(upbeat music) Welcome to the Marshall Crew podcast and your week in any car, a listener Q&A show. Thanksgiving edition, y'all. Really looking forward to having some days of low adult responsibility telling you of all the things you can give yourself as an adult. A low to no responsibility day or couple of days. The greatest gift, the greatest choice you can make for yourself. Trust me on this one. Hey, let's buy tickets and fly to some place and you're all good. Do that if you haven't done that much. I'm just saying. The, took out the trash, emptied the litter boxes, stocked up the fridge, gassed up the vehicle. Like there's nothing I need to do. So I'm just gonna sit and either watch TV and veg out or read things or sleep or do all those things in kind of a rotating fashion. Just saying, looking forward to that. And I hope y'all here on Thanksgiving and this break. Get a chance to do some or all of that. Or if it's getting to be with family, which you haven't been able to do for a while, then that's awesome as well. Also, some folks don't have folks to spend with on Thanksgiving. So if you have friends, might even be family members, you know that this might be a little bit more of a solitary Thanksgiving. Reach out, shoot 'em a text, tell 'em you love them, even if you don't. Tell 'em you love 'em, tell 'em you're thinking about 'em. Gotta take care of the folks who often aren't thought of as much as they should at this time. My amazing wife, Shabrel, and I are going to do a hot batch of nothing. That's maybe a little bit of a lie because I'm never able to be truly still, but it's my intent. So don't give two farts about Black Friday, White Saturday, or any other color day. Just don't care, it doesn't matter to me. So yeah, I am gonna try to go to storage and do a little bit of cleanup and yeah, got some work to do there, and got some work to do in the office. But other than that, just gonna try and chill a little bit. Spent time on the phone today with a OneD car team owner and texting back and forth with one executive from IndyCar or Penske Entertainment, I should say. Yesterday, similar things the day before, last week. So got a number of stories been working on noodling on here for most of September. It is crazy, I don't know if you agree, but as hectic as my year has been, the travel starting in the middle of January and ending in the middle of November 11 straight months, I have looked at my computer and I see that it says 11, 27, 2024. And I also see that the calendar tells me on Sunday, it becomes December and I have no idea how that happened. I did not approve this. What, where did this year go? Craziest year of IndyCar, I can remember and just about forever, if not forever. Yeah, anyways, so trying to take a breath, y'all. Some of you might have seen a little news shared here today. My wife, Shabrel, who's been fighting cancer six years now, or over six years now. Some good news at the intensive efforts she's been putting in through chemotherapy and a lot of other work on her own. Over the last six months or so, everything so far, latest reports are it's all been a success, not out of the woods, still in the fight, but just good to know that from the reports back from our oncologist that indeed the big, oh boy, we are not just back in the fight, but it's a big fight that kicked off here again about six months ago, five, six months ago. Shabrel's weathering of some of the hardest, most intensive, negatively intensive times with chemotherapy, side effects and just brutal stuff that we're not gonna have to be going through that higher level of severe efforts for hopefully, who knows, a while, if not forever, but anyway, so still a thing. It's not gone gone, but we are indeed just able to take a bit of a breath. So thank you all for the constant kindness that you share, and the questions many of you send in, either offering support or asking how she's doing, and I probably heard me say more than once on the podcast, if you've been a long time listener, while I'm a big blabber mouth idiot and will tell you anything and don't really care, my wife is very private and amazing, all the things you could hope for in a spouse, but she is not someone who likes regular telling of our business or her business. So appreciate her saying, yeah, hey, this might be a little bit of an encouraging note around Thanksgiving, so let's share it. So there you go. Other than that, had a lot of things going on here in IndyCar World, we're gonna get to a number of those things based on your questions. The show is indeed driven by that every week. So, and I say week, knowing that I missed last week, but everything we do here is indeed driven by y'all. Why don't we spend a moment paying some respect to those who make the show possible, and then we'll come right back, get into some of the recent news and your questions. Time to say a big thank you to our show partners on the Marshall Prote podcast, starting with FAFT Technologies. Build to print composites manufacturing company. They're specializing in medium to large scale automotive, motor sports, and military applications. Visit FAFTechologies.com. It's P-F-A-F-F Technologies.com to learn more about their services and how they can benefit your business. Next, it's the Justice Brothers, makers of premium additives, lubricants, and cleaners, and servicing the automotive and motorsports industries for more than 85 years. The victories in all of the biggest North American motor races, including the Indianapolis 500, the 24 hours a Daytona, 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, we have a new online merchandise home for the podcast, ThePruittStore.com. All the show stickers, models, racing member Obelia, trying to sell and put towards our fun to buy a house, is now live and rocking. ThePruittStore.com. Thanks again to all of our show partners and to our friend Jerry Suttath, who puts together the questions for me every week, organizes them in a interesting, amusing, and entertaining fashion, we hope. Picks the ones that he likes the most and serves those up. So thanks again to you, Jerry. Really and truly appreciate you so much. And y'all, for the questions you send in every week. Hey, we also had a lot of stuff happening finally with the Indreddy, not Indreddy. What do we call it? Cadillac F1, Formula One bid. Got a question or two in and around that. We got personnel changes. We got people being released. We got people being hired. A lot of stuff going on in IndyCar y'all, even though, in theory, we're in the off-season. So why don't we get rolling here? Got some questions that came in recently