The RACER Mailbag, November 19

On Nov 20, 2025

Welcome to the RACER Mailbag. Questions for any of RACER’s writers can be sent to mailbag@racer.com. We love hearing your comments and opinions, but letters that include a question are more likely to be published. Questions received after 3pm ET each Monday will be saved for the following week.

Q: Why is it possible for the Trans Am series to put on a race at Watkins Glen and at COTA and IndyCar can’t?

Also, I noticed at the Milwaukee Mile this year that the drivers are not riding around the paddock on those little Honda motorbikes anymore. Instead, they’re riding around on stand-up scooters. Pato came around a blind corner and just missed running me down. My guess is the odds are sooner or later gravity will take over and one of those drivers will eventually go down hard resulting in injury. What happened to the bikes?

Steve Sporer, Chicago, IL

MARSHALL PRUETT: It’s possible because Trans Am chooses to race at WGI and COTA, and WGI and COTA choose to take their money to let them race at their facilities. If IndyCar chose to race at both, and both wanted to pay IndyCar to race at their facilities, or to take rental fees from IndyCar to put on Penske-promoted events, I’m sure IndyCar would be back at WGI and COTA.

Scooters are still used by some teams, but most now prefer the smaller and lighter e-bikes.

Q: Recently saw that RLL have taken delivery of the McLaren cars for IMSA. I am curious, though, what the logistical processes are of going from the GTP to GTD? Does the team just pack up everything and send it back to BMW? Does BMW retain all the race data over the last couple seasons?

Not that Stefan Johansson

MP: RLL ran the BMW M Hybrid V8s last week at IMSA’s annual pre-season Balance of Performance test at Daytona and handed off the cars and car-specific support equipment to WRT, the new BMW Motorsport service provider for GTP (which already runs the M Hybrid V8s for BMW in WEC Hypercar), once the test was complete.

RLL brought it all down to Florida, did the test, and farewelled everything at the track. BMW would have all of the data in its possession from the first day of running with RLL. If and what happens to the data on RLL’s side depends on whatever they agreed to in their contract, but in most cases, teams do not shred files and drill holes in hard drives and scrub all information held on internal/remote/cloud-based servers. There tends to be language that prevents the sharing of the info, of course, but most manufacturers are smart enough to know that teams don’t forget what they know.

Q: I think the 2025 WWT Raceway oval was the perfect IndyCar race! I vote a monthly Saturday night event there for the summer months every year!

David Monnett

MP: I second your vote, David.

Q: Great news for Ryan Hunter-Reay being named as fourth McLaren driver for Indy. A much wiser choice than Larson last year. Ryan is a winner, he knows the car and there is no conflict with scheduling. Larson was great PR but not a good percentage to win. The question is, what other drivers do you expect to be nominated as Indy 500-only drivers? A lot of talent is waiting in the wings to prove their worth.

Dave

MP: I don’t think we’ll see any major surprises. If Conor Daly isn’t able to take the full-time seat at Coyne, he’s on pole position for the best 500 seat available. Stefan Wilson continues to look for a new opportunity. Charlie Kimball usually tells me I forget to mention him as a 500 candidate. Like Daly, if Jacob Abel’s not in for the season somewhere, I know he’ll want to make it into his first 500 if a good seat is available. Indy NXT veteran James Roe is on my radar for something at Indy. Sebastian Saavedra wants to get back for another month of May. Katherine Legge is still interested. After that, I’ve run out of names.

Oh, and Valentino Rossi was supposed to be the big surprise Arrow McLaren had in the works for May. Through a colleague at the WEC season finale, I asked him about it. His reply? “I know nothing about this.”

Q: I just finished reading John Oreovicz’s “Class of ‘99.” It was a great read centered around my favorite era of IndyCar racing. While describing the challenging years for Penske around that time, Oreovicz mentioned Team Penske swapped into a Lola chassis after issues being competitive in the Penske chassis during the 1999 season. I don’t recall that happening, but being only 12 at the time, I was likely unaware.

