Robin Miller's Mailbag for November 28, presented by Honda Racing/HPD

Your questions for Robin should be sent to millersmailbag@racer.com. We cannot guarantee we’ll publish all your questions and answers, but Robin will reply to you. And if you have a question about the technology side of racing, Robin will pass these on to Marshall Pruett and he will also answer here. 

Q: I was very sorry to hear your road to recovery has hit a bit of a chicane. I've only been following IndyCar for about six years, but you've been instrumental in getting me up to speed on all the racing I missed out on growing up. Reading your Mailbag is the first thing I do on Wednesday morning, and I love your insights on NBC. Please take all the time you need to get your engine back up to full throttle for 2019!

Justin in Indy

RM: Marshall Pruett and Mark Glendenning kept the Mailbag up and running this past month while I was healing, and I want to publicly thank them for their efforts, and thank you readers for all the kind words and support.

Q: I have been a long-time reader of your Mailbag (and other writing). I was a CART fan during the split, and growing up in Jackson, Michigan (home of Pat Patrick), one of my earliest CART memories was watching Danny Ongais crash down the back straight at MIS in the 1980s. I won't even make a lame joke about IndyCar going back to MIS, but seriously, I look forward to starting every Wednesday by reading your column before I get started with my day. Your passion for the sport is catching, and we depend on you to keep us informed during the (too) long downtime between seasons. I was really sorry to read that you were sick, but please get all the rest you need to fully recover and know that many, many readers and fans are pulling for you to make a speedy recovery! You will be back reporting on the Month of May before you know it!

Kurt Mars

RM: Compared to what John Andretti has been through and is currently facing, I feel guilty about even saying I’m sick. He’s a fighter like nobody I’ve ever seen, and my chemo hell is nothing compared to John’s – he’s amazing. He calls me to see how I’m doing when he’s fighting for his own life, and I’m so impressed with his attitude and courage. Thanks for being a loyal Mailbag reader, and sorry I got off the subject, but I just wanted to share my thoughts about Andretti.

Q: Last year I took my daughter and her fiancée to the St Pete race and had a great time. We sat on the front straight behind the pits. The question is, would you suggest another location to see the action and passing for the race this March? I do have one additional request – if possible I’d like to meet you and also introduce you to two new Indy fans (my daughter and fiancée). I understand with your current limitations this might not be possible. Be strong, my friend.

Kevin Carrigan

RM: I would try and sit outside Turn 1. That’s the action zone with lots of good overtaking, so try and sit as early into the corner as possible. Just grab me when you see me in the pits.

Q: Of the sports I follow, two racing series have seasons that are way too long. NASCAR is three months too long, and F1 is about four months too long. I'm glad IndyCar has it right in this discussion. The other two sports that are also too long are the NBA and MLB!

Douglas Ferguson, Debary, Florida

RM: Did Mark Miles pay you to write this? (smile). I have mixed feelings. I think five months off is too long and IndyCar just gets forgotten, so I’d like to see an earlier start and maybe one race in early October with 20 total races. But NASCAR is way too long, agreed.

Q: I recently listened to Marshall’s interview with Simona De Silvestro. It was great to get an update on her career since she was an interesting driver in IndyCar. However, I did not learn much about her ill-fated Formula 1 attempt. I remember seeing a press release at the time that was quite cryptic. So what really did happen? Did her management get her involved without a contract? They couldn’t agree on money? Sauber wasn’t seriously interested and led her astray?

Brad from Hollywood

RM: Over to Marshall Pruett: “What took place behind the scenes involved a power struggle for control of Simona, and the sponsors she might have brought to the Sauber F1 team. No surprise she wasn't in the mood to spell it out for everyone. As I was told, Simona's now-former manager Imran Safiulla and now-former Sauber team boss Monisha Kaltenborn got into an ugly spat over the terms of De Silvestro's ongoing testing and preparations for making an official F1 test debut. It was something about the team allegedly wanting to own the rights to Simona's services if she went forward with the team which, in turn, would kick Safiulla to the curb. As it was told to me, Sauber saw a money-making opportunity with Simona and some of the affiliated nuclear energy sponsors that were part of her HVM/KV IndyCar efforts, her existing management group did not want to cede control, and it devolved rather quickly from there.”

