(upbeat music) Welcome to the Marshall Prote podcast and your week in IndyCar, listener Q&A show, second for the week, closing the week. Here on a Friday afternoon in a scorching San Francisco Bay Area, meant to be up at Sonoma Raceway yesterday and today, the Velocity Invitational Historic Event. And indeed, Mrs. Pruitt, not feeling excellent. And so, as always, whatever is needed at home comes first. So, hoping, maybe, if she's feeling better by tonight, or early morning, might try and head up for just one day instead of two. And if that doesn't work on Saturday, maybe I'll give it a whirl on Sunday. But anyways, looking forward to hopefully getting up there, been texting with her guy Tony Kanan, from Agro Shaw, hopefully gonna connect with them, do some in-car stuff with some of what they're driving. So, we'll see what happens, 99 degrees. Now, I think 98 today, it's supposed to be 99 tomorrow. Like, (laughs) What? Come on, it is October 4th, y'all, what? This is some like July, June, early August type stuff. But anyways, all kinds of fun. Huge thanks to y'all for all the questions you sent in, despite doing two episodes this week. Jerry says we have 25 new questions. So, I'm gonna fire through these as quickly as I can. A quick note that in the episode that went up a couple of days ago, spent the first, I don't know, half hour diving into, oh, just about everything I could think of for the Indreddy Global, Michael Indreddy, what's going down there type stuff. So, we have a few more questions there, but if we don't go too deep into more Indreddy items in this show, just know you can go back to the most recent episode from earlier in the week, and there's a heck of a bunch of Indreddy stuff in there for you to enjoy. All right, let's say thank you to those who make the show possible. We'll come right back and get rolling. Time to say a big thank you to our show partners on the Marshall Pruitt podcast, starting with FAF Technologies. 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All the show stickers, models, racing memorabilia, trying to sell and put towards our fun to buy a house, is now live and rocking. ThePruittStore.com. All right, y'all. Bill Golker, you opened the show saying, "We need a new TV series called 120 Days After Indie." Brother, you are not kidding. Oh, Lord, you are not kidding. I feel bad for us, for fans, for our friend Jerry Sutter, who puts these questions together each week, 'cause yeah, this stuff doesn't ever seem to stop. Now does it, but yeah, it's a great point. Like, if only there was a year-round approach taken to documenting IndyCar from a TV, something kind of episodic standpoint. Yeah, boy, there'd be a lot of stuff to get, right? Could you imagine? Maybe that's the thing we have to do, Bill. You imagine we get into the final month of the season next year, and camera crews go to all 11 shops and are there all day, every day, from the moment the lights get turned on to when they get turned off. Can you imagine the amount of stuff that would get captured to chuck into IndyCar's version of a drive to survive instead of just the fairly tame stuff we get have gotten during the 100 Days to Indie? But yeah, the 120 Days After Indie, great idea. Mark Founds, this is questions. Street races seem to do well when they're in a picturesque part of downtown with bars and such nearby, but this Dallas race just seems to be out in the parking lot around the stadium, that being out in Arlington, Texas. This is why do the organizers feel like this will appeal to the public when you don't have the City Street backdrop as part of the mix? Yeah, you raise a good point, Mark, but it's not exactly a hard, fast rule, right? We did have Camden Yards as a backdrop in Baltimore, for example, right? So that was kind of cool, but it really didn't factor into anything at Baltimore. And it was pretty much just to go run around city streets type deal and it was pretty darn popular. Did well for the couple of years that it existed when we were at Houston. Similar thing where we went around some stadiums. I don't know what they, is it still the NRG stadium? I forget, but the Houston Texans NFL team and I guess right next to adjacent to the old Astrodome, right, which are cool, if you're sports fans, but they really didn't do much in terms of like, wow, look at the beautiful picturesque street race that we have here. We could say the same about Detroit, right? You got the Renaissance Center, which is a big statue-esque thing, but by and large, the visuals there are the opposite of amazing. Where else? I mean, Long Beach is pretty cool. We obviously got a beach right there, so that's good, but can just think of plenty of places where, I don't know if this really stands as the standard. Chicago obviously took things to a pretty beautiful and amazing place with NASCAR, where there is that whole kind of city-scape setting there. Toronto, we have the CN tower way off in the distance, which is beautiful and there's one or two nice things, but it still kind of fits that model of nothing too spectacular that would lead folks to say, "Oh, the visuals here are amazing. "Let's go watch a street race." It's just more of, "Oh, they dropped this into our lap," and that makes it pretty easy. If I'm a sports fan, but maybe not a big racing person, hey, this is a big event in the city, let's go check it out, or close enough, instead of, am I really gonna drive how far out into the wilderness to go to some track, that if I'm not even a big racing fan, that might seem like a pretty heavy commitment. So I would just say this one makes a lot of sense for a couple of reasons. So going back, the first time I started hearing about something that will end up being what gets announced here, mid-2010s, I don't recall the exact year, whether it was 14, 15, 16, somewhere in there, but we'd