Welcome to the RACER mailbag. Questions for RACER’s writers can be sent to: mailbag@racer.com. We welcome your comments and opinions, but letters with questions are more likely to be published. Questions received after 3:00 PM EST each Monday will be saved for the following week.
Q: If the Trans Am Series can hold races at Watkins Glen or COTA, why can’t IndyCar?
Also, as I noticed at this year’s Milwaukee Mile, drivers are no longer riding around the paddock on those little Honda bikes. Instead, they ride around on stand-up scooters. Pato came around my blind spot, but he didn’t want to let me fall. My guess is that sooner or later gravity will take over and one of the drivers will likely end up taking a hard fall and injuring himself. What happened to the bike?
Steve Sporer, Chicago
Marshall Pruett: It’s possible because Trans Am chose to race at WGI and COTA, and WGI and COTA chose to take money to have it race at their facilities. IndyCar would surely come back to WGI and COTA if IndyCar chose to race in both, and both wanted to pay IndyCar to race at their facilities or receive rental fees from IndyCar to host Penske-promoted events.
Scooters are still used by some teams, but most now prefer electric bikes, which are smaller and lighter.
Q: I recently learned that RLL is delivering McLaren cars to IMSA. However, I’m curious about what the logistics process is when moving from GTP to GTD. Will the team just pack everything up and send it back to BMW? Does BMW keep all the race data from the past few seasons?
Not Stefan Johansson
MP: RLL ran the BMW M Hybrid V8 at IMSA’s annual Preseason Balance of Performance Test at Daytona last week, and once testing was complete, it handed over the vehicle and vehicle-specific support equipment to GTP’s new BMW motorsport service provider, WRT (WRT already runs the M Hybrid V8 for BMW in WEC hypercars).
RLL took everything to Florida to test it out and finish it all off at the track. BMW will own all the data from the first day of driving at RLL. How the data on the RLL side is handled and what happens to it depends on what is agreed in the contract, but in most cases the team won’t be shredding files, drilling holes in hard drives, or scrubbing all the information held on internal/remote/cloud-based servers. Of course, there tends to be language that prevents information sharing, but most manufacturers are well aware that their teams are not forgetting what they know.
Q: I think the 2025 WWT Raceway Oval was the perfect IndyCar race. I vote for the monthly Saturday night event that takes place there every summer.
David Monette
MP: I agree with your vote, David.
Q: It’s great news that Ryan Hunter-Reay has been named the fourth McLaren driver for Indy. A much smarter choice than Larson last year. Ryan is a winner, knows his way around cars, and has no problems with his schedule. Larson had a great PR, but his win percentage wasn’t great. The question is, what other drivers do you expect to be nominated as Indy 500 exclusive drivers? Many talented people are waiting behind the scenes to prove their worth.
dave
MP: I don’t think there are any big surprises. If Connor Daly doesn’t get a full-time seat on the coin, he’s in pole position for the highest 500 seat available. Stephen Wilson continues to look for new opportunities. Charlie Kimball likes to say that I forget to mention him as one of the 500 candidates. Like Daly, even if Jacob Abel were to miss the season at some point, he would still want to be in the first 500 if a good spot is available. Indy NXT veteran James Law has his eye on something in Indy. Sebastian Saavedra hopes to return for another month in May. Katherine Legge is still interested. Then I ran out of names.
Oh, and Valentino Rossi was supposed to be the big surprise Arrow McLaren had in store for May. I asked him about it through a colleague who attended the WEC season finale. His reply? “I don’t know anything about this.”
Q: I just finished reading “Class of 99” by John Oleovich. This was a great read centered around my favorite era of IndyCar racing. Describing the difficult times for Penske at the time, Oleovich noted that Team Penske replaced the Lola chassis during the 1999 season due to competitive issues with the Penske chassis. I don’t remember that happening, but I was only 12 at the time, so I probably didn’t realize it.
