The RACER Mailbag, March 8

Welcome to the RACER Mailbag. Questions for any of RACER’s writers can be sent to mailbag@racer.com. Due to the high volume of questions received, we can’t guarantee that every letter will be published, but we’ll answer as many as we can. Published questions may be edited for length and clarity. Questions received after 3pm ET each Monday will appear the following week.

Q: So what exactly is a plenum fire, and how did it occur within Pato O'Ward’s plenum at such an unfortunate time?

Jesse, Franklin, IN

MARSHALL PRUETT: Couple of quick things to know up front, with the first being that plenum fires are nothing new and nothing specific to Chevy. And they aren’t a common occurrence.

On rare occasions with turbocharged engines like the twin-turbo V6s used in IndyCar, something wonky can happen in the top end of the motor to cause a plenum fire. For those who aren’t familiar with the parts and pieces, the plenum is the sealed carbon fiber housing that bolts atop the engines which enclose the air intakes.

It can happen in a state of transition, like when we saw Pato accelerating hard out of the final corner and a moment of wheelspin appeared to arrive when it wasn’t expected. His engine sounded like it went from being under normal hard load while accelerating to a strange spike in power and wheelspin in an instant, and then the plenum fire took place. Weird deals also happen where for a millisecond, the timing of things happening inside the engine are thrown off, and that can also cause bad things to happen in the plenum. There are a number of scenarios that can lead to a plenum fire.

From a process standpoint, the turbos feed their highly compressed air into the plenum and into the V6’s six air intakes. And with two fuel injectors per cylinder, the compressed air gets drawn into the intakes and down into the port for each cylinder where the first injector sprays fuel and mixes with the air before entering the combustion chamber. The second injector, which sprays inside the combustion chamber, does more air/fuel mixing before that mix is exploded when an electrical spark is introduced by each spark plug.

So, with all of that stuff known, a plenum fire is something that is briefly triggered when the air and fuel catch fire and burn out prior to the combustion chamber. And when the air/fuel that was meant to go into the combustion chamber doesn’t make it there and burns up in the plenum, the motor stumbles and lags because nothing reached the combustion chamber to go boom. For the driver, it feels like someone quickly turned the engine on and off because there was nothing in the cylinders to compress and blow up to keep the motor revving hard.

Another important note to make is the plenum is always filled with air and fuel, so that’s not the issue.

It’s when something happens that shouldn’t that drivers get grumpy. Let’s say there’s a misfire and all of the fuel wasn’t burned in one of the cylinders, and that raw fuel got dumped into the exhaust. Depending on the timing of things happening in the motor, if there’s unburnt fuel that hits the exhaust, it will be set alight due to the high temperatures there, and then you have a momentary fire. If the exhaust valves open and some of that flame creeps back into the engine, it could also make its way into the plenum when the intake valves open to let the air/fuel into the cylinder.

Normally, all of the sparks and flames are set to happen when the intake valves have closed and everything’s working wonderfully and on time so that air/fuel in the plenum is safe and walled off.  When we heard about a plenum fire, we know that for a nanosecond, those safeguards failed and something sparky or flamey got up into a place where they don’t belong.

If you think of each mix of air and fuel being received in the combustion chamber to spark and explode like the engine inhaling and taking a breath, a super-fast plenum fire is the equivalent of the engine being unable to breathe, and as we saw with O’Ward exiting the final corner, his engine had to wait for the fire to burn out before it could reset and take another breath. It only lasted a second or so, but that was enough for Marcus Ericsson to motor by and win the race.

Drivers are trained to handle this exact scenario, and as I understand it, Pato was quick to rectify the matter, but even so, when the second-place driver is sitting a half-second off your gearbox, a one-second plenum fire can turn a win into a loss.

Pato's problems began inside a carbon fiber housing that looked a lot like this one. Marshall Pruett Image

Q: I loved Pagenaud’s self-deprecating quote: “Avoiding wrecks is not my strong suit.” As an average online driver, I can sadly identify with his comment. Good to see all the IndyCar drivers take their knocks in stride versus endlessly playing the victim card like some other series drivers do.

