So here we are again, fans. The biggest race in the world, and I'm going to be racing for the winner of the 1986 edition of the event – or as I call him, Dad.

There's actually a sense of relief in that, because a) I trust the team to be strong and have a competitive car; b) I have a ride at all; and c) there's now a stretch of three weeks where I can focus on cars, racing and not the whole worrying about the future beyond that. Don't get me wrong – I want to do the rest of the season, but it's been such a strange start to the year for me that it's good to be able to get back to what I do best: racing a car.

Long Beach was frustrating. Frustrating for myself, Sarah Fisher, the whole team and, I'd imagine, Dollar General. We weren't going to get it easy, we knew that when we signed up, but it quickly became obvious that we were going to struggle. After qualifying on Saturday, I sat on the pit wall with the team and said, “Look, without wishing to sound arrogant [I hate arrogant people] and without trashing anyone in the series, there's no way that here at Long Beach I should be the slowest guy in my qualifying group and 0.2sec behind Danica. No way. I'm driving as hard as I can but there's no speed.”

Even after the first session at St. Petersburg, I got out of the car and told Tom Brown, the race engineer, “I bet you this chassis is cracked. I've had that before, in Star Mazda, and it felt like this. No matter what we change it won't react.”

So when I see the chassis twist test measurement numbers in Long Beach, the other three SFR chassis were all within maybe five percent of each other in terms of stiffness, and this one was about 30-35 percent off. We showed the number to the Dallara guys and a red flag was flown by them. My hat goes off to them: they were very good about handling it, especially with a small team like Sarah's.

And then as you saw on race day, we got taken out by Mario Romancini near the end, and, if you watch the replay he wasn't even close to making that pass. So that just added to the frustration. That's the last thing that the team needed – more expense.

The other issue was that we caused the only yellow! What's been interesting about IndyCar this year is that there have been hardly any cautions, which has meant the drivers and teams near the back haven't really had the opportunities to roll the dice strategy wise. It actually is a credit to the quality of the driver lineup this year, but it's frustrating for those who want to take a chance – and annoying for the spectators, who were stuck with a pretty boring race at Long Beach.

And that was my last race. As any fans of mine will be acutely aware, I didn't race at Kansas and I don't have a deal with Newman/Haas Racing. Both are disappointing. On two occasions with Newman/Haas, we were at a contract stage and I felt I was…misled, to an extent. Both times it was a situation where we were told to send the contract over, and that it was virtually a done deal. But then nothing ever found its way back to my inbox. It's been the name of the game this year for me – a lot of promises but really no one following through. It's frustrating, and I don't want to go into detail about who I was dealing with. As for Newman/Haas, I think that potential deal is dead in the water. As of right now, I don't have anything for after Indy – and I mean, not even anything on offer, let alone something signed.

It's a crazy situation, isn't it? Ryan Hunter-Reay only has a deal up to Texas for now, JR Hildebrand hasn't been able to make his IndyCar debut yet – and he's the Firestone Indy Lights champion – and I have nothing beyond Indy.

I suppose that, because we at least knew – or guessed – in advance of Kansas that nothing was going to materialize, we were able to concentrate on Indy with Rahal Letterman Racing. Dad and I had talked about it for a long, long time, although we'd always been hoping for other deals. But once they didn't happen, we committed to each other, and maybe that was best.

Why? Because I truly believe we're in good shape for Indy. RLR has always had good cars there, a lot of the same group of guys who won it in 2004 with Buddy Rice are still there, and Scott Roembke is calling my race – and there's no one who knows more about racing at the Brickyard than him.

RLR still has road course cars, too, so if we can find the funding it would be great to continue on through the season. Dad and I feel we bring more value to sponsors as one unit and that's how we've approached them. But I suppose having nothing means we've got nothing to lose: It applies the pressure a bit, but the other side of the coin is that we can focus on Indy. We don't go into it thinking of championship points: we'll be racing entirely to win, and we'll hold nothing back.

Wish us luck.

Graham

My adventure with Sarah Fisher Racing continues this weekend at the Toyota Grand Prix of Long Beach, and for that I'm truly grateful. With the delay in the much-rumored Newman/Haas/Lanigan Racing deal – for reasons that I could but won't go into here! – I could have been left out of work for one of my favorite races, and that would have sucked. But instead, Sarah and her husband Andy O'Gara have once more stepped up to the plate on my behalf and I only hope I can reward them.

