Vision Racing: Tony George, Ed Carpenter, Jay Drake, Jeff Ward, Larry Curry
KING: I can't imagine what it's like to be in that select group where you're regarded as one of the highest-profile people in the world in your field, which Tony is. It was interesting, of course, when the announcement was made of, I guess, the vision of the Indy Racing League in 1994. I had an opportunity, be it all so brief, to kind of catch a quick glimpse of that and to understand how far ahead Tony works when it comes to formulating plans for the future. Ed, I remember, was just 10 or 11, and we were at the time Clabber Girl, which is a Hulman company product, Clabber Girl Baking Powder was sponsoring the stock car that was driven in the Busch Grand National Series by Stevie Reeves. I had the opportunity to go with Tony and Laura (wife) and Ed along with Bob Hipplehauser, who was the general manager of Clabber Girl at the time, to Richmond to watch Stevie race. It was a practice session, and I believe it was 1993. Ed was 10 or 11. I just remember that Ed was a little dude. Tony and I were standing -- well, he was. He was racing quarter-midgets at the time. Tony and I were standing on top of the Clabber Girl transporter there at Richmond looking out over the front straight as they were getting ready to roll the cars off of pit lane. He turned to me and he asked me, he goes, "What kind of show do you think Indy cars would put on here?" And you know, I didn't th!ink much about it at the time. I looked at the track, I said, well, you know, it's big and wide; it would sure be tight, and it would sure be fun to watch. That was the end of it. That was the end of that conversation. And it wasn't until seven years later when we got ready to flip the switch on the Radio Network broadcast of our first IndyCar Series event from Richmond International Raceway that I realized that I had been a little bitty part of that vision, that I had seen just a little bit of it, just a bit in advance because we were there seven years later racing, and I was standing just a few hundred yards away from where we had been on top of that transporter in the infield. Bottom line is, Tony is a guy that I admire and respect a great deal for what he has done for open-wheel racing. The formula that we currently see that has produced some of the greatest racing in the history of motorsports, not just open-wheel racing but history of motorsports, has been a product of h!is vision. He has been maligned, he has been criticized, he has been called every name in the book over the last 10 or 11 years, by some of you, and yet he has maintained throughout the course of the last 10, 11 or 12 years this unbelievable concentration on the goal. When he felt like the time was right, the move was made to offer up street and road course races on the IndyCar Series schedule, and by golly, after the race Sunday I'm sitting there talking to Barry Green, who is another guy that I respect very much, and Barry says to me, "Mike, I've been in racing for a long time, that was the greatest street course race I've ever seen." So it is my pleasure now to introduce a man who has moved on to his next vision, if you will. He turned over the presidency of the Indianapolis Motor Speedway to Joie Chitwood earlier this year, the presidency of the Indy Racing League to Brian Barnhart, and now he has taken on the responsibility of owning a team along with Laura George, his wi!fe, here in the Indy Racing League and Menards Infiniti Pro Series, the owner of Vision Racing, Tony George. Tony. (Applause)
TONY GEORGE: Thank you, Mike. First of all I would like to welcome everyone to the world headquarters of Vision Racing, formerly Kelley Racing. Some of you may have been here a couple years ago when Tom opened the shop. It may have been part of the media tour. But if you haven't been here, welcome. It's been a fun couple of months. Really, the first of the year I really wasn't contemplating being a team owner. I had been following the saga of Tom Kelley trying to, trying to develop a graceful exit strategy from IndyCar racing. He wasn't sure really if he was going to continue or not. He was trying to but wasn't sure if he would be back with the Delphi team this year. As the month of January rolled on, I started thinking about what a neat opportunity it would be to become involved with ownership of a team. I think I had set myself up last fall for maybe taking some time off, spending more time with my wife and daughter and do some other things, but this has sort of changed all !that. But it's been with her support that we've taken on this project and exciting opportunity with Larry and Ed and Jay. We've been fortunate that we've been able to assemble a very good group of people in a very short period of time that have worked very hard to just not only prepare to get to the first race, but then stay focused and keep focused on using these first few races as a learning experience. I'm very proud of the hard work and dedication that they've all demonstrated and commitment to this team and seeing it progress and become successful as the season goes on. Today is an exciting time. We've from the outset said we wanted to run a second car at Indianapolis. We've made the commitment to do that and, also, at the same time try and improve our team along the way. So the decision was made after thinking about young drivers and veteran drivers and developing a short list of both. We quickly zeroed in on the gentleman to my right, Jeff Ward. Jeff has been a good fri!end and a good competitor in the Indy Racing League for the past several years. I think his record at Indianapolis speaks for itself. He has -- he's finished in the top 10, four times, I think, and been competitive every time. But even when some mechanicals resulted in a DNF, he certainly demonstrated his ability. Being a seven-time motocross and supercross champion and most recently winning the AMA super -- what is it, Super GT?
