[MUSIC PLAYING] Welcome to the Marshall Pruek podcast. Your week in IndyCar and listener Q&A show. Hey, y'all, we get back to racing this weekend. Don't be there for it, but it's OK. Hey, going back to IndyCar racing, worldwide technology, raceway, round 13 of 17 points paying races following weekend, Portland, Ventum, Milwaukee. We have a weekend off. Then we have the season finale at Nashville. So momentum is picking up, y'all. We have two guests in the house. Since we were doing this before 5 o'clock on a Monday, we have Rocky and Rosie, who just ate. We got back from a appointment across the bay, got back home, Mr. Pruek, also known as Rocky. He was waiting at the door, complaining heavily, complaints to management. And so they're fed. Bellies are full, and they are snoring away right next to me. So all kinds of fun. Tomorrow, let's see, depending on when you listen to this. Tuesday, we have a chemo. And so that's going to be a pretty busy day. Then I will finish packing and leave out of here Wednesday morning at about 5 a.m. For good old weather tech, raceway, Laguna Seca, where I will be covering the Rolex Monterey Motorsports Reunion. And can't wait. It is one of the busiest weekends of the year or weeks. Starts Wednesday, y'all. Goes through Saturday. But it's one of the busiest weeks of the year for me, right up there with the E-500 or Le Mans, if I'm covering that, or, right. So it is nonstop and exhausting in the best kind of way. So no complaints, nothing but thanks and appreciation that, yeah, I have kind of sort of the best job in the world. And I never, ever, ever forget that. So that's the plan here coming up on what's going to dominate the rest of the week. We'll be doing my best to keep tabs on what is happening in good old WWTR, see how things are going down over there. And what else? Going to see Ricky Taylor this week. He will be there driving Acura, former Jill DeFaren. DeFaren Motorsports Acura Air X01B LMP2 car, which is part of my early move to reporting, covering American Le Mans series beat. So great to see him. Texted with our guide, Dario Frankiti, who will be there and look forward to seeing him. And, yeah, lots of great stuff. Looking forward to yet another weekend of great vintage content. Going to jump into your questions here in just one moment after this message. Time to say a big thank you to our show partners on the Marshall Pruitt podcast, starting with FAFT Technologies. Build to print composites manufacturing company. They're specializing in medium to large-scale automotive, motorsports, and military applications. Visit FAFTechologies.com. It's PFAFFtechnologies.com to learn more about their services and how they can benefit your business. Next, it's the Justice Brothers. Makers of premium additives, lubricants, and cleaners. And servicing the automotive and motorsports industries for more than 85 years. The victories in all the biggest North American motor races, including the Indianapolis 500, the 24 hours a Daytona, the Justice Brothers products are truly race-proven. Learn about their vast history and range of offerings at justicebrothers.com. If you're fond of awesome motor racing collectibles, including FAFT motorsports McLaren Gerengoodies, pay a visit to torontomotorsports.com. And finally, you have a new online merchandise home for the podcast, thepruitstore.com. All the show stickers, models, racing member of Bieliam trying to sell and put towards our fun to buy a house is now live and rocking. Thepruitstore.com. Our good friend Jerry Sootth, who puts together the questions for us each week, he just celebrated a birthday. He turned 15, I'm kidding. Jerry's a little bit older than that, but yeah, nonetheless, happy birthday to you, Jerry. Thank you for everything that you do, brother, to help make this show possible every single week. As always, he puts together a little primer for us, says we have about 25 new questions this week, carried over a couple of older ones, trying to get to a few of those, before we say farewell. And he says, here's how they break down. The Group One, Alex Polo Rumors, Devon DeFrancisco to Hunkos-Hanger Racing. Maluchas Rumors. What goes into pre-contract announcement stuff? Why are coins car so good at gateway/WWTR? Any hints on Mark Miles quote, exciting announcements. What does moving the fuel intake entail? Schedule questions, some fun questions, and then there's Group Two. And, you know, I think what we're gonna do to kick off the show, even though this is the second item in the second group, referring to the NASCAR Richmond. Austin Dillon making lots of friends move yesterday. I think I'm gonna move that. I'll move that to P1. I know that's not where Jerry put it, so I apologize, Jerry. I'm messing up your mojo here, but why don't we open with that? Just 'cause it is, I don't know, something. Chris Ward, our pal Chris Ward. MP, have you ever heard anything? Seen anything like we saw on Sunday at Richmond in the NASCAR race, here in Open Wheel. That has to be platinum bowling ball level of lunacy. And also, as many of you do, tend to just read one of these per episode, but Chris says some really sweet things, continued prayers for you, your wife's your bro, and the fur babies. Well, they didn't even perk up, so they don't care, Chris, so to heck with them. You know, the one that comes to mind, and if you are a newer-ish fan of IndyCar, this would be well worth going back, dialing up your good old YouTube's, 'cause I did it as well. If you Google Tracey/Borday Last Corner Crash on the last lap of the Champcar Denver Grand Prix 2006, or Tracey