Written by:
Kevin Krefting
02/20/2008
Indianapolis, Ind.
Q: What is your take on these open-wheel reunification talks and how it could affect your racing?
DP: Well, I would imagine I’m probably speaking for many people when we say it’s about time. You know, it’s been a tough process for everybody. It’s been disappointing for a lot of people. I think it’s distracted and taken away a lot of good sponsors that were discouraged by the split. So I hope this is like a new birth of sponsorship and interests.
I’ve always said that fans need something easy. Fans need something simple that’s easy to understand. When you try to explain it – which, trust me, I barely understood it, initially, about the two series and everything – it’s crap. It makes it difficult. So this is going to make everything so much easier.
We’re going to get great races put together. We’re going to have all the best events put into one series, and more drivers, and that always makes for more passing, more excitement, more interest. So it’s a win, win, win, win situation.
Q: Besides the swimsuit issue and your business and the Super Bowl ads, did you do anything fun during the break? Did you get any vacation time?
DP: I did go on vacation, actually. My husband and myself and another couple, we took a trip back to Fiji. We went there for our honeymoon, so we went back there to a different place. We had met a couple of really nice people at a charity event that let us stay at their house. So not an all-bad situation. So we had a nice time.
We’ve been fairly busy. We’ve had sort of
probably two different times during the off-season where we’ve had maybe a week to 10 days of pretty slow. But that’s nice. It helps you get refreshed and get energized and want to get back to work. Because, you know, there’s nothing worse than waking up and not having anything to do and no reason for the day. It’s like, ‘Oh, I guess I’ll work out today for four hours because I’ve got nothing else to do.’ So, yep, we had a good time.
Q: With the season coming up, are there any particular goals you’ve set for yourself?
DP: I’m consistent on this one. I don’t set any goals that I have to achieve or do, and I guess if I had to say one it would be win. But I’m not very much different than every other driver out there and that is their goal as well. Then follow that up by, win with the words ‘as many times as you can.’ I wouldn’t think I’m much different than any other driver out there.
Q: With the second season with Andretti Green, do you feel a lot more comfortable with the team now since you’ve been through it once before?
DP: I do. This is the most excited I’ve been going into a season, the most comfortable I’ve felt. This year I feel like excitement is sort of maybe number one to nervousness. Where normally every other year I was more nervous than anything. So I’m really excited about it.
I feel confident as a driver. I feel like I’ve really come into my own and feel like I’m able to really push those limits to where I need to be. And I’m just really excited.
