Curt and Kevin Talk About FOX’s Acquisition, Free Agency, and Preview Portland!

Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:04):
This is track side with Kirk Kvin and Kevin Lee
on ninety three five and one oh seven five the Fan.

Speaker 2 (00:11):
He's in corner number nine, the final corner on the
thrace track. He comes off the ninth corner. The car
is a little slow coming off the corner. He's out
of fuel.

Speaker 1 (00:20):
He is out of fuel, dropping on the inside and
here comes the finish line.

Speaker 2 (00:24):
Who's gonna win it? I think it's impossible to say
at this point who won the race. It looks like
Mario unbelievable.

Speaker 1 (00:33):
It'll be a drag race on the drags trip.

Speaker 2 (00:35):
Here in Portland.

Speaker 1 (00:36):
Off the corner they.

Speaker 2 (00:37):
Come, here comes but sal to the line they come
and Mark bleff Dell takes the victory in his twenty
second careers start.

Speaker 1 (00:50):
Guys have been through the chakin where will they come? O? No,
it is no good. Dixon's in the middle of that
car upside down and Dreddy.

Speaker 2 (00:58):
I think Scott Dixon is in the middle off that mess.
Alex Hello for the second time in three years? Is
it Ntata Indy Koss Series Champion?

Speaker 1 (01:08):
Hello?

Speaker 2 (01:09):
Hello, hout champion again? Oh my god, thank you to
get out. He went two years without a win. Now
in too much. Will Powers won three times Power wins
at Portland to keep his championships on. Wait you, Buddy Nibody,

(01:32):
thank your God. Interest. We start off with classic highlights,
some highlights and some low lights from previous IndyCar races
at Portland and the inphasis infamous Chicane that is very
difficult to get through. Welcome the track side ninety three
to five one oh seven five the fan in Indianapolis,
Kevin Lee ORed Cavin lanthan Coons in our Indianapolis studios.

(01:55):
We get set for the bitnile dot Com Grand Prix
of Portland coming up Sunday afternoon here on the radio
and on Fox at three o'clock Eastern time. Pre race
three p twenty two is your green flag coming up
on Sunday, So we have that to get to. We
have a potential champion to be unofficially crowned, certainly a

(02:18):
sticker and a hat to celebrate for Alex Pulow. It
seems very likely this weekend, and Kurt, we have some
developments in ownership in IndyCar. Once again, Penske Entertainment is
good at keeping secrets. I'll admit I had heard a

(02:38):
little bit about this I'll also admit I was quite
surprised it came together quite so quickly. Thursday morning press
release out Penske Entertainment and Fox Corporation, the parent company
of Fox Sports, announced in investment in the future of IndyCar,
acquiring one third interest in Penske Entertainment inclusive IndyCar and

(02:59):
the iconic Indianapolis Motor Speedway. I believe it also includes
IMS Productions, Does it not?

Speaker 1 (03:05):
I think so, yeah, it does. Okay, your reaction, Well,
I think this was This was interesting on a lot
of fronts. I think it was good smart business for
for Penske Entertainment. You get you get Fox, and it's
decision makers invested. You know, they had a reason to

(03:25):
be excited about the sport. They clearly are excited about
the sport. But now they have a financial reason to
be excited about the sport. So the more invested they are,
it is, I guess, is the proper way to say it.
The more invested the company is, the better that is
for the sport. That's better that it is for everything

(03:48):
in the infrastructure. And so I think from that standpoint
it's positive. I think it's positive. From the standpoint you
get a cash infusion. It's not the reason to do it.
But you don't lose control of the business. You know,
you're only you've only sold one third, not that that's insignificant,
but it's not a decision maker in terms of leverage.

(04:10):
And I think what it does, and this is the
kind of the research that I've done in the last
few days. It doesn't change the management structure. It doesn't
change Doug Bowls being the president of IndyCar at least
at this moment. I can't imagine that it does. I
just don't see Fox being interested in running a series
on a day to day basis. But maybe there's some

(04:31):
more connections that can be made. Maybe that's you know,
just all kinds of opportunities that could present itself because
Fox is invested. So from that standpoint, I think it's good.
It's interesting that that it includes the Speedway itself. Of course,

(04:52):
I wouldn't do it if it wasn't. I mean I
wouldn't if I were Fox. I wouldn't do it unless
the Speedway was part of the deal. The other thing
is it doesn't necessarily mean Fox is the broadcaster for
the lifetime forever. It very well could go to the
highest bidder. So I think, you know, I think Fox

(05:14):
would understand if one of those streaming services came along
and offered them their investment a great deal of money.
Why wouldn't you Why wouldn't you switch? So I'm not
saying one way or the other. I'm just saying it's
it seems to me that you know, it really just
at its core, means that Fox is more invested in
the company, not invested just financially, but emotionally decision making wise,

(05:40):
you know, trying to find the best B to B
that helps the overall company. Anything you can do when
you invest your money to help that money grow would
be a positive. And I think this is for both parties.

Speaker 2 (05:53):
So I'll start this with every opinion is mine and
mine only mine too, the one that I work for
on this, And I haven't even really seen a lot
of comments from anyone. I don't think anybody did any
kind of a conference call, did they know. The only
quotes are in the Wall Street Journal.

Speaker 1 (06:09):
And by the way, let me just say for the record,
I stayed out of the official conversations because I didn't
want to be influenced either. I wanted to kind of
just draw conclusions on my own, so these are clearly
just my observations from AFAR.

Speaker 2 (06:25):
So here are my thoughts of why Fox would be
interested in this. We all know that Eric Shanks, the
CEO of Fox Sports, is the genesis for this partnership.
He is from Indiana, loves the Indianapolis five hundred, loves IndyCar.
And it takes someone like that to get the ball
rolling on something like this. That's why Fox has invested

(06:46):
so heavily, because it starts first. This is key to
any kind of motorsports partnership. You know, as people in
the sponsor selling business will tell you, you've got to find
a champion that has some interest in information about the sport,
and then they're going to make a business decision. And

(07:06):
then that's the second part. Eric and his bosses have
decided that IndyCar has been worth investing in it, and
they see potential and just a thought. You know, IndyCar
is a professional, major league sport. But you know this
from being in the office. The size of the staff

(07:27):
pales in comparison to what we see in the baseball
front office in the NFL, in more comparison NASCAR and
Formula One. They just don't have a lot of people
to be able to do some of the things that
they want to do. So now you get Fox Corporation,
you get their help on some things, and people that

(07:49):
know how to promote and have contacts, and it's just
increasing your world. So I think Fox felt like, all right,
we're in. It's going pretty well, can always go better.
We want to double down, we want to invest more.
And if I'm them, I don't want to whether it's

(08:09):
it's spending money, you know, if I'm going to spend
money to promote, and Fox has really been the biggest
promoter of IndyCar over this last nine months or whatever,
So if I'm going to do something that hopefully takes
the sport to the next level, I don't want to
run the risk that then IndyCar sells the television rights

(08:30):
as the ratings go up to someone else and I'm
left out in the cold. And I think Fox has
experienced with that. They helped build the UFC and then
it was sold to ESPN, so you know there's a
precedent there involved and whether the I don't know how
the cash works. It was listed. I don't think that
was anything official that was more the Wall Street Journal

(08:52):
report that it was somewhere around one hundred and twenty
five million for one third of the business. But I
think more significant to that is they are going to
invest in promotion. And my guess is it's more than
just promos on their own network and on their properties.
They're going to step outside of that. They're going to
think about digital strategies. They're going to get a little

(09:15):
bit more involved. Maybe they are investing in events. What
Formula one has done is they have made the investment
in Miami and Las Vegas. Those are the first two
that come to mind to try to build and grow
the sport in America, and that seems to have worked out,
along with commercial free telecasts on ESPN and a pandemic

(09:37):
which helped Drive to survive gain a lot more eyeballs.
But I think that's the biggest part of that. If
we're going to invest, we want to make sure we're
protected in some way. And you make a good point.
I've heard the same thing that it is not a
guarantee that Fox retains the broadcast rights, but if someone
did really want to pay big well, Fox would be

(09:57):
sharing in one third of that revenue. And they're in
the entertain business, they might open that up a little bit.
Liberty is in the broadcasting business, and they sell the
television rights for Formula one to the highest bidder, so
that this is kind of the way things can be going.
Fox is already somewhat a partner in the Big Ten.

