(upbeat music) - Welcome to the Marshall Crew podcast, near a week in IndyCar, listener at Q&A show, recording sooner than I have in recent weeks, doing this on a Tuesday evening, getting ready to head back to the city tomorrow and enjoy the delights of chemotherapy. So I'm gonna fire in as many of your questions as I can, and then rock and roll. I have a road and track magazine feature that is due in the morning that I've been working on intently. Boy, since Monday morning, and it is about a tale from the 1998 Indianapolis 500, which this was a yarn that was spun to me by a race engineering friend about a year, a year and a half ago, and I've been sitting on it and told my editors at Road and Track about it a good while ago, and they reached out in June and said, "Hey, that story, you still got it." Meaning, "Have you used it anywhere else?" Which I said, "Nope." They said, "We want it, let's get that going." So obviously I'm gonna keep that. I'm not gonna spill the beans on it because that's what I get paid to do. Produce content for clients. So can't give that away yet, but I do look forward to, I don't know when, next month or two, next issue of Road and Track magazine coming out with a, what I think is one of the crazy, I shouldn't say think. I know it's one of the craziest stories I've ever heard about something done at a race track, and it certainly falls into the category of spying and stealing of information. This from the 1998 Indianapolis 500, where the team that I helped run an engineer, Thomas Knapp Motorsports/General Racing qualified second and led, I don't know, 10, 15, 20 laps, something like that. Clueless, this was happening there. So anyways, that's been the primary focus of my life since what, checkered flag waved over Toronto. So why don't we do this? Let's receive a little opening message as usual, and then we'll get right back to the show. 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And finally, you have a new online merchandise home for the podcast, thepruitstore.com, for all the show stickers, models, racing memorabilia, trying to sell, and put towards our fun to buy a house, is now live and rocking, thepruitstore.com. If you're newish to what we do here in the good old podcast, send out a call for questions early in the week, usually Monday, Tuesday at the latest for the week in IndyCar listener Q&A, post that call on Twitter, on my ex-profile @martialpruit. Also, I would have thought Facebook would have kind of withered and died by now, but it hasn't. On Facebook, the Marshall Pruit podcast Facebook page, post a call for questions, and folks will post those questions. Those are both obviously public facing places. That way our friend Jerry Sutter, who grabs those questions, can readily see them, gathers those questions, puts them into a fun and amusing order and assembles a word document of your questions each week. So that's how you do that. And also, if you're looking for a wider group of friends who love racing or racing family, you might take a look in the description here, or just simply send an email to PrudeayRocks, P-R-U-E-D-A-Y-R-O-C-K-S, PrudeayRocks@gmail.com, get an automated response at the listener group that's formed around the podcast a couple years ago, 100 plus amazing folks about the most diverse group of people you could ever ask for. Love racing, connect and communicate every day. Usually discord, I think, is the method that's done. I'm not a part of it, nor should I be, but then a lot of them get together at the races. Go racing together, racing friends and family. It's just really cool. So if that's something you've been looking for, you might consider that. Last quick thing, so we are indeed. Gonna jump into a lot of questions here in a second, coming out of Toronto. A lot of them on a pretty similar theme about race control, but looking ahead. Finally, IndyCar teams have a couple weeks off. There's a test or two towards end of next week, and then I think the week after that. So some teams have to ramp up for those, but yeah, looking forward to hopefully getting a little bit of a break here myself sometime soon. Although I am headed back out next week, headed to Imsa at Road America. One of my favorite places on earth. Yeah, I was thinking things start to get busy here in August. Obviously a little bit of a gap coming out of the Olympics before we go back to IndyCar racing at Gateway/World Wide Technology Raceway. You definitely know folks who'd been around for a while and worked in primarily cart, call it Gateway, 'cause that's what it was called forever, but also the IRL and modern era, Indy Racing League too. But regardless, that is next on the IndyCar calendar. I won't be at that. It conflicts with the Rolex Monterey Motorsports reunion historic event. Always cover that if there happens to be a conflict. So that's where I'll be, but season runs off pretty quickly after that. I've got more Imsa to do as well in between the remaining IndyCar events. I think Indianapolis, the endurance race there, and then Petit Lamont in October. So yeah, end up being a really busy year with I think I'll end up doing seven or eight of the 11 Imsa weekends. And then I think 11 or 12 of the 18 IndyCar plus historic events, plus tests in, yeah. Finished lines getting here, y'all. And I know for many of you, you don't want it. And on an annual basis, you just want more. Not a complaint, just Sharon. Doing this for a living, covering two series. And if not three forms of racing, plus tests here and there and everywhere on top, like, yeah, I think 30-ish, 25 to 30 weekends a year. Plus, yeah, some of those stops for a day or two here and there on weekdays, like. Just wanna sleep, y'all. All right, all that said, big thanks once again to Jerry for putting together our questions as he has been doing for a little while now. Offers up a nice preamble to help set the stage. So we have about 30 questions this week and over 1,500 words within them about the Toronto race. Primary group questions on the yellow after awards crash. Crash is at the end of the last two races, whether they've been avoidable, what's made turn eight so difficult, opinions on the Penske melee, Rossi's injury, potential impact on its future, when it'll hybrids in the pits, and a few other items in theirs, a couple of depths of general questions, which