on the good old Facebook page, Marshall Pruitt Podcast, Facebook page. Steve Kowalchik, has the IndyCar series been contacted about holding races in the Middle East? It's been a while and I'm not aware of anything recently. Ed Joris, does the Cadillac link up with General Motors make it more likely Indreddy splits from Honda in IndyCar? I think Cadillac's been linked up with GM for a while, Ed. So I don't know if that's news. That's been one of those questions for years now since there's been a Cadillac, GM, Indreddy, F1 angle. Is this going to have some sort of knock-on effect with the IndyCar program, which has been a Honda powered for, what, since 2014? Not to my knowledge, not that I'm aware of in any way, shape, or form. Big area to illustrate here, over in IMSA, the Wayne Taylor racing team, which is owned within the Indreddy global family, did indeed switch during the off-season from Accura to Cadillac in the GTP class. So that's what they'll be racing and competing with and representing here in the coming years. Well, so that's an indicator, right? Must be that, oh, the Indreddy side, they're going all GM wherever possible. No, not really the case, actually. Wayne Taylor had a relationship with General Motors dating back to like 1989 or 90. That's who his partner was for the majority of time and that's where he's going back to. Good friends with the folks at Cadillac, deep ties there, deep ties with GM. This has been a Wayne Taylor and GM thing, even though Wayne Taylor racing is owned by Indreddy. This was never orchestrated by Indreddy, by GM, create an alignment right down the list. So would also say, could there be a change at the end of 2026? Possibly, or is it 25? I forget when Indreddy's Indicar contract with Honda is said to be up, but there's two top teams in Indicar represented with Honda. That being Chip Ganassi racing, obviously you're defending champs and right behind them, Indreddy Global. Chevy with Team Penske P1 slot. Aaron McLaren P2 slot. And then I guess you could pick and choose who might be their P3. Foight, I guess you'd say in this Penske Alliance. Not as if adding Indreddy wouldn't be a really smart thing for Chevy. Make them even more competitive in Indicar despite having just won the Manufacturers Championship. So they're doing pretty good there, but the point being, hey, gonna leave Honda and go become where in the hierarchy within Chevy. Already have that Penske, that's never changing. They'll always be P1, Roger co-founded and co-owns the company that makes Chevy's Indicar engines. They're always gonna be P1. Aaron McLaren, you could say by on track performance, definitely P2. Not as close to Penske as you would hope, but they are a pretty strong P2. If Chevy were to be able to add Indreddy to their stable, I'd say they'd become the clear number P2. They're already P2. So again, I don't know if I see the real benefit here, knowing that there's already a bunch of Chevy-powered teams going into next season at least, realizing of course that there could be some shuffling of supply contracts between the Manufacturers, but if we look at next season, AJ Foyt, Chevrolet-powered. Aaron McLaren, Chevrolet-powered. Ed Carpenter racing, Chevrolet-powered. Unco's hauling erasing, Chevy and Team Penske and the newcomers at Prima. Chevy's pretty full, so just to close this, if there were to be a change in the future, knowing that Honda is indeed the manufacturer for, I think the first time in a while, providing fewer engines to the paddock. They've usually been the one providing the most. (sighs) This is a numbers game where, for that to actually happen, I'd say Chevy would need to drop some of the midfield performers, or similar, in order to accommodate in Indreddy Global, but I just, I don't know if that would be the smartest competition play for that team right now. All right, where else do we go here? Why don't we go with Jamie Carr. Hey, Jamie, this is happy Thanksgiving fun question. What's your hierarchy of Thanksgiving sides? Says, #Me Personally, it's mashed potatoes with gravy, deviled eggs, rolls, green beans, and for a bonus dessert, pecan pie. And he says, I'm curious of how you will say pecan. So let's start with the last. The proof of my idiocy was made evident when I think I might've been about six or seven years old. My father had either brought home, I don't know if he got it from a bakery, or if it was a frozen thing he got at the grocery store, I don't know what, but brought home, pecan pie. And dad being from Arkansas, something that he said, grew up loving, et cetera, et cetera. Wanted to introduce his idiot, Californian kid and family to it, I guess. Asks me if I want some, having looked at it after being baked, and it just looked kind of gross. It looked like crust filled with baked gelatin-like poo. And I'm like, no. And he said, you don't want any? No, he says, have you ever tried it? No. Well, then how do you know you don't like it? I don't know, I don't want any of that. And he's like, look, just do me a favor. Try a tiny bite. Badger, badger, and I kept fighting back after doing that for a couple of minutes. He's like, look, take a damn bite, right? You know, I could just see his exasperation. And I'm six or seven, so what am I gonna do? Ultimately, I'm gonna give into my dad. He was 10 times bigger than me. That's how I take a bite. And this story, Jamie, was told for the rest of his life of the time his kid said, no, I don't like pecan pie, to which he then said, well, have you ever had it? And I said, no. And we fought and went back and forth. And finally, I tasted it. And my eyes apparently rolled in the back of my head like I had just taken a hit of something crazy narcotic and smiled and asked for a giant slice and it instantly became my favorite thing. Now, I haven't had it much as an adult, but I can just tell you that as a kid, a warm slice of pecan pie with French vanilla ice cream, a scoop of that on top. Possibly the world's number one drug. I don't care, you forget crack, you forget hair, nothing, none of those, like granted, I've never done drugs, but I'm just telling you, I do seem to know for sure. (laughs) The pecan pie, the world's number one drug. So yeah, and yeah, pecan, that's how I pronounce it. How I pronounce it. All right, hierarchy of Thanksgiving sides. Feeling like mac and cheese with a bit of a crusty-ish layer on top, that would be pole position for sure. What, I mean, you know, cornbread? So realize that I'm like just a suburban white guy, but if you know me, you know that a lot of my leanings are southern and black. So cornbread for sure. This is not a