Speaker 1: This is, is off
track Speaker 2: , uh, hello
Speaker 3: And welcome everyone to Off Track with Hinch Rossi.
Um, last, uh, last
episode, the Tuesday episode.
If you're here to hear about my child.
Um, go listen to that one.
'cause we're gonna talk about race cars,
um, in this one. And
Speaker 1: He's not talking about Tim.
Speaker 3: Mm. Mm-hmm. Well,
we do mention Tim a little bit in that one. We do,
Speaker 1: We do. Unfortunately.
Speaker 3: It's funny. Someone, someone came up to me
during the NDGP weekend,
and again, still, still blown away by everyone
who, who listens to the podcast.
But this, uh, this one, this one girl lady, uh, came up
to me and, uh, she said something kind of under her breath
and I didn't really capture all of it,
but I heard little words
and I was like, oh, yeah, like that was,
that was probably a mistake.
Um, 'cause she said something like, burn a hat.
Like shouldn't I thought she said,
I shouldn't have burned this hat.
And I kind of laughed and said,
oh yeah, I was ping a mistake.
And so she took like an autograph card and, and kept walking
and Ed was standing next to me
and he was like, what did, what did she say?
I said, I don't, I don't really know.
Well, the next lady right behind her said
what turned out being the exact same thing,
just a little bit clearer.
And she said, Tim signed my hat in Nashville
and I should have burned it.
And I said, yeah, nice.
Speaker 2: I wanna be clear because I remember this
because I don't get asked to sign a lot of hats .
He was like, Hey, well you signed my hat.
And I go, are you sure this will
devalue the hat ?
Like, I made it very good. Like, yeah, no, sign the hat.
I was like, okay. They good in that. I no one. Yeah. Yeah.
Well they, I warned them , like,
Speaker 1: I think if they wanted you to sign it just
so they could like make the like commit the act
of burning the hat that you would sign. Yes.
Speaker 2: And I get that. I get that right. Yeah.
The only time I've ever signed an article
of clothing without somebody asking me
to was one time I signed Orio Serbia shirt.
Just 'cause I thought it was funny.
He was like in the middle. He, did
Speaker 3: You find it funny?
Speaker 2: He did not . He was in the middle of talking everybody.
And I did that thing, you know, where you come up
and you're like, gonna pretend to sign it,
but he didn't react, so I panicked
and then I like really just signed his shirt.
And so he was just walking around
with my signature on his shirt for the rest of the
Speaker 1: Day.
It seems like a really poor reaction
to a high stress situation. Yeah, it
Speaker 2: Wasn't, it wasn't great.
I'm not saying like, I'm coming outta
that like 10 outta 10 Tim, no notes. Well,
Speaker 1: I think what we've learned kids is, uh,
don't sign people's clothing without being asked to do that.
Speaker 3: Well, or if you're going to do it, don't do what old, uh,
Juan Pablo Montoya did.
So I was, um, sitting next to,
I was doing an autograph session for an IMSA event
Road Atlanta, I think.
And the sixth car at Team Penske at the time was Dan
Cameron, Simon Pau and Juan Montoya.
And I was sitting next to Simon.
And so basically Simon was in between me and Juan.
And Simon, uh, has long had a rashard meal, uh, deal.
And so for people that don't know what Rashard meal is,
it's like they are pretty much the pinnacle of, of watches,
especially in the sporting arena.
Um, you know, they are at the same tier as an AP
or a Hubo or whatever.
And, um, Simon had a white watch
and Juan with a black Sharpie reached over
and signed during the autograph session,
Simon's White Rashard Mill.
And you can imagine the reaction that Simon had
and one kind of just Yes,
Speaker 1: Just for the people at home.
That's a six figure watch, like
Speaker 3: Minimum that Speaker 1: Yeah.
Like that. That's a six watch. That's figure watch.
That's a modest house in the Midwest. Yeah.
On his wrist. That,
Speaker 3: That.
And so you, you can imagine Simon's reaction,
he was seething.
Speaker 1: I can't, I can't imagine.
I don't even know what I would, I think I might stab him.
I think I might've stabbed him not like to death. Right.
But like I would've paled him with something. Yeah.
Speaker 3: Yeah. Hmm. Speaker 1: Wow.
Speaker 3: Got a stain on one of his objects,
meaning blood on his shirt. .
Right.
Speaker 1: Yikes. Okay. Yeah. So just don't sign stuff
unless someone asks you to sign it.
Yeah. Especially if it's,
Speaker 3: Especially if it's with the caveat,
Speaker 2: With the caveat that if it's oral serb it's fine.
Speaker 1: Hmm. I don't, I'm gonna, I he'll love it.
Fundamentally disagree. He, we just,
we have now evidence anyways.
Speaker 3: I bought him a new moving on. I bought GP
Speaker 1: Guys, NGP happened.
So let's run through your race weekend
and then we can run through the race itself. No. Yes. Yep.
Speaker 3: Um, uh, ECR historically pretty strong at any road course.
Um, we, uh, we qualified ninth.
I thought we were maybe a seventh place car.
Maybe it could have snuck into the fast six.
Um, we, it's, it's, it's funny. IndyCar's tough.
IndyCar's tough. It's tough. It's tough. It's tough.
I don't know how else to say it. So is in car tough?
We combine when, when you combine the, the kind
of round one qualifying times, we were third, um,
and went into round two and lost a 10th.
Um, just picked up a, a slight bit of under steer
that I just, quite honestly,
these cars are very, um,
they're very track temperature sensitive.
Indie GP has always been track temperature sensitive.
When you're that strong in the first round, it's very hard
to change anything, even though in
your gut, you know, you should.
So I waffled for a while and I ultimately said, don't do it.
We should've added a little bit of front wing.
