Q: What an awful set of circumstances for Malukas. Just a darn degree of horrible luck. Is Dr. Trammell still practicing? Does David have nerve damage? Can we see TK just once more for this 500?
Skip Ranfone, Summerfield, FL
MP: Sad for the kid, but he’s very good and will find another opportunity in IndyCar. Davey told me he got his cast taken off and his doctors have pointed to a mid-June timeline for being healed. I know TK is a backup plan to the primary plan of having Callum Ilott in the car for the 500.
By the time you’re reading this, Theo Pourchaire will have completed his first oval test, which signals the team’s intent to use him a lot after May.
Q: For whatever reason this whole Malukas situation really has me worked up. Without revealing anything you can’t, I understand that this is a business and McLaren has to protect itself first and foremost. Was this truly as much of a surprise as it seems? Did “Little Dave” see this one coming? Is this a raw deal? Is the wrist really months away from healing? From what I know of T.K., it seems like he’s a wonderful human — is this just one of “them things?”What does this mean for Dave’s future? It doesn’t seem that long ago that he was battling Colton in Indy NXT. I think a healthy Dave definitely belongs in the IndyCar paddock.
Paul Zajdel, Park Ridge, IL
MP: It started to feel like we were headed to a divorce at Long Beach with some of the language and phrasing I was hearing. As I wrote after Long Beach, the Barber weekend was going to be a huge turning point for the No. 6 car, and if Pourchaire performed as expected, the team was going to have their guy. Malukas couldn’t go at Barber, Pourchaire was quite good, and showed the team he was someone to hold onto.
Factor in the pre-existing plans to run Ilott in the car at the 500 if Malukas wasn’t ready, and I think the combo of missing four straight races — moreover, having never raced for the team — and the emergence of Pourchaire and the extra layer of talent with Ilott, and Arrow McLaren leaned into going forward with known people on a timeline they knew wouldn’t fluctuate.
If Davey had hurt himself while driving the car at St. Pete or Thermal, he’s still with the team and returns when ready. Since he essentially never got started with the team — he did some testing — it was just a different scenario.
He’ll be back. Nobody has forgotten how well he ran in Coyne’s team at a number of races.
Q: Just wondering if IndyCar is screwing with the fans up here in Canada, or is it TSN? The only way to see the races is if we pay for TSN+. Sorry, but no way will I pay for that. There must be a better solution.
Michael, Mississauga, Ontario, Canada
MP: With all of the fires Penske Entertainment’s been trying to put out in recent weeks, I doubt they’d have the time to screw with y’all. I’d ask TSN.
Q: Can you clarify how Malukas was injured? Was he “mountain biking” and fell, or was he on a “mountain bike” and fell (on the street, in his yard, or something like that)?
Tulsa IndyCar fan
MP: Mountain biking with a friend on a “green trail” as he described it, was watching his friend do jumps, was late to recognize he’d come upon a bend, hit the brakes, but mistakenly grabbed the front brakes alone, which sent him flying over the handlebars, put his hands out to break his fall and his left wrist hit a rock and dislocated his hand and did a bunch of damage.
Q: What on earth is going on with Pato O’Ward? How many cars did he hit at Barber, including his teammate’s? I saw he did get a penalty, but he seems to be taking way too many chances and messing with other driver’s races. Thoughts?
Jim Doyle, Hoboken, NJ
MP: He was a bit of menace, but that’s not his usual state of play, so I’m writing it off as a really bad day at work.
Q: I’ll give you a break from all of the questions about the P2P brouhaha and let you contemplate a much less complicated issue: national politics!
With the news of the invitation to Trump to take part in pre-race ceremonies at Thermal, I’m shaking my head asking why. Why, why, why take an already small fan base and risk alienating half of them by jumping into completely unnecessary and irrelevant controversy? I’m glad it was ultimately rejected, but the fact that it got as far as it did is perplexing. Almost anything that is allowed to happen during a race weekend is a reflection on the series, so unless Thermal went rogue and invited Trump completely behind IndyCar’s back, it would reasonably be seen as endorsed by the series.
Back in 2018 I brought my family to their first IndyCar race at Pocono. That race was a horrible introduction for them to IndyCar for many reasons, but even before the Wickens crash, others in my family were understandably turned off by the fact that Lee Greenwood performed in the pre-race ceremonies given his close association with Donald Trump. Politics does infect too much of our lives nowadays and it isn’t healthy to impose litmus tests, but nevertheless it did appear to them that IndyCar was consciously planting a flag on a certain side during terribly divisive times. Whether one agrees or disagrees with this level of sensitivity, it does show the dangers of being seen as political.
I can draw a distinction between this and the Kaepernick issue in that Kaepernick was speaking for himself, it wasn’t the NFL leadership taking a knee (sure, the league would be seen as condoning Kaepernick taking a knee by not punishing it, but still…). And I’m not questioning whether IndyCar has a right to invite divisive figures. Of course they do. I’m just marveling at the stupidity of such moves when the series has to fight tooth and nail for every single fan.
Can you shed any light on this that would make me more trusting of IndyCar’s discretion in these matters?
Peter, NJ
MP: I thought the call to keep political sponsorships out of the Indy 500 was brilliant. When the sponsor told me about their plan at Long Beach and how it was denied, I said the same thing: IndyCar doesn’t have enough fans to risk pissing off half of them by supporting Mr. Trump or President Biden.
But there is a hack to this rule, in a smaller way. Mr. Trump had some big fans camping out across from the St. Petersburg pits who were flying all kinds of flags in support of the 45th president and against the 46th. On the same theme of “let’s not piss off half of the attendees,” I asked the series if it was good with political flags — some were slightly aggressive — and the answer was yes: “We do have a code of conduct at our events that prevents the display of signage that is clearly offensive or derogatory in nature. This does not include general political campaign materials, which in this case are being displayed by fans in camping spaces they have purchased.”
So, no on the cars, but yes for fans. Because my mind works in linear ways, I’d expect it to be all yes or all no, not a 50-50, but we have a 50-50.