Yahoo Autos The RACER Mailbag, July 24
Welcome to the RACER Mailbag. Questions for any of RACER’s writers can be sent to mailbag@racer.com. We love hearing your comments and opinions, but letters that include a question are more likely to be published. Questions received after 3pm ET each Monday will appear the following week.
Q: So, is Arrow McLaren going to fire Rossi before this season is over, now that he broke his thumb?
Russell Zipoff
MARSHALL PRUETT: This season of ‘Survivor: Arrow McLaren’ might be the first where everybody’s torch gets extinguished and no winner is crowned. Kidding aside, I can’t see why they would.
Rossi has five races left on his contract, four are on ovals, and he’s excellent on ovals. Also, his replacement, Christian Lundgaard, isn’t available until after the season is over, so there’s no reason to cut ties with Rossi.
Q: They say politics makes for strange bedfellows. I say motor racing does, too. Good seeing Theo back. Along with not knowing fear, swallowing your pride is a must for drivers. I don’t have what it takes to turn left at 220mph nor go back to work for a company that unceremoniously fired me.
Over in Cup, Rick Ware is really stepping up with personnel and investment trying to make a real go of it. Am I wrong in that I haven’t seen that in IndyCar?
Shawn Lee
MP: Theo also remains under contract to Arrow McLaren and has been paid a portion of his salary — said to be 50 percent — of whatever was agreed upon when he was signed, so there’s that. I assume in the second item, you’re referring to RWR’s involvement with Dale Coyne as a co-entrant? If so, RWR has brought funding to the relationship. Coyne owns the team, cars, shop, pays the staff, etc. Other than sending more money, there’s not much for RWR to step up to with a team it doesn’t own.
Q: I have been wondering what the umbilical connection does. Does it automatically switch the radio over to wired and private? Is there information coming through it that the team cannot see wirelessly? Can actual changes be made to the car through it?
Craig
MP: Communications and power. The cars send live telemetry from the car’s onboard data acquisition system throughout each lap, and a bigger burst of telemetry data when they cross the start/finish line (or wherever the master beacon is located), but the onboard central logger unit (CLU) data loggers have much bigger files written to their hard drives to offer via download when the cars come to a stop in the pits.
The logging rates — how many times a channel is sampled and recorded per second — are lower via telemetry where there’s limited bandwidth, but there’s no concern for file size in what’s being captured by the hard drive, so if damper velocities are being seen at 100 hertz (100 times per second) on telemetry, that might be recorded at 1000hz on the CLU to give a finer view of that channel, and that’s where the umbilical comes into play to rip the full data package from the car after a run.
Teams can speak privately to the driver through the umbilical and as noted, the assistant race engineer can download CLU data, make and send CLU logging changes and changes to the driver’s dash. Each team’s engine technician also communicates with the car through the umbilical to download data from the engine control unit (ECU) and make any mapping or parameter changes to the ECU.
Rick Ware shares space on the entry list for Coyne’s No. 51, but his involvement doesn’t extent to upgrading the team infrastructure. Jake Galstad/Motorsport Images
Q: The booth seemed to highlight Ericsson moving in the braking zone as Rosenqvist attempted to overtake him in Toronto. Felix definitely made contact left front to right rear. I think we were pretty close to having a car take real flight. I’m very curious why race control didn’t rule on a block on Marcus’ part there?
Ryan, West Michigan
MP: Because they didn’t believe he blocked him, otherwise, they would have given him a penalty.
Q: I have a question about the incident at Toronto where Rosenqvist and Ericsson braked late and went off into the runoff area. The guys on TV seemed to think one of them could have possibly been penalized, but I didn’t catch which driver they said. Can you clarify what a possible penalty would have been there?
Steve, Michigan
MP: Using Detroit — the most recent street race prior to Toronto — as a guide, the penalty given to Marcus Armstrong for blocking would have been to yield three positions.
Q: I enjoyed the Toronto race but I was hopeful that during the red flag they would clean up some marbles to make for a great sprint to the end. Is there a protocol for when the sweepers go out?
David Campbell, Indianapolis, IN
MP: As I’ve observed, it tends to be based on the time available and the need. With most of Toronto being single-file in the twisty bits, Turn 3 — the end of the long back straight — is where I’d send a sweeper since that’s where most passing happens, but that’s about it, and drivers had no issues ducking left or right into Turn 3 to try and pass from the first lap to the last.
Q: All the ovals that IndyCar runs on, except Milwaukee, also host NASCAR. In order to improve the racing, NASCAR treats the surface with various chemicals designed to make for better racing with NASCAR’s Goodyear tires. I’ve heard a couple of NASCAR drivers suggesting that NASCAR do the same thing at the Brickyard.
Of course, IndyCar’s Firestone tires famously don’t get along with NASCAR’s surface chemistry.
Why doesn’t IndyCar kill two birds with one stone and switch to Goodyear? IndyCar’s oval races suck, and if this change would fix that, as well as fixing the Brickyard oval races, why not try it? That way, it would be in NASCAR’s interest to make racing better for both series using the same tires.
Also, what was IndyCar race control thinking when they chose not to throw an immediate full course yellow when Pato O’Ward slid into the wall in Turn 1 at Toronto? It was a restart. Pato is fifth? So he slides into the wall and 22 cars are going to avoid him in a tight, blind corner within 5 or 6 seconds? Are they thinking he’s going to get restarted and not get hit by any of those cars? They’ve got three weeks to rethink caution procedures. They need to use it.
By the way, if Palou wins the drivers’ title this season, a big reason will be that he was able to avoid being collected in that incident.
Ed Joras
MP: If Goodyear wanted to supply IndyCar with tires, I’m confident it would. If the Toronto Turn 1 melee revealed anything beyond the question of why it took longer than it normally does for a full-course yellow to be triggered by race control, it’s how the series might rethink its approach to allocating marshaling resources.
