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 obtained after 3pm ET every Monday shall be saved for the next week.
Q: For many years, automotive design was all about velocity. Someday within the mid to late ’90s, IndyCar evolution grew to become extra about security, reliability, and price management. Enormous beneficial properties had been made in these areas, however on the expense of 25-30 years of incremental velocity evolution.
What would the automobiles appear like as we speak if they might have been allowed to repeatedly evolve via annual engineering and design developments meant primarily to realize aggressive velocity benefits? In an ideal world, the anticipated 2027 automotive design ought to make up for as a lot of this hole as attainable, not less than aerodynamically. That’s the automotive I’d prefer to see thought-about, imagined, designed, examined, and raced.
Greg Okay.
MARSHALL PRUETT: I’m with you, Greg. Let’s do a deep dive to begin the brand new yr.
For many of IndyCar’s 100-plus years of existence, the automobiles and the entire improvements and distinctive concepts they had 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 concerning the distinctive or boundary-pushing ideas they contained.
Not like a soccer or basketball, the principle instrument we use to play our sport continually modified and advanced, and the interplay between our athletes and the dynamic machines they strapped into was an enormous a part of the intrigue.
Even the post-WWII “junk” formulation and the roadster period that adopted, which principally went towards the high-tech grain, had been lovely, or provided fascinating takes on the identical primary chassis format and Offy engine bundle. A number of cool and new issues emerged like a turbodiesel polesitter at Indy and the SUMAR Streamliner, which absolutely encapsulated the driving force and had 4 fenders, however they had been outliers. Nonetheless, the automobiles had 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 Nineteen 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 large energy as properly. That bled into the early 2000s and peaked with Gil de Ferran’s report qualifying run of 241.428mph at Fontana in 2001, after which it quickly settled as Champ Automotive 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 kinds of engines in Oldsmobile and Nissan.
The Champ Automotive Lolas (with the odd Reynard thrown in) had been nonetheless super-fast, 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 had been provided by Cosworth, and collectively, it led to a gradual lack of caring concerning the expertise facet.
That form of care was surrendered even earlier with the IRL on its debut in 1996, with attainable 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 appeared the identical, however by rule, couldn’t be modified.
So with each IndyCar collection locked right into a spec or spec-ish look and sound, it’s straightforward 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 desirous to know concerning the finer particulars – began to die on barely totally different IRL and Champ Automotive timelines.
As soon as each collection 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 every part they do beneath lock and key and don’t welcome followers into that world.
Hybridization, the latest tech within the automobiles, has been comparatively open for sharing, and a few of us have proven an curiosity, but it surely, too, is spec, which makes it rather a lot just like the automobiles: One thing cool to course of and study when it’s new, however after a brief interval, you’ve discovered what there’s to know or grown accustomed to seeing the identical outdated factor, and the curiosity is misplaced.
Additionally, hybridization hasn’t been embraced by an honest quantity of followers, together with some staff homeowners and drivers. So whereas the DW12s have cutting-edge vitality restoration expertise 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 huge concepts pitted towards the following individual’s grand concepts. It’s human expression in its coolest vehicular area. However after we enable ourselves to kill that creativity and expression, we are able to’t be shocked when racing collection that stifle creativity additionally find yourself stifling their recognition.
The straightforward argument towards embracing creativity is prices, however I’ve by no means recognized 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 forged by F1.
There is usually a center floor permitting human creativity again into IndyCar — past the effing dampers — with out breaking the financial institution. Decide a area or two on the automobiles the place groups can play with bodywork, inside aerodynamics, or suspension expertise… and search sponsors and company companions to be concerned in these areas to counterpoint their financial institution accounts.
Give you 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 completed with its producer GTP styling necessities.
Establish 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 of us love seeing what Apple/Google/Samsung/and so on. give you for telephone/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 telephone/pill options within the cockpit as a substitute of a spec steering wheel that delivers the show on a spec LCD display? Think about huge and small tech corporations having a inexperienced mild to get entangled with groups — to the groups’ enrichment — and use the cockpits as tech labs and promotional instruments.
As a substitute of infinite worrying about prices and maintaining 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 truly revenue and turn into wealthier via bringing all method of sponsor/associate offers into the paddock?
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 digital camera system for the following automotive. In sports activities automobiles, the primary methods had been easy bullet cameras stating from the bumper that fed just a little 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 attempting to make a move.
Consistent with how IndyCar has completed issues for many years, it should discover a single vendor, signal that vendor because the spec provider, make a modest revenue on every sale, and that’s the top of it. All people should use the brand new rear-facing digital camera and cockpit monitor, pay a set value, and it’s put in and forgotten. It’s a damaged mind-set that kills enterprise and innovation.
No surprise so many groups are having to tackle traders or signal extra paying drivers simply to remain alive.
Concerning how I hope Penske Leisure approaches this hypothetical rearview digital camera state of affairs, it should set the technical specification for a rear digital camera system, establish a spec vendor that can be utilized, if desired, however go away 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 possibly different belongings you make as properly.
Think about the promoting potentialities with these huge corporations, utilizing their IndyCar involvement as a part of their annual advertising and marketing campaigns. It’s every part we dream of, and would additionally enrich FOX, racetracks 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 every part spec. From Hisense to Sharp to JVC to Vivo to Motorola, to the entire huge 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 selection.
(And sure, I understand there are different collection who do the identical dumb factor, however the query was about IndyCar. And in addition, the spec guidelines we’ve got as we speak had been written lengthy earlier than Penske Leisure purchased the collection or IndyCar’s whole operations and tech division led by Jay Frye had been employed.)
Assume small and spec, and get small outcomes, which is what has plagued IndyCar — traced again to the IRL and Champ Automotive — 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 choice is made to signal a spec deal, it’s the collection that earnings and the groups who’re additional strangled in some monetary approach. Penske Leisure, led by Roger Penske — among the many best enterprise individuals this sport has recognized — has its first probability, via 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 huge and new and actual enterprise alternatives for the paddock by breaking a long time of spec pondering 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 looking for and discovering new expertise sponsors and companions, I’ll should query why the collection 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 expertise 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 collection.
