MADISON, Ill — The receptionist at the INDYCAR offices over there in the shadows of the South Vista on the west side of Indianapolis should be on the lookout for a Christmas Card from Conor Daly in a few months. The super sub was very jovial that NTT INDYCAR SERIES officials had done enough to carve out some time for practice at the World Wide Technology Raceway on a soggy Saturday near the Mississippi River.

They could have just scrapped plans all together and instead put a short session together on Sunday before the Bommarito Automotive Group 500 (3:30 p.m. ET, NBC, INDYCAR Radio Network). With rains settling into the Illinois/Missouri area mid-morning, it never really let up until late afternoon.

With track drying efforts going to plan and mother nature cooperating, it allowed an hour-session for the 28 drivers to hit the 1.25-mile track in preparation for the 15th event of 17 race season.

“Just thankful that we got it dry. Appreciate INDYCAR and the track just getting it dry. For me, it would have been my worst nightmare going into qualifying,” he admitted on Saturday night after turning 47 laps in the 60 minute session.

Good thing too. This was the third team that he’s driven for this season. He needed seat time to get acclimated to how they operate. Which makes the pace a massive story for how this weekend could shape up for him.

Daly ended up with great pace. Despite this being the first time in the No. 30 Dallara-Honda for RLL, he was eighth quickest overall.

“My first run out there was not fast. But putting together a few pieces of information and trying to adjust my style, we figured it out,” he continued.

“I honestly am kind of a little bit surprised we were that fast, but it felt really good. So I can’t complain.”

RLL has had some struggles on ovals lately but for Daly to jump in and take this ride to being in the top 10 in the lone practice session of the weekend is saying something.

“The thing I was coming away with most is we were on a 25.0. I had a huge moment out of four. It’s there. We’re not off by a lot,” he says.

“It’s literally a thrash. Like the whole session, you’re like, What do we do now? Try this. How does that feel? I have no idea. I think we should do it again. Instead of making changes, Let me go out and again and let me just drive. I think that benefited me quite a lot.

“There’s not many drivers who could, like, really actually attest to this, but the differences between programs, just how these cars can feel, there’s such a wide range of setups you could run on these cars that it’s mind-blowing you can still end up with a field as close as we can be.

“For me, it’s something that I had to get used, to something I’m still getting used to, something again I really wish I had a second practice session.

“I definitely can’t have all my dreams come true in one day. We’re going to work tomorrow and see what happens. But I definitely don’t feel like we’re starting in a bad place at all.”

Daly has made 107 NTT INDYCAR SERIES starts since his debut in 2013 and earned his first series pole at the Iowa Speedway short oval in 2020 for Race 1. He has competed in six of the last seven INDYCAR SERIES races held at WWTR and has earned four top-10 finishes with his best being fifth in 2017.

“Yeah, I mean, I’m comfortable, yeah,” Daly said. “Everyone is so good that you have to be, like, uncomfortable the whole time, right? But, like, if you do that without even knowing what’s underneath you yet, that’s not responsible, right? Like, I think I’ll get there by lap 140 of the race, you know what I mean? That’s something you kind of pick up as we go.

“It’s something that here, in my experience, no matter what team I’ve driven for, if we’re all right in practice, we’ve always been okay in the race, too. That is actually an encouraging factor.

“I know what I like here. I think no matter what setup we’ve come with, no matter what team we’ve come here with, we’ve gone well. I definitely understand this place for whatever it is.

“There’s a lot of elements to this car I really do like. Wow, this is actually really cool. But still, again, the one lap you try to put that together, All right, I went too far. Now it’s like, Let me try to tune that in for qualifying. So we’ll see what happens.”

Hopefully it turns into a solid result because Daly deserves a ride for 2024 and a strong result on Sunday could be a fine audition in doing so.

“I just hope that there are still people that you try to reinforce the belief in me, I guess,” he said. “I’m still the same driver. I know what I can do in the situation. What this Rahal Letterman Lanigan team has given me, we go out there the car is fast, I’ll drive it fast. You know what I mean?

“For me, that’s all you can ask for as a driver, is a chance to go out there and perform. We got to do it tomorrow obviously. Today is just a practice session. Lately a lot of people have been judging a lot of things off of practice session, so I guess that’s good.

“I will keep trying my best to just do my job every day out on track. That’s all I can do. I’m going to need a lot to be somewhere next year. Might as well keep fighting ’cause I’m not done yet.”