Welcome to the RACER Mailbag. Questions for any of RACER’s writers can be sent to mailbag@racer.com. We can’t guarantee that every letter will be published, but we’ll answer as many as we can. Published questions may be edited for length and clarity. Questions received after 3pm ET each Monday will appear the following week.
NOTE: Chris Medland is on a well-deserved vacation, but feel free to continue sending F1 questions in and he’ll answer them when he returns for the December 20 Mailbag.
Q: I’ve heard you say with regard to a new IndyCar that “looks matter.” Well, after watching your video of Tony Kanaan driving the Senna McLaren, I say “sound matters.” In a word: Breathtaking. That era of cars got me hooked on racing.
Mark
MARSHALL PRUETT: No doubt. Since I launched my podcast in 2016, I’d guess I’ve posted 100 different Sounds of Racing episodes featuring in-car and ambient recordings to celebrate the importance of those sounds.
Q: NASCAR Cup champ and Penske driver Ryan Blaney expressed his desire to run the double. It might have even been him that suggested that Newgarden race the Coke 600, doing a reverse-double if you will. The Captain pretty much shut that down forthwith. Is Roger just inherently against crossing the streams? As a long-time Josef fan I’ve wanted to see him take a stab at a stock car. He might be one of the best oval racers in the business, and Blaney’s a solid wheelman. If I was the owner of two of the premier American race teams, I’d look for ways to integrate them. But there’s probably a reason I’m not.
Shawn, MD
MP: I can see Roger’s line of thinking here, and it fits Team Penske in 2023. The team has something good going in Cup with back-to-back championships, and modern-era Penske, compared to 1990s Penske which was all-in on doing big and different things like building “The Beast” for the Indy 500, is about as risk-averse as it gets. Monkeying with whatever’s working on the Cup side is the exact opposite of what he’d call for, and since his IndyCar team was mollywhopped once again by Ganassi in the championship, trying something sparkly and exciting at Indy — a race the team was also getting smacked around at for years before Newgarden won in May — is another call Penske isn’t likely to make in this moment.
Stack a few more 500s on top of a return to winning IndyCar titles and extending the Cup output to three or four championships on the trot, and then I might see Penske consider doing something fun like this by sending Josef out for some NASCAR outings and roping Blaney in to do the double.
Q: Just wanted to share some breaking news from one of my sources inside IndyCar.
“In a surprising announcement, the IndyCar Series has fired Jay Frye and is appointing Pato O’Ward as the new president of IndyCar. O’Ward currently drives for the Arrow McLaren IndyCar team and was just named as reserve driver for the McLaren F1 team.
“We were stuck in the mud and just spinning our wheels going nowhere,” said series owner Roger Penske. “When I read some of Pato’s recent comments about the need for a new car and that we shouldn’t be competing with F1, I thought maybe he’s right. Though we’ve had driver/owners in the series before, I think this driver/president idea might get us moving forward and give the fans some hope for our future.”
O’Ward was also surprised by the announcement, but said he is looking forward to providing insight and analysis to the series from his view on the track. The 24-year-old also mentioned his huge fan base in Mexico as well as the U.S., and that one of the first decisions being made will be adding a race in Mexico to the 2025 schedule. There are still a lot of details to work out on the new driver/president position, but O’Ward has promised if he wins the championship next year, he won’t present the trophy to himself.
Rick Schneider, Charlotte, NC
MP: I think the target of the faux firing is way off. Thanks to Frye, we have the UAK18 aero kit, the aeroscreen, and the move to hybridization, all things set in motion before the series was purchased by Penske Entertainment at the onset of 2020. Since then? Zero. Zilch. Nada.
Only one thing has changed since then, and it was the ownership of the series and the complete seizing of decision-making power by its new owners.
Q: Lifelong IndyCar fan here… 48 Indy 500s.
We can only hope that the “big splash event” that Mark Miles is teasing is actually his resignation or termination.
Mike, Indianapolis, IN
MP: Naw, we need Miles. He’s the last executive link we have to the past. Same note above about Frye applies to Mark.
Q: Reading your piece with Mark Miles on Monday was so depressing. His comments regarding a new chassis, while not a complete surprise, were nonetheless tragic. There is evidently no new car or proper technical package on the horizon for many years to come, which when you list the age of the current car, he should be embarrassed.
IMSA and WEC have been reinvigorated since the new regs came into place. Hell, even F2 and Super Formula have new cars.
If Miles and Penske think this current iteration of car and engine package will attract a third OEM, it’s simply for the birds. It just lends credence to the ongoing conversation that Penske Entertainment, or perhaps just the Captain himself, has no plan moving forward. And worst of all, he is quite happy with the current setup.
I get why the Coynes, Foyts, ECRs of this world would be happy to keep running this package for another 10 years. But McLaren, Andretti, CGR, RLL?
Look at sports cars and show some ambition.
John
MP: To be fair, Miles was simply the first person I asked the “when might we see a new car” question to from Penske Entertainment in a long while, rather than someone who is centrally involved in making that decision. But his comments do represent the thinking and wishes of the series’ owner. The racing is great; there were more passes in 2023 than there were in 2022, and IndyCar’s engagement on TikTok is up year-to-year over 200 percent. So why mess with something that’s clearly beating the crap out of NASCAR and F1 in North Amer… oh wait.