Portland is a permanent road course built in a beautiful state, which is for me a fantastic area for many reasons. The downside is that the weather is so unpredictable that it's not uncommon to start the race on the dry and end with the rain as it happened to me in 1996 when I won my first Champ Car race.
Spa is quite different to all the other circuits we run at because, although we use lower downforce levels similar to Canada, this circuit has many more high-speed corners.
I'm deeply involved in making the race closer and tighter and safer.
If there are differences in the race pace it is normally because the tyre is overheating on my side.
You would not believe how loose this car is for two laps after the green. Then, just like that, it's back to how it was before. But, those first few laps, damn, it's loose! JUNIOR NO LIKEY!
I think the F2 tyres are probably one of the hardest things to adapt to, harder than the Formula One Pirellis were to get used to.
It's real easy to sit on your couch and point fingers and say, 'So-and-so did something wrong...'. But until you are out there in these cars at these speeds and seeing all the near-misses and what is really going on, it is not worth forming an opinion.
In NASCAR, you don't have to be as physically strong as in some other forms of racing. You've just got to be able to endure the heat and endurance of it.
The Baja is a survival race, and there is no break, but you're not up on the wheel all day in the Baja like you are in Winston Cup or at Indy.
People ask how hard it can be sitting down for work during a 500-mile race? Well, without power steering or power brakes, holding onto 650 horses in a car that has nearly 3,000 pounds of downforce and can produce up to 4Gs vertically and laterally can be extremely tough - even sitting down.
People say that F1 is blessed with the 'best drivers in the world,' but I want to witness the 'total best drivers in the world,' and this means taking away the elements that make their job easier.
Winston Cup and the Busch Series are two totally different leagues. You get put in different situations.
It's basically the same, just darker. (on racing Saturday nights as opposed to Sunday afternoons, 1991
In order to become a complete driver I believe that rallying will give me extra bits, because of gravel, because of different characteristics.
I'm very happy to work with Prema and work in F2 because I have the feeling in some ways, it's a bit more difficult to drive and to work with the tyres than F1.
As soon as it rains, I am very good, very, very competitive; when the track dries it is not so easy.
I'm suited to harsh conditions, I don't like racing in the heat.
When you're driving, the helmet squashes your hair, so you don't really have a hairstyle. When you get out, you're sweating and your hair is a mess.
Every training session, I try to simulate the conditions similar to where I am racing.
Being under the lights makes any race track that much better.
The tires are called wets, because they're used in the wet. And these tires are called slicks, because they're very slick.