Image by COTA

Q: I watched the COTA promo, and IndyCar had a red and white two-seater on site. I have seen two-seaters before of course, and the one leading the warm-up lap does not look that great, but the one I saw used for the COTA promo looked like a stretched old Lights car. It sounded really bad as well. We know our cars will not put down lap times like the F1 cars, but at least they look good and sound loud. Why in the heck would you bring a show car to a new market that does not do justice to the car that will be coming to race? If I saw that demo car I would not bother coming. NASCAR ran an actual race car (Joey’s 22) in Surfers a while ago, and made a great impression with the fans. What is the promo car based on, and what’s powering it? Is the pace car two-seater used on race weekends different from the promo one they used in Austin? If so what is it, an IRL 07? And what’s powering that car, the old V8? Lastly, will we get a bump in HP for 2019?

Sean O, Vancouver, BC

RM: The two-seater used for COTA promo was one of the street legal two-seaters provided by The IndyCar Experience. It was not an on-track high speed, two-seater sponsored by Honda that Mario drives, because for these promos the car needed to be the street legal as it was not on the race track, and ran at standard speed limits on streets and town surfaces. The street legals, as you know, don’t have high speed race engines in them. The IndyCar Experience received rave reviews on the promos done with the street legal two-seater from IndyCar and the COTA team. As for more HP, 900 HP is the goal by 2020.

Q: We have seen many African-American trailblazing drivers break the barriers – drivers like Tia Norfleet, Bubba Wallace, George Mack and Willy T. Ribbs, among others. Lewis Hamilton made his mark as the first driver of African decent to win F1 championships. In Asia, another trailblazer is making his name. Just recently, Fremont, California native Jaden Conwright managed to finish third in the FIA Formula 3 Asia series championship with one win, four podiums, and five top five finishes. I know for a fact that Jaden also tested USF2000 machinery.

And all the training came from Carlin Racing when he became a development driver in 2017. It was very hard to sit out a racing season, but it was worth it. Everyone might say that he should jump to the new FIA F3 championship. But the problem is, sometimes it will bite you back if you jump into another series. I would say, stay for another year and see if a championship is worth moving up to. I like to see Jaden rolling the dice overseas, but will Trevor make the gamble and bring him back to the States for the Lights series? And also at the same time, what would former open-wheelers Willy, and George Mack thinking about this young unknown talent?

JLS, Chicago, Il

RM: I tracked Trevor Carlin down in the UK where he was celebrating his team’s Formula 2 championship, and asked him about Jayden Conwright. “He’s a great kid and did a good job testing with us. He’s got limited funding so I don’t know his plans, but I’d love to run him in Lights if he chose to do it.”

Q: The Sophia Floersch accident at Macau appeared quite disturbing. Has the FIA released any G-force deceleration figures for when she hit that photographer's stand? I think all of us fear the day when a formula car takes flight and clears the catch fencing, especially at Indy – Macau could serve as fair warning for the sport to address this issue before something big happens.

Jim Scott, Wisconsin Rapids, WI

RM: No G-force numbers, but she was traveling approximately 171 mph when she launched over another car and got airborne. Of course I’ve feared something like this at Indianapolis for decades, and we’ve always been lucky nobody ever ran over someone’s wheel on the front straightaway and got over the pit wall or ramped into the grandstands coming off the straightaway.

Q: Hope you are feeling better. Here’s a small amount of cheer: Andretti Autosport took out a full-page ad in the Turkey Night GP program (Curb-Agajanian influence, no doubt). It wasn’t much of a promotion for IndyCar –nothing like the impact a car and a driver or two would have made. Still, tell Jay Frye that we short track fans – a demographic he has apparently written off – notice this stuff. And get Gabby Chavez to jump-start his midget driving career.

Tom Hinshaw, Santa Barbara

RM: Very cool to have an IndyCar in the Turkey Night program, and I think we can get Marco, Rossi and RHR in a midget some day (Chili Bowl would be nice). But it’s not Jay Frye’s territory, he’s busy working on title sponsor, finding a third engine manufacturer and putting together the 2019 lineup. Nobody works harder at IndyCar, but the series needs to find the money to run a couple of its heroes at a short track, and Gabby did a marvelous job at the Speedrome a few years back.