Welcome to the RACER Mailbag. Questions for any of RACER’s writers will be despatched to mailbag@racer.com. We love listening to your feedback and opinions, however letters that embody a query usually tend to be printed. Questions acquired after 3pm ET every Monday shall be saved for the next week.
Q: I’m actually involved for the well-being of IndyCar. No passes on observe with any vital outcomes. Palou, apparently, is unstoppable, and I’d fairly see a special driver as champion this 12 months, however that’s most likely not taking place. Has the hybrid system created the lack to go on road and highway programs? Asking for a buddy. You already know it’s fairly dangerous when the FOX “second of the race” was Ferrucci’s save after getting a bit free!
Dan, Arizona
MARSHALL PRUETT: There are a couple of elements, and going hybrid is an enormous a part of the issue, however not the entire downside. There’s 4 contributing elements.
First, it’s the burden of going hybrid that’s having a destructive impact. The vitality restoration system itself isn’t some evil factor that kills wheel-to-wheel motion. It’s the burden. I understand this may not matter to some, however IndyCar might yank the ERS models from the automobiles, substitute them with 100 kilos of rocks to match their weight, and we’d be having the identical dialog.
Tires are one other large contributor to the issue. The silly-soft road course alternates principally soften in the event that they’re pushed too onerous, so drivers have needed to deal with them like large liabilities and drive to a particular tempo to stop the meltdown and complete lack of efficiency. These tires have robbed the flexibility for drivers to assault, which has dulled the wheel-to-wheel motion.
The highway course alternates at Thermal reacted in an analogous manner, however it was the observe floor, fairly than the tires themselves, inflicting the large drop-off in efficiency. So drivers as soon as once more needed to persist with a particular and considerably decreased tempo to maintain the tires from boiling over and giving up.
Barber was the primary race of the 12 months the place each tire compounds might take all of the abuse they got with out surrendering. However since there wasn’t a lot to separate the efficiency between the primaries and alternates, there have been no large gambles taken on race technique; all people was flat out, and with no cautions, the leaders have been operating at comparable speeds — Palou apart — and that’s not when nice passing takes place up entrance.
Tons of passing occurred behind the leaders, however that’s not what makes for memorable races. No one watches an NFL recreation and spends the subsequent day raving concerning the nice blocking within the trenches. It’s the large touchdowns, lengthy runs, game-changing hits and interceptions that we are able to’t neglect. And that’s been lacking.
Circle again to the burden once more, and the way the automobiles simply gained’t tolerate the identical type of over-aggressive passing makes an attempt — like they did earlier than the 100 kilos of hybrid — with out shedding management, and you’ve got a newly flawed recipe.
Weight, plus tire compounds, plus comparable paces, plus no cautions and the passing alternatives these restarts convey, and a few or all of these elements have mixed from race to race to create the product seen throughout the 4 opening races.
I can consider one one who isn’t complaining concerning the present high quality of racing in IndyCar. Chris Jones/IMS Photograph
Q: It’s with a heavy coronary heart and far guilt that Huge Possum is taking pen at hand to put in writing this however the reality will out as somebody as soon as mentioned.
Huge Possum is a confirmed die-hard IndyCar fan – attending his first 500 in 1956 – and lots of, many, many, since. Little Possum has interned with a number of IndyCar groups on the Speedway whereas on his solution to a Purdue Mechanical engineering diploma and was passing tires over the wall throughout pit stops for McLaren and Félix Rosenquist one 12 months.
So Huge Possum tuned in to the Barber race Sunday – no extra have to be mentioned about that – and after Barber he become the NASCAR race at Texas.
Huge Possum isn’t a diehard NASCAR fan, doesn’t usually watch, however does form of observe it – favourite driver was the Silver Fox, David Pearson, arguably one of the best of all time – Texas was packed – and hush my mouth, however it was a significantly better present than the IndyCar race he simply left. Automobiles have been operating nearer collectively, cooler and extra pit stops, with a lot of the discipline coming in on the identical time and a pleasant show board of who beat who out of the pits, crashes, yellow flags, restarts and the winner was not decided till the final 4 or 5 laps, and it was fairly shut. Larson was operating away till he wasn’t, a number of comers and goers, green-white checker end… all in all, rattling entertaining. The TV broadcast confirmed the invocation and the Nationwide Anthem, not like one other channel he might title.
Huge Possum can see the attraction, pleasure and leisure worth, and that’s the reason the stands have been packed. They’ve their very own SiriusXM 24 hour radio present, and on and on.
The saving grace for IndyCar at the moment is the Indianapolis 500.
Not being important, and it’s with deep unhappiness that Huge Possum stories these info and he doesn’t have an answer.
Wanting ahead to seeing you on the Speedway. Meatloaf dinner on the Speedway American Legion corridor on Quick Friday. Pleased to have you ever be part of me as my visitor
Huge Possum
MP: Thanks for the invite, my man.
Actually robust second for Penske Leisure. How will they react?
Large new TV companion, heavy pre-season promoting marketing campaign targeted on driver personalities and the quickest racing on earth (*after land pace racing, air races, and drag racing), and coming into the season and FOX relationship, it had years upon years of with the ability to precisely say it had one of the best racing, and all of this has gone out the window in two months.
I exploit this description a couple of occasions per 12 months, however Penske wants to think about IndyCar as a product on the shelf. How does it feel and appear sitting subsequent to comparable merchandise on the identical shelf? What issues does its product provide that makes it stand out in one of the best methods in opposition to the others? Via 2024, I believe most would agree that its product was sturdy and interesting. And I believe most who’ve purchased and loved the product lately would acknowledge the product has modified, and adjusted considerably, in 2025, and never for the higher.
It’s simply not as interesting because it was final 12 months, and for these of us who love this product, it kills us to see it being buried behind the cabinets for F1, which has gone from being boring as hell to extremely entertaining, and IMSA, and so forth, which have nice merchandise to purchase as we speak.
And that’s not being important of Penske or IndyCar; it’s merely saying what’s actual.
The great factor is Penske has the only authority to make any and all adjustments to enhance its product. There are contracts, after all, with obligations to its auto producers and different official companions that may’t be ignored with out the chance of being sued; but when the product they assist to make isn’t promoting prefer it as soon as was, I’d hope they’d all come collectively and work on discovering fast fixes.
