[music] Welcome to the Marshall Probe podcast. And your week in any car, a listener Q&A show recording this, just about getting into evening here on a Wednesday. Not quite a Tuesday, but a Wednesday. But nonetheless, thanks y'all for tuning in. Oh boy, we are rounding that final corner about to complete 2024. I will admit, I have no idea how we got here. I don't know what happened to the year, but here we are nonetheless. Also, just got off the phone with our guy, Toby Sowery, testing for Dalecoin racing yet again, having raced for Dale earlier in the year between Toby and coin, and Rahall, Leatherman, Lannigan racing, and Louis Foster. You're raining, defending, actually he's not defending. Indiana XT champ, those two British knuckleheads. We're at WeatherTech Raceway Laguna Seca today. December 4th, completing the final on track outing of any IndyCar kind for the year. I asked IndyCar and they said, yep, this is it. For a moment, I thought last month, a couple of weeks ago, at the Thermal Club, I thought that might be the final one for the year. But nope, those two teams, one headed out from Illinois, the other one from Indianapolis, headed out here to home state, nearby hour 45, two hours away at Monterey, Laguna Seca there. And it was the two of them testing today, and love them. But two cars testing, not exactly enough for me to warrant. So about, I don't know, four hours or so, round trip driving, depending on traffic, just to see those two run. But Louis, as you would expect, the faster of the two in the bigger team, Toby, about two tenths of a second off of Louis' best time. Good thing for Toby is that at the Thermal Club, they had all kinds of issues, that a motor blew. And I think he only got like 26 laps in the morning before they were done. And so he was the high mileage king here at Monterey, did about 130 laps, which is a heck of a bunch. And I believe Louis did about 89. But anyways, final, IndyCar on track action of the year is complete. And yet there's still things moving along. So thanks once again to y'all for sending in the questions here, to our guide Jerry Sooteth for putting them together in an interesting and amusing order. And he gives us a little look at what's coming here. He says, group one questions, driver questions, talking about Andrei Cadillac, Jamie Chadwick, Penske's future plans, Yuri Vips, second item there, team and owner questions, engine contract, renewal status, who has the most grievances against Penske. Could you explain, engine leases, you bet? And where might IndyCar utilize Caitlin Clark? And then depending on how much time we have left, we have a group two and group three, cluster of questions from Jerry, asking what bargain would Graham Rahall make for an Indy 500 win? And then what North-East or Mid-Atlantic race would I like to see added? And then in the final group, did the million dollar challenge end, LED panels on the new chassis, and so on and so forth. So get to as many as I can here in maybe an hour or less, maybe or a little bit tiny over, we'll see. And as usual, Jerry closes with a quote, something funny, this from the late and great George Carlin, saw him in concert for my birthday. I had some interesting birthdays back in the day. And the line here is, some people have no idea what they're doing, and a lot of them are really good at it. So I think Jerry threw that one in specifically for me since it is effectively about me. So let's take a brief moment to hear some thankful words about those who make the show possible, and then we'll jump right in to your Q and A. Time to say a big thank you to our show partners on the Marshall Pruitt podcast, starting with FAF technologies. Build to print composites manufacturing company. They're specializing in medium to large scale automotive, motor sports and military applications. Visit FAFFtechnologies.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 the biggest North American motor races, including the Indianapolis 500, the 24 hours a day toner, 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 FAFF motorsports McLaren, Gear and Goodies, pay a visit to torontomotor sports.com. And finally, you have a new online merchandise home for the podcast, the Pruitt store.com. All the show stickers, models, racing memorabilia, I'm trying to sell and put towards our fun to buy a house, is now live and rocking. The Pruitt store.com. And we are back enrolling and we are going to kick things off with our guy, Nathan DeRover. How you doing, Nathan? Says, after the penalties and Qatar, an F1 fan on the IndyCar subreddit asked if IndyCar race control was any better than Formula One's. Says, I pointed out that IndyCar's race control hasn't made a bad call in months. I love salty senses of humor. I said, so we've got that going for us. This off season is taken forever. Yeah, I got to admit F1 has been stepping on their appendages here of late with, I take that back. FIA has been stepping on appendages, whether it's firing and or releasing their director of race control, the controller of race control. Letting go of race stewards to mayor being one of them, someone no well, respect. Like the guy is just known as being peerless. Like the guy is seriously amazing. The fact that they let him go. I mean, that tells you everything here. And so to see them coming up with some interesting penalties, dumb penalties, seemed like what we couldn't get through more than about five laps last weekend without some sort of notification coming up of someone being investigated for something. And look, they were a couple of obvious, yeah, that deserves a penalty. But boy, it sure seemed like there were way too many. Huh, that's the thing. Okay. So I don't know where they're going with this Nathan. Was it? Hey, we've just shaken things up quite a bit. And since we're new to this, we've got some new people in and or we've deleted some of those who are fairly well known and pretty darn good. Do the new folks want to send a message? Hey, we're not afraid of you. We're in charge. We're going to call freaking everything. Or anyway, so to your point, yeah, I can tell you on the IndyCar front, it feels like last season. And this is just again, a couple of months ago. It feels like last season might have been at the lowest of bars that I can recall. It wasn't great on a fairly consistent level. But to Nathan's point, no issues whatsoever with any car race control in recent months. So yeah, there's that. But it did occur to me during the race, this exact thing you're inquiring about Nathan. Are they trying to do their proverbial hold my beer moment with IndyCar? 