2025 109th Running of the Indianapolis 500

Has Penske fired anyone over the St. Pete issue? Will he fire anyone now? Is he willing to fire anyone that's over some of this that has been with him for a long time? Not naming names. But an example has to be set within the organization.
 
sdj said:
Ok, help an old fart out.

What advantage does a modified, as shown, attenuator help? Less weight? Less drag?

Is the attenuator used for rear impact crush zone with additional duties of support the spoiler?

A photo of a spec attenuator would help.
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Smooths out air flow, less turbulence.
Also supports rear wing.
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Tim_Richmond_Fan said:
Ar this point I feel like Roger needs to make a strong statement on these controversies that his teams have been involved with. Whether that's firing someone high up in the organization (someone like tim cindric) or brininging in a 3rd party association to officiate the indycar series (something like the FIA is to F1) something has to change. The optics for this is terrible.

Honda has to be pissed also. 2 illegal chevys still in the field while a car with a Honda engine goes home. What a mess.
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Honda already had real concerns with the series ownership structure and the perception that Team Penske could be benefiting from it in some capacity. There was a report a month ago that there were already talks that USAC or the FIA could take over race control as early next year. That’ll probably only be exacerbated now; it’s apparent they need greater independence on the technical side as well. It kinda goes without saying that any other prospective manufacturer would want those some assurances as well.

I wouldn’t be surprised if Cindric gets cut at this point. He had already stepped back to some degree and he’s been implicated in both incidents now.
 
If I were Indycar, I wouldn't bother with USAC or FIA. Go with NHRA. They're in town now. They're an ACCUS member. They don't have a track record of botching Indycar race management and stewardship. Also, frankly, they deal with higher end cars with more tech and almost certainly have stronger enforcement apparatus and tech folks than USAC does because they are simply much better capitalized.
 
I'm starting to think a gaggle of recently terminated USDA avocado inspectors would do a better job. It isn't a scandal that a team was caught cheating; it's that the cars passed multiple inspections before the violations were found. Who's looking at these, the Indiana School for Deaf and Blind?
 
sdj said:
From my layman's perspective having read the articles, looks to me like making a mountain out of a mole hill, JMHO.
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From a technical perspective, you may be correct in your judgement. Here's why it's still a world of ****-

1. It's a spec part that should not be modified. No wiggle room here. Team Penske HAS to know this.
2. It could be argued that Jacob Abel, the 34th qualifier, should be in the 500 and the 2 Penske cars sent home.
3. It has come to light that cars with modified attenuators have been racing out of Penske's shop for a while now, most notably on Newgarden's 2024 Indy 500 car. How was this not caught in the past?
4. The real ****storm is that Roger Penske owns the series, IMS, and Team Penske. Major conflictive interest that could be a whole semester case study in a collegiate level business ethics course.
4b. Team Penske already got caught "cheating" with push-to-pass enabled when it should not have been on Newgarden's car last year. Another very black and white but bizarre scenario such as this one.
 
Don't forget some of people let go were on suspension for P2P violation and STILL had an illegal car at the 500 last year. And Penske people wrote the rules they broke. On the Bozi article, I'm not buying the Penske po-poing it away explaination, if there was no benefit, it would not have been done. I don’t think this is done yet, I think it is just the beginning of things to come.
 
This had to be done if Penske was ever going to regain credibility. The media should ask him if he knew anything about what was going on. This is the trouble you run into when a car owner also owns IMS and a piece of IndyCar. Some of these that were canned may have thought they could get away with more because of Penske owning so much of it.
 
If the controversy increases the hate and bitterness it could be a good thing. It us precious thing that needs to be nurtured. It almost impossibile to get enough hatred to overcome the corporate fun police.
 
MRM said:
This had to be done if Penske was ever going to regain credibility. The media should ask him if he knew anything about what was going on. This is the trouble you run into when a car owner also owns IMS and a piece of IndyCar. Some of these that were canned may have thought they could get away with more because of Penske owning so much of it.
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Roger has long been removed from the day-to-day operations of the IndyCar race team, so I don’t believe he has any active knowledge of what’s going on with their ECUs or attenuators. I’m pretty sure when the P2P scandal first developed last year he didn’t even know until a day later because he was at a WEC race in Europe. The inherent threats to independence have more to do with familiarity than self-interest, imo. I don’t want to clutter the 500 thread too much more but it sounds like a new officiating structure is imminent.
 
After listening to the interview, I have to say I lost a lot respect for Roger. How he can sit there and say last years 500 win and 2024 pole winning car is legit is beyond me. Never once did he apologize to the fans. It's almost like he is playing the victim here. SMH This is when we need Robin Miller back.
 
Roger Penske has a lot on his plate in his 80's. He depended on those three to make it right and they failed two years in a row. First one was on him, but this second one was on them IMO.
He has to get the ship righted and get his integrity back for his group and for the sport.
There are always going to be those who won't ever forget, but in all of the years he has been in the sport, he has been a pretty straight shooter and a rock in motorsport.
This was a pretty insignificant penalty, more for looks than performance and Penske has always prided themselves on looking good.
I think the punishment more than fits the crime for the teams, it was wrong to do and the heads that rolled in the Penske administration and the teams on track positions and pit selection should satisfy most of the fan base.
 
rd45usa said:
After listening to the interview, I have to say I lost a lot respect for Roger. How he can sit there and say last years 500 win and 2024 pole winning car is legit is beyond me. Never once did he apologize to the fans. It's almost like he is playing the victim here. SMH This is when we need Robin Miller back.
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I didn't get that impression. He did seem to understand the gravity of the situation, and didn't seem to be attempting to shift blame or responsibility.

What disgusted me was the way last year's much worse blatant cheating scandal was swept under the rug. They're paying for that now. These violations are not as severe in and of themselves, but it's the straw that broke the camel's back because of the lack of appropriate action the first time.
 
This was so unsettling it took a few days for me to come up with something to say. I've admired Penske for decades, and I'm convinced he had no idea this was going on.

I think Roger really needs to divest himself from either the speedway and series or sell his team. That complete eliminates any possibility of any conflict of interest. Anything less and people will still complain about it.

Be honest with ourselves that we all knew something like this (though not necessarily cheating) was going to happen eventually. The filler thing is silly because it probably didn't help much, but after the PTP scandal that's all it took to blow the whole thing up.

Notice I didn't blame anyone because I think the villains are obvious. I just think it's sad.
 
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