(upbeat music) - Welcome to the Marshall Crew podcast. We're in a week in IndyCar, listening to Q&A. Here we are friends. Championship week, we will head to Nashville, decide who's going to be. IndyCar's newest three-time champion. Alex Pillow will power one of those two knuckleheads is going to have a pretty amazing, amazing event. We'll see what we have to do in terms of weather and being patient. Knowing that there's a hurricane barreling up from the Gulf right now. Rain is certainly expected Thursday through Monday. A little bit better certain days within that timeframe, but got four sessions on Saturday, two practices, a rubbering in session, and then qualifying. Speaking with the series, they told me if we do have rain delays, if we do get any pockets where we can run, practice would be the one that receives the absolute priority because there's so many drivers who've just never been there before. Also have two compounds of tires to work with. And so there'd be a need to figure those out. So if by chance the hurricane loses a little bit of steam and/or maybe moves in a different direction than predicted, maybe rain won't be so much of a thing on Saturday and Sunday. That's the obvious hope. But if it is in particular on Saturday, if we do get a lot of rain and thunder, but we do have an opportunity for a little bit of drying, I'd say we're probably going to forget qualifying, start the race on points. That would be Alex P1 and Will P2. So you couldn't ask for any more fun than that. And focus heavily on getting in laps for everyone to learn the track, learn the tires, be properly studied for when we go and do 206 laps of racing. Hopefully on Sunday in the big machine, music city grand prix. So say a big, big thank you to y'all for all the great questions and support throughout this craziest of seasons and to our friend Jerry Sutterth who puts your questions together. Pretty much everything we have for this week is a carryover from last. Don't have a ton of news that's coming right now. Let's see, by the time you're listening to this, you're probably reading about cool announcement from the series and its long standing official tire partner, then working together for a lot longer. I think we got a Indiana XT driver announcement coming in the morning, which is really cool. I think we got another team announcing something cool as well, not driver related. I got some other stories to write here tonight before I go to bed, but let's pay a listen, pay some respects to those who make the show possible. 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 are specializing in medium to large scale automotive, motorsports, and military applications. Visit FAFT Technologies.com. It's PFAFF Technologies.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, and the 24 hours a day tona, 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 gear and goodies, pay a visit to torontomotorsports.com. And finally, you have a new online merchandise home for the podcast, thepruitstore.com. For all the show stickers, models, racing memorabilia, I'm trying to sell, and put towards our fun to buy a house, is now live and rocking. Thepruitstore.com. Last thing I'll mention before we get rolling with the show, awoke this morning to one of my favorite emails of the year. If IndyCar were to create the IndyCar troll of the year award, actually they wouldn't. We would need to create it, but if such a thing existed, forget rookie of the year, come back of the year, whatever of the year. IndyCar troll of the year, that award goes to Patricio award. Young Pato award. I damn near fell out of bed laughing this morning, having taken a look and gotten the email from his Pato TV account. And this is a triple, triple troll. Granted, I'm a grown, I'm an adult. I shouldn't be this petty. I should not take this much pleasure from such things, but I do. So that doesn't say positive things about me. But a triple troll from Pato. I spoke to him today, and I'm gonna call him Professor Pato because he is taking the series, Penske Entertainment, and the chief excrement officer, Mark Miles, oh boy, he is taking them to school with this high level of trolling. So not only did he announce that a new hat is available, Pato who? Coming off of Miles unfortunate dreadful comments here a couple of weeks ago, leading into Portland. Also, he is setting up not one, but two billboards. This is the big thing that I learned today talking to our guy. And I just, I called him like, "You gotta tell me more about this." 'Cause again, I apologize, low character for me, but I'm really petty and I love this. I said, "Tell me about the billboards." He says, "All right, the first one, you'll see that along your drive if you're going from downtown to the Speedway." He said, "I couldn't get the other one that I wanted right now." So the second billboard's gonna go up in November, you should be able to see that on your drive. If you're in and around Indianapolis, Highway 465 is getting kind of the main hub in and around the city. If you're doing that drive on 465 to IMS, you will definitely see a huge Pato who? Billboard, so yeah. For those of you looking to, as he asked, take a selfie, do a hashtag Pato who? And send that of you with Billboard. Didn't get the exact time, the one that's gonna be in that downtown drive to the Speedway goes up, but there is certain intent that our friend Mr. Miles will see that and understand IndyCar's most popular driver like the Wu-Tang Clan ain't nothing to f with. And then to complete the triple trolling for the guy who's not popular enough to headline an IndyCar race in Mexico, confirm this morning he will be doing free practice one at the upcoming Mexican Grand Prix, right? Look at that. Get your Pato who hat. Get your hashtag Pato who? Hashtag photo selfie with the billboards. And then also at the place where he just isn't popular enough in front of his people. He'll be taking part home Grand Prix. Biggest racing series in the world, free practice one with McLaren. I mean, this is just, it's a triple mic drop. It is just ridiculous. Last thing, and I learned this last week. I believe it to be true, but to close this, heard that whether Miles is saying this is take it out of context or whatever, whatever. He created a bad situation for IndyCar's most popular driver. And that driver, guy's a genuine sweetheart, really is. Known him for a long time and sweetheart of a kid. He's just someone you treat him nicely and you get it back double or triple, right? He's that kind of person, crazy giving. Regardless of how or why this thing came out the way that it did, this was something that, from words spoken by our guy, Mark Miles, embarrassed Pato, put a unnecessary bit of negativity on it. Like there was nothing positive that came