[music] Welcome to the Marshall Pruitt podcast, a week in any car, a listener Q&A show recording this on a Tuesday. Apologies y'all for missing last week's episode, but we do indeed have some great questions to carry over. Also a little bit of news brewing from late last week, early this. So get into that at the up front here and then get rolling into your questions in just a moment. Thanks once again to y'all and all the great questions you fire in. Into our pal Jerry Siteth who puts everything together for me. Really do appreciate you Jerry for grabbing all the questions, placing them in a entertaining order and presenting them for us to do here on the show. Let's very quickly pay some respects to those who make the show possible as well and we'll be right back. Time to say a big thank you to our show partners on the Marshall Pruitt podcast, starting with FAFT Technologies. 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All the show stickers, models, a racing member of Bieliam, trying to sell and put towards our fun to buy a house is now live and rocking, thepruitstore.com. So we have decent changes going on within the paddock, personnel-wise, definitely driver-wise, we've got some questions here too. See, what can we pick up on from our last episode? What's happened since then, spoke good long while with Dale Coyne and his shift of strategy. We've spoken, done a story, I don't know, a month, two ago, however long, Dale started talking to me earlier in the year on the concept of these charters, which have finally been released from Penske Entertainment and how he thought he could find some investors in the charters themselves, received two of them for his two car team. And for what he'd been talking about for most of the year, it was not selling a stake in Dale Coyne racing, but if someone wanted to buy into one of the charters or both, invest in them now, cool, they would be a co-owner of that entry from a charter standpoint. And that's apparently shifted here in the last, however long, that was the conversation Dale and I had talking about, you know, actually looking to find an investor for Dale Coyne racing itself, sell a percentage of the business to whomever might hopefully say, yes, want to do that, let's be partners. So published that story since the last episode, the name that I hear the most and have heard the most included, that and the story as well, is Todd Alt, who was primary sponsor for one or more entries at Ed Carpenter Racing in recent years through his bit Nile company and some other companies of his, what this past season, I'm for, is it guy care, I'm forgetting the name of it, I'm sorry, I was on the side pods of Christian Rasmussen's car, that I believe is a business that Todd started as well, but would be quite interesting to see if Mr. Alt and Mr. Coyne are able to come to some form of agreement, Todd being very interested in buying a team, buying into a team, I think we were at Iowa when he told me on the grid, little bit of a fly by that he was going to buy a team. And so we'll see where that lands looking at what else we have come up with here spoken about our guy, Romain Groschaugh, known this for a while, that he's been kind of floating in limbo waiting to hear from Hunkos hauling a racing if they're going to pick up his option for 2025 and spend some time with Romain on the phone while he's in. I forget exactly which Midwest state, but doing a long, almost week long flight training for a new jet that he wants to own and used to get himself around in, but confirmed for sure that yep, still waiting haven't heard any yes from Hunkos hauling a racing to continue in that number 77 Chevy, also told me, which I didn't include in the article because I left it just to IndyCar that he assumes everything's going forward with Lamborghini for next year in Imsa in the GTP class, knowing that Lamborghini is not expected to continue in the World Endurance Championship in hypercar with that same model, what that might do for Romain terms of Le Mans or any other races outside of Imsa, not totally sure. For what Lamborghini is committed to with Imsa and their weather tech sports car championship, it's the endurance races only. So five out of the nine or 10 races, they'll be there. So Romain believes all of that is still good. So at the moment, if you are a fan of the Swiss born Frenchman right now, you'll be going to Daytona, Sebring, Watkins Glen, Indianapolis and road Atlanta to see him compete in 2025. If and when we get some news about IndyCar for him, then hopefully for his sake, you'll get to do more also mentioned in that conversation while he's trying to help Hunkos hauling her with finding some sponsors through some of his connections. Team has been unfortunately dreadful in that regard here for the last couple of years. Also acknowledge he's been talking to Dale coin about possibly returning there. So a decent amount of watch this space when it comes to good old GRO spent some time on the phone with Angelina Urtsu, she's the co-team principal of the Prima racing program. Good to catch up with Angelina. She is awesome telling us that yep, everything's progressing. Got about 40 people hired so far in their Indianapolis area team and expect to get that up to about 50 by the time we get to the Indianapolis 500 asked her when do you think you're going to get out, right? All