. The last one I wrote was just before the Indy 500, where we again showed what we can do. (I tell you, I tried everything I knew and used all the tools we have in the cockpit to get past Dan Wheldon for second place. But third's not bad.)

Now we're at the halfway point of the season – well, eight out of 17 races – and our No. 7 Boost Mobile/Motorola car is fifth in the championship, best of the rest behind…guess who? Two Ganassi cars and two Penske cars. Can we – and I mean Andretti Green Racing as a whole – make it into a situation where we're battling with those two teams again week in and week out?

I think that you only get substantial shifts in the power rankings during the off season. It comes from doing five months of R&D, and discovering new tricks. What you see at the first race is probably how it's going to be for the rest of the season. So, given how things are for us at the moment, I don't want to be proven right on that, but I'm just being realistic. We'll chip away at it and keep trying everything we can, but I think we're going to have to try to be smarter than them or beat them in some other ways.

As well as the lack of overtaking, another topic that has popped its head up since I last wrote for you is the whole “who goes where?” scenario for 2010.

(I swear the rumors start earlier each year.) I've gone on the record as saying that I won't make any announcement about my own decision before the year's finished. Will I have even decided before then? There's a chance, sure. But you'd be surprised how far out of the loop I am on this. My agents are having meetings with people, and they give me progress reports, of course. But they're doing the talking and I'm doing the walking – or rather, driving. They're doing their job, I'm doing mine. I am not lying when I say their attitude is, “You go drive the car, Danica, and let us do our job.” I have to trust them. No one is better than IMG, and I'm lucky to have some great agents who know about marketing and branding way better than I do.

I told them what my feelings were on all kinds of racing, what teams I'm interested in, and where my heart is. After that, it's their job. I think it's great to not be involved, and I don't just mean because it allows me to focus on racing. It means when I get interviewed by the media or when I'm writing this column, I can say completely honestly, “I don't know where my future lies.” If you don't believe me, I'll point out that this is my column, where I can write what I want: If I had something to hide, I could have avoided this subject altogether!

Editor’s note: This column was originally published in the May issue of RACER, on sale at newsstands now. Danica’s driver column appears exclusively in RACER every other month, alternating with that of Sam Hornish Jr., also exclusive to the magazine.

Hello again. I’m writing this right after our first test of the year, at Homestead-Miami Speedway, which last year was the IndyCar Series’ season opener but this year will be our finale. The venue isn’t important so much as just getting back in the car and trying out what the Andretti Green Racing engineers worked on over the winter.

The good news is that the test was productive for us in some areas, but we didn’t have the pace we were looking for. OK, so we never trimmed the car out to qualifying spec – just put fresh tires on and ran the bottom groove – but 14th on the time sheets tells you we didn’t quite have it. Still, we considered it a lot more important to work on the race setup. At Homestead last year, we had the No. 7 Motorola car on the front row but went backwards at the green flag because my car wasn’t able to use all the track, so I was sort of pinned on the bottom groove and had terrible understeer. So, in this latest test, we really worked on running second groove, third groove to give ourselves more options on race days.

It would be fair to question the relevance of the latest test times, too. There was so much dirt on the track that the car looked like it had been sandblasted afterward, I was going through visor strips like they were bottles of water, and there were a lot of yellow flags from people cutting tires. Then there are the ambient conditions and track temperatures to consider: We’re going to be racing there at 4 p.m. in October, not at 10 o’clock on a February night.

Still, it was a good exercise in working with my new engineer for this year, Eddie Jones, who worked with my teammate Marco Andretti last year. First and foremost, Eddie is a great engineer. Second, we get along really well, joking and having fun to the extent that we can go to dinner, have a glass of wine, relax and not talk about racing. As an engineer, he’s a little bit more hands-on than what I’ve been used to, a little bit more about preparation and that’s good: I’m ready for the change and the fresh approach.

Apart from a one-day test at the start of April, that Homestead test is the last time I’m on an oval until the Kansas race, our third round. Next is the open test at Barber Motorsports Park road course, and that’s where Eddie and I will go pretty much in our own direction in terms of setup. On an oval, everyone tends to look for the same thing from their cars – a secure rear end but not too much understeer and good in traffic. But on a road course, driving styles vary hugely. If I may be so bold as to compare myself to him, I’m more like my old teammate, Dario Franchitti in that I brake earlier but lighter, and concentrate on rolling speeds and keeping it smooth. Tony [Kanaan] and Marco barrel it into the corner, hard on the brakes, then off, turn it in, hit the throttle – all a bit more aggressive. So, a car setup that suits them often won’t suit me.

I’m well aware that I have to improve my road course form. Some people have tried to say I’m too small or not strong enough. Well I’ll be honest, strength is not the problem – I can walk away from those races looking fresher than the men. No, if you want me to be super-critical of myself, it’s just a matter of getting better on road and street courses, period. Race pace isn’t so much of a problem as qualifying. Two years ago, I had a couple of front-row starts, but last year we got all the ex-Champ Car guys in and they’re pretty darn good, so overnight there were a lot more people to beat on the road courses than before.

At the end of last year, in practice sessions I might be faster than my teammates, but then in qualifying, Tony [Kanaan] would be a second faster! I said, “Jeez, where do you find that?” He said it just comes with experience: You drive hard in practice, but you leave that last little bit for qualifying and you also know how to get a bit more out of the car. I have to learn that now, because I need to qualify up front.

For the ovals, it’s almost the opposite challenge: we’re working really hard on race craft; putting more tricks in my pocket so I can better maintain front-running pace. It’s one thing to be able to run up there for a stint and it’s another thing to be able to run up there when you’ve got traffic and you’ve got challenges and you’ve got pit stops. You have to stay up there the whole time if you want a shot at the win, so the car has to be good in traffic. In 2007, I qualified midpack and I’d be so frustrated and pissed, but then in the race I would run top three, top five, and I’d come away from the weekend happy. Last year I qualified on the two front rows, then I’d come to the race and I wouldn’t be able to keep my foot in it. I’d much rather take a car that’s good in the race for the entire 200, 300, 400, 500 miles than I would a car that’s just fast in qualifying.

So, looking ahead, do the time sheets lie? Is it again going to be Penske versus Ganassi with Andretti Green being the closest challengers? In all honesty, the time sheets are not usually that big a liar. They looked like they had a slight edge. But, this is a long season and we haven’t really even begun yet. And, I have a lot of faith in me and my teammates to be right there fighting with them for every possible point.

For me, personally, I don’t want to get into specific goals, because then I’m just riding for a fall. The best judgment yardstick will be my teammates. I hope I’m able to emulate them: If they win a couple of races, I hope I win a couple, too. I really thought I would get more than just the one last year, but we didn’t have the speed and the luck as a team to make that happen.

I guess that sums it up: I have to compare myself to my teammates’ performances. But if I were to answer honestly, I would say I’d love to win a few races.

Danica’s next column for RACER will appear in the July issue of the magazine, which mails to subscribers on May 15.