(upbeat music) - Welcome to the Marshall Pruitt podcast. We're week in any car, listener, Q and A show, sincere apologies y'all. Not back from A, I don't know how many day, week and a half, maybe a little less than a week and a half, I'm not sure. But long trip to cover, both Nashville and Imsa's second edition of their battle on the bricks at Indianapolis brought my podcasting gear with me to record and kept looking for a window for things to calm down. And then I'm like, okay, hey, we out. Oh, all right, here's another thing. And oh, here's another thing. So apologies, good Lord. So getting back in the rotation here, back in the groove, we'll also have a week in sports cars episode to post. And I am really and truly going to try and get more IndyCar related podcasts out each week. Now that we are into the off season, my off season though, does pick back up again pretty quickly, at least on the sports car and historic racing side. So out next week, local event for a couple of days then and wrote Atlanta for the majority of the following week, but anyways, thank y'all for everything. It's fun to see many of you at Nashville Speedway. And again, some of y'all at Indy last weekend. Big thanks as well to our friend Jerry Siteth who puts together the questions for us. Got to see Jerry at Indy and thank him for all of his phenomenal help in making the show possible by grabbing all your questions, putting them in a amusing order and sending them down the road here. So I'm gonna work through the questions that Jerry sent through the Ray Hall Letterman, Landigan Racing, Contretant last week with the FBI. Get this recorded. Then I'm gonna put out an immediate call for more questions 'cause oh, a heck of a bunch happened afterwards. So let's take just a moment to pay respect to those who make the show possible. Be right back. Time to say a big thank you to our show partners on the Marshall Pruitt podcast, starting with FAF Technologies. Build to Print Composites Manufacturing Company. They're specializing in medium to large scale automotive, motor sports and military applications. Visit FAFtechnologies.com. It's P-F-A-F-F, 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 of the biggest North American motor races, including the Indianapolis 500, 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 FAF 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. All the show stickers, models, racing memorabilia, trying to sell and put towards our fun to buy a house is now live and rocking, thepruitstore.com. Gonna do something a little bit different this week, start off the show and this'll be a little bit of a longer one, y'all by the way. So buckle in or be prepared for coming back for more than one bite to finish. But this was a wacky first week of the IndyCar off season. And so I figure why don't we run through last week and what went down, heck, even to this morning and share a little bit of that silliness and then we'll dive into your questions as soon as we're done. So in rapid succession, we had on Monday, I think it was maybe Monday morning. I don't even know, it could've been Sunday night. We had Marshank Racing confirming an extension with Felix Rosenkvist while he was in Sweden preparing to get married. Congratulations to the Rosenkvists. Saw lots of lovely wedding photos with one of our dear pals, so congrats to them. And we'll admit, may be great to hear, but as if there's any question, he was gonna continue with the team or the team was going to continue with him. Then on Tuesday, we had Prima Racing announcing Calamailat, just fantastic. And this is one of two kind of worst kept-ish secrets, not that that's a bad thing, but I was just happy to finally see that done. Can tell you now that he's confirmed. What are we in September, month nine of the year? So I think it would've been about 10 months ago, December, it feels like. I happened to learn about a certain Italian team's intent to enter the IndyCar series. Might've been from a certain driver who was confirmed, allegedly. So just glad that this has been confirmed. So happy for Calam, so happy to have him back, which I told him whenever. I love the rationale behind this, by the way. Getting a lot of amazing offers in the FIAWEC this season, driving for a privateer team, a non-factory team, the Jota Porsche 963 Hypercar team. It's getting a lot of interest, was a rocket immediately, despite being new to prototypes, right? Great couple of finishes to start off the season. Juan just doing amazing, amazing in this opportunity, not really one he was looking for, right? He didn't want to leave IndyCar. The Hunkos Hollinger team decided it wanted to cut bait with him and there wasn't much to fight. So off he went, no immediate offers coming his way. The Jota opportunity landed. Off he went, made the most out of it. And while doing that, he's getting some great offers for 2025 multi-year options from big, big, illustrious, well-funded high-dollar factory WEC Hypercar teams. And he's still young, right, very young, but these opportunities aren't handed out that often. Also in a position where young enough and with the prema lengths, right, going back to his junior open wheel days, he was always in their mind, in their plans, assuming he didn't go for a hypercar deal with a factory. And I just love the thinking here, which was, I'm young, I can always do WEC Hypercar or similar, MCGTP and so on. I don't know if I'll always be able to do IndyCar if I don't take this opportunity as it's right in front of me. And so knowing that, knowing that prema really wanted him to lead their team and that pick the big hypercar factory, if he comes here, has a good time with prema, is able to do this for 5.10, who knows how many years, he's still gonna be a rocket. Whenever he might decide it's time to go back to Europe and be a factory WEC driver, or who knows, maybe stay here and transition to IMSA and GTP, that's always gonna be there for him because he's that good. The window to get back into IndyCar in a full-time basis, to my knowledge, this was really it. Was not aware of multiple teams making full-season offers to him in IndyCar. Prema wanting to do that, having a long-standing interest in him doing that, love his approach and the decision to take what was presented to him. And I think he's gonna be a heck of a team leader next year, absolute no-brainer. So that was Tuesday. Also on Tuesday, we had Chip Gennassy Racing release a number of IndyCar employees, as it cut its entries in IndyCar from five to three. Little interesting sidebar possibly. So drove up Monday from Nashville in lots of calls, lots of information gathered on the way there. And also over the weekend in Nashville was told by a friend at Gennassy to the tour with, had this scheduled for 9 a.m. Tuesday. And I think it might've been Saturday night, Sunday night, I forget when, got a text from him. I think while still in Japan saying, "Hey, need to move this to 10." And we're in a lot of reasons given, but whatever, all good, moved it to 10. Went in, did the filming, moved in the building, walking in was a little bit tense, right? Saw lots of good folks that I know, friends, et cetera. And they seemed a little bit surprised to see me slash the media present was there to film a shop tour focusing on the inside of the building, not the IndyCar side. But