Danica Patrick is back in action at Grand Prix of St. Petersburg

One race into the Indy Racing League season, and the year already qualifies as a success for Will Power, the soft-spoken Australian driver for Team Penske. Power won the season opener in Brazil two weeks ago, and was the fastest qualifier for today’s Honda Grand Prix of St. Petersburg, which takes the green flag on the downtown street circuit at 3:30 p.m.

Last year, Power, a refugee from the shuttered Champ Car series, was tapped by Penske to stand in for Helio Castroneves, who was (successfully) battling federal tax evasion charges. But in August, at the race at Infineon Raceway in California, Power crashed hard in practice, and left the track in a medical helicopter. His back was badly broken, and his prognosis as a driver was uncertain.

So with the victory in Brazil, it was official: Will Power is back. “It was quite emotional to be honest,” Power said last week, “because when you have an injury like that, you have a lot of downtime during the recovery period. You can become a little bit uncertain whether you’ll come back as strong as you were, and whether you’d be as quick as you were, and that was just confirmation that everything is back as it was.”

This race is also the return to the U.S. market for Danica Patrick, whose much-publicized foray into NASCAR earlier this year is on hold until after the Indianapolis 500. Patrick has had a frustrating time in the IRL this year as she has had trouble getting up to speed in both practice here and at the Brazil race.

She is joined in the field this year by Swiss driver Simona de Silvestro, a graduate of the now-defunct Atlantic series, where she had multiple wins — something Patrick couldn’t accomplish when she was racing in the Atlantics. Backmarker Milka Duno is back, to make a total of three female drivers in the 24-car lineup. Duno qualified 24th, more than five seconds behind the next-slowest car. Patrick qualified 21st, and de Silvestro starts 14th, one spot behind 2009 series champion Dario Franchitti.

Also worth watching is Graham Rahal, son of Indy 500 winner Bobby Rahal, who found himself without a ride as the season began because his Newman/Haas/Lanigan team lost the McDonalds sponsorship. He sat out Brazil, but driver and team owner Sarah Fisher, who is more comfortable on ovals than street and road courses, offered her Dollar General-sponsored car to Rahal for this race and at the next race April 11 at Barber Motorsports Park in Alabama. In an unfamiliar car, Rahal, the 2008 winner, will have a tough time repeating this year after qualifying 16th. Also starting from deep in the pack is last year’s winner, Ryan Briscoe, who is in 19th.

Today’s 100-lap IRL race is preceded by a Formula 2000 race at 8 a.m., a World Challenge race at 10:15 a.m., a Star Mazda race at 11:40 a.m., and an Indy Lights race at 12:45 p.m., which will include Kissimmee racer Jonathan Summerton. Typically the American Le Mans Series races here this weekend too, but with the 12 Hours of Sebring being just last week, the ALMS thought it would put too much pressure on the teams to get ready for St. Pete. If the St. Pete race returns to a schedule that allows two weeks between this race and Sebring, expect the ALMS to come back.

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