Zach Veach’s column: The start of the second half

For the Indy Lights guys, before this past weekend, our last race was over a month ago at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway, and it brought us to the halfway point of the season with Gabby Chaves and I tied in the championship after seven races. In a way, this was our halftime show. We had just a few weeks to catch our breaths, download and use our time the best we could to prepare ourselves for the second half of the season – the one that matters most and the one we need to be in charge of.

We'd be picking things back up at the "Tricky Triangle" – Pocono Raceway – one of the tracks on the 2014 schedule that having previous experience at could be very helpful. At IMS, the car is overall very happy most of the time, but at Pocono, it's a track where you really start to get a feel for the car dancing around a bit at high speeds and just how much wind can affect you.

This weekend held a lot of importance to me, not only to hopefully stretch out our championship lead, but also to drive hard for a win on Fourth of July weekend as an American. Our original schedule was for us to have over six hours of practice time on Friday, with another practice, qualifying and race on Saturday. But as we woke up Friday morning, it was apparent that mother nature had other plans. We found rivers going through the paddock as we got the track and once the rain finally cleared, weepers in Turn 3 took our practice day away completely.

This made for Saturday to be a very busy day for us all. After an early 45-minute practice session with gusty 15-23mph winds, we took a big guess and threw some things at the car for qualifying. I drew second in line and hoped we'd have a good run. As I drove into Turn 1 on my green lap, my car took off with understeer and I had to make a big lift. I quickly adjusted my bars and thought my pole position hopes were over, but as I painfully watched the rest of the cars run, I couldn't believe it! They all had similar moments with the wind, and I was able to grab the pole!

We were very happy to take the extra point, but we all know where you finish is much more important than where you start! With our limited track time, we got maybe three or four laps in traffic to see what our car was like, so again, we had to take a chance and see if it would reward us or not in the 40-lap race.

As we went green for the Pocono 100, I realized the disadvantage leading on such a long straight away. With the draft, Luiz Razia was able to pull around me before we even got to the corner. I set myself up the best I could and was able to get a run on him out of Turn 1, and take my lead back in Turn 2.

We led the next six laps but with the draft, the top three cars were all together, and they made a move making us three wide on the entry of Turn 1. I was able to roll around the outside of Razia to take back second, but that run was halted with the yellow coming out!

It was Gabby's and my race, and on the restart I was able to use his draft to pass him on the inside, but made a costly mistake on the exit. My shift lights were working on and off the whole race, but as I was coming out of Turn 1, I noticed I didn't have any lights on the dash so I thought I could downshift. As soon as I did, it went straight to the limiter, and with that on top of slightly being off on the balance, it set my fate for the day.

Overall it was another podium and great points weekend for the RePLAY XD crew and me. They have been doing an incredible job for me this year, and we'll be working even harder at Toronto to be back on top!

As always thanks for reading,

-Zach