traditional Thanksgiving thing, but it is for me and us. Some form of red beans and rice. Hush puppies, for sure. Yeah, and so having grown tired of doing the traditional turkey thing, my wife and I, for the past many years, would do some sort of, no, we're gonna actually come up with something more inventive than the same damn thing every year. So Caribbean, pretty popular, Hawaiian. Thanksgiving. And so we did do turkey the last year or two. I told her that I really had no interest in it this year. She said she was feeling turkey, so she ordered some small componentry that she's working on right now. And I decided I'm gonna have a southern barbecue Thanksgiving. So I got some ribs to throw into the oven tomorrow. So anyways, I know this is a show about IndyCar, but you know what, it's your show, our show, we talk about whatever. So hopefully the discussion about Sides, Pecom Pie and my idiocy, hopefully it was a fun little journey there. Barry Lee, odds of Colton Hurda being one of GM or Cadillac's drivers in 2026, would say pretty strong, assuming they get him on the train of, however they might do this, getting him a sufficient number of super licensed points. I do think he might be a couple shy, not many, but they would need to make sure that he had enough in order to qualify for a license to do it. Does he want to? I think so. I asked him about this, I don't know, a month or two ago, did a little story about it and said, you know, it's not exactly something that he's chasing, but he would certainly be open to it. Probably know this, y'all. Colton received a paddock altering new contract, whatever that was year, year and a half ago, paying him, I think more than double of what anybody else was receiving. And this was all being done to not just hold on to him, but this was at a time where the Indreti Global F1 folks in program really were confident that they're gonna make it into F1 and wanted to retain Colton, their hot young driver, to be their lead and/or part of it in some way, shape or form. And so they paid him basically like a Formula One driver. And again, I realized that Lewis and Max and whatnot earned 40, 50 million years a year plus and Colton's rumored six and a half to seven years below that, but again, I'm talking about somebody who has yet to compete in Formula One, but would obviously need to be paid at a much higher level to be involved there. So that's the thing that I really come back to Barry on the Colton side. The team would obviously want a Formula One veteran of some sort in one of the cars, going off with two rookies as a rookie Formula One team. I mean, there's no reason to qualify. Just automatically, just save the mileage and just push your cars out to last and next to last on the grid. So that's why having some form of F1 veteran makes sense. Colton, due to what they've done with him contractually, it would be crazy if he's not a part of their plans because if they're paying someone double or more than what anyone else is getting in IndyCar with an eye towards F1 and then not use him, oh boy, I think you would actually have other team owners revolt. And I say that because one in particular called out Michael in a story that I have coming for dialing up salaries across all professional drivers in the paddock, all because, well, hey, Colton is the new high watermark. We expect more now as well. And so if Michael and Dan Taurus were to have paid, Colton, all this extra money, which has caused a ripple in reaction and other teams to spend millions more each year in driver's salary strictly because of the paying Colton like an F1 driver thing. And to not use him an F1, oh boy, that team will be receiving flaming bags of dog poop at their doorstep. Adam Joseph, this is funny. I appreciate this. Adam says, did Fox hire Dale Coin Racing to do the hiring and announcement for the on air talent next season? (laughs) A kind nod to the fact that our friends at Dale Coin Racing are often the last to announce who's driving for them. Sometimes we find out week or weeks before the first race, if not some of the other key personnel being identified last minute. So I can tell you, Adam, the answer is no. You ask any hints as to when we'll get an announcement. Don't know because I haven't asked. He also says, or will it just be whomever is on the screen when I turn on the St. Pete broadcast? I would think if I'm just using my PR-minded self, you've obviously got NFL on Fox being the biggest, most important thing that Fox does between now and what early February with the Super Bowl. Would say that it would make sense, I guess, to announce them beforehand, for sure. Maybe even to do that just prior to the mid-January IndyCar media days in Indianapolis where all the drivers are attending. I'm aware that Fox has requested big chunk of time from drivers during that multi-day event for them to capture all kinds of stuff for the upcoming season. Would think they'd like to have some of their on-air talent doing some of that interacting and capturing of things to be used during the broadcast? So I would think before mid-January. So that's where I'd put my guess, but my guess could be totally wrong. And please don't hold it against me if I am indeed. Wrong. Andy Bauer, you say, Marshall, you mentioned in a recent racer article about some potential investors not meeting the criteria for team charter investment. Can you expound on that? I think that might've been like a mailbag answer, Andy. I don't remember, but can't remember how I wrote it. I don't know if I said plural or investors, but I know of one, for example, where I've been told there might be a clause, there might be a safeguard in the charter that either bars, potential buyer of a charter, investor into a charter or otherwise, from doing such a thing if they are in the midst of active litigation. I asked a Penske entertainment executive if that was the case and was told they would check and also check with legal to see if and what they might be able to share. I don't recall getting the answer back. Keep in mind, I think this conversation was yesterday, the day before, whatever it might've been, just butting right up against Thanksgiving. So I don't know if I've got an answer to that, but and that could be totally wrong, but I've been told by one person who obviously has read the charter, has the charter document in hand, knows it very well, may have put their signature on it, they understood there to be something acting as a safeguard against someone who might be getting sued or inactive litigation somewhere of that actually being something that could prevent that person from