I've done my best in my two races so far; that I can say with hand on heart, and I know also that SFR is doing its best for me. At St. Petersburg, I thought we made good progress with the No. 67 Dollar General car. We struggled off the bat, the setup wasn't quite there, and so, of course, neither was the speed on the Friday and Saturday. In qualifying, normally you can push everything a little harder and get another couple of tenths, but this time we were doing the opposite. There wasn't enough mechanical grip so pushing harder just made us slower. But in the race, we decided to throw a setup on the car that involved fairly major changes that we knew would make a difference. We weren't sure whether it would improve the car or make its problems worse, but it was worth trying.

Well, guess what? The engineers got it right, and that showed how much we'd learned already. It's one of those deals where we wished we could go back there and start with the setup that we ended up with! It still wasn't a Penske car, but it was better than a lot of cars and I think our result reflected that. We got ninth place, beat three Andretti Autosport cars, and we felt we'd hit a home run. The team was extremely happy.

At the same time, we looked at what was coming up, Barber Motorsports Park, and we expected to get better, especially because we'd done a few test laps there before St. Pete. But it's no secret that we weren't close, and maybe the key was how few laps we were able to do in that previous test. Because we were trying a lot of things, and rushing through the basics because we were trying to make up for lost time (remember, it was a pretty late deal!), maybe we didn't reach something that would have increased the grip and helped the balance.

If there's a place where a driver can make a difference, it tends to be on street courses, whereas road courses emphasize issues with a car. Well, it soon became clear that there was a lot of work to be done, and the biggest puzzle for all of us was that we struggled to get the car to react to anything we were doing, even when we were getting quite radical. It's like the car was numb, and it was neither gaining nor losing speed. We never got the handling to the point where I was confident to push the car, and that's not a situation I'm used to at all. It definitely was the biggest challenge of my career, but I learned from it and I hope my feedback helped Sarah Fisher Racing.

The race was a major struggle, because I was trying to do qualifying laps every lap, and the car chewed through the tires in five laps, so for the next 20 of a stint I was just hanging on. Not comfortable. Sarah and Andy would be the first to tell you that they've done zero to the car for road courses, no real development, because they thought Sarah would be in the car and she didn't think she was going to be particularly competitive anyway. So, very understandably, they've spent their money on developing the car for ovals, and obviously that's going to hit you when you reach a 2.4-mile road course. I mean, if you look at what the teams who only switched from Champ Car to IndyCar in 2008 have done in those two years, there are so many parts that have been specially made and developed for road courses.

But now, we're looking ahead with some positivity. Sarah is the greatest person, and I say that sincerely. The effort and work she puts in are amazing, and she's surrounded herself with a great group of people, so I hope that the union between myself and SFR can produce something good this weekend, and something that will help the team even after I've gone. We've highlighted some weaknesses that they're going to work on, and hopefully what we achieve this weekend in Long Beach will be like an endorsement of our efforts together.

I'd be disappointed not to crack the top 10 in qualifying. I've had some success at Long Beach, and I've had some letdowns, too – like last year when I was running second but got waved out of the pits too early, fortunately just pulling the tank along instead of catching on fire! It's a track where a driver can make a bit of a difference and I hope that we can be fairly competitive. Another top-10 finish would be sweet.

Understeer would be the real killer 'round there, so what we have to do is find a good balance for the car, and stop using the tires so hard. The way to do that is get more compliance so we've got more mechanical grip and we're not just relying on tire grip. The team is working hard on that, and we're going to try a lot of ideas in practice, so I hope they work.

It's not been easy, but I've got to keep reminding myself: would I rather be racing with a car that needs some work, or sitting on the couch watching it on TV? Well, that's not even a question, because I remember how I felt watching the Sao Paulo race last month, and I know how I'm going to feel watching Kansas. These three races for SFR have hopefully been educational for everyone involved, and it has kept me doing what I do best: racing. For that, I owe Sarah and Andy a heck of a lot…

Graham

I just checked: the last time I wrote for you was last September! I was driving for Newman/Haas/Lanigan Racing, I was talking about the wild race at Chicago, how great it was to have a smart, quick and open guy like Oriol Servia as a teammate, and I was enjoying the fact that we were closing the gap on Ganassi and Penske.

