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"  France&amp;#039;s Simon Pagenaud wowed IZOD IndyCar Series fans and his fellow drivers as a rookie in 2012, placing fifth in the championship ahead of champions like Dario Franchitti and Tony Kanaan. And as the 28-year-old Indianapolis resident has proven for almost a decade, he&amp;#039;s impossible to categorize. He&amp;#039;s raced at the Indy 500, nearly won the 24 Hours of Le Mans for Peugeot, can be found in GT cars, tin-tops and rally cars, and if he has his druthers, will soon add &amp;quot;Global Rally Cross&amp;quot; competitor to his ridiculously long resume.  With an invitation from the 2012 GRX championship-winning Olsbergs MSE team to test Brian Deegan&amp;#039;s 2012 Ford Fiesta at Las Vegas Motor Speedway, Pagenaud told RoadandTrack.com he leapt at the opportunity. &amp;quot;It was similar to what I&amp;#039;ve known in rally, but different because the Global Rally Cross cars have twice the power,&amp;quot; he said. &amp;quot;The dirt part is quite tricky on tarmac tires. Obviously Global Rally Cross is growing in the U.S., and I&amp;#039;ve always wanted to do the X-Games. It&amp;#039;s good to get some experience and if we can make it happen, I&amp;#039;d love to compete in the X-Games and any other times that are possible.&amp;quot; Coming off a season where he won the coveted IndyCar Rookie of the Year title, Pagenaud had to switch gears mentally from the finesse required to pilot an Indy car at 230mph to the more physical demands of a WRC car on steroids.  &amp;quot;Because it&amp;#039;s 4wd, it runs with toe-out at the rear, so it was a handful to deal with,&amp;quot; he explained. &amp;quot;There&amp;#039;s a lot of movement. The minute you turn the wheel, you&amp;#039;re sideways. The car was pretty easy to drive one you got it figured out, but like every racecar, it&amp;#039;s difficult to get the last few tenths. &amp;quot;What I liked the most is that with this 4wd car, you can have oversteer or understeer, however you want, with the setup. In an Indy car, you can made small adjustments in the race, but not like this. It&amp;#039;s very cool.&amp;quot; With recent experience driving for the factory Peugeot sports car team-a program with more than 100 employees, and his Schmidt Hamilton Motorsports IndyCar team that has a massive engineering support structure, Pagenaud wasimpressed with what the ace OMSE team had to offer at Las Vegas...and their amusement at having an IndyCar driver show up for duty.  &amp;quot;I was really amazed at how good they were,&amp;quot; he remarked. &amp;quot;The team was so well put together. The professionalism was incredible. You can see why they won the championship this year. &amp;quot;It was funny, though, because when I showed up with my [Hewlett-Packard IndyCar] suit and [full-face] IndyCar helmet, they wondered what the hell I was doing there... But it was a really good atmosphere. I think people were quite curious to see how I&amp;#039;d do in those cars.&amp;quot; The infinitely curious Pagenaud made a good impression with the OMSE team and hopes to get an invite to do more than just test in the future. And with so few 4-wheeled racing cars left that he hasn&amp;#039;t sampled, Pagenaud is looking at what&amp;#039;s left to play with. &amp;quot;I&amp;#039;m attracted by all the different activities we have in racing,&amp;quot; he said. &amp;quot;I&amp;#039;d like to try NASCAR some day because I&amp;#039;m curious. I already do rally, and doing some Global Rally Cross, maybe even with my IndyCar team somehow and (his IndyCar engine supplier) Honda would be amazing. If it has a steering wheel, I want to go drive it and win.&amp;quot; Related posts:   Flying Start For Global Rally Cross \u2013 Racing Global Rally Cross - Las Vegas Practice Why Would a Young Driver Choose IndyCar Over NASCAR?  "^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
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