The team founded by Dennis Reinbold is best known today for its annual runs in May at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway, but the Indiana-based auto dealer is working with his partners to bring Dreyer & Reinbold Racing back to its full glory as a …
The team founded by Dennis Reinbold is best known today for its annual runs in May at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway, but the Indiana-based auto dealer is working with his partners to bring Dreyer & Reinbold Racing back to its full glory as a season-long entrant in the NTT IndyCar Series.
As a full-time team in the former Indy Racing League from 2000-04, and under the renamed IndyCar Series from 2005-12 and the early stages of the 2013 season, DRR shifted to its Indy-only program in 2014.
Other than a brief spell in 2020 when the team took part in three races, it has placed all of its energy on Indianapolis, and with the series heading towards a new chassis and powertrain formula in 2027, Reinbold sees the looming transition point as an opportunity to get back to its full-time roots.
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“We are gearing up for when things change in ’27 with the formula and taking a look at that with new cars and new engines coming out, as what we can do to build our program to be full-time at that point in time. That’s our goal. So that’s where we’re focused. We’re focused on the next two Indy 500s and growing our program to be full-time in ’27,” Reinbold told RACER.
“Don Cusick is back with us and involved in the program again. We get along great, which is sometimes rare in racing, but we share very similar philosophies, and he brings another aspect and some partners in as well, and we’ve just had a lot of good momentum that points toward our ability to expand the program, and we want to do it right when we’re ready. So we’re giving ourselves a two-year runway to be in that position.”
DRR’s last race as a full-time entrant was with Oriol Servia at the 2013 Indy 500. Michael Levitt/Motorsport Images
Under IndyCar’s new charter system, which protects and grants automatic entries (excluding Indy) for the cars fielded by the 10 full-time teams that participated through the 2023 season, DRR would need to buy a pair of charters to take part in the full championship — if two are available for purchase — or seek permission from Penske Entertainment to try and qualify at each race as a non-charter team.
Reinbold has been in communication with Penske regarding DRR’s interest in competing at every event and says the response has been encouraging.
“They would love to have us back full-time, which is the feedback we get,” he said. “So that’s going to be a key component in figuring out how we can navigate the charter situation.”
Scott McLaughlin won his first Indianapolis 500 pole on Sunday and Kyle Larson won the hearts of IndyCar fans after becoming the fastest rookie qualifier in Speedway history on his way to securing fifth. But the biggest accomplishment this weekend …
Scott McLaughlin won his first Indianapolis 500 pole on Sunday and Kyle Larson won the hearts of IndyCar fans after becoming the fastest rookie qualifier in Speedway history on his way to securing fifth.
But the biggest accomplishment this weekend at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway was reserved for the smallest team, which only competes at the Indy 500, as Ryan Hunter-Reay cracked the Fast 12 qualifying group with his No. 23 Dreyer & Reinbold Racing/Cusick Motorsports Chevy.
The combination of the 2014 Indy 500 winner and the team owned by Dennis Reinbold and run this year in partnership with Don Cusick was formidable in time trials as Hunter-Reay out-qualified the entire Chip Ganassi Racing team, plus three of the four cars from both Andretti Global and Rahal Letterman Lanigan.
There was one giant killer in qualifying, and it was RHR and DRR.
“I can’t tell you how much it means to everybody involved in this program, how much attention to detail they put into it, the effort that goes into it,” Hunter-Reay told RACER after posting a four-lap average of 230.567 mph.
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“They’re the last to get parts, they’re the last on the assembly line to get the development done and to get in the wind tunnel and things like that. It’s a huge deal for us to get into that Fast 12. It’s really fun to be a part of that. We made the right decisions at the right time and got it where we need to get it. I’m really, really thrilled for the team on that. They should be proud of it. You could definitely win from 12th.”
Through Reinbold and Cusick, Hunter-Reay’s No. 23 Chevy is loaded with an array of small sponsors, and thanks to the infectious enthusiasm from the owners, plus the entire DRR staff, Indy 500 fans have been gifted a true David to support as they take on the Goliaths.