buying into a charter. Don't know if it's accurate, just been told that that might be the case with one person in mind who I understand has been trying to buy into a charter since there's so many fuzzy things regarding this. I'm gonna say who it is, but trying to get factual information from our friends at Penske Entertainment. And once I have that, a yay or nay, that'll probably help me to pursue this in a more formal manner. Ray Helmer says Marshall, you're filming a Ballyhoo'd Formula One movie at the Las Vegas F1 race and trying to convince all the skeptical race fans that it's not going to be another driven. Yet there's Joe Tonto waving the checkered flag, discuss. Yeah. How weird. And for those who know the story of the worst racing movie ever made, that being driven starring Sylvester Stallone, it was a story about the cart, a fake season of the cart indie car series where Stallone's character comes back after kind of being run out and to mentor young driver has gone through some problems as teammate. And I think as we've maybe all read the new Brad Pitt Formula One movie is the same exact thing. The script is effectively a copy of driven on that narrative from what we've been told. This was meant to be the movie driven. This was meant to be a Formula One movie. Stallone brought this and pitched this to former F1 boss, Bernie Ecclestone. And I think Ecclestone wanted too much money for the licensing or rights or whatever it is for them to do this. So collectively they said, "F you, we'll just go to indie car slash cart and try and do it there." And indie car said, "Yes, absolutely." And they did it. It was originally meant to be a Formula One movie. Became an indie car movie. And to your point here to close Ray, how bizarre is it to see yes footage of a stumbling Brad Pitt, his character, them filming during downtime last weekend at the Grand Prix and yada, yada, yada. And who's waving the checkered flag? It would be Sylvester Stallone whose only involvement in any kind of racing/racing movie was an indie car. But here's the guy who wasn't allowed to do it a Formula One movie for whatever financial reasons or issues that Ecclestone had being the guy celebrated waving the checkered, anyways, it, my brain just leaked out of my ears, Ray. So I'm with you. Andrew Miller says, "Prima Snags, Michael Cannon, they seem smart, discuss." Yeah, they did. Been doing my best to communicate with our friends at Prema 'cause the thing is, as a reporter, I get paid to write stories. And so, and there's kind of a formal process of how that happens. So, yeah, still chasing our friends at Prema to respond. And if they don't, that's fine. I've confirmed through other sources, but been, yeah, this has been sitting for a little while. Yeah, so, I guess there's been a little bit of confusion in some areas, not saying among any of y'all, but confusion as to what went down with Cannon at A.J. Foot Racing there as their technical director of the last couple of years, centrally responsible for the big turnaround. Been some notions put out there that the team let him go. I have only known this to be a scenario where he left, compared to them asking him to leave. Can just tell you that he left because things went sideways. Not like in a, "Hey, I got another opportunity. I'm heading out the door." But actual like a problems evolved and left didn't have another thing in front of him. And ultimately was contacted by Prema, been appointed there to a new role, to good position. And this, to me, is a very Michael Cannon move. What I mean by that, some of you may know, Michael's one of my oldest friends, one of my engineering mentors, known him since I was like 22, maybe. I turned 54 in a week, a little over a week. So, yeah, known Michael for genuinely more than half of my life and was super close with him for a long time. Throughout his time as a race engineer, especially up in IndyCar, half the time maybe has been spent with big teams. Your former player foresight racing, championship winning monster in the Cart Days, was with what we call when Dreddy Global today, back then, and Dreddy Green Racing or in Dreddy Auto Sport. Obviously, Chip Ganassi Racing, champion there, right? Two-time pole sitter at the 3,500. But when I think of Cannon, the big team destinations, Andrew, are actually the not the first ones that come to mind. They're definitely secondary because Michael's had a penchant. I share this as well. When I was an IndyCar crew member and whatnot, Michael's often gone with the smaller teams, the medium-sized teams, the one where, instead of there being a million staff members, and you are isolated and locked into your small area of contribution, Michael's often chosen. The smaller teams, the upstart teams, the ones at the back of the field who are trying to turn themselves around and get to the front of the field, right? So many stops throughout his career at these smaller teams where you go, "Huh, why would a guy as highly regarded as him?" All is amazing experience, knowledge, and talent. Go to a team like Prema, for example, that has never turned a single lap, just even in testing with an IndyCar. Why on earth? It fits his personality. The big team, big, big, big, big pressure and all that, it's not necessarily been the happiest place. Michael at a Dale Coin Racing. Back in the day at HVM/minardi, they went through a bunch of different name changes, but the early, early days of Ed Carpenter Racing, Dale Coin Racing. Foyt, keep in mind that when he showed up, like truly, this was a team worst in IndyCar. And in those smaller to medium-sized teams, where he can have a much bigger influence on the overall performance of that team. That's what I think of first when I think of Michael and teams and his happy place. So despite Prema being a mystery to most of us, we don't know a lot of the people. There's just a lot of like, maybe we don't really know you, we're right. I love this decision by them to reach out. This is a coup without any doubt. Someone with this amount of knowledge in an overarching engineering role where he can help a young driver and wickedly talented driver like Robert Schwartzman. It's another area of Michael's expertise and that is young drivers. He has worked with so many young drivers. And it's just been something where he really seems to click and work with those who are new or new-ish to IndyCar. Not a coincidence that often at the smaller to midfield teams, you get a lot of newer younger drivers rifling through there compared to the bigger teams that tend to have veterans, the champs, the ones who tend to be around year after year. So