SPEEDWAY, Ind. — Arrow McLaren SP has three cars in the field for the Indianapolis 500 Sunday.
The team is led by Ben Davis High School graduate Taylor Kiel, an Indianapolis native who is living his dream. Kiel is the youngest team president in IndyCar.
"My wife and I were talking about this the other day, she's like, 'Did you ever think that you'd be here?' and for me, the answer is 'Yeah, it's kinda what I always wanted to do," he said.
With a mother and stepfather that both work in racing, Kiel was pretty much born into the sport.
"My first time at the Speedway was... I was about six months old. I've got stories about being shoved into a stack of tires just so I could get out into the pit lane when you used to have to be 18 to get out there," Kiel said. "So I've spent a lot of time here at the Speedway, I've spent a lot of time at race tracks."
So when it came time to enter the real world, Kiel searched for any way to get his foot into the garage. At just 22 years old, Sam Schmidt came calling. It was back when Arrow McLaren SP was still an Indy Lights team.
"I got an interview. No tools, nothing and they hired me. I don't know why, but they did," Kiel said. "I kind of just did whatever anybody asked me to do. Sweeping floors, I actually have a plunger that's spray painted gold because I cleaned the bathroom so good one day."
Hired as a junior mechanic, Kiel climbed his way to crew chief, team manager and now he's at the top of the ladder as team president.
"I don't know what the right word is, whether it's validation, or what it is, but there's been a lot of hard work between the 12-people Indy Lights team that I started (with) to the 60-plus, two-car IndyCar team now that we've got," Kiel said.
He's living out his dream - one that would be even sweeter with an Indy 500 win.
"It's a special feeling to come here as somebody who grew up on the west side of Indianapolis and could hear the cars running when I was in school, just wishing I could get out of school and go to the race track," Kiel said. "Personally, this is it for me."
Pato O'Ward will start 12th for Arrow McLaren SP, while Felix Rosenqvist starts 14th and two-time Indianapolis 500 champion Juan Pablo Montoya will start 24th for Sunday's race.