those new cars you bought, when are you going to shake them down, start testing and assumed it would be before the end of the year. She said there is no specific date for that, but don't be surprised if it's more of an early 2025 thing. So did strike me as a bit interesting on that one. IndyCar is indeed pretty restrictive about test days and whatnot, but for a brand new team coming into the series, despite having one veteran driver in Kalamilot and some veteran crew, a decent amount of them coming from other teams, this is not a true startup team, fresh out of Europe, never done this before, everything being a huge learning curve. But at the same time, knowing that we got Chip Ganesi racing going to Texas this week and testing, we've got Thermal Club next week, which we'll talk about in a moment with at least five teams they are doing testing and so on and so forth, there's a pretty decent effort by the existing IndyCar teams to get out and go testing, use whatever days they can, evaluation days, Indiana XT driver days to apply some learning to some of the ideas that they have on the chassis R&D side for next season, right? Get out, we got some ideas, we've been working on this in the background, late into the last season and over the last two months now, basically we've been into the off season, let's get out and try some of these things, get a feel for if we're in the right direction or not. If there's good stuff, then we're going to keep pushing and developing that more and we'll try those things again at tests here, end of the year, early next, just sharing all that because for our friends at Prema, the idea of not getting out and doing anything more than a shakedown until early next year, knowing that the season starts right at the beginning of March, just feels like not a ton of time to really get up to speed the way that they would want. I also had pretty significant change take place here, admittedly I don't know if it was Friday or Monday or what, but old friend Michael Cannon, one of my race engineering mentors and oldest friends, left AJ Foyt racing and so in his role there's technical director really did help to transform that team in the two years, he was with them, decided to leave and so speaking with Larry Foyt mentioned that definitely wasn't something that he was wanting, but nonetheless, so they're not sure if they're going to backfill Cannon's position, obviously with the strong technical lines they have with Team Penske, which Cannon was central figure in helping to orchestrate and develop, they do have that backbone to work with, so that's pretty impressive already for what they have resource wise, Cannon really the person on top of it all, making everything work super well above race engineers, James Schnabel and Michael Armbrester, Larry Foyt also told me that they're swapping engineers for next year, so James is moving from Farrucci's car where they finished ninth in the championship over to Davey Maluchus' car, Armbrester, going over to Santino, they actually worked together when Santino did, I think those five races or so with Rayall Letterman, Lannigan racing in 2021, so interesting change there on the engineering front and then also had known this for a while, but hadn't published it, but Larry confirming that crew chief Didier Francesia, who really the big, big blue guy under the tent there, who's leader crew chief on that number 14 Chevy driven by Santino, chose to not move with the team from Texas, knowing that they're moving that 14 car up to Speedway, Indiana right next to the Indianapolis Motor Speedway and running the entire team, both cars out of that shop, Didier chose to not travel with the team and resume that in the indie area with them, indeed has taken a shop based role with Aaron McLaren, so doing the move, just not with the same team, so and they have hired Steve Kenzie from Rayall Letterman, Lannigan racing, who will be a crew chief, so anyways, a lot of stuff moving and we're still not done, we got more stuff coming up here next week, so why do we dive into your questions and I'll get through as many as I can, and hopefully get this show done here in a reasonable amount of time. We open with Joy Sanford Williams, just that's really sweet, saying it's great to see you again before last Daytona HSR live stream, y'all did great, thank you Joy, that was a lot of fun, blasted in there, did most of the live stuff on Saturday, in the paddock and pre-grid driver interviews, looking at some cars, had a lot of fun there and then spent Sunday up in the booth, calling the live stream with my friend Joe Bradley, so thank you Joy, Andy Carr Ken, Ken Anderson, MP says the list grows for testing at Thermal on the 19th, says hearing that Logan Sargent was going there to test, says it seemed forced since the info got leaked, now maybe two or three more drivers are joining him, says considering Thermal is mega-private, my spidey sense is tingling, is more going on than we know, I love you Ken, never change, I love the fact that even for something as boring and routine as testing, you are always able to find the angle or the potential drama, the undercurrent of something, even if there's nothing there, yeah, no, the fact that Sargent was testing for myerschank racing was indeed released before they intended to say anything about it, not that that matters, the