Today's IZOD IndyCar Series and Firestone Indy Lights headlines
1. In Her Own Words - Danica Patrick
2. In His Own Words - Graham Rahal
3. In His Own Words - Marco Andretti
4. In His Own Words - E.J. Viso
5. Stewart honored with award
1. In Her Own Words - Danica Patrick: It's hard to look back at 2009 and
not feel a little bit frustrated or just want to shrug your shoulders
and wonder why or how things went the way they did for us this year.
That's not to say that it was all bad. I finished fifth in points, which
is the best finish I've had in the points in my career. So that's a good
thing and it's not something you want to take lightly. But let's face it
- at the end of the day you want to be contending for wins every weekend
and battling for the championship until the last lap of the season, and
we just weren't at that level this year.
There's no question that our team knows what it's like to be in
that position. AGR has obviously won a lot of races and has three
championships to show for its time in the IndyCar Series so far. We
have talented drivers - all of us have won races and Tony Kanaan has a
championship on his resume, so we all know how to get it done. But, in
the last couple years, we've just not been doing that like we used to.
In general, I think one of the bright spots for me this year was having
Michael Andretti call my races and run my pit. Mike has seen just about
everything during his career as a driver and now as an owner, and having
that insight is really a plus. He made some good strategy calls this
year and helped us make up for some of whatever we missed in qualifying
at some races. Long Beach comes to mind, specifically, and Toronto,
too. The street circuits and road courses this year were particularly
tough for us in qualifying, and we really made the best of those two
specifically with strategy.
We finished third at Indy, which was my best career finish there and,
of course, the best finish ever there for a woman. But the nice thing
about it this year - as strange as this sounds - is that people didn't
make that big a deal of it. I kind of appreciated that because it made
it clear to me that people expected me to be there and weren't shocked
by it. I certainly wasn't satisfied with third; I go to Indy every year
with the idea of winning it. That's all I want to do. Third is a decent
day in the biggest race of the year, but it's not a win.
Indy was also part of a good stretch for us early in the season
and that's when we really put ourselves in a good position in the
championship. We had four straight top fives between Long Beach and
Milwaukee and had eight top 10s in nine races there. It's by far the
best stretch I've had in my career so far. But we needed a couple wins
in there to stay with the Penske and Ganassi guys and we just didn't
have the pace to do it. That's when we kind of lost touch with them for
the title and had to focus on holding on to fifth.
All in all, I'm happy with the season. We've got a lot of good people on
the team and have a lot of work to do. But I know everybody at AGR is
ready to dig in and do what it takes.
***
2. In His Own Words - Graham Rahal: The 2009 season was both an up and
down one for both myself and the McDonald's Newman/Haas/Lanigan Racing
crew.
We started with two extreme highs in St. Petersburg and then shortly
after in Kansas by getting poles in both places, but what we quickly
learned was starting up front was the easy part. It seemed as though
through only the first few races that we knew our luck would challenge
us through the entire season, which became oh so true.
In St. Pete, we got hit from behind at the very start. Perhaps this
was slightly my fault as I was very careful due to the fact it was my
first pole in my IndyCar Series career and I didn't want to screw it
up. Well, when Tony Kanaan hit me, I quickly realized maybe I was too
cautious. We struggled for the remainder of that day, but again our luck
would strike us in Long Beach. We ran a fantastic race, staying out of
trouble, running fast laps, saving fuel, and found ourselves in second
place with only 20 or so laps to go. Well what happens then -- a freak
incident where I got waived out of the pits too early and pulled the
fuel tank with me.
This is something that our team hasn't seen in years, and hopefully
will never see again. But as mentioned before, you can see luck would
challenge us all along.
I don't need to bore you with race-by-race stats, but everyone knows
that NHLR had lots of ups and lots of downs this year. I am, and was,
very proud of my guys for all their effort this season, and especially
over the 2008-09 inter when we made most of our strides.
During the off-season, the team hired Martin Pare as my race engineer.
He came from Andretti Green Racing and he had a wealth of experience
in this series. I think we can give him credit for a lot of the gains
we made, but as a team we did a great job adapting to the new rules
package, and updating our cars to reach the maximum performance for our
experience level. Few people realize this but our team did not enter
into a single test this season. We ran off a more limited budget and I
think when people take that into consideration, what we accomplished is
even more impressive.
We came to every race weekend flying blind in some sort of manor, and
after a lot of hard work we always seemed to do alright. I think when
you do look at the stats we qualified outside the top 10 only once -
in Texas, and then our worst qualifying sessions other than that were
when we were rained out in Iowa and Kentucky. That shows the strength of
this team, and the efficiency in which we worked this season. Especially
considering it was only our second one in this series.
As the season went on and slowly came to a close, I think everyone
could clearly see that the McDonald's car was always the best of class.
