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Barry Wanser

Barry Wanser

Off Track with Hinch and Rossi Apr 15, 2025 32 min
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About this episode

Barry Wanser, longtime strategist and team manager for Chip Ganassi Racing, shares his journey from dirt track and drag racing to nearly 30 years in IndyCar. He reflects on working with legends like Montoya, Dixon, and Alex Palou, highlighting the importance of teamwork, strategy, and driver focus. Barry discusses the evolving nature of race strategy, the calm demeanor of current star Alex Palou, and the challenges of adapting to changing race conditions. The conversation offers a rare behind-the-scenes look at what it takes to maintain success in top-level IndyCar racing.

Topics: indycar strategy chip ganassi racing alex palou race team management driver focus pit stop strategy race engineering indianapolis 500 racing career paths team dynamics
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This is, is off track.
Hello everybody. Welcome to Off Track with Hinch
or Rossi on today's Tuesday episode.
We amazingly have a guest who was, um, I imagine tricked into being here and, and agreeing to be on the show, but we are endlessly appreciative for that.
Uh, our guest today is Mr. Barry Wanzer, who
among many other things you guys might know, uh, his beautiful voice from radio messages to and from Alex Palolo as he's the strategist on the 10 Stand for your Reigning Champion and Championship leader. Barry, welcome to the show.
Thanks, guys. Nice. Uh,
it's fun being here. Looking forward to it.
Yeah, I think we, we were just chatting, this is maybe your second podcast you've ever been a guest on, uh, beat, beat to the Punch by Dinner with Racers as is pretty standard.
They do a really good job and have been doing it for a while.
But, um, you're, you're starting to get into listening to podcasts as well. Yeah,
Absolutely.
I listened to a few of the episodes that you guys have done.
The, uh, certainly don't want after to say Pete and Thermal and The Seabring.
'cause you know, obviously we're very much SA fans at Ganley Racing.
You know, we just don't have a program this year.
But it's, it's fun to watch and, and, and keep up to date on everything that everyone's talking about.
So, but, uh, yeah, let's, like I told, like I told dinner with racers, you guys must be running out people to talk to.
If you're, if you're asking me, You're, you'd be shocked and amazed how, how few people we've actually had on the show.
So no, you're right near the top.
But I mean, I gotta be, I gotta be honest, I gotta ask this question.
Are you starting to listen to podcasts because there's like an active driver on it and maybe he'll slip up some insider info from the team or from Chevy or something?
Or is this just general racing curiosity Really, you know, general racing curiosity and I, you know, it's what, uh, it's what we do is, what I love is racing and, uh, especially IndyCar racing.
And, you know, I've been with, uh, chip for 28 years and it's, it's IndyCar.
So hearing somebody talk about it, um, talk about it, um, with the personal experience and understanding like you guys have with the actual driving the current car.
That's, you know, I think that's, uh, it's, uh, very insightful and it's fun to listen to.
That's kind of you to lie.
I mean, say, um, let's, uh, you talk about your, your long tenure with Chip Asse racing.
Let's go back and give people a bit of an insight into kind of where you came from and how you got started in the sport in general. Uh,
Without going all the way back, but, uh, I, I, I came, uh, I came here to Indy, um, to work for Chip Canac racing in 1997.
Um, I started as, as an Artie's gearbox guy and won, we won the championship obviously in 97, 98.
Then I removed onto the chassis rear end of the chassis for Montoya in 99. Um,
That also went pretty well. It
Did, started doing pit stops in 99, the, the Jack Vent and, you know, when it was in the center of the car.
Um, and then was fortunate enough to win my first Indy 500, won in 2000.
That was, that was pretty amazing.
Um, and then for 2001, um, did some crew chiefing just at Indy.
And then 2002, I was Jeff Ward's crew chief when we, uh, were learning the tracks in the Indie Racing League at that time.
Um, you know, we were fortunate enough to get a big win over Little Al in Texas that year.
I beat him at the line. Um,
and then 2003, I started, uh, the year as Scott Dixon's crew chief and our long longtime team manager, Simon Hodgson hurt himself on his motorcycle.
And, um, Mike, uh, hall asked me to step in for the rest of the year temporarily.
So it was just before Indy.
I took over the team manager role on Indy car side.
Um, but I still got to do pit stops on Dixon's car.
Ricky Davis was shop based and he came back on the road to be his crew chief, and I still gotta do pit stops.
