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.
Q: So, it’s all doom and gloom for IndyCar right now. What I’m wondering is, how much Ganassi, Andretti, Zak Brown, Bobby Rahal and the other team owners and various stakeholders are doing? No way can they let the series and their investment just drive itself into a big black hole. Any rumors, thoughts or known dialogue to share?
Oliver Wells
MARSHALL PRUETT: No, it isn’t all doom and gloom. The series will have a great season with a bunch of cars driven by mostly amazing pilots at every round, just as it did in 2023. The series also has some serious questions to answer about where it’s headed and what kind of racing series it wants to be. Both things can exist at the same time without living in an extreme state of things only being all good or all bad.
Nothing to share that would be of value. I’ll listen to a team owner eviscerate the series in private, and then read some version of “everything is awesome” in a quote from the same person the next day. Once upon a time, IndyCar team owners spoke freely. We are no longer living in those times.
Q: I’m sorry to hear about Gil de Ferran. He truly was a class act in every way.
After reading your article on him, I noticed his positive mention of Formula E, and I share his sentiment that it might be a solution to IndyCar’s challenges. I can envision a trial balloon scenario where Formula E utilizes the Indy road course. While manufacturers can be a double-edged sword in racing, it’s worth noting that they tend to gravitate toward EVs, recognizing it as the future. As an ex-racer myself, I understand that it’s not just about the noise but also appreciating the skill of drivers maneuvering cars at high speeds and close quarters.
What are your thoughts on how a Formula E car would perform in this context, or is this idea just too far-fetched?
Bruce
MP: I’m picturing IndyCar/Indy 500 traditionalists punching their screens right now, Bruce. It’s always about the noise in racing. Always. IndyCar is going hybrid, rather than all-electric, because it currently fits the auto industry market; F1’s been hybrid for a decade and IMSA’s now in year two of hybridization with its GTP cars, so it’s a relevant adjustment for the series.
Formula E has gone from being a complete joke of a racing series to something that, on the topic of quality in competition, has become remarkably good. But it’s just not something that has established itself as a hugely popular form of racing. Minus the huge ticket giveaways, there’s just not much there to point to as a product that has gained a sizable following.
It’s a giant opportunity for manufacturers to promote their hybrid/EV products, and in a few too many cases, to dive in for a few years, bathe themselves in eco-glory, reap the marketing rewards, and jet. I’d hope IndyCar would stay on its current hybrid path and skip the all-electric virtue signaling.
Q: I was recently watching the fabulous movie “Grand Prix” (1966) and noticed that they had the drivers in the movie wear something akin to dog tags on their wrist. While I know it’s a movie, it did make curious if drivers have anything like that nowadays? Is it even needed?
Matthew Houk, Columbus, OH
MP: With the introduction of computers and databases into the sport, we have a fairly standard practice among pro racing series where all of a driver’s vital info is readily available to emergency crews and onsite medical teams on a phone or tablet.
That said, it’s still common for a driver’s helmet to have their DOB and blood type listed on the back.
Q: First, what a rough December for IndyCar in general. I remember watching Gil de Ferran set that closed course track record. Just the sound of that Honda engine that day was amazing. He was a gentleman on and off the track. He will be missed.
Second, I have picked up the World of Outlaws game on the PS5 and noticed that iRacing was a developer. I love the game and have become more interested in dirt racing now. I heard IndyCar was working with iRacing again. Could IndyCar take a page out of the World of Outlaws game? The resources are there from iRacing already and this could open the game up to multiple platforms as well instead of just PC.
Not the awesome Alumax driver Stefan Johansson
MP: All things are possible. When the collapse with IndyCar’s former gaming partner was happening, iRacing stood out above all others as the top choice to select, which I believe most wrote at the time, given the strong previous relationship that existed between the two companies. Considering how much of a dumpster fire was on display with the former gaming partner, I’d expect IndyCar to task its next partner to come up with something that kicks all kinds of ass. Forget iRacing; it’s IndyCar that has something big to prove with its next vendor choice and the final product it delivers.
Q: Marshall, if possible please give us some inside info regarding the IndyCar paddock’s interest in changing the status quo. I’m sure Roger Penske and company aren’t depriving them all of what they collectively want. If Honda can’t even find a business case as is, I can’t imagine these teams finding themselves so flush with cash that they are clamoring for an entirely new chassis and formula so they can destroy them in downtown Nashville and Detroit for no purse money.
The current cars race well, and the engines are bulletproof. Regarding Indy, it sure seems like there is a speed limit of 235 since they’ve been actively trying to prevent going 236 again for the last 27 years. The wheel flying over the stands last year certainly doesn’t make me think they are wondering how to make these things faster. Why spend a gazillion dollars to have slightly differently-looking cars and a different engine formula that, wait for it, go 235 at Indy?
TV ratings seem stabilized at underwhelming. Pay drivers who seem, at best, somewhat over their heads. Sponsors seem to be a random mix of B2B-focused companies I’ve never heard of until they joined, a Midwest supermarket chain, and personal friends of A.J. Foyt. The fan base was decimated 30 years ago, while also seemingly stabilized — I have a hard time seeing it growing any more with the millennial/ Gen Z crowd who are needed to make this thing grow. The split? 900 horsepower 2.65l V8s? Reynard vs. Lola? The only people over 40 who know are in in the comments section below, and people under 40 don’t know what the hell we’re talking about.
Indy, Long Beach, a revolving cast of Midwest ovals, a few nice road courses, downtown festivals, and maybe switch the bodywork around every couple years for as long as this all lasts. For better or worse, I think that’s where we are. The great old days are on YouTube. As Robin once responded to me when I lamented that they never should have removed dirt cars from the championship, “Just go buy some Dick Wallen and enjoy yourself.”
Ryan, NJ
MP: On the why-bother-with-a-new-car subject, you’re right. The DW12s are perfectly fine as-is and the engines are, as you say, bulletproof. There are a number of teams with a lot of sponsors of investors who are bringing stability and growth, so altogether, and from inside the IndyCar bubble, all is good.
And all of this is part of the big questions Penske Entertainment needs to ask itself and answer in the coming years. Does it want to take a knee and concede defeat — admit that IndyCar’s best days are in the past — by sticking with the same-old-same-old, or is it willing to fight and be brave and try to improve its place in the sports entertainment world?
Inside the IndyCar bubble, we’re kicking ass and taking names, as my father loved to say. And when you step out of that bubble, you quickly realize IndyCar is all but invisible to the outside world. So that’s what the series owner needs to contemplate: Stick with the same cars and the same formula and keep winning inside the bubble, or try to burst that bubble and become more like what it once was?
There are some passionate team owners who’ve told me for years — pre-dating Penske’s purchase of the series — that they want new cars, and to modernize all kinds of things. Off the top of my head, I’d put the yes/no answers close to 50/50, but since Penske wants to stick with the current cars and formula, the thoughts of the paddock don’t matter in the same way they did prior to the purchase.