This is a group that helps make sure race officials are making calls fairly. The idea is to reduce any worry that officials might be influenced by a team or company connection.
It means the people making race calls should be free to do it without pressure from teams or company connections. That helps keep the competition feeling fair.
This is a big company tied to Roger Penske’s racing world. The discussion is about making sure race officials aren’t seen as being too connected to that organization.
“Optics” just means how things look to other people. The point here is that even if everything is fair, people might worry if officials seem too connected to a team.
IndyCar is a major racing series in the U.S. It’s the kind of racing where the rules about the cars matter a lot, so inspections and officiating are important.
Race operations are the behind-the-scenes work that keeps the event running smoothly. It includes coordinating how everything happens during race weekend.
Formula One is a top-level racing series from Europe with very advanced race cars. The guest is saying IndyCar can take ideas from F1, but doesn’t have to imitate it.
“Engineering driven” means the car’s performance depends more on engineering and technology than just raw driving skill. Teams use lots of analysis and development to gain small advantages.
“Drivers had more input” refers to how much influence drivers should have on car development and setup decisions. In modern engineering-heavy series, teams sometimes rely more on data and simulation, so the guest is wishing for more driver feedback in some situations.
“Indy cars” means the IndyCar race series. It’s the big open-wheel racing in the U.S., and the speaker is saying the drivers and race stories are what make it exciting.
“Fox” is the TV network the series is partnering with. That matters because it affects how many people see the races and how the show explains what’s happening.
Sometimes officials don’t decide right away. They review what happened after the race, and then they can add a penalty later if they find a rules issue.
Consistency means officials try to make the same kind of decision in similar situations. That way, teams can trust that the rules are being applied fairly.
The rule book is the official document that tells teams what they’re allowed to do. Here, they’re working to make it easier to understand so officials apply it the same way every time.
Communication process means there’s a planned way to tell people what happened and why. The goal is to avoid confusion when something gets announced after the race.
Penalties are enforcement actions for rule violations in motorsport, often affecting race position, points, or eligibility. The discussion implies that before penalties are handed out, there’s a need for context and consistent application of rules.
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restrictions apply. This is Off Track. Hello and welcome to a Tuesday episode of Off Track with
Hinch and Rossi. Just Tim and I today, James is doing his thing. But the guest we have is someone
that we've been, it's been at the top of our list for a couple months now. And the timing just now
worked out to get him on here. So before I introduce who our guest is, I'll give the opportunity for
some people in our audience to guess. Won three championships as some guy named Jeff Gordon's
crew chief. So I feel like enough people have heard of him in Cup helped Dodge get back into
the series in the early 2000s. But most importantly, as this is an IndyCar podcast, is one of the three
members of the new for 2026 IndyCar independent officiating board. Ray Evernham, thank you so
much for joining us. I want to start off firstly with what is the IndyCar independent officiating
board? It's just a group, you know, IndyCar, the independent officiating board. You know, we are
Raj Nair, who in Ronan Morgan, myself, two guys, I have a tremendous amount of respect for in the
industry, were asked to come on a board to help oversee and separate the officiating from the
Penske Entertainment Group. And it was really about the optics of people, you know, being so
closely connected to the Penske organization. And, you know, in reality, that there's really
nothing broken there. But, you know, with closeness and connection, there's always a question. And
we're there to take the question out of that. And I can tell you that it's been an incredible
incredible experience as we're going through it to create independent officiating incorporated,
the people that we've worked with, the things that we've seen from IndyCar racing, the drivers,
the owners and things like that. It's been an incredible experience, how well things really are
run there, and how much potential there is for that series. So that's kind of a long answer,
but it's been a great educational experience for me as well.
So walk us through, for the listeners that don't know, you obviously have the group of U3. You've
got the race director, which is Kyle Novak, and you've got the technical inspection group for
the cars themselves, which is led by Kevin Blanche or Rocket as he goes by. Where are you,
are all kind of three parties, the group of you, Kyle Novak and Rocket, working together on every
decision that gets made, or is it all kind of you have your own jurisdictions, if you will?