So it was fun to win the championship in 2003 with Scott.
Um, but then in 2004 I was on the 10 car stand and I've been there since 2004 and for 15 years I did, um, you know, the strategist kinda shared the duties with, with Chip and, uh, he, he taught me, you know, taught me how to manage the process and, you know, it's, uh, it's, it's one of the best things ever happened to me.
So, I mean, how'd you get your start in racing your, was your first job in racing at Chip Cani?
Or like, what were you doing before 97?
So, uh, when I was in high, I was in first grade, just for reference, just to, That's just a jerk thing to say. Well,
Well, there, there's one thing worse than that.
The, um, the one, there's not a lot that's made me feel old, but, uh, when Alex came on, when Paolo came on, uh, on board, he was born the year I started with the team, so I always know how old he is. Yeah, yeah,
Yeah. .
But, uh, yeah, in high school, um, just, uh, leading up to before my, you know, freshman year when I was, you know, a kid played year round sports and at that time it's, you know, football, basketball, baseball, and then when you get to high school, you gotta make the team and, you know, like, uh, I didn't think I ate enough over the summer to make the football team, that's for sure.
Um, didn't make the basketball baseball team and, um, some guys that were about, uh, 10 years older than me, you know, two doors down from my parents' house, were building a northeast dirt modified, um, to race in, uh, in New York and where I'm from.
So our, my home track is Orange County Fair Speedway, five eight mile dirt track in, in New York.
And did that for quite a few years.
And then, uh, got into, I, I went to work for a guy full-time in, in dirt track racing for a couple years, and that kind of opened up the doors for me to go into drag racing.
So I, my first drag racing job was with the, uh, top Fuel, uh, funny car, um, the Boston Strangler Top, top, really sorry, top alcohol, funny car.
Um, worked there for about a year.
They lost their sponsor, you know, classic racing stuff, so mm-hmm .
Um, then went, went with a small team in South Jersey, and then from there I went to, uh, work for, uh, Joe Amato and, uh, won my first professional championship in 1991, top Fuel Championship.
So that was pretty awesome.
But, you know, I always thought growing up doing dirt track racing, I'd end up in nascar, but, um, that really never materialized drag racing did.
But then, you know, drag racing is the ultimate mechanic sport.
Like I learned so much about working on cars Yeah.
You know, beyond what I already knew.
Um, and then, um, but it, it's an incredible sport, but to me there was so much effort to watch the car run sub five seconds.
Right. And then you go work on it some more.
So I really was looking to just 45 minutes of disassembling, reassembling the engine between runs for five seconds of Yeah.
Sub five seconds of entertainment.
Yeah. So, um, you know, took a few years off from racing
and then, uh, then was able to, uh, get back and, uh, then, um, got an interview with, uh, Mike Hall and Tom Anderson at the time, and, uh, and Nazareth and, uh, came to work for them two weeks later.
So, uh, the rest is history as, as they say, but, uh, it's been an incredible career, so, so far, Yeah.
So far and, and not finished, you still, uh, still out there competing at the very highest level.
So let me ask you this then.
Coming from that coming of Dirt Track, you know, dirt, short track, introduction to Motorsports, you went the, the NHRA route you got in with the IndyCar team, but Chip at some point did have, uh, a, a NASCAR team.
Was that ever an interest, you know, of, of yours to kind of bug the boss and say like, Hey, if there's an opening over there, I'd love to give it a try? Yeah, so,
Um, Andy Graves came, that's when Andy Graves came on board to run the NASCAR team after Chip, um, uh, purchased it.
And, um, we, and Andy was involved with the Andy 500 program with Juan that, you know, we had obviously a very successful month to win the race.
Um, and then went to nascar.
And at that point we were, Andy was kind of recruiting me to go down there and it's, it's something my wife and I, you know, like for me it was like, man, this is, this is what I dreamed about when I was a kid, you know what I mean?
Like, to work in nascar.
So, um, it was a great opportunity, but, and my, you know, Lori and I went down and looked around and stuff, and it just felt like, you know, I've got so many good things going on with IndyCar and I love IndyCar racing.
Um, I'm just gonna, you know, I, I appreciated the offer, but I'm gonna stay where I am.
And you know, I'm glad I did. So,
I mean, I, yeah, I would say it's worked out pretty well.
I mean, I'm just, I'm just in my head kind of going through some of the names that you've got to work with directly on their car over the years.
Let's not talk about even Chip Nessi racing as an organization.
