Conor Daly has been put in a lot of bizarre situations before. Most of his IndyCar racing career has been full of weird circumstances.

At one point, a local news station here in Indy was doing a feature on airport travel and interviewed Daly as he was coming back from Long Beach. That was a race he just so happened to be filling in last minute for Dale Coyne Racing when their primary driver, Rocky Moran Jr., injured himself in a practice crash. Daly, who was in Long Beach that weekend driving the 2-seater, if I’m not mistaken, was hired as the replacement driver on Saturday morning before Sunday’s race.

He’d go on to finish 17th, the best result for DCR in the young season and he did so without ever driving this new car prior as this was the first season of the Aero Kits. The description of Daly on the local Indianapolis news station? “Frequent Air Traveler.”

No mention of his name. No mention of him being an IndyCar driver. No mention of him being a rising star. Just “air traveler.”

Then, a month later, he’s racing for Schmidt Peterson Motorsports for the Indy 500. His car catches fire on the parade lap and he doesn’t even get to race. He’d finish 33rd. In an odd circumstance, his best friend James Hinchcliffe was severely injured in a frightening practice crash six days prior and wouldn’t be able to race the rest of the season. Daly, got the call up to replace Hinchcliffe a week later in Belle Isle. The third different race car in three tries. He’d excel too. Daly, finished sixth in the second race of the doubleheader weekend. That led him to a drive in Toronto a month later where he finished 12th.

Despite that, no other opportunities came the rest of the year. In 2016, he’d land back with Coyne on a full season effort. He’d compete really well too, even leading laps that season. He scored five top six finishes that season, which was a really strong effort for a Coyne car. That got him to AJ Foyt Racing for 2017. The organization was in a rough situation and rebuilding. A new engine manufacturer, new engineering staff and two new drivers. It takes time to get. That’s why Daly was slow out of the gates but strong to finish. He’d had four top 11 finishes over the final five races.

Then, Daly was selected to represent IndyCar for the hit show “The Amazing Race.” Before he left, he was assured he’d be back with Foyt for 2018 and be teamed with Tony Kanaan. So, he went on the around the world show where he had no cell phone access. He came back for the Holidays only out that he didn’t have a ride anymore. He was replaced.

Without many options, Daly drove for Thom Burns Racing and Harding in 2018. The Harding role was another substitute role, his third chance on a sub driver contract.

2019 saw him get a ride for the Indy 500 with Andretti, a place he’d finish 10th in. He’d also drive for SPM and Carlin too. Over the final three races of 2019, he’d drive for three different teams.

2020 saw him finally get a full time ride again. He’d piece it together with racing on all road/street courses as well as the Indy 500 with Ed Carpenter Racing and all ovals outside of Indy with Carlin. Honestly, his best shot to date. Then, a world wide pandemic hits. He gets an abbreviated full season campaign.

With all of these weird instances, Daly is taking the positive now for his outlook on Texas — a race where drivers have a ton of unknowns for.

“Oddly enough I’ve been in a lot of crazy and strange situations in my career so far,” Daly said of the weird situation for this weekend. “I really enjoy situations where there’s not a lot of information known about certain conditions. Like if it’s raining, I love rain races. I like showing up to new tracks. Gateway, when that was added to the schedule, loved that immediately. It was a lot of fun.

“There’s just a lot, though, that we don’t know with what the Aeroscreen is going to do. There’s only three, four, five guys maybe that have driven with an Aeroscreen on an oval. We were obviously hoping to have most of the month of May to figure out what that’s going to look like, but we don’t. It’s going to be interesting.

“I think the series has done a great job on trying to obviously understand what we’re all going to have to deal with on Saturday night. I think having the tire stints reduced a little bit, I don’t know if I necessarily like that, but obviously it’s done for a reason for us.

“I was watching the race last year from my own onboard perspective. I was like, Wow, 55, 60 laps before we pitted or something. It’s going to change the race drastically when it comes to strategy.

“Again, I think those types of things, you just want to be the guy who makes the least mistakes. I think when everyone comes together after having not run anything for a very long time, you just got to be the guy to make the least mistakes.”

Daly says that they were a bit lost together last year at Texas as Max Chilton made the rare decision to get out of the car on ovals the week of the race and Daly got the last minute call up. But, as the season went on with them, they got stronger.

“Realistically I think we had a great run together last year,” Daly said of his 2019 oval campaign with Carlin. “It was a lot of fun to get used to how they work, them getting used to what I need out of the car.

“At Texas, we were thrown into the deep end. For me, I struggled a little bit with it at first. We actually had a pretty good race, were actually pretty happy with it come the end of the day.

“By the end of the season together, or the oval season that we did together, we were fighting quite a lot at the sharp end in Gateway. I love that track, but I also really enjoy driving the car there, too.”

Despite having a second trip to Texas now with Carlin, he’s going to get all the attention. The team car won’t race. While having the entire focus from Carlin on his car, his bad luck mantra follows him because in a shortened one-day weekend with a short practice, qualifying and race, they don’t have the luxury of data for a second car.

“I think having information and more data, especially when the day is so condensed, that’s super important,” Daly said of missing having a teammate this weekend. “And it is a shame to be missing a wing man, per se.

“But the team is prepared for that. We’re all ready to give it our best effort no matter what. It’s an unprecedented situation, for sure. Everyone says that so often. But racing is a business. We got to do the best job that we can no matter what for the partners that the team has with Gallagher Insurance and everyone else that supports this.

I”‘m excited. There’s a lot of great guys and girls at that team. It’s going to be a lot of fun. We’ll be the Lone Ranger out there. We do have information from last year, which is great. For me, I do have a feeling of what this car was like last year. That’s the first time I really ever had that in my career, going back to the same track with the same team.

“There’s obviously a few new things on the car. It will be nice to get back to work with those guys because we know where we want to improve coming off of last year.”