nonetheless, as folks walked by the, walked by in the mezzanine above, when you're standing in the lobby there, again, there's lots of kind folks, sayin' higher, waving or smiling or whatever, but the majority of them, it was a, whoa, what is he doin' here? That was the vibe I received, didn't fully put it together. I was too stupid to pick it up, just the simple fact of what it was. So, filmed all that, that was a blast my guy, Michael Guerra, OG himself. And no joke, 30 seconds after leaving, climbing into my rental car, needed a blast off to the next shop tour filming, within 30 seconds of sitting down. I think I was going to put on my seat belt, I get the first text, ding, look down a friend from another IndyCar team. Hey, who all did Gennassi let go? I'm paraphrasing, and who should I be calling to hire? And I'm like, huh? And maybe, again, within about a minute, I got another text from someone else, add another IndyCar team, saying or asking more or less the same thing. Who did they let go? Hey, you know, who's available or what do you think, Genn? And I'm like, man, again, I am not the smartest, brightest bulb. Why was there a need to push the filming back by an hour all of a sudden, very late in the scheduling? That's when they were doing the releases, and that's why the vibe was a little wacky and they were done just before we arrived. So there was that. So we're still on Tuesday. Next, after Gennassi, we needed a blast over to Ray Hall, let him in, land again racing, to film another shop tour. We actually started out in the morning with Reinhardt AutoSport, Robbie Wickens, filmed secretly his brand new Bosch electronic braking system, the new hand control system in his Hyundai Elantra and TCR. And so BHA, CGR, off to RLL. And as we would learn on Wednesday, I sure am glad we did not schedule the shoot for about 24 hours later, because we would have been escorted out of the building by the FBI. I'm gonna get into this in a column of some sorts that I've been noodling on. So I won't go into full depths of it here for the sake of time, but on that drive from Nashville to Indianapolis, one of the calls was with a friend from the general BMW and racing side there. And the BMW MT-MRLL's just been having the most brutal of seasons. Amazing that they won last weekend. Finished one too. Truly could not have come at a more important time, more important time for them with that program, but on that drive came to seriously fear the long-term relationship between BMW and RLL. 15 years now, RLL has been the chosen service provider for them in North American sports cars. That was prior to the FBI showing up. Things were that concerning at that heightened place of, wow, this could be bad. So 48 hours later, after that conversation, members of the BMW Motorsport team, again, the factory folks from Germany were visiting RLL ahead of the big Indianapolis Endurance Race last weekend, and they too were escorted out of the building just like the rest of the team's employees. So, oh, not good. I mean, sad. None of this is funny. I know a lot of folks have made a lot of jokes about this, and I get it, just understanding the team side, the people side. There are dozens upon dozens upon dozens of human beings who pay their mortgages, put their kids through school, put gas in their tanks and food in their families' bellies through showing up every day at RLL, be it on the IndyCar side or the sports car, the imps aside, and things are already worrying and worrisome beforehand. This has only made things worse. So, all that went down on Wednesday at RLL, so we're now into Wednesday, and that not only dominated the news cycle in racing, but made the local news on all the Indianapolis area TV stations in about an hour or so, I think, before it broke, right, as I'd learned about it, maybe about two hours or so. An hour and a half to two hours before it got picked up and started being run by local TV stations. Having beers with a couple of friends from IndyCar, and we were watching this thing blow up on our phones and other TV outlet sharing stories. I think Fox 59 was one of the first to air this and run this, and yeah, just bad on every level, but I will admit it was a little bit surreal just to be sitting across the table from a couple of friends from IndyCar having some very light beers, by the way, the place we're at. I was surprised at how good their light beers were and some appetizers and going, oh, wow, this was not on anybody's bingo card. So, that was just Wednesday. Thursday was relatively calm, except for learning to the 10. IndyCar team owners were holding out on signing the charters, which I was told, allegedly, required interventions from Roger Penske himself to get those two folks over the finish line to sign. We had, what else do we have Thursday? We had Meyershank Racing also confirming there was kept secret in the paddock with Marcus Armstrong joining the team. And what else did Thursday have? Larry Foyt confirmed something. I think I'd heard Monday or so, maybe Tuesday. Again, I don't, I'm losing track, but had heard about the team consolidating both of their cars in their Indianapolis shop, the legendary number 14 AJ Foyt Racing entry been prepared at their shop in Waller, Texas for a really, really, really long time. And they have decided to move that North Indianapolis and how is the entire IndyCar operation there. That comes with some folks not continuing with the team. There's some other changes I've learned of that save for another date and time. But, so yeah, think that's going to be a net positive for the team, but if you were a fan of the entire number 14 AJ Foyt Racing Chevy crew, as it finished the Nashville Speedway race, it will look significantly different when it returns next year with Santino Farucci in that car. What else? We also had Ganesi confirming it was going to test Felipe drugovich. So I think that's all Thursday. So yet again, hey, it's a first week of the off season it's going to be kind of mellow. No, oh, Jesus, all. And then we get to Friday. Just what I thought IndyCar had calmed its ass down. I was told Renis VK had been informed of a change in Ed Carpenter Racing's plans to retain him. So called the team, left to voicemail, got no response, called Renis, left to voicemail, got no response. Then I called his manager, got a response. Once we were done with that call, got a text from Renis asking me to call his manager. I responded to that, just kindly saying, yeah, we actually just spoke. And then we closed the work week with the relatively odd need late on a Friday. I guess it was Friday evening. I don't think I left the media center until about 8.8.30, maybe Friday night to post a story about a IndyCar team and driver change. So it was a bit depressing of the things that I know about that. I know we're meant to be on the clock here. Believe it's gonna happen this week. Maybe as early as Tuesday was what I was initially told, but who knows about ECR confirming who will be replacing. Renis and maybe his teammate as well. I know for Renis, the timing of this, not great. Things I've heard. Allegedly there were testing dates and simulation, sim dates and all that kind of stuff. Sent his way or shared with him earlier last week. Believe meant to be things sent prior to contract being sent his way. And yeah, there was a clear