Graham Rahal gets a ride in the Indy 500, replacing the injured Stefan Wilson AllNews

Monday’s practice crash where Stefan Wilson was hit from behind by Katherine Legge. (AP)

INDIANAPOLIS — Graham Rahal will have a chance to keep his Indianapolis 500 starting streak intact after all, replacing the injured Stefan Wilson in Tuesday’s Dreyer & Reinbold entry after failing to qualify for the race with his own team.

Wilson was hospitalized Monday with a broken vertebra following a practice crash. He was ruled out of the race and that left car owners Dennis Reinbold and Don Cusick looking for a replacement less than a week before Sunday’s green flag.

Rahal was their first choice, but he had spent his entire career with Honda, which powers the Rahal Letterman Lanigan team, while Dreyer & Reinbold use engines from rival Chevrolet. Rahal also has significant sponsorship across his full-time IndyCar team, all of which led to tough negotiations for approval from both manufacturers and sponsors to close the deal.

“I’ve spent my entire career in a Honda. I’ve never ridden anything other than that,” Rahal said. “I wasn’t sure if we were going to get the releases to make this happen. They really came together, two manufacturers, to make this happen so we can race on Sunday and hopefully we can move his car up front and have a really strong run.

Graham Rahal after being bumped out of the race by teammate Jack Harvey during qualifying on Sunday. (USA Today/Reuters)

Wilson qualified 25th in the 33-car field, ahead of all three Rahal Letterman Lanigan entries. But the driver change means Rahal will start last, alongside his usual team-mate Jack Harvey, who bumped into him in the closing seconds of qualifying.

“Jack hasn’t gotten rid of me yet,” Rahal said with a smile.

Wilson was about an hour into a two-hour practice Monday when he was hit from behind by Katherine Legge, one of the other Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing entries. Their two cars crashed into the outside wall and while Legge was able to climb out of her wreckage uninjured, Wilson remained in hospital on Tuesday to undergo additional tests.

“He’s pretty crushed emotionally,” Cusick said, “but he’s supportive of what we’re doing here.”

Less than 48 hours earlier, it looked like Rahal’s 15-year streak that began in “The Greatest Spectacle in Racing” would come to an end. His team struggled to get up to speed all week, and that continued into qualifying, as he sat on the bubble with Harvey heading to track for one last attempt to push his way into the field.

Harvey eclipsed him by the narrowest margins, and Rahal suddenly knew how his father and team owner Bobby Rahal felt in 1993, when the series’ reigning champion was famously bumped from the Indianapolis 500 field.

“The situation is super unique,” ​​the younger Rahal admitted. “There was a part of me that thought, if you look at RLL and where we were as a team, can I have more of an impact to try and get Jack and Christian (Lundgaard) and Kat to perform better at the weekend?

“Now it’s a bit of a different situation,” he added. “Ultimately, we are now competing. I tell people all the time that motor racing is one of the few sports where there are never any guarantees. Things can change instantly. That is the situation we are in. Now we are going to do our best to reach the victory lane. That has been a dream of mine all my life.”

Bobby Rahal said in a statement that he supported his son in riding for another team.

“When Dennis called, we got to work making this happen,” he said. “The most amazing thing is how all these different groups, out of respect for the sport and the Indy 500, agreed to come together and keep going, even though it may have been a hard decision. The fact that everyone worked together to make this happen for Dennis, and also for Graham, makes us very grateful.”

Reinbold said the No. 24 car would look slightly different on Sunday, after the teams worked out compromises to keep all of their sponsors happy. He also thanked Bobby Rahal for taking his call for what could have been an awkward conversation.

“It’s just been a group effort to figure out what we could do,” Reinbold said. “This was a bad situation for us. Graham had his situation on Sunday. So we’re trying to make it a win-win situation, and hopefully a win-win-win with Sunday as the final victory.”

The team has a backup car that Reinbold said was “pretty much ready to go”. Rahal planned to get fit for it later Tuesday.

The Dreyer & Reinbold team has been a part of the Indy 500 for over 20 years and at one point has entered as many as four cars for ‘The Greatest Spectacle in Racing’. But the team scaled back operations from a full-time IndyCar team a decade ago when it struggled to get enough sponsorship, and for the last few years it’s only handled entries for the Indy 500.

However, Rahal will have a Dreyer & Reinbold teammate on Sunday, with former Indy 500 winner Ryan Hunter-Reay in the field.

“Ryan is going to be a great partner. He’s probably been my best friend in my sport since he got into it,” Rahal said. “Ryan and I have always been very close. I am excited about the opportunity. We’ve been talking about working together for years. The situation is unique, but I’m excited to see what we can do with Ryan and take this car forward.”