What agreement did teams have with engine/tire/chassis manufacturers during this era? Could any team drop a manufacturer mid-season from their package, or was Penske able to run a different chassis since they were swapping from their own?

Chris, Olney, MD

MP: Penske’s PC27 looked amazing but wasn’t competitive, so yes, they went to the Lola B99/00 around the one-third point of the season. I worked on one at the Hogan Racing team; quite liked that car.

Hard to answer the last question since teams had individual agreements, and there were 15 or 16 teams. In general, tire and engine supply contracts weren’t things to monkey with, and if it was a top team, money was likely paid to the tune of millions coming in from the manufacturer. On the chassis side, those were commodities to be bought, so Lola would happily sell cars at $500,000 or more apiece to Penske. If Penske wanted to run a Reynard and a Swift, I’m sure both would have sold them cars as well, but since Reynard was the dominant model, and had big development deals with its top teams, I’d bet there was some pushback by its leading teams to arm Penske while Penske was irrelevant in 1999.

During the offseason, we know that changed and Penske not only bought Reynards, but modified them significantly – to the point that they were referred to as “Renskes” – and romped away to win the 2000 and 2001 CART titles.

In 2000/2001, there were Reynards – and then there were *these* Reynards. Jon Ferrey/Getty Images

Q: Our grandfather and grandmother lived next door to the Hulmans in Terre Haute and then moved to Indianapolis. With their six kids and the Hulmans next door there was an instant baseball team. Grandfather built the first scoring pylon in his garage and transported it via horses and wagons to the Speedway. Is there anything left of the original scoring pylon?

Phil Barrett Jr.

MP: If we’re working from assumed timelines, the first big pylon went up in 1959, and in a call with the good folks at the IMS Museum, they do not have any pieces of that structure in inventory. If it exists in part or in whole somewhere else, you’ve got a fun global search to embark upon.

Q: I wish that recent IndyCar test at Phoenix had been for the whole field as preparation for a January opener in Orlando or Homestead, just like the old days.

Speaking of which, can you recall Dr. Helmut Marko’s brief flirtation with the Indy Racing League? Was it only two races with the late Dave Steele before his F3000 squad went back to Europe with their tails between their legs? The IRL coverage in Autosport magazine was dreadful then, so I’m trying to dig this out of deepest memory. Did his car in fact have a BMW engine in the back, or am I really imagining things? But I’m sure that BMW were being touted as a possible third supplier alongside Oldsmobile and Nissan. Does RACER even have a picture of the Marko car?

Makes you wonder, if the RSM Marko team had been successful in the original IRL of the late ’90s then what would the IndyCar landscape look like now? I mean, this was a good few years before Eddie Cheever acquired his Red Bull sponsorship deal. I’m sure IndyCar would love that brand involved again.

Peter Kerr, Hamilton, Scotland

MP: I was there on the team side at the time with our TKM/Genoa Racing outfit and saw it take place with RSM and Steele. There was no BMW involvement. Huge fan of Steele, which is why I was so keen to see this take place, and with the added angle of a top F3000 team making the attempt, albeit with IndyCar veterans behind the program. Mike Colliver, who was with Dale Coyne Racing last season, recently reminded me of his participation in the effort.

It would have been great for RSM to succeed, but I’ve never thought of that being something which would have transformed the IRL. Compared to CART at the time, the IRL was a lot like Indy Lights/F3000, which made it easy for Lights teams like ours to go straight from Lights in 1996 into the IRL in 1997 with the same staff and be competitive in an instant. That would not have been possible in CART.