David D Franzen, Franklin, TN

MP: Simon said avoiding wrecks is normally his strong suit, but that didn’t happen this time, so it was a nod to unexpected misfortune and not a self-deprecating note.

Q: I noticed during Practice 2 that Newgarden’s rear wing main plane had a cover on it when he was in to get yet another toe link replaced. I know back in the day teams completely covered the wings to hide angle settings, but that practice was banned. Can you tell us the purpose of the cover? A place to set tools?

Glenn, Renton, WA

MP: I didn’t catch that, but the series does allow teams to place a thin cover over the rear wings to keep tools and other car/crew related items from scratching the paint/wrap/carbon when work is being done at the back of the car, or when the car is being presented for technical inspection and various tools and items are placed atop the rear wing before it rolls onto the tech pad.

It’s a different thing from back in the day where teams were allowed to cover their front and rear wings -- and anything else they wanted to -- in order to prevent other teams from seeing their suspension and wing settings.

With the new cars and engines that arrived in 2012, IndyCar wrote that into the rule book, disallowing teams to cover the wings and engines and dampers and so on, and I’m glad they did. It’s hard enough to get the average fan to care about the technology contained throughout the car, and if everything’s covered up when the bodywork comes off, or the wings are hidden when the car comes to a stop, we may as well make everything spec and low-tech and give people zero reasons to care.

Q: Bring back the Thrill from West Hill. The Mayor of Hinchtown gives me information overload with the technical minutiae of driving an IndyCar during the broadcast. Looks like Andretti might have its mojo back.

Dino, New Hanover, PA

MP: I’d love to have PT back in the booth, but not at the expense of Hinch.

Prior to his arrival, the biggest absence in the broadcasts was a recent driver who could speak on racing today’s aeroscreen-era cars and, more importantly, fix the glaring omission of high-level race strategy observations into the shows. Thanks to Hinch, fans have less filler and more insights on what to look for throughout the race.

Happy for Andretti as they found their speed, but not the luck.

Q: What happens to all the used tires after an IndyCar race weekend? Is it the same procedure for IMSA?

Martin West, Buckeye, AZ

MP: Our friend Cara Krstolic, who I’ll be calling "Professor Cara from Firestone Racing" for the rest of her career, shared this awesome nugget: “After post-race tire analysis, tires go to an alternative energy facility in Indianapolis, where they provide power to the city.”

Q: I just watched the superb coverage of St. Petersburg practice and qualifying, and I have to admit that at just $4.99 per month, Peacock is well worth it.

My question is about IndyCar's demographic. When I saw that IndyCar signed with The CW for its upcoming Indy 500 series, I thought it was a good move to grab a younger audience until I read that the network has an average viewer age of 58 years old. Have you heard whether IndyCar's Peacock coverage is bringing in a younger demographic so far?

LA Indycar Fan

MP: Yeah, the linear demo for the CW is surprisingly old, but I read the streaming demo -- as you might expect--is far younger, and that’s where IndyCar hopes to make great audience gains when the "100 Days To Indy" docuseries arrives in April. As for the Peacock demo, I did reach out to IndyCar but didn't get a reply before the Mailbag went live.

Q: I have been following the story about the new renewable fuel and I have a question. It is my understanding that the previous fuel was 15% non-renewable so that in case of fire, the flame would show color. Will the new fuel show visible flames in the event of a fire?

Leslie Bissell, Kansas City, KS

MP: I’ve never heard of using a small percentage of petroleum-based fuel for the sake of fire awareness. As I was told by those making the first drums of E85 for use in the American Le Mans Series about 15 years ago, the 15% was helpful for caloric punch, but there’s a bigger reason for the 85/15-percent blend and that’s to help with cold starts.

A friend who knows more about these things than I do says ethanol doesn’t evaporate as quickly as gasoline when it burns because the droplets are comparatively heavy, so the 15% gas became an industry standard -- for road cars and in racing -- to make it easier to start cold motors. And yes, pure ethanol is not invisible when it burns; it’s yellowish.