have the last race in Houston and started hearing something about Texas Rangers Stadium, not the Cowboys Stadium, but maybe something in and around where the Rangers play in their stadium. And then this evolved into what's become this giant sports entertainment complex there in Arlington, where the Cowboys ginormous stadium lives as well. And so, is this truly downtown Dallas? Of course not, but is this a place where, as I understand, folks in this portion of Texas are really familiar with going to for, again, their sports and entertainment and restaurants and whatnot? Yes. And so I think that's where I'd place my focus here, Mark. This is a known place folks go to for this kind of stuff. And so holding a motor race in and around this area, one where this is a IndyCar race without a doubt, but this has never been presented as strictly an IndyCar venture, meaning Detroit Grand Prix, for example, that's 100% IndyCar, Roger Penske, Penske Entertainment, has been for decades. They put it on, it's all them, no one else is really involved. This, as we've been hearing about it for months and months and months, is a joint venture, joint production, something where the Cowboys are involved and invested. The Rangers are said to be involved and invested. So we'll get confirmation of exactly what is what here early next week, as I wrote about, I don't know, maybe a week ago on Racer, but that's the big shift here. It's not just to show up, parachute in and go away. It's say, aha, the stakeholders with this area, these arenas, this complex, they're stuck in and a part of this said to be a big part of this along with IndyCar. Co-promoters maybe? We'll find out exactly what the structure is, but that's what I've had it in my head. And so assuming that is all accurate mark here, just to close, that should be a powerful thing. Coming back to the showing up and putting on a first time street race somewhere, if you're doing it by yourself, well, you're hoping to attract a lot of local interest, but you aren't necessarily a local force that folks are accustomed to hearing from and responding to. If IndyCar does indeed have a great partnership with the Dallas Cowboys, Jerry Jones, who owns them, whomever it is, who owns the Texas Rangers, if this is something where we have multiple parties, more than one of them being the local experts who put on big events every week and have lots of folks turn out to, that's where I think this really has a potential to succeed. So more details to follow, but I'm excited about what this could be simply because recent attempts to race in Texas, circular, the Americas was a bust, wanted it to succeed, but nobody showed up. The old Houston Grand Prix, like back in the cart days, that thing was really, really successful. Came back to life, you know, grandstands may be half full if we were lucky for the amount of time we were back there in the early 2010s, and then beloved Texas motor speedway, struggled and struggled and struggled. It was a little bit of encouragement when it came back after got through COVID and such, but that final race in 2023 was there. I think I've mentioned this countless times, was there for the very first ones, was there for, have been there for just about all of them. And although there was definitely an uptick in turnout in 2023, it was still pretty darn empty to what it once was. So lots of attempts at places that just did not work out, did not put enough folks through the gates to make it look like a thriving and successful event. So in theory, Cowboys, Rangers, IndyCar collaborating on this, it's as strong of a chance for a new street course to have some sort of longevity and success that I can think of in a really long time. Tyler Wong says, does Michael Andretti, news of leaving the Andretti team signal a bright future for the team? What do you think will go downhill from here? I cannot find any ways that this will make it go downhill, Tyler. I think it's only going to go upwards. And again, if you want longer dissertation on it, check out the most previous episode of this show, but everything I know and I'm told is that this could be a freeing thing. Cadillac is rumored, a legend to have wanted to have some changes made to continue change rumored, a legend to be no longer going forward with Michael Andretti, really not in any kind of figure head type role. But I'd say if that's true, and that is the thing that unleashes greater collaboration, greater funding, greater you name it from General Motors with the F1 project. And who knows what else? That could be a positive thing. Can tell you that last Friday, there was a message sent out to all employees on their, whatever it is, Slack, WhatsApp, name the unifying app sent by the communications team, which was a message from Michael, which again was received, but maybe not the most personal thing. I'm told that I'm not sure if it was Monday or Tuesday, but at the start of this week, an actual on the shop floor in person meeting between with Michael Daniel Taurus, who's now in charge of the team and all of the Indianapolis based, or Indiana based crew took place. A face to face talk. And yeah, that is not something that really happens there. So yeah, did actually have that face time, which is a good thing, but strange in the way that for any of the younger listeners, this might not resonate with you, but for any of the slightly older listeners of the show, it feels like, hey, this has been one of my favorite bands for a really long time. They've been around for a long time, but the lead singer departed. Oh, and they're going on tour with a replacement singer. Like I was just reading about the really, really sad comments and developments, apparently Lincoln Park, for example, lost their lead singer, sadly Chester Bennington to suicide. Sorry, it shows turning a bit dark here, but lost