ED CARPENTER: Supermoto.
GEORGE: Supermoto, it certainly reflects what a competitor he is and a champion he is. I think he's going to bring some maturity to the team to help Ed develop as a driver. He'll be able to, I think, help Jay as a driver. We've got some other things, too, that we'll talk about later that we think we're doing for the benefit of the team to help, you know, hopefully hit a stride by the month of May, which has been my goal all along. I think we've had to use these first three races as test sessions and haven't always had the full complement of time allotted on those days to even, you know, do the things we want to do. But again, it's a credit to the team and everybody to stay focused and not get frustrated as we continue to develop. But, again, I want to welcome Jeff Ward on board. Looking forward to him driving the No. 22 Vision Racing entry at Indianapolis. (Applause)
KING: And we will hear from all the members of the team very quickly. Before we get Jeff's reaction, let's introduce the entire Vision Racing team. At the end, a man whose trials, tribulations and successes have been well documented, and he's a great story, it's great to have him back, Larry Curry, team manager for Vision Racing. In the middle, Ed Carpenter, who is beginning his second full season in the IndyCar Series, a former USAC Sprint Car rookie of the year, who is a graduate of the Menards Infiniti Pro Series, as well, won the first-ever Menards Infiniti Pro Series race at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway, the Freedom 100. Sitting next to Ed on his left is Jay Drake. Jay drives the Menards Infiniti Pro Series entry for Vision Racing. He is the defending USAC national Sprint Car champion and is widely regarded as one of the best, if not the best, short-track driver in the country. Of course, we just heard the announcement regarding Jeff Ward, who is looking to make his se!venth start at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway this month of May. Jeff has done everything but win the 500. He was the rookie of the year in 1997. He has finished second, he has finished third, he has finished fourth, and every time he's gone off in the 33-car field, he has been a car to watch, a driver to watch and has been a contender for the win. Jeff, let's get your reaction to today's announcement, if we could.
JEFF WARD: Well, I'm extremely excited. I mean, this is where you want to be as a race car driver, the Indy 500. Unfortunately, I haven't been here for the last couple years. It's a tough thing to come and not get in the race. Last year I didn't even come here, to stand around and just being a racer, it's probably one of the worst things to do, be at a racetrack and not race. When I got the call from Tony about the opportunity to come here and race for Vision Racing, I was ecstatic, and I'm happy to come here and be here and try to win the Indy 500 and work with Ed and put the best program we can together for this race.
KING: We'll, of course, open it up for questions for Jeff in a couple of minutes. Larry, let's get your comments both on the addition of Jeff and the progress of the team since it's only been, geez, seven or eight weeks, if that long, since the formation of this team was announced at Phoenix.
LARRY CURRY: First of all, I'll start off by saying we're excited for having Jeff on board for the second car at Indianapolis. Because of his experience, especially at the Speedway, and just in racing in general, I believe he will greatly help in the growth of our team and going forward. As far as how we're doing as the race team, as Mike said, Tony and I came to an agreement, I believe it was on January the 31st, and on February the 28th we had to send a truck off to Homestead, not only with the primary and backup car for the IRL, but a car for Jay Drake in the Pro Series. Someone had asked me, “Well, what's your expectations?” I said, “My expectations is for us to have the trucks there.” (Laughter) Meaning, we went into this, we've talked about it, Tony and I, Ed, Jay and everybody, and you have to have realistic expectations. We have a great group of guys. The preparation of the race cars is absolutely as good as it gets. And certainly our performance isn't where we want it! to be. But I was looking back in some of the stuff last night, and I don't think that our total track time, if you pull the races out, but practice, I don't think we have eight hours on the racetrack. We really need to get out and do some testing, and we're going to address that as, of course, the rules permit. But all in all, I think the guys have done a very good job. You know, everything we've seen, every look we get is, you know, you go to Homestead, and it's basically a superspeedway that's banked. You go to Phoenix, it's a short track, mile oval. Now we've went to a road course. So none of the three places that we've been, the information doesn't necessarily transfer over to the other one. So you get, OK, now we have two hours or three hours of practice on a road course, and we have this Phoenix. We probably got more out of the Phoenix event right now than we have anywhere because we went out and ran the whole day and got the testing in. But we will continue to strive v!ery hard. Our goal, as Tony said, was to get through these first three or four races and try to have the team unified and our performance coming forward in time for Indianapolis. I think we will accomplish that. But, you know, now we've added the second car for Indy, so if you look at Vision Racing, it has just continued to grow. In other words, we haven't got to the point yet where we've said, OK, that's where we're at, and we'll take it from there for now. Indianapolis should help us catapult for the rest of the year.