(10:19):
You know they own do they own forty nine percent
of the Big ten network? Down a big chunk of
the Big ten network, and you know in some ways
the Big Ten because that's where most of the revenue
comes from. That there are rumors a few years ago
about comcasts buying in the NASCAR that ultimately did not happen.
But I think a lot of entertainment entities are interested

(10:40):
in this because sports is DVR proof. It's about advertising. Yes,
the ratings matter, but more important than that is what
is the advertising intake. And while a scripted show might
draw a bigger audience than a sporting event, what we
don't know is what's the revenue. Because I don't watch

(11:05):
commercials for scripted shows, so I'm amazed that they have revenue.
I don't know what the model is for scripted shows
on television, and that's why you've seen a change in
the industry and Fox putting sports on primetime on Friday
and Saturday night, and other networks are following the same
because while it might be a smaller number. We used
to say, well, you can't do anything on primetime that

(11:25):
gets less than two million. Well, actually you can because
people are more likely to see your commercials, should make
it a lot easier to sell. So it makes a
lot of sense from the IndyCar standpoints. You know, it's
one thing to get network availability, but then so there's
such a thing as a time buy, and that was
prevalent in the champ Car era. They were on network television,

(11:49):
but they had to buy by the time. Well, that
network is not invested. They're getting their check coming to you.
So that's not really a good situation. Now that's not
what IndyCars was. They were still getting paid. But now
you're taking it to the next level. Yeah, your network
partner always wants to have the biggest audience available, but
now they are invested beyond just selling commercials. Now, if

(12:13):
we can really get this sport to take off and
we can sell advertising, we're not just selling airtime now,
we're selling banners and billboards at tracks and these how
many of the events now are promoted by Penske Entertainment.
You know, we're getting close to a third or something

(12:33):
like that. Well, now Fox has a piece of that,
and they can go into these big markets in Arlington
and Detroit and Nashville and so on and so forth.
A third, I think is an exaggeration, you know, depending
on what happens. But Iowa, but it's getting close to that.
So I think it makes perfect sense for IndyCar too.
It just gives them more resources.

Speaker 1 (12:52):
Yeah, let me throw this at you, because I think
the event's portion is understated in this discussion, not necessarily
our discussion, but I doubt a lot of people have
kind of thought about that as a possibility. As you
just mentioned, it's it's a good one to go down
that rabbit hole for a while. We'll have to see
how it happens. But I think that's a great opportunity

(13:14):
for both sides. But my question to you is I
understand IndyCar where it is relative to It's not major
League Baseball, it's not it's not the NFL, it's not
college basketball. Go down the list. It has its place.
But to me, if I were just you know, trying
to decide what a what a sports franchise is worth.

(13:37):
Wouldn't you say one hundred and twenty five hundred and
thirty five million. It's pretty cheap, isn't that? I mean
to be to be a major player. I mean, it's
one thing to have maybe a two percent or ten percent,
you know, ownership stake, but to have thirty three percent,
it just my gut tells me that in the market

(13:57):
is pretty pretty inexpensive. It's a good bond.

Speaker 2 (14:00):
So reports have said the Indiecar rights fee was somewhere
in the twenty some millions. It was actually never published
this time around for Fox, but I've never seen a
report on that, and I do not know what it
was or what it is, but I think that's kind
of what numbers were thrown around in the NBC era,

(14:23):
somewhere in the twenties. And I don't even know how
to put an exact figure in that, because what I
don't know is how much of the expenses were IndyCar
or IMS Productions responsible for. Because a lot of the
people that work on the broadcasts are working for IMS Productions.

(14:44):
Who's paying them? I don't know if it was just
simply you know, maybe the Network was paying IMSP extra
to pay for them, but don't know how that works,
so I don't know that that number means a lot,
but it's a starting point. Compare that to Formula one,
which is at a million for eighty five million for
a rights fee, and they want it to double. And

(15:05):
they're probably going to Apple, which I think is a
good thing for IndyCar because viewership is going to go
down now, they'll be in great demographics and it's still
going to work for them, and it's a publicly traded company.
So my understanding is they probably need to take the
one p fifty plus instead of the eighty five. I
think big picture, it's a mistake to leave ESPN because
they're going to forget about you. Nicole brisco is not

(15:28):
going to the race anymore. To do Sports Center on
Sunday morning if it's not on an ESPN property would
be my guest. And you're not getting those highlights all
week in long. But it is straight cash. So their
ratings if you take out the Indy five hundred, are
a bit higher, but they're not a lot kert And

(15:50):
if you include the Indy five hundred, which I think
you should, they're less so to televise Formula one, which
by the way, you can't aar commercials on during the race,
So that's a revenue shortage. You are, if these reports
are accurate, paying about four times more to air Formula

(16:13):
one than IndyCar for less the audience. Or even if
you want to take out the Indy five hundred, you're
talking probably on average, what fifteen percent more something like that.
You know, they're probably averaging one one, one two. Maybe
it's less than that because they have a few in
the six or seven hundreds that air at really bad times.

(16:37):
So yeah, that's a good point. I think IndyCar is
a valuable property and that standpoint. Now, that's expensive to produce.
That's why that whole part about I don't know how
that money works. It's more expensive to produce than a
basketball or a football game and Formula one where they're
I think they probably have to pay Sky Sports something

(16:58):
for the right to air that, but it's still less
than actually, you know, sending people around the world to
produce a telecast. So when I posted the announcement just
with a retweet of somebody noticed that I used the
Michael Scott Gift of the Office that you noticed that

(17:18):
was an NBC property did instead of a Fox and say, hey,
that's right, but that's pretty well known. And I like
the Office. I forgot it was on NBC. I only
watched it on reruns several years after it ended. But
one of the comments, and I look forward again last
night when I was kind of doing a cut and
paste for things I wanted to address on the air
of the questions and comments we've had was you're smarter

(17:40):
than that. And it's since been deleted, maybe because whoever
posted that smartened up a little bit, and I took
that to mean you're smarter than thinking this is a
good thing. And I wanted to respond, but I don't
do Twitter battles. Twitter does not pay me. I have
a radio show where I can talk about things. Tell
me what's wrong with this? And I think I know

(18:03):
what he's thinking. Conflict of interest is probably or we
don't want television dictating our sport. And here's what I'll
say if Kurt, and I'm gonna let you jump in
here and then I'll have some more thoughts. Do you
think television has any say on the National Football League?

(18:24):
And do you think the National Football League has any
say on who is broadcasting for television networks NBA? Does
the Masters not require their broadcasters to use certain phrases?
If you say fan instead of patron, you will never
broadcast the Masters again. For CBS, I'll just say.

Speaker 1 (18:43):
This, every time I turn on a television and watching
my favorite college basketball team play in the Eastern time
zone at nine o'clock on a Wednesday night, I realize
that television is driving the bus regardless if I want
to believe others wise, So I don't worry about conflict
of interest. The only place that maybe you could argue

(19:06):
conflict of interest comes into play is during negotiations for
the next round of the television contract, let's say two
three years down the road. You know, there's this again,
the annual or every three year discussion roughly about which
network to be on. And maybe it always will tilt

(19:28):
in Fox's favor if the money is the same or
if it's close, you're probably going to default to your partner.
But you know, sometimes at some point in the discussion
it's not going to tilt in Fox's favor, and therefore
there's going to have to be a hard decision made.
So I think that's the only place where the where

(19:50):
the conflict of interest comes in. But look, everybody needs
more smart people in the room. I don't know what
the board of directors is comprised, I don't know the
list of people. I don't know their backgrounds even within
the company that I work for. But I can tell
you that Fox and Eric Shanks and people who are

(20:11):
really good at an aspect of this sport that quite
frankly could use the help.

Speaker 2 (20:18):
I mean another set far. I want their opinions.

Speaker 1 (20:21):
You should want their opinions, and you're going to get them,
and that's a good thing. Smart people working together only
helps both parties. So I see it. I don't see
the negative, certainly in conflict of interest, and you are
already going to get their opinions, but now it becomes
more official, and I think a lot of it comes

(20:41):
down to, is all right, we want to show you
we are willing to invest, we believe in this property.
We just want to protect ourselves. We want to make
sure that it's not taken from us. And I think
this is also it's similar to the bump I think
the industry felt, the sport felt when Penske Entertainment took

(21:04):
over that there's stability. This is another This is a
sign of stability. This show's partners in the sport. Ooh okay, so.

Speaker 2 (21:13):
Now we do know that you're going to have network
television coverage for a long while. You've got this massive
entertainment company that believes in you. They are vouching for
your credibility at this point, and I think that is really,
really big. I think it's good that they've already been

(21:34):
working on an independent group for race control. You know,
that would be one thing all right now, if Fox
is a partner in ownership, how do we as broadcasters
assess things. I don't think it matters. You know, people
are worried about a conflict on television broadcasts. No one's
talking about the state of the sport. We're calling the race.

