Brack makes racing return.

After almost a year away from racing, Kenny Brack made his return to competition last weekend, behind the wheel of a Porsche in his native Sweden.

Brack, the 1999 Indianapolis 500 winner and 1998 IRL IndyCar Series champion, competed in a Porsche Carerra Cup event in Sweden. It was the first time he had raced since sustaining serious injuries in an accident last October at Texas Motor Speedway and his first race in Sweden since 1992.

Driving a "guest car" in the race at Mantorp Park, Brack recorded the fastest Carrera Cup lap on the circuit in the Friday practice session. The Rahal Letterman Racing driver was two-tenths of a second quicker than the track record set in the spring Carrera Cup race at Mantorp.

"It was fun but too much hype around the event about me," said Brack, who was the subject of many of the stories throughout Sweden during the weekend. "There were press and people everywhere. I actually feel quite drained today."

Rain fell in qualifying for Saturday's race, but Brack was a second faster than the closest driver. Late in qualifying, three drivers went to dry tyres and bettered Brack's time, pushing Brack to fourth on the grid. In the race, Brack moved to third at the start, but his car lost its front wing and developed an understeer. He fell back to fifth at the finish.

Brack started fifth in Sunday's race and moved to fourth before his car was knocked off the track by another car. Brack's car became loose, and he had to settle for fifth for the second straight day.

"It's quite difficult to come in at the end of the championship when everybody has had a full year to prepare," Brack said. "I never could get the car to handle like I wanted. But it was fun to race again and that's the main thing."

After his performance on the track, Brack joined in for the "season end" party for all of the Swedish racers and jumped up on stage to play his guitar with some of Sweden's top rock bands.

"I joined in and played guitar with one of my best friends, Jan 'Flash' Nilsson, some of Sweden's top music artists and even the (Swedish) King's son, Prince Carl Philip, another good friend, and it was great fun," Brack said. "But it was very busy for me. It was just nice to get back and race again."