Borday Denver 2006, it will pull up what is probably the biggest, closest thing I can think of like this, and it was not as egregious as what we saw on Sunday with Austin Dillon in the no-talent wipeout of Joey Logano. If you haven't seen that clip, it's readily available on your favorite social media platforms, and yeah. The announcer just said that Logano had pulled out, I think, one car advantage over him, right? So final lap of the race, firing down the back straight, Dillon had led most of the race, as I read, Logano got him on the late restart, and got ahead of him, pulled away enough to where they were not rear bumper to front bumper. There was a full car length separating them, maybe a tiny bit more. That's a lot, especially on a short track like Richmond, and Dillon fired it in to turn three, two corners to go in the race, and used the back of Logano's car to make the corner. So hit him, knocked him out, ruined his race, wrecked the car, but that hitting of the back of Logano's car was really the only thing that slowed him enough to make the corner because he went so late, so deep, carried so much speed there that had Logano, I don't know, pulled hard left, done something to get out of the way. Dillon would have just gone straight into the wall. So not only did he wipe Logano out, but effectively used Logano in this no way it will work scenario to take the lead and win the race. There's a little bit of this, and I do mean a little bit of this. Final corner, final lap, Denver 2006, our french fries Sebastian Bourde leading the race. You could blame him if you want for leaving a little too much room on the inside of this left hand corner, Denver street course, and Paul Tracy, being Paul Tracy, did exactly what you would expect Paul Tracy to do. And frankly, most other drivers, and that was try and go down the inside and see if you could make a pass work. Similarity here is little too much speed and momentum. Couldn't get the car slowed. Hit Bourde, wrecked Bourde, wrecked himself, took the two of them out. Where the NASCAR scenario here Chris was words, as unless there's some sort of physical altercation I've missed, it's just words to the media and saying mean shouty things. This was different, and it was a pillow fight, okay? This wasn't like a big thing, but I do encourage you to go find this and watch it. Seb is not the biggest guy. He is certainly not bigger than Paul Tracy, who's I think height wise, maybe a little bit taller, but he's got some poundage on him, some heft, and Seb, rightfully so, livid, runs across the racetrack. The race hadn't finished. There were those behind him, still trying to go through the corner and get to the checkered flag. He runs across the track. He was wrecked on the inside left. Tracy went other side to the right, ran across the track, gotten his face, pushed him, and then wisely Chris turned around and started to walk away, but not before Paul could effectively do the come on motion him to come and get some more. And so Seb kind of comes back. It's a little bit half-hearted because again, he's super mad, but he also realizes this is a bigger animal that I'm expressing my anger to. And kind of points at him, gets his finger kind of almost in his eye inside the helmet, and Paul pushes him back and it kind of fizzles out from there. But this is about the closest that comes to mind. And I'm not saying it's the only one, right? You could say, well, what happened with Dario and Takuma Sato at Indy and Yadi, like different, to me, a very different scenario here, where Takuma, it was a bit of a Hail Mary, Dario cleared out, didn't get wiped out, but this was similar undertones of, hey, the race is over in a matter of seconds. I see what I think is an opportunity to leave here with a win, I'm gonna try this. And if it doesn't work out well, oh well. With the PT, it was a hope. It was not, I'm gonna barge you out of the way. Not so a NASCAR. It was clear, golden bowling bowl opportunity. Just a last quick thing here, just again, for those who maybe saw this and thought it was interesting or fun. The reason we can name many things like this in NASCAR and Canton IndyCar, it's an obvious thing, but I'll overstate it with those pesky exposed wheels. Oh, this is where you start sending folks into outer space if you engage in too much of this stuff. That is why retribution during a race, any kind of, I'm gonna crash you out to take the win. I'm gonna hit you for doing something mean or bad to me. Like, there's just so many ways that things go wrong, not for the person you're trying to jack with, but yourself as well. Break your hashtag front nose, flatten a tire, have all kinds of things go wrong. So we could probably rattle off 50 NASCAR scenarios like this. Very few in IndyCar, and I'm thankful for that 'cause yeah, the vehicles we use, oh, not so much meant for weapon like demonstrations. All right, why don't we go back to the beginning of the episode in what Jerry had in mind for the Q and A, and this comes from our pal Jeremiah Morrill. Jerry also adds many people ask this, and also Jeremiah, say hello to your amazing wife Sarah, please. So many of y'all have inquired, is this latest Alex Pullo to Audi F1 rumor worth paying attention to? I have ignored it, but it sure is getting repeated all over the place. Interesting, you should ask, my dear friend. Sometimes, in this little silly life as a reporter, you get these great pieces of information, trusted sources, you know you got something good, you wanna run with it, you also wanna do a little bit of extra digging, and sometimes you get