STARTING POSITIONS

2nd: RINUS VEEKAY No. 21 BITNILE.COM Chevrolet
13th: ED CARPENTER No. 33 BITNILE.COM Chevrolet
16th: CONOR DALY No. 20 BITNILE.COM Chevrolet

RACE BROADCAST: Sunday, May 28 – 11 a.m. ET (NBC)
TRACK: Indianapolis Motor Speedway Oval
LOCATION: Speedway, Indiana, USA
TRACK LAYOUT: 2.5-mile oval

ED CARPENTER RACING

• The next time Ed Carpenter Racing’s three Chevrolet-powered NTT INDYCAR SERIES cars take to the famed Indianapolis Motor Speedway Oval, it will be for the 107th Running of the Indianapolis 500. For the third year in a row, Rinus VeeKay qualified on the front row with his best starting position on the oval yet of 2nd this year. Team owner Ed Carpenter will be competing in his 20th Indianapolis 500 on Sunday, which he will start from the inside of Row 5 in 13th. Conor Daly will roll off from the 16th position, one row behind Carpenter, in his 10th “500.”

• ECR’s first season of NTT INDYCAR SERIES competition was 2012, making the 2023 Indianapolis 500 the team’s 12th. For 11 of those 12 years, ECR has had at least one car qualify in the first three rows. Excluding 2015, when the Firestone Fast Nine was canceled due to weather, ECR has been in every shootout for the pole position since 2013 (now the Firestone Fast Six). For the 9th time in 11 years, an ECR Chevrolet will start on the front row of the Indianapolis 500. For the fourth year in a row, VeeKay is the fastest Chevrolet-powered driver in the field. 

• The three Ed Carpenter Racing entires are fully supported by BITNILE.COM, a rapidly growing virtual world. BITNILE.COM launched an Early Release version of the metaverse on March 1 to coincide with the start of the 2023 season and already has over 1,000,000 engaged users. A number of new features and functionality continue to be added including eCommerce, live streaming entertainment, and social networking. The platform’s first social gaming release is Roulette, represented on Daly’s No. 20.

CONOR DALY, NO. 20 BITNILE.COM CHEVROLET

CONOR DALY, No. 20 BITNILE.COM Chevrolet, Starting 16th: “I am obviously very excited for this event. We have proven in most of the practice sessions that we can run strong in race conditions. We want to give it everything we’ve got for our partners at BITNILE.COM. This has been one of my best races over the last couple of years. We want to get to the front, we know how to get there. The goal is to beat everyone else and that is the plan!”

OF NOTE: 

• For the 10th time, Conor Daly will compete in the Indianapolis 500. At the end of Day 1 of qualifications, he had secured the 16th position for the No. 20 BITNILE.COM Chevrolet. The first of Daly’s three qualifying attempts held as his fastest with an average speed of 232.433 mph. 

• Born and raised in nearby Noblesville, Ind., Daly has grown to be a hometown favorite in the Indianapolis 500. Beginning in 2020, Daly has competed with Ed Carpenter Racing. When he charged to the front in 2021, he not only paced the field for the first time but would go on to lead the most laps of all drivers. In 2022, Daly led once again and finished a career-best sixth. The 31-year-old also made his 100th career NTT INDYCAR SERIES start last month.

RINUS VEEKAY, NO. 21 BITNILE.COM CHEVROLET

RINUS VEEKAY, No. 21 BITNILE.COM Chevrolet, Starting 2nd: “I am very excited for my fourth Indy 500! I am starting in the middle of the front row, which is my best so far. I have been looking forward to this for a very long time. I am ready to race with my teammates Conor Daly and Ed Carpenter, hopefully they can get to the front soon and we can work together as a team! It’s going to be a long race, I want to stay in the game until the end to be able to battle for the win. That is my goal! I want to win this race very much and I want to do it for the team. Ed Carpenter Racing has been working towards this for 12 years now. It’s a team effort and we want to make it happen. See you after 500 miles!”

OF NOTE: 

• For the third year in a row, VeeKay will have the one of the best views in the 33-car field as he starts on the front row of the Indianapolis 500. After qualifying third the past two years, VeeKay improved his position this year and will start 2nd on Sunday. The 22-year-old Dutch driver missed out on the pole position by a mere three-thousandths of a mile an hour, with his four-lap average of 234.211 mph being bested only by Alex Palou at 234.217 mph.

• The 2023 Indianapolis 500 will be VeeKay’s fourth, each of which have included a historical milestone. By starting 4th in his first “500” in 2020, he recorded the best qualifying result by a teenager in Indy 500 history. In 2021, he became the youngest front row qualifier ever when he started 3rd and finished a career-best 8th. Last year, VeeKay was the fastest on Day 1 and set what was then the 4th-fastest 4-lap average speed. Records continued to be broken in 2023 and VeeKay’s four-lap average in the Firestone Fast 6 is now the 3rd-fastest 4-lap average speed. He is also the fastest Chevrolet-powered driver in the field for the 4th consecutive year.

ED CARPENTER, NO. 33 BITNILE.COM CHEVROLET

ED CARPENTER, No. 33 BITNILE.COM Chevrolet, Starting 13th: “It is always a long month but the time is finally here. We get to do what we are really here for, which is the race the Indy 500! I am always super excited about that. I am really happy with the two weeks of preparation we have had since we have been here. I feel really confident that we have something better than we have had the last couple of years. I am optimistic that this could be the one!”

OF NOTE: 

• In less than two days’ time, Ed Carpenter will make his 20th Indianapolis 500 start. The 42-year-old will roll off from the 13th position on the inside of Row 5. Last Saturday, he made three qualifying attempts with his first holding as his fastest at 232.689 mph. Carpenter’s No. 33 BITNILE.COM Chevrolet missed advancing to Sunday’s Top 12 qualifying by a mere .02 of a second.

• Carpenter is the only individual in the 33-car field who handles both the responsibility of driving and owning his own team. The Indianapolis native solidified his status as a hometown favorite by winning the pole position in 2013 and 2014; in 2018, he became just the 10th driver to collect three or more Indy 500 poles in the century-plus history of the race. Some of his strongest finishes have come in recent years, including a runner-up finish after leading the most laps in 2018 and a 5th place in 2021. Later in the season, Carpenter will make his 200th NTT INDYCAR SERIES start.