Tuesday, February 24, 2009

I had a very good and a very long day today. It was a lot more fun on the race track today as we continued to adjust the car set-up. Now I realized how bad the car was last night and loose it was with no grip. This made me very nervous yesterday that if this is the way the cars drive, I am not going to like it. I took Al Unser Jr's advise yesterday to just know it is a race car like any other one you drive, it gives you the same information and you want it to feel the same way any good race car does. That is why I kept believing we have to make this better and figure out a way to do it and keep sticking with it. As a result, the better set-up came to us through constant adjustments.



I really had a great day and got a lot of confidence in the car and know what it takes to drive them and feel what it takes to put a decent set up under you. We got to an average speed of 206 mph and within just 0.6 seconds of the fastest car! We are still taking small steps to get to where we need to be without over doing it or being too aggressive since I am a rookie with the open wheel cars. So, we still have several things to do to reduce the drag in the car and pick up some better speed.



Tomorrow I look to be running at the middle of the pack in times and still maintain a very comfortable mechanical grip in the race car. Getting to run with so many drivers that I have never run with before and in such a cool racing series is super exciting for me and that this is now my reality, and not just a dream!



Today our top speed today was around 215 mph and had great coaching by Al Unser Jr. who I really admired in the past and have seen race many times. Plus my crew chief was his old crew chief during many of his wins! Now tomorrow is our last day of testing and I'm looking forward to getting back into the IndyCar and improving even more. I am the only real rookie to open wheel cars this year as the other three rookies are from the Champ Car Series and have won races there or had significant times in them and one rookie has also raced a season of F-1 just two years ago. So it's very cool that I am in such good company and getting the opportunity to race such a series thanks to the support of Interush and all of our other sponsors as well.


Live Free and Fast,

Stanton

PS: Here are some additional photos of the testing

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