Chester, obviously, and just very, very recently within the last couple of weeks announced they're going on tour with a new lead singer, and that's led to a lot of, what? No, that ain't right. This doesn't feel right. I mean, that's who the band is. And you can run through it, old school, Van Halen. They've been through a variety of lead singers and especially old soul groups, right? You go, "Hey, the four tops of the temptations "are coming to town." You're like, "Okay, they're all like 45 and younger." And this band was founded 50 something years ago. This doesn't make sense. So it just has a little bit of that feel. The band you love that's been around for a while, that's lost again, the lead singer or something, where you go, "That's the most identifiable person "with this thing that I like and/or I'm really familiar with." I don't know if that ever is going to feel normal without Michael there, but I've yet to find the areas here, Tyler, where I go, "Okay, the team is going to go backwards because of this." I think it might actually be a little bit more freeing in some ways. Michael Bragg says, "Was the reason Michael Andrati "stepped down from Andrati Global "because he was making waves about wanting Roger "Pensky to sell IndyCar." And Dan Towers didn't like that. I would say that is a no. So just sharing here part of the role being a reporter is listening to what a lot of people have to say, having to take their word on it. And probably come across as a surprise, reporters don't get invited to IndyCar team owner meetings or similar. So we have to take what we're told many grains to say in sometimes. Sometimes you have to take into account who is telling you what their agenda might be, how honest they've been when they've told you things, significant things in the past. You filter through who's telling you something. What are they saying? Is there some sort of agenda behind it or not? Can tell you this, from a number of folks, team owners, team principals, whatever you might call it, tend to get both of them sitting in those meetings. From what a number of them have told me, so I'm taking their words on account, they're alleging these things, that in meetings where Michael has been present since the big investment, and again, we think the primary ownership position of Towers was taken a couple of years ago, in the situations where it was just Michael in the room, instead of Michael and Dan, had a number of owners and team principals tell me, yeah, Michael, not afraid of anything. Michael, pretty darn, brash and loud. Opinion shared that since this huge infusion of money from Taurus, Group 1001, Game Bridge, Guggenheim properties and such, there's been a great ramping up of boldness. Makes sense, right? If you feel like you are pretty much impervious, you probably feel confident in speaking out of both sides your mouth and letting your inside voice go to the outside. So again, a legend. But what I'll also say, and this is the part that I wanted to close with here, I've heard from those same owners and team principals that, oh, Mr. Taurus is not the least bit afraid to say what he thinks and be contrarian and disagree and push back against Penske, Penske Entertainment and so on and so forth. So from what I'm told, from what those in the room have alleged for a while now, this is not a case of good cop, bad cop, where Michael's been the bad cop, Daniel's been the good cop and gosh darn it, now it's time to get rid of the bad cop 'cause we need peace and happiness. I've only heard effectively bad cop, bad cop. So I can't think of anything that I've been told that would lead me to believe that anything Michael has had to say about Roger, to Roger in his presence, in print about Roger and so on, would have had any bearing on this. Yet again, we'll see if this bears out, but for the amount of people who've told me this is all related to Cadillac and wanting to distance themselves from Michael slash the Andreddies, calm things down, knowing that it seems like on a regular basis for the last couple of years, whether it's big news of going to Washington DC and stirring up that and getting folks to try and look into and investigate Liberty Media on unfair practices, keeping Andreddy Global out of F1 to all the statements there made over the years that have certainly not gone down well with Liberty Media slash the FIA at times. There's been a desire, a belief that if this is going to happen, the best odds of this happening is in a quieter, less bombastic way and we need to part ways to be able to do that. So if that turns out to be true, then everything I've been hearing is accurate. And if not, then I don't know what else to tell you 'cause that's the majority of what I've been told. Why don't we go to Michael Everson, asking about Michael Andreddy. Does that mean Marco Andreddy is no longer guaranteed into 500 entry with that team? I don't know, it's a question I certainly need to ask, would say this just to contemplate Michael? Marco has been very smart away from the track, investing in a number of businesses. Is very successful doing that? Still loves racing, so we see him doing more, have seen him doing more stuff outside of IndyCar for the last little while, but would just say that I always think of Marco's annual Indy 500 only outings. So I've been doing it for a couple of years now, but I've thought of those two capacities. Clearly still wants to win the Indy 500, still chasing that dream. I love it when he's in the field. Awesome guy, really liked Marco for a really long time. Also look at the partners on those cars. Seems to be, since he's been doing the Indy only routine that this has been a fairly important lucrative and highly engaged entry where we see sponsors on the car that are either unique to Marco's entry or ones that might have come in through Marco's time