intent. It appears unless it was all just smoke and subterfuge for them to continue. Assuming that's accurate, it's the impression that was certainly received last week. Curious to see what might have changed middle to late in the week to decide to not keep Renis after five years. So lots of stuff to learn about there. If you think about the teams that have vacancies for him to go to, has nothing to do with who simply has a seat available. It is who has a paying seat available. Dale Coyne has two wide open vacancies. Renis is not a fit for either one because Dale is looking for many millions of dollars to take either of those seats. So that is something where drivers pay in, not the team pays out. Obviously Ed Carpenter racing is off the list. Myerschank racing has confirmed again, Marcus Armstrong, so there's nothing there. You start getting down to the last real options this late in the season. And who might it be? Who's got something to offer? Where might he go? Again, AJ Floyd has confirmed who's driving for them. So that's no longer a place to go. Aaron McLaren has confirmed all their drivers, no opportunities. And Dreddy Global has confirmed, no opportunities. Ed Carpenter racing, obviously, is not one. We've already spoken about Myerschank. It leaves potentially two places. Hunko's hauling a racing. I spoke to Ramag Roshan a couple days before we got to Nashville, said, "Hey, you got any update on whether the team's "taking up their option on you, keeping you. "What's going on?" Said, "Nope, haven't heard a thing." Didn't see him last week/last weekend in Indianapolis. He was there driving for Lamborghini, so see if I can get an update there. But if they were to not retain Roma, then potentially there could be a paying opportunity in that number 77. Hunko's hauling a racing seat unless they've already concluded who they're going to hire and what they're going to do. After that, it would be back-filling Christian Lindgard's seat at Ray Hall that I'm in, Lannigan racing. That was certainly a paying seat. Would think that could fit right about what Riness was getting paid at Ed Carpenter. So also know, before this change for Riness, every free agent in the paddock, in F1, paddocks and F2 paddocks, and you name it, F6 hitting Hunko's hauling a racing to be in one of their cars and RLL to be in one of theirs. So while I think Riness would shoot towards the top couple of drivers on any of those teams' lists, they've already been well down the road in discussions with others, Alexander Rossi being the primary one. If we were to go with what folks have told me they think is happening, I wouldn't pretend to have the answer. It would be that Ed's good friend Alexander Rossi might be the person being deposited into that number 21 Chevrolet. If not, there are those other seats available that are paying, would put Alexander based on his body of work and reputation, a clear P1 ahead of Riness just because he has more high-level results than Riness. So you do have a little bit of a log jam there, just throwing out a few other names to keep in mind, not even talking about any of the others who haven't raced an IndyCar who are hopeful of doing so. You've got Linus Lundqvist, of course, a really strong, promising young driver who should be considered as well. There's plenty of folks, Yuri Vips, if he's not retained by RLL, certainly someone with IndyCar experience for folks to think about. Got Jack Harvey out there, Connor Daly out there, Teopore Cher, who still wants to be here. He dropped me a text a couple of days ago. Wanted to get an update on things. Toby Sowery, right, really impressed folks. So before we even get Hunter McElray, before we even get to a Louis Foster reigning Indiana XT champ, right? Holy cow, the kid's amazing. It should be an IndyCar. Yeah, Riness has a decent amount of competition for the two remaining paying seats that he would be realistically eligible for. Let's get into the last couple of things here as well. Also, by the way, have heard he might have gotten a couple of inquiries about the Indy500 where that would be a super no-brainer as well. Go make money with that kid. Go in the race. A rocket with a good team. That kid, I hope at minimum, if he's unable to land a full-time IndyCar seat, I may or may not have given his manager lead on a IMSA seat, but they should pursue. I hope the kids, the Indy500, and along with Connor and maybe some others, if serious opportunities don't come along for 2025, the amount of free agents/super substitute drivers walking around is going to be insane. And then I think as we start to wind down here about this wacky week earlier on Friday before I heard about Renis spoke with someone from Penske Entertainment on the status of getting that charter program over the finish line. Again, having heard that eight of the ten full-time owners had signed, two had not reached out to one of the two team owners that I'd heard about Friday morning and was like, "Hey, I heard you might not have signed." And Roger was called in to lean on you a little bit and didn't get a response to any of the color as to what happened, just a note I've signed. And so that left one and asked Penske Rep for a status of getting that over the line. I was given the quote of encouraged by the process, but there's nothing to announce the moment and chatted for a little bit longer while sitting at my seat in the media center there at IMS and giving a sidebar about how even if they got all the signatures by the end of the day, that wouldn't mean charters would be going live. Who knows how long it would take because all that would have to then go to Penske Entertainment lawyers to comb through everything and no way not possible to give any timeline on the green light for when this charter thing might go live. Got it. Okay. I'll make sure to convey that in my article. It's going to publish that here Monday morning and then Sunday got a call saying, Hey, a time warp had happened and everything with charters was fully buttoned up. Got all the signatures, made it through legal. Then it was going to be announced at 7 a.m. California. My time Monday morning. And in around that time frame where I'm like, okay. I also learned that myershank racing plans to test Logan sergeant had gotten out. So yeah, got the charter thing basically written up Sunday and let's see on the sergeant thing was told about that last Monday under the cone of silence reached out to the team. I was in editor reached out to me said, Hey, because I'd told them about the sergeant thing last week. And we'd strategized on, Okay. Well, I got an invite to come down. And I'd probably focus on video. Would you want to come out and do words? Because again, pretty cool opportunity. Even if it's not going to lead to anything right now for Logan. But anyways, got the note from them saying, Hey, apparently that secret's gotten out. And yeah, reached out to the team and said, Hey, that secret thing is no longer secret. Probably going to need to write about it was given the okay and said, All right, well, knock it off or any quotes. But you can say that we confirmed it and said to let them know it went out and they'd retweet or whatever repost and say, Yeah, yada yada. So anyways, so last little thing to wrap up on this crazy wild week was originally given a test date of November 17th