At Toronto, Turns 1, 3, and 8 have been the most common locations where crashes happen. We can run through each road and street course and do the same assessment of where the most frequent incidents happen, and with that info in hand, going heavy on the EM Marshaling light panels, and possibly extra race control staff on the ground at high-incident corners to support the volunteer track marshals, seems like an approach to consider moving forward.
Turn 1 at Toronto is where the majority of big multi-car crashes occur. The idea of having a race control spotter in Turn 1, and other corners of concern during the race with their fingers on the go-yellow buttons is comforting.
Q: No new pavement to use as an excuse, and we get a fastest race lap slightly quicker than last year, average race laps on par with last year’s average, and nearly half the field matched or defeated the race lap record in qualifying (which has been incredibly rare across the board as of late). It is very apparent that the cars are at worst as quick as they were last year, and even if someone wants to find something to nitpick, it is undeniable that they were nowhere near the second-plus down that so many who can’t account for all variables insisted they would be. As the teams figure out setups, and drivers get better at harvesting and deployment, they’re only going to get faster — even before future power upgrades come in.
Sure, being on par with the non-hybrid speeds isn’t some awesomely amazing achievement, but it is the first hurdle to overcome to make sure a system will actually provide a visually discernible benefit.
So, how many letters did you receive this week still trying to claim that Toronto proved the hybrids slower? (And what’s your favorite reasoning)?
FormulaFox
MP: I’ll have to keep scrolling and see if any pop up. Folks tend to glorify their dunks, not the misses, so I’m sure the next wave of complaints will come after Gateway and Milwaukee, where race- and championship-winning race engineers have already told me they expect repeats of Iowa, and due to tires that they say are too hard, just like at Iowa.
Q: I am sure a lot of corner workers and former corner workers (I am in the latter category) have written in regarding the absence of a local yellow for the O’Ward, Ericsson, Fittipaldi, Ferrucci, Siegel crash at Toronto. Have the EM Marshaling panels completely replaced waving yellow flags in the corners? Who activates the EM Marshaling panels for a local yellow at a given corner? Turn 1 at Toronto is quite a canyon. Those responsible for activating the EM panels there would need to be situated where they can see the exit of the corner.
Tom Hinshaw, Santa Barbara, CA
MP: The panels do not replace the amazing volunteer corner workers, who do wave flags. As I was told when the system came online, race control activates full-course cautions and each flagging station with a panel can activate it locally.
Q: I’m sure others will comment on the failure to throw a yellow for Pato’s spin. Post-race, do we know for sure that they really didn’t? My suggestion is that IndyCar use a very large, blindingly bright LED board located before turn-in at corners at the end of a straight where speeds and braking levels are high, cars expect to track out all the way to the wall and sightlines are compromised. And when a car spins mid-corner, turn it on! Aeroscreen or not, Pato had to be terrified.
2024 sure has been an uneven year for Penske on a few fronts. I don’t think we’ll ever know all the details of the P2P scandal, but taking a win away and sitting team principals for the 500 lets you know it was serious, and I believe other teams to this day don’t believe Penske’s story and resent them. That has to be bad for team morale.
So I wonder if it’s a Penske team morale problem or something else that has resulted in the several weirdly unprofessional on-track actions by Newgarden and Power this year? Examples are Newgarden at Laguna and Power at Toronto, but there have been others. They did things that make no sense and are embarrassing to the whole team. How much of it is “stuff rolls downhill”?
Finally, did Georgia Hennebrenner have an excused absence from Sunday’s race? I missed the enthusiasm she brings to the telecast.
Chris
MP: Georgia’s been used sparingly this year on NBC broadcasts as an extra resource when it’s airing multiple races on the same weekend, so her unfortunate absences are the norm. Race control did trigger a full-course caution. It just happened later than expected.
We can safely say Power wasn’t thinking about team morale when he thought he could pass McLaughlin in Turn 5. Poor judgment on Power’s part. Newgarden’s year has been the strangest one with the up-and-down results.
Before the string of events Power initiated, Penske had him in P2 and McLaughlin in P5 in the standings. Afterwards, his mistake didn’t surrender P2 but increased the gap to Palou and dropped McLaughlin to P6.
After the same number of races last year, Penske drivers were P2, P5, and P7 in the championship. Leaving Toronto, they’re P2, P6, and P8, with McLaughlin and Newgarden lacking points for the St. Pete race. If the P2P ordeal is affecting their overall performance, I can’t find it.
As strange as Penske’s season as seemed, the team is performing about as well as it did last year. Travis Hinkle/IMS Photo
Q: I had a paddock pass for the Toronto IndyCar race and was struck, from a close up views, how ugly the shade of orange — well, random patches of orange — were on the Arrow McLaren team cars — a dark orange but in matte finish, making it both it both lurid and dull.
I’m old enough to remember the gorgeous all-papaya orange Can-Am and Indy McLarens. What is your opinion of the current livery (it continues in F1 as well) and has anyone asked why it changed from the traditional McLaren color to the current orange-and-black dog’s breakfast?
Anthony Jenkins, Brockville, Canada
MP: I can’t say their cars are my favorites to behold. I don’t keep track of which questions get asked to Arrow McLaren, so I can’t answer.
Q: As I read your article about the non-yellow at the end of the Toronto race, I could not help but think back to the F1 race a while back when Mr. Horner and company publicly called out the marshals for displaying a yellow flag and suggesting the marshal did not know how to do their job. As it turned out the Red Bull team was incorrect, and the flagging was spot-on.
