Curt and Kevin Talk Herta to Cadillac F1, Power to Andretti, Markham on the Calendar, and More!

Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:03):
This is track side with Kirk Cavin and Kevin Lee
on ninety three five and one oh seven five The Fan.

Speaker 2 (00:12):
No matter what happens, you've kind of left everything out
there and kind of put the decision in someone else's hands.
I don't know, man, Maybe it's my decision. So if
you're a team, if you're writing for me, you know,
if I'm good enough.

Speaker 3 (00:27):
Second, we're gonna go away. Yeah, gorm be raising back.
Oh my god, how a drop ever? Big guy? Good
job number twelve? Oh right? Yoh god?

Speaker 2 (00:48):
Great? Right? And that's will Power after he won at
Portland Portland and the twenty eighteen cool Down Left, which
will be the theme for twenty twenty six four will
Power The first part courtesy of the Andretti IndyCar social
media accounts. Hello, welcome, thanks for joining us. Tracksie ninety

(01:11):
three to five and one oh seven five The Fan.
Some things are confirmed, many questions remain, including the last
five seats and maybe more and who will be driving
them the schedules. Some things are reported and likely, some
are uncertain and much more. Kevin Lee, Kirk Caavin landon
Coon's with You on a Monday Night edition Before I

(01:33):
Forget I checked. We are on Tuesday next week. The
next three weeks are on Tuesday at seven pm, so
make note of that. Next week we'll have some racing
at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway to talk about, with the
WeatherTech Sportscar Championship IMSA and many other categories coming up
the weekend after next But here tonight, Kurt, we have

(01:56):
a lot to get to. So since we last spoke
on Tuesday night, what have we learned? What do we
know with certainty? Is confirmed by teams? Well about this,
I'm good to be with you again. It's it feels
like the off season has been like a forever ago,
but yet we have all kinds of news. So in

(02:16):
that respect, you know, it's kind of the gift that
keeps on giving. And hopefully, by the way, we have
shows laid out through the end of January, so we're
excited about that they're going to keep us for a
little bit longer. And since we last gathered, we've learned
that Colton Hurda is going to F two or at
least in a Cadillac F one program to be determined.

(02:39):
I think that was how it was phrased. Test driver
is what was officially confirmed, so we still need to
understand the depth of his activities in twenty twenty six.
But from our side of the street, it opens up
a seat that will Power has now taken. So will

(02:59):
Power moving from Team Penske, which I never saw coming
as he stacked year after year after year after year
with wins in seventeen of the eighteen seasons that he
drove for Roger Penske. I'm still tonight sitting in the
Willpower conference room, which I'm going to have to change
the decorations with different liveries on the uniforms. But the

(03:26):
will Power and Dready.

Speaker 1 (03:28):
News came out since we last spoke, and I'll be honest,
I'm excited about it. I know you like a little
freshness in the sport, you like a little motivation in
the sport. And for one of the very few times
in my career, I actually texted a little supportive message
to will this week or last week and said, I
can't wait to watch this.

Speaker 2 (03:50):
I'm pretty stoked about it. And he wrote back and said.

Speaker 1 (03:53):
I am as well, and I think it's going to
be one of the real fun things of twenty twenty six.

Speaker 2 (04:01):
If you listened to last week's show. I think I
and many were pretty confident of what was going to happen.
So I may have congratulated or may not Will in
person before he hit the drums at Tutsies in Nashville
on Sunday night. No response needed from him, but I
think that the industry kind of had an idea of
what was going on. That said, you always want to

(04:22):
see things in print, and sometimes things change in that regard.
So let's go through these in the order in which
they needed to happen. First of all, there needed to
be a place for will power to get to, so
we'll get the power. And as you suspected, he was
going to be open and he was going to be honest,

(04:43):
and he was on the Hinch and Rossie podcast and
all things that I speculated about he confirmed. And then
some about this process, but first the hurt of situation,
and we got some insight there too from Dan Twis,
the CEO of Motorsport, and also from Colton Hurda himself.

(05:04):
Colton did say I see myself coming back to Indy
car By the way, one of the questions that came
up there. I think I had this as a Twitter
question last week that we didn't get to and now
we have a better answer. Would he do the five hundred?
And that was asked and he didn't know that. There
was not a Monaco conflict this year, So that tells

(05:27):
me they really haven't looked into this and haven't thought
about it. So I did and he's clear. Yeah, the
F two schedule is wide open, so it's one thing
not to have Monaco that weekend, but there still is
an F one race, the Canadian Grand Prix, the same
day as the Indy five hundred, but there is not

(05:48):
an F two race. Oh by the way, backtrack, F
two was not a part of that release, but Dan
Towers mentioned several times, not only in the Hinch and
Rossie podcast, in some F one television interviews this past weekend.
But that's the plan. They just don't know which team
he's going to be with, so until you have a deal,

(06:09):
you don't have anything to announce. But that surely makes sense.
That is the plan. I wouldn't be shocked to see
him get in a car before this season is over.
There's no reason not to do that to help out
his cause. But next year's F two schedule has a
break between April nineteenth, and June fourth, which is Monaco weekend,

(06:29):
and the only F one race is because his job
is not listed as reserve driver, but you have to
imagine that there's a good chance that eventually becomes part
of it and they want him to be with the
F one team at all times. Well, they're in Miami
May third, and then they're off the next two weekends,
so that would not impact if you wanted to come

(06:50):
for the GP. Would not impact if you wanted to
come for all the practice and qualifying. The only thing
would impact is Canadian GP weekend and he could still
stop by there on Saturday make an appearance, but missing
one race not a big deal. So I'm hoping they
do that. Do they have room? Has Marco Andretti been
promised to see? Was that a multi year deal? Did

(07:13):
Michael arrange that before he left as part of the program.
I think there's a good chance that Marco is coming
back next year, but they could run five cars and
that would be great for the sport because unfortunately it's
still been a little bit of a thrash to it
won't be hard to get to thirty three, but we'd
still love to see thirty four, thirty three are going

(07:34):
to be filled really soon. But would one of the
big teams roll out an extra car? How did this
all get started? So this is part of you know,
it was said that Will's not allowed to talk to
anybody until the season was over. And as we've said,
there's no tampering in this sport, and you had to

(07:57):
wonder at some point was there an ace And Will
did say that he was told by Roger at Detroit,
don't know what's going on, don't know what we have,
so feel free to talk to others. So Will went
up to Dan Towers and Roade America and said I'd
like to drive for you. And Dan's response was so

(08:17):
Dan has said that we've been kicking this around and
as we wondered about, you know, how much of this
is Colton, how much of it is this is what's
best for the organization. There's been a lot of effort
in having this American F one team. Okay, we may
not get an American in the seat next year, but
that may not be bad because it's going to be

(08:39):
a struggle in year one and we don't want that
to be looked upon as an American. An Indy car
driver can't do this. This is a more proper way
to go about it, whether it's a twenty five year
old or a twenty year old. So they'd been thinking
about it, and Dan Towers didn't not write say this
was the deciding factor. But you just makes common sense

(09:03):
when you're thinking about it, and then someone like Willpower
is available, because that would be part two. Okay, we
want to do this. This has been the plan all along.
But the plan if you remember a few years ago
when it was going to happen, Kyle Kirkwood was waiting
on the wings and they wanted a space for him,
and there have been other backup plans. There wasn't a
clear win this year now renas Vik could have been,

(09:27):
and that might have been in his mind. He knew
he was a free agent, and there may have been
some other thoughts around there as well. But once that
became a possibility, that's when I think it really became
more of a reality. Colton said he didn't decide until
very very recently. He made it sound like it was

(09:50):
in the last few days. But will Power knew enough
after he won at Portland's that he was not interested
in taking a meeting. He turned down Penske, So now
we shift the power and what we've learned out of that,
and by the way, but also direct you to a
David malsher Lopez story on racer dot com. And this

(10:11):
was before at least I had listened to the podcast,
So I don't know if David had listened to it.
I doubt it because he would have cited it. And
David literally wrote the book on Willpower. There was a
book which is a very good book. It came out.
It's probably up here behind me in the office. Can
you see it behind me? I can, and mine is

(10:31):
within reach as well. I'm going to say it came
out seven or eight years ago, but it was a
Willpower autobiography written by David malsher Lopez, so they have
a relationship, and there were not direct quotes from Will,
but it was just stating a lot of things that
I thought, and I had heard some from really really
good sources. But David had I think he wouldn't write

(10:54):
this without saying, Hey, Will, I'm going to write this.
You okay with this? So that confirmed a lot of
things out of this and Will's ultimate decision. After Portland,
he got a text from Roger Penske, which he had
told us. He got a text from Roger and just
said we'll talk. And the reason they were going to
talk after the season was over because Roger said something

(11:17):
along the lines. Will mentioned that, you know this is
going to help your cause. And then he gets a
call from Jonathan Gibson, who's one of the executives at Penske,
saying would you like to come to Detroit and meet
and we've got something for you? And Will said no, thanks,
and he said he made that decision. And that's why

(11:37):
I opened with that I would like to talk with
him more because I think it's very possible he made
that decision from the cool down lap to Victory Lane interviews,
to the walk to the media center and being asked
those questions at Portland at Portland and you know the

(11:58):
second part of that, if you don't know whether I'm worthy,
where have you been? And that's not exactly what he said,
but that's what he's saying. And I think he just know.
So did he know one hundred percent an offer or
did he just have enough options? And I said, I
think almost everybody reached out And David malsher Lopez wrote,

(12:24):
how did he phrase it, but you can tell which
team all but one.