What kind of agreements did teams have with engine/tire/chassis manufacturers during this era? Would any team drop a manufacturer from their “package” mid-season, or was Penske swapping from their own chassis so they could run a different chassis?
Chris, Olney, Maryland
MP: The Penske PC27 looked great but wasn’t competitive, so I switched to the Lola B99/00 about a third of the way through the season. I worked on this piece with the Hogan Racing Team. I really liked that car.
The last question was difficult to answer because the teams had separate agreements and there were 15 or 16 teams. Tire and engine supply contracts are generally untenable, and top teams would have been paid millions of dollars by manufacturers. On the chassis side, they were a commodity to buy, so Laura was willing to sell Penske cars for over $500,000 each. If Penske wanted to run a Reynard and a Swift, both would have sold cars to them as well, but since the Reynard was the dominant model and had large development deals with top teams, there must have been some pushback from leading teams trying to arm Penske while Penske was irrelevant in 1999.
We know that all changed during the offseason, when Penske not only acquired the Rayners, but retooled them so drastically that they were nicknamed “The Lenskes” and stormed off to win CART titles in 2000 and 2001.
There was Rayners in 2000 or 2001, and then *these* Rayners came along. John Ferry/Getty Images
Q: Our grandfather and grandmother lived next door to the Hulman family in Terre Haute and then moved to Indianapolis. Their six children and the Hulman family next door soon had a baseball team. My grandfather built the first scoring pylon in his garage and hauled it to the speedway by horse and wagon. Do any of the original scoring pylons remain?
phil barrett jr.
MP: If we’re working on a hypothetical timeline, the first big pylon was built in 1959, but according to my phone call with the good folks at the IMS Museum, they don’t have any inventory of that structure. If part or whole exists somewhere else, you can start a fun global search.
Q: I wish the recent IndyCar test in Phoenix had been like in the past with the entire field in preparation for January’s season opener in Orlando or Homestead.
Speaking of which, can you recall Dr. Helmut Marko’s brief flirtation with the Indy Racing League, which lasted just two races before the late Dave Steele and his F3000 team left their tails behind and headed back to Europe? I’m trying to dredge this up from my deepest memory because Autosport magazine’s IRL coverage at the time was terrible. Did his car actually have a BMW engine in the back, or is it just my imagination? But BMW was certainly on the radar as a potential third supplier along with Oldsmobile and Nissan. Does RACER also have photos of Marco’s car?
It makes you wonder what the IndyCar landscape would be like today if the RSM Marco team had been as successful in the original IRL in the late 90s. That was a few years before Eddie Cheever signed a Red Bull sponsorship deal. I’m sure IndyCar would welcome the brand’s involvement again.
Peter Kerr, Hamilton, Scotland
MP: I was on the team side with the TKM/Genoa Racing team at the time and saw the match take place with RSM and Steel. BMW was not involved. Being a big fan of Steele, I was really looking forward to this event taking place, even though there are IndyCar veterans behind the program, with the added angle of a top F3000 team taking on the challenge. Mike Colliver, who was with Dale Coyne Racing last season, recently reminded me of his involvement in this effort.
It would have been great if RSM was successful, but I never thought it would be something that changed IRL. Compared to CART at the time, IRL was a lot like Indy Lights/F3000, and it was easy for a Lights team like us to go directly from 1996 Lights to 1997 IRL with the same staff and be competitive right away. That wasn’t possible with CART.
I had wanted to feature Marco’s brief and forgettable run in American open wheel, but Steele passed away in 2017, which sucked, and I lost interest. After a few years, I finally reached out to Marko to see if he would be available for a chat in early 2021. And I received the following reply:
Dear Marshall
Unfortunately, it was a long time ago that I appeared in Phoenix, so I don’t remember much about it.
thank you
Helmut Marko
Q: The damper program may not be the biggest topic, but IndyCar’s grid is tight enough that it can be a deciding factor in who’s first and who’s second. So I think potential OEMs considering which teams they should partner with are concerned about whether they can win a championship (I doubt Penske and Ganassi sell the same dampers that are in their cars). Using a spec damper can help in that regard. I thought Penske would supply the dampers.