for Logan at the thermal club. It's less than an hour flight south for me. Really easy to pop down and back. Cool got it. Yep. Definitely be there. Then learned a little bit later in the week. No, it's not November 17th. It is November 19th. Why does that matter? I don't know. It's my wedding anniversary, my 19th wedding anniversary from my wife, Shabell and I, and I'm like, okay, yeah, there's no way that's going to happen. Shank was like, well, just ask her if she wants to spend your anniversary in Palm Springs, which is right next to thermal club. I'm like, okay, I'm going to get murdered. Thanks for that suggestion, Shank. So with all that said, I did float the idea because, yeah, and my wife said she would think about it and hopefully all avoid getting killed. So we'll see. I am an idiot. I did ask the team if there's any chance of them moving it to the 20th because I'm like, well, look, if you're just picking random dates, you know, I'd love to take you up on the offer. But the 19th, it's a little bit hard. So we'll see if I can make that work. But yeah, rewinding from Logan to chargers, to drug-a-vitch, to VK, to RLL, to the FBI, to what else? Marcus Armstrong, Felix Rosenkvis, Callum Iolot, Prema. I'm probably still forgetting something else. It has been among the wildest first weeks of an IndyCar off season that I can remember. And I am so, so happy that it's behind us. And so far, we're almost at the end of the day here on Monday. I was about to say Saturday, I have no idea why. End of the day here on Monday. And I don't think anything else is going to blow up. So let's get into your Q&A. I will probably carve through some of them. Skip some that I feel like I answered here. And then I'll put out that call for more questions so you can ask more in-depth things about whatever it is you so choose. And here's a little music bed to welcome us in to your Q&A. All right, let's get rolling here. One thing I forgot to mention, the most fun interaction on pre-grid for the Nashville Speedway race was standing there talking to, I think, Hunter McElray and some other friends and got a big kind of bear hug from behind and wasn't sure who it was and turned around. Randy Bernard, former IndyCar CEO. And I love Randy, loved Randy when he was kind of in that Mark Miles position. And yeah, awesome dude. So happy to see him. Also saw young Patrick Lanigan, Mike Lanigan's son. Hadn't seen him a little while. Just love me some Patrick Lanigan as well. Met a couple of friends of theirs. So yeah, great to see Randy. He is Garth Brooks's manager and has been for a really long time. So things are going super well for him and his post IndyCar career. And yeah, maybe one of these days we can get him to just straight up buy the series because I think he can afford it now. And we'll go back to some fun old days. Chad Heiley, you open the show. You say what's up with Arlo and the FBI. Like their season wasn't already bad enough. Yeah, wrote about that. Left the person's name out who's at the center of this. Don't know him really in any kind of way other than just in passing have known of him for quite some time. But yeah, left his name out. I'm a fan when we're talking about alleged and allegedly doing things. Don't want to sound like Mr. grandpa here. But I do miss the times we lived in where when someone was accused of something, there wasn't an instant leap to guilty. An accusation or an allegation is not the same as guilt. So big fan of whenever possible and I don't fall into that trap myself saying, Hey, you know what? Let's not destroy a person until we have things proven to say that yes, guilty. Share with you that for what I understand has been alleged. This is something that I recall hearing when they were hired by the team year and a half, two years ago. I remember hearing about this alleged IP. I don't even know if IP is a way to put it because that's not really how it was thought of at the time. But it made the rounds within Indy car within the paddock within those of us who connected to that stuff that they might have left in Dreddy. Would have been in Dreddy auto sport at the time, I think. Not sure if they'd transitioned and ready global, but they might have left with some things, whether it's physical, componentry, documentation, don't know, no clue at all. But the rumors were allegations were within Indy car in general among mechanics, engineers and otherwise was might have happened and not something that has gone unnoticed by their now recently former employer. Why now? Why again, year and a half, two years later? Get into that and what I'm going to try and write about here, but just talk about this quickly here, Chad, before moving on, of the conversations held with a lot of folks within the paddock since this went down on Wednesday, sat with a number of Indy car team owners, those who run Indy car teams, long talks, mechanics, pulled aside by folks, even at the IMSA event, to talk about stuff. And today, long conversation with a senior most person at a very powerful team. And there's just a bit of a consensus here, Chad, of the taking technological items, blueprints, physical parts and pieces, again, there aren't tons that you can mess with with all the regulations in Indy car. There aren't a lot of areas left for teams to really focus on. Dampers, well known as being the biggest area of team's ability for individual expression, ideas, trying to beat one another through damper concepts and technology and one car handles better than the other. This is an area where pick whatever it is on the car in whatever series. If it's gearboxes, if it is brakes, if it's whatever area, might be the biggest area open for teams to distance themselves from the others, that's going to be the thing the hot commodity to try and get your hands on. So if you are a midfield team, as RLL was while trying to improve themselves, not uncommon to try and hire those who are doing good things in the areas technologically that you feel you're coming up short at teams that are running ahead of you. So the conversations had with a lot of folks. I know this from my own experience working in Indy car, working for professional teams, and also hearing back from a lot of folks who either own teams, run teams, manage, hire, you name it. This stuff goes on all the time. Let's not pretend that what has gone on here with RLL, FBI raid, another team, sicking them on the other allegedly. This could happen seemingly among most of the teams. There could be an almost constant since, as I learned through this over the last couple days, probably like many of y'all. Why is the FBI involved? Well, intellectual property theft is the domain of the Federales. This is a federal crime. Think of military and spying comes to mind a lot. Blueprints for this jet fighter, this submarine, whatever it might be, secrets about whatever from one government being stolen, so on, passed on to others. You hear about the FBI getting involved in that. That's where this, even talking about something comparatively unimportant to national secrets with Indy car technology, suspension technology. If there is true intellectual property involved, I do believe the Andretti team is rather fastidious in trying to patent or protect a lot of the ideas that they have. This would indeed fall into the FBI's domain. As crazy and random