The team missing the Indy 500 to be another driver's back-up car

Imagine having a lovely, shiny new IndyCar sat in your garage, and after previous experience doing the Indianapolis 500, you decide not to enter, and instead, you offer to be another team's back-up car so you don't have to compete against your son. Sounds like the opening of a movie!

Abel Motorsports is a well-established Indy NXT team which finished second in the championship last year with Jacob Abel. That result was enough to help kickstart Jacob's IndyCar career where he was able to secure a seat with Dale Coyne for 2025.

Abel Motorsports, run by Jacob's dad Bill, had done the Indy 500 in 2023 with RC Enerson and now owns a car, but incredibly, it will be a back-up for the Dale Coyne Racing team it isn't affiliated to in any other way than the link with Jacob, ready to hand over the car should he hit any trouble.

"We've got an IndyCar sitting out here in our shop and we had an opportunity that was available to us and Bill and I went back and forth on it for a long time," team principal John Brunner tells The Race.

"And we just decided we really needed to help kind of be support for Jacob in his first Indy 500 attempt.

"I think Bill's looking forward to being a dad at the Indy 500 instead of being a dad and a team owner and basically competing against his own son. It just put us in a little tough situation.

"We absolutely would hope to be entering next year, but it just didn't make a lot of sense for this year."

It might seem like a drastic move from the team, but last year Nolan Siegel crashed a Dale Coyne car in practice and then the back-up car wasn't fast enough to qualify and he was bumped out and missed the race. Abel doesn't expect this car to be used but in such a scenario, it's brilliant planning should Jacob be put in the same position.

While it's very early days, things are looking more positive for Abel than they did for Siegel. In fact last year both Coyne cars had to fight to make the field in 'Bump Day', but on the first day of practice this year, May 13, Abel recorded the third fastest no-tow lap. That's significant because qualifying for this race is done on a clear track.

There's the small matter of needing to do four laps for a qualifying run at the 500. But that Tuesday practice speed shows Abel has reason to be encouraged.

This back-up move has meant the previously Chevrolet-powered Abel car has been converted to run Dale Coyne's Honda preference - Brunner says "there's not a lot of difference nowadays" between the two - and the car is ready to go.

"There are some things, just making sure we've built this car to their spec as well," Brunner adds when asked if the team has had to work in conjunction with Coyne to ensure some consistency over the spec of car.

He added: "That car's built in speedway form if for some reason it was needed, it would for sure be made available to Dale, but right now Dale, they have the speedway cars, they have their back-up car. So the car is sitting here for a worst-case situation."

The 'team' Abel versus 'driver' Abel would have "made for great press" reckons Brunner, and he says the team reached out to Bryan Herta who competes against his son Colton through being Kyle Kirkwood's strategist, even if they belong to the same Andretti team.

But ultimately the decision was made from father to son to save the car and have it ready. It has produced an even more unusual and interesting scenario ahead of this year's race.

Abel is last in the IndyCar championship with a best start and finish of 23rd, so there is a lot riding on his Month of May.

He will definitely be doing it style, though, as he is running a throwback-style Danny Sullivan livery, 30 years since Sullivan's famous 'spin and win' victory.

Abel's bread and butter

The team's main focus is on the Indy NXT - formerly Indy Lights - championship.

A double-header on the Indy road course last weekend means we have more to talk about, after the season started on March 2 and it wasn't until May 4 the series raced again at Barber.

At least for the rest of the season it races at least twice per month.

Andretti is the form team in the series again, having won and taken pole in all four races. Ex-Red Bull junior Dennis Hauger (below) has won three of those and taken two poles with reigning USF 2000 champion Lochie Hughes responsible for the rest.

Abel has progressively improved in the series and while the usual protagonists like Andretti and HMD dominate the top of the pylon, Abel has made inroads and last year was proof of that.

Myles Rowe, backed by Penske and its Race for Equality and Change programme, looks to be the team's best hope for this season, finishing fourth twice and third twice.

Andretti looks ominously dominant at the moment, though.