THE BLOG

An incredible opportunity popped up for me recently, and I’d like to share it with you.

There was an IndyCar test at Road America a couple weeks back, and Team Penske president Tim Cindric told me that they were looking for someone to drive a car. 

I’m a NASCAR driver and have no intention of being anything else, but I’ve made it known for quite some time now that I’m very interested in the IndyCar side of things. It’s kind of on my bucket list personally. 

IndyCars are such raw race cars, with so much speed and capability. For a long time, IndyCar was bigger than NASCAR. Then IndyCar split into two different leagues—if you can imagine the AFC leaving the NFL and starting its own league, it was kind of like that. The popularity of both leagues went down, and partly because of the split, stock car racing took over. But the thrill and excitement of IndyCar racing has always remained intriguing to me. 

So when Tim asked me if I wanted to do it, there was only one answer.

“Of course,” I said. “I would be really honored. I think this is an incredible opportunity.”

From there, I had to check off on a few things. 

I had to check with Paige. IndyCar racing is more dangerous. It’s open cockpit and open wheel. It’s a lot easier to get hurt. Part of respecting the ones you love is letting them have some input on decisions like that, where you’re putting yourself at risk. 

I had to check with the No. 2 team, and make sure they knew that I wasn’t going quit and race IndyCar overnight. I was going to keep my day job. It was good. I didn’t want it to become a distraction, and one of the other perfect things is that it was in the midst of an off weekend. 

Finally, I had to check with my mom. When I first started racing, my mom told me it was OK for me to race as long as I didn’t race open wheel.

They all said yes. 

We didn’t tell any media before hand, which prevented it from being a bigger story than it could have been. But there was potential bad weather in the forecast, and the last thing we wanted to do was announce that we were doing it, and then not do it. 

So we waited, and it actually rained a lot that day. We didn’t get onto the track until very late, and there was a good chance we were going to have to cancel altogether. (So from that perspective, it was good we didn’t announce it.)

Once we did get going, I learned a lot. That was really special.  

The feel of the cars is so fast. At Road America, they have signs that say how many feet from the apex of the corner you are. The signs go in 100-foot increments. In NASCAR, at the 500-foot mark, you’re getting into the corner really deep. In the IndyCar, you could drive to the 200-foot mark. Basically, in an IndyCar, you can turn much later into the corner.

That was really hard for me to pick up. It’s a big game changer for sure, how much harder you can drive the car, and that the car has the grip level to do it. It’s so light, it has so much downforce, and has really high quality brakes. That took me a little while to get used to. 

The car pulls a few more Gs to the corner, and that took a little getting used to as well. It’s a little bit harder on your neck and your triceps. The day after, I could feel it a lot in my triceps because the steering wheel is a little bit farther away, and you have to hit all the buttons.