DRR’s fast start to Indy testing impresses Daly

Dreyer & Reinbold Racing hadn’t run an Indy car in nearly a year, but the first day of the Indy Open Test gave no indications of rust being present with the local team as Conor Daly demonstrated front-running speed from the outset.

The lone pre-event visit to the home of the Indianapolis 500 is all part of a normal racing season for IndyCar’s full-time entrants, but for the likes of DRR, the Indy Open Test is its first on-track activity of the season while most of its rivals have been racing since the end of February and found their competitive groove over the five events held so far.

“This group 100 percent needs to be appreciated,” Daly told RACER after posting Tuesday’s quickest lap of 225.394mph in the No. 23 Chevy. “I mean, they haven't been on a hot track since May of last year, right? So that's very impressive. Everyone else here, obviously, aside from the other one-off entries, has been running cars all year long, right? We've got a great group of people, and working closely with Chevrolet is obviously super helpful, too. They help us out a lot to get us going. So how can you not be impressed with the group that doesn't run at all, and then we show up and we can get out there and just run throughout the day, get through the program, and be fastest?

“And it wasn't just at the end of the day. We were fast all day. It's nice to be fast by ourselves, and we're fast in the traffic. But testing doesn't pay. We have to respect that – it is just testing. Just have to kind of go one day at a time and anytime you're fastest, you can't complain.”

As much as Daly was happy with Tuesday’s result, he knows there’s more performance to find with the No. 23 Chevy.

“Reasonable start; we got through a few things, but not quite as much as we wanted to today,” he said. “But when you go out there and see everyone and what they're doing, you definitely know not everything has been shown yet. But we can't be upset about it. I mean, someone has to be fastest, right? And (DRR teammate) Jack [Harvey], obviously, was fast in the no-tow speeds, so it's definitely a reasonable place to start, for sure.”