Fast-forward to the incident at Turn 1 in Toronto. In the article both Ward and O’Ward are quoted as questioning the timing of the yellow. My concern is that they seem to be questioning the timing of a full course caution and publicly calling out IndyCar.
Does this mean that the only information the drivers now pay attention to is the yellow lights in the driver compartment or the lights on the car ahead? If that is the case, the corner marshals might as well pack up our flags and go home. In a normal sequence of events, the flag station at the incident will display a waving yellow flag. They also activate the waving yellow indication on the station light board. When that activation occurs it automatically sets the light board of the station before to a steady yellow display. As that is occurring, the communicator is calling into “control” to verbally advise them.
I will add that the when the light boards activate it also displays in “control,” which starts activity in that room. Generally the call for a full course caution happens after these first steps because in many times the incident can effectively be covered by the local yellow.
So, going back to the incident at Turn 1. It is a corner known for having incidents and cars stopping — and in many cases proceeding — after driver mistakes. All of the flagging actions occurred when the first car made its mistake and spun into the wall. The second impacts began after the warning flag and light board actions had started. That would strongly suggest the incoming drivers ignored both the actual waving yellow flag and the light boards.
By publicly calling out IndyCar it can also be taken that they are calling out the actions of those marshals on the corner. As one of the corner marshals working that event, I would be very disappointed if that was the intent of that public call-out. If Mr. Ward or Mr. O’Ward wants to come down to a corner, I am sure they can be set up with a communication set and some flags, unless, they only want onboard lights.
Mike
MP: In a packed restart situation, you’d expect the drivers at the front of the restart to be focused forward. The caution lights on the steering wheel are indeed the first thing drivers would notice when they’re funneling into Turn 1. Those who weren’t in the initial funnel would be expected to see waving yellow flags and lit yellow panels.
From the comments made by O’Ward and Ward, they were aimed at IndyCar.
O’Ward: “I am so surprised that they did not call a yellow, as you are just calling for a massive shunt. There was a solid five seconds of waiting before telling everyone what was coming. I am glad that everybody that was involved in it is okay. I am sorry for the team.”
Ward: “I’m just glad we don’t have any more injured drivers at the end of the day. I think IndyCar needs to take a deep dive into the delay in going yellow. That incident started off with Pato having a spin, and not going to a full course yellow until there’s a car in the catch fence, and we’ve totally crashed two good race cars. It’s just not good enough.”
I didn’t take what they said as shots at corner workers, but I’m not a corner worker.
Q: First things first, Green Savoree deserves a ton of credit for finishing the Toronto IndyCar track with only 48 hours left before opening due to the massive flooding in Toronto and on Lakeshore Blvd.
Regarding the incident involving Pato O’Ward, Santino Ferruci, Nolan Siegel and Marcus Ericsson, there have been a lot of questions about why race control delayed throwing a yellow flag with O’Ward into the wall. Granted, they are warranted, but at the same time, it all unfolded incredibly fast in real time. What could they have done differently? How does IndyCar analyze this and learn from the incident going forward for street circuits?
I have heard people speak incorrectly about the layout causing it. Aside from the relocation of the pitlane in 2016, the track design has been the same since 1986. It’s not the track but rather boneheaded moves from certain drivers.
You have to give the track designers and organizers credit for putting catch fencing in that turn and the areoscreen for saving O’Ward and Ferrucci. If the fencing wasn’t there, his car could have struck the tree behind it. Thankfully, it didn’t, and everyone walked away. Having witnessed this from the stands, I held my breath until I knew they were okay. It brought back unpleasant memories of Jeff Krosnoff’s accident in 1996.
David Colquitt
MP: This has been a strange season of waiting far too long to call for cautions (think waiting almost a lap at Laguna Seca to let Newgarden, the leader, pit before going yellow and closing the pits), and some hair-trigger cautions (Iowa comes to mind). No doubt the Turn 1 sequence unfolded quickly. It also seemed like with the proven ability to smash the full-course caution button in an instant in the past, the gap between O’Ward being turned 180 degrees in a tight, crash-happy corridor and the full-field alert to slow the bleep down, was longer than it should have been.
I am indeed thankful for the proper fencing. I was down there in Turn 1 shooting the start of the races in 2013 or 2014 — aiming up the front straight — and noticed the same fence seen in this crash, at least where we were huddled with the cars coming at us and turning right (for them, and left from our perspective) into Turn 1, was not attached to the barriers. It was resting atop the barrier; I was able to move the fence around on top the barrier by hand. The fact that this was discovered, randomly, moments before the start of the race, was terrifying. We backed away from the fence the moment that was discovered. I haven’t been back to shoot there since then, but I have to assume it’s tied down with cables and whatever else is needed to keep cars inside the track.
Q: Why was it OK for “Teddy Porkchop” to fly directly into Rossi’s vacated seat with no apparent hurdles, but Daly (with more experience) couldn’t jump directly in for Harvey a week earlier?
Second, although Hunter McElrea gave up his best two lap times and was allowed to advance, why wasn’t he allowed to finish out his qualifying session? (Especially as a rookie needing all the seat time he could get.)
Finally, whatever happened to the old rule that if you’re more than halfway up the car of your competitor — and you could still make the corner — that corner is yours? Yes, Will Power’s move was a bit aggressive, but it seems that part of the reason there’s no passing at a lot of these courses is that it’s apparently not allowed.
Phil Benson, couch racing in Wisconsin
MP: Because Theo was able to drive the car before the race, which is a rule. In fact, he qualified the car and warmed up the car before the race. Daly did neither, so he couldn’t race.
As to the second question, like Theo with McElrea, it’s because of the rules. Seems like grasping rules is today’s assignment. Being alongside someone and making a corner “yours” is not the same as being alongside someone, hitting them, and making them crash and fall out of the race. Owning a corner and trashing the guy you took the position from: Different things.