(21:57):
We're talking about the race. We're not talking about those
other issues. And honestly, it affects more people like me.
You know, I'm the only person on the air, actually,
me and Hitch. Both me and Hinch have podcasts, so
it affects us in that way at opinion base things
in the off week, But talking about the race, the
only thing that would come up is race control. I'll

(22:20):
just say this, I think I can say this publicly.
It was asked today on our conference call, does this
change anything? And the answer was no, speak your mind,
nothing changes, and that I wasn't going to ask that because,
let's face it again, going back to what I said
in the beginning, if you don't think that a sport

(22:41):
has some say on broadcasters, then you're a little bit naive.
So we've always kind of had that in mind, and honestly,
I think it kind of depends on your status at
the network. If you're one of the top guys. If
you're al Michaels and you want to opine about the
NFL during your heyday at NBC or ABC, al Michaels

(23:06):
is going to get away with that. If you're the
number six NFL broadcaster and you go on a rant, well,
Bob cost has set some thoughts on the NFL. And
don't know if this was coincidence or not, but Bob
Costas stopped working at NBC a couple of years later.
I think Bob made that call. But it's tough. They

(23:29):
are partners broadcasters and networks, so I think you just
have to be right, you have to be fair, you
have to be accurate, but you can criticize. And what
the booth said about the green flag staying out at
Laguna Seka, you know that's going to continue if something
like that that they feel is unsafe happens when Ericson

(23:51):
is stranded, They're going to continue to offer those opinions
and then roundabout way getting back to it. That's why
this is going to be good. That last I heard
this is still and play for next year. I haven't
heard of any update in the last couple of months,
but they are trying to have an independent group that
is overseeing race control. Now more needed because it separates
Penske Entertainment, it separates Fox and you just speak your

(24:14):
mind and you tell the truth as you see it
while trying to be fair in that case. Last thing
on sports choosing broadcasters, I've heard Dan Patrick on his
radio show say this that David Stern asked him if
he would like to host the NBA. Oh wait a minute,
I thought Dan Patrick was working for ESPN at the

(24:36):
time at ABC, But it's the commissioner of the NBA
that chose the host of the pregame show for the
NBA Finals. So that's kind of how the world works.
Some networks will push back more and say no, this
is who we want, but it's always part of it.
So I help me what I'm missing. I don't see

(25:01):
what changes in a relationship like this.

Speaker 1 (25:03):
The other thing is, I don't think you're going to
see a lot of public facing changes, meaning you're going
to you're going to see more promotions. I don't mean that,
I guess I just don't you know. The day to
day workings of this, this partnership, I don't think will
be evident once we kind of get past the initial
flurry of it, you know. I think I think they
will be working behind the scenes with events, with promoters,

(25:26):
with with B two B relationships. And I think the
point I was going to make, and I'm glad you
made it so so prominently, is the vouching that I
believe this does for the for the moment when Penske
Entertainment took over, I think my first reaction was, Wow,

(25:49):
this brings some real credibility.

Speaker 2 (25:51):
Not that they not.

Speaker 1 (25:53):
That they was lacking, not that I'm not even commenting
on that, not that you needed more of it, but
that's what it brought. And the same is true here.
Maybe people maybe people's opinions have changed. Maybe they haven't,
but I think you can't. You can't discard the idea

(26:13):
that Fox or any other you know, you could name
several of the other major corporations, but when they attached
their name to something in such a prominent way, it's
going to have a positive public facing respect value that
comes to the to the organization, and I think that
that is worth a lot.

Speaker 2 (26:34):
I don't think Penske was looking for a partner. You know,
we've heard rumors for the last couple of years that
there have been groups. Goes back to Michael Andretti's comments,
if you're not going to invest in the sport, you
should sell it. Well, everyone has said that, has dug
into this, has said that, well, they were not interested
in selling, and I think that's probably true. But they

(26:55):
are already a partner with Fox, so they're already they
had This is really the perfect scenario. They had tested
out the relationship. What are they going to ask of us?
Are they going to ask us to do absurd things?
Turn the sport upside down? Make unreasonable requests? Now, okay,
we're somewhat aligned on some things. We think we can

(27:16):
work well together and By the way, we as Indy
car still control sixty seven percent of the sport. If
it comes down to a vote. Penske Entertainment has to say,
you mentioned the board. I think that's one of the
things I read that there is going to be someone
from Fox added to the board, maybe a couple, but
that's not going to be a majority of things. So

(27:37):
this is just pooling together resources. Scheduling. We know TV
always is going to have an impact on scheduling, especially
if you want to be on network television. That's just
the way it is. Now you can work together a
little bit more and if we find if they find
there are some events that we don't think are super strong,

(27:59):
well maybe there is an investment. Maybe there is a
market we want to get to. East Coast is talking
about how do you get to what's going to take
someone investing in it? Street tracks are very difficult. We
see there is a lot of possibility at street tracks,
but it takes some upfront cost and you've got to
be willing to lose a little bit in the beginning.

(28:19):
Who's going to cover that expense? Well, now you have
someone potentially to share and think about that and let's
all work together to find the best slots. Avoiding NASCAR,
avoiding Formula one, that's your biggest difficulty. I'd love to
say let's just ignore it and let's do our thing

(28:39):
and be better, but I think you have to be
smart because the numbers just say and by the way,
that hurts NASCAR too. NASCAR shouldn't want IndyCar to be on.
At the same time, they may not lose as big
of a chunk of an audience as IndyCar does, but
say they're getting two million, it would probably be two
point two million or two point two million if there

(29:01):
was no IndyCar race. There is a carryover. There is
more likely to be crossover between NASCAR and IndyCar and
or F one fans than there is to be any
other sport. Now. The NFL is just a behemoth, so
odds are that more sports type fans are going to
watch that. So you're still trying to avoid that. Lots

(29:23):
of questions on this. We'll get into that some of
the Twitter questions from the Xbox coming up. There's plenty
more to get to on this front, and we'll start
talking about Portland silly season questions, schedule updates, and more.
Trackside ninety three to five one oh seven five the fan, Hi,
this is what power and you're listening to Trackside. Thanks

(29:44):
for joining us. Trackside on a Tuesday this week. A
reminder Wednesday next week. Reminder to the hosts as well.
Wednesdayday full two hour show next week. That is August thirteenth,
and I see we are on Tuesday to nineteenth and
Monday the twenty fifth, and that's as far as the
schedule goes. Speaking of days, Happy eighty ninth birthday Gordon

(30:05):
john Cock, two time winner of the Indianapolis five hundred.

Speaker 1 (30:09):
You know what's when you said that? I mean, I
knew it was Gordon's birthday, but eighty nine. You just
continue to be amazed at the longevity that these guys
who raced in such a challenging era of the sport
to that they're still rolling along a j Johnny r

(30:30):
at the third even Roger Penske. It wasn't quite the
same kind of discipline of the sport, but certainly sports
car racing was dangerous too. And the longevity and the
contributions those men and Gordon continue to have on people
in the sport and the sport itself, and there are
more Mario Andretti another great example. But they're treasures. They

(30:55):
are true treasures, and you know we're obviously going to
reach a point where that's not the case. But cherish
them while we have them.

Speaker 2 (31:03):
So I looked it up. AJ is ninety, Jr. Is
eighty seven, I believe, I think so. And what is
Let me do a quick search on Mario as probably
early eighties.

Speaker 1 (31:18):
I think he's eighty five or six. You can he
is eighty five? Yeah, and Roger.

Speaker 2 (31:24):
You got four legends that are eighty five plus and
Roger is eighty eight.

Speaker 1 (31:32):
I think so I've kind of lost he kind of
lose track of the year.

Speaker 2 (31:37):
What I so? Gordon john Cock does not do a
lot of interviews, right, correct? Correct? I wish I had
the tape, you know, when I was doing long form
coverage on the radio station back in the day, so
we would take the network feed they would only do
on qualifying days, maybe like the first hour in the
last hour, and then it would be me and one

(32:03):
or two other people filling the other four five, six hours,
and I would just kind of wander and see who
I saw. And I think Robin Miller helped get this
going for me. But I saw Gordon John Cox sitting
in hospitality and said, Hey, can we have a chat?
And we talked for fifteen or twenty minutes live on

(32:23):
the air about a lot about eighty two, about to
finish with meares in eighty two, and a few other things,
and that was just awesome, and I wish I had
a better memory to tell you exactly what he said
about that.

Speaker 1 (32:35):
So, you know, really one of the highlights of my
career was that year that I saw six months that
I spent visiting with as many legends former Indy five
hundred winners as I could as the one hundred and
twenty five hundred approached in twenty sixteen, and that year,
one of my excursions was to drive up to the
northern part of Michigan and sit with Gordon. Spent the

(32:58):
whole evening set at the dinner at the kitchen table
and just talked about stuff. And I didn't record that
wrote a story out of it, but you know, mostly
it's it's my memories of what a great evening that
was and how lucky I still feel that I was
to get to have that opportunity. But he's he's a treasure,

(33:21):
and you know, he still got his his lumber business.
He still shows up at work. You know, he's he's
still He's still everything you want your hero to be.