Mm-hmm . Just you on the, you say you came in with Zanardi,
you worked on Montoya, you worked on Dixon, went over to the 10 cars.
So that would've been guys like Dario, Frank Keating, you've, maybe you've heard of him, Dan, Dan Weldon.
Yep. You've got this young kid now called Alex Pallo.
Tony Canan, yeah.
I, with Tony. I gotta,
I don't know if I had even put together, Barry, how many Hall of fame absolute legends of this sport that you've worked with and continue to work with.
I mean, what's it like being able to look back on a, on a nearly 30 year career with this team and just look at the who's who of, of the legends of this sport that you've got to directly work With?
You know, it's, um, you know, it's, to me, it's a privilege and honor really to work at Chip gne, GSI racing with all of the great people we get to work with.
I mean, you know, there's, there's a lot of credit given to some, you know, individuals that, uh, you know, and I like, I like to spread out the credit and, and, but to work with, with the, the drivers that I've been able to, for sure, like, you can't, you can't win with unless and win consistently unless the drivers are, are fully capable of getting it done.
I mean, ultimately that's, uh, that's where we've been fortunate, you know, at Chipi Racing, you know, chip and Mike being able to get talented drivers and, you know, sometimes they're, it's, they're, they're new in their career and sometimes it's later in their career, but, um, you know, the goal is to get the driver we want, you know, all the cars to run up front.
Um, but like reflecting back, I, I only do that when I get asked about it.
You know, I look, you know, I, I we, we kind of tend to focus forward at, uh, you know, I always looked at it that, you know, even with success, previous success does not guarantee future success.
So you gotta keep working hard.
Everyone's gotta work hard, and you gotta be, gotta be ready to adapt and change. Do you
Have any dirt on any of them? ?
Do you know anything, any good stories about tk?
No, no. We, I got great stories about tk,
but you know, we're, we're friends.
We keep 'em amongst ourselves. .
Okay. All right. I mean, pinch knows,
he spent a lot of time around tk.
TK is just a lot of, a lot of fun. Cut constantly.
I, I heard some legends constantly, uh, in involved with, uh, with, with messing with everybody.
And, um, but, uh, yeah, it's, um, I think the, I the one, I guess one thing that sticks out that, um, like Tony will still be mad at me today about is, you know, he's, he's, he's, he's really a very intense guy.
And, and, you know, um, the spotters at, at the Indy 500, even, you know, just even in practice and stuff, they're, they, they play a, a pretty crucial role in making sure you're, you're able to avoid things and, um, understand what's going on around you and, you know, hopefully prevent you from crashing.
And we had, we had a couple close calls one day, and Tony kinda lost it on the radio, as you can imagine.
Um, but, but the next day I kind of set him up and I had the two spotters in the truck, and I was like, Hey, A TKC, come on.
You know, I said, we're looking for a better day too.
Come here, come here. And we walked around the truck
and two spotters in there, and I said, Hey, Tony wants to apologize for yesterday.
And like Tony put him on the spot, he apologized, and he, and like he will, like, so he'll bring it up.
Like, we'll be walking just down the paddock and be like, you remember when you made me apologize and I wasn't expecting it ?
I was like, yeah, because you wouldn't have done it.
You know what, I, I got a $20 bet.
I'll, I I'll bet you $20, Barry, that before the end of his tenure as the team manager now of an IndyCar team, Uhhuh, he pulls that same trick on somebody else.
I bet he turns that around and uses it on somebody else.
Absolutely. Absolutely.
, you know, and, uh, but, uh, like, I think one of the, uh, one of the interesting things too is, you know, Dario was with us for quite a few years, and we certainly had a lot of success there.
Um, but it wasn't until he retired and he came back, um, to the first race since recovering from his injuries and stuff, and was on the 10 car, um, Intercom and for the race with TK out in Phoenix.
And he was like, and after the race, he, he just said, you know, I just wanna apologize if anything I said on the radio or doubted or argued you with you and you know what I mean?
Like, it was pretty funny. Like yeah, you just didn't know.
Like, you know, we just, we, we keep it calm on the radio and you guys can, uh, go crazy, but Yeah, it's, it is, it's always funny when a driver gets the opportunity to be out of a race and see it from the pit stand.
I remember when I got hurt in 15, the first race I came back to, stood on the stand for the first time ever and was blown away at, at how, what the dynamic is like there versus what you know of what's happening in the car.
