Another Everything Episode

This is, is off track, man, I haven't, I don't, I wish we had something to talk about. ,

what do you, yeah. What's, how's your week been, man?

Well, I wanna start with the first thing on my list, which, okay.

I, I had no idea. I had no idea what was to come, um,

when I first started my list on Friday.

So I got, I got a lot of, a lot of very angry comments in the comment box.

Um, or the suggestion box, I should say.

Um, very nastily worded letters. Um, sorry, what comments?

What was I'm talking about? With the safety crew? Yeah.

With the safety crew. Yeah. Yeah.

Oh, and I just want to tell everyone, uh, to <inaudible> off , um, because , because here's the thing.

I feel like, um, especially on this show, and I'm not saying that people that watch the broadcast listen to this show, um, but I would, I would, they should, I would like to say that all of the IndyCar drivers, um, are nothing ever but publicly incredibly appreciative about the A MR safety team and IndyCar Medical and everything that they do.

And we are constantly, um, recognizing them, um, whether it's drivers teams, tracks, series officials as the best in the business.

Because the fact of the matter is they are, um, and a lot of what they do and why they're the best in the business is because of the response time, um, that they have, especially when we're on these high speed ovals, right?

Big hits, James, you know, firsthand like what that can mean for a driver.

And you never know the severity of the situation until you get there, obviously.

Um, but there, there is, there is cause and effect to things that happen.

Um, and I want to give a little bit of background, um, to this whole situation that occurred on Fast Friday because people that think I was upset at the safety crew because I had to abort a qualifying sim no, or because I had no, no, no, no, or 'cause I had to go slower in pit lane or, because all of these other things, um, have really no semblance of a clue as to what we do.

Um, and also they don't have any understanding of my personal relationship of what happened to a teammate of mine in 2015.

Uh, Jules Bianchi when he died, because he went under a recovery vehicle going into Fast Friday, um, what people do on Fast Friday is Fast Friday is all about qualifying simulation, right?

You are doing everything that you can to prepare yourself for the next two days, qualifying day.

Um, and it's a very unique day because usually in qualifying or not usually all the time in qualifying, you are a single car, single car on track.

Um, you're taking these high risk, uh, decisions, um, at four laps, kind of at the limit of yourself in the car, and you're by yourself.

So really the risk that you have is for yourself and yourself Only when a car hits the wall, safety's rolling immediately getting to that person, attending to that person.

No big deal in practice.

Um, when there's a car that hits the wall, um, you're in group running, you're at slower speeds in the race, you're in group running, you're at slower speeds, all these sort of things.

The other thing that happens on Fast Friday, aside from being at high speeds, the lowest down force setting you're gonna be on all week is, um, you pull the brakes back.

And what pulling the brakes back means is it doesn't mean you don't have brakes.

What it means is that in practice and in the race when you go to hit the brake pedal, you've got instant stopping power in qualifying.

And in fast Friday, you don't, you have to actually pump the brakes up and get the brake pedal firm enough because the pads are pulled back from the rotors. Yes, James, and,

And just for, just for reference, the reason you do that in qualifying runs is you do not want the pad to touch the rotor at all at any point during your run, because that creates friction, slows you down.

It's a common practice. Correct.

But yes, it means you gotta pump the pedal two, three times before the pads actually reach the rotors and it it does anything to stop the car.

Correct. And so what occurred on Friday in this particular

instance was a, was a, was a multitude of factors that, as we like to say in the aviation world, the holes in the Swiss cheese lined up.

There was a lot of things that happened that were just unlucky in a lot of circumstances.

So number one, um, I was on track with two other cars.

Um, Kiffin was about eight seconds in front of me starting a Q sim.

Um, pretty wild to have an accident, um, starting a Q sim.

But again, that's the, the challenge of these cars right now.

Um, I was also beginning a Q sim.

So I, the engine was all the way turned up.

I was coming to green, so I was at basically full chat through turn three in the short shoot.

And so I got the call and the notification and everything that yellow, yellow, yellow, there's a crash in four.

Lot of debris pit off a four.

The other thing that happens under yellow conditions is you pit off a four.

The other thing that hasn't happened at any point in the weekend at all Was pitting off A four.

Pitting off a four, especially at speed, you pit off a four when there's a crash or a, a track inspection or whatever.

Yellow for debris, yeah. You're going

80 miles an hour in second gear coming into pit lane.

So I was in the short shoot looking for a car, trying to pump up brakes, driving through a debris field and pitting off four for the first time.

Meanwhile, a two ton diesel Chevy pickup is rolling to Kiffin to the incident site, trying to get to 'em as soon as possible.

There has been a lot of discussion that I have had internally with IndyCar and the A MR safety team as a result of this accident.

And I'm gonna tell you the conclusion of it here shortly.

But one of the things that they do and they're trained to do, um, that I was not aware of, um, is they actually make a block.

Yeah. They block the car to protect,

To protect the car.

Yeah. That is exposed in pit lane.

What I saw from my side is a car is a truck rolling, and in their defense, um, they did not know where I was.