out of that other than the huge wave of support from his many fans. Nonetheless, you would have thought in the interest of trying to maintain peace or just feigning peace, you'd reach out, say, hey, sorry, man, that thing kind of blew up, boy. That thing went sideways real quick. Sorry, didn't, none of however what came out was meant to be critical, but just sorry. Didn't happen, no communication to my knowledge. So, yeah, I don't really know how you mess up and then just refuse to try and mend a broken bridge, but I can tell you, looking at the evidence of actions taken by IndyCar's most popular driver, this triple trolling hat billboard in FU, I'm doing FP1, yeah, not good from the series side, but also thank you, Pato, for absolutely refusing to let it go. So, there you go, that's the pettiness report on the week in IndyCar here in the Marshall Prote podcast. Let's get rolling with your questions. We head into big machine, music city, grand pre-season finale, a lot of farewells between teams and drivers, some sponsors in some areas, learned of another potential sponsor change, not just one going away, which I think I mentioned on last week's show, a significant sponsor leaving, but heard from a couple drivers this week who've told me they're aware of a significant sponsor, either splitting. Their involvement or possibly leaving one team altogether and going to another, which would then be used for another. So, ah, this silly season, it's never gonna end, but hey, let's try and get IndyCar race in and done and say farewell to 2024. All right, looking back at Milwaukee, our dear friend, Cassie Johnston, Mama G-Force, good old Craig G-Force, and their amazing daughter as well, baby G-Force, the whole G-Force family here. Cassie, she says MP is great to see you there and it seems like teams are short on tires in Milwaukee. Was that a miscalculation, a production issue, or was it just intentional to try and make the show interesting? She says my little Rossi fan was ready to sell her kidney for one more set of firestones for that last restart. I don't believe there was anything in terms of a tire shortage. Think what led to this Cassie was we saw for the first half of the first race, where it seemed like the cruise, fuel save, you name it, don't overstress anything, longer lap times, slower lap speeds, and conservation was the general approach for the majority. That seemed to get thrown out the window by, I don't know, halfway through, if not sooner in race one, and it was gone altogether in race two. So I think that's probably where this dynamic changed. Instead of, all right, tend not to do a lot of constant attacking right from the outset, tires should last longer, should have more grip to offer since they're not being so heavily taxed, the outset of each stint. I think that was a smart mindset to predict going in, but in reality, all those throttles were getting smashed, and for sure, tires were being consumed at a higher rate. So I think that's why we saw what we saw. Ryan Greco, this is in double-header weekends. Can a team save a set of tires from race one to use as an extra set in race two? They have to hand it back to Firestone. Now the way they laid things out was, here's the total amount of tires you got for the weekend. And that's what it was. And so teams trying to intentionally save a set in one race to carry over to the other. Again, if they had crashed out, for example, to my knowledge, there was no having to hand back anything after Saturday if someone was done early or something like that. So unless I'm just totally forgetting things, don't believe there was any real saving strategy a team could do if they completed all of Saturday. Jody the Realtor says, do you think if Connor Daily doesn't have a full-time ride next year, that he's at least made himself into a backup quarterback, gets called when a team parts away with a driver? I think he's already been that person, Jody. What we saw though, which we already knew, but what we definitely saw evidence of, is if we get into the scenario next year with teams that are looking a little iffy on the leader's circle side, we get down to the last couple of races, knowing that next year, it's oval heavy to close the season as well, would not be surprised if that call to get old Connor Daily gets made. He's already an extremely amazing quote substitute just 'cause he's done that so many times for so many years, not as if he wouldn't be an excellent choice for a full-season role. I'm unaware though of any teams talking to him about a full-time role where the team pays for it, or Connor having enough sponsorship to buy a full-season ride. So, I know when he and I spoke later last year, there's definitely thoughts of like, "Hey, I always wanna do the Indy 500, "that's never gonna change," but I wonder with my opportunity at Ed Carpenter Racing going away and the change made there in 2023 before the halfway point. And got that call to sub obviously for Simon Pajino and did all the special Connor things that he does, but he did speak, Jody, too. I wonder if this is the tipping point where I need to start looking at other opportunities in the sport. So we know about his interest on the NASCAR side and some of what he has done there. So, unless there's some sort of radical change by somebody saying, "I gotta have Connor daily "on a regular basis in my Indy car," I think what we're looking at is, hopefully he can develop more cool, fun stuff, whether it's NASCAR, Rally Cross, both other things, IMSA, you name it, that Indy 500 program, right? Hopefully you'll be able to keep doing that for many years to come and then be ready for that call if there's a need on a weekend you're free, if Indy car driver happens to be unable to go where we have that leader circle situation where you need a proven person, especially on short ovals, but ovals in general go get you a lot of points and get you that million dollars. Indy Brit asks, "Why did it take five laps to go green "when Palau was stopped at the start? "Was race control trying to give him the best chance "of getting going to avoid disrupting the championship fight? "Or is there another reason?" Well, he was the championship fight, so I don't think they were trying to do anything out of the ordinary, but his car was dead in the water, unable to shift, unable to do anything, so if we keep in mind that this is a one mile oval, even at pace car speeds, it doesn't take very long for a lap to be completed. The number five, it's a big number, I guess, but in a 250 lap race on a short oval, those laps go by pretty quickly. So if we were talking 10 or 15 laps, I'd take this as, all right, what is going on? The five laps under caution while getting Palau's car sorted and then ultimately out of the way and