Looks like Scott McLaughlin made good use of this tire at Mid-Ohio last year, but as far as the Indianapolis power grid is concerned, its work hasn't even started yet. Gavin Baker/Motorsport Images

Q: Here’s my first knee-jerk reaction to the start at St. Pete. For street races, start single file. I know, I know, it takes away from the thrill of the event, these are professional drivers, blah, blah, blah. There is no escape route on a street course with concrete walls on both sides. It doesn’t happen often to have such a melee on the first lap of a street race, but with such blind corners and tight confines, I think it needs to be considered. Look how well the restart went once the red flag was over. Your thoughts.

Tommy DeHarde, Luling, LA

MP: It’s all about trends, right? If the last few St. Pete races were filled with big first-lap pileups, you’d consider making changes. But since that hasn’t been the case, you don’t treat the event in a different manner to others. What does need to be looked into is the repave between Turns 3 and 4 that must have cost a combined $1.5 million in damage across all of the open-wheel and sports car series from Friday through Sunday. It’s not the same as a permanent track, obviously, so if the city elects to modify its streets in whatever manner, it’s their choice and their choice alone.

Having so many cars destroyed, smashed, or stripped of wheels/suspension/bodywork in one section was unacceptable, and while it’s easy to say "just drive at a slower speed through there," it’s a dumb comment.

If every series racing at St. Pete had top-tier pros in the cars, it would be a minor issue, but that’s not what we have -- it’s a mix of junior open-wheel youth and inexperience and pros and business people who can afford to race GT cars but are high-functioning amateurs, and even some of the IndyCar drivers are on the lower end of the pro spectrum. So when a narrow and wicked-fast corner goes from having adequate grip to insufficient grip from 2022 to 2023, we get a lot of bad crashes.

Q: Am I wrong, or isn't Velo a tobacco product? It was very visible throughout the race (yellow banners) on just about every turn. I thought IndyCar banned such promotions, or was this only banned on the car livery itself? Don't get me wrong, we need all the ad dollars as we can get, but was just curious.

KAR in SoCal

MP: From my extensive research (60 seconds of Googling) I learned that yes, its lozenges and pouches are considered tobacco products by the FDA, but its products contain nicotine extracted from tobacco, so as a lawyer who specializes in tobacco regulatory matters (kidding, obviously), I’d have to guess that its products fall outside of the sports advertising ban that removed cigarette branding from race cars. It’s owned by RJ Reynolds, the parent company of Camel and other familiar tobacco brands.

Q: I know that I am a cranky old man, who is no longer the target market for IndyCar. However, in the opinion of someone who has been a fan for 50 years, they should never race on a tight street circuit. Another amateur show at St. Pete. Can't wait for Nashville and Detroit…

Bruce K, Philadelphia, PA

MP: So if IndyCar announced a new Philly street race, you wouldn’t go?

Q: I'm writing this not long after the St. Pete GP ended, and I know you're going to get a lot of takes about what went on, some good, some terrible, so I want to bring up something different, and positive.

I want to shine some light on Agustin Canapino's race. He may be new to IndyCar, but he absolutely demonstrated the value of his experience by knuckling down, staying focused and keeping his nose clean. He didn't have much in the way of speed, but that was a very mature and effective drive to maximize on the misfortunes of others. I don't know if he's going manage anything of note, but it looks like if any controversy ends up descending on his career, it won't be due to his driving.

Looking forward to seeing if he can get more up to speed in these cars.

FormulaFox

MP: I’m right there with you on Canapino and have been raving about him since Spring Training. Not sure I agree, though, on the lack of speed; first time at St. Pete, first open-wheel race weekend, first time on Firestone alternate tires, etc. And first time fighting nearly 5000 pounds of downforce for two hours.

Take his lack of open-wheel experience and a lack of IndyCar-specific physical endurance -- he’ll need to "play his way into shape," as we often hear about players who are new to big league sports -- and the guy embarrassed a number of IndyCar drivers on Sunday.