something out of the left field where you go, hey, why is this person telling me this? I didn't ask, but I'm getting this, hey, in case you heard this rumor, here's a thing, and it's real, and it's this, that, and the other. Had that happen with this, before I could start reaching out asking folks myself, not as if I have huge, huge pathways into Formula One, but I do have a decent enough number of friends on a couple of teams, some in fairly significant positions, some in a little more behind the scenes, folks on the media side, broadcast side, if I have F1 questions, just have a bit of a go-to short list of folks that, hey, I know you heard this, what have you heard, tell me is this real or not? And had an outreach randomly, someone in F1 telling me this is all real, and it was weird, because normally, I do not get, let me tell you something without you asking type content. It's, I ask a question, and then get whatever the answer is in this instance. And so, just sharing that quickly with you, Jeremiah, and others, because it stood out as fishy, it stood out as, feels like there might be an agenda here. Do I think there could be interest from Audi and Alex Polo, sure. No, we're talking a little bit down the road in terms of when the team is meant to go live, right? It's not happening right away. It would be what year and a half from now, that kind of thing. Got a wonder who's coming out of F2, right? There's still some young talents that could be pulled into a program, right? You're reigning champ, Teopor Cher, boy, that guy'd be perfect, but know for sure that some of the remaining names, some of those who are currently in F1, maybe aren't super coveted, right? involuntary botos, for example. Again, we'll see what happens there. Logan Sargent, we'll see what happens there. There's a lot of those where you go, okay, I don't see any real high value targets to acquire after Carlo signs just signed with Williams. So, the whole setup is a, most of the race winners and or known high super talents already taken, multi-year deal and/or of the ones who we could go after, not super exciting. That's where the Alex Pillow to Audi angle has been positioned for me, presented to me, and I think that's probably how it's been presented maybe in some of the way this rumor has been presented, wherever else in the world. I don't doubt that there could be interest, knowing that he's been super licensed guy, super good, has some F1 testing experience, been very fast, one or two other quick things to throw in here. So, I think there could be some interest here, but for a, quote, new F1 program. I realize Salba isn't new, just talking, hey, Audi Formula One, wow, this is a big deal for the Volkswagen Audi group. The idea of having a veteran, Aneko Holkenberg, got it. And then we're going to put novice in the other car. It's one thing if we're talking Formula Two Champ, where you go, okay, you are an F1 novice, but you've raced at all these tracks. You've been embedded in this culture for a long time. If it's a high quality F2 kid, most likely, they're already a part of some F1 driving academy, simulator testing, they're in the pipeline. It'd be a new adventure, but not totally new. For someone like Alex, there'd be an awful lot of new. And that's the part that I don't know if that fits for me on debut for Audi and F1. Another part here to consider, and I don't pretend to know the full length of his contract with Chip Ganesi Racing, but I feel confident in saying in the timeline that he might be wanted to race elsewhere, I don't know if he'd be available. It's a whole separate topic and podcast to do about honoring contracts and Alex having wandering eyes. I get all that. I also wouldn't pretend to know any of the words included in Alex's contract with Chip Ganesi Racing. I would just suggest having been down this path, having tried to leave, having been sued by Chip, having then come back and now being sued by McLaren. I would feel confident in saying whatever contract Alex signed as provided Chip Ganesi Racing by their great lawyer, it was hilarious. I don't feel like there would be a lot of wiggle room in there for him to leave. Could be wrong, could be an out clause, could be a big buyout. Hey, if Audi wants to pay a trillion dollars, cool. Off you go. This guy is the best driver Chip has. That's not being said in any critical way of Scott Dixon. Guy's leading the championship, defending champion. It's delivered two championships for Chip in what, the last three years? This guy is clearly the present and future for Chip Ganesi. Dixie, who we hope never goes away. I hope never goes away. Hoping to have someone to backfill his spot whenever that time comes, but they're not looking for someone to lead the team once he retires. They already have the guy, right? Knowing all this, Audi could have super interest and unless there's a buyout that Chip would agree to, I cannot see how Chip would say, yep. Go have fun in F1 at the age of 28, 29. We're gonna truly start from scratch and probably have to find the next Alex Pillow and the next Scott Dixon at the same time. So, a complicated one for those of you who are interested in what's going on here and I'm sure coming out of WWTR, someone will ask Alex about this and probably get an answer and we'll see where that leads. But yeah, it would make sense just because of the lack of great options but would also be, to me, a bit of a stretch for a new manufacturer program debuting. It's a bit of a gamble and I don't tend to see a lot of gambles taken in those scenarios. John Whyr, you say MP. All the news coming