whatnot, I didn't see anything there that made me think anything out of the ordinary was happening, any extra assistance was being done to avoid disrupting the championship fight, I actually just came across as pretty normal for such a short track. Our pal Jim Kaiser, how you doing Jim? Hope you and the family are super well. Jim was our first person to help put together the weekly questions for y'all. It's Jim, then our pal Tim Falkowitz, and our man Jerry Suddath, he's been, he's been helming this for a little while now, but Jim started sending in haiku many, many years ago. I'm also, I think next year, I think next May, we will tip over and start our 10th year of the podcast. Lord, that's like a little, just right around a fifth of my life, what in the world? Oh man, anyways, oh, that's a good thing, doing it that long, I don't know. Anyways, Jim started sending in haiku a super long time ago, and we don't get very many Jim Kaiser submissions these days 'cause he's a busy guy, but we do now. He says, a presumptive championship haiku, freaking polo, man, rides, powers, crash, and burn to title number three. Oh, we do indeed need something not great to happen for our guy, member of the Pruday podcast listener group here, by the way, Alex polo, if you're a willpower fan, you do need more of the adversity that struck Alex at Milwaukee race two to carry over into Nashville, because although his lead is 33 points, which is not insurmountable, it's almost insurmountable. So if Alex can just finish the race, if Will's running first, Alex needs to finish like ninth, I think, or 10th, which doesn't seem too hard, his average finish on ovals when adversity isn't happening is like fifth or better. So if Will's having a brilliant day, Alex needs to be competitive, right? Doesn't need to lead, doesn't need to challenge for podium, but I mean, he could be bottom end of the top 10, basically, and still win the championship. If Will is running like second, I mean, it just takes all the pressure off Alex. He's all of a sudden in just stay focused and try not to crash, because if you just stay on track, it's damn near impossible. And if Will's running like third, I mean truly, Alex can kind of pull in, go get a margarita, go get something, get some barbecue, take in a concert, climb back in the car, and effectively keep going. So there's that. So yeah, this will require some cartoon anvil falling for sure. We will have to see if anything weird happens, because that is truly about the only scenario where Alex Palau is not your next IndyCar champion and a three timer. So yeah, granted. Of course, saying this as a new game, of course, saying this as a fan, right? Not as a impartial journalist, but just as a fan. I look at Alex and I look at the runway for his career and realize if he does IndyCar for another 15 years, he could retire what? Seven time champ, nine time champ. I mean, he could have more than anybody. Be the all time championship leader if he just hangs around. Look at our guy, Will Power, deep friendship and love for him as well. He doesn't have as long of a runway for sure. That means if I'm looking at things just from a fan standpoint, as tough as it's going to be for Will to make championship number three happen, he's got one maybe two opportunities more to try and get that third title. He doesn't need it to prove anything. He's already one of IndyCar's greatest, but just for his sake, coming this close. If he were to leave Nashville as champion, I'd feel sad for Alex, having authored an amazing year, but I would also be extremely happy just as a fan, as a friend for our guy, DJ Willy P, knowing that not a lot of time left for him to be able to do more things like this in his career. But back to Jim's point, oh boy, with that unforced error, that spin that Will had on the laps that were lost and kind of letting things up on Pillow. Yeah, it is a pray for adversity, race, if you're a power fan and it is a just stay out of the mess race if you are a pillow fan. Jack Tollett, is there any substance to the rumor that there would be a test at Richmond? Or is it all a load of Tosh? Yeah, I've had a couple of folks ask about that. I haven't heard anything about it, so that doesn't mean it's not happening, but I have not heard that anything is happening. So I will try and ask around this weekend to see if there's any substance to it, but not that I know of. Bernie, you Logeo, how are you, Bernie? Is that the post-race press conference? Will Power said some people are trying to take his seat. I believe he'd be referring to Portland where I was the one who posed the question, Bernie. Was he referring to Pato Award? No, he wasn't. Pato was signed for many, many, many years at Aaron McLaren. No, he was referring to David Maluchus, who signed I believe and have been saying for a while, no one has pushed back when I've said this to folks who were affiliated. I am confident that David Maluchus is signed to Team Penske. I have any proof of it, but it's the only thing that makes sense to me. And he will be driving for the Team Penske Technical Alliance Affiliate AJ Floyd Racing next year. So yeah, the belief when the announcement happened about Maluchus going there was, oh, well, this is Penske getting to know and coaching up future replacement for Will Power, whose contract runs out at the end of 2025. As Team Penske President, Tim Cindrick told me in an interview a week or two ago, whenever it was, if Will keeps driving the way that he does, it's going to make it, you know, it's going to be, make it really hard, slash impossible to not continue with him. So we'll have to see how this plays out, but assuming Will continues to be as quick and effective, he's been the best Team Penske driver this year. Assuming he continues to do that, I would think Team Penske would offer him a contract extension. So Will's full-time IndyCar career is without a doubt at the tail end there, but he's not ready to go anytime soon. Michael Miller, what's a deal, Dave Cohen Racing with Rick Ware Racing? RWR social media hasn't mentioned IndyCar since the 2023 season finale, but the RWR logo is still on the 51. All I know is that they indeed continue to work together this year as a co-entrant. Do I think that will continue in 2025? Madaretta, a story that I did with Dale Cohen. It's actually from a couple of months ago, but freshened it in a conversation with him a day or two ago on the same topic, but that being on racer.com about Dale looking to take investors in the team's charters. So not into the team itself. He's not selling, to my knowledge, a single percent of Dale Cohen racing to anybody, but the charters themselves, if someone would want to invest money or maybe bring a bunch of sponsors and such that created some sort of windfall for him and he'd be willing to do that in exchange for whatever percent of the charters, that's what he's looking at. So that's why I'll be curious to see if the RWR relationship continues in whatever capacity or if Dale would be looking more to take on paying investors going forward and just have them come in through the charters themselves. Jamie Doleinger says, want to share a thought about Fox that most people have overlooked going into 2025. Fox has already announced they'll be covering IndyCar and Fox deport us. 