Speaker 1 (12:29):
All but one reached out is how he alluded to it.

Speaker 2 (12:33):
And here it is.

Speaker 1 (12:34):
He alluded to Aaron McLaren without saying Aaron McLaren. But
his response or what he wrote was priceless. And he
said this despite the fact that the principal star Driver
was eager for Will to join and help make the
team more consistent. Only one principal shutdown the notion of
adding power to his lineup. Only one shut down.

Speaker 2 (12:54):
And then the line is, oh, well, maybe retaining Nolan
Siegel will work out. Now I actually would give credit
to that team principle. So now it becomes clear he's
talking to Errol McLaren, because that's something to think about.
They've taken a lot of grief for not honoring contracts
for moving on from Malucas, which they had the right

(13:15):
to do. There was an out in the contract if
he wasn't physically able to perform from moving on from
Tail poor Cher, you know, going back in the day
to Oliver ask you to James Hinchcliffe, which I don't
think was really a McLaren thing. And I'm maybe even
forgetting someone else, so good on them for honoring the contract.
They have reasons to do so, but yeah, we shouldn't

(13:38):
fault him for honoring the contract in that situation. And
no one does have talent. He's twenty years old, and
there are other reasons that you want him in the program,
So everyone else go off on a tangent. What was
gonnask he gonna do? And what I don't know is
whether there were firm offers. It could just be simply

(14:00):
we hear you're out there, we want to talk. We
don't have anything now, but things change, and in my mind,
you know, I know we've all kind of put this
red Bull thing to bed, but I still think there
had to be something there, even if it was slim,
And I'm starting to think more and more that Polow

(14:24):
may have shut it down. I don't want to go
drive that car. I might as well drive the Newbie team,
the Cadillac F one team, because no one can drive
that car other than Max Westapping and he's not happy
about a third of the time, and he might be
the greatest that's ever done it. So that might have
been it that shut that down. But again, I would

(14:48):
still contend that that was plausible. And if you're Chip Ganassi.
You just never know, because your driver has broken two
contracts before, so I might want to have a backup
plan just in case something happens. And even without that,
if there really is an out in that to go
to F one, you want to have Plan B just

(15:10):
in case that comes up. And who knows, maybe they
were just going to run four cars next year and say, yeah,
I like my chances of will Power and Scott Dixon
and Alex Poulo qualifying each week. You know, pick will Power,
he's the new one. He's going to have to qualify,
and if Prema comes back beat one of the two
PREMI cars, I'll take my chances on that.

Speaker 1 (15:31):
Yeah, I've thought all along that a situation like that
would existed. You know, if you had a veteran who
really qualified, well, there's no veteran that qualifies any better
in the history of the sport than will Power. So
I've always thought that something like that could happen. So
I think it is likely that will had a conversation
with Chip Canassi or my call either one, and so

(15:56):
all those things are in play. By the way, my
thoughts on on David's column, which I went back and
forth by the way on whether it was a news
story or a column. It was a column, it really was,
And I know in writing writers are the only ones
that care. But I can tell you that that that
was written with some some inspiration from Will. You could

(16:20):
hear Will's frustration in David's words and so yes, yeah,
so take that for what it is. If you haven't
read it, you're going to go go read it following
this show. But yeah, I think it is entirely likely
that Ganassi spoke to him, and nearly every team, now
did Dale Coin, did Prema, did Punkohs?

Speaker 2 (16:43):
Probably?

Speaker 1 (16:45):
But you know, when the word every team, you know that.
I'm not sure I'm quite willing to go that far,
but I am willing to say that that Will had options.
What I got wrong in this process, or what is
now not not accurate, is that I would have thought
that Team Penske offered a one year deal from the

(17:06):
get go, whether it was during the winter or it
was before May or sometime before the Detroit Race in June,
I can't imagine. And it seems to come from David.

Speaker 2 (17:19):
Store can Will Power or most others exactly how is that?
How did that not happen? And David's story.

Speaker 1 (17:25):
I think it was David's story that led me to
believe that it was a little It was suggested at
least somewhere that it had to be an oversight, had
to be an oversight that nobody got back to him.
But at least that's the conclusion I came to. But
that's the surprising part that I didn't see coming.

Speaker 2 (17:46):
But it wasn't an oversight. I know. It seems like
Roger Penske gave him permission to talk to others in June,
but that and everything that happened does play a part
in it. And Will did mention, and I think this
was in the Hinch and Rossie conversation minus ROSSI. I
think he left by that point, but he said in May,

(18:10):
which is what I thought. I would have still taken
a one year contract, and I think he would have
been the June at some point. It wasn't until probably
late June, Road America's late June. Right last week in
a June, next to last week in a June. Yes,
when he had a conversation with Dan Towers and immediately
was not told, sorry, we love you, but we don't

(18:31):
have any room. It was ooh, I think we might
have something for you. That's when things would have changed,
and he now was in more of a position of
strength and was less likely to accept a one But
sure sounds like the one year was not offered until
after he had won at Portland. Now we'll also mention

(18:52):
in that interview that he had always done his deals
with Roger, and this last one was with Tim Sindrick,
where he wanted three years, only got two. They were
supposed to talk at the end of twenty four in
which he went into the final race with a chance
to win the championship and only the seat belt coming
undone kept him from having a chance, and expected a

(19:15):
call in the winter, didn't get it, and then was
scheduled to reconvene with Cindric after the ND five hundred. Well,
Tim Sindrick was no longer a part of the organization
and he admitted I should have probably just called Roger
at that point and would agree, you know, and maybe
he should have been a little more proactive in the offseason.

(19:36):
But these things don't slip by. They don't. They have
three drivers, they don't forget that one of them has
a contract up. There was a reason they didn't do
it at the end of twenty four and there's a
reason they weren't doing it in the spring, and by
the fact that Roger said, we don't have anything to
confirm yet, so it wasn't like it slipped his mind
in the middle of trying to hire new people and

(19:58):
get everything sorted out after firing the top three people.
Now what we still don't know is what they were
going to do with him. Were they going to run
four cars, were they going to delay David Lucas, which
by the way, we still don't have confirmation that Malucas
is coming to Team Penske, that is one of the
things waiting to see. Or were they going to simply

(20:21):
offer him a chance to trade and get in the
number four car with aj Foyd racing with Team Penske backing. Well,
none of those options are nearly as good as what
he's got right now. Terms were not announced, but logic
would say this was good financially for Willpower, and it

(20:42):
is a multi year deal. I honestly do not know
the length of it, but it would not surprise me
if it's three years, it's certainly at least two years,
and a motivated will Power with how many street races
are there where you know he's already you've taken out
one of the favorites. Colton Hurt is not going to

(21:04):
be there, so you're racing against your key competitor is
Kyle Kirkwood. And maybe Marcus Errickson takes a step up
in that car next year, and there will be others.
You know, Pulo obviously and Dixon and the Penske should
be better. But I know this has been difficult for
Will and Liz, and I'm sure it's not super happy

(21:24):
for Team Penske. This is going to be great for
the sport and for us as fans.

Speaker 1 (21:29):
Sure, sure, sure, it's certainly a pay raise. I just
don't think there's any way around that, based on what
we've seen and heard and read. And it's not that
Dan Towers by nature pays more than Roger Pinske. But
as deals come up, we see it in professional sports
all the time. I shoot, we see it in college sports.
Now you see what the last deal for a linebacker

(21:52):
is or a quarterback, and the next linebacker or quarterback
gets more money than the previous one. Well, since then,
we you know, since Will last did his deal, we've
seen numbers from Colton Hertis deal. We've seen numbers from
POTO Awards deal. By virtue of this lawsuit that is
in play, we know more more astutely what Christian Lungard

(22:17):
is making. So these numbers are now escalating, and we
talked about that, and that's all good for the drivers
in this sport, and the sport is in general and
attracting good talent. So he's going to make more money.
I think that's clear. He's getting the at least one
extra year that he didn't have the opportunity to get
at Team Penske, maybe even two years, could be as

(22:40):
many as three years. And you're right, this is going
to be good for the sport. It'll just be fun
to watch. And you know, we did joke with a
friend of mine, a couple friends of mine that.

Speaker 2 (22:54):
You know.

