Welcome to the RACER Mailbag. Questions for any of RACER’s writers could be despatched to mailbag@racer.com. We love listening to your feedback and opinions, however letters that embrace a query usually tend to be printed. Questions acquired after 3pm ET every Monday can be saved for the next week.
Q: Being non-American, I simply don’t get how can NASCAR be extra common than IndyCar. Clearly the Cut up wrecked it, nonetheless the reunification occurred virtually twenty years in the past. Additionally, within the first years of the Cut up, CART was nonetheless nice with worldwide races, a number of producers and well-known drivers.
And one other much less rhetorical query – any information on the Honda entrance?
Nicholas, Greece
MARSHALL PRUETT: Relating to Honda, no one will speak on the file (I’ve requested), however I’m listening to optimistic conversations on staying have been occurring.
The Cut up was an important occasion that helped propel NASCAR forward of IndyCar, however that leap was already in progress as Cup started reaching a wider base of followers — escaping its largely southern roots — whereas CART and the IRL stepped on their respective appendages.
I’ve instructed this story many occasions: Sonoma Raceway, 1990, and the second NASCAR Cup race there. I don’t know if it was organized by the observe or the collection, however on the opening day, Friday afternoon, there was an autograph signing organized with The King, Richard Petty, and the most recent Daytona 500 winner Derricke Cope. It was positioned in entrance of Huffaker Racing’s store close to the entry to the paddock, with Petty and Cope sitting at a bit sq. card desk. There was no one in sight as I walked down the street from our store — positioned about 200 toes away — and no one in line to get their autographs. I walked previous them they usually had been chatting amongst themselves on this awkward occasion.
However the NASCAR weekend shortly took off and have become the largest occasion of the yr, beating former monster weekends placed on with IMSA and Trans Am by a mile. If you happen to weren’t a NASCAR fan, avoiding Sonoma Raceway and the entire arteries to succeed in the observe for a very good 5-10 miles in any course grew to become the norm when Cup was on the town. That was occurring in Northern California street racing territory whereas CART was a raging success, and doing related backed-up-traffic-forever at Laguna Seca.
Seeing NASCAR go from an oddity with minimal curiosity to the largest race in NorCal by the early Nineteen Nineties was the signal of change that registered with me essentially the most. The automobiles are super-relatable to what the typical particular person drives or understands, which is all the time the hurdle for IndyCar to beat.
Q: One of many attention-grabbing issues I’ve seen these days is the evolution of the language round racing, so I’ve been accumulating a glossary of generally overused new motorsports phrases for my very own amusement:
Deg = tire put on
Field field = pit pit
Livery = paint job
Papaya = orange
Coms = radios
Vasser = a reference to a automobile proprietor made a minimum of two dozen occasions by T. Bell each race (multiply if it’s an endurance race)
Driver “opened up his arms” within the nook = ???????
Sub-optimal = not nice (please cease utilizing this it makes one sound sub-intelligent)
Playoffs = Don’t know, don’t care.
The Dynamo = Pipo. (Isn’t Pipo attention-grabbing sufficient for a reputation?)
Maggotts, Becketts and Copse = Corners at a race observe that each Brit is required by regulation to make use of each time Silverstone is talked about.
This all leads me to my query. Why do F1 groups have individuals sit on the wall outdoors of the ‘field field’? Definitely, the mountain of coms gear make it sub-optimal for the individuals to really see the papaya livery of the automobiles as they cross by on the straight and observe if the motive force opens up his or her arms as they enter Copse and Maggotts.
DA, Chicago
MP: Opening up your arms is one other method of claiming the motive force is unwinding the steering wheel, which I notice is one other odd expression.
The ‘pratt perch’ (stand of idiots) positioned on the opposite facet of pit lane, separated from the crew and storage, may be very a lot a global factor. I’d guess it stays right now out of custom since, as we see, there are groups preferring to have their engineers and strategists located within the storage. Since sitting out on an island does nothing to assist these on the island — all of them stare at TV/timing/information screens, similar to these within the storage — I can’t work out why the apply continues.
Mailbag hero Jarno Trulli acquired a close-up have a look at the Copse gravel entice after he collided with David Coulthard firstly of the 2001 British Grand Prix. BOOOOOOO. Spinney/Motorsport Photos
Q: You will have Mario Andretti who’s a category act, then you may have Michael who the precise reverse of his father. Why such a distinction? Is he the first cause his son Marco actually didn’t do a lot in his racing profession?
David Tucker
MP: Undecided how we’ve arrived at Michael having no class. In all of my interactions with him, ‘having no class’ by no means entered my thoughts. However possibly you’ve had encounters that left a unique impression. I’m struggling to consider many third-generation IndyCar racers who’ve had careers that had been something near their father or grandfather’s accomplishments. Unsers, Foyt, and Andrettis come to thoughts.
Q: I learn an interview with Valtteri Bottas on one of many different racing web sites the place he mentioned he turned down a full time journey with an IndyCar group for 2025. I’m attempting to consider what group made this provide? Perhaps PREMA, or presumably Ed Carpenter? Definitely not Dale Coyne. Do you may have any perception as to which IndyCar group made this provide?
Steve, Chicago
MP: With out asking Dale, this feels like Dale. He’s had an curiosity in good on-the-way-out-of-F1 drivers for a few years.
