NHLR has already suffered a couple of setbacks in its quest to take on the big guns as it followed missing Sebring transition test by losing Wilson's team-mate, Graham Rahal to crash damage after the Homestead outing this week. With insufficient time or parts to repair the #06 car, the American will sit out the opening round, when all Champ Car teams will no doubt be wary of a repeat with St Petersburg just a week later.
“I feel bad about it, and it will be tough not to be out there, but we need to take it slowly and not rush putting the car back together," the 19-year old reflected, "Even if we had everything available, there aren’t enough hours before the first practice on Friday to get the car put back together so, at this point, we are going to focus on the St Pete race.”
If anyone is going to match NHLR at the start of the season, it is likely to be the renamed KV Racing Technology team presented by former CCWS owner Kalkhoven. Retaining Oriol Servia gives the outfit a driver with considerable oval experience, while adding Will Power has the knock-on effect of bringing Team Australia backing for a second car. Both drivers have shown well in pre-season testing, despite the rush to prepare their cars, with Power a potential dark horse once he gets experience under his belt.
“I’m really looking forward to getting racing underway this weekend," the Aussie admits, "We have had to put in so much work in such a short space of time so everyone cannot wait to get down to the real thing, which is racing. The oval races in the early part of the season will be quite tough, but the plan is to keep our heads and see where we run. We have a street course one week later, and I think we will have more of a chance at that race."
![Dan Wheldon - Target Chip Ganassi Racing and Marco Andretti - Andretti Green Racing, Homestead Open Testing [Pic credit: IndyCar Media]](http://pix.crash.net/thumbs/410802.jpg)