'Cause yeah, this ain't good, y'all. So luckily, we only have one more weekend to find out. And hopefully it's a lot better because there's a couple drivers for sure who are going away, likely not coming back to Formula One and or moving to other teams and so on and so forth. And there's some folks who I'm sure would love to just have a nice positive close to the season and/or their F1 careers. So although this is our IndyCar show, obviously, Love Formula One, Love, most forms of racing. So yes, fingers crossed that race control does not intervene in the quality of the event. Zach, not a guinea pig, Dean. I'll just take that one as it is. Zach, who sent this in on Blue Sky. So who in the IndyCar field has the best chance to get the Andretti F1 seat? They promised to a, quote, young American. He also says, "Welcome to Blue Sky." Thank you. Okay. I can tell you, having spent a half hour on the phone with the goat himself, Mario Andretti yesterday, and I need to get that story worked up here sometime ASAP. He said, as he has said in other interviews, and I think we all just naturally expect, hey, who might drive in a Andretti global facilitated Cadillac F1 program? I don't know, maybe the lead driver, Andretti has. And the IndyCar program, who's pretty close to a super license and as we know is being paid as if he were racing in Formula One. So yeah, I don't believe anyone can force Colton to do anything, but assuming that offer gets made and or assuming that move is in the pipeline and he's good with it, I'd have to say Colton's number one. If I'm looking at who else is out there, Jack Crawford, young American, I believe from Texas. I believe our friends at Sunday Group Management look after him on the PR side, at least here in the US. That kid, really, really impressive, him kind of going his own way this past season, has done him wonders, but I think Jack comes to mind to someone for sure that could be a prime candidate. And after that, I think the pickings are very slim. Logan Sargent, texted with him today, could be another one to consider, obviously, a year and a half-ish of Formula One experience, but I don't know if they would look to someone who did not have the kind of Formula One career that anyone would hope for while doing this as a new venture. And so I'd love to see Logan get a proper shot. I just don't think, Zach, that as a brand new team, manufacturer leaping in big time, I don't think the right call would be to make one of the two drivers, someone who American or not, did not leave Formula One on a high. And that's a public relations comment, not a talent comment. Thinking about the hundreds of millions invested and more that will be invested before they even get to F1. I think of Cadillac, I think of General Motors, just forget the Indreddy side in the background. They tend to want things that are clean. No explanation, nobody making fun, no derision. There are a lot of mean folks out there who absolutely have shredded Logan nonstop. Just knowing how GM tends to work, it would lean towards a clean decision on the American, be it Colton or maybe Jack Colton obviously pole position. And then for the veteran side, not necessarily American, lots of options there. But if it isn't Colton, I will be shocked. The thing that I think about even more than that, Zach, to close is if we assume it's going to be Colton, well, that is a prime seat. Open an IndyCar in 2026. Who fills that? Who is available? Whose contract is coming to an end? Who could Indreddy sign from another team and/or? Is there a talent coming out of F1? They're this year next whenever it might be that. They might say, hey, we got an American and good old Kyle Kirkwood. Realize that Marcus Erickson's contract is coming to an end following 2025. Hopefully there'll be an extension there, but they certainly have a super good race winning, amazingly qualified American part of the IndyCar team with Kirkwood. If Colton's off to F1, where does Indreddy go in that number 26 gain bridge sponsored Honda? And I know there's a question here in a little bit, I believe from our regarding Jamie Chadwick and absolutely would love to see her in IndyCar, would also say that this is not a scenario in my mind. If I were running a racing team where I would take an unproven IndyCar driver of any name and drop them into one of the title-contending seats, like the one that Colton used to storm his way to P2 in the championship last season. So there are cars and seats within teams that you look at and go, hey, that's the give a driver a shot, let them develop. Hopefully they'll be effective in their second or third year type opportunities. This number 26 Honda ain't one of them. And so, well, I'd love to see a name the young driver we're fond of who we think could be amazing. That might be in one of the other Indreddy entries if there's any changes there. So who would replace Colton? That could continue what Colton has been doing for the team competitively. That's a fun one, two debate. Grant Lloyd doing grants is which IndyCar drivers currently have enough super license points to potentially join Cadillac? No chance of it happening, but would the old guns like Willpower have enough? I don't know Grant, I don't keep a tally of super license points for anybody, much less IndyCar drivers, nor do I know, I'm guessing there might be a resource somewhere online, but I don't even know where to look to provide the answer to that. Can tell you that there was a rumor like two years ago, maybe toward, I don't, to be honest, I'm forgetting the exact timeline, but I think I asked Joseph Newgarden about it at Monterey season finale in 2023. So, and I might have heard it earlier in '23, maybe the end of '22, I don't remember. But I'd heard a rumor that with Andretti Global looking to get to F1, looking for an American proven bad ass, big name, all those things to represent them and still young-ish, that Newgarden might have been under consideration. Can't tell you if there'd been any conversations with him, but I just heard that. And he is someone who to me would fit the bill because the guy's amazing. He's also raced in Europe as well. It was a while ago, kind of like Colton did a while ago, but familiar with the European Junior Open Wheel ladder and I'm sure been to some of the tracks that F1 race is on, but he said no. Again, I can't tell you whether that's right, wrong, true or false, but he said no. There was nothing there. There's no conversations with Andretti about anything Formula One related in the future. Other than heck, I mean, Joseph hasn't had a championship on a little while, so I can't think of him necessarily having enough points. Power was championed two seasons ago. I don't know where he's at. I don't also know a grant. Again, apologies here. Super license points just aren't a thing that factor into my day-to-day reporting. So it's really not something I've studied up on. I don't know if there's a window where you have them and if they aren't used, or if your most recent season alters how many points you