• the wild finish at Brazil and Beaux Barfield’s decision not to penalize Takuma Sato;
• the news from Indianapolis thus far during this Month of May, including who we’ve seen on track and who has or hasn’t been performing to expectations;
• the rumors surrounding aero kits and the plan to run them at Triple Crown races in 2014;
• the hiring of Derrick Walker as President of Operations and Competition;
• the rumor that Zak Brown has removed himself from consideration for President of the commercial side of the business;
• whether Kurt Busch might do the double next year and what it would mean for IndyCar;
• and much more.

To listen, use the player below or search for More Front Wing on iTunes.

And as the Firestone Indy Lights series heads to Indianapolis Motor Speedway today for its first test of the Month of May, Steph caught up with Andretti Autosport driver Zach Veach to review his season to date, his ascent through the Mazda Road to Indy ladder, how to fix the ailing car counts, his off-track accomplishments, and his hopes for the future both in the short term at Indianapolis Motor Speedway and in the long term as he looks toward the IZOD IndyCar Series.

Throughout it all, Paul and Steph are joined by MFW contributor and editor of IndyCarAdvocate.com Zachary Houghton to look at some of the hot topics within the sport such as the car count for Indianapolis, the revelations of team(s) in financial trouble, and the upcoming race weekend in Brazil.

To listen, use the player below or search for More Front Wing on iTunes.

And in a detailed rundown of Sunday’s race, Paul and Steph start with the solid performance put forth by Takuma Sato and work their way through the race stories of much of the field including Justin Wilson, Dario Franchitti, Will Power, Charlie Kimball, AJ Allmendinger, Sebastian Saavedra, Mike Conway, Tristan Vautier, Helio Castroneves, and Tony Kanaan. They also take a closer look at how the new qualifying rules for 2013 are panning out and discuss some of the other news items from the week, most notably the impending closure of Panther Dreyer & Reinbold Racing.

To listen, use the player below or search for More Front Wing on iTunes.

In addition, MFW contributor John Lingle joins Paul and Steph this week to wrap up the Honda Indy Grand Prix of Alabama weekend at Barber Motorsports Park. The trio take a close look at the performances put forth and difficulties experienced by of a number of the stars of the Series, including race winner Ryan Hunter-Reay, his teammate James Hinchcliffe, Team Penske championship hopeful Will Power, all three drivers in the Chip Ganassi stable, Charlie Kimball, and Marco Andretti. They finish things off with a spirited discussion on the state of the aero kits debate and a review of the week’s news items, including the talking points from the Firestone tire test at Pocono.

To listen, use the player below or search for More Front Wing on iTunes.

One of the site’s newest contributors, John Lingle, joins Paul and Steph to preview this weekend’s Honda Indy Grand Prix of Alabama at Barber Motorsports Park. We look at adding AJ Allmendinger to the Penske stable and whether anyone can bring an end to Team Penske’s domination at Alabama’s Gorgeous Facility.

We’re also joined by two young rising stars from within the IndyCar ranks, one who’s finding success at the top and the other who hopes to follow a similar path.

Tristan Vautier had a blockbuster debut weekend in the IZOD IndyCar Series piloting the #55 Florida Lottery machine for Schmidt Peterson Motorsports. He shared with us some fascinating insight into how attractive the Mazda Road to Indy feeder system is for young drivers in Europe and how effectively it’s worked to get him to where he is today. He also talked about what set him and his team apart to be one of the few Honda cars able to keep pace with the Chevrolet entries throughout the weekend at St. Petersburg.

And from the Firestone Indy Lights ranks, Peter Dempsey of Belardi Auto Racing joins us to discuss his early career in Europe and his own decision to make the move to America to enter the Mazda Road to Indy system. Through a series of misfortunes his journey hasn’t been quite so cut and dried, but now that he has a stable team underneath him in FIL for the first time in years, he feels he has a proper shot at a run for the title and the scholarship that could guide him into the top level of American motorsport.

To listen to the podcast in its entirety, use the player below or search for More Front Wing on iTunes.

On this week’s More Front Wing podcast, Paul has the pleasure of speaking with the driver of the No. 78 KV Racing Technology Entergy/Nuclear Clean Air Energy machine, Simona de Silvestro. Fresh off what was by far the best race weekend of her IndyCar career, Simona discussed her relief at getting the Lotus monkey off her back, her relationship with her new teammate Tony Kanaan, her hopes for the 2013 season, and much more.

