Danica Patrick, Jamie Little have special connection to Indy 500
INDIANAPOLIS -- For Chase Selman, the team manager at Dreyer & Reinbold Racing, auto racing has always been "All in the Family."
His father, Wayne, began his IndyCar career with Al Unser, Jr. at Galles Racing in the 1992 Indianapolis 500. But that's only the beginning for the 28-year-old Indianapolis resident who will call the shots for driver Townsend Bell in the 99th Indianapolis 500 on Sunday.
Selman's brother, Cody, is married to Jamie Little -- the pit reporter for FOX Sports NASCAR telecasts and who will be calling the action from pit road in FOX's coverage of the Coca-Cola 600 at Charlotte Motor Speedway. And Chase Selman is married to Danica Patrick's sister, Brooke.
When this group gets together on the holidays, it certainly turns a lot of heads in public because this is one of the power families in all of auto racing.
"When you go out with Danica, the luxuries of getting to sit at the chef's table or the private room is cool because we don't get those experiences every day," Selman said. "We get to see the other side and that is neat. But she doesn't let that go to her head. She is down to earth. She tells it how it is and just like my wife, Brooke, they get that from their mom and dad."
T.J. and Bev Patrick are Danica's and Brooke's parents and Selman's in-laws. Chase and Brooke Selman are parents to a young daughter named Reese.
"We've got a 15-month-old daughter and to see Danica with her is awesome as well," Selman said. "Danica is the aunt that loves to spoil her niece. There is a shopping spree every once in a while and every time her and Brooke go shopping with Reese, they come back with a new wardrobe. She is very giving and has helped Brooke and I out a ton. She wants to see Reese as much as possible.
"She is kind and gentle and like Jamie, as nice as you can get. She deals with so much stuff in the media and with fans. I don't know how she does it but she is able to put that aside when it comes to family and is 100-percent committed to her mom, her dad, Brooke and myself. Her and Ricky Stenhouse have been together for a while now.
"They come from a family-centered lifestyle and it's really good to see. It's pretty neat to see all that she has accomplished with so many people who want to see her fail that she just overcomes. It's cool to see all of that and have a front-row seat at all of it."
Selman and Brooke Patrick were actually set up on a blind date by Jamie Little and Cody Selman at Palomino, a restaurant in downtown Indianapolis.
"T.J., Bev and Brooke were eating and my brother and Jamie walked in," Selman recalled. "We had known T.J. for a long time and my name came up and my brother said, stable young bachelor and he knew Brooke was also single. They were trying to get me involved with someone else in the sport. After they told them my age Brooke said, 'What about me?' She slid her number to my brother and Cody texted me the next day. I was at the Edmonton race and it was my birthday.
"One random day I texted her to see if she wanted to go out for a drink and the rest is history. We went out that night and have been together ever since. I had noticed her before -- striking young girl walking through the paddock. Of course I noticed her but never in my wildest dreams did I think that was going to be my wife one day."
And then there is the other sister-in-law who is famous in her own right and that is FOX's Jamie Little.
"It's cool to have her as a sister-in-law," Selman said. "Jamie is unbelievable. She is the nicest person you could meet. Everywhere she goes she is noticed but she doesn't let it go to her head. She is just as nice to a stranger as she is to me or Cody or anyone in the family. They have a 2 1/2-year-old son. It's pretty neat."
Selman's brother Cody and Little were able to find love in the fast lane.
"It was a party thrown by either Jeff Burton or Clint Bowyer and Cody and Jamie got together and hit it off," Selman said. "At one time, Cody worked for Kyle Busch and before they got engaged, he worked for Dreyer & Reinbold for my dad and myself. He met Jamie out in Charlotte and they hit it off."
Last November, Chase was watching the end of the NASCAR race at Texas Motor Speedway when Jeff Gordon confronted Brad Keselowski on pit road after the race. Little was there to report on the tense situation and a brawl broke out with punches coming very close to nailing Little by mistake.
"I saw her there on TV and she wasn't backing down and she won't," Selman said. "She's tough. She wasn't going to let anyone else get the story, either. If there was a punch thrown, she might have thrown one back. She is very fit and stands her ground."
Chase, Brooke, Danica, Reese, T.J. and Bev Patrick before the Daytona 500.
The Selman extended family that includes the Patricks and the Littles get together around Thanksgiving and Christmas.
"It's hard to get everybody in one spot now, but we are able to get at least a couple days together," Chase admitted. "It's pretty neat to hang around the house with everybody. But Grandma and Grandpa Patrick moved to Brownsburg, Indiana and they are our babysitter every day.
"T.J. is very race savvy. He has a lot of knowledge in the sport and has done a lot with go-karts and sprint cars and snowmobiles and IndyCar and NASCAR. He knows the sport and the connections. He knows how things should be. He is a great guy to bounce ideas off of. He is good to talk to to see what other people are doing. You can talk to him about anything."
T.J. Patrick isn't just a father-in-law, but an active racer who is quite proud of seeing how his son-in-law has grown in the sport.
"It's always family," T.J. Patrick said. "He is probably one of the most honest kids out there. He is so hard working. It's hard to find a kid that young who works that hard. He is so detail oriented it's almost comical. Whenever something gets done he has to know why and how and has to get details. He has Brooke on a budget and she has never been on a budget before and he has spreadsheets for month income and monthly expenditures. That's how organized he is.