Um, and we missed transferring by like four hundreds,
which is like the name of the game.
Like everyone has that story.
Um, I don't think anyone clearly was good enough for Pole,
but could we have fought in the fast six?
Possibly. But regardless, we started ninth.
Um, the car had been pretty much in the window all weekend,
uh, until Saturday.
Um, so we, we were one of the cars that used,
so going into the weekend, we, we talked about the,
the new tire, uh, requirements during the race.
Um, one of the things that came out of having to run
two primaries and two alternates in the race was they got
rid of the rule where you have to run new, um, alternates.
And they also got rid of the rule where you have
to give back a set of alternates before the race.
So historically, um,
because you had to give the setback, a lot
of teams would run alternates in practice one.
Yeah. You had to give 'em back after practice one.
I'm sorry, you had to give 'em back after practice one.
They got rid of that rule for an unknown reason.
And so it basically gave you carte blanche, uh,
to use the alternate tires as you saw fit.
So we were one of the cars four sets. You had four sets.
We were one of the cars that used a set in practice two,
just to get a glimpse of what it was gonna be in qualifying,
which was really, I was relieved that we did,
because we missed it.
We missed the balance in practice two.
Um, so we were able to make
adjustments going into qualifying.
'cause otherwise we would've been like P 20.
Um, so it was good that we, we did that.
But what that meant was we ran, used alternates
for banker tires, um, for rounds one and two.
And why that's important is
because essentially going into warmup, I had a very used set
of alternates and a very used set of primaries, um,
from practice one.
And so we, we were pretty bad in warmup,
but we put it down to tires.
You know, the alternates had 12 laps on 'em.
The primaries had 18 laps on 'em. We were loose.
It was like, yeah, that's to be expected.
We often talk about warmup, you know,
you can't really read into it.
Where I think we missed was we just,
we looked at warmup as warmup.
Oh, you can't read into it.
Not that you usually don't read into morning
warmup at eight 30 in the morning.
Right. This was an 11, 11 45 warmup.
Um, and so we probably should have taken a little bit more
credence in the balance that we had
and we kind of just shipped it.
We just said, ah, it'll be fine. It's been fine all weekend.
It wasn't, um, and we honestly weren't, we weren't fast.
We were, yeah, we really struggled on both tires.
Um, the team did a good job trying to manage as best
as we could and, and to capitalize as best as we could.
And we were, we were slogging through it.
Um, I think we would've finished 10th, 11th.
Um, but the way it all kind of cycled out,
we were on the primary tire, um, to, to end the race
and we had a pretty big buffer to like the,
that next group of cars.
The 11th, 12th, 13th, 14th group.
Um, and felt pretty confident that we could maintain
that kind of five and a half, six second gap to the end
of the race unless of course there was a yellow.
Right. And we got a yellow, it, it was a fake yellow.
I mean, it was a real yellow in the sense
that there was a safety car, but it was,
it wasn't 'cause anyone crashed.
It was just a yellow 'cause a car broke mm-hmm .
Um, which is still mind boggling to me
that we haven't had any yellows due
to like cars crashing or contact or anything.
Which is, and like, again, confusing,
Speaker 1: We had, we had a little bit
of contact in the first couple laps.
Erickson got dumped when his, uh, car slowed down
with a mechanical problem, but like kept rolling
and it was right in front of pit lane.
So he managed to get in.
Like there's so many things that were so close Yeah.
Before Mel Lucas's car stopped, but yeah. Yeah.
Speaker 3: So we, we had to do a restart, um, and we were on primes
and the five cars behind us were on alternates.
Um, so we ended up 14th, which I was talking
to my engineer about it, like he was,
we were both pretty disappointed
'cause we thought, you know, we had a opportunity based on
the weekend to be, you know, a top five, top six car
and to end 14th is, feels like a, a huge loss.
But like, it was such a bad day in terms of like
how I felt in the car and, and,
and our pace and all that sort of thing.
I was like, if that's, if that's our worst day is 14th,
like we're, we're gonna be fine.
Like, this is all gonna be just fine.
So, um, just still need to, we haven't really had much time.
'cause after the race I left for obvious reasons,
so I'm gonna head to the track here in a little bit.
We're, I had to go geting this on a Monday, um, to kind
of do some more analysis of, of what we missed.
But ultimately, um, disappointing for the 20 car.
But that is what it is. It's fine.
Speaker 1: So I, and I, I asked you this question earlier, but
after thermal, okay?
Mm-hmm. So we're gonna get into the race.
We're gonna get into why, I mean,
how Alex Polo is doing what he's doing. But
Speaker 3: Do you know Speaker 1: No, no, no.
We're, what we're gonna get into is
how everybody's dumbfounded, but yes.
Yeah. Um, but one of the things that came outta thermal,
which was also like an interesting tire race and,
and whatever was, you know, Alex ran third, that whole race,
Patto led the whole day.
But in that final stint, Patto had to go to a used set
of reds where Alex had a new set of reds
and that new set on a high dig track,
he just drove through everybody mm-hmm.
And won the race on a trot.
So with the way the tire rule played out, you had, um,
everybody basically made the decision to save a new set
for the race, even though that was no longer a requirement.
Mm-hmm . In qualifying, you could have burned 'em all,
but most people, I don't think anybody did.
Nobody that I know of did.
So everybody had their one new set for the race.
Uh, my question to you was,
after what you saw Alex doing thermal
after barber, where you came out on hards in the final stint
and had to fight off guys that had softs.
What was the motivation
for having hards on in that final stint?
'cause I know we hadn't had a yellow,
but there was always a chance that a yellow could come out.
Speaker 3: Um, so we started on the primary
and we were, we were shocking shockingly bad on the prime.
