SSM secures Malloy to serve as engineer

Todd Malloy will be the race engineer for the No. 77 Bowers & Wilkins car driven by Alex Tagliani for Sam Schmidt Motorsports in this weekend's Firestone Twin 275s at Texas Motor Speedway.

He replaces Allen McDonald, who earlier this week returned to Andretti Autosport as director of engineering and race engineer for the No. 27 car driven by Mike Conway.

"We are very fortunate to have Todd with us this weekend," team manager Rob Edwards said. "Since he was part of the engineering group (Nos. 77, 98 and 99 teams) working together at Indy, it will help the transition. At the same time, Allen was part of the founding group of this team; so much of the continuity that has built up over the last 18 months will be lost. Instead of work happening intuitively, we will have to learn to work together as we go."

McDonald was the chief race engineer for Tagliani, who earned the PEAK Performance Pole Award presented by AutoZone for the 100th anniversary Indianapolis 500.