How The Indianapolis 500 Got Its 33rd Entrant

There are numbers that are indelibly etched in the minds of sports fans. There are nine players on the field for a baseball team, 11 on each side of the line of scrimmage in football.

And basketball is generally a five-on-five game.

For much of its more-than-a-Century-long history, the Indianapolis 500 has meant a field of 33 racing machines in all their majestic beauty roaring down the front straight of the Indianapolis Motor Speedway to start the world’s most famous race.

Because of unusual circumstances in both 1979 and 1997, 35 cars started the race. The last time fewer than 33 cars were on the Indianapolis 500 starting grid was 1947, when 30 cars took the green flag.

A field of 33 cars became the norm in 1934 – one year after 42 cars starting the 1933 Indianapolis 500.

There is deep history in the field of 33 with 11 rows, three cars abreast creating one of the most iconic, spectacular, and breathtaking moments in all of sport.

This year, however, the entries were stuck at 32.

Ironically, the Indianapolis 500 had become a victim of IndyCar’s Success. Teams that had traditionally field extra entries in the Indy 500 for “one-offs” had expanded their full-time IndyCar teams to extra cars with extra drivers for the season.

Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing had expanded from two cars to three, with the addition of Christian Lundgaard to the lineup. In previous years, the extra entry would have been for an Indy 500-only entrant.

Meyer-Shank Racing, the team that won last year’s Indy 500 in an extra car for Helio Castroneves, had expanded to a two-car operation featuring the four-time Indy 500 winning driver and the 2019 Indy winner Simon Pagenaud.

Team Penske contracted from four full-time cars to three in 2022 as it prepares to return to sports car racing next year. Chip Ganassi Racing added Tony Kanaan to its regular four-driver team for Indy this year giving team owner Chip Ganassi five Indy 500 entrants for the first time.

Some teams were able to add an extra car to its Indy 500 lineup, such as two-time winner Juan Pablo Montoya returning to Arrow McLaren SP and Marco Andretti rejoining Andretti Autosport for the Indy 500.

Meantime, the regular season IndyCar lineup has increased to as many as 27 cars at Texas Motor Speedway on March 20 with 26 cars at St. Petersburg, Long Beach, and Barber Motorsports Park.

Because many teams expanded the IndyCar lineup, it came at the expense of the Indianapolis 500 as the “Indy-only one-off” opportunities dwindled.

“I think you’re spot on,” DragonSpeed owner Elton Julian told me on Thursday. “Basically, it’s almost like a victim of its own success in a way, but it only hurts at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway.

“If you think about it, you if you go through the list of teams in your head that were an option to also join the grid, the fact that DragonSpeed is one of the only ones on that list, everybody else is already in the field.

“There are not many other teams that can come and do one-offs like they used to in the past. It’s going to be a tough one to navigate moving forward, I’m sure, for the Speedway, because as they galvanize these really quality, quality entries, full-budget, top drivers really focused at the 26 to 28 number, it’s going to be difficult. There’s going to have to be definite movement to make the possibility happen, to have available engines, to have available chassis and also to have some level of commitment from the biggest teams that they have to do it, or I don’t see how else you can.

“We’ll join; hopefully that will take care of 29.”

Hitting the Magic Number of 33

On May 5, the 33^rd and final entry for the 106^th Indianapolis 500 became official as driver Stefan Wilson of England will join DragonSpeed Cusick Motorsports, a co-opted team that features DragonSpeed Racing crew, sponsorship lineup up by Don Cusick’s business-to-business background using Chevrolet-powered Dallara Indy cars proved by AJ Foyt Racing.

“AJ Foyt Racing is playing a crucial role in this,” Julian said. “They gave us a car.

“That’s a very, very, very important one. Look, the way I see it with Larry Foyt, who, by the way, has been absolutely fantastic, they are busy with what they’ve got for the 500, and they have people that they need to service and entries that they need to push hard with. But they are making a car available to us.

“We’ve gathered some of the equipment — because I sold everything to Michael Shank. I mean everything. So, there’s been a group of teams, big teams, that have afforded us some equipment, so I feel good about that. Beyond that, working with Scott Harner (AJ Foyt Racing Vice President of Operations) at Foyt to really make sure we have all the pieces of the puzzle, and in that respect, they’ve been very involved as far as what I’m missing, like an American fueler, for example. It’s a very specific job in IndyCar. You need that guy. Well, we don’t carry one of those guys in sports cars, not with that ability.

