Unser Jr plays down Indy chances

The American, who has won the event twice, has signed for a one-off comeback to the race with Dreyer and Reinbold Racing and A1 Team USA for this year's race.

He believes that despite having similar machinery to the rest of the field, he will be at a disadvantage because the regular runners have had a chance to bed in with their teams in the first three races this season.

"The largest disadvantage will be getting a relationship with the team," Unser said. "I've tried to do everything I can to put people in place that I've worked with before, that know me, that I know them, so on. But we still have some people that we need to hire and so on.

"We're not going to have the luxury of the other teams having the different races, St. Pete, Homestead, Motegi, to be into a race and to go through the motions, the pit stops, all that kind of stuff. Really the biggest challenge is going to be just keeping everybody's head together on race day, just try to make it a nice smooth race for everyone.

"If we can finish it would be a realistic goal. Then other than that, I don't know. I mean, the IRL is so equally competitive now.

"It's really a whole different atmosphere and so on than like when I was a rookie in the '80s and '90s where you had different engines, different cars, all that sort of thing.

"It's very equally competitive. Everything has to fall in place in your direction for you to move up in the lineup. We're just going to go out, we're going to have fun, we're going to do the best we can, and hopefully we'll be up near the front somewhere near the end of 500 miles."