The entire Dale Coyne Racing team enters the race weekend at Pocono Raceway with heavy hearts following the loss of their Indianapolis 500 teammate Bryan Clauson over a week ago. To honor his memory, Conor Daly will be driving the #88 BC Forever entry at the ABC Supply 500.
Clauson, who passed away from injuries sustained in a race incident at the Belleville Midget Nationals on August 6, ran the Indianapolis 500 this year with DCR in the same Jonathan Byrd’s Hospitality/Cancer Treatment Centers of America green, white and dark gray livery on his #88 machine run by Daly throughout the season.
Clauson was on a mission this year, ‘Chasing 200’ race starts in his ‘Circular Instanity’ tour and his Indy 500 teammates are now looking to help him reach that goal while paying tribute to him, in their own way, with Daly driving the #88 BC Forever machine and Mann wearing a special decal on her helmet.
This weekend’s event marks the first official visit to the 2.5-mile track for Daly who will be able to count on Mann’s experience at the triangular oval as she makes her third appearance.
Conor Daly
“It means a lot to our whole team to be driving the #88 BC Forever entry this weekend. I think everyone enjoyed working with Bryan throughout the month of May. Jonathan and David Byrd have sort of accepted us into their family. They already had a big racing program with Bryan and then they added me and Dale Coyne Racing to that as well. It’s going to be a great way to pay tribute and obviously a little extra motivation to ‘Park it’ in Victory Lane for Bryan.
“I’m excited for the Pocono event because it’s a 500-mile race and another big chance to get a lot of experience on another oval, this time a triangular one. I was at the race at Pocono last year so I saw how crazy the restarts were and how good the racing was, so I’m just looking forward to being a part of that. We’ve had strong cars at all the superspeedway package ovals so we’re hoping to continue that same trend. We’re going there with a lot of unknowns but I look forward to learning about the place and getting up to speed.”