in IndyCar and now return, or maybe brought some others with, introduced the team to some others. So look forward to learning about this, knowing that he and his wife are parents for the first time, congratulations. Again to them, seeing some awesome photos. But I'd say this is also within his realm of how he supports himself and family, would say that I don't know if this is the biggest financial generator of the year for him, but I would say this might be something that is a significant contributor, enough to the point to where not doing the Indy 500 might actually not be in his best financial interests. So more to follow, but definitely think of this as more than just going and having fun chasing the dream every May, but might be some pretty good business reasons to continue doing that as well. James R. Underscore IndyCar fan. This is Marshall, all the best to you, your wife, your bell and the cats. Well, thank you. And it seems like every time I start the show, I have at least one of the two cats here in the office. And by the time I read whomever's comment here, the first one about the cats, I look around and they're gone. So I have a pretty strong feeling that Rocky and Rosie think the show sucks. It says, my question is, with Michael and Dirty stepping back, if he wanted, could he start a new team without Dan Taurus someday in the future? Don't know, would say of the things that have been alleged that Michael signed away the majority of his ownership of the team, whatever amount that he had was signed away and Taurus is now not just the true in control guy who he kind of knew he or suspected he was, but maybe from a true percentage standpoint, again, alleged to have basically bought more or less the whole thing. If that's the case, if anything new has been signed, I would have to believe in there there's some sort of non-compete. And so just talking about how these things tend to work, some sort of, well, you're leaving for whatever reason. We asked you to, you chose to, a little bit of both, whatever it is, but we need to change the structure of our relationship. We're talking about drivers sometimes if we're talking about engineers, team principals, whatever. The term gardening leave is when we hear about where you go, okay, cool, so you wanna leave us while you're still under contract? Well, okay, if you're not motivated to be here anymore, and I'm not saying this is the Michael circumstance, but just, okay, you wanna go, well, we don't want you to go, but if you're wanting to go, well, we now are gonna have to look at you as a liability. We don't want you in the shop. We don't want you near anything we're doing. So, okay, but contract has some sort of, non-compete clause, six months, 12 months, 18, who knows? So, go enjoy the sidelines. My guess here would be something like this exists. It's a guess, but Michael, air quote, leaving his own team, being retained as a special advisor and brand ambassador and showing up on the grid in March with Andretti intergalactic, global's taken, but Andretti intergalactic, I don't know, or intergalactic, Andretti, I like that better. That's the kind of thing that tends to be forbidden in the way a lot of these kinds of contracts go. So, I'm just having to rely on that. Assuming there is a non-compete clause, how long would that be? I'm guessing it's more than a year, if not two. I think as I mentioned on the last show though, I do have one friend who is really, truly convinced. We will see Michael back in IndyCar and possibly with another team owner, team principal type as soon as he is able to do so. It's a thought and a suspicion, but certainly not something that I would say I'm aware of has any roots in truthiness quite yet. Ah, let's see, JJ Gertler, are you the, now we're getting close, yet we're almost done with the Michael Andretti related questions. JJ Gertler, as I find your comments about Andretti Global not changing much without Michael to be interesting. We always saw Michael down or near the timing stand, but was he involved in strategy or other capacity on race day or was his principal work managing and overseeing, but not performance related? Yeah, I mean, Michael was very much plugged into the operational side when cars are on track for a long, long time. I've only known that to get wound back more and more over the years, so I'm trying to think what year it was. Maybe 2015, 2016, Long Beach, for example. I've done an interview with Michael a month or two before, so this is again, just before, just as the season started, he mentioned investing a ton of money in off-season damper development, so that was an area where they were really caught out the previous year, and so they, huge investment. Road and street courses, street courses in particular, were a known strength of the Andretti cars, so was expecting to get back in the game, and so qualifying was over at Long Beach. Again, I apologize, I don't remember the exact year, but it was dismal. They were all slow. I think they all missed the fast 12, and just, it was like, wow, and Michael on camera, you could just see how angry he was, so walking out in Pitt Lane, session had just ended, Michael still in the timing stand and had a conversation with him about it, did a little interview, and again, venting, as you would expect, because, as he said, spent all this money, we're getting nothing out of it, getting embarrassed, and so on, and sharing this 'cause this was an era where Michael wasn't exactly telling the mechanics, changed the low speed compression on the right front damper to this side or the other, but truly plugged into this side. I've just only known this, JJ, to dial back a little bit. Now, his voice, because he's done so much, won so much, seen so much, a really smart guy, he's someone I would think you would always want to hear from, but directly