We also break down many of the excellent storylines coming out of the event at St. Petersburg, including:

- the first win for Andretti Autosport’s James Hinchcliffe;
- the excellent showings by Simona, Marco Andretti, and Scott Dixon;
- the early-season disappointments of championship hopefuls Ryan Hunter-Reay and Will Power;
- the ongoing struggles of Dario Franchitti;
- what the heck was going on (or not) in JR Hildebrand’s head;
- and more.

To listen, use the player below or find us on iTunes by searching for More Front Wing.

In this week’s episode, we launch our 2013 season by talking to James Hinchcliffe. While in Toronto recently he spoke with Steph on a number of topics, including:

• his thoughts on entering his second year at Andretti Autosport and his third in the IZOD IndyCar Series
• the pressure to post his first win
• how he feels adding EJ Viso to the mix will affect team chemistry
• his hopes on reuniting with his engineer from Newman/Haas, Craig Hampson
• his impressions on points such as the doubleheaders, standing starts, the qualifying rule changes, Randy Bernard, and the upcoming movie Turbo by Dreamworks, to name a few
• and many, many more.

We also selected the winner of our contest to win an autographed Alex Tagliani diecast, brought to us by their exclusive distributor, Toronto Motorsports. We’re happy to announce that Kristi Welch is the lucky recipient. Congratulations, Kristi! We’ll be in touch with you shortly. (If you’re not Kristi, don’t be sad — just head on over to the Toronto Motorsports website to pre-order your diecast right away. They’ll be ready later this year… but getting yours signed will be up to you!)

With that business taken care of, we spent the rest of the show answering listener-submitted questions and covered a wide variety of subjects, such as:

• how the engine battle might play out in 2013
• whether Dario Franchitti will be more competitive this season
• whether Simona de Silvestro will win a race for KVRT and who else might see a first win
• the Boston Consulting Group suggestions to set up a three-race playoff and end the season on the IMS road course
• how the rule changes might affect the outcome of the championship
• and lots more!

We’re excited to be back, and we hope you’re excited to have us. Thanks to everyone who submitted questions — we’re thrilled to take them at any time.

To listen to the podcast, use the player below or search for More Front Wing on iTunes. Let’s drop the green flag and get this season under way!

To listen, use the player below or search for More Front Wing on iTunes.

However, we have some audio to share with you in the meantime. In the lead-up to the Honda Indy Toronto, Steph appeared on Fresh Air, the weekend morning show on CBC Radio One. The CBC has very kindly allowed us to share a podcast of that interview.

To listen, use the player below or search for More Front Wing on iTunes.

- Team Penske driver Helio Castroneves
- Hometown favorite and driver of the GoDaddy machine for Andretti Autosport, James Hinchcliffe
- Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing pilot Takuma Sato
- Schmidt Hamilton Racing rookie Simon Pagenaud
- General Manager for Schmidt Hamilton Racing, Rob Edwards
- General Manager and Chief Engineer for Honda Performance Development, Marc Sours
- Vice President and General Manager of the Honda Indy Toronto, Charlie Johnstone

And, for no apparent reason, Paul and Steph offer their own opinions on the upcoming race weekend, too.

To listen, use the player below or search for More Front Wing on iTunes.

Beaux Barfield joins us to walk us through the answers to some of the most popular questions coming out of Saturday night’s event. Why did laps start counting before the green flag flew? Why did Dario Franchitti earn full points for the event even though he didn’t take a green flag? Why did James Jakes have to sit on pit lane for so long? Why weren’t drivers allowed to run on the inside? Beaux offers clarification on these points and many more.

Plus, Pippa Mann joins us on the podcast once again, this time very graciously offering to act as an analyst. The three of us talk over our impressions of the heat race qualifying format, the various incidents throughout the event, and the current state of the points race just past the halfway point in the season. Pippa offers the kind of depth and insight that can only be given by someone with actual seat time in an INDYCAR — a real treat.

To listen, use the player below or search for More Front Wing on iTunes.

Following that, we preview the upcoming Iowa Corn Indy 250 with a look at the downforce adjustments, the addition of the qualifying heat races to the weekend, and our predictions for who will find success at INDYCAR’s shortest oval.

To listen, use the player below or search for More Front Wing on iTunes.

