(upbeat music) - Welcome to the Marshall Crook podcast. And you're week in any car, a listener Q and A. Last week I told you we're gonna get right back on schedule. And I lied. I'm so sorry I didn't beat you. Ah, yeah, it's not Monday as I've hoped our Tuesday, but it is indeed Thursday. But yeah, there is no butt. Ah, let's suck. So, but I endeavor to do better next week. Hey, we just had a double header at Iowa. And oh, there's a lot to talk about during and after. And we're about to rush right into Toronto. And then teams finally get a bit of a break after three race weekends in a row, four total races. And things just being super extra grueling. So why don't we say a big thank you to those who make the show possible and then come right back? Time to say a big thank you to our show partners on the Marshall Crook podcast, starting with FAFT Technologies. 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All the show stickers, models, racing member of Beelium, trying to sell and put towards our fun to buy a house is now live and rocking, ThePruittStore.com. Greatly appreciate all of the questions you sent in, trying to get to as many as we can here. Our friend Jerry Siteth, who puts the show together for us, grabs all the questions that you send in, those when I put out the call for questions on my ex slash Twitter profile @martialpruitt. And then on Facebook, the Marshall Pruitt podcast, Facebook page, the only two places to submit questions. Jerry goes and grabs those because they are public, picks the ones that he thinks work best for the week, places them in an entertaining order, and then gives some options for overtime items. And so this week, his lovely submission is, we had about 40 questions and over 2,200 words. Said he's broken them down into the following categories. Group one, Iowa questions, opinions on the energy recovery system, Frucci's use of it, how to fix the racing at Iowa, will the racing improve, was Stingray Rob, the cause of the crash, that was really bad for him, Rossi and strategy snafoos, et cetera, thoughts on Ed Carpenter's comments, and so on. Group two, talking about explaining the hybrid costs, will Prema Racing replace Ed Carpenter racing? What's with Ray Hollitt, I'm in Lannigan's pace, and ECR's pace, and Group three? I don't know if we're gonna get to those, but nonetheless, we'll get to as many as we can. So with all that said, Chris Kalei, with you open the show for us this week, say how do you feel the hybrid boost worked on the Ovals? See, most drivers were using it on the back stretch, but nowhere else on the track, says was Centino Frucci able to use a hybrid boost better than the others? He seemed to be able to pass better than most. How in your opinion, will teams gain an advantage to come Milwaukee with the hybrid? Yeah, and there's a lot of stuff here. So instead of packing it all into answering Chris's question, we'll try and break some of the topics down. First of all, boy, if ever anyone doubted how much Iowa Speedway is beloved for the quality of IndyCar racing it has put on prior to 2024, we sure got a lesson in that, didn't we of just truly? Wow, fans, drivers, broadcasters love it. And when you lose something like that, as we did last weekend, that loss really does stand out. So glad to see the passion for this. 18-ish second lap, right, Chris, varied between 17 and 20 seconds or so. But yeah, 18 and a half seconds or so is about the place where we saw a lot of laps turn, 19.0, similar. With the 105 kilojoule per lap, maximum energy limit set by the series it meant, get about three seconds or so of that 60 horsepower boost per lap. Assuming that you are harvesting one thing we've learned, and if you don't care about the hybrids, I gotta be honest, if we saw the passion people have for Iowa Speedway and wanting the good racing back, I think we also saw the real flaring up of folks who just don't give two farts about going hybrid in IndyCar. For me, former engineer, mechanic race engineer, all that, and really is maybe the last person who covers the technical side in IndyCar. I'm a big fan of the engineering side, the metal and the software and the components fascinate me. The racing, well, that's a very different thing. So I'm having to temper my enthusiasm for having something new to talk about. It's been a while since we've had something truly new and interesting on the cars. But again, tech curiosity, yeah, boy, we definitely confirmed that not a lot of folks in the grandstands or using their smartphones, keyboards are otherwise to express their true love for IndyCar going hybrid. But nonetheless, three-ish seconds or so per lap, learned across Mid-Ohio and both Iowa races too, that there are two options we've known about for harvesting, right, for gathering that energy, putting it into the energy storage system, the battery basically, and then sending it back out to the rear wheels in the form of about 60 horsepower. Do it manually, drivers could do that in the cockpit, could squeeze the regeneration paddle, also known as the clutch pedals. It's also a button that could depress to make the car harvest. And then there's the automated side. I'm just gonna mention this 'cause I think it might guide some of the further conversations here coming up about hybridization. Really curious when we launched hybridization at Mid-Ohio to see, okay, two options here. I mean, you can do both. Actually, you could do manual harvesting and automated too. You lift off the throttle, the ECU sees that and says, "Hey, start harvesting," and you touch the brakes and it starts harvesting. There's a lot of scenarios you can put in to have it harvest automatically. It was just very curious, Chris, to see, ooh, are there gonna be two camps, or one side really gonna try and master the automated, the other side, whomever those drivers or teams might be, try and become experts in manual harvesting, and then we'll hopefully have a reckoning sometime soon to find out which one, now. It's basically all automated. Not saying there was never any manual, but I'm just saying, for the most part, they're just letting the automated harvesting happen. And so I mentioned that because it changes the view here, this isn't necessarily Santino or anyone else doing something