Dane Cameron, the three-time champion sportscar driver, spent Wednesday driving an IndyCar around the Sebring short course as the guest of Team Penske in a private test session.
The 33-year-old turned 76 laps around the bumpy, but familiar course, setting competitive times in his debut run in an IndyCar.
For the past six years Cameron has been driving in the prototype class in IMSA, which has many similar driving characteristics to an IndyCar and leads to quite a few drivers to adopt both disciplines simultaneously.
As of now, there are no apparent plans to have Cameron join the NTT IndyCar Series, but Team Penske did just downsize from four drivers to three this season, potentially leaving room for him if a deal were to be made.
Cameron was not alone on track, with the AJ Foyt Racing duo of Kyle Kirkwood and Tatiana Calderon getting in some track time as well.
The pair of rookies, who will both be running in ROKit-sponsored cars, are set to join Dalton Kellett this season, and have upped the legendary team’s IndyCar participation to three cars for 2022.
Talking with RACER after the session, Kirkwood said, “I had to knock a little bit of rust off, and to start off, I had a spin for the first time I went to full throttle.
“We worked on a couple of damper options that that the team has been working with over the winter and on the shaker rig, and with some new personnel that are developing it. And we seemed to find quite a bit of grip and we were really happy with it.
“There was a bit of a ‘light switch’ situation with what we found, which is always positive. We also did some fuel economy runs, which is something that I haven’t done before in IndyCar, but I’ve done in IMSA with the Lexus.
“We started off pretty reasonable. But by the end of the day, I really couldn’t tell a massive difference between the car that I drove today and the [Andretti Autosport Honda] that I drove here in the fall. So I think we’re in a good place. Chemistry was good.”
More test days are expected over the next few weeks by many different teams as the entire grid prepares for the first race of the season in St. Petersburg, Florida on February 27.