I think those two are linked a little bit here, Andrew, in his area of preference with team size and also the types of drivers he's worked with so often. I just think of that and go well, Schwartzman just got an amazing gift in having Michael. And then I think of someone like Calamailot, who is a rocket and is really good, whatever circuit he goes to. And to have someone like Michael there really at a important time in Calam's returned to IndyCar and the team's first ever oval, anything. And there's so much new that they have to do that getting someone like this, it's tipped so much in their favor from this upcoming season being one of, well, you're gonna suck. And not because you all suck as people, but just you're gonna go through the wars of being a rookie team who hasn't done most of this and they got good people. They do have IndyCar veterans within the team, just saying you also have to do a lot of running to gain the best kind of set up information and knowledge to use and apply that coming back the following year. I'm not aware of any like crazy high level race engineers that have joined the team and maybe brought their institutional knowledge with them. Could be wrong, but someone like Cannon brings all of that. Is a expert at working with young drivers. Is among the brightest oval engineers in the paddock, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. So last quick thing to note, definitely other teams, drivers reached out, met with them, inquired, et cetera. And this is one of those, if you didn't see him in a premise shirt, you might not believe it, but yeah, this indeed has happened and happy for him, happy for them and hope that this feeds them with everything that they were hoping for. Should also mention, wrote a story here yesterday, the day before, whatever about Chip Ganesi and Meyer Shank deciding on their engineering roster for the two Meyer Shank racing cars and similar reaction to Cannon landing at Prema with now Scott Dixon's former race engineer, Ross Bonnell landing at Meyer Shank as Felix Rosenquist's engineer, what? Like Ross spoken of by former Dale Coyne colleagues. And these are two first ballot Hall of Fame race engineers in Craig Hampson and Michael Cannon. Both of them have raved about Ross for years, moved over from Coyne to Ganesi, 2023 to engineer Scott Dixon, engineered him the last two years. I was under the impression that wasn't gonna change anytime soon. Nonetheless, Ross has been assigned to Felix's car and I'm just telling you, you want to talk about a team and a driver doing a happy dances. How should I say this in the most polite way? In the former Andretti Global Technical Alliance with Meyer Shank Racing, Andretti assigned two really good engineers to the cars. They weren't sending their number ones though, right? They're elite of the elite. Saved, kept and placed with Colton Hurda, Kyle Kirkwood, Marcus Erickson. So that's not meant to be a criticism of those who were assigned to the Meyer Shank entries, but there's just an element of truth here of, we ain't sending Colton's engineer over there. This is a client, we're gonna give you our setup info and amazingly good engineers, but we ain't sending you our first draft picks. This is being received like, you just gave us your first draft pick and I'm not saying the other race engineers at Ganesi aren't as good, maybe even better than Ross, but this is just one of those blur what? When I showed up at Thermal last week, flew in from Daytona of the three day IMSA BOP test, got in late Sunday night, hit the track, I don't know, around noon, Monday, crew, some of the crews, most of the crews, maybe getting in around noon or something from their flights or late in the morning, head to the track, start setting things up, so I'm like, cool, I'll time my arrival there with all that. And got there, met Logan Sargent, saw the crew, chatted BS'd with them for a while, and then card drives up and Ganesi personnel fire out, one of them was Ryan, one of their amazing engineers, been with the Cadillac GTP program that's now gone and then I see Ross frickin' Bonnell and I'm like, what? And they're like, yep, we got Ross. I'm like, you got Ross? Did you realize what you have received? And they're like, yeah, yeah, like, I mean, they don't know what to do with this because it's just such a great gift. And then with Marcus Armstrong, they have the amazing Angela Ashmore and she is one hell of a gift. So this is something where in this change of technical alliance service providers, I don't know if the Meyershank group expected things to be this good, but it is. So what does that leave Ganesi on deciding who's gonna engineer what with their three cars? With the defending champ Alex Pillow in his number 10 car, I can't imagine there would be any kind of change with Julian Robertson, the two of them of one, three titles together. Again, I can't see how that would change. Have heard my old friend Brad Goldberg, engineered Marcus Erickson for many years, won the Indy 500, then engineered Linus Lunkvis last year. Hearing, he might be one of the leading candidates, if not the leading candidate to work with our guy, Scott Dixon. And that too is something where as good as Brad is from some of the engineers that I've spoken with who've heard about that possibility as well. They have all said, that's insane. Like the two of them together, as if Dixie and Ross weren't already phenomenal, but Brad, who's like a super veteran, Ross being, you know, three, four years into his race engineering career, Dixie and Brad could just go on a hell of a tear. So anyways, a lot of interesting movement going on. Still nothing confirmed, not sure who's going to engineer. Kiffin in the number eight did hear that his race engineer from last year, Daniel Shepard has left. So I assume it will be a new engineer for Kiffin. So anyways, find out here in the coming days, weeks, who knows exactly what the final Ganassian lineup's going to be. But yeah, among the defending series champions, paired down from five cars to three, looking like of those remaining three, two of them could have new, or will likely have new race engineers. That's a lot of change for a defending champ to absorb. So interesting times ahead. Let me get through, Michael Mueller, you got a great question here. Colton related as well, and super licensed points and such. Yeah, asking, are they going to need to, or they would likely need to place him in F2, or do something to get him some super licensed points to make sure that he's over that hurdle. We'll find out, have communicated with the team, and they tell me that