Q: Does the series understand it needs to levy penalties against the three lead engineers on the Penske cars? As you said, if this was NASCAR they’d be missing some people until summertime. I feel like the penalties for the drivers was appropriate.
The thing is, the drivers don’t appear to have either known about it in advance or have requested it, which means whoever is in charge of the cars deserves a bigger penalty. If they knew, then one use from McLaughlin doesn’t make sense since he was like, “Oh, I shouldn’t do that.” Not using it on the start for Newgarden doesn’t make sense. They figured it out and one chose not to do it again, and the other pushed the go-fast button again and again.
I’m a huge fan of McLaughlin and Power, but the series still has work to be done on this. Boot Cindric and Bretzman for the entire two weeks of the 500 and I bet the severity of the punishment is felt.
Ryan, West Michigan
MP: I wish IndyCar could go back and handle this in a much different manner.
Q: In last week’s Mailbag there was a lot of talk about the popularity of Zak Brown and McLaren.
I think you could make an argument that McLaren is failing upward at the moment in both F1 and IndyCar. Last year in F1, McLaren finished fourth with what was firmly the second-fastest car for the around half of the season. McLaren in IndyCar has had the Palou situation, the Malukas situation, only one win (that was retroactive) in over a year, Rosenqvist ahead of them in the standings, and Pourchaire matching/beating the established drivers in a car with which he has way less experience.
Obviously no other IndyCar teams have F1 connections, but why are all the other teams not copying the McLaren marketing efforts?
Will, Indy
MP: I don’t think you’ll find an IndyCar team with 25 percent of the marketing staff McLaren Racing/Arrow McLaren has to deploy, or anyone with the expertise Brown/McLaren bring to the series.
Q: I saw the Mailbag letter regarding McLaren gear at Long Beach. I was at the race at Barber, and I had quite a few thoughts regarding fan gear too. I think there are a lot of takeaways for the series just from observing what people are wearing.
First, McLaren ruled the roost with team gear even in Alabama by a mile. More importantly, the vast majority of those wearing McLaren gear were <35 with essentially all being in their teens or 20s.
Colton Herta gear was a distant second. Surprising to me, as I thought Newgarden gear would be more common.
Third most common was absolutely Grosjean… maybe even tied with Herta.
Just because you’re good, doesn’t mean you have tons of fans. Examples: The basic non-existence of Dixon gear. There was more Power gear than Dixon, but it was also few and far between. And Newgarden? About the same as Power, which I found surprising.
There was virtually no MSR gear outside of MSR Castroneves shirts.
I saw three or four Ferrucci shirts being worn. I’ll just say the demographic wearing them probably were probably adults at A.J.’s first racing win. They know what an Offenhauser is.
I even saw a couple of new Sting Ray shirts being worn which was absolutely shocking. However, being in Alabama and having Pray.com emblazoned across a shirt… well that did make some sense.
I’d surmise that despite sometimes questionable on-track performance, McLaren has probably been the biggest win for the series potentially ever. Years ago at races, half the gear worn would be NASCAR gear. Now, half the gear is McLaren. There’s a lot to unpack there… rocking a McLaren shirt is a lot cooler than a Chevy or Honda shirt. The drivers are fun and young. You have a European influence from F1. If apparel is any indicator, if IndyCar wants to grow the sport, they need to be thinking less about locking in current teams and more about how to attract more European teams.
Ross Bynum
MP: So what you’re saying is all IndyCar driver merch needs to be done in papaya orange… 😉
Q: Josef has been my fave even since before he was a Penske guy. Hella fast, seemed like a heck of a nice guy and looks like he was forged in a Superhero factory. I didn’t want to hear or even believe any of the stories or innuendo being told. But it wasn’t until I finally saw Episode 1, Season 2 of “100 Days To Indy.” Only a true sociopath wears socks with sandals, much less walks around on the grass in socks. Not even sure who to cheer for now…
Shawn, MD
MP: I haven’t seen any of the new episodes so far, but that sounds amazing.
Q: I recently saw a story about Mario Andretti and the 1987 Indy 500. Mario said that when his engine dropped a valve, it backfired into the intake plenum. He knew this right away because of what he called a “listening tube.” He thought that this backfire blew out his eardrum. What the hell is a listening tube? When and why was it used? Was it a legal item?
Brian Sanborn
MP: Legal item. Back before electronically controlled turbo wastegates, we had mechanical “pop-off” valves. These often sat on top of the engine’s intake plenum where the turbo charger forced all of that compressed air into the engine.
When boost pressure limits were introduced to try and rein in horsepower, these valves would be used to police that limit. (Again, this was before electronic controls of such things.) The pop-off valves would be mounted atop the plenum (or sometimes behind or in front) above a hole that was cut into the plenum. The valve had a round disc at the bottom that sealed the hole in the plenum, and was held in place by a heavy spring. The spring was rated to match the maximum boost pressure.
If the max boost was 50psi, for example, the spring was rated to resist up to 50psi of force pushing on the pop-off disc which kept the plenum sealed and firing that boost into the cylinders.
As long as the turbo boost was kept at the maximum pressure, the spring would hold firm and keep the plenum sealed. But if the boost exceeded the maximum pressure — went to 51psi, in this example — the spring would start to compress and the disc would move upwards and open the plenum to atmosphere and all boost would be lost.
So, to help drivers to get a feel for when they were flirting with popping the pop-off valve and losing boost and a ton of power, teams were permitted to fit a small tube to the valves that ran to the cockpit and connected to the drivers’ helmets into a port on one side that was near their ears. There was nothing to hear through the tube if the valve was closed, but if it just started to crack open, that high-pressure air would act like a whistle, which the driver could hear and then ease off the throttle to prevent the valve from opening. It was a super-analog way of doing things, but it worked.