Dana ready for second bite at IRL.

Paul Dana will get a second bite at the IRL IndyCar Series cherry in 2006 with Rahal-Letterman Racing thanks to his partnership with Ethanol and is looking forward to having a better time of it than he did during his injury shortened rookie season.

A small, underfunded team, an inexperienced driver and a new type of fuel doesn't bode well for immediate on-track success and so was the case with Dana and Hemelgarn Racing in 2005 where a shaky start to the season was curtailed by a practice crash at Indianapolis that resulted in the former Indy Pro Series competitor sitting out the rest of the season with injury.

However Dana gets another chance to prove his skills with the top-tier Rahal-Letterman outfit in 2006 alongside former Indy 500 winner Buddy Rice and current series publicity magnet Danica Patrick.

Dana's first duty as a member of the Rahal squad was to knock the ring rust off in the recent open-test at Phoenix, a test that resulted in two incident-free days of running.

"I hadn't been in an Indy Car since my crash at Indy last May," says Dana. "As a team we took it slow and built up the laps. To log more than 300 miles of testing in my first test back in the car is a significant milestone.

"It has been a whirlwind couple of weeks helping finalise everything with Team Ethanol's deal with Rahal Letterman Racing. I've dreamed about an opportunity like this all of my life, and now that the preseason testing is underway, there is a lot of work to be done."

Ranking his move to Bobby Rahal's team as the best moment of his career to date, Dana knows that, while the spotlight may be on his teammate Patrick more than himself, simply being in a top-line car brings its own set of new expectations.

"Everywhere you turn there, you're surrounded by people who are absolutely some of the best in the business," he continued. "You're not worried about whether the bolts are tight and whether the set-up is right. I just have to drive. You spend your whole career trying to create that environment where all you have to do is push the pedals and then focus on the process, and the results tend to take care of themselves.

"You don't do this at this level unless you expect to win. That's always your standard. You just want to be surrounded by people who have the same attitude and the ability to do it. The standard doesn't change at all. The tools with which to accomplish it have changed. That's what we all want."