Q: How many gallons of fuel would IndyCars have to carry to complete an entire street course race?
Mike
MP: This is what’s known as a “how long is a piece of string?” question.
Once again, what’s the track length? How many laps is the street race? Without that info, it’s hard to answer.
Q: With regard to the use of torque sensors for the GT3 class in IMSA, I have seen a price of around $60,000. Can you explain why they are so expensive?
Jake, PA
MP: Specialized application, limited production run and market, plus a mandate for them to be used, which can often lead to a big cost. Spoke with a GTD team owner last weekend who said the annual budget is around $250,000 for the season with routine failures, refurbishments, and the need for multiple spares to be on hand.
Q: All the dissatisfaction among the IndyCar owners has me wondering if we’re approaching another White Paper moment?
John, Seville, OH
MP: In early February, I would have said yes; the first draft of my Owners Unite story which I penned in stages from Feb. 15-20, had a long section which cited a ton of Dan Gurney’s original White Paper that launched CART and was included because it matched the tone of what I was being told.
As I started to hear about how the Feb. 28 owners’ call went with Penske, I cut that section out altogether. Depending on how seriously Penske takes the owners’ concerns and acts in the coming months will dictate whether the White Paper talk ends or if it moves to the forefront of the situation.
Q: You stated that Firestone produced a harder tire to accommodate the IndyCar hybrid systems’ additional weight, and the inability to produce a new tire in time for its absence. Does that mean the Indy 500 tires will be harder as well? If so, how do you feel it will affect the racing?
I’m not an expert, but a harder tire may mean more lifting in the corners and better passing opportunities for those dialed in. It could give the drivers from fourth to 33rd a chance to move up instead of the dirty air dictating their chances.
If I’m close to being right, then this could be a good unintended consequence with the delay of the hybrid system.
Or I could just be wrong.
Roger, Section H since 1986, Altoona, IA
MP: Yes, Firestone sent out a notice to teams at St. Pete which explained the matter. I’d have to think the Indy tires are in line with the rest they’ve made which conforms to the heavier full-hybrid cars, so degradation should be reduced. Depending on the ambient conditions, those harder tires could be a question mark if it’s super cold. Otherwise, we’ll have to see how the hybrid tires perform and survive before we get an inkling of how they might influence the race.
Q: Last week’s Mailbag started out with a complaint about fuel mileage racing and a suggestion of mandatory pit stops and minimum pit stop times. It sounds like the obvious answer would be to ban refueling. I know it would be a bad idea for IndyCars to carry all that fuel on board, but am I right?
Tim Davis, Detroit, MI
MP: It’s not possible with the current car because it was never designed to hold 50-plus gallons; we race with 18.5 as the limit, although a little more could be squeezed in. But what happens when we get to Indy and need 125-plus gallons? The cars would need to tow a few 55-gallon drums behind them to do the entire race.
Rather than go insane here, maybe IndyCar just adds 10 laps to St. Pete to make a three-stop plan with minimal fuel saving a stronger likelihood.
Q: Gotta be honest, until I started reading various articles/viewer opinions, I didn’t realize St. Petersburg was a bad race. I’m going to guess this is because I was looking forward to the season opener after suffering through F1 snooze-fests and the usual NASCAR manipulated excitement so far this year.
Generally, I DVR races. Rarely do I (or am I able to) watch live. However, I did watch St. Pete live, and watched every lap. I base how good a race is on how much of it I fast-forward through. This last week, I watched more than usual of the F1 race, so it must have held my attention more than average, as well as most of the Phoenix NASCAR race, meaning the same. But neither did I watch live, or watch every lap without fast-forwarding. Winner for the weekend is still IndyCar.
Jason
MP: It’s a great point, Jason. Not every person cares about the strategies and passes for the lead; enjoying a motor race is always possible.
Q: It’s only been a week and I’m already tired of hearing about the excuse of the harder tire compound designed for the “heavier” IndyCar. Is there no common sense left in racing? If that is truly the issue (and I have my doubts), add 31 pounds of ballast to every car and be done with it!
Remove it once the KERS system is installed. Problem solved; one less thing to bitch about.
Chuck Ney
MP: It’s not the 31 pounds. I can’t get a straight answer on how much the MGU and ESS weigh as a package, but I’ve had a lot of drivers and engineers say it’s 100 pounds. That’s what the tires were designed to work with. Meyer Shank Racing’s Tom Blomqvist weights 152 pounds. To ballast up the car to hybrid weight, that’s like adding half a Tom to the car, and where would that get placed?
Q: Your words: “IndyCar’s executive leadership and the series’ owner are paralyzed by fear of failure.”
IndyCar has been operating in the survival mode of business since reunification. After the complete business thrash due the Split and post-Split mismanagement, they well needed to be in a deep fear of failure mindset. The problem is, operating in fear-driven survival mode will not get you to the sustainability mode. A transition must be made; that transition is long since due. To get to sustainability requires proactive thinking, taking justified risks and the acceptance that no business can become sustainable if the target is only survival.
Stephen Archer
MP: The target is also to make the series profitable, which it has never been asked to do in my lifetime, since the profits from IMS have been used to fund the series.