would have, right? If you had a big number and you had a bad season and finished lowly, if that number gets revised down to a lower number, I assume that's the case. So despite thoughts of New Garden and whether he could or could not have been a candidate here, at least via super license points, I don't know if he'd be close. Power, I don't know, but maybe I think polo. I think Alex polo is the only one that comes to mind who through winning championships. Now back to back and three in the last four years, I feel like he might be the only one that is the clear case grant of yes, he would have enough. And if there are any others who do, then, yeah, I need to learn about that. Jeremy Davis. How are you doing? Jeremy, the world's biggest Scott Dixon fan, says, "Does a potential move by Hurdo to the Cadillac F1 team open at seat for Jamie Chadwick in 2026?" So yeah, covered that off here just a moment ago and I texted Jamie this morning, didn't hear back from her, but she's just confirmed as a driver next season in the European Le Mans series with Edex Sport and LMP2 team, that team is being used as a development team by Hyundai with its new hypercar slash Insta GTP program coming in 2026. So she's one of the drivers, Logan Sargent's one of the drivers, I forget the other driver's name, but they're all jumping into this development phase, development team, meanwhile, the great Andre Loterer and also Pippo Durrani confirmed as development drivers, specifically for this Hyundai hypercar slash GTP effort. So Jamie signing up to do European Le Mans series, they don't have a ton of races and they don't think there's a ton of conflicts with any, any, any, any car stuff talking next year at least. Just say that, well, I haven't heard back from her and it's not totally uncommon. I don't think that is something she would have taken or any driver would have taken if they had something bigger in the works, bigger being a full season of World Endurance Championship racing or something Formula Two or Formula One, IndyCar, for example, even IMSA, obviously, full season in IMSA. So when I saw that and saw that they signed for the second tier European Endurance Racing Championship series or in that series, it told me, suggested that they don't have anything else right now that was better or to hold off on accepting that offer because they're close to something else, right? She obviously, I would say, I assume this could be wrong, hope I'm wrong, but she wouldn't sign to race in the second tier European Endurance Championship that is part of this future forward-looking Hyundai factory prototype program if she was on the cusp of stepping into an and ready, a name, the team, IndyCar seat or similar or whatever else you might wanna do in racing. So I hope to hear that she has other things she'll be doing, but this announcement just stood out, Jeremy, as, huh, normally the way you want it to work is to hear that, hey, Jamie's doing this thing, she's doing X amount of races with name the IndyCar team, full season we'd love, but maybe part-time, something, who knows, but here's the big thing first and she has signed this second tier thing afterwards, know that my friend Sebastian Bourde, he had signed with Cadillac, staying with Cadillac, was moving over to WEC next season, representing Cadillac with a new team there, he'd had that done for a while and once that was done, he started looking for LMP2 opportunities over here and so reached out, sent him a bunch of names for a bunch of team owners, ended up getting a good deal worked out and so Seb will indeed be going back and forth, racing in WEC and IMSA, but he got that bigger, call it primary one done first. That's the way things tend to work and when you see the secondary get announced first, yeah, maybe this speaks to Jamie has a cool Hyundai factory, hypercar slash GTP deal to jump into in 2026 and she's off to WEC and or IMSA, if not both, but yeah, this just suggests to me an absence of something major over here. So yeah, we will keep our eyes peeled and continue rooting for her because she is genuinely all kinds of awesome. Let's pick up with our friend Indy Nathan, says will power says he has no intention of retiring soon, he did, he told me that, but you've reported that David Maluchus is in line for that seat, he is. Does Penske try to move power into their sports car program like Elio, who is still competitive, we see him move to another team? Or does Maluchus just have to wait? Great question. Last Tim syndrick, Penske president, team Penske president Tim syndrick about this and you should also just mention maybe he or they have confirmed this to another reporter and again, I legitimately don't pay attention to what other people do. They've never acknowledged that that second flight car is theirs and Maluchus is their guy and all right, we know this, but just sharing that they've never actually said yeah, that's the deal. At least not that I'm aware of, not to me. But in talking to Tim about our guy DJ Willy P, who I never ever, ever, ever want to retire from IndyCar, because man, it'd get boring in an instant, said hey, this Maluchus guy, right? In the pipeline and you know, et cetera, et cetera, what do you think? 'Cause the assumption is he's been hired to develop himself for one year through your affiliate team and with powers contract running out at the end of 2025, assumption is you guys are warming up. Good old Davey Maluchus getting to know him, getting him into your way of working and thinking and right, tuning him up for a year to get him ready. And Tim said, without acknowledging any of that, basically said, if Will has a season like he has this year, it'd be really hard to make a change. Didn't say there would be no change, but realize that I'm giving you words and paraphrasing instead of being able to hear his voice and the tone and how he responded, but the color in his voice and how he presented it was, this is by no means a foregone conclusion. And if Will does as he did this season, effectively, why would we wanna make a change? Now granted, I believe timeline-wise, and I'm clicking on things in the background to pull this up to make sure I get it right. I think Tim told me this somewhere around Portland. Maybe Milwaukee, I know I wrote a story about it, so and I apologize for forgetting exactly where it fell, but within the last two or three races of the season, and at that time, Will was P2. Yeah, I think he just won Portland. I believe, yeah, basically dominated Portland. Then I think, yeah, I went on and finished second at Milwaukee, round one, and then we had the bad things happening, round two, and then obviously the safety harness buckle unbuckled and destroyed any chance of him winning the title, granted that finishing 10th in the second Milwaukee race where Palau was able to recover