'Cause I know that does not sound like a home run with Mexican and Latin American exposure, but it's possibly a turn or direction could expand our audience. So it's correct me if I'm wrong, but I don't think we had that additional exposure with NBC and I don't think ESPN, ABC slash ESPN deport us covered the series. I feel confident that they did back in the day 'cause I recall granted this might be cart era at the peak popularity for IndyCar, but yeah, I definitely recall hearing some great and amazing ESPN deport us calls in Spanish. Yeah, I mean, it can only help for sure. Also know that through the former relationship with ABC slash ESPN, then this Jamie being basically 100% because of ESPN and the worldwide leaders, links and relationships, longstanding everywhere, and all kinds of amazing existing pick whichever language in whichever country broadcasting relationships. This was one stop shopping for IndyCar in that relationship. So pick wherever you are in the world. If there's any kind of ESPN presence there in that country, in whatever language it was, you got your IndyCar in that language because this ESPN relationship, when they left and went exclusive to NBC, I think starting in 2019, that is where a lot of, oh, we might have pooped the bed a little bit on the international side and might not have thought that all the way through because unlike ESPN, NBC does not and has not had that deep international multi-language broadcast relationship to say cool. Here's all the people doing all the commentating and wherever in the world to bring this product to folks in their native language outside the US. Fox, it is awesome to hear that at least if we're looking below the good old US of A, that this sounds like it's going to be a pretty cool, pretty cool thing that they'll be able to activate right away and I'm guessing, but knowing that they're really, really deep, deep relationship with football slash soccer would hope that yeah, this is just some great, great lines of broadcasting and communication that they can just activate right away to IndyCar's benefit. So I'm with you. Hey, you can only help, right? Might even make Pata Award a little bit popular. Our pal Oscar C Love, who I haven't seen since night for the Indy 500. How you doing Oscar? Says, so has this been a good season? Says hashtag me personally. Boy, I haven't seen that for a while in the show here, Oscar. I used to be the official hashtag of the show, but doesn't get used very much anymore. Says hashtag me personally. Possibly one of the most controversial seasons because there's been something after every event. Oh, yeah. Before the season, during the season, after the season, it's been, it felt like last year was a little bit nonstop Oscar the year before. I don't know if I'd say nonstop, but with the whole polo trying to leave Ganesi and getting sued and all that stuff. And then that inverting the following year and it's still like, it has felt like IndyCar has been messy for a little while. This year of late, it has been executives within the series stepping on their body parts, which have certainly not made things clear and easy and cool. But yeah, it's, this has been, I can't recall a year. I really, truly can't. That has been more controversy, laden, adversarial, adversity filled. Like it's all of those things. And I know this is one of those like first world problem things. So please disregard, but I'm exhausted. Like I'm just, I can't wait for it to be over. Just from a, it feels like this thing has been kicking us in the boy parts and girl parts for as long as this year has been. And I just love the idea of being able to put the IndyCar season to bed, crown a champion, move into an off season that hopefully is not totally wacky. And then also, not that this matters as well, but this will be my last long, long trip of the year. I think 10 or 11 days heading out for Nashville, staying over, have the Imsa Endurance Race at Indianapolis the following weekend, six hour race, which is pretty phenomenal. And yeah, lots of work to do, lots of filming to do during the week in between. So anyways, I look forward, and I mention all that for one reason, Oscar, look forward to getting IndyCar in over crowning a champ, hopefully having a beer with a champ after the race. Gotta get an interview done there with a champ, gotta work on my next ESPN column, which will probably be Monday, Sunday night Monday, get that filed for Tuesday. Spend all day Tuesday going to a bunch of amazing shops and filming stuff there. This is all Imsa stuff. And maybe around Wednesday, taking a deep breath. Actually Tuesday night, I am supposed to, supposed to go have multiple beers with a friend from IndyCar. And he and I have been trying to do this for a really long time. So I gotta make that happen Tuesday night. I think it's gonna be a call in Uber night. And then I spoke with our guy Chris Wheeler, and he invited me over to cook me dinner Wednesday night, like adult stuff, like no longer a boy. He's gonna cook dinner. He called me and said he was gonna make dinner tonight for himself, light a candle, and sit down on the couch and watch TV. And I'm like, I'm so proud of you Chris Wheeler. That's like adult boy, no longer a boy, but adult stuff. So anyways, but I just look forward to hopefully Tuesday night, maybe Wednesday, exhaling, saying full proper farewell to the IndyCar season. Of course there's gonna be a ton more to write about and other developments and drivers named and teams doing this and that. But yeah, can't wait Oscar to just say goodbye. JJ Gertler says, I don't understand why. Oh, he doesn't say that. He says, I understand, sorry. I understand a.J. Floyd doesn't go to race as much anymore, but haven't heard anything about his reaction to the Portland poll and the team's general change of fortune. There's Larry Foyt's in charge, but have you heard anything from Supertex? No, haven't, he did share a quote which was used after the poll position at Portland. Yeah, I know why AJ hasn't been seen as much as we would hope of late and just say that I hope we get to see more of him next season. Vincent Martinez. Says Foyt can't possibly be bringing back Stingray Rob with the way that Santino Frucci is driving. Surprise, the signing