These days, they're having trouble finding the 10-12 crew members they need per car, housing them in hotels and covering the increased daily rate Paretta says can hit $900 per day.Įxpansion across racing's many series has only made the competition fiercer. Small, low-budget teams with grand aspirations have been the backbone for filling the traditional 33-car field for the Indy 500. I kept my eyes open for the 500 as a one-off but that’s where the shortage of talent comes into play.' “I talked to Ed Carpenter and he said, ‘It looks like we’ll have three cars for the 500 and we couldn’t do four, so what does long term look like?' That's when the conversation pivoted.
“Going from 22 to 26 full-time teams, that’s a lot of people you'd normally get for these one-offs,' Paretta said of the Ind圜ar Series, which is in something of a renaissance. The American labor shortage ravaging restaurants, factories and other industries has hit Gasoline Alley. Paretta chose a different path, opting for three road races and against Indy as a one-off - the only race of the season.īut the two burgeoning Ind圜ar teams with visions of full-time programs faced one big obstacle: A lack of crew members and engineers. It took Cusick almost a full year to find an 11th-hour solution to run in the Indianapolis 500, teaming up with a partner. INDIANAPOLIS (AP) - When Don Cusick and Beth Paretta left Indianapolis last May, they started planning a return.
