NTT INDYCAR SERIES NEWS CONFERENCE

September 5, 2026

Brett De Bord

Chase Selman

Conor Daly

Press Conference

THE MODERATOR: Looking ahead to 2027, a new era for Dreyer & Reinbold Racing, preparing for a full season return to the NTT INDYCAR SERIES. This is the first time we've seen them full-time since 2012.

Joining us today, Brett De Bord, president and chief commercial officer. Also Chase Selman, team principal and chief operations officer. The guy in the middle, Conor Daly.

Brett, welcome. What you got for us?

BRETT DE BORD: Really exciting day for us as we enter our new chapter of INDYCAR racing. We signed Conor Daly to a multi-year agreement to drive the No. 24 Honda INDYCAR starting in 2027.

First order of business as we came to an agreement with Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing, was to hire Conor. Giving the way we are building this race team with culture, hard work and fit, there's nobody better for us than Conor to drive our car in 2027. We're really excited to have him long-term.

CONOR DALY: Thank you (smiling).

THE MODERATOR: Chase?

CHASE SELMAN: I first off want to take a moment to thank some people that were instrumental in making this happen. The Rahal Letterman Lanigan guys, Bobby Rahal, Mike Lanigan, David Letterman, Jay Frye have been great to work with throughout the whole process. Without them we wouldn't have the ability to buy a charter and be part of this series.

The guys from INDYCAR. Obviously Roger Penske, Mark Miles, Doug Boles have been so great throughout all of this in welcoming us to the series. Their leadership is just amazing. We can't wait to be a part of this series for a long time to come.

Last but not least, the Reinbold family. Obviously a tough several months with the passing of Dennis. This team could have easily gone away once Dennis passed, but it didn't. We're the furthest from that. We're doing exactly what Dennis and our team has been working on for so long now, is to obtain a charter, get to operating at the highest level, and hiring a guy like Conor Daly that can give us the results that we think we've got in us.

Appreciate it. Conor?

CONOR DALY: Yeah, thanks.

No, I'm super pumped. If you knew how hard these two folks work behind the scenes, including Dennis before he passed. This was his goal. We put a hashtag on all of our posts 'finish the job'. That's what he told Brett to do, to get this going, get this team back to full-time racing and competing at the highest level all the time.

They already compete at an extremely high level, if not the highest level, at the Indy 500. We've seen that. I've been very fortunate to drive their cars at the Indy 500, which is really cool.

To be here with Honda, as well. I want to thank Chevy for all the years of being with them. I've never really been in a position to develop a super loyalty to one manufacturer because I've driven for everybody, obviously. Everyone has been really nice to me, whether that's Chevy or Honda.

The last season I did with Honda was my rookie year in 2016, which is absurd. I didn't know that. They've been nice to me when I've had to substitute for other drivers. Being part of that organization is really cool.

I'm really pumped. This is a huge deal for me. To have a multi-year deal is something I'm extremely grateful for. First time in my life. Going to be fun.

THE MODERATOR: Conor, 132 starts, great runs with this team, certainly in the Indy 500. Not exactly what you were hoping for this season as far as full-time activity goes. Absence makes the heart grow fonder. Full-time 2027, let's go, let's see what we got, right?

CONOR DALY: Obviously I want to be racing full-time. That's the whole goal of being here. I want to compete at a high level. This year was tough to kind of sit around.

These two guys sitting next to me, and Dennis as well, have always been very kind to me and very supportive. When we started talking about how serious this was of acquiring the charter from the Rahal Letterman Lanigan guys, it was a great conversation to start having, to be like, Hey, I really think we're going to do this.

It means a lot to me honestly. Will it be challenging? 100%. This is not an easy sport to get into. We've seen that many times before. But the leadership that this group has and the culture that they've built already in the team is one of the most inspiring cultures that I've been around.

It just drives you to work harder. It drives you to be willing to give everything you've got to give the group that is behind us at the race shop, that's coming to the track every weekend, the results that they deserve.

Yeah, there's going to be some tough times. We're going to have a great time doing it, getting back into this whole full-time gig.

THE MODERATOR: Welcome back. Open it up for questions.