Speaker 1 (22:54):
And I'm certainly not in the betting world, not even
advocating as much, but if he's not the odds on
heavy favorite at Saint Pete Giving, given his performances over
the years at Saint Pete, I was going to count
how many race wins and poles he's won there. You
may know right off the top of your head, but it.

Speaker 2 (23:11):
Is like eight or nine polls ers.

Speaker 1 (23:13):
I know he has won nine polls and at least
two races, maybe just maybe just the two he won
them in twenty ten, in twenty fourteen, but he finished
second there last year. He has been second a couple
other times, in third at least three or four times,

(23:35):
and of course the nine poles and shoot on the dizziest.

Speaker 2 (23:39):
Day of his life. We won a poll, he won
a poll.

Speaker 1 (23:43):
So there is every reason to believe that, at least
at Saint Pete and the other street races where Andretti
has been exceptional the last two years, that will Power
is going to be the favorite to win a race,
and I suspect he will win. If I were setting
of the over under right now, I think he wins

(24:04):
more than one and a half races next year, and
I might give him two wealth he wins more than
one and a half, well it is too no, I mean, well,
three could be more than one and a half two,
but I think two sounds sounds like the right number
of two or three.

Speaker 2 (24:20):
I bet he wins two or three races next year.
Two does There's only so many to go around. After
Polo wins, heay seven on a down year true, and
Dixie sneaks in and gets one by the way. One
more thought I who wrote this, maybe Nathan brown did
about McLaren honoring Siegel's contract, probably in their best interest

(24:42):
in this lawsuit with Polo as well, not to break
another driver's contract. To talk about how important these contracts are,
not to just move Aside from that point, a couple
of other thoughts. I noticed that Dan Towers mentioned the
twenty six blank Honda, so it's not necessarily the game

(25:05):
Bridge Honda, and there was no mention of game Bridge
in there, and that makes sense because that's Dan's company.
I think in a perfect world you'd like to find
outside money because the program is Gamebridge in group one
thousand and one and TWG and everything else. So you know,
I think there would be some hope from the sales
staff that, hey, we've got the biggest story going into

(25:28):
twenty twenty six, let's find some new revenue to bring
into the team. And we saw a lot of new partners.
Sam's Club at the end of the season was on
Kyle Kirkwood's car. That's quite a big company. That is
something where there is potential available there. My friends of
Browning Chapman and Westfield. We're on Marcus Erickson's car for

(25:49):
the last couple of weekends, and we saw what was
the one we saw there were a couple of other
big ones TG it was it Fridays, what was there
was one on Kirkwood's car, big restaurant chain, Early Chili's,
Early in the year, Phillies, thank you, thank you, Yes,
Early and in the year. So that's one to watch

(26:09):
from the commercial standpoint. I'm going to circle back to
her to here in a minute, so I think, Oh,
the other thing that came out Jennifryer noticed this of
the Associated press. If there were to be any testing
done before the calendar turns, will Power cannot do it.

(26:30):
He is being held to his contract through the end
of the year, which is there, right, You know, that's
probably one of those in hindsight, and will never had
a manager. You're not worried about that, you're not thinking
about that. I'm going to stay with them forever. And
it's only these kind of situations where that comes into play,
where you'd really like the contract and September first, so

(26:55):
you could simply move on and get started. Does that
mean he's not allowed to go in the build and
do things I do not know, but won't get in
a car in reality, unless there's an Indy five hundred tests,
which I don't know if there is at this point,
probably not a big deal or not a deal at all.

Speaker 1 (27:16):
Potentially mean if there's not a fall test, yes, I
don't have it on authority, have not seen the testing schedule,
there will be not a test. There'll be a TST,
there'll be a test. There always lists in the fall, always,
not always.

Speaker 2 (27:32):
Usually it's about ten drivers, like last year I think
it was ten drivers. Now they might like to use
their new driver, so some impact but not crushing and
what I don't remember because the testing rules are very complicated.
I don't know if you did something in December, does
that count towards twenty twenty six? You know, That's why

(27:54):
most of them there's really like two three days that
are available to hurt it. Now. I think I shared
most of what I thought on this, and I can
see it.

Speaker 1 (28:06):
You know.

Speaker 2 (28:06):
I know a lot of people are offended that you
would leave IndyCar to go run in a junior series,
but F two is not that far of a drop down,
and if you want to be an F one. This
is a much better path to give yourself a fighting chance.

(28:27):
And as much as we hate the rules of what
is required for a super license, again credit to F
one for protecting their ladder system and making sure the
wealthy dads are paying and the investors are paying to
run in F three and F two rather than coming
over and doing something else.

Speaker 1 (28:48):
So you've got to follow the rules well. And I
think it's you know, you alluded to it. I think
it's smart. It wasn't you know. The tower as plan
necessarily wouldn't be their preference. Maybe they would prefer to
do something else. But having an established group of drivers
in twenty twenty six kind of get the team on

(29:10):
the on the road is a good thing. It's just
a good thing. It would Colden would be set up
to fail. Honestly, if he went and ran next year
with that team, it wouldn't go well. I mean, it
could go better, I mean than we expect, but it's
not going to go as well as this will go.
When he learns the he has more time with the team,

(29:32):
he has more time in the car, he has more
under when there's no pressure, he has more time, more time,
more time.

Speaker 2 (29:38):
It's just that's that's good.

Speaker 1 (29:40):
I get the frustration if there is some in the
fan base, but this is not This is a good
move for Colton, and he's still young. He can come
back and he could run five years, he could run
two years, he could run ten. Still come back and
run in the car if he wants to.

Speaker 2 (29:58):
It's a bold move. It is risky move because his
reputation would be damaged if he finishes, unfortunately, anywhere outside
the top four, which I think top five in F
two is going to be a very very good year

(30:19):
after not running F three, not coming back for a
second year. I think he's going to have to have
good days to finish in the top ten. And from
what little I know, I know just enough to be
dangerous about what's going on over there. There's a lot
more random in that than there is in anything else.
There are big fields. There seem to be mechanical failures.

(30:41):
There's a lot of crashing because you have a lot
of kids knowing that finishing fifth doesn't get it done.
You know, they want to get to F one. They
have to win. They can't just finish fourth or fifth
in that championship. They have to be top two or
three in that championship. Now, even as I say that,
though I saw this in a Chris Medlin Racer story

(31:04):
today of a couple of guys that are doing pretty
well in F one. Gabrielle Bortoleto did win the championship
last year and he has been very impressive this year.
Kimmy Antonelli has been on the podium, he is the
pick for Mercedes, and Oliver Bearman has done some nice
things at time, but neither were all that awesome in

(31:28):
F two. Bearman finished twelfth in the championship last year
and he's an F one driver now did win three races,
but that's what I kind of talk about, the randomness,
so you know, probably some top results matter a little bit,
and he doesn't list where he finished. But Antonelli faded

(31:48):
from contention last year as well, despite being with the
usually strong Prema team, So it's a bit of a risk,
but he will be better for it, and there's no guarantee,
by the way, that he gets the seat in twenty
twenty seven. If these two guys do well and not
well enough to get plucked away somewhere else, it might

(32:10):
be two years, or it might be second year. As
a reserve driver.

Speaker 1 (32:13):
The one thing that is different though for Colton is
he's not auditioning for a team.

Speaker 2 (32:19):
He's with a team. Well he does.

Speaker 1 (32:21):
He doesn't have to go out and prove something. Yeah,
obviously that he wants. He wants to show the support.
He wants to support to be validated, so he doesn't
want to just be an also ran in that series.
He wants to show that he's worthy. But having said
all that, he's not under the pressure to impress Mercedes

(32:44):
or any other team to sign him up. He's got
a path, that's the thing. He's got a path. He
just needs to validate his talent in that part of
the world. And he doesn't have to do it in
one year. If it happens to two years, he still
has as a path. And if he doesn't, if the
path evaporates for whatever reason, as we've seen some other

(33:07):
drivers path evaporate Alex Blow going to Formula one, then
he's got a He's got a path back. And I
don't think his reputation may get a little dusty from
those that don't really matter, but I think those that matter, Yeah,

(33:27):
those that matter will know.

Speaker 2 (33:28):
I think the people that know will understand This is
not a given. You're not just going to go over
and dust these people, and it will depend on the
team you're with and circumstances in each race. I'm kind
of excited to pay a little bit of attention to
it too. No, I don't know when we'll have time,
but I do like the idea of Cadillac F one

(33:53):
and eventually having an American driver.

Speaker 1 (33:56):
I'm looking forward to an F two race, which I've
not watched a whole lot of in my I've seen
a few, but not much.