as it sounds, IP, that's the FBI's. So knowing all that, the feedback I've gotten from so many is this. We could all be calling the FBI on each other. I'm not saying every single team has had something like this happen to them, meaning someone come on board that has something they brought with them that they should not. But I can guarantee you every single team has had someone leave and take something from them where this is a very unique situation. And we have no answers to this because although Andretti global chief operating officer, Rob Edwards, kind enough to take my call and kind enough to tell me, I understand you need to ask questions and respect that. I also know you understand and respect the fact that I'm going to have to give you a no comment and say no more, which I said, of course. They're not speaking. Our well is not saying anything other than that brief statement they published saying complying with the FBI, not able to say anything while an active investigation is going on. This could be something where like crossfire. You could have this team firing across at that team calling the FBI, this one calling that one, because in some way, shape or form over the last forever. Someone has left team A to go to team B and brought something they probably shouldn't. Where this breaks from the norm Chad, we put this topic to bed. This isn't something we really see going down an IndyCar. We know in Formula One, there's been Spygate, there's been all kinds of stuff about senior person leaving pick the F1 team, taking things with them, they shouldn't emailing things to themselves, they shouldn't downloading that elsewhere, forwarding it to wherever. Not like this happens all the time in F1. It's just something that we hear of almost exclusively in F1. Pretty much never an IndyCar. And this is a concerning thing. This is something that among those, some of those that I've spoken with, they've said, yeah, this has happened to us, maybe even recently. We know this person left our team, went to that other team. We hired someone from that other team, maybe a year later, they came in, told us, yeah, by the way, they got your so-and-so, whatever it is. Technology, something they developed. It's a lot of incestuous stuff like that. People moving from team to team on the technical, the engineering side. It's not uncommon to learn that when employee number one left a year ago, you bring in somebody from that same team, whatever amount of time later, they in passing or maybe during day one orientation mentioned, yeah, by the way, so-and-so's got that. And yeah. And then that person who took it goes to another team, and now they have two teams worth of things they're taking. It's totally normal. It's not good, but it's totally normal. The FBI getting involved, that's where we are in to my recollection, uncharted territory. Stuart Arith, you're asking about Prema and I lot and how to get them, spoke about that. So, hopefully we got that covered up for you. Nathan DeRova, you got a question here, which got an answer to this just today as well. Not really a question. I don't want to take away from Alex Palau's fantastic driving in 2024, but we really do need to make a bigger deal of Barry Wonser's year, such grit and determination and success. Barry, who was Alex's not only race strategist, but team manager of that number 10 entry. Yeah, indeed. Shared a tier two with Barry in victory lane at Nashville, knowing that obviously he did not win the race, Alex, but they pushed his car straight in. Yeah, been pretty close with the Wonser family, especially since my wife got sick, and so they've been just the kindest, most loving folks over the past five or six years. Well, we've been fighting cancer, and with cancer coming into Barry's world here a little over a year ago, you know, just a chance to repay that love back to him and his wife Lori. So just been pretty close, especially throughout this cancer ordeal. And yeah, just love that guy as a person like you wouldn't believe such an absolute sweetheart. I want to say how the heck does a belt come loose like that and willpower championship battle ruined by what amounts to what I think is a checklist item. It's the least Penske, Penske thing I've seen since, well, March. I am so happy for Alex, but how does a belt come loose on will and ruin his championship possibilities. So spoke with team, and they tell me they don't have an answer yet. It was a malfunction of the system compared to a driver induced thing happened twice during the race, but they don't have an answer because the manufacturer. And I never know whether to pronounce it Schroth or Shroath. They asked for the complete system, the primary buckle, all the belts to be removed and sent to them, unaltered as is so they could do the complete disassembly and find what exactly happened to allow the lap belts to unlatch. So they've been asked to document everything, if not film it, and this is normally something, a big team like a Penske, you're going to ask your similar. They would absolutely want to get the manufacture of whichever component didn't work involved, but for something like this, this is normally something the team would do, want to do hands on and first. And so following the manufacturer's request here, just leaves them in a position of waiting to hear that final analysis. Uh, Jurgen Benemans, how you doing Jurgen, says, how was the vibe at Chip Ganesi racing is Alex Polo now the clear number one driver. Yes, without a doubt. And so I was watching, I forget what day, but might have even been today. Watching hosts, I think of a NFL show asking questions about has this quarterback supplanted this other quarterback at the team. And the answer was yes, emphatically, but that doesn't have to mean there's anything critical or any shade being thrown on the quarterback who's now second on the depth chart, right? It's okay to say, yeah, without that being a critical thing. And I'd tell you, if I had something critical to say about Dixon in this, just sharing that I don't. What we've seen is Alex through his on track performances, back to back championships, three pole positions this year for if you include the thermal club non points. I include it just because it was equally available for all drivers to earn P one, whether or not the race had points. I don't care. Qualifying had points. This was a qualifying session. All 27 drivers had a chance to start first. He is the one who earned that so. Four pole positions this year. He did win the non points race at thermal one again at the end GP one again at Laguna. Pole what at Laguna any GP and I think middle high was well. So he didn't win a ton of points paying races. Totally get that right. Only one to, but if you look at all those polls, you look at the consistent performances that he delivered. I can't find a way to say he is not Chip Ganesi racing's P one driver. Of course, Dixon as well. Look at and say, well, he won himself some races. Didn't he? Yes, he did. Long Beach. Amazing Detroit. Amazing. A lot of good results. Also not amazing results as well. That's why he ended up finishing sixth in the championship. Although he did come in with a top three possibility there in the final standings, but. This is without a doubt. A team that is now led by that number 10 Honda with Alex and Scott is P two in the