Q. Can you talk about the switch to Honda. Technical alliance with Rahal Letterman Lanigan, you were going to need to do that. Was that a difficult part or the easy part?

BRETT DE BORD: Changing those relationships is never easy, I'd say. I think we see a lot of value in partnering with the Rahal Letterman Lanigan folks. We've met with them a lot. Really the early days of acquiring the charter, we met with Jay and Bobby and the entire team, kind of have been working on that all summer. We see a lot of value there.

I think anybody that's been in the sport can kind of see the complementary nature of that relationship, meaning our product at Indy. Our intellectual property there is going to help them maybe in some ways. Where we're deficient on road courses and street courses, they're going to help.

The complementary nature of that relationship is the driving force behind it. We're excited and grateful to be part of the Honda family. They've welcomed us with open arms at the highest level. David Salters and Kelvin Fu and all these guys that have worked with us to get our deal done see our vision, bought into our vision as well. It's a privilege to be with those guys. They've won the last several Indy 500s and championships.

CHASE SELMAN: Yeah, great. We had a great relationship with Chevy for the longest time. We obviously ran them for the last, what, 12, 14 years. But before that we were Honda. So we have a great relationship with those guys, as well.

We're looking forward to, like Brett said, adding to the Honda family, the championships, wins, 500s that they've been able to produce in the last several years.

We're excited about the whole thing, yeah.

Q. Conor, to know what you're doing next year before Labor Day, that's unusual for you. How much does it really help give you the calmness, the ability to look forward?

CONOR DALY: I mean, it's the greatest thing ever honestly. I've been through many winters where you don't sleep a lot, you don't know what's going to happen next, you don't know what's going to go on the next weekend.

Chase and I are going to sit down next week and plan what we're going to do the next few months, testing, activities, stuff like that.

It's just helpful from the competition side. You want to get everything done early. You want to get everyone, the whole group together, on the same page as early as possible because that's what everyone else is doing. You're going up against some of the best teams and drivers in the world. We want to show up ready to fight.

Q. Conor, going back as far as the old GP2 days, the security of a multi-year deal with these guys, it's a massive thing for a driver, isn't it?

CONOR DALY: It's possibly the greatest thing ever. I've never really known what that's like. The confidence that these guys have in me also makes me want to do even more. I feel like I try to do as much as possible already. You want to fight harder. You want to deliver everything you can for them.

It also gets me to the new car, which I think a lot of drivers who have been in this sport for a long time have kind of struggled with this aeroscreen era of a car.

It's fascinating for me and I think several other drivers to have that reset of a different chassis, of a different weight, a different engine, because I think it can change a lot of things for how our sport goes.

Q. The infrastructure behind the scenes, for the team now you're in the game full-time. There are a lot of guys you already know in the race shop that are going to be with you next year. The new car. That's almost a level playing field, isn't it?

CONOR DALY: I think that's why the timing of this is super good. I think behind the scenes a lot of us have said that 2027 is very much like a warm-up year for us, right? We know a lot of things get reset in 2028. We want to get everyone up to speed.

We obviously want to compete every single weekend. It's very much like, Hey, we're definitely going to get back into the swing of things here. Then all of a sudden we've got this new car and everyone kind of... I wouldn't say it's going to be an equal playing field, but certainly will be a different playing field which helps newcomers like us, for sure.

Q. Conor, were there times during the season where you thought you were never going to get a full-time ride again?

CONOR DALY: Yeah, I've thought a lot in my life honestly. I thought it after 2024. I thought it after summer 2024 before I got a chance to jump in the JHR car at the end of the year, get back on the podium. I don't know what's going to happen here.

I've always had the drive in my heart. I know what I can do. I guess I know what my goals are still. I believe that I can do it. I believe in these guys. I believe in the group behind us.

Yeah, it was a weird time at times in my life. I feel like I've been through that now many times before. I've never given up, so why give up now? You've got to keep fighting.

Now this is possibly the most, best situation I've been in in a long time for sure when it comes to confidence and long-term goals.

Q. Chase, do you all have a commitment from Honda for a second engine car if you want to field a second car for the Indy 500?

CHASE SELMAN: Brett could probably answer that a little bit better than me.

