Back in the saddle.

By now, you'll have realised that Road America didn't go too well for me, or, at least, it didn't end too well. Up to six laps from home, things weren't looking too bad...

I was massively lucky that the accident wasn't a lot worse. I didn't get any injuries as such, just a bruised knee. That swelled up a bit, so I had to lay off training for about four days - but the team kept me busy with a lot of media activities, so... I'm fine now - mentally and physically - and everything is back to normal, which is great.

There were no lingering after-effects when I got back into the cockpit at Sebring the other week - if anything, I was more worried that I wasn't worried! I wondered if I should have been scared by it, but I really wasn't. It was just one of those things, and it was component failure, which is important. I know I was lucky, and I have a healthy respect for the dangers of what I do, but I just got back into the car, a bit like getting back on a horse. It was only four days after the crash, but we had a really successful test and achieved a lot of what we wanted to achieve prior to the Surfers' Paradise race. It was great to get back in there and get the confidence back up, especially as we were fast as well. It was very good for us to do that.

I can't say exactly what was going through my mind during the accident - a lot of it is unrepeatable - but, basically, coming out of the Carousel, and going into the Kink, I suddenly picked up a bucketload of speed. The gain was more than you get with push-to-pass, more like someone has given you an extra 200 horsepower - I didn't realise just how much drag the wings produce, so that's another lesson learned I guess! By the time I thought 'what's going on', the car had swapped ends and I started thinking 'uh-oh, this isn't good!'.

You can see on the data that the car has gone, I try to correct it, realise that that isn't going to work, jump on the brakes, knock off a little bit of speed, but still have a major impact. Actually, it wasn't as huge as it could have been as, luckily for me, the car went in turning around. It just touched the front, which then brought the back around and into the wall. But then it climbed the fence....

The way the accident happened, if you look at the replays - which I have done a hundred times with all the interviews I have done since - it gets rid of a lot of the momentum, a lot of the energy, so I was very lucky. As the car climbs the fence, it starts spinning around but, again, I was lucky as it was spinning with the bottom of the car, rather than my head, against the fence. Then I see a burst of flame, but realise it's not attached to me. I work out that it's the oil catching fire, and that's good as my biggest fear is having an accident in one of these cars and catching fire, because you can't see a methanol fire and that kind of freaks me out.

Once I had worked out that it wasn't going to catch fire and think that I can deal with other stuff, the car starts rolling and rolling, and I'm suddenly thinking 'when is this going to stop?'. Things are hitting me on the head, and I'm thinking I'm going to break my neck. I eventually come to halt upside down and, after catching my breath, the first thing I do is wiggle my toes and move my neck and think 'wow, everything is in the right place'. Then you think there must be something wrong because the accident was huge', that adrenaline must be keeping you going. I wondered if this is what the afterlife was like, that you keep going as normal, but you're dead!

The safety crew got there within 38 seconds - they were rolling as the accident was starting - and they and the medical crew did a phenomenal job. They rolled me over and got me out, and the first thing I wanted was to get a message back to my dad that I was okay, because I knew that he would be having fits in pit-lane, worried about his little girl. Of course it was scary, but I feel you have to be professional about these things, deal with them and move on.

I think it's weird the way your mind works because I felt so detached from what I was watching on the television every time someone showed me a replay of the accident. It was a case of 'that's not me'. I can watch it over and over again and there's no way I was in that accident. In my own mind, I don't recall any of the feelings you go through, I just recall what happened. I suppose, if you go through a traumatic experience, it's hard to remember, to put the pieces together. I look at the footage and feel completely disconnected, detached, from it.

It makes a difference, psychologically, knowing that the car was at fault and not me. It's different if you make a mistake, but this was component failure, so nobody was to blame, it wasn't anyone's fault, it was just one of those freak accidents. We've found out what it was, we've done a report into it, and now it doesn't matter. At the end of the day, the accident was an accident and I was lucky enough to have climbed out of it. We'll put the car back together and move on to the next race. Actually, we can't put the car back together, and it's a shame, as the car was painted pink for Road America to promote breast cancer awareness, and we were going to keep it pink for the rest of the year. We had raised a lot of awareness - and a lot of money - for the cause, and there was a big buzz about it at Road America, but now I only have one car, and we've had to go back to the red and white. Oriol and I will share the spare, so I guess he's returning the favour from Portland!

I like to think that, in some macarbre way, the accident helped promote the breast cancer cause. I know that we got a lot of attention because of it, both here in the States and 'across the pond' as well, but it's a shame that, in some ways, it has taken this accident for my efforts to come to people's attention. It's not the way we wanted to do it, that's for sure!

Nobody likes to hear about an accident but, at least, it is a positive story this time. It says 'look at how strong the cars are', 'look at what a fine job the Bell Micro/PKV team do' - it's a success story in a way. People normally hear about the bad side of accidents, but now they can see the other side, that this can happen and you can walk away. On a personal level, I think it's a shame that I'm going to be known for the accident above my other efforts - and after my F3 crash at Rockingham as well!