KING: Larry, real quick, before we move on to Ed, have you staffed yet for Jeff's car or where do you stand as far as crew and I guess either engineer, or are you wearing all those hats right now?
CURRY: Right now I am wearing all those hats, but I am in the interviewing process. So we hopefully, I know tomorrow is the end of the week already, but hopefully by tomorrow we will have some people in the building that's working toward Jeff's project. And by the time we get back from Sonoma, from the Sonoma test, we will be staffed for that car.
KING: By the way, the team will head to Infineon Raceway in Sonoma over the weekend and will be on track there, I believe it's both Tuesday and Wednesday, right, Larry?
CURRY: Yes.
KING: Now let's move to Ed Carpenter. Ed is the full-time driver of the IndyCar Series entry for Vision Racing. Ed, of course, we saw him all last year driving for Red Bull Cheever Racing. He also made his debut in the series with PDM racing the year prior. Now the full-time driver for the No. 20 car. Ed, a steep learning curve for you this past weekend at St. Petersburg. And I know you're looking more forward to your next event on a road course than you were your first.
CARPENTER: Yeah, this test at Sonoma is really going to help me. We went to St. Pete, and I didn't really know what to expect. I had never taken a green flag on a road course. So it was a learning experience. I think the car was OK. I have a long ways to go with my road racing, but I'm going to work on that, and we're doing some things in-house to help with that. So I'm looking forward to it. I've enjoyed it. I wouldn't say I had a whole lot of fun in St. Pete, but you never have fun when you're running like we did. We'll get there. We have two more races to get better. Really looking forward to getting back on an oval in Japan and setting up for the month of May.
KING: Ed, when the team was introduced, it was made pretty clear that your role with this team would be more than just a driver, you are helping to run the team, you and Larry working together with the addition of staff and the day-to-day operation. How has that gone so far?
CARPENTER: I was really involved the first couple weeks when we were getting everybody in here working with Larry. But the quality of people we got, really everyone is kind of running it definitely now. Larry is doing a good job and our crew chief. I'm here every day, but if I walk away for a week, things are going to go smooth and everything else. So I don't think I'm holding the place up. I've shifted my focus to driving and what it's going to take to get better with that. So the first couple weeks I was really busy, but I'd say now the emphasis on that side of it has slowed down for me.
KING: Your reaction if we could get that, having Jeff now as a teammate, his experience at the Speedway and what that means for a young driver having to fall back on some of that.
CARPENTER: I think it's going to help a lot. Last year teaming up with Alex Barron, I learned a lot from Alex all last season, and Jeff has run really well at Indy. So I think it's going to work out really great. It's nice to have another American on the team, three American drivers, so that means a lot to me. I think Jeff is an awesome driver, too. So go out and put our best run forth and see what we can come out of May with.
KING: Let's move to Jay Drake and Jay, I remember how excited you were when all of this was announced at Phoenix. It came just the week after the Copper World Classic there. You had won one of the events at Phoenix, I think was it the midget race you won at Phoenix?
JAY DRAKE: Ran second.
KING: Ran second, excuse me. But now, you know, you talked about the learning curve for you. You've got a couple of ovals under your belt in the Menards Infiniti Pro Series car. You, like Ed, I don't think had ever taken a green flag in a road or street course event. You did that this past weekend. What's it been like getting up to speed?