we'll get to as many as we can, try and do an hour at most. Sometimes we go over, we often go over, but I'll try and keep it under an hour total this time around. Any closes, as usual, with some sort of funny quote, this being from famed legendary, baseball manager, Sparky Anderson, who says, "The only reason I'm coming out here tomorrow is the schedule says I have to." Yeah, I think Jerry knows I'm just tired and need a break. All right, we're gonna start things off. Instead of going straight into, all the caution, turn one, crash stuff, we're actually gonna go a little bit left first courtesy of Dave/MrGeek. Says, "We heard the public comments from Scott McLaughlin, but how do you think the conversation between him and willpower behind closed doors went? Any comments or involvement from the team? Is this a quote, "He to the moment racing incident, the bigger issues within the team." Complex scenario here, won't try and stay too long on it. And I think we might have more about this a little bit later, but I saw this came in from Dave after Jerry sent through the questions, just wanna put it up front. Willpower 100% in the wrong. No question about it, there's nothing in any way to say that this wasn't his fault and also that this was somehow anything other than unnecessary. 1000% his fault, shouldn't have happened, ended up screwing all three of their days. For those of you who caught it or maybe didn't, we had late in the very late in the race. We had Scott McLaughlin, who I believe was running fourth or fifth, we had a restart, we had Willpower, his teammate, tried to take that position off of Scotty Mac, going down the inside of Turn 5, which it's inviting to do entering the corner, but that hard left coming out of it tightens a bit slash just the physics involved means that going through they're trying to do that, you're gonna be thrown to the outside of the corner and ended up getting a long side, Scotty Mac, but also bodying the guy, giving him a unintentional hip check, car to car side to side, that with the physics in mind and the speed in mind, chucked McLaughlin into the wall, smashed the right side of his car, day over. So this was Penske on Penske Vio lintz. Joseph Newgarden, innocent quote bystander, trying to come through drivers funneling through, trying to slow down, reacting to the crash that happened, whomever it was that was in front of Newgarden, slowed down heavily, accordion effect, Joseph slows down, David Maluchus hits him from behind, cuts, I think what was it? Left rear tire, right rear, I forget on Joseph, boom, in a single corner, geez, on a single lap, we go from having the Penske drivers, I think, on pace for something like 4th, 5th, and 7th. Again, I might be wrong wherever they were gonna, but it was gonna be a good day. We're gonna win, podium was unlikely, but this was going to be a positive day. They had Alex Polo behind them. Polo is the major championship leader, he is the championship leader, but he's the main driver, they're all fighting, trying to draw down that gap to P1 in the standings. Will's over-optimistic move is one that ruined their days, took Scotty Mac out, Joseph, I think, what ended up finishing 12th-ish, last car or so on the lead lap, and power, I believe, finished 11th. Polo finished what 4th, I believe, so yeah. Here's the thing to understand, if we're just looking at mindsets and approaches. At no point in time did Willpower look ahead, see the potential to pass McLachlan and think, eh, might make it, I might not. You don't do that with hope, you do that with some sort of conviction and belief, you can execute that successfully. That was over-ambitious, right? That was a, yeah, I don't know how you saw that, right? They're doing a lot of miles per hour, they're having to manage a lot of things, over-confidence might have ruled here. Why would he try and do that? Well, this is the part that I realize it's meaningless in the scope of what all happened, with all three of their days being ruined by this over-ambitious decision that Will made. Coming back to McLachlan's post-race comments about, you know, we were in a really good spot. It was so unnecessary, paraphrasing, obviously. We were ahead of polo, like, this was everything we needed on a weekend that went sideways for polo qualifying 18th or whatever it was. We could have capitalized on this, but didn't. Knowing Will, I feel like that's where his mindset was. Polo came into the race, P1 in the standings, Will's P2. McLachlan, I think, was P5. He's fallen back to P6 now as a result of a DNF instead of a good finish. If I had to put myself in Will's position to close here, Dave, this is a guy who's realizing, hey, polo's behind us. Scotty Max here, I'm ahead of him in the championship. If I can get ahead of him on track as well, I can further reduce the gap to polo. Feel really confident that is what he was thinking. With Toronto being the sixth race to go in the season, only so many opportunities to carve into polo's lead. It's not like it was a giant lead, but we know how consistent the guy is. If I'm having a guess, this was a, I think I can do this, I'm confident I can get past without contact, and I can really use that position to further strengthen my championship bid. All of those things ended up being wrong. So it would, as you mentioned, be a heat of the moment incident, right? But I don't think there was any kind of like crazy, I'm just gonna chuck it in and find out if the car will stick. Is that the only place he could have gotten by McLachlan? Don't know. Another thing too to consider, I realize we're talking six races to go, we're now down to five. (sighs) It would not be impossible from McLachlan to win the championship. New Gardens far enough back to where, again, is it mathematically impossible? No, it's just not super realistic. Power is the most realistic driver Penske has to take down polo. Is this a scenario where unable to get by Scotty Mac? Somebody at Team Penske say, "Hey, you know what? "Boy, folks are really pissed off about the team orders "to finish the Formula One race today in Hungary. "Why don't we, let's just piss people off "and call for a bit of team orders here." Say, "Hey, Scott, we're getting down to the final races. "Will is our strongest contender. "I realize it's only one position, "but maybe those points will mean