out from whom coast hauling erasing. Is there any truth to Devlin D. Francesco or any other interested parties buying into the team? Just what I wrote in the most recent silly season update on eraser.com, John, which was from a week and a half ago. So you might go there and take a look, I wrote that Devlin's father has been looking to do some sort of co-entry-ish type thing there and I haven't checked in yet or in a little while, I guess, to see if and where that's at. Also know that I believe later, maybe in the second batch or third batch of questions, there was one about who's gonna be driving the car this weekend at WWTR, that number 78 entry, formerly driven by Augustine Canapino. We're waiting to hear, but all I've heard is it will be Connor Daly. Also mentioned had a nice little text exchange with Augustine. Just expressed my fondness for him and appreciation for having him here and being able to cover his story and he said some really nice things in return. Not a surprise because I know there's a lot of other baggage there and some really not cool things. Just say that at least relationship wise, the side of him that I saw in the very beginning is the same side that I experienced with him leaving. Daniel Ingleton, how you doing? Daniel, saying your article concerning David Maluchus in 2025. Davy denied any offer from RLL. So which is the other team then that's offered him a contract along with the one offered by Myershank Racing? I don't know if Davy denied an offer from RLL. I think he denied more the going to RLL and I apologize. I realize I wrote the stupid thing so I should remember everything about it, but maybe I just give you a little bit of insight in the conversation we had. Actually, I'll go step back to the last week. Had two folks, tell me. One who called to tell me and the other person I called to do a bit of fact checking as well, tell me Maluchus going to RLL. That's the decision going to go there. Lucrative offer off he goes. Like, wow, okay, that is a surprise. Mentioned here on the show last week, mentioned in that silly season update, in light of the unconfirmed, but we know it's happening. Ganassi and Myershank technical alliance. Hey, man, you're driving the closest thing to a Chip Ganassi racing car. Holy cow, no way on planet earth would anybody turn that down for any other ride unless it was Roger Penske calling in their no seats available at Roger's. So this is the closest you're going to get to the defending champ's current championship leader, et cetera. And despite all that, I was told, yeah, no, that is indeed, what he's decided to do is not drive that car. And going to go to RLL. And the person, the first person who told me that, I'm like, oh, you would know. And the second person I spoke to also falls into that, oh, you would know. And so when I called Davey and said, hey, could be wrong, but I hear that you're going to be headed over there and I realize you probably can't say much or confirm anything, but would love to get any thoughts on that. And his response was fake news. And he then repeated it a second time, fake news. And then added some more to it. I'm not doing that. Like, okay, fair enough. From the time that I was told this to the time we spoke, I feel like less than 24 hours transpired. Could something have changed in that 24 hours? Yes. Could Davey be not telling me the truthiest of truth? Possibly. Could he be 100% correct, Daniel? He could. It was a head scratcher. I had no doubt as to the accuracy of what I was told, again, based on who told me, didn't expect Davey to confirm on the record, but would also have expected him to tell me if it was true, even if it was totally off the record, and he said you can never mention that until it's announced. That's not what happened, hard denial. So, okay, cool, not going there, according to him. So we'll see if that plays out. The only other offer that I know of that would fall into the folks who have real money to spend and who could use a real talent would be Prema. Of the others, we might consider, and this is the real money to spend part where the options start to narrow. Hey, AJ Floyd Racing. Wow, the thought of a Farucci Maluchus. Wow, that'd be crazy. Penske, technical alliance, like that would be fearsome. Cool, except they need someone paying dang near eight figures for that second car. And that is not what Davey Maluchus is doing. And Dreddy Global has no additional cars I'm aware of. Aaron McLaren, we know what's happening there. There's nothing at Ganassi, they're downsizing. It's not going back to Dale Coin Racing. Love Dale, that's not where he's going. Ed Carpenter Racing could have an option, depending on what they do or don't do with Reina's VK, also Christian Rasmussen. So there could be something there. Had heard it was a big offer Davey received a month ago or whatever it was. Not saying Carpenter doesn't have money to spend on a good driver, but the heavy offer, financial offer, would seem a little strange knowing that one of their cars, or let's just say half of their two car entries seemingly run without sponsorship from race to race, they don't appear to be dripping in money to throw around, which is why it would come as a surprise. It'd be smart as heck for them to make that offer. I just am not aware of them having tons of money to do that right now. Getting down to the short end of the list here, right? Hunkos Hollinger Racing, of course, right? There's that second car, which we love, and we'll see where that ends up in terms of a full-time situation, but they are the least sponsored team in the