I've got one thing to say: How you like me now?!

Seriously, that was a good, fun race and I got my wheels under me and now it's over. Bummer!

P.T.

Also, check out my latest TV project with Tanner Foust, SPEED's Battle of the Supercars promo here.

Those would have been the perfect ways for it to play out for us. But you know, miracles don't happen often, so what we got today was the result of hard work and a strategy that worked as far as it could. No one would have predicted that many yellow-flag laps: even by Toronto standards, it was a bit nuts, to be honest.

When we got the next green flag, I flat drove past Ryan Briscoe, and I was freaking flying. I was pretty happy with my pace at the end of the race. I think I was setting times that were faster than the leaders at that point, and my last four laps were quicker than my qualifying lap!

So then, once I got the blacks on, I continued to do that and my lap times were much quicker and I was running 62.5sec until the yellow, and after that, I was getting 62.1sec. Even Will Power's fastest lap was a 61.4. So I think it's fair to say we closed the pace gap to the front runners from Friday to Sunday. It's one of those times when you accept that just because you've been around Indy cars for 20 years, you haven't seen it all yet. You've got to be open to new ideas. Next year, if I have a ride, I'll experiment some more with that technique whenever a car has bad understeer on low-speed turns.

That last stint has left me chomping at the bit for Edmonton. I think the team will be having a major think over the next few days, because they know what's got to be done now. We can't spend two-and-a-half days chasing our tails again. We need the cars to roll off the truck somewhere close to good, so then we can go about our business fine-tuning it. Like I say, our car was set up pretty well for the end of the race today but we need to arrive at that destination a lot quicker. I think we can because we had the top non-Penkse/Ganassi car at Edmonton last year and beat people like Rahal and Justin.

This year, we need to really hit the right spring/damper combination (because Edmonton's a real bumpy circuit) and the right gear strategy, and then I believe we can start in the top 10. If we don't start off the weekend with major understeer like last year, I reckon we can get the balance tweaked up pretty well for qualifying.

Going back to today, I was sorry for Dreyer & Reinbold and Justin that one little error had such a big effect, because they'd been taking the battle to the top teams all weekend. And I'd also like to point out that although most of the big dogs screwed up in some way through the day, the two girls out there drove smart, clean, fast races and came out with good finishes.

Finally, as well as thanking my usual bunch of sponsors – Motegi Racing, Kicker Car Audio, CEC, AlpineStars, Oakley and Monster – I also want to say that Honda Canada has done a great job again: I'm hearing the Make A Wish deal has raised $70,000 already and we've still got a race to go. So thank you to all those fans in Toronto over the past three days. Those kids who are going to get help from this effort…well, they really sort of put my weekend's troubles into perspective.

I'll get back to you on Friday. Or Thursday if I have any news or gossip.

I'm not too old to find the silver lining in the freakin' big, black clouds though – at least we know what the problem was and the No. 15 crew will fix the issue tonight, and I'd rather start at the back than in 17th or 18th. At least from the back you can get completely off strategy right away and do something different. Last race, E.J. had to start at the back, but he came through to 11th with the help of just two yellows. I'll aim to improve on that, obviously. For one thing, I'm expecting more yellows; and this is one of those races where there are normally enough incidents that strategies from out of leftfield can work. What's that Honda tag-line on my rear wing? "The Power of Dreams." Yup. Sounds about right.

For the sake of my main men from Motegi Racing here this weekend, as well as my supporters from Kicker Car Audio, CEC, AlpineStars, Oakley and Monster, I'm going to drive smart and drive hard tomorrow, and listen to the strategies the KV Racing boys give me. I know the team can turn the Honda Canada/Make A Wish car around – they gave me a fast car here for race day last year – and I'm willing to fight uphill battles until I drop. I'm just saying…it didn't have to be this way.

A confusing day for a lot of people – among them, me, Justin and all of us at Dreyer & Reinbold Racing. After the race, a lot of drivers were talking about how the sets of tires behaved so differently from one another, and I guess a lot of engineers were scratching their heads thinking the same thing.