and actually get some okay points. That's where things really fell apart. But I think we had this conversation right after Portland, and just the point being, Will was sitting up there, P2 was getting close, edge and close to our guy, Alex Palau. And while things fell off the rails a little bit, and he ended up finishing fourth in the championship, seven points behind teammate Scott McLachlan and third. I'd still say you look at Will's overall work during the season, and that is just not something to let go. So just to get back to your question here in just a moment, just looking at it now, these are the things that Will Power produced during this yet another highly, highly competitive championship contending season at the age of 43. I'll just read off his best results, or at least the top 10s or so. Starts off the season and adjusted P2 after some disqualifications, but P2, Barber P2, NDGP, P2, six that Detroit wins at road America, seventh at Laguna, just right outside the top 10, 11th at Mid-Ohio, wins the second Iowa round, right? Wins at Portland is second at Milwaukee. These are not things that you retire. These are not things that you give up. If Will's 2025 turns into a lot of those second places or wins, all of a sudden, the wins turn into seconds and thirds, and those seconds turn into fourths and fifths, you go, yeah, that's not super special, right? But we haven't seen that yet. So I think as I wrote in my last silly season update, 2025, the first half of the year is going to be the time and window, where if you love Will Power, you are crossing fingers and toes and everything you can, hoping for and praying for awesome results. Because where he goes with the team, after his contract is up on, what is it? August 31st, the final race of the year. Penske is going to be looking at the output, especially through, I would say the Indy 500, and depending on where he's at, and if he's at a good start to the year, the results show that, but also he's locked in mentally. This is that window of time from March through May. This is my assumption, but this tends to be the way things play out. March through May, absolutely critical for the future of Will Power's future, with Team Penske. If, for whatever reason, things do not go the way he'd hoped, we'd hoped, and he does not continue there in IndyCar. And if Maluchus is indeed called up for 2026, I'd still say there's, if he wants to continue, somewhere other than Penske, there would have to be a number of teams, I believe, would want him in their car. Obviously, he is a paid driver, so someone's going to have to come out of pocket and pay him well, but, look, yes, there's a lot of youth, a lot of potential in IndyCar. David Maluchus falls into that exact category. High, high potential. I think he could be really special. He's done some things in his two-ish seasons with coin, and then the second half of this season, or so with Myerschank, where you go, yes, there are some things in there that are really impressive. podium, right, some front running efforts, some really good qualifying here and there. Also, in his first step up to a really good team with Myerschank, a bunch of mistakes. It's not a conviction of him. We'll power Crash to everything in the world back in the day. Simon Pajano, Crash to this, that, and the other, and name a lot of the folks who went on to win championships and he 500's who we look at as revered veterans, most of them hit everything but the pace car back in the day. So making mistakes, not a conviction, or a criticism of Davey Maluchus being relatively young in his career, but the thing we have not seen from him, be it a coin, or last season with Myerschank, was consistency, right? Hey, got a sixth here or whatever there, you go, cool. That's great. That's different though than a second and a second and a win and another second and, right? It's the, if you're giving sporadic good and occasional great, but mostly good, but also some not so good, that's the kind of stuff that a team Penske tends to shy away from until they see that rooted out of the driver. So on the willpower front, if he is consistently good to great next year again, I struggle to see how Penske moves him up, Nathan. I do think we have a situation where Maluchus could indeed be, quote, parked for a second year at Foyt. Here's a crazy concept. Let's say Penske decides, you know, regardless of Will doing incredibly well, we just kind of want to promote him up to the big team, would Will say no to swapping places with him, right? Going to Foyt, obviously through the same Penske technical alliance and doing that, I don't know. Is it a possibility? I have no idea, but I can tell you that a high-performing power, if Penske does not want to hold on to him after next season, I look at a Ray Halletman-Lannigan racing and say, I bet you, if they had the funding to do so, they would come out of pocket like mad to get ahold of him. All that he can bring, all that he knows, plus how incredible he is as a driver, wow. And then you just look at some other places and I realize that their financial capabilities, depending on the team, might be better or worse, but Alexander Rossi, big addition to Ed Carpenter racing, Christian Rasmussen getting a second season there, hopefully he develops into a badass consistently, but if Will Power is available, a Rossi power lineup at Carpenter, that is the greatest lineup Carpenters ever had. Hunkos Hollinger, right? And finances are a bit problematic, but who knows? I don't know if Ganesi's gonna have any openings anytime soon, but what a narrow McLaren, right? Don't know what opportunities may or may not be there. And in Dreddy Global, and so, like, just saying, I want him to stay at Penske for as long as he wants. If that opportunity is taken away from him, Nathan, I gotta believe he's got some other folks going to say, well, come on down, you are the next driver at whatever our team happens to be. At Formula Vips says, what is happening with Yuri Vips? If we're talking about racing, I do not know. Unaware of Yuri having a budget to offer. Last I heard the team was still looking for many, many millions from a driver to take its final seat. We'll see where that ends up. Did hear on the Ray Hollinger and Lannigan front that the amazing, amazing, Eve Toural, race engineer for many years, technical director more recently at Hunkos Hollinger Racing has headed to RLL and need to ring them in the morning and ask, see if they'll answer, see if they'll not only answer the phone, but answer the question. But if they've gotten ahold of Eve, that's huge, huge for them, because as we've discussed ad nauseum, overall team, IndyCar race engineering structure is something that has been the greatest area of need for the team. JJ Gertler, interesting comments last week on the management