It's weird, because it seems so long ago and it feels like so much has happened, but actually in the last five months, only one significant thing has changed directly to me: In the depths of my frustration at being out of a ride, Sarah Fisher and her husband Andy O'Gara kind of emerged out of the darkness like a bright light. Here I am, totally pumped about the next two IZOD IndyCar Series races, desperate to give Sarah, Andy and Dollar General a great repayment for their faith.

First of all, because the memory's freshest, I'm going to tell you that today (Monday) I tested the Corvette Racing C6.R at Sebring and it was maybe even more fun than I expected. I love Corvettes anyway, and I was pretty quick – a couple of tenths off Oliver Gavin and Johnny O'Connell but quicker than the others – and there's no shame in being slower than those guys at first, considering they (a) are very talented sports car racers, and (b) know the 'Vette inside out and have been racing it for years. As you know, my dad has always encouraged me to get any kind of motorsport experience I can, because it's never going to hurt and it's always going to benefit, so it was fun.

For now, I don't know what it might lead to. I'd love it to be the Le Mans 24 Hours, but even so, I don't know if the team would be thinking in terms of this year, because I don't know how many drivers they need or how many they've got already. The team guys weren't really giving out details. But I'd love to do Le Mans with a totally professional team like Corvette Racing, and I know they're interested in having more Americans on the driving force in the long term. O'Connell was pleased for me today, and so I'd like to think that one day it will lead to something. I've been trying to do this for so long, so it was a dream fulfilled just to check it out and have them check me out!

I don't think I'm becoming a full time sports car driver yet, though. I'm not leaving open-wheel racing any time soon. I'm committed to making this part of my career work out, whatever I have to do!

I tell you, watching the Brazil race was no fun. For every interesting thing that happened on track – and I'm pleased for the IZOD IndyCar Series that there were a bunch of those – I'd feel some more pain, wondering what I might have been achieving out there. OK, I'm sure there were a few unemployed drivers thinking that, but as soon as I looked at that track, I thought it was made for me. If they sort the track surface out, when we go back next year the racing will be even better. That layout was designed for racing, and that's great.

So why wasn't I there? Well, it's a long story, but I started to get the picture regarding losing my seat at Newman/Haas/Lanigan in January. In fact, I remember it was Thursday, Jan. 14, I was standing outside my mom's house and I called Bernie Haas, Carl's wife and co-owner of the team. It became clear that…it was not turning out the way I was expecting or the way we had agreed back in August last year. Of course, I was frustrated, disappointed – any kind of words related to that in a thesaurus! – but I kept very quiet publicly. Obviously, one or two people in the media did some talking on my behalf and in a supportive way, which I'm very grateful for, but in the meantime I just started working away on other fronts, trying to make deals happen. But, of course, it was January and February, and by then most companies have assigned their money for 2010. Heck, they did that back in late summer 2009, so it was too late to get something really solid together.

Then one day, I was at a swim meet with my girlfriend Katie in Miami – actually, we were just sitting down in a restaurant with some friends – and I got a call from a 317 number, and I thought, “You know what? I've got to answer anything from the Indy area, because who knows what it might be about.” So I answered and it was Andy O'Gara, and he eventually came out and said, “Would you be interested in Sarah Fisher Racing for St. Petersburg and Barber Motorsports Park?” I told him yes, I think so but I'd like to come visit the shop.

I went and sat down and thought about it some more: I thought about Dollar General and how it would be a strong company with a good reputation to be associated with and then there's the team. I have lot of respect for Sarah. A lot of people overlook her, but not only was she the first woman to get a pole in Indy car racing, but not enough people talk about how smart of a business person she must be. I mean, you think about how many teams are decreasing in size, and how many race shops are disappearing, whereas SFR has increased from nine to 17 full-time employees in the past year. That's during a recession which has hit motorsports hard in this country especially.

So I was warming to the idea already, but I'd told Andy that I'd like to come and visit the shop – I've seen a few this past winter. Well, I walked in and I was instantly impressed. There was the good quality of the cars, the people and the equipment and it was just so organized. At that point, I decided it was a great opportunity to do those two races and we took it.