Speaker 2 (34:03):
What else is not known. We'll get to some of
your tweets which will cover some of that and much
more on the xbox at Kevin Lee twenty three at
kirk Cavin. It's trackside ninety three to five one oh
seven five the fan. Hi, this is will Power and
you're listening to trackside. Okay, let's sneak into some Twitter
questions via x at Kevin Lee twenty three at kirk Cavin.
Now ees F one? Can Renas VK jump to Team

(34:28):
Penske instead of Malucas? No, I don't think so. Do
you think so? I mean really no? Because answers there
had to have been something in writing or agreed to
that was causing them to not bring back will Power. However,

(34:53):
when with a week left in the season they come
back and say we've got something for you, does leave
you pause? Does it not? That maybe there was a
clause or a performance part of the contract that was
not going to be reached and Team Penske now has

(35:17):
the option to leave him with aj Foyd Racing for
another year. So could they bring VK there? I'm going
to say chances are slim to none because they've gone
down this path. But I do think VK is a
part of that family. That's one of the uncertain things.
I don't know this with certainty. I did talk to

(35:39):
Renus for quite a while Sunday night. Did not ask him.
We talked about a lot of other things. I was
not trying to gather information, just chatting, but I could
tell he was pretty content about what his future was
going to be. And he said, Okay, I'll look forward
to hearing what you have to announce. And I know
other people have written that they expect him to be

(36:00):
I think Marshall Proud wrote this, others have to It's
just common sense, That's what I'm using. It's common sense
that he's going to replace Malucas at Foight, but I
do not know that, and you never know, You just
never know.

Speaker 1 (36:16):
Yeah, I think the performance clause was always in place
with Malucas because if the year didn't go well, if
they came to this agreement with David last fall and said, hey,
you finished in the top ten of the standings, win
a race something like that, probably, you know, win a
race would would secure it. But you know, if not,

(36:37):
we still hold the possibility that we would.

Speaker 2 (36:40):
Go one more year with Foight.

Speaker 1 (36:42):
I think he signed for the future, and you know,
as my friend Kevin Lee often says, contracts are an option,
they are suggestions. But I think I think there was
a performance clause in there, and that's why they came
back with something for Will. I like that Will, you know,

(37:04):
had made up his mind he was going to do
something else at all. He'll be he'll be motivated.

Speaker 2 (37:11):
We know that. Charlie max c five says, what about
will Power now having Colton's former pit staff that hasn't
always gone well but still love his move to ANDRETTI. Well,
I think Will said in that conversation, and Dan Towers
also said, we recognize the weaknesses of the team and
we're making changes, so that just the way it is

(37:33):
every year, there are always going to be some changes made. Well,
it'll be interesting to see. You know, there's a couple
of people at Team Penske that have been pretty close
to Will. We'll see what.

Speaker 1 (37:46):
I don't want to throw them into the conversation unnecessarily.

Speaker 2 (37:50):
I thought the same thing, and I don't think that
would need to replace anyone. Every big team that has
budget would like to add sure, and no one's heard
from Ron Razuski. I'll be surprised if Tim Sindric is
coming back to work at this point. I will never
rule it out, because Tim is still a young man

(38:13):
and has many years left where he can physically work
and probably is going to want to be challenged at
some point, but it has to have been a grind
and he's only had five months off. I would be
really surprised if Tim Sindric wants to go all back
in at this point. Maybe another year if he wants to,
there will be some options. And I honestly don't know

(38:34):
what Ron Razuski wants to do at this point either,
whether he's content, but he seems like a young enough
guy too. To still want to share the knowledge and
resources that he has, and I would think every single
team is going to create a spot and add Ron

(38:55):
Rezuski on if he is allowed to work and if
he wants to work. What about engineers, Well, Ron is
an engineer, what about others? Ron is an engineer and
a technical director. I just said it's silly season for everybody.
It's silly season for everybody. And I think when Aero
McLaren Hyld hired Kyle Moyer, I think that was sent

(39:19):
the best signal possible that anything is possible here and
everyone is in play. Let's see from Muhammad Our, Rena's
VK supporter, one of them, Rena says a lot of supporters.
He says two things. Rena's talked about his future in
Dutch media. He talked around it, but with a huge

(39:39):
smile and will soon soon show why. Yeah, it's kind
of what we talked about. I didn't he didn't tell
me what was happening, but felt pretty good too. Mohammad says,
where is Roger? He was always at WEC races. Some
Mimsen IndyCar have seen him barely in the USA. By

(40:01):
the way, the Porschapinski team won at CODA yesterday. Old
Muhammad also said, let's talk sport cars. Two hot takes,
agree or disagree One Weck isn't driving at CODA for
much longer, barely any people there. I would love to
see them at Seabring or Indy too. It's a bit
strange at for Brilin or WEC first, as they're an
American team, should drive first in IMSA. So just like

(40:22):
F two, I know just enough to be dangerous when
it comes to international sports car racing. You and it's
all confusion. That's sportscar racing. I've gotten a little bit
of a handle on it, but there's a lot going on.
My guess there is that the twenty four Hours of
LAMA is the biggest sports car race, so you want
to get that squared away, and you must be a

(40:43):
part of WEC to be involved in that, and then
you can always add on IMSA after that. I think
and hope we'll see Ford as a part of MSA
as well. But I understand why these programs usually start
with the World Endurance Championship and may have other programs.
In the United States, they have a NASCAR program kind
of covers their marketing through motorsports here. I haven't watched

(41:05):
the Code of Race yet. From the weekend there's football
and then I watched the NASCAR race this morning and
it's also pouring rain, so I don't know if there
was anybody there or not. The Seabring event was much better,
but I don't know if that helps MSUCK because I
know this year without the World Endurance Championship cars there,
there was a lot more room for other stuff at Seabring,

(41:27):
and honestly it was a little easier to navigate because
of the footprint that WEK brings. So you get We've
talked before. Y IndyCar isn't really wanted by IMSN. That's
not their business model. They need to have Super Trafeo there,
they wont to have MX five Cup there. They want
to have Portia Carrera Cup and everything that they can,

(41:47):
and I'm not sure if WEK helps as much with that.
And here's the bottom line. In America. While I love
sports cars as many people do, and standalone events in
America and I would not I would say coming to
Indianapolis would not be a great idea either. If drawing
an audience is what you want this is not it.

(42:08):
You need a team with IMSA or maybe a standalone
at Seabring, but I doubt it. You need to be
with IMSA an event like the Twelve Hours of Seabring.
Roger's been in IndyCar races. He's eighty eight. We just
don't see him. He's not pounding the pavement like I do.
He's there, I honestly don't see him very much. I

(42:30):
see him more at EMSA races because he's up on
the war wagon, but he's not on the pit box
for IndyCar So's. He's in the office trailer and people
that he wants to speak with and want to speak
with him go to him.

Speaker 1 (42:42):
One of these questions was, you know, obviously directed at
about Rena's VK. I was just wondering if anybody, and
there's probably a short list of three that are in
competition with this question, who helped themselves more in twenty
twenty five than Rena's VK. And it's a really short
list that would be in that category. I think, you know,

(43:06):
certainly Christian Lungard helped himself in twenty twenty six, although
he was already secure in his future in twenty five.
It helped himself in twenty five, but he was already
secure for twenty six. Rasmussen helped himself and then Sting Snunsting, Ray,
Kiffn Simpson, Giffen Simpson, Yeah.

Speaker 2 (43:27):
Who also was very secure but has turned some heads,
yes he has.

Speaker 1 (43:31):
Yeah, but Rena good Renas Vck really helped himself. He
may have helped himself more because those other ones that
I mentioned, they all had deals.

Speaker 2 (43:41):
You know, this is the guy who Renus resurrected his
career two weeks before the season. He did not have
a seat, and honestly, he took a seat that it
went horribly for everyone who got in those cars almost
all the time in twenty twenty three, and he helped
lift the program. Yep, others helped, but he helped lift

(44:02):
that program and would get something like Nashville. That car
was not quick and he finished thirteenth. He got something
out of it and did that more often than not
this season. All right, we'll preview hour number two and
plenty more to come. Trackside ninety three to five, one
oh seven to five. The fan, Hi, this is Colton Hurda,
and you're listening to Trackside on ninety three five and

(44:23):
one oh seven five the Fan coming up the next hour.
There was a new event announced for twenty twenty six
Also since we last spoke, we had a pretty good
hint of it, but we've got a lot more details
and we have some dates for the twenty twenty sixth schedule.
We also have some question marks on that front as well.
There's some Indie Next news to share and plenty more.