Pourchaire had the rulebook on his side in Toronto. Michael Levitt/Motorsport Images
Q: Can you do a quick rundown of the Leaders Circle standings after Toronto? Malukas’s run to sixth on Sunday had to do wonders for the MSR team in getting that car moving up and out of the danger zone.
How is the MSR team feeling about this year? Morale has to be up as they are finding speed and doing a lot better than last year.
John
MP: MSR is quite happy, of course. Speed tends to have that effect!
Pe-TO:
P19: No. 30 RLL/Pietro Fittipaldi/124 points
P20: No. 20 ECR/Christian Rasmussen+Ed Carpenter/118 points
P21: No. 66 MSR/Various/116 points
P22: No. 41 Foyt/Sting Ray Robb/116 points
P23: No. 78 JHR/Agustin Canapino/111 points
P24: No. 51 DCR/Various/100 points
Post-TO:
P19: No. 66 MSR/Various/144 points
P20: No. 30 RLL/Pietro Fittipaldi/135 points
P21: No. 20 ECR/Christian Rasmussen+Ed Carpenter/123 points
P22: No. 41 Foyt/Sting Ray Robb/121 points
P23: No. 78 JHR/Agustin Canapino/116 points
P24: No. 51 DCR/Various/115 points
Q: Seems like last few races have had some airborne IndyCars and poor officiating — at Toronto, at least. What’s going on? Also were all the bugs sorted out of these new hybrid systems? Is everyone deploying and using the cars correctly? Where will broken thumb Rossi end up in IndyCar?
Craig B, Leland, NC
MP: Cars have driven over each other. The brand-new technology has been raced four times over a span of 14 days. There’s no way all of the bugs have been worked out. Yes. PREMA.
Q: I was watching the Sunday Iowa race on the IndyCar app and was bouncing around between different drivers. One thing I noticed was that Scott Dixon’s throttle percentage never got to 100% (at least every time I stayed on his in-car feed, and for probably a total of 30 minutes during the race), while other drivers’ percentages each reached 100% at various times.
I wonder if that was an app glitch, or is that perhaps the key to his fuel saving prowess — somehow they (Ganassi) restrict his throttle to 99%? Seems far-fetched, but hey, the guy is a master and he must have a secret! (I did see where he repeatedly coasted too, during the caution, full disclosure).
I also noticed that Will Power’s laps were amazingly consistent with his shifting and throttle control — sounded like a scratched record over and over…
Randy Mizelle, Oak Island, NC
MP: Checking WOT (wide-open throttle) is part of the pre-event checklist by engine manufacturers, so I assume they got 100 percent for Dixie, but maybe not.
Q: As I understand Indy money payouts, there is the Leaders Circle fund, championship point prizes at season end, the Indy 500 prize and finally some petty cash paid at the other races.
Conor Daly explained on his podcast that Ed Carpenter told him his Indy 500 prize amount listed included Leaders Circle payment, and therefore his percentage would be less that he expected. Please clarify how this works?
Jim Davis, Tucson, AZ
MP: Penske Entertainment, and formerly, the Hulman George family, makes multiple installments of the $1 million Leaders Circle payout over the year. Ed would have been referring to the post-Indy LC payment which had both Indy 500 prize money and the regular LC installment, so I assume Conor was referring to Ed subtracting the LC installment to isolate the 500-only prize money.
Q: If I remember correctly, and it’s certainly possible that I don’t, NASCAR left Iowa Motor Speedway few years ago. IndyCar, desperate for ovals, leased the facility. Hy-Vee came on board to sponsor, promote and turn a race on the calendar into a two-day event. NASCAR, which owns the facility ,has decided to return to Iowa Motor Speedway to stage races. Since its return, NASCAR ordered a partial repaving job to aid the performance of the stock cars. IndyCar testing determined that Iowa Motor Speedway is now a one-groove track.
So, I have a couple questions:
1. Does NASCAR purposely try to interfere with IndyCar’s success at NASCAR-owned tracks? They certainly did nothing help the show at Texas Motor Speedway.
2. What will IndyCar’s answer be to counter the cost-effective asphalt patch work at Iowa Motor Speedway? IndyCar can’t afford for this event to become insignificant.
3. What’s the paddock’s opinion of the short turnaround time between Race 1 and Race 2? Did it affect the attendance for Race 2?
Raymond T Little
MP: I hear you, but I would expect NASCAR to do what’s best for itself at a track it owns in the same way Penske Entertainment, or Formula 1, or IMSA does what’s in their best interest at the tracks they own or control. Could be in the form of how they treat the track surface or where they put other series on the schedule during a shared weekend, or where they make their racing series guests park. The perks always go to the owner/controller, so I’d expect NASCAR to do what it wants at Iowa to favor itself; it’s the norm.
Firestone will need to bring a new and softer range of tires to conduct extensive testing at Iowa before the next visit to get the degradation profile to where it needs to be to create risers and fallers on each stint.
I did see the stands were thinner on Sunday, but it was also a thousand degrees, so if folks were contemplating the Saturday night race or the Sunday early afternoon options, the night race would have gotten the nod.
Q: As I write this, Jagger Jones has won just about every race of the IMSA VP Sportscar Challenge he’s entered. He did a good job in his first NXT season, but in sports cars he’s been superb! He also went to the 24 Hours of Le Mans as a guest of Duqueine Engineering, as he drives a Duqueine LMP3 in VPRSC. What are the odds we see Jagger full-time next year in either IMSA, or one of the other Duqueine programs, such as their European/Asian Le Mans Series LMP3 or P2 programs? I think he’d be a better silver for their P2 program than Koolen.