Our first guest is the winner of the Firestone 550 this past weekend at Texas Motor Speedway, Justin Wilson. Justin tells us about the many elements that came together to give him his first oval win, and he addresses the issues behind the penalty that was issued to Dale Coyne Racing after the Texas post-race inspection. He also gives his opinions on the Iowa qualifying heat races and on INDYCAR’s options for replacing the cancelled event in China.

Our second guest is NBC Sports Network’s newest INDYCAR commentator (albeit on a fill-in basis), Tommy Kendall. TK helped us analyze some of the many storylines that came out of the Firestone 550 and provided some insight into the chatter in the paddock as the aero changes developed throughout the weekend. We also discussed the uncharacteristic struggles of Target Chip Ganassi Racing, the blocking penalty that removed Will Power from the race lead, what may have caused Graham Rahal’s slip-up, and much more. Plus, we speculate on the replacement for the China event and make some predictions for the upcoming Milwaukee IndyFest at the historic Mile.

To listen, use the player below or search for More Front Wing on iTunes.

To listen, use the player below or search for More Front Wing on iTunes.

To listen, use the player below or search for More Front Wing on iTunes.

Steph also had the opportunity earlier this week to speak with Bryan Herta Autosport’s Alex Tagliani. He spoke very frankly about his frustrating opening to the season with Lotus and his relief at returning to Honda power, and he looks forward to Sunday with great anticipation as he shares his expectations for the race.

In addition, Paul and Steph recount this past weekend and discuss the differences in engine performance with and without the extra boost that INDYCAR mandated for qualifications. They also go over several aspects of the upcoming iteration of the Greatest Spectacle in Racing, including predicting who will come away with the most important win on the 2012 IZOD IndyCar Series calendar.

To listen, use the player below or search for More Front Wing on iTunes.

The trio also discusses some of the happenings at the Speedway this week, including the remarkably clean running we’ve seen, the success of Sarah Fisher Hartman Racing, the Lotus situation, and the latest on Dragon Racing.

To listen, use the player below or search for More Front Wing on iTunes.

After Graham departs, Paul and Steph look back on the Brazil event, talk about many facts of the engine situation and the resulting fallout changes to several prominent teams, review the careers of some of the older racers taking a shot at Indianapolis this year, and answer some listener-submitted questions.

To listen, use the player below or search for More Front Wing on iTunes.

To listen, use the player below or search for More Front Wing on iTunes.

To listen, use the player below or search for More Front Wing on iTunes.

Among other topics discussed are the relative performance of the three engine manufacturers, the night-and-day comparisons to be made between ABC and NBC Sports Network, and the results of the test of the new speedway aero package at Indianapolis Motor Speedway.

To listen, use the player below or search for More Front Wing on iTunes.

To listen, use the player below or search for More Front Wing on iTunes.

This time around, Steph and Paul are pleased to welcome the Online Editor for RACER Magazine and RACER.com, Tony DiZinno. The trio cover all the hot-button topics leading into this weekend’s season opener, the Honda Grand Prix of St. Petersburg. They discuss how the development process has gone with the DW12, how the return of engine competition will turn the IZOD IndyCar Series on its head, and how the changes in Race Control will affect what fans watch for each weekend. They also examine each new driver and team combination to offer their predictions for who’s hot and who’s not, answer listener questions, and make their picks for the Rookie of the Year, the Indianapolis 500 winner, the winners of the Foyt and Andretti Trophies and the Series championship, and the driver who will take the win this weekend in St. Pete.

To listen, use the player below or search for More Front Wing on iTunes.

*

In response to More Front Wing’s commentary on INDYCAR’s involvement in social media, INDYCAR invited us to spend some time with Kate Guerra, the sanctioning body’s new Manager of Social Media. Kate assumed the role just before the Kentucky race last season and has been working since then to develop strategies for growing INDYCAR’s social media presence.

During our discussion, Kate reveals that prior to her hiring the responsibility for social media within INDYCAR was rather transitory. “It’s kind of landed with me,” she says, “and I’m hoping to stick with it for quite a while. I feel like it’s nice and it’s actually very vital and significant to have a full-time person focusing on it that’s not going to be around for a couple of months or a couple of weeks. I’m very happy and very excited to be in that position with INDYCAR.”

Since taking on INDYCAR’s social media full-time, Kate has found it’s something on which the organization places a high emphasis. “Randy [Bernard] and Mark Koretsky, our new COO, came to me and said, look, this is a main area of concern for us — we very much want to grow our social media for 2012. Please do with it what you can, start generating some ideas — talking to our teams, our drivers, and our sponsors — and see what you can do. So, really, that’s exactly what I’ve been trying to do.”