Now, there is a lot of work to be done, and none of us is denying that. The engineers are eager to get on with it, and we went down to Barber last week and tested there and I tell you, we may not have been setting lap records, but that car was in the ballpark. We'll work like hell on honing that car from the moment the green flag flies for first practice at St. Pete this Friday. Everyone is really excited about this, and I'm really looking forward to the opportunity. What we know – and it's great to have this feeling – is that we'll bust a gut for each other, give each other everything we've got, and aim high. Given how great Sarah has been to me, I wouldn't give anything less than my best.

What that will result in, I don't know. It's going to be tough to get into the Firestone Fast Six in qualifying, as we saw in Sao Paulo, where two Penskes and one Ganassi didn't make it! But qualifying in the top 12 is definitely in the cards, and I think a top-six finish is possible if we keep our nose clean and don't hit any problems.

Would rain help us? I don't deny I enjoy racing in the rain, but I don't like the unpredictability it can throw into the equation when it comes to race day, with people spinning and causing yellows. You get more than enough of that at St. Pete even in the dry, so I'd rather believe what it says on the long-range weather forecasts right now – it's gonna stay dry in the St. Petersburg region through to the end of Sunday. If we can have a straightforward race, that should let us show everyone what myself and SFR can achieve together.

Some time in the next two weeks, I'd like to think I'll be able to announce what the rest of the 2010 season holds for me, but for the sake of my fans, I will say that I could have a full-time ride from Long Beach onward. However, nothing's firmed up yet so I don't want to even talk about the possibilities. Let's just be happy with what we know we've got, and focus on showing gratitude to Sarah Fisher with a couple of strong results.

Graham

The track performances don't lie: Newman/Haas/Lanigan Racing is getting a lot closer to the front, as you saw at Motegi. We're not right there yet, as you saw in Chicago.

When I was trying to make the pass for the lead, you could see we're still lacking that last little bit of speed, but our rate of progress from joining the IndyCar Series in 2008 to here, in September '09, is excellent. We're still not Ganassi, we're still not Penske, but we're edging up, no question.

At Chicago, OK, we only left with fifth place, but I was happy we were in the mix. I was a little unsure of what lap we were on toward the end. When my spotter, Lee, is speaking to me a lot because the racetrack is so busy, I don't have time to look up at the scoring pylon, and I'm sure that's true of everyone apart from the leader. For Motegi, we improvised and put a lap charter on the steering wheel, so every time we went past the beacon, it would add a lap. Pretty simple stuff to do, but useful: If I had known what lap we were on at Chicago, maybe I wouldn't have made my move so early. I'd have waited a little bit longer and might have got third: it wouldn't have won us the race, though.

But I can't be disappointed: the No. 02 McDonalds car has made a hell of a run here at the end of the season. There's still work to do, but we're not far off. We made a lot of gains from Kentucky onward, really figuring out the oval car. We still need to work on our road courses, obviously, but not the car: just our luck! We've qualified well all year, but we can't get a good finish, and it's just been a case of errors. The Mid-Ohio race was my fault – I had too much rear brake-bias, locked the rears, and went shooting off the course. At Infineon…I can't say too much about it. The driveshaft would have broken later in the race, anyway, so that's just bad luck. We only ran 20 laps there once it was sorted, and we ended up (I think) with second-fastest race lap.

We've just got to get luckier. Put Watkins Glen aside, because we really qualified fifth there and got penalized because the car was too light, and no one's going to tell me two pounds would have put us down in 15^th! So our worst qualifying on a road course was seventh at Long Beach; our worst qualifying anywhere was 12^th at Texas because…well, just because we were horrible! So I think we've got to be pretty happy. Ignore Texas and Iowa and we've been close everywhere, and I haven't been at a circuit this year thinking, “We've got no chance this weekend,” and I think everyone on the team is excited by that.

No, Newman/Haas/Lanigan is not getting wins yet at the rate we were in the last few years of Champ Car, but everyone feels the momentum picking up again and I don't think there's anyone on the team that feels down. I think everyone feels a lot of victories to come for this group. I don't want to say I was part of a year when the team didn't get a win – and there is one race left – but truthfully I just say, “Hey, we all tried our hardest, some of us made mistakes, myself included.” We all are keeping our heads down, focused on the last race of the year, and then hopefully all the contract stuff will get sorted and we can continue this through many years to come.

