Beck team lands major sponsor for Indy.

Indy 500 hopefuls Team Leader Motorsports have secured major sponsorship for their first attempt at an IRL IndyCar Series race from Dutch vodka distillers Effen.

Veteran driver Stephan Gregoire will drive the #97 Team Leader Special Panoz-Honda as the team, co-owned by Greg Beck and Kent Baker, prepares to begin its Indianapolis assault.

As with many of the one-off Indy 500 teams, Indy veteran Gregoire did not appear during the first week of practice and will hit the track for the first time this month when practice resumes on Wednesday. However the addition of a primary sponsor will undoubtedly lift the #97 team above many of the other one-off Indy hopefuls.

"For a small team to land a sponsor like Effen is pretty huge for us," said co-owner Beck. "It's funny because I actually had a message on my answering machine from Tom Anderson about potentially if I would be available to help run a third car. I called him back, and I just approached him with the idea of maybe we could maybe lease the car from him. That would alleviate his problem of trying to run a third car and put us in a position to put some things together.

"I had some sponsorship from Mike Curb and told Brian (Barnhart) just to let him know that I was heading down that path. He told me that Kent Baker was trying to put an effort together and had some sponsorship and maybe that we should work together. And as they say, the rest is history.

"It has been a really good relationship from day one. Everything has just fallen into place. It has really been good."

"We basically compressed three months work into three weeks," added Baker. "We're ready to roll. We think we have a major effort. We've heard some buzz in the garage area calling this the 'David vs. Goliath story.' In the beginning we found some humour in that comparison, but we're starting to believe in it now. The sponsorship all fell into place.

"I am really proud to be a part of this team," added Gregoire, who made the last of his six career Indy 500 starts to date in 2001 for Heritage Motorsports. "I've been doing some sports car racing in-between (since 2001). For me to be back with Greg Beck brings back a lot of wonderful memories. Thanks to Effen Vodka for helping make a dream come true. Everything just happened so quickly. I am very excited to be back."