How’s this: Indy Lights race winners who’ve raced at St. Pete numerous times, along with plenty of veterans with big IndyCar victories and maybe a championship or two, bounce off of each other and the walls all weekend. Canapino? As cool as the other side of the pillow, as the late Stuart Scott loved to say. I’m sure Agustin will make some major mistakes this year, but to be the rookiest of rookies and avoid all the nonsense on Sunday? I couldn’t be more impressed.

Q: The marble situation is getting ridiculous in IndyCar, and St. Pete is just another example of how they make for poor racing. Poor for the drivers, and poor for the audience. The long yellow flag periods and red flags on both street courses provide plenty of time for the cleanup of the marbles in all of the passing zones. Sweepers, blowers or something similar to the Air Titans that NASCAR uses are a no-brainer. More passing, more exciting racing will bring more viewership and a bigger fan base. We all know that you guys have Roger’s ear; please pass this message on to his leadership group.

Joe in California

MP: It’s not like I know what happens at every corner on every lap of the race, so I can’t say if sweeping did or didn’t take place somewhere during one of the five cautions, but you aren’t the first to ask this question after St. Pete.

Q: We seemed to have more rear lockups this weekend than anything I can recall in recent memory. Was the new brake pad compound from PFC contributing to these?

Joey Selmants

MP: No change in brake compounds since last year, just a shortage of quality grip in certain areas.

After a weekend where driving around without hitting things proved to be beyond a good part of the field, Canapino can feel proud. Jake Galstad/Motorsport Images

Q: So, another IndyCar road race with spectacular wrecks. And IndyCar once again says they are trying to capture the younger viewer, who was raised playing MarioKart.

If only the TV coverage had a graphic of the overall track layout to help the viewer understand how the straights and corners are laid out, rather than countless camera angles of the concrete canyons and three hosts using corner numbers that mean absolutely nothing to those at home.

Brian, Ohio

MP: And who says IndyCar doesn’t have a brilliant marketing plan?

If I’m not getting the thing I want and I have the ability to find the answer on my own, I tend to take action. A quick search of "GP of St Pete track layout" on your phone probably would have done the trick. I know I pulled up the track map via Wikipedia at least twice over the weekend to make sure I got the corner numbers correct while writing session reports.

Q: We had this little discussion on why in the world AJ Foyt Racing didn't get the No. 14 back out on track after the melee that took place on lap one. Being a race of attrition, they surely could have scored higher points just by at least running most of the race.

Ferrucci drove the car back in. Why wouldn't they have gotten it back out there? Being drivable, wouldn't that be fixable?

Ken Pulliam, Naperville, IL

MP: He did not drive the car back. The No. 14 was deposited with the rest of the broken cars in the IndyCar junkyard.

Q: Is it me, or was there a lot more rubber on the track off line than a typical IndyCar race? Are these green tires shedding rubber at a higher pace? Also, we had a gazillion cautions during the race; why didn't they sweep the track during any of the yellows?

Hutch

MP: It’s a fairly common phenomenon with open-wheel cars racing on gripless street circuits. Whether it’s IndyCar or F1, the tires tend to be very soft to compensate for the poor level of grip offered by the street surface, and since there’s a lot of sliding and/or grinding of the tire carcass across the surface, we get a cheese-on-a-cheese-grater dynamic going on.

Q: I was so looking forward to Sunday’s race, and, about halfway through I was embarrassed to be an IndyCar fan. I don’t know if it’s just reckless driving, too-aggressive driving or some of the field is not qualified to be in this type of racing. Maybe a little of each? You pay good money to go to these races and not only do a lot of the drivers get taken out, but you spend a lot of time sitting on your hands while the carnage is cleaned up. That’s not to mention how these cautions determine the outcome of races. From the outside it appears IndyCar is doing nothing about this. There needs to be some type of deterrent, maybe a penalty system:

5 penalty points: probation.

10 penalty point: one race.

15 penalty points: two races.