in charge of strategy, engineering insights, or whatever insights, that part, not so much. Andrew Miller, you say it's been some sniping between pro-journalists and internet rumor folks, about how much of a surprise he and Dreddy's shakeup was, how much smoke did you see that you could put into your notebook, but wasn't ever enough to write about or podcast about beforehand? Ah, some, for sure. Did I have Michael and Dreddy being unwelded from his team as something I was expecting to happen now? No, not at all. So, caught me by complete surprise, in the timing of when it happened, the manner that it happened, all those things. So, love to tell you when I knew about something a long time ago and had to sit on it, and 'cause that's so often what we need to do as professional reporters is respect our sources and et cetera, et cetera, but I'd love to tell you that I knew Michael and Dreddy or whomever was gonna be out there. Didn't know that that was a looming reality. Things that are related to this, maybe adjacent to it, Andrew, would be, but I have been hearing, and I think most granted, there's only like four or five of us who are actual professional reporters who report on IndyCar on a daily basis, or that's one of our primary tasks. There are many of us left, but I can guarantee you the vast majority of us have all been hearing the same things about a growing division between Dreddy and Taurus, from whichever one of our contacts, multiple contacts, et cetera. So, as this landed while reading the sportico story that broke all of this, in my head, first of all, of course you hate getting beaten, but fair on, you know, good on them, but separate from who was first and blah, blah, blah, blah. Like, I had this in my head as mommy and daddy have been fighting for a while, but, and they might be on the road to going to counseling, not, hey, son, it's time to sit down because we need to tell you that mommy and daddy are going to start living in separate houses. Did not have that as the where we were at with the situation. New from what I was told was allegedly happening, that there was certainly trouble in the potential path to something like this, was being walked, definitely didn't have it happening the second Friday into IndyCar's off season. As for the sniping, yada, yada, yada, there's a cool function. I think it's happened under Elon Musk's watch. Maybe it was there beforehand and I didn't know, but on X/Twitter, where I was told this was going down, there's a function apparently where you can have yourself unfollowed. I might, I'm sure I'm phrasing that incorrectly, but basically, if someone you just, you're like, come on, I don't need you or want you following me, happens to decide to do so, you can go in and remove them from following you. And I think I just need to make more judicious use of that tool, because look, would be absolutely a lie to say at no point in time have I ever tried to push and say, first on this, was at this way before anybody else, et cetera, et cetera. Just know that as I've gotten older, a little bit older, the folks fighting over who said what and where and when, which I truly don't follow, I am more often told about these things than anything else, it's just exhausting. And so, yeah, I've been trying to do a stay in your lane and just be you and do you and let that be enough for, I don't know, a little while now, and I like how it makes me feel. So don't get me wrong. I have to fight my nature like you wouldn't believe because I'm a highly competitive person, if not combative person, depending on the situation. And I do see many things on social media where my fingers are wanting to type like Matt, but yeah, so, wish I could tell you that I was on top of this from day one of it being this thing that was gonna happen so soon into the off season, but I was not. And so, here we are with a change reality since then. Lynn formerly the Spurs fan says, "Hey MP, this is Alex Poloch here to see the news, got this in 2.0, he's pretty good." Yeah, indeed, Polo is made from very special things. Got another thing to keep in mind here. And this is maybe a little bit of a difference from Dixon. When I think about Dixie over the 20 plus years, he's been at Ganesi in those six championships that he's won, I think he's won those titles with something like five, four to five different race engineers, had a lot of stability on the crew chief side or team manager side. Been changes there as well, but really in the quarterback head coach relationship, man, there's been a lot of different head coaches Dixie has worked with over the years on the way to getting those championships. Look at Polo and he has the same exact people now that he's won three titles, five years in IndyCar, four years with Chip, three out of those four have delivered championships, keeping in mind that Dixie delivered his six from what 2003 through 2020? So you look at the speed at which he's won those titles, Lynn, but also look at the glue that is absolutely being worked to a point of magic with that number 10 Ganesi entry. Same race engineer in Julian Robertson, same race strategist slash team manager in Barry Wanser, Ricky Davis there as crew chief and on and on and on, the not as if every person on the crew isn't important, don't get me wrong, but the folks who have the most direct influence in Alex's ability to be competitive year in year out, he has not had that changeover like Dixon had. And I think without some of that changeover, Dixie might have more championships. So back to Scott or more credit to him, I should say, the fact that he has won six championships with a pretty significant change in cast and that head coach calling the performance plays on the car. That just adds to his legend, where this could be so interesting to see Lynn is if there is a change here in the next year