trick or special in the cockpit with the energy recovery system to get that 60 horsepower to use. It's pretty much just happening, whether he's lifting, whether he's breaking, it's doing it for him and others, by and large. This is what I've just been told, fast majority, just letting the automated harvesting happen, and then pressing the button to use that 60 horsepower. In his case, it was not a factor at all. He is one of the best short oval drivers, one of the top two in the series, without a doubt. He believes he's number one, told me as such in an interview that went up, I think Saturday night after race one, and yeah. Joseph Newgarden, Santino Farucci, the two best short oval drivers in IndyCar, and those were the two who tore through the field better than anyone, would not attach hybridization, energy recovery systems, anything to their ability to do that. As for what it might do in terms of an advantage when we get to Milwaukee, before that, what we get to Gateway, worldwide technology, Raceway, I don't think it's gonna have anything. Chris, I really don't, because it's like any time pushed to pass. We know that push to pass is reserved strictly for road and street courses in IndyCar, and they cap, give you a maximum amount of seconds you can use at per race, 150 to 200, whatever it might be based on the circuit. This is just that, in a much shorter duration of power, available per lap, but there's no time limit, meaning you can never run out of using the 60 horsepower before the end of the race. You're limited to how much you can use that power per lap. Again, it's a seconds based thing. This weekend at Toronto, I'll have to do the math, but I'm guessing it'll be seven to eight seconds per lap or so, maybe a little bit more, but knowing that this is not something you have to really and truly protect like push to pass seconds, and that you can indeed use it every lap as long as you're harvesting. I think what we're seeing is folks are pretty much just doing the same thing over and over again. Most folks are using it in more or less the same places. Most folks having the harvesting done in just about the same places. What we haven't seen yet to close here, Chris, and move on to the next question, but we certainly reserve the hope that it might emerge this weekend in Toronto. We get back to racing in August after the Olympic break at the various tracks we're going to, Portland and Nashville and so on, is for someone to stand out and go, "Hey, whoa, look at what they're doing." It is radically different. It has given them something that is allowing them to perform one, two, whatever, tenths per second better than others. We're not looking for a huge hammer of explosive acceleration. We're getting because the internal combustion engines make 700 plus horsepower a piece. Adding 60 horsepower is great, right? Not quite 10%, but it's a noticeable addition, but it's not a game-changing addition. And so therefore, it's adding some power on top, but not in a radically, radically altering way to lap time or lap speed. So the thing we'll be looking for, and privately nobody within the paddock really thinks it's possible, but again, we'll keep our eyes open, is for someone to stand out and use it to gain an advantage lap after lap. There's no real ability, I mean, no significant ability, even minor ability that we have seen so far. Road course at Mid-Ohio, short oval at Iowa Speedway, for it to be a fuel conserving tool. So it'll be really interesting to see coming out of Toronto, just when I plan on doing a deeper round of calls to race strategists, to engineers, to drivers, to say, hey, done a road course, a street course and a short oval now. Tell me what you know, what have you learned? What is it doing that is different or allowing you to do differently? I already did that after Mid-Ohio, called a bunch of race strategists and said, hey, what did it do? How did it change what you do? And the answers varied from nothing. A lot of nothing or not much. One, Ricardo Hunkos, who I love, was like not only nothing, but I just called the race like it wasn't there. Is there for the driver? They used it cool, but like, it didn't change a single thing for me in the timing stand of when to pit, how to pit, how to do anything. And a lot of the other answers were too new to really give you any deep insights, lots to learn, check back later. So do that after Toronto and try and fill that multi-week void of not a lot going on, news and information wise, Chris. Andrew Miller, hey, you got a question nobody has asked. Coming out of last weekend, how do we fix the racing in Iowa? I'm kidding. Says we are coming back to Iowa for years to come very true. There's an announcement that high V and whatnot is extended will be there for more years to come. So he said, "Surely track and serious management "will be looking into the house and wise "of what made last weekend horrible. "Any idea what options are realistically fixable?" We'll save the Ed Carpenter stuff for a little later 'cause he certainly has a very strong opinion. Not saying the tenants of his thoughts are wrong, but this was a tire thing. This was all about tires and it's easy to blame Firestone to say they got it wrong. I do not believe they got it wrong. I believe that we have learned when it comes to repaves, least on ovals need to look at a wider variety of compounds, possibly constructions to test and find something that will degrade at a rate that will allow the thing that is made Iowa and some other short ovals truly spectacular and that is risers and fallers. Those who are going fast and those who are going comparatively slow. Some who've decided to do one more pit stop than everybody else so they can be on fresher tires more often and others may be doing a more traditional strategy where they have to extend the life of their tires and towards the end of that life, they are way off and so you get this somewhat constant back and forth. It's two races going on at once effectively. Those with highly degraded tires and those on fresher and happier and faster tires. We lost that last weekend and we therefore lost the entertainment. Little bit of a quick background here to close. The week prior to the race, I believe it was the week prior, maybe