After their awkward, and at times testy, relationship on- and off-track a year ago, as Ryan Hunter-Reay replaced Conor Daly following the latter's ouster at Ed Carpenter Racing seven races into the 2023 IndyCar season, the two veteran drivers will band together in a pair of Indianapolis 500 one-off entries for May, in hopes of delivering Dreyer and Reinbold Racing its first Borg-Warner Trophy.

Along with Hunter-Reay, who last year ran the 500 with DRR in his first part-time role in 16 years, Don Cusick will reprise his role as Reinbold's partner on the program -- this time across the No. 23 (Hunter-Reay) and No. 24 (Daly) Chevys. Last year, Cusick helped deliver a 500-only ride to Stefan Wilson with DRR, but during a Monday practice after qualifying weekend, he was spun by Katherine Legge and crashed hard into the outer SAFER barrier in the Turn 1 wall at IMS.

Wilson was forced to bow out of the race with a fractured 12th thoracic vertebrae. Now recovered, he had hopes of returning to the race this May, but the fast-paced driver market in recent months has put those hopes severely in question. Wilson had previously partnered with Cusick in a 500 ride with DragonSpeed in 2022.

After back-to-back top-10s with Sage Karam (7th, 2021) and Santino Ferrucci (10th, 2022), Hunter-Reay only barely missed extending the team's streak a year ago with a climb to 11th after qualifying 18th. Graham Rahal, who replaced the injured Wilson, recovered from a car that wouldn't initially start on the grid after already having to start 33rd and drove his way to 22nd. Hunter-Reay, the 2014 Indy 500 winner with 15 previous starts in the race, has finished 11th or better in four of his last five 500 appearances -- four of those coming with his former longtime home Andretti Global.

"I’m thrilled to be back and ready to build on where we left off last year. We had a very strong showing at the 500 last year and if it were not for a failed front wing adjuster early in the race, I truly feel we would have been fighting in the top-5 to the finish," Hunter-Reay said in a team release. "The passion and dedication of this team are truly inspiring, and I am confident that together we can achieve success at the greatest spectacle in racing."

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Having shared the 6th row on the grid with his new teammate a year ago in the 500 after qualifying 16th, Daly registered his second consecutive top-10 finish in the Greatest Spectacle in Racing a year ago, less than two weeks before he and ECR parted ways. His best 500 finish among his 10 previous starts came in 2022, where he took 6th. The Noblesville native raced four times a year ago as a substitute for an injured Simon Pagenaud at Meyer Shank Racing at Mid-Ohio and the Iowa doubleheader as well as with Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing at World Wide Technology Raceway after the team cut ties with Jack Harvey late in the year.

During his brief stint with MSR, Daly and Hunter-Reay touched late in a race at Iowa, nudging the former into the wall with two laps to go, in a move that Hunter-Reay later blamed on his spotter and which Daly called "probably not malicious but oddly ironic."

"When Dennis first called me, he told me he believed I could win the Indy 500 and all he wanted going into 2024 was the best chance to win as a team. As a driver, what more could you want?" Daly said in a team release. "To be teamed up with a champion like Ryan (Hunter-Reay) as well I believe truly makes us a threat in the month of May."

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The pair of signings brings the list of confirmed drivers for the 108th 500 up to 31, including 25 full-season entries and extras from Andretti Global (Marco Andretti), MSR (Helio Castroneves), Arrow McLaren (Kyle Larson) and ECR (Ed Carpenter/Christian Rasmussen) along with the DRR duo. Dale Coyne Racing's two-car full-time lineup expected to be announced in the coming weeks ahead of the March 10 season-opener at St. Pete will officially fill the field of 33.

Bumping during qualifying weekend, though, is indeed expected to return for the second consecutive year, with RC Enerson expected to return to Abel Motorsports. Last fall, RLL co-owner Bobby Rahal spoke of interest in running a fourth car at some races in 2024, which could lead to an additional car alongside Graham Rahal, Christian Lundgaard and Pietro Fittipaldi come May.

This article originally appeared on Indianapolis Star: Indy 500: Conor Daly, Ryan Hunter-Reay team up at Dreyer and Reinbold Racing