Danica Patrick, Andretti Green Racing, Tony Kanaan, Marco Andretti, Iowa Speedway, Dario Franchitti, NASCAR, Birmingham, Barber Motorsports Park, Homestead-Miami Speedway
Paul Webb
Off-season?
“I love to
be lazy
and selfindulgent
”
Danica Patrick
October 2
After a few weeks out of the race car, we got
back to business with a test at Iowa Speedway. I
drove Tony Kanaan’s car for the second day of the
test, and everything went very well.
We weren’t testing for ourselves, but in a
joint effort to improve things for the next trip
to Iowa. The IndyCar Series is playing with
aerodynamics – wickerbills and such – to try to
loosen things up for us. The first race at the
track didn’t go very well. We weren’t able to
race side by side, and several of us crashed.
Part of the problem is that the track is so
good and so fast that the cars were
mismatched for the conditions. We went in
expecting a Richmond and we got a little
16 IndyCarSeries 2007 winterspecial
Kansas Speedway. As a result, we ran single file
for much of the race.
That said, I love the place. Iowa is a great
new track, slightly less than a mile, and we had
a pretty good car there this summer during the
race until we got caught up in a wreck. If we
can get the aero package just right so we can
run two wide all the way around, then the
second race at Iowa Speedway will be fantastic.
At any rate, it was good to get back in the
car and start preparing for next year. As drivers,
we never feel like we can start soon enough.
And even after just a few weeks without racing,
I was beginning to get anxious.
Marco and I did a press conference after the
first day at Iowa, and most of the questions
were about Dario. Unless you’ve been living
underground for the past few weeks, you know
that Dario Franchitti has gone to NASCAR.
As I said in the press conference, the whole
AGR team is going to miss his experience. He
was a great champion and a good friend, and
we won’t be able to replace his knowledge. Like
Tony, Dario was a mentor. I learned so much
from him, and you just can’t replace that.
I’m proud of Dario and consider myself
fortunate to have been his teammate, even if it
was only for a year. I wish him all the best, and
I know he’ll do well in NASCAR. We’ll be
rooting for him every Sunday next year.
Next week it is off to Birmingham, Ala., for
another test session at Barber Motorsports
Park, which is a nice road course. We’ll try
Danica says she
never has as
much time with
the fans at the
track as she’d
like, but she
finds some for
autographs
some new things and keep gearing up for
2008. It’s a long off-season on paper, but the
season opener at Homestead-Miami
Speedway will be here before we know it.
October 17
All is pretty quiet here right now, a welcome
change from the way things were during the
season. I’ve had a few more days to relax at
home, and the time to decompress is welcomed.
During the racing season, the action doesn’t
end. From April until September it’s rare that we
get one day with nothing to do, so we relish the
downtime. However, I can’t take much of it
before I start getting antsy and ready to go again.
Don’t get me wrong. I love to be lazy and
self-indulgent, but there comes a point when I
get bored with relaxing and want to get back to
work. The off-season’s nice in that I get a chance
to do both. I work on occasion and then relax.
We tested last week at Barber, a beautiful
road course in Birmingham. It’s used primarily
for sports car and motorcycle racing, and I
don’t think the IndyCar Series plans to race
there in the near future, but it’s very nice.
Our test was OK. Nothing spectacular, just
OK. We had a little problem with our car that
cost us a couple hours of track time, but as a
team we still learned a little bit, so it was
good. I really liked the racetrack. What a
beautiful setting.
Unless something changes, I won’t be in my
race car again now until early December for more
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