Um, and so to give you,
to give you guys some insight throughout the race,
we took out six turns of front
wing Speaker 1: .
Speaker 3: Okay. So what does that, what does that mean for people
who don't necessarily know when you take out a turn?
Well, usually, usually through an Indy car race,
presuming it's dry Right.
And there's no, there's no,
it doesn't start damp or whatever, right?
It's just a normal day. Um, as the rubber goes down
and cars are consistently running on track,
usually the grip level increases
and you're adding, usually you're adding bits of un of,
of front wing throughout the race.
Um, uh, turn a front wing.
It's, it's team dependent,
but it's about, um, 0.6, call it half a percent of COP.
Um, and COP center pressure is the arrow balance.
It's, it's a very controlling factor
of the overall balance of the car. Um, you're
Speaker 1: Putting more percentage of the down force on the front
of the car when you're adding front
Speaker 3: Weight, when you're adding Exactly.
Yeah. Okay. Um, there's usually an offset, uh, a front wing
between alternates and primary tires.
'cause the alternates have a little bit more real grip.
And so you're trying to keep the balance the same
between tires to take out six turns of front wing to remove.
Means that we started way outside the window, um, in that
Speaker 1: Whose car from warmup was just as loose in the race.
Speaker 3: Yes. Yeah. How we got there still TVD.
But anyways, um, so we, we, we were shocking on the blacks.
And so we put on the alternate, we put on new alternates
and we were hoping that that would solve some of our issues.
It did not. Um, so then it was like, all right,
well we gotta keep, we gotta keep working on the car.
Um, and we were so bad on blacks
and the car's really not any better.
Let's put on used alternates
and see if we can continue making this thing better.
Right. So it was, it was an effort to
see if we could get the car balance better.
By the time in our mind we had to put on the worst tire.
It ended up right by the time we got all the front wing out
of it, the primes Right.
It actually was the right decision
because we put the prime,
our last stint on primes was actually our best stint.
Right, okay. Um, because the,
the balance was actually in the window more so.
Yeah. Even though it was the worst tire we were,
we were running better lap times.
So, um, it wasn't really, there was no strategic decision
behind what we were doing.
Like we didn't think that was the right thing to do,
but we were in a sense of desperation 'cause we were
Speaker 1: Fair enough.
Okay. Alright.
So the race as a whole,
Alex Palou started on pole.
Uh, well actually hold on. Let's do a quick throwback
to qualifying and let's give credit where credit's due.
Uh, Raha Letterman landing
and racing three cars in the fast six.
Speaker 3: That is so hard to do.
It's so hard to get in the fast six with one car.
All of them. It wasn't even like oh two outta three.
They, they, they went in and put every single car there.
That is unbelievable.
Speaker 1: Including a rookie. Penske Speaker 3: Can't even do that. Right.
Speaker 1: Penske had two of three and the third guy was seventh.
They did very well as well, but not as well. No.
So you had Graham on the front row.
You had Louis Foster third, you had had dev in fifth.
They were in the top five, three cars in the top
five for any team.
That is insanity.
And uh, just huge credit to that whole group, uh,
for pulling off what they did.
Obviously Alex used a slightly different tire strategy
and so he was the only guy that had a set
of stickers for Q3.
So I mean, the gap was like three or four tenths
or whatever, but like, that was slightly four
and a half tenths, four and a half tenths.
So slightly, uh, artificial exaggerated. Yeah.
But he was also quickest in pretty much every session
and was gonna be on poll anyway,
but it just made him look really, really good.
Um, also showed up
because he was struggling with optics lately.
Yeah. , I'm glad, I'm glad something broke his way finally.
Yeah. Yeah. It's finally going his way.
Um, also, uh, shout out to K Simpson who had,
uh, I think his best start and was quick all weekend
and was, uh, was doing well with cani cars in general.
Were doing, doing pretty well.
We out qualified Dixon in the same car.
So, um, the Qualifi for the second week in a row.
There you go. Yeah, that's right.
So the race was interesting. Uh, no one again.
First race we were doing these new tire rolls.
So a lot to like figure out a lot to, for us to learn
how teams thought it was gonna play out and,
and who was gonna kind of employ what strategy.
Majority of the top guys started on Reds the start.
Graham got into the lead in a nice impressive move.
Dev got himself up into third Palo was sandwich in the
middle and, and, and things were kind of off and running.
And so, yeah. So I mean for the, the first kind
of stint it was running around, uh, Graham
and Alex were kind of back and forthing a little bit.
First stops same kind of thing, came on the same lap.
I think everything was pretty tight.
But Graham went a different route with tires
and it was already starting
to seem like this was gonna play out into Paolo's favor.
He was just kind of sitting back
and waiting to see how this all unfolded.
And then even
before we got to the final round of stops
where Alex was gonna get to put on sticker reds,
and I think Graham had to go to primaries, go to the blacks
flow, just pulled 'em in, went by,
'em started driving away.
Then he got to put on his sticker.
Reds started driving away even more like
nine seconds or something.
Then a yellow came out first restarts since St.
Pete, lapped five drove away again,
still one by six seconds.
Like . It's outrageous man.
It's outrageous what's happening right now.
You're on the track, you're in the car,
you can see competitor data.
You have more insight than either of us.
What is going on over there in the 10 car specifically?
Speaker 3: Um, bro, it's, it's incredible.
Uh, so first of all, gsi McLaren kind of noticed this,
this became pretty apparent
at the thermal test in 2023.
Um, the GSI cars are, are the slowest cars on the street.
Um, more always.
And it's not like this is an open championship with Arrow.
Um, you're not cars.
I mean, there's a couple tracks that you trim at,
but no one's trimming and qualifying.
Yeah. No one's trimming. Max Downforce
Speaker 1: Pretty Speaker 3: Much practice.