And this is something that came out of the meeting.

They don't have the information that you would expect that they would have, like all the teams have with marching ants and a network connection and all this sort of thing.

And the problem with that is because previously if they were just using the NTT IndyCar app, there's too much latency and too much delay for it to be useful for them.

So they were not aware of where I was, which was in the middle of four when they were rolling, they then saw me and put the block on.

I was trying to move, which these cars are very hard to move right in the first place.

So I was trying to move in the opposite direction of they that they were while trying to get the car slowed down, all this sort of thing.

Therein lies the frustration as to what happened because I saw a truck that was weaving back and forth and all I was trying to do was follow the rules and pit off a four and get into pit lane.

Fast forward to conversations that were had with IndyCar and the MR safety team.

I'm not gonna get into the details 'cause it does not matter.

It ended up being a very positive conversation.

And what came out of it was Microsoft Surface tablets for all the trucks, a network connection and the potential for ovals, uh, there to be spotters in terms of one and three for the safety trucks that are rolling to identify other cars that are on track.

So all of you that are yelling at me about my frustration for a situation that was in the cockpit, quite a scary and sketchy situation.

This is all an actual incredibly positive thing that came out of it.

And none of it was negatively directed at the people that we know protect us and save our lives.

So that's all I have to say.

Thank you for clearing that up. Hmm.

Uh, I was one of the people that was confused at the hand gesture because we didn't see the, we didn't see your relationship to the truck on the broadcast.

We just kind of saw you slowing down a, waving your hand.

You could kind of deduce what roughly had happened.

But getting the full thing is, is important.

I love, I love the spotter idea.

That's an act that's actually crazy that no one had thought about that up to now.

But it's a great thing that has come out of that for sure.

The tablet thing, I'll be honest, IndyCar Network, not necessarily the most reliable thing in, in the world.

Very, very true. So I actually like the spotter idea better.

Um, that's a, that's, it's weird that like there's a, a situation where technology is actually more reliable than human when normally everything else that we're doing in, in the world is replacing humans with technology to avoid human error.

Um, but that's one where the humans still play a big part.

The other thing that I take outta that story is, so, you know, like the January or December meetings, whatever, right?

There was a time, so like I hear you say, I did not know that was the procedure, that the car, the truck blocks the car.

There was a time where those meetings were a full day and the drivers heard from the marketing department, the PR department, the competition department, the safety team, the medical department, and it was like a full all round, all encompassing drivers getting up to date on everything that's happening with IndyCar.

And they stopped doing that at some point, I forget what year, but it turned into, it's like basically purely a competition meeting, right?

Mm-hmm . For the last few years it's been J Fry

and the drivers and you run through the issues from the last year and things that in car thinking about for the next year, whatever.

But like I know that that's the procedure for a safety car or for the safety team, not because of my relationship with the safety team.

Because there was a time when the head of the safety team would come in and do a half hour presentation for all the drivers on, Hey guys, here's what we do.

Every, every when a car hits the wall, there is a choreographed routine and everybody in the truck has a role and everybody's gonna do this.

So that way as a driver, if you have an accident, you almost know what to expect more for the driver inside the car.

But in this case, it also could have some relevance for other drivers outside of the accident that are coming up on the accident to understand maybe the movements of the truck and be able to predict a little bit what could be coming.

So I would love to see in car go back to that because I thought it was super relevant for drivers to have an understanding of the commercial health of the sport.

I thought it was relevant to speak to the safety team, to the doctors.

One of the things we used to do is we used to have, at the time it was Terry Tramell would come in and go through every accident from the previous year and any injuries that came from it and what information they gleaned from that.

Because Indy IndyCar is taking information from every situation to, to make IndyCar safer.

And it why wouldn't you educate the drivers on what was happening in that realm?

So while the competition meetings that they have become have been very productive and very helpful in a lot of ways, I think that there's a lot more that we could also be doing still in that meeting, um, that we used to do.

So unrelated but kind of related. Yeah.

So thanks for clearing that up.

I'm glad that we all know. Um,

Is there anything else that we can get mad at you about that you'd be like, yeah, fair enough.

Just 'cause like, I don't wanna spend the rest of this week not hating on you online.

I mean there's, I'm sure there's something, probably something I'll say today, so, okay.

Alright. Oh, I know, I know.

Something can't wait for this.

We were promoting, we were promoting your Java house appearance yesterday being, we're filming this on Tuesday, yesterday being Monday after practice, us being open to the public, which apparently it was not, I didn't even know what it was.

And honestly it was kind of a waste of time.

So, I mean, I don't, I'm sorry.

Like I did, I did, we're doing with my mom.

We're doing, we're doing a, uh, we're doing our final, we're doing our final ECR driver meet and greet at a Java house in Clay Terrace tomorrow.

Well, no one's gonna know because it happened Wednesday.

This comes out Thursday. So nevermind.

You missed your chance. Hope you were there.

See you next year. Yeah. I

Hope you were there. .

Okay, so we've talked about Fast Friday.

We don't need to go through Fast Friday.

Um, let's just get to qualifying. Yeah. Qualifying Saturday.

