By Bruce Martin, NSSN Correspondent

INDIANAPOLIS — John Andretti returned to the Indianapolis 500 for the first time since 1994 as the NASCAR driver was announced as the third member at Panther Racing Thursday at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway.
Andretti, who left IndyCar racing in 1994, is a veteran of seven Indy 500s. He was an Indy rookie in 1988. He started 27th and finished 21st in that race. His best Indy 500 was in 1991, when he started seventh and finished fifth.
He was the first driver to compete in both the Indianapolis 500 and the NASCAR Coca-Cola 600 on the same day in 1994. He finished 10th at Indy and 36th in the 600.
He competed in 341 NASCAR Cup Series events, with two victories, 13 top fives and 37 top-10 finishes.
The past two seasons, Andretti has competed in the NASCAR Busch Series.
He qualified for the Indy 500 with a four-lap average of 221.756 miles per hour on Saturday and starts 24th.
“The car has just been fantastic,” Andretti said. “Panther put it together. Vitor Meira drove it and the setup has been pretty consistent from where we started. We trimmed it out a little for qualifying, and we’ve just been on qualifying mode and not running with traffic.”
John Andretti is the third Andretti in the field, joining his cousin Michael and second-cousin Marco.

• Roger Yasukawa was announced as a third driver for Dreyer & Reinbold Racing, joining 2004 Indy 500 winner Buddy Rice and Sarah Fisher.
Yasukawa, a native of Los Angeles, has competed in four Indy 500s, with best finishes of 10th in 2003 and 2004.
Yasukawa was the fastest third-day qualifier with a four-lap average of 222.654 mph on Saturday.

• Stephan Gregoire of France, the driver for Chastain Motorsports, crashed in the first turn and made what appeared to be some contact with the retaining wall on Thursday.
Although the car sustained “moderate” damage, the same can’t be said for the driver.
According to Mike Ollinger, the IRL Medical Director, “An MRI at Methodist Hospital shows that Stephan Gregoire has suffered an end plate fracture of the third Thoracic vertebra.”
Gregoire was kept overnight in the hospital and released on Friday.
He was replaced by Roberto Moreno.

• Jimmy Kite smacked the wall hard in Wednesday’s practice when he was driving the PDM Racing entry. Kite, however, was unhurt and will return to the race track.
“The gearbox broke right where the left-rear lower A-arm hooks into the gearbox and that it did going to into the corner, basically broke and let the lower A-arm pull out,” Kite explained Thursday. “It unloaded the left-rear suspension and picked up a whole bunch of tow and I was merely a passenger after that.”
Kite was back on track Friday after PDM Racing dismantled his car to inspect other areas that may have hidden damage.
“I don’t know if we are stealing body parts, but I think we’re still short some suspension parts,” Kite quipped. “Some of the teams aren’t running a Panoz chassis any more and a lot of good teams have some really good parts sitting around that we can use right now.
“So, we’re using as many favors as we can.”
 
• Darren Manning was one driver who is happy he doesn’t feel the desperation of the second-week drivers who have to trim their cars for speed.
“For those in the field, it’s all about downforce, while those guys have to be a knife’s edge,” Manning said. “I’m just glad it’s not me.”

• Alex Barron was also named to the No. 98 car at Beck Motorsports, the team he started the IndyCar season with. That ride was supposed to go to Max Papis, but apparently he didn’t come up with the money, according to a source on that team.
“He’s the best choice for us,” team owner Greg Beck said of Barron. “We got some things sorted out the last couple of days and it will enable us to run.”
Barron put the car into the field with a four-lap average of 220.471 mph. He will start in the middle of the ninth row.
 
• Larry Foyt underwent a driver’s physical at Clarian Emergency Medical Center at IMS and was considering getting into the race on Bump Day before his father, A.J. Foyt, and Larry thought it was best to concentrate on the two cars in next week’s 500 driven by Darren Manning and Al Unser, Jr.
“We’ve got the cars to where if my dad wanted to throw one in, I think that we could do it,” Larry Foyt said. “I just wanted to be ready in case that happens. I don’t want to do anything to take away from our 14 (Manning) and 50 (Unser) operations, but at the same time it might have been fun to do.”
Larry Foyt is the team manager at A.J. Foyt Enterprises.