Welcome to the RACER Mailbag. Questions for any of RACER’s writers will 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 will likely be saved for the next week.
Q: For many years, automotive design was all about pace. Someday within the mid to late ‘90s, IndyCar evolution grew to become extra about security, reliability, and value management. Big positive factors have been made in these areas, however on the expense of 25-30 years of incremental pace evolution.
What would the automobiles seem like right this moment if they might have been allowed to repeatedly evolve by means of annual engineering and design developments meant primarily to achieve aggressive pace benefits? In an ideal world, the anticipated 2027 automotive design ought to make up for as a lot of this hole as potential, at the very least aerodynamically. That’s the automotive I’d prefer to see thought-about, imagined, designed, examined, and raced.
Greg Ok.
MARSHALL PRUETT: I’m with you, Greg. Let’s do a deep dive to begin the brand new 12 months.
For many of IndyCar’s 100-plus years of existence, the automobiles and all the improvements and distinctive concepts they have been conceived from held the curiosity of its followers. There was no separation of the drivers and their automobiles; curiosity for what made the drivers so courageous and expert carried over to the automobiles and curiosities in regards to the distinctive or boundary-pushing ideas they contained.
Not like a soccer or basketball, the primary software we use to play our sport continually modified and advanced, and the interplay between our athletes and the dynamic machines they strapped into was a giant a part of the intrigue.
Even the post-WWII ‘junk’ formulation and the roadster period that adopted, which principally went in opposition to the high-tech grain, have been stunning, or provided fascinating takes on the identical primary chassis structure and Offy engine bundle. A number of cool and new issues emerged like a turbodiesel polesitter at Indy and the SUMAR Streamliner, which totally encapsulated the motive force and had 4 fenders, however they have been outliers. Nonetheless, the automobiles have been nonetheless an enormous a part of the intrigue and attraction.
After which we had IndyCar’s wildest artistic decade within the Sixties when wings and turbocharging arrived, which carried into the Nineteen Seventies, and even with the arrival of mass-produced off-the-shelf automobiles from March and Lola within the Eighties, there was sufficient freedom and selection to make the technological facet fascinating for followers.
Extra mass manufacturing got here within the Nineties as Reynard joined in, and it was with the engines the place the best selection was discovered, and big energy as nicely. That bled into the early 2000s and peaked with Gil de Ferran’s document qualifying run of 241.428mph at Fontana in 2001, after which it quickly settled as Champ Automobile grew to become a de facto Lola-Cosworth formulation whereas the Indy Racing League went full spec on the chassis facet beginning in 1997 with Dallara and GForce, and two varieties of engines in Oldsmobile and Nissan.
The Champ Automobile Lolas (with the odd Reynard thrown in) have been nonetheless tremendous quick, and there have been loads of tiny enhancements made on the chassis and aero facet, however they weren’t issues that the typical fan would discover, and all of the engines have been provided by Cosworth, and collectively, it led to a gradual lack of caring in regards to the know-how facet.
That type of care was surrendered even earlier with the IRL on its debut in 1996, with potential exception for the monster Menard Buick V6 energy that was being made. However the automobiles, as a complete, grew to become spec instruments by 1997 that not solely regarded the identical, however by rule, couldn’t be modified.
Will the U.S. open-wheel historical past books endlessly document de Ferran’s record-breaking lap at Fontana because the excessive water mark for ‘cool automobiles that went actually quick’? Michael Levitt/Motorsport Pictures
So with each IndyCar sequence locked right into a spec or spec-ish look and sound, it’s simple to know how and why, after practically a century of superior and vibrant automobiles being a central a part of an IndyCar follower’s fanhood, that elevated diploma of vehicular curiosity – of eager to know in regards to the finer particulars – began to die on barely completely different IRL and Champ Automobile timelines.
As soon as each sequence stripped the character out of their formulation to current a less expensive, generic product, the will to know all about these automobiles largely died.
As we speak, they’re simply instruments the place the one improvements are discovered contained in the dampers, which followers can’t see and don’t care about. And contained in the engines, which comply with the identical can’t see/don’t care theme, as a result of IndyCar’s engine suppliers preserve all the pieces they do underneath lock and key and don’t welcome followers into that world.
Hybridization, the most recent tech within the automobiles, has been comparatively open for sharing, and a few of us have proven an curiosity, nevertheless it, too, is spec, which makes it loads just like the automobiles: One thing cool to course of and find out about when it’s new, however after a brief interval, you’ve realized what there’s to know or grown accustomed to seeing the identical previous factor, and the curiosity is misplaced.
Additionally, hybridization hasn’t been embraced by a good quantity of followers, together with some staff house owners and drivers. So whereas the DW12s have cutting-edge vitality restoration know-how contained in the bellhousings, I’ve seen extra ‘kill it with fireplace’ reactions than, ‘wow, that’s wonderful, inform me all about it.’
Racing’s origins are an offshoot of human creativity. One individual’s massive concepts pitted in opposition to the subsequent individual’s grand concepts. It’s human expression in its coolest vehicular enviornment. However once we permit ourselves to kill that creativity and expression, we are able to’t be stunned when racing sequence that stifle creativity additionally find yourself stifling their recognition.
The simple argument in opposition to embracing creativity is prices, however I’ve by no means identified a time the place racing wasn’t insanely costly. I don’t need to blow up IndyCar by having wide-open technological freedom, however I additionally don’t need the costs-first facet to win and provides us one other decade or extra of good-but-underwhelming development with a automotive – the core of our sport – that does nothing to spike new curiosity. Not whereas IndyCar resides deep in NASCAR’s shadow, and within the widening shadow solid by F1.
