Hello to all the INDYCAR and Firestone Indy Lights fans. It’s is an honor and a privilege to be asked by INDYCAR to write a blog about my return to the sport and about my first two experiences testing an Indy Lights car.
As most of you reading this probably don’t my name or know anything about me as a race car driver, I will give you as very quick snapshot about my 11 years in the sport and what ended my open-wheel career so abruptly in 2001…
Like most professional drivers from one end of the globe to the other, I began my journey in 125cc shifter karts from 1991-1993. After a lot of success in that category, I was asked to go and test a Formula 3 car in Japan for Hayashi Racing. That test officially created my burning addiction to open-wheel cars. From that point forward, my career took a bit of wild ride in its direction up the motorsports ladder. I went on to race everything from a French front-wheel drive sedan championship, to a season of Skip Barber Formula Dodge, to a host of “one-offs” in all types of cars. With wins in such varied types of cars, but lacking a the kind of budget to allow me to race some of the expensive European formula car championships, I decided to take what money my sponsors had and head over to New Zealand and Australia to compete in the well-known Formula Holden Series. This was the top-level open wheel category in that part of the world, that had produced almost all of Australia’s top talent, ranging from Mark Webber to the man dominating the IZOD IndyCar Series currently, Will Power. It was also only 1/8th the cost of the comparable European Formula 3000 Championship. After almost winning on debut with a second place finish at Philip Island, I went on to have a solid season of podium finishes, despite having to drive for three different teams due to budget issues. I left Australia very confident that I would be able to secure a full-time V-8 Supercar ride, but it didn’t work out that way. In fact, the day after my last race of the season, while I was on a flight home back to the States, my plane was abruptly ordered to make an unscheduled landing in Honolulu. That day was September 11, 2001.
That day was also the start of an 11-year, unwanted hiatus from the sport. The group of sponsors that had carried me for the last few seasons of my career were Wall Street guys, and needless to say, they were no longer thinking about racing, let alone prepared to continue spending money to take me to the next level. I, too, was not really thinking about racing for a while after that tragic day, and I would have felt very guilty about crying over the bottom falling out of my career because of it, when so many people in NYC were dealing with a REAL tragedy.
Well, that day began a 10-year (and everyday) battle to find another sponsor. Well guess what??!! I have found a few dollars in support, and I will be racing at Indy! Ok, it’s not in an IZOD IndyCar Series car (yet), and it’s not the Indy 500, but it’s the next best thing. I will be running the Freedom 100 in an Indy Lights car for Fan Force United! I really cannot explain how huge this is for me and how appreciative I am of the four sponsors that I have that are allowing me this opportunity. It really is like a dream. Surreal almost. Talk about jumping right back into the deep-end though, right? From not driving anything for ten years to hopping in a muscular Indy Lights car and racing at the most storied and magnificent race track in the entire world. That alone has made my journey worth every minute of effort, let down, and heartbreak. I truly feel this is my time and that the struggle over the last decade was to teach me a lesson. That lesson, in my eyes, is to truly appreciate what you have when you have it, and to never give up on your life dreams, despite how impossible it seems to become. If you are talented and you work hard, anything becomes possible.
Ok, enough of the sad stuff, and on to the fun stuff…I have now tested the car twice with my team, Fan Force Untied, part owned by former standout and awesome guy, Tyce Carlson. We first tested a couple of weeks ago at Putnam Park, and it was amazingly successful. I cannot lie, I went into the test really not knowing what to expect from myself, and feeling a lot of pressure. The amazing thing was that I almost instantly felt right at home in the car, and like I hadn’t been out of the game for even a day. After just a handful of laps I was really getting up to speed in short order, and was hustling the car around the track. In fact, due to freezing temps and high-winds, we only were able to run a total of 32 laps, but that was enough for me to put in some extremely competitive laps and let myself and all the doubters know that I still “got it.” My team did such a great job at making me feel comfortable both inside and outside of the car, and my engineer, Tim “Dr. Who” Wardop, really understood my feedback and made changes to the car that suited my driving style perfectly. It was a fantastic day to say the very least.
But, the “feel good” stuff doesn’t end there. Two days ago, at Iowa Speedway, I performed my rookie oval test, under the watchful eye of the uber-cool cat, Vince Kremer. I had never driven an open-wheel car on an oval before, and really didn’t know what to expect. Iowa Speedway is short, highly banked, and WAY fast. In fact, it is gnarly fast for such a small joint. Everyone was telling me that you can run wide-open there when the car and driver are feeling good. After taking my first look at the track in the early morning, THAT didn’t look possible. No worries, just another massive challenge in the long list of massive challenges that I have been up against in the last couple of weeks!
Well, they weren’t lying, you can run flat around Iowa speed and it is pretty wild. Actually, is very wild. We started in the morning with a few sessions to get me acclimated with what an oval feels like and with what an Indy Lights car feels like in oval set-up. Both feel very different from what I have ever experienced in a race car. As the lap count grew and the sessions clicked off, I felt more and more at home on the oval track and started to see how running the place flat all the way around was achievable. Let’s not kid ourselves though…it takes some cojones to do it. It also takes a lot of commitment. You have to know that the car is capable of it and that you are ready to react to even the slightest twitch from the car.
Well, that’s it for my first blog ladies and gents. I really appreciate you taking the time out to learn about me and my story of how I got back into racing after so many years away. I hope that INDYCAR invites me to blog more about the rest of my experiences between now and the Freedom 100 on May 25th, and I ask that you all keep your fingers crossed for me for a stellar result.
Cheers,
ENJ