For us, it was the same thing for most of the weekend – constantly battling to get the understeer out of the car. We made a lot of changes to it, but we could never get the balance right, and paid for it on the used reds in the first stint. I got a pretty good start, and got by Mario Moraes and Rafa Matos on lap 1, and then got the new guy, Adam Carroll, on lap 2. 

Then I decided to settle into position behind Marco. It was time to save fuel, and I was hitting the number, but then all of a sudden, maybe eight to 10 laps in, the front grip just fell off a cliff face. The little bit of understeer which we'd had all along became a chronic problem – I think I had Matos, Moraes and Hunter-Reay come past me on consecutive laps because I couldn't get any momentum out of Turn 1 and up the hill. If you exit Turn 1 bad, it's going to affect you all the way to the Bus Stop.

Problem is, we had to get to lap 18 if we wanted to make this a two-stop race, and apparently I was down to the cords the last four of those laps, all the way around the tire. That's the deal with understeer – once it starts, it never stops because it makes itself scrub more and more and you start locking brakes, too.

I think the team had decided enough was enough and were going to pit me and switch to a three-stop race, but then as I went to come in the pits, and I was in the slow-down lane, the red light at Pit In came on, because there'd been a full-course caution. So then I had to pull back out and lost a couple of positions, and wait with everyone else for the pits to open.

It wasn't a good stop: I didn't come in very well – I was too cautious about not making errors. And then the fuel hose got stuck, so all in all, we'd lost a ton of positions. Back there in traffic, I was on black tires and the next 10 laps were horrible: I couldn't get the car turned, and although I got by a couple of people, we decided to pit again and get me free of the dirty air and see how it would go. We put in some extra front wing, grabbed another set of blacks and then I started to run some pretty good laps.  I think that's the stint I set my fastest lap.

Then as soon as I caught up with the cars ahead who'd stopped, I had an armful of understeer again. I'd gotten up to 17th, but things weren't looking good at all, especially not when I came out of the pits in 20th ahead of…I don't know, but not many cars. But during the pit stop, my engineer Yves got the guys to crank even more front wing on and gave me a set of new reds, and suddenly the car started to come to life. I got Danica and Sato in consecutive laps, then after a couple of laps I passed Tag and then Carroll.

I think some others had problems making it on fuel on two-stoppers, so I got a couple more places that way too, and we wound up 14th, which from where we were 20 laps earlier, was OK. I'll be honest with you, I was probably the only guy who didn't want the race to end: I had the bit between my teeth and I reckon only a couple more laps is all I'd have needed to get Marco who was having the same nightmare I did in my first stint. Me, I had the Honda Indy Toronto car pretty much how I'd wanted from the start of the weekend.

So not a great finish, but when a guy like Justin finishes 10th and he and I had the same problems in almost the exact same times, it's actually a help for our engineers Yves and Matt in how to go forward at other road courses like Edmonton, Mid-Ohio and Sonoma. It's a bummer, because if we could have gotten to the first pit stop in, say 10th, we'd probably have stayed around there because of everyone else's tire and understeer issues farther on through the race. Another thing: I'm sure my second stint on black tires wouldn't have been such a struggle if we'd been in clearer air. Going to the back made it much more difficult, so Dennis [Reinbold] was right to pit me again and give me some clear air for the third stint.

Obviously the engineers weren't happy with how the cars performed, and although we were able to squeak a good qualifying time, in race performance the car was just abusing the front tires. On the other hand, I don't think the D&R boys should beat themselves up too bad about it. Like I say, everyone had the same problem at some point. Well, everyone except the Penskes, obviously. Even Dario screwed his fronts, I'm hearing, and usually he's pretty kind on tires.

