Auto Racing 2025

[harshness]

Again, this is a 500 mile race at the most demanding track on the planet.

How is Indy more demanding than Portland International Raceway, Road America or Laguna Seca (as examples)?

Are we talking demanding on the car, demanding on the driver or both?

 

[Yespage]

The speed and the low banked turns. With Indycar today, the engines are finally in a position of greater stability but for about 100 years, the fastest cars often didn't see the checker flag. The low banked, relatively rounded rectangle turns make the race 800 chances to mess up, like JR Hildebrand (last lap) and Emerson Fitipaldi (not last lap, but lapping 2nd place Al Unser Jr) who were both leading into Turn 4. They added more places to mess up with pit speed limits (talk to Dixon or Larson).

And then it is its stature. No track in the world has IMS's stature. Winning Long Beach matters, winning Monaco matters, but Indy, it has attracted the greatest. Racing at Indy is an 11 month ordeal. For some teams, it is their only race.

There are going to be more technically demanding road/street courses, but the whole package at Indy is a monster of mountain to tackle.

 

[harshness]

The speed and the low banked turns.

PIR, Road America and Laguna Seca doesn't feature much banking at all -- some even feature some negative banking.

In the grand scheme, speed = predictable downforce = more consistent control.

Elevation changes that some of the road courses (especially Laguna Seca) introduce shouldn't be discounted as complications.

 

[Yespage]

Penske fires Tim Cindric and others, as he clearly sees the need to plug this hole.

Penske realizes that integrity is critical as motorsports continue to fight for their existence in the media sphere.

Penske fired team president Tim Cindric, IndyCar managing director Ron Ruzewski and IndyCar general manager Kyle Moyer on Wednesday in the wake of this Indianapolis 500 cheating scandal.

"Nothing is more important than the integrity of our sport and our race teams," Penske said in a statement. "We have had organizational failures during the last two years, and we had to make necessary changes. I apologize to our fans, our partners and our organization for letting them down."

Cindric has been with Penske since 1999, so this isn't some small time deal. As long as Cindric doesn't appear in IMSA or WEC, the firing from Penske is a major deal as Penske is the name in several motorsport forms.

The trouble with this violation is that Indycar really needs to step up inspections. With the differences between cars being so small, very small illegal modifications can make for notable differences in the field. Probably need to incorporate AI into the review via photographs to more easily spot this small stuff.

 

[Foxbat]

Fox Sports speaks with Roger Penske:

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[Yespage]

Put away the pasta folks, it isn't that Carb Day. Last chance to trim things out. Figure out the mileage. Get more reliable speed.

Herta, Armstrong, McLaughlin, Simpson will be trying to get their new cars into Indy 500 shape.

Veekay, Rahal, Andretti, and the like will be trying to make their cars actually competitive enough to survive and move up the grid and hope for some Indy 500 luck.

Meanwhile up front, the Palou's, Swartzman's, Sato's, O'Wards will be trimming the car for perfection and reliability.

Power and Newgarden need to saddle the latest penalty and being forced to drive these on Sunday.

Weather for Sunday is looking positive. However, a 30% chance of rain around green flag time. Rest of the day looks clear.

Kyle Larson suggests Indy drivers try the Indy/Charlotte double. It is a grueling thing to do, and near impossible. Only four drivers have driven the 1100 miles (John Andretti to be the first to consider such an insane task), and only one driver has managed to do it with a competitive finish in both, Tony Stewart (who else?). The only issue for Indy Drivers is no one cares who wins the 600.

 

[Yespage]

View: https://twitter.com/IndyCarOnFOX/status/1925951836395016593?

"I looked like Ace Ventura, trying to get out of the rhino," Hunter-Reay said on the Fox broadcast. "It definitely caught my attention."

 

[Yespage]

Shwartzman finishes 29th on Carb day.

This brings some flashbacks to the 90s and Loy Allen Jr. The guy who came from out of no where to win the pole at the Daytona 500. And that'd be about the only thing he'd ever achieve in NASCAR. Hoping for better for Shwartzman.

ECR didn't have a great day. Penske/Ganassi up top. Defrancesco is top 5 today. RLL is all over the place! Castroneves was top 10.

Veekay finally got over 222 mph, which was better than the 220. This car likely won't win, but 222 will be better than 220. Herta, Simpson, McLaughlin, Armstrong who are still getting there with rebuilds, 21, 31, 27, and 18, respectively.

Ryan Hunter Reay (who was top 10), had the engine fire. Graham Rahal's car gave out. Rossi lost a water pump. Takuma Sato's car slowed down, no word on what happened there. Going to be a long weekend for some crews.

If Shwartzman and Sato have issues, that could really make the start of the Indy 500... interesting.