Belardi debuts as owner at Indy 500

Mequon native’s passion for race started early

INDIANAPOLIS – A visit to the Range Line Middle School library was always a favorite time of day for a young Brian Belardi.

“I found a book one day that had a picture that had an Indy car going down the front straightaway at the speedway here, and I put a bookmark in there and kind of hid that book,” said Belardi, 48, of Mequon.

“So every day when we were supposed to have library time, I would do my reading and homework, but I’d always have that book open to that page. At this point in time, I knew this was in my blood.”

Someday, Belardi thought. Someday he, too, would come to the Indianapolis Motor Speedway to participate in the world’s greatest race, the Indianapolis 500.

Sure enough, Belardi is here, living out a dream, albeit a dream that was tempered and shaped by the realities of life and family, timing, business and … well … talent.

Driver? No. But competitor? Absolutely. Belardi will be sitting on the timing stand overlooking Australian James Davison’s pit Sunday during the 102nd running as one of four partners in the No. 33 entry.

“It is everything I dreamed it to be,” Belardi said Friday. “I didn’t dream about the stress involved on bump day (qualifying), but besides that. …

“We’re in and anything can happen on race day.”

Belardi fueled his childhood obsession for racing during family trips to the Milwaukee Mile and in adulthood took to the wheel in Sports Car Club of America amateur racing and then in the low-level professional USF2000 open-wheel series.

“But being 33 years old at the time, 34, I realized I didn’t have a future in that,” said Belardi, who had played football for the University of Colorado.

Although Belardi jokes he quit when his wife, Jill, told him to, he knew his best chance to enjoy the same success in racing he did in business and to progress through the sport would be as an owner.

The Belardi family’s Liberty Engineering Company, in Roscoe, Ill., produces machinery used in the production of candy. Belardi also is involved in real estate. In 2011, Belardi Auto Racing joined the Indy Lights Series, the top rung on the development ladder for IndyCar.

The team has had its share of success, both on the track and in terms of enduring in a series where teams come and go. Belardi won the 2014 title with Gabby Chaves and the Freedom 100, the Lights race held in conjunction with the Indy 500, in 2013 with Peter Dempsey and ’14 with Chaves.

Although Belardi left the speedway Friday disappointed with Freedom 100 finishes of fourth by Santi Urrutia and sixth by Aaron Telitz, his May at the racetrack is far from over. For the first time he will stick around to take part in the main event.

Davison brought Belardi together with A.J. Foyt, Indy’s first fourtime winner; David Byrd, whose family has long participated in the 500 as a sponsor and entrant; and Brad Hollinger, the CEO of Vibra Healthcare and a shareholder of Williams Grand Prix Holdings.

To understand how complex these sort of deals are, consider Davison first had contact with the Foyt team in 2007 while racing in Lights, met Byrd in the Indy garage after his first 500 in 2014, and connected with Hollinger during a track day at Watkins Glen in ’15.

“I thought outside of the box that there would be a number of Indy Lights team owners that would like to move up to Indy cars but they don’t have full financial means to do so but maybe in a partial way and a way to get involved in ankle-level deep, it might be a more realistic prospect,” said Davison, who consequently introduced himself to Belardi at Barber Motorsports Park in 2015.

“This was the right opportunity and timing. The rest is history.”

A couple of members of Belardi’s Lights team will work on Davison’s crew, but online in limited, behind-the-wall roles so as not to take away from that program. Belardi will keep tabs on what’s going on, but won’t be calling the strategy for Davison the way he would be in a Lights race.

Davison will start 19th, on the inside of the seventh row.

“The first goal was achieved getting into the race,” Belardi said. “From there, anything in the top 10 would be enormous for a small team, a one-off team.”

And after that? Belardi has studied how such team owners as Sam Schmidt and Bryan Herta have eased their way from Lights into the IndyCar Series through partial programs and partnerships. He’s seen others jump in and fail. Belardi offers no concrete plan or timetable, but makes it clear he’s enjoying his first experience inside the Indianapolis 500.

“We’re already talking about next year, and I think we already have some pretty strong partnerships developing as a result of this year,” Belardi said.

The schoolboy in the library wouldn’t have it any other way.