Right. Um, and, and they've been very slow in the straits.
What I take that to Ima to, to, to what I,
the conclusion I draw from
that is they're slow in the straits
because they're generating drag,
which means they're generating down force somewhere.
Um, but I'm not, I'm not kidding you James,
through five events.
I don't think there's been a corner where
I've been quicker than him.
Not one. Um,
and I'm not, I'm not, I'm not, I'm not telling like,
Ansy story 'cause I think it's the car.
Like it's clearly him as well,
but like they, they have unlocked something.
Um, and he is able to extract all of it at all times.
Um, I was talking to Felix before the race
and he has way more than competitor data.
He has actual, he's yeah. High data. Right.
And so the competitor data comes over telemetry
and it's a little blotchy and, you know, you can get kind of
indications, a sense of it.
Yeah. You're not gonna see the, the finite detail of it.
And, and Felix, as we all have discussed, he's one
of the fastest guys in the series over overlap.
He's, he's, I would say in the top five of,
of just purely the quickest dudes.
And I was like, what, what, what does the data look like?
And he was like, dude, you know the compare line ?
And I'm like, yeah. So the compare line is essentially you
set your lap as a delta and it says straight line.
It's a completely horizontal line. It's the benchmark time.
Right. And then you are, if, if there's a line
that goes below it, that means the car you're comparing
to is faster and vice versa.
And a lot of times throughout a lab,
especially when you're comparing to teammate cars,
you'll see this kind
of like almost heart rate effect. Yeah. You know, it's ebb
Speaker 1: And flow. You dip above someone,
Speaker 3: Someone charges more on entry,
it gets a little worse exit.
Or someone's just really good through a sequence.
So they gain a, a 10th year,
but you know, you're better in that sequence.
So you pull it back and you end, you know, a 10th apart
or six hundreds apart or whatever.
Right. It, it ends up being pretty close to the same.
And if you were able to combine both your laps together,
you'd probably gain two tenths.
The both of you. Right. Because you're both doing
good things throughout the lap.
He was like, bro, it's a completely diagonal
line Speaker 1: .
It's just every corner he's gaining. Yeah. The entire time.
Speaker 3: Yeah. And it's just,
and he's like, I don't know what to tell you.
Like I
Speaker 1: more questions than answers .
Yeah, it sounds neat for him. Yeah.
But I mean, you're right. He's still gotta drive it.
He's still gotta execute.
The team does a, an incredible job in the pits.
You know, I think they call the strategy great.
They had that sticker set of reds at the end, which worked
for them in thermal and was the move. But, but
Speaker 3: Here's, here's the thing, James, they, the, the team
on the, on the strategist engineering side and,
and obviously Alex in the car,
'cause he's all drivers are part of, I hate when fans,
you know, get on the internet
and yell at the team like, oh, that was a strategy
or how could you keep doing this?
Like, the drivers are very involved.
We are, they're very part of that. Yeah.
We're all making these decisions in the
pre-event meetings together.
So it is, it is all of our inputs
that gets us to that decision.
Um, and they are operating at such a high level
of confidence that they can make these correct decisions
because they know that even if the correct decision has a
little bit of risk to it, Alex is gonna bail 'em out.
Or the, the, the 10,
the 10 crew in pit lane will bail 'em out
so they can make the correct decisions
that are slightly high risk, high reward
because they know that regardless
they'll come out the other side of it,
Speaker 1: Case in point is the tire strategy going into qualifying.
Because like you mentioned, you, you try to set
of the reds in practice to get that balance read.
Right. Which you said was the right move
because the spec, the balance
as is just switching from blacks
to reds would've been terrible.
Right. A about, I think it was like 10 cars,
11 cars, 12 cars, something like that.
Like almost half let's for easy math,
let's call it roughly half the field use a set
in practice for that same reason.
Right. Polo, like the canac.
The Penskes, those guys didn't do it what they did do.
Right. So keeping in mind you've got four sets
of sticker reds looking back on it now,
most teams have decided they were gonna
save one set for the race.
So you've got three sets now. Okay.
So in theory you could use one in Q1, one in Q2, one in Q3,
almost everybody was like, look, if we throw on the reds
and the balance is way off, we're gonna be starting 26.
So let's go red, red in Q1, two new sets,
another new set in Q2
and then use, use reds in Q3 if you get through.
Which is kind of like almost a standard wave.
Speaker 3: Yeah. You get two bites
of the apple one in round one if you,
if you miss the balance right?
Speaker 1: Yeah. So you can make an adjustment.
So the Penskes did it, they got, everybody did it,
hello, did not do it.
He did banker on black
Speaker 3: On black, yep.
Speaker 1: Threw his first set of stickers, reds on
and just bam gets in.
And now he immediately is in the capper seat
and like there's, it's almost impossible to beat him to pull
after he does that as the only guy that did that.
So yeah, when you get to the fast six, he was the only one
with a new tire to use and still have one for the race.
Unbelievable. Unbelievable. The confidence you have to have
in your car and your driver
and your information to pull that move off
is wild to me.
What, I don't know.
I don't remember if like Kiffin did it maybe in practice.
And so the team had a little bit of a sense.
Speaker 3: I don't know. I don't remember. Yeah, I don't know.
Speaker 1: But still it's, it's, it's just, dude, they're just,
they're just rolling right now.
Speaker 3: They did test here. Um, so they had that going for them.
You know, obviously they didn't, they they also kind
of tested in Barber because the MSR cars were there.
So, uh, this has been a good start to this season for them.
I can't see it continuing. Um, that doesn't mean it won't,
Speaker 1: Statistically speaking it shouldn't, it just,
that's just not how it works. But,
Speaker 3: But yeah, I don't know.
