Hearn, McGehee net rides for 500.

Indianapolis 500 veterans Richie Hearn and Robbie McGehee are poised to return to the event this season, having landed late deals with Sam Schmidt Motorsport and PDM Racing respectively.

Hearn's deal is notable in that it is also marks Sam Schmidt Motorsports' own return to the IRL, having leased a Panoz/G-Force-Toyota package from Indy-meisters Penske. The champion team looks set to run a pair of Dallaras for Helio Castroneves and Sam Hornish and therefore had the G-Force going spare.

"Once again, Penske Racing and Toyota have provided me with the opportunity to compete for racing's greatest prize," said a grateful Schmidt, who ran Thiago Medeiros to the supporting Menards Infiniti Pro Series race pole, "I look forward to competing in my fourth Indianapolis 500 as an owner and hope to improve on our finish of last year."

Hearn, now 33, will drive a similarly-numbered car, returning to the Schmidt squad after taking a sixth-place finish together at Indianapolis in 2002.

"Sam and I have competed together in several IndyCar Series events over the past three years, and my experience at the Speedway and with the team gives me confidence for my fifth attempt at winning the race," he said.

Details of the team's sponsorship package will be released soon.

McGehee, meanwhile, will attempt to qualify a PDM Racing Dallara-Chevrolet sponsored by Natoli Engineering, confounding rumours that the team had closed its doors in recent weeks.

Although the deal came together late, the 1999 Indianapolis 500 Rookie of the Year is confident that the operation will quickly get up to speed.

"It has been a long month," McGehee admitted, "But, now that we have gotten this programme with PDM completed, I'm really looking forward to getting on the track."

PDM Racing owner Paul Diatlovich - who had originally been hoping to run Britain's Ben Collins in the race - was equally excited by the deal.

"We have been working extremely hard to come up with a programme, but it came down to the eleventh-and-a-half hour," he explained, "We are excited to have this opportunity to work with Robby, and feel like we have a strong package with the Dallara chassis and a Chevy engine."

Earlier this month it appeared that McGehee would be a full-month participant at Indy, but a major sponsor backed out on the eve of Opening Day at the Brickyard, forcing him to find another route into the race. However, with the help of his agent, Howard Jaffe, and some of Jaffe's colleagues, a deal was struck with Carmen Natoli.

"I certainly would have preferred to get on the track earlier," McGehee admitted, "but we battled through some disappointment when our major sponsor backed out just prior to Opening Day, and are now ready to race. That hurt a bit, but the Indy 500 has been important to me since I was a child, and I'm very excited with the programme we have put together. As long as the weather co-operates, we will have plenty of time to get up to speed."