7 days, 3 races, 4 cars, 4 states, finishes 14th in Pennzoil 250

INDIANAPOLIS – Conor Daly just wants stability. He wants to drive consistently. He doesn’t care if it’s IndyCar, NASCAR or even GT World Challenge America. So he drove cars for all three series in just one week.

Three races and one test.

Four states.

Four vehicles.

Seven days. It’s the most vehicles he’s driven in one week.

The “Conor Daly World Tour,” as the Noblesville resident called it, kicked off on Sunday, July 14, with an NTT IndyCar Series race at Iowa Speedway. Although he sat out the race due to mechanical issues, Daly completed 140 of the 250 laps in the Hy-Vee One Step 250, filling in for an injured Jack Harvey.

More: Conor Daly is soft-spoken, focused on Indy 500 win and 243 mph: ‘It’s like a drug’

Daly’s travel woes began Tuesday night, when he struggled to even get to Southeast when his flight from Indianapolis to Charlotte was canceled. He woke up at 4 a.m. Wednesday to catch the next available flight for a simulation day with Toyota before driving to Virginia International Raceway for Thursday’s test.

On July 18, Daly tested a GT3 sports car for his debut with GT World Challenge America on October 6 at IMS. After a full day of testing, his flight back to Indianapolis was officially canceled at 9:36 p.m.

Needing a place to crash while he waited for a flight back to Indiana, Daly took a long Uber ride to the home of NASCAR Xfinity Series team owner Sam Hunt. He woke up at 6 a.m. Friday, and about an hour later, Sam Hunt Racing announced that Daly was finally flying back to Circle City.

Daly’s Friday began with an Xfinity Series practice at Indianapolis Motor Speedway from 1:05 to 1:55 p.m. He posted the third-best time of any competitor with 164.995 mph and a fastest lap of 54.547 seconds.

He left IMS quickly for a 20-minute drive to Indianapolis Raceway Park in Brownsburg, in time for the Truck Series’ TSport 200 3:30 p.m. practice and 4:05 p.m. qualifying, all prior to an 8:30 p.m. race. The only other time Daly had raced at Indianapolis Raceway Park was the day after graduating high school and winning a USF Pro 200 event.

This was Daly’s fourth race for NASCAR’s Truck Series, where he twice achieved his highest finish of 18th, starting in last place after a mechanical problem sidelined him during qualifying. The Noblesville native finished 29th of 34 finishing drivers, with much of his trouble attributed to a blowout in his right front tire late in the race.

“I’ve had a lot of bad luck with trucks,” Daly said. “That’s why I’m glad we have more (races). I didn’t want to just do one race and then something crazy happens.”

Despite his drive to finish higher, Daly was happy to have completed the race and felt he could compete with some of the best drivers in the series at his peak on Friday night.

“When we were fast, we were really fucking fast,” Daly said. “It felt cool to be really racey with some of those guys.”

Daly said the biggest difference between race trucks and stock cars is the precise strategy that is essential to success in stock car racing. He felt like he was all over the track when he was driving the truck, and he knew he couldn’t do that when he raced in the Xfinity Series’ Pennzoil 250 on Saturday.

Ahead of qualifying for the race on Saturday, Daly said he was feeling generally good physically, with only a little muscle soreness holding him back from being 100%. However, he admitted that bouncing between four different cars over the course of six days had at times felt mentally draining.

“I don’t think people realize how hard it is to drive any vehicle, especially when you have people in it who do it full-time,” Daly said. “This is a craft, and everyone is very good at it. The days of everyone from another show just jumping in are over.”

Daly posted a top time of 54.305 seconds in Pennzoil 250 qualifying to start his third race for NASCAR’s Xfinity Series in 16th place. Daly said the biggest learning curve when he first drove an Xfinity Series car was the patience that came with it. Having specialized in Indy Car driving, he was used to consistently racing at over 200 mph, a speed NASCAR drivers never come close to.

The No. 26 Toyota driver’s best finish in his previous two Xfinity Series outings was 31st, but he easily broke that previous record with a 14th-place finish on Saturday. Daly’s best lap time was 55.669 seconds.

“Hopefully that proves my worth,” Daly said on the broadcast less than 30 minutes after the race. “I love … just riding. I want to get the chance to do this more often, and I’m trying to fight for it.”

Before the Pennzoil 250, Daly said he wasn’t sure where he had to finish to be satisfied, and that he would probably even be happy if he completed all 100 laps. It certainly seemed like he was satisfied with 14th, and he completed all 100 laps, but he encountered a threat to that goal as early as Lap 1.

In a multi-car accident that left most of the cars involved on track, Daly’s No. 26 Toyota Polkadot was hit by the left front end. And yet Daly still climbed to seventh place by the end of the first stage.

“It’s sad to think that after this weekend I’m going to be sitting around for a while,” Daly said. “I’d love to be in IndyCar full-time, but the IndyCar world doesn’t seem to be as fond of me as I’d like.”

But Daly knows that part of it is up to him. He knows that securing a full-time spot in IndyCar will require securing a slew of attractive brand deals just as much as success on the track.

“You have to create opportunities,” Daly said. “If you sit there, no one is going to come and get you to do the job because there are plenty of drivers.”

For comments, please contact Kyle Smedley via email at [email protected] or via X @KyleSmedley_.

This article originally appeared on Indianapolis Star: After racing in IndyCar and NASCAR in the same week, Daly wants stability