We'll see. I mean he's, he's very,
he's very good at indie mm-hmm .
Um, you know, I think he's
Speaker 1: Very good at the open test Speaker 3: I think in 2022.
Was it like he probably the year he was on pole,
like he probably should have,
I mean he should have been in contention
to win that race if not winning. Yeah. And then he had that
Speaker 1: Bone by arena.
Speaker 3: Yeah, no, it was reus dumped him in pit lane.
Oh right. He still drove back
Speaker 1: To fourth, Speaker 3: Fifth.
Fourth, right. Fourth. Yeah. So that was 2022.
Speaker 1: That wasn't 23. Speaker 3: No, no,
Speaker 1: 22. Yeah, that makes sense.
Speaker 3: McLaren car in 23. Yeah. Yeah.
Speaker 1: Um, yeah and like in the open test he was quite, yeah.
We'll see man, we'll see what happens.
Obviously Indy's the hardest one to win
because it's so much longer and
so much more opportunity for stuff
to go wrong. You're right.
Speaker 3: And Sarah, way more luck. Yeah.
Speaker 1: Yeah. It's, yeah, I, I don't wanna say it's more
of a lottery, but like luck plays a,
has more opportunity to play with.
Speaker 3: Look at 2016, it's a pretty big lottery. . I mean
Speaker 2: You could also make that argument
for the poll in 2016. That was total bull.
Speaker 1: Alright. That's just luck of the draw.
Speaker 3: No, that no, that was just, he,
he got the sympathy Honda Horsepower. Yeah.
Speaker 1: Sorry. You almost died. Here's a couple
Speaker 3: Almost died.
Speaker 1: Here's a couple extra hps
Speaker 3: .
No, they, they thought he was
Speaker 2: Satos car.
Speaker 3: Yeah. It's still a good story.
So like all still a good story. Yeah,
Speaker 1: Yeah, exactly.
Gotta can't let the facts get away. A good story .
Um, so yeah, so yeah, he just walked away. He, he killed it.
I gotta give Patto a big shout out.
That was a great drive from him.
He's, he's driving really well, man.
He's, he's doing like the, the championship run kind
of drives where like he's not making mistakes when they
have bad qualifyings.
He makes, you know, good decisions in the race and,
and whatever that a decent qualifying
but ended up P two. No,
Speaker 3: James, you're absolutely right.
He is making a championship style run for second.
Speaker 1: Correct? Yes. Yeah. I mean you have to win races
Speaker 3: Still.
So, so no, so there was, there was a stat that, uh,
our buddy Nathan Brown put out, um,
I think it was yesterday, so bad someday,
which just floored me.
And it was so upsetting. So he essentially said, all right,
Speaker 1: Remember we're five races Speaker 3: In, we're five races in.
He said, Alex below already has X amount of points.
I forget what, 200 and whatever it's,
Speaker 1: Whatever it was.
Speaker 3: If, if he simply starts the remaining 12 finishes,
DFL that stands for dead <inaudible> last.
Right. He will score as many points as the car
who finished 12th in the championship last year.
Meaning he has already, he has already scored enough points
to not show up essentially and finish 12 in the
Speaker 1: Championship to finish, to finish last in every race from
here on out for, for 12 races
of a 17 race championship.
Yes. He can finish last
and he'll still be in the top 12 in points.
Mm-hmm . Like not even like we get to the end of the season
and guys are fighting over the last spot in Leader circle.
Mm. That's 22nd. Mm-hmm .
We talk about the battles for 22nd and 23rd mm-hmm.
In the last few races. Mm-hmm .
He could be 10 positions ahead of that
by just finishing lap, taking the start
and pulling into pit lane.
Mm-hmm . At the end going home. Yep.
And going home and sipping on a margarita.
It's, it's wild to, it is the largest points gap
to second Points lead that anyone's had
after five races in like the history of new car.
Speaker 3: Funny. So, so Connor is in a group chat of ours
and um, so I sent that, that fact.
And our buddy Drew was like, and Connor reacted to it.
Um, and our buddy Drew was like, bro,
do you wanna know what the good news is?
You are closer. He was talking to Connor.
You are closer to second in the
championship with where you are.
Then second is to first and clown's.
Like, actually that is great news.
I feel so much better about how things are gone.
Speaker 1: It's easier for Connor to catch second than it is
for second to catch below.
Right. Absolutely insane.
Um, 'cause what is it, Kirkwood? That's second right now.
Speaker 3: It is, yes. Speaker 1: Um,
who had, he had a good day too.
He had a bad qualifying and, and picked up a bunch of spots.
Great. Recover Rita. Great Rita again. Another top 10. Yeah.
Speaker 3: Just, I mean it, that's that's pretty,
it's pretty impressive I have to say.
Um, what he has done in a coin car,
the past two events has been nothing short
of astounding actually. So,
Speaker 1: So, so right now Kirkwood is 97 points behind polo.
97 points between first and second.
There's less than 10 points between second and sixth .
So the five cars behind him are covered by less than 10.
And, uh, and he's running around out there like a jerk.
97 points in the
Speaker 3: Lead.
Speaker 1: Oh my God. Um, yes. So we got our caution.
The race was, so we technically had two passes
for the lead on track, which is good.
Good, I guess. Mm-hmm .
Uh, the race had some interesting ebb
and flow throughout the way the tires played out.
Um, so
Speaker 3: Yeah.
So from, from your seat, I haven't watched the race.
Um, your seat was the tire rule mandate,
whatever you wanna call it, was it a success?
Was it, uh, irrelevant? What what did
Speaker 1: You This this is a great question.
This is a great question because we, you know,
we had this conversation going into this weekend.
I said I didn't love midseason changes
and I didn't love this, that the other,
but I was gonna go into it open-minded and kind of see
I didn't hate it.
