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JR Hildebrand confirmed for the 3rd Ed Carpenter Racing entry for both the Indianapolis 500 and the Angie's List Grand Prix of Indianapolis. Will be sponsored by Preferred Freezer Services once again

Preferred Freezer Services will be the primary sponsor for Josef Newgarden's #21 Ed Carpenter Racing Chevrolet/Dallara at Toronto & Boston

looking at the confirmed & rumored 500 entries again:

Confirmed Entries: 28

#2 - Juan Pablo Montoya (W) - Chevrolet - Team Penske - Verizon
#3 - Helio Castroneves (W) - Chevrolet - Team Penske - Pennzoil
#5 - James Hinchcliffle - Honda - Schmidt Peterson Motorsports - ARROW
#6 - JR Hildebrand - Chevrolet - Ed Carpenter Racing - Preferred Freezer Services
#7 - Mikhail Aleshin - Honda - Schmidt Peterson Motorsports - SMP Bank
#8 - Max Chilton (R) - Chevrolet - Chip Ganassi Racing Teams - Gallagher
#9 - Scott Dixon (W) - Chevrolet - Chip Ganassi Racing Teams - Target
#10 - Tony Kanaan (W) - Chevrolet - Chip Ganassi Racing Teams - NTT Data
#11 - Sebastian Bourdais - Chevrolet - KVSH Racing - Hydroxycut?
#12 - Will Power - Chevrolet - Team Penske - Verizon
#14 - Takuma Sato - Honda - AJ Foyt Racing - ABC Supply Co.
#15 - Graham Rahal - Honda - Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing - Steak N' Shake
#16 - Spencer Pigot (R) - Honda - Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing
#18 - Conor Daly - Honda - Dale Coyne Racing - Jonathan Byrd's
#19 - TBA - Honda - Dale Coyne Racing
#20 - Ed Carpenter - Chevrolet - Ed Carpenter Racing - Fuzzy's Ultra Premium Vodka
#21 - Josef Newgarden - Chevrolet - Ed Carpenter Racing - Fuzzy's Ultra Premium Vodka
#22 - Simon Pagenaud - Chevrolet - Team Penske - Menard's
#24 - Sage Karam - Chevrolet - Dreyer & Reinbold/Kingdom Racing - Gas Monkey Energy Drink
#26 - Carlos Munoz - Honda - Andretti Autosport - Pint Pharma?
#27 - Marco Andretti - Honda - Andretti Autosport - HHGregg/Snapple
#28 - Ryan Hunter Reay (W) - Honda - Andretti Autosport - DHL
#35 - Alex Tagliani - Honda - AJ Foyt Racing - Alfe Heat Treating
#41 - Jack Hawksworth - Honda - AJ Foyt Racing - ABC Supply Co.
#61 - Matthew Brabham (R) - Chevrolet - Pirtek Team Murray/KVSH Racing - Pirtek
#63 - Pippa Mann - Honda - Dale Coyne Racing - Susan G. Komen
#82 - Gabby Chaves (?) - TBA - Marotti Racing
#83 - Charlie Kimball - Chevrolet - Chip Ganassi Racing Teams - Novo Nordisk
#88 - Bryan Clauson - Honda - Dale Coyne Racing - Jonathan Byrd's
#91 - Buddy Lazier (W) - Chevrolet - Lazier Partners Racing
#98 - Alexander Rossi (R) - Honda - Andretti Herta Autosport
TBA - Katherine Legge - TBA - Grace Autosport


UNCONFIRMED/RUMORED
Indianapolis 500 one-off/part time Verizon IndyCar Series entry
(W) - Indianapolis 500 Mile Race champion
(R) - Rookie

Possible Drivers (either looking for a ride/funding, rumored, or has recent experience):

• - Townsend Bell - rumored for 3rd Schmidt Peterson Motorsports entry or 2nd Dreyer & Reinbold entry
• - Ryan Briscoe - seems more unlikely now with the Ford/Ganassi WEC program
• - Gabby Chaves - out of a full season ride due to funding, rumored for 3rd Schmidt Peterson Motorsports entry, Marotti trying to get funding for one-off entry
• - James Davison - would miss Qualifying & Carb Day due to PWC commitments
• - Carlos Huertas
• - Luca Flippi - ran for Coyne at St. Pete as well as the Phoenix test
• - Buddy Lazier - most likely will be back with his own team, rumored to run the full 500 practice/qualifying schedule this year
• - Katherine Legge - linked with Grace Autosport, which could be partnered with Schmidt Peterson or KVSH
• - Pippa Mann - good chance that she will race for Dale Coyne again in 2016
• - Sebastien Saavedra
• - Oriol Servia - subbed for Power at St. Pete, ran one-off entry for RLLR last year
• - Simona de Silvestro - seems unlikely as she would miss qualifying due to Formula E commitments
• - Tristan Vautier
• - Brian Vickers - rumored for 3rd Schmidt Peterson Motorsports entry
• - Stefan Wilson - looking for funding to attempt the Indianapolis 500, has sponsorship from American Solar Energy Society