is taking so long. What's the latest on the Foyt situation? Again, apologies Vincent. This is a carryover from last week. You might've read the story, went up on Racer earlier this week, maybe Monday, I don't know. Speaking with Larry Foyt, speaking with Santino, they both say they're talking and working on an extension. I am aware, I believe, of one other team that is interested in Santino, which might make this a little bit of a different scenario, right? Instead of like, hey, perfect fit for the team. Love you, I want to keep you. But no real market for you to, hey, perform in the way he's performing, you'd kind of hope there'd be a market. I've heard there might be one other team that is interested in him. So do I think staying with Foyt is the clear best choice for him? 1,000%. There's no openings at the moment, at Penske, at Andreddy, at Aeromaclaren, at Ganassi. There's no other place to go that is better than where he's at right now. I've heard for a while that, you know, he might not be the most heavily paid driver on the paddock by any means, possibly towards the bottom end. And so based on performance, maybe hopefully that could get tuned up a little bit to his favor, but speaking with Larry Foyt, have been aware of this, but Larry did say on the record that, you know, we're trying to make this a Faroochie Maluchus pairing, not a Maluchus replacing Faroochie and then see who else we could find. So those two together, as I think I might have mentioned a week or two or however long ago, like those two would be insane for turning Foyt's fortunes even further around. So really hope that happens on the Stingray side. They've known that they're not gonna be back and have been looking for a while. Dale Coyne is an option. Hunko's hauling erasing has been mentioned many times to me as a place that could be a place where Stingray could find a home. Not a lot of other options out there for him to pursue. Of course, again, there's carpenter, there's some other things out there that could, but Stingray is in that unenviable position of being looked at as a paycheck. And I'm not saying that's the only thing the kid brings to the table. I think he's improved significantly year-to-year as a sophomore. Even so, we've seen what the one Foyt car is capable of doing and that is sitting in the top 10. Santino is P10 going into the season finale has been in or around P10 P11. My friend, Scott Richards, statistician, looked through and told me the last time a Foyt car was in the top 10, going into the season finale? 2002, more than 20 years. I worked with Airton back year two before that. Perverted, dude, but anyways, that's through another day. But more than 20 years since Foyt was in a position like this. So you look at what Santino's been able to do in the 14 and then you realize that while he's not last, Stingray is next to last, maybe close to last, in terms of full-season drivers. The other thing that's been said to me many times is whereas he was known to bring a pretty significant paycheck this year, I've heard from some who've said it's not as big of a number as being offered for next year. And so that's just where things get tough. Really like the kid, great family, great everything, right? But as competitive as IndyCar has become, as expensive as things have become, you're either being looked at as a rocket on track to be hired or someone who can bring money to help the team get by. And despite half of the team performing at a level they haven't seen in decades, that hasn't happened with Stingray unfortunately. So of the options available to him, it would be along the lines of if he does get signed, it will be because of the money that he brings and the team's need for that money compared to we think you're going to do big things in our car and just telling you the truth. Press releases will say the opposite, manager will complain and say whatever he wants to say, but this isn't the first time this has happened with a driver, it won't be the last. So I hope the kid's able to continue, but we will know for sure if he's able to, probably speak more to the team's financial needs than anything else. Lance Snyder asking how good that Santucci and Malucci combination would be. The part that intrigues me the most is Santino has matured like without a doubt. He is wiser, more considered than ever and he's only like what, 25, 26, something like that, 27. It's not that old, that old, but without a doubt, he is more mature. He's still got those youthful tendencies, right? He's gotten into Romain Groschon's ass multiple times this year. He yoked up our guy Kyle Kirkwood for short Detroit. I mean, there's, he is a bulldog. That is his personality. That is not new. What is new though is instead of defaulting to that a lot, he's defaulting to it less. So share all that Lance because a slightly older, slightly wiser Santino, I think, would be a really good influence on David. David who, whatever his physical age is, he's young. He's really smart, really, really smart, but he is not a hardened, hardened person in any way. Santino, more of a hardened person. I do wonder what having a teammate who is as fast, if not faster than you, in a lot of places, and also someone who's a little bit more of a suck it up. I don't wanna hear your complaints. I wonder what that would be like for him from an influence as a teammate. So wasn't something that he had so much at coin, right? Shkuma Sato tried to be good kind of mentor, but Shkuma's not gonna get into your backside. That's not Felix Rosenkfist by any means at Marshank Racing. So that's the area where I think Lance, beyond what they're able to do on track. They're both amazing on ovals. They're both really good on road courses, et cetera. I wonder if that kind of sharper edge to Santino might be something that toughens David up a little bit. Just to piggyback on that real quick. When we've heard about scraps between David and these are verbal, mind you, but scraps between David and Scott McLaughlin or willpower. There's not been a lot of respect coming back David's way because he's reacted to those things in a very soft manner. Now, it's his choice. He doesn't have to change. Doesn't mean he's a bad person, doesn't mean he's weak. But in a wickedly competitive sport like IndyCar, there is a little bit of that bully mindset, right? Hey, if I push you and you don't push back, I feel like I got you and push you around, bully you and take advantage of you. Would say that David shown some of that on track for sure, but where he hasn't shown that is on the interpersonal side. He does not have that respect that would lead some of the older, more hardened, more aggressive drivers to go, okay, hey, oh, okay. All right, well, you are now pushing back interpersonally. You are