test plan was already in place, so there was going to be no jeopardy there of the info coming out without their control, but no, this started off as a myerschank racing test, they own the test, they own it meaning, they're the ones who reached out to Thermal, got the day approved, Andy Carr approved the day as well, and they are indeed the ones renting the track, as normally happens, it's not cheap to go and do this, Ohio based team sending their trucks all the way out to California, same thing for the other team sending their trucks out, it's a long and expensive trip, both travel and personnel wise, and then you have the fact that the track, whatever it is you might be going to, charges a heck of a bunch of money to rent it for the day, so what you have with the situation like this Ken is Team X is going to go out and test at name wherever it is, it's a big bill from the track already before all the travel costs, so you tend to alert the rest of the teams, hey we're going out to this place, if you have an interest in joining us you're welcome to, then all of a sudden whatever that cost for the day is gets divided by many, and so I think five teams are headed out to Thermal now, we have Shank, we have Aeroma clarin with Enzo Fittapaldi, we have Team Penske with Felipe Naser, Ed Carpenter racing is heading out, they will have Hunter McElray, Dale Coyne told me he expects to send a car out, didn't say with who, and still not totally sure if that's going to happen, and I might be forgetting another team, but four to five teams, so that's the way things normally work for private tests like this, bring in as many other teams as you can to just divide that bill by three, four, five, however many it might be, ends up becoming much more economical for everybody. On the Logan Sargent front, that thing is confused some folks, and I understand why, Team has two drivers, right, our guy Felix Frozenquist, good old Fro, he will indeed be with the team again next year, they've added Marcus Armstrong from Chip Ganesi racing, those are their full-time drivers, no full-time opportunities or part-time opportunities available, so why would you go test with someone that isn't your driver, well, IndyCar has those two mechanisms available that I mentioned, IndyNXT driver test, that's what Ganesi is using to go do a day at Texas using Jacob Abel, they want to learn oval stuff, the kids really good, using that day made available through the rules to place a NXT driver in the car, then you have the evaluation days, those are a little more nebulous, can't be a current driver, can't be someone who's in the series, and so that's why they look outside and bring in Logan Sargent and Zofidipaldi, Felipe Naser, I remember the other team, I was forgetting that would be Rahel Edelman, Lannigan racing, running there with Louis Armstrong, Louis Armstrong, yes, the amazing jazz Trumpeteer who's been dead, yeah, how about Louis Foster, I'm gonna leave that in, they're gonna be testing with Louis Foster, I don't remember what day they're using, what type of day, but regardless, he'll be there, but you have these scenarios can where Enzo's not driving for Aaron McLaren, they don't have any vacancies and Felipe is not driving for Team Penske, same situation, why is Logan testing with Marshank Racing, they have no vacancies, a couple things, it's the off season, so hey, there's not a crazy amount of news and what not going on, so what's a really good way for a media savvy team like Marshank Racing to get a big off season hit, very popular driver by the name of Logan Sargent, doing his first ever IndyCar test in their car, also have the fact that Logan, obviously no longer in Formula One, looking for options for himself, there are some vacancies in IndyCar, could a really strong test be something that piques the interest of, a humco's hauling a racing, or a Dale coin racing, it's entirely possible. Could Meyer shank racing, looking to the future, if they were to expand, or if there was driver change that might be considered in the future, heck, even if Felix or Marcus come down with the flu and can't race next weekend, wherever it might be, not a bad thing to have spent a day with Logan, get a feel for him, I'm sure he's going to be really quick and I'm sure the team is going to love him to know that, okay, we got this arrow in our quiver, we can certainly consider him, all things in those range, good media hit, very good driver, interested in IndyCar, get him some mileage, exposes him to the other teams that are there, to Honda as well, Meyer shank racing's supplier, could he be part of something else in the Meyer shank racing future, who knows, keeping in mind they also have an IMSA team, so there's nothing negative about this, it just doesn't fit the oh you're going to go test a new person because there's an immediate opportunity, right? Not the case, but that's pretty much always the case with these evaluation tests. Tyler Wong says, "Do you see any issue of teams complaining about the charter system for races outside the Indianapolis 500 if they lose money?" I don't, Tyler, because the charter system in IndyCar is nothing like NASCAR's charter where teams that have those charters in NASCAR are in a true business relationship with the series. They receive nice money carved out of the TV deal, for example, the big media rights deal that