Zach Veach’s column: Ending the drought at St. Pete

There is an old quote I’ve seen from time to time flying around the internet and in pictures that states, “If you want something you’ve never had, you have to do something you’ve never done.” I really took that into consideration during our off-season this past winter.

I had completed my first season in Indy Lights, and reflecting on it, we had a very up-and-down year, with small victories of our own, and big disappointments to the outside world. I went through every weekend of notes, data and video with my engineer, and thought about each mistake that was made to learn how I could make sure it wouldn’t happen again. Of course, there were some things I couldn’t control, like being taken out or having mechanical issues, but the one thing I felt held me back more than anything was my physical and mental strengths.

The physical aspect was fairly straightforward; I needed to gain more weight. While in the early stages of the winter, it was all about building as much bulk as possible, so heavy weights, and low reps to build size. As we got closer to the race season, I started making a switch to focus on a lot more cardio and conditioning, something Jim Leo from PitFit knows a lot about; I had to decide it was finally time to make the move from Ohio to Indy to be able to train with his program to get better prepared. After gaining 15-20 pounds, looking back, I’m miles ahead of where I was starting last season, but there is always more room for improvement.

Improving mental strength is something you really have to dig deep down inside to find out where your weak areas are. To help me do this, I spent many hours reading a lot of different books on the science of mental performance in athletes, as well as some great racing books like Mark Donohue’s “The Unfair Advantage” and Carroll Smith’s “Drive To Win,” which all had some helpful things to take away. The biggest thing I found to be the most helpful was confidence; not cockiness, but confidence in myself, and learning the proper ways to think positively when you’re in the heat of the moment and a situation isn’t going exactly how you’d like it to.

Testing I had over the off-season gave me a great opportunity to practice what I was learning, to try a list of things to find out what I thought worked and areas that I needed to improve yet. Although the winter wasn’t 100% about me working on the details, we had a lot of work to do on the cars as well, like adjusting to the new Cooper Tires and the new sealed dampers that came with Dan Anderson taking over the Indy Lights series.

With all that we learned, I went into St. Pete with a different attitude and mindset than I normally would. All last season I thought, “I’d like to win, or hopefully we’ll see what happens.” This year I said, “We are going to win… we’re not here for anything else.” As soon as I believed that I could, it all became simple and less stressful.  

The first two practice sessions of the weekend started off great and consistent; we were P2 both times and were making a lot of progress on the car. With qualifying next, we made small adjustments and prepared to fight for the pole. With every passing minute, the look of our session being in the wet posed more and more of a threat. We planned out what we needed to do for the rain and waited. As we started to roll the cars out of our tent, the skies opened up and the rain started to fall. Like a lot of the other drivers, Matt Brabham and I were excited to get our chance to play in the rain, but within a minute or two, IndyCar officials were grabbing us and telling us to put the cars away and get to a safe structure because of tornado warnings… in Florida?

That was a first for me, but we did as we were told and waited. About an hour and a half after that, we got the news that our qualifying session was canceled and we’d line up off of practice times on Sunday.  I was a little frustrated we didn’t get the chance to fight for the pole, but at the same time, I couldn’t complain too much as I would be starting on the outside of the front row.

Starting second, and with St. Pete being a little difficult to pass in an Indy Lights car, my focus was entirely on making a move at the start. Everyone always protects the inside going into Turn 1 and has trouble with the brakes if they go too deep. As we came to the green, I managed to get a good launch on the start and stay at Gabby Chaves’ sidepod going into the brake zone. I felt like we were getting too deep, so I hit the brakes  – and I saw him go a little deeper.

At first I thought I wasn’t going to get around on the outside, which made me think I had better get back across the track to protect the inside from being knocked back to third. As soon as I started to rotate the car, I was on the curb and Gabby was still trying to slow the car, so I tried to get to power as much as I could to drive through the corner. I was just able to get a car-length ahead of him going into Turn 2, and not 10 seconds later; the yellow came out; which definitely let me calm my nerves.

My next focus was just the restart; I didn’t want to lose the lead just like I got it a few laps earlier, so I made sure to get a good exit on the straightaway to buy me extra time with the draft going into Turn 1. I protected the inside, broke earlier than before, and I was able to hold my position into the first corner, and even build a little gap by Turn 3.

From there on out, my focus was hitting my marks every lap and help from my engineer (Doug Zister), who was reminding me on the radio to save my tires every lap. Each lap I turned gave me a +0.20 gap between Chaves and I, and before I knew it, I came out of the last corner to see the checkered flag 5.4 seconds ahead of second place!

It was a feeling so much sweeter than our F2000 wins, and left me screaming without words on the radio and pumping my fist in the air. We had been to the bottom, and my RePLAY XD crew and I worked and clawed our way to the top proving anything is possible with a lot of hard work and perseverance. 

The win at St. Pete was a big victory for me, but it’s only a single win, and we have a lot more work left to do (and 13 races to go!). We are all really looking forward to Long Beach next weekend to go out there to fight and do it again! I can’t thank RePLAY XD, Young Marines, ADS IT Solutions, Bell, OMP and my Andretti Autosport team enough for their support.