it was the week before, there was a mostly full field, I think pretty much everybody tested there and some significant tire problems aware of a big, big tire blowout and crash with one car, two others, I have been struggling to pin down whether there were actual tire failures or tires just on the verge of failing. Right front tires is what I was told. It's an issue caused by a couple of things as it was described to me by two different race engineers. And this all feeds into what we had in terms of tires for the race weekend, whatever it would have been a week later or two weeks later. With the repaved track and the extreme high levels of grip that were newly available with the heavier cars with the 105 pounds of weight added through the energy recovery system, Firestone did exactly what you would think they would do and that was to bring harder tires that with that weight would not degrade as much be punished by the track itself. What they found was the tire, especially the right front according to the two engineers who informed me, right front tire was too hard, too dense and that weight, that heat, the extreme grip now being available caused temperatures in the right front particular to be unloaded massively to shoot through the roof because the tire was not degrading, not shedding rubber, not thinning at all. That heat was staying in the carcass and went nuclear and that's where the problems stemmed from as it was described to me. Decision was made to come back for race weekend with different right side tires and in the bulletin to the teams was noted that the new right side tires that would be used would degrade more, have more degradation and alleviate the extreme temperature issues that were causing the problems of the test. Also, the hope was to again have higher degradation, have the tires drop off more and create that situation of risers and fallers and the excitement we would see going on from that. That did not happen. Tires on the right side at least. Overall, we're still too hard slash too durable. It's a strange thing. Talk about tires as being too durable because normally that's a compliment. Here with the crazy grip available now in the newly paved track, that mix of degradation on the newly paved circuit was mismatched. Too much durability therefore, although solved the overheating and blowout problem, still didn't get back to where things were in 2023 and prior in terms of matched degradation and the risers and fallers making for fun racing. So there are other things here too that can be done to improve racing. I won't go into all those because to me they are a distant second, third, fourth and otherwise. But Firestone and IndyCar doing more running at Iowa in full hybrid specification to find tires that will indeed not survive an entire stint giving more or less the same performance they did at the beginning of the stint. Getting back to that, finding that tire that does that brings us back to an Iowa that everybody loves. Dave, Mr. Geek in brackets here. What's your take on the lack of passing since going hybrid? Is this the new norm? Will the competitiveness improve? As teams get more accustomed to the hybrid cars, are drivers still figuring out push to pass in relation to hybrid? Well, they had both push to pass and the energy recovery system boost at Medohio and they'll have it again this weekend at Toronto and then one more time with both power adders at Portland. Drivers are fine, no big deal. The lack of passing because we went hybrid, I'm not necessarily buying in to that. I know that's been blamed. I need a few more races before I'm willing to say that yeah, the added weight has indeed tipped us over the edge where have to protect the tires more because if we do push to hard road streets, ovals, wherever we are going to wear those out well before the end of the stint, then we will be prone to being passed or they're too hard and just not enough grip and we can't be as aggressive as we once were. Corner entry under braking, corner exit, power down. No argument at all that the addition of 105 pounds to a car that was already too heavy. It hasn't helped anything. We don't need more races to know that. Is this the thing where you go, oh, this is what pushed us over the edge? I'm not there yet. Let's see this weekend. Toronto is normally pretty entertaining from a passing standpoint, especially turn three, end of the long back straight, a lot of bravery going into that corner, even coming out in a couple other spots where we do indeed see passing happen pretty easily and readily. The hard tires took away that being a common thing happening at Iowa. We saw the first couple of laps, whether it was a start or the restarts, where bravery and trying to use the second line a little bit, that certainly allowed passing to happen. But once everybody's tires are up to temp, it was pretty much single file. Mid Ohio, I didn't think was as bad as some folks did, but I'm looking to this weekend, Dave, to really give not final answer, but help me arrive at a conclusion as to whether, yeah, yeah, that weight is now really ruining the fun. Tyler Russell, MPD, you have any more information on what exactly the hybrid issues were during qualifying at Iowa? Is this something we expect to be fully fixed for the rest of the season? I do expect them to be fixed. The problem is this, and wrote about this on racer.com, I think Wednesday. The same process used with the push to pass system that you might've learned about, read about, or otherwise, when the whole Team Penske scandal thing happened. The same system and communications pathway used for push to pass from race control is used for the energy recovery systems. So with push to pass, which is only available road and street courses, starting in warmup, pre-race warmup, and then the race itself in no other time, it is activated prior to the start of warmup and the race from race control with them flipping a proverbial switch. That instruction then goes out through the timing and scoring system, track side beacons and such. The cars have a transponder on them. It's made by a company called MyLaps, and that transponder receives the signal, the message from race control, saying, hey, push to pass, turn on and work. That signal goes through