NASCAR has with a variety of broadcasters. It's charter teams get nice chunks of money from that to help them with their bottom line. IndyCar's had the leader circle prize money sharing thing for dang near 20 years now, but there's nothing new in the charter that has anything that connects teams to Penske Entertainment to receive new money, big money, you name it. So I can't see why there'd be any complaints about the charters that all the full time team owner signed in IndyCar because never ever has there been a in your going to get money from us as a result of signing this being included in any aspect of it. So if there's anybody complaining about the charter who just signed it, I can't come up with a reason why they would, Tyler, because he never had expectations for it to be a money maker in season money coming in through it from TV deal or whatever other it's never been a part of it. So if you don't expect it and have never been told to expect it, I would think that's not something you could be complaining about or upset about. Tom Goolsbee, this might be one of the most interesting out of left field questions we have gotten on the show in a while. And I appreciate you for sending it in. This is Marshall. What do you think Delara thinks of the charters is currently written in the limit of 27 or 25 cars at races, except Indy. It's 27, by the way. We expect it to become 25 here when new cars arrive, supposedly in 2027. So it seems like it reduces market for the current car and raises cost per car for a new car since development costs would be spread across expected new market. Again, really interesting angle here, Tom, I had not thought of. I can't imagine Delara's got much of an opinion on this because what was it five years ago? I don't hold me to that, but we had what 22 full time, 23, 24, this recent high of 27, which came about what I think it was 25 full time cars in 2022, 23, it rose to 27. Last year it held at 27 and going into next season, we are baked in at 27. It's a good recent thing for sure, but would also say for many, many, many years over the current car's lifespan, it's fluctuated in that 22 to 24 range. So I don't foresee Delara being sideways about anything. If we do indeed cut down to 25, because it's just in a very familiar number, meaning, hey, kind of spare spare sales, parts and pieces, lifeing that gets sold and new componentary and whatnot. I don't foresee this being something that really has any backward steps for Delara financially. Obviously, in moving to a new car and assuming we are going to be capped at 25 cars, I would say they're still going to be selling a whole lot of cars. They sold something like 60 new chassis when the DW-12 was initiated. I mean, they're up over 100 right now, but don't think this is going to have any kind of critical effect for them. Could be wrong, right? Always open to learning. And if I am wrong, my friends at Delara usually tell me, but at least for my P-brain, I can't find the negative angle here. Let's pick up with I_run_from_problems. It's a Marshall question regarding the charters that got brought up on the previous episode. One of the big gripes, and one that I agree with, is the absence of a path in for teams like Drine Reinbold, Abel, HMD. But what could that path have been? With certain tracks maxed out at 27, I feel it would be unfair to force existing teams to give up entries for those who either aren't in the series yet or aren't there full-time. So what would a solution be? Yeah, the interesting thing is there was no quote maximum of 27 in place beforehand. There was going to be a scenario where merit-based participation. We used to have that not a lot and not for very long in the KART IndyCar series days and its most popular general range. Early 90s comes to mind. Formula One had pre-qualifying for a number of years when it was, again, really, really crazy popular Senna years, post years, and such where. There are a lot of teams that wanted to be there, which is a great thing. Instead of implementing a system that said no, forget you, new team, smaller team, who might want to grow and become a big powerhouse one day, which is usually the case with most teams, right? Rarely does a premise show up and then just instantly dominate. Usually you're towards the back and you work your way forward over the coming years. We're not even going to allow that now. So to me, there's just, there's this artifice that has been installed here. Let's say, okay, basically we are forming a club and if you aren't in it right now, you can't be in it. Except for this new team that's never been here, invested nothing in Indian XT, USF Championships, anything, but because they have wealth and can buy a lot of cars and Chevy's agreed to supply them engines. Well, you get favor despite never turning a single wheel here in the US in open wheel racing and contributing to our form of racing. That's the part that sticks in my craw a little bit. And this isn't aimed specifically at prema. It could be any team coming from outside of our hemisphere and being granted, baked in, allowance to contribute while a able motorsports, HMD or otherwise that's been here for a good long while contributes massively is not allowed to play. So what path could have been? Well, merit based participation. I really wish that is something that IndyCar would have