(44:44):
We've never talked about the video game in part because
neither one of us know much about video games. We'll
see what we can come up on that front, but
that is big news from the last couple of weeks,
and plenty more are all coming up. Track Side ninety
three to five, one oh seven to five the Fan.
Hi is Kyle Kirkwood and you're listening to track side
our number two of the Big Show. Thanks for staying

(45:05):
with us, Lynn and Coons is in the Indianapolis Studios
downtown Kurt Cavin, Kevin Lee on a Monday night. Back
on Tuesday next week and for the following three weeks
as we move forward with the off season with a
lot to still be determined. For your racing fix this
coming weekend, you've got NASCAR at Bristol Saturday night for

(45:27):
the Cup race on USA, and then in a couple
of weeks we'll have ims of back going at the
Indianapolis Motor Speedway. We'll talk more about that next week.
Before we get into some of the other stories, I'll
go through some Twitter questions which I think will lead
us to some of the other stories, Like from Nathan
Ganie three, So does this somehow mean a break in

(45:50):
the schedule for the World Cup? And it is a
graphic of one of the things we need to talk
about of the Ontario Honda dealers Indie Markham August fourteenth
through sixteenth. So we had that in the show last
week that the news release was sent out that Green
Savagy Promotions and others had an announcement coming up last

(46:17):
week in Markham, Ontario, Canada, and that pretty much gave
it away, but we didn't know all the details. I
believe it's been said it is a five year commitment.
So here's what's newsy about this. I believe it was
officially announced as a multi year agreement, but I think

(46:37):
in reporting I read that it's five years. I wish
I could credit who had that, but I don't think
that's a big secret in what it comes down to.
Because we first thought, okay, they need a place to
run the Toronto area race next year. Exhibition Place is

(46:58):
not available, not even not in July because of the
World Cup and in August there are other activities. I
forget which thing it is, but my Canadian friends say that, yeah,
that's a no go. You're not getting that space in
August because of something that has been there for many,
many years. So where else can they go? And to

(47:20):
do this, there's going to be an expense and that's
too expensive to do it for one year. So this
is the long term home of the IndyCar Race in
Greater Toronto.

Speaker 1 (47:32):
You know, not to discredit or disparage in any way
the Exhibition Place footprint, because you know, when it was
designed originally it was it was perfect. It was where
Toronto felt Toronto. We talked about that years ago, we
talked about how you pronounce it, but you know, it

(47:53):
really worked for the city and it worked for Exhibition Place.
As I've watched this thing up since I guess I
was first there in the early nineties, the whole infrastructure
has changed. The hotel, the convention center is different. There's
a lot of positives, but there's also some things that
aren't as convenient as they once were. They're not as

(48:17):
user friendly, I guess is the phrase.

Speaker 2 (48:20):
And so.

Speaker 1 (48:23):
Don't initially write this office as a negative. Maybe this
is the best thing that could have happened for IndyCar
racing in Ontario. So we'll see how this goes.

Speaker 2 (48:36):
My comments are not knowing anything about the new venue,
and I will miss the old venue. I miss will
miss the walk through downtown to our hotel and the
restaurants since it's a long walk. But I liked that location,

(48:56):
but the footprint was shrinking and it is getting more
and more difficult. And every year you had to wait
for city officials to agree on the next year, and
it was a series of one year contracts. So and
every year we kept having people ask us is that

(49:17):
race going to continue? And I like the idea of
being a bigger deal in a smaller area. And this
is not that small. This is as you said last week,
this is like Carmel or Beach Grove or something far
bigger than Avon and Brownsburg. This is three hundred and
some thousand people and it's twenty minutes from Toronto. So

(49:41):
if you live in downtown Toronto, you can easily take
the train or some other public transportation or just drive
out to this area, and it's in a location that
might allow some other opportunities. The other one is each year,

(50:04):
fewer and fewer people seem to know what we were
doing there and that there was anything going on. So
maybe you know, it's not like you need three hundred
thousand people. The entire town does not need to come.
We just need twenty or thirty thousand, which would be
an upgrade from the attendance that has been there on

(50:24):
a per day basis. I'm sure there's more than that
over the three days, So I think this can be
a real positive and maybe it's easier to do the
thing than in the footprint that they're in still street race,
you know, you're still kind of going through some areas,
so I don't know enough about it, if you're closing

(50:46):
down streets, if that's going to be a problem or not.
But I'm optimistic, And the main thing is I'm just
happy they're able to stay in Canada, because that would
be a huge shame if there was not a race
in Canada. I'd like it to be two races. In
Canada and more specifically, they're still in market.

Speaker 1 (51:03):
You know, they're still in a place where people are
familiar with it. It's not a it's not an introduction.
I mean we went to Edmonton. Uh, you kind of
are introducing the sport. You know, you pick another city
and you know, go to Quebec City, go to you know,
there are some other places. Not to disparage again, but

(51:23):
staying in the Toronto market is a good thing, I
think for this event. And you know, from a we'll
just have to see how the racing goes. I mean,
I'm going to miss that rundown to Turn three, that
run into Turn one with the with the Princess gate there,
and you know, just there's so many things to like
about the Exhibition Street circuit, but things are a little

(51:46):
bit out of our hands as a sport, and in
this case, it may give you the juice that that
this event has lacked.

Speaker 2 (51:56):
So we'll see. Now to the question that Nathan had,
does this somehow mean a break in the schedule for
the World Cup, I don't know. I honestly do not know.
There are some things I think I know that I
am not going to share. So here's how my sourcing
works if I just learn it like a reporter does,

(52:16):
from a team owner, a driver, someone in the paddock.
I feel like that's kind of fair game to at
least talk about a little bit. But if someone I
work for tells me something, then that's just simply because
of what my job is, right me too, Me to
this is yeah, But this is one of those where

(52:37):
I have not asked and have not been told. I
still have some questions about the schedule, so I do
not know if, for example, what happened when NBC had
the Olympics, if we're trying to take two or three
weeks off. If you do want to run during the
World Cup, you are going to be at the mercy

(52:59):
of time slots. So and if you want to stay
one hundred percent on network television, now, maybe there's a
provision that says, actually, no, this next year, there is
a three o'clock spot on FS one right after a
World Cup game that we think is going to have

(53:19):
a three million or four million audience. So this would
be an opportune time. If both parties agree to this,
you know, I'd be all for that. I am all
for not worrying about whether it's one hundred percent network.
If you are guaranteed a good lead in the lead
in and the competition is what matters most. So guaranteed

(53:40):
a good lead in and not going head to head
with Formula one or Cup, then fine, put us on
FS one. Because NBCSN drew well over a million people
quite a few times because of lead in and lack
of competition, I have to think we're going to get
at least a week off somewhere in there. But this

(54:01):
may be more so that they don't want to contend
with the World Cup in their own market, although I
think it's going to be over by that July seventeenth date.
I know this, other people have written this, so I
feel like I can say it. There is going to

(54:21):
be an opportunity when the World Cup comes to a
conclusion to have a race that runs right after that.
And I think the last time around the World Cup
finale drew like sixteen eighteen million people. So that's kind

(54:43):
of a dream scenario, and that might be that weekend.
I think that's about when that ends around that Toronto weekend.
And you may have just wanted to look for what
do you think is going to be your best event.
It's going to be a race that people find really
entertaining and might be able to hold a new audience.

(55:06):
Because if you have a World Cup match, the final
which didn't include America and still drew, was it Brazil
and Argentina the last time around? I think so? I
think s Argentine, I know, is in. I may be
wrong about Brazil. You know, you've got a chance to
have an Indy five hundred type audience. I think it's

(55:29):
probably not realistic to say that you're going to hold
seven million of those eighteen million, but it can be
like when Fox would put some events on after an
NFL game at four fifteen and the rating starts at
fifteen million, and it trickles down to three hundred thousand,
but your average is three million. Just keep that's the
opportunity that's there.

Speaker 1 (55:50):
Just keep in mind following a live sporting event does
not guarantee you a heart out.

Speaker 2 (55:56):
Which is one of the concessions that you're going to
need to make. If those kinds of things matter, If
starting your event when you think it's going to start,
then you should start your own channel, and you know,
never being preempted, never being delayed, having as long a
pre race and post race as you want. Then you should,

(56:17):
you know, try to start your own streaming channel and
do it that way and not worry about bringing eyeballs
in for the sponsors.

Speaker 1 (56:26):
No, I just bring that up, because yeah, we all
want to cheer for a good lead in. You just
got to be flexible and you've got to understand that
you may get pushed to you know, the Fox Sports
app or FS two or FS one for a period
of time before your starting event can begin, or you've
got to hold the start time just a little bit.

Speaker 2 (56:47):
That's all. I'm just trying to manage expectations. And maybe
that's one where I don't know how often soccer games
run long, or if they're a little more easy to
predict and some other sports, but if it is very fluid,
maybe that's one where you just say we're going to simulcast.
It's it's going to be on FS one with our

(57:09):
pre race, and we're going to join when we can join,
understanding that it might come around just a little bit later.
Lynn Drive for Seven says we just finished the eighteenth season.
Since the merger of the two series, CGR has won
twelve championships, while Penske has won five Andretti won. That's

(57:31):
a wild amount of championships at CGR one. Are they
the best team of this generation? By the way he
points out five hundred Pinski six cg R five, Well,
statistically sure seems that way. Yeah.

Speaker 3 (57:43):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (57:44):
I wrote something going into one of the last couple
of races and went through a lot of the details
of that, and it really statistically and I don't even
know if it's statistically. I think you could honestly just
say the facts speak for themselves. This organization, in the
last thirty years has won seventeen Indy Car Series championships.