“I think the foundation is that passion that Dennis Reinbold has for this race,” Hunter-Reay added. “His whole year revolves around it. A lot of the crew members I’ve worked with in the past, they get together and they get to focus on this one race, and it has its advantages. It’s great to have Don Cusick on board. He’s so passionate about this program as well. It’s a great atmosphere in the team. When you get to really pull it all together, and have a great effort like that, now we’re in the top 12.
“Really proud of that, honestly. I’ve been working with not only (race engineer) Todd Bowen, who I worked with last year as my engineer, but Peter Gibbons; way overqualified. It’s phenomenal to get these names together and everybody’s got one drive. We’re the only one-off team that made it into the Fast 12 so very proud of this group.”
Hunter-Reay’s teammate Conor Daly qualified 29th in the No. 24 DRR/Cusick Chevy.
Dennis Reinbold will have a pair of oval experts in Conor Daly and 2014 Indianapolis 500 winner Ryan Hunter-Reay for both of Dreyer & Reinbold Racing’s Indianapolis 500 entries and welcome a new event partner in Don Cusick to the DRR family. The …
Dennis Reinbold will have a pair of oval experts in Conor Daly and 2014 Indianapolis 500 winner Ryan Hunter-Reay for both of Dreyer & Reinbold Racing’s Indianapolis 500 entries and welcome a new event partner in Don Cusick to the DRR family.
The American duo represents the strongest lineup assembled by the Indianapolis-based team since its formation in 2000. And with the addition of Cusick Motorsports as a partner across both entries, Reinbold is happy to see their relationship, which started in 2023 by fielding a car for Stefan Wilson, expand into one that includes Daly and Hunter-Reay under the Dreyer & Reinbold-Cusick Motorsports banner.
“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,” Reinbold told RACER. “This is a great group to go racing with, and we couldn’t ask for two better drivers than Ryan and Conor.”
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For Cusick, going racing for the first time without Wilson will be a bittersweet experience, especially after he was ruled out from racing last year after being injured in a post-qualifying crash caused by a rival, but he hopes the evolving relationship with DRR can include the Briton in the future.
“We’re definitely not done with Stefan,” Cusick said. “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 [with DRR] we were dating. This year’s we’re engaged, and if all continues to go well, next year, we’ll get married.”
For Hunter-Reay, who joined DRR for the first time in 2023 (pictured, top) and charged from 18th to 11th in the race while dealing with a broken front-wing adjuster, the opportunity to build on the positives and work with Daly is a source of great encouragement.
“I really enjoyed every day going to the track and working with this group and the constant feeling of enthusiasm throughout the whole garage,” said the 2012 IndyCar Series champion. “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.”
Conor Daly is relishing an Indy 500 reset alongside Hunter-Reay. Motorsport Images
Hunter-Reay and Daly laughed at the notion of DRR-Cusick’s Indy 500 lineup being an “Ed Carpenter Racing Reunion Tour” after Daly was released by ECR in June and replaced by Hunter-Reay who was uninterested in returning after the 2023 season was completed.
Daly had a few spicy words to offer for Hunter-Reay in the aftermath of the ECR driver change, but there are no lingering issues between the IndyCar veterans as they join forces with DRR-Cusick.
“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,’” Daly said. “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.
“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.”
Dreyer & Reinbold Racing is set to return to the Indianapolis 500 in 2024 with another two-car effort. Its most recent lineup of 2014 Indy 500 winner Ryan Hunter-Reay and IndyCar veteran Graham Rahal – a stand-in for the injured Stefan Wilson – had …
Dreyer & Reinbold Racing is set to return to the Indianapolis 500 in 2024 with another two-car effort.
Its most recent lineup of 2014 Indy 500 winner Ryan Hunter-Reay and IndyCar veteran Graham Rahal — a stand-in for the injured Stefan Wilson — had a strong performance in May where its cars placed 11th and 22nd. And while the team has yet to announce its next roster, the Chevy-powered outfit is said to have both seats earmarked for specific drivers to contest the May 26 classic.