number nine car. Could Scott change that? Yes, he can. Of course. There's, there's no doubt about that. Qualifying has not been Scott's strongest area for a little while now. I don't believe you had any polls this past season. Nonetheless. Qualifying improvements next season qualifying closer to Alex, the ability to run closer to Alex. There is a chance he could level up and match his young teammate. If not, exceed his young teammate, but the facts, not personal opinions, professional opinion. Just forget any opinion whatsoever. The numbers tell us last year Alex Palau finished first in the championship. Dixie was second. This year Alex Palau finished first Dixie was sixth. Wind it back to 2021. Alex was the champion. I remember where Dixie finished, but three out of the last four championships have gone to Alex strip any feelings from the conversation. Alex is P one until he is displaced. Lord fight. Curious if Palau has any interest or prospects and F one these days. You say at the current rate, it seems to be the only thing that would end his IndyCar dominance. Also kindly say hope you will have more time to spend at home with family. Me too. Alex is what 27? Not like they're having been older F one rookies, but by the time I believe he would be a free agent. A couple years from now. Darnier 30, possibly a four time champion, five time. Who knows? Not as if he wouldn't be valued in F one. I just don't know if that door continues to remain open for him, even if he's a five time champion by then. Also, I don't foresee Chip doing anything to make it easy for him to leave, right? If a Ferrari comes calling and says, to heck with it, we just dropped. Good old Charles Leclerc, who in our household we refer to as Charlotte Flair, just because their names can be pronounced in a very similar way. If good old Charlotte Flair is dropped, we're going to throw Alex in there. You'll let him go. Chip would say thanks, but no thanks. This guy is my number one driver and winning all the championships for me. So just to close here, does the ambition to do Formula One ever truly go away for a driver who's never raced there but dreamt of it? No, of course not. I mean, Alex, probably at 45, my guy right, have let that glimmer die. But by the time he is free and able to go, I just don't know if there's going to be much there in F one of folks clamoring to get him. Should they without it out? But how many folks are going to be chasing a 29 to 30 year old rookie? I know it happened back in the day. I forget Michael and Dreddy's exact age with McLaren, but timing, I think, is where things fall a little bit out of reality here. Steve Luki, how are you? You say, what's going on with the strategy calls for Dixon's number nine call it Nashville. They skip pinning under yellow to pin under green, got screwed by yellow and ultimately finished two laps down, quite the head scratcher for a six time champ. Yeah, they just, as I understand it, Steve, flat got it wrong. We know how many races they win because of strategy. I guess inevitably you're going to tip the scale the other way, right? So other than the teams and yeah, just we certainly did not get that one right. I don't have any finer details to offer you here. Our pal JJ Gertler says, let's talk about Zach Brown, state of IndyCar thesis, our smaller fields with higher quality, really a good answer. Where are the good underdog stories then? And how do new drivers prove their worth? It says, if the series was just Penske's and Dreddy's, Ganassi's and McLaren's be plenty of quality, but would people watch? It's the answer might be yes, but I'm not sure it's a slam dunk. Good idea. Is he projects it? It's a really important note. And what JJ raises here is critical. Back in the heyday of cart in the 80s when it was amazing in the 90s when it was super amazing. We can think of all these Titanic drivers and teams names that again just written across every Hall of Fame imaginable. The races weren't always fantastic, but one of the things that could make races very entertaining was a disparity. To JJ's point, if it's all Penske, Ganassi, and Dreddy, McLaren's, etc. Of course there will be a disparity among them, but those are all by and large super high functioning teams and drivers and entries. Not going to be a lot of mistakes, slow cars, surprising you at the apex, creating passing opportunities and so on. It's the drivers that aren't going to make it into the halls of fame and the teams that won't be invited into the wing for teams at those halls of fame who do indeed tend to spice up the good old racing, right? What happened here that was so exciting at the close of the Nashville race between Colton Hurda, congratulations on your first oval win and Pato Award being chased by him. Splitting good old Stingray Rob coming out of turn two and like, oh cow, holy cow, what's going on? Take that number 41, AJ Floyd racing Chevy off the track and those like it that weren't in contention. Stingray dealing with food poisoning of all things was exhausted. I mean, he, a Ironman performance for sure, but nonetheless, not running there up front, front runners pace, get some excitement. So I get where Zach's going and there are for sure some beliefs in the paddock that a Dale coin running six cars through the number, or six drivers through the number 51 entry. Is that making us look good? Is that in the best interest? Is that bringing the caliber of drivers onto the grid that we want? Do I think six might be a little too much? Of course. I don't think anyone would argue against six being too much. But back to JJ's point, some of those who I mentioned earlier, the salaries and the Mackel race and the so on, no one's seagull. We got to give the younger generation a place to race. Otherwise, we start to get this Formula One dynamic where, hey, congratulations, Formula Two champ. Enjoy spending the next year or two or however long standing in the garage on Sundays with a headset watching other folks race. I should have turned off my ringer, by the way. Another little nonstop political text unwarranted, unasked for. Can I tell you guys that I've learned something? This is true. I've done it. It's only worked three times. I'm hoping it would have worked the other 197 times. But assuming that you two are getting undesired political texts asking you to donate money to candidates and states you don't live in and presidential stuff and Senate and whatever. Most all of them at the bottom have the words and letters that say stop to end. Did you know that if you type out the full letters starts with the letter F, there are three more letters in that word. And the word you and you type out F you some of the bots sending out these texts automatically unsubscribe you. So instead of typing in stop to end, if you were to look at my text chain here, there's a lot of them that have responses I'm staring at right now, but either say F you or F off. And again, not enough of the little spam text bots have been told to receive those responses and automatically unsubscribe. But you might give it a try. It feels at least for me like I'm winning back a little bit of control. But all that stuff aside, we need younger drivers to have a chance to get a shot to show what they can. We need drivers who have a lot of money, more money than talent to support some of those