IndyCar: A Las Vegas Gamble Pays Off for Conor Daly

Conor Daly will be driving the Ed Carpenter Racing No 20 entry full time this season. What started as a birthday celebration ended up as employment for the American favorite.

“Everything kind of seemed to be going the wrong way, all of our deals we were working on were kind of pitter pattering out. I planned a 30th birthday trip to Las Vegas, obviously.  At the time I had talked to a long-time friend of ours, both me and Doug knew him as well, Doug Boles. He had this idea for this meeting with this guy that was interested in INDYCAR racing. I was like, You know what, happy to do it. Are you going to be in Vegas by chance like December 17, 18? I said, Funny you ask. Yes, I will be there for my birthday. I went out there with Alex Rossi and two of my other friends from Indy here, and Travis Pastrana met us out there as well.”

“I had this meeting planned for Saturday. I was like, This is it, this is what I got.  I have this meeting or I have nothing. ”

“We woke up Saturday. My friends, they were still celebrating. I was not.  I was locked in.  I was sweating.  I was like we tried to have lunch. Travis got in town. He’s very exciting. It’s very tempting to start doing what Travis wants to do, which is like jump off of buildings, cool stuff like that. ”

“I said, Hey, I can’t. I got a meeting. I go to this meeting at like 6:00 in the afternoon, you guys do whatever you’re going to do with Travis and Alex. By the next hour and a half we shook on a deal what it was announced at. I was like, Wow, that was the craziest thing.”

“After that I went back and shouted at Travis and Alex, my friends, I think I’m employed. After that, we had an incredible next two days.”

“I texted Ed that night.  It was obviously late– he’s on east coast time. It was very late for me by the time the meeting was done.  Ed called me at like 5 a.m. Vegas time.  I told him, I think I just did this deal. I was obviously still awake because we were celebrating.”

“I said, Hey, man, how is it going? He was like, Is that legit? I said, I think so. He said obviously, Call me when you wake up. I went to sleep for a while and called him. Yeah, incredible story.  It was a wild.”

“People always say, Conor, you spend too much time in Vegas. I was like, Guess what, it got me a job this time, you losers.”