Former NASCAR Driver Cole Pearn to Team Up with Conor Daly for Indy 500

At the end of last year, Cole Pearn decided to walk away from NASCAR for good. This was after he helped build up one of the best teams in NASCAR, but it took a massive toll on him. However, the COVID-19 pandemic has thrown several spanners in the works, and he may soon be back at a race track.

With the Indianapolis 500 moved to Aug. 23, the Ed Carpenter Racing team had a problem on its hands. They needed an extra hand at Conor Daly’s side of the garage, and that is where the former NASCAR driver comes in.

As it turns out, some of Daly’s crew are familiar with Pearn’s work before and everything else fell into place. It also helps that he took the role of crew chief for Martin Truex Jr. back in the 2017 NASCAR championship season.

Pearn admitted that the Ed Carpenter team approached him and he was more than willing to take them up on the offer. In fact, theIndy 500 was practically on his bucket list.

How has the former NASCAR driver adjusted to life in IndyCar?

As it turns out, Pearn had no trouble in the IndyCar paddock and Daly stormed to 9th at the IMSA. Daly even topped the speed charts for a while until Takuma Sato spoiled the party.

Daly is making his 7th Indy 500 start, with a career-best 10th with Andretti Autosport. Now, the 28-year old driver is aiming to deliver a strong 500 with Pearn as his part-time engineer.

Pearn was reasonably successful when in his prime and had a good five-year stint as Truex’s crew chief. With Truex Jr, he reaped 24 Cup Series victories and back-to-back runners-up slots after 2017.

Then, after Furniture Row Racing folded at the end of 2018, Pearn and Truex moved to Joe Gibbs Racing. Along the way, they clinched seven race wins and finished runner-up to teammate Kyle Busch, and that was when Pearn hung up his boots.

However, the time away proved that he was not done with the motorsport circuit just yet. Pearn is also passionate about IndyCar, so that was his next big dream.

Suffice to say, when Ed Carpenter came around, he pounced at the opportunity right off the bat.