Kaiser Will Return to Indy 500 with Juncos Racing

By Luis Torres, Staff Writer

For the second straight year, Juncos Racing will have 2017 Indy Lights champion Kyle Kaiser in their No. 32 Chevrolet for the 103rd Running of the Indianapolis 500 presented by Gainbridge.

Kaiser made his Indy 500 debut last season, where he qualified an astounding 17th before his race ended past halfway due to a mechanical failure and finished 32nd.

Sunday’s announcement of the Californian getting the nod marked the 35th confirmed driver out of the 36 entries, leaving the No. 77 ARROW Schmidt Peterson entry without a driver announced, that’ll attempt to make the 33-car field in two weeks.

Kaiser said he hopes he can continue building Juncos’ IndyCar program that’ll get him in the field and race on May 26th.

“I am incredibly happy to have the opportunity to qualify for the 103rd Running of the Indy 500,” said Kaiser. “The team and myself have been working very hard to make this happen, so I’m extremely grateful to everyone who has helped make this possible. It will be great to build off what we accomplished last year, having qualified 17th as a single car effort was incredible.

“With this knowledge and experience I am confident we will have another strong showing. I can’t wait to get back on track and get back to work preparing the No. 32 Chevrolet for the biggest race of the year.”

Kaiser only made one start this season in the NTT IndyCar Series, where he finished 18th at Circuit of the Americas, which was also the team’s only start.

Ricardo Juncos, owner of Juncos Racing, said bringing Kaiser back to compete in the Indy 500 will build their single-car program due to his history with his race team.

“We are happy that Kyle will be back in the No. 32 car this May. We had a lot of success in qualifying last year as a single car entry, so we are ready to build on what we learned and carry that momentum with us to the speedway,” said Juncos. “We have a lot of history with Kyle. He has been with this team for six years and has gone through our major transitions from Pro Mazda, to winning the Indy Lights Championship and moving up to IndyCar and even in our new IMSA program.

“We are excited to have the opportunity to continue our work with him for one of the biggest events of the year and look forward to a great month at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway.”