something." It's not really Team Penske's way. Happened before, you get down to the true season finale and there have been team orders where the other driver or two or three or however many it's been are there to support the main contender. Is this a little early to do that? Maybe, possibly, but getting down to the close of the race, polo's not having a terrible day. He made up a lot of spots, but you guys are definitely in front of him. Let's capitalize on that. Just wondering, getting hindsight, right? It's really easy to say this stuff afterwards, but do wonder if there was any talk about this strategically-wise before the start of the race of, "Hey, polo's way back. "Will, you're our best candidate so far "if we get towards the end of the race." And there's a situation where we can further draw down that lead and let's have that conversation. Ultimately, it didn't matter because we'll remove the possibility for that to happen, but yeah. I wonder what that conversation might be like going into Gateway. All right, let's get into a couple of questions here. About race control. Randy Worley says, "Everybody's up in arms "about when that yellow came at the end, "watching a replay and knowing what was coming, "came up with about six seconds "between realizing polto spun "to the yellow lights coming on." So probably slightly less than that with having to react in real time. What would be expected? So that still seems pretty quick. Drivers didn't even hear from spotters yet. Six seconds, really, that terrible. I don't know if a quicker yellow would have made much of a difference. Am I wrong? Yeah, there's another significant area to dive into here. Jeremiah Morrill. Hey, Jeremiah, please give your amazing better half, Sarah. Much love from Schabrel and I. He throws in in the wake of that massive pileup is their way to get a yellow triggered faster for drivers in a way that they can see. So his modern cars have crashed prevention and crashed detection technology. What if the number five car detected an impact and triggered a full-course yellow? Thinking about something similar here. And we'll use your question, Randy and yours, Jeremiah as well, to explore this. I don't wanna go on too, too long with all this, but we've had a somewhat confusing year when it comes to race control and calling cautions. We've had the wait forever scenario, prime example being Laguna Seca, Marcus Armstrong spins coming out of turn four, throws up huge dust cloud, spins across the track, sitting on the track, aiming opposite direction of traffic coming at him. Track is decently wide in that area. He is offline. There's really no reason for any cars to be where he was sitting backwards and stalled. But nonetheless, he's there and that's not good. And Joseph Newgarden was leading at the time and they waited and he, I don't know exactly what corner he was in, but maybe turn five, something like that. Not, he was a little bit down the road from Marcus, but they ended up waiting effectively, almost a full lap waiting for Joseph to get into the pits, which is their habit. If you can, if it's non-lethal, super crazy, threatening, it's a judgment-based thing, right? They've left the pits open when a caution is needed to make sure the leader doesn't get screwed, got it. I think they all agreed after the race. Yeah, that was way too long. So let Joseph get in through that caution, off we go. Then we had some stuff at Iowa, right? Where it was like, driver has a significant wiggle or looks like they're about to crash. Boom, caution instantly, didn't crash, but hey, wow, okay, hmm. Like hair trigger caution. So just wanna use that as a little bit of context here, Randy, of like, okay, clearly the ability to go boom instantly on that caution, triggering that full course yellow through the system that they have, in race control, man, they can smash that button in an instant, lights everything up, race goes yellow, everybody slows down. Also, kind of chill, go get a coffee, you know? Come back, download a couple of things, you know, a couple of shows on your phone to watch, well, okay, yeah, okay, all right, made it into the pit school, we're gonna, all right, go yellow. So just sharing that, the we've seen you go super fast to a caution, even when it wasn't maybe really needed, just the weekend prior, positioned that against, okay, hey, we just saw the guy spin and he stuck it in their backwards and all right, you could see that he broke the rear wing doing that and admittedly, I don't know if he broke the right rear suspension doing that, but we know for, I know I for sure saw as it happened and I'm sure many of you did too, but the rear wing was broken. The timing of when the full course yellow was, that button was smashed was told by the series, that that happened after Marcus Erickson crashed into him and before Pietro Fittapaldi drove over the front of Pato's car. He was the first to ride over the front of the car, followed by Santino Farucci, followed by Nolan Segal, who didn't necessarily ride over the front, but hit the front that rotated Pato's car, pointing down the track and then Nolan ricocheted to the right side of the track. Nolan was then tapped from behind by Toby Sowery. So as I was told, and I'm sure others were told as well, caution was not triggered from race control when Pato spun and backed it in was not triggered when Marcus went in and boom, that happened, meaning we're seeing that that just happened and we're hitting the button at the same time that it's happening, but in the brief period between when Erickson hit Pato and then Pietro came through and rode over the front, in that in between phase is when the full course yellow button was smashed. A little note here, and I don't have an explanation for this other than was just told that, you know, sometimes there's a slight pause, slight something in the system going live, full course around the entire course. If we go off of IndyCar saying after Marcus before Pietro, boom, the button is hit, we know that there was no instantaneous activation of it because for those of us who have watched the NCAR, and I think Hinch did a little telestrator graphic on the screen on one of the replays showing the moment that the full course yellow activation happened inside the cockpit for Pato on his steering wheel, those three yellow