DRAKE: Well, it's been good, like everyone else has said. It's kind of the results are not quite where we had hoped they would be. Obviously, we ran the race at the Speedway last year and did really well, ran fourth our first time in that type of race car and at that racetrack and was really hoping to come out this year with that sort of success and maybe even better, and we haven't achieved that yet. But like Larry said, every time we're on the track is, and Tony said, is like a test session for us. I think the learning curve is getting shorter and shorter. Each time we go out on the track, we run that much better, it seems, like every time. So I'm fairly confident that like these guys said, that the month of May we're really going to hit our stride and get going to where we need to be. I'm just excited, I had a great time down in St. Petersburg. As the say in golf, sometimes you get a mulligan; I would really like to have one down there. I would like to go back there today a!nd try it one more time. By race time we were running where we needed to be, and I think if we had a chance to start over the weekend where we left off, we'd have been a contender there. So I'm real excited about that being my first road race, like you said, and to finally by the end of the weekend I started really catching on and getting to where we needed to be, and that's pretty exciting for me. You know, just getting to sit up here with these guys is exciting for me and to be at this type of event. It's just -- I'm just as thrilled about it now as when I was when they made the announcement and looking forward to the rest of the season.
KING: Jay, you mentioned your performance last year in the Menards Infiniti Pro Series event at the Speedway, you finished fourth. You have the unique opportunity to run two events at the Speedway over the course of just three weeks. You'll be on the oval during the 500 weekend on Friday on Carb Day and then just three weeks later you're back to race in the event that will be held as part of the support events for the United States Grand Prix. Looking forward to that?
DRAKE: Very much so. Just to get to race at the track just is a dream come true for me. It's something I never thought I would get to do, and then to do it last year and to get to come back and do it twice this year is very exciting. You know, we did that test out there, we had an open Menards Infiniti Pro test out there, and that was very fun and very educational for me, really. I learned a lot throughout the short time that we ran there. Now with the experience I gained at St. Petersburg, I'm really looking forward to coming back and running the road course at the Speedway and extremely looking forward to running the race in May there after, you know, the success we had last year and Larry's got some great ideas what he's going to do with the race car to make us even better yet for this year. So I'm just really excited about getting back out there for the next race, like I said, excited about going back for the road course, too.
KING: Let's open it up for questions.
Q: Tony, you've taken a ton of criticism for being involved in the Indy Racing League and owning a team. Can you talk about that? Tell us what your thoughts are about all the criticism you're getting over this.
GEORGE: I don't know what to say. I mean, people, you know, are certainly entitled to their opinion. I've always been able to compartmentalize my life pretty well. It's, to me it's no conflict. I'm really not that involved on a day-to-day basis with the league in those decisions. It's more of a strategic role I play at the league, which is only good for everyone. It doesn't work to the benefit of Vision Racing any more than it does for Andretti Green or Marlboro Team Penske. So I think my critics, which I'm sure you know I have, are going to continue to beat that drum until they break it. So it's really of no concern to me. I don't really feel that my motives are anything but – you know, I see this as a unique opportunity to help me continue to grow as a person and as a leader of the series. But I feel that, you know, if people want to question my integrity and my ability to do both effectively, that's their problem, but I have no problems at all with my integrity or my values! or anything else that might suggest that anything I do might be inappropriate with those two hats. I certainly wear a lot of hats and will continue to.
KING: Tony, we have not had the opportunity to get your reaction to the event at St. Petersburg. You were busy clearly with the team, but now looking at it, the decision to add street and road courses to the schedule certainly, in retrospect from the weekend's success, it appears to be a good decision.
GEORGE: I had a great time, as I'm sure that anyone attended or watched it certainly able to draw their own conclusions as to whether or not it was a success. In my mind, it was a great success. The city and the promoters, Andretti/Green promotion did an outstanding job of pulling the event together. They, of course, had a good foundation to start from, the event, the Champ Car event two years ago sort of laid that ground work and afforded them a great opportunity to be successful right out of the box. I think the circuit itself was good, provided for unique – for a very good street show. I think sitting back watching the race on television, you know, Monday night our Tuesday night, whenever I watched it, I thought the broadcast, telecast was pretty good. I think that for a first event, for a first road course event for our league officials and the track safety workers, I think they did a pretty good job. It was far from perfect, but nothing glaring there that leads me to beli!eve that they won't do a much better job when they roll into Infineon Raceway later this year. So the street circuits present a particular, unique challenge. And as most street races go, I think it was very well done and very well officiated. I think the teams behaved themselves for the most part pretty well and put on a great race.
