2023 IndyCar News / Misc.

No bueno…sounds like poor communication here. There was a report a few weeks ago that big Honda in Japan would be willing to fund a season of Super Formula for Lundqvist if he weren’t able to secure an IndyCar drive for 2023. Hopefully that comes to fruition.

 
rd45usa said:
apnews.com

McLaren hires Barnhart, considering Kyle Busch for Indy 500

The head of McLaren Racing held a town hall Thursday at its IndyCar shop to introduce new hire Brian Barnhart and quell any concerns over this week's sudden departure of the team president.
apnews.com apnews.com
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rd45usa said:
Life comes at you fast! :cool:
racer.com

IndyCar entry among potential Trackhouse expansions - Marks

Trackhouse Racing is far from done looking for opportunities where the team can put together a motorsports program, and one of those places is Indianapolis. Team owner Justin Marks (pictured above)…
racer.com racer.com
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It's never too early to speculate if we're gonna get more than 33 entries at Indy.
 
It's been a while since we've seen so much interest in IndyCar. Kyle is big news and will bring lots of new eyes to the sport, as did his brother.
 
Charlie Spencer said:
J'ever notice that whenever a driver tries the Memorial Day Double, that it's a Cup driver and not one from IndyCar?
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Indy’s grid expands by 8-9 cars for the 500, a number of teams plan on running an additional car that race each year and have the necessary equipment, engine lease, etc. The 500 also just has way more cachet than the 600. If an Indy driver ever wanted to do a Cup oval it’d probably be the Daytona 500, which Helio may come through with.

It’s not necessarily easy to get an Indy 500 seat, but there is more opportunity and more interest than for the 600. For a 500-only ride it’s $800k-$1.5M, about $1.1-1.2M on average. Not a cheap deal and you need all of a chassis, engine lease, budget, personnel. That’s why you see the entry list pretty much hover between 33-34 these days.
 
Kiante said:
Jimmie Johnson will not be returning to IndyCar full-time next season:
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I hope he sticks around for the ovals or at least the 500. He was honestly a blast to watch at Texas and Iowa. I’m pretty positive he’ll do the G56 project and hopefully continue doing the IMSA enduros if the supply chain allows it.

Very curious to see what CGR have planned for the fourth car now. Sounds like it’ll be announced in short order.
 
Funny how all these sport figures unretire and then go through all means to stay away from the wife/home for as long as possible :p
 
Jorge De Guzman said:
He’s done with Chip Ganassi too? Or just not running for them full time?
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Just not full-time

CGR is expected to announce plans for its fourth full-time entry in the coming days, and according to Ganassi, the door for a Johnson return – at the Indy 500, or possibly more events – remains open.

“We are fully supportive of Jimmie,” Ganassi said. “He has been a valued member of our team and if we can find a way to continue working together, we would like to do so.”
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racer.com

Johnson steps back from full-time racing

Jimmie Johnson has called an end to his full-time racing career. The Californian made the decision after racing non-stop in NASCAR’s Cup Series from 2002-2020 and the NTT IndyCar Series from 2021-2…
racer.com racer.com
 
FLRacingFan said:
Just not full-time


racer.com

Johnson steps back from full-time racing

Jimmie Johnson has called an end to his full-time racing career. The Californian made the decision after racing non-stop in NASCAR’s Cup Series from 2002-2020 and the NTT IndyCar Series from 2021-2…
racer.com racer.com
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Run me SeaBass on the road courses or RHR. Also, I wonder what Oliver Askew is up to next year?
 
West said:
Funny how all these sport figures unretire and then go through all means to stay away from the wife/home for as long as possible :p
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Jimmie is cutting back to spend more time with his family. The AP report says they’re even considering enrolling the kids in school in England or France for a year while he runs in the WEC. He never retired from anything other than full-time Cup racing.

What he wound up doing this season is more than he initially planned on doing and with the amount of testing and sim work required it likely became too much again.
 
My unpopular opinion...

1. - I hate it when aged drivers launch elaborate "farewell tours." It's demeaning to the sport to think 80% of what you used to have is good enough to stay out there with current drivers operating at 100%. Being an elite driver is damn hard to achieve... you can't lose 10-20% of what you once had and still remain in the conversation. This was JJ in 2020... a cringe-worthy (to me) farewell tour like we have seen way too many times.