allowed. Hey, Abel, you're going to do a full season or partial season. Hey, HMD, hey, run on down the list. If you want to participate, cool. Come here and try and make the show. Like I said, it didn't happen a ton, and it didn't happen for super long, but it is not a unfamiliar thing in IndyCar history, outside the Indy 500, definitely a part of Formula One back in the day, granted, you're a newer F1 Finn, you probably have no idea or weren't aware or have had to read about pre qualifying just from a historical context. But these are things to me that in a true, in a true racer spirited mindset, I want to know that those I'm competing against are here because they belong. Do they belong because they've been around? So we said, well, you're now in our big club and no one can challenge you. I don't know if that's what comes to mind for me when I think of racing. I think of the best taking part and those who aren't the best, not taking part. So yeah, something as simple as that. Okay, we're not going to put a hard cap on how many cars can compete. And we're also not going to bake in somebody that's never even been here before. I realize that this dynamics still exists, where if Ray Hollett, I'm in Lannigan racing wants enter a fourth car at someplace. And we have 28 entries. Well, there will be bumping that goes on. There'll be one car that goes home. Who knows who that might be. And this could very well happen this coming season. Just like the idea of for those who are on that ladder, especially in a Penske entertainment owned series like Indiana XT, who've been doing big things to make that series grow and prosper. We know for sure, able owning to DW 12s was really and seriously looking at doing more than just the 8500. That has unfortunately waned and HMD has said we're just out altogether. We're not even going to try. And they have the ability to be here. So it's just it's the spirit of that. So again, could they buy a car, hopefully get an engine lease and go and try and bust their way into that 27 car field? Yeah, for sure. Just think that there's something slightly off when the ones who've been here are the ones who are instantly at risk compared to those who've never been here. So yeah. Why don't we go to Vincent 1701 says Roger Penske acts like buying the 500 was his dream. Getting IndyCar League is a burden. IndyCar League. I've never seen those two words put together. Vincent, I love that. Yeah, you then say thoughts. I didn't know that Penske is acting like owning the IndyCar League. I think I'm just going to go with that for now on Vincent to just mash totally different eras together. Or maybe we'll just start calling it the IRL again. So great stuff there. Yeah, owning the Indy 500 definitely comes across as a dream. He loves it. He's a brick and mortar guy owning properties. He understands outside of business. We've spoken about this ad nauseam on the show since they bought everything. Roger by actions treats the IndyCar League more like a straight up business and one that he's not happy with because it is a money loser each season. And that also fits his very business minded self. So what you are stating here is something that I would say is something spoken about many times written about many times by no means something that would have just popped up as a thing. So, but thank you for the gift of IndyCar League. I'm going to use that whatever I can. Let's see. Corey Johnson says thoughts to you and Mrs. Pruitt two questions within Dreddy leaving and Dreddy global. What if any effects does that have for the welding boys in their development slash support? Was that more from Gainbridge? I'll get your second question here in just a moment. Definitely a Michael and Dan Tower's initiative. Dan being the one to put the money behind them through his Gainbridge company would say that there's no way there's no way dropping support of the welding boys Sebastian Oliver would. Oh boy. Yeah. You want to talk about getting ushered out of the building as well. I can't foresee that happening at any point in time. So yeah, it's one of those deals that once you opt into that you know you're committing to more than just a year to a lower junior formula type stuff. You are certainly getting heavily involved and helping Dan and Susie's sons to move well along in their careers could also just throw in the fact here. Corey that we have Gainbridge supporting NASCAR entries and other places so they're spending a lot of money to be involved in motor racing and whatever the welding kids require is seriously a the tiniest drop in a bucket compared to what spending to sponsor a indie car for the full season or anything in NASCAR would cost so can't foresee anything changing there. You also say second at what point is it acceptable to decorate for Christmas? And that question I do not understand Corey because it implies that decorations came down after Christmas. Don't do that. Keep them up all year. Be that neighbor who takes delight each night just as the sun is starting to set who walks outside in a very demonstrative way and takes that extension cord and connects the lights you have strung around the house or apartment whatever it might be turns on those lights just so everyone can see. You are a 365 day a year Christmas flex kind of person so I mean hello. Austin Taylor says any word on where the Weldon brothers