There was one part of the track where we were good – amazingly strong, come to think on it – and that was the Bus Stop. I could brake later there than you'd think was possible, but of course, that's where you're not pushing the lateral g loads on the fronts; you're just stopping hard, and then flicking it right-left-right. But yeah, it was incredible: in two of the passes I put on (I think) Tag and Carroll, I wasn't even alongside them when they hit the brakes and I just went flying past. It felt like I was going through about 30mph faster.

Here's another interesting thing that just kinda shows how it's impossible to get decent fuel mileage when your car's not handling right. In the first 10 laps, I made the fuel figure we'd been given no problem, and then the next six or seven laps I couldn't do it no matter what I tried. It all comes down to not being able to carry enough rolling speed into a turn, so to keep up your momentum you have to get on the gas earlier and earlier, and obviously that's when your target mileage takes a dump. Then in the final stint, when I was catching and passing other cars, going pretty much flat-out, I was hitting my fuel mileage no problem: because so much of your straightline speed comes from getting out of the corner quick, we were able to do that no problem on the fresh reds.  

Summing up the weekend, I guess we can look at it as a voyage of discovery – once we had the car right, we came back and made up a bunch of spots passing some strong drivers. I was happy with my own performance – I wasn't fatigued, and this is a tough racetrack because of all the long corners and it was pretty hot. But compared to last year, when I was carrying a thermal jacket of fat, it was night and day different for me. I've been doing my training in and around Vegas, so I'm pretty used to the heat: it's been over 100degF out there for a while.

I think the DRR team owners Robbie [Buhl] and Dennis were happy with how I worked with Justin over the weekend, too. We even weigh pretty similar so we run similar weight distribution on the car, which takes some of the guess work out of setting the cars up. It meant the team could work in one direction. So after the two Canadian races with KV Racing in the Make A Wish car, I'm available and I hope Dennis and Robbie are interested. I get the impression from the people in the team that we got a good weekend of work under our belts, even if the end result wasn't what any of us were looking for.

I also want to thank Motegi Racing wheels for their efforts on my behalf. (Check out their Facebook page: http://www.facebook.com/pages/Motegi-Racing/116089027007?ref=ts.) After having dinner last night with the president of the company, Jody Groser, I found out he'd been into U.S. open-wheel racing for a while – he was a CART fan and went to quite a few races back in the 1990s. So obviously he was pretty happy to be at the race, so who knows? Maybe this might spark off some more plans. At this stage, I don't know.

I'll be blogging again for the Canadian races, so if you can't be there, be here. And follow me on Twitter at @paultracy3.

P.T.

Target achieved. We got the Honda Indy Toronto car into the Top 12, and have beaten some pretty good car/driver combos like Tony Kanaan and Ryan Hunter-Reay at Andretti Autosport. And considering where we came from in this morning's practice, I think we've got to be content. I was a little worried earlier today. We had started out with some fairly major changes to the car to eradicate the understeer we had yesterday, and the changes we made didn't give us what we needed.

We gained a little bit of time, but others had made a jump, and I think we were 20th. I even started wondering if it's a me problem? I was like, “Whoah! Maybe I really am too old for this sh*t.” But then Yves (my engineer) and myself looked at the data traces and found where I was outbraking Justin (Wilson, my Dreyer & Reinbold Racing teammate) in a couple of areas, but then not getting off the corner quick enough It's all about momentum at a place like Watkins Glen. If you brake a little bit later and harder and upset the pitch of the car more than your teammate, you can't pick the throttle up and straighten out so quick as he can, so you'll lose exit speed. Around here, that's going to cost you all down the next straight. Compared to Justin, I was losing fairly sizable chunks of lap time in two areas. That's the kind of problem you have to correct when you haven't been in one of these cars for almost a year.

Before qualifying we also made some pretty major changes to the car and went out in my group with a fresh set of the hard tires, and in just three laps I could feel the balance was a lot better. Then we did what everyone else did and changed to reds, and we grabbed fifth and transferred into the Top 12. We were pretty happy with that, because our group was quite stout with two Ganassis, Sato's KV car, Hunter-Reay and Will Power in it.