there's a lot of information coming about the F1 stuff here in the coming whenever, sometimes soon. So yeah, there's a lot to come there. And I might have a story to write about this that I just find interesting. So what else do we have to chuck open door? If you say, I'm trying to see what's good for the fans, the fans with the new charter system. So there's no new teams, it's not true, we got Prema. No place for those who have participated part-time previously. That's a great sentence with a lot of P's. That part's true. Limited opportunities for new drivers. I wouldn't say the charter has any influence on that chuck. If anything, we're probably gonna have a hecka bunch of new drivers in the series by the time all the seats get filled. He says, am I missing something here? He says, hashtag me personally, I think this is not so good for the sport overall. I don't wanna go too far into this chuck just 'cause discuss this a lot on the podcast before, but this takes care of those who are there today. It does not do anyone in the series or does not do the series, or Pinska Entertainment, a lot of favors when we're thinking about who might be there in the future. So there's one other angle to think about. I'm gonna be writing about this as well. There's another question I have in a Pinska Entertainment. NBA recently in their bylaws or whatever it's called, said okay, and their collective bargaining agreement, they had previously banned private equity firms from investing in teams. The NBA owns all the franchises and has the right to say no to such things. Believe as I read somewhat recently, they agreed to allow private equity groups to buy up to 10% of NBA teams. And apparently that's been received with a lot of interest in those firms buying in, even at that small percentage. Interesting to see where IndyCar and if IndyCar might have any pushback in this area. And so I have a question in about that because if you look at, I think we're at half the teams, maybe more, they have official investors, co-owners that have come in, not all because the charter by any means. A lot of this stuff has been around for quite a while, right? Jim Meyer came in in 2018, long before all this stuff. But in order for that team to grow and become more successful, needed to take on a co-owner, also brought a big infusion of cash. Ricardo Hunkos fell out of the series, had to take on a big rumored $30 million investment, investment, right, not gift, investment from Brad Hollinger, Hunkos Hollinger Racing, Ted Gellov, rumored $40 million investment, 20 for operating budget, 20 into the team, to co-own Ed Carpenter Racing, Ray Hall, Letterman, Lannigan Racing is another prime example of this been around forever. Rumored $16 million investment from driver, side family within, Aaron McLaren for something to happen, that run down the list, and boy, there's a bunch of investment and investors being involved. And ready global being the most prime and perfect example where it is now 100% owned, we believe. I don't know if Michael Andretti retains any whatever nominal ownership, but it has been completely taken over by money manager, insurance, financial, right? This is not owned by racers. This is owned by financial experts, private equity-ish Fern. We now have our first wholly owned team, Oregon, what we believe is vast majority-owned indie car team where it might have Andretti in the name, but Andretti isn't owned and runnin' or anything else. That's a new thing, right? We, I think many of us have personal attachments to teams through the people who founded them and/or owned them, AJ Foyt, Chip Gunasi, Roger Penske, Bobby Ray Hall, Ed Carpenter, and so on. Does the red, white, and blue heart-string get plucked as much with Ed Carpenter racing if he's entirely bought out by who knows what, but something where you go, okay, well, maybe you still call yourselves ECR, but it ain't there anymore, and the people owning it and running it aren't racers. I don't know about y'all, but it doesn't land the same with me. So, got a question in the indie car about that as well. Are there limits of investment on the charter side and any of that documentation just 'cause I find it interesting to see since really and truly, wind back the clock five-ish years ago, six years ago, whatever it is. We do not have this current seemingly. Most of the teams are co-owned, invested in, or otherwise, just to stay afloat. All righty, let's get to some more questions here and go for as long as I can, but not too much longer. Our friend, unpaid intern. Hope I get to see you again at the Rolex 24 Daytona, by the way. Any updates for fans of Linus Lundqvist? They're starving. Don't have anything for you. Do need to check in with my favorite little Swedish gangster to see if there's been any movement, but if you've read, whether it was my latest silly season update or any others on the Interwebs in recent weeks, it's a really simple and straightforward thing. There are three teams. There were five total seats available. It's now down to four, I believe. I think my number is right, but it's the two at Coin. It's one at Hunkos, and one at Rehal at him in Lanigan, and there's still questions as to whether that is truly available. So it might only be three seats. So yeah, if Linus were to have a place, it would obviously be in one of those places, but he by no means is the first person that I know of on anybody's list. He's P2, but yeah, I wouldn't say P1. Craig Yerush, how are you, Craig? And I still have a frickin' email to respond to you from, I apologize, my man. This going back to last week's major driver signing to take one of those seats off the table. So is it so depressing to see Stingray Rob back in the series solely because he's got money? Nothing against him is a person, but think of all the talented drivers, particularly young ones like Louis Foster, who are more deserving of a drive, and who would make the racing better for the fans. Got a little bit more that you had here, Craig, but let me pick this up here. I disagree 1,000% on the racing would be better with a better driver. Why the majority of the drivers in IndyCar are amazing. Don't make many errors for the most part race cleanly and give us great competition. One of the secrets to making great races. Backmarkers, right? Drivers who are never destined to be champions, probably even race winners or standard honors of podiums. Being slowed, tripped up, delayed, mistakenly hit by backmarkers. Telling you, if you take this racing, this sport out of that mindset of being a sport, and the highest of competition is all that can be accepted, move it