to with race engineer strategist or so on, how does Alex react to that? Does that change? Is on track performance ability to win more titles? We know Dixie been effectively impervious to that change and overcome every time. Is that something we can say Alex can do? Right now he's got three championships in a perfect scenario with rock solid foundation. Almost never stays that way through a driver's career. What does he have to show us if and when there is change? That's a last big thing for us to see and know about him. Alex Corleian, and hopefully I didn't just murder your last name, Alex. So in a recent interview, Zach Brown talked about how the polo situation was a big setback from McLaren, but he was glad that it was behind them now. So he made it sound like the court case had been settled. Did I miss something? Don't know what you read and where, so I can't speak to the framing of this or the context of this, but in my inquiries about this within the past month or so, maybe was told that no, there's been no settling whatsoever and this is going to go on until it reaches a point of natural conclusion through the courts. My guess though is referring to the big disruption being behind them. So lawsuit, I believe, still going and going, going. Reported about that, again, whatever that was, maybe a month ago that they're gonna head to mediation, where there's nothing forced by the court saying you must come to some sort of arrangement. That would be, I think, arbitration. So they're gonna, the mediation ended the year early 2025 and I think it's just gonna be more of a, all right, what do you propose? Alex Palo side on bringing this to an end and I would say if that offer doesn't impress McLaren Racing/their lawyers, it'll probably just continue on to, I think, it's meant to go to court, I don't have the exact time, but I think it's like end of summer, ish 2025 and see where it goes from there. Lord Thaik says, why is Prem a so willing to invest in IndyCar if the series has looked to eventually move to only 25 charter teams? I love that they're joining, but it seems like a high-risk move. They can't secure charters in the near future. I hear ya, I appreciate their fighting spirit wanting to come do this. They were told, have been aware, since they started speaking IndyCar that charters were on the horizon. So they've also tried to do everything in their power to gain charters. They've offered to buy teams outright to obviously own the charters. I know that 'cause I've heard from teams who've told me that that's happened, to trying to just straight up buy the charters from teams. So they have tried, unsuccessful so far, would say if we look at where things are going here, we anticipate the cut down to 25 cars that matching the amount of charters in place, coinciding with IndyCar going to New Chassis. Again, we think could be 2027, maybe 2028 and we'll see. But a couple of years away from that culling of things, to come down by two entries, I could see that happening elsewhere in the paddock to possibly have them fit within that structure of 25 entries. So right now, as I am told, and we'll just keep using the word alleged here 'cause we're living in alleged times in IndyCar, that in the charter, prema's written in as the only non-charter full-time team that is allowed to compete. It's a pretty serious thing, right? There's some other teams that have had an interest in competing but not been told, well, if you get an engine lease and you can commit single car to whatever it is, we'll also include you as officially allowed to compete full-season non-charter. So the fact that they're allegedly written in as the only team allowed to do so, full-season pretty interesting. But if I look to the future, I say, okay, well, we got decent amount of two car teams and we also got a pretty solid number of three car teams. Could I see Ray Hall at him and Lan again going from three to two? Possibly, right? Could there be a charter there that could be purchased by them? We got Genasi at three. I don't know if they'd wanna be less than three. So that could be a serious question mark there. Aaron McLaren seems to be happy at three. I don't know if they'd wanna change, but definitely in Dreddy Global seems like they're at three and I don't know if they'd ever wanna go down to just two. Three seems to be the model that really truly works the best as told to me by teams that have gone from four to three or two to three. Three seems to be the magic number. Yes, it is. For those of you who love Dale Russell, there you go. The question though is, okay, if we're going to trim the field to a maximum of 25, how do we get there and do that without shedding Prema as a whole? Again, it's a great question. I don't know exactly how that works out. I don't believe the fight team is gonna be going anywhere anytime soon, so that's two charters that would stay there. Dale Coyne has no reason to turn off his team because he loves what he's doing. We'll see, but again, that would be a surprise. Who goes hauling or racing? Again, I hope things become more stable for them financially. Myerschank racing, this is a big thing for them, so I don't foresee them going away. So it's one of those curious items where you go, okay, if the new cap is 25, okay, is that just a case where Prema all of a sudden, if they're unable to buy a leader circle off of this team, I'm sorry, charter off of this team and then buy another one off of that team that might downsize or buy two off of a team that might be either going away altogether or willing to sell those charters and become unchartered competitors. Could this just be a case where, today, at a cap of 27, they're in no real concerns about having to qualify and bump in to regular races because they're entry 26 and 27 of the 27. Could that just change in 2027 or 2028? And all