the MyLaps transponder to the ECU engine control unit, and the ECU that does indeed control the engine receives that message from race control, through the beacons, through the MyLaps, into the ECU, and the ECU gets the hey, let push to pass, work when they press the button, and then works. Same exact thing goes on with the energy recovery systems. Race control, flipping the proverbial switch, beacons, MyLaps, ECU, hey, you can harvest, you can deploy. What they were doing and qualifying was turning it on and off. Per car, as I understand things, and they got some false positives on the software side. So, in race control, haven't seen the software. I can't tell you what the user interface looks like. Again, I can't tell you, I just don't know. But as I was told by the series, in race control, the software was telling them, Jack Harvey, your car has received the signal that the ERS is on, harvest on your final warm-up lap and use that 60 horsepower to start your qualifying run. Same with Colton Herda. Those, as I'm told, were false positives. The software said the signals, the green lights had been sent, but indeed they either were not or did not make it to the cars. That part, I'm not a thousand percent sure on, but software said, thumbs up, did it, everything's good to go, go get your 60 horses to use, and did not happen. So, I am told, found the problem. It's been rectified, been told it is a kind of oval, qualifying procedure-specific thing. And I'm also led to think that when we qualify next on an oval, WWTR, Milwaukee for the double-header in Nashville, and I think maybe just going forward in general, I think race control might just leave it on. So, yeah, glitchy, but, you know, I'm not making excuses. I'm just sharing the truth here. Like, we should be really happy with how well things have been working for a mid-season introduction of a vastly different type of technology that has ever been carried in an indie car. I thought we were gonna be okay at Mid-Ohio and we were, but in the back of my mind, I'm like, okay, there are 27 cars if half of them are smoldering on the side of the road with failed MGUs or ESSs or whatever. If the hybrid done said we're not hybrid anymore, we're just gonna be an internal combustion engine 'cause the other thing blew up, would not have been surprised. The fact that we haven't had calamity on a wide basis on a wide-scale measure, that to me, Tyler, is the thing that I'm like, oh, okay, I mean, we had some issues in the race. Race one, was it? Yeah. I'm not laughing 'cause it's funny, I'm just laughing 'cause I was like, wow. Linus Lundqvist, for example. His ERS unit, his Beck Bell housing supplied by Ilmore, oh, that got changed Saturday night. His system stopped working during the race. Car ground to a halt. I can't tell you what failed, and I don't wanna say failure 'cause I don't know exactly the root cause. I just know that it stopped working. I also know, eyewitness report from a friend who said that when they got the car back, 'cause they had to tow it in, when they got the car back and took the engine cover off, the wiring loom, the main loom attached to the bell housing/energy recovery system was glowing hot. And when you have wiring, right, not metal, but wiring, that is like the color of the sun, not on fire, just glowing. Houston, we do indeed have a problem. So by no means perfect, we obviously saw that Scott Dixon was the first to have a big issue at Ohio. We're gonna continue to have problems because it's brand new technology because that's what happens in racing. I just mention this because I realize it may be for some newer fans of IndyCar motor racing in general. We've been in a spec era for a while now to where failures are pretty rare. This stuff might seem like gross incompetence because one or two cars had energy recovery system failures or problems that here or there or software glitches might've mucked things up a bit. Just telling you, as someone who's been doing this for a long time, this is totally normal. It just, to me, stands out in this era as abnormal like you wouldn't believe because this hasn't been customary because normally the kinks get worked out in spec racing long before the first race happens. But we're doing this mid-season so naturally. If this were to get pushed down the road and say, hey, we're taking the ERSs out and we're just going back to the way things were and we're gonna spend more time developing the systems during the off season and just start again, start a new at St. Pete next year. Guess what? We would still have problems, might be fewer problems, but the way new stuff like this gets made to be better, if not really, really, really good, is being on track in racing conditions in a situation where we do indeed learn a ton and make them better. Eric Franklin, right rear failure on Felix Rose and Viscar and race two were called the failure and resulting hit that Joseph Newgarden had in 2022, or Iowa double, or double headers on these high load ovals inherently more prone to these failures. Is there enough time to tear down and check everything that should be checked? I hear you. Again, I'm just looking at this quickly. Eric, from a numbers standpoint, 27 cars happened to one of them in 2022. I take that back. I don't remember how many cars were in the race, but 24, 25, who knows whatever the exact number was when Newgarden had that failure. This year we know there were 27 when they said it was a damper failure for Felix in the right rear. It was a rocker arm failure for Joseph. Only one out of the 27 that I'm aware of that had that happen. On Saturday, Graham had the spokes on his right front wheel, seven of the eight spokes crack all the way through. So, if we were talking three to five cars having this and I'd say, yeah, we're getting into some bad percentages. No question, the loads are high. But numerically, I'm not seeing the kind of failure numbers to make me go, oh boy, big issue or a lot of things being missed. So, the inspection part for sure, there will be a post mortem on Felix's damper and also on Graham's wheel. Try and find out what happened. Was there something missed? Is this just an age thing? Again, I don't know. But, yeah, the numbers say not something for us to worry about. And