INDIANAPOLIS — Indy car racing has famous families, past and present. Vukovich, Bettenhausen, Unser, Andretti, Rahal, Herta come to mind.
One family operating more behind the scenes in the Verizon IndyCar Series is the Selman clan.
Wayne Selman is a truck driver for Ed Carpenter Racing and has been involved in the sport since driving Al Unser Jr.’s transporter in 1993. Wayne’s sons, Cody and Chase, will be in the pits for Sunday’s 102nd Indianapolis 500 presented by PennGrade Motor Oil, working on Sage Karam’s car for Dreyer & Reinbold Racing.
Wayne raced motorcycles in Albuquerque when he was young, moved to California and then back to New Mexico.
“I went to high school with some guys that worked on Rick Galles’ (Indy car) race team and they needed a truck driver,” Wayne recalled of how he got his start. “I moved back to Albuquerque and that was 1993 that I started there full time, then in 1997 I moved back to Indy and I’ve been here ever since.”
Over the years, Wayne worked for Eddie Cheever’s team and PacWest Racing. He also drove the transporter for Dreyer & Reinbold Racing for almost a decade.
“Then Sarah (Fisher) branched off and did her own thing,” said Selman. “I went and did Sarah’s team for four, five years and then they merged with Ed Carpenter and then I’ve been with Ed ever since.”
Wayne isn’t the only member of the family to have a shot at a winner’s ring. His sons Cody and Chase Selman are working on Sage Karam’s effort with DRR on the No. 24 WIX Filters/DRR Chevrolet. Karam starts 24th for Sunday’s 102nd Running of the Indianapolis 500 presented by PennGrade Motor Oil.
Cody and Chase Selman got their start with their dad at Galles Racing, performing traditional jobs one does when trying to break into the sport.
“Waxing haulers, so we’d go out and every summer I’d go to the hauler lot and wax the trailers,” Cody said. “My dad was well known enough that he’d convince a few people to let a snot-nosed kid wax their trailer. But that, waxing wheels, just doing kind of maintenance stuff around the shop, things that you start out doing, sweeping floors, all that fun stuff.”
Cody went on to college and wound up working for a Charlotte-based motorsports agency that brought drivers from sprint cars to NASCAR, eventually becoming Kyle Busch’s manager. Eventually, Cody married TV sports reporter Jamie Little and moved to Las Vegas. The couple moved to the Indianapolis suburb of Zionsville last winter.
Chase Selman joined DRR in 2003, earning his marketing/business degree while working for the team.
“When I came back, Dennis (Reinbold) offered me a marketing job with the team,” said Chase. “So I worked in sponsor services and after an opening came for a team management position I took that job.”
Chase now is the team manager for DRR and his race day responsibility will be changing the right-rear tire on Karam’s No. 24 WIX Filters/DRR Chevrolet. Cody will change the left rear. Under Chase’s leadership, the team’s best finish in the Indianapolis 500 was fourth in 2012 with Oriol Servia.
With both sons on one car and their father on a different team, family rivalry creeps into the conversation often – especially if Karam were to win over an Ed Carpenter Racing car or vice-versa. The added twist to the scenario is that Chase Selman is married to Brooke Patrick, the sister of Danica Patrick, who is finishing her groundbreaking career in Sunday’s race, in an ECR car.
“I’d take either way,” Chase said of a DRR or ECR victory. “I’d like our team to win, but for my dad it’d be awesome to see him win as well. I think I’d be just as excited. He deserves one, he’s been here a long time. It wouldn’t hurt my feelings at all if we take it over him.”
“It’d be awesome because I don’t have one yet,” Wayne said. “I’ve been doing this almost 30 years and I still don’t have one. But some people get them, some don’t.”