“We’re trying to accomplish a few things; we have a direction we want to go, but we aren’t quite there yet,” Dennis Reinbold told RACER. “But we’ll be at two cars again, which is what we have in motion.”
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Although Reinbold wouldn’t be drawn on his Indy 500 drivers for 2024, multiple sources tell RACER the direction they’re headed involves forming another all-American combination with the returning Hunter-Reay and DRR newcomer Conor Daly.
Prior to any on-track running, DRR’s Dallara DW12s will need to be updated to hybrid specification with new lightweight componentry and ancillaries to care for Chevy’s 2.2-liter twin-turbo V6 motors. Due to DRR’s position as one of the few remaining entrants who focus solely on the Indy 500, the Indianapolis-based team will need to wait for all of IndyCar’s full-time teams to receive the 2024 updates before it can start the modification process. There’s no specific date attached to when DRR will take possession of the multitude of new-spec items.
“As an Indy-only team, we’re not as high on the pecking order as the others,” Reinbold added. “So we want the others to get theirs as soon as possible so we can get ours.”
Brian Deegan will make his Nitrocross Group E debut driving for Dreyer & Reinbold JC at the next event at Wild Horse Pass Motorsports Park in Phoenix on November 10-11 It will mark a return to rallycross-like motorsport for off-road racing veteran …
Brian Deegan will make his Nitrocross Group E debut driving for Dreyer & Reinbold JC at the next event at Wild Horse Pass Motorsports Park in Phoenix on November 10-11
It will mark a return to rallycross-like motorsport for off-road racing veteran Deegan, who previously competed in Global Rallycross between 2011-16, but has more recently been supporting his childrens’ motorsport endeavours, including NASCAR driver Hailie Deegan while competing in off-road truck racing as well as making occasional appearances in Nitrocross’ Side-by-Side class.
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“I’m really looking forward to this new challenge,” said Deegan. “Nitrocross is a whole different animal, but I love pushing my limits and trying new things. Dreyer & Reinbold Racing has a strong track record winning the team championship along with going 1-2-3 in the driver’s championships, and I believe this partnership will be a winning one.”
After a decorated career on two wheels – which included 10 X Games medals across Freestyle Motocross, Step Up, and Best Trick – he joined a number of his contemporaries, including motocross rival and Nitrocross founder Travis Pastrana in switching to four wheels. There he added four more X Games medals in Rally Car Racing and Rallycross, including a gold for his maiden win in the discipline in Los Angeles at the end of 2011.
Deegan won his most recent rallycross race, at the Port of LA in 2016. Larry Chen/Red Bull Content Pool
Across three full-time and three part-time campaigns in GRC with Olsbergs MSE and later with Chip Ganassi Racing, Deegan took 18 podium finishes from 42 GRC starts, including a string of five consecutively in 2012 en route to second in the championship behind Tanner Foust. His second, and most recent event win came at his most recent start, the 2016 GRC finale.
“We are elated to have Brian Deegan join our team for Rounds 4 and 5 of the 2023-24 Nitrocross season,” said Dennis Reinbold, team owner of Dreyer & Reinbold Racing. “Brian’s fearless attitude and his drive to conquer new challenges are qualities that resonate deeply with our team. We believe that this collaboration will ignite the racing world with excitement and intensity.”
Deegan completes a 10-car field for rounds four and five of the 2023-24 Nitrocross season, filling the seat held by IndyCar and NASCAR driver Conor Daly for the first three rounds of the year. XITE Energy Racing is also set to drop down to a single-car entry for team owner Oliver Bennett, having fielded five-time World Rally winner Kris Meeke and four-time U.S. rallycross champion Tanner Foust so far this season.