Grosjean/McLaughlin: 4 points each

Power, Daly, VeeKay: 8 points each

Dixon: 5 points

Also, on a tight street course with 27 cars, why not start the race single file? They’re single file after lap one anyhow, why not avoid the 25 minutes of red flag cleanup? I can see a repeat of Sunday’s mess when we get to Nashville, Detroit, Long Beach, Toronto…

Mark, Buffalo, NY

MP: Sunday’s mess could have easily happened with 17 cars, so it had nothing to do with numbers. If that was the case, we would have seen constant bowling ball routines into Turn 1, but that never happened.

The bad first-lap crash was caused by a 20-plus-year veteran who rates as one of the all-time greats who simply made a mistake and hit his best friend who then slowed as a result of damage at the worst point on the track. After that, we had two of the best in Colton Herta and Will Power try to fit two cars into a corner that only wants one, and Herta was out. We had two more stars in Scott McLaughlin and Romain Grosjean try and nearly succeed in going two-wide but failing.

And there were others, some of whom weren’t as sharp in their efforts and paid the price. I hated all of the crashing and nonsense and in some cases, it was unnecessary. But we also had some hard racing that didn’t go as planned, and while I wish the race wasn’t so ugly, I don’t want to watch 100 laps of tentative racing where daring passing attempts are avoided.

Minus Dixon tagging Rosenqvist and all that went wrong on lap one, we aren’t looking at St. Pete as a dumpster fire.

He's smiling because nobody's told him about those eight penalty points yet. Michael Levitt/Motosport Images

Q: I was so pleased IndyCar got rid of extra points at the last race and then at the 500. I feel now is the time to overhaul the whole points system. Last place at St. Pete receiving five points? I do not understand. I would look for points only for the top 10 finishers. Wonder if you have a view?

Oliver Wells

MP: I have a slightly less harsh outlook, but it might not be too far removed from your own. One thing I love about stick-and-ball sports is the simplicity of it all: You win or you lose. There’s a purity there of merit-based achievement and reward or failure. Obviously, with 20-plus drivers in our sport, it can’t be that binary, but I would love to see a greater emphasis on a merit-based points distribution policy.

If you finish the race within one lap of the winner, you receive points. Even the best drivers can experience misfortune and lose a lap, but if you’re two-plus laps down, I’m not inclined to hand out points. As my mind works, finishing on the lead lap or no more than one-lap down is the achievement that brings points.

Whether it was or wasn’t a driver’s fault, not finishing or being more than a lap behind should not come with a reward. Getting points for placing 22nd after your engine exploded or 24th after taking out yourself and two other drivers is like a glorified participation trophy. Finishing strong is our version of winning, and only those drivers should be rewarded.

Q: Very entertaining race. It’s very easy to be impressed with Callum Ilott’s fifth place, but I’m more impressed with Agustin Canapino having a clean day and finishing on the lead lap, ahead of all of the rookies except for Marcus Armstrong in his first IndyCar race.

Building off of this strong start, what are realistic hopes and expectations for the season both for Canapino and for Juncos Hollinger Racing as a whole? I’d love to see them both move further and further to the front!

Josh Eichholz, Peoria, IL

MP: We’d be ignoring reality if we didn’t acknowledge how high attrition helped JHR on Sunday, but Callum wouldn’t have been running in fifth at the finish if his car and team weren’t delivering proper speed, and the same goes for Agustin who, again, avoided all of the pitfalls that took so many rookies and veterans out of contention.

As for the season, I expect Ilott to be on the podium a few times and in the right circumstances, to earn his first win. I think Canapino will be a steady P18-P25 guy with 27 or more cars in the field at every round, with low expectations for his oval races where he has no experience, and stronger results at places like Long Beach and the Indy GP where the physical toll isn’t extreme. By early summer, he’ll have all the specific muscles and muscle endurance required to go 100 percent for every race taken care of; that takes time for every new drivers to develop, and once he’s there, he should be able to push into P12-P15 on the days where JHR is punching above its weight.