You can see it from the results that Oriol Servia's arrival – or return, I guess – to Newman/Haas/Lanigan Racing has made us a better team. We were very much a one-car team until these last few races. The No. 06 car has had its best results in the last four weekends and Oriol is a guy who, with all his experience, is just so valuable. It's a shame he can't find a ride that's stable. He brings so much to a team because of his knowledge and the guy has an engineering degree – he's just smart. So he was good for us – he helped us out and he's fun. There are a lot more smiles on a lot of people's faces, and it's just a whole different deal than before. We had a good clean battle in Motegi. Actually, at one point I did give him the cold shoulder, but at the same time, I was thinking, “I've really got to get maximum points here, because I have to catch Marco and Danica in the championship.” Ultimately, I thought we had more speed anyway.

For the final race, though, Oriol's being replaced by Alex Lloyd, so that will be interesting. I'd like to have been able to attend Alex's first test: I'll be in Orlando, actually, when my new teammate is testing at Homestead, so it should have been feasible, but I have IndyCar Series promotional duty down there, with sponsors and potential sponsors. I am a firm believer – I'm not just saying this – that there are a lot of positives for the series at the moment. Just look at the racing lately – I thought the last race at Motegi produced the best racing we've had at that circuit. So hopefully we can capitalize on that with increased sponsorship.

A lot of people were worried by the racing in Chicago, a lot of others thought it was just a fantastic spectacle. I fall right in the middle! The racing needs to be that way for the fans, but as I said to someone, “That's OK, let's have it that way…but let's not have it getting any more exciting, or someone's going to end up in pain.” I've got to confess, I was more nervous before that race than any other race in my career. After practice the night before, with as much passing as was going on, and three-wide, I just thought, “This is going to get insane.” Once I got out there, there were still times when I thought it was a little much, but it was fun.

The thing is, if you race up front with the guys that are good, it's not a problem; they give you room. Hopefully, we're going to continue racing at the front, so no problem!

We aren't comparing apples with apples though. Everyone was naysaying Richmond this year but, let's be honest, that track was never a great one for racing; and by the same token, last year's Kentucky race was OK anyway. But there's no question these aero changes have improved the racing, and I reckon Chicagoland will be even better. Last year, I spent a good 30 laps or so running three wide, which you never like: It makes you uneasy. I was the cream in the Oreo for a while, and then I was on the high side too, which is always the worst. But the upside of being up top is that if you're gonna crash, you don't have far to go.

Our new power boost button is a help too. Normally we have a 10,300rpm rev limit, and the power boost allows you to go to 10,500, with 20 shots of 12sec each. So let's say I'm running in fifth gear, and in the tow. Well normally I'd be hitting the rev-limiter a little bit, but it also pulls me out of the corners better than sixth gear, obviously. So when I push the button, not only does it give me 5hp through the whole rev range, it allows me to rev to 10,500 and I'm never going to hit the limiter. So it can give you an extra 1.5 to 2mph on the back straight without changing to sixth and letting the revs die away. You have to come off the gas quite a long way to disengage it. We're still not at Champ Car power, and it's not the boost that we had in Champ Car, either, but it's still good and useful.

 In Toronto, the car felt pretty good. We struggled initially and then it got more and more competitive.  And then in the race, I made a dumb move: I expected Ed Carpenter to have seen me, I dove underneath him when he let Danica by, and that took us out of a good weekend, unfortunately. We were going to get a lot of good points, and instead we ended up missing out. I look back and I think how stupid I was, because if we'd got a decent result there and at Watkins Glen, I'd have been in the Top 10.

Toronto was disappointing already, though, because I was tucked up behind Dario, I'd had a good start, it was supposed to be a two-by-two start, and Will Power came across and busted my front wing. No hard feelings, though: Will said it was his fault. It was just bad luck for us, and to be honest, that's how our year has gone. We've had a lot of very good performances, a lot of bad luck and some mistakes on my part: and others that were a mix of all three.

I was pleased with my performance in qualifying, at least. I thought I was going to get pole which, considering how bad we were last time I was there, in 2007, is a major turnaround. It was an example of the team doing a great job to correct difficulties. I think we are showing we have the qualifying pace, there's no doubt about that, and we'd like to think we can get another couple of poles before the year's over. At the end of last year, we sat down together and said, “OK, if we're not in the Firestone Fast Six on at least three occasions, we're going to be disappointed.” And we've been in the Fast Six in every road and street course but one – Long Beach – and there we were seventh. So I'd say we've been pretty good.