Speaker 2 (33:34):
All right, let's get to the Twitter box at Kevin
Lee twenty three at Kirk Cavin. Stephen Terrell sent this
in after the announcement Fox has obtained one third interest
in IndyCar. Don't think I can stomach this sadly, this
may end my sixty plus year relationship with IndyCar and
the Indy five hundred and he tagged a whole bunch
of people again. I'll Steven's a listener and we've answered

(33:54):
his questions before. I'm not sure what changes. So I
hope that you look into this and think about it,
and if that's the case, you probably want to stop
watching sports because do you not think NBC, Fox, Amazon,
and Turner have some say on NASCAR? Do you not
think all of those networks have some say in the NFL?
And more so probably the other way around, but the

(34:16):
networks have some say. It's just kind of the way
of the world. The networks, the leagues need the networks,
the networks lead, the league need the league. So hopefully
you'll stay with us. Chad Schultz says, Hi, Kevin, can
we put you in charge of adding more ovals to
the schedule? Haha, Well no, not if I'm responsible for
it making money. No, that would I would say that'd

(34:38):
be I hope it changes, but you got to show
me that these work and they struggle. So I hope
that can change. And maybe that's something that Fox can
help with. And you know, if you're going to do
something like Iowa or anywhere else, you're gonna have to

(34:59):
go all. You can't just show up and expect people
to know about it. There's too much competition in the
entertainment space. You're going to have to get creative on
how you get the word out. And I am not
smart enough to know what that is. I still have
always I think billboards have something. People see billboards, but
not everybody does, because Kurt, some people are like me

(35:22):
and they don't leave the grid. I still hear to
the airport. If there's not a billboard on the way,
I'm not seeing it. I don't drive for sixty five.
So some people are like that. So there is no
one way to promote.

Speaker 1 (35:35):
I've always felt like, and we've talked about this many
times in our eighteen years together. I still think an
odd night, a weekday night show at an oval track
will work. You're not expecting a three day weekend crowd
to start with. It's got to be in a market
where it's not totally out of the way to get

(35:55):
to it. But you think about in Iowa on a
Monday night or on a Thursday night in the summer.
I don't see why a network couldn't justify that. If
TV ratings is your ultimate is your ultimate driving force,
if that's your motivation, then I think it can work.

Speaker 2 (36:13):
So I've had a few people tweet me that over
the last few months because I was banging that drum forever, sure,
and Robin Miller used to give me credit and put
that up in the mail bag, and you know, we
had a little talk. At one point, someone higher on
the food chain than me presented and no one was
really willing to do it, and I understand. And as
time went on, I've not talked about it a lot lately.

(36:36):
And one because my idea fifteen years ago was there
was there were two days of the year where nothing
happened in the sports world, the day before and the
day after Baseball's All Star game, and I thought that
was an opportunity. Well that's changed a little bit. You know,
now you have the SPS, you have the WNBA, which
is in the last two years become a big factor.

(36:58):
Will that stay? You know? Does that totally depend on
Caitlin Clark. We shall see. But it's not as much
of an obvious than it was. And I understood the
reluctance by the track because they've got to make their money.
They have to have people come in the gates. But
what has now changed in the last few years is
IndyCar is the promoter of these events. So if they

(37:19):
feel like it's a worthy investments, then maybe And now
you take it a step further. Your television partner is
an investor. Now will you get a better rating? NASCAR
has tried this with so it was COVID. I think
they had a Cup race on a weeknight. They've tried
it with truck races at Eldor on a Wednesday and

(37:41):
they weren't that much better. But it is a way
to avoid It's getting harder and harder to avoid NASCAR
because they're going to want to be at three o'clock
in the afternoon.

Speaker 1 (37:55):
You know, look at this weekend schedule. It's going to
happen again head to head with one of their more
innerg hanning races. Watkins Glenn starts at two o'clock Eastern time.
Indy Car starts at three twenty, so they're both going
to end about the same time. NASCAR gets the head
start too. It's going to be tough to get a number.

(38:16):
But what could you do differently you're on the West coast,
you know, maybe to run it after you have the
Sun the news it's you know, well Fox. I don't
think that is important, as it's a big deal with NBC.
You couldn't do that, but you might start thinking about
and how does the track feel about this? I think

(38:37):
at a place like Portland you could think about it.
Places like Road America, you know, you can't run at
four o'clock in the afternoon because people have a long drive. Portland,
big cities, that's more doable. I'd start to think about
three o'clock local starts, trying to be on after NASCAR.
If your television partner is willing to run its six thirty.

(39:01):
Simpsons does pretty well, so I don't know if they're
going to be willing to do that. They obviously have
done it once already this year, and people have asked,
what about a Nashville change to a night race? I
think is it either Darlington is that weekend or Daytona,
but there is a Cup race that night. So that's

(39:22):
why you don't want Nashville to become a night race
this year because you'd then just be.

Speaker 2 (39:27):
Going head to head with Nascars. You actually have a
non conflict at this point, but yeah, that thought has
come across. Do you think about doing something on a
Wednesday or Thursday in Maybe it's Iowa. You know, nobody
was there to begin with, so it's not like you're
losing any fans. You're not losing very many, and they

(39:48):
draw more to the Knoxville Nationals on a Wednesday night,
so maybe you can do it there. Maybe Richmond is
a possibility. That's more in an urban market where people
don't have as far to travel so they can get
Do you think about running your race on Saturday to
avoid head to head with Cup?

Speaker 1 (40:06):
I don't know. It is Darlington, by the way, that
is on August thirty first, So yeah, you.

Speaker 2 (40:10):
Don't want to go head to head. So that's why
Nashville is staying where it's at, but I think they're
more open to nighttime races. I don't think Iowa is
coming back, but I also don't know that. And if
having OVAL's is a priority, then you might want to
think about it and do a Saturday night race and

(40:31):
give it one more go since the racing was better
this year, you know, unless they found another option with
Phoenix or Richmond or Homestead. I don't know why Homestead
would go a lot better than what it has. Richmond
is one I'm curious about. Phoenix. I'd probably only be
interested in if it was a combination with a Cup events.

(40:54):
You know. The other big thing about the schedule is
is there going to be a big gap? How is
that going to be avoided? Because the fans have said,
we can't have thermal, so they've listened no thermal, so
enjoy a month off. And actually the thermal owner I think,

(41:14):
has said, yeah, maybe we're tired of paying for this
all on our own. We'd like to have a title
sponsor to help with that. So I know it wasn't
the best circumstance. But unless you're going to every single race,
just watch one on TV, you know, let's not have
a four week gap in the schedule and hopefully they've
got a plan for that and can't avoid such a circumstance.

(41:37):
Next question. So no, I'm not in charge of obels,
but I do hope there are more, and I hope
they work, and I know that they are trying, but
it's got to work. And the other challenge is unless
you do a double header, and I know we don't
really like double headers in the industry, but unless you
do a double header, it's a one day event. Nobody

(41:57):
is coming to watch practice or qualifying on an oval,
so you better get creative and get a truck race
there for the day before, or and or ARCA. I
think it can help as they continue to promote Indie
Next and try to make it a higher level, second
tier series. Then that becomes your feature events on Saturday

(42:19):
for a Sunday Oval race, or on Friday if you're
doing a Saturday race. But that's what road courses and
certainly street events have is do you get crowds for two,
if not three days. Doug Ivy Rip Larry McClure is
his handle anything on Pietro Fittipality or Linas Lunquiz twenty

(42:39):
twenty six prospects. I did see Pietro this weekend at
Road America IMSE. I did not ask him about that.
I think he's probably moved on. I think he's working
on sports car programs. It would require a significant amount
of budget. Maybe I'm wrong, Maybe they it's going to
take a big number. It's going to take a big
number because you have to get in line. I feel

(43:02):
better about Linus's chances, but I think it's still gonna
be tough for Linus at this point. So in the
next hour, we'll go down through a full Silly Season
list again and see where things stand at this point.
We'll get to more of your tweets. We'll preview our
number two coming up next on track side. This is
Alex below and you're listening to truck Site. Okay, coming
up in our number two. More from the Xbox Twitter

(43:25):
questions comments. We may still talk about the new Fox
partnership with IndyCar. We need to talk about Portland. Who's
good there? Who has struggled? Will maybe do the math, Kurt,
do we bother with the math?

Speaker 1 (43:39):
I can do the math pretty simply, actually, so we'll
do that.

Speaker 2 (43:43):
Yeah, the math is it's over. It's been over. Does
he clinch at Portland or does he clinch at Milwaukee.
Good chance he's gonna clinch this weekend at Portland. I know.
One scenario is if Poto matches his best finished there
of fourth, Pollo just needs to finish eleventh unless someone
does the roller derby on alex Poalow, which is probably

(44:05):
what it's going to take for him to finish eleventh,
It's most likely going to be wrapped up. McLaren was
bad there last year. They were just slow, not just results,
So hopefully they have found something as far as pace
is concerned. We'll get into that. We'll talk what else
we think we might know about next year's schedule and
other stuff on Silly Season. All coming up Trackside on

(44:26):
ninety three five one oh seven five the Fan.

