The team founded by Dennis Reinbold will team up with Don Cusick to run two cars for the 108th running of the 500 set to take place in May, fielding a very experienced driver lineup for the massive event.
2012 IndyCar champion Ryan Hunter-Reay will be behind the wheel of car n°23, teaming up with the driver he had replaced at Ed Carpenter Racing last season, Conor Daly, set to race with n°24.
It’s the second year in a row that the 2014 winner of the 500 will take on the challenge of the Month of May with DRR, and Captain America is excited to return on track with his former colleagues:
“I really enjoyed every day going to the track and working with this group and the constant feeling of enthusiasm throughout the whole.”
“We were competitive the whole time and had a really strong effort on race day. I was eager to come back with them for 2024 and I’ll miss having Stef there, but I’ve texted with Conor and we’ll get to work on making this team the strongest it can be.”
Daly, Detroit podium sitter in 2016, is also excited for a new challenge, as he mentioned while describing how him and Reinbold had struck out his 2024 deal:
“Dennis actually first called me maybe two years ago to ask about my availability, but I was returning to my former employer so it wasn’t right on the timing. But when I was free, he called and said, ‘I believe you can win this race, and we really want to work with you.”
“And I was like, ‘Well, that’s what I want to do!’ Dennis said, ‘I don’t care what it takes, we just want you to drive for us and we don’t need you to come with any money,’ and I knew it would be silly not to take advantage of this opportunity,” added the former Dale Coyne Racing driver.
The Indianapolis native was adamant in saying that there is no bad blood between him and his new teammate, in spite of what had happened last year and the heated words he “might have had” for the American driver.
“I also wanted to thank Don Cusick for getting involved with us, and being teamed up with Captain America, Mr. Ryan Hunter-Reay, is going to be really cool. Despite what I might have thought or said about him last year, it’s two Americans using Chevrolet engines in a great team with a great chance of doing something big.”
Photo credits: Penske Entertainment: James Black
With Cusick aiding Reinbold with his two entries for the 500, it appears likely that Stefan Wilson will have to sit out another 500 after suffering a very serious back injury in a post qualifying accident caused by another driver.
During the presentation of the deal, Cusick explained to RACER that, while Wilson will be missed dearly this time round, there was no room to make his return happen this year unfortunately:
“We’re definitely not done with Stefan. The situation with teams and available cars and engines at Indy, we talked to everybody and weren’t able to find anything that worked for us with a team that had an opening.”
“ So our thought was to keep Cusick Motorsports involved, and we felt that if we weren’t there, we might break the chain, so we wanted to continue with Dreyer & Reinbold.“
“There’s no better way to make that happen than to get more involved with Dennis and his team — and if we could do a third car in the future for Stef, we’d like to do that, even if it means buying a car for it.”
“The way I look at it is last year we were dating. This year’s we’re engaged, and if all continues to go well, next year, we’ll get married,” he hopefully concluded.
Reinbold also commented on the team announcement, expressing his pleasure with the driver lineup and the confirmation of Cusick’s support:
“Don’s going to take a role on both cars as opposed to a one car with Stefan last year and we’re just all going to work together to try to generate the appropriate amount of sponsorship to apply to the two cars. This is a great group to go racing with, and we couldn’t ask for two better drivers than Ryan and Conor.”