Buddy Lazier is still racing?

yeah he has attempted the 500 the last 3 years, I think he is running the old Fan Force United car from 2012 (or was at one point). There is a rumor going around that he will run the full 500 practice schedule for this year, unlike in years past of showing up the Thursday or Friday before Qualifying

Menards is back at Indianapolis, with Pagenaud

Love the Menards car. They need to sponsor him fulltime.

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"Many people ask me why I always sign off Till We Meet Again, because goodbye is always so final. Goodbye Dan Wheldon." -Marty Reid

Kurt Busch will not attempt to qualify for the 100th running of the 500 this year
http://www.kurtbusch.com/kurt-busch-2016-indianapolis-500-statement/

Carlin looking to run a combined effort with a other team for the 500.
http://www.racer.com/indycar/item/12754 ... -500-entry

To add a bit more, his sponsorship deal from the "University of Iowa Stephen A. Wynn Institute for Vision Research" was a 5 year deal (with 2016 only being the 3rd year) so he should be racing in may for the next couple as well. Hopefully the rumors of running more are going to be true from that sponsorship plus more hopping on board with a former winner for the 100th.

Phoenix now have a title sponsor and 50 laps have been added. All to the better!

Mark Miles thinks the 500 will be sold out soon and also there are rumors saying that there will be an announcement that there wont be aero kits next year.

Hopefully they get rid of the aero kits, they've cost a lot and added nothing imo

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"An idea whose time has come cannot be stopped by any army or any government"


3x TBKL rFactor Hillclimb champion

By "no aero kits" do you mean everyone would just go back to the pieces supplied by Dallara?

I hope that is the case, as the racing was pretty insane without the aero kits.

But if they get rid of the aero kits, how am i going to be able to tell whats a honda or whats a chevy?!?!

I really hope they do NOT go back to the stock Dallara pieces. The racing on the big ovals has greatly improved with the aero kits. (Pocono was dreadful with the stock Dallara bodywork, but actually extremely good with the aero kits last year, for example). Also I feel like the Chevy bodywork and now this year's Honda bodywork is better looking than the stock Dallara pieces. (Last year's Honda... not so much). The biggest factor, though, is that I REALLY like the additional technical intrigue the aero kits provide. It does make a big difference to me that the series isn't spec anymore and that teams within the same manufacturer can run different pieces.

I like the aero kits both on the technical end and the appearance end too, but they are hurting teams on cost.

the Dallara kit doesn't look bad to me, but if they reverted back to it would need a refresh.

The trouble is that you can't always go with the lowest cost option and expect good things for the overall series. That's what resulted in us having the same exact chassis from 2003 to 2011. That kind of stagnation doesn't generate excitement. It doesn't help retain existing viewers or bring in new viewers. It doesn't create stories on websites about new chassis developments or aero tweaks that cause people to go look at it and keep an interest in the series during the off-season or even during the course of the season in the middle of the week. And also keeping the cars the same for years upon years results in everyone knowing the car like the back of their hand, so there's no surprises, less variance from race to race on which team figures out the setup the best, and the big dollar teams tend to gap the lower budget teams even further over the long term.

it wasn't that crap back when we had Reynards, Lolas and Swift

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Motorsports trend for 2024: everything is a bad taste joke now

Kind of torn on it as I see the concern about cost's but I also like that its moved the series away from been a spec series & I actually think the racing on the ovals especially has been better with the aero kits than they were before & the increased performance from the higher downforce is also nice to see.

It also seems kind of pointless to ban them when the money has already been spent, If cost was a concern then they never should have got to the point of teams needing to buy them.

Teams buying the kits was part of the whole package that the manufacturers were sold on. How else would they make their money back?

I am hopeful that when the TV rights are up for grabs in the middle of next year that the ratings improvement will have continued and that the series can command a much better price with more money going to everyone, especially the teams.

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Dan Wheldon ¦ 1978-2011
Marco Simoncelli ¦ 1987-2011
Jules Bianchi ¦ 1989-2015
Justin Wilson ¦ 1978-2015

Yeah, I know he's mad and I don't care. I do not care. I did not care then. I do not care now. I'm here to race him.