Live from Trackside - Firestone 550

Saturday, June 9
11:01 p.m.
The race was disappointing for sure. The car was going to get better and better, especially in clean air. I had really good pace but you can't always predict what will happen on track with other cars. It’s real unfortunate for the guys because I think toward the end of the race we were going to make the car a lot better and be in good shape.

We'll move on, go testing in Iowa early next week then get ready to go racing again in Milwaukee!

11:30 a.m.
Nothing's better than a good night's rest! Our day starts late today since it's a night race, which gave me a couple more hours of sleep... No complaints here!

I have a couple of appearances this afternoon before a drivers' meeting and team race meeting. I'm looking forward to the race later today... I think we have a good car and the whole Novo Nordisk Chip Ganassi Racing team has been working really hard. Now it just comes down to the race!

Friday, June 8
5:22 p.m.
Well, qualifying is checkered and I'll start 17th tomorrow. The race car is a totally different animal than the qualifying car; they're not the same thing here. I think we have a pretty good race car. I feel really good about what we're doing into tonight's practice. For qualifying, we tuned the car throughout the practice session earlier today. It's a little disappointing for the NovoLog FlexPen guys but at the end of the day, we have a really good race car and that's what matters tomorrow.

We still have one practice session this evening, so we'll keep working on the race setup!

Before practice at Texas Motor Speedway

Making some adjustments

11:15 a.m.
It's a beautiful day at Texas Motor Speedway! It's only 11 in the morning, but it's already starting to feel like it's going to be a hot one.

I'm off to a drivers' meeting, then headed out to practice. Here's our race weekend on-track schedule (all times local/Central)...

Friday:
12:30-1:45 p.m. Practice
3:30-5 p.m. Qualifying (airs on NBC Sports Network at 7:30 p.m. ET)
6:45-7:15 p.m. Practice

Saturday:
7 p.m. Firestone 550 live on NBC Sports Network

Catch live timing and scoring at http://racecontrol.indycar.com.

Thursday, June 7

2:08 p.m.

Hello from a wet and stormy Texas Motor Speedway! They say everything's bigger in Texas--including the storms! Hopefully it'll finish up tonight and we'll have dry practice and qualifying sessions tomorrow.

After a bit of a travel delay this morning due to the weather, I arrived in Dallas and headed to the Children's Medical Center of Dallas with Racing for Kids. They always give the kids a fun experience and I had a good time teaching them a little bit about racing (a little bit about that here).

I’m looking forward to the race this weekend. We had a really good test here, before the Indianapolis 500, and we’re building momentum this season. Every race we’ve seen the checkered flag we’ve finished within the top-10, so we plan on keeping the No. 83 NovoLog FlexPen car up front. After being in the top-10, now I’m ready for the top-five. From there it’s easy to make the next step to the podium and eventually a race win, but we have to stay smart and patient. The Novo Nordisk Chip Ganassi Racing team is working hard and we’ll carry that positive energy from our last few results on to this weekend.

IMS Productions will be following me around this weekend, filming an episode of "IndyCar 36" that will air June 23 before the race in Iowa on NBC Sports Network. Should be fun!