There is usually a center floor permitting human creativity again into IndyCar — past the effing dampers — with out breaking the financial institution. Choose a area or two on the automobiles the place groups can play with bodywork, inside aerodynamics, or suspension know-how… and search sponsors and company companions to be concerned in these areas to complement their financial institution accounts.
Provide you with styling choices for the engine suppliers to make use of to make it simpler to inform a Chevy from a Honda from a Toyota/Dodge/no matter, to no matter diploma is feasible — outright stealing what IMSA has finished with its producer GTP styling necessities.
Determine areas within the electronics, or software program/apps the place groups and producers can apply their experience and provides them a six-month window of exclusivity earlier than having to publish these options. Many people love seeing what Apple/Google/Samsung/and many others. give you for cellphone/pill creations and app developments; why not faucet into that by pulling these of us and followers and firms into IndyCar with the identical artistic course of? Is there a Chevy/Honda/whoever head-up show that may be built-in into the cockpit?
How about those self same, however customized cellphone/pill options within the cockpit as a substitute of a spec steering wheel that delivers the show on a spec LCD display screen? Think about massive and small tech corporations having a inexperienced gentle to get entangled with groups — to the groups’ enrichment — and use the cockpits as tech labs and promotional instruments.
As an alternative of limitless worrying about prices and conserving creativity and innovation to a minimal out of worry for runaway budgets, how about opening up tech areas and concepts the place IndyCar groups can really revenue and turn into wealthier by means of bringing all method of sponsor/accomplice offers into the paddock?
Yikes, this reply’s nonetheless going. Right here’s Jarno Trulli taking a look at a ship. Motorsport Pictures
An instance: As we’ve had in IMSA and the WEC for a few years, I’ve heard IndyCar is contemplating a rear-view video digicam system for the subsequent automotive. In sports activities automobiles, the primary methods have been easy bullet cameras stating from the bumper that fed a little bit monitor on the sprint, however they’ve turn into fairly critical, with some utilizing lidar and software program that time to which facet an approaching automotive is making an attempt to make a go.
Consistent with how IndyCar has finished issues for many years, it’s going to discover a single vendor, signal that vendor because the spec provider, make a modest revenue on every sale, and that’s the tip of it. Everyone should use the brand new rear-facing digicam and cockpit monitor, pay a set worth, and it’s put in and forgotten. It’s a damaged mind-set that kills enterprise and innovation.
No marvel so many groups are having to tackle buyers or signal extra paying drivers simply to remain alive.
Concerning how I hope Penske Leisure approaches this hypothetical rearview digicam state of affairs, it’s going to set the technical specification for a rear digicam system, establish a spec vendor that can be utilized, if desired, however depart it open for groups to hunt their very own distributors. Hey, Sony, or Nikon, or Apple/Google/Samsung/Intel/Bosch/LG/Philips/Toshiba/whoever, let’s do some cool issues collectively in creating an answer, have you ever turn into an affiliate sponsor, and use our staff’s automobiles as a rolling laboratory and promotions machine for this merchandise, and perhaps different stuff you make as nicely.
Think about the promoting prospects with these massive corporations, utilizing their IndyCar involvement as a part of their annual advertising campaigns. It’s all the pieces we dream of, and would additionally enrich FOX, race tracks with banners and onsite activations, and thru digital promoting.
IndyCar can change its future if it’s prepared to cease doing dumb issues like making virtually all the pieces spec. From Hisense to Sharp to JVC to Vivo to Motorola, to all the massive names like Apple and Google, they’re barred from doing something tech-related in IndyCar. Consider all the numerous tech manufacturers of, or whose merchandise you personal, and of all of the up-and-coming corporations in Silicon Valley and different tech-rich areas, and so they can’t make a single factor for use in IndyCar. By IndyCar’s alternative.
(And sure, I notice there are different sequence who do the identical dumb factor, however the query was about IndyCar. And likewise, the spec guidelines now we have right this moment have been written lengthy earlier than Penske Leisure purchased the sequence or IndyCar’s complete operations and tech division led by Jay Frye have been employed.)
Suppose small and spec, and get small outcomes, which is what has plagued IndyCar — traced again to the IRL and Champ Automobile — for longer than a few of its latest followers have been alive. Or have some balls, and refuse to be pushed by worry, and make sensible enterprise selections that profit the groups.
Each time a call is made to signal a spec deal, it’s the sequence that income and the groups who’re additional strangled in some monetary method. Penske Leisure, led by Roger Penske — among the many best enterprise folks this sport has identified — has its first likelihood, by means of bringing a brand new automotive to market with Dallara, to indicate his enterprise experience by eradicating the phrase ‘spec’ from a variety of areas on the automotive.
Opening up massive and new and actual enterprise alternatives for the paddock by breaking a long time of spec considering is vital.
And if the entire rattling factor is one other spec automotive from nostril to tail that continues to handcuff IndyCar’s groups from searching for and discovering new know-how sponsors and companions, I’ll need to query why the sequence signed its entrants up for one more decade of economic struggles.
‘Spec’ has been the noose IndyCar willingly locations across the neck of its groups and watches as they complain about struggling to breathe. It’s time for a rethink on the methods and locations the place open competitors could make IndyCar higher, extra fascinating, and stoke new enterprise improvement.
Let the know-how world — aerospace, aviation, automotive, electronics, and so forth — in and let their collective infusion of cash and engineering and creativity carry IndyCar to heights a few of us as soon as loved earlier than the phrase spec began choking the life out of the sequence.