I wanted to do a feature on Marko’s brief and oft-forgotten dalliance in American open-wheel, but then Steele died in 2017, which was terrible, and I lost interest. A few years later, I did eventually reach out to Marko to see if he’d be up for a chat in early 2021 and this is what I got back:

Dear Marshall,
Unfortunately our appearance at Phoenix was long time ago so I haven´t any memories left.
Best regards
Helmut Marko

Q: While a damper program may not be the biggest deal, the IndyCar grid is tight enough for it to be a factor when it’s about who is first and who is second. So, I guess, a potential OEM looking at the teams they’ll need to partner with would have some concerns about being able to win a championship. (I don’t believe Penske and Ganassi sell the same dampers that go in their cars.) Going with spec dampers could help that point. I thought Penske would supply the dampers, though.

And then, in the test they were also using a torque sensor. I don’t think IndyCar can get new OEMs without using those nowadays.

Are these two things a sign that people managing IndyCar finally achieved common sense and new OEMs are joining (and Honda is staying)? Or am I reading too much from this?

William Mazeo

MP: If there’s a single auto manufacturer that is on the fence about committing $50 million or more to a multi-year IndyCar engine supply program who would look to spec dampers as the thing to make them say yes, please keep that lame-ass manufacturer away from the series.

Going to spec shocks has nothing to do with common sense. Whatever is left open for development will be where teams spend the most money. Shocks were left open, so that’s the high-price R&D expenditure. Take shocks away and teams will spend the money on the next-best area. And if all of the open items are removed, teams will spend even more because the differentiators are all but gone and nearly impossible to find. Total game of whac-a-mole being played yere.

Manufacturers routinely use torque sensors in tests and even during select practice sessions; I noticed Marco Andretti had them on his car one day in May at Indy. But I do expect to see them become standard fare with the next car.

Q: F1 is definitely on a major in upward path in North America. Not too many years ago it was IndyCar, then NASCAR, and then F1 in the U.S. IndyCar has found its way to No. 3, and I’m not sure it stops there. What is the long-term impact on the Indy 500? The news media and the youth (those that care about motorsports) are now enamored with F1, which should scare the hell out of the IndyCar powers-that-be.

Jim Riddle, Highlands, NC

MP: On the Indy 500, it’s had two of the biggest turnouts in 2024-25 that I’ve seen in decades, and the TV audience has sharply risen the last two years, so if I’m going off of numbers and trends, I’m feeling good about the 500 and its future.

The other thing that gives me confidence is the same youth who have learned about F1 in the last five years and support it wholeheartedly are also learning about IndyCar and supporting it in a similar way. The “youthification” of IndyCar (not a word, but I like it, so I use it) is one of the biggest and most important gains made by the series since 2024. That’s how it sustains itself for the long term.

IndyCar is reaching young fans – and hopefully turning them into life-long ones. Joe Skibinski/Penske Entertainment

Q: Just Googled Burke Lakefront Airport and IndyCar just for giggles, and discovered that Cleveland City officials are exploring bringing the race back and possibly are in talks with IndyCar already. Though it would probably be a street race instead of on airport property. I think with a tie-in to the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame like maybe a couple concerts, ticket deals, support races, this could be huge. This has the potential to be a Long Beach on Lake Erie spectacle.

Also consider the recent collaborations with Meyer Shank/Sirius XM – Bon Jovi, Creed, Ozzie Osbourne and Metallica. Seems like an obvious marriage that should be aggressively pursued. And… Willie P plays the drums. What else do you need?

Any rumblings that you can divulge? Are they talking?

Jeff, Colorado

MP: I’ve only heard of it as a street race. Nolan Siegel plays the guitar. Josef Newgarden plays the jazz flute just like Ron Burgundy (he doesn’t, but I love the idea).

As much as I love the Hall of Fame, it’s a bit too old-timey for what’s needed here. If Penske Entertainment/FOX is going to create a series of new street racing festivals across the country, it needs to be skewed towards a younger audience. IndyCar already has its elder fan base, which makes using the museum a case of playing to its base. Most of the bands on the MSR/SiriusXM car were cool, but also appeal almost exclusively to older fans. I happen to love some of those bands, BTW, but also know that I’m no longer the target demographic IndyCar needs to appease.

