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 embody a query usually tend to be printed. Questions acquired after 3pm ET every Monday can be saved for the next week.
Q: Why doesn’t IndyCar let vehicles qualify separately on highway programs? Wouldn’t this remedy the interference downside?
JRW, AZ
MARSHALL PRUETT: I’m not towards the concept, however because it isn’t completed in another 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 developed lately the place no matter variety of people and too many sequence consider each driver, on each qualifying lap, ought to have Moses parting the way in which always. I don’t know precisely when that perception took off, but it surely’s lame.
Profitable qualifying is about timing and making runs at the very best home windows of alternative. It’s a part of the technique. In the present day, each group and driver is seemingly anticipated to have a 360-degree view on each second of their qualifying classes, 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 driving 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 protected against one another. IndyCar drivers are given equal time and alternative to make use of the observe on the similar time to ship their finest laps. In the event that they fail in that equal alternative as a result of a slower driver being in the way in which, properly, that’s a part of the equal alternative, not a assure.
Q; This was among the finest race weekends that IndyCar has ever had, with two nice races that will have energized the necessity for extra quick ovals because of the shocking crowd that confirmed up for the Milwaukee 250. I want they might go old-fashioned 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 might see Richmond, New Hampshire, Michigan and Homestead.And since Pato O’Ward was complaining in regards to 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 is analogous to World Vast Know-how Raceway.
Alistair, Springfield, MO
MP: The Indy-to-Detroit routine simply seems like an enormous drop-off in spectacle and status. Indy-to-Milwaukee? That’s a confirmed winner.
Q: So long as there’s been TrackForum, followers have complained that “all IndyCar wants is healthier 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 in regards to the digital area. Responsive design for the online has been round since at the very least 2008; it’s what makes content material wrap to suit your pc, cellphone, or system display screen. It’s so previous (in internet improvement years) that individuals don’t even consult with it as responsive design anymore; it’s there by default. Nevertheless, indycar.com isn’t responsive on desktop, cellular, or the IndyCar app, so you possibly can’t learn full tales. (I hooked up a screenshot of indycar.com on cellular on Friday of Milwaukee weekend for context).
The weekend schedule will not be on the IndyCar.com homepage; it’s a click on away, hidden underneath ‘Race particulars’ (which you need 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 provide notifications, which implies the one individuals who know what’s happening 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 classes 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 classes are about to begin, and even the weekend schedule prematurely. Hyperlinks in notifications don’t go to the story within the notification, simply the app’s homepage, which implies you could discover the linked story on the homepage.
I don’t understand how IndyCar can develop the game’s footprint once they don’t appear to know the fundamentals of delivering digital content material. It’s dangerous consumer 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 triggered me to e mail you. When manufacturing exhibits an in-car digicam view, within the decrease proper nook they present the emblem 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 photographs.
Evidently it will 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 emblem field is redundant.
Please move that suggestion to race TV manufacturing group.
Pat, Indy
MP: NBC, you’ve bought one race left to care for Pat.