Speaker 1 (44:28):
Hi, this is Scott McLachlin, and you're listening to Treckside
on ninety three to five and one I seven five
the Fan.

Speaker 2 (44:34):
Our number two from somewhere close to Indianapolis. Landon Kons
is in our Indianapolis studio. Kirk Cavin is within range.
Kevin Lee also close enough. A reminder next week's shows
on Wednesday to Tuesday night edition was still a lot
to get to Kurt. We have not talked at all
about the upcoming weekend, so before we get back to

(44:55):
the Twitter inbox, here are some times of interest for
the Bitnile dot Com Grand Prix of Portland. First practice
is at five thirty on Friday on FS two. Indie
Next Practice gets the FS one treatment at four o'clock eastern,
So Indy Next first on FS one, then FS two

(45:16):
for IndyCar practice. And this is according to Bob Procriss,
who I trust with everything on his Twitter. Today Saturday
we get started with IndyCar practice at nine local noon
Eastern on FS one, then IndyCar Qualifying at two thirty
five four thirty and Indie Next Practice seven thirty Indie

(45:38):
Next qualifying. All of those are on FS one and
just like Laguna Seka, the Sunday morning warm up will
be Saturday late afternoon because it's an early start on Sunday,
So eight thirty Eastern, five thirty Local Saturday on FS two.
The warm up show and then Indy Next is on
Sunday at one o'clock eastern, ten o'clock Local on FS one,

(46:03):
and Fox says the pre race starting at noon Local
three o'clock eastern green flag at three twenty two. So
we have that for us all coming up this weekend,
and then there will be two yeah, and then it
will be Ovals. It went by quick.

Speaker 1 (46:18):
It really has got it, I gotta tell you. And
this might surprise him people because because I just don't
know what people as a whole think of the Portland
Racetrack and the event itself. I love it. I love
that place. It has a Christmas a crispness to the air.

(46:39):
I like the racetrack. It's I know Turn one can
be troublesome, but it's it's a quick enough lap. It
almost kind of gives me an Oval feel because they
kind of run down the backstretch and they kind of
circle around in the last couple of corners and come
back down the straight away. I really like the place,
so it's it. Yeah, I like it. On the schedule,

(47:03):
it will not have a crispness this weekend. No, it's
going to be ninety early low nineties possibly on Sunday,
the hottest that we've seen there in a long long time.

Speaker 2 (47:13):
Won't be bad on Friday in the eighties, but it'll
be upper eighties on Saturday and around ninety if not
more on Sunday, so we will not have Midwest humidity though,
so it probably won't feel any worse than an eighty
three degree degree day in Indiana. A lot of other
things to get to coming up. I just read something
in the break interesting on the Fox IndyCar partnerships. Some

(47:37):
more details on that we will get into. Back to
the Xbox Sebring twelve fan, so oh, I buried the lead.
I never mentioned this. The boy won over the weekends.
I saw that twelve fan says, I saw Kevin Lee
watching from the top of the Turn five grand stands
and he had his show no favoritism sports broadcaster face

(48:00):
on out of professional habit akevo we would have allowed
the proud dad at least a celebratory fizz pump if
not a hell yes and Lynn drive for seven. Lynn
Underscore IndyCar asks if Kurk Cavin can get Jackson on
trackside this week and also again as of many looking
at the pictures wondering about his height, Yes, he is

(48:21):
six foot four and that is Mom's side of the family.
So Jackson's unavailable because he's onto the next racetrack. He
hasn't been home for two weeks, he went from Mid Ohio,
drove to Road America. Then Sunday after his race he
flew to Limerock. So he was working at Lucas Oil
School last week. I think he's doing skip barber this

(48:44):
week and I think he will fly to a cart
race after this. So it's good to have a job.
So here are details of the race. So Jackson was
racing for Wayne Taylor Racing, which is one of the
top teams. Its own by Dan Twis and the TWG
group and Wayne Taylor obviously, who is a former race

(49:07):
winning driver, and he's built a very successful sports car
program and they have teams at every level, the Weather
Tech GTP level, the GTD level, and then in the
single make series Lamborghini Super Trafeo and Jackson was in
the Pro Am car, which is the second of the
four classes, and his teammate was Trent Henman, who also

(49:28):
was a former Team USA scholarship winner several years older
than Jackson, who had not raced in this series since
he won a championship in twenty eighteen, so he was
getting used to that car again. Jackson was getting used
to the different car and even with that, Trent put
it on poll for the first race, Jackson was the
finishing driver. So Jackson gets in and they were somewhat

(49:53):
competing for the overall. Danny Formow and Marcus Erickson's brother
Hampus are in the pro car, and they were dominating
up front. Trent ran third through his entire stint, got
out of the car with about a ten second lead
in class and didn't really try to overtake for second.
I think that's what was decided. Get a class win,
not worry about the overall because that plays into the

(50:14):
team championship. Was one of the reasons why they put
this entry together. So Jackson got in with a nice
cushion and I think tried to one kind of one
quick lap and I noticed one lap early in his
stint he was maybe a few hundreds quicker than Hampus Erickson,
who has been very strong this year. And then all

(50:35):
of a sudden, his gap is fifteen seconds every lap
expanded by about two seconds, so we just kind of
coasted the rest of the way. They won by twenty
five seconds in class, finished fourth overall, so that was cool,
first win that he's had in a sports car. After
a lot of seconds and Day one was the one
we were more concerned about because there's a pro and

(50:56):
an AM and sports car racing. I will admit it's
difficult to figure out who's an AM and how that works.
Jackson is an AM because he's a rookie in this
series and it's kind of based on lap times, and
if you've run in traffic, your lap times can stay down.
And they tend to give people a rookie year in

(51:16):
the series, and he'll have to move up to be
a pro next year. But he had to qualify. He
qualified fourth in class for race two, and several of
the pros were in that three ahead of him were
the faster drivers, so we thought it might be a
little more of a challenge for him to keep people
behind him in race one, but Trent gave him a
nice gap and then Jackson did a nice job and

(51:40):
they won easily. Race two. A thought was, he doesn't
even need to pass anybody if he just runs fourth
in class. The slower driver will be getting in that
car when Trent Hinman does, and he's just going to
blow by him because he's really really fast. Well, at last,
they all started crashing right ahead of Jackson. After the race,

(52:02):
he said, how did it go? Knowing how it went,
and he said, well, I passed several people in turn
one and then it didn't go very well after that.
So somebody decided to try to go three wide going
into turn three right in front of him, like two
rows in front of them. He was starting twelfth overall,
so this was like the battle from fifth to eighth.
Got into the grass and he's tucked in a car

(52:25):
right behind him. They slow, he can't see it. He
hits them in the back punctures, the radiator fluid leaking
and has to just limp back around and park it.
So didn't get a chance in race two, and that
was the one where he's kind of hoping to show pace.
But either way, still good weekend. Got to win out
of the way across that off the books and we

(52:46):
will see what happens next. Next is the race in
Indianapolis in September. That was a one race deal. So
as Elio likes to say, we're open for business, call
a manager, work out a deal. We're hoping something. And
what happened with Wayne Taylor racing that it's really a
good opportunity you get to learn from pro drivers. Danny

(53:07):
formal is the best in the business in super Trafeo
and I think Marcus's younger brother, Hampus is going to
be a top level paid pro driver by next year
as well. So that's what you're trying to get to.
So it was fun and no fist bumping.

Speaker 1 (53:22):
Why not.

Speaker 2 (53:24):
Maybe if he wasn't up by twenty five seconds, but
you know, if he had made a pass at the
end to win the race, maybe a fist bump. But
it was more like, Okay, I think you're smart enough
to understand, just don't crash and you win the race,
and he did so he just kind of pittled around
and won the race. I was hoping you get a
chance to race on Sunday, but that's how it goes.

(53:47):
If you're trying to involved. Cars actually do have break lights,
but when you're right behind him, you can't see.

Speaker 1 (53:53):
If you're trying to sell sponsorship, this is a little
word of advice. I wouldn't say that that he was
pitdling around.

Speaker 2 (54:01):
I think that's fine. When you have a twenty five
second lead, should you not piddle around. That's what sports
car racing is about. You do what you need to do,
and it's about average lap time as much as it
is about the fastest lap of the race. And your
job is to give the car to the next guy
and then just manage things. So yeah, job accomplished.

Speaker 1 (54:23):
So good for Jackson. Good for Jackson.