Kate’s been approaching the task from a few different angles and is looking at how to activate on several different platforms. “With the Daytona 500, there’s been a lot of focus on Twitter specifically,” Kate says. “But at the same time, we’re also looking at our Facebook pages, we’re also trying to get better at utilizing Flickr, and though YouTube is kind of a mainstream name now, people sometimes forget that that’s also a social media platform.”

As far as Twitter is concerned, one of Kate’s top priorities is to better integrate Twitter into INDYCAR’s TV broadcasts. “Something that really struck me,” Kate shares, “was a few weeks ago during the Rolex 24 coverage on SPEED — that, to me, was the ideal Twitter integration into a race broadcast that I’ve ever seen. There are so many things that we could be doing with our TV broadcasts with INDYCAR that I feel we haven’t quite utilized yet.”

Kate has been in contact with both ABC and the NBC Sports Network to generate ideas and plan their implementation. “They also had noticed the Rolex coverage,” Kate says, “and said that they were quite impressed with it as well and asked if I could set up some meetings to start talking about it. Those meetings have already started, so that’s great news. And I can say that both NBC Sports and ABC are so eager and so excited to start making some of those things happen. They realize that social media is kind of an untapped market right now in terms of TV broadcasts and that people are delving into it as we saw with the Rolex, as we saw at Daytona. Nobody’s really figured it out yet, and while people are doing great jobs with it, there are so many more ideas as it is a developing medium through TV broadcasts.”

INDYCAR has also been working with Twitter directly to gather that organization’s thoughts on how INDYCAR could make better use of the platform. Omid Ashtari (@omid), Twitter’s sports and entertainment representative, attended the State of INDYCAR meeting to talk to drivers and teams about how to unlock some of the potential that Twitter holds.

Another underused strength of Twitter that Kate feels is important is hashtags. When multiple users include the same hashtag in their tweets, those tweets all become searchable by the same term, which makes it easier to find other users discussing the same topics. “What they do is they create communities,” Kate says. “People can use them and look at them and see what everyone else is saying. It connects people together. It creates a community — it creates a family.”

To develop some consistency, Kate worked with the event promoters to develop a full slate of hashtags for drivers, teams, and fans to use throughout the season to help people stay connected as they chat about the happenings at each event:

The hashtag for the season finale at Auto Club Speedway is being held in reserve until it’s determined whether a promotion will be run in conjunction with it that should be incorporated.

For INDYCAR tweets not specifically related to an event, Kate plans to use the hashtag #indycar2012.

On Facebook, Kate plans a somewhat different approach. “People have this driving need for photos and for videos,” she says, “and they love talking about things that they see. It’s turning into a very visual medium of social media.”

INDYCAR is also finding that Facebook is where they see the most fan discussion happening. “That’s where people really like to interact with each other about those news stories,” Kate shares. “It’s very easy to see because it’s all in one place, as opposed to Twitter where you have to search through the INDYCAR mentions and hashtags. Interaction there is very good, so we definitely want to keep driving that interaction by using our news stories and sharing those photos and videos.”

There’s another aspect to Facebook that Kate feels INDYCAR can tap into. “I feel like Facebook is a little bit more personal,” she says. “It’s about getting that out there to fans as well and making sure that they know what INDYCAR is about and have a sense of what we feel towards our fans, which is really a family feeling.”

Kate has been working with Barber Motorsports Park on a promotion model that she thinks will be valuable for INDYCAR all season long. “Our show car is at the Birmingham Airport right now, and the contest is if you go to the airport and take your picture with the car and then tag [Barber Motorsports Park] in it on Facebook then [fans] can enter to win this grand prize, which includes all of these great INDYCAR benefits that most people don’t get to have when they go to a race. They really came up with the concept, and I helped put the pieces together that they were missing.” Kate feels this sort of promotion can benefit not only INDYCAR’s sponsors and tracks but the sport as a whole. “I said, ‘I hope you don’t mind if I’m stealing that throughout the season,’” she admits, “because it’s a great idea and I think we should be using it.”