“So little things like that he’s helping us out. They’ve taken good care of us, and they definitely are wanting for it to go well.”

Although there was plenty of panic from Indy 500 fans regarding if there would be 33 entries for this year’s race, there was no concern whatsoever from IndyCar owner Roger Penske, IndyCar President Jay Frye, and Penske Entertainment CEO Mark Miles.

All were extremely confident the 33^rd entry would develop.

Frye helped connect Julian with Cusick and Wilson in recent weeks. The end result is Wilson will drive the No. 25 DragonSpeed Cusick Motorsports Chevrolet in the 106^th Indianapolis 500.

Julian is the founder of DragonSpeed, one of the world’s most ambitious sports car teams, which won its third Rolex 24 at Daytona LMP2 class victory in four years in January.

Lohla Sport, a premium women’s golf lifestyle apparent brand; Sierra Pacific Windows and Gnarly Premium Cut Jerky will sponsor the Indy 500 entry.

Lohla Sport is the brainchild of longtime Golf Channel and Golfino executive Lisa O’Hurley. Her husband is actor John O’Hurley, who played J. Peterman in the iconic television series Seinfeld.

A Blind Date in the Mojave Desert

The deal was finalized with what they call a “blind date” at Thermal, located in the Mojave Desert between Palm Springs, California, and the Salton Sea. Thermal is considered a luxury villas with a race track in the middle of it, according to Cusick.

“It’s another one of those Thermal stories where Elton saw one of my Track Attack Nascars that we race out there, saw my name on it, and got a hold of me,” Cusick explained. “We met that very afternoon, talked through a few things, and just hit it off.

“Once I knew that we could get Elton on board, everything changed from there. Anders Krohn (Wilson’s agent), Stefan, Elton, just about everybody got together with Jay Frye, who I want to thank for his help in this effort, and we put it together in kind of record time.

“We have a propensity for this last-minute stuff at the 500, but we’re thinking that this new collaboration, hopefully we get a plan together for 2023 and quit this 11th hour stuff.”

Consider that Julian had never been to Thermal before, he happened to see one of Cusick’s cars with his name on it and had text messages from Jay Frye that is the man he was supposed to meet, Wilson calls it “serendipitous.”

“I think Elton tweeted out something about four weeks ago, that ‘Hey, we want to go back to Indy, and it was like, hey, huh, that’s interesting,” Wilson recalled. “Jay connected us, and we started exchanging a few texts, and I wasn’t sure what Elton thought of me. I didn’t know if he respected me as a driver, wanted to work with me, but I was like, I’ll just see where this goes.

“Then from there, it was like, we hit it off, and I’m like, okay, I want to get him introduced to Don, and it felt like when you introduce two friends together and you want them to date and you’re like, okay, we’ll set them up on this blind date.

“That blind date happened to be that Elton was at Thermal, saw Don’s Track Attack Nascar car with Cusick all over it, and he was like, ‘Is this the guy I’m supposed to meet with? I’m at Thermal right now.’ I’m like, ‘Yeah, absolutely.’

“I connected them on text, got them to meet up, and I sat there like the nervous friend like are they going to hit it off, are they going to like each other, and I’m sitting there like watching my phone waiting for a response.

“I think I waited about an hour and a half, two hours, didn’t see anything, and I’m like, ‘well, maybe the meeting went bad, maybe they don’t like each other.’ So, I texted Don, I texted Elton, ‘how is it going?’ They’re like, ‘we’re still in the meeting.’ I’m like, ‘what? It’s been like two hours.’”

That was the first sign things were coming together.

Shortly thereafter, all sides agreed to put the deal together.

“I’m really excited how it all came together,” Wilson said. “It couldn’t have been a more fateful time that week to be talking and then Elton to be right at the place where he needed to be at the right time.

“It was a sign for sure.”

Despite a shortage of talented racing mechanics and crewmembers that has been drained by the rapid growth of more racing teams in all series, the Indianapolis 500 got its 33^rd entry.

For Wilson, Julian and Cusick, it happened because of perseverance and a little bit of serendipity.

“I feel very fortunate that this all came together the way it did, and that Elton and Don connected, and we made this happen,” Wilson said. “Because if this didn’t happen, it becomes really, really difficult to get to 33.

“I think it’s a good news story all around really that this all came together to make it a full field.”