And when I say best of class I'm speaking about non-Ganassi and Penske
teams. We really had a lot of strong runs, and if I had limited my
mistakes at both Mid-Ohio and Indy and if the driveshaft wouldn't have
broken at Sonoma, we probably would have finished fifth if not better in
the championship.
I think for the entire team to at least say we ended on an upswing gives
us a lot of high hopes and strong feelings toward the 2010 season.
We remain very positive that with the crew, engineers, and ownership
surrounding the NHLR group, that we as a team should expect a very
strong and competitive championship fight in 2010.
We have shown the speed and pace during qualifying and gradually made
our race cars better. And now that we will have another off-season to
test and prepare, we ought to be a contender on every race weekend. We
did a great job closing the gap of five years to the Ganassi and Penske
boys, and I think as the years roll on we are a team that can provide
them with some major headaches.
***
3. In His Own Words - Marco Andretti: It's easy to get down on the
season we had, especially with the way it ended in Homestead, but it's
over with and we can't go back. So that leaves us with having to find
the good and learn from where we've been.
We didn't win races, but out of 17 starts we had 11 top-10 finishes. We
finished eighth in the points - still inside the top 10. It wasn't a
great season, but made we progress throughout the year.
It was a frustrating season, for sure, and it was a strange feeling.
People would congratulate us for a sixth-place finish. We got pats on
the back for mediocre results, and the team was working so hard for it.
There's no getting used to bad luck and low results. And, for us, it was
twice as frustrating because we used to be able to compete with Penske
and Ganassi - and not just that - we were able to beat them not that
long ago. I think we just have to stick to it and keep some faith that
we'll come back from whatever low point we've fallen into. We might be
down, but we're not out.
I don't know how to do it though. I don't know what we need to make
that jump back to the top. This season, guys like Scott Dixon and Ryan
Briscoe were in a race of their own most weekends. We were lucky if
more than three cars finished on the lead lap. The league helped by
changing some aero options and the push-to-pass helped with overtaking,
but there's still such a big gap from the front of the field to the
back. How do we fix that? Again, I don't know the answer. I'm not sure
many people really do. All I can do is keep working hard with my team
and my engineers, and hopefully things will turn around next season.
A lot of good things are happening at AGR. I have great hopes for 2010.
By now, everyone knows about the changes coming at the team and we're
all really positive about things. I think Kim Green and Kevin Savoree
are going to continue putting on great events, and dad can be focused
on the team and what we need to be on top again. It's really the best
option for everyone involved.
I can't be 100 percent certain what the future holds for me, but I've
said before that in IndyCar right now there's nowhere else I'd rather
be than with this team. But it takes more than just me. Of course, the
biggest step is funding to run the car. We hope to have that taken care
of soon, so with funding out of the way we can really focus on making
the car better. On top of that I have a great crew. I think we have all
the right pieces, we just have to get them to fall together in the right
way, and that's what we'll be working on all winter.
***
4. In His Own Words - E.J. Viso: I'm very happy that I made the decision
in early 2008 to come to this great racing category. I've had a great
time; I think among the best years of my career. Maybe not talking about
success, but it's been a great challenge to be working really hard to
get up to speed with this very competitive category. There are so many
good drivers.
It's been a big challenge to be on a small, new team in this category,
so the work that we did was twice as difficult as everybody else because
we needed to get up to speed with them.
I think we've done a decent job. In 2008, we had a great year - better
than 2009. This season has been difficult. We had some mechanical
problems, also some accidents. But we can never forget that it's from
these types of years that we learn the most. And I'm sure, as a team,
we learned a lot and we will improve ourselves as human beings and as
professionals. That's all that matters.
I'm sure we are all in a much better position for 2010. Hopefully, in
the coming year I am going to achieve everything that I'm looking for
after these two years of preparation.
This year we had a nice mix of races. I really need to thank the series
for adding some more street and permanent road courses because it's on
those tracks that we can achieve our best results. This year I had a
blast going back to Japan. It's such a nice place. The people are very
respectful and very nice, and it's a beautiful racetrack. I spent some
time with my sponsors over there - Herbalife and Arai. I also spent some
time with Honda. I would definitely look forward to going back there.
All the other places we went in Canada and the States, they were also
very nice. Some challenging tracks like Indy, and Miami is also a very
tough place. I think the series is making the right decisions and I'm
very happy to be part of it.
***
5. Stewart honored with award: Firestone Indy Lights team owner Brian
Stewart was honored by Canadian Automobile Sport Clubs - Ontario Region
with the Wayne Kelly Memorial Trophy.
The award is named in honor of Kelly, a respected driver and constructor
who lost his life in a racing accident, and is awarded to the Ontario
region member who has brought recognition and prestige to Ontario
Motorsports.
The award had an added meaning to Stewart, who also was close friend
with Kelly though they were racing rivals.
-credit: irl
