Hogan Racing received its first 1997 Reynard on February 7, and its second sibling arrived a week later on Valentine's Day. A thousand man hours later, they were loaded onto the transporter February 18 for the trip to Sebring and their initial shakedown and preparation for the Miami Grand Prix, Sunday, March 2.

This test was also Dario Franchitti's introduction to an Indy car on a road course. The first date went well. Dario got good experience on set up and how these cars react to bumps. In addition to learning the specific characteristics of the 1997 race car, there was special attention paid to the fine tuning of shock settings, the goal being getting a good baseline for Surfer's Paradise.

The second goal was to learn the mechanical personality and quirks of the new car and three days of running went a long way to building that foundation of knowledge. There are always new and improved differences between new generations of cars and even differences between cars built right after each other.

And the third goal was supplementing Dario's oval knowledge gained at Spring Training with road course training in an Indy car. Dario found the seating position a little different than the 1996 and was pleasantly surprised at the 1997 Mercedes engine being stronger than he expected compared to the 1996 he ran at Spring Training.

The car ran well, Dario got down to competitive times quickly, the personality of the new car was learned and a good mechanical working relationship was established between the mechanics and the car. That is a sometimes overlooked positive aspect of these tests. It is much better to get to know a new car in a more leisurely fashion in a test situation as opposed to a time constrained race weekend. Throw in pit stop practice and you have a full and productive three days.

From here the team goes to the heat of the battle at Homestead and part one of a seventeen part Rookie of the Year test. If that romance goes well, let it be noted that the relationship fittingly started the week before Valentines Day.