part 3
While that race was another write-off from the season-revival standpoint, the freedom to drive the car unshackled by fatigue during the opening part of the weekend was his silver lining. Power continued making tiny adjustments to his everyday life as he worked toward reclaiming his old form – a tweak to his workout regime here; a change to his nutrition plan there, a bit of extra recovery whenever time allowed – and finally, he began to see progress. Although he continued to experience varying symptoms all the way through to Sonoma, he had things sufficiently under control, he finally started to feel like he was on his game once he got to the other side of the Indy 500.
"Detroit was [the first time] where it was, 'OK, I'm feeling pretty good here,'" he says. "I was chasing the leaders down in the first race and the first time [this year] where I really felt, 'Wow, I can push here, keep with these guys, go a lap longer,' or whatever I needed to do.
"I obviously didn't have the fitness that I had the previous year, just because I wasn't able to work out. But as the year went on I was able to get car fitness, and the best thing that happened was those two weeks off before Pocono. That gave me a chance to get out, get a bit of exercise, do some cycling, and that actually felt really good."
Power is accustomed to being a part of the championship conversation right from the opening race but this time, his early season struggles cast him in the unfamiliar role of pursuer. And while his battle to understand and solve his flagging energy was complicated enough, he also had to find an answer to Pagenaud's early run of form.
"I remember thinking that having my own streak like the one that Simon had would be the only way I'd ever get back into the championship," he says. "And then I actually did."
In fact, Power's golden patch was slightly better than his teammate's, in that he was able to stretch his second-or-better streak to six races between Sunday at Detroit and Pocono. And while he was making something out of nothing, his cause was further helped by Pagenaud entering a minor mid-season slump.
"At first I wasn't worried [about Power]", Pagenaud said after the season was over. "But at Toronto he started to become a problem".
The Australian won at Detroit (Sunday), Road America, Toronto and Pocono, and felt that he should have added Mid-Ohio to the list as well.
"I kicked myself over the restart at Mid-Ohio," he says. "It was such a bad mistake when you know you've got the win in your hands; to be asleep on a restart and not absolutely on it. I never should have gotten into the situation of having to battle [eventual winner Pagenaud] like that.

"But it was just a fantastic streak. It really was. Very good strategy calls, and running up at the front to take advantage of it ... it got us right back in there."
Power's good fortune didn't last. A Charlie Kimball-assisted crash at Watkins Glen was a huge setback on the championship front, and also put him back into the medical spotlight when he was forced to undergo evaluation for another suspected concussion. Despite renewed speculation over whether he'd be cleared to race at Sonoma, he says that he was never in doubt that he'd be on the grid for the finale.
"It was just a routine thing," he says. "One of the medical people – it wasn't even one of the IndyCar medical people – said, 'We saw you on the camera and you looked wobbly, so you're going to have to do a SCAT test.' And then I did the SCAT test and didn't pass it, for whatever reason. It's hard, once you get out of a racecar, to be balanced anyway."
Power arrived at Sonoma needing a perfect weekend, and some sort of catastrophe to strike Pagenaud's side of the garage. As history now records, he didn't get either of them: Pagenaud qualified on pole and was untouchable in the race, and Power was torpedoed by a gearbox problem. Afterward, though, he was cheerily fatalistic about the outcome.
"When it's your year to win a championship, it's your year," he said. "It was just Simon's year through and through. Everything fell well for him. He did the things he needed to do – this weekend he got pole, led the laps, made it as difficult as possible for me. He just did a great job."
And that's it. None of the regret that has colored some of Power's other championship near-misses. No off-season riddled with sleepless nights spent replaying that one moment during that one race where he might have done something differently. (Although with a baby on the way, sleepless nights will feature heavily during his winter regardless).
Power faced two major rivals this year: his own body, and Pagenaud. He mostly overcame the former, and came close enough to overcoming the latter to cause a few anxious moments in Camp Simon. What could a fully healthy Power have achieved this year? In 2017, we might find out.