Taylor, Irvington, KY
MP: Jagger’s a great kid and very hungry. There’s no lack of talent or competition for Silver-rated opportunities, so that’s the concern. I’d hope some of IMSA’s LMP2 teams will give him a look for 2025.
Jones has plenty of talent – and plenty of competition for rides. Image via IMSA
Q: With PREMA coming into IndyCar I was wondering how car numbers are distributed to the teams? If a number isn’t currently being used, can a team use it ,or do current teams have the ability to “own” numbers just in case they might add a car?
JJ
MP: IndyCar owns and assigns the numbers, so PREMA would request what it wanted and hope the series will oblige.
Q: This is for David from last week’s Mailbag: IndyCar puts the Indy NXT spotters guide out before every race on the website (and you can access it from the IndCar app as well). Here’s a link to the one from Iowa.
Jamin Tuttle
MP: Thanks, Jamin. That’s a good note for me as well; wasn’t aware it existed.
Q: Why are there no IndyCar races in the Northeast, specifically NY, NJ or CT? I was planning to drive eight hours to Detroit, but after two crappy races I gave up. Mid-Ohio would be nice but 4th of July weekend makes traveling three times as long. Why can’t they get something in the Northeast?
John C, NY
MP: Because no tracks in the Northeast have tried to host an IndyCar race, or haven’t been successful in enticing IndyCar to race there? I don’t disagree with you, and the series has stated that it knows it needs to get back to the region, but like the Baltimore Grand Prix, it tends to require a promoter bringing an event to IndyCar to take part in, or an existing track (name your favorite) to come calling with an offer, since IndyCar is a sport that receives payment to hold races at the tracks/events it doesn’t own or control.
Q: With the WTRAndretti team moving to Cadillac at the end of the season being the worst-kept secret in motorsports; where does that leave the Taylor brothers?
Although they’ve both taken their leave from the family team at times in their career, it’s been a staple to usually find at least one flying the WTR colors. Are they under contract with HRC, and how do you see that playing out if WTRAndretti moves to Caddy?
Nick, Atlanta
MP: They’re the same Taylor brothers who won the 2017 IMSA DPi championship for Cadillac, so I’d be surprised if they aren’t the foundation of WTR’s return to Caddy with Andretti.
Q: I know there have been some engine change penalties, and I’m curious as to what constitutes an engine change? I’ve been around the paddock quite a bit and it seems like they break down those engines down all the time. Are they allowed to change pistons, crankshafts, rockers, that kind of stuff, or is it just when the block has to get replaced? I know they want these engines to last, but it seems like it’s not the team’s fault if the engine has to be replaced.
CAM in LA
MP: I’ve never seen a Chevy or Honda engine being opened up in the paddock; that happens in their support trailers or back at their shops.
Unapproved engine changes, which are the sources of grid penalties, are for anything that requires an engine to be replaced and cannot be easily repaired before it reaches approximately 2500 miles of service. Cracking the motor open to replace something that has or is about to fail isn’t allowed; if that happens, it’s unapproved. On rare occasion, a motor gets yanked, inspected, and is returned to service to complete its 2500ish miles, and for that, there’s no penalty.
Q: Last week Tim Hubbell sent a letter explaining a very fair way for yellows to be handled by IndyCar without too much of complexity or sophistication, and I think this is the fairest, simplest idea in a long time. Your indifferent reaction to it was disappointing. I think this idea needs to be passed onto IndyCar.
Below is Tim’s idea:
“When a full course caution is needed, throw the flag immediately. Give the drivers three seconds (or whatever is reasonable) to engage the pit lane speed limiter, and close the pits only until the leader arrives, giving the leader first chance to pit. Once the leader has entered, or passed the pit entry, the pits would be open for everyone. his keeps the relative gaps until the pit cycle. The pace car would pick up the leader, and the rest of the field, at pit-out, whether or not they pitted.”
Shyam
MP: Well, I do suck. IndyCar reads every Mailbag. The suggestion was received last week by those who might be interested in it.
Q: Formula 1 introduced intermediate tires back in the mid-1990s. Why doesn’t IndyCar Series have intermediate tires in case of light rain?
Therius Oktavio
MP: Because they’d rarely be used and would drive up the cost of each entry’s annual tire lease from Firestone.
Q: Further to discussion about turning left (or right) at oval races, I can offer my first-hand Down Under experience.
Speedways (that’s what we call dirt tracks) in NZ run different directions for different classes of cars, even on the same night. Open-wheelers like midgets and sprint cars run anti-clockwise, but anything based on actual stock street cars runs clockwise.
I believe the rationale is that the (empty) passenger’s side should be closest to the wall, since that’s the side most likely to hit. AUSCAR ran clockwise at the Calder Park Thunderdome, while NASCAR ran anti-clockwise when they visited.
I think what this ultimately points to is that it would be a great idea to get the Thunderdome freshened up and run a Down Under Doubleheader IndyCar weekend: Clockwise on Saturday, anti-clockwise on Sunday.
B, NZ
MP: Thanks, B!
A scene from the 1988 Goodyear NASCAR 500 weekend at Melbourne’s Calder Park Thunderdome. To be fair, one of the officials near the pace car looks confused about which direction he should be facing, too. Image via NASCAR
Q: Ed Carpenter should be commended for telling the truth about the gimmicky hybrid system. Ed is correct in his opinion not only as a driver, but as a team owner. This system adds nothing but high cost to the team owners and another unneeded distraction for the drivers. The performance of the cars has not increased enough to overcome the additional weight and the harder tire compounds that are part of the new hybrid package.