Absolutely. And then, you know, it's like, it,
it takes the entire timing stand to do the strategy.
You know, it's like, you know, chip taught me for those 15 years, we're together.
Like you're managing the process, right?
Ultimately, you have the final say of what you're doing, but you're constantly talking about the, the strategy.
Um, you know, what would you do if yellow came out?
Now, you know, you're, you're you, you know, one guy can't, can't look at all the data, can't look at the, the, you know, what the car is doing.
You know, can't do the fuel you need, you know, a group of people.
And they all were fortunate on the Tenco stand.
You know, Julian Robertson is a great race engineer.
He's been with the team for 31 years.
He was the race engineer for Jimmy Vassar's, you know, the very first championship in 96.
Um, he was, uh, Dixon's, um, engineer for hi, his first championship in 2003, and then he kind of was engineering manager for many years, wasn't doing race engineering.
Um, so it's been fun to have an, having him back when Alex came on board and, um, just picked up where he left off.
And, you know, we have a great performance engineer, Brian Welling.
I mean, again, it's, you know, this experience in our relationship on the stand, you know, we're constantly talking about it.
And really, Alex right now, he's given us all the options.
You know, we, if we need, we need fuel saving, we need to take care of the tires, we need, you know, he's, he's, he is very smart and, uh, you know, some of the best drivers don't use all of their brainpower to drive the car.
They have a lot reserved to be able to understand the, you know, the racing and what's going on around 'em with only given him a bits of information about what's happening, early pitters, stuff like that.
And, um, he's got a great idea of what's going on there With three races in your average finish this year is 1.25,
your worst finish is second place.
You've won three of the last four championships, right?
Like, uh, along with like you said about Alex giving you the options and being, you know, it all there and being able to figure things out.
And the team that you mentioned, the people that you have, like, is there, is there a single factor that you can point to as like the biggest reason for your guys' continued success?
Or is it just that collection of everything? I
Gotta say it's a collection of everything, but Alex brings, um, a lot of talent to the table, you know, um, you know, when I compare to what we've had in the past for championships, certainly on a 10 car, um, very much like Dario, you know, very smart, very a big part of the strategy before you even, you know, before you even start the race.
Like, you know, there's a, there's sometimes just a, it's a 50 50 shot whether you get the starting tires, right?
Right. Serious,
like right when you, when you go back to St.
Pete, we were, you know, we were on the, on the correct tires, um, starting on the alternates.
We had the early yellow gave us an opportunity to come in and get off 'em, and that was the strategy to won the race.
But when we came off the track, we were fifth in our strategy.
Um, you know, I think the 28 car had a slow pit stop, so we came out fourth.
Um, so at that point, you know, I think we, we started 14th, but we're fourth in our strategy.
Um, you know, you have Colton, Newgarden Dixon, then us.
And really when you look at how it played out, col, Colton, they had a slow stop.
Um, Newgarden pitted a few laps before us, so we overcut him.
And really at the end, we came in the left, we came in on the last stop, um, behind Dixon, we were just covering ourselves.
So new guard wouldn't jump us, right?
I mean, that's what you're trying to do.
You're either trying to do an overcut, overcut or undercut depending on who you're trying to pass or stay ahead of.
And we came in and Dixon caught traffic and you know, we didn't know at the time he had a radio issue at that time, um, and that that enabled us to get him.
But really, you know, we just try not to, you know, screw it up.
Like, don't we talk about it all the time in a race meeting, don't beat yourself, um, you know, do the obvious things, right?
We stayed outta trouble. We had great performance on track,
great performance in the pits, and, you know, came out with the win, um, thermal, we ended up on the right tires, you know, at the end as well, right?
We saved the, the sticker reds to the end, and that was a huge advantage.
But again, that was a decision, right? Yeah.
So it's, it's, I mean, what I think for me, you know, we, we talk so much about the strategy, you know, on, on the broadcast, right?
We're trying to explain to people, Townson, and I try to pretend like we know what's happening even remotely and sound kind of remotely intelligent.
Again, it doesn't, doesn't work that often, but, you know, I've talked to, so that's, You guys are trying Yeah.
Weirdly, if you can believe it, , um, that's our, that's our 10 10th best effort on that one.
Wow, okay. But you know, I've heard,
I've heard like Tim Cindrich say in the past, who, again, another very accomplished strategist in IndyCar that it, it's pointless to try to figure out what's gonna happen.