Well, we all work together for sure, right? I mean, at that sum, so the board, with any other
company, right now, one of our biggest tasks is finding an MDL, somebody to operate between Rocket
and Kyle and that group, and the board to help the daily things. But we all, we work together,
Kyle Novak and Kevin Blanche or Rocket do a tremendous job. Those guys have done a tremendous
job. And what the board wanted to do first is to make sure that we assisted them in doing their
job. The best thing, I look at this position and say, look, there's nothing broken. We don't
need to change a bunch of stuff. What we need to do is help their people do their job. That's
what I feel like my board position is to give those people the tools, give them the assistance
to continue to do their job. There's things that we'd like to see be better and more efficient,
but that's the same thing that all those people see.
As I've said, in the beginning there, there was nothing broken, right? Our jobs to assist it,
and certainly a lot of optics of us just looking over to make sure that things are going the way
they were designed. And consistently, right, there's a process, there's some consistency,
there's transparency, there's better communication. Those are the things that I think the board
members can really help add to. I was voted on by the car owners, okay? So my integrity and my
credibility is very important to me. And I want to make sure that we're doing the job
that the owners, the drivers have asked us to do. And we're working really hard on that.
We've been, without having the presence of an MDO, we've attended I think all of the races so far,
at least one of us, and we will continue to do that through Indianapolis. Lots of good things
going on. We've interviewed double-digit candidates for that MDO position. I think 13 or 14 are
different people. We are close to making some final decisions. But again, the main thing that we
wanted to do was make sure that we were in position, that there was support, there was a sounding board
for owners, for drivers, and that we addressed some of these questions and concerns. And again,
we keep finding that the questions and concerns are getting answered pretty easily because
IndyCar officiating was actually pretty efficient already and doing a good job. And
as I say, Kyle Novak does a tremendous job with everything that he oversees, which includes a
lot of race operations as well. So again, I'm pretty impressed with what I've seen with IndyCar
so far. And especially from the racing side, we had a lot going on with our Iraq race the other day
and I was talking to some of the guys, Jeff Gordon and Kurt Busch, Bill Elliott, people like that.
And I said, look, man, there's some great opportunity over there on the IndyCar side,
and it just blew me away. It blows me away. How hard do you guys drive those cars? I said,
these guys drive these things. I'm telling you guys, they drive the heck out of those things
every single lap and they've got good TV partners. And I said, don't ever take your girlfriend around
by driver weigh in because they all look like male models for God's sake. Well, except for Alex.
Those guys are fit and I sit in race control and watch. I see a lot of the IndyCar camera stuff.
I listen to radio and Alex, I'm telling you, I am impressed. I'm impressed with IndyCar racing
and how hard you guys drive those cars. Well, I appreciate it. That's good to hear. I take two
things out of what you say. It's so hard as you know, and this isn't just motorsports,
it's just any competitive person in life. You so often focus on the negative and those are
the things that are at the top of your mind. So to get a fresh perspective from someone like
yourself with the background that you have and to hear that a lot of the things that IndyCar
is doing as a group is the right things. And we all can feel the positive momentum of the series
and what it has to offer the current fan base, a new audience, etc. So it's cool to hear that.
I am curious from a personal level. You've seen this sport from the title of obviously,
as we said at the beginning, a championship winning crew chief. You've been a team owner.
You were involved in the SRX series and now you're in a managerial board position role.
How unique and different is this specific position? And I'm sure you're able to draw on
all of your previous experience to be the person you are today.
It's unique for me to be able to stand back, to a point, oversee things from a little bit higher
level. And IndyCar racing is unique. We're not trying and we don't want to say, oh, it needs to
be like this series. It needs to be like NASCAR. It needs to be like Formula One or it needs to be
like IMSA. It doesn't need to be like any of those things. But you want to take the best of
those things. I've been racing over 50 years as well as you look at what Raj Nair's experience is
and what Ronan Morgan's experience is and take the best of all those things and tailor them to exactly
what IndyCar needs. The first thing an organization needs to be successful is a team of really good
people. And they're already in place over there. So then those people, I'm kind of the blue collar
guy on the board. I'm the mechanic, the crew chief, the racer guy, but I'm a team builder.
