(upbeat music) Welcome to the Marshall Prote podcast and your week in ID card listener, Q and A show. Getting this done here later in the week, our guide Popto Award is about to do free practice one at his own Mexican Grand Prix. If you haven't had a chance, take a look at that child's social media profiles because his visit to a mall in Mexico for promotion for new sponsor KitKat. Genuinely, I don't know if I have ever seen that kind of reaction from fans, that many people for someone who we consider an ID card driver granted in this setting is a Formula One driver doing free practice one in Lando Norris's car. But nonetheless, we'd have to be talking about AJ Foyt days right at his peak power or Mario and Dreddy maybe his peak power. I don't even know, honestly, the level of fandom and that many folks showing up for an appearance. I can't think of anything. I mean, and none of that is meant in a negative way about the legends and heroes of our sport just saying to see that kind of giant and rabid reaction to Popto just add a little promo thing. It's the dream, right? That we could have that one day soon for an indie car driver or multiple indie car drivers. So who knows? What kind of knock on effect that might have when he comes back and does more indie car stuff next year. But yeah, Popto who? Yeah, folks know who. They know who he is. Popto also told me, by the way, we spent, I don't know, maybe a half hour on the phone earlier this week that he and Mark Miles have finally spoken. Mark did nothing to reach out to him that being the Penske Entertainment/Indicart CEO, Mark Miles, after stepping on his appendages with comments regarding Popto at Milwaukee a month or two ago, did nothing to reach out to Popto and smooth things over. I don't know if they were fully smoothed over in this recent outreach, but I was at least happy to hear that, I don't know, maybe a month and a half or two later he decided, you know, maybe I should actually talk to indie cars most popular driver and make sure we at least have a functioning relationship. A couple of other quick things before we get going here. Once again, thanks for all the questions you sent in and to our pal, Jerry Sutterth, who puts them together for us. Been hearing a great rumor, I would say in recent weeks and usually rumors in our world of indie car or indie car, Jason, they're not always the most positive things, right? Been happy to hear this one about and ready global getting their Formula One entry accepted and have heard it and heard it from some very credible sources and I can tell you that after some sleuthery by one friend in particular who works in Formula One says not true, not that it won't become true here in the near future, hopefully, but nonetheless was told by a number of folks who I really did think would know that yeah, it's gonna happen, it's meant to happen soon and after some more digging was told, yeah, actually, not there yet, but rumors potentially of that happening end of the year, early next year, who knows exactly what the timing might be, but I did speak with and ready global chief operating officer, Rob Edwards, about a bunch of things for a story that went up this week, one of them, which I didn't include just because it didn't exactly fit what I was writing about was the rumor of and ready global getting that entry thumbs up privately, background, some sort of back channels from the FIA and Liberty media. And so asked Rob about that and it was interesting because he said, yeah, actually he had heard that. He said, I've heard exactly the same things and I don't know where it truly comes from. He did say I have no involvement what's going on in the F1 program with and ready global, but I'm hearing that the same way and the same things you are says, I don't know what the source of those things happens to be, I don't know if it's credible source or not. He also said, I figure if there's any truth to it one day, I'm gonna wake up in the morning and I'll have my morning cup of tea and I'll be reading about it three hours before you are reading about it. So anyways, was happy to hear that this might be a thing little disappointed to hear that no, it's not a thing yet, but there is encouraging something behind this with and ready global and their desired bid to reach formula one. So gonna keep my ears open for that. What else can I tell you? Oh, unrelated, I'd heard Michael and Dready's office at the and ready global headquarters has been cleared out. I don't know, it struck me in a certain way. I've been a long time fan of Michael, the driver, and then obviously wishing him well in the business side with his team, provided that's true. I don't know, I don't know why that struck me in a funny way, but just the idea of his office being cleaned out at his own air quote team, which bears his name. Maybe there is just a level of finality to that that I wasn't exactly wanting to process yet. I wanna say a big congratulations to dear, dear friends of the show, that being Craig and Cassie Johnston. Craig recently turned 40, our little magical dragon from Canada and a number of listeners of the podcast, the Prude listener group, all traveled to meet up with the Johnsons and celebrate Craig's 40th. So just a big thanks to you, everybody in the Prude, Cassie in particular, Craig as well, just some beautiful human beings who make a lot of folks