Q: So we’ve now learned that within the space of roughly a week, Team Penske was cheating in NASCAR with Joey Logano’s webbed glove at Atlanta, and cheating at St Petersburg with P2P. Is this just part of the “Penske Way” now? I’ve always had great respect for the team and its accomplishments, but I don’t know if this smell is going to come out in the wash. I hope R.P. or Tim Cindric step up and answer questions from the media about this instead of just hiding behind carefully worded statements.
Ed Fisher, Chicago, IL
MP: Between IndyCar, IMSA, and NASCAR, Team Penske has spent more time over the last 10 months than it would want in those series’ haulers being asked to explain why their cars/drivers don’t conform to the rules.
Q: Racing is all about finding and pushing the boundaries in the gray areas of the rules. It’s been that way since humans started competing. But what occurred at St. Pete (at minimum) was not pushing the boundaries, but plain old breaking the rules. I am leaning towards the shared online media opinion that the explanation offered by Team Penske doesn’t pass the smell test.
I think McLaughlin was right in putting out a statement. It is being argued about on social media as to whether helps or hurts his cause. I get that Newgarden is probably upset at having the win taken away. But he needs to get a statement issued. In fact, he needed to get his PR people working on it after the race on Sunday in Long Beach. He probably did not know the penalties, but they could have/should have been working on various drafts that can be adjusted quickly and issued. I saw Josef at Carroll University along with Roger Penske recently, and it really looks like Josef is working to position himself for a post-driving career. Taking a long time to issue a statement is not good for that professional image he is cultivating.
John
MP: This was obviously sent before The Josef Show aired on Friday. Know this: The team was instructed not to talk when the thing broke on Wednesday. I’m told McLaughlin fought to speak and share what he did, and ultimately was allowed to do so — or maybe he defied orders and did it anyway — and said what he had to say. That’s passion. That’s fighting to be heard. I respect that.
Q: My question has to do with the means by which P2P is enabled during any private testing, not merely the recent hybrid tests. I cannot believe that other OEM engine “private” tests in the past didn’t frequently evaluate all the effects when P2P was enabled on a new modification to the engine, given the propensity to blow up plenums back in the early days of these powerplants in the DW12.
Your piece notes that there has been concern in some quarters about the ability of the CLU to load and run rogue code that spoofs the P2P enable signal, and we know that the CLU is always in the signal chain between the beacon and the ECU.
I also recall that even during private testing, a series rep is supposed to be present — at least, that was in the rulebook for years.
In the absence of a P2P enable being transmitted from race control as I assume would always be the case at these tests, does the series rep show up with a special ECU code package that the OEM engineers load into the ECU that keeps P2P active at all times, that is then removed at the conclusion of the test?
Alternatively, is some “test code” loaded to the CLU that spoofs the P2P enabled signal so the “standard” series controlled layer in the ECU code need not be modified for the test?
Seems to me that the only way Cindric’s excuse holds any water at all is that Penske engineers added something to the standard CLU code to enable P2P for the hybrid test, then inadvertently forgot to remove that modified CLU code.
As far as I can tell, no one has suggested that modified CLU code was cloaking the use of P2P, right?
How many Penske chassis were at the last hybrid test, though? Only one per some sources, so how did any code of any sort, CLU or ECU, end up on the chassis that were not there?
The only thing I can figure in that regard is some engineer mistakenly saved modified CLU code under the wrong file name, which then led to it being loaded in error on chassis that never needed it for testing.
I agree that it seems odd that the series would have the capability to monitor use of P2P when no P2P enable signal was active.
Steve Jarzombek
MP: Thanks for keeping the questions to a reasonable 97. At a hybrid test, teams would run with the ECU unlocked, as I was told by a few data engineers/engine techs. That makes it easy to use P2P, and at that point, it’s just a case of either using a beacon and the MyLaps/CLU to fire the “always on” instructions for P2P into the ECU. The alternate method in lieu of using the beacon, as Cindric described, was to change the P2P code in the CLU to give the “always on” signal.
The four main hybrid test teams set aside a hybrid test car. One data engineer, who was at those tests, says they would fire themselves if they copied anything over from the hybrid car to their race cars. But that’s what Cindric says they did.
Q: Can I make a few of copies or screenshots of your comments regarding the lack of response from IndyCar regarding Mannii wanting to do something at Long Beach? I have no idea who Mannii is, but anyone with that amount of followers certainly merits a response. I want let to Bud Denker or Mark Miles or Roger Penske or Doug Boles know what an opportunity they lost. Influencers get young people involved and interested these days. It’s not “put up a billboard” or “buy an ad” anymore.
Not sure how much it would have cost to provide a media credential (a few minutes of effort?) for Mannii but I guarantee IMSA understood the value of responding and got great exposure to a new audience that probably never heard of them before. I also don’t know why IndyCar doesn’t just hire five kids with degrees in social media fresh out of college each year to try to get out of the dark ages of marketing. Seems like a no-brainer. (Just like a race in Mexico City.)
Also did IndyCar target any social media/ marketing in the LA area to the Latino community with Pato? Big-time Latino car culture in LA. Or did they miss an opportunity there?
Ed D., Milford, MI
MP: I got one call from the series asking about the Mannii situation. If I’m ever asked to connect another influencer with the series, I’ll be connecting with a different person…
I don’t keep track of who the series reaches out to for influencers, but the GP did have Gabriel Iglesias as its grand marshal who gave the command to start engines. Fluffy seemed like a pretty big get.