into thinking of races in more dramatic arcs, stories. If everybody running in the hundred yard dash or whatever it might be at the Olympics, if all the sprinters are all more or less equally good, it's great, everybody goes really fast, but is this as dramatic and interesting as it could be? Or a relay, whatever it is, 5,000 meter or whatever. The person who's a little slow to grab the baton or drops the baton, these are the human sides of the story that tend to make sporting competitions more. Bigger heart, bigger everything. If it's all just everybody going flat out the whole time and they're all amazing, they're more or less never making mistakes. Sure, get a great race hopefully, but it is the plot twists that help races to be so much better. And that's just where I placed my mindset here, Craig. I think Stingray, as I wrote in a long interview with him, possibly the longest interview ever done with Stingray, I like the kid, he knows who he is, he knows that he's being seen as a checkbook first and I appreciate his being rooted in reality and acknowledging that. I don't know if he's gonna have a great season at Hunkos just 'cause he's starting over yet again, third year in a row, but given a chance to have some consistency and build some momentum, I think he's capable of being very good, not great, but very good and to fit into the series like many other drivers who we would say fit that very good, not great category. And I hate to say it, but there's more of those very good drivers than greats than maybe you'd like. But think of them as plot twists. And I realize sometimes they disadvantage your favorite driver who's trying to go down the inside, but they don't see him and they end up blocking him and the person chasing your favorite driver, get past and get the win. And again, I get maybe they become the villain, but I think of this in a very different way, Craig. I think of such folks as like, hell cool. We got some plot twists back there. They usually spice up the show in some way, shape or form. Louis Foster, I am told definitely brings some good funding to that opportunity. So there's that, but we can't forget the one part here and I don't wanna sound like dad, I'm just giving you the truth. Yes, in a perfect world, all IndyCar teams with every single IndyCar entry is funded through sponsorship. And the teams go out and hire every single one of them, every driver that they want, and that's all you got. It's never been the case, ever, not ever, ever, ever, ever. There's no season of IndyCar that has ever taken place since year one where every single driver was there because they were the top professional among the, they're the 20 to 25 or 30 best who are all hired, it's never been that way. With the case of Stingray joining Hunkos Hollinger Racing, we should be thanking him because despite that big investment by Brad Hollinger, I've only heard he said, you all need to figure out the finances here and to get some money in 'cause limits have been reached. Stingray is a person keeping two dozen folks, many of them American, others from wherever in the world here living in America. This guy, through family funding brought in, through friends and relationships, is keeping a team afloat, keeping people working not only over the holidays here but next season as well because through his sizeable funding package, this is something that allows him to race while allowing this team to exist. It's a part that we often forget. I think back to the '80s. I remember he might've gone into the early '90s. He was a guy by the name of Randy Lewis, was exceptionally decent in junior open wheel, not exceptional in driving Indy cars, but he could find money like you would not believe. Oracle, right? What do we call these? Oracle, Red Bull, Formula One team today. He had Oracle as a sponsor back like late '80s, mid to late '80s, like forever back in the day, but this guy was phenomenal at finding money. AMP, right? Microprocessor company, and I'm trying to remember some others that he brought, but like Silicon Valley money, this guy was like truly, maybe, I mean, I'd probably need to do a feature on him. This guy brought Silicon Valley to Indy car and I think to racing in general, really in a way that no one else had before, allowed him to race, qualified for the majority of the races, I believe, farted around at the back with teams that weren't necessarily great. Back then, teams that weren't great were truly way at the back. Today, last place qualifier might be one to two seconds off poll. Back then, five, seven, almost like an Indy NXT car running around, but was there, took part, frustrated people sometimes, but tell you what, Dale Coen racing existed and continued and whatnot because of Randy and the money he was able to bring and some other teams as well. And that's just one example, but he really stood out back then as one of those folks, very much like Stingray Rob is being painted. With Stingray, he's a kid. He's yet to have any kind of consistency to build his talent and see how good he could be. So, I think there, it's not bad to give him a break. Just think about what he brings to the team and allows this team to continue to exist and folks to buy Thanksgiving turkeys and whatnot and pay rent and put kids through school and all that kind of stuff. Yeah, there are indeed many who are deserving of drives, but at teams that can afford to hire them for those who need drivers to bring money. I don't see the deserving side, to be honest, Craig. He also says, has there been a time in IndyCar where there haven't been paid drivers, covered that off? What would have to change on the revenue side? Would it be more TV money, bigger gates, more sponsors for teams to hire on merit alone? So again, it'll never be 100% because that's not the business model every team has. Not as every team have the knowledge and expertise to do that, right? You think of Roger Penske, been in business since he was an embryo. Huge relationships, so much B2B money that takes place in exchanging between team Penske and those sponsors, some of these smaller teams don't have people with that knowledge and expertise to make that happen. So what do they do? They go to what is often the easiest source of funding to make the team exist, and that is funded drivers. So yeah, if teams were to get bigger leader circle checks from IndyCar, instead of the one-ish million, if that could become two, three, four million, whether it's through better TV money or who knows what, that might be shared, then yes. If the Fox TV ratings are as good as we expect them to be, that's another area where