just love the sport even more and have become great friends to so many. What else can I tell you? A lot of this isn't exactly ready for printing, but I'm aware of multiple changes that have taken place or in motion with crew chiefs, least one prominent race engineer. We're at that point in the off season where these things happen naturally, but been surprised at how much of that change has been going on and happening and in motion. So have some more to talk about there. And other than that, I think it's time for us to pay a little thanks to those who make the show possible as well, and then we'll jump right into your Q&A. Time to say a big thank you to our show partners on the Marshall Prude podcast, starting with FAFT Technologies. Build to print composites manufacturing company or specializing in medium to large scale automotive, motorsports and military applications. Visit FAFT Technologies.com. It's PFAFF Technologies.com to learn more about their services and how they can benefit your business. Next, it's the Justice Brothers, makers of premium additives, lubricants and cleaners and servicing the automotive and motorsports industries for more than 85 years. The victories in all 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 FAFT Motorsports McLaren, Gear and Goodies, pay a visit to torontomotorsports.com. And finally, you have a new online merchandise home for the podcast, thepruitstore.com. All the show stickers, models, race and memorabilia, trying to sell and put towards our fund to buy a house is now live and rocking, thepruitstore.com. Darren King, you start things off asking about the recent hybrid slash tire test at the Indianapolis motor speedway. What happened there, what went on there? The takeaway that I've had in speaking with a number of drivers is how they felt the energy recovery system could be a pretty significant player in how the race gets performed, gets strategized, gets delivered like, hey, this is a thing. Like we could use this, this extra horsepower. This is something we could use to our benefit from a competition and strategy standpoint. Obviously we saw that in other tracks, but this is the first time big giant super speedway. And so speeds were not particularly down. So happy to hear about that. But there were some negatives as well. You know, the drivers that I spoke with said they could feel the weight, they could feel the added weight in the corners, didn't necessarily make passing easier exiting corners, but with that energy recovery system charged up, they could indeed have a little bit more flexibility in pulling off some passes heading into the corners. Darryl Finch, you say, which driver team do you think had the most underrated or under the radar 2024 season? You know, thinking about that, Darryl, not a lot stands out. I don't know if there were any sneaky performances that we haven't already acknowledged, but if we were to stare at the one that maybe jumped out as it was happening, and this was almost from the start of the season kind of thing, that would certainly be Santino Farucci, the AJ Floyd racing team. I mean, they were a top 10 to open the year, right? That St. Petersburg didn't have a great long beach, but rallied back were another top 10 at Barbara Motorsports Park, obviously good. The Indy 500, good at Detroit. Like, we know that Santino has been tagged as an oval specialist, and he is special on the ovals, but when you tag someone a specialist, it often means that they're good at one thing, but not necessarily the others in a multi-discipline thing, like IndyCar, where we race at what five unique types of tracks. And if, I mean, I've been saying this for years, so hasn't been new for those who paid attention, but yeah, the guy is special on ovals, but holy poop, finished ninth in the championship this year, right behind Joseph Newgarden, right? Santino did not win a single race. Joseph won two, one of them being the Indy 500, and Santino finished directly behind him in the championship ahead of Alexander Rossi, right? I mean, anyways, this season certainly bolstered once we got towards the back half of it with a lot of ovals, but nonetheless, the reason they ran as well as they did is because the road and street courses, and so I can't wait to see what he and the team can do next season, and that with a David Maluchus alongside him, who's going to be a better contributor to the team from a technical standpoint to make their cars even better and faster from weekend to weekend. So yeah, absolutely Santino, but again, we saw that as it was happening throughout the year, it wasn't necessarily something that snuck up on us, a couple of things here too, would say that we were on the way, Darryl, of these things happening, and some of them got a bit sidelined. Felix Rosenkvist with Myerschank Racing had a delightful start to the year, and then things started tipping in the wrong direction. So Felix was definitely a top 10 championship guy, they ended up falling back to 12, I think, but yeah, that's one where big early, not exactly halfway, things fell off the rails a little bit before the halfway point, but still great for them, best championship finish ever, I believe, for the team, but that's one where minus some of the problems in adversity, yeah, that could be a story similar to a Farrucci, who else, what else? Maybe the last one here. Kiffin