We don't have enough detail on that yet. Obviously we want to run a second engine. We've been extremely competitive there with two cars. That's always our intention. That was Dennis' intention, to be a two-car team at Indy always.

Still a lot to work out there. Making progress, for sure.

Q. Tell me more about the technical alliance, the relationship with Rahal Letterman Lanigan. Y'all are within driving distance of each other. You have a fully developed shop, so does Rahal Letterman Lanigan. Do you see getting closer somehow, working under the same roof at some point?

BRETT DE BORD: I'll start by saying it's important for us to maintain a level of independence. We've invested through Dennis' passion and commitment in our race shop. It's a first-class facility. We want some independence in occupying our own race shop. Huge investment obviously. We have a full-time staff now. Running Indy only we've employed 10, 12 people full-time.

I think it really starts with all of us deciding that we can all benefit from the relationship, we can all see value in working together. It starts there.

Then working through the details it's something we're actively doing, dampers, data share, testing. Does one plus one equal three? Can we divide and conquer some projects? You've seen a precedent with other teams in the paddock that have done a good job of doing that. I think we're at the start of it.

Q. Usually when we've seen technical alliances, it's been bigger team helping smaller team. I see this as this could be an awesome two-way street.

CHASE SELMAN: For me, the devil is in the details. Like you said, it's a dominating team that's helping out a team that's either coming into it or maybe not so dominant.

Right now Rahal Letterman Lanigan has had a ton of good results this year. I can't speak to the rest of it. I think we're going to complement each other. I think there's a lot of efficiencies that we can find to help each other out.

We've had great performances at Indy. We hope to help out there. They've had good performances this year at other tracks that we hope they can help us out.

Really the details are what matter. So making sure everything's run correctly from the start is really where our kind of focus is currently. Still a lot of details to come.

We're happy with the progress we've made. Really looking forward to just getting going.

Q. Conor, how does it feel for you to go into a team where they're putting their full backing into you; you're the guy to lead them?

CONOR DALY: I mean, it feels awesome. Like these guys have mentioned, we do realize that a technical alliance...

Driving by yourself and having only one car for the data, that's hard, right? Putting ourselves in a position to have this alliance would be really helpful for me. I'm going to need data to look at. They're going to need some companionship when it comes to certain things on the road and street courses especially.

But it's awesome overall. I can't wait to see this team grow. I feel like everyone at the shop, for weeks and months, it's been like, Man, we really want to go full-time. We really want to do the work.

We have a lot of eager people that want to be a part of this sport because it's in such a great spot right now. I feel like it's more competitive than it's ever been, unless you're Alex Palou. But it's awesome to see the ratings, to see the events.

Ever since I started in this sport, we've always hoped for. Now it feels like we're kind of really at full speed going that direction. All of our crew guys at the shop are, like, thrilled to be a part of this because I feel like they've had that desire for a while.

Q. How important was it for you to bring on a driver like Conor, who has been with so many teams that can help you on that data side, knowing how different setups work?

BRETT DE BORD: Well, I'll start by saying we ran Conor and worked with him in 2024. We worked obviously with him this year. We knew what we had.

I think you see in free agency, you've worked with that diver, you have a dialogue with that driver, you've had results and success together both on track and off, like we have commercially and technically. He'd led a ton of laps ar the Speedway, to start. It was an easy decision for us.

Like I said, we see his commitment, we see how good of a personality fit it is to us. We're going to be working a lot together. He had every box checked for us.

Again, as I mentioned in the opening, first order of business was to sign Conor. We hired Conor on his talent, his ability and really his ability to win Indy 500s, races and championships, compete at the highest level. It was really an easy decision for us.

CHASE SELMAN: I'll just add to that.

Like Brett said, every time we've had Conor in the car, he's been competitive. Going forward on a full-time basis, it's not all on Conor. It's up to the team to give Conor a good car to perform.

We're going to be putting a lot of pressure on Conor to perform week in, week out. But we need to do our job as well and make sure we give him a car that can perform, that's capable of winning, that's capable of competing.

I think if we do both of those things, we're going to have a good not only season but future together.

THE MODERATOR: We'll leave it here for now. Congratulations.