KING: Questions?
Q: Tony, I'm sure that as being at the helm of the Indy Racing League you've been bombarded from team owners complaining about costs, you know, all this kind of thing. Now you are a team owner and finding out, are you finding out some of the things you've been hearing are, in fact, the case? Are you looking at ways to try and bring it under control?
GEORGE: I haven't gotten that far, Don. We're just trying to get to Motegi load-in at this point. So it's been that way for the last six or eight weeks. But, you know, I continue to get phone calls from other owners complaining about the high costs of this or that. To this point, I haven't experienced it because I haven't made the decisions they've made, you know, to go out and do the things they've done. So I'm sure they're there. You know, I think certainly a large cost in this equation is engines. Being a team that is paying for their engines, I have an appreciation for what they cost. When the manufacturers tell me that they're heavily subsidizing that cost already, I believe them. I think the engines cost more than I'm paying for them to run and maintain. That said, I think that's something we definitely have to look at. As far as engineering – I think the league has done a good job of kind of reducing the areas that we can spend a lot of money as team owners, spending mo!ney to make significant gains. I think you can spend a lot of money to make little gains. At the end of the day, it comes down to teams' preparation and on-track on any given day as to who's going to come out on top. But there are a lot of things that you can still spend a lot of money on, beginning with payroll, which we haven't done to this point. At some point, I think we're going to start spending more money on personnel, whether it's to expand to a second-car team at Indianapolis or to just try and continue to work toward building a little stronger team for ourselves. But I don't ever see us having a staff of six or eight engineers and those kinds of things, which people that have the budget are going to spend it some way. And they can choose which ways they're going to spend it. At this point, Laura and I are providing the budget for this team. We hope to change that in the near future, but obviously, you know, we're going to try and do the best we can with the resources! we have available to us but still address the costs of the series with a strategic level going forward with my hat on for the Indy Racing League.
Q: For Ed and Jay. From the moment they arrived, you could see like a look in Kanaan and Dario's eyes about how much they enjoy the road and street course as soon as they went on the track, big smile on their faces. Now you've done a street course race, do you understand why they enjoy those so much more than they would seem to the ovals? Have you caught that little fever they've got?
DRAKE: Yeah, well, honestly I can say going into it that I wasn't nearly as excited about it as probably anybody throughout the pits. But now that I've done it and from my perspective, I learned a lot and had a fairly successful weekend. It doesn't show in the results, but as far as I'm concerned, you know, I was pleased with my performance toward the end of the weekend. So, yeah, to answer your question, I'm very excited about that street race, especially that one at St. Petersburg. It was probably the most fun I can remember having in a race car in a long time. Like I said before, I'm really looking forward to doing the next one. And I tell you, just from the differences between watching the street races and doing it, it's a whole lot more fun to do it than it is to watch it, that's where I stand on it.
KING: Ed, let's get your response to that.
CARPENTER: Kind of the way I look at it, I raced ovals my whole life, that's where my heart's at. Kanaan, Helio, those guys, they've raced road courses the majority of their life until they got to Indy cars, so that's where their heart's at. I think they love oval racing now, too, just for the pure excitement that comes from it, and I'm learning to enjoy road racing. It's definitely a lot more fun than what I expected, and it will be a whole lot more fun once I get better at it. I'm a competitive person, and I'm really not happy until I'm doing well at what I'm doing, and St. Pete I didn't do a very good job. So as soon as I get better, then I'm going to have a lot more fun. But, I mean, anytime race car drivers are racing anything, I could go run a figure-8 and I would be happy, so it doesn't matter to me.
Q: Larry, this is a question for you. You are one of the few one-car teams left in the series. Obviously with Rahal adding a car, Andretti Green maxing out a good portion of the field, you're used to managing multi-car fields, and it's got to be difficult with a young driver and a single-car program, obviously working closely with the team owner and knowing the budget is principally their cash, is there a way to accelerate into a second-car program, not just for Indianapolis, but maybe bringing Jeff or a similar driver in for a longer run?