And a torque sensor was also used in the test. I don’t think IndyCar can get new OEMs without them now.
Do these two things indicate that the people who manage IndyCar have finally achieved common sense and new OEMs are coming on board (and Honda is staying), or am I reading too much into this?
William Mazzeo
MP: If there’s even one automaker on the fence about committing $50 million or more to a multi-year IndyCar engine supply program, and you’re looking at damper specs to get that manufacturer to say “yes,” keep that crappy manufacturer out of the series.
Going to spec shock has nothing to do with common sense. Whatever is left for development will be where the team spends the most money. Since the shock was left open, it’s a high R&D cost. Once the shock is removed, teams can spend their money in the next best area. And once all the unresolved items are removed, teams end up spending even more money because they have few differentiators and are nearly impossible to find. A total game of Whack-A-Mole is being played.
Manufacturers routinely use torque sensors during testing and even some practice sessions. One day in May, I noticed Marco Andretti loading them into his car at Indy. However, I am hopeful that the next vehicle will have standard fare.
Q: F1 is definitely on a huge upward trajectory in North America. Not too long ago IndyCar, then NASCAR, then US F1 IndyCar found its way to third place, but we don’t know if it will stop there. What are the long-term implications for the Indy 500?The press and young people (those interested in motorsport) are now obsessed with F1, which should scare the IndyCar powerhouses.
Jim Riddle, Highlands, North Carolina
MP: The Indy 500 in 2024-2025 has had two of the biggest attendances I’ve seen in decades, and TV viewership has increased dramatically over the past two years. So if we deviate from the numbers and trends, we have a good feeling about the 500 and its future.
Another thing that gives me confidence is that the same young people who have been learning about F1 and supporting F1 wholeheartedly over the past five years are also learning about IndyCar and supporting F1 in the same way. IndyCar’s “rejuvenation” (not a word, but I love it so I use it a lot) is one of the biggest and most important achievements of the series beyond 2024. That’s how this series will sustain itself in the long run.
IndyCar is reaching young fans and hopefully converting them into lifelong fans. Joe Skibinski/Penske Entertainment
Q: Just for a laugh, I Googled Burke Lakefront Airport and IndyCar and found out that Cleveland officials are considering bringing back the race and are probably already in talks with IndyCar. Although it will probably be a public road race rather than on the airport grounds. I think this could be huge, perhaps with some concerts, ticket deals, support races, and a partnership with the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. This has the potential to become a spectacle for Long Beach on Lake Erie.
Also consider recent collaborations with Mayer Shank/Sirius XM, Bon Jovi, Creed, Ozzy Osbourne, and Metallica. It seems like a natural marriage to actively pursue. And… Willie P plays the drums. What else do I need?
Are there any rumors you can reveal? are they talking?
Jeff, Colorado
MP: I’ve only heard of it as a street race. Nolan Siegel is playing guitar. Joseph Newgarden plays the jazz flute, as does Ron Burgundy (he doesn’t play it, but I love the idea).
I love the Hall of Fame, but it’s a little too old for what’s needed here. If Penske Entertainment/Fox is going to launch a series of new street racing festivals across the country, it needs to skew toward younger audiences. IndyCar already has an older fan base, and using the museum will cater to that demographic. Most of the MSR/SiriusXM car bands were cool, but they also appealed almost exclusively to older fans. By the way, I happen to love some of those bands, but I also know that I’m no longer the target demographic that IndyCar is supposed to appease.
The motive for street festivals is to appeal to new audiences, knowing that your base may be interested as well.
Q: Considering how good Ferrari’s pace was in 2024, how much of an impact did the change from pushrod to pullrod suspension have on the 2025 car? I remember during pre-season testing there was discussion that this was a major change in concept and design.
