IndyCar: Conor Daly to drive for Harding Racing at Pocono Raceway

By Asher Fair | Aug 14, 2018

FORT WORTH, TX - JUNE 08: Gabby Chaves, driver of the #88 Harding Group Chevrolet, practices for the Verizon IndyCar Series DXC Technology 600 at Texas Motor Speedway on June 8, 2018 in Fort Worth, Texas. (Photo by Robert Laberge/Getty Images) /

Conor Daly is set to make his third consecutive IndyCar start for Harding Racing in the 14th race of the season, the ABC Supply 500, at Pocono Raceway.

Conor Daly, who replaced former full-time driver Gabby Chaves as the driver of the #88 Harding Racing Chevrolet in the Honda Indy Toronto and the Honda Indy 200 last month, is set to do so again in this weekend’s ABC Supply 500 at Pocono Raceway, which will mark his fourth start of the 2018 IndyCar season.

It was first believed that Zachary Claman DeMelo, who has driven the #19 Dale Coyne Racing Honda part-time throughout the 2018 season, would drive the #88 Harding Racing Chevrolet in the race at Pocono Raceway and then in the race at Gateway Motorsports Park next week, but he will now likely compete in the race at Gateway and the race at Portland International Raceway in just over two weeks with Daly set to drive in the race at Pocono.

Daly has two career IndyCar starts at the three-turn, 2.5-mile (4.023-mile) Pocono Raceway triangle in Long Pond, Pennsylvania, and he made both of his starts in his two full-time seasons in the sport in 2016 and 2017. In the 2016 ABC Supply 500, he finished in 16th place, and in last year’s ABC Supply 500, he finished in 14th.

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Aside of his two starts at Pocono Raceway, Daly has made seven other starts in superspeedway races over the course of his IndyCar career. He drove in the Indianapolis 500 in 2013, 2015, 2016, 2017 and 2018, and he drove in the races at Texas Motor Speedway in 2016 and 2017. His career-high finish in a superspeedway race is his seventh place finish in last year’s race at Texas.

The 26-year-old Noblesville, Indiana native enters this Sunday’s ABC Supply 500, which is the 14th race of the 17-race 2018 season, with 42 career IndyCar starts under his belt over the course of five seasons.

Daly has secured 10 top 10 finishes and three top five finishes, including a career-high finish of second place, his lone podium finish, in the first of two races on the streets of Belle Isle in Detroit, Michigan back in the 2016 season, throughout his IndyCar career thus far.

So far this season, Daly has finished all three of the races that he has started, but he has not finished any of them in a position higher than 13th place. He finished in 21st in the Indy 500, 13th in the Honda Indy Toronto and 22nd in the Honda Indy 200. He is currently on a career-high nine-race streak of finishing races going back to last year’s Honda Indy Toronto.

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How will Conor Daly perform in his third career IndyCar start at Pocono Raceway and his fourth IndyCar start of the 2018 season? Tune in to NBC Sports Network at 1:30 p.m. ET on Sunday, August 19 for the live broadcast of the ABC Supply 500 from Pocono Raceway to find out.