of a sudden, Prema, if they don't have charters, would need to try and get into the show somehow, can non-charter teams bump? Chartered team, again, I don't know what the structure might be, but it does seem like two people need to get voted off the island somehow for all of the 11 teams once Prema comes to life, hit the track. So yeah, head scratcher for sure as to how they get there. Nick Landen, as we start to ramp down says, with a huge success of the charter system working for NASCAR. What makes IndyCar think theirs was better? I hate, again, I apologize if I'm not totally clear whether this is a carryover from a past episode before the whole lawsuit stuff happened in NASCAR with the charters or this is just a good sarcasm from Munich, let's go sarcasm. That fits my personality. Says I hate to dump on IndyCar, but it seems like they can't get the simple things like TV rights to the fans outside of the US or video game platform, even the world of outlaws who have managed both. Unless folks at Penske Entertainment said they think their charter is better than NASCAR, I don't know if they think theirs is better. The key difference here is there is real financial benefits coming to NASCAR teams in their charter from the TV revenue. There is no such thing. There's no profit sharing, no any sharing in IndyCar's charter. So that's a big deal. So I would just say that yeah, until the day comes where IndyCar generating enough revenue to actually share that revenue with its teams, it'd be hard to argue that theirs is better. Let's see, Chris Kaleiwicks has saw your store in Jamie Chadwick and her test with her being off the pace and needing to be stronger to handle the car. Does that mean another year of NXT? Or is her small stature, does that doom or possibility of being in IndyCar? I would imagine that's all up to her in the sense that she's incredibly driven, incredibly focused, she's the last person you would want to doubt or say you can't do something. Can she put on more muscle? I would have to assume yes. This is something where if she wants to really bulk up to that degree that's needed to attack the steering wheel of an IndyCar that's high weight, extremely high downforce compared to everything she's driven before, I'm confident she can do that. If she were to want to try and do IndyCar next year, which I know she does, or did prior to the test, in theory she has enough time to really, truly become a massive outgrowing of muscle and strength to do that. It's a good thing about having a long off season. What I don't know, because she said she didn't know, was having finished the test, was where do we go from here? What do we do? It's a feel like this is something she's ready for right now. Would it be another year of NXT? The Indreddy Global Folks have said we'd welcome having her back. So I'd rather see her spend the year in NXT being a championship contender there, which she would be, while also spending more time really attacking the muscle building and muscle endurance side, and look at IndyCar in 2026. There's not a lot left for next season that would be considered amazing for her. I'm not aware of Jamie having massive amount of money to offer, and sadly for the seats that are available, I don't think she would be considered for the two that are left where teams are looking to hire drivers, right? Now, this is if she doesn't have the potential, just she's not quite there yet, where she would get hired before a Riness VK or similar. I'd love to hear about her doing another season in NXT, ramping up for IndyCar in 2026, but that's all up to her. Ed Joris asking, I've been thinking Jamie Chadwick's best landing spot might be Formula E with power steering. I'm not sure many women would be attracted to IndyCar, what are your thoughts? Again, I don't think this is a gender thing, Ed. We have certainly seen Simone D. Silvestro put on, the muscles necessary, this during the crazy highest downforce ever era with manufacturer arrow kits. And so, yeah, I think it's more of a size thing. If you are a very small man or a very small woman, you are going to have a pretty tall mountain to climb physically to be able to attack in the same way a larger man or a larger woman would be able to. Austin Blaney, what is actually going on with Texas Motor Speedway? You know, I should've answered this towards the front of the show thing to know about this year, the reason IndyCar didn't go back in 2024, as I am told, been told this many times. Not to do with IndyCar having a lack of desire with the Olympic schedule compressing things a little bit on either side of that blackout. NASCAR obviously got preferential dates for when they'd be able to race at TMS. But as I've been told multiple times by IndyCar, Austin, they at IndyCar said, okay, well, hey, we're willing to go here. Nah, we don't want to run you there. Okay, well, what about here on the callant? Nope, and IndyCar was willing to do some dates that I would say were not going to be in their best interest in 2024, right? Coming off of a really big weekend with NASCAR or something at Texas and very soon after IndyCar racing there where you go, okay, well, folks are probably, if they have to pick and choose where they spend their money, they're going to go to the NASCAR race. As I understand, IndyCar was really and truly willing to contort themselves to go back to TMS and TMS just had limited interest in making it happen and it didn't. So yeah. Colin Young wanting to know what, but the sketchiest repair I've seen as a mechanic to get a race car back on track, shoelace and chewing gum holding a quote front nose, for example, this is extra points for when you're responsible for yourself. I'm drawing a blank here, Colin. Probably just cause my brain is my enemy right now, but the ones that I've seen halted in open wheel, I don't remember