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"&lt;p&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;DETROIT \u2014 Hey, folks. James (a.k.a. The Mayor) here, writing to you from the Motor City, the latest stop on the Verizon IndyCar series. That\u2019s right, the season did not end with last week\u2019s thrilling Indianapolis 500. This weekend, there\u2019s yet another race\u2014a double-header, no less. So tune in for the Chevrolet Dual in Detroit, a 140-lap extravaganza set around a 14-turn, 2.35-mile street course on lovely Belle Isle. ABC\u2019s coverage of the race will start at 3:30 p.m. ET. This info will probably be a bit redundant to those of you who caught the many promos for this upcoming race during the broadcast of last weekend\u2019s race\u2014which was, shall we say, a moving experience. My mom in particular got pretty swept up in it.\r\n\r\n&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;Before green flag, right as I was about to settle into the Speedway grid for those eight minutes of helmeted peace I was telling you guys about in last week\u2019s video-only edition of the column, I gathered up my parents for pre-race hugs and, well, my mom kind of&amp;nbsp;teared up afterward. Knowing Mom as I do, I kind of assumed that would be an emotional moment for her. At the risk of sounding like a bad son, I\u2019m already full business at that point. Normally, I get a big hug before I get in the car, but hers was a little bigger this time. Part of that is the inherent fear that she has of me racing. But part of it was also the pride of what we accomplished the week before\u2014by landing on the pole a year after my accident, and everything that\u2019s gone on in between. I imagine for a lot of the race she was a little bit of a wreck.\r\n\r\n&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;Me? I had a good time\u2014especially in the early laps, which I spent battling for the lead with my good buddy Ryan Hunter-Reay. Just so you know, we didn\u2019t plan that. But what I love so much about running with guys like him is we don\u2019t have to talk about trading places. We very much understood what the other was trying to accomplish, we\u2019re game to help each other out and had boatloads of fun doing it. For both of us to have cars that were strong enough to allow us to do that was such a privilege. Granted, our races didn\u2019t end the way we had hoped. (Seeing his run essentially ended after a pit road accident, which also collected his Andretti teammate Townsend Bell, was especially unfortunate.) But I told him, in a post-race text message, that the first hundred laps were some of the most fun I\u2019ve had in an IndyCar. Ryan\u2014who, mind you, won the race back in 2014, wrote then something to the effect of: \u201CMoments like that are memories I\u2019ll hold forever.\u201D\r\n\r\n&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;Even the less-than-ideal moments I had on the racetrack stand out for the resiliency that my Schmidt Peterson crew showed in the face of them. Certainly, our first pit stop, which dropped us a fair way down the order, didn\u2019t go according to plan. But we kept our heads about us. We knew that was Stop 1 in a 500-mile race, and that the No. 5 Arrow car was quick. Between some far better pit stops, a great race car and some nifty driving by me\u2014we found our way back into the lead before finishing seventh. Not only is that my best finish at the Brickyard in four years, it also rounded out a huge day for Honda\u2014which was long overdue for redemption.\r\n\r\n&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;For last two years or so, Honda had been the hunter to Chevrolet\u2019s hunted. Going into the 500, Honda had not landed a driver on pole in something like 30 races. No group had been more adamant about the urgency to improve than us drivers. Yet at the beginning of this year, even as we struggled, Honda told us that Indy was their focus, that they had big things coming, good things coming in the pipeline. We wanted to believe them. It wasn\u2019t until we got to the Speedway, popped in their new engines and started running that we were like, Alright. We\u2019re in this fight. Then it all came together: My team snapped the Honda pole drought, and Honda got back in Victory Lane with a rookie driver\u2014Alexander Rossi, who, after some furious hypermiling, is now a sought-after media darling. (Incidentally, I managed to snag him as a guest this week on my podcast, \u201CThe Mayor on Air with James Hinchcliffe.\u201D Subscribe on iTunes!)\r\n\r\n&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;What\u2019s more, Honda got a one-two finish with Rossi and his Andretti Autosport teammate Carlos Mu\u00F1oz, who operated on a more conventional fuel strategy while Alexander ran completely out of gas at the finish. Honda was covered both ways. Yeah, Chevy had some quick guys out there: Penske\u2019s H\u00E9lio Castroneves and Ganassi\u2019s Tony Kanaan had awesome runs; Carpenter Racing\u2019s Josef Newgarden did a tremendous job. But the Hondas were definitely the class of the field.\r\n\r\n&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;Indy wasn\u2019t a fluke performance either. Honda has resurfaced among the Firestone Fast Six this week at Belle Isle. I\u2019ll be leading the charge once again, from the fourth position this time\u2014or just in front of Mu\u00F1oz, who won the top of last year\u2019s doubleheader. Winning is a hard thing to do here. Belle Isle is one of the most physical street circuits just because of the bumps. It is easily the bumpiest track on the circuit. After a bumpy street track on a hot June day normally you have four or five days to recover\u2014to hydrate, to let the blisters on your hands heal\u2014before getting back into a racecar. But the Duel\u2019s back-to-back race schedule doesn\u2019t afford us that luxury. We have to be fit enough to get right back in the racecar. We have to hydrate overnight for a race that you\u2019d typically spend three days hydrating for. Part of the strategy for being fit enough and prepared enough for this race is making sure that during the madness of media week and post-qualifying at Indy, you\u2019re still fitting in the training that you need and normally would be doing if you were just at home by yourself. (It took me three years to really figure this out.) Needless to say, it\u2019s difficult to keep your workouts going while you\u2019re: a) traveling around the country like crazy for a slew of media appearances, and b) preparing for the biggest race of the year.\r\n\r\n&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;Belle Isle, meanwhile, has a different reputation. It\u2019s a tricky little track. The Turn 1-2 complex is one of the fastest corners you\u2019ll see on a street circuit all year. Down into Turn 3, you\u2019ve got your biggest opportunity for passing\u2014soon after a long straightaway. The end of the back straight going into Turn 7, because that straightaway isn\u2019t exactly straight, leads to some pretty creative lines when trying to defend or advance positions.\r\n\r\n&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;With good weather in the forecast, the opportunities for our team aren\u2019t just ripe on the track. Thanks to our strong effort during the month of May (to recap: we got our first podium of the year, third place, at the Indy GP; then landed on pole for the 500 and finished seventh), we now stand fifth in points\u2014which puts us firmly in the championship hunt. The only reason we\u2019re up there is because we stopped worrying about the two disastrous races we had to start the season. We stopped caring about the title race. Honestly. I didn\u2019t look at points until after qualifying at Indy, which was almost a race win\u2019s worth of points.\r\n\r\n&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;Clearly, we work best when we keep our focus narrow\u2014on just doing the best job that we can week in and week out. If we can keep that mindset, keep knocking out these strong finishes and not get caught up in other people\u2019s mistakes. Man, I don\u2019t even want to think about what a moving experience that could be.\r\n\r\n&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;James Hinchcliffe is a veteran IndyCar driver and your new best friend. You just don\u2019t know it yet. Check out his website, Hinchtown.com or follow him on Twitter @hinchtown. There could be some Hinchtown Hammerdown in it for you.&lt;/em&gt;\r\n&lt;/p&gt;"^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://www.si.com/racing/2016/06/03/indycar-driver-james-hinchcliffe-verison-belle-isle>