Speaker 2 (54:25):
It was fun. It was fun, and on the broadcast,
which you can find on YouTube, a lot of shout
outs for our partners and really good visuals of all
the logos on the car. So here's something I learned
over the weekend, and this is on peacock and it's
also on YouTube. Just do a Google search. Apparently Super

(54:46):
Trafeo has a deal with what used to be mav TV,
which is now racer TV. It was rebranded recently and
they're going to reair all of the races, like one
a week of the six weekend time in the fall,
so you get a little more mileage out of that.
Oh way back to business, Team Meadow says, who's your

(55:07):
pick to take the flight the fight to polo in
twenty twenty six? Already twenty twenty six, before we've crowned
a twenty twenty five.

Speaker 1 (55:15):
Champion, I got to think, don't you think one of
those Penske cars will be back in the mix? I can't.
That's what I can't get my head around. I know,
it's remarkable that Polo's won eight races out of fourteen,
and you know, I've said that Pato hasn't had, in
my mind a really you know, grand look at me

(55:38):
type of season, and yet here he is second in
the championship and Kirkwood had his moments. But the fact
that Penskes haven't even been close to speak of is remarkable.
So I think one of those guys ought to be
back in the mix. But is it David Malucas, is
Joseph Newgarden, is it Scott McLaughlin or maybe even our

(56:00):
friend Willie.

Speaker 2 (56:00):
P I think I'm gonna need to see something from
Team Penske before at this point, I am picking them
to be in the top three in the championship. They
are nowhere. They've had a lot of bad luck, but
we detailed it last week. The pace is not good
enough to contend for a championship. So while Pullo, unless
they magically changed the car before next year, and they're not,

(56:24):
Polo is the heavy, heavy, heavy heavy, cannot stress that
enough favorite to win again next year and next you know,
I'm gonna say it's Kyle Kirkwuld, It's Kyle Kirkwud, It's
somebody else other than it's Kyle Kirkwood. Poddle Award, you know,
maybe a toss up between those because I expect Potto.

(56:45):
Potto's had a great season, Kirkwood's had a good season.
He's drifted here a little bit. You know, maybe long
Guard takes another step forward. These last two races are
really important for long Guard to get a hand long Ovals,
and if he does that, then we might put Louan

(57:06):
Guard in even footing for being able to compete with Poto.
To potentially compete for Polo. It's going to take a
little bad luck. I'm not counting not Dixon even next
year as well. Dixon is in that program. That car
is really good made. I think you go to the Penskes.

Speaker 1 (57:25):
Yeah, let me let me say this about the Penske
cars this weekend. If they can't, if they can't muster
up pace at this racetrack, this is one of their
better race tracks the last couple of years, this will
be shocking. I mean, Will won this race in pretty
dominant fashion last year. Yep beat beat Polo by nearly

(57:46):
ten seconds. You know, he's qualified really well at this racetrack.
He's won, he's won before a couple of times, two times,
maybe maybe just once, but he has been good at
this racetrack. And New Garden was on the podium last year.
McLaughlin's finished second won the race. So this if they're

(58:09):
not good this weekend, there's going to be it's going
to be a long flight home. I can just tell
you that.

Speaker 2 (58:17):
I think Andretti will also be strong. They also tested here.
Colton was fast last year. I think Marcus was having
an okay day. And then Kirkwood, I remember he had
a little kerfuffle early on when Dixon with Dixon and
the Dixon was in the wall after contact with Pietro Fittipaldi.

(58:41):
But yeah, I think that test should help in that circumstance.

Speaker 1 (58:46):
And by the way, the car on the poll was
Santino Ferrucci, so AJ foyight Team Penske partnership car. So
you know they were fast all around last year Team Penske,
et cetera. And I hate to call AJ Foyt's team,
et cetera, but you get the point that that entourage

(59:07):
had a good weekend. And yeah, you know I'm hopeful
that and it should be good bye now that fruits.
He's hand is now in a good spot. He's had
an extra week to kind of regroup and hopefully he
can have a good weekend as.

Speaker 2 (59:22):
Well, and a good opportunity for Melucas, yes, to really
get things going with what should be a good car
set up and what will be interesting and with all
these rumors, is he headed the team Penske or not.
He's in a fully branded Penske car this week. Gallagher
is the partner. And what's been on Melucas's car, you know,

(59:45):
after you started looking at a little bit, I forget.

Speaker 1 (59:48):
The name of it.

Speaker 2 (59:49):
What has been on the Malucas car that is a
Penske or has been a Penske associate partner in recent years,
but clarience technologies. But maybe not everybody has noticed that
because it's I don't know if it's been a primary
for Penske. Well, Gallagher has and they're on the car
with David Malucas this weekend and aj Foyd Racing now

(01:00:13):
they have a partnership, but I thought it was a
technical partnership. But there you go, So make of that
what you want in that regard what else more Twitter
points and questions. Dave Love fifty says congrats to Jackson
for race one, condolences for two. Is Louis Foster lockdown

(01:00:34):
at RLLL outside of Renus. He has punched above his
way more than anyone, and I wonder if ANDRETTI would
call him home. Marcus e out question Mark a lach
Kirkwood foights. So there were quotes was that a racer
story in the last week from Rob Edwards quotes saying
Marcus is going nowhere for next year. He's under contract,

(01:00:58):
that contract's going to be honored. I believe that to
be true. That's what I've been saying for the last
few months. I also understand when someone says something that's
the truth, that's the truth for that day, right, you know,
they can tell you the truth or that day, and

(01:01:19):
then sometimes circumstance changes a month or two based on
other circumstances at times. But I believe that to be true.
I will be very surprised if there is a change there.
But in in the world, not just motorsports, but in
the world, we get surprised sometimes. So you just don't

(01:01:40):
have any guarantees in life.

Speaker 1 (01:01:44):
What is your phrase about contracts, They are suggestions, suggestions.

Speaker 2 (01:01:50):
Yeah. Now, my theory is that Dan Towers is new
into being the team principal, you know, come somewhat shared
with myel in the last few years. I think there
is something to be said for not getting that reputation
where a contract is not a contract. And I also

(01:02:12):
think there's something to be said for, Hey, Marcus Erickson
just about won the Indianapolis five hundred and he was
de q through no fault of his own. May or
may not have had any impact on performance, but he's legit.
He's finished second on the road twice, has won it once,
easily could have been a two time winner. If they
didn't have something that had never happened before, I'll restart

(01:02:36):
with one lap to go. You know, if they don't
change the rules. I'm not going to say change the
rules midfly because it was always available, but if they
didn't do something unprecedented, Marcus Erickson is a two time
and almost a three time Indy five hundred winner, and
I would still contend no one would say this he can't.
But if Polow doesn't get through him in traffic and

(01:02:59):
Marcus crosses the road first, there is a monetary fine.
They're not taking away the night five hundred win in
the Maybe I'm wrong, Maybe this was so egregious that
they would have felt like they would have had to
So I expect Marcus to be back. Bobby Rayhall has
said that Louis is on a multi year agreement. Now,

(01:03:22):
a lot of people are on multi year agreements. What
I'd really like to know is about options. That's the
other thing is the semantics of these deals that you
always hear drivers run a multi year contract, like Linus
Lunquist was last year. How's he driving this year? Yeah?
So a lot of times one it is a small

(01:03:45):
expense to buy a driver out. The driver's salary in
most cases is you know, for young drivers is a
twentieth or one twenty fifth of the budget to run
the car. Very small. It's less than the tire bill probably.
And then what's the option status? Now? I think he's

(01:04:07):
asking more. Could Louis go somewhere else? Might someone else
go after Louis? Maybe? But I think there's too many others.
My guess is if there are options, they are team options.
Usually the way this works, if somebody's hiring a young driver,
the team like Nassi did with Alex Poalo has the option.