Q: As a die-hard IndyCar fan, I should be celebrating the start of the season but I can't help but look at what St. Pete marks this year. It marks 15 years since CART/Champ Car and the IRL merged into a single series after 12 years apart. You would think that all that has happened over those 27 years, plus the years leading up to the split with USAC/IRL and CART, the ownership of the series would have made notes about what not to do.

Unfortunately, I can't help but still have concerns about the future of IndyCar.

The chassis and engine formula seems like a repeat of CART in 2002 when you had the wave of owner and manufacturer defections to the IRL because there wasn't any cohesive plan going forward. We have manufacturers going to IMSA GTP (Porsche & BMW) and Formula 1 (Ford, Audi, possibly Porsche) but not coming to IndyCar because there's a lack of forward vision. Historically, Penske himself had the Mercedes 500I built because of the flexibility within the engine regulations, which created an amazing engine.

The viewership challenge is from two fronts now with NASCAR and Formula 1, because of poor marketing and, let's be honest, brand value.

We have an IndyCar schedule that resembles more of that 1990s CART schedule than the Tony George IRL one, which from the outside seems like it was a big force in the split besides other political dealings.

I'm sure there are more political aspects that I'm not listing here that are still going on, but am I wrong to be concerned that what should have been lessons learned over the last roughly 30 years are repeating themselves?

Chris, VA

MP: I wouldn’t look at what Tony George did in 1993 or 2008 or Champ Car’s owners did in 200X and treat it like the new owners of IndyCar open a secret book of historical errors made by their predecessors each morning and base their planning on what was done correctly or incorrectly in years past.

That being said, it’s also hard to ignore how IndyCar is the last major domestic or international racing series to modernize itself. F1? New formula/cars. NASCAR Cup? New formula/cars. IMSA? New formula/GTP cars. WEC? New formula/Hypercars. WRC? New formula/cars. But maybe we’re missing something that only IndyCar’s owners see. They routinely tell me my views and opinions are wrong, so let’s hope their plans to stick with the same cars and engines is the key to success.

A blast from the past. Motorsport Images

Q: TMS just released its garage passes for this year's IndyCar race. They are $75 for two hours on Sunday only ($40 for season ticket holders or children). This is now a significantly worse deal than not only TMS in previous years, but also essentially every other race on the 2023 calendar. I've gone through every other race this season and compared the prices and the access, and TMS is a notable and significant outlier despite being a cheaper market than at least a couple and having less fans in attendance than, let's be honest, almost all of them. Some of these are for garage access only, some are for both garage and pit access, depending on the event. Where the two were separate options, I've listed garage access only.

St. Pete: $75 for two days

Long Beach: $75 for three days

Barber: $70 for three days (Friday is free)

IMS: $150 for the entire month (but no access on either race day)

Detroit: Free with admission

Road America: Free with admission

Mid-Ohio: $40 for three days

Toronto: Tickets not yet available

Iowa: $100 for three days

Nashville: Can't tell

IMS GP 2: $100 for two days (IndyCar only)

Gateway: $60 for two days

Portland: $70 for three days

Laguna Seca: Free with admission

Of all the tracks on the schedule, TMS needs to focus the most on getting fans to the track and giving them an experience that makes them want to come back. Instead they're offering the fans who are coming the worst deal in the series for add-on access that would significantly improve the experience. While I think there's a good case to be made that TMS should offer free paddock access as a way to improve the fan experience, at the very least it needs to be offering a deal equivalent to the other races on the schedule, and it simply isn't.

The Truck Series being back also doesn't explain the change because this was a combined IndyCar/Truck Series weekend for many years without such bad access, and they're separate garage areas regardless. Maybe the track is planning on offering free paddock admission to everyone on Saturday? But I doubt it, and that seems like it would have been announced when sales for the garage passes started.

I go to TMS solely because it's the closest track to me, but it's still six hours away and requires significant time and money to go for a weekend. I'm going this year and bought this awful garage pass because I was already committed anyway, but it's not that much more expensive to go somewhere else for a better experience, and it's hard to justify coming back if they don't fix this.