He goes, we on the stand don't even know what's gonna happen most of the time.
Correct. So obviously a lot of what you guys are doing is
reacting to situations and to react to a given scenario, you've had to have thought out and planned ahead for almost any possible, you know, situation that could arise and then know what your decision was in that moment.
So I guess the question is like, kinda run me through the process of the buildup to a race and how you guys sort of decide your strategy and how much planning do you do versus reacting?
You know, if you just look at Long Beach, um, you know, they added five laps to the five laps at a race.
It was still going to be, um, a two stop race with, you know, one lap windows, one and a half lap windows, so one lap windows.
Right. Um, but,
and I think you needed, like, you know, it's so secret.
The, the fuel mileage is the fuel mileage you need for the distance, right?
It's based on the amount, the 18 and a half gallons of the car and the distance.
So you needed 3.3 average fuel, fuel mileage
to to, to get that done.
But we all knew going in the, the alternates were not going to do a full stint, right?
So 90 lap race, you gotta do 30 laps on each set of tires, right?
On three sets of tires.
Well, that, that was like you, you, like, no one anticipated.
You, you would even, I don't think the entire, I think, I think you saw, saw by the, um, the starting lineup with all the cars that started on the alternates, that everyone knew that you weren't gonna go a full distance on the, on the alternate tire.
So everyone was planning on getting off of them early.
I think it was a, that was more of a reaction to, uh, to what happened at St.
Pete's. Um,
but you know, we're talking about that, you know, we, we really don't even know we're, we're about the tires until after the warmup when we have to make that decision.
And, you know, the, the only time we get to do any lengthy runs on the alternates is the warmup.
So we, we, you know, we get that set that we run for just in that 10, a 10 minute session on Friday.
It's pretty much just a quick qualifying sim, and then those are stamped, and then we can't run them again until warmup.
So we run them as long as we can in the warmup.
Um, and I dunno if you notice the warmups are five minutes shorter this year.
Yeah, so by the, they're 25 minutes.
So by the time you do like a practice start, Alex likes to do a practice start, um, and then we do two pit stops and to warm up the, the crew, and then usually that's about 17 minutes remaining , um, of, of practice.
So, and you know, sometimes you might wanna get a change in there, but so literally based on that and, and Alex's feel on, on the tires, we decide then what we think we wanna start on.
Um, and then we're already talking about, you know, the strategy of when we would stop, how soon we would stop.
Um, you know, there's options. Obviously everyone came in.
I think everyone was kind of, uh, lured in once, uh, Newgarden was the, one of the first cars to go from the alternates to the, to the primaries.
And then we saw his first lap time was already faster than what we were on up front, but we weren't, you know, we were behind, um, after the, uh, the start there, we were in, in fifth.
So we, we were, you know, we were just kind of stuck in line.
No one's really trying to check out at that point, which we were kind of surprised.
So we're kind of stuck there.
Um, we knew we had some good performance in the car, um, and then cars came in front of and came in the pits and we stayed out and did one blistering lap.
You know, nothing better than being on good tires and telling your driver, Hey, you know, you know, as fast as you can go, yeah.
You know, ma maximum overtake and then come in.
And that allowed us to jump back up the second.
But, you know, you, you, you, like you said, you're kind of reacting because could we have gone another lap and then, you know, fast and then be able to come in and jump, um, you know, Kirkwood and possibly, but you, you know, you also don't want to be overexposed and To yell out, You know, especially early on in, at Long Beach, everyone's getting real racy, you know, it's, um, you know, there's, there's always that's one of your highest chances there.
So, but, you know, we're always, always talking about the strategy and like you said earlier, you, you, there's, there's no there, there's no like magic, you know, eight ball to tell you what's gonna happen, right?
You just, you're, you're, you, you know how many laps you gotta go when you pit then you know what fuel you need for, you know, to get to the end of the race.
Um, you know, and if you burn more than that, you gotta make it up somewhere else.
Um, you know, during, for that race, when you looked at the alternate strategy was actually playing out, right?
The cars that started on the primaries and were going long, um, that was starting to play out because Lund guard was got within 34 seconds to, to us, right?
Or should I say we were 34 seconds behind him when he was leading, you know, and what, you know, what, at that, to, to us, we weren't going fast enough, but we couldn't get around Kirkwood and he wasn't going fast enough.
Eventually they figured it out and needed to go faster because it was 38 seconds time lost in and outta the pit.