"Dreyer & Reinbold the past four years has been in the top four in the Pit Stop Contest and that is all because of Chase. He is still one of the fastest right-rear tire changers in the business and he only does it once a year. He is busy seven days a week doing this."
T.J. Patrick and his wife will be at the Indianapolis 500 on Sunday. He attended his first Indy 500 in 1974 and has missed just three during that time. By contrast, he has been to just one Coca-Cola 600.
Selman started traveling with his father at the races when he was 5 or 6 years old. He would hang out at the Galles Racing Shop in Albuquerque, New Mexico. He was born in California and moved to New Mexico when he was quite young before ending up in Indianapolis.
"When I was 6 or 7 years old, I was hanging out at the track but there was a limit to where I could go at the track," Selman said. "When I got to be 10, 11 or 12 my dad would throw velcro on me so it looked like I had sideburns and a mustache and we would drive a golf cart through the pits. We weren't legal at the time but we would get past the guards and I would get to hang out in the pits."
At age 59, Wayne Selman works for CFH Racing as truck driver and tire specialist for the team that features Ed Carpenter, Josef Newgarden and JR Hildebrand in this year's Indy 500.
"I've been doing this for 24 years going all the way back to the Galles days and Cody started going with me in the truck in the summer, and he went to college so Chase started going with me," Wayne said. "Chase traveled with me on the truck and started moving up. When I left Dreyer & Reinbold, they moved Chase into management and now he's the team manager doing everything."
The elder Selman admits he can't believe who he has for in-laws and how it all happened.
Only in racing.
"Cody meets Jamie Little, they end up getting married," Wayne said. "T.J. and Cody are eating dinner at a restaurant at separate tables and they end up setting Danica's sister up with Chase and they ended up getting married.
"You tell them who is married to who but when we end up getting together for Thanksgiving with Danica and Ricky and T.J. and Bev and Jamie comes to town, my neighbors can't believe it. It makes for some interesting conversations when people see us all together.
"People look at me and try to figure out who I am to be with all these famous people. They don't really know who I am -- that I'm the father of the two that married into good families and people that are known on TV. They are the rock stars and I'm in the background of the boys that made it all happen. Everyone in the family is great people, and then I look at my sons and tell them how lucky they are to marry into good families like that and good people and famous people. That is what gets people most -- how does this just happen?"
Chase's first big opportunity came in 2003 when he was a junior in high school in Zionsville, Indiana. Most of the season came after school was over and he would join the team in the summer and helped his Dad in the truck. His main job was to help set up and take down the pit area for Dreyer & Reinbold Racing. In 2005 he went to Indiana University in Bloomington, where he got his business degree from the Kelly School of Business in 2009.
Selman thought his career path would take him outside of auto racing but team owner Dennis Reinbold offered him an opportunity to take advantage of his marketing and management degree. He joined the team as sponsor services director.
"I think it's good that I started out at the bottom and worked my way up because I was able to see all the departments and what it takes," Selman said. "There are a lot of things that go unseen from a truck driver's standpoint or pit crew or mechanics. Being in a management position it can help me determine what we really need and what we don't.
"Indy is Dennis' big race and we put all our efforts to this one race. We ramp up what it takes and our marketing team comes up with it and determines what we have to work with and we make it happen. I have an amazing group of guys that have been working hard to bring this thing together. There are a lot of teams out here with huge budgets, way bigger than ours'."
(From left) Jamie Little with her husband Cody and brother-in-law Chase.
The last full-time season for Dreyer & Reinbold was 2012. The team ran all the races up to the Indy 500 in 2013 and since then the team has been an Indy 500 effort in IndyCar.
"Dennis is the main reason I've stayed," Selman said. "I've been with him for 13 years. He is the best boss in the business. He is extremely loyal. I wanted to remain in Indianapolis and Dennis has kept us busy."
In addition to the Indy 500, Dreyer & Reinbold also participates in the Global Rally Cross Series.
"IndyCar is all I've known since I was a baby," he said. "The GRC deal is an interesting series with a lot of backing and hype. After Indy, we will take it just as serious as we do the IndyCar Series."
With Townsend Bell in the cockpit of the No. 24 Chevrolet, Selman believes he has a driver that will find his way to get to the front of the field in Sunday's 99th Indianapolis 500.
"Townsend is awesome," Selman said. "He is methodical and a smart driver in the car. He tells the engineer exactly what he needs to set the car up for him. He knows the race is No. 1. As long as he has a good race car that is important. He knows the main goal of this and is 100 percent focused on that. Townsend was with KV last year and had a bullet. We were running Sage Karam and catching up to him there but he knows how to run this track. He is always running up front."
For the first time in over a decade, Little will not be part of the Indy 500 telecast because she has moved from ESPN to FOX and will be preparing for the Coca-Cola 600. And her husband may not be on the pit crew for the first time in years.
"We used to bring Cody in the month of May to change tires because he is fast on the left rear," Selman said. "We have brought him in for the pit stop competition in the past but we aren't sure he can make it. He owns a couple Jimmy John's franchises in Las Vegas."
In some ways, when Chase Selman goes out with his two sisters-in-law, he doesn’t mind going unnoticed.
“I don’t mind flying under the radar or if my name isn’t brought up,” Selman said. “As long as the job gets done and the goal gets met that is my main goal. I’m the team manager but it’s about putting a team together. If I don’t’ get recognized for anything, that’s fine.”
Be sure to catch Bruce Martin's Honda IndyCar Report on RACEDAY on FOX Sports Radio every Sunday from 6-8 a.m. ET.
