Pigot to miss Indy 500 – or will he?

This is posted as a rumor because we suspect the Hulman-George family, desperate to get to 33 cars for the 500, will get them a chassis for Pigot

Ed Carpenter Racing will not field a third entry for Spencer Pigot at next month's Indianapolis 500, because they don't have enough money to repair the car Josef Newgarden crashed in Texas last June. That's how tight money is in the IndyCar paddock due to TV ratings on NBCSN that are so low sponsors laugh

ECR has run three cars at Indy over the past two years, but will only field J. R. Hildebrand and team owner Ed Carpenter in 2017, with road/street racer Pigot missing out.

"We weren't able to put the right deal together for a third entry, because we'd have needed to buy another car, which now makes it pretty much impossible," Carpenter told Autosport.

"We had five cars up until [Newgarden's] accident at Texas last year.

"Now we're down to four, the idea of going into May with three entries and only one spare car doesn't make much sense, so buying another chassis would have been necessary.

"Plus the majority of people who we used to run the third car have gone elsewhere – understandably – and we're not going to run an extra car just to go through the motions.

"We'd want all three cars to be competitive otherwise it doesn't benefit the driver or the team."