BROOKLYN, MICH. -- A grinding crash at Phoenix last March put Gil de Ferran in the hospital and out of the Indy Racing League title picture. Or so it appeared.

But, after missing the race in Japan while his broken neck and back healed, the 35-year-old veteran returned to competition in May.

Since winning the 87th Indianapolis 500, nobody has been hotter.

De Ferran has amassed 231 points in the past six races on the strength of two wins, a trio of thirds and an eighth place to jump into the second spot in the standings -- just 14 points behind fellow Brazilian Tony Kanaan.

After his victory last Saturday night at Nashville, the Team Penske driver was asked if he ever expected to be back in the championship hunt considering his injuries?

"Well, it's certainly hard to be out of action for a race and six weeks, especially feeling like I felt, but I never really lost heart," said the two-time CART champ, now in his second season of IRL racing. "I never thought, 'It's all gone or anything like that.'

"Racing is racing. Things change, things happen. The likelihood of you having two or three bad results in a 16-race season is very high. So I guess I felt like, 'OK, we had our two bad results out of the way early on.'"

He admitted he had some cobwebs when he first climbed back into his car at Indy.

"I was out of synch, I was slow and I wondered for just a minute if I was going to get it back," he admitted. "But the next day everything felt comfortable and was back to normal.

"From there on, I mean, everything's been great, with the exception of Texas, which we weren't particularly strong (there). Every other race, we were very strong."

At Nashville, he parlayed a bold pass of Scott Dixon, a good car and some timely cautions to return to victory lane.

"Everything fell our way and we had a great car all weekend," said de Ferran. "I thought we could have won at Kansas City but we came up a little short.

"It's nice to have everything come together again for a win."

Adding another open-wheel title to his resume is priority No. 1.

"Certainly my goal is to win the championship, make no mistake about it. The way I focus on that is by not focusing on that. It's by focusing on each and every weekend as they come.

"Come out of here with a first place, a second place, a third place. If you can win, win. If you can't, you have to still bring it home. I know it's a cliche but that's how you've got to approach it."

The high-banked 2-mile MIS oval is always the scene of excellent racing and Sunday's show figures to be more of the same.

"I've been racing at Michigan International Speedway since 1995 and have always enjoyed myself there," continued de Ferran. "It's just a great track for racing. There are lots of grooves, so you can go two or three wide. It's a different type of track from where we've been competing lately.

"We'll be drafting all day, and it will be difficult to break away."

One guy who hopes to be in that lead draft is Sam Hornish Jr.

The two-time IRL champion will debut the new Chevy Gen IV engine (actually a Ford-Cosworth design), which has been allowed into competition at the halfway point of the season because Chevrolet's current motor has been down on power compared to Toyota and Honda.

"It was impressive in our three tests and I'm hoping for the best," said Hornish, who led the first laps of 2003 for General Motors last Saturday night.

Toyota-powered drivers, coming off a 1-2-3 finish at Nashville, have won seven of the nine races and Honda's Kanaan is feeling some serious heat as Scott Dixon trails de Ferran by a single point and Helio Castroneves is only 21 points out of the lead.

Defending MIS winner Tomas Scheckter has led 261 laps, trailing only teammate Dixon's 544 and de Ferran's 337, but has yet to win in 2003. Ditto for Castroneves and former IRL champ Kenny Brack.

Robin Miller covers open wheel racing for ESPN and ESPN.com.