{"id":50332,"date":"2023-05-23T12:03:25","date_gmt":"2023-05-23T16:03:25","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/autosector.com\/?p=50332"},"modified":"2023-05-23T12:03:25","modified_gmt":"2023-05-23T16:03:25","slug":"graham-rahal-gets-indy-500-ride-after-all-replacing-injured-stefan-wilson","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/autosector.com\/?p=50332","title":{"rendered":"Graham Rahal gets Indy 500 ride after all, replacing injured Stefan Wilson – Autoblog"},"content":{"rendered":"

The practice crash Monday in which Stefan Wilson was hit from behind by Katherine Legge. (AP)<\/em><\/p>\n

INDIANAPOLIS \u2014 Graham Rahal will get a chance to keep his Indianapolis 500 start streak intact after all, replacing the injured Stefan Wilson<\/a>\u00a0on Tuesday in the Dreyer & Reinbold entry after failing to qualify for the race with his own team.<\/p>\n

Wilson was hospitalized with a fractured vertebra following a practice crash Monday. He was ruled out of the race, and that left car owners Dennis Reinbold and Don Cusick scrambling for a replacement less than a week before Sunday\u2019s green flag.<\/p>\n

Rahal was their first choice, but he\u2019d spent his career tied to Honda, which powers the Rahal Letterman Lanigan team, while Dreyer & Reinbold runs engines from rival Chevrolet<\/a>. Rahal also has considerable sponsorship on his full-time IndyCar team, and all of that led to some tricky negotiations for clearance from both manufacturers and sponsors to get the deal done.<\/p>\n

\u201cI spent my entire career in a Honda. I\u2019ve never driven anything other than that,\u201d Rahal said. \u201cI wasn\u2019t sure we would get the releases in place to make this happen. They really came together, two manufacturers, to allow this to take place, to allow us to race Sunday, and hopefully allow us to move his car to the front and have a really strong run.\u201d<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Graham Rahal after getting bumped from the race by teammate Jack Harvey in Sunday qualifying. (USA Today \/ Reuters)<\/em><\/p>\n

Wilson qualified 25th in the 33-car field, ahead of all three Rahal Letterman Lanigan entries. But the driver change means Rahal will start last, alongside his usual teammate Jack Harvey, who had bumped him in the final seconds of qualifying.<\/p>\n

\u201cJack hasn\u2019t got rid of me yet,\u201d Rahal said with a smile.<\/p>\n

Wilson was about an hour into a two-hour practice Monday when he was hit from behind by Katherine Legge, one of the other Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing entries. Their two cars careened into the outer wall, and while Legge was able to climb from her wreckage without any injuries, Wilson remained in the hospital Tuesday undergoing additional testing.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe\u2019s fairly crushed emotionally,\u201d Cusick said, \u201cbut supportive of what we\u2019re doing out here.\u201d<\/p>\n

Less than 48 hours earlier, it appeared Rahal\u2019s 15-year streak starting in \u201cThe Greatest Spectacle in Racing\u201d would end. His team struggled all week to get up to speed, and that continued into qualifying, when he sat on the bubble with Harvey heading to the track for one last try at bumping his way into the field.<\/p>\n

Harvey eclipsed him by the slimmest of margins, and Rahal suddenly knew how his father and team owner Bobby Rahal felt in 1993, when the reigning series champion was famously bumped from the Indianapolis 500 field.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe situation is super unique,\u201d the younger Rahal admitted. \u201cThere was a part of me that thought, when you look at RLL and where we were as a team, can I have more of an impact to try to help Jack and Christian (Lundgaard) and Kat perform better on the weekend?<\/p>\n

\u201cNow it\u2019s a little bit of a different situation,\u201d he added. \u201cAt the end of the day, we\u2019re competing now. I tell people all the time, motorsports<\/a> is one of the few sports where there are no guarantees ever. Things can change immediately. That\u2019s the situation we are in. Now we\u2019re going to go do the best we can to get to victory lane. That\u2019s been a dream of mine my entire life.\u201d<\/p>\n

Bobby Rahal said in a statement that he supported his son driving for another team.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen Dennis called, we went to work to make this happen,\u201d he said. \u201cThe most amazing thing is how all these different groups, out of respect for the sport and the Indy 500, agreed to agree and go forward even though it may have been somewhat of a difficult decision. The fact that everyone pulled together to make this happen for Dennis, and also for Graham, makes us very thankful.\u201d<\/p>\n

Reinbold said the No. 24 car would look slightly different Sunday, after the teams worked out compromises to keep all of their sponsors happy. He also thanked Bobby Rahal for taking his call for what could have been an awkward conversation.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s just been a group effort to figure out what we could do,\u201d Reinbold said. \u201cThis was a dire situation for us. Graham had his situation Sunday. So we\u2019re trying to turn it into a win-win situation, and hopefully a win-win-win with Sunday being the final win.\u201d<\/p>\n

The team has a backup car that Reinbold said was \u201cpretty much ready to go.\u201d Rahal planned to get fit for it later Tuesday.<\/p>\n

The Dreyer & Reinbold team has been a part of the Indy 500 for more than 20 years, and at one point fielded as many as four cars for \u201cThe Greatest Spectacle in Racing.\u201d But the team scaled back its operations from a full-time IndyCar team a decade ago, when it struggled to get enough sponsorship, and the last few years has fielded only entries for the Indy 500.<\/p>\n

Rahal will have a Dreyer & Reinbold teammate Sunday, though, with former Indy 500 winner Ryan Hunter-Reay in the field.<\/p>\n

\u201cRyan is going to be a great partner. He\u2019s probably been my closest friend in my sport since he came into it,\u201d Rahal said. \u201cRyan and I have always been very close. I\u2019m excited about the opportunity. We\u2019ve talked for years about working together. The situation is unique but I\u2019m excited about seeing what we can do with Ryan and getting this car going forward.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n \u00a0\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The practice crash Monday in which Stefan Wilson was hit from behind by Katherine Legge. (AP) INDIANAPOLIS \u2014 Graham Rahal will get a chance to keep his Indianapolis 500 start streak intact after all, replacing the injured Stefan Wilson\u00a0on Tuesday in the Dreyer & Reinbold entry after failing to qualify for the race with his […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":8313,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"site-sidebar-layout":"default","site-content-layout":"","ast-site-content-layout":"default","site-content-style":"default","site-sidebar-style":"default","ast-global-header-display":"","ast-banner-title-visibility":"","ast-main-header-display":"","ast-hfb-above-header-display":"","ast-hfb-below-header-display":"","ast-hfb-mobile-header-display":"","site-post-title":"","ast-breadcrumbs-content":"","ast-featured-img":"","footer-sml-layout":"","ast-disable-related-posts":"","theme-transparent-header-meta":"","adv-header-id-meta":"","stick-header-meta":"","header-above-stick-meta":"","header-main-stick-meta":"","header-below-stick-meta":"","astra-migrate-meta-layouts":"default","ast-page-background-enabled":"default","ast-page-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"ast-content-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-50332","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-industry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/autosector.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/50332","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/autosector.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/autosector.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/autosector.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/autosector.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=50332"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/autosector.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/50332\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/autosector.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/8313"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/autosector.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=50332"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/autosector.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=50332"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/autosector.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=50332"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}