Q: Would it be possible to find out who was shown on NBC talking to DeFrancesco after his shunt and what was being said? Looked intense.
David S
MP: That was Buckshot LeFonque, Devlin’s personal shopper and massage therapist. They were discussing the Air Jordans Buckshot got for him on the SNKRS app during the race.
Q: The racing at Texas was phenomenal, even better than last year. That being said, I found myself watching the onboard cameras on my phone instead of the NBC broadcast. Love those guys, but I feel they missed most of the strategy going on between the No. 2 car and the No. 5 car towards the end of the race. Didn’t paint a great picture of the real-time race. Cindric and the No. 2 crew is so good making decisions on the fly with yellows, and seemed to be one step ahead of the 5 car on the last stint.
Seeing the race between the 2 and 5 on the onboards, especially after they both stopped for the second time for new boots and fuel when the 10, 9, 28 and others in that group didn’t, was incredible. Show anyone who doesn’t have a racing IQ that sequence and lay out how they got there, or better yet, just air Cindric’s radio comms to the 2 car and that would be the best marketing for IndyCar you could ask for.
Great that we have NBC as a partner, but the amount of commercials — which everyone complains about — and also when the leaders are side by side and Diff is talking about a backmarker or a driver’s off-track story just doesn’t work. Our product is so good right now, let it speak for itself. On the commercial front, I don’t understand why they can’t stream an uninterrupted broadcast behind the Peacock paywall. I think I saw the numbers aren’t good there at the moment? This might fix some of that.
Heliofor5
MP: Streaming numbers for almost every racing series are terrible, so that won’t solve any problems at the moment. Like the old saying goes about “To be the man, you’ve got to beat the man,” a head-to-head strategy battle between Newgarden/Cindric and Scott Dixon/Mike Hull is about the only fair fight you’ll find in IndyCar. Pit Cindric against anyone else, and yeah, I’m putting my money on Newgarden until the O’Wards and others prove they can beat the No. 2 Chevy in a straight battle of strategy.
Q: Do you know if Michael Shank has spoken to the other GTP owners? Is the Rolex violation something the other owners would get past because “if you ain’t cheating you ain’t trying”? Or is this something the owners will hold onto because the violation crossed the line? Any impact with the IndyCar team, such as more scrutiny?
I attended Sebring, and have another question. I’m 71 and remember when open-wheel and sports cars hit the curbing, suspension would fail, etc. Drivers tried to avoid the curbs. Today, drivers cut across the curbing with regularity with no apparent damage. Are the suspensions and cars that much stronger, or the curbs lower or less severe? Has IndyCar considered a virtual safety car for road/street courses?
Rick, Florida
MP: From those I’ve spoken with, nobody is brushing this off as a “if you ain’t cheating you ain’t trying” episode. If anything, they’ve all raised the question of how long the low-pressure cheating was going on, and all said they don’t believe it started in January of 2023 at Daytona, and have, in their own ways, questioned whether the practice was part of MSR’s DPi championship efforts in 2022.
Crack the door open on the topic of cheating, and rarely do people limit their imaginations to the specific time and place the person or team got caught.
Sports car manufacturers use Sebring as the ultimate test of whether their new cars are capable of surviving 12 or 24 hours of punishment, so every car you saw in the 12 Hours have been intentionally abused in super-long tests to ensure their GTs and prototypes can handle the bumps and curbs without breaking.
I’d expect IndyCar to work towards VSCs with their new EM Marshaling System in the next year or two. Hoping IMSA buys the same system and uses it in the same manner.
Q: Is the flag man at the start/finish line for all IndyCar races the same gentleman for every race? Possibly employed by the series?
I was wondering because he is awesome! If anyone has ever noticed, he’s a true maestro with the flags. No race series has a better guy, IMS. A pro’s pro. Thanks!
Bradley J, Sussex, WI
MP: Yes, that would be the ace known as Aaron Likens.
Q: I really enjoyed the Texas race. Kudos to IndyCar for taking a big swing at the downforce levels. The crowd looked better on TV than recent races, although there were clearly plenty of available seats. Is the quality of racing and crowd size enough to make you feel optimistic about the Texas race in the future?
Kyle
MP: Most definitely. I hear every excuse each year about how the date is wrong, the time is wrong, there’s too much traffic, not enough tickets, and so on. Here’s the deal: If you love IndyCar racing, and a race is happening nearby, you’ll go to an IndyCar race, provided it’s affordable. Well, the tickets were affordable, with exception of the garage passes, which cost a fortune when compared to how little time they got you in the garage, but other than that, the weather was pleasant, the racing was amazing, and if there are any lapsed local fans who were looking for a reason to return, or non fans who were curious about the event, Lord, Sunday’s race was the best reason to attend next year’s race that the track and the series could hope for.
And I hope they take a page from Pato O’Ward’s amazing efforts to pack suites and give tickets away. If there aren’t fan packages for Romain Grosjean, Alexander Rossi, Colton Herta, Scott Dixon, and whomever else — they have all the “most popular” driver data to inform their decisions — then some people need to get fired. And that special driver-fan ticket package needs to become a thing at all the other tracks.
Q: The aerokit/tires/and everything were amazing for Texas, and kudos are deserved for those who helped put that together. However, there seems to be a lot of frustration over the penalty given to Rossi for an unsafe release. Hinch on the broadcast put the blame squarely on Kirkwood for coming into his box from the fast lane rather than the transition lane. Would it be possible to get clarification on what the rules are? I know someone pulled up the rulebook and it just talks about the fact that there are two lanes, but doesn’t add any clarity to what is expected or required.
Ryan in West Michigan
MP: We’ve covered off the rules in the aforementioned story link, and in a visit to my Monday Racing Family Twitter Spaces show, Kirkwood said Hinchcliffe found him after the race and apologized for pointing folks in the wrong direction on the broadcast and explained how they intended to clean that up on air but ran out of time.