Conor Daly will race in this weekend’s Nitrocross season opener at the Visions off-road festival in Oklahoma for Dreyer & Reinbold Racing. In what will be his first race outing since departing Ed Carpenter Racing in the NTT Data IndyCar series, Daly …
Conor Daly will race in this weekend’s Nitrocross season opener at the Visions off-road festival in Oklahoma for Dreyer & Reinbold Racing.
In what will be his first race outing since departing Ed Carpenter Racing in the NTT Data IndyCar series, Daly will drive for the championship-winning team alongside Fraser McConnell, whose return was announced last week.
“I’m incredibly excited to join Dreyer & Reinbold Racing JC and compete in the upcoming Nitrocross race in Oklahoma,” said Daly. “The chance to test my abilities in this intense, adrenaline-fueled series is something I’ve been anticipating. I’m grateful to the team for believing in me and providing this incredible opportunity.
“I can’t wait to get behind the wheel and showcase what we can achieve together. I also want to thank Travis Pastrana and Nitrocross for all of their help and effort in getting this program together.”
Team owner Dennis Reinbold was pleased to secure Daly’s services, saying that his varied resume will help the reigning champions to keep moving forward.
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“We are absolutely thrilled to welcome Daly to Dreyer & Reinbold Racing JC for the first round of the 2023-24 Nitrocross season,” he said. “Conor’s proven talent and racing prowess make him an ideal addition to our team. We have no doubt that his unique skills will significantly contribute to our success in this thrilling motorsport discipline.”
Daly joins a field that also includes five-time World Rally winner Kris Meeke and Oliver Bennett (XITE Energy Racing), Kevin and Oliver Eriksson and 2012 Production World Rally champion and 2019 Race of Champions winner Benito Guerra (Olsbergs MSE), and Travis Pastrana and Conner Martell (Vermont SportsCar).
While it will be Daly’s first start in a rallycross-like event, he’s not a stranger to the discipline. Following the conclusion of the 2016 Global Rallycross season, Daly tested the Olsbergs MSE Honda Civic supercar in Los Angeles.
The test came about thanks to Daly’s relationship with Honda, whom he was then competing for in IndyCar with Dale Coyne Racing, and while his race debut comes almost seven years after that first test, he did tell this writer at the time that he was a fan of the discipline and that he’d “definitely take an opportunity (to race in rallycross) should one present itself.
In the intervening years he has taken part in rallycross and off-road events on iRacing, and has also competed alongside 2021 Nitrocross champion Pastrana in NASCAR.
Built on what the series calls “a virtually blank canvas”, the track that Daly will compete on is the most dramatic the championship – formerly known as Nitro Rallycross – has constructed to date, and encompasses an overall elevation change of over 150-feet.
“This track has such amazing natural elevation,” said Pastrana. “We decided to work more with the existing terrain and make it fun and unique with elements we couldn’t build anywhere else.
“Our goal is to make multiple lines in almost every corner so different driving styles will shine through.”
The track begins with a tarmac start straight with a dramatic descent into the mostly dirt course, leading into a banked hairpin turn, the biggest of its kind ever constructed for rallycross and rallycross-like competition.
A sequence of five snaking hairpins follows, before a brace of sweeping bends onto a tabletop jump. There, the track splits, a left-hand turn going into the joker lap – which needs to be taken once per race – and a right that leads to a run under the tabletop. The main lap and the joker rejoin at the end of the lap, just before a left sweep before the banked turn once again.
The track is the 10th to feature in Nitrocross since it began in 2018 and Pastrana said it’ll continue to evolve over the coming years.
“We’re just getting started. Every year it will evolve,” he said. “The goal is to be able to run most of the track forward and backward. We will concrete some turns and pave others.
“There will be an option to run a dirt section that we can change from year-to-year and run everything from Lemons cars to Supermoto to off-road trucks. MidAmerica in Oklahoma looks to be the best track on the Nitrocross circuit this year and it will only get better from here.”