How was your day? Other than bro,

I mean, we Mildly frustrating.

It was, it was, it was. I don't, it was very hard.

Um, so I know you said we're done with Fast Friday, but you can't talk about qualifying without going back to Fast Friday.

So Fast Friday, super hot, super windy. Yes.

Um, we, I couldn't, well a lot of things happened to us.

So we were supposed to go at the drop at the green.

Um, we, the track was gonna be at its best, if you will, and, and leave.

And there was an engine calibration issue.

So we had to abort that run, um, come back in, you gotta cool the car down, blah, blah, blah.

So it's kind of a 40 minute situation that happens.

Then we went out again, the whole Kiffin medical truck situation happened.

So another 45, well that was a wall repair, so it was like an hour and 20 minutes, gotta cool the car down, all this sort of thing.

We went out again, um, at the downforce that we were expecting to do at the start of the day, which was far too light, um, for the conditions and it kind of spiraled from there.

And we never really got a complete run in so fast forward to Saturday, uh, where the conditions were completely different, much better in a lot of respects in terms of track temp, ambient temp, still a little bit gusty, but the, the major factors were gonna be better.

Um, so we practiced Saturday morning, which a lot of teams, um, you know, usually don't do.

But because the conditions were so different, we saw a lot of takers Saturday morning. And

Were you, were you on board with that decision? Because I know that's

Hundred percent like that was my decision. Yeah,

Just, just because the conditions were so different.

Conditions were so different and we didn't actually get a run in on Friday and you Weren't happy on Friday. Okay.

So, and we, we knew approximately what downforce level we wanted to be on based on the open test where we were running one five boost and we knew approximately where we wanted to be based on a QI we did on race boost lower in the week.

Anyways, long story short, um, we went out and our first run was, uh, I wanna say that the downforce level this year, um, seemed to be a much smaller deciding factor in whether or not you are successful as the just general balance of the car.

So the balance of the car was really, really hard to get right this year.

Right. Um, it was very much either a huge amount

of takeoff under steer or you were saving your life in the middle of the corner with Oversteering the rear.

And so the, the downforce level that we went out on a lot of other cars successfully ran.

So it's not like we were trying to be incredibly aggressive.

We thought we were taking a, you know, non-conservative approach, but a, a reasonable approach based on what we had previously completed.

And it was 65 degree ambient temp.

I think it was like 88 degree track temp at the time.

And we thought this is gonna be, we need to make a step because this is gonna be our best chance to get in the fast 12.

'cause we had a great draw. We, we were rolling off, uh,

fifth and so we were, we were kind of going for it.

It wasn't a good run. Um, I had to start lifting kind

of from that two and was really fighting the balance of the car, Which end was going, um, The rear.

Okay. Um, the rear was going on lap one, so it was,

I knew it was in for quite a ride when I was loose in turn one lap one.

Um, and so then we did three subsequent runs of varying down force levels that quite honestly, even though I was flat, um, didn't really go any quicker.

Like, we did improve slightly by like 0.1 of a mile an hour.

Um, but we weren't able to break through into the top 12.

Um, which was really honestly, um, we fell short, you know, ECR qualifying at Indianapolis, the expectation is there's gonna be at least one car in the fast 12, if not in the pole shootout.

Um, there has been for the past decade. Yeah.

So it, uh, it was really a not a good day, um, Saturday evening, um, when none of the three cars made it.

And there's been some, a little bit of understanding as to why already in the, in the postmortem.

Um, but certainly there's Been, I assume nothing that you can share, Nothing we can share.

Um, but, uh, a huge emphasis and demand has been placed on the team from the ownership that this never happens again.

So there's gonna be a lot of focus on Indi qualifying, um, back in for 2026.

So with the understanding that full transparency, I don't, you and I have not talked about this offline, so I don't know what you're referring to, but, um, was it something that was like human error? No,

Procedurally no, no human error.

I think we set up philosophy.

We, um, we just didn't, um, turn over all of the rocks, let's put it that way.

So there was no errors, there was no mistakes.

Um, there was just maybe not as much, um, as much study done potentially as other teams.

So that is, uh, what it boils down to.

We ultimately, you're, you're dealing with fractions of a second.

Like, it's not like we were miles away, you know, for to be pissed off with 14th, 16th and 19th.

Like, it's not like it was a disaster.

Um, but certainly again, by the team standards, it, it fell pretty, pretty far short.

Yeah, that's, that's understandable.

Um, we'll, we'll get to the fact that you're not starting 14th in a sec, but let's just cover off the rest of qualifying.

Yep. Um,

Some big shunts, Some big shunts, you know, obviously <crosstalk>, some amazing Recoveries In practice.

Uh, Colton's crash was tough to watch.

Colton's crash in actual qualifying tough to watch Armstrong Qualifying practice Armstrong in qualifying practice on Saturday.

Tough to watch. Um, all the guys, you know, obviously,

you know, we already talked about what Kiffin and I mean, coming to the green, like I I've never seen a car wreck come into the green.

