Indy Lights: Davey Hamilton to launch own team

IndyCar racer Davey Hamilton has moved into team ownership and will debut his new squad in the 2009 Indy Lights series.

The Indy 500 regular, who is planning to compete in the 93rd running of the legendary race this May, has long-term plans to field his new squad in the IndyCar series and will start on the road to fulfilling that aim by running American Brandon Wagner in the Indy Lights feeder series.
 

"I know I can't race forever, even though I wish I could because I love it so much," said Hamilton, 46, who competed in the inaugural IndyCar Series race in 1996 at Walt Disney World Speedway. "But it's important for me to stay involved with the sport I love and this will give me an opportunity to do that.
 

"I want to be a team owner for a long time. That's my future. I want to learn how to be a car owner and try to progress into the IndyCar Series."
 

Former USAC racer Wagner will drive the No. 32 car for a full campaign this season having previously had a one-off outing for Alliance/Wagner Motorsport at the season finale at Chicagoland, finishing 15th. The 22-year-old has previously competed in both the USAC National and Regional Midget Series and won the "Ryan Newman Night" Classic at South Bend (Ind.) Speedway in 2006.
 

"It's a true privilege to work with somebody like Davey and having him in my headset while I'm on the track," he said. "His knowledge and experience is priceless, and it will be the key factor for us to be competitive in our first season together."
 

The team, has hired IndyCar Series veteran Darrell Soppe as its engineer and Sean Birmingham as team manager and is pursuing sponsorship that it hopes will provide a second full-time car/driver combination. A team name also will be announced soon.
 

"There are a lot of people involved, and that's why there's not even a formal team name because there are some opportunities to get more people involved with our program that could dictate the name of the team," Hamilton said. "With the economy being down, it doesn't seem like a great time. Bu with the partners and people that are involved, it just happened to be the right time for us to put this team together.
 

"I want to be there every second the car is on the track to try to help the performance side of the team, and the biggest thing for me is to continue to find funding to make sure the team excels and succeeds. That's where I'm going to put all my focus at this point. We have been in multiple meetings to finalise details within the team and the most important priority is to get the cars ready for the first test (Feb. 23-24 at Homestead-Miami Speedway). Once we have operations running as smoothly as possible, we can work on making this team competitive."
 

Highlights of Indy Lights can be found on Motors TV



Andy Wilkinson