Hi Yardbarkers,

I had a very special birthday at the track, doing what I love to do the most - racing cars. The team surprised me with a cake. I enjoyed it very much. Then Steve Luczo surprised me last night at dinner with an autographed jersey from my favorite athlete - Lance Armstrong.

Hi Yardbarkers,

Today has been a really good day for me, other than qualifying, it's been great. It's my birthday and the team got me a cake. It's a special day being able to do what you love the most on your birthday. I love racing cars and I feel very fortunate to be doing it with a great group of people. I do wish we would've been faster in qualifying, I expected us to be, but I do think we have a much better racecar than qualifying. I hope to prove that tomorrow night.

It's been a long day of waiting. It's been a very unfortunate situation, but the weather has played tricks on the track. It's rained like 5 days in a row so water is leaking onto the track which makes it impossible to drive. When it comes leaking through the track they call it weepers and that's what's happening in Kentucky. I shot some video of it this afternoon for you to see. The track has been working really hard to soak up the water, but it's a tough job, especially with all the rain they've gotten this week. When we have downtime like this I have to kill time so I've been watching YouTube, surfing the internet, talking with my engineers about next week's race and shooting videos.

Hi Yardbarkers,

I'm really disappointed about today's race. We had such a good car, but unfortunately got hit from behind going into the first turn at the start of the race. I don't know exactly what happened. Mario Moraes pinched me in
the chicane just before the start and I had to lift to avoid hitting
him and that gave Paul Tracy a run on me at the start. I was on the outside
going into turn one and gave plenty of room and then someone hit me
from behind, Mike Conway I think. I don't know what caused that behind me
but it spun me and bent my right rear suspension. It was really a shame
because once the team fixed the suspension the car was great. We were
definitely one of the fastest cars on the track, but there's nothing
you can do about it. The important thing for me is that I learned a lot here. I passed a lot of cars, my engineers say I made the most passes in the race and it's important for me as a rookie to gain that kind of experience. As a team we just need to keep our heads up because we did
a lot of great things here in Edmonton, it's just too bad the results don't show it.

Hi again from Edmonton,

We have been spending some time with the guys in the Royal Air Force here in Edmonton. They will be doing a flyover today in their F-18s. Yesterday me and a few of the guys from the team got to pay a visit and sit in the plans. It was so cool, but now I want to fly in one! I wanted to share a couple photos we took.

Hi Yardbarkers,

Sorry it's been so long since I wrote my last blog.

We race in Edmonton today. I won here twice in 2007 so I really like this track. The crowd is fantastic, the event is fantastic and the Canadian fans are fantastic. We have a huge fan base here in Canada and hopefully we'll put on a good show for everyone today - here and on TV. Today is one of those days when you run the warm up in the morning and then you spend the rest of the time waiting, waiting and waiting for the race. The car is ready. We won't be changing the car that much from yesterday. We adjusted the castor level, which controls the steering effort, the steering weight. This track is very physical and I asked the team to remove the castor because I was getting really tired after five laps because the steering was extremely heavy. The car is pretty good, and now I feel I can drive the car hard and consistent through the whole race.

What makes this track different from the others is the loads in the corners and the way the corners are laid out. The corners are very fast and the asphalt here brings out a lot of mechanical grip and the steering effort is very high. That's why it's physical and I have been training very hard all season on the weights and cardio and I've been driving the car a lot so that I'm prepared for this kind of track. The other drivers are well prepared also. It's just a matter of finding the right castor level and we did that this morning in practice so I feel very confident going into the race.

Hope you can tune in

Hi Yardbarkers,

We just finished 8th in Richmond. I'm happy with the result, but we had a top 3 car. On one of the restarts I had a run on Hunter-Reay and he chopped me heading into turn 1. After that we just lost too much ground. It was just too difficult to pass. But after getting a DNF in Iowa it was very important for us to finish this race so I'm happy with the result. It's our third top 10, we increased the lead in the Rookie of the Year race and we were able to pick up two positions in the point standings. We proved again that we are capable of running up front. We have the performance, it's just a matter of putting all the pieces together. Now we have some road courses coming up and that's a strength for us. Next week we're at Watkins Glen, then Toronto and then Edmonton. We have some momentum and now we need to keep it.

Hi Yardbarkers,

I flew back to Miami from Iowa today so that I can get repacked for Richmond. I head there tomorrow to do the PR advance to help promote the race this Saturday. I have been traveling quite a bit. Last week we had off so I was able to go to Brasil on June 10th. I stayed over the weekend at my mom's place and went to Sao Paulo and stayed with my cousin Bruno. I wanted to spend as much time as I could with my family but I also had to go to Sao Paulo to the American Consulate to renew my visa. My father was here in Miami visiting me for about three weeks so this trip I didn't see him. I spent it with my sister, mother and grandmother and that was very nice. It's always special going home. The people in Brasil are very warm, you can feel a different atmosphere for sure, especially at my house that I built in the mountains. It's an hour away from Belo Horizonte. Simple people with very simple life style and the nature in the mountains always gives me a great sensation. If you are planning a trip you should go.

We had a difficult week in Iowa. We didn't have a good car in practice but we made some changes that we thought would really help. Today the car was 100 % different than yesterday. The car was extremely loose from the start and we were trying to make changes in the pit stops but none of those changes worked. I don't really know what happened when we crashed. I was just trying to hang on and make it to the next stop so we could make some changes. The car was still extremely loose. I was lifting the throttle big time in Turn 1 and, all of the sudden, it snapped on me. I tried to correct but there was no chance to correct. It was a big slide. It's too bad for us, but we have to start focusing on Richmond and make up some of the points we lost today.

Hi Yardbarkers,

We just finished 12th in Texas. It was a really good day for my learning. We would have liked to have finished top 10, but our gamble on pit strategy didn't quite work out. For me I want to continue to learn as much as I can as a rookie so that I can use it to my advantage next year and this really was one of the best experiences of the year for me.

It was really cool having Shaq here with us too. He's so big, he picked me up like it was nothing! I was very honored to have a guy like him cheering for us. He's a very funny guy to be around, just so cool and relaxed. He said he was just a kid who made it and doesn't consider himself a star, but that's probably why he's such a big star. He's one of the biggest in all of sports. He's very humble and he has such a big heart. He does so much for charity and that's why he joined our team, to help with our charity program. Shaq was around us all day today and treated the whole team great. he shook everybody's hand and made the guys feel good. He knows better than anyone what it's like to be successful in a team sport and you could see that by the way he treated our whole team. He's just a special guy and I'm very glad I met him today. Now I need to take him to Brazil. He said he wants to go to Rio and I would love to go and show him around.

If you can watch a replay of the race on Versus you should. Shaq was in our pit and changed a tire with our team before the race. And then he was the starter of the race. I've never seen anyone more intense start the race. I could see him on the big screen yelling START YOUR ENGINES!! He really pumped everyone up.