Fraser McConnell has become the first driver to be confirmed for the upcoming Nitrocross season. The Jamaican will once again drive for Dreyer & Reinbold in the series’ premier Group E category, having raced for the team last season, when the …
Fraser McConnell has become the first driver to be confirmed for the upcoming Nitrocross season.
The Jamaican will once again drive for Dreyer & Reinbold in the series’ premier Group E category, having raced for the team last season, when the championship was known as Nitro Rallycross.
“I’m beyond excited to be back with Dreyer & Reinbold Racing for the upcoming Nitrocross season,” said McConnell. “The team’s dedication and unwavering support have played a significant role in my success, and I’m looking forward to continuing our journey together. We have unfinished business, and I’m determined to bring home the championship title this year.”
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McConnell took a maiden series victory at Glen Helen Raceway last year, leading home a DRR one-two-three ahead of eventual series champion Robin Larsson and Andreas Bakkerud. He eventually finished the season third overall, behind Larsson and Bakkerud, with a further three podiums.
“Fraser’s talent on the track is unparalleled, and we are thrilled to have him back for the 2023-24 Nitrocross season,” said team owner Dennis Reinbold. “His exceptional performance last year showcased his potential, and we firmly believe that with his skill set and dedication, he will be a major factor in the championship fight. We are fully committed to providing him with the resources and support necessary to excel and look forward to another fantastic season ahead.”
McConnell will also dovetail his Nitrocross commitments with a continued presence in Extreme E, where he races for Lewis Hamilton’s X44 Vida Carbon Racing team alongside Cristina Gutierrez. He claimed his first win in the category last month at the Hydro X Prix in Scotland.
The 2023-24 Nitrocross season begins on June 16-17 with the opening round at the Visions Off-Road festival in Jay, Oklahoma. Series pioneer and 2021 champion Travis Pastrana, and rising American star Conner Martell are among the other drivers expected to join McConnell on the grid this season.
After spending a year away from the Indianapolis Motor Speedway, Ryan Hunter-Reay didn’t know what to expect from his new team. The 2012 NTT IndyCar Series champion and 2014 Indy 500 winner’s last experience at IMS was with the giant Andretti …
After spending a year away from the Indianapolis Motor Speedway, Ryan Hunter-Reay didn’t know what to expect from his new team.
The 2012 NTT IndyCar Series champion and 2014 Indy 500 winner’s last experience at IMS was with the giant Andretti Autosport program that delivered his greatest achievements in the series, and in moving to Dreyer & Reinbold Racing, the smallest operation in IndyCar, there were questions as to how the Indy-only crew would fare against the full-time squads.
The answers were all positive for Hunter-Reay, who ended the opening day of the Indy Open Test in 14th place with the No. 23 Chevy, and his teammate Stefan Wilson, also new to DRR with the co-entry forged with Cusick Motorsports, showed the team owned by Dennis Reinbold is one to watch after securing sixth on the speed chart in the No. 24 Chevy.
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“So many unknowns,” Hunter-Reay told RACER. “I’d been with the same organization, same program for 12 years straight and it was my first day on the job with a new program. Teaming up with Stef [Wilson] again; we’ve been teammates in the past, it’s great. It’s great to get back on track. But it’s funny, my first time behind the wheel in a different car than I had been used to, and it’s all the little things – it’s the steering wheel; it’s everything in the cockpit, you’re one millimeter different and it feels like it’s several inches. So we did a lot of getting all those things sorted. I was really happy with that and feel the car was good. It was it was predictable. It was really fun.”
Wilson went through a similar process of hoping to find his new car was ready to go fast, and also enjoyed spending time with Hunter-Reay.
“There’s that anticipation, right?” Wilson said. “The cars ran really well last year, and the Dreyer & Reinbold team does such a good job on the cars and they felt like they made some gains over the winter. And you’re sort of waiting to see how does that compare, performance wise, to the cars I’ve driven in the past. How does it compare to the Andretti cars? But you never know until you get out there.
“Ryan’s someone I look up to and respect what he does and how he approaches things. So I’m looking to be a sponge and learn as much as possible from this guy.”
