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"&lt;p&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;Oh, hello there race fans. I\u2019m James&amp;nbsp;Hinchcliffe, the Verizon&amp;nbsp;IndyCar&amp;nbsp;Series driver for the No. 5 Schmidt Peterson Motorsports Honda. Remember me? If you don\u2019t, I totally get it. Our series has been off since August. That\u2019s a long layoff. The good news is we begin anew this weekend. On Sunday we\u2019ll raise the curtain on the 2016 season on Florida\u2019s sun drenched Gulf Coast at the Firestone Grand Prix of St. Petersburg. Buy a ticket or follow along on ABC; we go green at 12:52 p.m. Eastern. I can\u2019t wait.\r\n\r\n&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;For those of you who don\u2019t know, I got caught up in a pretty serious accident during a practice session at last year\u2019s Indianapolis 500. Oh, I\u2019m fine now (thanks for asking). It was just a flesh wound. (Need details? Read this. Or this.) After the wreck, there was a long recovery process. I was out of the car for over four months. That wasn\u2019t how I planned on spending that year at&amp;nbsp;SPM, the team I had just joined before the start of the 2015 season.\r\n\r\n&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;\r\n\r\n&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;So I basically took my four months of forced vacation at work. I insisted on hanging around as much as I could: in engineering meetings, on the pit wall\u2014where I could be a resource to backup drivers Ryan&amp;nbsp;Briscoe&amp;nbsp;and&amp;nbsp;Conor&amp;nbsp;Daly, who did so well in relief that he\u2019s going to be racing full time as my running mate this year. Overall, I think my salvaged time with the team helped our gelling process\u2014so much so that I don\u2019t feel like I missed anything. It doesn\u2019t feel like we\u2019re starting from scratch again. What\u2019s more, almost every crew position on the No. 5 car has been the same. That sort of continuity is huge.\r\n\r\n&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;We also had a really good testing period during the off-season. Fortunately, my team has been included in much of the development being done by Honda, which has made some great strides not only with the aero kit (which drew a lot of attention) but also in power (people forget that the back of the car needs fettling too). We also did a day of tire testing for Firestone. I\u2019m further pleased to say I\u2019ve done days where I traveled well over the distance of a race. Altogether, it\u2019s&amp;nbsp;led to quite a fair amount of miles for me this winter, which has been very welcome considering I lost a couple during the season. It was great to get back in the car and assess my fitness level\u2014which, again, is great. Maybe a little too great.\r\n\r\n&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;Once they cleared me to go back to work, my bosses kept me busy and made sure I caught up on lost time. That\u2019s not to say that it was all hard work. A definite highlight was being at Gillette Stadium in Foxboro, Mass., for the NHL\u2019s Winter Classic. As a Canadian guy, it was always kind of a New Year\u2019s Day tradition with my buddies. You know, you\u2019re recovering from the night before, grab whatever\u2019s left of your beer and watch the Winter Classic? It\u2019s OK. I\u2019m totally not judging you or anything.\r\n\r\n&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;\r\n\r\n&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;Anyway, it\u2019s always been a bit of a bucket list event, the Winter Classic. So to get to go there (thanks to Firestone and Honda) and see it in a way that most people don\u2019t was extra cool. Just walking into Gillette, which is a super impressive facility itself, and seeing a functioning NHL rink in the middle of the field was just incredible. One of the world\u2019s great logistical marvels for sure.\r\n\r\n&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;The following month, I got to check out the NBA All-Star Game in my hometown of Toronto. (Seriously. I\u2019ve got&amp;nbsp;pics. See below.) Now, I\u2019ve had a seat at big events before: the Super Bowl, the Indy 500\u2014which, by the way, will attempt its hundredth running on Memorial Day weekend. I don\u2019t think I really appreciated quite how big an event All-Star weekend was. To come back home to Canada for it, well, was overwhelming. The city of Toronto did an incredible job of embracing it. It was honestly one of the best sporting event weekends I\u2019ve attended.\r\n\r\n&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;GALLERY: IndyCar's&amp;nbsp;James Hinchcliffe&amp;nbsp;at NBA All-Star Game&lt;/strong&gt;\r\n\r\n&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;\r\n\r\n&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;Our&amp;nbsp;tip-off&amp;nbsp;weekend in St. Pete has the potential to be special, too. St. Pete is a beautiful city, and the event itself is phenomenal. (Fun fact: I grabbed the first of my four checkered flags there back in 2013, so this race holds extra sentimental value for me.) The coastline makes for a&amp;nbsp;beautiful backdrop, and the route (1.8 miles, 14 turns, 110 laps) is fun for a street course. The passing opportunities\u2014Turn 1, with the run-way-wide entry, and down into Turn 4\u2014make for some pretty solid wheel-to-wheel action.\r\n\r\n&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;\u200B\r\n\r\n&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;As for winning again? I think the approach isn\u2019t much different from any other&amp;nbsp;IndyCar&amp;nbsp;race. It\u2019s all about minimizing mistakes, which everyone is extra mindful of because this is our first race back. Our race craft\u2019s a little rusty. You\u2019ve&amp;nbsp;gotta&amp;nbsp;make sure the pit stops are sharp, that the strategy calls are on point\u2014that the racing atrophy hasn\u2019t set in too much. You\u2019re&amp;nbsp;gonna&amp;nbsp;see a bunch of that this weekend. The team that makes the fewest mistakes and hits on all their marks from the drop of the green to the checkered is&amp;nbsp;gonna&amp;nbsp;be the one that gets across the line first. With luck, that\u2019ll be me. After sitting around so long, it\u2019d be nice to have an excuse to stretch my legs\u2014preferably on the top step of the podium.\r\n\r\n&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;James&amp;nbsp;Hinchcliffe&amp;nbsp;is a veteran&amp;nbsp;IndyCar&amp;nbsp;driver and your new best friend. You just don\u2019t know it yet. Check out his website, Hinchtown.com or follow him on Twitter&amp;nbsp;@hinchtown. There could be a round of&amp;nbsp;Hinchtown&amp;nbsp;Hammerdown&amp;nbsp;in it.&lt;/em&gt;\r\n&lt;/p&gt;"^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://www.si.com/racing/2016/03/09/indycar-james-hinchcliffe-guest-column-crash-recovery-new-season>