Live from Trackside – Firestone 600

Saturday, June 6
11:45 p.m.
Today was a big day for Chip Ganassi Racing with the first and second place finish – a huge congrats to Scott, Tony, Team Target, and the NTT DATA Chip Ganassi Racing Team. We’re a little disappointed to not come home with a top-five finish, especially with those guys at the end saving fuel, but we’ll take 7th. We definitely had the pace and the No. 83 Levemir FlexTouch Chevrolet was really solid all night. We just had to make some adjustments during some stops to get in the position to go fight for a higher position out there when we could. I think the one restart took a little more out of the tires than I was expecting, but we fought through it and were able to make up some positions. Overall we had a really good, well-fought race, and we can use this momentum heading into Toronto next weekend.

Thanks to all of the fans who came out to the track and braved the heat, and thanks to everyone for watching from home–hope you all enjoyed the race. I know I did!

On the grid at TMS.

Great to see and hear James give the command today! (Photo via INDYCAR)

Ready to go racing!

Almost time to turn on those lights…

Friday, June 5
7:45 p.m.
The No. 83 Levemir FlexTouch Chevrolet’s qualifying run was pretty good, ending up P9. We had a little more understeer than we would’ve liked, which was too bad because I think we’ve been pretty quick this weekend so far in practice. It’s great to have all four Ganassi cars in the top-10, taking up the fourth and fifth rows on the starting grid tomorrow. I think we can all go racing from there!

In line for qualifying.

Sun still peeking over the grandstands during evening practice.

Changes during practice 2.

1:15 p.m.
It’s a warm day at Texas Motor Speedway for sure! We finished the morning practice in P12. All in all, we had a good session with the No. 83 Levemir FlexTouch Chevrolet. The weather actually isn’t too bad–it’s been a lot hotter here and more windy in the past. We did a couple of qualifying runs toward the beginning and did a lot of running with traffic. As always, it will be a challenge managing the car and tires through longer stints here, but I think we’re in good shape.

What’s up next? Qualifying at 3:15 p.m. Central. Follow along live via INDYCAR Race Control and tune in to NBCSN for the broadcast at 5 p.m. Central. I’m fifth in the qualifying line… grid set by our two-lap average speeds.

A hot morning for practice 1.

Changes after an install lap.

Scott helping me out with some shade!

Thursday, June 4
1:30 p.m.
Hello from Texas Motor Speedway! Or I suppose “howdy” is more appropriate down here. After a wet and cold weekend in Detroit, it’s nice to be in the sunshine and heat of Fort Worth.

I think we’re all ready to get started at Texas for the Firestone 600. The Novo Nordisk Chip Ganassi Racing team scored a top-10 finish here last year, and I think we can improve on that this weekend. It’s more of a mental race than you’d expect because of the speeds and how much the car changes throughout the duration of one stint. We’ll definitely be working on our qualifying to start up front and go racing with the No. 83 Levemir FlexTouch Chevrolet from there.

I came down from Indy early for an event with Tony at NTT Data’s US headquarters yesterday afternoon. It was really cool to meet their employees, see a different side of the business, and have the diabetes educators from Novo Nordisk on site as well.

Click here to find the full race weekend schedule and tune-in info. Be sure to follow @RaceWithInsulin on Twitter for more updates from pit lane! Today’s agenda consists of engineering meetings before an evening presentation with Novo Nordisk. Thanks for reading!