Dale Coyne picks the Top 10 drivers in his giant-slaying team

Some 20 years ago, if you learned that a driver had landed a ride at Dale Coyne Racing, you didn’t know whether to congratulate or commiserate. Coyne had been struggling with mostly pay drivers for several years, and the picture had become muddied. Were the results not coming because DCR couldn’t find good enough drivers in what remained a deep field in Champ Car? Or was the team too cash-poor to grab the right personnel and the best equipment, thereby scaring the better drivers away? No one truly knew which came first – the stunted chicken or the malformed egg.

Coyne missed almost the entire 2001 and ’02 seasons in order to save money, regroup and return, and that opportunity came in ’03. With Team Penske, Chip Ganassi Racing and Andretti Green Racing now all in the Indy Racing League, Champ Car owners Kevin Kalkhoven and Gerry Forsythe needed to boost the car count, and Coyne returned. Then, with the grid further thinned in 2004 by the defection of Rahal Letterman Racing and Fernandez Racing, Dale Coyne Racing’s results improved, to the extent that lead driver Oriol Servia delivered not only the team’s second-ever podium, but also 10^th place in the championship.