I think part of the reason for this improvement is my own performance. I feel much more confident about putting a lap in. When I joined the team two and a half years ago, I told them that I always felt my weak point was qualifying, and if you ever looked at my past career, I always raced well but couldn't get everything out of myself in qualifying. Well this year, I've improved on that massively, and that makes me feel good, because I feel that's not a weak link any more.

Now, don't get me wrong, I realize there's a lot of improving to be done and a lot of learning to be done, but I feel a lot more confident and comfortable. And that also comes from getting a better car, and from being partnered with Justin Wilson last year. He helped me a lot, because although our cars weren't as good as they are this year, he could really carry a car, and that's what I learned from him. So this year, I think there have been times when we've gotten a little bit more out of the car than it really had, but at least we are showing as a team that we can compete. That's the main goal.

Edmonton was a bit more of a struggle, though again we got in the Fast Six in qualifying. But once Paul Tracy was past, we couldn't retaliate right away. There wasn't a whole lot we could do. I was saving more fuel than him – I think on the first stint, we went two laps longer – so we could have got him there, but I think my in-lap wasn't quick enough. Then we ran a second set of reds, which was probably a mistake: when everyone else went red-black-red, we went red-red-black.  Our thinking was that the last stint would be a long one, and we were fearing the reds would fall off, but actually the car's handling was comfortable on reds and not so comfortable on blacks. When Tracy started struggling, I think we'd have had something for him if we'd been on reds, but we struggled to get past Wheldon and Tagliani, so I couldn't catch him anyway.

But you've got to tip your hat to the KV Racing boys: they're doing a hell of a job over there: those cars look very good. Sometimes when you follow a KV car…whoa, it's impressive. Same feeling we all get every time we follow the Penske guys!

Kentucky has been a big confidence-booster for us all. I think we had shown some really strong pace on ovals, but I felt in traffic we weren't quite there. But after this weekend, I feel we're very close now. We could run with those guys up toward the front, and that makes me feel we've got a shot when we go to Chicago to really give everyone a run for their money. The rear feels secure now, and so even if I was directly behind someone, in their dirty air, I felt it was going to understeer, which on an oval is a lot easier to deal with than catching the back of the car!

This weekend, my home race, in Mid-Ohio, I feel we should be very competitive. Unfortunately a lot of teams have tested here and we haven't but I think we should still have a good shot at it. I'm basing that on how we ran in Watkins Glen (where we didn't quite have the speed that the top two or three had, but it felt close) and also taking into account Mid-Ohio last year. We ran well until I made a stupid mistake, but we've made a lot of gains since then. So I think we should be pretty good.

I guess what I'm wanting is a strong qualifying followed by no bad luck on raceday. Just a simple, progressive weekend will see us show what we can do and have the results to back it up. Here's hoping!

Graham

Hello again. I’m writing this on Saturday night and we’ve just qualified the No. 02 McDonald’s car fourth for the world’s biggest race!

The run up to qualifying was not easy, but throughout, I knew that Newman/Haas/Lanigan Racing had given me a quick car. We just didn’t get a chance to show it all the time, but the signs were there if you looked hard enough. For example, on the Thursday before Pole Day, no one outside the team seemed to notice this, but my quickest speed, a 222.996mph which eventually put us ninth quickest, was my first flying lap after coming out of the pits! Unfortunately the No. 02 McDonald’s car then broke a gearbox, otherwise we’d have been much higher up. I reckon we’d have done a 224, maybe even a 225, which would have put us in the top three, but we just never really got to do a run. We only did 40 laps all day but kept having problems.

Then on Friday we were 11th, so again we looked okay but nothing threatening the front row; it felt like we needed to do some more trimming out. I couldn’t put my finger on the problem exactly, but the No. 02 car just felt like it had a little too much drag for the straights. I was also running slightly conservatively, because in the back of my mind I knew that my teammate Robert Doornbos had crashed and he was going to be using the back-up car.

But on Saturday the car felt good – and although Doornbos crashed the back-up car as well, we knew we just had to put that out of our minds for four laps. We did and took sixth with our first run. Now, bearing in mind we had no back up car, people were surprised to see us heading out for another go but what they didn’t know was that we had to. The people in tech were being a bit iffy about a part that we’ve been running everywhere, so that was slightly weird. They hadn’t failed us but it was an issue that needed smoothing out.