Simpson fits the same profile as Felix in the MSR team. Early season, really strong, finished 12th on his debut, right? I think he had the fastest lap or something like that, was really quick at St. Pete, and continued to do well from there, finishing the mid-teens, something like that, and then, yeah, coming into June is a bunch of adversity. And he rallied back a couple times, I think 14th, 15th, 13th, something like that, type finishes at a couple of races, but I don't know if you'd say hit the rookie wall, or if the wall just started hitting him, but he was in a similar position, Daryl, for sure, to be able to have a much better finish in the standings than he did, which I think was 20th or 21st. So, we'll be keeping an eye on him next season, and hopefully, things are a little bit more similar from start to finish. The cycling investor says, what will Linus Lenkvis drive in 2025? Says he sounded pretty upbeat in a Swedish racing podcast interview last week, but no details, does he still have contractual ties to Chip Ganesi racing, where they could farm him out next year? And if so, where would that be? Need to reach out to our favorite little Swedish gangster and get an update from him. It's been on my list of folks I need to call. Here's what we have in terms of availability within the paddock as it stands today. We have Dale Coin Racing with two cars. We have Hookos hauling a racing with two cars. And we have Ray Hall at a Manhattan racing with one car. There are five seats that I'm aware of that are available completely or possibly. There's the second-prem a racing seat, but have not been aware of that truly being open for a while. That, I think, as I mentioned a while back, understand that Formula Two standout Robert Schwartzman is meant to take that seat. So while it's not confirmed publicly, have not been looking at prema as a place that has a vacancy to fill. So what we're talking about here is five potential seats. RLL raced with Pietro Fittepaldi. Fittepaldi known to bring, I don't know what the exact number is, rumored three to four million a year, heard that there could be some additional money wanting to come in to be attached to him. That could be something that's very attractive to RLL, noting that they have just recently lost high V as a sponsor. That could be an attractive thing to consider depending on how big the number is with Fittepaldi if that's still an ongoing ambition from both sides. If not, there are some free agents out there and are those looking in from Europe or wherever else that might have a significant budget that they could bring. Sharing all that because Linus is not a budgeted guy. Doesn't have any money to bring, he's a professional, he's someone to hire. So if you look at those five seats, look at the RLL potential opportunity, that is not a paying opportunity to a pro, but a pay for the opportunity scenario. So that eliminates Linus, unless RLL finds money and decides to hire him over other people. You then look at who goes hauling or racing. They had Romad Groscharns, their lead driver this past season. They have a option on him for 2025. As of the last time I spoke with Romad, that option had not been taken up and I know there's a hope on his side for sure that that will happen, but to my knowledge, that has not happened yet. Where is the team at financially? This is going to give us a lot of information about what's going on with who goes hauling or racing. If they retain a Groscharn, if they hire a pro like Linus or a Rennus, or a Connor, that would be fantastic, obviously. But if their decision is we're going to take on a Stingray Rob, who is known to bring significant funding. And maybe look to bring on another driver, who brings funding. It tells you they are placing their priority on those who can contribute dollars to the team, and that is their greatest need compared to having funding to go and hire the person they want. I don't know the answer to that with whom goes hauling or racing. Again, just getting into the off season here and trying not to do too much all at once and have nothing left to right. But I do need to reach out and see if and what I can find out, because the model of having a professional paid driver in the 77 car and a paying driver in the 78, which is what I've understood they've been wanting to do going forward, we'll see where that ends up. Or if that turns into two seats that require funding. If both require funding, we know that eliminates leanness from the conversation. And then the last item is coin. And traditionally, he's needed one or both drivers to bring funding, and we'll have to see where he ends up there. Obviously, they tested with Renis last minute at the Indy Hybrid tire test. Stingray was meant to return to the team and do that test. And that got changed up last minute, and Renis was put in the car. And speaking with Dale, speaking with Renis, they really like each other. Renis is not a moneyed guy. He does not pay to drive. So could there be something cool happening there, coin potentially? So just giving you the full picture here of maybe one seat at coin, potentially, keeping in mind that they seem to really like Renis, so not that they couldn't or wouldn't like leanness, there's certainly competition there. Potentially, that lead 77-car at Hunkos Hollinger Racing. After that, that was the only two spots I know