lights, there clearly happened after Pietro went through hit him after Santino, I think went through and hit him. And again, I apologize for not remembering the exact second, split second of the sequence, but it feels like somewhere between the Santino launching and Nolan coming in, the lights came on. Did it happen between Santino and Nolan? Did it happen right after Nolan hit him? Maybe, but Santino and Nolan being after Pietro went through, hit him, according to IndyCar, the system was activated before Pietro hit him. So realize this is quick, just a matter of seconds, which Randy points out, but where we seemed to witness the, oh, at Iowa, driver have a little tiny wiggle and boom, instant caution, meaning no apparent delay. It happened and bam, we were yellow right there, the split second after it happened, that same kind of rapid alighting of the caution, buttons and panels and everything else, did not appear to happen. So what caused that delay? I don't know, but clearly from the hit it before Pietro came through, we did not see the visual indicators that the system lit up to go yellow. So drawing off of that, I would think this could be something where had it gone yellow and those indicators popped up on steering wheels and light panels and you name it, at a faster rate here, I have to think some of those who rode through and made contact afterwards might have gotten a bit more of advanced warning that there was a reason to hit the brakes and slow down as much as they could. Doesn't mean they would have avoided Pato, doubtful, but hopefully would have been able to shed off some of that speed and not had as big or scary as impacts as they happen to have. So why did it take so long from when they say the button was hit to the lighting actually happening to alert the drivers, I don't know. You'd have to think if it did go yellow instantly, things blinking on steering wheels and otherwise, that it would have only given the Pietro's, the Santino's, the Nolan's a little bit more time. I don't know what that would have been. One second, two seconds, something to try and get onto the brakes and slow down. So that is the part that if there is an answer for IndyCar 2 provide, I hope they will. IndyCar also told me as they always do, they're gonna review everything that happened in the race, all the decisions, all the timings, what worked, what didn't, would expect them to do a deep dive on this. It is not something that they commonly then publish. Hi, here's what we found and here's all the ways we failed here, here's the things that we did great. Like that's just not what they tend to do and I don't think most racing series do that. But it is certainly a question, Randy, that has stood out since that information was shared with me. Things that really do stand out as well. Jeremiah's comment here stands out too is something that should be considered, could be considered as this. This is maybe, this is hindsight, this is armchair quarterbacking. This may already happen, I don't know, I hope it does, but we're going to Toronto, where are the three places where most of the impacts happen? Year after year, year after year. Turn one, for sure, there's been some wild crashes there. It is where the biggest big crashes happen. Just from a percentage standpoint, turn one, that is it. Turn three is next, under breaking, folks hitting each other, folks trying to not give up a position, trying to go side by side around that corner and up the hill and hit each other, spin, you name it, right? Turn three, bend that way forever. And then turn eight, where Rossi crashed, a couple other drivers crashed in the race, Kiffin Simpson crashed. That's where Hunter McElray did a nice job on his debut, by the way, nosed in and qualifying. Those are the three spots where this stuff happens the most. Pick every other track. And if you've watched IndyCar for a few years, probably say, aha, yep, this corner tends to be the number one problem at this track. And then this other corner there is probably number two on the problematic list. And who knows, there might be a third corner. I don't know if IndyCar does this, I like to think that they do, but if they don't, Toronto probably just gave us a reason to make some adjustments. There's one to three corners at every road and street course where the vast majority of crashes, contact, problems happen. Street courses in particular, notorious for having 90 degree corners, things around tight bends where, unless you're one of the first drivers through that corner on a start or restart or whatever, you are probably not gonna see what's on the other side if there's a problem. I do wonder if going back to Toronto next year, pick some of the other tracks as well, dominantly street courses where clear views, sight lines are jeopardized, where you go, hey, okay, we have these pileups in turn one more than we'd hope. First couple drivers through, got it. The 20 to 25 behind them, blind, no clue. If one of the leaders, one of the faster drivers, like a Pato happens to spin on his own, back the thing into the wall with the cluster of cars in front of most drivers, they're gonna be absolutely clueless to him being there. Do we make some significant over portionings of yellow light systems, Indicar staff, race day, race only folks? Do we put an extra person or two in the high contact, high problem areas where our drivers are very likely to come onto the scene of something that has happened around a corner that they can't see and we need to alert them like mad. Not like normal, but like, hey, super big, crazy, blinking, flashing lights, fireworks going off. I don't, I mean, air horns, whatever. What can we do, what should we do in the high problem areas to make sure that if we go back to Toronto next year and we have the same exact thing happen. That holy cow, whether you are in a big cluster of cars and you can't see what's happening up there, but you got your steering wheel in front of you and it's got lights to blink. They're bigger, an extra two or three or five panels, light panels, those EM marshaling panels to put up in strategic places entering the corner, not just hanging off of the fence in the braking zone on the left or whatever, if you're probably looking to the right towards the apex, but directly in front of you hung across some places. So you