Sam Schmidt, Townsend Bell Re-Team At Indy For Third Straight Year

Anne Proffit

850 views May 4, 2012

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Will the third consecutive time be the charm for driver Townsend Bell and Sam Schmidt Motorsports (SSM) at the Indianapolis 500?

SSM entered a second car for the 96h running of the Greatest Spectacle in Racing and announced the assignment of that Dallara/Honda/Firestone entry to Townsend Bell as teammate to Indy rookie Simon Pagenaud.

Bell, now 37, has become an excellent Indy 500 racer and this year will mark his sixth 200-lap appearance at The Brickyard: in 2009 the San Luis Obispo, CA driver started 24th and drove through the field to a fourth-place result, his best to date while working with KV Racing Technology. He joined SSM in 2010 and qualified in the top-10, racing as high as fifth before a penalty pushed Bell back to 16th place finishing spot. Last year Bell qualified fourth-fastest, placing his car inside the second row and just behind SSM teammate and polesitter Alex Tagliani. Bell's most recent 500 ended with a lap 157 accident.

This year Bell drives a No. 99 BraunAbility/Schmidt Pelrey Motorsports car. "Speed and consistency win the Indianapolis 500," he said. "Returning to Indy with Sam and his team for the third year in a row will ensure I have both those ingredients again in 2012. For the past two years," Bell stated, "my guys have provided me a fast race car and I know the No. 99 BraunAbility/Schmidt Pelrey Motorsports car will give me another shot at winning."

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“Townsend is one of those drivers that gets it done at Indy and I am excited to have him driving the No. 99 BraunAbility car this May,” Schmidt said. “To say we have unfinished business together at Indy may be a cliché, but it is true. We’ve started our first two races together with legitimate shots at winning. This year should be no different.”

BraunAbility, based in Winamac, IN and celebrating its 40th year in business is the primary sponsor of the No. 99 this year. The firm is an industry leader in personal mobility, manufacturing wheelchair vans, wheelchair lifts and other mobility accessories. The company was founded by Ralph Braun in 1972, diagnosed in his youth with spinal muscular atrophy. Frustrated with using a bulky and heavy wheelchair after his disease left him - by age 15 - unable to walk, Braun created the first electric scooter in his cousin's farm shop. He later outfitted an old postal Jeep with hand controls and hydraulic lift for safe transport to and from work and has been designing accessible vehicles ever since that time.

The association with Schmidt is a natural as the team owner was injured in a Walt Disney World Speedway testing crash in January 2000 - just months after earning his first Indy car victory. The accident left Schmidt a quadriplegic, but it hardly slowed him. SSM has six cars entered in races this May at Indianapolis Motor Speedway. In addition to the two Indy cars for Bell and Pagenaud, SSM has four Firestone Indy Lights cars in the Firestone Freedom 100.

SSM is the most successful team in the history of INDYCAR's Firestone Indy Lights series with five championships.