SPEEDWAY, Ind. (WIBC) — The Indianapolis 500 means the possibility of drivers making the race that don’t compete on the full-time NTT IndyCar Series circuit. Every year among those drivers are those of the Dreyer & Reinbold Racing stable.
DRR is back once again and trying to make its 25th consecutive Indianapolis 500 while operating as a team that has mostly operated as a team with the sole purpose of racing in the “The Greatest Spectacle in Racing.”
However, DRR is in a unique position this year with its budding partnership with Cusick Motorsports and other opportunities for growth.
Then, you add former IndyCar Series champion and 2014 Indianapolis 500 winner Ryan Hunter-Reay into the mix as a driver, along with fan favorite Conor Daly.
“It’s great to have Ryan back,” said DRR co-owner Dennis Reinbold. “As soon as the race was over last year, I told him, ‘Hey, if it works out we want you back,’ and it worked out.”
After starting 18th in last year’s race, Hunter-Reay was able to bring his No. 23 machine home in 11th. After his first year as a “one-off” driver with DRR he believes he is in the right spot for his career given how long he has been racing. Hunter-Reay turned 43 this past December.
“I love it. I really do. You have all these guys that are just absolutely dialing in on this one race,” Hunter-Reay said. “You don’t have all these folks being pulled in a million different directions. Right now the rest of the — pretty much the rest of the field is mid-season grind mode right now. These guys (other teams) are tired.”
Hunter-Reay did compete in more than one race last year, filling in for the remainder of the season after the Indy 500 when Ed Carpenter Racing brought him in. Coincidentally, ECR parted ways with Conor Daly and Hunter-Reay ended up taking the seat he left behind. Now Daly and Hunter-Reay are teammates at Dreyer & Reinbold.
The two were once teammates in their days at Andretti Autosport, now Andretti Global.
So, at 43, some may question how long Hunter-Reay thinks he can keep racing.
“I still feel like I’m 28, so I have no idea. It doesn’t even enter my mind,” he said. “I think about this race all the time. That’s what I really love about working with this team and with Dennis, as well, is he’s got that same passion about it that I do, for it that I do. As long as it’s one of the most important things for me and what I focus on, then I don’t really have an answer for you on that because I haven’t thought about it.”
INDIANAPOLIS — A man was shot and killed on the northeast side of Indianapolis Wednesday evening.
The Indianapolis Metropolitan Police Department says this happened on Radnor Road, near East 46th Street and Cathedral High School, sometime before 7:30 p.m.
When police arrived at the scene, they found the man with a gunshot wound. They say he died at the scen.
The shooting is under investigation.
The new mayor-appointed board overseeing Indianapolis Public Schools and the city’s charter schools held its first meeting Tuesday, taking initial steps on decisions that will reshape how nearly 43,000 students are educated across the district boundary.
The Indianapolis Public Education Corporation, or IPEC, met for about an hour at the City-County Building. The meeting was largely procedural but set in motion two of the most consequential choices facing the board in its early months: whether to put a new IPS operating referendum on the November ballot and who will lead the municipal organization day-to-day.
The nine members unanimously adopted rules of procedure, named Michael O’Connor of Bose Public Affairs as acting executive director and passed a resolution authorizing a request for funds to operate, pay for staff, consultants and other expenses — the first use of IPEC’s authority to draw on property tax revenue. The board set a distribution percentage of up to 3% of local property tax revenues for IPS and charter schools, as allowed by the new state law that created the authority.
“We are building a municipal organization from scratch that has not existed anywhere else in the United States,” said David Harris, who chairs the corporation board, and was also Indianapolis’ first charter school director and founded local education reform organization The Mind Trust in 2006 “This is a big assignment for us.”
The board takes on an ambitious charge by state lawmakers: reshaping a divided education system so that every public school student in the IPS boundary has access to the same resources. Reform advocates see it as the long-sought fix to a fragmented landscape that has left charter schools without equal footing. Traditional public school supporters see it as a slow dismantling of a district already weakened by declining enrollment and a looming budget shortfall.
The multi-step process for the corporation to approve a referendum for IPS and the city charter schools would begin immediately. “How many dollars?” O’Connor said about one of the many decisions the board must make. “And how many years?”
A public hearing will be held before the board makes a decision toward the end of June. State law requires final action by Aug. 1 for a question to make it on the November ballot.
The current IPS operating referendum expires at the end of this year. IPS projects ending the year with a $40 million cash deficit. Superintendent Aleesia Johnson, who attended Tuesday’s meeting, has said the district is already cutting staff and programs.
Mayor Joe Hogsett, who also sat in the audience, said he wants to hire a permanent executive director “the sooner the better.” Hogsett will select the candidate, and the board votes on the appointment.
O’Connor said a job description will be posted as quickly as possible and that the position will draw on the duties spelled out in House Enrolled Act 1423: “building a transportation that works efficiently and effectively and serves all of our kids; building a facilities program that assures all of our children are learning in a safe and welcoming environment. And then an accountability system that represents the needs of all of our kids is developed and then maintained.”
The salary range will be “both competitive and appropriate for the job of this nature,” he added.
O’Connor said he will stand up three working groups in the coming days — on the referendum, on staffing and finance, and on the accountability framework IPEC owes the legislature in a preliminary report due in August. IPS School Board members Ashely Thomas and board member Hope Duke Star pressed for parents and outside experts to be included in those groups.
In addition to Harris, president and CEO of Christel House International, the board includes other charter school leaders: Janet McNeal, president of Herron Classical Schools; Dexter Taylor, director at Paramount Brookside; and Edward Rangel, founding CEO of Adelante Schools.
A website for IPEC could be online as soon as Wednesday at indianapolispubliceducationcorporation.org, with board contact information, documents and meeting details. The domain will eventually shift to .gov.
O’Connor said public comment will be taken at meetings where decisions are made on taxes and budgets. The board’s next meeting is May 28.
Eric Weddle is WFYI’s education editor. Contact Eric at eweddle@wfyi.org or follow him on X at @ericweddle.
‘Little Rascals’ star Bug Hall arrested in Ohio
Georgia House Special Runoff Election 2026 Live Results
Arkansas TV meteorologist Melinda Mayo retires after nearly four decades on air
Parents charged after toddler injured by wolf at Pennsylvania zoo
Can You Name These Novels Based on Their Characters?
ABC Kite Fest Returns to Austin for Annual Celebration – Austin Today
Aaliyah Crump plans to transfer from Texas: report
Dem fundraising giant in the hot seat as GOP lawmakers demand answers over dodged subpoena
