Q: I would like to touch on a couple of topics about IndyCar’s schedule and marketing. My biggest thing as far as the schedule is, why can’t they move the Indy Grand Prix race to the first weekend in May? Move the two Indy 500 practice days from April to that first Friday and Saturday after the Grand Prix race, take Mother’s Day off, and then have a full week of practice. Then you truly have a full month of May.
I understand that the Grand Prix would be the same day as the Kentucky Derby, but they could start the race at noon or 1:00, and that could the lead into Derby coverage, which doesn’t start on NBC until 3:00. I get it that Long Beach and Barber would have to be moved up a week, but why not?
I guess that brings me to my next point as far as the marketing side. How in the hell does IndyCar’s biggest race outside of the 500 get put on the USA Network? I don’t recall seeing one thing about advertising for that race anywhere as far as TV coverage.
My next thing is, if Coors Light, Pennzoil, and Shell fuels are official sponsors of IndyCar, then why are there no advertisements out there? I live in Cincinnati, and if I go into a sports bar or bar there’s no banner or poster that has “Coors Light, Official Beer of IndyCar” with the schedule printed on it. But you can bet your ass there is one with Busch beer and NASCAR somewhere hanging up. Same with Pennzoil — nowhere on a bottle does it say official oil of IndyCar. Or a Shell gas station — no poster, no banner, no message on the TV screen at the fuel pumps.
Just like when I go on to the Snap-On truck, especially with Roger Penske’s long partnership with Snap-On — not one sticker to hand out with Josef Newgarden on it, or anything about Penske winning another 500. I remember when I first started being a mechanic and seeing the older guys took boxes with Rick Mears and Snap-On racing stickers all over the place.
I know this turned into more a rant. But it just pisses me off as a die-hard IndyCar fan when I think of all the missed opportunities for advertising and putting their product in front of people. They need to put it in front of people’s faces until they’re sick of seeing it. Or maybe they’re OK just being a niche sport. I don’t see that being the case though when Michael Andretti approaches Roger Penske telling him we need a change, and Zak Brown wanting to spearhead new marketing ideas.
Scott, Cincinnati
MP: Thanks for the rant, Scott. We need at least one per Mailbag.
Q: I understand the reaction to the recent P2P controversy. All probably well-deserved. But I have a problem with people lumping this infraction in with Roger’s NASCAR team. Go ahead and use your search function for “Hendrick Motorsports penalties” and see what you find. We’ll wait here while you look at the pages of results.
Rick Hendrick is pretty much deified in NASCAR. Why all of this hatred for Roger?
ALB, MN
MP: Can’t speak to hatred if that’s what you’ve seen from others, but it’s a numbers situation as I see it. If Team Penske had been caught cheating zero times recently, there would be nothing else to reference. If it was once, it would be once. Since it was two, two were mentioned along with the third and newest. What Hendrick has/hasn’t done in NASCAR, the one series where he routinely competes, has zero relevance to an IndyCar team that runs in three other major championships.
Q: It was hard to drop the Nashville street race, but we hope that one day another venue becomes available for IndyCar. Nashville will be back with an oval this year. But what about Miami and Las Vegas? They are beginning to flourish prematurely. I understand it is asking too much. But as much we love to see Formula 1 in the U.S., how long will it take for IndyCar to host an event at Miami, or even in a Las Vegas night race on the streets?
JLS, Chicago, IL
MP: I’m struggling to see either happen while F1 owns both towns with their races. And IndyCar would only lose if they tried, just like at COTA, where the enormous difference in crowd sizes made IndyCar look tiny and weak. No need to repeat history with that happening at Miami and Las Vegas.
Q: I don’t understand why Cindric and Ruzewski “will not be restricted from communicating with the race team or performing their roles… when their Indy cars aren’t on track.”
If their suspensions are because as the team’s leaders, the buck stops with them, why should they be permitted to continue performing those duties during their punishment period? Does the same on-track/off-track loophole exist for the suspended race engineers?
Also, I find it funny that Verizon apparently can’t provide international cellphone coverage for Roger while he’s in Europe.
Brian, Ohio
MP: A friend, who’s also a fellow smartass, shared this video with me after the suspensions were announced… From 500 Miles Away… you can’t make this stuff up.
Q: Last season when Jack Harvey’s contract to drive the No. 30 RLL car got terminated, they had multiple different drivers for that car towards the end of the season. One driver who made his debut in IndyCar was ex-F2 driver Juri Vips. After the season, RLL said that it had intentions to have him drive the car in future, but that it wouldn’t be possible now due to the No. 30 car requiring some budget from the driver. My question is, how does the future for Juri Vips look in IndyCar?
Leo, Stockholm, Sweden
MP: I spoke to Bobby Rahal about Vips at Long Beach and he said he hopes to field him in a fourth car later this year.
Q: I think Roger Penske should get Newey to design a new IndyCar chassis for 2027 and then get Dallara to build it. Thoughts?
Nuno, Portugal
MP: From championship-winning F1 cars that push the boundaries of open-wheel technology to a spec IndyCar? I’d ask Adrian if he hit his head if that happened.
Q: Sorry for another P2P comment. Do you really think Team Penske was intentionally cheating? If so, wouldn’t they have tried to mask or hide the P2P usage? I’ve not seen anything to indicate they did. It was hiding in plain sight. It was obvious what was happening once someone was looking. In St. Pete, no one happened to look.
To me cheating is intentionally trying to subvert a rule for an advantage and also trying to hide it so they are not caught. MSR cheated at Daytona. They ran low tire pressure and intentionally hid it. Not sure Team Penske “cheated.”
This is not to give them a free pass. The drivers deserve the points penalties and the team personnel deserve the suspensions. They deserve the bad publicity and scrutiny. It was a big, and bad, mistake. Their cars were not in compliance. But not sure I would characterize this as cheating. A mistake and shortcut were made in the code handling for hybrid testing, and shortcuts made with software updates resulting in bad code in the race cars. Bad process, methodology, and procedure, but cheating?
Jegger500
MP: Thanks for sharing your viewpoints. I’m pretty traditional when it comes to using the word “cheat” or “cheating” with this definition of to “act dishonestly or unfairly in order to gain an advantage, especially in a game or examination” fitting the situation better than any other word I can think of.
It’s one thing to show up at St. Petersburg with the wrong settings. That’s an oops. To show up six weeks later with the same wrong settings? That’s where the team lost any chance of its “oops” explanation being believed by the series and the majority of the paddock.