Q: After watching Road America Practice 2 I understand Will Power’s anger at losing a car and the team effort and cost to rebuild, not to mention the chance of injury, but come on. Power’s aggression toward Scott Dixon was over the top. Does he think Dixon did it on purpose? I can see Power going off at a rookie, but not Dixon or any other veteran driver. I thought Will was supposed to be much calmer this year?
Jeff, Colorado
MP: I mean, we all evolve with age, but at our core, we’re still who we are…and that certainly applies to Power. He was also enraged at Road America last year and tore Devlin DeFrancesco a new hole for something that wasn’t as bad. Going after Dixon multiple times was definitely over the top, but I can see why Power was so incensed. It was a huge surprise, an unexpectedly violent crash, and totally unnecessary.
The part that made me sad came from the experts who ripped Power for his reaction and Dixon for being too old and a shadow of his former self, etc. I’d welcome folks to try racing out of Canada Corner in an IndyCar at 100-plus mph and getting blindsided by a slower car, smashing into a concrete barrier, having your car all but wrecked, and then tell us how they’d respond. Power is a calmer version of himself, but it was a tough weekend, starting off with his refueler Eric Crabtree losing his wife and missing the event to handle her funeral. Take Romain Grosjean’s move on Power and the crash with Dixon, and he was as raw and as human as it gets.
And as for Dixon, he had a really bad day, made a boneheaded mistake, owned it, and followed it up by racing from 23rd to fourth the next day.
Q: Now since Ryan Hunter-Reay is back full-time in IndyCar, do you know if Conor Daly will be taking RHR’s seat in the SRX series?
Norman, Somers, NY
MP: Not sure that’s how such things work, but per RHR, he’s figuring out how he might dovetail IndyCar and SRX plans to make both work. Still TBD.
Q: Since we often hear lamentations about the lack of IndyCar race venues in or near the northeastern states, is there a particular or plausible reason that IndyCar can’t (or won’t) run in Montreal? I attended the Champ Car race there in 2002 (won by Dario Franchitti) and other than the usual invalid and meaningless comparisons to F1, it was a very decent race. No need to disrupt an entire downtown area, and a beautiful city with great infrastructure in place.
Wiscowerner
MP: Having been to Quebec for many races, from Trois-Rivieres to Circuit Gilles Villeneuve, I can say that I love visiting “Practice France” and the passion for racing has long been a perfect match for whatever we’ve sent north, be it junior open wheel or CART/Champ Car.
All that being said, I know CGV was mentioned as an idea for IndyCar to consider, but when I asked last weekend, it didn’t sound like something that progressed beyond that first general idea.
Q: Why does it appear Romain Grosjean is trying to get fired from Andretti? He is driving like a maniac NASCAR rookie trying so hard to make statement, but we all know he is talented and quick, so why this apparent self-destruction?
Dan, AZ
MP: This is among the saddest stories of the opening half of the year. Coming off a terrible debut season with Andretti, Grosjean returned in fine form, was fast, consistent, and exuding positivity through Long Beach. Since then, it’s all gone wrong, and despite being at fault for most of the bad things that have happened, his treatment of the team — from what we’ve heard from radio transmissions and on the broadcasts — has been somewhere between abusive and tyrannical.
We went from team owner Michael Andretti telling me after Long Beach that he expected to get together with Romain and get a contract extension done in May to no news of that happening, and on their current arc, things will need to improve and improve quickly to get things back on track.
Q: Can you describe the refueling portion of a pit stop? I am curious to know how pit crews know when a good connection with the fuel probe to the car has been established. Is there something on the fuel probe that shows it is connected correctly? There is likely some kind of safety device that would prevent fuel spills. How would the refueler know when the tank is full? Is there an indicator here too? Can you also describe how the fuel is pumped into the car? Is the technology in the refueling rig, fuel probe/hose, or in the car that allows for such a quick flow rate?
Jane, Indianapolis, IN
MP: There’s a valve that opens to allow fuel to flow through the hose and refueling probe when a proper connection and seal is made. The butterfly valve has an external lever which is watched by the refueler and when that rotates and points down, the fuel is flowing. On rare occasion, we’ve seen a connection be made and the valve fail to open, and in that scenario, refuelers have been seen placing their hand on the lever and manually opening the butterfly to get the fuel heading into the tank.
Flow is observed through a sight built into the probe/hose system, and refuelers know when the tank is full because they see fuel starting to return through the fuel vent hose. Fuel is fed by gravity into the tank. At approximately seven pounds per gallon, there’s hundreds and hundreds of pounds of fuel fighting to be released.
Q: Bryan Herta knows how to call a race. I think Colton’s step back this year is due to Bryan moving over to Kyle Kirkwood’s car. Colton was the class of the show Sunday and I doubt Bryan would have brought him in when they did.
Joe Mullins
MP: Bryan certainly does, but it’s often forgotten that Colton won his first three races without his dad calling race strategy and had his best championship run (to third) in 2020, the year before his dad took over the role. Colton won three races in 2021 with Bryan, and added another victory last year, but the main talking point about Colton’s 2022 season was how he fell to 10th in the standings and wasn’t winning or contending like in previous years.
Colton’s seen highs and lows with his dad on the timing stand, so I’m not keen on painting Sunday’s issues as something that gets resolved by one person because the issues that led to losing the race were created by more than one person.