standing up and fighting for yourself. You're telling me to F off, right? Before it was me telling you to F off, but now you're coming out like, okay, I know this might sound meaningless or it might sound trite, might sound, whatever. But in that delicate balance of fighting in a highly competitive environment, there's a thing, there's a little bit of a pecking order. And okay, I feel like I can destabilize that person, whether it's how aggressive I am on track or off track as well. And maybe they don't fight me as hard next time in that same situation because I've encroached upon their comfort and they're not really willing to fight back and push back for themselves. That's an area where I think Santino could help David. Let's go to David Schrock. Hey MP is a former DAG data acquisition guy. Wasn't that your title? It was one of my titles. Assistant engineers, maybe the more common term, but yeah, and it was never guy, it was geek. DAG was the acronym that tells you how far into car and how far racing has come, right? The person who used to handle the computers and electronics on the car was considered the geeky, nerdy person because everything else was super manly and burn, you go, okay, like anyways. Yeah, DAG, it's something I did for a good long while, for sure. Asking, why was RLL so slow and what solutions do you think they'll be looking at moving forward? It seems like a mechanical grip issue considering the track. So is their shock program, isn't the toilet? He says, if it's a shock issue, any possibility, they would partner with a team that is better at that. And it's also one of the many kind folks who said, "Hope your wife and the kitties are well." Thanks, Dave. Wrote about this extensively, I think last week in the race or mail bag and I think maybe even the week before. I'll give you the quick answers here. Good person on dampers, but by no means as big of a damper program or department as the bigger teams. They have a structure problem. They have a people problem. They made a mistake a year and a half ago. And it's a mistake that most people would make based on who the advice was given from. But the great Adrian Newey, Formula One designer, you name it, Adrian Newey recommended someone he'd worked with who was an aerodynamic specialist to be the team's new technical director. And so they hired him. And again, anybody, Adrian's recommending, you're going, "Yes, sir." Problem was, IndyCar is not an aerodynamic series. I realize, of course it is in the sense of aerodynamics are massively important. But to spec series, teams have learned just about everything there is to learn about the aerodynamics of these cars. Been in the same aero configuration since 2020, since the aero screen was added. So realize that there might be little bits and bobs that change from year to year, mostly at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway, but there's not much left to uncover in that area. It means hiring somebody then is your technical director. That, if we're talking, that's your race engineering head coach, right? That's the head coach of making the cars go fast. Like, wow, that's an important job. If their primary area of expertise is one that doesn't really apply to these cars, never seen an oval before. Isn't a damper person, isn't a, yadda yadda, like, this was one of those things where based on the recommendation, of course you listen, of course you probably say yes, but I know that my eyes perked up at the time like, huh, I don't know how this fits unless this person is an amazing leader and empower of their staff and highly inventive and can help support them with everything they need to become more, bad, et cetera, is this person a phenomenal facilitator? If so, then this is gonna work out wonderfully and that didn't happen. By all accounts, lovely person, nothing but positive things that I've heard said about, they're now former technical director, just a bad fit. And so if you think about that coming off of 2022, which in particular for Guy Jack Harvey was not great, Christian Lundgaard obviously impressed, Graham Rehull did well sometimes, but not a lot. Big, ambitious, new hire and changing of things going into 2023 and we know how that went. The failure to qualify, Indy, the following Indy recovery plan. Things got a little bit better for sure. Thought being, well, hey, okay, now, wow, we're going into this off season into 2024 and gonna find all kinds of gains and make all kinds of things better and that did not happen again. And he was gone by the end of May. And so you have a misstep here. Can't blame, I don't blame the team for aiming high and trying something new and inventive. Big, highly reputed person coming out of Formula One, especially recommended by one of the all-time great race car designers knows everything about everything, right? I get that, but I just look at what this is done and it is effectively in retrospect, wasted a year and a half, now effectively two seasons of the team's real true progress. So they shed a race engineer or two during this time. One of them went to fight is really highly regarded by fight. They love them. Other one, they shedded, kind of scapegoated a little bit for the problems and around Indy last year, went to Hunkos Hollinger this year and that team's performing better than ever. So it's, I don't say this in a happy way, but it's almost like, hey, if you were bounced out of Ray Hall over the last year or two in the engineering side, you're probably finding better success at another team or at least being more highly regarded at that team. But they brought in super veteran Indy 500 winning race engineer Todd Malloy, who was over working on their BMW GTP program, Dave. He's kind of backfilled that technical director role and not as if he can't do good things. Excellent at what he does, et cetera, et cetera, but it's a time thing, right? It's a evaluating everything thing, right? What am I inheriting? How long is it gonna take to truly figure out what we got, what we don't have? Come up with fixes. Obviously you need money for those things, right? You gotta try things. That's where the engineering R&D side comes in. Todd's had, what, three months, June, July, August to try and figure things out. And you look at the team being the worst team at Milwaukee when it came to qualifying. Obviously things turned around on race days, so that was really good to see, but teams just been a mystery, no real direction, nothing to build upon, unfortunately, because they've been just spinning their wheels with wrong person in charge and/or not again, paying the price for that. The last note here, just to answer things, you look at Graham Ray Hall, he's had his worst, I think his worst season ever. Like what is he, like 18th in the championship? It's