Then right before that second run, at about 4.50p.m., the gearbox quit. I don’t know if something got too hot, or what the hell happened, but the damn thing broke! The McDonald’s crew did an amazing job to fit a new one in pitlane, and off we went and got fourth. I’m not just happy for me but for the crew. I mean, how many other teams could have changed the ’box not just in the time available, but so that it worked straight away? Awesome effort all 'round.

Now compare how the Newman/Haas/Lanigan Racing team performed at this track last year, and you start to appreciate the huge progress that we made over the winter. To make that kind of progress, to make that kind of gain on teams like Penske and Ganassi really shows the strength and depth of this outfit. The car feels really secure under me, and of course I feel more comfortable with a year’s experience under my belt.

The signs were there, though, if you look at our performance in Kansas. I know everyone was saying that Kansas has no bearing on Indy because the tracks are so different, but I never agreed. I always thought Kansas was a good indication of things to come at Indy. I mean, just to point out the obvious, last year Scott Dixon was on pole in Kansas and on pole at Indy. If you’re fast on an oval, you’re fast on an oval – plain and simple. People can say what they want, but truthfully the ovals are all going to be the same. If you’re good on any oval, you’re going to be good at Indy. And we’ve just proven that.

I guess I better recap a bit, because my last RACER column was written just before Long Beach race, and obviously that was a frustrating event for us. I wasn’t happy with just seventh on the grid after getting pole at St. Pete, but then what happened in the race with that bad pit stop and then the penalty is doubly frustrating, because we’d gotten ourselves into the top three. It was only a little mistake, but it had big consequences. I feel we have a good shot at this championship, and in order to do that, we can’t make mistakes.

I reckon we had saved as much fuel as anyone else, so without the problem I’d say a top three finish was definitely in the cards for us. I don’t know if we had the pace of Dario, and the way the cards fell with the full-course yellows, he was also pretty lucky that day. But I think we’d have been close. Without doubt, we can be winners on road and street courses this year; we’re at the stage where just a little fine-tuning to improve our race pace will put us right there, every time.

Kansas had different emotions for me, and in fact they varied over the weekend. In practice, we didn’t get many laps completed which was disappointing so we went into qualifying not really knowing where we were. But when the team told me what my teammate Robert had done on his qualifying run, I was thinking to myself, “Well, if he’s done that, we can go quicker.” That was my mindset. Then the team told me my warm-up lap needed to be faster, so, sure enough, it was hugely fast compared to everybody else’s and then we put four smoking laps on the board: it was great. In a way, that pole meant more to me than St. Pete, because for us to achieve that on an oval was tremendous. The amount of effort it takes for the team to get up to speed on an oval is huge.

In the race, I was struggling with understeer pretty badly, and at first my theory – which seemed pretty logical at the time – was that if I tried the high line, all that would happen would be that I had less room to understeer to. So I didn’t try it… But then when I did, I found the car didn’t understeer at all! So I guess that’s a lesson learned and next time I’ll be more proactive in trying that, for sure. As a result of that, we really picked people off. I had a killer restart going after the final yellow – so good that I thought I could pass three or four cars, but I got chopped on the low line, and ended up losing momentum and a place. But our car’s pace and discovering the high line got us back up to seventh. By then, Marco and Danica were too far ahead to catch before the checker.

Still I still feel pretty good about our performance in Kansas: we were right up front and we had the pace to be in the Top Three all day. We slipped back, but we made some spots up at the end. There are things we definitely need to improve on, but the pace is there. We just need to smooth some of the rough edges, and I remain as confident as ever that we can.

You want to know if I can win Indy, I’m sure. Well, Newman/Haas/Lanigan Racing is a remarkable team, I always knew that, but even so, the last few months have been a reminder of its sheer depth of talent and the commitment from the very top bosses. That’s why there’s no rest for the McDonald’s crew now: I’m going to be out there testing race setups on Sunday, to try and get a jump on the others.

Is it a good omen that I’ll be starting fourth, considering that’s the same place that my dad started in 1986 when he won the race? Well, I’m not big on omens – but I’d happily be converted on May 24th.