So then we tried to improve on the balance again and reduce understeer, but we didn't really get there. We did go quicker, but not enough, which is a bit of a pity. Don't get me wrong, I knew the Fast Six would be out of reach, but I hoped ninth or 10th might have been possible. Then again, considering the problems of this morning, I think we should be fairly happy with ourselves. If we'd started the day with the setup we ended up with, maybe we'd be looking at eighth on the grid. But hey, I altered my driving style so I guess I improved me, and was able to increase what I bring to the Dreyer & Reinbold table, so gains on both sides.

I was fairly pleased overall though, so even though the competitive animal in me, once he's achieved his target, wants a little more and a little more, to outqualify race-winners who race these cars all season, go testing and have a ton of experience in these cars.

We had to choose our starting tires for tomorrow, and we've decided on a set of used reds; I'm guessing most people will do that. It will make the first few laps interesting, with people finding some extra grip. We haven't decided on strategies yet: I think there are a lot of drivers planning to do the race on two stops but to do that, you'd need to be pretty efficient at your fuel saving or have long periods of yellow. If you decide to stop if there's a yellow in the first 12 laps, there's not really a way of doing the race on two stops. That's pretty much committing you to three. So we just have to stay flexible. Dennis Reinbold, is calling my race and he knows what he's doing, so that's fine.

Overall, I've gotta say I'm getting a good vibe from Dreyer & Reinbold, I've got to say. I had a nice meal last night with Robbie and some of the D&R marketing guys, and Larry Curry the team manager seems a good guy. He's a lesson in not judging a book by the cover: Larry's a rough, tough-looking dude, but turns out he's quite friendly.

The other good thing is that the main man from Motegi Racing wheels who helped make this project possible is here so I was able to introduce him to Robbie, and he's getting pretty high on the IZOD IndyCar Series, so that's a good sign. Check out their Facebook page at http://www.facebook.com/pages/Motegi-Racing/116089027007?ref=ts

Looking at the grid, I'm wondering if there might be quite a few yellows, to be honest. I'm already thinking I may have a tornado around me on the opening lap with Marco Andretti, Mario Moraes and a rookie Adam Carroll in eighth, ninth and tenth. And then there's that long straight for them all to be slipstreaming on the first lap…

Realistically, a goal for tomorrow would be a solid finish in the top eight. With a mistake-free race, I think there's a good chance of that. Let's hope, huh? I want Dreyer & Reinbold to be as happy having me here as I am to get this chance.

P.T.

Can you believe it? Because I can't. The GEICO No.15 car is going to miss the biggest race in the world. Somewhere out there is a setup sheet with all the details of how to make an Indy car handle well around Indy whatever the track conditions and ambient temperatures. And, unfortunately, it's Penske that owns it and he's not likely to send photocopies our way.

I'm sorry for my personal sponsors – Kicker Car Audio, Monster Energy, Ridetech, Oakley and CEC Wheels – and I'm real sorry for Doug Barnette whose PMI company put GEICO and myself together. It was a great deal but, in the end, Mother Nature needed to give us a miracle to overcome our deficiencies.

And that's what really sucks: we'd have been in the field if it had been a cool day. I think I can say that completely honestly, because we were quick all through practice week, including even this morning. We set the third-fastest time of the day, a 225+, all by myself in the morning. That was just after 9 a.m., before the track heated up. We went back to the garage and went through tech inspection, rolled it back out about 90 minutes later, the track temperature had risen about 20 degrees and the car slowed down by about 1mph. And then it slowed down some more. It was all over the track.

All week the car was fantastic; we were thinking we'd definitely match our grid position from last year – 13th – at the very worst, and likely be fighting for a place in the Fast Nine. And then in the heat of the day it was like we were on ice. You'll have seen it on TV. The car was sliding all over the place, barely missing the wall. You can't have it like that and expect to be in the Indy 500, because all the time you're going sideways, you're wasting momentum that should be used to make the car go forward. You're just scrubbing off speed. The only thing keeping it off the wall were steering corrections.

