Newman/Haas Racing (NHR) returns to the famed Milwaukee Mile, for what they consider their "home race" due to its proximity to their Lincolnshire, Ill. base approximately one hour away from the site of this weekend's Time Warner Cable Road Runner 225. source: champcarworldseries.com While the team considers The Mile home, the rest of the Champ Car World Series field may consider this to be NHR's Achilles Heel since it has been NHR's most challenging track of the season. Knowledge gained from a pre-race test here in 2005 where Bruno Junqueira led the time sheets as well as stronger results in that race by Sebastien Bourdais and Oriol Servia, who filled in for Junqueira here, have shown that the team has made gains on their short oval setup and can hope for better results here. "Milwaukee is going to be a very interesting race for me because it's going to be my first race back on an oval and it was the first race I missed last year after the crash in Indianapolis," said Junqueira, who has started fourth or better in the three races so far this season but has encountered a variety of setbacks to limit his finishing position. "It's a track that I did very well last year in the pre-race test. I was the fastest and I hope that Newman/Haas is going to have a good car there and I'm going to feel comfortable and drive fast and be up front." After setting the best time in the pre-race test here in 2005 Junqueira was looking forward to his return to the track but instead remained in Indianapolis following surgery to repair his broken back from an injury the previous weekend. This will mark his fifth race at the Milwaukee Mile and first on an oval since his crash. His best finish here of fourth place came in his rookie season in 2001 and his best start was fifth in 2002 but he is confident the team has made gains. "We found a really good setup for the track last year during the test and the fact that the team got a podium finish with Oriol (Servia) last year was good," said Junqueira who earned the first two of his eight Champ Car poles on ovals in Nazareth and Japan as well as one at the 2002 Indianapolis 500 Superspeedway. "It showed that we have a fast car on the one-mile oval and I think it showed that we can do really well this year and have a good finish. Milwaukee is a very fast one mile oval, it's almost flat all the way around so we need to have a really precise car and be able to drive around different lines as well in the race because of the traffic."
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