Columnist Brian Hilderbrand: Rice still in fast lane after Indy 500 victory

Wednesday, June 9, 2004 | 9:01 a.m.

Brian Hilderbrand covers motor sports for the Las Vegas Sun. His motor sports notebook appears Friday. He can be reached at bh@lasvegassun.com or (702) 259-4089.

It has been 10 days since Buddy Rice won the biggest race of his career -- the 88th Indianapolis 500 -- but he said he still hasn't had a chance to fully appreciate the accomplishment.

Since winning the race, Rice has been to New York, Washington, Richmond, Va., Fort Worth, back home to Phoenix and off to Salt Lake City taking care of media and sponsor obligations. The hectic schedule has left Rice with little time to reflect on his Indy 500 victory.

"It's going to take a while to understand everything that's really happened," Rice said Tuesday from Salt Lake City. "I'm on the second leg right now of the media tour ... and then off to the Texas race and it starts up again after that.

"It's definitely been a little hectic and I think it'll still take a little bit for everything to kind of really come together and understand what's really happened. There's just as lot going on right now and there's a lot to take in and there's a lot to absorb. There's nothing that prepares you for this."

Before he can start focusing on Saturday night's Indy Racing League race at Texas Motor Speedway, Rice was scheduled to fly back to New York for an appearance tonight on The Late Show with David Letterman. Letterman is a co-owner with Bobby Rahal in Rice's team, Rahal Letterman Racing.

"I'm actually pretty pumped to be going to Letterman's deal," Rice said. "I'm interested to see him because I haven't seen him since Victory Lane, so it'll be nice. I think we're supposed to get together before the show and right after (the show), I have to boogie out so I can get down to Texas because we start running the following day in Texas."

Rice's victory at Indianapolis vaulted him from seventh to third in the IRL IndyCar Series standings after four races. He trails series leader Dan Wheldon by 29 points going into this weekend's Bombardier 500 at Texas Motor Speedway, but Rice said he wouldn't change his approach now that he is in the thick of the championship hunt.

"For me, it hasn't changed it at all," Rice said. "I'll be back to driving to how I was driving and I'll take my (same) approach into the race. We seem to keep our head down as a team and keep focused because it is very hard to win the biggest race there is and then to try to come back two weeks later and run again and still make sure you're focused on the championship.

"This team has been here before -- they've won championships before -- so they know what it takes. For both myself and the team, I don't think we'll change anything at all."

Saturday's race will mark the first night race for Franchitti, who spent six seasons in CART before moving to the IRL last season with Andretti Green Racing.

"It will be a new experience for me, as will driving at night," Franchitti said. "That may be the thing I'm looking forward to the most; a night race is perfect for me. Anyone that knows me knows that mornings aren't my favorite time of day, so this will be great. I could sleep until 4 o'clock Saturday afternoon if I really wanted."

Jaskol sat on the pole for the season opener, but his car developed electrical problems and had to settle for a 12th-place finish. In the weekend's second race, Jaskol again captured the pole and piloted the Team Autotecnica entry to a second-place finish.

"The team worked very hard to change every sensor in the car to try to fix our electrical problem so we did not have the time to work on the race trim," Jaskol said. "With (Monday's) condition changes, we did not have the straight-line speed we needed and I had to settle for second.

"With two poles, we have shown that we have the speed to win but it was just not our weekend."

Jaskol, one of four winners of the 2004 Red Bull Driver Search, is fifth in the Formula BMW USA championship going into this weekend's support races for the Canadian Grand Prix in Montreal.