Like most drivers in the hot and windy afternoon session, Hunter-Reay sampled the higher downforce settings IndyCar has made available, and like the others, the heavy winds made it challenging to get a clear picture on if and how the downforce helped.
“I went up on downforce at the end to get into some messy traffic,” he said. “And I I had more bottom-side downforce than topside to what we’ve had in the past. [Team Penske’s] Josef [Newgarden] and I were talking about it. It’s tough to really pass judgment on it right now, because of just how inconsistent those conditions were. And it was hot today, right? Hot when it comes to surface track surface. And you had the wind. So at times I was super-confident then, five minutes later, and then you wonder why you just had a big moment…”
Many awards are handed out at the Indianapolis 500, ranging from the pit stop competition to Rookie of the Year. And if the Indianapolis Motor Speedway decides to add one for the “Indy car carrying more sponsor logos than any other,” the No. 24 …
Many awards are handed out at the Indianapolis 500, ranging from the pit stop competition to Rookie of the Year. And if the Indianapolis Motor Speedway decides to add one for the “Indy car carrying more sponsor logos than any other,” the No. 24 Dreyer & Reinbold Racing and Cusick Motorsports Chevy driven by Stefan Wilson is an early favorite to take home the prize.
According to the team, “CareKeepers has been elevated to primary partner, while Sierra Pacific Windows returns for a third consecutive year as the co-primary partner. The two companies will be joined by a group of 18 illustrious companies supporting the effort.”
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With two of the previously-named firms positioned as the primaries, the latest revelation from DRR and Cusick adds six more partners — all new — to the Briton’s entry in ProviderScience, High Alpha, Rite-Way Thermal, Menlo Ventures, Westin Homes and Westlake Yoga.
The impressive sponsor roll is completed with and additional 13 names in LOHLA SPORT, Fizzy Beez, Liberty Group, Kitchen Mart, the Law Offices of Gerald L. Marcus, CarBlip, 181 FremontResidences, a Jay Paul Company, Romak Iron Works, Agromin, Mosaic Animal CareGroup, The Thermal Club and Mr. and Mrs. James Lowes.
Altogether, the No. 24 Chevy will be adorned with 20 sponsors.
“When we founded Cusick Motorsports in 2021, we set out to make the racing industry more accessible,” Don Cusick said. “Whether you want to create incredible experiences, build meaningful relationships or create compelling marketing campaigns, we wanted to make it more accessible. When I look at our beautiful race car and the 20 fantastic companies we have with us, I couldn’t be more excited about the Indy 500, and the future.”
When you think of Dreyer & Reinbold Racing, the month of May might be the first thing that comes to mind. But while the team has been a fixture at The Greatest Spectacle in Racing for over two decades, it has more recently become a major force in …
When you think of Dreyer & Reinbold Racing, the month of May might be the first thing that comes to mind.
But while the team has been a fixture at The Greatest Spectacle in Racing for over two decades, it has more recently become a major force in the Nitro Rallycross championship, where it has just taken a dominant 1-2-3 finish in the series’ first-ever all-electric season.
“I’m still kind of dizzy by the whole thing,” team owner Dennis Reinbold tells RACER. “I mean, even though I’ve been here for several days, you get in here and you deal with so many different things throughout the course of a race weekend that you get caught up in, and then finally it’s over and all the dust settles. You look around and, and here we are. We did a great job.
“I’m relieved right now and just proud of my guys. How hard these guys work and what they put in, the time and the effort they put in, paid off. So it feels great, it really does, it feels good to be champions.
“It feels good to be 1-2-3. We didn’t expect any of that, but we expected to be good. We knew we’d be competitive and do a good job, but we just had really, really good chemistry all year long and that paid off. It’s like any kind of team sport that you put together, so it’s been fun to see that come together.”
DRR’s all-conquering top-level rallycross operation is the result of years of work. It debuted in the second tier category of the former Global Rallycross series in 2016, winning what was then known as the Lites title at the first attempt in 2016 with Cabot Bigham.