(01:04:30):
The driver normally doesn't have an option, especially if they're
not bringing much or any of the budget. They're happy
to have a ride. Think this is the place for
them to be and as long as the team wants
me back, that it's going well enough where I'm going
to want to be back. So I expect Louie to
be back at that team next year. Another question, so

(01:04:51):
we'll go to the next ESF one as for a
silly season updates, and we had the question earlier about
about a Linas Lundquist two. So I don't know anything
any different. I don't know anything more about what will
powers status is it really starts there. Didn't see anybody
last weekend. Didn't really ask anybody, you know, I probably

(01:05:16):
should ask Michael Shank at some point because I think
that's the next Domino what happens in his car. I
believe Felix rosen Quist's on multi year contract. I believe
everyone likes Felix roseen Quist, and that would not be
a consideration at all. It's a partnership with Ganassi. He
has that relationship. He's quick. Maybe not as many results
as everybody would love to have for different circumstances, but

(01:05:40):
that seems locked in. I think, and others think that
Marcus Armstrong is coming to the end of his contract
with Ganassi, and I don't know how that worked out.
Was it transferred or is it more likely that he
is on loan? What I had heard last year, Michael
Chenk told me this, I do not have to take

(01:06:02):
Marcus Armstrong to finish up this technical partnership with the NASSI.
I have the ability to hire who I want, and
I think at that time he was strongly thinking about
making an offer to David Malucas, but he before they
even got to it, was hired by Foyts or as
something by Penske. So then it became a no brainer

(01:06:25):
for Armstrong. One because he's good, two because he was
under contract, and three because we think there is some
financial help placing Marcus on the grid. Is that financial
help still going to be there? If it is, I
can't imagine you'd go away from Marcus Armstrong because he's
taken another little step forward this year. I think it's

(01:06:47):
do you go after will Power? It's a good place
to say. I agree with the Power suggestion. It is
a good place to say that Rosenquist and Armstrong are
sixth and eighth in the championship, and Armstrong it can
be argued that other than Polo and maybe somebody else
up near the top like Poto, he's had about as

(01:07:09):
good a ten rays stretch as there is in this paddock.
Nine to the last ten, I think, in the top ten,
and he has consistently climbed up through the standings to
be eighth. Now, so you know, when we talk about
at the start of the year who could be in
the top ten, you know, we name all kinds of people,
and I think if you went back and replayed our conversation,

(01:07:31):
it took us a long time to get to Marcus
Erickson to be in the top ten when we were
naming drivers. So good on him. He's had a good year.
There's not a lot of empty spots. Likely this is
maybe going to be a quiet offseason unless someone decides
to be bold. Well, we still don't know, is what's

(01:07:52):
happening at Penske. Is Power willing to do one year?
Do the have a contractual requirement to place Malucas in
a Penske car next year, which may preclude even an
offer to Power If one year is offered to Power

(01:08:13):
and someone says he's available. I'm going to get him.
Does someone offer him too, and he just says, I'm
tired of this, I am ready to move on. And
the teams where he would go. I think if it's
a one year contract, he's taking Penske, unless it is
which teams.

Speaker 1 (01:08:33):
Well, it's not going to be Anassy, but that would
be one, and Aero McLaren would be two, and I
guess you'd have to say and ready, but I don't
think here's any room at the end. So those would
be the teams and maybe Meyer Shank and maybe my
partnership of course.

Speaker 2 (01:08:50):
Yeah, now the opening could be Foight, which still could
be attractive, assuming thee the technical partnership continues with Team Penske.

Speaker 1 (01:09:00):
Who the engineer is, who the engineer is, who.

Speaker 2 (01:09:02):
The engineer is, and what that relationship is going to
be a lot of uncertainties. I think it's likely status
quote Ed Carpenter Racing. You know, coin is waiting on
what Renas VK is going to do. As we've talked about,
that might be the best spot there. And then you
look at the drivers near the back of the championship,

(01:09:26):
especially those that aren't going to make leader circle, but
there is all budget involved with them. It's not just
simply can we find someone better at the back end
twenty seven, twenty six, twenty fifth. All three drivers are
responsible for a significant part of the budget with Jacob Abel,

(01:09:46):
Devlind Francesco and sting Ray Rob And I don't know
how the teams are going to make that up. So
I don't know if though, any of those seats would
be open or not. And where you'd want to go
And if you're renas VK, do you want to leave
where you're at, where you are not far behind the
best team Penske driver and head of two of the three,

(01:10:09):
to go to a seat that is either twenty fifth,
twenty six or twenty seventh.

Speaker 1 (01:10:15):
I can't make that argument. Stay where you're at. You're
the top dog in a team that frequently over the
last twenty years has punched above its weight and won races,
not just filled the field, not just been fifteenth eighteenth,
They've won a lot of races. Now. They had Sebastian Boorday,

(01:10:36):
they had Justin Wilson. Those are two pretty good race
car drivers, maybe in the elite of the elite category.
But Dale helped make that program work as well. They
have good engineers, and Dale's a smart guy, and you
know he builds the right He's lean and mean is

(01:10:56):
what that program is.

Speaker 2 (01:10:58):
Unfortunately, connor daily seat is not firm. Connor has been
pretty open about that. He even alluded to it's not
set for the whole year. Well, you know, I think
we're safe to this point now with two ovals finishing up,
he is going to be their best option and they
are safely in the leader's circle. But the Honkohs Hollinger
seat has often depended on bringing some budget with it,

(01:11:21):
so you know, along with what he's done on the
track this year, it'll be what he does off the
track that helps determine that. So that's a potential opening
somewhere for Prema. I think if things are as they are,
it's the same two drivers. So when you're talking about
teams that have blank sidepods, you're at the whim of

(01:11:44):
the person paying for it. And if you ever get
to a point where the person paying for it says
I'm tired of paying for it, then things start to change.
Either by bringing in a driver who brings budget, which
neither of these drivers. Do they are higher drivers Schwartzman
an I lot or do they say we've had enough

(01:12:06):
and sell the team or shut down the team.

Speaker 1 (01:12:10):
Yeah, that's what happens.

Speaker 2 (01:12:12):
There's just no guarantees on all of those circumstances. List
of drivers that are free agents will power Rinus VK.
I think Marcus Armstrong, Connor Daly. Don't know about Stingray
Rob whether that was a multi year or not. Christian
Rasmussen is one of those multi year agreement. Is there

(01:12:34):
an option involved? Don't know. My guess is if there
is an option, it's not his. It'ld be a team option.
But again, I can't see him going anywhere. He's outperforming
his higher paid, multi time race winning teammate and Alexander
ROSSI he should be set. I don't know about Santino.
I think that might have been multi year, but that's

(01:12:56):
not normally how that works. That took a little while
to get done. I'd be so prized if that was
I'd be shocked if that was an ironclad multi year deal.
I hope it was for Santino's sake, but things have
changed today. J Foyd, what does sext and properties want
to do Marlene passed away. Is the company still is

(01:13:19):
invested in IndyCar I hope so, I hope they see
the value in that. But you know, he rises to
be relatively high on the free agent list to be's
out there. Have to believe Foight wants to keep him.
We'll do everything, And if they're going to lose Malucas,
then all of a sudden he becomes P one and
whatever team sponsors that they have, Santino is going to
become their lead driver. Last year was an interesting dynamic

(01:13:43):
because of the Penske Technical partnership. They wanted David Malucas.
So Malucas's deal got done first before Santino's got done
a little bit later. And let's look at some of
the people that don't have sat right now, but that
are viable candidates. Dennis Hauger who who I don't Did
we talk about this last week? The Indie Next Championship

(01:14:04):
is open again, especially with the Chicane at Portland. He's
up by I think it's forty two points with still
three to go, so one more finish in the back
and one more win by Kyle Collette, and Kyle Collette
is leading the Championship even after this next weekend. But

(01:14:24):
Hauger is still really well thought of and he's in play.
Lockie Hughes probably going to do another year at Indy
next unless he wins the championship, which is unlikely now
because he came together with Auger and it's going to
be really tough for him. What if Colette wins the
championship or even what if he doesn't. I don't know

(01:14:45):
his financial situation if he but he's good and if
he can bring some budget, he's going to be in
the mix. Tayo Porcher is working with Simon Pajino, is
really really good head to head with a lot of
the F two driver that are doing well in Indy
Car now and he was beating them, but hasn't done

(01:15:07):
an oval race yet. I don't think just had a
test day, so that's a bit of an unknown there.
Does Grojean try to get back in Somebody from the
F one world? Jack Harvey is still actively racing and
does he want to do this again or does he
love being a pit reporter. You can't top being a
pit reporter. That's the best job in the world. Now
you're a race car driver. Somebody wants to make you

(01:15:28):
a full time race car driver. Again, you think about that,
and then what about the F one people, the F
two people, Mick Schumacher, his name has been thrown around.
If Valtreie Botis doesn't get the Cadillac F one seat,
you know he would be interested in this. The Honkohs
Hollinger team has a lot of F one connections, and

(01:15:48):
I'm sure I'm forgetting many many others.

Speaker 1 (01:15:51):
Don't sell Jack Harvey Short he's a booth analyst as well.

Speaker 2 (01:15:56):
For Indy Next. Yes, the premiere broadcast of the weekend. Yeah,
that's pretty comfortable. There little more work out on pitt Lane. Yeah,
I'm looking to see if I've forgotten anybody else in
that full season listing of things. But I still think
silly season is not going to be that silly. But

(01:16:17):
all it takes is one person deciding we're going to
blow things up and we're going after somebody. You know
that maybe someone has decided we think Rina's VK is
it and we're going to create a space for him,
or we think Willpower is highly motivated, and you know,
if I'm a team, I know he's going to be

(01:16:37):
forty five. I'm not worried about five years from now.
It is a short term business. There will always be
someone else available that he is good. If you're hiring,
hire him, and when he's out of usefulness, you can
go hire the next player available.

Speaker 1 (01:16:57):
But he's got two more years. I think he can
be good for two more years, and not just Rena's VK.
But if somebody does somebody think that Christian Rasbusten is
smoothing out. If that's the case, he's been bloody fast.