And I look at things a little bit differently when it comes to communication and priorities and
process. You can only do so much. You can't make all the people happy all the time. So you want to
make sure that if we're doing a good job, 75% of the people are happy with us all time and 25%
are probably not. And that rotates around based on which decision you make. But those years of
experience allow me to say, okay, this worked for me when we built the 2014. This worked for me
when we built Dodge. This didn't work for me when we did this. But having that background as a
driver, the crew chief, the owner, and then I spent several years in television. So I understand how
important that is. I also promoted a racetrack, which wasn't the best business plan I ever had,
I can tell you that. But again, learned a lot about... A lot of people feel that way.
Yeah, learned a lot about the fans and needs. So that different perspective,
again, each of the board members has a different skill. And yet we all have a lane
that we have expertise in. And I think our uniqueness and different skills bring something to
the table that a single person just bringing in a CEO or whatever it couldn't probably do.
And as I've said over and over again, I'm enjoying it. I like the people there that we're working
with. We've been given clear direction on what needed to be done from some of the people at
IndyCar. But we haven't had any interference from them at all. We've had good support. So it's been
a very good experience so far. So this is a kind of a personal question that isn't IndyCar specific.
But I would be so curious to know your answer because you're kind of touching on a little bit.
You've seen so many different versions of racing, right? 40 years ago, when it was just raw,
build a car as bad and as fast as it'll go and whoever has the most courage is probably going
to win the race, then the technical aspect of it started to get introduced. And now it's so
engineering driven. Is the racing actually better now or do you think it's just more complicated
and it requires more people to make it something that fans can ultimately digest and still
we're an entertainment entity? And do you think that at some point there's been this crossover
where it's almost a little bit too complicated? Again, it's only complicated when it doesn't get
explained. It's evolution. It is definitely evolution and from a mechanical standpoint,
things evolve so fast. You can't put the genie back in the bottle when you go back to aerodynamics
or some of the mechanical things that we've done with the development of these cars and the tools
that we have now. I always tell everybody, look, the tools are what drove the mechanical
engineering side of things, but there's still good stories. I wish the drivers had
more input in some circumstances. I think your Indy cars right now are in a pretty good place
from what I watch. You've got to have a level of technology to keep young people interested and
I've always said this. It's still largely from a fan base. It's still largely about the driver.
When you buy a ticket, I like technology. Some people like technology. Some people don't,
but you don't go to see a strategist. You don't go to see an engineer. You go to see your hero and
so I feel like we still have to be very aware of promoting the driver's ability and certain drivers
skills. Again, I feel like Indy cars are in a really good place because I think you guys,
including you, have great drivers and great stories. I focus on the driver. I'd like to see
again, I'd like to see some more tools that your crew can adjust cars and things like that.
I think now with Fox being a TV partner, again, this is another home run for the series if they
can sit down and say, okay, look, it's not NASCAR. It's not Formula One, but there's some really
good stories on what you guys are doing with your tire choices, on what you're doing with your fuel
choices, on what you can change. Again, I was blown away at Barber. I'm going to tell you,
I've been racing a long time and I was blown away at Barber. You guys were driving though.
What out of those cars? That to me is exciting. That's why I go. I want to watch somebody do
something that I know I can't do. I think if we focus on those stories and there's an excellent
opportunity, I mean, an excellent opportunity coming up with this 2028 car to have it be all
of those things. Again, the Indy cars are sexy looking. I like the way they look. I like the
sound. I like the stuff that happens on the racetrack. We've got to get together and tell
that story in a positive light because we are in motorsports. If we are not or don't take the
responsibility of being some form of entertainment, like Mr. France used to tell me, Bill France,
Jr. used to tell me all the time, look, you guys have got to do this, this, and this because if
you don't, you're going to be back running around in a field in circles and nobody's going to be
watching you. We have to entertain it. I think there's so many good stories in Indy car racing
that we need to focus on that. Again, our goal is to make sure there's no question about the rules.
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So, you know, we don't need to go over your history in racing. Everybody knows you're a
legend of this sport. You're in the Motorsport Hall of Fame. If we did, it would take four
episodes, right? You're in the Motorsport Hall of Fame. You're in the NASCAR Hall of Fame America.