go, look, we're just doing this in the places where we know this happens the most. Is that a adjustment to consider? Because this will happen again at turn one and it'll happen again in turn one and it will keep happening because it's just the dynamic of the corner, what can we do to learn from this? To say, you know what, we want to dang near blind you guys with yellow, red, hell, I don't know, whatever color light panels, stuff in the cockpit, we wanna make sure there is no doubt that you can see because that's the other question, right? Hey, where there are local yellow flags being waved and when did the light panel come on and did enough people see it and like, okay, how can we remove any and all these questions? I realize it comes back to you gotta turn the system on for folks to see it, but what more can be done in the high problem areas? Another thing that came to mind, I'll mention this to the series when I speak to them next. Love having the alert on the steering wheel, hey, the actual spar, the main spar for the halo of the arrow screen, right? Piece that runs right down the center of the cockpit mounts on top of the tub directly in driver's line of sight. How about adding yellow, le, a strip, just one of those thin little strips of yellow LED lights that run down it so that if a driver is not looking at their steering wheel is not looking up to the right or left or whatever to possibly see a lit LED marshalling panel. Keep in mind, they can't see a ton of stuff. It's super well out of the cockpit. They can see what's in front of them, a little bit to the side, not really up. So if you think about the windscreen, the arrow screen banner that goes across the top portion of the arrow screen itself, that covers off some stuff depending on where you are. If you are coming into that braking zone, you might not see that panel, it might be obscured. To me, the one thing that the drivers are basically always staring at because that spar is right between center of their eyes and do you realize they might be looking left or right, but there's probably always one eye that's gonna be somewhere close to looking dead on to that spar right in front of them. Light that up on the backside, have that become a standard thing so that when that caution is thrown, boom, it is right there, no question, even if you don't see any of the panels lit up, even if you don't see your steering wheel, boom, it's right there and really obvious. That won't change if there's a delay in either throwing the proverbial switch or a delay from the moment the switch is flipped to when the cars go live with that signal. But to me, that is one thing that stands out. Blanket the problem areas with communication devices for the drivers that say slow the heck down, add something to that spar so that you go look, I don't care where your eyes are, you're gonna see this. And then Jeremiah's note here, there's a lot of conditions you can set in the data system to make things react if you want. So, we see cautions where drivers spun, something's happened and you might see a little bit of a hesitation in terms of a well, can they get going again? Is there engine running, right? Might not know that up in race control with every scenario. Hey, is the thing running, can they drive away? Now that we have the hybrids and they can start themselves, we know that's an option. It doesn't happen instantly, it takes a couple seconds to do this and switch that, whatever and make the thing work. But with turn one, being what it is, a very kind of funneling effect into where Potto ended up, there's no way you would want to wait to see if he could get going again, because turning left to try and drive away would send him directly in front of oncoming cars. I realize that he got hit then by Erickson, almost the moment after he came to a stop, but could he possibly drive to the left and go counter course and spin around? This is one of those places where it doesn't matter. He's in a prone position, someone's going to hit him, it's the nature of the corner. Knowing this, something that says, hey, car is just registered a G load of this amount, from the hit, here's a threshold, that's criteria number one. Wheel speed would be another one, right? Sometimes you can have a big old hit and keep going. Be rare if all four tires weren't spinning, but do we have a data system that sees threshold? I don't know what the G number is, 50, something like that, something above 50 Gs, has happened, yes. What's the wheel speed scenario? Is it below two miles an hour? Yes. Steering wheel, is there any significant movement there, or throttle, or what are some of the indicators that might be seen to suggest the driver is trying to drive the car versus a, we just hit, there's no motion or movement in the wheels, driver doesn't appear to be trying to do the normal drive-y type things. Could this be something that, I don't know if I want to have it automate a full-course yellow, but at least send some sort of instant alert back to race control, assuming that this can be done, that says, hey, hit that button, hit the button, hit the button, button, button, button, hit the button. Just some stuff to think about. I love where you're going here, Jeremiah. Ultimately, everything we've spoken about here, and we're about to say farewell to this topic, definitely about communication, communication and timing. And IndyCar was good to go, and on that button quickly-ish after Erickson hit Pato, and there was just some sort of lag time. It'd be great to figure out why and how to fix that. Some of the other items I mentioned going forward when we come back to Toronto, we go to Detroit, when we go to Long Beach, I mean, again, we know the spots where the majority of the hits and big crashes take place. Let's treat those places in a very special way. Have an extra person from race control down there with the proverbial finger on the trigger so that person standing there, who's authorized in the number one crash zone at whatever track, is there from race control to remotely activate and boom, hit it right away. If there was someone there who had that ability at that time, I apologize, not aware of it, but I just have a picture in my mind of if somebody wearing an IndyCar shirt from race control was standing either on the inside of the corner or on the outside