Welcome to the racer’s mail bag. Questions for racer writers can be sent to emailbag@racer.com. We love hearing your comments and opinions, but letters containing questions are likely to be published. Any questions received every Monday after 3pm will be saved the following week.
Q: The IndyCar schedule for the 17 races is too short. This is, in my opinion, the reason for the decline in viewership. They need to stop making these excuses that the Masters and the NCAA Tournament hurt audiences. The series competes with the United Football League, Major League Soccer, NBA and NHL. It expanded to 22 races with Homestead, New Orleans and Richmond, and maintained thermal. Racing every weekend increases the audience for the series. Taking these three-week breaks on your schedule hurts the series.
Alistair, Springfield, MO
Marshall Pruett: I don’t see quotes from Masters and other big rival events as excuses. If an independent film debuts on the same weekend as a new Star Wars film, there is a 100% chance of being overlooked and its ticket sales will be undermined. Why doesn’t the same effect occur here?
Without competition, IndyCar tends to generate Solid TV audiences. Do you want to pit against more popular sports? IndyCar falls to the second or third place on the list, if not fourth or fifth.
Viewer size reflects rankings among current major sports. This is one mile behind bats, balls, clubs and at least 0.5 miles behind NASCAR and F1. To quote Juan Pablo Montoya, “What is it?” I lived in an era when the opposite was true, IndyCar was a big dog, and I am one of many who prayed to return to that noble place.
I love the idea that more races are the answer to bigger TV viewers if there are those additional events over the weekend when IndyCar has its own broadcast window. But if there’s a big competition with one or two sports with more fans, Logic says they’ll go to what those people like before checking out IndyCar.
Many of them are automatically not equal to the magnitude of popularity. The MLB team plays 162 games a year, mostly filling two-thirds of the stadium and struggling to record the TV ratings they smoke.
Here’s what the Sunday Fox audience of 552,000 viewers tells us: All the stubborns in Indycar are tuned with Big Fox. Last year, Long Beach, buried in NBC’s USA Cable Channel, produced 307,348, which was disastrous. Long Beach went from 300k to 550k with a switch associated with a huge network home in the slot of interest, from a cable channel that no one has associated as a place to see Indycar. It’s almost twice as good, so that’s obviously a good thing, but still a small number. Especially in the race that is the second biggest welcome on the IndyCar calendar after the Indy 500.
Despite competition with golf at CBS, I would have been hoping that the Indycar of Fox in Long Beach would attract over 550k. It’s a shame, at least for me, and reminds me that no matter how much I love Indycar, the great effort that the series and Fox will go ahead to pull out of the shadows. This is an unwelcome reality check, but in reality it is what it is.
Q: I read a news item that says that Hy-Vee will no longer sponsor the Iowa Double Header. Do you know why Hy-vee was brought out? I went from sponsoring the car and double headers until I left IndyCar completely. Do you think this portends the Rough Times for IndyCar and the team to find sponsors?
Peter, Indianapolis, Indiana
MP: This change happened last year, so there is no news that Sukup (Sue-Cup) manufacturing is signed as meaningful in April 2025. Hy-Vee has undergone a change in CEO. It wasn’t surprising that they were unable to renew their contract after completion of 2024, as CEO changes often result in no sponsorships being removed.
Q: Talks about customs made me remember Swift. When Indycar chose a new car, Swift was making F1 Nippon Cars (now known as Super Formula). What are they doing today?
The car was great, it was well raced and sounded great. I remember Swift’s IndyCar project was beautiful. I always thought why Japan is building an American company, but IndyCar couldn’t go with Swift to make them.
Also, in this talk in F1 about the V10 (which appears to result in a V8), IndyCar may be able to switch to a V8. Ask Honda and Toyota if they still have those engines. They sounded better than the IndyCar V8 that year.
This seems like a very complicated moment to determine the rules of the engine. So much uncertainty.
William Mazeo
MP: Maid in San Clemente, California. I grew up working on Norcal Distributor in Swift and created/prepared/run countless Swifts. Of all the Marches, it is the closest to my mind, and I rate the Long Tail Swift DB-1 as one of the most beautiful race cars.
The V10 is only an entertainment-only play, as there is no road car relevance at the time. It’s the same as the mandatory ceremony, V8. However, if there is no car maker in the series, there is no reason not to scream and do anything funny. I feel Pensuke’s entertainment in this respect. We know that hybridization is truly important for many manufacturers today. But does it retain the same importance in 3-5 years?
Q: Naturally, push-to-pass was often spoken during the Long Beach broadcast. I swear the Fox guys have not even mentioned the hybrid. Is the stored electrical energy self-deployed on demand to help with overtaking and defense?
Sean, Maryland
MP: Energy recovery systems can automatically harvest if the option is enabled before any session but is not permitted to automatically deploy. That is the sole responsibility of each driver.
And yes, when I’m an IndyCar automaker and compete with hybrid engines to showcase or promote hybrid road car technology, I’m coming to life.
I re-watched the race on Monday night, but can’t remember one mention of it being available as a push-to-pasteur. I’ve heard of tons about the turbo P2P, and it took a lot of time for anyone to use it, but it’s as if you can’t see a new P2P. However, I noted that in the Acura commercial I saw during the race, I used a hybrid IMSA GTP vehicle in the ad.