The question of whether drivers are instructed on how to conduct themselves on social media is one that’s often asked. Kate feels that one of INDYCAR’s greatest strengths is its openness to fans and that restricting drivers on social media would take away from that. “We talked to our teams and our drivers about the common sense thing,” she says, “keeping an appropriate tone and making sure you’re not sharing personal information that could danger the safety of the drivers and teams, which we feel is very important. But at the same time, we tell them, ‘we want you to have the freedom to say what you want to say on Twitter and share your ideas and share your opinions and not be hindered by that.’ It’s not something that we’d like to restrict. It’s more something we’d like to offer some guidelines and some advice on.”

On the subject of communicating Race Control decisions through social media in race time, the plan for 2012 isn’t as defined. “Usually, that information isn’t communicated to me,” Kate says. “I imagine that somebody in Race Control would email Amy Konrath, the head of our Public Relations department, or maybe even Arni [Sribhen, Media Relations Coordinator] since he’s a great contact between us and Race Control. I’ll look at Amy and I’ll say, is this public — any penalty is public; there are hardly any penalties that are confidential — and put it out and let the audience know that this is what’s happening, this is the reason why, and this is who it’s affecting.”

Now that Kate is the full-time Manager of Social Media for INDYCAR, she is solely responsible for the @INDYCAR account on Twitter and for the INDYCAR Facebook pages. She invites all fans to contact her through those platforms with any thoughts or ideas they might like to share. “I can guarantee you that I literally see every mention that @INDYCAR gets because I’m checking it every three or four seconds. Anything that [fans] send there I promise you I’m seeing. If we mutually follow each other, they can direct message me – I read all of those. But to get a hold of me directly, my personal one [@kateguerra4] or even @INDYCAR is really the place to go.”

It will take several months to see whether the plans being enacted today begin to generate growth for the sport’s fan base over the long-term. Regardless, Kate’s passion and drive are evident, and fans can unquestionably expect to see greater activity and engagement from INDYCAR’s social media channels throughout the coming season.

A transcript of their responses appears below. To hear the interview in its entirety, use this player or search for More Front Wing on iTunes.

*

Oriol Servia

On having his ride determined so early: “Everybody’s been telling me, man, you’ve been so unlucky, Newman/Haas closed. But it’s probably the year I have my deal done earlier, so it’s still good for me. I’m happy, especially because I landed in a very good place. I’m very happy with Robbie Buhl and Dennis Reinbold — I think they’re great owners. And the whole team, its people, some of them I’ve worked with in the past, like my engineer. I’m pretty confident. And the shop itself, it’s the best INDYCAR shop I’ve been to. So, it’s all looking pretty good, and I’m very excited.”

On how the many changes through his career will help him adapt: “That’s the thing — it’s not just driving. When you have a new car, you’ve got to find out first which are the weakest areas of the car and try to find a solution for them. And that’s where I think having experience can help you, and I do have some experience. I really am excited to start working, and I think we’re all looking forward to a new car, a new challenge, figuring out what works, what doesn’t. And then having the engine manufacturers involved on top of that is even more fun because you can start playing with fuel maps, boost management, and all kinds of things that make the racing even more complex and more things on your hands that you can do right or wrong.”

On working with Lotus and Judd: “It’s awesome. To start with, I like how the black and gold looks. I had my first interaction with the Judd people a couple of weeks ago in the first test, and I was very impressed. They are super knowledgeable. They’ve been working very hard at it. They are very conservative, which as a racer you don’t want — but at the same time you want to finish races, so I like that approach. They’re really trying to have an engine that is solid, and we’ll see. We will not know until St. Pete. There’s no doubt that they are behind on the development because they started six months later than everybody, so we’re playing catch-up right now. It’s going to be a question of how much catch up can they do by the time we start the season. But I’m very happy with all their work and progress so far.”

JR Hildebrand

On how much of his rookie season will apply to 2012: “For me, I think a lot of it is just everything’s much more routine now. One of the biggest differences for me coming from Indy Lights to the INDYCAR was how everything works — having big sponsors, having a lot of commitments on race weekends, getting through the weekends, understanding the qualifying format, and really being able to maximize those different things. So, I think all of that stuff transfers over 100% to the new car because the car isn’t really part of that equation. I think as far as that piece of it goes, in testing so far this year we’ve seen that there’s definitely a little bit of a different driving style maybe that’s required to go fast. The turbo motors definitely create a little bit of a different thing that’s going on in the cockpit. And then because we’ve all got the engine manufacturers working a little bit more closely with us, there are a lot more things available to play with and change — throttle maps, stuff like that. So, I think in terms of the general driving style, a big part of that comes down to tires. Tires are basically going to be the same as they were. But for sure, there will be some very specific things that will be different from before.”

