Charlie Kimball's Blog

Sunday, April 26
6:15 p.m. 
It was kind of a frustrating race with some of the calls that were made and I think they’re worth investigating further. Overall the Novo Nordisk Chip Ganassi Racing crew just never stopped fighting. We had really good pit stops. We did get caught out with that first yellow and had to go with an alternate strategy but we were quick when we needed to be. To be knocking on the door of a top-10 finish after a race like that is a pretty good result for the No. 83 NovoLog FlexPen Chevrolet.

I’m looking forward to the Indy road course and the entire month of May. I feel like we made a big step as a team this weekend and hopefully we can keep that up in a few weekends at the Grand Prix of Indianapolis!

Photo via INDYCAR

11:35 a.m.
Good morning… it’s race day!! It’s a beautiful day at Barber Motorsports Park. Definitely a change from yesterday’s weather. We had a pretty good warm-up session, finishing ninth on the time charts. We made a couple of changes toward the end and just worked on getting used to the warmer track temps. Starting P11 this afternoon, we’ll be right in the mix of things so it will be important to be smart, cautious and aware of the cars around me while working my way up the field.

Tune in to the Grand Prix of Alabama on NBCSN at 3 p.m. Eastern!

Warm-up? Check.

Saturday, April 25
5:05 p.m.
Obviously we’re excited to advance from round 1 to round 2 in qualifying today at Barber. The car’s pretty quick! To have all four Ganassi cars in the top-12 is a solid result for the day. I’m excited to go racing tomorrow… we always have a good car here. The Novo Nordisk Chip Ganassi Racing guys have been rockstars this season on pit lane–really consistent and quick. We’re starting to knock on the door of the top-10, so we’ll look to take advantage of all the laps on offer tomorrow.

As soon as qualifying was checkered, it started pouring rain. Glad we missed it! I’m headed into an engineering meeting, then it’s off to dinner with some Novo Nordisk guests tonight! Thanks for watching and for the support.

Gearing up for practice 2. Thanks for the assistance, Kyle.

Putting on slicks for qualifying round 2.

11:50 a.m.
Just finished up with the IndyCar autograph session and am grabbing a bite to eat for lunch. The Fan Village is packed here at Barber! The forecasted rain definitely isn’t keeping anyone away! It looks like it could now be dry for practice 2 and qualifying. That’s one thing we can’t control… we’ll just have to wait and see what it does.

We finished practice 1 in P11, about one second off Scott’s P1 pace. We didn’t run a great deal of laps due to the damp track, but it’s definitely not where we want to be. We have some work to do early this afternoon to get to where we feel more comfortable.

Clouds before practice 1.

Taking off the Firestone rain tires after IndyCar declares the session dry.

7:45 a.m.
Good morning! It’s a little damp out there today… I guess we got quite a bit of rain last night, and there looks to be more to come. We’ll see how much stays away for qualifying later today, or if we’ll put those Firestone rain tires to good use again.

Heads up: NBC Sports Network had a scheduling change and will now broadcast qualifying at 4 p.m. Central today. Be sure to tune in! For now, I’m headed to the drivers meeting before our first practice at 9.

Friday, April 24
9:30 a.m.
I’m really excited to be here for the Grand Prix of Alabama this weekend at Barber. The last three races, the No. 83 NovoLog FlexPen car has been really quick. The Novo Nordisk Chip Ganassi Racing guys are really hitting their stride as far as giving me a good car, good pit stops, and great changes during practice. I think we’re really gelling as a unit. We just have to get ‘lady luck’ on our side a little bit. We have the opportunity this weekend to keep doing what we’ve been doing and get a better result for the team. It was awesome to watch Team Target and Scott pick up the win last week. Hopefully we can bring a victory to the 83 side here at Barber!

If you’ve never been to Barber Motorsports Park, it’s one to add to the “must-do” list for sure! Not only are the views of the track just spectacular, but you can’t miss Mr. Barber’s museum either. Of course I’m headed straight into engineering meetings this morning, but one of these days, I’ll take a closer look myself!

Click here for the full race weekend schedule, and follow @RaceWithInsulin for more on-track updates from Barber.

Photo via INDYCAR