series. Fortunate to have co-owner Brad Hollinger, who's footing the bill, extremely wealthy businessman, but their cars are almost always bereft of sponsorship. Therefore, they're looking for someone who can bring a budget and is good to drive the '78 in the future. They certainly right now are not sitting on any kind of financial offer I'm aware of to put in front of a Malukis or whomever else. That leaves us with Myerschank. We know they've made an offer. That leaves us with Ray Holl, Letterman, Landon Racing, where Davy says he's not going, and Team Penske, which does not have any vacancy. So, within those, Foyt doesn't fit, doesn't have the money to spend, they need the money coming in. Don't know of anything getting ready. Nothing at Aaron McLaren, nothing at Ganesi, nothing at coin, maybe carpenter, but hm. Hunkos Hollinger is stretch. Ray Holl, Letterman, Landon, he says no. That, to me, leaves Prema. And if I'm totally missing the mark on someone else, well, we're gonna find out, and y'all can have a good time laughing at me for being an extra, big idiot. J.J. Gerdler, how you doing, J.J.? Take a sip here. Not a beer, by the way. It's a flavored beverage called Ollie Pop. Orange Squeeze, my wife has found, it's quite good. So, I have a contract question based on your article about Maluchus, being close to a decision about next year. Seems like once a driver decides which offer to accept, there's a period before that's officially announced. When everyone plays queued about whether a decision has been made. It's probably different in every case, J.J. says, but aside from notifying the teams they didn't choose, what's involved in setting up the formal announcement once a decision has been made? That's an awesome question. I think one I can answer very quickly. Note here about notifying the teams they didn't choose. That doesn't always happen, by the way. Sometimes, maybe more often than you would think, teams learn that the person they're hoping to sign with hasn't signed because there's an announcement made somewhere else or an idiot reporter learns about it and says, hey, look for this thing to happen. The good drivers, the good managers do indeed make sure that they cover off everybody they've spoken to and had serious conversations with. Ghosting folks in a small employment pool like IndyCar, it does happen, just not really recommended these days. As for the rest, you might be surprised to learn this, but there is a pretty deep connection with IndyCar where teams will say, okay, we're looking to maybe announce something next week and we'll check with IndyCar and find out what IndyCar has on its media release, press release, you name it schedule. And so, it's not uncommon for a team to think, hey, we want to put this out Tuesday at 8 a.m., reach out to the series, and the series comes back and says, got an 8 a.m. of our own, or we've got a 9 a.m. from someone else. You probably want to create a little bit more space than that. And on occasion, when team will offer an embargo on whatever it is, and I know of another one meant to happen maybe in and around the same exact time under another embargo, I will mention to the team that is yet to formally try and set their launch time here, JJ on the news, might say, hey, by the way, you're gonna be on top of someone else, can't tell you, but I can tell you, you might think about going a day before or day after something if you truly want some clear space of your own for your news to soak. So, yeah, you have the desire, you have the feeling out of what's available on the calendar and finding out from IndyCar and working with IndyCar tends to be the way that this happens. Doesn't always happen though. On occasion, you have a team just announce their thing and folks might have to react accordingly. So, one other little quick component. Sometimes there will be an event-based angle to this. Gonna announce this at the 8,500. Gonna announce this on Friday or Saturday at Race X. 'Cause you got the media there. You got photographers there and video cameras, hopefully, and can make a bigger thing out of it. Where sometimes these things fall a little short is, hey, oh, cool, you've signed so-and-so. That's good, and you sent it out and folks got the press release and they ran it. Maybe you'll follow up with that at the next event and do a bigger media splash. Maybe you won't. I look at these things, JJ, as personality-based things. And you do get a feel for a team's personality, how they think about things, how important they regard, their drivers themselves, their sponsors, who's gonna make a big deal out of things, who won't. Yeah, so no single answer on this, but tends to be some sort of coordination with the series. And usually the funny ones is you'll hear from the series wherever we're at and you have someone mention. Yeah, they were a little bit blindsided by something that they really didn't want to be blindsided by. Todd Murray says, "Why do the Dale Coin cars always seem "to over-perform a gateway?" They have notices trends since IndyCar's return in 2017. Is Jack Harvey headed to the podium this weekend? First of all, I hope that'd be amazing. I can't answer with specifics, but I can tell you that there are indeed, obviously, certain teams that have a real knack for certain places. We know for sure at St. Pete, the Penske cars have been extremely good. Not as if the Ganassi cars haven't been good, but between the top two title contenders here after year, St. Pete has been pretty darn close to a Penske, Palace of Performance as we polliterate there a little bit. Don't know why, but