On what he’s looking forward to most this season: “For sure, you look forward to getting back to Indy. For me, it’ll be cool going everywhere, honestly, because it’ll be a whole different ball game. Everybody’s starting from scratch. Last year, I felt like there were a lot of us that came in for our first season that were just along for the ride with whatever your team had come up with in the past. But this year, it’s all up to us. We get to start over and start new. So, I’m looking forward to getting to St. Pete, and then after that Indy is definitely high up on the pecking order.”

On developing a rivalry with James Hinchcliffe: “I think for the rivalry really to grow, we’ve got to crash into each other a lot. (Laughter.) Obviously, the two of us, we came up together along similar paths, raced against each other at different levels on the way up, him being a young Canadian guy, myself being a young Californian guy. I think we have an opportunity to draw in some fans of our generation that maybe are interested in pop culture, younger stuff. So, I think a lot of that’s on me and him, to be honest, to do a good job on the racetrack and then do a good job promoting and getting into it with each other off the racetrack. I think what a lot of people want to see is that interaction between drivers, so whether we’re boxing it out because we’ve wrecked each other in qualifying or — which is the more actual truth currently — we’re buddies, we’ve got to do our part to make that into something that’s interesting for people.”

On reflecting on his rookie performance at Indianapolis: “The thing that always runs through my head with it is you sit there and go, s–t man, we were that close! But at the same time, we had a legit shot at it on our first go at this whole thing. So, that’s what I hang my hat on and the perspective that I take looking forward. I think in the end it gives me and it gives the team a lot of confidence in what we’re doing. For those guys to be able to stick the rookie in the car in the last year when everybody’s totally got this thing figured out with the old car and have a shot at it, I think that was quite a feat for them. Really, we just look at it as a positive thing moving forward.”

Tony Kanaan

On how his past development experience will help him this season: “I don’t know. I think it should be an advantage, but I haven’t done it in nine years, so it’s a whole different ball game. The thing is, it’s like riding a bicycle — you never forget. So, as soon as we started to develop the new chassis and the new engine, it brought back all the memories that I had back nine years ago. So, I think a little bit it would be an advantage, especially that I’ve driven turbo engines before. Some of the drivers here haven’t. So, hopefully it is an advantage.”

On the learning process of driving the turbo engine differently: “To be honest, I think we haven’t seen all the power that anybody’s got because now the competition is back, so they’re not going to show everything right away. The turbo engine has a particular power band. Obviously, because you’ve got to keep engaging the turbo, [it’s different from] a normally aspirated engine. But driveability-wise, so far with the Chevys I’m extremely happy. But I think we won’t be able to judge until we get to St. Pete and the first race, and then you’re going to see everybody showing up with everything they’ve got. There is a debate about do we have enough power or do we not. It’s so early to say that I can’t make a statement right now.”

On how much the driver impacts the performance of the DW12: “I think it’s going to show off more just because it’s a new car. Everybody had had that car for so long that we knew exactly what to do. Everybody had figured out how to drive it. [The DW12 is] still an INDYCAR. It’s still the same characteristics. Power-wise it’s pretty similar, and there’s not much difference on the driving style. I think it’s more about figuring out how the car likes to work and discovering that than anything else. As a driver, the advantage will be the experience that we’ve got on how to make things happen quicker than the other guys.”

On whether drivers are adjusting the car to them or adjusting themselves to the car: “You’re adapting to the chassis right now. Before we adapt the car to us, we need to figure out what the car likes and what it doesn’t like. From then on, you try to make changes for yourself.”

On whether the car’s reported instability might improve the racing: “People have got to understand that it doesn’t make a difference on the road and street courses, actually. It only makes a difference on the ovals. We’ve still got a couple of tests on the ovals to figure out this new car. So, obviously, with the way it was before we made the improvements — which we’re going to test next week — it was more of a handful to drive, which in a way I don’t feel that bad about. I think if it’s too easy everybody can do it, and that’s when we go back to the pack racing that we had. If it’s difficult, you’re just going to have to work harder. I think on that aspect it’s actually an advantage. It doesn’t necessarily mean it’s right or that we like it, but the harder it is to drive — the more difficult it is — the more we’re going to have to work and harder we’re going to have to work to make it right. And that’s when you’re going to create disparity between cars and teams.”