Will Power topped a Team Penske sweep of the three fastest times on the final day of testing at a frigid Barber Motorsports Park.

Toe touches, squats and contortions that will be part of the Olympic women’s ice skating competition were part of the drill on pit lane at Barber Motorsports Park. There’s nothing unusual about that, really, except that it’s only been six months since Power suffered broken vertebrae during a multi-car incident in practice at Infineon Raceway.

He says there aren’t any lingering physical or mental effects from the side impact.

“The first lap (Feb. 24) felt like normal,” said Power, who led a Team Penske sweep of the top three sports with a quick lap of 1 minute, 09.8724 seconds on the 2.38-mile, 17-turn circuit. “I didn’t even give my back a thought. I haven’t even really thought of the accident at all. To me, it happened, I’ve worked really hard to get back to the fitness I had and I’m probably even stronger (in the midsection) because I really focused on it.

“I did a seven-mile race in Indy the other week and ran six miles over the weekend and that’s the last thing doctors let you do is running. It doesn’t hurt at all to run, so I say it’s healed.”

Helio Castroneves (1:10.0084) in the No. 3 entry was second and Ryan Briscoe (1:10.4559), who topped first day lap times, was third in the No. 6 car. Target Chip Ganassi Racing’s Scott Dixon (1:10.0594) was fourth and Takuma Sato, in his first IZOD IndyCar Series test, had another impressive outing with the fifth-best time of 1:10.2070. Mike Conway climbed to sixth (1:10.2497) and new Dreyer & Reinbold Racing teammate Justin Wilson (1:10.3878) was seventh.

Power, who won at Edmonton and posted three other top-five finishes in six races in 2009 with Penske Racing, is projected as a title contender. He doesn’t disagree.

“I spent a lot of time early on after I broke my back lying down and having a good think about it,” said Power, who completed 54 laps at Barber. “Although it ended badly, it was a great season for me and I ended up with a full-time ride with one of the best teams in IndyCar. The situation I’m in and the team I’m with, I’m expected to be there for the championship and I think I will be.

“We have a very strong lineup, and I also have my engineer (Dave Faustino) that I had in 2007 and 2008. It should be a Penske car every time in Victory Lane I feel. It’s probably not going to happen but we have no excuses this year. We have great cars, great crews and three really good drivers who work well together. I expect to win some races this year and I just want to be challenging for the championship.”

He’ll have plenty of company with the experience level increasing again with holdovers and even newcomers such as

Sato and Mario Romancini (Conquest Racing).

“I think there are a number of drivers who will be there, including my two teammates,” Power said. “There are teams like KV, Andretti Autosport, Ganassi and Dreyer & Reinbold has two really strong drivers this year, so I think it will be the most competitive year in the series in a long time.”

With the driver championship decided in the final race the past four years, it will take some doing. The action in the only preseason test – the opener on the streets of Sao Paulo, Brazil, is in two weeks – did give a glimpse of the depth of competition.

The top 14 cars were separated by 0.8399 of a second.

Rank, Car #, Name, Best Lap Time
1 12 Power, Will D/H/F 01:09.8724
2 3 Castroneves, Helio D/H/F 01:10.0084
3 6 Briscoe, Ryan D/H/F 01:10.0459
4 9 Dixon, Scott D/H/F 01:10.0594
5 22 Wilson, Justin D/H/F 01:10.0869
6 5 Sato, Takuma (R) D/H/F 01:10.2070
7 24 Conway, Mike D/H/F 01:10.2497
8 26 Andretti, Marco D/H/F 01:10.3956
9 06 Mutoh, Hideki D/H/F 01:10.4451
10 34 Romancini, Mario (R) D/H/F 01:10.5487
11 32 Rossiter, James (R) D/H/F 01:10.5700
12 11 Kanaan, Tony D/H/F 01:10.6704
13 14 Meira, Vitor D/H/F 01:10.6963
14 37 Hunter-Reay, Ryan D/H/F 01:10.7123
15 8 Viso, EJ D/H/F 01:11.3140
16 78 de Silvestro, Simona (R) D/H/F 01:11.3351
17 7 Patrick, Danica D/H/F 01:11.5112
18 2 Matos, Raphael D/H/F 01:11.5484
19 10 Franchitti, Dario D/H/F 01:12.9810
20 67 Howard, Jay (R) D/H/F 01:14.1883

Posted: February 26th, 2010 under BARBER MOTORSPORTS NEWS.
Tags: Barber Motorsports

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