I know, and as you said, just highlights how difficult these things are and, and I've had somebody ask me, they're like, why are we seeing more wrecks this year than normal?

And I was like, it's not just that you're seeing more wrecks, it's that you're seeing more wrecks from really quick cars.

Um, it's not just inexperienced guys that are crashing because to be quick with this generation of car, and I'm calling it the hybrid generation, right?

You mechanically have to have the thing so loose to just dial some under steer out of it that this is happening to the guys that are going quickly.

It's not happening to the guys that are struggling to make it, you know, the 23rd.

Yeah. It's, it's fast cars.

So, um, is bit of a unique situation. Is

There any concern with how many of these have gone airborne?

Yes, there sure is.

So, but I mean, what is, I feel like since, I don't know, since this car came out, if you back into the wall at Indy, it's not uncommon for the car to flip after it hits the wall sort of thing.

Like, Colton got a little bit higher than I was expecting.

Marcus got a little bit higher than I was expecting.

Scott got a little bit higher than I was expecting. But when you look at,

I mean, ulti ultimately they all came down pretty nicely. Uh, they

Didn't go that high.

I know that sounds awful to say that high, but still, I think, I think though there was a huge amount of effort from IndyCar, um, especially after, what was it, 2016?

No, 2015. 15, um, 15 when there was a lot of cars flipping.

Um, when we were in the case, dude, LIOs flip outta one was still one of the most wild things I've ever seen.

And so there was holes put in the floor, there was anti lift devices put on the diffuser.

There was a lot of things. And, and for a while it kept,

and I'm not saying it still isn't keeping, it's keeping them on the ground for the most part and in check.

I think this is just, again, another example of when there is that little bit of air that gets underneath the car now with more mass, right?

And more mass further away from the center line of the car.

It's just, there's, you've got that pendulum of inertia, right?

That's, that's bringing the back end of the car.

Does that make sense though? Because the weight's in the

back and it's the back of the car that's lifting up though, Right?

Because when air gets under it and it gets the momentum going, it's, it's a bigger lever that's, it's going, but It needs more energy to lift a heavier Object.

I mean, you've watched an a three 80 take off that weighs like 95 tons, 95,000 tons and It could do it at a hundred miles an Hour, right? And these

Cars do it twice that, Right? Yeah. Yeah.

I guess. Okay. Um,

High and low pressure is a, is a hell of a hell of a science cut, hell of A drug.

Yeah. Uh, luckily all the drivers walked away.

All the drivers were fine. All the drivers

were cleared to get back in.

Um, huge efforts from all, all of those crews.

Nessi, Andretti, Penske, I mean three of the base teams having to rebuild cars or put together programs to get their cars, their drivers back out.

Um, I wanna give a shout out to Colton.

Yes. And I, I love Colton.

Um, and he is, I wouldn't expect anything less of him.

Um, I feel like though our previous broadcast partner, um, forgot and you guys are a part of that and I, and I kind of pinned this on you a little bit.

Um, I mean personally or Yeah, I, IIII, I feel like there was a lot of talk about like how incredible that was and, and it, it is, but let's not forget least we forget 2024 Reuss VK crashes in turn three in his qualifying attempt destroys a car.

Not only do they get him back out, he goes out, runs four lot flat and doesn't qualify 20 whatever.

He makes him the fast 12, right?

So like this isn't something that no human has ever done before.

This isn't something no team has ever done before.

And not at all, quite honestly, like what they did, and I'm not just saying this 'cause I'm now their driver, like ultimately, if anything Renis and I, for obvious reasons, wouldn't be the best of whatever.

Why is that So?

But like it's, that is also what indie car drivers do.

That's what Yeah, a hundred percent.

I mean it's not, Colton did, it did, Did, did we not give Reus credit for doing that?

I don't feel like as much credit as has been given to others.

But anyways, that is, As someone that I know for a fact doesn't watch back on the broadcast, I'm calling Bull.

You can't say that until you tell me.

You go back and watch qualifying From whatever it was.

Alright. Yeah, last year. Okay. It's not that far ago.

Whatever it was last year. Yeah, well, yeah.

And you still haven't watched it anyway, again, I've done it Uhhuh and I know how hard it is.

And so I wanted to give him the props.

Yeah, read us in 2024. Mad props buddy.

Not say, look, Rita's 2025 mad props <inaudible> man.

He had to like go against his teammate in last Chance's qualifying.

That was awful. And

It sucks.

Now he did some weird stuff though, I must say Poland, dude.

And apparently so slower.

We talked to go slower Abel to, we talked to Abel in, uh, on Monday.

He came into the booth and we chatted to him and he said that was Reina's call because their hybrid system either didn't function correctly or he just didn't use it correctly on his qualifying run.

And so he wanted to go back at, 'cause he thought he could go faster and try to put somebody between him and Abel to give Jacob the chance to then go faster and knock, I guess would've been Armstrong out of the race.

So like, it was selfishly motivated, but I also feel like there's a tiny percent chance that it was kind of benevolent, benevolently motivated as well.

Because, you know, Reina drives for the team.