and saw Pato go back and in the way that he did, and they had the ability to hit that trigger to light the full course yellow system off. I am just confident they would have done that instantly. Where are we gonna go next? Ken Anderson MP, asking were the late race demolition events in the past two weekends avoidable, with cars being so safe, does that cause a false sense of security, which in turn dials up the bravery levels, a few notches, also kindly says, I hope things are improving, get back to some semblance of normal soon. - Thank you brother. Yeah, it's not lost on us that things haven't been normal for a little while now and to get into August, that'll mark five years since cancer came into our lives. So we're looking to evict it as soon as we can. I don't think bravery had much of anything to do with this can or a feeling of like, "Hey, I'm impervious these cars are super safe." - Uh, given a chance to not run as close in the wheel tracks of Alexander Rossi on lap 250 of Iowa race two, I think Stingray would have given himself a little bit more room, run half a car width to the left, just knowing that Alexander was indeed lapping a few seconds off the pace and car coughed and ran out of fuel and did not have enough room left to take avoiding action. So I think that was more situational awareness than anything. I don't think it was bravery 'cause clearly Stingray want nothing to do with getting launched Skyward and then to trigger a big crash that pissed off a lot of people. Pato just spun like just spun. We know, I mean, the guy, what, just won the few days before at Iowa. We know how good he is. Just made a mistake. I mean, we'll power again. He wasn't trying to hit McLachlan, made a mistake Dixon, made mistakes. Hello, made mistakes, it happens even to the best. So I don't see anything linking any of this stuff together, Ken, two very different scenarios as I see it. There we go. Thanks for your kind note, by the way. Cody Phillips, when does the AJ 14 change their name to AJ flight? Oh boy. Is that a dad joke? I don't know if it is. It feels like it's in the same county. Cody also says also turn eight seem to cause several and rounds of difficulty for drivers. Any reason for it being such a problem this year? What I saw was a bigger bump coming into the brake zone there coming across that final, what, turn seven. Unsettling cars and then trying to get the thing under control and then still maintain a good lap, a quick lap, getting through turn eight. Saw those as being somewhat interconnected with some of the issues, right? Problem started way before they got to turn eight. In some instances, you have folks who are charging the corner too hard. Rossi, for example, with his, he was way off the apex. Again, he was trying to get the thing under control well before he got to the corner and it was out of control. Kiffin Simpson, similar scenario. I know Hunter McElray was actually having some vehicular problems that caused him to nose in. It's a complex thing. They were to either grind down that big bump that caused a number of cars. Willpower included, some who smacked the wall there with their left rear suspension before they got to turn eight. If that was ground down and it was a relatively calm and peaceful passage through turn seven, I do think we would have fewer, fewer issues there, Cody. Raymond Wong. So this felt like the 2011 race where it was chaos one way or another. Who would have thought all three Penske cars would be ticking out of the top 10, finishing one corner? Ask, is this the first time all Penske drivers found themselves taken out at the same time? I don't know, Raymond. The team's been around since, what, 1968, '69 on the Indy car side. But yeah, I don't know their exhaustive history so I can't answer that. But I just felt bad for them. They weren't going to win, but it was going to be a good day for them. And then to your point, rare, I mean, the hey, it's an all Penske podium. Like we've seen that where it's like, wow, this is amazing. And then you get the opposite of that where, oh, not only is it a no Penske podium, but wow, they just had all the fun stuff taken away. So yeah, I felt bad for them. They're three really good people. They really are them, race car drivers and not every team can say that. So yeah, I felt bad for them, but you know, feeling bad doesn't change what happened. Taylor Solmos, how you doing? Taylor, so sorry, don't know why. I'm going through puberty in the middle of the show. Voice is cracking. Whoa, Marshall, what's your prediction for Rossi's thumb injury? Will we see him back in the car this year? I do believe so. The team expects him to be back. If we were going right back to a street course, I would have some concerns or just a regular road course as well. High grip road course. The fact that it happened, I believe I read and I could be wrong. I believe I read it was left hand, left thumb, something? Here's the, how's this? Whether I got that right or wrong, whether it's his left thumb or right thumb, the fact that he's going to an oval is the best thing possible for his next race. Why is that? Well, gateway, it's a quick one and a quarter mile oval. Not flat into turn one. There is some lifting and slowing involved. Turn three and four definitely faster, higher loading and sustained grip and speed through there. So you need arms, need your hands. But the thing about ovals is this. At any oval where a decent amount of physical exertion is needed from a steering standpoint, drivers do not do it all with their right arm, right hand. It's not all pushing the steering wheel up. The trick, it's not a trick, it's just smart, but what they do is pull with their left. So instead of exhausting their right arm by having to push up, handle all that loading on these left hand ovals of ours, you use your left hand to pull down on the steering wheel. I don't know if I want to say sharing the application of force, but could be a little more pulling down on the left, could be a little more pushing up with the right. Provided we're talking about a driver that has their bottom three fingers below the spoke in the wheel and their index fingers and thumbs above, it is very possible to have a broken left thumb and still pull down, not with as much grip in his force. You're having to use your index finger to be pulling