Rick Ware, Byrd and Coyne enter Davison in Indy 500

James Davison

With sponsorship from Jacob Construction/Byrd, James Davison will drive the No. 51 Dallara-Honda Dale Coyne Racing entry with Rick Ware Racing in the Indianapolis 500, team owner Rick Ware told NBC Sports in an interview Thursday morning.

Jacob Construction also will be sponsoring Davison with RWR in the NASCAR Cup races at the Daytona International Speedway road course Aug. 16 and the Coke Zero 400 at Daytona on Aug. 29. Ware said Davison has been approved by NASCAR to run the road course and 2.5-mile oval.

“This is a bucket list item that is huge for me personally," Ware said. “I’ve actually never even been to the Indianapolis 500. Throughout my whole career, I’ve always been somewhere racing on Memorial Day (weekend). I’m ecstatic about even being able to be there and be able to participate has been a huge dream of mine."

“Being a smaller team, we’ve had just a lot of interest and a lot of excitement about doing something so unique," said Ware, who celebrated his 57th birthday along with Thursday’s news. “It’s just a really cool deal. People just got excited about the value add as a race team. I’ll be doing a lot of traveling back and forth, but we’re still focusing on (NASCAR). We’ve had multiple top 30s with several of our cars the last several races in Cup.

“We’re making baby steps. So we’re improving, and our sponsors there are really happy. (The Indy 500) is not a diversion. It’s really a value add. So we’ll do whatever we can to make this happen. It’s going to be a lot of miles driven."

Davison in last year's Byrd sponsored entry