the exact dates and times, but where we've had collision and we've had bent A-arm, the suspension pieces that hold the uprights and wheels and brakes and all that stuff to the chassis, bent and not bent a little bit, but bent significantly. And this would have been 15, 20 years ago. And no, forget the hammer 'cause that's maybe a little, even that long ago, might've been a little bit too much, but crew members like standing on and trying to lean on and push down almost like they're performing CPR on a bent wishbone made out of steel and you go, (sighs) Yeah, like when you bend steel like that, you can get it back into shape, but you tend to want to use heat, a lot of heat, and also a gradual kind way of bringing it back to being flat, jumping up and down on it. Yeah, you'll probably get it there, but you're also creating cracks on the bottom and it's gonna fail. And so that's one that comes to mind for sure. If I remember any others calling and again, I know that I have many of them tucked away in the back of my head. I'll try and remember to share them here. Ah, why don't we close on this? Brian Cone, by the way, Jamie Doinger, Ricky Zagata. I'm just Jim, wild James Raymond Wong, Michael Howard, Dan the Man, Casey Kirkstra. Won't get to yours this episode as we're trying to try to keep this to about an hour or so, but close the show. David Crawl, you say, it's been said in the paddock, very afraid, very afraid to speak out and they have issues with penske entertainment and the management of the series. Why is that? The team's generate their own revenue. Yeah, two quick things. So I had a conversation with a, we'll just say veteran, powerful team owner last week. There are many of them in any car, but questions here where some of them were fallen to this kind of category, right? On the record interview related to penske and things of that ilk, bubble gum and pup dogs and rainbows all good. And I know that team owner absolutely reveres Roger Penske. After that, then hear the magic words off the record? Question mark. Okay. Then you hear what they really think. And it's that thing for some, David, where they just truly look up to Roger like he is Santa Claus, like he's dad, like he, right, worship the guy, idolize the guy. And these are all, you know, grown folks and doing this a long time. Some of them as successful, close to being as successful, et cetera. But you got that factor. And so not wanting to speak out against and public against dad, have dad tell them, it's disappointed in them. That's a big thing. The other aspect as well is since Penske Entertainment bought IndyCar, the dynamic has totally changed. Just has. It can be miserable to cover the series to just be in the paddock sometimes when there's any kind of discord going on. Because the series, whether it's Roger directly or many of the immediate folks that work under him, they absolutely try and stomp out any words. Any opinions, any, anything that could be considered critical, derisive, whatever. And it's phone calls, it's texts, it's you name it. And those aren't rumored, those aren't alleged. I've seen them. I've been talking, remember one instance with one driver who definitely was saying exactly what they thought about the series and I agreed with them. And standing there as they got a text from a very senior person. I think with a screenshot of their social media post and all kinds of pushing back and letting them know that big brothers watching and really don't appreciate that kind of stuff and you're wrong about this and you're wrong about that, it's that side, David. So pick one or the other and that's usually the reason for the lack of comments. You get that Michael Andretti rare stuff where again, you're supposedly sitting on as much investment as they are. Total don't give a bleep, DGAF scenario. You have somebody like a Brian Herda who speaks out about something. It's not like Brian has DGAF money but he's also in a position where he's respected enough to where that guy says something critical, you know things have gotten serious. And coming from him, that's the one side but the constant incessant, any little thing you say, any little whatever, be in watched, be in screen captured, being pushed back against. It is wearing. It has robbed so much joy from the paddock. The amount of things in jovial moments seen between drivers and similar, we still have some of them. Don't get me wrong. But the amount of times that folks just say, yeah, you know what, it's not even worth it. 'Cause I know if I say this thing in public, I'm gonna get hammered for it. And I just got hammered last week and the week before and it's that thing, David, that has just fundamentally changed what it is like being an IndyCar on the inside. I don't know if and when that will change but I do hope that it will because we are not seeing the brightest, happiest, most honest and engaging version of the series as it could be. It was once that way, it is not and has not been for the last three, four, however many years but I am indeed hopeful that we could get back to that sometime in the future. All right, y'all, this is our show. I will try and do one early next week, I guess Monday since I'm leaving on Tuesday for Rhode Atlanta and Petite Lamont but thanks again for all your questions. Thanks again for just being really kind, cool and you know how awesome you are. To our friends at the Pruday, the listener group formed around the show. If you have an interest in joining them, send an email at PrudayRocks@gmail.com. They will welcome you to their private discord family and possibly do some meetups at the track, that cool family that's been developed there. To our partners at the Justice Brothers, FAFT Technologies and TorontoMotorsports.com, I'm Marshall Pruday and I'll speak to y'all here very soon. (upbeat music) (upbeat music)
