Welcome to the RACER Mailbag. Questions for any of RACER’s writers can be sent to mailbag@racer.com. We can’t guarantee that every letter will be published, but we’ll answer as many as we can. Published questions may be edited for length and clarity.
ED’s NOTE: This week’s Mailbag was long. Like, reeeeeally long. So out of respect for the need for our readers to actually have time to spend with their families as we head into the holiday season, we’ve split the Mailbag in two, and will run the second part on the usual day next week. Questions that were sent after this week’s Mailbag closed will not appear next week, but will instead run in the January 3 edition.
Q: I am a long-time fan of IndyCar and believe it offers some of the best racing in-person or on TV of any on the planet. I wish the series would get some good headlines for once.
When I saw the article about Honda threatening to pull out after 2026, I recall the TV commercial they produced the summer before last that featured a driver view of a Honda in nearly every motor racing series imaginable except IndyCar, and this came on the heels of Ericsson winning the Indy 500 in a Honda-powered car.
I would think with the new hybrid engine coming on, that would be right up an OEM like Honda’s alley from an R&D standpoint. (My wife loves her Honda CR-V Hybrid, by the way.)
Between the race sim fiasco, the non-points club race, no Texas race, a six-month off-season, and now Honda, IndyCar could use a really strong headline for a change. Brad Pitt is doing that F1 movie and I look forward to that Ferrari film that’s coming out. Both will generate some robust public interest in the sport.
IndyCar could use a lift like that to perhaps boost Honda’s spirits. Your thoughts?
Dennis Jones
MARSHALL PRUETT: I agree wholeheartedly, Dennis. I’m a glass-half-full guy. I wake up every day wanting to write positive things about IndyCar, and IMSA, and hope that both series become America’s favorite racing series. But that doesn’t mean I shirk my responsibilities when there are problems to chronicle.
One of the great gifts of my life is having been born at a time when IndyCar was the clear No. 1 racing series and also, as IMSA rose to prominence in the 1980s with GTP, to see IMSA rival IndyCar for that top spot.
IMSA claimed a big chunk of the American motorsports spotlight with its original GTP era in the 1980s, and is riding a wave with the modern version too. William Murenbeeld/Motorsport Images
So with that context in mind, it’s easy for those of us who were around back then — and I was fortunate to work on IndyCar and IMSA teams during their peaks — to know what we had then, compare it to what we have now, and want both series to rediscover some of their former glory.
It would be silly for me to think that both will ascend to the same peaks they once stood upon. But it’s not impossible for IndyCar, since that’s the main series you’re commenting on, to become so much more than it is today in its home country.
And for the sake of clarity, and as much as I would genuinely love to have the old CART 2.65L turbo V8 formula back in action, I don’t want IndyCar to become a tribute act and mimic what it once did as CART or Champ Car. I want it to succeed as what it is today, with safer cars and with newer technology and all of the advancements that time and ingenuity have brought us through the excellent folks at Dallara, Team Chevy/Ilmor, Honda/HPD, Firestone, and the operations team led by Jay Frye.
So yes, IndyCar has taken a lot of Ls (that’s losses) in the last 12 months with the myriad items you’ve mentioned and others that weren’t. Being a late adopter of hybridization was always going to limit its impact in the racing world; F1’s been there for more than a decade and IMSA went hybrid last season, so while it was needed to keep Chevy and Honda on the island, there’s no reasonable expectation for IndyCar to undergo a large swing in popularity because its cars will be hybridized at some point in 2024. If anyone believes IndyCar is going to get bumps in attendance and ratings because energy recovery systems are installed, please seek therapy. But the rest of what it has to offer is solid. Old, but solid.
We’re blessed with great racing and drivers and teams who are mostly phenomenal. That’s a huge and ongoing W (that’s a win). And yet, in the market where it competes, it takes constant Ls against NASCAR and F1. And IMSA’s gaining ground.
That’s obviously not something I want or anyone is the least bit happy about. Finding ways to kill IndyCar’s status as America’s best-kept sporting secret is the thing we’re patiently waiting for Penske Entertainment to address. And maybe it has grand ideas on how to achieve that and the executive leadership team just hasn’t told us. And maybe they haven’t, and that’s why they avoid the topic like the plague.
From my end, I know of nothing that’s on the horizon that classifies as a game-changer, but as I said at the beginning, I do genuinely wake up each day with hope for the people who own the series to conceive and implement ideas that move the proverbial needle. And not by a little bit, but by a lot.
