Welcome to the RACER Mailbag. Questions for any of RACER’s writers will be despatched to mailbag@racer.com. We love listening to your feedback and opinions, however letters that embrace a query usually tend to be revealed. Questions acquired after 3pm ET every Monday will probably be saved for the next week.
Q: Don’t need NASCAR. Simply need competence. FOX failed us. An excessive amount of to ask for IndyCar, apparently.
Richard Dulany
MARSHALL PRUETT: A primary-time downside with a blown circuit breaker, one which took 21 minutes of racing away, is being handled like the largest failure conceivable by some who I can solely assume stay in a world of perfection the place they by no means make errors or are topic to misfortune. It occurred. It was unhealthy. However no person died. This wasn’t a hospital that misplaced energy and went darkish in the course of a surgical procedure. We didn’t get to see 21 minutes of a rattling boring stretch of the race. If something, the timing of the issue made the race higher since a few of the nothingness wasn’t aired. Pato led, and saved main.
If it occurs once more this 12 months, sure, there will probably be some critical questions to lift about competence, and a number of individuals will most likely be relieved from their jobs. For now, let’s get again to actual life and name the Thermal dropout what it was: an aberration.
Q: Darn it FOX! You screwed up a very good racing occasion along with your technical issues. Possibly I’m within the minority, however I just like the Thermal monitor, although it might use some security limitations in sure areas of the monitor, and a few grandstands. It might use another help races just like the Trans Am Sequence and Worldwide GT Sequence. Alex Palou is on a special stage and I hoped for a historic second with Pato O’Ward and Christian Lungaard having aa historic Arrow McLaren 1-2. However Palou jogged my memory of Alex Zanardi when he dominated the collection from 1997-98. I’m questioning if he’ll find yourself in F1, particularly if Liam Lawson struggles with Pink Bull Racing?
Alistair
MP: Alex definitely deserves a glance from F1 groups, however it’s onerous to make the argument that the proper match to interchange a younger driver with an honest quantity of F1 expertise who’s struggling is with a younger driver with far much less F1 expertise. And pitting him in opposition to the perfect driver in F1 who’s crushed each teammate he’s had, barring Daniel Ricciardo, who killed his personal profession by leaving for Renault.
Palou is amazingly proficient, and can be a steadier operator, however the group needs prompt pace and effectiveness, which wouldn’t be one thing Alex needs to be anticipated to summon. Given two assured years? Sure. On this state of affairs? Keep the hell away.
Oh, he’s additionally underneath contract to Chip Ganassi Racing, which has offered all of its sponsors for the ten automotive on Alex being its driver. So there’s that minor impediment.
If something, Zanardi’s 1999 season stands as a cautionary story in opposition to attempting to show IndyCar/CART dominance into prompt F1 success. Getty Pictures.
Q: Undecided if this was a FOX protection factor or what. I observed throughout Sunday’s race at Thermal that the monitor edge saved altering from mild blue to purple? Simply curious as to what I used to be seeing. Thanks for any perception!
Hisham Bate, Indy
MP: The curb is painted totally different colours in several areas.
Q: I do know you’re going to get a ton of letters concerning the FOX broadcast. I get that technical points can occur, ensuing within the broadcast feed getting misplaced. Nonetheless, FOX switched to the NASCAR broadcast from Homestead, however the ticker on the backside said the NASCAR race was at Martinsville. Oops.
That simply leads me to the purpose that FOX nonetheless has work to do on its graphics. When Palou caught O’Ward with 10 to go, the published tags/flags confirmed Pato in first and Palou (proper on his bumper) in third. FOX tried it once more, however once more Palou was listed as third. These positions listed on the flag graphics disappeared. I can see they haven’t carried out something about overlaying up the sponsor logos on the cockpit hoop for the in-car feeds. Sponsors are going to be pissed, and it places the group house owners in a very unhealthy spot.
Social media was busy Saturday with the published graphics errors. McLaughlin within the No. 3 had Sting Ray’s cartoon face, amongst different points. I’m not attempting to choose on FOX, however these are broadcast fundamentals within the 12 months 2025. As soon as, will be forgiven, however not two races in a row. The expertise and information is there. Heck, they’ve broadcast NASCAR for years and years. It’s not look.
On the constructive facet, the warmup present is nice and must proceed.
John Balestrieri, Waukesha, WI
MP: Particular grace interval given throughout and after the primary race with the graphics, and the widespread points in merely delivering the graphics to the worldwide viewers. But it surely was clear that three weeks wasn’t sufficient time to get the vast majority of the issues solved, and in reality, some new ones emerged (Sting Ray McLaughlin was wonderful).
The place the blown circuit breaker was a fluke factor that didn’t warrant the hysteria that adopted, there’s some critical high quality management points for FOX to deal with with its graphics and presentation. I heard from worldwide followers on Friday and Saturday who have been blown away by the ten steps again FOX took from St. Pete to Thermal, with fallacious feeds being proven, lacking graphics, and mismatched audio — the sales space speaking about one factor and the footage of one thing completely totally different being displayed.
Most of that was cleaned up by the race, I’m informed, however the shocker right here is that this isn’t a case of FOX taking its first crack at broadcasting a brand-new sport. This is similar community that airs NASCAR, the NHRA, and has had F1, American sports activities vehicles, and Le Mans as staples inside the final decade. Why, precisely, it’s now lacking so most of the fundamentals on the home and worldwide IndyCar feeds is a head-scratcher, for positive.
This has nothing to do with missing ardour or pleasure or expertise. That is, as former IndyCar president (and faculty soccer participant) Jay Frye likes to say, failing to execute the easy stuff like blocking and tackling.