will race in 2025. I have an answer of no because I haven't asked but your question makes me realize I probably should. Lynn formerly the Spurs fan when teams cut back cars like say Penske earned ready it seems like the overall team does better so do you think chip Ganessey racing will improve with their recent change? I do not. That's because some of what they have lost in terms of driver talent in Linus Lindquist and Marcus Armstrong made the team better so could we say that running five cars this past season was too much and just a drag on the overall organization? I'd suggest no since they won the championship again with our guy Alex Palau. What about the year before when they ran four cars full time would say no knowing how they won the championship there too with our guy Alex Palau. Um something to consider is Marcus Erickson former driver now with Andre would say that's been the most significant talent loss in terms of contributing to the overall speed and benefit of the team. Uh team was certainly still very good in 2024 Scott Dixon very effective not as effective but still very effective um Kiffin Simpson is the third and final driver here going forward uh he's a sophomore right he has one year of experience realize that Linus was a rookie last season to realize that Armstrong was still relatively young in his IndyCar career but those are higher level drivers higher skilled higher experienced than Kiffin and so Kiffin's going to need more time and mileage to develop those skills upwards to a similar equal or possibly greater level than a Linus Marcus or even the previous Marcus Erickson. So this does not make them a better team it just makes them a smaller team fewer points of quality input from drivers and engineers since we now have fewer race engineers slash driver combos working together trying out things giving that information back to the pool that can benefit everybody um I don't foresee how this makes them better at least not in 2025 when we get to 26 Kiffin coming into his junior year maybe that will change uh why don't we go to a person whose name I don't see here unfortunately what is the problem with the night race at Texas it is the best racing in the world well are we talking Texas Motor Speedway are we talking Texas World Speedway are we talking Circuit of the Americas I don't know exactly which Texas but if I assume it's Texas Motor Speedway uh yeah uh day race night race you name it they were almost always awesome the problem as it has been described to me by the series is the track was not interested in engaging them in a date to hold a race and so that's the problem it's kind of like asking someone out and then saying no so you might think that that would be an amazing person to date and maybe the history proves that would be an amazing person to date but if they reject you no date uh Steve Grenstead this is MP to bring the elephant into the room um how will the presidential election affect IndyCar in future races um that's a fantastic question Steve I was even thinking about writing about this not from a politics standpoint but from a how many team owners drivers seeking sponsors etc have told me uh everything is basically on hold until the election is over so big anxiety which direction are we going or aren't we going whichever belief those sponsors uh had in terms of presidential candidates and belief of whether one would be better than the other in terms of prosperity tax breaks whatever it might be uh yeah it's actually not a new thing by any means uh but yeah every four years there is a collective holding of breath in North American motor racing at least to see who's going to be elected if there's belief that that elected person uh is going to do big things financially that help or possibly hurt and so in two conversations I've had now since the election was a week ago I've had two team owners tell me like okay now we can start to get down to business with some negotiations and you know effectively the pause button has been released so would be hard for me to make any predictions about what the economy is going to look like uh once the new administration moves in we're obviously many months away from the first IndyCar race being held which would be what two-ish land under two months from inauguration and what not so really hard to predict what the economy is going to be like uh but I can tell you that for the vast majority of the team owners in IndyCar if not I'm running down the list I think just about every single one uh their preferred party and preferred candidate and administration is heading to Washington and so the belief the positivity of mind is definitely there in the IndyCar world because this was the outcome that they were all hoping for and believing will only add to the positivity expected to come from heading into Fox full time on broadcast and so on and so forth so um yeah if we're talking about how it could affect things I can at least tell you anecdotally and just mind set wise uh you have an astatic paddock uh full of owners uh right now uh Vincent 1701 you're back he says which IRL livery was the best there we go it's no longer IndyCar League we've gone full IRL uh so my brother Vincent I'll keep this in and I'll share this with you you send in many questions they rarely get used because questions like this they just it's a bit like