IndyCar Team Owner Admits Jimmie Johnson, Kyle Busch And Kyle Larson Are Under Consideration For Indy 500

Dennis Reinbold runs one of the top “one-off” teams that competes every year in the Indianapolis 500. Once a full-time NTT IndyCar Series team, Dreyer & Reinbold has set its focus on the Indy 500 and a Nitro Rallycross racing team.

That he is a Chevrolet team owner in IndyCar could make Dreyer & Reinbold Racing an obvious landing spot for one of three Nascar Cup Series drivers that have expressed interest in competing in the Indianapolis 500.

Those drivers include Jimmie Johnson, Kyle Busch and Kyle Larson. All three drivers have won Nascar Cup Series Championships and all three drive for Chevrolet teams in Nascar.

Is Reinbold interested in any of those three top Nascar names to drive a second Dreyer & Reinbold Racing entry in the 107^th Indianapolis 500?

“The only way I can answer that question right now is to say that we talk to everybody,” Reinbold admitted. “We’ve gathered a lot of information and haven’t made a decision.

“It’s got to be the right fit, and I don’t know who it will be or if we’ll do it or not. At this point in time, we plan to run two cars, but if it’s not the right fit, we won’t.”

Dreyer & Reinbold Racing, in partnership with Cusick Motorsports, announced that Stefan Wilson would drive the No. 24 Chevrolet in next year’s Indy 500.

In the 106th Indianapolis 500 on May 29, Sage Karam and Santino Ferrucci were the two drivers for the team.

Dreyer & Reinbold Racing has been linked to Jimmie Johnson, who now has an ownership stake in the Petty GMS Racing Chevrolet team in Nascar Cup.

Johnson, a seven-time Nascar Cup Series champion, spent the past two seasons in the NTT IndyCar Series as driver of the No. 48 Carvana/American Legion Honda at Chip Ganassi Racing.

Now that he is back with Chevrolet in Nascar, he may be restricted from driving anything but a Chevrolet in the 107^th Indianapolis 500.

Top Chevrolet IndyCar operations Team Penske and Arrow McLaren SP have both indicated they will not field an extra entry in next year’s Indianapolis 500. That leaves Ed Carpenter Racing, Dreyer & Reinbold Racing, AJ Foyt Racing and Juncos-Hollinger Racing as the only other Chevrolet teams in IndyCar if Johnson decides to return to next year’s Indianapolis 500.

As of November 4, Johnson said at Phoenix Raceway that it is his intention to return to the Indianapolis 500 next year, but “no deal has been finalized.”

Former Indy Racing League team owner and longtime IndyCar and Nascar sponsor John Menard told me at Charlotte Motor Speedway in October that he has sponsorship money set aside for Kyle Busch to run at the Indy 500, but so far, no deals have been completed.

Busch has left the Toyota Nascar team Joe Gibbs Racing and has moved over to the Richard Childress Racing, a Chevrolet team. If an Indy 500 deal was completed for Busch, Menard would sponsor the entry through his Menard’s chain of Midwestern-based home improvement stores.

Larson also has strong ties to Chevrolet at Hendrick Motorsports, the most successful Chevrolet team in Nascar history.

Reinbold would seem like the perfect team owner to give one of these drivers a “one-off” opportunity to compete Indy 500.

But when I asked him directly his plans for a second Indy 500 entry, here was Reinbold’s answer.

“We’re still up in the air on that,” Reinbold told me. “We’re working on it. We’re being very selective, to be honest with you, because we’re not in a huge hurry to do that. We’re already prepping both cars to be ready no matter what for May, and we’ve been doing that really since the checkered flag fell last May, this past May.

“Our preparation doesn’t change too much in that regard, but it has been nice to bring Stefan (Wilson) and Don (Cusick) in to be able to work with those dynamics to set the stage for what we need to do to grow that program. We’re excited.

“We would rather do it sooner rather than later, but a lot of things have to play out. This offseason in IndyCar has been a lot of things up in the air, as you know and have reported on. A lot of ways we’re waiting for some of the dominoes to fall, but we also have planned on controlling our own destiny, so we’re doing that.”

Dreyer & Reinbold Racing began competition in 2000 in the old Indy Racing League and was a full-time entrant through the 2012 season. It became a part-time team in 2013, competing in five races before scaling back to an Indy 500-only team from 2014 to 2019.

The team was set to return to six-race schedule in 2020 before the Covid-19 Pandemic hit, halting the season until a remade schedule began in June of that year.

The team competed in four races that year, all at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway with three of those races on the IMS road course.

Reinbold told me on Thursday that he continues to want to return the team to more IndyCar races in the future, but it’s a long process.

“We’re excited about the opportunity and looking into IndyCar,” he said. “IndyCar has great momentum. You look at some of the things, the announcement yesterday coming out about Hy-Vee in Iowa and the stars they’re going to bring out there. There’s a lot to look at and a lot to be excited about.

“We’ve been really focused the last couple of years in developing our Nitro Rally Car program, which we’re underway now. It’s kind of the middle of the season with that series. So, it complements IndyCar really well.

“Once the Indy 500 starts, we’re looking at other ideas and concepts and potential races in the future. We haven’t locked into anything at this point in time. We’ll have those conversations, though.

“We did take a step back with Covid a little bit. Not on purpose, but it did kind of ruin our plans. We were down in St. Pete ready to race when that event got called due to the pandemic, and we didn’t get our momentum back at that point in time.

“We’ve had some good headway in trying to reinvigorate our sponsors and our momentum going forward to do a few more races.

“To bite off a full season right now, we have all the equipment and people ready to go, but we don’t have everything in place to do that quite yet. That’s down the road. It’s still one of those things that we’re considering very seriously.”