The RACER Mailbag, September 17

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: As someone who has lived in Markham, Ontario for 36 years, I couldn’t believe my eyes and ears that Markham will play host to IndyCar for the next five years. What an exciting, unexpected development. 

When I first moved here the entire area was rural, with a lot of farms that developers have gobbled up leading to Markham going from small town to a city of 300,000 people. What grinds my gears is that some fans think going from the landscape of Exhibition Place and the CN Tower is leading to the decline of the series.

Come next August, over 200 countries that IndyCar broadcasts to will know about our city. We are not a barren wasteland north of Toronto. Markham is quite beautiful, especially Unionville Main Street, five minutes from the track.

The point is that Markham wants the race and will invest in it in ways Toronto wouldn’t. It’s about sustainability and not having to worry about last-minute “will they or won’t they” deals with the City Of Toronto.

You simply can’t blame the promoters and IndyCar for looking elsewhere having been jerked around, especially last year when the event wasn’t approved until March, forcing ticket sales to start a month before the event.

With the ability to build a better Thunder Alley and potential exhibits, I’m wondering if there will be more room in the paddock for support series? Right now we have USF Pro Championships. Why did Indy Lights stop racing in Toronto? Have you heard anything about it coming to Canada again, or about fan favorite Stadium Super Trucks who were last here in 2019?

David Colquitt

MARSHALL PRUETT: It’s too soon for me to start chasing next-August support series info, but I feel confident in saying IndyCar, FOX Sports, and Green Savoree Race Promotions will be trying to create a proper street racing festival in Markham just like Toronto was prior to the hotel being built and everything shifting inside the expo hall. When the paddock was large and sprawling on the right side of the start/finish straight, there were no serious constraints on support series, and that’s what I know the series wants – giving fans day-long action and entertainment.

The key to this race, as you rightly noted, is that it’s wanted by Markham. I’m not saying Toronto didn’t want the race, but the event was always subject to modification, and never in an expansive way. The concept of a new town – new to IndyCar – wanting to host the series and make a big deal out of it is awesome. A local friend was telling me about how Markham was really trying to get an NHL team, and while it didn’t happen, it’s that kind of ambition to court major sports, to be bigger, that perfectly aligns with what FOX Sports wants to do with IndyCar.

Anyone trying to find negatives here is just determined to be miserable. 

Q: Instead of racing in Mexico for 2026, why not race at Fundidora Park Raceway in Pato’s home city in Monterey, Mexico for 2027? The track is still intact and they don’t have to go through the hassle with the promotors. 

Alistair, Springfield, MO 

MP: I feel like this would be happening if it was an option.

Q: As a fan who likes anything that has a engine and who’s earliest memory of IndyCar was the 2011 Indianapolis 500, why was Milka Duno so bad when she was in IndyCar? She was so bad she was even put on probation in 2010.

Kurt Perleberg

MP: Different times and different needs. She was the financial lifeline for the SAMAX Grand-Am sports car team that brough her to IndyCar. That lasted one year and then it was paying for two partial seasons with Dreyer & Reinbold before paying to take one of Dale Coyne’s seats in 2010.

Duno was akin to a gentleman/gentlewoman driver competing in LMP2 or LMP3 who had the base skills and mileage to pull off racing at the top in IndyCar, but was working with pro-am skills in a series mostly built on pro talent. I was there for a lot of her sports car races, and she was good. Not great, but she blended well in that era of pro-am competition. It was at the cutthroat IndyCar level where the limitations were exposed, and to be fair, she wasn’t the only marginal type in the series back then. Look up Jon Herb or Marty Roth. Scratch that. Just look up Roth.

If a driver could run without being a regular problem in a smaller team that relied on funding to stay afloat, that era of IndyCar was more tolerant of a marginal participant like Duno.

Wonder what the going rate for a signed Milka Duno hero card is these days? Darrell Ingham/Getty Images

Q: How dire are things at PREMA? Was the U.S. arm promised a certain amount of funding from the European HQ that then was cut off?  From the outside looking in, it seems as if they spent a ton of money up front without much of a plan on how to then bring any offsetting money in.