of. So take whichever driver you really, really like who has been getting hired to do things behind the steering wheel, and at least as I'm seeing it, of the five seats. One, for sure, maybe kind of sort of could be paying and maybe a second one, but I'm still not a thousand percent confident on that. So slim, slim choices here. Keith Lee, you say somewhat IndyCar related, but with the news of Maerschach Racing coming back to IMSA in 2025, with two factory accurate cars and a new IndyCar technical partnership with Ganesi, hold on, there's another one, and with Ganesi reducing down to a three-car IndyCar program and not coming back to IMSA, do you think Ganesi will contract out some of their resources to Maerschach Racing? Not totally sure what you mean on the resources side. I mean, I do know what resources are. I could just think of a lot of different ways to go here. Keith, in speaking with Shank, there is a very defined list of what they are doing together, and there's not a lot of wiggle room in that. So I've asked him the question, hey, you in this past IndyCar season have done better than ever. It was the best overall season you've ever had, definitely since you became a two-car team. I attribute a decent amount of that to the IMSA program going away in 2024 and pulling over a number of their badass sports car crew members. And just the overall quality went up, right? Fewer mistakes, fewer car problems, fewer everything that had held them back in the past. Well, those same great folks who just made their IndyCar season the best it had ever been are headed back to sports cars. So ask Shank, hey, Ganesi, some extra people available, be it on the sports car side or the IndyCar side. Could we see some of them coming in to help bolster your two-car team since you have a lot of your own great folks going back to sports cars to which you said no. We have the engineering support, technical support there, but there's no real staffing component to that. He did say, hey, if we found a need for that or thought it would be a help, we absolutely could, but that is not in the plan. So as it is right now, it's just as it has been described with engineers/technical support for the two IndyCars. That's it. Our pal, Jeremiah, says, do you see anyway, RLL down sizes to two cars after losing high V? Not in this charter world. If there was a thing happening where we could go back a year or two or however many and this happened and the team has been under a lot of financial distress or duress, I could maybe see that dropping down to two cars, but indeed they have signed on as a three car slash three entry, three charter team. And I do not foresee them looking to downsize because if they did, I don't believe there's a component in the charter where you can just run fewer cars and just kind of sit and bank on that charter with that entry not turning up, not being used. I do believe there's a use it or lose it aspect to things. So I do not believe so and I don't think it'd be in their best interest to try and do that because gotta believe that there would be some funded drivers who would want to be in IndyCar and with so few, as I mentioned, five ways to get in potentially. Can't imagine they would want to turn off that potential profit-making opportunity by losing one car. Paul Peter Nutt says, haven't seen or heard it discussed, but it was a hot topic a little while ago. But did Colton hear to get a super license? I texted the lad yesterday to ask that question unrelated to yours, Peter, and haven't heard back. I know that there was speculation at Nashville with his elevation to second in the championship and what that would do for him super license points-wise and there was talk about that possibly being enough to get him qualified to earn one, but also believe there was some speculation that he was still shy by a point or two to get that. So haven't heard back from him and I don't know. Mike Jablow, kind of you say continued prayers and good thoughts for you and your wife. Thanks, Mike. Says, with high-v dropping support for the Milwaukee mile, what's IndyCar's plan to get sponsors for the race? Also noting that launch this year returned as a double header. Next year, it's a single header. It's just one race, one day deal, I believe, which I love that, wish there were more of those. Don't know, I would say they are actively working on it and I am sure that they will find something. What I hope is it is a real sponsor. And by that, I mean not pulling from one of Penske's array of business to business sponsors, right? And so this isn't meant as any disrespect to whatever, but if it's the dex imaging 200, like, okay, cool, but that's already a known partner, already one that we see that's involved. I'd much rather hear about new sponsor that is engaged in wanting to be in the IndyCar world than just having to pull from within to cover that off. Eric Franklin says, "Any word on conditions in St. Pete?" Wondering about whether that would affect the race here in March. Spent a while speaking with our friends, Sebastian Bourde, Tampa resident, who did mention there's tons of sand everywhere, granted this conversation was held about two weeks ago, but saying that, yeah, a ton of sand on the streets and a variety of other things that were messy and such, but gotta believe here without a doubt, Eric, that, yeah, in the five months, however