unfathomable. So they have good people. They have some really good race engineers. Ben Siegel has worked with Christian Lundgaard. That guy is one of the true young engineering stars in IndyCar. They have good people. What they don't have is enough people. They need more people. And they also need a transformational type leading the engineering program. It wasn't who they hired who went away. I don't know if that's something Todd Malloy would want to do, just saying, it's more than just dampers. It is, and I said this to Bob, to Bob Ray Hall during qualifying coincidentally at Milwaukee. I said, the thing I hate for you, Bob, is you've spent a lot of money trying to recruit and hire more people. You've been all in on trying to turn the team around, but you are in a place here now where I have no idea what you guys are going to do one week to the next. You roll out of the trailers and be rockets or be dead last or midfield. I have no idea what to expect from your team. And that's just a damn shame given the time and money spent and the talent that you have. And so this is a tear things down, not necessarily just add a couple of good people, but like this has been going on too long. Some senior management improvements that could be made as well. You're in a tough place, Dave. I wish it was a case of hello team with well handling cars. Could we pay you money to let us use your dampers as well? I am not aware of any team that would want to do that for them, nor do I think the willingness to have to say we need to bring in someone else to do that for us is really where Bob Rahall, Michael Anakin and so on are at. Last thing I'll mention is within that organization request for a number for somebody was placed within about an hour after the checkered flag on Sunday that race to at Milwaukee. And I happily shared that number. So they're not looking to sit around, but yeah, I wish it was just add one person and everything gets better, it's not. Dave Lighting Jr. Thanks for your dedication to covering the sport we all love. Well, you're super welcome, Dave. I mean, this is how I support myself and my wife and our family and yeah. So you're welcome. Also, it's got about jobs, which I choose. So you're welcome, but yeah. This is a found interesting that several outlets report an influx of core fans from Indiana, boosting the Milwaukee attendance. Yeah, yeah. Do race promoters have a desired mix of local/out of towners who attend the race for the sake of hotels and restaurants or other economic drivers? I hope the end of the race season treats you well and of course, all the best to you and everyone else. Thank you. David, that's really sweet of you. Yeah, that seemed to be a thing that was getting pushed that all this, this isn't a real crowd in Milwaukee. This is all imports from Indiana. And I know a number of folks who came up from Indiana, which is awesome, but I, yeah. I also met more people by two to three to four times who were not from Indiana, who were from Milwaukee, Wisconsin in general, or somewhere else, who were just over the moon about the event coming back because it meant so much to them and was great here in their stories of my first time here. It was an 1822, right? Just on and on and on. So yeah, I know, I don't totally get the, yeah, see, this was only popular because people from elsewhere came here. This couldn't possibly have been folks from Milwaukee and Wisconsin 'cause yeah, those people don't show up at road America either. Again, I'm like, anyways, I have no idea. But here's the other thing, which again, who knows, maybe I'm totally wrong, but I don't know how a lot of other outlets would know unless they went around and asked thousands upon thousands of people where they were from. But regardless, you know, I'm probably entirely wrong, but yeah, promoters tend to love local economies supporting the event so they can build this and build a local habit. But at the same time, the culture of Milwaukee being super important to IndyCar and the Indy 500 and folks in and around Indianapolis or Indiana in general, like that's nothing new. So it'd be a shock to me if it was 100% folks from Greater Wisconsin. But yeah, this just felt like a bit of a nothing burger. All right, we are gonna wind down the show here with what do we got here? Just looking through a few more questions here. What do we go with our pal, IndyNathan? Says with silly season and full swing, but no charter system finalized. You know, maybe we'll just close on this. With no charter system finalized, how is it impacting driver and sponsor negotiations? Why wouldn't they just wait until 2026? They're definitely not opposed to delaying things. I presented that question, Nathan, to a team owner at Milwaukee. And they said, paraphrasing, there's no reason to not do it now, right? None whatsoever. Let's get this thing started. And here's what it is, I've written about this, so this probably isn't anything super new. But this is a thin, super thin charter to start. It is not filled with all kinds of addendums and bylaws. And here's, there's almost no bells and whistles. If this, if V1 of IndyCar's charter was a pizza, it'd be a cheese pizza. I mean, it'd be a plain ass pizza. No pepperoni, no anything, just cheese pizza. And like a medium too, right? Not even a large. This is, hey, you're gonna be one of the 25 protected entries at every race except for the Indy 500. Thank you for that. And y'all here who listened to the show and are highly active on social media, who presented your genuine outrage at Pensaculate Entertainment, trying to provide guaranteed entries for the Indy 500. That went away because of y'all. They will probably say otherwise, I'm sure again, they always say they think of everything themselves. Backlash from fans, 100% of the reason why Pensac Entertainment backed away from this. And some of the articles that I wrote, some of the critical things that I said in the mailbag and have said here and wherever else, there are a little bit of intent behind that. So thank you to the many of you who said, nope, ain't havin' it, went away. But it's entry protection at every race except for Indy. Those 25 liter circle, 22 liter circle contracts, those are now only available to the 25 charter members. Charting members can sell the charters whenever they wanna try and get out and take money from that, which is great. Also, talking about the Dale Cohen concept of basically why wait till then. Let me see what I can get out of them right now and sell a stake in the charters to investors. There's that opportunity. And again, there's a couple other things, right? But for the most part, it's just a, okay, we're all protected. And you got an asset you could sell and/or try and take money out of right now through