I know KV Racing will get a bad rap for this, and in hindsight, we should have just held on to the time and we'd have been the last car in, but we thought Jay Howard was going to bump us out. He was one of only two cars that were quicker than us Sunday morning. And that's just one of those twists of fate: Howard and me set the first- and third-fastest times of the day, and we both got beaten to grid slot 33 by a kid in Methodist Hospital with a smoking wreck of a car. The magic of Indy, huh?

It was a team decision to run again, but I'm part of the team and I'm never one to go down without a fight, so if they say, “Go on, let's do this freakin' thing,” then I'm there 110 percent. Unfortunately, the car was only there 80 percent. It was so sideways it felt like an accident waiting to happen every couple of corners and I barely missed the wall a couple of times. I guess if there's one thing that can give me any spark in this sorry mess is that the doubters who thought I was too old for this saw that I had the cojones to take the car beyond where it wanted to go. I can still pedal an Indy car. In an all-or-nothing situation, I gave it all and came away with nothing.

I suppose also I can say that I was the only KV Racing driver not to wad his car up at some point in the last few days – but when you're also the only KV driver not to make the field, that means squat. They get to go racing next Sunday, I get to sit on my hands.

It's easy to look back on that software glitch that meant we had to abort our Pole Day run in ideal temperature on Saturday morning, and say, “That's what cost us,” and, yeah, in retrospect it actually killed us. But that trouble wouldn't have been such a big issue if we'd had a car that had some grip in hot weather. We had plenty other chances to get it right and we never did.

It makes me think back to last year, where I got up off the couch and came to Indy and KV gave me a car that was easy to drive. It wasn't as fast as this year's car had the potential to be, but it at least gave you some positive messages. It was dependable and solid and we put it on the fifth row. Unfortunately, this year's GEICO No. 15 KV car swung between two extremes of being quick and being lousy, and the weather caught us in our weak spot. And what's weird is that we started out with virtually the same setup that we had on last year's car, but it only worked in temperatures between 50 and 75 degrees.

It wasn't just me: Tony Kanaan went through a similar thing at Andretti Autopsport and demolished two cars. And in both cases we're in multi-car teams, so we should benefit from having teammates. Well, I think I tried all my teammates' setups – and every freakin' point in between – to fix it. We were all over the map and it made no difference to the No. 15's handling in warm temperatures on a qualifying setup. I tell you, I feel sorry for EJ, Taku and Mario if it's warm on race day, because there's only a bit of practice on Friday to sort things out if they're still having similar problems. On the other hand, with race-level downforce on, they may be OK. I was second quickest on Friday with that setup.

A few people have wondered if I'd do what's been done in the past and try and buy a ride from one of the drivers already qualified, but that's just not my style. Not at all. You live and die by the sword, and we just didn't earn our way onto the grid, so I'm not gonna bump someone out of his or her ride. Too much pride for that kinda game.

So, I'm heading up to Toronto to announce some sponsors for the Canadian races, and that at least is a bright spot in the dark right now. I'm gonna stay lean, stay mean and wait for the green. I'll keep you posted.

Thanks for everyone's support since we announced this deal at Long Beach. I promise you this: it isn't the last you've seen of me at Indianapolis Motor Speedway. My last time there will not be a day when I'm walking out with my tail between my legs.

P.T.

Thursday was a good day: we showed everyone that the GEICO gecko has fangs! KV Racing's No. 15 GEICO car feels good in race trim. I'd say the day was nice and productive, even though the rain meant we never got down to qualifying downforce like we wanted to.

I got up real early, went to the gym and Tony Kanaan was in there; we ran on the treadmills, chit-chatted, talked about the Floyd Landis situation – and then out on track he was kind enough to give me the big draft I was looking for. We ripped off a good lap, at 226.322mph. I came out of the pits behind Kanaan, and I think he was behind Dixon, and the three of us ran around in a row, and we got a big speed. So I was able to run with the fast cars today.