style of some team leaders. Are there teams in the paddock that are known for having a different approach and say a more positive work environment? He also said, and is Gavin Ward likely to show up at one of those? Answer the last question first. I know that one team in particular is very interested in Gavin, I know, because they reached out and asked for his contact information, which was provided. As for what has happened since then, I don't know because I haven't checked in. But yeah, I can tell you at least one team is certainly interested in having conversations with Gavin. As for approaches and cultures, oh yeah. Here's one. And Dreddy Global, and I'm hoping that this changes and continues to be super extra, more positive, and so on and so forth. They've been known for a little while now for having the least happy, harmonious, under the tent culture. Lots of amazing people who work there. Lots of folks who are either friends or just long time acquaintances. Very, very warm feeling for a lot of them. They're also known in the paddock, right? This isn't just something that I think. This is something that I've seen. Been told about those who work there, those who've left and gone to other places, other teams just in the paddock, standing there, talking with me, looking in whatever direction and pointing over and making these comments saying, it is a, at the moment, three car team, and the general comment has been, and it is the most three one car team teams in the paddock, meaning this isn't a super brothers and sisters locked in arms across all three cars dynamic, but indeed three very siloed. We might be in the same family, but we ain't related type approach. Some of that, or a lot of that's just super anecdotal, but I'm telling you, that's the reputation. Hey, this number car doesn't really mess with the other number car so much, and vice versa, and you hope to get that fixed. You hope that that changes. In terms of like super happy and everyone's skipping along, I mean, Dale coin racing, that might have been the happiest and most harmonious I can just about recall last season, and they had, had/have some great people who were part of that. Sandro for sure is one of them. Mitch Davis coming along, I really love Mitch, but just like top to bottom, like there's some really, really good vibes there that I saw experienced and know. Myerschank racing is another one where there's some definite salty veterans. There's also a decent amount of youth there among the crew, and that's a place where they're still trying to get the best out of themselves. I think they're getting closer and closer on the Indy car side, but that's a team as well that I am more than aware of. It's just being like a pretty happy, go lucky, give each other a hard time, make fun of each other, all done in, you know, the warmest of ways type team. And so yeah, and then there are some there are a little more militant than others, had someone telling me about one team back at their base, like some really strict rules, right? No personal photos or personal effects on your desk, right? Color coding on dry erase boards. And if you're making this kind of note or whichever, it must be this color. And if you use the wrong color, you will have your head handed to you kind of thing. And it's like, oh, yeah, I wouldn't survive in a team where I couldn't have a picture of my wife or the cats or both or whatever on the desk. Yeah, that's, but anyways, runs the gamut. The thing is, overstating the obvious here to close JJ, it's no different than anything else in life, right? You look at whichever places and whichever industry and you get 10 different businesses in the same category. Some are going to be amazing and they give you a hug when you walk in and other ones. They, you know, you notice the red laser on your chest and they're aiming guns at you. No different here in IndyCar, culturally, big difference in how things are done. Ed Jores, how you doing? Do you know where IndyCar engine's manufacturers are and renewing for 2027? Neither company is doing well financially. They're both committing to spending hundreds of millions on motorsports not called IndyCar. What's the word in the paddock? A company not doing well, deciding to commit hundreds of millions. We'll just say more than a billion dollars over X amount of years and F1. That isn't done if things aren't going well enough for them to do that, I think. I don't know, could be wrong there. But have asked Honda, hey, how are things going? No answer, no anything. I've heard things are going well though, but they're not willing to comment, which is fine. I have to assume the same is true for Chevy, knowing that the person who owns IndyCar also co-owns the company that makes those motors. So I will be very surprised if both do not sign extensions. Thing here, and the reason why we haven't had any announcements knowing that they still have, if we think of it consecutively, I guess two seasons of racing left on their current supply contracts, but the only reason we haven't heard and won't hear about any extensions and staying on for longer is they and IndyCar are still working on what the next engine formula is going to be. And so until that is locked down, I do not anticipate there being anything leading towards them saying, and we will stay over and be part of that formula as well. Lance Snyder, you're always hitting me with this every year, you're my Minister of Mirth, so I'm gonna read it, but I'm just saying, you know how to get out of my skin, Snyder, with Festivus, the greatest holiday from the greatest show, the worst show ever. Quickly coming up, who in IndyCar has the most grievances to air against Roger Penske? (laughing) Oh my god, Lance Snyder, let's see. Hell, I don't know. I'm looking, I'm looking, I mean, there's one clear answer. It's Connor Daly, and I'm not gonna answer why. I just made that up, by the way, but we're gonna go to Michael Everson. How are you, Michael? Maybe I missed it, can I get a recap of what appears to be deeply personal, good rancher's beef between Michael Andretti and soon to be former Liberty Media CEO, Greg Muffet. I said, sure, threatening to drag Liberty before Congress didn't help, but seems like there's more personal history there. So in my conversation with the great Mario Andretti yesterday, I asked, hey, I've heard, and I can't tell you if this is accurate at all, that Muffet might've been a decent player, a sister helper, maker of getting this Cadillac F1, and I guess by proxy Andretti Global thing over the finish line. Is there anything there, any truth to that? And the phone pretty much fell silent. And yeah, Mario, who is a incredibly kind person who prescribes to the, if you have nothing kind to say, say nothing at all approach, didn't wanna go into things, but said, I think might've