2020 IndyCar Miscellaneous

No change on which races get the NBC treatment this season. St. Pete and COTA both moved to later start times by a few hours.

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Kiante said:
Zak is just flexing now:
https://racer.com/2019/12/16/hampson-set-to-join-arrow-spm/

Craig Hampson, former engineer for SeaBass, is now joining SPAM. My goodness, he's going to be key working with two rookies in O'Ward and Oliver. Hampson talked about staying in Illinois, but I guess the money was too good.

Another major hit for DCR.
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It does sound like Palou is coming Stateside. I’ll be interested to see if that means additional Honda support. Apparently they are high on him but actually preferred to keep him in Japan.

A rookie and a sophomore with all new engineering really sounds like quite a rebuilding season.
 
Charlie Spencer said:
I see Indy and IMSA haven't figured out they'd be better running Laguna Seca together.
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Don’t think it’ll happen as long as each have three support series joining them. IMSA brings Pilot Challenge, Porsche GT3 Cup USA, and Lamborghini Super Trofeo and then the entire Road to Indy runs the next weekend.
 
FLRacingFan said:
It does sound like Palou is coming Stateside. I’ll be interested to see if that means additional Honda support. Apparently they are high on him but actually preferred to keep him in Japan.

A rookie and a sophomore with all new engineering really sounds like quite a rebuilding season.
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You're good at this, bro:
 
The sad part is Daly was displaying some serious oval chops toward the end of last year. I think it was St. Louis he got Carlin's best finish of their year, so he has learned how to do it. It's a shame he won't get more oval starts. I don't think anyone has worked as hard to secure a ride as Daly.

At least Daly has the chance to settle in to one team, and hopefully he can prove to Carpenter he deserves a full time gig for 2021. It's also hard to imagine Daly could have a great Indianapolis 500 and force Carpenter to run a third car for him the rest of the year.
 
Penske Purchase of INDYCAR/IMS should be complete on Jan. 6

INDYCAR CEO Mark Miles has confirmed to NBC Sports.com that Roger Penske’s purchase of Indianapolis Motor Speedway, the Indianapolis 500, INDYCAR and IMS Productions should be completed on Jan. 6, 2020.

Penske, though, already is having a major impact on the speedway since the announcement of the impending sale last month.

https://motorsports.nbcsports.com/2...-indycar-ims-should-be-complete-on-january-6/
 
Positive change here. Should be much harder for a driver to be "coached" from the pit box and make it harder to defend.

 
FLRacingFan said:
Positive change here. Should be much harder for a driver to be "coached" from the pit box and make it harder to defend.

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I don't think that will change much.
Racing has improved on road/street circuits and the shorter ovals, but I think it could still be improved if more downforce is taken away from the cars and P2P is increased by 10-20 hp.
I hope they won't come up with something like DRS. That would make passing too easy.
 
donthaveanickname said:
I don't think that will change much.
Racing has improved on road/street circuits and the shorter ovals, but I think it could still be improved if more downforce is taken away from the cars and P2P is increased by 10-20 hp.
I hope they won't come up with something like DRS. That would make passing too easy.
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It's been really easy for a race engineer to coach their driver since they went public with the instantaneous P2P data. Newgarden being coached all the way around the track by Cindric at Belle Isle while defending Rossi probably being the most egregious example. Putting it all on the driver instead of having that information fed directly to them in real time should make at least something of a difference.

Not sure they have any concrete plans for the new chassis and aero yet but they're keeping P2P in addition to whatever ERS system they decide on when the new engines debut.
 
Conor Daly, James Davison, and Santino Ferrucci (seriously?) will run the Chili Bowl in an effort organized by David Byrd. Sounds like Byrd and Scott Petry are fielding a midget year-around for different IndyCar-connected drivers, and Davison and Ferrucci have been placed with other existing teams.

Some interesting details in Robin Miller's article.
 
Can't believe Mid Ohio race did not get any votes for race of the year. Absolute duel with Dixon holding on with worn out tires doing everything possible in front of a packed house
 
Mispeedway15 said:
Can't believe Mid Ohio race did not get any votes for race of the year. Absolute duel with Dixon holding on with worn out tires doing everything possible in front of a packed house
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Where at? I definitely thought it was one of the better ones of the season. Going head-to-head with the NASCAR race at Pocono probably didn't help.
 
Jenna Fryer also noted that this still includes the Indy GP, and Helio will be participating in spring training at COTA next month.



Interesting that the Honda beef must've been more with McLaren than it was with Alonso, if this is the case.

 


Marshall Pruett mentioned a couple of weeks ago that ABC Supply was bringing something in the range of $11-13M per year to Foyt...a ton of money to make up for.



 
Charlie Spencer said:
Yep. Track, series, everything IndyCar related. Give you a new perspective on the conflicts of interest, doesn't it?
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I don't think that way. I'm interested to see what Penske does with the series. Nascar and IndyCar are two entirely different things and it is only going to help auto racing with Penske doing what he is doing.
 
StandOnIt said:
I don't think that way. I'm interested to see what Penske does with the series. Nascar and IndyCar are two entirely different things and it is only going to help auto racing with Penske doing what he is doing.
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I don’t either but it was raised in the original discussion about the purchases.
 
Surprised by this one for sure. They’ve talked about it for years so I never actually expected it to happen. Not entirely clear if Karam is in for all four or just the 500.

 
From this and some bits from Marshall's podcast:

- Sounds like Foyt will utilize four drivers over the two cars, and it's sounding more likely that Charlie Kimball will be full-time in the #4 with Kanaan, Bourdais, and Dalton Kellett sharing the #14 - with Kellett probably getting the most drives in that seat.

- Stephanie Carlin (Trevor's wife) says the "rumor" that the team were looking to exit the series is false and that Carlin will be at spring training next month and for the full season afterwards. Obviously Chilton could drive if he really wanted to, and Sergio Sette Camara and Sergey Sirotkin (SMP apparently want to find him a seat somewhere after dropping their WEC program) are possibilities in some capacity.

Some other things are in there like maybe Colin Braun in at DragonSpeed for Texas and the 500, things potentially looking up at Juncos, and Hinch has talked to basically everyone in the garage at this point.

 
Unofficial Chevy test times from Monday at Sebring. VeeKay is going to surprise people, and McLaughlin was pretty competitive, enough so that Penske may actually try to put him in a ride at some point this season.

Rinus VeeKay - 52.3s
Oliver Askew - 52.9s
Scott McLaughlin - 53.3s
Sage Karam - 54.3s





 
Huski appears to be chocolate milk with a Monster marketing pitch. They've already got the car all over the landing and home pages, which is more than I could say for Monster's site a couple of years ago.
 
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