A Chatham-Kent man will have another front-row seat for the Indianapolis 500 this weekend.
But Jeff Gotelaer probably won't be sitting down very much.
Gotelaer, who grew up in Ridgetown and now lives in Chatham, will be spotting for Danish professional racing driver Christian Lundgaard in the No. 7 Arrow McLaren race car on Sunday.
Gotelaer has plenty of experience both as a spotter and at Indianapolis Motor Speedway in particular -- he was watching Alexander Rossi's car there in 2024 and Felix Rosenqvist's car at the Indy 500 in 2023.
But this is the first time he has been on the same team for the full race circuit.
"The last few years, I've been doing NASCAR stuff... one-off Cup stuff when they needed two spotters at road courses and stuff like that," said Gotelaer. "But this year, this offer was presented, so now I've gone in the direction of open-wheel and IndyCar."
The role of a spotter, according to Gotelaer, is to paint the picture for the driver of what is going on around them by communicating with them over a radio signal.
The cars are equipped with rearview mirrors, but Gotelaer says it's more helpful if the driver can just focus on "hitting their lines" instead of having to check on what is going on around them.
On Sunday, he will be watching Lundgaard's car from "Turn 1" at the "Brickyard."
"As the car comes off of Turn 4 and comes on the front straightaway, this is kind of my area and then as they get into Turn 2, I'll hand it off to a co-spotter who is down in Turn 3," said Gotelaer, adding that there is nothing quite like the Indy 500. "Until you experience it, it's very hard to explain... the whole environment leading up to and while you're there, there's no other event that compares to it."
The 23-year-old Lundgaard has three Top 5 finishes through five starts so far this racing season and is currently ranked third in the IndyCar Series Championship standings behind Alex Palou and Kyle Kirkwood.
Gotelaer said he feels pretty good about Lundgaard's chances in the race.
"He hasn't done a lot of oval racing, so we've slowly been gaining speed... and we've got a pretty good starting position of P8," said Gotelaer. "If we just manage our program and keep up with the changes to the car and the track changes, I think we'll do OK."
After the Indy 500, Gotelaer says he will be right back to spotting again at the Detroit Grand Prix from May 30 - June 1 before carrying on with the rest of the schedule.
"If you can't make it to the Brickyard, come on out and we'll see you in Detroit," said Gotelaer.