many months between now in the opening race, that's all gonna get cleared out and things should be back to normal. Ed Joris, you're doing it, Ed says, "For the 2026 season, what would you think of the thermal club hosting a roar-like broadcast with spring training taking place, the weekend after the Super Bowl? You could have qualifying and a race on Sunday, 'cause it could be a great lead-in to the season. For those who don't follow IMSA, they indeed use this format. Once upon a time, they would have their big pre-season test, that being head of the Rolex 24 Daytona, they would have that the beginning of January. So fly out, do this three-day test, and then go home and you come back, and usually it was really cold. You come back a couple weeks later, end of January for the traditional Rolex 24. In recent years, last two, I think, maybe. They said, you know, we're gonna try and button this up, and we're gonna move the roar to the weekend before the race itself. And since everything is snuggled up like that, we're gonna try and make things a little more competitive. Make the roar mean something, and so they would have qualifying. I believe qualifying race, and that would set the grid for the falling weekend's big 24-hour season opener. And so I don't know if I always love that idea of trying to turn a test weekend into a competitive weekend, but it would at least give folks who love Insta a reason to tune in or follow along at the roar to see how the grid was gonna be set. So that practice will continue in this theory that Ed has by doing this roar-style thing at thermal, doing a spring training the weekend after the Super Bowl. Yeah, I don't know. Not the thermal club, I guess, would be my only thing, Ed. And just because if we're gonna televise that on Fox, we're gonna do that right after the Super Bowl. You would want something to look like it was filled with fans and that the track where IndyCar, with its new broadcast partner, was just bustling with life and interest. And unfortunately, that's not the thermal club because that's not how they prefer to run things. So, yeah, I don't dislike the idea. Just, yeah, change a venue, maybe. That would be my only suggestion. We go to Ken Anderson, says, "Hey, MP and Jerry, "this testing looked promising. "Ken was at the Indy Hybrid tire test. "He says, "Fox seems to be headed in the right direction." And 17 months out, the Arlington hype show has started. Says it seems like IndyCar is on a bit of an off-season heater. Is there any indication that during the 2025 season, the series may give us some definitive answers about a new chassis, engine manufacturer, et cetera? He says, "NBC got stale. "Fox is the shiny new object." Says, "Good Lord, RP, do something while Fox is still trying. "Positive Mojo is always coming to you "and your wife's your bro." Thank you, Ken. I would say we don't necessarily even need to wait until 2025 to get some of those answers, Ken. So, yeah, hope to have a story for you early next week on some of the items you mentioned here. Some interesting items, some no movement at all items, but yeah, I would say that you're right, there definitely seems to be some positive stuff, finally kicking off here with IndyCar after a rough start to the off-season. Got some good momentum going. So, like where it's at, only thing that occurred to me just a close conversation here, Ken. Alex Polo, three-time champion. I flew back to Spain to start his off-season, which is amazing. Feels like we've gone into this void again, right, of, all right, we're what, a month in 10 days or so, out from the season finale and it's almost as if it's been forgotten. And the fact that IndyCar has a new three-time champion, which in any sport, especially for a young athlete, that's usually cause for big and sustained celebration. It's not like you'd want Alex to just be hanging out in Indy the whole off-season and getting no time with his wife and baby daughter and seeing family and recharging back at home in Spain, but just saying, feels like at a time we should be in a pretty constant state of revelry. Maybe page has been turned pretty quickly, at least from my view, and it's almost a forgotten thing. All right, let's start to ramp down the episode a little bit. We go to our pal Daniel Summers-Gill. Says with IndyCar moving to Fox. This have an impact on international broadcast partners. Daniel's based in the UK, by the way. Says it appears at Skyport. Skyports, sure, let me just leave that in. Sky Sports deal in the UK has also ended. Says with Sky and NBC, both being part of Comcast. Well, IndyCar need to find a new home in the UK. I'm guessing they will, Daniel. Knowing that back when we had IndyCar and ABC/ESPN, there was a huge international distribution network in place by ESPN that benefited IndyCar massively. The move to NBC, a lot of setbacks, and a lot of new arrangements had to be made. A little bit on the fly when that became exclusive, would say that going to Fox, to my knowledge, Fox has some pretty decent international avenues already in place. So my guess is in this move, it should probably be a lot like back in the day when ESPN/ABC was the sole partner. So I don't have the details on anything exactly, but I can just tell you that I am encouraged by the size of the international network that IndyCar is stepping into with its new partner. Jeremy