Jim Ayello | IndyStar

Clark Wade, Clark.Wade@Indystar.com

DETROIT – Trevor Carlin cannot wait for the calendar to flip to June. May was rough. It was without a doubt, the Carlin Racing owner said, the worst period of his 35-year motor sports career.

Watching Pato O'Ward and Max Chilton fail to qualify for the Indianapolis 500 was excruciating enough. But then he was forced to endure witnessing his last remaining driver, Charlie Kimball, have his stellar run at the 500 ruined by someone else's wreck.

"Oh yes, I'm very happy May is ending," Carlin told IndyStar on Friday ahead of the weekend's Chevrolet Detroit Grand Prix.

Matt Kryger/IndyStar

Unfortunately for Carlin, part of what makes reminiscing on his second May as an IndyCar team owner so painful is knowing much of the mess was of their own making. He confessed Friday they simply didn't put enough emphasis on making the race. After each of their drivers (Kimball and Chilton) qualified middle of the pack in 2018, Carlin assumed they'd have no trouble repeating the feat in 2019.

After all, Carlin said, in a 500-mile race, starting position usually doesn't matter. Bringing a car that thrives in traffic is what's most important, so that's what they concentrated on during practice.

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"We had a great race car, which in the normal scenario is all you’re really working on for a 500-mile race," said Carlin, who noted that positions 1-33 were separated by just. 2.8 seconds, the tightest field in 500 history. "Unfortunately with the Indy 500, and there’s 36 entries, you've got to make sure you’re not 34, 35, 36. And that’s where we screwed up.

"We should have focused more on getting in the game instead of the race. We got a little complacent. Honestly, we just assumed we’d be in. We had no issues at all in the build-up, and it wasn't until Saturday and into Sunday that we realized we didn’t have enough pace. ... It was just misplaced confidence."

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Unfortunately, the worst was yet to come. After a brutal qualifying, the Carlin team was desperate to see a good result from Kimball at the 500. He was well on his way, too, before more heartbreak.

While running in eighth-place, Kimball was swept up in the Graham Rahal-Sebastien Bourdais skirmish on Lap 178. The repairs weren't even too extensive, Carlin said, but by the time Kimball got back on track, the day was done. They'd have to settle for 25th.

"That was the best-executed race since we’ve done IndyCar," Carlin said. "The pit crew was perfect. Charlie was perfect. On fuel mileage, he was hitting the numbers. We were doing at least an extra lap over what we expected, and we had high expectations. It was all very calm until the (crash).

"That was the biggest kick in the guts actually."

Piled on top of all that was that McLaren CEO Zak Brown appeared to toss some of the blame toward Carlin for its own failure to qualify.

In the aftermath of Fernando Alonso's shocking exit from Indianapolis Motor Speedway, Brown told the Associated Press, "It was clear (Carlin) weren’t capable of running three cars and serving us."

Matt Kryger/IndyStar

Carlin, who hasn't spoken to Brown since qualifying, called that assessment "irrelevant."

"They didn’t ask us for any support whatsoever when we were at the Grand Prix," he said. "Anything they asked for, they got. I don’t really know what he’s talking about. We’re a team used to running lots of cars. We hired good people to help spread the load and they all did a great job. I don’t really know what we did that affects them. It’s irrelevant. Their team didn’t do a good enough job on their own. Our team didn’t do a good enough job on our own."

Suffice to say, after all of that in the span of just two weeks, the doubleheader in Detroit couldn't come soon enough for the entire Carlin outfit. While there's plenty to be learned in a thorough post-mortem of their disastrous May, those lessons can't be applied this weekend.

The focus now, team manager Colin Hale said, is on delivering quality results this weekend and beyond.

"I'd cut off my right arm to get some good results here," Hale said with a chuckle. "From a sponsor point of view and a team morale point of view ... it would be great to get into the top-10 and move on from there."

Speaking of sponsors, Carlin made it clear Friday he's not concerned about the viability or sustainability of his team moving forward.

Despite telling IndyStar ahead of 500 qualifying on Sunday, "If (missing the race) costs us a sponsor and we’re not here next year, that’ll be the reason," Carlin said Friday he's not fretting about the team's financial future.

Not after what he saw last weekend.

On race day, the owner of Chilton's primary sponsor, Gallagher, gifted the No. 59 car's in-car camera to Kimball's No. 23 Novo Nordisk car. Furthermore, Carlin said, the Gallagher contingent stayed in Indianapolis and watched the race from Carlin hospitality, cheering on Kimball.

"That’s a sign of true professionalism and loyalty," said Carlin, who put Gallagher on O'Ward's No. 31 car this weekend as a way to provide them more exposure and thank them for their support. "I think there’s more loyalty in this world than people think. They think, ‘Oh they missed the race, they’re going to kick off and pull their money and sue you and all that. People are more philosophical these days. They see a long-term thing.

"Grahame Chilton (Max's father) has been partners with Gallagher for a few years now. That’s not going to stop now because of an unfortunate result on four laps around a superspeedway. They got bigger visions and concepts than that."

Unfortunately, while the future of the team might be secure, that's not necessarily true of O'Ward's future with Carlin. Originally, the young Mexican driver was slated to compete in 12 races for Carlin. However, Gateway and Iowa were trimmed after he signed with Red Bull's junior team in May.

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However, it's possible O'Ward misses more than just a pair of races, Carlin said.

"I can’t say I’m a 100% we’ve got the funding to finish the year off," Carlin said. "It’s a bit of a moving target. I'm hoping we can. It's 50-50. But unless we can find more funding, we could be in a bit of jeopardy."

Carlin refused to speculate as to who might substitute for O'Ward at whatever races he misses but confirmed Carlin would remain a two-car program throughout the season.

Despite the tough month his team just endured, Carlin has been impressed by their resolve. He was proud to see Chilton and O'Ward's crews rally around Kimball ahead of the 500. They deserved a more fitting end to Indy than the crash gave them, but Carlin vows the team will return to Indy and will return stronger.

"We’ll be even better prepared than we were last year and this year," Carlin said. "We realize now how at risk you are if you don’t get everything right. That goes not just for me but for the whole team. The great thing is, and I keep saying it, the mechanics and truckies, all of them have been absolutely faultless. They’ve done nothing wrong. No issues. No mechanicals. They've been seamless. We just need to improve our engineering and execution, as people like to say, and we’ll be there."

Clark Wade, Clark.Wade@Indystar.com