It remained a frontrunner in the category for a number of years, and briefly dipped its toes in the old top-level combustion Supercar class in partnership with SH Racing in the meantime. A full move into the top class for the 2021 season with European powerhouse JC Raceteknik – with whom it remains partnered with today – proved to be tricky, and the team’s quartet of Audi S1s failed to podium all season.
The campaign was nevertheless educational, with the team having one eye on the future the whole time.
The team struggled on the demanding U.S. tracks with the Audi S1 in 2021. Nitro Rallycross
“Last year we did the supercar effort on purpose to get back into supercars,” explains Reinbold. “We had been out of Supercar for a while, so we wanted to get back into it to prepare for this new electric car. And so my expectations last year were pretty low – we met those, that’s for sure.
“But it was a learning curve for us so that we could be prepared and really we felt like we had a good opportunity, as good as anybody else, to compete with this, with this new car.
“So we worked hard to learn it and worked hard to prep it really well and get it ready and once you do that, you hand it off to the drivers to bring home and these guys exceeded my expectations. All three of them.”
The team began the 2022-23 season with back-to-back victories in the UK and Sweden with Larsson and Andreas Bakkerud respectively – the latter being an unprecedented 1-2-3-4-5 sweep with Larsson, Johan Kristoffersson, Fraser McConnell, and Ole Christian Veiby following Bakkerud home.
McConnell added to the haul in round four at Glen Helen Raceway in California before Larsson took another in the second race in Phoenix in November. When the series returned to Glen Helen for three season-ending races earlier this month, Bakkerud and Larsson once again returned to the winners’ circle, either side of a win for Vermont SportsCar’s Travis Pastrana.
Overall the team had more wins than any other – six from 10 – and was the only team to claim points-paying victories with more than one driver. In what is a single-make category using the first-year FC1-X electric racing car, DRR JC clearly adapted best, but Reinbold says there’s no secret ingredient to the team’s overwhelming success.
“I don’t think there’s a secret ingredient other than just get good people around you and work together as best you can,” he insists. “I mean, it’s difficult to have multi-car teams and share the information openly and work hard to make sure that each car’s ready to go every time.
“So in this sport, because the turnaround time’s pretty quick and you’re going to hit something, you’re going to have issues every time you go out – hopefully not every time, but it seems like you’ve got to be prepared for that – so preparation has been incredible, and just diving in to help put out a fire where it erupts is what we’ve been able to do pretty well.”
Robin Larsson gave DRR its first top-level rallycross championship. Nitro Rallycross
With the intense but successful 2022-23 season now in the history books, the team now turns its attention to what’s next – although that doesn’t mean there’ll be much of an off-season. The JC side of the team has races to contest in Europe, while DRR’s focus is on the Indy 500 with 2014 Indy winner Ryan Hunter-Reay and Stefan Wilson.
“April’s not going to be much fun because it’s more fun to go to a race track and compete,” Reinbold said. “In April we don’t have a race, so we have to wait till May. So it’s okay. After every Indy 500 we start working on the next year, so we’ve been doing that at the same time as putting this together.
“It’s been a big year prepping for Indy as well as launching this brand new car and learning it for our team. So we’ve been busy, we’re on a good roll, so we’ll keep trying to capitalize and grow as much as we can.
“The 500 is the next box to tick. That’s it. 1-2-3 here, we only have two cars in the 500, so we’re only asking for one-two there! It’s not a big deal, right?”
As for the team’s Nitro Rallycross program, that is set to expand to four full-time cars for the 2023-24 season, after running a fourth (and on one occasion fifth) entry on a part-time basis this season for the likes of Veiby, Kristoffersson, and Andrew Carlson in the first half of the season. Reinbold’s also expecting the competition to up its game.
“I think it’s going to be great. The racing’s going be competitive,” he says. “(But) that’s all history, just like our championship is tomorrow. We’ve got to work on the next season.”