Why does IndyCar believe that by agreeing to the hybrid, the manufacturer that threatened to leave won’t leave anyway? There are no guarantees. Manufacturers come and go, and the series should start making decisions based on what is best for all involved, including promoters, team owners, drivers and most importantly the fans. From the outside looking in it appears that Mr. Penske and IndyCar only consider 16th Street. IndyCar should drop the hybrid, reduce car weight, have Firestone go back to pre-2024 tire compounds and go racing!
Michigan Matt
MP: IndyCar let the world of racing change around it, failed to react in a timely manner to those changes, finally gets into the game with a modern powertrain after taking a half-decade to go live with it, and after a heated Ed Carpenter has two extremely bad days and blames the hybrid for everything but war and famine, IndyCar needs to revert to its old and out of touch ways?
If Firestone’s tires degraded as quickly as they did in the past, the hybrid doesn’t get mentioned. Folks leave Iowa talking about yet another great race where drivers on different tire strategies put on a great race, and oh, by the way, it was the first hybrid oval race.
But since those tires didn’t significantly degrade on the new track surface, and since it was a rather boring and processional doubleheader, the hybrid becomes the easy target. And I get it. Hybrids aren’t cool or exciting. But they’re here for a reason, and that’s to help the series in the medium-term. Panicking after two or three races doesn’t help in any way.
Yes, manufacturers do come and go. Except IndyCar only has two, and nobody new was interested in committing for the last 11.5 years when the series wasn’t hybrid. So the series is trying to keep the two it has, and is hoping to attract more after striking out for more than a decade while holding onto its non-hybrid formula. What it was doing before wasn’t working. Trying something different is the smart play.
And if this doesn’t work, it will try something else. But standing still as the world goes by isn’t the answer.
Q: When talking about race control’s officiating at Iowa, what about the full course cautions? Rahal slowed with a mechanical and rolled into the pits; full course caution. Herta did a brief power slide, caught it, continued on, and… full course caution. Canapino spun coming out of the pits, stalled on the track and they waited what seemed like thirty seconds before going to full course caution.
Did IndyCar give any explanation for why they instantly threw the yellow for Herta and Rahal, but delayed for Canapino? Or were the Rahal and Herta incidents just an easy excuse to go full course caution to bring out the sweepers?
Dave
MP: Race control doesn’t voluntarily provide explanations for its actions. It involves requesting information through the series’ communications department, and if they agree, on background, answers are provided. And since we’re now well past Iowa, and past Toronto, I’ll save my requests for something in the future.
Q: A few addendums to Michael S.’s nice letter on Rex Mays (July 10 Mailbag). It’s nice to use Google and Wikipedia, but do so with caution as there is so much misinformation on U.S. motorsports history out there, especially on the latter. Rex Mays was from Riverside, California, and started racing there, in a stripped-down Model T on a dirt oval at the end of Tequesquite Avenue. He moved on to race at Los Angeles’ Legion Ascot Speedway.
It wasn’t just Mays, film stars were regulars in the stands and the racers were huge stars, amongst the best known and most popular figures in 1930s Los Angeles, and up and down California (they also raced at Oakland, Fresno, San Jose and San Diego). They’d race at Legion Ascot 30 or more times a year, many of them at night. Mays was the 1934 and 1935 AAA Pacific Southwest champion. Many Legion Ascot grads made it to Indianapolis. The road course mentioned was the Vanderbilt Cup at Roosevelt Raceway, and yeah, it was a pretty big deal. The story goes that the two American drivers that impressed the European contingent were Mays and Bob Swanson.
There is a book, “Pole Position: Rex Mays”by Bob Schilling, that aside from needlessly scapegoating a fellow driver in Mays’ fatal accident, is quite good. As far as Halls of Fame, Rex Mays is in five! And as far as race names, it was always the Rex Mays 150 or 200, much like the Phoenix race traditionally being named to honor Bobby Ball, so why not the Rex Mays 250? And, yes, Milwaukee honored him for crashing his car to protect Duke Dinsmore, who’d been thrown from his car in an incident moments earlier. The late 1960s USAC races at Riverside International Raceway were the “Rex Mays 300s.”
Jim Thurman, Mojave Desert, CA
MP: Thanks for continuing the thread and education on Mays, Jim. I recently found a couple of Milwaukee Mile programs from the 1970s with great art on the covers. Both honored the Bettenhausens.
Q: How come after every oval race writers and reader commenters always say “Hopefully IndyCar learned something from this year’s race and will make changes to make next year’s race better”? And then next year comes and everything stays the same. Phoenix and Texas stick out in my mind the most, and of course we lost both.
Bob Gray, Canoga Park, CA
MP: It’s not every oval race, and not by a long shot. And what else would someone say or write when they wield no power to make those changes, but hope that the people who do might listen or read and decide to take action?
My father called it “yelling at the refrigerator.” You can yell at the thing all day, but since you lack the ability to make it change or function in a different manner, all you’re doing is expressing a concern or critique and having faith the message won’t be a complete waste of time. Despite the effort, most of the time, you’re still just yelling at the refrigerator, which will be the same tomorrow, and the next day, and so on.
Purchasing supplies in France ahead of the 1965 24 Hours of Le Mans. Whoever it is had the foresight to buy a refrigerator just in case they needed something to yell at. Motorsport Images
Q: Unsure how much of this is worthy of publication, but there is confusion over the terms “beacon,” “loops,” “transponder” and “transmitter” now. Regarding either P2P and ERS activation, the subject terms seem to have been used differently by various sources.
The IndyCar web page that describes T&S operation is here.
The diagram at the top shows a “transmitter” in the nose of the car, but the text description below calls it the ‘transponder’ in all cases. That is what the scoring manufacturers call them, and to my knowledge, it’s what every other series from karting through the major pro series call them. The transponder transmits the unique code for the car to the T&S system via “multiple detection loop antennas” connected to trackside decoders. That page also notes, “The system also features two-way communication availability through the car transponder. This allows IndyCar timing and scoring the ability to send information to the car’s on-board system as well as read information from it.” Thus it makes perfect sense that P2P activation at the S/F line loop on the lap after a restart and ERS deactivation/activation at pit in/pit out loops would be handled through the transponder/loop system.
