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 revealed. Questions acquired after 3pm ET every Monday shall be saved for the next week.
Q: Why doesn’t IndyCar let vehicles qualify one by one on street programs? Wouldn’t this remedy the interference downside?
JRW, AZ
MARSHALL PRUETT: I’m not towards the concept, however because it isn’t executed in every other open-wheel championship that I do know of — huge or small — it’s not like IndyCar goes towards the grain.
Additionally, there’s been a factor that’s advanced in recent times the place no matter variety of of us and too many collection imagine each driver, on each qualifying lap, ought to have Moses parting the best way always. I don’t know precisely when that perception took off, however it’s lame.
Profitable qualifying is about timing and making runs at one of the best home windows of alternative. It’s a part of the technique. Right now, each workforce and driver is seemingly anticipated to have a 360-degree view on each second of their qualifying periods, and in the event that they impede any person by 0.1s, they get penalized. I simply don’t get it. If it’s blatant, give them a penalty. If the motive force is asleep on the wheel and completely clueless, give them a penalty. In any other case, minor inconveniences are a part of the expertise.
This isn’t drag racing with devoted lanes for every qualifier to be shielded from one another. IndyCar drivers are given equal time and alternative to make use of the observe on the identical time to ship their finest laps. In the event that they fail in that equal alternative as a consequence of a slower driver being in the best way, nicely, that’s a part of the equal alternative, not a assure.
Q; This was probably the greatest race weekends that IndyCar has ever had, with two nice races that will have energized the necessity for extra quick ovals because of the stunning crowd that confirmed up for the Milwaukee 250. I want they’d go old style and have two races like they did from 1949-1983 once they raced after the Indy 500 and on Labor Day weekend. Maybe by 2026 we may see Richmond, New Hampshire, Michigan and Homestead.
And since Pato O’Ward was complaining concerning the missed alternative to race in his hometown nation of Mexico, perhaps they might add the oval race at Autódromo Internacional Miguel E. Abed in Pueblo, Mexico, which has similarities to World Broad Know-how Raceway.
Alistair, Springfield, MO
MP: The Indy-to-Detroit routine simply appears like a large drop-off in spectacle and status. Indy-to-Milwaukee? That’s a confirmed winner.
Who’s going to say no to a day of IndyCar racing and fried cheese curds? James Black/IMS Photograph
Q: So long as there’s been TrackForum, followers have complained that “all IndyCar wants is best advertising and marketing”. It’s 2024 and regardless of the advertising and marketing genius of “I’m Indy”, the chorus nonetheless stands.
I feel a part of the issue immediately is that Penske Leisure both doesn’t perceive or doesn’t care concerning the digital area. Responsive design for the online has been round since a minimum of 2008; it’s what makes content material wrap to suit your pc, telephone, or machine display screen. It’s so previous (in internet improvement years) that individuals don’t even confer with it as responsive design anymore; it’s there by default. Nevertheless, indycar.com isn’t responsive on desktop, cell, or the IndyCar app, so you may’t learn full tales. (I hooked up a screenshot of indycar.com on cell on Friday of Milwaukee weekend for context).
The weekend schedule shouldn’t be on the IndyCar.com homepage; it’s a click on away, hidden underneath ‘Race particulars’ (which it’s a must to scroll right down to see – and since the location isn’t responsive, it’s obscured by the race countdown timer). The homepage doesn’t supply notifications, which suggests the one individuals who know what’s occurring throughout race weekends are individuals who both set up the IndyCar app, or people who find themselves sufficient to go to indycar.com and know the place to click on.
I get notifications from the Android IndyCar app that periods are beginning, over 45 minutes after they begin. I bought a notification Apply 1 at MKE began 47 minutes after it started. There aren’t any notifications when periods are about to start out, and even the weekend schedule prematurely. Hyperlinks in notifications don’t go to the story within the notification, simply the app’s homepage, which suggests it’s worthwhile to discover the linked story on the homepage.
I don’t know the way IndyCar can develop the game’s footprint once they don’t appear to know the fundamentals of delivering digital content material. It’s dangerous person expertise, and a foul impression for followers.
Ed, Jersey
MP: Thanks for writing in to share your experiences, Ed.
Q: As I watch Milwaukee Race 1, one thing that’s been bugging me has precipitated me to e mail you. When manufacturing reveals an in-car digicam view, within the decrease proper nook they present the brand of the digicam sponsor.
Contained in the cockpit throughout the rim of the halo the identical sponsor’s title is displayed. The emblem names additionally seem on the rear wings for backward digicam pictures.
Plainly it might assist viewers determine vehicles in the event that they put a nonetheless shot of a facet view of the automotive carrying the dwell digicam shot. I don’t affiliate Mission Meals with Rossi’s automotive coloration scheme of the week, for instance. I see their title on display screen, so the digicam brand field is redundant.
Please cross that suggestion to race TV manufacturing workforce.
Pat, Indy
MP: NBC, you’ve bought one race left to handle Pat.