been just as simple as no. And the tone and the empty space after it spoke volumes. So it appears that, yeah, they're indeed beef, beefy, beef, beef. I won't say that that comes as any kind of new revelation. Muffet is, I've read and heard anecdotally, been fairly hostile towards allegedly hostile towards Michael and this initiative, the fact that Michael is cleared out of the way and it then got approved within what six weeks, two months, whatever it is. Stepwise, the fact that they tried for years and years and years, nothing happened. There's very vocal from the FIA, yeah, we'd love them. We'd love to have them, Liberty Media, been super pumped, the brakes approach this whole time. The fact that Michael gone, team gets into F1 is the next step that happens. We gotta look at that and say, yeah, this is not a coincidence here. Muffet being the person at the top of Liberty, this would seem to be a place where there might be some alleged beef, as you mentioned, as for the roots, as for all of that, I can't tell you. So I wish I had an answer of at this date and time or after this accumulation of things, this is where the relationship went off the rails. Was it off the rails to begin with? I don't know, the past is not something that at least on the Andretti side they want to talk about. Is this something that in one of the TMZ minded reporters will parse out of a Michael Andretti over drinks at some place in the weeks or months or whatever years ahead, maybe. But just tell you that at the moment, the strong emphasis coming out of the organization is, hey, we just got the thing we were hoping for. Let's try and keep a wraps on the dirt and the negativity from the past, even though a lot of its recent past and focus forward. So we may find out exactly the roots of all these things. A Michael Andretti autobiography up to and through the end of 2024. Would that not be a fascinating thing to read and not just because of what has recently gone down, but also so many other things dating back to coming up in the sport at 1993 season and F1. A lot of things here, winning, maybe almost winning, we'll see this race or that race. A lot of problems, a lot of good stuff. But yeah, if ever there was a person that I'm hoping is sitting down right now in front of a keyboard, typing out a memoir, and I'm sure many of y'all as well, that would be, that would be something, no, wouldn't it? Grayson's dad says, I have questions about engines and engine leases. First of all, typically how many miles does an IndyCar engine last before it gets replaced? The structure of the lease is this. Four motors are included, 10,000 miles, of travel is what they are meant to deliver per entry. Leases are $1.45 million per car. That is the maximum allowed in the agreement between any engine manufacturer and IndyCar, I'm told, allegedly. Wasn't always that number, but that is the top number. And so I was told that's what the number went up to last season. So in that, it's four motors, roughly 2,500 miles a piece is what they're meant to deliver. Most teams, for each of their entries, end up using five, if not more. And it could be because one blew up prematurely, or they might see a failure coming, or driver had a big crash and the motor was seriously damaged, something where you go, okay, there's a reason, whether it was mistake or who knows, maybe there was a manufacturing problem with a certain component that's happened many times over the years here in this formula where, oh, well, this is blown up three times now and it's in all the motors and oh, we better take the hit, yank all those motors, get them back, replace the problematic thing with the updated better part. And those will get reused in the future, but we've had to take a hit and pull the motor and perform major surgery before it's 2,500 ish miles or complete. So four are included, but it is very common for it to be 567. Yeah, next question, does Honda or Chevy have extra engines for just this scenario when a team needs to replace one? They let the engine maker know and then teams receive the new one. It's actually the exact opposite. So with each lease, a engine technician is provided and allocated to each entry. So you tend not to see them on the timing stand. If you could, you'd find them behind the timing stand where most teams have some sort of little canopy. So you basically, if you're walking down pit lane at wherever, you'll see their feet and calves and maybe their knees, but that's about it. And that's where each engine technician is connected to the timing stand and the car's calms hub and is receiving real-time telemetry. All the engine parameters, everything that they're watching, they govern what happens. So it's not the team saying, hey, we need a new engine. It's the engine tech saying, hey, gotta change this out. There's no team-based involvement here in that call. The only way that might happen, and it does happen from time to time, but not often, is if a team slash drivers like, hey, this motor just feels like it's down on power, down on torque, something, right? I'm getting killed out of the corners. I'm getting killed at the end of the straight and the thing is relatively new or fresh or still good. And no matter what we do, we're just lacking speed. In those scenarios, there's a whole section of the rule book written here that says, okay, well, this is the down on power process. Motor comes out, gets dynoed, get the numbers, yada, yada, yada, compare, see if the person, the driver, the engineer, who thought that is right or not, but by and large, it's the manufacturer making that call with each team, and they both have support trucks where they do indeed have lots and lots of motors created and ready to roll to wherever they would be needed. Say, but then I hear that there's a finite amount of engines to be leased, that is true. So you have the engine pool size. So each manufacturer, I don't know the exact number of motors that they keep in inventory, but knowing that there's been between 22 and 27 full-time teams for a little while now, the pool, as I understand it, usually is in the 45 to 50, maybe even 60 at one point in time. So you divide that by four and you go, okay, well, so that's, if it's at 60, that's 15 teams, entry, or 15 cars, you could supply, but if it's closer to 45 to 50, well, that number gets a little bit lower. So it's definitely a case of, we only have so many motors that are built, ready, and available for lease, and making new ones really expensive. And they do get money for those leases, that 1.45 million, but those still lead the manufacturers to operate at a loss. They lose money on every engine lease. That's just part of the accepted cost of participating in IndyCar, but there's not a unlimited willingness to lose that money. That's why they don't both have 100 engines sitting ready. It's, we're gonna taper and tailor this to be pretty close to what we think we can support and what our budgets allow. So yeah, that's certainly a thing. And then we say, or then you ask, why are there only 26 to 27 leases available if there are more engines? So just answered that part. 