At the time, the idea seemed far-fetched: Would a hodge-podge of racing stars care enough to create a casual online racing league built on the ideals of no practice and a laissez-faire attitude?
Six months later, the question evolved: Can two professional racers, who knew each other by name-only this spring, live their fantasy of trying out new motorsports?
As IndyCar and Indiana race fans know well, Conor Daly’s willing to make just about anything work if it involves sitting in a racecar. Friday evening, we get to see how the latest experiment of his career unfolds. At Las Vegas Motor Speedway, Daly will turn his first competitive laps in the NASCAR Trucks Series with the wave of the green flag for the start of the World of Westgate 200.
In supreme 2020 fashion, the idea was cultivated with a Zoom call. His preparation since? All on iRacing.
“Honestly, it’s all been entirely random,” Daly told IndyStar this week.
Same goes for his LCQ (Last Chance Qualifier) League on iRacing that Daly, Alexander Rossi, James Hinchcliffe, Ed Carpenter, Chad Reed, Travis Pastrana and others have competed in since the early days of the pandemic. At the time, actual racing felt like a pipe dream, and for a group of drivers that are at their best rolling with the punches, a league built on several strands of acquaintances, where the tracks and cars were ever-changing and practice seen as a faux pas, was unsurprisingly a perfect fit.
“If you’ve got a group text chat, and a bunch of people are saying they’re going to race tonight, it kind of makes others want to race tonight, too,” Daly said of the league. “It was moreso the willingness for people I find incredible personalities of sport to do it.
“It was a team-effort mentality to try and keep people entertained and have some fun.”
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Almost immediately, with live sports at a minimum and the firepower the league had in terms of famous drivers, it took off. But like so many ideas that start small and casual, Pastrana began to wonder if they could go bigger.
After the extreme sports star competed in a one-off Trucks race in late July — stemming from a relationship he built seven years prior in the then-Nationwide Series — he and his racing buddies began to wonder, Could we all get a piece of that?
“We saw Travis had a lot of fun doing it. We were all like, ‘Aw man, that would be awesome to do all together,’” Daly said. “So the focus became, ‘What if we all went racing together in real-life?’”
Soon, the idea evolved from group chat texts to spreadsheet construction, as they dissected the finances of such a dream. Almost immediately, whether due to lack of stock car driving experience, manufacturer conflicts or team wishes, the group was down to just two: Daly and Pastrana.
“When it came down to it, about a month ago, Travis texted me and said, ‘Cody Efaw (Niece Motorsports team manager) said he’ll run us. Let’s team up and do it,’” Daly explained.
And after frantic calls to former and current sponsors and supporters of their motorsports careers, the two were pleasantly surprised the idea might just be possible. Now with the funds to race Friday and latched onto a proper team, how do you practice for a race that, well, doesn’t have practice, in a car you’ve, well, never raced in before?
The platform that brought the duo together, of course.
“We’ve spent several hours on there with (Trucks driver) Parker Kligerman, coaching us a lot on where to run, what to expect, how the tires might feel and fall off,” Daly said. “And that’s the best opportunity we have right now. We’re going to do some more this week, and I’m going to try and make some calls to some other NASCAR guys to chat about things, stuff my notebook and be as familiar as possible with the rules and how things work before we get out there.”
Luckily, Daly isn’t entirely a novice when it comes to stock car racing. The IndyCar regular raced in a…
Read More: Why Conor Daly is racing a truck with no practice