So if Right, if we had, if we had gone four second Difference there, Some, some more laps slower, and next thing you know, he's coming out battling with us when he comes outta the pitch, right?
So, um, but it, it, it worked out and he obviously ran a good, good race to get up to third, right?
So, yeah. Um, where
that same strategy didn't work out at St.
Pete, even with McLaughlin going like, I'd say even more flat out, out front, um, for sure.
Just, just, it just didn't work.
And that's what's, that's what's fun about it, is it's, it's different track to track.
You know, we still show up with the same tires that we had in St.
Pete, but it wasn't the exact same result.
Trend did the same way.
But you guys have to be able to adapt and, and think on your feet.
Now, when we were in thermal, I guess, um, during the warmup show, we had Chip come out and, and talk to us on the show, and we were talking a lot about Polo, and he made the comment, he goes, look, as good as this guy is, we're still just scratching the surface with him.
He keeps getting better and better.
And as you know, the guy that's in his ear that probably has more communication with him on the team than anybody.
I'd love to know your take on where Alex Polo is as a driver today, and whether you agree with the sentiment that he's still improving and he's just gonna keep getting better and better.
Oh, I firmly believe that.
I mean, he is definitely, um, getting better after every race.
I mean, this is, um, this, this is something that, um, we talk about even internally.
Like it's, that that's what makes it even more fun.
Um, going to the racetrack, you know, being able to work, you know, with, with a guy like Alex is just, he, again, he gives you all the options.
You know, you've, you, you've, you ev every driver's been in a situation sometimes where the tires have gone off so they can't do what the time the Tommy stands asked 'em to do, or, you know, and they have to change the, or adjust the strategy for that.
I mean, Alex is good at everything and understanding the races, um, there's not too many obvious things I have to tell him.
Right. Um, you know, sometimes I just have
to say it's obvious like, you know, hey, I know this is obvious, but, uh, we're not going fast enough with Lund guard on the alternate strategy, you know?
Um, but I know he just can't obviously just go, okay, I'll just turn it up and pass cut the car in front of me.
Right? Yeah. Um, it's not that easy.
But, um, Alex understanding the car and his, his relationship with Julian and the entire engineering staff is definitely, uh, definitely paying off.
And, um, again, I think the sky's the limit on what he is capable of.
One of the things that's always blown me away about him is, you know, we, we tune into his car radio from time to time and the guy just never seems down.
He never seems angry, he never seems emotional unless it's after a checkered flag.
And he is congratulating the boys on a great win.
Um, you know, we, we've known Scott Dixon's nickname to be the Ice Man forever.
'cause he couldn't, couldn't crack him under pressure.
He was always a cool customer, but even Scott could get animated on the radio when the right person pissed him off.
Alex doesn't seem to do that ever.
I, I remember for me, the moment I realized how dangerous this guy was, behind the wheel of a race car was in 21, you're in the thick of a championship battle.
We're coming down to the last third of the season.
We're at the, the harvest maybe the last quarter of the season.
We're at the, the second indie road course race.
You guys have an engine failure while leading the championship.
And he got on the radio and could not have been cooler, calmer, more in control, and just saying, yeah, no worries.
Everything's good. And in that moment I'm like, oh,
you can't flap this guy.
So have, have you. I mean, can you give us some insight?
Has, has he ever gotten really angry on the radio?
Have, have we just missed it, but it's, he's possible. It's possible.
Nope. He's never gotten angry on the radio.
No, never does it. Yeah, I figured that was it. Yeah.
You know, you, you can imagine the frustration we experienced, uh, last year at Milwaukee with, uh, Milwaukee for sure.
Battery failure, you know, and, and a lot of people thought we had hybrid failure, but you know, we've, we've told as many people as we can, that was a battery failure.
It went back to the manufacturer.
There was a, there was a capacity on the circuit board.
The battery could have the, the, it was a rare failure.
It could have happened regardless of whether, you know, it's the original battery of the car kind of thing.
Right. It's not, it could have happened
with prior to the hybrid.
And the hybrid had no effect on causing the failure.
So, um, you know, imagine, you know, you roll off from the grid and it's, the car stops to pit out.
I can't even talk to him on the radio. Right.
Like there's no power to the car.
So maybe he was mad there, you just couldn't hear it, I'm sure, right? ,
he may, he he must, he must do a good job of hiding it.
Right? Uh, you know, we, you know,
and you know, when we got him back to the pits, we fortune, it was the pit outs.
