The RACER Mailbag, May 18

Welcome to the RACER Mailbag. Questions for any of RACER’s writers can be sent to mailbag@racer.com. Due to the upper volume of questions received, we can’t guarantee that every letter will be published, but we’ll wordplay as many as we can. Published questions may be edited for length and clarity. Questions received without 3pm ET each Monday will towards the pursuit week.

Q: Isn’t the combination of those three words – rain, racing, and unconnectedness – just the weightier for making an wondrous race to watch? What an wondrous lead-in to the Indy 500. How was it from your view?

John

MARSHALL PRUETT: Increasingly fun than any IndyCar race I can think of in a long while. I love a little bit of unconnectedness with my racing, so the combination of rain and a tuft of restarts was unchangingly going to be amazing.

Q: Did you overly hear an subtitle of how Kyle Kirkwood ended up with one woebegone tire and three reds at one point during Saturday’s race? Was it a rain tire with a stuck wheel nut, or did they unquestionably lay out a primary tire with the alternates?

Tom Hinshaw, Santa Barbara, CA

MP: They were mistaken on the broadcast, Tom.

Q: What an wondrous afternoon on the track it was, full of challenges, twists and turns. My one unanswered question: who was rented overdue the pace car wheel? It was the most ‘yellow’ race we’ve seen in a long time.

Karen, Fernandina Beach, FL (at IMS for the weekend)

MP: It was Sarah Fisher.

Q: I’ve watched a couple of IndyCar broadcasts on NBC and I have to say James Hinchcliffe has been an spanking-new wing to the team. I know he’s been in the diner before, so it’s no surprise he lets his unconfined personality shine as well as offering some unconfined insight from a driver’s perspective. But I get the feeling there’s something left in the tank for his driving career. If he’s hung up his helmet, I think he’s had a roller coaster, but wondrous career. Do you think Hinch is washed-up with driving, or is he going to settle in at the booth?

Brandon Karsten 

MP: It’s like you were joining in the conversation we had in Gasoline Alley on Saturday. The Mayor has been spanking-new in the booth, but he has flipside 5-10 years of top-tier pro racing left to do. I don’t know if IndyCar is where it will happen; IMSA looks like a land with increasingly opportunities and I pointed him towards one yet-to-be spoken program to contact and explore if desired.

He should be full-time in IMSA next year, and if that’s the case, who would be a good modern suburbanite to replace Hinch in the booth?

Q: Not only was the Indy GP Honda’s first victory of the season, it had three cars in the top four when the polychrome flag was out. How much of that is unscientific to be due to the proceeds from the new frazzle system? Is it not a game-changer given the qualifying where Alex Palou was the lone suburbanite from Honda teams in the Fast 6? 

Mitsuki Matsuura, Kanagawa, Japan

MP: Another unconfined stat mentioned by an IndyCar fan on social media was the top nine were drivers from nine variegated teams. That’s crazy. If we’d had an 85-lap in the dry, I think we’re talking well-nigh Chevy getting its fifth straight win. I didn’t hear anything from the Honda drivers I asked well-nigh a noticeable increase in power.

Q: I bought the IMSA Track Pass when it came out and kept it until NBC Sports was shut down.  And then I bought the Premium Plus streaming package for Peacock considering I wanted to 1) support NBC for supporting IMSA and 2) watch the races without commercial breaks.  And it was a relationship that worked well for years, until Laguna Seca this year.  But then NBC Universal got greedy and put commercials into content I was paying uneaten for.  And when I say widow commercials, I midpoint they put in completely variegated advertisements than what is unconcentrated OTA/cable (yes, I checked).  This is not what I paid for.  This is archetype morsel and switch deceit, and I will have no part of it.  

Haskell Barnett

MP: Thanks for the intel, Haskell. The well-spoken leader atop the NBC Sports/Peacock Complaints Championship is the presence of commercials on the live streams, and a tropical second in the standings is complaints well-nigh the volume of commercials on the live streams.

Q: There were some unconfined exhibitions of car tenancy on Saturday, but moreover too many times where drivers just shoved their opponents off the track to defend position. What’s your towage of the driving standards last weekend?

Jordan, Warwickshire, UK

MP: This was flipside Gasoline Alley conversation with two important figures on Monday. It seems that when possible, the act of passing someone on a road undertow and the passer leaving the passee unbearable room on corner exit to stay on the track has wilt an old-timey notion. The new thing is to make the pass by driving the other person off the road, and since the tracks have tons of closed-circuit and TV cameras, tons of in-car cameras, tons of corner stations with corner workers reporting contact and off-track incidents into race control, and uncontrived SMS liaison from every timing stand to race control, there should be no lack of information stuff received by race tenancy to take action.

What I’m coming to believe is IndyCar is perfectly fine with the ongoing reduction in driving standards and escalating amounts of contact. There’s no other way to explain it, considering all of the footage, reports, and inbound messaging they have.

Q: Did MSR need any nonliability from IndyCar to run Helio’s ’06’ number, or could anyone chuck an uneaten 0 in front of their number? Seems odd to have the ’06’ and JPM’s ‘6’ in the same race. 

Zac, Melbourne, Australia 

MP: IndyCar approves all numbers, so chucking of uneaten zeroes isn’t permitted. Knowing Shank, I’m surprised he hasn’t requested ‘5150’ in honor of his favorite band, Van Halen.