down on that spoke heavily, but you can do that without your thumb being the majority force inducer. That was a technical term, by the way. You can do the same with the right heel, I should say the heel, palm of your hand, but basically that heel part of your hand, pushing up more like a straight bone action, pushing up, obviously you look at the custom steering wheels have a bit of a flange built out, the custom molding that'll help put, it's basically on a, what is it called, the hilt, or no, I'm forgetting my sword terms, not like I really ever knew them, but the piece that goes above the handle that makes your hand stop from sliding up and cutting your fingers on the blade. There's a bit of that on the steering wheel, especially on the right to help drivers use their top of their index finger possibly, whatever however they choose to have their steering wheel made, there's no spec steering wheels in the series, by the way, so there is obviously customization, but pressing on the top of the hand, can pull your thumb away from that and still get that hard pushing action done with the right. So, go into the perfect place, where depending on the state of health of his thumb, broken thumb, he should be able to be just fine at gateway, not saying there won't be any pain, not saying it'll be perfect, but this should not, with what, almost a month of healing time, could be something that is a huge problem. Absolutely expect him to be back in the car for the rest of the year, he's the best driver available for that car, not as if we wouldn't love to see good old Teddy pork chops doing some more races, but we have five races left, three of them are on ovals. No, four of them are on ovals, apologies. We've got the double header in Milwaukee. Got one road course race left coming at the end of August, so plenty of time and theory for him to heal up properly, hopefully by then, but there's no driver, it's gonna be better in that car on ovals, which dominates the rest of the calendar than Alexander Rossi. So, if he's not in the car, I will be shocked. And, you know, the only reason to not do that is because Rick Mears called and said, I wanna do a couple more ovals. That's the only reason Alexander Rossi shouldn't be in the car. Also, and I won't mention the driver's name, but I had a friend of mine, one of the race engineers in the paddock mentioned that got an outreach from a former driver that they worked with. If I remember correctly, it has been seven to eight years since that driver competed in an IndyCar event. Was sharing with me that this driver who they hadn't heard from and forever, hadn't run and forever, hadn't been an IndyCar forever, wanted to know, could possibly share contact info for Aaron McLaren because that driver wanted to offer their services to stand in for dear Alexander. And I just share this, I'm not so much laughing at the person, good on them. They wanted it, so they wanted to pursue it, but I can't tell you how common that is, how every driver we can think of who has been in an IndyCar this year or last, maybe even the last couple of years will reach out. It's only natural. And the minute you have something like this happen, you need a sub in weekend, that team is gonna get right off the bat, a bunch of calls, a bunch of texts from usual suspects, good folks, right? They have a list of their own, they don't go into a weekend, and they don't go into a year without an idea of, hey, what are our options? If somebody gets hurt here, who do we call, who do we like, who's available, who isn't? But what you also get are the, oh, I legitimately forgot you existed. And again, don't mean to be a jerk, but like, the driver I'm referencing like fell into that category of like, hey, I'm so glad to hear your, like, you know, out there and alive and whatever the amount of folks where you go, bless you for thinking of us. I don't know why you thought we would say yes, but thank you for reaching out. I know I think I've told this before back in 2001 when Davey Hamilton was brutally injured at Texas Motor Speedway and we needed replacement driver and went through three, four, five before the end of the year. Team told me about one driver who reached out. Team manager, engineer, worked with him back in the day and mentioned one driver and again, I'll save their name. Meaning by 2001, it had legitimately been a decade. I got, I think, maybe even longer, 10, 12, 13, something like crazy amount of time. And it's not like they were great back in the day, like truly they were, they spent their limited career farting around in last place. Like just great, you're here, happy you're living your dream, but like not once were you ever competitive. Mostly down to the teams they were with, but like someone where you go, wow, I wouldn't even think to look that low on the timing and scoring display here, but that's where you spent your whole career. And after not driving an 80 car for more than a decade, hey, I wonder, you know, I gotta at least reach out. You know, what if they say yes? Very true, don't ever fail to try, I get all that, but it was just one of those things where you go, the amount of folks who just think, gotta do it. This might be the big break, although I never did anything to stand out and I haven't driven an indie car in 10 plus years. It could happen. This rate when folks say racing is a drug, now we know why. Where are we going, cooking in the dark, asking on the Rossi theme, is he in serious peril? No, he's not. Yeah, and just a kind note, thank you for all you do. You're welcome for sure, like, I don't know, it's just what I do. So I'm glad to do whatever it is that I do. We're gonna get to the last couple here and then say farewell. Steve Bonic, how are you doing, Steve? Please give the Bonic family love from ours. As I think you said, the reason indie cars limiting the energy recovery system boost to 60 horsepower was for reliability. Why the per-lap limit is the same deal? He says, "Seems like a way to reward those "that figure out how to generate and use the boost more "would be a good strategy play." It would, the very simple approach to this, Steve, is this. They want to not use the energy recovery system too much, each lap, and in too many ways, like on-pit lane. This really and truly is, hey, we got a brand new car. We aren't totally sure