You've had one of the most storied and successful careers in motorsport that have anybody I can
think of. So what kind of motivated you to take this job? Because with officiating, it feels like
the only time you hear about it is when somebody's got a problem with it. So like, you could very
easily rest on your laurels. But so what was behind? I understand why the teams voted on you
to take this job. That makes complete sense to me. But I, you know, I'm just curious what was
the motivation for you? Well, the sport's been really good to me, right? The sport's been good
to me. And, you know, certainly as, you know, as they say, you know, that when your years on the
planet are much less than you've already lived, you want to give some of that back, right? And
I was honored, honored to be asked. And I felt like if these people feel enough,
feel good enough about me to ask me to do it, and they think I can make a difference, then
I need to take that responsibility and go and go make the difference. And you're right, you know,
that officiating somebody's always going to be upset. But the good news is I had years at that
as a crew chief. So I know, like, I know, like, I mean, there were, there were 20 times I was,
I was the unhappy one, and you know, you pushed, and that's just part of the game. That's,
that's your job. But, but if I can help make a difference that will help IndyCar grow and IndyCar
make it better and take away, take away some of that question from people's mind and let them
focus on the racing, let them focus on, on, again, the drivers, the racing, the good things,
then, then I'll feel like I have given back to the sport of motor racing. And, and again,
that's important to me. That's very honorable. And we appreciate your, your approach to that
because you could, as Tim said, you could obviously be by sitting on a beach somewhere,
drinking my ties. The, the thing that, that fans often talk about or complain about,
I don't know what the right adjective is. Drivers as well is like the consistency,
right, of, of how rules are implemented. And I know that, that that's been a major focus of,
of Kyle's for, for as long as I've worked with him as, as he's been our race director. I know that
without getting into it, everything that, that went down during the month of May last year
and, and kind of the, the motivation, if you will, for an independent officiating board to exist,
it all stems back to people want to know that, that when a rule gets broken or something happens
that it's going to be the same for everybody, regardless of, of who the, who, who commits the
infraction. Can you just walk us through a little bit of the behind the scenes of, and, and maybe
you haven't really experienced it yet. I don't know what four races in, but you know, fans see a,
a post race penalty or they see some fine that comes out maybe a couple hours later or five
days later. What goes on behind the scenes and how much of it is the rulebook is black and white
and how much of it is, well, the rulebook is black and white, but circumstance X, Y and Z
made this in a gray area. Like, can you, can you elaborate a little bit on, on what that process
looks like? Yeah, I'm going to have to put my official hat on because my crew chief answer would
be much different, right? Of course, right. So we're going to put my officiating hat on.
You know, the, the reality is, as much as you want a rule to be black and white, you'd have to write
a gazillion rules to be exactly this. And if it were this, it were this. So, you know, this is a
sport, it is an entertainment sport, as we said, but there's always going to be some form of
officiating, right? There's always going to be referees and football and umpires and baseball,
and, you know, so it's always going to be some form of officiating. But if we can continue to help
develop and support the processes, right? The process will help with consistency. And again,
the board is focused on helping Kyle and Rocket, you know, we've put on our target was to add more
people. One of the first things that we saw when we went in there, man, need to get these guys a
little bit more help. Some other tools, you know, going forward with 28 talking about doing the scanner
versus a lot of mechanical templates and things like that and laying out as many
consistent rules, you know, what the owners have asked for is consistency, right? And transparency
and communication, right? So those things, you know, the consistency will come with us
continuing to understand the rule book and the process. Kyle is working super hard with the folks
at IndyCar to get the rule book, the new rule book more in an easier manner if you want to
get complicated right now. And then our communication process on, okay, here's what we did. Here's why
we did it. And here's why it is consistent. Because sometimes when something gets said, maybe in an
interview or after a race or you read something that maybe a competitor has said or a sponsor or,
you know, just a writer, sometimes that has some motion attached to it and they really haven't dug
down into the fact. And, you know, I can tell you that most of the questions that I have asked
have, again, a legitimate reason. And right now, before penalties and things like that are handed
out, there's either has to be some kind of a history, or we all talk about it together, right?