I realize there's also the frame of mind that even if it happens once, that's too much. Yeah, I don't disagree. But this is not like a running shoe where you go like, okay, how did it perform? This is a vehicle made of a thousand different parts where they're all stressed and overheated and you name it. And the fact that they hold together it all blows me away. But a failure of one component like this in one car in a cross 500 combined laps of racing doesn't stand out to me as something to be worried about. Andy Bauer, kind of enough to say continued prayers for your wife. Thank you, Andy. Says, feels like not being able to put Connor Daley in the 18 car for the Saturday race was a failure, both the team and the series, putting Jack at unnecessary risk, even if only for 28 laps. And everyone got hamstrung by the rule book, but it didn't do anyone. There's Jack, the team, the series of the fans, any good. To have Harvey do a few laps and park the car, your thoughts. Yeah, I agree. Couple of things just to counter that quickly. I don't recall who said it. I wasn't a thought that I had. So I apologize for forgetting who to credit, but they said, you know, Jack was in pain the whole time. Jack was an extreme pain in practice on Friday. That was definitely a known thing. He came out of Mid, Ohio in extreme pain. If we were wanting to make sure that covering our bases, definitely could have arranged to have a replacement or reserve or whatever driver in the car to say, start the session or stop a little bit early and have them close the session. Or if you felt after Friday that, you know, just for whatever reason, weren't able to find the time, go to the series and request, hey, we don't do a lot on Saturday until we qualify in the early afternoon. Could we do a special session for 10 or 15 minutes or could we use that void that open space and time to try and, again, just make sure someone gets enough laps, Connor, whomever, just in case. So there's that. There's the, hey, this was a known problem coming in. I mean, to be honest, I kept waiting to see something that said another driver is gonna be in the 18 car this weekend, not because Jack isn't tough. Jack's as tough as they come and was surprised when that didn't happen. I mean, there were certainly things team could have done to try and cover themselves off before we got to this situation. Saturday evening was told that Connor was gonna go in. That then changed, I think, IndyCar, whatever. There's the other thing here too, the 18 car having missed the Indy500 lost points that it really didn't wanna lose. That has hurt it in the leader circle race and the entrance championship. Realize it having the car run somebody doing laps in it to hopefully get some points for starting. Important to the team, right? There's a million dollars at stake. If they were to lose out on a leader circle, but car, the entry is already not in a great place with a leader circle. And I forget where Jack ended up, but way towards the back. Technically, yes, a couple of points were earned, but I'd just say no one was forcing him to drive the team. Certainly did not have to put the 18 car out. Jack has sponsors, I get all that. They wanna see the car on track. That's the benefit they're getting. Mark it and promote what they're doing. And there's a bunch of reasons to make sure the car goes out. But having seen Jack, spoken to him two hours before the race or whatever it was, is brutal. Standing there under the lift at their transporters, Jack came over, I would assume from IndyCar Medical, Dr. Weiser was with him. She escorted him back to the transporter. I happen to be standing to Jack's side when he came back. Connor Daly was inside putting on Jack's spare suit to go and get fitted to the car. And came running out while we were standing there. And it's great to see Jack, Jack and his dad, who's awesome as well. And not only was it yet again, just plain to the eyes that wow, this guy is in brutal pain, but I mean, he was almost completely locked up. The back and neck problems that he's been having since Mid-Ohio, I said whatever it was to him after he was done speaking to whomever was standing directly in front of him. And again, I was to his right 90 degree angle. I said whatever I said to Jack once he was done and instead of turning his head to talk, he had to turn his whole body and square his shoulders to my own in order to look at me and talk face to face because he could not turn his back, could not turn his neck. And I'm not saying he couldn't turn his neck an inch. I'm just saying like normally in those situations the person kinda just looks over their shoulder a little bit and whatever, in order to have a conversation, he had to rotate his entire body 90 degrees. Like, jeez, right? So super tough, no question, try and grit it out. My concern was what if there is something that happens in front of him where he needs to do some sort of super rapid, high force, instant exertion thing to avert running into some, but again, someone does something in front of him where he has to take emergency avoiding action. Will the constant pain, the moving, turning, twisting, doing the things that he has to do to drive the car, will he have enough power to do that, knowing that again, he's so racked in pain and so stiff and unable to move. Like, I was just thinking of that, not can he grit through it, but you've ever seen something my dad had back problems the whole time I knew him and it changed every aspect about his life. When he was having back pain, same kind of thing, his whole body was basically just one locked item and weak, couldn't use all of his strength. The pain itself was just sapping his energy. You'd just see that it was brutal existence. And I saw Jack and I'm like, I know exactly what I'm looking at here. And if he has to apply instant, crazy, fast, torque and power to the steering wheel to do something, I don't know if he's gonna have all of that available to the level he might need. Thankfully, we did not have a situation, Andy, where that was required. But yeah, that was tough to watch. So, for sure, I wish the rules would have allowed, I don't know, a little more flexibility or something like that. But they had a big concerts going on where they're