Then 2021-22 raised the farewell tour to ridiculous heights... dog slow in IndyCar... dog slow in IMSA... a great champion of prior decades who is addicted to the spotlight and cannot bear to move on to a new role within the sport or out of the sport. Embarrassing.

3. - Although 2021-22 have tarnished Jimmie's legacy, it is just temporary damage. Longer term, JJ's great career will be remembered for its peak years, not for its drawn out tail end. Same as DW, same as Richard Petty, et al.

4. - Le Mans 2023... putting Jimmie in the car would be a huge mistake. Same for Jeff Gordon, which has also been rumored. Nascar will be on the center stage of the motorsport universe... "Thank you for having us, and here's our best effort... superstars from prior decades who hope to enjoy your adoration for what they did way back then." Bleh.

The Le Mans car should be driven by current Nascar Cup stars. It's not a play toy for the rocking chair set.
 
LewTheShoe said:
My unpopular opinion...

1. - I hate it when aged drivers launch elaborate "farewell tours." It's demeaning to the sport to think 80% of what you used to have is good enough to stay out there with current drivers operating at 100%. Being an elite driver is damn hard to achieve... you can't lose 10-20% of what you once had and still remain in the conversation. This was JJ in 2020... a cringe-worthy (to me) farewell tour like we have seen way too many times.

Then 2021-22 raised the farewell tour to ridiculous heights... dog slow in IndyCar... dog slow in IMSA... a great champion of prior decades who is addicted to the spotlight and cannot bear to move on to a new role within the sport or out of the sport. Embarrassing.

3. - Although 2021-22 have tarnished Jimmie's legacy, it is just temporary damage. Longer term, JJ's great career will be remembered for its peak years, not for its drawn out tail end. Same as DW, same as Richard Petty, et al.

4. - Le Mans 2023... putting Jimmie in the car would be a huge mistake. Same for Jeff Gordon, which has also been rumored. Nascar will be on the center stage of the motorsport universe... "Thank you for having us, and here's our best effort... superstars from prior decades who hope to enjoy your adoration for what they did way back then." Bleh.

The Le Mans car should be driven by current Nascar Cup stars. It's not a play toy for the rocking chair set.
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Good post, I believe Stewart has the SRX series for all these guys.
 
LewTheShoe said:
I hate it when aged drivers launch elaborate "farewell tours."
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Many of these guys don't 'launch' these shows. Often the individual tracks want to do something to honor the outgoing driver.

LewTheShoe said:
The Le Mans car should be driven by current Nascar Cup stars.
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You'll have to convince NASCAR to give current drivers chosen a couple of weeks off, and convince those drivers to accept falling two weeks behind everyone else in points.

Trackhouse was able to generate a ton of favorable publicity at Watkins Glen with an F1 driver who has won only four races in a dozen years, none of those wins in the last five years. Johnson and Gordon may be equally well received.
 
LewTheShoe said:
My unpopular opinion...

1. - I hate it when aged drivers launch elaborate "farewell tours." It's demeaning to the sport to think 80% of what you used to have is good enough to stay out there with current drivers operating at 100%. Being an elite driver is damn hard to achieve... you can't lose 10-20% of what you once had and still remain in the conversation. This was JJ in 2020... a cringe-worthy (to me) farewell tour like we have seen way too many times.

Then 2021-22 raised the farewell tour to ridiculous heights... dog slow in IndyCar... dog slow in IMSA... a great champion of prior decades who is addicted to the spotlight and cannot bear to move on to a new role within the sport or out of the sport. Embarrassing.

3. - Although 2021-22 have tarnished Jimmie's legacy, it is just temporary damage. Longer term, JJ's great career will be remembered for its peak years, not for its drawn out tail end. Same as DW, same as Richard Petty, et al.

4. - Le Mans 2023... putting Jimmie in the car would be a huge mistake. Same for Jeff Gordon, which has also been rumored. Nascar will be on the center stage of the motorsport universe... "Thank you for having us, and here's our best effort... superstars from prior decades who hope to enjoy your adoration for what they did way back then." Bleh.

The Le Mans car should be driven by current Nascar Cup stars. It's not a play toy for the rocking chair set.
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I’m glad the IndyCar road course experiment is over - and I’m sure most of the drivers in the paddock agree - but I don’t fault the guy for still having a desire to try out other forms of motorsport and various blue riband events. He at least showed to me a degree of competency on some of the ovals to where he’d be welcomed back in that capacity. Road courses, he gave it a couple of years and couldn’t get up to snuff and now is bowing out. I respect that.