He wants both team members to be in the, in this, in the race.

He want, you know, he and Jacob had become very good friends.

He didn't wanna knock his buddy out, all these things.

It was a terrible idea.

It was a terrible idea from the get go.

Never should have done it. The fact that he went slower,

even if he had gone faster.

Terrible idea. And he is so lucky.

So <inaudible> lucky that he's in this race because that was just a terrible decision, but pulled it off.

Good for him, bad for Jacob. I really feel for Jacob.

I thought he handled the whole situation incredibly, Incredibly well.

Classy. His interview, his interview, like,

I remember when Graham got knocked out for the whatever it was two days.

Um, you know, he handled it with Grace, obviously you exceptional.

Um, but also somewhat to be expected from guys who have been around the speedway, right?

To understand what this race is and the tradition and the history of 33.

And you know, if you didn't get it done, your team didn't get it done, whatever, you didn't deserve a spot for a rookie to handle it as he did.

And to have the, the, the mental fortitude to represent himself, his team, his sponsors and the way that he did in that moment was incredible.

So a huge problem. Him, and

There's and there's a maturity there too, right?

He was a kid, you know, and, and uh, and he, I, yeah, I think he earned himself a ton of fans and you know, he was reminded that guys like Pat Award didn't make it in the 500 his first time and Nolan Siegel didn't make it in the 500 his first time.

And those guys are both driving for the same team at a very high level and in the show and all these things.

So he's got a bright future ahead of him.

I feel really bad for him. You know, we were chatting

and he goes, I never thought I'd be looking so forward to going to Detroit .

And I was like, well yeah, enjoy it 'cause you'll never feel this way again.

Yeah. But a hundred percent.

Um, so yeah, pros to him and Prophet arenas for getting in and of course Marco and Marcus for, uh, for getting their cars in as well.

Um, let's go to the other side, um, and talk, oh, 'cause just the last thing on Jacob, which again we'll add on to the last topic we'll cover.

Um, when questioned about the situation that developed on Sunday, he said, look, I don't want to get in on a technicality.

I I wanna be one of the fastest 33.

And he acknowledges that regardless of what was happening with other cars, that wasn't them.

And again, that takes a tremendously big human being to do.

Okay. Uh, fast. 12, no one cares fast.

Six oh oh no, three cars didn't participate in fast.

12 one crash two got tossed. We'll talk about that later.

Um, so fast 12 is basically fast nine going for six. Mm-hmm

Again, no one cares.

Yeah. No care, no surprises. Four. Let's fast.

Four except for the one surprise which ended up being the biggest surprise Of this year.

So I a a surprise to those tuning in.

Um, for sure. So of course we're talking about Ramish. Are

You gonna jump on the I raced in Europe.

I know how good Prema is train right now.

Absolutely not. Prema,

I mean if anything this year like that Hmm.

Not not awesome for the brand. They've, they've

Underperformed for Sure, for sure.

Uh, I will just say that as being involved, especially being in the Chevy camp and seeing a lot of, you know, Chevy data share reports and everything like that car all week, um, was towards a lot of top of the list.

Right? And so when he did his, um,

run on Saturday to get in, he rowed off fourth, I think he was the car directly in front of me, maybe third whatever.

And he had the two fastest overall laps of the day.

Faster than Paolo, faster than McLaughlin who were obviously the, the benchmark pacesetters come the end of Saturday.

I was like, man, he's actually like a real threat for this thing because like the car speed's there, now it's up to the team and up to him to choose the right trim level and to survive, you know, two more rounds of this and all that sort of thing.

'cause it's especially this year, no easy feat, but I don't think internally, especially in the Chevy camp, like it was a surprise to see him in the fast six.

I'm not gonna go so far as to say it wasn't a surprise to see him on the front row, but seeing that car in the Fast six made a lot of sense.

No, no, I was just gonna say like, um, we haven't even said his name.

We're talking about Robert Schwartzman, obviously I said his name.

Oh, you did? Sorry. Who was very gracious in coming

by our show on Tuesday to Thanks bro.

Talk about all this bro. So yeah, really appreciate that.

And uh, low key shout out to Darren and Melissa Hickey for setting that up.

Um, no one else was a surprise. You had uh, no,

Why You had polo.

You had Dixon lie. Oh what Kuma. Yeah, Kuma.

Yeah, that's fair. That's actually kind of

Fair.

Can we talk about that's another, that's another thing that like it's it's getting a little bit lost in all of the chaos.

No, this isn't Fox. It's getting lost. Lost.

No, no, no, no. I'm just laughing.

You like lie, lie, lie. You're right. Yeah. Yeah. ,

It's getting lost in the chaos of everything that came this weekend.

A a rookie driver slash rookie team on pull, obviously all of the chaos that went around, uh, team Penske, but like Kuma Auto, 49 years old, 48, 48 Years old, had a badass car that was destroyed in the open test, smashed it up, driving, driving for a team who quite frankly has struggled to get cars into the race, um, for the past several years are him last year.

Um, but we all know the blood, sweat and tears that go into preparing indie specific race cars.

