Hinchcliffe ‘full throttle’ on and off racetrack

WEDDING AWAITS

TORONTO • The adrenalin is taking over.

And Canadian IndyCar superstar James Hinchcliffe said it’s “full throttle” from here on out as he prepares for what he expects will be an extremely special event.

It’s Hinchcliffe’s heart that will be doing the racing, however, when he heads to the altar in a few weeks to marry Becky Dalton, the Oakville, Ont., native’s high school prom date, in a private ceremony in Muskoka.

“We’re going to be very busy on the professional front. And then off-track on the personal side, it’s full throttle, so to speak, with wedding planning,” the 32-year-old Hinchcliffe said of his impending special day.

It’s the stretch of a lifetime for the veteran Indy driver and while Hinchcliffe hopes to soak it all up, simply making it to the altar might feel like a victory of sorts considering the hectic schedule. That’s where his wife-to-be comes in.

“My fiancée Becky ... knows that I’ve got a job to do and she’s really taken the reins and is in charge with everything that’s happening,” Hinchcliffe said.

“As we’re getting sort of into crunch time, I know it’s getting more and more stressful for her, but she’s doing a great job letting me focus on my job. We’re looking forward to getting through the Honda Indy Toronto, hopefully repeat in Iowa (where he won last year) and another great Honda track in Mid-Ohio and then go get married.”

The actual racing is a small part of the equation. Sponsorship, media and team commitments make for a demanding workload off the track, so wearing many hats and multi-tasking with gusto becomes second nature for most drivers.

“What we do is unique, I think, in sports. On any given day of competition, we have several different things we have to do, be it sponsor stuff, media stuff, whatever,” Hinchcliffe said. “You have to be able to switch gears and switch your focus and your mindset very quickly. I think that’s kind of helping me, being able to talk wedding planning one minute and then hop on a call and do an engineering briefing with my engineer the next minute and not get too flustered about it.”

Hinchcliffe has yet to post a victory this season, but he is clearly not getting flustered on the track as his consistency — five top-10 finishes through the first 10 races — has him positioned firmly in ninth in the overall driver standings heading into the Toronto street race.

“The consistency has been great, but we keep getting hosed in the races. We should be consistently a little bit higher up in the races than we’ve been. I think there’s been two or three races we’ve had the pace to compete for the wins and have had things happen that took us out of contention unfortunately,” Hinchcliffe said.

Postmedia News ishantz@postmedia.com Twitter.com/IanShantz