Over its 40-year IndyCar history, Dale Coyne Racing had one significant period where its name was changed to Payton/Coyne Racing to reflect the co-ownership stake taken by NFL legend Walter Payton from 1992-99. If Coyne’s current efforts are successful, the dynamic could return by adding a new name to the ownership roster as the Illinois-based entrant seeks a partner and investor to strengthen DCR’s present and future.
Where Coyne previously spoke of seeking investors in the new charters he and other full-time teams have recently received from Penske Entertainment, he’s expanded his ambitions.
“Buying into the team itself,” Coyne told RACER of the business plan he’s attempting to execute. “It brings a few things to the table. If you have an investor who has the passion for the sport, if you have a billionaire investor, like a lot of teams have a billionaire investor, this is a game of golf to them, and to me, it’s everything I do. But they can backstop the budget. They have relationships and a network to find sponsors that I don’t have. That’s valued. The charter has opened the door for all this, big time.”
Coyne’s other motivation in seeking an investor is to restore DCR’s ability to select its preferred drivers. A significant portion of DCR’s time in IndyCar has involved the signing of drivers who bring some or all of the annual budget required to field each entry, and over the decades, the team’s competitiveness has fluctuated based on the talents of the funded pilots.
With a new investor, Coyne would return to the days of hiring top-tier pros like Justin Wilson, who won DCR’s first race in 2009, or Sebastien Bourdais, DCR’s last winner, who took the team to victory lane in 2017 and ’18. If Coyne can welcome a partner into the program, at least one of DCR’s two Honda-powered entries would feature a driver chosen for their skill, and skill alone.
“It will depend on what we come up with, but the target would be to do it with both cars,” Coyne said. “But we’ve got to walk into that and maybe do one car first year and two cars second year. But the goal is to do both cars like that.”
Coyne is hopeful additional investment can bring a return to the winning ways it last enjoyed with Sebastien Bourdais in 2018. Phillip Abbott/Motorsport Images
It’s an encouraging possibility for many of the young drivers in the field and some of the veterans who are currently on the outside looking in.
Former Ed Carpenter Racing driver Rinus VeeKay, unseated Chip Ganassi Racing driver Linus Lundqvist, plus Hunter McElrea who drove for Coyne at Toronto, former DCR driver Pietro Fittipaldi and his brother Enzo who tested for Coyne, Indy NXT championship runner-up Jacob Abel, and former DCR driver Romain Grosjean are among the many who would welcome an invitation from Coyne for 2025.
The question that remains is who will emerge as Coyne’s new investor, and will that person be new to IndyCar, or a familiar entity like ex-Carpenter sponsor Todd Ault, whose branding for his BitNile company adorned ECR’s cars in recent years, and is rumored to be pursuing a stake in a team?
However it happens, Coyne is locked in on keeping the ownership group simple and compact.
“We’d like to do it with a single investor,” he said.