Bob

MP: Not sure on the dire part, Bob. They’re keeping a lid on things and while it’s certainly a topic of interest, it’s also one of those things where if it’s meant to survive, it will. That’s a callous way of looking at it, but I’ve been on teams that folded at the end of the season, and it definitely sucks, and if you’re aware of the situation, options at other teams – IndyCar, IMSA, and so on – have been cultivated prior to the offseason.

If you work in racing on the team side, change is a constant if you aren’t employed by a Ganassi, Penske, etc., which means you should always be ready to adapt and return elsewhere.

As I’ve understood the situation, there was a multi-year plan with its funding, but a change of mind happened and now the team is in jeopardy. There have been talks with Juncos Hollinger Racing about merging, but there isn’t much that stands out as being beneficial for JHR.

That’s not said in a critical manner about PREMA; it’s just that JHR has all of the cars and spare cars and equipment and spare equipment it could possibly use after buying the assets of the former Carlin Racing team. JHR onboarded the racing goods from Carlin, and hired a bunch of its people – many are still there – so with two chartered entries, and all the people and assets it needs, I’m not sure what value PREMA offers specifically to JHR.

I’m sure there are some great people who could upgrade some positions at JHR, and PREMA had a really nice hospitality unit, but beyond those areas, there’s no intent for JHR to double in size and run four cars either as JHR or JHR-PREMA. So that brings me back to JHR, at least from the outside, looking like a dead end.

Which leaves finding investors to step in and become the team’s financial backbone. If that happens, I’d expect the team to be on the grid in 2026.  

Q: Is there a vision between IndyCar and Firestone to introduce alternate tires to their other oval events? If not, why does Nashville offer the alternate tire?

What would Herta’s success in F2 and (possibly) F1 be to not damage IndyCar’s reputation? How does the F2 car differ from the IndyCar and which may appear to better suit Herta?

Atilla Veyssal

MP: Let’s work backwards. If you’re curious to know about the differences between IndyCar and F2, there’s an entire world of online information to explore. Well worth an hour or two of your effort. We try not to use the Mailbag for general information folks can digest at any time on their own.

I’m struggling to figure out what’s being asked in the item about Herta’s potential success.

IndyCar and Firestone continue to develop the oval alternate concept. If the ongoing feedback from both sides, and the teams, says to keep it going, and to do it at more races, they will.

Q: Just curious as to why the delay in announcing the moves for David and Rinus?

Terry Bowman

MP: The season ended two and a half weeks ago. The off-season is six months long. Teams try not to burn their big news right away unless there’s a pressing need.

If you’re reading this on Wednesday, Sept. 17, you should be able wake up tomorrow and no longer have to wait for the Malukas news. I was told to expect the Rinus VeeKay news today, but that’s been pushed.

Q: I saw way back when that JR Hildebrand had a gig teaching engineering at Stanford. I began to wonder what some drivers did in their off time that might be more interesting than taking a vacation or spending time with the family (not that this isn’t important). Are you aware of any drivers who have interesting hobbies or extra vocations that you can share?

Sean Raymon

MP: I believe JR was a lecturer, not a teacher. I mentioned recently that Kyle Kirkwood is constantly on his boat fishing, but Graham Rahal is the leader by a mile in terms of business interests with multiple companies – Graham Rahal Performance, which sits next to RLL in a big building of its own, a Ducati motorcycle franchise, a racing team in the Radical North America series, etc. – which keeps him busy at all times.

Q: Hope you can give me some insight here.

What is the deal with PREMA in IndyCar? They are the only team that is not a part of the charter program and there is no possibility to be part of it to my understanding, as well.  Only if they buy someone else’s charter. 

In your insightful piece from a couple of weeks ago it is stated that Deborah Mayer is rumored to have committed more than $40,000,000 to establish PREMA’s IndyCar program and her ongoing participation as the team’s financial foundation is unclear. That seems like a lot of wasted money when there are question marks on their future. 