Davis and Keith Lee saying, "Hey, there's a rumor on good old social media about the broadcast talent for next year, asking any chance to get Georgia Hennaberry in there as a pit reporter. I'd hope so, knowing that Georgia is expecting her first child here. I think timing-wise might be early in the new year maybe, but not sure exactly on that and how that might play out timing-wise, but totally, totally agree. Big fan of Georgia. I want to make sure Kevin Lee is still involved as well. So don't have answers. Certainly have heard same rumors, heard other rumors. We'll wait until have something more concrete to share. Right there. Raymond Wong says, "You live in the Bay Area and know about John Fisher doing everything to rip the Oakland A's out of Oakland. Is there a similar situation in racing where a car owner did anything they could and everything they could to anger fans?" Boy, I don't know if I can think of a team owner that so much did that. I mean, there's obviously been a number of scumbags that have stolen from folks, drivers, team owners, otherwise gone to jail or whatever, but in terms of an owner just riling up an Indy car, I can't, I could be forgetting, but not to that level of acrimony as the joker here in the Bay Area would also just say, Raymond, you know, if you want to think of owner and our guy Mark Miles being part of the ownership executive team, he does a pretty good job of pissing people off, team owners, drivers, fans. So yeah, maybe that's the last thing for Mark to do in the sport by an Indy car team. And oh, could you imagine the only Indy car team with no social media accounts because oh, you would not want to give folks the easy option to express their thoughts directly to that team. So yeah, I feel like we kind of got this covered off, brother, just in a slightly abstract way. John Mylenic says, Impsa F1 NASCAR are actively running races in mid October while Indy cars been put away in silence since September. Although I haven't seen the Nissan ratings, one has to believe that they are sustainable for those series to race in the autumn up against the NFL or university football. What's the secret sauce in getting the Indy car season extended and backed into the public's eye? Not a chance, John. It ain't happening of getting Indy car back running up against the NFL. And there's pretty straightforward reason why and that is just not big enough, just not popular enough to peel off however many fans that might love the NFL as much or more and still end up with a decent rating. So it's not a guess or an opinion. It's an actual fact based thing. You look at a NASCAR, well then why does NASCAR go up against the NFL? Because they have a fan base that is, I don't know, 4X, 5X, something much bigger than Indy cars fan base. And so even if they do lose some fans to the NFL broadcasts, instead of NASCAR Cup broadcasts, it's not really going to pull the Nielsen ratings down, the overall viewing audience down very much. Formula One, similar situation, right? Hugely popular here in the States. Very loyal fan base. Another thing to think about too? I don't know the exact number. 6, 7, 8 races, something like that. Happened to take place for Formula One while the NFL season is up and running. Two of those, obviously with Circuit of the Americas and Las Vegas take place on our time zone. But the majority of those F1 races are playing out somewhere else in the world at a time where there's no real head-to-head conflict with NFL just due to the big time zone differences for what we would watch here. So when I think of NASCAR, I think of F1, John, I think of them as basically being NFL proof. Indy car unfortunately doesn't have a big enough fan base to be able to do that. And so if you look at the deal that came up with, with Fox, Fox, which carries the heck out of the NFL, next year's Indy car season ends two weeks sooner than it did this year. August 31st, I believe, is the season finale at Nashville Speedway. And so well clear of the start of the NFL season. Well, what numbers might suggest that you need to do that? So the season finale we had here on September 15th at Nashville Speedway, NBC, big network, right? So big NBC, maximum possibilities for ratings, biggest network, et cetera, et cetera. If I remember correctly, the audience size was something like 450,000, maybe 500,000 tiny, like Indy car has done better on cable than it did with that NBC rating while going head-to-head with football. So as we saw here at the season finale, also the farewell to NBC, it cut the audience size in half, maybe even more, to be honest, John. So normally you get about a 1.1 million folks who'd been tuning in for the big network broadcast stuff. And yeah, it was cut, I believe, to below 500,000. So every single thing that we fear and have known to fear about going head-to-head with the NFL when it comes to Indy car, just proven yet again. So that's why Fox is making sure that Indy car is done in the month of August next year. How crazy is that going to be? Last couple of things here. Let's see, Ed Jorris says, have you heard anything about an engine freeze beginning in 2025 or 2026? There is no engine freeze coming for next season that I know of. It could happen, meaning some point in time here in the future, a decision could be made. Nothing has been decided right now about that happening for one key reason, Ed, and