Speaker 2 (01:17:11):
But I don't think he's available. No, I agree. I
would be shocked if if there's any option it's a
team option. I think someone would have to buy him
out of a contract.

Speaker 1 (01:17:23):
I'm just just saying, does somebody perceive him differently and
more valuable than what it would take to get him out?
You know?

Speaker 2 (01:17:31):
Yep, yep, very much true. Other questions via the Twitter
inbox refreshed on me. Steve Hunt at Hunter's Way sixty
seven says, with Fox buying in, might we see the
schedule extended into September with some Friday night oval races?

Speaker 1 (01:17:53):
Maybe? But you know, a.

Speaker 2 (01:17:57):
Friday night is the only way that's going to happen.
They are not going they have no room on Sunday.
Sunday is to the NFL, So this actually goes more
the other way that they are going to be adamant,
and I think I know Mark Miles feels this way.
You don't want to compete with the NFL. I don't

(01:18:17):
know about a Friday night. I think I know we
want a longer season. Those of us that love IndyCar
racing want the season to be longer. I would love
to be longer too, But if the commercial aspect matters,
even Friday nights, college football owns Friday nights pretty well.
I don't think you want to mess with that. You

(01:18:37):
get lost in the football cycle in the fall. So
unless it gets to the point where there are twenty
one promoters that say, here's my million and a half dollars,
I must have a race, then I think you do
everything you can to make the schedule end the way
it's ending this year. Try to find more in the spring.

(01:18:58):
Can they do something the week after the Daytona five
hundred and use that platform? You know they don't have
They have the Super Bowl every three or four years,
so you've got that, but you still have the Daytona
five hundred. Maybe you race on the Saturday of daytona
five hundred weekend, but look for things in February, March,

(01:19:19):
or April. That's where you have some gaps in the schedule.
All Right, some other things that I just saw come
across late this afternoon. We'll get into on this Fox
IndyCar deal in more. Next on track Side.

Speaker 1 (01:19:30):
Hi, this is Kyle Kirkwood and you're listening to track Side.

Speaker 2 (01:19:33):
Okay, let's see what else we can get to. I
want to sneak in a few more from Twitter. The
Xbox at Storm and Soda says Felix Rosenquist is an
interesting driver and then he's six in the championship at
only one podium. You also don't look at him thinking
he'll win a race either type of driver. That puts
the team in a tough spot, as he has a
high floor, but I don't see much upside thoughts.

Speaker 1 (01:19:54):
Well, you made the point that he's not had the
results that he and everyone else would expect. There is
something to the fact that it's a tough call. I
would agree it's a tough call. He's good for the program,
he's good with Ganassi, he's good with internally, and he's
a heck of a race car driver, but you gotta
win races too.

Speaker 2 (01:20:15):
I've never I just this came to my mind. I'll
ask some people what they think about this. Brian Hurd.
It comes to mind. When Brian was part of the
four car lineup at Andretti, the other drivers raved about him.
The other drivers got more headlines, had more wins. Now,
Brian did win multiple races, but I was always told
that he was a major key to that operation, helping

(01:20:39):
him was set up being the adult in the room,
being the calm face in the room. And I wonder
if Felix is a little bit the same. I don't
think I think everyone would like to have a Felix Rosenquist.
I absolutely would like to have him. Alex Polo likes
having him around as a part of that program. So yeah,
you'd always like to have more wins, and somebody's got

(01:21:03):
to win on the team. But as long as that's happening,
then I think you're pretty happy with rosen Quist. Mohammad says,
any new about power VK etc. We talked about that,
don't really know. And he says about ms Lambo going away,
that means just accurate. Caddy BMW Aston and Porsche has
hyper cars compared to WEK they have all that minus

(01:21:26):
Acar and Alpine, Ferrari, Toyota, Pougeot. Will this be a
problem for MS less hyper cars? By the way, BMW
and ray Hall Leedhman Lannigan won in Road America this weekend.
Really cool for them. If you didn't know that that
they separated. BMW said we're leaving. We're going to find
a new program, and that's sad because they've been together forever.
So our ll is open for business to find a

(01:21:49):
new manufacture or customer program. So that was big for
them to finish one too. The other thought I would
say is Road America was packed. Forget about if anyone
ever suggests IndyCar and IMS are running together at Road America,
no need, there's no room. It's full, The paddock is full,
and it's full with fans. I think it might have

(01:22:10):
been a bigger crowd than IndyCar Weekend. It was at
least as good and it continues to grow. No, I
don't see any concern. Yeah, that's sad about Lamborghini. They
were only doing the endurance races that impacts from Angrojen.
They're not going to return next year in the capacity
putting the program on a hiatus, but what Ford's coming in.
We don't know if Genesis is going to get involved

(01:22:32):
in IMSA either, But no, I think IMSA is pretty
strong right now and there's not a whole lot of
concerns there. Mike Jay says heard that Sunday's live broadcast
of the IndyCar Race from Portland will be preempted in
the Chicago Land area by the Bears preseason game. Do
you know if this is correct? I do not, but
I mentioned that in case anyone else does, and it's

(01:22:54):
Mike Jay at Tunnel Head one. So respond to Mike
to U N l h D one. No television deal
is perfect. People were unhappy about Peacock before and needing
to pay for Peacock, but one thing that did give
you is it always gave you at least a streaming option. Well,
here's what I would say, No, I know this, So

(01:23:14):
if you can get Fox on your local affiliates, that
means you have access to foxsports dot com. I don't
know how it works. If you don't subscribe, you may
have to enter your credentials. But that's what the advice
would be you may have to stream it, but if
you get preempted for it, it's going to happen. When
you're on network television, tornado warning comes up the affiliate,

(01:23:36):
it's got to go to that, or they have a telethon,
or yeah, you're going to see some preseason football because
business says for that local affiliate, they're going to get
fifteen times the audience that an IndyCar or a NASCAR
race is going to get. So just be aware of
that and keep foxsports dot Com in mind. If you
can get it, I think that will be an option

(01:23:57):
for you. Okay. The thing I saw on line today
from Blackbookmotorsports dot com. BlackBook motorsport dot com, Yeah, says
they understand the Fox IndyCar deal now runs through twenty thirty.
The reports before is that was a three year deals
That means it would have expired after twenty seven. Also

(01:24:18):
on Mexico City, they report the negotiations they understand have
hit a bump, but expectations remain positive that a deal
will be closed. I've kind of heard the same things,
and I think I've said this before. I need to
see an announcement before I can say one hundred percent
that's going to happen. They're just a lot of things
involved with an international race. I have heard some nightmare

(01:24:38):
stories from people that were there from NASCAR. I've heard
some very pleasant stories and no issues at all, But
there are just a lot of things that happen in
that regard. Final thought that I don't think I mentioned
on the Fox Indiecar thing of positives and I'm still
I'm not able to find negatives. Maybe somebody else is

(01:25:01):
going to have them for me. IndyCar still needs to
show Honda that there's a bright future in this right
That's what Honda has said that they want, and as
far as I know, nothing is done there. I would
think this helps. And then also from the team standpoint,
they have these charters that some people looked into offering

(01:25:21):
to purchase, and the numbers thrown out there are really big.
We don't know what they're really worth. I feel like
this creates more value for the teams with those charters.
Whenever the NASCAR charters went up for sale, the first
few that you could get one for between two and
four million dollars. A year or so ago, they were
selling between thirty and forty million, So you know, maybe

(01:25:41):
somebody does decide I'm going to go and invest in
IndyCar right now, and maybe someone cashes out. I don't
think i'd cash out for two million, though, but somebody
did that in Nascar and they're regretting that at this point.
So stability in the sport is a good thing. All right,
We're out of time.

Speaker 1 (01:25:58):
Anything else, Nope, I think we're ready to go. Let's
have a good weekend.

Speaker 2 (01:26:02):
Okay, we're not totally done yet, because I'll check in
to see what we missed in more next on track Side, Hi,
this is David Lucas and you're listening to track Side. Okay,
what we missed? Details of the Fox streaming service came
out today. Fox won or at least some details. It
says it goes live August twenty first, so before the

(01:26:22):
end of the IndyCar season. It's Fox FS one FS
two Big Ten network. It says starts at nineteen ninety nine.
I don't know if there are tiers involved or not,
but honestly, I expected it to be quite a bit
more expensive than that, based on what the other streaming
service that Fox and Turner and ESPN Disney were involved

(01:26:43):
in that ended last year. That was going to be
forty something as an introductory price. So that's good Sarah
Morris and more details to come on that. Asks, are
there any special guests in the booth for Indy Next
for the last three races? Good question I forgot to
ask today. I don't know. We'll all find out together
coming up this weekend. Out of time. Some other tweets

(01:27:06):
we'll get to next week. We'll see you next Wednesday
at seven on trackside

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