And to think and assume that the car that he was gonna be provided for the month of May was gonna be anywhere close to what he had at the open test in April.

No one believed that was possible because Correct.

It's the difference of three weeks of preparation versus 12 months, 11 months, whatever you wanna call it.

And the fact that not only did they build a car that was good enough to safely get in the race with no questions asked, he's on the <inaudible> front row man.

Like that beating nessi, beating Penske, beating Andretti, beating McLaren.

Like that is unbelievable to me.

It is unreal. That's, that's a valid point.

First and second in this race.

Make no sense to anybody on paper.

Um, the Kuma one makes slightly more sense 'cause obviously very experienced and is with a team that's done it before.

He's won it with this team before. Mm-hmm .

Do you know every single time you start in the top five? He's won. He's won.

Uh, I'm aware. I'm aware.

Um, you gotta remember what my job is.

There's not a stat that you know about the general field that I haven't heard.

Uh, it's just my job.

You specifically your team specifically. Chevy specifically

Maybe, but Oh really?

What was Callum's warmup lab? I shouldn't have said that on

Saturday.

Yeah, I said Chevy specific. Uh, 2 14 8.

No. Oh, that's a good guess though.

Do you know what Calvin's wear mouth was?

Obviously not. Oh, okay.

So that's, so there's nothing you know, that I don't that you haven't that you've heard that I have.

Shut up. Statman idiot.

Anyway, . Anyway. Rookie team, rookie driver.

It's literally never happened before.

And all the people that are like, oh, the very first race, oh, shut up The first race.

No, no. The first race they qualified based on the order in

which they submitted their entry.

There was no qualifying. That's how they started.

Man. Wish we could do that. So

, why would it'd be a race to the mailbox, race to FedEx .

Like, Yeah.

Anyway, um, I'm glad we don't do that 'cause this is much more exciting.

But dude, okay, rookie team, rookie driver, all that stuff.

Absolutely insane. There are years at the track where

one car is just, it's just, it's just fast.

It's just faster than the rest.

It's faster than the rest to the point where they can run it comfortable.

And I'm gonna use air quotes when I say comfortable to drive because it's never comfortable qualifying an IndyCar at the Speedway.

But in relative degrees it can comfortably drive around faster than everything else.

When you watched, we didn't have an onboard forum, but when you watched Schwartzman's qualifying attempts and not just the one for poll top 12 on Saturday, he was driving the thing, man, like that thing wasn't just so fast.

It was buttoned down, easy to ju like easy, flat turned and left not adjusting the tools.

He was wheeling the thing.

And for me, that's probably the most impressive part of it all because Prema for all the issues they've had this year, they have some very experienced engineers.

They've got an experienced team manager, they've got Ryan Briscoe as a sporting director slash driver coach.

They've got, uh, some mechanics that have been doing this for a while in IndyCar.

They have a lot of the elements that you need to be successful.

The unknown was the driver.

And on a, on a year where drivers are saying it's trickier than it's been for a while.

You gotta, you gotta really hustle the thing.

You gotta wheel it. He got in and got the job done.

And I gotta say it's, it's probably the most impressive part of the whole thing.

More even so than the team is the fact that he could do it and compete against sodo and Array Hall Patto into McLaren Polo and Dixon in IES and Felix in an MSR car.

It was a truly remarkable day and he's got a great view in a turned one on Sunday.

Correct. No notes and That was it. No,

There's nothing else to talk about with qualifying, So I wish that had been like a bourbon or something that would've had more impact.

Um, okay, Alex.

Okay James, What do you want to say on the topic? I'm

Just gonna hammer it all.

when you can. Alright, I wasn't expecting that.

This is great. Gid up.

Yeah guys, this is what you tuned in for. Let's be honest.

Uh, we're here now. Let's go.

Everyone knows at this point that uh, the two in the 12, um, failed, uh, a tech inspection, um, for Fast 12 qualifying on Sunday and originally were, uh, well pulled the cars from line.

Um, there's conflicting reports as to the conversations that went on that led to that point. But

The chronology of events, all, All of the things that matter is the cars had some issues on it.

The team tried to rectify it on pit lane, but the only thing you can do once you clear tech, um, on pit lane is a wing adjustment and tire pressures, um, taking a blowtorch and a knife is not allowed, um, as you would expect.

And so the team chose to withdraw those two cars and as a result by um, the way that Indie 500 qualifying works and James, we were all in group texts talking about this blah blah, blah.

And it is a valid point is unlike what Patto was saying, um, unlike what a lot of people on the internet was saying and unlike my initial opinion was, oh they need to, you know, they're not in the race.

They need to go requalify, um, in the LCQ against the cars that are fighting to get in the race.

But the difference is they were definitely locked into the race on Saturday.

That is the whole purpose of Saturday is to lock in the first 30 cars.

You then have four cars that fight their way into the field and then you've got the top 12 fighting their way for pull.

But regardless of how the order of the top 12 shakes out, those 12 cars are in the race.

'cause they did their job on Saturday.

And so the penalty that was, uh, initially seemed to be passed down and was passed down.