taking over the front straight. So there wasn't as much time, there wasn't any time after qualifying to do a special session for Connor to get to know the car. Keep in mind that yes, he raced one of these in May at the Indy 500 pre-hybrid, right? Never driven this car with that extra weight on this track with it repaved like it is, he's a monster at Iowa has been, but if I was one of the other drivers, even if Connor was my best friend, I would have said, yeah, no, I don't want a guy who hasn't driven this hybrid car on this track, jumping and having to figure all this stuff out, all the differences and how it handles, how it does, whatever, the grip, the tires, all just on lap one of the race, that is not how you go into a professional motor race with that much to have to figure out. If this were the same car, Connor drove, no specification change from the Indy 500, or you know what I mean? I might have a different viewpoint of this if I was another driver, but I just know from the series standpoint, if this was the only option available to the team, got it, it wasn't. I got to believe some other actions, preventative or worst case scenario type, hey, Jack, we love you, but I know we got 90 minutes for practice on Friday, but you're gonna get 60 or 75 or something because we do need to chuck somebody in, just in case, so get their laps, case we need to put them in for the rest of the weekend, or, hey, we're already struggling in the leader circle, whether we get five points for starting or whatever it is or not. Could make the difference, of course, but maybe just in the best interest of anyone, everyone, we sit this one out. Ray Helmer's, curious about what caused the Blake and Light issue in Armstrong's car. Don't know, I asked the series, they didn't know, but once the full field went yellow, or once the race went yellow, all the caution lights were blinking, and once we went back to green, it turned off, solved the problem. Tim Falkowitz, great race in this weekend, but bittersweet knowing it was Lee Diffie's last IndyCar race, gonna miss him for hashtag me personally. Ian Paul Page of the iconic IndyCar broadcasters, hopefully can have one last podcast appearance before the new TV deal starts, of course. I mean, Lee's an old friend, and keep in mind, unless something changes, I would imagine we'll be hearing Lee's beautiful voice on some of the bigger Impser races next year, right? That's been a big part of Lee's career since he came to the US, although he came here first and primarily for IndyCar. Daytona, Sebring, maybe, who knows? Yeah, Lee's still in our world, just no longer in IndyCar. Getting down to the last question or two, Robert Policek. Say, what are your general thoughts on Ed Carpenter's remarks? I feel they carry more weight as an owner and driver, looking at the big picture. We want more ovals, but not processional ovals, indeed. Ed really fired every barrel possible at the move to hybridization, the energy recovery system, the weight that they bring, the costs involved, everything about it. And he has, obviously, every right to say whatever it is that he wants. I'll throw a couple quick things out here. If we go back to the big grip, new paving, mismatch with tire degradation, if we had tires on this new surface that were new and matched or were very similar to last year's degradation profile, we're having no conversation about this. Not saying some of the concerns about how the weight, the added weight, is certainly not helping the performance of the cars. The costs involved, certainly, again, nothing new. The bulk of these expenditures were made pre-season, ordering lightweight components and such, the magnesium gearbox, magnesium bell housings, the new bits and pieces that go with the energy recovery systems and whatnot. But if we had last year's tire degradation profile for the first ever hybrid oval race, happened to take place at Iowa Speedway, brother, I don't think we're talking about anything other than, wow, that race was amazing, granted. Certainly would have some hybrid issues and failures and whatever else, but the whole risers and followers, fast car, slow car, like that dynamic. If we had that back, which was primarily down to tire and surface grip, if we had that, what are we talking about right now? That was amazing. Hey, yeah, maybe the tire is a little too hard. Maybe they could degrade more. Hey, maybe they degraded too much. Good Lord. Hey, we've got to make them a little more robust next year. I think that's what we're talking about. So I don't know when the interview was done. I assume it was after the race. I had to blast out of there soon after for travel purposes. But knowing how, like, glowing, mad, ed was in the interview that I saw after the race. I wondered if given an hour to cool down a little more, having badly wrecked his car on Saturday through no fault of his own and then badly wrecked that rebuilt car on Sunday through no fault of his own. I just wondered looking at how absolutely pissed he appeared to be in print. It struck me as a curiosity of would he be? Would he be telling the world that kittens and ice cream are the worst things ever in that state of mind? Called Ed, not for this, actually, for something else, but was going to ask him, like, "Hey, I'm not asking if you have reconsidered your positions on whatever, but I know that on occasion, when things have gone extremely wrong for a driver, and I go to interview them, you often get, whether it's right when they're out of the car or still 10, 15 minutes later, if it's just really sticking with them or longer. Boy, the high emotion of what happened can certainly alter the responses to everything. Don't know if that was the case here. As I read it, it just struck me to be an assembler tone to the interview he gave to NBC after the crash of, like, "Wow, he is mad." And this seemed to fit that. So, yes, costs too much. Yes, the performance edition that you get from it is negligible. Yes, the weight is a problem. None of these things were unknown prior to Iowa, prior to Middahioe, prior to the Indy 500, prior to St. Pete, prior to, like, these are all things that are known that we have known. None of this should come as a shock. But I can tell you, after being wrecked out of two