Any idea why they started in IndyCar? I am seriously intrigued as I don’t understand their participation under the conditions laid out to the team as well as all the money pumped into this venture. If you buy brand-new cars and equipment to match the best of what’s seen from the series’ leading teams, you’d expect some different than what’s seems to be happening… or I might be missing something here. Why do they want to compete as the only team without the charter benefits? Racing almost unbranded cars doesn’t inspire any confidence as well. Any idea how they are regarded by the rest of the paddock?

Luc, The Netherlands

MP: The team, like many stalwarts in European junior open-wheel, had a desire to do more than race in F4, F3 and F2. F1 wasn’t an option, so IndyCar became the natural route to pursue. Consider how, as well, that PREMA runs a ton of drivers through its programs, and while an impressive number have gone onto F1, there’s plenty of elite drivers who haven’t or won’t reach F1, which makes having a pipeline to the world’s other top-tier open-wheel series a wise thing to establish.

Over here in 2024, PREMA already served as the team behind Deborah Mayer’s Iron Lynx Lamborghini IMSA GTP program, which is said to have cost a similar amount to the IndyCar startup fund, and with that effort being shuttered at the end of 2024 while PREMA IndyCar was already in full motion behind the scenes, you had a full focusing on Mayer’s next major American program. When the IndyCar team was formally launched, I asked PREMA how it would be funded – I was aware it was Mayer – and was told they would not be speaking on the matter. Treating the source of the team’s funding as an off-limits topic was strange, but spoke to how PREMA would go about its business.

It was a telling response that conjured memories of countless racing programs that sparked to life with great style and enthusiasm thanks to the bankrolling of a motivated financier and, without any true corporate sponsors lined up, was on the clock to crash and burn once the wealthy angel investor grew bored, mad, or hit a budgetary road block of their own.

The story I was told at Milwaukee was a perfect fit for this old trope: Big enthusiasm, big cash burn, big burnout, and the need to find a new investor or partner to keep going.

I’ve heard conflicting stories on charters, with one tale saying they were promised charters and went forward under that expectation before the series reneged, and I’ve heard there was no promise and they went forward. As for perception, there are some well-liked crew members who joined from IndyCar teams, but mostly, I’ve seen the team conduct itself in an insular manner.

Maybe if they return for a second season, under whatever name or circumstance, they’ll make more of an effort to be part of the community.

IndyCar’s most mysterious team. Joe Skibinski/IMS

Q: What is IndyCar’s target market? I can’t tell if they’re trying to market to the F1 crowd or the American oval crowd. In my experience, these are very different crowds of people. I spend my weekends at 410 sprint car events and I don’t know a single person who watches F1 or road racing. While teaching in fall, I meet a lot of kids who are F1 fans who would never watch an oval race. How does Indy navigate this?

Justin

MP: I can’t think of anything I’ve seen from IndyCar or Fox that tries to market to the “F1 crowd.” The messaging seems rather clear about being a multi-discipline series, which is wholly unique to IndyCar in open-wheel with two types of road racing and three types of ovals to master in its championship. IndyCar had 17 races last season; five were on ovals, so I wouldn’t describe IndyCar as an oval series.

F1 is perceived as cool and new since it hit big five or six years ago in the U.S. on Netflix and ESPN. It’s no different than popular music. The stuff that’s everywhere has great awareness while the niche music has smaller audiences. All IndyCar and Fox can do is continue to try and create awareness for its product with younger fans, but without an earth-moving collision of interest like COVID and Drive To Survive did to bring F1 to the masses during the shutdown, it’s hard to see how IndyCar will experience the same kind of instantaneous lift.

Q: I just read your response about Colton Herta to Mark in Buffalo last week’s Mailbag and I completely disagree with you on the year he’s had. He ran up front all year; I think was in the Fast Six almost every time. How many times was he running up front and something happened in the pits that wasn’t his fault and cost him the race, including Nashville?

He’s raced in Europe, he’s got great name recognition and has been with Andretti a long time. I love Kirkwood and I think Will Power is going to help make him phenomenal next year, but I totally think Herta to is the right move for Cadillac F1.

CAM in LA

MP: Thanks for sharing your opinion, CAM. 

