Q: Please keep in mind this is coming from a fan of Palou/Wanser so their dominance was fun to see, but I really don’t understand taking the full IndyCar, NBC broadcast, and AMR Safety Team to Thermal and not having an actual race. If tires were a topic and they wanted to put on a show for SoCal race fans, then have a race with actual tire strategy, pit stops, points and still award the money. The new eyes, existing fans, and teams deserved better than this. The history of IndyCar deserves better than to be told to prance around for some rich people. Creating buzz only make IndyCar look like a dog and pony show and not a legitimate series. The track was great and NBC ensured we knew how great the place was, so let’s make it a real race stop each year.
John Lee, Siloam Springs, AR
MP: Thanks, John, and say hello to my family in Lee County, AR.
Q: Paul Tracy posted on his social media account on how bad the podium looked at Thermal, and also how cheap the trophies and champagne were. I had to go back and watch the replay because I didn’t even notice it. But damn, PT has a point. My 3-year-old could’ve built a better podium out of his magnetiles. And the trophies looked more like drinking mugs to me. Kind of the cherry on the top of what could’ve been a better planned weekend.
There are positives. The almost 10 hours of practice being streamed was nice to watch. The heat races were a great idea, too. This race also filled in the long gap between St. Pete.
As with anything new. The first run is never perfect. I hope the folks at Thermal can make it better next year. If it is on the calendar next year.
Handsome Jo
MP: Yes, PT texted me and I texted back showing him the same podium post I’d made around the same time. I had an unimpressed team owner text me more or less the same thing — IndyCar podium vs a karting podium — a few hours later, which tells you how poorly this landed. Least they could have done is filled the trophies with ice cream, since that’s what all the drivers wolfed down throughout the weekend.
Fingers crossed that something positive comes out of the event.
Q: You see references to “gardening leave” in F1 all the time, and lately with Craig Hampson in IndyCar. I have a simple question: When someone serves out gardening leave, who pays for the actual “gardening”?
Does the acquiring team pay the individual? Or the team than is enforcing the non-compete agreement? Or are the defecting staff members on their own? I can’t imagine someone like Craig Hampson is salary-less, or substitute teaching, until the new gig with Andretti starts.
And I don’t remember ever seeing this in NASCAR. Maybe they call it something else? Garage leave?
Ed Joras
MP: It would be “Fishing Leave” in NASCAR. Gardening leave tends to involve the departing person receiving pay or some sort of severance package, if it’s done on good terms. I know of a few friends in the IndyCar paddock in recent years who abided by the team’s wish to sit out for however long, and in return, they were well compensated. That’s not always the case. Then you have some situations where the person leaving, who tends to be in the higher dollar roles, will have a nice sum saved up to live off of if the team treats their exit in a hostile manner and enforces the non-compete and is not contractually obligated to keep those big dollar flowing into the person’s bank account.
Q: Thankful to see racing this weekend! Made me think of a way to jazz this event up. Make it a team event. Match two drivers together. This is done by a random draw. So, say Dixon is teamed with Kirkwood. One driver starts the race and races the first 10 laps and then there is a four-lap window to make a pit stop. As soon as the first driver come to a stop in the pits. The second driver takes off and runs the final half. So in total the race would be 24 laps. No tire saving and no laying back. This I feel would be so different that it would draw massive attention.
Tom Harleman, Carmel, IN
MP: An open-wheel endurance race. Interesting. Whose cars are used for this, since no team would allow a rival to drive their car and report back with all of the intel on how it handles?
Q: Joel M.’s question in the last Mailbag was, “Why did everybody just follow along” with saving fuel to make it to the end of the St. Pete race? I watched Graham Rahal’s on-board feed through the IndyCar app. Since they were in the back of the pack (18th), they actually tried doing something different by pitting very early into the second fuel run on lap 48. He then drove 1-2 seconds per lap faster with no one in front of him, which was fun to watch. However, after getting up to seventh place on lap 69 when others pitted, the caution came out for the Grosjean incident with Lundqvist. That ruined Graham’s projected top-10 finish if it had stayed green. After the caution, there was no alternative strategy that could pay off and he finished 16th. TV never showed or mentioned this was going on.
Second, Chuck N., also in the last Mailbag, had the same thought I had about using ballast weight until the hybrid system is implemented so the weight of the car matches the harder Firestone tires. Won’t the ERS be inside the bell housing? Couldn’t the ballast weight go there? Or was adding ballast not feasible due to the time required to design, etc., and there was no time for that since the decision to delay the ERS was so late?
Finally, was the main purpose of the Thermal event to give people and their associated companies an experience that would, hopefully, turn them into sponsors and team owners?
Travis W.
MP: Yes, 100-130 pounds of ballast could be placed in the bellhousing, but I doubt the series or drivers would want to make the cars many seconds slower. The purpose of Thermal was to turn a six-week break until the next race into a four-week break.
Q: Will from Indy mentioned the ad breaks on Peacock being out of sync with the broadcast ads. This is something that’s been a frequent issue in the past year or so, including the VODs for the Thermal broadcast.
While annoying, it’s still less of an issue for me than the problem of “non stop” ad breaks on the broadcast having full-screen ads overlaid on top of them for Peacock. This has been the case since the start of 2022, and it’s especially annoying when the commentators explicitly tell us we won’t miss anything because we’ll still be seeing the race side-by-side with the ads. Because of this, I ended up buying an antenna for my TV purely so that I could watch the broadcast instead of Peacock if I’m able to watch a race live.
On Peacock we did get side-by-side ads for the Iowa races last year. I have to assume we can thank Hy-Vee for that since most of the advertisers in those breaks were for products you can find in a grocery store. Hopefully IndyCar can find other advertisers willing to cover both platforms.
Mike, California
MP: Thanks, Mike. I watch most IndyCar sessions and races via Peacock – even when I’m at the races, using my phone and ear buds on pit lane, or trackside and haven’t experienced the syncing issue. Or maybe I’m too dumb to have noticed it’s happened for me as well (which is likely).