(58:08):
You can't make an argument otherwise. They haven't done it
with just one driver. You know, it hasn't just been
Scott Dixon won you know, seventeen to the last thirty championships,
and so therefore that makes the organization, you know, the
whole is Alex Pollo, and it's Scott Dixon and Stario
Frankiti and it's you know, it's Alex Zenarti and you know,

(58:33):
and just it's Montoya, and you know, it's a lot
of people contributing to that, to that big number.

Speaker 2 (58:41):
The only other metric you could try to compare with
because the championships, it's not a debate if you said,
take the top three drivers or maybe just count them
all up. How many wins do they have? And I
don't know what it is. I'm going to guess it's
still Gonnassi, but it might be a little bit closer
in that front to show, all right, is it just

(59:02):
because you've had, you know, two of the all time
greats and Frank Keaty and Dixon, and now you've added
who might end up being the greatest ever in polo?
And how often did you have two and three that
were winning like Penske at times has had three drivers
win races in the same season. And you're probably still

(59:23):
going to come up with Ganassi, but that would be
another way to compare it. So while you're taking that up,
I'll bring it to the next question. I'm not sure I.

Speaker 1 (59:29):
Can come up with it in the next few minutes
because it's a big number on both accounts, but but
I would almost I'm gonna. I'm gonna just my gut
tells me it's Penske has more race wins during that
time they have have over that time, run more cars,
you know, I think you know more, you know like
they've had years when they had three guys winning races.

(59:50):
To your point, so.

Speaker 2 (59:52):
I would say Ganassi at times had like a two
and two type of situation where the other two were
not really winning a lot of races. Will power one
forty two races on his own right in this time span,
and nobody else has come close to that. So that's
another way to look at it. Why it's probably not
oh yeah, they're crushing everyone. It's still gonna ask you

(01:00:14):
because championships are matter, but race wins matter in any
five hundreds matter, and Penske in this little era is
plus one on that front. But man, is it a
great rivalry? Yeah, it really is. Lynn also says Penske's
last three legends were treated the same way as Power,
starting with JPM, Cashernevez and Simon. Do you think CGR

(01:00:38):
would treat Dixon like this? And this is not to deflect,
but it will depend on At some point the employer
says your services are no longer needed, and if you
decide I'd like to service someone, then then a hard

(01:00:59):
decision has to be made. What everyone hopes in this
circumstance is that everyone agrees, and that's kind of what
will was alluding to here is that I think he
felt like they were just hoping he would retire or
be willing to accept ndy five hundred only deals. And
that's a difficult decision too, because you want to stay

(01:01:20):
in the good graces of Team Penske and maybe have
a type of relationship like Rick Meters has had longer
than he actually drove by Team Penske times what three
you know at this point in his life. But I'll
share this. I was standing there when they announced Peyton
Manning retiring as a cult because he had just signed

(01:01:41):
a new contract extension and I was probably working for
the team, so I couldn't really ask this. And what
I wanted to say is what makes us think that
this guarantees you retiring as a cult? He's retiring as
a cult if he decides he's done when they decide

(01:02:02):
he's done. And ultimately, about two years later, they decided
he was done, and he decided he wasn't done. And
how weird will it be seeing Willpower in an Andretta
uniform any more weird than Peyton Manning in a Bronco
uniform or Tom Brady in a Buccaneers uniform. Are really
mays with the Mets or name on and on and

(01:02:23):
on of superstars that wanted to keep playing and their
team said, I'm sorry, you're not what you were and
we have to think about the bottom line. And a
lot of us don't understand this power thing, but there
are always more things involved that we don't understand. So
to the answer that question is, you know, I think

(01:02:45):
the plan is Dixon will drive for Ganassi as long
as he wants to drive for Ganassi, because we think
Dixon will say I'm done when he's no longer to
perform like Dixon. But what if he gets to be
like Jimmy Johnson and says, you know what I like
driving race cars and I don't care if I finished seventeenth, Well,

(01:03:09):
then the team might have to make a decision. So
there are no guarantees on any of this.

Speaker 1 (01:03:14):
Yeah, so at the moment, Scott Dixon's desires and Chip
Ganassi's desires aligne. But that doesn't mean the team Penske
was wrong to do this. It just seems it just
seems odd to us because we watched the twenty twenty
four season and Will was clearly on his game. I mean,

(01:03:36):
he had a legitimate reason in twenty twenty three for
not winning a race his wife nearly died if that
was not in play, And then you look back at
it and you say, well, you know, Will didn't him
perform in twenty twenty three. In twenty four he was, Yeah,

(01:03:56):
he was in the championship hunt and he had pretty
good year. But we've kind of decided that, I mean,
you know, we motivated him, and you can come up
with all kinds of things, but this time the goals
of the team and the driver didn't align. And that's okay,
I mean it is.

Speaker 2 (01:04:18):
My guess is Will is most disappointed that there wasn't
more openness in this and he went through winning a
race with not knowing if there was going to be
anything offered. And that's probably the most frustrating part of this.
And he alluded to in his conversation with the Hinch

(01:04:42):
and Rossie podcast that he had other offers, never entertained them,
never talked money, never really negotiated with Team Penske. It
was do you think this is fair? Okay? And which,
by the way, is smart because you're in the best
seat available. No one ever leaves Team Penske. Is this

(01:05:03):
the first driver that has left Team Penske with an
offer to stay.

Speaker 1 (01:05:08):
Yeah, it's certainly we don't know all the backstories from
twenty five thirty years ago, but I would say it is.
But you know, it goes to the idea and was
I kind of phrased it wrong, But it really comes
down to respect, and I think that's what Will is saying.
What I was saying was he kind of wanted to,
you know, a farewell tour if you will, And I

(01:05:29):
don't really mean a parade and pat on the back
every week, and you know, a rocking chair and all
the things that come with a farewell tour, but he.

Speaker 2 (01:05:39):
Wanted to go out when they were aligned. It's a
good question because I've not heard him ask that, So
the next time we see him, that's something to ask.
If it was going to end, would you want it
to be known that it was going to end? And

(01:06:04):
here's the problem with that from Team Penske's perspective, I
don't think they knew that it was going to end.
They wanted to have some options. What if this doesn't
work out with the planned air apparent? What if there
are clauses that need to be met and we want
to see how it goes. I think Will even said this.

(01:06:24):
They want to see how I go and they want
to see he said. I assume it's Malucas, but I
don't know. They want to see how he performs, so
that I think to buy a little bit more time.

Speaker 1 (01:06:34):
The history of this sport is and certainly of teams
of high caliber, is that they pretty well have made
that decision by June. They're not waiting till September first
to make that decision.

Speaker 2 (01:06:45):
And I know, but this time apparently they did.

Speaker 1 (01:06:47):
Yeah, but I'm saying, you know, we usually know October
or August first, what's happening with everybody. I mean, we
may not know right then, but they all know. And
I guess my point is he felt like he wasn't
respected and he was left because he didn't like the
idea of being of dangling in the wind, not sure

(01:07:09):
what's going to happen. He thought, he think it's he
thought his his worth as an Elite Championship winning Indy.

Speaker 2 (01:07:18):
Five hundred winning driver deserve more than that. I still
think there is a possibility that this worked out the
way Roger Penske and Team Penske wanted it to work.
Out that this offer that that's why Roger told him

(01:07:39):
at Detroit, I'm not sure what we have, so feel
free to shop around. Because he wanted Willpower to have
an opportunity to continue if he wanted to. And that's
also in his best interests as the owner of the series,
for the sport to have Willpower. And by the time
we got to Portland, that's really about the time that

(01:08:03):
the F two rumors started coming around. But who knows.
I did not know about it. Then I found out
the next weekend that hurted the F two was a thing.
But at that point it may be Yeah, I'm not
sure if will has anything. Can we create a space
for him? Can we do something? And it's very possible

(01:08:25):
that they that this worked out for the best, that
we were going to create a space because we want
Willpower to be able to go out saying this is
his last year and if he's got nothing, we are
going to offer you a lifeline. Oh you say, everyone's interested. Fantastic,
This has worked out for everyone.

Speaker 1 (01:08:46):
It just again, that's the way if what you're describing
is accurate, that's that was how Team Penske had it
to align. It wasn't aligned with what will wanted.

Speaker 2 (01:08:58):
So yeah, that would have been probably nice to share. Hey,
see what you can get. If you don't have anything,
come back to us, we could maybe work something y
out fairpoint. Ultimately, this came down to the way we
thought it would before the season, because as we discussed it,
we said, well, surely they're going to offer him one year.

(01:09:18):
This is going to come down to whether will Power
is willing to accept one year the only team he's
really ever known, or willing to go somewhere else. What
else is out there? And at that time, just like
three weeks ago, we didn't see where there was a
path for him at something that's better than a team

(01:09:40):
Penske Ride or as good namely Andretti McLaren Ganassi bo
we dimly something did become available, So I went back
to that I'm not taking your one If this was
not an option for him, then he would have probably
had to bite his tongue and say, thank you very much.