'Cause I understand they need a surplus, in case some need to be replaced, but I've heard that there were teams wanting to race the last couple of years that couldn't, because they couldn't get an engine lease. It's all good. And you say sorry for all the questions. No, that's why we're here. Yeah, this is a very true and real thing. This is the case of some new-ish teams or teams that wanna be doing more being told no. For example, financial criteria, right? Not how much money the team might have, but manufacturers saying, if you're willing to run two full-time cars, then we got something to talk about. But if you wanna just do one, which is the case with Able Motorsports, what they're wanting to do, they were told, sorry, we're not interested in just doing one. Every other team in IndyCar is at least two, but there's a long history of great teams getting their start doing just one. Ganesi, Ganesi is one of them, for sure. Ray Hall, when Bobby took over, it was a single-car team there in 1992, a lot of other teams. Myerschank Racing, single-car, Hunko, single-car, in terms of ramping up being a full-time-ish effort, run down the list. There's a lot of single-car efforts. But anyways, that's one of the answers there. But yeah, the truth of the matter is, in the next formula, I expect the cost to go up. If it's a big enough number, and the teams can afford it, and that number is large enough to where more motors could be made and sitting ready, then that might be a thing to think about. But then we have the other problem, which is the expected downsizing of the field here in a couple of years, possibly coinciding with the new engine, new Formula, new chassis, in 2027, where instead of 27 cars, might be downsizing to 25. So that all being part of the charter discussion. So a lot of stuff here to consider, and if that does indeed happen, maybe that means there are more leases available for the Indy 500, where it's an open entry, anybody can come and run and try and qualify. So yeah, a lot of stuff here, some of it conflicting. Ken Anderson, how you doing, Ken? Don't think you're gonna be the last question. I know we're just getting to that hour mark, maybe just a little bit over, but a couple of other really good questions here. Ken says, "Hey MP and Jerry, happy holidays." Congrats on the great news you and Shabrel received last week. Thank you, Ken, thank you, thank you. Is there a reason for the lack of utilization of Caitlyn Clark to promote the Indy 500? And is it coming? Considering her relationship with Gainbridge, which is what the presenting sponsor, the Indy 500, Gainbridge CEO Dan Taurus, in recently Colton caddying for her in the Gainbridge program, I would think that all involved could benefit. Says Clark would be a far better person to do that than Ken Griffey, who seemed less than thrilled to do it, especially off camera. Also says kindly thanks for you two to keep us knuckleheads. I'm knucklehead, brain occupied during the off season. You're most welcome, Ken. I am very positive that Mr. Taurus will indeed, for the sake of Indy car, if not having already been asked by Indy car, see if Miss Clark would be available to do something, Indy 500 related to help promote it. I haven't taken as good a look at the first week or two of the WNBA schedule as I would like, so I'm not sure if her Indiana fever are local-ish as the 500 is happening. But if she is in the neighborhood and able, and I'm also guessing within her personal services contract with Gainbridge would be able to do such things by being able, I mean, is she being paid to do this? How many dates are on the calendar in a contract, right? Again, these are all things that get negotiated. Those are some of the questions I'd love to have answered. And you know what, I am meant to speak with the series here, ASAP. So why don't I, and I'm just looking for my little word document with random questions that pop into my mind to ask folks when I speak to them. Caitlin Clark, Indy 500. Ken wants to know. There we go. Added to the list, Ken, thank you. We fire through a couple more very quickly, and then we will say farewell. Rishi Deshpande, how are you? Rishi MP. How many years have Ohio State University losing the game? That being a Michigan. Would Graham Rahall be willing to trade in exchange for one Indy 500 win? Didn't they just like lose last weekend too? So it seems like, yeah, yeah, this would be getting desperate, right? This is best wishes to you and Chabral and go blue. Here's the thing. Graham Rahall winning the Indy 500. I think what he would do is retire after kissing the bricks and then announce that he's becoming a full-time booster for Ohio State so they can go out and recruit, I guess, better players and a better coach. Did I notice the coach? I don't follow college football basketball much, but coach looks like super die job beard, which, I don't know how old he is, but I'm guessing late '50s, '60s, something like that. One of those things where it's like, come on, man, we know, it's okay, it's okay. We know it's no longer pitch black, but we're doing the die job. So anyways, yeah, Graham would say for sure, he would love to do whatever he could to help his beloved college football team not get whooped by your team, but I like the winning the 500 retirement full-time booster plan. Also, with all those high-end cars he's selling now at Graham Rahall performance in Zionsville, is it? I don't know, wherever, Indiana. Yeah, I think he might be able to raise that money right now without retiring. Grant Stouder, how you doing, Grant? So Zach Brown came out definitely against an intercontinental race. And I struggle to see a fault in his logic, seeing as we don't have an event in the Northeastern Mid-Atlantic. What event would you like to see created to fill that void? It says, I think an attempt at Richmond International Raceway or New Hampshire Motor Speedway would be cool. I do too. I just don't know if there is an appetite for it. I don't know if folks at Virginia or New Hampshire would give any farts. Been to both tracks, really enjoyed them, but agree on the international thing, IndyCar going to some place. And I do mean outside of kind of the continental-ish region we're in. We go to Canada, awesome. Be cool if we can go to Mexico, obviously. But I mean, actually real, real travel, right? Putting IndyCars and timing stands, and you name it in the bellies of planes or on ships and sending them across oceans. I see no value in that unless some insane person wants to