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Q: With Sam Hornish leaving the series this year that, leaves you and Marco [Andretti] as the most significant American drivers of substance. Does that add any pressure to you this year?

DP: No, no, I didn’t even know that until you mentioned it. I think we have so many. I guess it’s hard for me to really look at it like American drivers, because there’s a bunch of us. I guess if there were only a couple you’d feel that pressure, excitement to be kind of someone that the home team would cheer for, hopefully.

But not really, you know. I think for me I look at every competitor as being one in their own – a competitor in the IndyCar Series, regardless of their background and where they’re from. I guess you kind of forget all the accents after a while. So, no, I don’t feel anything for that.

Q: With the talks on unification, do you feel all the drivers are eager for that to finally happen? Do you think it would be a smooth process?

DP: I would think all the drivers and probably the owners and the series owners are probably excited. I think there’s been a long string of years that have been financial burdens, probably, for those who own the series and trying to keep them going.

So will it be an easy transition? Absolutely not. It’s going to be probably difficult, it’s probably going to be a little messy. Probably going to be a little bit of that transition of what is going where? Who is doing what? What are the new rules?

But from my standpoint, I think that the IndyCar Series has kind of prevailed as the successful series that’s really made a difference and really come through and brought the fans out.

I think that probably most people recognize that. So I don’t see a lot of things changing as far as the people that are in the IndyCar Series and the people that exist there.

So it will probably be tougher for the drivers and teams coming over from the other series just because it’s going to be, you know, they’re going to be walking into our series. But I think it’s the best thing that we can possibly do.

I think there are so many people that believe it’s long overdue. I’m one of them. I’ve been working really hard since I came to the IndyCar Series to make it bigger, better than ever. And this is one of the things that I had always hoped that would happen so I’m glad to be a part of it.