we can say to your point, they certainly tend to go very well at Gateway. And where this is fun, for me at least, is this is clearly institutional. The race engineers who did things with Sebastian Bourdie did so well, ain't there anymore. Folks who worked with Santino Fruci ain't there anymore. Like you run down the list and go, okay, for the vast majority of folks who've put up these really good cars for drivers to drive, they're no longer there. But what that means is there's a good enough baseline, pre-arrow screen now with hybrid and the different tires and all kinds of stuff where you go, yeah, they have figured something out there that seems to carry from race engineer to new race engineer across different versions of the car, weight distribution changes and center of gravity. So yeah, I love that part, that things aren't being lost when a brilliant engineer might leave for another team. Ed Joris says several weeks ago, Mark Miles indicated in an interview that several exciting announcements were coming by the end of the year. Do you think we'll hear about a new Honda commitment or a new 2027 car in that timeframe or the wonderful news event that's been discussed for 2026. And do you have any indication whether Honda's staying or going? Let's go in reverse order, I don't. I know they'll be here next year. I know they're signed through 2026. I hope they're here through 2026. The only thing I can say is I know they'll be here next year. As for some of what Mark was alluding to, I have an idea of some of them still developing some of that. So not something I'd mention until I had an opportunity to write about that for my client's ed. I had a friend today ask about video games. So that's what I'll put out. Todd Hudson, MP, always been curious about what goes into moving the fuel intake from one side of the car to the other, depending upon direct pit lane. That's a great question here, Todd. Get that and the question you have after that here. So the Buckeye as it is called just simply moves from one side to the next. Allen bolts, that would be countersunk Allen's that hold the Buckeye in place. Those mount flush on the face plate of the Buckeye. That gets removed and just simply transferred to the other side. Bolted in place, Buckeye obviously connects to the top of the fuel tank sealed off, fills in that 18 and a half gallons of bio-renewable fuel made by what, shell. So yeah, it's pretty straightforward. It's just, I don't remember exactly how many Allen bolts it is, but 12, 15, 16, whatever it is. It's using a speed wrench or maybe a little electric guy to zip those out and then move it to the other side. And then there's a blanking plate that goes on the other. Reality, it's no longer just a truly flat plate. There are some quick disconnect ports on that. The other side, which get used for connecting and putting in measured amount of fuel during practice sessions. And then also a little vent for that as well. So yeah, depending on the direction of pit lane, track to track, that just gets, those are in constant 180 degree rotation. You also say to the front tire, change your swap sides depending upon the direction of pit lane or does the same person stay in place on the outside tire no matter what direction pit lane goes. That is correct. The crew chief, chief mechanic, that tends to be the person who handles the outside front tire at all times. It is done from a authority standpoint. And I don't mean authority like, well, you gotta let 'em do it 'cause they're the boss. It's, you're the most responsible person for the car. In theory, the top veteran doing this, you're the one making the call of stay or hold in most teams scenarios. So that domain over the car doesn't change based on which direction pit lane happens to be going. Canadian Bacon says, Marshall, I was wondering. I've seen lots of discussion about the balance of the IndyCar schedule. Too many road courses, not enough ovals. What do you think an ideal balance would be? Also says, any chance you'll be in Portland would love to meet you. Well, that's gonna be disappointing. Yeah, because it is what, an hour 45-ish flight. I fly up Friday morning, get to the track early afternoon. I think about, I don't know, 90 minutes to two hours before the one and only IndyCar practice session of the day and then fly back Sunday night. And if we weren't doing a bunch of back-to-back weekends might fly up Thursday night and be there first thing Friday morning, but wanting to extend the amount of time at home, knowing that turning around and leaving the following Thursday, I think. Yeah, Thursday for Mealy Wauke. So yeah, and then also coming off of being done in Monterey for four or five days here. So we'll see you there Friday afternoon through Sunday. Um, I would love to see one more oval added to the calendar. Like most, I think that I've spoken with, I'd love to see that prior to the Indy 500 give rookies a chance to learn IndyCar oval racing before the Indy500. Also, just give teams a good pre- Indy500 tune up. Not a huge fan of oval double headers. I don't think they do anything for us. I was maybe the one possible exception because so far high V has been able to bring in some pretty significant musical acts and sell tickets against that. I believe I read something like 20% uptick in sales this year over last for the Iowa double header. So I get that in terms of a music and racing festival type environment for what we have coming at Milwaukee, unless I've missed the announcement of big musical acts or otherwise. It's just two races in a row. It's helping to get the