investment. That's all it is, no TV money. There's no this, there's no pathway for that. Like it's a plain-ass cheese pizza. So that's the mindset here. Okay, then let's just, let's get it going. And then here in the coming years, it's start to add some toppings to it. And there are thoughts and plans about that and what that could be in some more than enhancements and enticements and otherwise. But so I get it. Also, they've already done the work of who would get charters. So it's based on the 2023 Entrance Championship. They could delay this to 26, but I think the call would be, well, if you're gonna delay it till then, then let's re-rack this thing. And let's go off of the 20, well, for those who are in the top 25, let's do what we just, they're completing now in 2024 and for those who aren't, I'm sure they'd say, no, no, no, let's re-rack that and base it off of the 2025 Entrance Championship result. So they've already done this, worked it up off of 2023. Everybody knows who's getting a charter and everybody knows who isn't getting a charter. It's just Ganassi and his number four car and the number 11, both of those are gonna go away next year. So they put in the work, they're gonna do it. But to your point here, to say farewell to this episode, Nathan, yes, this is complicating things. Hey, Jamie Chadwick, you're an amazing driver. Where do you go? Well, if the charter didn't exist, Mike Landretti would probably, or I should say Daniel Taurus, who's now funding the entire thing, would probably say, well, hey, we'll put a fourth car in the field for you because you're amazing and we totally support you, but because of the charter, they can't, unless they want it to be an unprotected entry. And to that end, as I'm told, in the charter structure, only the two-premah entries are allowed to compete full season as non-charter entries. Isn't that crazy? But anyways, yes, this is monkeying with some things. There are enough drivers with money to spend, Nathan. I don't mean full season budget, but hey, I could pay for 25% of a season or maybe a third, or who knows, maybe even a half. But that would warrant a Ganesi continuing, maybe even adding a frickin' sixth car. And in Dredi adding one and run down the list, there's enough potential interest out there to where some teams could have a business reason to put an extra car in the field, assuming they can get a motor from Chevy or Honda. That's now becoming a very serious problem for those who might wanna take that money because it can't because of the charter. And for too many of those younger drivers who can afford a portion of a season or at least wanna try and break in and show what they can do and get a shot, right? That happened. Isn't that what IndyCar is about? Like some other series too? Hey, I'm trying to make an opportunity for myself. My, he's not my brother, but I love him like a brother, Scott Pruitt. He did that in '19, what, I think, '88, '89? Super successful in sports cars. It'll make crazy money there, but he won championships, won a lot of races. Very frugal, saved his prize money and saved that up to pay for a couple of IndyCar races. It's a guy like one of the all-time great carters came up, champion of carting, you name it over and over again, ended up going the sports car route 'cause that's where opportunities were presented. But here's a guy who thought he had the talent for IndyCar. No one was trying to put him in one. So he won a ton of IMSA and Trans Am races and championships, save that money, put it together and hired his way into IndyCar and did a couple of races and showed that holy cow, he is that good, he is that guy as good as a Rick Mears, Michael Andretti, you name it? No, I'd love to say that's the case, but it's not, but he showed though that, wow, he's got something. And if not for his willingness to do that, it's with Dick Simon, I believe, kind of broke in, long beach, then did a couple other races towards the end of the year, showed that he had something and then all of a sudden opportunity at true sports to Bobby Rayhall left. Guy finished eighth in his first season and this isn't the Cart IndyCar Series Championship. The year Danny Sullivan won the championship for Roger Penske in 1988. That's where he made his debut, showed, right? His skills, general idea that, wow, this guy is really good and fairly poor equipment. The following year, full season opportunity replacing Bobby Rayhall and he finishes eighth as a rookie all because the structure was one where a guy like him who felt that he had the talent was able to put up some money to show it and damn it. He delivered on that belief in himself and the talent that he had. This is one of the things that we're also damn near forfeiting with this charter system. I'm not saying there's no chance for young drivers to go to a Dale coin. He's pretty much the only one I can think of and say hi, got money for a couple of races or one race, can I do that? Hunter McIlray did that earlier this year. Toronto really made people stand up and pay attention. This is just making this a heck of a lot harder, y'all. And things are only going to downsize more. We're 27 entry cap at every race next year except for Indy. The expectation is within a few years after that, probably when we go to the supposed new chassis in 2027, whenever the timing of that is 2728, everybody I speak to in the paddock says, be prepared for 24 cars, maybe 25. Maybe they just cut it from 27 to 25 since there's 25 charters. But who knows? They might even cut that down to 24. But it's only going to get smaller. It's only going to get harder. Realize the argument is rather have fewer entries that are higher quality. I get that. What about the opportunities though? Where you're going to keep making it harder for folks to not have full season, full time drivers. Yeah, not loving. I'm with you, Nathan. I can find almost no reason for the charter to exist. Real reason for the charter to exist. If you want to do it just so you have an asset you can sell or seek investors for, just do that. Just make it that, leave it at that. Anything else? Yeah, I can't find anything in the version one of this, which I think is truly necessary or needed and will improve IndyCar. So could be wrong, but yeah, can't find it. All right, y'all, greatly appreciate y'all. Look forward to seeing some of you here, maybe swimming with me and others in Nashville, but just reminded me that I need to bring my recording gear on the road so I can do a show next week, sitting in a hotel or maybe I'll do it with Wheeler. Who knows, but do a show in Indianapolis. So thanks again to y'all, to the Justice Brothers, tryonamotorsports.com and FAFT Technologies. I'll speak to y'all here after we've crowned in IndyCar Champ. (upbeat music) (upbeat music)