I didn't hate it. I think that having
to manage multiple stints on the less preferred tire
is harder and it creates more separation.
Especially when it's not like,
so if everyone was going like hard, hard, soft, soft,
then it wouldn't be, then it's irrelevant.
Right? It's not really that worthwhile.
But because everybody had their own way of approaching it
and different ways of approaching it, I didn't hate it.
Now do I think mandating that on a,
in DGP is a three stop race, right?
Mm-hmm . A two stopper is not actually feasible. Right.
So do I think this is a smart thing to do at a race
where it could be a two or a three?
No. Okay. That's, that's my caveat.
Speaker 3: You can't, but Speaker 1: You know, you can't cherry pick. I know,
Speaker 3: I I agree completely with everything you just said.
I didn't, I didn't hate it.
I thought it was, let's be honest, it didn't,
I don't think it changed the outcome of the race any,
I think it added another element.
I think you're right, it, it highlighted maybe some
strengths and weaknesses of cars.
I thought it was kind of fun knowing
that like there there was more tire offsets.
You're racing against people in different tires
and you're right, there was
ebb and flow and all that sort of thing.
But we cannot, we cannot eliminate, I understand
that fuel saving has become a a, a bone
of contention for some people.
Um, that's part of IndyCar racing. Yeah.
That is, that is some
of the best races we've had is two versus three stop.
Now we have extended some of these races
to kind of try and eliminate that.
But there is still, there will be yellows
as the season unfolds.
Right. And there will still be opportunities for guys
to take a gamble and cut out a pit stop.
Right. Depending on where the yellow falls.
And if you have a tire rule that prevents you from doing
that, you're eliminating that option.
And I don't think that is correct.
I don't think I agree that
otherwise why are we refueling? Like what
Speaker 1: Exactly.
Speaker 3: Like it's just, that is part of the spectacle of
what IndyCar is, is no F1 doesn't do it.
Im a kind of does it, but in a fake way.
'cause everyone spends the exact amount
of time input lane refueling the car.
It's 30 seconds. Right. So it's like, then why?
So you cannot get rid of that option for someone
to roll the dice and to try
and stretch it on fuel and make it work.
Because that is part of our, our DNA
and our entity is Yes. As a, as a series.
Speaker 1: Completely agree. So did it work here?
Yeah, I would say I would give it a passing grade,
but like, do I think we should go to Detroit
with a three stop rule?
No, I don't, I don't
necessarily think that's the way to do it. Because
Speaker 3: Ultimately, ultimately as we saw, giving us more stops so
that we can push flat out throughout the entire race
didn't cause cautions.
The only caution we had was 'cause a car broke down.
It wasn't because people were making mistakes
and hitting each other and all this sort of thing.
Speaker 1: So, and in barber everybody was pushing flat out. Exactly.
And it didn't change. It, it, you know,
it didn't make any better or worse in that
Speaker 3: Sense.
So we can't, we can't say that this this tire thing allowed
there to be a caution because that's, that's a lie.
That's fake news. Correct.
Speaker 1: Correct. Yeah. So, so, okay,
so when IndyCar comes to the drivers,
Speaker 3: Well they don't listen, so it doesn't matter.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I I did like a, the spicy comment from, uh,
McLaughlin in the, in the pre-race press conference
about this exact hire rule.
Um, okay.
But if IndyCar comes to you
and says, Hey, you know this,
we, we liked this at Indy gp,
what do you think about implementing it somewhere else?
Do you think it's gonna be a universal No.
From the people behind the wheel from the
teams? Like let's not even take
Speaker 3: Nothing, nothing, nothing is universal.
Um, well actually
Speaker 1: That Speaker 3: it was universal.
This one was no to this.
Um, I don't think it would be universal
because I'm sure someone will glean that they had some sort
of advantage from doing it this way.
But I would still say the majority will be no.
And if you go based on
how we've always made decisions in the past, minus this one,
um, it's been a majority vote sort of thing.
So, but I don't have a feeling we're gonna be asked.
So I think we're all gonna be surprised about a race memo,
uh, at the end of the month for Detroit.
Speaker 1: I just, I just wonder if they,
Speaker 3: Let me Speaker 1: Tell, you'll think about this.
Speaker 3: If they, if they mandate running greens twice in
Detroit, holy,
Speaker 1: But that's just it.
Right? Like that, that, and we had this conversation that's
Speaker 3: Gonna be, that's gonna be asinine. A
Speaker 1: Street's be Speaker 3: Such a fake fake,
Speaker 1: It would be a farce Speaker 3: Event.
You're, you're literally gonna have
everyone come in on lap one.
Speaker 1: So, so I'm thinking like Road America would be another
good one for it because Road America,
it's always three stops.
Mm-hmm . You can't really do alternate strategies
'cause pit lane's so long, the laps
so long. Like you can't say, I, I think
Speaker 3: If you, if you're gonna cherry pick
and you were gonna do it this way, which I think is dumb,
but if you were gonna do it, you have to do the,
the bonafide four. Sure. Three stoppers.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Um,
'cause like mid Ohio can be both,
so it doesn't really work there. Mm-hmm . Um,
Speaker 3: Portland can be both.
Speaker 1: Portland can be both. Oh, Speaker 3: Where else do we go?
Speaker 1: Or there road courses do we go to?
Speaker 3: That's pretty much it. We're almost done with this that we
Speaker 1: Haven't already.
Yeah. Yeah.
Speaker 3: It's just Road America, Portland, right? Middle
Speaker 1: Ohio.
Speaker 3: Middle Ohio. Yeah. Speaker 1: Yeah. Five on the day.
Five on the year. That makes sense. We got,
Speaker 3: Anyway, a lot of circle tracks coming up.