calendar count up, to have 17 points paying races, but outside of Iowa, I don't see the need to do any other oval double headers. So that's where I'd love to take one of those Milwaukee races and turn that into a pre, again, go into Texas would be great if the crowd were to be great, but I think we'd be in pretty good shape if we could add one more oval. Short oval racing is amazing. We have a lot of those now. We have a big super speedway event. We kind of have something close-ish to a mile and a half like we had at Texas at Nashville at 1.33 miles, but it's a little bit of a weird cement track and D-shaped and it's not the raging, oh my God, type place that Texas happens to be. But that would be my answer. I'm a person who loves all three types of racing. We have an Indy car. So knowing that it doesn't seem like there's a ton of ready oval saying, yes, come on down. Be our favorite series or our second favorite series terms of ovals. Don't know if I see a lot of evolution and they're happening here anytime soon. Jason Hoover said, "I know that the schedule is set for 2025, but what track would you like to see added to the 2026 schedule?" You know, let's go with the question here from the next person as the answer. Eater flows out and it has been a while. Oh, la Marshall, it's been a while since posted a question. It's after his win in Iowa. Pato Ward said on his media tour to the Mexican press and he believes Indy Carl have a race in Mexico by 2026. Be another thing to watch out for. Mark Miles, exciting. Is that really happening? Well, the series finally have a race outside the US/Canada. You know, and also mentions very nice things. Best wishes for me and loved ones. And here's a new one or a newish one. Best wishes to your listeners. How genuinely sweet is that? Not kidding. Like, that's just, I don't know, that's cool. Need to be there. Need to be there for sure. Don't really want to go to Autodromo, Ermanos Rodriguez, Formula One's there, Formula E's there, showing up late there. Again, Pato would be crazy popular. I get that enough to pack the place. No, not at all. I don't know where we go. There's a question later here. Somewhere, someone asking about the state of the former Monterey, Mexico destination where Champcar went, I don't know if that still exists. I haven't looked. So, I would say your googling would probably be as good as mine. But some place that isn't where F1 and Formula E already play or have played, something that we could say is unique to IndyCar. Pato, obviously, son of Monterey. That would be a great place. Could we do a street race? If the former circuit is not in a good enough situation to be used, I don't know. But if it were to happen, and Lord, I hope it does, I want this to be all about Pato and not just hoping to be loved at a place where, at least with F1, a much bigger and more popular series already owns the hearts and minds of folks there, plus have Checo there to support. Here's a fun one from our pal Tim Durham, also known as Super Producer of the Off Track with Hinch and A Rossi Show. So, do you have any recommendations for kids books that aren't made for kids? Maybe something based on a violent Shakespeare play. Indeed, I do. It's not Macbeth, it's McLachlan. That's the one that I'm definitely gonna suggest. A lot of see you next Tuesdays included. In that book, it might be more word violence granted. I know he's lost even more weight and is fairly svelte to use a word you should never use on a podcast, svelte. Scott McLachlan, probably the driver I would want to mess with the least if I was another driver. No Graham Rahall is the biggest tallest, whitest stature. McLachlan is not small. Again, he's very skinny, super healthy, all those things, but frame wise, pretty stout. Also, he's from Down Under. That just automatically comes with a do not mess with sign. Now I know our guy will power boxer, fighter, all that stuff, street fights back of the day. Will's also, what, 42? Scotty Mac is the guy I would not want to enrage. Now, the unfortunate part here, he drives for Roger Penske. So we can't go bopping people in the head, but Shakespearean violence, forget Macbeth, we're going with McLachlan. I don't know if it's a kid book, but it's a parable, it could be told to kids. So maybe it's more of a oral story. Tim, one of your specialties. Lance Snyder says to get fans excited about the hybrid and to show it being used, wouldn't it be great? You're going a little off the rails here, buddy. I can't speak today, but that's okay. Not like today's any different than other days. Says would it be great if there were say bright panels, maybe made of LEDs that give visual information when the hybrid's being used? Maybe where the car number currently is, what say you? It's just heresy. I mean, I am going to ban you from the show, Lance, for thinking of such crazy things, much less thinking you should suggest this. So LED panels on an IndyCar, displaying information? Bad, Lance, bad. All right, we are just about to say farewell and we're going to rattle through a couple of quick ones and say farewell. Lynn, formerly the Spurs fan, you're the one asking about what happened to the track in Monterey, Mexico. Don't know, Google and report back. Little sidebar, I don't know. But often with stuff like this, my first thought is imagine if you Googled that, you would know. But I need you to inform me because I haven't Googled it. So my apologies. Lord, Thike, how did drivers spend the Olympic break? Did they treat it like a vacation? Was it all spent in the gym and on the simulator? I didn't speak