Last April in downtown Long Beach, California, Franck Montagny was sitting in a plastic chair at a plastic table in the pit area of the 2008 Toyota Grand Prix of Long Beach. The last true Champ Car race to be run in the series’ wild, combustive and soon to be extinct history, Montagny, who had just walked away from a gig as a Toyota Formula 1 test driver, had traded in his seat in a Toyota RVX-07-powered TF107 F1 car for a shot at racing a 750-horsepower Cosworth V8-motivated 1,565-pound Forsythe Racing Champ Car. When all was said and done and the final race run that sunny Sunday afternoon, the Frenchman placed a fine second overall and has more than one powerful race team owner take notice of his skill and professionalism. When asked what just might be the next step in his racing career, he replied, “I’ll go home and do some testing for Porsche and I have another race in A1GP. And after that, we’ll see. Maybe I’ll be coming back here and doing some races in IRL if I can find a drive.”

And that’s exactly what just happened.

Recently, on the 1.5-mile, 14-degree banked Kentucky Speedway, Montagny was strapped into a 1,565-pound Andretti Green Racing IndyCar. He then lit the 650 horsepower, 3.5-liter V8 engine and duly boiled the tires in a 10,500 RPM wail as he left the pit lane to begin a test for the highly competitive team.

"It was all new for me and, to be honest, it was not so easy at the beginning, said Montagny, a race winning driver for the Andretti Green outfit in the 2008 American Le Mans Series. "It's very difficult to do everything well and the set-ups are very different from all that I know."

"After six laps I was able to stay flat out in Turns 1 and 2. It's a question of feeling the car before it starts to slide. And even if I often go fast in a race car, I had never done almost 220mph in corners before and it gives you some big sensations."

"I would have preferred to be on track with other cars, to see what it's like in traffic, but that will be for next time,” went on Montagny, who hopes to find a ride with the team. “I enjoyed the test and I'd like to race in the IRL in 2009. The team wants to keep me on board — either in this series or ALMS — but it depends on the money and I also have some opportunities in Europe. Everything should be decided in October."