Unfortunately things didn’t go as well as we had hoped at Montreal. It seems like every time we’d move to rain tires, it would dry out, and every time we went to slicks, it would rain. So now we have two races to go and the next one up is Miller Motorsports Park just outside of Salt Lake City.
But before I get to this weekend’s race, let me mention what we did between Montreal and Miller. We did a test session out at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway and it went really well. The speed was just awesome as we were doing about 190 miles per hour down the straightaway. The curbs need to be a little taller, but other than that, the layout would be good for our cars. I hope we get a chance to race there. It would be great and I’m ready to go. I think we’d put on a show there like they haven’t seen in years. Indianapolis is the epitome of motorsports. I won Rookie of the Year at the ‘500’ in 1989 and still feel like I have a little unfinished business to make up for from the 1995 race.
Back to this weekend’s race. Miller is a place where we’ve run well at. We’ve qualified on the pole there twice and were second in the other race, so we’ve had the speed, but for one reason or another, we just haven’t had the finishes. We probably should have won two years ago, but were knocked off track, and last year we ran really conservatively early on as Memo and I both needed to simply run 30 minutes apiece to clinch the championship.
We just need to make this similar to Birmingham where we’d struggled to get good finishes in the past, but probably had the best car back in July. Of course, the big difference this year is the event will be a sprint race compared to, in years past, the 1000k races. I think it’s going to be exciting and things will happen a lot faster. We’ll also have some different components on the car with a sprint race. It will be more exciting for the fans; you’ll see a lot more aggressive driving with the shorter format.
So here we go, tied with the No. 10 car, five points behind the No. 99. It couldn’t have been scripted any better. All of the teams have won a championship, and three great teams are going after the top spot. So hold on tight.
All I know is the Ganassi team has been strong all season. I want a great result at Salt Lake City. We need a great result at Salt Lake City.