Which, it's funny, I was talking, I was talking to Ed, um,
and I was like, man, it's funny
'cause like Palolo won so many of his championships, um,
and he wasn't the, he was Dixon 2.0 in the sense
that like he wasn't the qualifying guy, right?
Like yeah, he was always putting his car on the top
seven every weekend.
Right. But he wasn't the the pole guy and you know, the team
and him would execute and,
and be very good on, on
on sequences and all that sort of thing.
And they would come out with a win and he won championships.
Now he's the qualifying guy too.
Um, which is awesome for him.
I guess , how,
how screwed are we all if he also in this off season has
figured out ovals because, well,
Speaker 1: Dude, yeah.
Here's the thing. He hasn't like,
not figured them out like his No,
Speaker 3: But like, he's not Speaker 1: Finishing record's. Not
Speaker 3: Terrible.
I know, but he's still you at this point.
Everyone shows up
to run street course race and they're like, ugh.
Like there's not, you don't have that feeling going
to to ovals yet.
Speaker 1: No. Right. I feel like when you go to an oval right now,
you're looking at Joseph, you're looking at Patto
as like the kind of two guarantees to be up there,
Speaker 3: McLaughlin.
Speaker 1: Yes. Yes. Yeah. Yeah. Fair. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Good call.
Good call. Um, those are kind of your,
your three almost inevitabilities, you know, in the same way
that when you go to a Rotor street track, it's your,
you know, your PLOS and your,
Speaker 3: Your Herda and Speaker 1: Herda.
Yeah. Um,
but like he's still, like, he's got several podiums.
I know he doesn't have his win yet,
but he's got several podiums in ovals.
Um, I think
before his crash in Iowa last year,
like his worst oval finish
was like, oh, sorry.
I I think he, I think he got taken out his very first one in
Texas back in like 2020.
But like, I I want to say
after that first you since gac, his worst level will finish
until that crash at Iowa was like 12th, like 10th or 12th.
Like it was pretty solid.
And like if all you have to do is finish top 10,
top 10 in the, well he 90, 97 point
lead, he, he doesn't have show
Speaker 3: Up finish.
Yeah. He doesn't have to do anything. He gonna skip it.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Like if he wins Indy,
he might feasibly just miss Detroit
because he, you know, he could just take that weekend off,
enjoy bit of downtime, do the media that he needs to do.
Speaker 3: Speaking of cherry picking, he might just
cherry pick the tracks.
He likes . Yeah. Like, oh, I don't really like Portland.
I mean, who does, right. Yeah.
I was gonna stick that one. I ain't going.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, yeah. Weird, weird.
Um, alright, other racing stuff.
Um, just quickly
before we, I just wanna close on your thoughts, uh,
heading into practice week,
but um, we were talking about this earlier, the shout out
to Team Penske and imsa.
Unreal. Unreal. Another one, two at Laguna. Which, how,
Speaker 3: How in the, I mean this is kind of similar to
what Palolo is doing in a spec.
Yeah. I say that with quote Air Air
Quotations championship, right?
Walking the field in four or five.
Um, but in like a championship, that is
the performance and pace is directly controlled in order
to make it a better show
and more entertaining and more even.
How on earth is Penske doing this?
Speaker 1: Right? They're three for three. They're three for three.
Uh, yeah man.
And like, and the first two were 12 and 24 hours long.
Speaker 3: They're four for four actually.
Speaker 1: What Speaker 3: Do you mean they won? They won Long Beach. Oh.
Speaker 1: 'cause they won. Oh, long five. Forgot about Long Beach.
Um, yes. Sorry, four for four.
I do they win petite last year.
Are they actually like five on the trot?
It doesn't matter. It's, it's insane. I
Speaker 3: Think BW won petite, but yeah,
Speaker 1: It's insane what they're doing it.
But it comes down to execution, right?
Like ultimately if you, if the car
Speaker 3: Performance is controlled.
Yeah, but I don't care. I don't care.
No, it doesn't because James, like you, we
we all have been very a part of BOP, right?
Yes. And there's some tracks where you get hosts,
not intentionally, right, but based on the
Speaker 1: Just nature of the car Speaker 3: Track
and whether you have weight or not or power or not
or all this sort of thing, fuel
or not, like there's gonna be something
that disadvantages you.
Mm-hmm And we have had, as you said, a 24 hour race,
a 12 hour race, a street course race
and a permanent road course race.
And like that Porsche historically has not been
the benchmark everywhere.
Like it's, it's been good,
but it's not, I'd argue
that like the Cadillac has been the benchmark across all
these different types of tracks, right?
And then almost the Acura and then the Porsche.
So it's, it's crazy to me what they're able to do
unless do they have some wild BOP in their favor?
Like is that a conspiracy theory that we wanna get behind?
Speaker 1: I mean it's not impossible. It's not impossible.
We've seen, we've seen sometimes,
Speaker 3: I mean they don't own that series,
right? Speaker 1: ?
No. But we have seen at times IMSA waits for
an abundance of evidence that a change is needed
before the change is needed.
And you know, you've been on the, on the, on the other side
of that where a change was implemented against a team you
were driving for that wasn't really based on the car's
performance, it's the drivers were like
saving fuel intentionally.
And the team
or the Sears was like, oh you guys can go
to long in your stints.
We're we're taking your fuel ba your fuel tank smaller.
It's like, well no, that's not
why, that's not how that should work.
So I don't know, there's a chance
that it's just taking a little bit longer for them to react
or they're reacting in small amounts.
And look Sebring and,
and Daytona, it doesn't matter how fast your car is, right?
You have to be just like good in execute over,
like a lot can go wrong for a fast car in 24 hours, right?
Yes. Yes. So it's not always the fastest car
that wins, right?