(01:10:01):
I am happy to come back and accept your one
year offer, but if you wanted to drive.

Speaker 1 (01:10:06):
But none of us thought that he didn't have a
one year option in place back in May. We just
thought at least I did, and and he was surprised
as well. He said, if he said it the other day,
that if I'd have had a one year option in May,
I would have taken it. But he didn't have that option,
and that that's just surprising. And I'm trying to think,

(01:10:27):
by the way you think of superstars in different colors,
what about castron Neva's in a pink car. I mean,
that's as surprising as as Will and Andretti. But you know,
just and then that's why I think the other reason
we all celebrated Elio winning a fourth Indy five hundred
with another team. You know, he just said, no, I

(01:10:51):
still got it, and he went out and proved it.
And I hope Will shows that not to show up
Team Penske. That's I want that for Will. I want
Will to show that he still got it and he
deserved that he was right and betting on himself for
the future. But I can't think of a you know,
a more I'll probably think of six as soon as

(01:11:11):
I say this, but I can't think of a more
surprising thing that's happened in the last few years, five, six,
seven years. You know, it certainly all happens at some point.
There's some big story. But a driver and a team,
well I got one. What's that When Montoya came back
to Team Penske in IndyCar in twenty fifteen, that one

(01:11:36):
was kind of out of left field. It was from
what was so he had NASCAR.

Speaker 2 (01:11:41):
F one, then he was a NASCAR then he came
back to IndyCar with Team Penske and they created a
seat for him in that circumstance. But you're right, and
that's been ten years. Yeah, so they're just this will resonate.
I mean we're in about the fifth segment since this
happened in our show. Well we're still talking about it
and shaking our heads and we are just still trying

(01:12:04):
to put the pieces together to have it make sense
in our brain. I'll say it one more time. I
hope we and fans don't take it out on Malucas. Yeah,
I agree, because he's going to if what we think
is happening is going to happen. You know, he went
from dream job with McLaren too my career is over,

(01:12:28):
to resurrected with Meyer Shank, to even a bigger dream
job to drive with Team Penske. There's going to be
a lot of pressure on that, and David is a
really nice young man and a really talented young man,
but not a finished product. So that's the one where

(01:12:49):
we say, all right, you know, the talent evaluators always
are seeing things, just like Mike Hall and Chip Ganassi
saw with Alex Polo, and they've seen with other people,
and Roger Penske saw with Rick Mears in nineteen seventy
seven and on and on and on. What they saw

(01:13:11):
was Scott McLaughlin and how he could drive an Indy car.
I trust that they see more than we do, and
you put them in a proper Penske program. Don't rule
out David Malucas winning two races next year.

Speaker 1 (01:13:23):
No, But but while power at ANDRETTI will be at
least at this moment, the most fascinating story. The other
one that's going to be tremendously interesting is to watch
how Malucas is in a competitive but yet team friendly
environment where he's got to compete with Joseph Newgarten and

(01:13:44):
Scott McLaughlin. That is going to be a fascinating story too,
because he's not had that, He's not had a moment
where he's got two big dogs sitting right there and
he's got to match what they're doing, do what they're doing,
take guidance from what they're doing. This it's going to

(01:14:04):
be a pressure cooker situation for David and to experience that.

Speaker 2 (01:14:08):
At McLaren he never drove a race for.

Speaker 1 (01:14:09):
Him, So it'll be a fascinating watch.

Speaker 2 (01:14:13):
Alex Kane seventeen seventy six says heard a rumor in
Nashville that a young lady involved with Alex Pollo was
seen carrying and consuming Red Bull all weekend. Just because
you drake Red Bull doesn't mean you're going to a team.
But as I said before, I still suspect there was
something there. What I don't know. I know I got
started on our side because we just think, well, surely

(01:14:38):
they're interested in the greatest driver having the greatest season
we've ever seen. Surely they want some of that. But
where did it come from? On that side? And as
Nathan Brown, who wrote the story, he was the one

(01:14:59):
that kind of said to publicly Alex Palow said, I
hear it came from a manager of a driver that
wants my seat. And what I would say is of
the sources that I had, none of them were of
drivers trying to get that seat. None of them were
Oriel Servia Hill Powers manager, and Nathan responded publicly and

(01:15:22):
said that wasn't where I got it. So I don't
know where Nathan got it from. The Red Bull say
that's the key. And I don't have great Formula one sources,
but I have some friends have spent a lot of
time in the Formula one paddock and they were not
aware of it either. Buxton didn't know about it. Hinch
wasn't aware of it. He had heard of it, I
think more so over here in our paddock. But there

(01:15:46):
must have been something when it might have been shut down.
A lot of times we hear about these things after
they're already dead. Right, absolutely, Yeah, it was discussed three
months ago and it's now it's dead.

Speaker 1 (01:15:57):
You and I me more than you, but you're you've
been in this situation. I'm gonna I'm gonna stand with
Nathan on this. I don't know his source. I have
spoke to him. His stress in the amid the situation
led to a phone call and we chatted about it.
It wasn't wasn't a big deal. Just journalist to old journalists.

(01:16:19):
But you've been in this situation, and I have many
many times. You don't put yourself out there with a
story like that without really firm belief.

Speaker 2 (01:16:30):
That you have something.

Speaker 1 (01:16:32):
But as you just noted, there are times that the
story by that point is dead and you're just catching
up to it. But and so everybody who reacted after
that could be in you know, denial for and deny
the story appropriately. But the gumption that it takes to

(01:16:53):
put out a story when you don't have six people
telling you it's obvious is wrins print.

Speaker 2 (01:17:00):
Not on a radio show, not on Twitter. It's different.
It just takes monumental gumption to do that. I've done it.
I didn't like it.

Speaker 1 (01:17:11):
It's one of the things I enjoy about my job
now that that I don't have to do that. It's
it is exhilarating. And I'm just saying he didn't put
that out there with because a wife carrying around a
red bull can.

Speaker 2 (01:17:28):
Or another driver manager said, I'm telling you, this is
not going to happen. He didn't do that. He didn't
do that. I trust that as well. That's why I
like to read things from journalists that have to answer
from someone they do for I like to just throw
things out there. But that's not the same thing. That's
why I don't put I don't write things on Twitter,

(01:17:50):
because I'm going to write it on Twitter, then I
need to get extra sourcing and be sure that it's true.
And you know, to the it could be dead by
the time we hear about it. I don't know how
many times I've seen that with things that apply to
my world, where I do know what's going on and
I read something and so, yeah, that had a chance

(01:18:10):
of happening three weeks ago, but that's been dead since then.
That's just not going to happen. So anyway, all right,
we've still got more questions we need to get into.
We will do that in just a moment and start
to cover on some of the other things we need
to cover tonight on the program, it is track side
ninety three to five and one oh seven to five
the Fan. Hi, this is Mark Serkson, and you're listening

(01:18:33):
to trackside on ninety three five and one oh seven
five to fan. All Right, we're trying to make more
of an effort to answer the questions that come in
via the xbox via Twitter and cover as many of
the topics that we otherwise would have covered in the
course of the program, Roger Warner at JD Farmboy says,

(01:18:56):
why are they running alternate tires on an oval? Did
that contribute to the right front failures? He wrote this
after the Nashville race. So, by the way, as far
as I know, there was only one failure with Poto Award.
I think they found that was a cut tire on
alex plow. This is the same thing that they did
last year at Nashville and made a lot of sense
to give this a go. I like it.

Speaker 1 (01:19:18):
More variables, the better, you know, you gotta you gotta,
you gotta run a certain number of laps, you gotta
run a certain number of uh, you know, reds and
so forth. I like it. It's variables. It adds a
little extra intrigue. Let's do it more often.

Speaker 2 (01:19:39):
I don't think it had any do it. No, I
don't think it that that in fact could probably look
but I think Potto might have been on the black
side wall at the time. I can't recall on that,
but there were concerns about right fronts overheating because of
the tremendous loads being put on at the speeds that
you're at in that particular track. You know, I think

(01:19:59):
the idea came from last year is because after they
tested last year, all the drivers said there's no way
anyone's ever going to pass anyone, So you're trying to
do something to spice it up and create different strategies.
Turns out the racing has been good at Nashville Super Speedway,
so I hope they continue on that. Obviously, you know,
you listen to Potto. It's really hard. It's really hard

(01:20:23):
to come up with the right compound and structure and
everything as far as tires, but they had one and
they'll try to make sure that they're zero moving forward.
Scott Cooper asked if Prima does end up leaving the series,
who might be in line to pick up their charters. Well,
they don't have charters, so that's part of the issue
and part of the challenge if they are indeed trying

(01:20:45):
to sell, is that they have equipment to sell and
nothing else. Every other team could sell the charter and
that worked quite well for Ed Carpenter when he brought
on Ted Geloff and Heartland Food Group as a partner
last year. But that's the scenario. I've heard nothing new
on that front, but hopefully sooner rather than later that

(01:21:07):
they get something squared away with Prema. If not all
of their key employees will have likely taken jobs at
this point, because I'm sure that process is going on
right now. If there's somebody that somebody wants, you know
they're going to have to simply take another job from IndyCar. Ken,

(01:21:30):
can you please make sense of the Hunkohs Hollinger Racing
announcement of rejoining next I realize the drivers will need
to pay to play, but considering the rumored financial difficulties
the JHR faces, how are they able to make this
viable a new partner that hasn't been announced, Well, simple,
it's actually much more sound investments for a junior formula team.

