During the first 25 years of Dale Coyne Racing, it would have been easy for the NTT INDYCAR SERIES team owner to cash out the operation and start another project. But the man from Plainfield, Illinois, refused to give up, even when his cars were woefully off the pace and bringing up the rear of the field in the 1980s and 1990s.

As the world entered a new millennium in 2000, Coyne began to lay the foundation for what would be an incredible transformation of his operation. The team would finally win its first race in its 25th season when Justin Wilson won the Camping World Grand Prix in 2009 at Watkins Glen International.

It was the team’s first victory in its 558th INDYCAR start.

Since that big win at Watkins Glen, Dale Coyne Racing has become one of the most enduring teams in INDYCAR.

Coyne used perseverance and determination to slowly improve from meager beginnings to become one of INDYCAR’s most competitive and efficient teams.

“It’s the love of the sport,” Coyne said of his drive to succeed. “We learned it’s easier for me to make money than it is to find money.

“Most people need to think about that, but it’s a pretty true statement.

“We didn’t run much in 2001, and we had to grab a gear and make more money in the outside world to help the fund the shortfalls in the world of racing.”

Rather than go out and chase sponsors, Coyne decided to make his fortune in his other business ventures. He is the largest franchisee of Sonny’s BBQ, a chain of 113 barbecue restaurants located in nine Southeastern states.

That business savvy allowed him to be secure enough to find the right sponsor, instead of taking just any sponsor for his racing operation.

There is also another guiding principle that Coyne uses in his approach to business and racing. It’s known as “DSTP.”

“Don’t spend the principal,” Coyne said. “That has been the philosophy I’ve lived by since then.”

Wilson’s win at Watkins Glen in 2009 was the first of six NTT INDYCAR SERIES victories for Coyne’s team. Wilson would win again at Texas Motor Speedway in 2012. Mike Conway drove to victory in the first race of the Chevrolet Detroit Grand Prix in 2013. Carlos Huertas won a race in the rain in the 2014 Shell Pennzoil Grand Prix of Houston.

Most recently, Sebastien Bourdais won the season-opening Firestone Grand Prix in St. Petersburg in 2017 and 2018.

Paul Tracy began his career with Coyne in 1991 before he was hired by team owner Roger Penske. Other young drivers who raced for Coyne before moving on to bigger teams included 1996 Indianapolis 500 winner Buddy Lazier, INDYCAR race winners Robbie Buhl, Roberto Moreno, Michel Jourdain Jr. and Alex Barron. Cristiano da Matta and Tomas Scheckter, Ed Jones and Pippa Mann, just to name a few, have all driven for Dale Coyne Racing.

In 2020, Dale Coyne Racing features two operations, including Dale Coyne Racing with Vasser-Sullivan in the No. 18 Honda with second-year driver Santino Ferrucci. Rookie Alex Palou of Spain is the featured driver in the No. 55 Honda at Dale Coyne Racing with Team Goh.

In his 37th year of racing, Coyne has created an interesting and intriguing operation. Despite its size as one of the smaller teams in the series, it has been successful in “punching above its weight class” against the power teams of INDYCAR.

“I’ve always reached farther than what I was capable of,” Coyne said. “I raced Super Vee when I had a Showroom Stock budget, and I raced INDYCAR when I had a Super Vee budget. Those were maybe stupid steps, but I don’t think they were because it got us here.

“You want to do the hard thing; you don’t want to do the easy thing. We could go to sports car racing and do well all the time, but this is harder.

“We want to do the hard things.”

It all began for Coyne when he was a college student who was talked into a weekend at Road America by his buddies.

“How did I get into all this? A bunch of us guys in 1974 rented a motorhome and went to Road America,” Coyne said. “I was sick as a dog – I had mono. We had just started a landscape company and were working like crazy working until dark. I was sick all weekend, and it was a rainy weekend. The guys were all excited about looking at all these cars and all excited about the Corvettes, and I was like, ‘OK, fine.’

“Then the Formula 5000 cars ran, and I got up out of the motorhome and said, ‘Those cars are cool.’ I fell in love with it and talked to some people in Joliet, Illinois, that raced.”

By 1984, Coyne was an owner/driver in CART. He ran “stock block” Chevrolet engines, which made him a hero of the hands-on, garage mechanics who understood the concepts of the American-made engine more than the exotic Cosworth racing engines.

“It was a struggle,” Coyne said. “If I have any regrets, I’d do it differently. In Super Vee, I learned how to build engines. I didn’t know the difference between a camshaft and a crankshaft, but I learned that in Super Vee.

“Stock blocks were engines I could understand and build. I should have spent more time learning Cosworth engines. I could have lived on people’s used parts. I could have lived on Pat Patrick and Doug Shierson. They run parts for 250 or 450 miles a motor and then they throw them away. I could have run those parts for another 1,000 miles.”

Coyne climbed out of the cockpit after the 1989 season and began to focus on team ownership. There were some long, lean seasons, but in 2009, Coyne walked into victory lane to celebrate Wilson’s victory at Watkins Glen.

“The most important thing about that win is we earned it,” Coyne said. “We qualified fantastic. We ran strong in the race. It’s nice when you run up front and you earn it, and the three cars that should have won that day finished 2, 3 and 4 behind you. It was a very satisfying first win.”

In 2009, after 25 years, Dale Coyne Racing became an “overnight sensation.” He has backed it up ever since.

“I love the competition of it,” Coyne said. “You don’t want to be an underdog forever; you want to get to the top. We’ve made strides to that. Every year, we get a little better. That is the drive to be competitive, determined to reach your goals and keep on going.”