starting a sentence and not completing it where you go I don't know exactly what to do here uh just sharing with you uh you're always welcome to send stuff and I'll just ask you to put a little more thought into them uh which IRL livery was the best you then answer Scott Sharps gets my vote you realize that Scott Sharps drew for multiple teams had multiple livers over multiple years ah no clue what you're talking about brother because you haven't told us because Scott Sharps didn't drive for one team with one livery for his entire career uh you also say which driver would make it make a great driving coach or he'll serve you uh appreciate to spawn how are you appreciate it's been a little while says best wishes to you and Mrs. Pruitt wondering if you have any good Bob Riley stories the late Bob Riley oh boy uh that still just breaks my heart uh amazing race car designer says it's been very interesting to read up on his life and career in the wake of his passing one that stands out to me been 2008 I think yeah I don't know if it was 2008-2009 maybe uh at Miller Motorsports Park in Utah in Tuella Utah and I forget what it's called today but once upon a time it held a number of major professional races each year American Le Mans series would visit Grand Am Rolik series would visit I think others visited as well was there I was talking to Bob's son Bill good friend and he said hey if you get a chance come visit us in our motorhome and it was a motorhome like when you would rent not like the big million dollar buses that you see drivers or entertain owners but like truly something you'd rent that just for the weekend if you're gonna go fishing and wanted to just park next to the river and so he said yeah he's got our cool design really proud of and said like that's amazing would love to and so went and did that I think like the next day and sat with Bob in these were I believe printed to print outs uh compared to being on a computer screen but he had designed a new LMP 2 car I know it was an indie car show but you asked any good stories uh and it was a brand new LMP 2 car and it had been it'd been a long time since Bob had designed a cutting edge prototype they had designed the tube frame intentionally lower tech uh Riley chassis that ran in the Daytona prototype uh class in Grand Am but the rules intentionally were made to be very simple not high tech inexpensive cars just focus on the racing not the tech and it was just really cool to see Mr. Riley who would have been 70 something at that point mid 70s I think so happy and proud Rishi of this design and you know LMP 1 was still raging monster right yet Audi and Puzhou and all that spending trillions competing at Le Mans in the LMS in Europe and what not but LMP 2 was uh sufficiently wide open class a lot of different manufacturers involved there the car was never built unfortunately but I can just tell you that being invited into their inner sanctum knowing obviously my uh mechanical and racing engineering background spoken with them you know countless times about uh though things in that area regarding uh Bob's designs and Bill's designs too it's just really cool Rishi to be invited into this inner sanctum to see this call it secret designs not something they'd told the public about hadn't been published in any place that it was in the works just yeah it was a really cool invitation to receive and then sitting there with Bob and with Bill looking at it and I think there are some exploded drawings of it as well um and just having Bob describe all the things about it that he thought were going to be unique and difference makers and things to really create a highly competitive car to take on the LMP 2 market we know that what seven eight years later they did in LMP 2 working with Multimatic the basis of the the Mazda DPI but just this legend of legends right open wheel Indy 500 winning chassis designer won every race imaginable in the world with his cars and sports cars and such it's just so cool I always remember that it was just the honor of being asked to come sit with Bob and have him show me something private and it being really cool then it looking like it could indeed go beat up the world if they were able to build it treasured treasured moments there thanks y'all everything you've sent in to our friend Jerry Sedith for putting the questions together to our friends at torontomotorsports.com they do indeed make really fun stuff memorabilia wise a lot of crazy stuff I would recommend paying them a visit and buying some good stuff from them also our pals at FAF technologies and then the justice brothers makers of amazing automotive agricultural you name it application lubricants and specialty brews so big thanks to all of our partners who make this show possible and to y'all headed off here for what should be my final flight of the year leaving out Thursday for Daytona there's a three-day new torque sensor test and otherwise going on at Daytona about 30 cars there across GTP LMP2 and the GT Daytona classes and then yeah fly out Sunday head to good old Palm Springs and we'll be there Monday morning to hit thermal and get ready to do about two thirds of the day of test coverage on Tuesday and then fly home and try and enjoy the final hours of our 19th wedding anniversary so y'all appreciate you thank you and I'll speak y'all here soon very very soon
