Dreyer and Reinbold Racing with Cusick Motorsports have confirmed that Ryan Hunter-Reay has gone to the backup chassis after he suffered a fire during Carb Day practice. Speaking following the action, team co-owner Dennis Reinbold said:
“Because of the fire, it did damage to the layers of the tub on Ryan’s car. “We examined the carbon in the tub, and both Dallara and our crew felt it was best to go to our backup chassis. It’s the best move for us in the race. Actually, the backup chassis has been a very good race car for us over the past few years. So, we feel good about moving to this chassis. It’s tough for the team to prepare the backup car, but we will be ready for Sunday.”
Ryan Hunter-Reay who ended the session in 11th place commented saying:
“All in all, we had a good day on the track. “It was productive, and we made some good changes with the race car. Then I left the pits, and we left some fire on the ground. All of a sudden in the acceleration lane, I had a bunch of fluid all over me and a lot of smoke. I did my best to get the car back to pit lane. We are still looking for answers of what the cause was. We are analyzing how much damage has been done right now. I jumped out of the car pretty quickly. We have to see what happened and the amount of damage. But I was pleased with the car on the track.”
Jack Harvey in the No.24 INVST Chevrolet was 12th fastest and speaking following the action he commented saying:
“We had pretty much everything that we wanted to today. We re-baselined the car after being rebuilt the last few days. I think we are in a good window with the race car. We tried one change, and it wasn’t as good. It was very unfortunate for Ryan and his guys on the No. 23 car. There will be a lot of hours now to rebuild that car for the race. It’s a tough one, and we will ask our No. 24 guys to help get that car ready for Sunday too. The wind was different today from Monday’s practice. The wind was quite strong and different from earlier in the week. I had a couple of moments in turn one with the wind. That is unusual since turn two is more affected by the wind normally. I am as confident as you can be going into the race with this car at IMS. The DRR/Cusick Motorsports team has put together a solid package for us on race car. We will see how the race develops if we need to make many changes as the race goes on. Right now, I like our setup.”