The motivation for the street festivals is to appeal to new audiences while knowing the base would likely be interested as well.

Q: Given how good Ferrari’s 2024 pace was, how much of an impact did the change from push rod to pull rod suspension have on the 2025 car? Around preseason testing time, I seem to remember discussion about this being a significant change in concept and design.

Tifosi Bo, Edmonton, BC

CHRIS MEDLAND: Honestly, a big one, but I’d assess it more as a knock-on impact. Ferrari went from push rod to pull rod on the front suspension, following McLaren and Red Bull in that concept. It was designed to improve the car in high-speed corners, cleaning up the airflow and allowing the car to be run closer to the ground to extract more performance from the floor.

In reality, that hasn’t worked out. As evidenced very early on, there were associated effects that meant the car actually couldn’t be run as low as Ferrari wanted, because it risked too much plank wear (part of the reason it got a double-DSQ in China earlier this year). We’ve seen other times where a significant amount of lift and coast has been needed late in a race, with the theory that as the corner speeds increase on lower fuel, the floor again could become a legality issue.

In some ways, Ferrari was doing the right thing in changing approach to chase a bigger step in performance, knowing McLaren would not be standing still. But the associated problems that have come with the change have not been addressed well at all, and that led to Ferrari slipping further off the pace.

The slight silver lining is that it was one year of pain with the change, before the complete overhaul of regulations next year.

Q: I’m a big Brad Keselowski fan and saw the article where he said he was interested in fielding an IMSA team. Any chance he could potentially enter a race on behalf of the team, or is going to strictly run it as an owner? Personally, I’d like to see Brad race in at least one event!

Also, is it possible Brad brings RFK back into the Xfinity or Truck Series, and could possibly enter as a driver in a few races?

Zach

RJ O’CONNELL: I’ll defer to Kelly Crandall regarding RFK’s future plans below the Cup Series. As Keselowski said though, he’s not looking to IMSA as an off-ramp from NASCAR, he’s never been keen on the Cup Series adding more road and street course races, and he never really stood out as one of the elite road course racers even during his prime at Team Penske. You can never say never when it comes to a Rolex 24 drive, though. Brad even said on Twitter (currently X) in 2012 that he’d like to run the race one day, but that the timing was never right. Perhaps a GTD PRO or GTD drive in a Ford Mustang GT3 would be feasible, I just can’t see him having a very high aptitude towards driving the current generation of GTP cars… though I’m always open to be wrong.

KELLY CRANDALL: Anything is possible, but there has been no indication of interest from Brad Keselowski or those at RFK Racing about expanding into the Xfinity (soon to be O’Reilly Auto Parts) Series or Trucks. The addition of a third Cup Series car was a big deal and the main priority for the last few years, and the focus does appear to be on the Cup Series side of things.

The organization has definitely improved since Keselowski arrived a few seasons ago, but everyone would tell you there is still plenty to do and more things they want to accomplish, especially given the history of that place. So, again, never say never, but there hasn’t been any movement toward that. The last time I can remember Keselowski mentioning the Xfinity Series in particular was in 2023, when he was interested in how the CW deal would work for the series.

THE FINAL WORD
From Robin Miller’s Mailbag, November 20, 2013

Q: I had many opportunities to speak with Dario Franchitti, probably like many fans. Dario and I talked about what it was like to drive Jim Clark’s Indy 500 Lotus and most recently the great racing at Baltimore. Every time we talked, he treated me as if I were his neighbor in Scotland. But more than that, I loved how he took time with the kids who wanted a photo or autograph. Dario will retire as one of the all-time best Indy car drivers. And winning the Indy 500 three times makes him immortal. So I know first-hand how engaging he is and I had the good fortune to see all his 500 victories, but I’m aware that you are closer to him and know much more about what went into his success as a driver. What will you remember about Dario?