if it's gonna be super reliable. Let's keep the mileage really low. That's the mindset. You drive it a little bit. We drive it Tuesdays and Fridays, but we don't do any more than 10 laps or 10 miles, and then we'll put it back in the garage and just, that's the mindset. So power is dialed down. The frequency of it being deployed per lap limited to one to two times per lap, maybe three, possibly, but it is just a, let's keep the frequency down, hopefully learn more workout kinks, and once we get to a place where we feel confident in that, then we can dial up the power. So just of the complaints, as it has been introduced, it is not particularly impressive in what it does to contribute power, and it's not used very much to contribute that power. So not a big number that changes much in terms of lap time, like, oh my gosh, did you see him hit the button? That thing, warp speed. And it's also just, the frequency is low. All being done to make sure that we don't have a field of cars just smoking and smoldering and whatever, with failed energy recovery systems. I hear conflicting messages on when they might dial up the power. I have been told next year, but I've also been told, maybe more like 2026. So I don't know, but if we can get it up to 80, 90 Porsche, that is real. That is something drivers will feel. That is something that will take lap times to a impressive place. Cars were as quick, if not a tiny bit quicker than last year's cars at Toronto, right? First event we've been to with the hybrid, where there was no track repaving year to year, and they were quick, heavier, but quick. So can't wait to see more power, 'cause I do think folks might have a more favorable view on them, Steve. If they're seeing more of that power being put to the ground. Steve Grinsted asking why they aren't being used on pit lane, why the energy recovery systems are deactivated for the reasons I just mentioned. Chris Kullavic. Thank you for the correct pronunciation of your last name. You're asking about determining finishing orders and such. Jerry, why don't we punt that to next week? Andrew Miller asking if this is the last Toronto race. I mean, IndyCar did announce their 2025 schedule, not so long ago, and Toronto is on it. So I don't think they'd do that unless they had an agreement for the event to be held. So I don't think it is the last, but if it does become the last, then something would indeed need to change. Dan Worderich, you ask a great question here, Lance Snyder, Spencer Henson, Magic Max. Let's see. Charles Napier, since we don't have anything happening next week in IndyCar that I can think of, granted, who knows, more high rings, firings are otherwise might happen. Why don't we carry over a number of these in the blue, Jerry? I know y'all can't see this and using colors to denote something in audio that you can't see, but why don't use everything after Jordan Darwin's question and carry those over to next week and we'll ask for y'all to send in new questions as well. This is MP, compared, can Jesus, I can't even speak. I'm gonna leave this in. MP continued prayers for your wife and her fight along with the rest of your household or doctors, nurses and staff. Thank you, Jordan, seriously, man. Just sweetheart of a person. Says, "I'm impressed with Foyt keeping Santucci "in the top 10 this year, "given their improved performance in 2024 "and Penske's damper and technical alignment. "Are the better IndyCar free agents "looking at them more closely? "Well, bigger sponsors return to the 14 and 41 cars. "This is would love to see super techs in victory "and land again without having to slap anyone." I mean, Jordan, if they do win, we kinda hope AJ will reach up and slap somebody. Probably me. I mean, you know, unless we can get lion dyke down there for him to slap him again. Yeah, it's a little bit of a complicated situation in that the team is performing better than they have in since 2013 was the last time they were this competitive with our guy, Takuma Sato. And yet they still face the same budget concerns as they've had for the last few years. Thanks to Marlene Sexton, she continues to support the 14 cars, it's a primary sponsor. It's never meant to be, but she has because she's amazing. They really could, though, use big, non-kind of family-ish family-related folks funding that car. I would hope their performance is something that allows that to happen. But to make that happen, you also need pretty serious business development faction within your team, a group that is talented and experienced in saying, "Hey, we're top 10, we're doing great. "How can we get you to spend money with us?" Like, "Hey, we saw you were running well "and we wanna give you money." It basically never happens these days. This is something where the team needs the infrastructure to go find. I don't know if they have all of that right now. On the 41 car with Stingray, I hope that the really, really, really impressive budget he's said to bring is still something that he can bring for next year. I know for sure there are others, 'cause they've told me who would love to drive for them. I would also say I can't think of any driver who stands out to me as being free agent and potentially better than Santino in that car. Would Rossi potentially, maybe, maybe, but like Santino's really good on road and street courses, never given credit for it. David Maluchas, excellent as well. Farucci really clicked with this team, really working well. I think they got something special. I hope they don't let that change. The other car is the only place to close here, Jordan, where if a new driver were to come in, they would have to pay for that. And so that's where the Rossi's and Maluchas's and the whomever's where you go, "Hey, imagine if they had two badasses in the car." Race-winning potential drivers. Really got to figure out a big financial gap in the 41 car to make that possible. So yeah, but hey, no joke. Between Nashville, Milwaukee, and Gateway, those I am looking at as four opportunities for Santino to win, and he absolutely could. So that would make me so happy to see. So that's what I got for y'all for an episode. A week and any car, listener Q and A show brought to you by FAFT Technologies, the Justice Brothers, and TorontoMotorsports.com. We'll speak to y'all next week. (upbeat music) [MUSIC PLAYING]