Okay, so I've had some big crashes, but we were running well at Road America. The story should be that were P6 - and legitimately P6, having qualified P8. That shows that we're getting better and that, when I qualify up front, I can run up front. Road America was disappointing because that sixth place would have put us right back in the rookie of the year race, right up there with Dan and Will, but that's kind of out of my reach now. Qualifying has been the disaster of the year as far as I am concerned, but hopefully we're getting more experience and getting better at that each time we go out. If we can qualify up front for Surfers' and Mexico, then hopefully we can run up front, because we have the speed.

Admittedly, that speed has been a bit on and off, and that's down to me setting the car up, because finding the car that suits me has been a bit hit-and-miss. It's been difficult for me to tell the engineers what is happening with the car because, for the first half of the year, I was just driving the car as fast as I could drive it. Now I know what's going on a little more. Take Sebring for example, I could actually tell them 'this is what's happening, and this is what we need to do'. There was a bit of a rapport going on between us, which helped to figure it out. My aim for next year is to get some testing over the winter so we can run through, logically, one thing after another, to be able to say 'okay, this is what this does, and changing that has this effect' and so on. That way, I'll have notes, a sub-conscious list of things, to call on, which will then allow me to put my driving and set-up together.

I think the fact that we had a test at Road America a few weeks before the race had a big impact on my qualifying performance. The biggest thing for me is still time in the car, time to figure out what it is doing. The team has been awesome in the way it has tried to help me but, because I drive so differently to Oriol, it's kind of irrelevant to compare what he does to what I do. He's been really helpful as well though, the best team-mate I have ever had in terms of being able to ask him questions and know that he will be able to help me out. But, as far as driving styles go, we are at completely different ends of the spectrum, so it's been kind of hard to figure out what I need. We're figuring it out, but it's taken until now. We thought we had it figured out at the start of the year, but it was two steps forward and one step back.

Even though my hopes of winning the rookie title are very much out of my hands right now, my aim for the final two races, in Australia and Mexico, are very much the same as they have been all season. Now that I have been running in the top ten, I want to finish in the top eight or ten, be on the lead lap, and top rookie. I can only keep improving and, as long as I do that, it's all good for next year. I want to keep learning on the set-up side of things, and I want to keep learning the tracks, but you can only learn if you are out there, so I want to finish the races and get some good results.

We can't afford to have any bad races as we want to keep the team's morale up - its pretty high now, even though they had a lot of work to do coming off Road America. We were having a great race after having been up and down all season. We had a bad mid-season - Milwaukee was good but, from then on, the same thing happened as happened last year, as I got too deeply into things. I was trying too hard, which is no good for anybody. You get frustrated and need to take a step back. I snapped myself out of it before Road America, as the long gap allowed me to take that step back, relax and begin to have fun again. As a result, we were having a great weekend and, now we know what it takes to be fast and competitive, we can try and recreate that every weekend. I've just got to be careful to work on the mental side of things, because I honestly feel I can be as fast as anyone else, but it's all in my head. If I can get all that sorted out, there's no reason why we can't be good next year. I've just got to work on that for the last few races, to relax and not try too hard, because that's been my problem. I get down on myself, get frustrated and it's no fun anymore then.

There is much to look forward to next year. I think the 2007 calendar looks really exciting. The Chinese round has been in the works for some time now, and is one that everyone wants to happen as it opens up a whole new market for us, while the European rounds - if they happen - will allow me to come home and see my mum! Seriously, it will be good to be all around the world, covering pretty much every market. I'm excited by that, but disappointed that there are no ovals, as I really enjoyed Milwaukee this year. Obviously, Champ Car knows what its doing, what business model works best, and I have a lot of faith in that. I'm really excited about next year - new car, new tracks, a level playing field for everyone - and I just can't wait to get out there testing. Obviously, that's a limited thing, but I hope I can get as much testing as possible in the old car, just to carry on learning before the new car comes out, so we can hit that running. I don't want to have any off time in the winter, I just want to keep the momentum, carry on learning, because that was the reason for me coming in early this year, to get a headstart on 2007. I won't have to learn all that stuff again - the pit-stops, the push-to-pass, the saving fuel - so we should be in good shape for next year.

I still don't have confirmation of what I'll be doing next year. Obviously, I hope I'll be going back to PKV as that was the long-term plan at the start of this whole thing but, as of yet, they haven't told me whether they will take up the option. Clearly, Kevin will take the decision that is right for him and, hopefully, right for me. I feel completely confident that, whatever he decides to do with me next year, it will be good for me. He's a pretty clever man and I have faith in him.

Until next time, here's to keeping it upright 'down under'.

Katherine