IndyCar: Pit Crews to square off on Indy Carb Day

Thirteen of INDYCAR’s top pit crews will compete for more than $100,000 in prizes as the Ruoff Mortgage Pit Stop Challenge returns to Miller Lite Carb Day on Friday at Indianapolis Motor Speedway.

The traditional Carb Day competition will be held for the first time since 2019, when the crew of Arrow McLaren SP’s Marcus Ericsson was victorious. Ruoff Mortgage, which serves as the primary partner of the NTT INDYCAR SERIES’ Fastest Seat in Sports, will extend its INDYCAR SERIES involvement by serving as the event’s sponsor.

“What better way to welcome back fans to Miller Lite Carb Day than to bring back the Ruoff Mortgage Pit Stop Challenge,” INDYCAR President Jay Frye said. “NTT INDYCAR SERIES racing is a team sport, and this contest showcases how important pit stops are to helping their team win the Indy 500 on Sunday.”

Participating pit crews – representing seven different teams – qualified for this year’s Ruoff Mortgage Pit Stop Challenge via pit stop performance in NTT INDYCAR SERIES races since the 2021 Indy 500, their ranking in the 2022 NTT INDYCAR SERIES entrant standings or as a one-off Indianapolis 500 entrant.

Crews will compete head-to-head in single-round eliminations for the first three rounds of the competition in which they are required to change four tires and simulate refueling.

The top three ranked squads – top-seeded No. 2 Team Penske, second seed No. 9 Chip Ganassi Racing and third seed No. 15 Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing – earned byes to the quarterfinals.

In the championship round, the last two teams will meet in a best-of-three series, with teams alternating lanes in the first two races.

The winning crew and driver will share a $50,000 bonus, custom-designed rings from Jostens and a variety of other prizes.

First Round (Team listed first has lane choice)

#12 Team Penske (Will Power) vs. #10 Chip Ganassi Racing (Alex Palou)

#5 Arrow McLaren SP (Pato O’Ward) vs. #23 Dreyer & Reinbold Racing (Santino Ferrucci)

#26 Andretti Autosport with Curb-Agajanian (Colton Herta) vs. #45 Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing (Jack Harvey)

#24 Dreyer & Reinbold Racing (Sage Karam) vs. #7 Arrow McLaren SP (Felix Rosenqvist)

#20 Ed Carpenter Racing (Conor Daly) vs. #28 Andretti Autosport (Romain Grosjean)

Quarterfinals (Team listed first has lane choice unless noted)

Q1: #2 Team Penske (Josef Newgarden) vs. Power/Palou winner

Q2: O’Ward/Ferrucci winner vs. Herta/Harvey winner (Fastest first-round time has lane choice)

Q3: #9 Chip Ganassi Racing (Scott Dixon) vs. Karam/Rosenqvist winner

Q4: #15 Rahal Letterman Racing (Graham Rahal) vs. Daly/Grosjean winner

Semifinals (Fastest quarterfinal time has lane choice)

S1: Q1 winner vs. Q2 winner

S2: Q3 winner vs. Q4 winners

Finals (Best-of-Three Series)

S1 winner vs. S2 winner

Team Penske leads the Challenge with a combined 17 wins. Helio Castroneves is the winningest driver in the competition with eight titles.

Coverage of the Ruoff Mortgage Pit Stop Challenge begins at 2:30 p.m. (ET) and will be available on Peacock Premium.