CURRY: I would answer that by saying that's going to be dictated by how sponsorship or something comes along. As we all know, regardless what you do in racing, you can race a go-kart, and it becomes expensive. So I would say that certainly we have the facility to grow into a two-car operation. Would that benefit us down the road? Certainly it would, because the way the format is structured at these races now to where you can -- you know, you have a four-car team, they're getting four times the information in a 30-minute session, and you get just part of that. But what we're going to do in the outset to try and bring along the team as well as -- and when I speak of the team, I'm not just talking about the mechanics, Ed is a crucial part of that team, as is Jay, as is Jeff now, and I think we ought to go ahead and put this out now so that nobody gets anything confused coming into the road course test we're going to do at Infineon. We evaluated our program after we came back from! St. Pete. To try to find out where we're at with the race car and to try to help Ed along with his road-racing techniques and abilities, we have made an arrangement with Roberto Moreno, and Roberto will come in and will drive the car some on the first day of the test and then will become Ed's coach to coach him along, to try to bring along that side of the program. So we don't have the luxury right now of having a second driver in the camp that is a solid road racer that Ed can go lean on and be assured that the car is what he thinks it is. You know, for the transition that he's trying to make in that side of it, that's a big deal. Knowing coming from the CART days when we ran both sides of that, I've been on both sides of that fence where I've had guys that were good oval drivers and when we went to the road courses, we were terrible. Then I ran a guy for a couple years that was a great road racer, and I had to put somebody else in the car to get it qualified for Indianapoli!s. So those are some steps that Vision Racing is going to take to try to bring our program forward.
KING: Because we started about 15 minutes late, we're going to take two more, then we're going to break for one-on-ones, then we're going to head as soon as we're wrapped up here, we're going to head back to the bus and head over to Dreyer & Reinbold.
Q: Larry, with teams you've been associated with in the past, your plan for Indy is to be out there as soon as the bell rings to start every morning and be running every day. With the test out west and Motegi coming up, do you have the race cars to do that with? And will you approach Indy the same way with this team?
CURRY: Yeah, I believe so. I was looking over that schedule yesterday and certainly, you know, some of what will happen as far as how our program starts off at Indy will be dictated by us getting out of Motegi clean. But our plan will be to go over and on Opening Day when we're allowed to go on the racetrack on that Tuesday, kind of the standard format that I like to see us do is to get the drivers in both of their cars, primaries and backups, get them shook down. Many, many times you'll build a car for a driver that you kind of tag as his primary and after he drives the other car, he says, you know, I like this car better. So you try to get those issues out of the way and then put together a plan. I don't think, because of the size of our team and information, it will probably be a scheduled run each day, meaning that Ed may start off first on a particular day and when he comes in, we get that information and then we go out and run Jeff and we look at that information; and wh!en they take the lunch break, we get a chance to go through everything and then start over. And that's leading up to qualifying, and I believe certainly after we're qualified in the second week of practice, hopefully we've got them working out there as treatments on race setup, and then they will be out there all the time together.
Q: Jeff, welcome back to the IndyCar Series. I believe earlier this year you had a wrist injury. Has it healed? Will that affect your driving during the month of May? And how do you feel, how long will it take you to get back to that comfort zone that it takes to be competitive in these cars in this series?
WARD: I broke my wrist at the beginning of last year, actually, and broke both ankles last year and tore two knees up. It doesn't affect my motorcycle riding, so it's not going to affect my car racing. (Laughter)
KING: Have you talked to Race Bandage as a potential sponsor?
WARD: I'm happy to be back in cars now. (Laughter) Actually, I'm in better shape now than I was when I raced on the Indy Racing League. I got away from the bikes and concentrated on cars and keeping my programs going. Now the last few years, I ride five days a week and my kids race, so we're racing every weekend. So I'm actually in really good shape. But as far as getting back behind the wheel and getting back up to speed, I don't think I will have a problem. Indy is a track that no matter how many times you've raced there, you have your steps to go through to get up to speed, and you take one step at a time and so I'll be doing the same thing I did every year that I come back to get back up to speed. Still, you get here at Indy, and the speeds are higher and the turns seem sharper than the banked tracks we go to, and it takes a little while to get up to speed, anyway. I feel pretty comfortable and I should be able to get back in the car, and even though I haven't driven the n!ew chassis that have come out since I've been, I have a lot of friends in racing, and they say the cars are better than when I drove them. So I feel pretty confident that I'll feel right at home when I get in.
KING: Jeff, welcome back. Tony, Larry, Jay, Ed, thanks for having us. We'll break up for a few minutes for one-on-ones, then we're off to Dreyer & Reinbold Racing. Thanks, guys. (Applause)