midfield and tail end teams. You could absolutely trim the most tail end teams from the grid. Goodbye. Get out of here. Okay, you're still going to have midfield teams like we ran through earlier on where might Rina's go mentioned a number of midfield teams. They all need money for at least one of their seats, if not both. At what point do you start to say, you know what, are we just doing this for the elite, the upper echelon teams that tend to always have lots of money. Not every team has nine figure infusions of cash, like an Indredi global and not seeing all the other teams there. The top three top four have that level, but they have a heck a bunch. Well, part of the fun and how races play out come from the have nots punching above their weight or getting in the way or making mistakes and creating some drama that otherwise probably would not have happened. So that's something to think about in terms of preserving the quality of the show. Then there's also the financial health of those who aren't the top three or four big teams who do often need paying drivers who aren't particularly spectacular won't be in those halls of fame to keep those racing team businesses afloat. And back to the paying for crew members, support themselves, support their families. I wish it was as simple as every Formula One team is worth a billion dollars, if not more, and we can't possibly fit more logos and manufacture involvement within our team because everyone loves F1 and is spending crazily with it. Get that. It's a great thing. Want to get any car there, maybe improving the quality of entries and teams and trimming things a little bit. Maybe that would improve the ability for ID card teams and any cars a whole to bring in more money. It just feels like that is not something close to happening or not something that we could get to without quite a few years of incremental growth. Josie Baruch, what are you doing? It says the letter from Papaya. I really appreciate Zach Brown. Do you think there will be an impact on the future of IndyCar because of it? I am going to keep this crazy short because I've addressed this in many ways over the last couple of years. Josie, not specifically related to Zach in his state of IndyCar column, which I appreciated, told me he was going to put that out and glad that he did. Penske entertainment owners of the IndyCar series and the Indianapolis Motor Speedway are not the most welcoming of new ideas and are being told how to do things better. They often invite those suggestions, but I'm told by not many, but some of those who have been or are being asked to provide thoughts on, "Hey, what if we did this thing differently or what do you think if we do that?" Bringing ideas to them on cool ways to do things that those things are often dismissed or turn and presented as if it was something that was thought of by the owner of the series and IMS. So culturally, Josie, it's not a place where, "Hey, got some big ideas. Really put a lot of thought into them. Really think this could help. And there's been a great let's meet over and over again and develop this and do it." Just hasn't been what I've heard as the common reaction and response. So, Zach taking the time to write whatever it was, 1500 to 2000 words worth of the state of IndyCar. I'm sure it's been read by some within Penske entertainment, probably distilled into a one-page brief for others at the top. And I'd be surprised if anything that wasn't already being considered or in motion was somehow adopted and being manifested to be part of our reality here in the near future. Saw Duster says, "Before Nashville, Pateau said IndyCar was limiting the amount of camber the teams could use." Why? That probably would have been Firestone providing that information since they tend to be the ones that say, "Okay, based on our knowledge, this is the maximum amount of camber we believe our tires on an oval and this is each corner." The maximum amount of camber to run that we would be looking at is safe without overtaxing the sidewalls. That would be a recommendation if not something pretty close to an instruction given from Firestone to IndyCar and then passed down to the teams. So, not a new practice, but any means. Darren King heard from a number of places that the McLaren IndyCar is difficult or different to drive compared to the other cars. Can you confirm? You know, from my time racing for them, Darren, that reputation certainly existed. It was hardcore, 2021, 2022, without a doubt. And I've heard that while the cars anecdotally are a little bit different to drive, it by no means as hardcore as it once was. And it was all tipped in the direction of setting up the cars for Pateau because with some of the changes going on there, all over Askew, Felix Rosenqvist being hurt, some of the changes going on there. Really, the team only had Pateau to lean on and he is a total unicorn when it comes to being able to drive a car. Super loose up on the steering wheel the whole time and if you're a driver who prefers the rear to be totally solid in the front to be how you manage the speed and you like a little bit of understeer, oh boy, there would have been problems. Yeah, was developed hardcore in Pateau's direction and as I understand it, they have not necessarily wound that back. Obviously, Pateau is getting what he wants and needs but much stronger effort as you would think they would do to now cater to each individual driver's needs instead of an overall direction for all the cars being set by one. Let's do this. I'm going to pick just a couple here and then say farewell. I know I said to buckle in for a good old long episode but I don't want to make this too long so what we might do is carry over some more to the next episode. Let's see, what do we go here, Chris Ward, the rumors that Hivy is moving from RLL to Foite. Is this the case of the rich getting richer and Penske by its technical lines with Foite? Is it a case of RLL over promising and under delivering? Here's the rumor and I've had this told to me by a couple of drivers. The rumor is that Hivy is splitting their sponsorship, not leaving RLL to go to another team but reducing their investment, their annual outlay to RLL and effectively splitting what they do. RLL on one side and Penske on the other knowing that Penske has the Iowa Speedway event which they promote/co-promote. Hivy is a big part of that through their entertainment division bringing in the big country and western stars by and large. So allegedly, Hivy is splitting their sponsorship, some of it staying with RLL, you would think splitting would mean reducing and whatever other amount going to Penske through the pre-existing relationship between Hivy and Penske, but that Hivy money being applied to one or possibly both of the AJ Floyd racing entries. We do know the second car that David Maluchus is in, that certainly is a one with the heavier tentacles from Penske. So would it be a surprise to see a business to business, whatever relationship between Hivy and Penske be something that Penske would use to help fund that second entry of foits for the driver they are interested in? According to those who've told me that's the way it is, it seemed to make sense, but again, those are allegations, not facts that I know of, so we'll see where that ends up. There's also that RLL angle of just