races, badly and having done nothing wrong in either one, I would absolutely imagine that one of the items that certainly is not doing anything to make the racing better in is costing a nice chunk of change, I could see how that would become a wide open target to fire at. I will circle back yet again to the tire factor. Once more, this is not blaming Firestone, but that was missed. Also, it brought safety, right? So, okay, we got two boring races, but compared to what was happening at the test shortly before, did have the ability to compete and did have safety, tons to learn. I'm sure they will improve this and test and come up with something that degrades properly, but if that had happened, I think we're not talking about much, other than just yet another great Iowa race, and it was also the world's first hybrid open wheel professional motor race as well, I believe, unless it happened somewhere else that nobody knows of. Lyle James is going to go into a brief over time here talking about hybrid costs. This is related to this as well with some Ed's comments. The estimate from IndyCar given to teams before they had to pay for everything was, it's going to be about a quarter million per car. So, transmission case, the bell housing, componentry in general, going to be about a quarter million per. A lot of teams were very, very disbelieving of that number. I do need to, now that we've gotten a couple of races in, also circle back on that number to find out, "Hey, where are you at?" Of the things that are not a payment outwards for something that is an asset that is owned, unlike the transmissions, and the this, and the that, and radiators, and all these kinds of things that are newer, developed specifically for the energy recovery system. The lease, this is another lease program like the engines, the internal combustion engines, unlike the tires, the spec, ERS bell housing package there. I'm told for the half season, about 90 grand. If that went up a little bit or went down, I don't know. Just was told right slightly before we were going to indeed go hybrid at Mid-Ohio, it was about 90 grand. I'm told full season, next year, the thought is it would be in the 200-ish thousand range. Will that change? Again, I don't know. Rarely do we see numbers go down, so if that were to go up, I wouldn't be totally shocked, but if you take that 200 per car for the season per entry, the repetition of that is not going to go away, right? So that is something teams will pay every year, just like they do with the other leases I mentioned. The magnesium bits and pieces, those are, call it one-time items, but they are certainly more expensive. And as we've seen in some crashes already, gearboxes and more get destroyed easier. Magnesium being a lighter material, but also something that is more brittle. You're having to buy new ones of those, so it's no different than before in terms of, hey, big pre-hybrid era crash, and we destroyed the gearbox or whatever, got to buy a new one. Different material, less cost, but so that's where things just get a little bit interesting to try and formulate cost-wise. If we look at the full season, we know the 200-ish numbers, what's going to cost per entry, going to have a couple of crashes, probably going to go through a couple of transmission cases at least, maybe more. You can see how this being a new line item added, that's going to cost you 300, 350, 400, whatever might be a year if you end up having a lot of crashes and tearing up a lot of stuff. You can see the sensitivity to this, which was, again, not new, but now that folks are starting to see the price, then yeah, or CV effects would say Ed's not alone there. There is the one other area, and I don't have numbers for this. I think Ed kind of mentioned this as the area too that he didn't know about, but that is in the rules, it does say that if this is something that is deemed as your fault for the energy recovery system to fail, primarily the motor generator unit. But if there is a failure that IndyCar/Illmore determines is your fault, you got to pay for it outside of the lease. That's different than the engine leases, for example. Hey, motor blows up, I mean, those are rarely ever driver faults, team fault, well, driver faults at least, but that's included in the lease. There is an exception here with the ERS units, and I don't know what the cost is. Ed suggested that he would have to pay for things, I don't know why he would, but regardless. That's one area that might take me a little while, but I will try and find out. Let me just scroll through here. Ed Joris curious if IndyCar should decrease fuel capacity to get lighter cars? Sure, but yeah, I mean, it's one way to do it if you want to try and get the weight back to kind of sort of where it was. Elaine Sinclair, what do you think the odds of 100 Merkel raised ride this weekend leading to something more? Is he ready for the big time? Love the kid. I do think he's ready. I mean, look, he's runner up in the NXT championship last year behind Christian Rasmus and Juan, a bunch of races. Kid's good, kid is capable, would love to see him in a seat, not in a position where anybody that I know of is looking to hire. So he'd need to find money and provide that, but that is the same thing for decent amount of drivers. IndyNathan curious about options for Louis Foster. I think there could be something there. Need to dig into this a little bit more because he without a doubt is ready to go. Let's close on this. And I saw this and just wanted to answer this real quickly. Darren King, you say, please explain what Dale Coin is doing this year. I don't understand what they're trying to accomplish by having a new driver every week, most of which never driven an IndyCar. I would think a driver is a big part of team success. I would think they would like some consistency. You are correct on every single item you have mentioned. Driver is indeed a big part of the team success. This team would love some consistency. What are they doing? Why are they doing this? Really, really simple, Darren, in order to survive. They thought they might have some drivers who had enough funding to do a full season. None of those scenarios panned out. I don't know the full reasons why. Did they overplay