Um, at least when we all went to bed on Sunday night was that, um, the, uh, two and the 12 were gonna start 11th to 12th.

Obviously Scotty never got a chance to do anything 'cause his car was destroyed.

So the Penske cars were gonna be filling row four and that made, that made some sense.

There was some argument of, again, despite of what I said, some argument towards the contrary.

And there's always, you know, some, there's always some truth to all of these sort of situations, right?

Um, and you can then fast forward to Monday and the, the news comes out that they are sent to the two and the 12 are sent to the back.

Um, because a, the, uh, the uh, three never went through tech and presumably they said, um, that they went and inspected that car after the crash and the modified device was not on the car.

Whether that's true or not, it's pretty irrelevant because again, that car never even saw a tech bridge.

Um, so it couldn't have failed because it didn't go through.

I'm gonna let you talk in a minute. I'm just gonna ramble.

I'm gonna get all my thoughts outta my head.

Um, what I will say is the following, number one, I feel bad for the drivers because the drivers unlike whatever side you chose to take last year in March, the drivers had nothing to do with this.

I highly doubt. Number two,

there is a performance advantage.

There might be, but that would surprise me.

I feel bad for Roger because I, I can almost guarantee he certainly didn't have eyeballs on said decision to do whatever modification was to the Attenuator.

And I feel bad because in this day and age, whether it's motor sports or not, optics are half of reality.

And the problem that Roger has right now is there's an optics issue that there's a conflict of interest.

And so all of the resulting decisions and drama that has unfolded is because of that.

If this is CGR right?

That has this issue, it's not really a, a thing.

Like there might be a fine, there might be a penalty or whatever, but because this individual owns the speedway, a series arguably the best team and is in charge of the biggest race in the world, there's an optics issue.

And the fact, the fact that it has happened twice in two years is a problem.

Okay. Um,

and the final thing that I will say on this topic, there has also been a lot of people that have reached out to me and Connor specifically about why are you guys not pissed off or are you guys pissed off or you should have been in the top 12 on Sunday and all this sort of thing.

'cause those cars weren't legal. Okay?

But no, not okay because for example, Connor's car failed tech on Saturday.

And what does that mean? It means you time gets withdrawn,

you've got however many hours are left in qualifying, you fix the problem and you go drive again.

So this exact situation would happen to those two cars.

Had they failed tech at some point on Saturday, their times would've been withdrawn.

They would've rectified the issue and they would've gone out again.

And presumably, I mean there's no guarantee you can crash, you can blow an engine or whatever, but presumably they would've still gotten into the top 12.

So I didn't feel that I was, um, robbed of anything because ultimately in the way indie qualifying works, they could have attempted again.

So those are my points on it all.

I'd love, I can't wait for the discussion.

I'd love to hear your thoughts, James.

Okay. I've been making notes so that way we can compare.

Okay. Start at the top drivers. I completely agree.

The drivers had no knowledge of this.

We don't know what our car builds are.

We don't know what they're bolting on.

This has nothing to do with drivers the performance advantage.

I completely agree. It's one of those things that

it's not, it's not a performance disadvantage.

Okay? No. It was done to increase performance.

The marginal gain that you, it's an immeasurable gain.

What they did was one of those things that when you combine it with nine other small things, you have 10 things that together create some kind of meaningful advantage, right?

In isolation. It's such a small piece.

I really don't think it has any effect on anything to that point.

And you didn't mention this, but because we're kind of on it, I'm just gonna say anybody that thinks that that piece was on the car last year, maybe it was, maybe it wasn't.

Yes. We've all seen the pictures from the museum

and it's on those cars.

You don't know if that's the exact pieces that were on the car last year when it ran the Race.

I mean there are actual pictures of the car at the yard of brakes with it. So

Terrific.

It was on the, it was on last year.

We just both agreed it's not a meaningful difference in performance.

No, sure. So do I think that it helped him win the race?

I do not under any circumstances think that it helped him win the race last year.

Okay. Was it not legal? No, it wasn't.

So do you wanna argue that he won with an illegal car? Sure.

You can argue that that's a, that's a valid argument.

Do you wanna argue that the illegality of the car increased performance enough that it helped him win the race?

I'll fight you to the grave on that one.

'cause I just don't buy it. This has been an ongoing

discussion since 2020.

Hmm. This became a highlighted discussion in 2024. Hmm.

And in my opinion, there have not been enough efforts made to mitigate the very blatant conflict of interest that exists in owning everything that he owns.

He's choosing to do it.

And can I I agree completely with what you're saying.

I, when I said I feel bad for Roger, I was referencing the fact that this specific correct Situation, he did not know that was correct.

He was not aware of it and green flagged it and that sort of thing.

Yes. Sorry. This, this would've been a stunning phone call

revelation to him that he then had to deal with.

Yes. That was a complete surprise.

Sorry. Okay. That's all I'm saying.

So we're, we're on the same page there. Yes.

The irony is, is that in this already tenuous situation that people have already had a lot of issue with, it's his own people that are making his life <inaudible> hell by doing the things that they're doing.

