Welcome to the Q: I’m not sure if you’ve ever watched ‘The Office’, but doesn’t IndyCar remind you of the episode where Michael announces a surprise to the staff and it ends up being ice cream sandwiches? It’s kind of like all the drivers saying something big is coming after their dinner.
Steve
MARSHALL PRUETT: I’ve watched ‘The Office’ from the beginning and I watch it a few times a week when I need to relax. It’s worth mentioning that ice cream is Penske’s favorite thing, so you’re onto something here.
Joking aside, as I’ve mentioned before, the series doesn’t have any earth-shattering plans at the moment, but let’s see if the current strategy of hyping up the future without revealing anything buys the series some time to come up with something big.
Q: Last week, I attended a minor league hockey game for the Milwaukee Admirals, and during the intermission, there was a commercial for Penske truck rental on the Jumbotron. Why wasn’t there an ad for the upcoming Road America race or the return to Milwaukee Mile? If I wasn’t already an IndyCar fan, I wouldn’t have known they raced here.
Max
MP: I’m guessing it was an ad by a local Penske truck rental location rather than the larger Penske corporation promoting their truck rentals at a regional minor league hockey game. That’s just a guess, and if that’s the case, there would be no reason for the local owner/operator to spend money on promoting a race they aren’t involved in.
Q: In response to your answer to Terry from Maryland last week, you called the end of the Daytona 24 a “nothing burger.” But what about Abu Dhabi in 2021 and the Indy 500 in 2022, where the wrong winners were declared? You never know what can happen on the last lap. Races have specific end points for a reason. F1, IndyCar, and now IMSA have all made mistakes. Race officials need to get it right! You, Marshall, should understand that.
Bill
MP: If you’ve followed my work for the past 18 years, you know that I’m not afraid to criticize when necessary and give credit when it’s due. In this case, I don’t see it as an issue, so I won’t manufacture outrage over a 24-hour race being called to stop before completing one more lap.
Sure, if the race went one more lap, anything could have happened. But we can come up with endless imaginary scenarios. I won’t join you in fantasy land. And are we really comparing this to F1’s worst officiating call? Because the Rolex 24 ended two minutes early? Come on.
Q: During the recent IndyCar hybrid test, you mentioned that one of the drivers successfully used the on-board starter. While this is a great feature to avoid lengthy yellows for a stalled car, what happens if a driver is injured or concussed and continues to drive? Or if the car restarts and leaves debris on the track? Has IndyCar addressed these scenarios?
Andy, Farmington Hills, MI
MP: I reached out to the series for answers, but didn’t receive a response in time for this Mailbag. However, if they did respond, I imagine they would have mentioned the ability to monitor G forces and thresholds through telemetry to determine if a crash exceeded the limit.
The series also has the ability to communicate directly with its teams and instruct a driver to stay in place and wait for the safety team to arrive for medical assistance.
If it’s a crash that falls below the concussion threshold and the driver is trying to drive back to the pits while shedding broken parts, which we see in other forms of racing, the race director can make the call via radio for the driver to stop or allow them to continue if the debris is minimal.
Q: After Nigel Mansell won the 1993 PPG IndyCar World Series, do you remember if he gave a shoutout to sponsor Dirt Devil in his post-race interview by saying if you need the best vacuum cleaner, buy Dirt Devil? I haven’t been able to find that interview online.
Bob Crosby, Charlotte, NC
MP: That’s a great question for Mailbag readers, Bob. I don’t have any information about what one driver said about one sponsor in one post-race interview 31 years ago. I would have been in the paddock at the time, helping with the breakdown of equipment.