that's because no clue what the next engine formula is going to be. So might sound a bit contrite, don't mean it to be, but they got to know what the next thing is going to be before they might decide to put the brakes on pretty hard, the current formula, and pull back and freeze things. So money isn't wasted on what we're doing right now with internal combustion engines. So it'll happen, I'm sure. They just got to figure what they're doing next before they would decide to slow down what they're doing right now. Let's see, cooking in the dark. MP, wishing you some rest and relaxation. The dust begins to settle in 2024. Thank you, I'm looking forward to that as well. Although I just learned confirmed I am indeed getting on a plane next week to head to Daytona. So thought I might, but now have it confirmed for some historic sports car racing commentary. Says, did I have a fever dream or did any car release a video last off season, teasing a completely new aero screen design. It looked like one solid piece of thick polyglace. Am I imagining this or was it real? I don't recall if and what any car release video wise, but there was a new design that came in, I believe at Long Beach and the lighter aero screen, that had been introduced to start the season. The frame itself, they call it the upper frame, but it's basically the halo, that was introduced to start the season using the old laminate. It's a laminate made by PPG and that old laminate was carried through the first couple of races. Then at Long Beach, they introduced a new laminate that had holes, has holes, apertures cut into the top of the screen towards the front to allow additional ducting to flow in. And they mandated the use of the full call it first generation laminate on the ovals. The higher speed ovals I believe was the rule knowing that you get projectiles coming at you faster there than anywhere else. But the talk for sure was, if all goes well, and this quarter season introduction point of this gen two laminate works out the way that we hope might be a thing where we could indeed just use that at every race starting in 2025. Horatio Frey, oh, it's a suite of you. So there's no questions just to thank you for all of us fans, hugs to the cats and your wife. Well, thank you, Horatio, it's a suite of you. Tyler Wong throwing in a bit of a Homer question here. Do you think the Pruday crew is the best fan base in all of IndyCar? Of course, right? Like I'd say no, that's alert. No, they're terrible, Tyler, good lord. Yeah, come on, don't be silly here. Let's see, why don't we go with Tyler Rhodes to close the show? This is Marshall, slightly off topic. But when are you dropping the shop tours you recently completed? Well, those were dropped in September. Those were videos that was done with IMSA. So you can go to IMSA's, what is it? I think it's IMSA Racing. Might be the YouTube channel name. And that would be put up in and around the Indianapolis event that we had there, the Battle on the Brick. So paid visits to Brian Hur to auto sport. Also to Wayne Taylor Racing and Chip Ganassi Racing. There was a fourth tour that was done, that being at Ray Hall at him in Lannigan Racing. By coincidence, we did that tour. Turned out to be about 24 hours before our friends at the Federal Bureau of Investigation paid them a visit. And so in light of that drama and not positive thing that was going on, decided that, you know what? Let's go ahead and park that. So will there be a decision to run that shop towards some point in time later in the year? Maybe these are all IMSA though, right? Not IndyCar. So no, this is obviously our week in IndyCar show, but those are certainly sitting on IMSA's YouTube page. And I believe there's some short cut downs on their social medias. So there you go. Do endeavor though, to get a lot of the podcasts that I've had sitting for a long time, to get some of them up and going here now that we're rolling into the off season. So got a bit of homework to do, while also trying to get a little bit of rest and relaxation. So y'all thanks once again for everything you do, every kindness, everything supporting the show now. What are we, nine years, eight years, nine years we've been doing this show? I don't know. Lose track of time after a while. But thanks to everybody seriously for supporting this, supporting my wife and I. And I guess if you're still listening or this far into the end, one thing I endeavor to do. Got a bunch of stuff I need to get put up on thepruitstore.com, had them sitting here for a long time, just haven't had the mental bandwidth to make it happen. But Parnelli Jones, tribute stickers, some other stickers, a lot of retro, indie car and sports car, shirts, crew shirts, T-shirts, old hats. Just, I gotta stop feeling like I'm living in the middle of an episode of a motor racing memorabilia hoarders. So yeah, time permitting, I hope to get some of those items up and out and yeah, I'm hoping they'll make great personal holiday gifts or gifts for loved ones. But yeah, I look around and it just depresses me. So anyways, yet another topic, yet another to do item that I hope to get rolling here very soon. So thanks once again to y'all. Thanks to Jerry for putting our questions together, to FAFT Technologies, the Justice Brothers and Toronto Motorsports.com. I'll speak to y'all very soon. (upbeat music) [MUSIC PLAYING]