So yes. Long Beach, yes.
You start up front, you finish up front.
There's not really a lot of strategy there.
Laguna, that's a proper track. The car needs to be working.
Um, so maybe, maybe they're good in those types of tracks
and like just kind
of outperformed their program in the two enduros we will
see as the season goes on.
Uh, but we just wanted to give them a
shout out 'cause that was very impressive.
Um, and then yes, we start practicing tomorrow for the 500.
Uh, Alex. Yeah.
How much has changed for you since the open test?
Uh, are you guys going with similar program?
Have you changed a lot?
What's your, what's your deal going into practice? We
Speaker 3: Changed virtually nothing.
Um
Speaker 1: Okay. Change
Speaker 3: Virtually nothing.
I mean there's some, there's some very small,
uh, component changes that are month of May only.
Um, but in terms of like, it's the same car, same floor, um,
same, all of the parts, the good parts
that we had at the open test will, will still be on the car.
Um, there's obviously some, some special stuff
that goes on all cars up
and down the grid, um, come Saturday morning for qualifying.
But yeah, no, it's, it's the car
that we left the open test with, happy with.
Um, it's, it's again gonna be a,
I think a pretty representative week.
Um, you know, by the time we get to Thursday,
it's mid eighties, um, you know, qualifying, the,
the draw is gonna be super critical.
You know, it, it's gonna warm
up throughout the day on Saturday.
So if you can get an early draw, um, that'll be,
that'll make your Saturday quite easy from a stress
standpoint at least, um, of, of maybe not having
to run again, uh, to get into the fast 12.
Um, and I can tell you, you know, I talked to, I didn't talk
to many people after the open test,
but I talked to quite a few people, um,
during driver intros, uh, for the GP on, on Saturday,
you know, just, you know, how was your car on the open test
and what do you think and all this sort of thing.
And everyone was like, yeah, it was pretty good,
but holy cow Q Sims are hard.
Um, so I think it's gonna be qualifying weekend.
You know, we, we say how it's, um, for me,
and I think you agree James, like it's,
it's the best weekend IndyCar outside of the 500.
Um, and I think it's gonna be even more wild this year.
Like it's the, the days of bravery
in terms of trimming are back and
because previously the cars, um, even with the Arrow screen
and the added boost that we had in 2020, um,
everyone was kind of by everyone.
All of the, the top cars were kind of getting
to a similar trim level
and then it was just a matter of kind of scrub
through the corners and car build.
And if you had a, a very good car in terms of car speed,
day, year, and fall off exactly.
Um, this year you, you are not getting to the trim level
that, that we previously have gotten to.
Um, so really just
Speaker 1: 'cause the extra Speaker 3: Weight, just 'cause the extra weight.
So that means the opportunity, um, for someone
to put a big set of on is gonna exist to try and go for it.
Um, and it's gonna be about can you tolerate it
and suck it up
and hold it flat for four laps, which is awesome.
That's how it should be. Yeah.
It shouldn't be about, oh, I don't wanna trim too much,
so I'm scrubbing too much sort of thing.
Like, I want to trim to the point where I'm dying
and I so badly wanna lift on lot four. So it's pretty cool.
Speaker 2: Yeah. Yeah. Speaker 1: That is cool. Cool.
All right, well I'm excited.
Um, good luck over the practice
and uh, Tim wants to say something.
Speaker 2: Um, just wanna remind everybody,
we do have the live show on the 19th.
Alex won't be there. He's got, uh, you know,
some other stuff going on in May, but James
and I'll be there, Clayton Anderson will be there.
And then, uh, right
after that show, Alex,
you have a Java House thing at the
track too, if you wanna tell anybody
Speaker 3: About it.
I do. So I won't, I won't make the live show on the Monday,
um, because it's, and it's as
Speaker 2: A kid and then suddenly, you know, no
Speaker 3: Relax, it's too big.
Relax. Uh, it's just
Speaker 2: Getting peed on.
Speaker 3: It's, uh, right after our session.
And so I gotta, I gotta obviously debrief and then right
after the debrief I have a Java House
appearance in the Midway.
So if you want to go get your James
and Tim fix, um, at the live show, go do that.
And then if you wanna come tell me
how terrible Tim is in person.
Yeah. Come do that right
Speaker 2: Afterwards, I'll sign your hats.
Speaker 3: Yeah. Speaker 1: Uh, Tim, remind everybody the deal
with the live show tickets and everything,
Speaker 2: We, we have the, the link on social.
I'll push that again, uh, so you can get 'em on there.
I, I don't know how many are left. Um, we're, it's
Speaker 1: Li it's limited.
It's a full day at the track.
It's not just for the live show.
You get to hang out in a tower terrace suite, it's catered.
There's food, there's drinks,
there's the live show once practice is finished.
And then, yeah, mosey Wright, uh, right on down
to the midway post hour show
to catch the Java house appearance with Alex.
Uh, I'm gonna go bug him
'cause it's fun watching him work,
especially when I don't have to do anything
Speaker 2: Pods, you know?
Speaker 1: Yeah, fair. Tim would like some more pods. Yeah.
So that's, uh, that's all coming up guys. It's exciting.
So yes, best of luck in practice.
Best of luck in qualifying. Uh, I'm super excited.
I, I, it's because of what you just said.
You know, I have a whole new like, level
of excitement for qualifying this year.
Um, you can watch it all on Fox Practices on
FS one and FS two.
And, uh, yeah guys, we will check in next week.
It's crazy to think how many hours you're gonna have been on
the track before we talk on the show again.
So we'll have lots to cover,
but hopefully we'll see you guys on Monday.
Uh, hopefully we'll see you out at the track over
the weekend and over the week.
Come say hi, and we will chat to you guys soon.
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