Andretti

Well, the Month of May has arrived and I've spent the last week at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway getting ready for qualifications on May 11 and hopefully for the big race on May 26.

Indianapolis is always exciting, as the saying goes the Indianapolis 500 is "The Greatest Spectacle in Racing." No matter how times change, the one thing you can count on at Indy is that there are a lot of ups and downs over the course of the month. There are some things that have changed physically with the track but when you get out there it feels like the same place and it definitely gives you the same problems! That's what makes the Indianapolis Motor Speedway so interesting is all the challenges it throws at you and believe me -- Indy is still Indy.

This week we've mainly spent our time practicing and getting ready for the first day of qualifying, which will be Saturday. For both the Motorola/Archipelago crew and me, we have really just been trying to get acclimated to the Dallara chassis and get the car up to speed.

I think we are definitely getting there, our times have been improving every day and I am hoping we won't be in the position we were in last year when we took our first qualifying effort and then weren't comfortable with it. We had to go back out in the last hour on Sunday and qualify the back-up car. I definitely feel we are in a more competitive position than we were at this point last year. The car is much more comfortable and I think we have a lot more data than we did at this point last year. I feel pretty good that we should be in the field safely with the speeds we're running.

In my opinion, the field for this year's race is going to be one of the most competitive ever at Indianapolis. The Indy Racing League teams have definitely stepped up their game and all the big Championship Auto Racing Teams are here too. It's going to be really hard to get in the race, let alone win it. I do have confidence that we're headed in the right direction though and now we just need a little bit more speed and I think we'll be comfortably in the race. But hey, it's Indy and anything can happen!

Now we're going back out to practice a bit more before Saturday's qualifying. I'll keep you posted and let you know how it goes.

Michael Andretti, the driver of the No. 39 Motorola for Team Green, will be providing a diary to ESPN.com throughout the CART season.