give IndyCar a bazillion dollars to do it. And nobody's wanting to do that at the moment. F1 does that. We know that IndyCar has been international before. I've worked in IndyCar. There's part of it, traveled with some of that, international stuff, loved it, et cetera. F1 was also the world's biggest form of motor racing at the time and super popular. But it has gone to heights of popularity that we just have never seen. So, hey, look, that cute little North American Nopenwheel series is going to pick the place. Eh, kind of feels a little matchy, matchy, desperate to me. So, agree with Zach, stay local. This is what we are. If we could build ourselves up to being bigger than cool, let's maybe look at getting out then, but we ain't there yet and we're just gonna get clown for trying to be practice F1. As for Northeast, I still have to believe Walken's Glen, which puts on a whale of a show and gets really good crowds from NASCAR, very decent crowds for IMSA. I still believe if there was a significant will, that place could deliver a sizable crowd and a really memorable event. Going to some ovals where IndyCar hasn't been for decades, if ever, kind of thing. To me at least, it's a bit of roll in the dice, but I would say adding another oval to IndyCar's calendar, I'd be all for that. So, maybe if a Penske entertainment wanted to try and take on promoting at a Richmond, New Hampshire, et cetera, maybe there could be something there. Let's see, Thomas Schmetz, you say, two questions completely off topic, then more recent news. All right, I think, no, Brad's gonna get the final here. Remember a couple of years ago that New Garden won a million dollars since he won on Road Street, novals in one season? He's now technically Pato, who? Award did the same the season and didn't see anything passing. I didn't see anything passing about that thing and him winning the challenge. Has this challenge been scrapped? And second, let's say a team wants, well, let's stick with that one first. All right, I feel like I might have the answer. Well, okay, I don't know if the sponsor, I forget who it was, but I feel like it was one of Ray Hall, Adam and Landon Racing sponsors, put up that challenge. Pato won at Mid-Ohio, won at Milwaukee, was awarded the win at St. Petersburg, but did not cross the finish line in first place. Assuming, what is it, the people giving, giving people something was the sponsor of it? Just guessing that there might have been something saying, you gotta win, win the race, not be the one who through disqualification a month and a half or whatever later, becomes a person who wins on ovals, roads and streets. So I'm guessing that's that. Has this challenge been scrapped? No clue. Second, let's say a team wants to do a test with a new driver, but during that test, the driver crashes the car. I've been curious, who pays the bill afterwards? The driver, the team, somebody else. That would be a, how long is a piece of string question? Thomas, all depends, right? Did the driver crash the car? Did something on the car break? Did a wheel fall off? Did a tire puncture? Did a bolt come loose from the suspension? Causing, again, was this driver makes big error? All depends. It's also why, for I think the majority of tests in particular new driver tests and evaluation tests and so on, most teams I'm aware of require some level of insurance being purchased. It's not inexpensive, but something paid for by the driver and/or their sponsor or parent or whomever to cover in the event of such things. There also tends to be, it depends on the team and their approach, but hey, if you made a mistake and wadded the thing up, you're gonna pay for it. If we did a thing and it was pretty clear that that's what caused it, we're probably gonna eat some, most or all of it. If it's a, look, you're going down the straightaway and the motor decided to grenade and shot the car left and smashed it in half on a barrier. As long as you weren't over revving it or abusing the motor and the cause of it failing, which they can deduce through data, that's also a thing where you were a bit of a blameless victim in theory, they probably wouldn't be on the hook. That would just be misfortune and something the team would cover themselves, but some teams are a little more bullish on this saying, hey, you're pulling away with the car in perfect working order. If it comes back in anything less than that state, it's you. And then there are other teams that are a little more forgiving and/or truthful about them being the root of the problem, if that's the case. Last quick thing here, if this is a driver, they're testing that they're thinking of hiring, that driver must be pretty good if they wanna hire them. Probably not someone they would try and stick with a bill because that's a way for the driver to go, really, this is our first introduction. Yeah, no thanks. If it's a driver, they're thinking of taking on who would be paying for the seat. Yeah, they'd be more likely to say, here's our bank information wire money ASAP. Gonna close the show with Brad. And I don't have more than your name of being just Brad. Any update on the LED number things? Will they add them when they design the new chassis? I am told it is a very strong likelihood, but I don't have any official answer, but I really do hope they do, because the world needs more LED panels. All right, y'all, appreciate you. Truly, truly, truly thank you for all the great questions and fun and appreciate your, whether it's brand new listening in support of the show or some of you who've been here since launched this silly thing in, I don't know, was it towards the end of 2016, I think? Myself and the late Robin Miller did the week in IndyCar news and we took your questions and the show was about 20 minutes long. And we got through three to four questions instead of the dozen or maybe more, we do now. And after every time we finished, Miller would just complain and say, I cannot believe anyone cares enough to listen to more than five or 10 minutes. I'm like, well, if they were smart, they wouldn't. So there's that and that's never changed. But no, podcasts are a real thing. And I mean, I was late in 2016 doing it. Wanted to start back around 2009, 2010, bought all the equipment to do it and just never followed through, but even by 2016, we were super late. And Robin, again, not really understanding this stuff, just couldn't fathom that folks would want to hear someone take questions and provide answers and hopefully be vaguely amusing at times. So anyways, thanks to our guy, Rob in mill or miss that guy. Yeah, good times back then, good times now. Y'all, thank you. Thanks again to our partners at FAFT Technologies, the Justice Brothers in Trimotisports.com. I'll speak to y'all here next week. (upbeat music) (upbeat music) (upbeat music)