Tifosi Beau (Edmonton)
Chris Medland: To be honest, it’s a big deal, but I would appreciate it more as a ripple effect. Ferrari followed McLaren and Red Bull with its concept and changed the front suspension from pushrods to pullrods. This is designed to improve the car’s performance in high-speed corners, allowing airflow and allowing the car to drive closer to the ground to get more performance from the floor.
In reality, it didn’t work. As became clear very early on, there was a related effect of actually not being able to run the car as low as Ferrari would like (part of the reason it won a double DSQ in China earlier this year), as there was a risk of too much plate wear. We’ve seen other instances where a fair amount of lift and coasting is needed late in the race, and the theory is that as fuel drops and corner speeds increase, the floor could once again become a legality issue.
In a sense, Ferrari did the right thing by changing its approach in pursuit of further performance improvements, knowing that McLaren would not stand still. However, the associated issues with this change were never addressed, which further slowed Ferrari down.
The glimmer of hope is that the changes come after a year of pain ahead of a complete overhaul of regulations next year.
Q: I’m a big fan of Brad Keselowski, and I saw an article where he said that. I am interested in leading an IMSA team.. Is there any chance he will represent the team in the race, or will he strictly run the race as the winner? Personally, I would love to see Brad race in at least one event.
Also, is there any chance that Brad might return RFK to Xfinity or the Truck Series and drive a few races?
Zack
RJ O’Connell: I’ll leave it to Kelly to decide what RFK’s plans are beyond the Cup Series. But, as Keselowski said, he wasn’t looking to IMSA as an off-ramp from NASCAR, was never keen on adding road and street course races to the Cup Series, and never stood out as one of the elite road course racers even during his heyday with Team Penske. can never say never However, when it comes to Rolex 24 drives. Brad said on Twitter (now X) in 2012 that he even said he wanted to race one day, but the timing was never right. Perhaps it would be possible to drive a GTD PRO or GTD in a Ford Mustang GT3. I don’t think he’s very qualified to drive a current generation GTP car…although I’m always open to being wrong.
Kelly Crandall: Anything is possible, but there has been no indication from Brad Keselowski or anyone at RFK Racing that there is any interest in moving into Xfinity or trucks. Adding a third car to the Cup Series is a big deal and has been a major priority for the last few years, and the focus seems to be on the Cup Series side.
The organization has definitely improved since Keselowski arrived a few seasons ago, but everyone will tell you there’s still a lot of work to do and more to accomplish, especially considering the history of the place. So, again, I’m not saying never, but there’s no movement toward that yet. As far as I can remember, the last time Keselowski specifically mentioned the Xfinity series was in 2023, when he was interested in how the CW deal would work for the series.
last word
From Robin Miller’s Mailbag, November 20, 2013
Q: Like probably many fans, I had a lot of opportunities to talk to Dario Franchitti. Dario and I talked about what it was like to drive Jim Clark’s Indy 500 Lotus and his recent great race in Baltimore. Every time we spoke he treated me as if I were his Scottish neighbor. But more than that, I loved how he spent time with the kids asking for photos and autographs. Dario will retire as one of the greatest IndyCar drivers of all time. And winning the Indy 500 three times makes him immortal. So, while I know firsthand what a fascinating guy he is and have been lucky enough to see all of his 500 wins, I know that you guys are closer to him and know more about what happened to his success as a driver. What do you remember about Dario?
Jerry Courtney, San Francisco
Robin Miller: I noticed how quickly he adapted to the 900 horsepower and CART tracks, but mainly how instantly competitive he was against a great group of drivers. He was neither frightened nor awed by his new surroundings, but stepped into them as if he belonged. And I love discussing cars, circuits, TGBB and racing in general with him. But his personality, sense of humor, intelligence, and sense of history made him just as good off the course as on it.