Q: I may be crazy… and I have not seen the race… but if I read stories correctly, Power was running very well towards the end of the Nashville race, maybe had a chance to win. Then a pit stop went sideways and dropped him back in the field. Did that actually happen? Would Penske do that on purpose, to avoid the glaring spotlight of a winning driver being handed walking papers?

I’m no Power fan, just curious about the politics/optics.

Bill, Fresno, CA

MP: Hi, Bill. The race and highlights are readily available online.

Q: Do you think, if Honda chooses to leave IndyCar, which seems at least somewhat possible, the series should make sure the new car can take on multiple engines/sizes (as the new car is not yet designed), to ensure the engine space/parts is adaptable?

Or, just race Chevy engines (more likely to stay in IndyCar as Ilmor-Chevy) and hope a new manufacturer jumps in eventually, but at that very fixed engine size/footprint which is at least very specific-size for the future car?

If you were to modernize the look of the new car without being a copycat of F1 (which I think would be a bad idea), what are some design desires you think the series should adapt?

Tim, Chicago, IL

MP: The car is designed. The engine formula is agreed upon. But if there are no takers on the engine side beyond Chevy, IndyCar needs to stick with what it has and wait until it can sign a Porsche or Toyota or whoever and push the new car and motor package to a new launch date.

And if it doesn’t want to do that, the current powertrain package can be integrated into a new chassis. 

Q: Interesting that according to Will Power, Penske actually was ready to discuss some form of a deal very late in the season. Speculation from various journalists puts Malukas having a performance clause in his agreement, which Penske was waiting to see if he would meet.

Guessing he did not and thus Penske was ready to negotiate with Power, which was too little too late. With no announcement of Malukas to the No. 12 and VeeKay very comfortable to announce no return to Coyne, is Penske tripping all over themselves trying to figure out the driver of the No. 12? VeeKay has the better resume then Malukas and is more in line with past Penske hires in a driver with some success (win and poles), versus a driver like Malukas who has neither.

Penske sat and watched Newgarden season for almost five years, which brought wins and poles, before he was signed to Penske. With Penske supposably funding Malukas at Foyt, what does it hurt to leave him at Foyt for another year to see how he can improve? In Penske’s words he is just “human capital.”

If Penske literally made the crew at Foyt a full Penske offshoot, Malukas would have the same opportunity to win there as he would at Penske. Penske is funneling sponsor(s) over onto the No. 4 to most likely meet contract requirements with said sponsors on the number of races they would be primary.

Just strange we are a week past the major announcements and now it is crickets related to Malukas going to the No. 12. Makes one think Roger and team are having second thoughts based on potential performance clauses not being met and a better option in VeeKay with Power’s departure. No doubt the change in leadership has created some of this conundrum, as it sounds like Cindric put a lot of this in place and now it is unraveling with him no longer around to orchestrate the show.

Doug Elmore

MP: I’ll just say Rinus isn’t driving for Foyt or Penske.

On Malukas, nothing about driving the No. 12 car was a priority for the world to know, nor will that announcement do anything to change what’s happening behind the scenes. But if you check back tomorrow (Thursday), you’ll be happy.

Depending on when you’re reading this, this photo might already be out of date. Justin Casterline/Getty Images

Q: I’m not being negative, but we all know that IndyCar might lose Honda and it has been stated that Ilmor could be the sole engine supplier. Can you give us your vision on what would happen? Lease costs, factory teams, the thoughts of the current Honda teams and the overall effect to the series? I know you have touched on this topic before, but I think Honda is long gone.

Dave

MP: There would be no factory teams in a single-supply scenario. No clue on costs because we don’t know what the specification would be. If it’s just Chevy/Ilmor, there’s no need for a new engine formula. But if IndyCar held firm on moving to the new 2.4L V6s, and a new hybrid system, those involve significant costs to create, and those costs would be expected to get passed along to the teams.

I’d expect team owners to push back on going to an all new powertrain package if there’s no competition among auto manufacturers. Justifying the big costs for Chevy to bear – and in turn, the teams – while reverting to being a spec series is a hard thing to sell to the paddock.