We got him back to the pits.
We were able to reenergize the system and then, you know, had enough energy to go around and stop on the back stretch at that point, you know, they gotta get the driver out of the car to be able to lift the car.
Right. They brought it back, he came back to, you know,
got him, we got him back, made sure he came back to the stand and you know, it's like, you know, he is like, what are we doing?
And it's like, well, we're hoping we're gonna analyze it.
We think it's the battery e everything we see now, we're gonna change the battery, get it running.
We need to get you back in the car and wherever we are, we're just gonna try to get as many points as we can today.
We're gonna run laps. We'll have you pit
and not interfere with pit stops and anything else.
You know what, I enemy we're just gonna avoid everybody.
We'll avoid everybody on track.
You may have to let some cars go, but we're just gonna kind of stay outta trouble.
And you know, we went from 27th and 19th, right?
So that, that, that took a lot of pressure off us going into the national.
Yeah. You know, and that you can imagine that was like,
for all of us, it's like, man, you know, we've got a good lead here and now we've just, we've lost it all.
You know, and then to start it, start of the race, I think when they were at the point they're tracking the points, like we were kind of tied with power and stuff, and then, you know, he had a problem unexpectedly and that, that kind of gave us a little more breathing room.
But, um, yeah, he just, yeah, he was just calm, like again, and that was like the worst case scenario you can have.
Right. Um, like I said, Milwaukee and he got back in the car
and just was happy with like, hey, you know, there was some, there was some more yellows, there was some cars have dropped out, you know, so every time we gained a position it's like, yep.
Another point, you know, that's Yep. And he focused on that.
It's all worth it, you know? Um, yeah.
He, he never, that's what makes champions. Yeah. Absolutely.
Never lost a school. And I, yeah.
You know, for all of us, we wanted to Right.
You you wanna jump up and down and slam things. Yeah.
And, you know, and scream, but, uh, everyone did a great job there, but, uh, yeah, Alex is, he is calm and he is unflappable.
Yeah, I know. It's, it's fun to watch, honestly.
It's, uh, it's cool to see someone in their absolute prime dominating the way that we've seen out of Drio, the way we've seen outta Dickson, the way we've seen outta power throughout their different periods.
And so I just wanna, I wanna just kinda leave you with this final question.
You know, right off the top, we talked about this list of legends that you've worked with one-on-one.
A lot of different personalities in there from your ardi to your polos that you've experienced.
I mean, those are two , nice, polar op, Montoya polo's, a couple, it's a couple.
You got a wide range. You got a wide range. Yep.
So I'm sure they're all different.
I'm sure they all have different strengths and weaknesses, but is there a consistent trait that you've seen in all of those drivers?
The ones that were exceptionally successful in IndyCar that was just consistent among the group?
I, I think the ability to focus to, to, to have clear focus, not just, you know, it's, it's the entire weekend.
It's getting the most out of the car, being prepared for qualifying to get most out of the car.
You know, a lot of these tracks you, you know, everyone can put, um, a theoretical great lap together, but man, it's really hard to put in the, an actual get every corner, right.
Um, to get that ultimate lap time.
Um, and that's what these guys are capable of doing.
These, these champions, they can do that.
And then in the race, just having a complete understanding of the, of the racing and again, more focus and be able to, to be there at the end.
And, and, and really understanding that if you can't finish first, finish second, you know, don't beat yourself.
Um, you gotta get in and outta the pits clean.
And you know, tho those are the guys that motivate the crew.
They motivate the team, they motivate the pit crew, they motivate the timing stand.
Um, that, that whole package, um, allows you to, you know, have greater success than one racer one, you know, looking into a race win. Right,
Right.
Well, look, we, we talk a lot about the drivers that have had huge success, um, but at the same time, it is a team sport and it can't be done without you and all the people that you work with at Chip Nessi racing.
And, and that team has had a, a tremendous run in this sport and it continues and you play a big role in that, Barry.
So wanted to just thank you so much for coming on, giving us us some insight into, into the drivers, into the process of, of what you're doing on race weekends.
And we wish you all the best for the rest of the season, my friend. Thanks.
Appreciate it. And it's, uh, great, great, uh,
seeing the broadcast, I get to see them, you know, obviously the next day on Fox, but you guys are doing a great job, so, um, great.
Thank you very much. Appreciate it.
It's great Randy Carr, so thanks.
Yes, sir. All right. We'll see you, Barbara.
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