with many drivers because it's generally trying to give them a break. I know what Marcus Erickson and his wife, Iris, went to Greece. Then I think Barb, Barbat, Bahamas, I forget where. They were doing some good traveling and winding down of the couple, very few other drivers that I spoke with. Usually was after they were doing one of the two tests, they were trying to do the same thing. Keep it mellow, chill around the house, go fishing, golfing. Lot of golf was played. A lot of golf was played. Yeah, normal stuff that I would say, pretty much what my quote, break was like, although it did have the impster race at road America in there. But yeah, here we are, first day into race week of IndyCar, and I gotta admit, I'm already exhausted. So I'm gonna try and get some sleep tonight. But yeah, I don't think anyone did anything super crazy. I also didn't follow a ton of folks on social media. So, you know, if we had someone at the Olympics, for example, tell me, 'cause I'll go look at their feed. Jason Hoffman says, "Do you feel that with McLaren and possibly if or when Pratt Miller get on the grid that we could see multiple chassis manufacturers again?" Also says, I know it's late, but how about that Gojira performance at the Olympic opening ceremony? Yeah, that was really cool. Really, really, really cool. I'm so glad I got to watch that. I forget where, replay somewhere. I would be absolutely gobsmacked to use another word. You should never use on a podcast, along with Svelte. Let's build a list of words you should never use on a podcast, just randomly. Hey, count me in on going back to multiple chassis. I just don't know how that will ever happen at all. Nobody wants it. Should say nobody. Of the folks who are spending the money to buy the cars, I have not heard any credible conversation from any of the team owners saying, I want more than one chassis option. Most of them, despite complaining about everything related to Delara, from costs to spare parts availability, to you name it, do not want the ability to make the wrong decision on which chassis to use. So that's been gone for 12, 13 years now. Nobody that I know of, Jason, is wanting to risk spending a million dollars or more on cars that would prove to be inferior. I think we'd lost that war. Where else do we go here? Todd Murray, this one been holding on to this for just a little while, last two here. So say back to 1993, Penske showed up with a dorsal fin on the engine cover. A lot of speculation as to its function, but conjecture was it provided increased yaw stability. 31, that's more stability in a slide. 31 years later, what do you know about the dorsal fin? For me personally, that'd be a great place to mount LED panels, wouldn't it? It would. That's what I understood it to be as well, and haven't heard anything to tell me otherwise since then. Those appeared, was it 1998 Delara IRL cars even? So those became pretty popular in cart right after this happened, this is in an era where there's no really spec anything. So teams could modify body work every single race. Think of modified body work during a race weekend if they wanted to. All of a sudden, everybody showed up with these fins which got bigger and bigger and provided, yeah, more yaw stability and also channeled more focused air to the rear wing. That's what I know it to be. Going to close here with our pal Jeremy Davis, arguably the world's greatest, biggest Scott Dixon fan. Is it true that Kyle Larson's Hendrick McLaren deal was a two year deal? If it is, I would be confused, Jeremy, because I asked Aaron McLaren boss, Zach Brown about this, not specifically was it a two year deal, but any thoughts of doing this again, I think wrote a story about it where he said, "Open to it would love to probably wait a little while till I broach the subject with Mr. Hendrick, but if they're keen, we would be keen to do it again." Paraphrasing, obviously, but it would be strange for him to say all those things if they already had a deal in place. So I assume based on his answers to my question about would you want to do this again? And him not saying, yes, because we have a two year deal, I'd lean towards them not having a two year deal. Also after Kyle won the Brickyard 400 said, "Let's come back in May and try and do this again." You heard anything about that? No, but I will see our guy Zach starting Wednesday morning, gonna try and do what we normally do each year, which is some in car stuff with cool things that he's brought to Monterey reunion and try and catch up about a lot of things, just telling you the truth, 98% of those things, never see the light of day, 'cause a lot of it's way super on background, but I will try and remember to ask about this. I might also wait because this is also call it a off weekend for him, where he's trying to enjoy racing instead of be racing guy working. So I also try not to mix too much of the business and work stuff into what is effectively a racing vacation for him and some others. All right, y'all, I will look forward to speaking to you after WWTR. My brain wants to say WWF, it actually wants to say WWE as well, but WWTR, interesting to see how this Saturday night race goes. If you've read any of the stuff I've written so far, we have some drivers and engineers very concerned, it is not going to be an exciting race, crossing fingers and other appendages, hoping that it indeed is amazing. So enjoy the rest of your week. We'll speak to you soon. We will see where this championship is standing after 260 laps, 1.25 mile, WWTR raceway. (upbeat music) (upbeat music) (upbeat music)
