St. Petersburg Notebook 1:

Al Unser III had to battle his way to the front from the back of the pack today on the first of a two day double header on the Streets of St. Petersburg, Fla.

The Ethos For Earth car No.21 fought through the first day of practice, and then into Saturday morning qualifying resulting in a less than stellar starting spot of 21^st. The Playa Del Racing crew worked hard to tweak the car to help Unser III feel comfortable in working his way through the most talented Firestone Indy Lights field to date.

Unser III started by passing several cars in the opening laps, and avoiding the initial crashes in the front of the field. Unser’s green machine began to work more to his liking as he began to make his way through traffic and into the top 15. With 20 laps to go Unser passed two cars on the tight street circuit, and moved into the 12^th spot, where he would go on to finish.

Unser managed to make up the most positions of any driver during the race, and came out with his best finish of 2008. The car returned to the transporter in pristine condition. The Playa Del Racing crew will make minor changes to the car tonight in order to make the car run even better for race number two on Sunday at 10:45 a.m.   

From Al Unser III:

“I hated where we ended up today in qualifying. The times I was running did not reflect my crew, or my ability. I’m so proud of my guys for staying with me, and my goal today was to give them a run that reflected how hard they work and the quality of work they do. I think we accomplished that, but we still have a lot of work to do. Tomorrow we’ll start 12^th, and hopefully we’ll bring home our first top ten of the year. This team is something special, and there’s no doubt we get better every time we go out on the track.”