(01:21:53):
And a friend talking about wanting to get in an IndyCar,
and I said, a friend of some means, I said,
you should do a junior formula team because we can
make you money in that It is very hard to
make money an IndyCar. Really an IndyCar. It helps if
you're really, really wealthy or you are amazing in the

(01:22:15):
commercial aspects, because it's ten million dollars a year. And
in the junior formula categories, we are seeing that there
are enough wealthy parents and families. Not always the case,
but that's seventy five percent of it or more, and
a lot of times it's a mixture. There's wealth involved
to get started. Then they're leaning on the people that

(01:22:36):
they do business with. But the asking price is between
one point through read a one point five or six
million a year for an Indie next seat. My guess
is if you are doing multiple cars, it costs you
between nine hundred thousand and one point one million. That
is profit. So yes, there is some money that is
going to be needed for the startup. But this team

(01:22:58):
who goes Hollinger already has equipment. They were set to
run a team this year and they're funded driver that
was announced and assigned. Something went away and therefore they
had no funded driver. By the time they got to February,
all of the funded drivers were gone and somewhere else.
So I'm excited that they're going to be back. I

(01:23:20):
think there was another question on that front, but it's
a much less risk one. You're talking less money. It's
one point five million dollars a year for the program
ISH compared to eight to ten million dollars in IndyCar
and they are a decent amount of families that can
fund junior formula racing, there are not very many that
can fund a full IndyCar program, and that's generally how

(01:23:43):
it works. Families have enough money to get you to
that point, but even the wealthy families are going to
need somebody to help up, either the talent to take
over they've made an investment, or they're going to need
sponsors to come in. Tommy, Tommy one, do you think
we'll have more than twenty full time cars for twenty

(01:24:04):
six in next? Will there be any other new or
returning teams? I mean other than Cusick, who already announced
their entry. So here's what I think I know, and
then I saw if you want to see it in writing,
Marshall prut wrote something on racer dot com and I
mentioned this on the broadcast a couple of weeks ago.
I was hearing twenty four cars next year for Indie Next.
And I don't know if this has been announced yet,

(01:24:26):
but one of the reasons and motivations for HMD to
have satellite teams or whatever you want to call it,
and partner with Cusick is that they were going to
be asked to get down to four cars so there's
a technical partnership with HMD, and I think they're still
working at two other cars, so they would sort of
still have eight, but really only have four. Andretti has

(01:24:50):
already somewhat done that with Cape Motorsports running two of
their six. Wouldn't be surprised if Ganassi added more cars.
They came in this year with two, it'll help them
to have four. So already you're up to what fourteen
plus four for able plus Hunkhs returning with a couple,

(01:25:16):
you're already at twenty four. I do not expect any
more teams because I did the math the other day.
There were rumors of another team moving up to that level,
but I'm not sure that there is going to be
a space for them at this points. Lots of Mexico
questions here. Kurt Lalo asked any updates with Mexico City.

(01:25:38):
Linz says if IndyCar doesn't announce a race in Mexico
for twenty six, would that be a complete failure for IndyCar,
especially after the comments from the DHL CEO and the
increased populator of Pata and Polo and Doug Thompson says,
how long has talk of a race in Washington, DC.
Been around. It kind of seems like it came out
of the blue. Can't imagine that this would be easy
to pull off an event like this for twenty six

(01:26:00):
Northeast or Star for a race. DC is not in
the Northeast, but I guess it's close enough. So I
saw I think Adam Stern write this, I think recently,
so he wrote about the DC race, and then I
think he wrote that that could be a replacement for
Mexico City. Everything I think I know says Mexico City

(01:26:22):
is going to happen. But even what I've been told,
it's one of those that I want to see. I
want to see it announced. I want to see the
plane ticket purchased. I want to see us get on
the bus to go and so forth. You know, that's
part of it. They're doing their due diligence so nothing
like that happens. Again that if they announce this, they

(01:26:45):
want to make sure it happens. And then when you
hear the group that owns Liberty or that Liberty is
involved with, is in the part of this. And there
are just a lot of cooks in the kitchen in this,
and I think it's complicated. I suspect it still happens,
but until it's announced, I don't know. I too feel

(01:27:06):
like it would be pretty hard to get DC going
for the next year. And if it doesn't, you know,
I hope these leaks, don't. I hope when the schedule
is announced, people aren't, well, where's DC, and maybe DC
will be on it, But if it's not. I don't
know when this started, but this was said when Fox

(01:27:28):
became a partner, that they're going to try to help
with big events, and that would seem to be a
big event. Before Fox was involved, Denver conversations were already
on the table, and I don't think that's going to
happen for twenty six. But I honestly don't know. There
are a few things that I think I know about
the schedule. There are a lot of things that I

(01:27:49):
don't know, and I don't know when it's going to
be announced. Yeah, and I don't either.

Speaker 1 (01:27:54):
I mean I read everything that you read and talk
to some people you talk to and some you don't,
and yeah, I don't.

Speaker 2 (01:28:02):
I don't.

Speaker 1 (01:28:04):
I can't wait for it. I can't wait for the
schedule announcement. You know, it's one of the intriguing parts
of the season because we find and we still will
end up with more questions than we have answers.

Speaker 2 (01:28:16):
One thing we do think we know is that we're
not going to have that big gap right at the
start of the season. Too many people are talking about
Phoenix in week two compaired with NASCAR. Those reports are
out there, so it's Saint Pete Phoenix. We think, need
to see it. Don't know one hundred percent I need
to see it. Something could change. I still remember the
time that one of the people I work for told

(01:28:40):
me in like January one year, there's going to be
a street race in Fort Lauderdale this season. Have we
raced in Fort Lauderdale, Kurt not legally? No, No, we
have not. So just because somebody says it's happening doesn't
mean it's happening. And that announcement was never made. It
obviously never got finalized. But just because we hear it

(01:29:00):
with good sourcing doesn't mean that it's always true at
this point. But then Arlington that's confirmed for week three,
then the Sebring twelve hour, and then Portia Sprint Challenge
announced their schedule and said we'll be racing with IndyCar
the last weekend of March. So there you go, and
we wondered if Barbara would be moving up. So you're
going to have four races in the first five weeks

(01:29:23):
of the season. Then unfortunately there may be some gaps.
But maybe there's something I'm not aware of that is
going to fill one of those gaps. You're always going
to have a weekend off for Easter. We know when
Long Beach is. It's April eighteenth and so on.

Speaker 1 (01:29:35):
So I think they were talking in Lauderdale about the
boat show. I think that's what your schedule was. It
was a boat show.

Speaker 2 (01:29:41):
It was supposed to be a part of the boat show,
in a combat with the boat show. This was fifteen
years ago, ten years ago, or something like that. All right,
let's see what we missed and more coming up next. Hi,
this is David Lucas and you're listening to track side
final segment. What we miss So we talked about the
new Toronto area event in Markham, and then there's this
Adam Stern with a story from Thestar dot com the

(01:30:04):
local paper quote. I don't think I'm being overly dramatic
when I say that plopping an IndyCar race in the
middle of that neighborhood will fall somewhere between seriously disruptive
and totally chaotic for those who live, work, and commute nearby.
Couldn't read the whole story because you needed to subscribe,
and I probably won't do that for just one article.
But it wouldn't be a street race if there wasn't

(01:30:26):
some contention and obstacles. So there you go. Dane Cook
asked this question, how much longer can IndyCar wait on
Honda to make their decision to remain in OEM in
your opinion of they already made their decision? Man, that
is a great question, and I don't know. I still
think they're staying, but I'm not that confident on that.

(01:30:49):
And unfortunately, I think you need to wait because you
really need them, So Honda has the control on this.
But you're right you want to know asap. Is that
a matter of months? It's not far away, certainly, I
would think before you get to twenty six, but who knows.
Great question and one of the off season discussion points.

(01:31:11):
All right, we'll see you next Tuesday night at seven
on track Side

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Dateline NBC

The Clay Travis and Buck Sexton Show

All Episodes

Curt and Kevin Talk Herta to Cadillac F1, Power to Andretti, Markham on the Calendar, and More!

24/7 News: The Latest