Correct? Yeah. The the irony is comical.

Yes. Completely.

I'm gonna leave that, I'm gonna leave that there, I'm gonna leave that there.

That you have to believe that this was a mandate from I agree.

The top, no from the top to penalize the cars to show that there isn't a conflict of interest. So, but that's

What I'm so glad you said that because that's what makes it worse.

I, okay. Yes.

Okay. So let's say, let's say the three didn't have it.

Fine. Okay, cool. Three didn't have it.

The rules, as you mentioned, the car passed the tech, the cars passed the tech on Saturday mm-hmm .

When the timing official signs the official sheet mm-hmm .

The results are official.

The field is locked in from mm-hmm . One to 30 mm-hmm .

In terms of who's in the race. Mm-hmm . Okay.

13 to 30 start where they qualified one to 12, gotta go fight it out tomorrow on, at that point it is IndyCar's fault that they didn't find it.

It is not Penske's fault that there was an illegal part on the car.

Mm-hmm. I mean it was,

but it's not, you're right As far as the order goes.

Yes. Yes. So I'm in the minority that thought

that those cars should start 11th and 12th.

I wouldn't say you're in the minority.

I think, I think publicly. I think within the pad. Sure.

People maybe saw the, the, the, the relevance of that.

'cause we live this every day, right? Mm.

They got away with it.

I hate to say it that way, but guys, everybody pushes the limits.

Oh, a hundred percent. If you wanna rip apart every

component on every car in that field and try to hold it to within 0.01% tolerance

of the rules, they're all going on.

You could probably find something on every car that maybe Not a coin car.

Who knows? . I'm just saying it's

Part of the story.

The, the only, the only truly legal car is the one that went home.

It's the nature of the sport.

So, so here, so for me, Saturday qualifying was set and when asked why Jacob Abel was not now being considered to be allowed into the race, the answer was the rule state that on Saturday we set one through 30 in terms of who's in the field yet Monday morning they put those two cars to 32nd and 33rd.

So they broke the own, their own rule that they said is the reason that Abel wasn't allowed to be considered to be in the show.

Pick a lane. To me they overcompensated

because of the conflict of interest optics and it actually looks worse.

They should have put their foot down and said, no, these are the rules.

In a fair world where everything is the same for all people, those cars should started 11 to 12.

I think that indie car tech needs more help.

That is a group of people that have a, they have a very difficult job to do.

It is, I, I'm not saying they did wrong.

I'm not blaming anything on Indy car tech.

I'm saying that they are under resourced to do the job that they have to do to keep everything on the level.

And that's why I don't blame them for missing it on Saturday.

But it was found on Sunday.

And again, however it happened from there, that's up for debate.

'cause there are different stories on how it actually was all uncovered.

But IndyCar needs to invest in technology and resource and people to make sure that tech, at least for the 500 is a more scientific, more equipped setup to avoid situations like this.

Um, and then, yeah, I mean ultimately what I wanna know is who actually caught it?

Because we heard three different stories from three different people in terms of the car pass tech.

It didn't pass tech, the car, past tech, but we were going to revisit it later.

At the end of the day, we have the setup for what's gonna be I think a tremendously entertaining Indie 500. Well,

It's gonna be, it's gonna be probably one of the best.

I don't want this.

Uh, we've talked about it, we did it on qualifying weekend.

This whole week is probably gonna be about that.

But at the end of the day, we're gonna wake up on Sunday.

The cannon's gonna go off at six's, gonna six degrees, filing the race, race track.

Degrees. Degrees. It's gonna be

beautiful conditions for racing.

Bit chilly for people in the stands, but be beautiful for action on the race track, which is gonna benefit everybody.

The complete sellout, the free show.

That blackout we have planned is great. We have no blackout.

We have a rookie on pole.

We have a one-off, two time winner on the front row. We have a

Two, we've got two of the best cars in the back.

Second place finisher, two time, second place finisher on in the front row.

And third, we have two of the best cars in the back.

We have the guy that's gonna win starting 12th.

The guy that's gonna win qualified 14, starting 12th.

You know, it's guys, this is not the story of the race.

Okay? It was a story for a couple days.

And look, there are gonna be lingering effects of this because there's a greater issue for sure.

But we can all agree that for the 24 hours that is for 12:01 AM on Sunday, May 25th until 11:59 PM on that same day, all that matters is the 33 drivers that are gonna line up and take the green flag for the 109th running of the Indy 500 presented by Cambridge live on Fox starting at 10:00 AM Guys, look, I'm stoked, Alex.

I know you're stoked, buddy.

We cannot wish you any more luck.

And uh, this is where I'm allowed to be unbiased 'cause I'm not wearing my hat Yeah.

In the booth. But kick some ass, have some fun. Enjoy it.

As always. It's gonna be,

It's gonna be, it's gonna be, there's gonna be some pucker moments out there.

So I think I'm gonna bondo my butt crack .

Is that legal? All right.

Hey, let's just, uh, start a trend, Alex, you'll win every sold out Indy 500.

That's my plan on one for one.

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