Q: I listened to Paul Tracy’s new podcast interview by RACER with Robby Gordon in the guest spot. PT asked him if he would team up with himself, “Mad Max” Papis and Jimmie Johnson in the 2026 Daytona 24-hour under the team name ‘”Can’t Drive 55″! Robby, forever the competitor and being the pure racer he is, said sure!

Have you heard anything more about the project, Marshall? Sounds like must-watch TV for gearheads like us! Maybe even Sonny Hayes (Brad Pitt) will show-up as a spare driver? You got time to put down the mic and bust a knuckle turning a wrench like the old days with Genoa Racing?

Yanie Porlier

MP: Reminds me of the 50-plus team AC/DC lead singer Brian Johnson put together for a Rolex 24 or two back in the day, which was a lot of fun. Wasn’t aware of the goal you mention here, but it would be a blast. The last thing the world needs is their car leaving the pits with a wheel missing and me as the culprit for the failure.

Q: We’re often told that teams will be doing much work on simulators overnight during race weekends. How is that handled when the team’s fastest man, e.g. Verstappen, likes a setup that few if any others can use?

Jack

CHRIS MEDLAND: The work done overnight is generally finding solutions to problems, where the driver’s feedback and issues found in the data are analyzed back in the factory and potential ways of addressing those weaknesses are tested out. It helps give a direction to alleviate those problems, so the race drivers might then work through what they believe will suit them best.

Often, that is still driven by the data, so both drivers are getting given setups based on the engineers saying what is quickest, and then they have to adapt to it. That’s something Verstappen does arguably better than anybody, but that doesn’t necessarily mean the car is to his liking.

Each driver is still then going to give their feedback on the changes based on what they prefer and are most comfortable with, but if the engineers are confident in the understanding of the quickest set-up based on all the track running and simulator work, then it’s simply down to each driver to get the most out of it.

No driver wants a setup that limits their performance compared to anyone else, so in the case of Red Bull, Tsunoda will ideally still want the same setup as Verstappen because he can see what his teammate can get out of it, especially if the team says it’s the quickest setup.

There are often component factors at play, too. For example, in Monza only Verstappen had the new floor, so the simulator running will be done with both specifications of car, meaning there might be differences in the recommended setup ideas given to each driver based on the equipment.

According to the caption that came with this photo, this is Liam Lawson using a simulator at the Red Bull factory. Those early season struggles make a lot more sense now. Getty Images

Q: I would like to mention some misconceptions about the Las Vegas GP that I continually see in print.

None of the GP track is located within the boundaries of the City of Las Vegas, so the City would not have a contract with F1. The track lies within Paradise Township and Clark County. The Las Vegas strip is actually a State Highway, so the Nevada Department of Transportation is involved. I did some work at an intersection used on the track and NDOT is a real pain to work with.

I believe the F1 contract is actually with the Las Vegas Visitors and Convention Authority. There was an article in the LV Review Journal a few months ago where the County Commissioners claimed the LVVCA acted without the County’s approval to sign the F1 contract. I am not sure if the County approved it after the fact or this is still open. I am sure the way this happened is still an issue for individual Commissioners that could impact any future, long-term contracts.

Walt, Dolan Springs, AZ

CM: Apologies Walt, you can chalk that one down to a lazy Brit just using the term “the city” as a general catch-all, when you’re right, I should be more definitive about who holds the ability to make decisions.

The LVCVA approved a new sponsorship deal for another two years of the race up to 2027, and some of the resorts and casinos are founding partners who also appear to have great influence on what is approved along Las Vegas Boulevard. MGM Resorts International extended a found partnership agreement until 2030 this week, suggesting both the resorts and the LVCVA are still keen on the event.

I have seen complaints that there is not enough discussion relating to the cost and the impact in LVCVA and Clark County commissioners public meetings, and I do wonder if the decision-making is one of the reasons why a long-term deal has not been fully committed to. That would lead to significant outlays being locked in, that might increase dissent or opposition, compared to the current shorter-term extension approach.

As for Clark County commissioner Tick Segerblom saying a contract was never signed, the latest report I found about that was early 2024, and seeing as we’re about to go into year three of the original three, and have had the agreement extended for another two years, I would expect that was resolved. But I will ask how that all unfolded.