evaluation of real sponsorships could indeed go up. There aren't a ton of real, true, here is a product that we sell and we are giving you millions of dollars from our marketing fund to promote this. So much of what we see is indeed business to business, relationships and teams profiting from those B2B relationships that they develop. Lance Snyder says, Romaine gross jeans, blames IndyCar marketing for whom coast hauling erasing, not getting sponsors, says that's true to a point, but that conveniently ignores the insane level of turmoil allowed by whom coast hauling erasing the past couple of years. If I had X million, why would I want to be associated with what hunkos hauling erasing has brought? That's my exhale where I don't really have much of a valid rebuttal because you're kind of said some things that were truthier. Ah, Darren King. You know, I think I'm gonna use your question as the last for this episode, just 'cause we're at about an hour. And Jerry, if there's something you might want to carry over into next week, go ahead and do that. Let's close on Darren. He says, do you think the timing of Gavin Ward's departure from McLaren was to keep him from competing with another team for the Indy 500 in 2025? Says if they were going to fire him, I think they would have done that at season's end, not the weekend before Thanksgiving. Also says kindly, happy early birthday, thanks Darren. No, probably should have scrolled through here and moved this towards the top since Gavin's exit from Aaron McLaren was a pretty big bombshell last week. Couple of things here quickly. No, this was not a happy thing. Meant, this is not a thing that anybody really wanted to have happen. This wasn't a case of hey, Gavin's looking at some other opportunities and maybe just wants to go back to race engineering and hey, you know, this wasn't a blow up that led to the divorce. He arrived there, leaving Team Penske, having won the 2019 championship as Joseph Newgarden's race engineer, leaving Penske because he was tired and having spent a lot of his adult life on timing stands as a race engineer of wanting to move up to technical director or something, but move up out of that role, nothing was available. And so he left and soon found that thing at Aaron McLaren. Didn't want to be a race engineer. Did want to be overarching technical director engineer type and was, did a good job. They already have excellent technical director there and Nick Snyder, but they're valuable contributing, et cetera. But just a couple of months after starting full time, Team President Taylor Kyle left, went to Chip Canassi and they promoted Gavin to be the boss of the team, which he'd never done before. And while he is immensely talented and I loved what he did as Team Principal over the last two seasons, there's still some things here that didn't exactly fit. And so I don't remember if I said this on, yeah, I don't, no, I didn't say this on the last podcast 'cause I haven't recorded one since this happened. Sorry, brain fart. Asked about this a lot while I was at Thermal and this might be a little bit of an ear muffs thing for any kids listening or folks with kids listening. What I'm about to tell you also isn't meant to be critical of the folks, it's just stating a fact. Roger Penske is an asshole, right? Who does he have as his number one, as his team president, Tim Sendrick, who's an asshole, aligned perfectly with his boss? Chip Canassi is an asshole. Who does he have running the team? Mike Hole, Mike Hole, love him, he's an asshole. Zach Brown, biggest asshole there is when it comes to people in that position. Who do he have running his IndyCar team? Really kind guy, really thoughtful, introspective, the most human team principle of maybe met. Brian Herder might be the only other candidate that comes to mind as being right there at that level. Not aligned. And so when I say Roger Penske is an asshole, Chip Canassi's an asshole, and Zach Brown's an asshole, I mean that in the sense of they are there to win and win only, they do of course care about their people, but not at the expense of winning and being dominant. And so since these three folks that I mentioned cannot be there every single day running their teams, who do they have as their delegates? Well, in Tim Sendrick, who is a really an asshole, but in this dynamic, he is. And we'll go to the ends of whatever reasonable length possible. There's an employee having a problem or whatever it is to do the best, but at no point in time, would you say he and Roger are anything other than perfectly aligned on task? And it is a hardcore militaristic mission to dominate, devastate, win, period. Chip Canassi, Mike Hull, everything I just said, same exact thing for them. There was never that Zach Brown, Gavin, full attack, death to any and all of our rivals, change whatever needs to change in order for us to get their type of approach that made the two of them locked and linked in a Penske Sendrick, Ganesi Hull type capacity. Obviously with Mike and Tim and Chip and Roger, there's plenty of really nice, warm, loving, amazing sides to them, just saying in a sporting competitive business sense, thousand percent march towards victory, everything else will come at that expense if that's what it takes to get to victory lane. There wasn't that mirror image between Zach and Gavin. And so that's where this and why this came to an end. Just an incredibly kind, thoughtful person who really truly wanted the best for everyone. And I don't believe his approach and his model is a failure or one that can't work in racing. I just know that in this dynamic with Zach, who winning at all costs is his approach, this was going to have a limited window for it to work and have been come up short again this year, even though it was a tough year with a lot of change, especially in that number six car, but a lot of change. Decision, I think became apparent that, okay, I need someone aligned in lockstep with how I view and do things, and that is the change that has been made. It makes me really sad, really, really sad for Gavin, but I do indeed hope whatever it is that he enjoys, whatever he finds value in doing, that that is the next thing he is able to do. All right, y'all, appreciate y'all. Hopefully this slightly extended little over an hour episode here is one that helps on a drive somewhere for Thanksgiving or home, or you might have your AirPods or whatever in right now, just drowning out drunk uncle or drunk aunt at your family gathering and just tell you that I appreciate you, and I look forward to speaking to y'all next week. (upbeat music) (upbeat music)