However, and as is regrettably typical, the IndyCar rulebook uses different and confusing terminology. Rule 14.19.8.2.8 includes “beacon receiver” in the list of chassis sensors. That term is used only in that rule; it occurs nowhere else including the glossary.
In other areas of the rules, the term “timing transponder” or simply “transponder” is used when describing operation of timing and scoring, but in Rule 14.19.15 regarding P2P activation, the book states “An indicator to enable push to pass will be sent via CAN communication from the timing and scoring beacon on board the Car to the team data logger. This signal must be passed on to the ECU unmodified and uninterrupted during all road and street course events.” For some odd reason, that rule does not use either “beacon receiver” or “transponder” but the context certainly means the series means the transponder.
From an electronics/radio viewpoint, a “beacon” transmits a constant radio signal. It does not receive a signal — analogous to a lighthouse sending out beam, but not receiving a signal back. The EM Motorsports device that sends allowed telemetry data to the system that distributes it to the teams would be considered a transmitter, not a “beacon receiver,” so I am left to assume the “beacon receiver” in 14.19.8.2.8 can mean nothing other than the T&S transponder.
In your recent piece regarding the problems with ERS activation out of the pits at Iowa, you describe the operation as, “As IndyCar fans learned during April’s push-to-pass ordeal involving Team Penske, the series enables or disables the push-to-pass system on road and street courses from race control by sending signals through the timing and scoring beacons, which communicates through each car’s MyLaps transponder, and instructs the McLaren engine control unit to turn push-to-pass on or off.”
Thus you appear to use the term “timing and scoring beacons” for the scoring loops in the track, when the only instance of that term in the rule book notes that’s “on board the car.”
Several of my more technically-minded fan friends now question some of what teams said with respect to the Penske P2P situation. Other teams apparently claimed they used “the beacon” at those tests to keep P2P active for testing, and one guy on a forum claimed “teams usually take their own beacon to tests to do that” (said fan often makes wild technical claims that turn out to be false — imagine that.)
The rest of us don’t think that is logical. How could teams individually transmit a signal to their own car on track to activate P2P via the embedded scoring loop? Seems to us that having multiple systems tied into the same loops would not be workable.
To the rest of the group, the Penske explanation of using modified CLU code for testing made sense as it was a direct route to the desired result. However, we question why the OEM engineer doesn’t simply load special test-only code to the ECU that allows full-time P2P to completely bypass the CLU.
If we understand the big picture correctly, every car must have its ECU code reloaded by the OEM engineer at the beginning of every race weekend that includes both the layer controlled by the series specific to that race event and the layer developed by the OEM for operation of the engine. If that is correct, any non-race-compliant ECU code would thus be overwritten automatically and the “Penske problem” would never occur.
What actually happens at a private test for a single team or group of teams? Rule 6.9.4 states “An Indycar-approved private test facilitator(s) must be present at all on-track tests”, but that seems to mean an official, not the whole T&S system. Do teams have their own package that allows them to interact with their own car(s) via the embedded loops and associated decoders at each track? How do teams get section times at private tests?
Sorry for the length of this but as with any system, it’s confusing unless one knows the real answers.
Steve Jarzombek
MP: More than 850 words on T&S nomenclature and whatnot must be a new Mailbag record. I’m sure my use of terms has been wrong, imprecise, etc. Depending on the track and series, a single, master beacon might be used at start/finish, and you might also have multiple beacons placed around the track to create segments if the track doesn’t have its own that are built in. That’s more of a testing thing than a race thing.
Yes, teams bring their own beacon(s) to tests. Multiple beacons can be set wherever to create segments. Teams can also use the Cosworth software to create virtual beacons/sectors in the data, which is a practice that’s been around for at least five decades. Yes, the rules require an IndyCar presence at every test. Teams do not have to setup a test-day T&S system for everyone to use, but it happens almost every time when multiple teams are present.
Q: IndyCar’s delay in throwing a yellow on road and street courses could have got someone killed in Toronto.
Why do they continue to do this? If it turns out a yellow wasn’t needed, it’s easy to go back to green. Not so easy to undo a serious injury or worse.
And then we have F1. McLaren really messed this up and it wasn’t Norris’s fault. I can totally understand why they pitted him first. But ultimately it was Piastri’s on-track mistake that allowed him to be undercut by his teammate. Why should Norris have been penalized for keeping his car on track when his teammate couldn’t? Team orders suck, and this was an example of why.
John, Little Elm, TX
MP: As I was told when I asked on Sunday, the triggering of the full-course caution by race control happened after Ericsson’s impact and before Fittipaldi — the next driver to crash — was through. If we take that as fact, there was a slight delay in the time the triggering happened to when the caution lights activated inside O’Ward’s cockpit after he was hit by Fittipaldi, Ferrucci, and Siegel.
CHRIS MEDLAND: I disagree on this one, John, but you’re not alone so I wrote a entire column to outline in even more detail than I’m writing here. But the reason I disagree is because Piastri’s on-track mistake didn’t cost him a position at all (for anyone wondering, Piastri ran slightly wide at Turn 11, got dirt on his tires and had a slow lap cleaning them up), and he was still keeping a comfortable distance to Norris before the pit stop, knowing that his teammate is not going to be allowed to have a strategic advantage to beat him.