Tires weren't quite so durable today because of all the rain yesterday, making the track green by washing the rubber away. But, I was kinda surprised. They still lasted 23-25 laps. My longest run so far on a rubbered-in track has been 32 laps before the cords start to show.

Then we tried a few changes on the car and feel we made it a little bit better. We made some significant improvements, getting it comfortable in the draft, getting it comfortable enough that it gave me confidence even following cars through corners.

So that was part one of the job done. We think we've got a strong basis of a racecar. Sure, we'd like to have spent longer on it, to go up some avenues that might have worked or might have made it worse. But because Friday is looking pretty stormy, we had to hit the boost button in terms of getting through our program. So we came back and started switching the car over to qualifying trim – and that's when it started to drizzle, the track went yellow and it never went green again.

If we don't get out on Friday, then we're pressed for time for low-downforce practice. We'll have to just wing it on Saturday morning, when we have a two-hour practice session before qualifying. But hell, we've got a bunch of bright people working on the No. 15 GEICO car, and when my back's to the wall, that's when I show what I've got. I also have my teammates to compare notes with. I'm pretty happy with the KV Racing environment – we're working as a team, and it's interesting because we're all at different stages. Taku's a rookie but with good strong open-wheel experience; Mario and E.J. are at the same stage as each other, with a couple of years in Indy cars, but obviously E.J. took a hard knock so he's got to rebuild his confidence and feel out the handling of his spare car. And then I'm the veteran – the voice of wisdom and experience! How about that…

Speaking of experience, I was really surprised today to run into my old friend Bruno Junqueira and see that he got some laps in Bryan Herta's car to give the team some feedback for Saavedra. I hope FAZZT keeps their side of the deal and runs him this weekend. He deserves it. He's a former pole winner here at Indy.

Speaking of FAZZT, Honda Indy Edmonton and Northlands have announced they're going to be sponsoring me for Indy, and Alex Tagliani for some of the races before the Edmonton event. We're going to be called “Team Oh Canada.” And KV and myself are set to make an announcement in Toronto next Tuesday with some really good sponsors that are new to the sport. So I hope Randy Bernard is noticing the attention I can bring his series. I think we've made a pretty good splash and we're still beating the bushes trying to find sponsorship: In the last few days, things have been shaping up pretty good.

Me and Will Power did a cool little interview video for www.indycar.com – and he even dared ask me about 2002 even though Helio's his teammate. But I think he most wanted to know about driving the 1994 Penskes with the pushrod Mercedes engine, though. Us drivers are always hungry for juice, and those cars were mental. I hope at some point they'll show the bit where I interview Will and ask him about dingos.

Anyway, back to the track action. Looking at the time sheets here, I'm encouraged. Yeah, OK, we were second quickest today, but more important is the combined time sheet for the whole week – we're seventh but two of the cars ahead are T-cars – Helio's and Dario's. (That's a kinda forewarning in itself, I guess – that even their spare cars are potential winners, but that's another story). So that means we were fifth quickest in reality. I think that's genuinely a good sign; I think we're going to have a competitive race.

What about qualifying? Well, that depends on the weather, a little in terms of how much track time we get to try it out. The forecasts told us it would be sunny and hot Thursday, and instead it was overcast and became rainy, so how seriously should we take the forecasts that it's going to be stormy today? I don't know. What I do know is that my KV boys will have everything sorted for me so the GEICO car is ready to run first thing in the morning if we get the opportunity. We'll have it trimmed out and we'll find some empty track space and I'll mash the gas. There's no other way.

P.T.

(Follow me on Twitter: @paultracy3)

(Also, be sure and support the people supporting me: Kicker Car Audio, Monster Energy, Ridetech, Oakley and CEC Wheels).

Click here to check out the exciting, interactive free digital magazine from RACER.com's Indy 500 columnist and his KV Racing crew, plus video, photos and a peek beneath the skin of the No. 15 GEICO Dallara-Honda.