So there's some, there's some, there's going to be a format, there's certainly going to be
history, but there'll always, always be communication and transparency. And that will create,
it'll create the consistency. And when we see something, you know, we're going to talk about
some, some rules and things this week that haven't been talked about for a while. But when we roll
into Indy, it needs to be, it needs to be talked about because the Indy needs to be about Indy,
needs to be about racing, it needs to be about drivers, it needs to be about the
paddetry, needs to be about Indy. And we don't need to be the problems that we had last year.
Right. You know, we know your time's valuable, so we'll wrap up soon. But I was just curious,
you know, what your history is. You can't say he was going to pay me. So I don't know.
Okay, there you go.
You said he was taking care of the bill.
If you thought you lost money promoting a racetrack, wait till you find about a podcasting.
So, you know, we talked a bit about your history as a crew chief. So now that you're
more on the officiating side, do you have like a little sympathy for the crew chiefs trying to
find the gray area? Or do you know all their tricks so you know where to kind of slap them down?
Both, right? You know, I can tell you one thing, I'm not any smarter than Rocket.
You know, they're not going to fool him. That guy knows cars inside out.
You know, there are some things when I look at something, you know, I'll go to Rocket and say,
you know, if that's the way you do that, this is the first thing I would do.
And normally he has an answer on how he's stopping that.
You know, they, and again, quite honestly, everybody's trying to find that edge, right?
You want to get right to that edge, but everybody we've talked about that
we brought something to their attention. They've been, you know, they get it.
And you're, you know, it's racing. People aren't going to step over the edge and it's our job.
It's our job to tell them, hey, here's the edge. You stepped over it and not let it get to the
have it determine the outcome of a race or the running order. You know, as I said,
if not speaking on behalf of the board, right? I'm speaking on me personally,
but my goal personally to be part of this is never have to have
focus on a rule for infraction after a race.
Yeah. I mean, and honestly, that's the way it should be, right? We've seen so many times
both sides of it, right? You see, you see people celebrate and go through the process
of winning the race only for a couple of hours later. And then there's this awkward,
like they drop a trophy off at a truck. And then you've also seen the other side where the series
is too afraid to do anything, right? Because all of this stuff has already happened.
And by throwing someone out, it's going to create
more problems depending on the size of the race and all of the pictures and the history
that's occurred from that moment. So being proactive and being on top of it,
like it sounds like you guys are doing. And obviously I have a huge amount of time and
respect for what Rocket does. You guys are progressing that and stepping in the right
direction. So incredible to hear from a driver's standpoint. I know all of our fans will love
to hear that as well. And just for me personally, I mean, it's amazing that you have taken your
time as Tim alluded to to do this for the betterment of our sport and all of us as drivers.
And I speak on behalf of all of them when we say that we appreciate it so much.
And look forward to having an incredible month of May and 8,500, 110th running. And thank you for
joining us today. Well, again, I sincerely appreciate it. As I said, it's an honor to be part of this
deal and know that everything happens in baby steps, right? It's step forward. But the good
news is it's not like we're trying to change the whole culture here. We've got to do some minor
things to work on that process and how we implement things and how we communicate.
But it's a great group of people. I'm looking forward to being part of it and seeing everybody
out at Long Beach this weekend. Right on. Thank you so much.
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About this episode
Ray Evernham, legendary NASCAR crew chief and Hall of Fame figure, joins Off Track to explain IndyCar’s new 2026 independent officiating board and why it exists: separating officiating from Penske Entertainment Group for optics, consistency, and trust. He breaks down how the board coordinates with the race director and technical inspection, the push for transparency/communication, and the behind-the-scenes logic behind penalties and fines. Evernham also weighs in on modern IndyCar tech, arguing it should be explained through driver-focused storytelling.
NASCAR and Motorsport Hall of Famer, Ray Evernham chats with Rossi about his new role with IndyCar, as one of the three members of the Independent Officiating Board. +++
Off Track is part of the SiriusXM Sports Podcast Network. If you enjoyed this episode and want to hear more, please give a 5-star rating and leave a review. Subscribe today wherever you stream your podcasts.