If that was a rival team that was chasing Piastri then sure, you’ve opened yourself up to the undercut, but in any usual team scenario it would have been the lead car getting priority. All McLaren did was defend Norris’ second position from Hamilton a little bit more to be extra-safe with the one-two, and left Piastri out for two laps knowing that would give up track position to Norris because they can swap them back. It was the beauty of a team having control of a race in a one-two position.
Norris knew at that pit stop that he was being handed the lead through a strategy that wasn’t being defended by his teammate’s side of the garage, so it wasn’t an earned lead. And it was a lead that Piastri had earned at the start by getting a better start than Norris and passing him.
Hindsight will be important with this one, because if there’s a real chance of beating Verstappen in the drivers’ championship then Norris might lose out by those extra seven points from Sunday, but he similarly might get closer (or even win it) with lots of help from his teammate in future races. Help that wouldn’t have come his way if he’d taken the win from that position.
Q: Last week I wrote in a question about teammate battles being very one-sided in F1 this year.
My view is that McLaren, Mercedes and Ferrari have very competitive battles and RB is becoming competitive. Alpine and Sauber have had some many issues that it’s hard to make a comparison and Haas, Williams, Aston Martin and Red Bull are one-sided.
In Chris Medland’s response he said “I think it’s fashionable to criticize Lance Stroll and it’s usually justified, but not right now. That’s the closest pairing on the grid in terms of qualifying results (Fernando Alonso leads 7-5), ……… and they sit ninth and 10th in the drivers’ standings.”
My justification in calling Aston one-sided is that Alonso has scored double the number of points as Stroll, and in races where both Astons scored points Australia is the only race where Lance has finished ahead of Alonso with Alonso not directly behind him.
It could be subjective, but does anyone keep track of how often teammates pass each other on track in F1, or other series? McLaren, Mercedes, Ferrari, and Alpine have had teammates fighting on track this year.
Will, Indy
CM: Don’t worry Will, you’re still right that Alonso is clearly outperforming Stroll in general, and takes the big results when they are on offer more often than not, but Stroll’s 10th place ahead of Alonso on Sunday was also the third race in a row he’s beaten his teammate. I was just keen to point out that this is a strong run of form for Stroll and as the season has developed he’s closed the gap, so it’s no longer one-sided.
I can’t find data for how often teammates overtake each other, but the closest I can find is how often each driver makes an overtake or is overtaken during the season.
This year you might not be surprised to learn that Sergio Perez has the most overtakes so far with 45, having often qualified far out of position. He’s also been overtaken the second-fewest times — 11 — with Max Verstappen the lowest on that metric, getting overtaken five times.
To tip my cap to you a bit about Stroll’s performance, he’s made the second-highest number of overtakes with 41, again suggesting he’s been out of position a lot, and then somewhat surprisingly it’s Oscar Piastri and the two Haas drivers on 30 overtakes.
The driver who has been overtaken the most? That’s a tie between Nico Hulkenberg and Esteban Ocon on 43, with both having races earlier in the year when they did good jobs in qualifying but didn’t have the car pace to hold on.
The average for the season is just under 24 times that a driver has been overtaken or made an overtake.
Perez lines up Nico Hulkenberg to further pad his overtaking tally for the 2024 season. Sam Bloxham/Motorsport Images
Q: What is the status of Andretti’s F1 bid at this time?
Dan Edwards
CM: Limbo, basically. Ever since the Miami Grand Prix and the additional interest in the situation from Washington, it has largely gone quiet. F1 had to supply certain items to show how and why it made its decision on expansion, and there has been little public or off-record fallout from that.
Andretti continues to prepare everything as if it will get an entry, but even FIA president Mohammed Ben Sulayem changed his tune about six weeks ago and told it to buy an existing team rather than try and become an 11th entrant.
That is an overly simplistic instruction if nobody is willing to sell (or at least not at a fair price), but it feels like momentum has slowed without the FIA pushing so hard for the grid to be expanded.
Central to the hopes now, I believe, is GM and whether it fully commits to being a power unit manufacturer in 2028. Renault potentially pulling out as a PU supplier both shows why F1 wasn’t willing to sign-off a new team without a confirmed supply deal, but also could make GM building an engine even more attractive. So if that expression of interest is turned into a full project, there’s still a chance for 2028.
Q: Why do Pro Stock Motorcycle riders wear two-piece race suits instead of one-piece leathers (many of them now airbag-equipped) worn commonly in road racing? Does this come down to rider preference, or do NHRA rules prohibit aerodynamic devices like race humps which have become standard on one-piece suits over the last 20 years?
Pete, Rochester, NY
KELLY CRANDALL: It is at the rider’s discretion, as laid out by the NHRA Rule Book which states, “suits may be one-piece design or joined with a metal 360-degree zipper at the waist.” There was nothing that I saw in the rulebook about aerodynamic devices, but it clearly lays out what is allowed when it comes to leathers and the additional protection of more leather or Kevlar.
THE FINAL WORD
From Robin Miller’s Mailbag, July 23, 2014
Q: When you hark back to the days of badass, brave racers (and let’s be frank, you do that a lot), you mention certain tracks. Of the paved, high-bank class, you usually mention Salem, but not Winchester. I watched sprints on those tracks before and after cages and they both scared the beejeezus out of me. I’m just curious — what is it about Salem that makes you pick it instead of Winchester (or Dayton, for that matter) for the badass hall of fame?
Tom Hinshaw, Santa Barbara, CA
ROBIN MILLER: I didn’t realize I mentioned one more than the other but it’s purely accidental, because all three were a wicked test of balls and skill. I can attest to that. I made my Winchester debut in 1976 and started last because it was my first time (USAC rule) on the high banks. The feature started and I passed a couple cars and thought I was going pretty quick until Rich Vogler and Johnny Parsons went by me sideways while hazing their right rear tires and disappeared. Hmm, maybe I wasn’t going so fast.