The IMSA 48 entry just doesn’t exist without him. That means no Kamui for us American sports car fans, no rebirth for Rocky’s career. Paying/funded drivers are pretty much a staple of sports car racing since the dawn of time.

The G56 just wasn’t going to have any active Cup drivers with the way the schedules worked out. They even scheduled an Xfinity companion race the same weekend as the 24. Blame it on NASCAR, blame it on NBC for wanting to end the season two weeks earlier than usual these days and cutting out bye weeks. But it just wasn’t meant to be with the logistics.
 
I know schedule expansion won’t be a thing until 2024 or 2025 but this is really bad. No night races, 2/3rds of the schedule conflicts with NASCAR again since American auto races can’t start at any time before or after 3 PM ET, month-long gap to start the season, season finale gets an abysmal rating on NFL opening Sunday and the NASCAR playoffs again. I love this series but you really wonder how viable it is long-term. The business model is so bad.



 
LewTheShoe said:
My unpopular opinion...

1. - I hate it when aged drivers launch elaborate "farewell tours." It's demeaning to the sport to think 80% of what you used to have is good enough to stay out there with current drivers operating at 100%. Being an elite driver is damn hard to achieve... you can't lose 10-20% of what you once had and still remain in the conversation. This was JJ in 2020... a cringe-worthy (to me) farewell tour like we have seen way too many times.

Then 2021-22 raised the farewell tour to ridiculous heights... dog slow in IndyCar... dog slow in IMSA... a great champion of prior decades who is addicted to the spotlight and cannot bear to move on to a new role within the sport or out of the sport. Embarrassing.

3. - Although 2021-22 have tarnished Jimmie's legacy, it is just temporary damage. Longer term, JJ's great career will be remembered for its peak years, not for its drawn out tail end. Same as DW, same as Richard Petty, et al.

4. - Le Mans 2023... putting Jimmie in the car would be a huge mistake. Same for Jeff Gordon, which has also been rumored. Nascar will be on the center stage of the motorsport universe... "Thank you for having us, and here's our best effort... superstars from prior decades who hope to enjoy your adoration for what they did way back then." Bleh.

The Le Mans car should be driven by current Nascar Cup stars. It's not a play toy for the rocking chair set.
Click to expand...
I always love it when drivers do a farewell tour and give fans a chance to celebrate their careers while still getting to see them on track. And if they're still having fun and if the team/sponsors are still willing to pay them I honestly don't really care if they're able to compete for wins every week.
Very few racers, or very few athletes in general retire during their prime. Yet they're all remembered for the successful part of their careers. The two years in IndyCar certainly won't harm JJ's legacy.
When it comes to JJ's IndyCar career, he actually exceeded my expectations, I never expected him to compete for Top 10s on ovals. At road courses his results were basically what you could expect from a 45 year old who comes from a totally different discipline of auto racing.

As far as Le Mans is concerned, a car driven by JJ/Jr./Gordon is gonna get considerably more attention in the US and in Europe than one driven by current HMS drivers. Since they're not competing in any class it doesn't really matter of they're going to be 5 seconds a lap slower.
 
FLRacingFan said:
I know schedule expansion won’t be a thing until 2024 or 2025 but this is really bad. No night races, 2/3rds of the schedule conflicts with NASCAR again since American auto races can’t start at any time before or after 3 PM ET, month-long gap to start the season, season finale gets an abysmal rating on NFL opening Sunday and the NASCAR playoffs again. I love this series but you really wonder how viable it is long-term. The business model is so bad.



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Same schedule as this year but with more NASCAR collisions:rolleyes: No clue why they won't move the season finale to Labor Day weekend after the recent ratings desaster for Laguna Seca.
I don't like night races but Gateway races so much better at night it definitely should be one.

Edit: Long Beach, Portland and Laguna Seca are going to be run at 6 pm eastern?
 
donthaveanickname said:
As far as Le Mans is concerned, a car driven by JJ/Jr./Gordon is gonna get considerably more attention in the US and in Europe than one driven by current HMS drivers. Since they're not competing in any class it doesn't really matter of they're going to be 5 seconds a lap slower.
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I think people are forgetting this car isn't going to be setting any records. It's an exhibition.
 
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