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.
ED’s note: Submissions for this week’s Mailbag closed before news broke of Jay Frye’s departure from IndyCar, but keep sending your letters in and Marshall will answer them next week.
Q: It seems IndyCar is in its most precarious situation since the dark days of The Split.
In light of recent news and public comments, what are the odds that Zak Brown partners with a few other team owners (Andretti, MSR, Juncos?) and Liberty to create a rival series that allows for a more open development concept/IMSA-style BOP? Race as a support series for all of F1’s Western Hemisphere stops and develop a standalone calendar for the rest of the year. If the series elects to be devoted to road and street courses, it could take a Superformula tub, allow for limited development with an engine BOP and create a really compelling and fast formula.
They could take off the month of May to still run Indy in RP’s series, but a breakaway series in a joint venture with Liberty Media influenced by the CART/Champ Car ethos could be a breath of fresh air.
What do you think?
Jah from the ATL
MARSHALL PRUETT: Through 2024, I had a single team owner tell me they were keeping a firm eye on Penske Entertainment’s decisions and actions in the next year or two because if things didn’t improve in a variety of areas, they’re prepared to leave IndyCar at the end of the current chassis/engine formula. That owner was an outlier at the time.
I’ve had a second owner say the same thing in the last few weeks — fearing they might need to pull out of IndyCar and find a more functional organization to race within — which means it’s not just one owner thinking this, but two.
Or, more accurately, two who are comfortable enough with their very real concerns to share those thoughts with me on background. My fear is there’s more than two. I’ve had a third say effectively the same things as the other two, but I didn’t believe them. They sounded more like they were saber rattling more than suggesting a serious thing they would do.
What you get from Penske Entertainment is the same “Everything Is Awesome” routine, but I just don’t know if they realize how the ice is thinning.
As for teams and Liberty starting a breakaway series, I can’t see it.
Penske owns or controls almost all of the marquee tracks, and most teams can barely afford to compete today with old cars and an array of popular-ish tracks. Losing most of those venues and needing to pay for new cars and engines would be a back breaker unless an idiot with a spare $100,000,000 in hand was found who wanted to fund it.
Leaving IndyCar isn’t going to help the series in any way, obviously, but it’s Penske’s job to strike the right balance between budgetary needs and return on investment in order to satisfy and keep the other 10 teams. Penske has a product to sell and it’s really expensive and, depending on select take by some teams or manufacturers, is getting close to being unworthy of buying in the coming years.