Schmidt Peterson honors mechanics past and present with garage art

Schmidt Peterson Motorsports is honoring Indy car mechanics past and present on the walls of its Gasoline Alley garages at Indianapolis Motor Speedway this month.

The Verizon IndyCar Series team unveiled the garage art that will adorn its space for the INDYCAR Grand Prix and the 102nd Running of the Indianapolis 500 presented by PennGrade Motor Oil. This is the third year that SPM has decorated the concrete walls of its garages. This year’s theme pays tribute to mechanics that not only have turned wrenches in the past but also those that currently build and maintain the cars.

In conjunction with the garage design unveiling today, SPM also announced that it has signed GEARWRENCH as the team’s new tool partner for the rest of the season.

“I think as a team we’re just always trying to be innovative and thinking about doing things a different way,” said Jon Flack, Schmidt Peterson Motorsports president. “While we respect the history of the speedway and the traditions of the speedway, sometimes you can get set in your ways and just do things the same way year after year.”

In addition to the garage art, the team made the decision in 2016 to change layout in its garage space so fans could see the sides of the cars instead of just the back. That tradition has continued so that the cars driven by James Hinchcliffe, Robert Wickens, Jack Harvey and Jay Howard will be more visible.

“It allows us to have a really nice, clean environment for our crew and our engineers and everyone to work out of for the month of May,” Flack said. “It was something we felt we needed to do not only for the team and giving our employees the best, but offering an interesting look into our team for the fans as well.”

The deal with GEARWRENCH came about so quickly that the company provided new equipment to the team before the contract was signed. Curt Weber, senior director of brand management for Apex Tool Group, GEARWRENCH’s parent, said it was an easy decision to partner with SPM after a site visit.

“We wanted to see how the teams interact and gel and within two minutes we were like, ‘OK, we’ve got a really good dynamic here,’” Weber said. “So we started brainstorming, we came up with some ideas, we walked to the garage, we saw what kind of equipment they were using and we basically swapped it all out, did the whole garage.

“I was able to make a few phone calls to expedite things, so actually I was able to do it without a contract being signed, which was miraculous. We signed the contract Monday.”

SPM made sure to incorporate GEARWRENCH prominently into the wall art design.

“They sent us this week all new products, tools, storage, boxes, everything for us to use this month and for the rest of the season,” Flack said. “It was a little like Christmas came early for us at the SPM race shop and they really just played a massive role, the GEARWRENCH brand specifically helping us take this to the next level.”

Schmidt Peterson Motorsports will release a time-lapse video later this week detailing the garage art process.

The INDYCAR Grand Prix airs live at 3:30 p.m. ET Saturday on ABC and the Advance Auto Parts INDYCAR Radio Network. A pair of 45-minute practices are scheduled on Friday to start at 9:15 a.m. and 12:30 p.m. Verizon P1 Award qualifying begins at 4:30 p.m. with the practice and qualifying sessions streaming live on RaceControl.IndyCar.com, youtube.com/indycar and the INDYCAR Mobile app.

The 102nd Indianapolis 500 airs live at 11 a.m. Sunday, May 27, also on ABC and the Advance Auto Parts INDYCAR Radio Network.