Reinbold set to announce entry for Indy 500

Dreyer & Reinbold Racing will return to Indianapolis Motor Speedway in May with at least one car, but team owner Dennis Reinbold is hoping that he can put a two-car team together.

“I’m keeping an open mind on two cars still,” he told Motorsport.com, “as there’s a little bit of time to get more deals done, but we have a sponsor for one car because of the interest around the 100^th Indy 500. I’m going to keep working on it, but a lot of things still have to happen – I wouldn’t even say it’s as good as 50/50 yet – whereas the first one is accomplished.”

Rumors of DRR running a ‘Young American’ dream team lineup of Sage Karam and JR Hildebrand are quite ambitious, according to Reinbold, who ran Karam in partnership with Chip Ganassi Racing back in 2014. But the team owner did admit that he had spoken to both drivers, along with race veterans Townsend Bell – who raced for DRR at Indy last year – and Oriol Servia, who finished fourth for the team in 2012.

“I don’t think it’s any secret that we’ve had discussions with all those guys,” commented Reinbold, “because they could all do a great job for us. And to have two of them would be quite a thing to pull off.”

While two-car teams make more economic sense than single-car entries over the course of a whole season, Reinbold observed running just one car at Indy can be almost as good value as multiple entries.

He said: “Yeah, over a season there are economies of scale, but to do just one race per season like I’ve done the past three years, those economies of scale aren’t as great.

“The engine lease, the tire program, entries fees – they all have a cost attached and so there aren’t great savings to be made. To buy everything from the ground up is in the $470,000 range.”

Regarding entering other races on the Verizon IndyCar Series calendar, as well as campaigning in Red Bull Global Rallycross Championship, Reinbold said, “I would like to go back to running full time in IndyCar, rather than hand-pick races here and there, or just the Indy 500.

“But I don’t think there’s a chance of us doing the whole 2016 season, no. I suppose it’s a slight possibility…but so slight that I haven’t really focused on that.”

While Reinbold would not confirm outright that his car(s) would be Chevrolet powered, he said: “We haven’t signed anything yet, but traditionally we’ve been a Chevy team, our pieces and components are Chevy related, so that makes sense.”