their hand? Did they ask too much? I don't know all the answers to that. But I do know that they were not able to find, for the first time in, I don't know how long, one properly funded driver to do the full season. They're indeed stuck taking the best they can get from round to round. Jack Harvey, friend, love, good old Bean Flicker himself in for 14 of the 18 races/events. The amount I am told that he has brought in order to do those 14 races is something that almost anywhere else would get him like four. Dale Coyne, because he is an amazing person and has also, fortunately, been successful in business, offset the running costs massively on the number 18. So when a Hunter McIlray comes along with a couple of sponsors to be able to step into the car at Toronto, which Nolan Segal was originally meant to do. I don't know what Hunter is bringing. Guarantee you, it's not a ton. Toronto has never been a place where drivers pay a ton because, heck, the things on peacock this weekend. There's not a huge return on anything for sponsors. Whatever Dale's getting, I don't know, 50 grand, 75, 100, I don't know, helping to at least stop the bleeding on the costs to run the car. Over on the 51, Colin Brown drove what the first two events. As I understand, I know he brought no money because he had no money to bring. I don't know if he got paid. I'm hoping he had expenses covered, but that too has been a thing of like, "Hey, Luca Guillotto. Hey, yeah, I remember you. You were in F2 and you did, you were there for a long time and you did really well there, but kind of lost side of you a little bit and been doing European sports cars, but you're one of those junior open wheel drivers on the ascension plan to Formula One, maybe, hopefully, but then kind of lost track of you years ago, "Hey, you're back. Cool. Love Indy Car. Awesome." And you see sponsors on the side of the car. No idea who they are, what they are, but hey, bring in some money to help keep the 51 moving ahead. So that's the answer. Catherine Leg with her eyes, lips, and face, the elf sponsorship. It's awesome. I know they haven't announced it, and again, hopefully they do, but believe she'll be in for the rest of the ovals. She will have done what all of the ovals in the 51 this year. Toby Sowery in the car, he was awesome. I was talking with two team owners today, talking silly season stuff. Both of them unprompted mentioned Toby, and I'm like, "Wow, this is awesome. That's what you hope, right?" I was about to call him a kid. He's like 29, but you know, kid found sponsors, had some backers to be able to do a race. Now he's back again, doing two more with Dale, but in that one race, did Darren exactly what you hope, exactly what you dream of, and that is catch someone's attention. And not saying those two other teams are going to sign him, I don't know, but like, hey, he made an impression. If not for the misfortune that has befallen the Dale coin racing team this year and not having one or two fully properly funded drivers, we wouldn't have that story. Colin Brown would not have got his lifelong dream to race in IndyCar, and so on and so forth. So jacks in on the friendliest sponsorship rate I've heard of in just about forever, which is amazing for him, for the team, great veteran. He's loved. He's been nothing but a positive thing for them. And in the 51 car, we're getting some opportunities going there as well. So it's not by choice. I can tell you that Darren. They would love nothing more than to have two full-time drivers bringing full budgets. It is one of the few teams left in IndyCar, and really the only team left in IndyCar, where two seats can be purchased and used to participate in the series. It's not uncommon for one seat at a team to be open for funded drivers, but this is a case where both are. I think this is going to improve for them next year. There's a lot of drivers looking over here. I don't know if they're going to find everything they want. You know, everyone wants to drive for Penske, Ganassi, McLaren, and Dredi, etc. But there's really not much in the way of opportunities in any of those houses. So I hope Dale and doing some pretty cool things. I mean, look what we got this weekend. Hunter Macaree making his IndyCar debut alongside Toby Sowery doing his second ever race. I just think that's really cool and making the best out of this situation. I can just tell you this. We'll finish on this and say farewell. To do this in IndyCar for a season per entry, I mean, I would imagine Dale's probably on super economic ways of running things, but it's still pretty hard to get away with spending six and a half, seven million per entry. I mean, eight, kind of where a lot of teams are at these days. Multiply that by two. It's a guess, but I would say by the time we get through the final race, factoring in crashes and damage and all the other things, Dale will have across the two cars probably spent the equivalent of sponsoring one car for the entire year out of his own pocket, right? You look at what he's putting in to keep the 18 going, the 51 going. He might be spending more than any team owner in IndyCar to keep his two cars afloat and all in the hope that drivers with better funding will be here next year. To me, that there's nobody else doing that and you wish I wish that he didn't have to, but I respect him so massively for doing it because he loves it. This is his passion. A lot of other folks would have said, "I'm out. Go check, bring a trailer." There's a couple of the large DW-12s and you name it on there. You can buy. He's putting his money behind this to try and overcome the situation. I think the guy just needs a massive, massive round of applause. All right, y'all. Thanks again for everything you sent in. Thanks to Jerry for assembling the questions. Look forward to next week's show after Toronto and then a little bit of a break and once I get a chance to recharge my own batteries a little bit, hope to fill the Olympic break here in the IndyCar side at least with maybe one or two, a couple of extra episodes about, I don't know what, but try and do some more podcasts here in terms of frequency and do appreciate y'all. FAFT Technologies, The Justice Brothers and Toronto Motorsports.com. I'll speak y'all very soon.
