Happy New Year!

Marlboro Team Penske's 1996 season actually began on 11 September 1995 - the day after the Laguna Seca race weekend. You probably already know that Al Unser Jr., Paul Tracy and I will again be teammates next year, and I'm sure we'll be competing at the top of the field. But there's no point in denying that this "New Year" couldn't have come a moment too soon. After our rocky start at the beginning of 1995, the entire team is eager to begin again fresh!

As I said in the column I wrote after we failed to qualify for the last Indianapolis 500, "Team Penske will be back." Now that we're starting out the new season, I believe I'm seeing this reflected in the team more than ever - we will be back in 1996, and back with a vengeance.

To step away from our own experience for a moment, 1995 was without a doubt the most competitive year in the history of IndyCar. All the teams, engine suppliers, chassis manufacturers and drivers brought their games up to an even more outstanding level last season, and I think this extensive commitment created a fantastic series. Everyone, at every level and on every team, should be congratulated for this.

As for us, we fought back from our early problems and eventually did well enough to have Junior challenging for the Championship by the end of the season. Unless you were in Italy - a place that I know doesn't get good IndyCar coverage - you've been witness to a great bunch of racing in 1995. We saw the emergence of the new Reynard chassis, the rising fortunes of Honda's new engines and Firestone's success with their revamped tire program. New drivers have also stepped in, and a number of them could easily be champions one day.

Competitiveness is the key word here. Out of 17 races we had nine different polesitters and nine different winners. Five drivers got their first pole in 1995; fellow Brazilian André Ribeiro even earned his during his rookie year, and at the very difficult New Hampshire International Speedway no less. In the winners' ranks we had four guys who won their first IndyCar events, including Scott Pruett's victory over Junior at Michigan for the second-closest finish in IndyCar history. Firestone also got its first series win in two decades.

As for Jacques Villenueve and Team Green, well what can I say? They had a dream season, and their hard work paid off with both the Indianapolis 500 and the PPG IndyCar World Championship. It's still hard for me to believe this was a first-year team and a second-year driver; they performed like they'd been at it forever. At 24, Jacques is now the youngest driver to ever win the IndyCar Driver's Championship, and I can certainly identify with that. I won my first Formula One World Championship at 25, and am still the youngest to have ever been so honored. Jacques has now set the stage for a fantastic, long-term career; I wish him well in Formula One next year. He'll be missed here.

Again, however, my main memory of 1995 must be that it was also one of the most difficult seasons in memory for Marlboro Team Penske, and for me as well. This year's Penske chassis was difficult to balance, and our results bore this out - especially on the road courses. Personally, I feel most of the problem can be traced back to the changes Goodyear made on their road- and street-course tires. We just couldn't get this year's Penske chassis to develop much grip at places like Miami, Road America, Mid-Ohio and Laguna with this rubber, but their relatively unchanged tires for the oval circuits didn't give us the same problem. There, Junior and I could usually be competitive. I even got lucky and won at Nazareth.

Without a doubt, the most disappointing part of the season - in fact the most disappointing part in many, many seasons - was our team not qualifying at Indianapolis. It was the first time in 26 years that a Penske car hasn't started the Indy 500, and the first time since I started driving in the series that I was forced to be a spectator. Instead of sitting on the grid, I wound up commenting on the race for SBT, the Brazilian television network. I guess it's something I shouldn't dwell on, but at least we did learn an awful lot from that experience. The entire 1995 season has lit a fire under us hotter than any I can remember.

For 1996, Nigel Bennett - our chief designer at Penske Cars Ltd. in Poole, England - has created a new chassis we're all very eager to see in action, and Mercedes-Benz and Ilmor Engineering are working overtime to squeeze more power from our engines. Of course, 1996 will almost certainly be as competitive as 1995, and I already see a number of teams and drivers in contention for the PPG IndyCar Championship. There's even going to be another engine manufacturer, Toyota, entering the series, and these powerplants will be run by Dan Gurney's All-American Racers team in a chassis of their own design. This combination should be vying for points right away. No doubt it will be harder than ever to win IndyCar races in 1996, but Roger's motto - "Effort equals results" - should keep us right on top.

Oh, and there's one other thing I want to tell my friends: Teresa would like you to know that she has finally made an honest man out of me! Twelve years after our civil-ceremony marriage, Teresa and I have finally taken our vows in a Catholic church. And not just any Catholic church, mind you - St. Peter's Basilica at the Vatican! We did this on September 26 with many family and friends in attendance. As I said then, I believe this is my finest victory!