Veach scales up to prep for IndyCar

Zach Veach has one big goal to reach before he joins Andretti Autosport next season as a full-time driver: weigh more than Danica Patrick.

The pint-size Ohioan has an amazing new sponsor in the insurance holding company Group One Thousand One, a multi-year deal to drive the No. 26 Honda, and all he needs to make the most of the opportunity is muscle mass. And lots of it.

Especially if he wants to extract the maximum performance from a high-downforce IndyCar that requires immense upper body strength to cope with the brutal forces sent through the steering wheel.

"My weight training started in May," the 22-year-old told RACER. "We're up 10 pounds since Indy 500. So I know it probably doesn't look like it but I've never weighed this much before in my life."

Veach's muscle building efforts began while weighing in at approximately 118 pounds. He'll keep pushing until his minute frame begins to fill out with the type of torso that can wrestle a Dallara DW12-Honda with almost 5000 pounds of downforce installed.

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"That's been the biggest plan," he added. "It's been chest, shoulders, biceps have been the biggest thing to drill. So I've been training with St. Vincent's Sport Performance. Ed Carpenter led me to them. So far they've just been helping me a lot on nutrition and how to get the calories I need. That's been the biggest thing. So our primary plan for me is from now through January when testing is going to start up for everyone.

"We're basically pushing all the way through the end of November – it's going to be heavy weight lifting, heavy benching, and low reps, high weight just trying to force the muscle to grow. As we get closer to December, then we'll start turning everything back to endurance-based training, trying to get the cardio aspect back to it. We'll have to have the endurance to last for the long races."

Veach has also familiarized himself with two new instruments that have been critical to his growth – a knife and fork.

"They want me eating around 4,000-5,000 calories a day," he said with a smile. "It doesn't sound like that much, but dude, it's hard. The hard thing is trying to eat the right things. Because you can get the 4,000-5,000 calories by eating bad stuff, but I need to put all of the right food together."

All the effort is being made to ensure he achieves that pesky Danica goal.

"I think I'm at 128-130 pounds right now," he said. "If I could be to 135, I think I'd be happy with that. I think 135 pounds would get me a fair shot because then I wouldn't be the lightest in history. Well, No. 2 to Danica, anyway."