Q: When Penske bought IMS and the series, I thought it was great. I now feel that it was the worst thing possible for IndyCar. The fact that Penske owns the series, his team wins all the ovals and he was caught cheating earlier this year and did a poor job with disciplining the team and didn’t appoint an independent person to investigate is very disappointing. So now they keep winning, and as a fan I only wonder if they are still cheating?
Since Penske controls everything, they might be cheating and the stewards don’t look for it or choose to overlook it on orders from above. It is so sad that the person who owns the series has a team that keeps winning. I can’t ever cheer for Team Penske and I truly hope they lose every race and I would be happy if the team went away. Penske has taken all the joy out of IndyCar for me.
Paul, Indianapolis
MP: Team Penske has been the best team on short ovals for a good while, and that has nothing to do with the P2P cheating ordeal, or Roger buying the series. They’re simply the best in a specific discipline, just like Ganassi is the best on road courses. Does that mean Ganassi’s cheating with Palou and Dixon?
One complaint, however, is how much testing Penske’s team has done in the last year. Take that short oval mastery, then add being one of the two primary hybrid test teams to log huge miles in private testing, and to help assess Milwaukee’s readiness for a return to the calendar, and you have things like Penske cars going 1-2-3 at the June hybrid test at Milwaukee. Take Penske’s trio earning pole, leading 201 of 260 lap, and winning the race in a 1-2 finish that could have been a 1-2-3 if Power wasn’t wrecked.
Q: With the questionable restart tactics, will IndyCar institute new rules or enforce the existing ones? The “win at any cost” guy is such a different Josef than the one we met when he drove for Sarah Fisher Hartman Racing. Being Penske Perfect doesn’t seem to be winning him friends.
Dino, New Hanover, PA
MP: Other than warning the leader to not wait until the end of the restart zone to go, I’m not sure what needs to be instituted or reinforced. Juan Pablo Montoya gave zero craps about making friends. A.J. Foyt gave zero craps about making friends. If Newgarden’s spoken of like any of them when he retires, I don’t think he’ll mind if he doesn’t get an invite to the IndyCar Driver’s Reunion 20 years from now.
Q: I’m not pleased with what I’ve read about the new charter with respect to limits on the number of drivers allowed per car per season (Coyne and the No. 51), and the apparent inability for a new team (PREMA) to beat out and replace an existing charter team for the charter team benefits. Plus, Bryan Herta’s comments about inconsistent officiating at the Gateway race ring true with me. Are we about to have another split in IndyCar racing?
I hope Mr. Penske can put the good of the sport above his personal interests and keep IndyCar racing open to everyone who wants to bring the resources and talent to try to win. I appreciate his investment in the Speedway but now fear that he is putting himself ahead of the greater good of the sport.
Richard, San Antonio, TX
MP: Stranger still, PREMA is the only non-charter team that’s been approved for full-season participation in the series, according to the owners I spoke with about the charter program.
Here’s what I can say from all I’ve witnessed: Prior to Penske buying the series, the series and its paddock was much closer. The owners’ needs were heard and often acted upon. It was a pretty solid dynamic with limited distance between the people running IndyCar and the people running the teams. With Penske Entertainment’s arrival, that changed. Now, there’s a lot of distance and not a lot of symbiosis as executives make the majority of the decisions independent of the paddock. Maybe the charter will bring some of that closeness back.
Q: There has been a lot of negative things this happen this year involving Penske Entertainment and IndyCar racing, from the cheating scandal at St. Pete to the officiating at Gateway last weekend. I would like to see Penske not be in control of the series. It is never a good thing to have one owner control the sport and call all of the shots. We used to be fans of Josef Newgarden, but his and the Team Penske cheating scandal has really soured our support. His classless move on the restart at Gateway deserved a penalty, but obviously the Captain would not let that happen. If Newgarden wasn’t his teammate, Will Power probably would have punched him in the mouth after the race.
Since Roger Penske has purchased the Indianapolis Motor Speedway and the Indy Car Series, do you think he has delivered overall positive value?
P.S. This year will be our 25th year attending the Indy 500. Every race morning, walking into the track on 16th Street, I’d point up to a metal sign on a pole that honors Tony Hulman and thank him for the Speedway. But this past year, the metal sign that has been there for many years near the main tunnel entrance was gone. It has been taken down by someone, and I would like to know who and why? I would hope that Roger Penske did not have anything to do with this…
Tim Doran, New Castle, PA
MP: Prior to the FOX deal, I would have said no on overall value. Since the FOX deal, which I consider to be the first significant addition to IndyCar since it was bought, my view has changed. Car counts are up, which is great, but costs have also gone up, which isn’t great. More teams (Foyt, Coyne, Juncos Hollinger, Carpenter) are struggling to find sponsors or properly-funded drivers than ever in the Dallara DW12 era, which is a heavy concern. Honda is looking at the front door, which is frightening.
On the other end, there’s big hope the new FOX deal will bring more sponsorship dollars in, so that’s good. And there’s a lot of great drivers in the series and wanting to get in — I’ve heard Ferrari F1 test/reserve driver Robert Shwartzman has a full-time deal, supposedly with PREMA — and that would be great to see if it happens. But then we have the stupid charter deal with a cap on three charters per team, so some people will lose their jobs at Ganassi because of Penske.
I wish we were talking about win after win for IndyCar, but it seems like every positive has a matching negative these days. My glass-half-full nature, which is losing its patience with IndyCar, is what keeps me coming back.