Harding Racing, who are making their Verizon IndyCar Series debut at the Indianapolis 500 in 2017, have announced that they will also race at Texas Motor Speedway and Pocono Raceway this year before joining the series full time in 2018.
The team, owned by Mike Harding, will field Gabby Chaves in both races as well as the Indy 500, with the young American having signed a two-year deal with the outfit.
“We’re going to run Texas and Pocono,” said Harding to Racer. “And then next year, we’re going to try to run the whole series.”
Both Texas and Pocono use the same aero packages as Indianapolis, which make it worthwhile for Harding Racing to race in both events, but they will not compete on any other circuit as it would involve purchasing additional aero kits, which will be obsolete next season.
“The way we looked at it is, all the aero stuff for this year is being changed next year,” said Team Manager Larry Curry.
“To get properly outfitted for Indy, that [kit] works for Texas and Pocono. That’s why we said, ‘Let’s run those three deals; we don’t have to buy any additional aero parts and throw them away’.
“We’ll run them out at Pocono, and then convert [the cars] over to the new bodywork [for 2018]”.