kicks and kicks and kicks, if that is accurate, and then taking more blows based on how things have been going lately. Dave Lovefifty, say, paraphrasing here, will Marcus Erickson's rough season make him vulnerable next? Not for 2025, he has a valid contract, so I don't foresee any changes there. Has the Andretti team shortened a person season at least once that comes to mind, even though they had a full season contract? Yeah, I just don't know if they're going to want to do that with someone of Marcus's stature, so would say to your point for sure though, I don't know how long Marcus's contract is. I'm guessing it's a two year, one year option, but I would say Marcus needs to have a rather remarkable 2025 to feel confident about staying in that car for a good long while. Vincent 1701, what's the turnover for a team during the off season? It's another awesome, how long is a piece of string question Vincent? What team? How big is it? Do they have team drivers on multi-year deals, sponsors on multi-year deals? Are they without drivers and have no sponsor? So hard to say without a more specific question being asked, brother. Darlin says Colton clearly listened to your saying he needed to step it up this year. I love, yes, it was me, or not in any way, shape or form, but his near perfect driving was too often derailed by pit crew and strategy issues. What needs to change at Andretti to let him reach his championship potential? I don't know if I saw that to that degree, Darra would say there were way too many races where the Andretti team was just really good fifth place. Or fourth place or seventh or third while the Alex Palos and Will Powers or whomever's were first or second or third or fourth. Amazing result for Colton to win a couple races to close the season, get his first oval win obviously remarkable on all fronts there, but I'd also say that really what stood out to me was this how wide of a championship competitiveness gap truly stood out between Andretti and Penske and Ganassi. I know that we know that Colton rose to second in the standings. McLachlan was looking good there for a while, but then things went a little sideways. So he got up to third, which is phenomenal, but could have been second. We know what happened with our guy Will Power in the silly belt buckle that demoted him to fourth, but minus that cartoon anvil. Colton's probably third in the championship, maybe fourth, but not really, really close. So Alex having a not super great day at Nashville, finishing 19th at Milwaukee, that second race and then 11th at Nashville. Timing at the yellow really burned him and buried him from being able to compete towards the front had the pace just unlucky in that regard. So that allowed Colton to get within what 31 points of him, just saying, I look at those 31 points as being not a true representation. At no point in time during this season, did I think any of the Andretti global drivers had a chance of winning the championship and they did not. Colton got super close, but yeah, I'm not pointing to an abundance of pit crew or strategy errors for that. I know that obviously they had some bad days. He had a ton of great days. It's just look at the second Iowa. He finished fifth. Got it. Paloa was second. Look at Gateway. Alex was fourth. I think Colton was fifth or so. So I'm not just talking to forget the bad days, just the competitive days where Alex, I think what he was fourth that wrote America, right? Wasn't in the frame for victory, but managed to finish fourth. And if I remember, I think Colton finished like sixth. So just those little things of a couple of positions on a consistent basis from this track to that track to the other. It stacks up and all of a sudden you're not in the championship hunt at the final round. So it's those items to me where if Andretti can find a wee bit more speed on a consistent basis for him, Kirkwood, our guy, Erickson. We can talk about them as title contenders. Cycling investor. What do you think? Linus Lindkvis ends up next year. I fear out of the series. And after Rocky 2024, what does the future hold for Hunkos Racing? Is the question from E Garcia Press? Well, it wasn't as turbulent as last year or was it? I don't know. Yeah, 2023. I'm not sure, but we'll find out. If I were to learn that Stingray Rob ended up there, who I hear has rebuilt that really impressive funding portfolio we had to bring to fight last year. That wouldn't surprise me, but definitely a question as to who would be in the primary car. I think Romad did a really good job. I think the team leveled up for sure in the engineering side. We know. I've known. I think it's been mentioned elsewhere by other reporters. Stingrays manager, Alexander Rossi's father, Peter, has been shopping to two of them as a package. Obviously one gets paid. The other one brings money. We'll see what ECR announces here. Don't believe Stingray is looking at ECR as an option. So the pitching to two drivers as a total team, two car solution. I don't think that would work out if ECR does indeed go with Rossi to replace Rienus. But if I look at a Huncos Hollinger racing, if they were to apply the salary, they have paid Romad to Alexander and had the stonkingly impressive budget coming in from Stingray. I think that would be a smart move by the team. Great driver and Alex. They need financial stability. Stingray could bring that and they have some really good engineering there for him to work with. We'll see where that goes. Obviously, RLL has been mentioned as well as a possible destination for both. If they were to trade Pietro Fittepaldi, who I'm told brings somewhere between three and four million for a Stingray, who, again, we'll see if it's true or not, but estimated eight to nine million. And Alexander in the car formerly driven by Christian Lengard. There seemed to be a couple of pathways for that. So on the Huncos Hollinger racing side specifically, though, in the absence of finding significant sponsors, which can take years to develop. A friend of mine recently went to work there, recommended him to the team, and has been brought on to help in that area. I mean, just happened, like last week, but finding companies to give you millions that happen overnight. So the quickest pathway to solving some of the immediate budgetary issues that have been lingering for a while now would be to take on a well-funded driver. And if I'm thinking of Stingray specifically, I think this could be a really good landing spot for him. With a good team, they brought on some new senior team management folks who I really like, and I think have brought new and new and newer levels of polish to the organization. I like where they're going. I think there could be a good fit there. Where else do we go, or do we say farewell for this episode? Yeah, let's say farewell to this episode. And, Jerry, if there's any more in the blue or the white on this Word document that is six pages, 1,831 words long. Feel free to carry those over into the next episode, which should try and get done here in the coming days. Thanks to y'all for all the questions you sent in. Huge thanks as well to Jerry Suddeth for putting everything together to our friends at FAFF Technologies, the Justice Brothers, and Toronto Motorsports.com. Our Marshall Pruitt will speak to you here very soon. [Music] [BLANK_AUDIO]