Matt Rekart

MP: You put a lot of time and effort into your research, Matt, and obviously care about IndyCar and its return to TMS under a new contract with Penske Entertainment. Having been there for the first IndyCar race in 1997 where there was great interest and a great turnout, and having been there for last year’s where the attendance was depressing, all I can say is I hope the strategy crafted by the track and series leads to fewer empty seats.

Hard to say how they came up with the paddock access pricing, but I can say that compared to other IndyCar events, I’m struggling to recall a time where a ton of fans paid for TMS garage access. Some paddocks are hard to navigate because there are so many fans on the ground; Texas has never been on that list.

And while I’m not dismissing your concerns, I’m looking out from pit lane first and foremost, and praying there’s a healthy turnout in the seats that get seen during the broadcast. As I’ve said for years, IndyCar cannot afford to go to tracks where it looks small and unimportant, and nothing makes a racing series look small and unimportant like mostly empty grandstands. Fingers crossed that TMS and Penske have come up with something that gives NBC a reason to pan over to the stands on a regular basis.

If there’s an appreciable uptick in ticket sales, it might be easier to lobby for cheaper garage access, but without solid sales for the main seating, I’d guess most tracks would look to make money wherever else they can, including garage passes.

Q: With Cadillac and Porsche running cars in both Sebring events, are the WEC and IMSA cars identical? If they are, I’m guessing BoP will be determined against the Toyota in WEC and Acura in IMSA. Any thoughts here?

Rick

MP: Yes, the regulations are the same for the GTP/LMDh cars between both series, but with IMSA’s GTP class containing nothing but GTP cars and WEC’s Hypercar class being a mix of GTP/LMDh and Hypercar models, the BoPs for both series will be different. In WEC, it’s Glickenhaus, Peugeot, Ferrari, and Toyota built to the less restrictive Hypercar rules going up against the more restrictive GTP/LMDh regulations used to create the Cadillacs and Porsches, so it’s the WEC that will have the harder job of making these significantly different ideologies play together in an equal capacity.

Q: Just compared the three-day general admission prices at the Miami F1 race and St. Pete IndyCar race. Miami $590, and St. Pete $65. I think F1 promotes itself to the lifestyles of the rich and famous as they are the ones who can afford it. I hope IndyCar never attempts to be like F1. They're doing just fine.

Jeff, Florida

MP: Only thing that jumps out here is that the pricing differences between F1 and all other forms of racing is nothing new. Been this way for decades, but admittedly, the gap has increased in recent years as F1 has seen its popularity explode. The “I saved money for an entire year to see F1” story has been told forever, and that’s never been the case with IndyCar.

Q: With all of the discussion and changes to the tire rules this season, has anyone at IndyCar ever suggested giving the pole winner an extra set of tires? Their choice of primary or alternate. You always hear in an interview when a team is knocked out of the first qualifying session they will have an extra set of rubber for the race. Why not reward a team that makes through all of sessions and qualifies first with the same advantage?

Larry, Indianapolis, IN

MP: I think earning the right to start first, control the field on the way to the green flag, accelerate before the rest of the field, and earning a championship point for pole is more than sufficient. Giving the pole winner an extra set of new tires would all but settle the race’s outcome -- barring unforeseen adversity -- the day before the race takes place, and that’s not the purpose of qualifying.

Not sure whether an extra set of tires would have been enough to change Grosjean's fortunes last Sunday. Phillip Abbott/Motorsport Images

Q: I was watching old episodes of "House" on Peacock last week, and during a commercial break I saw an ad for the upcoming St. Pete race. I was very surprised and not a little proud to finally be seeing a promo for IndyCar while not actually watching an IndyCar race. Unfortunately, I haven't been able to find the ad online anywhere else to show off to friends, which I don't understand. Why can't I at least find it on IndyCar's YouTube channel? Oh, well. It was a well-produced ad, and I can only hope that got out to a wide audience.

Also, as you have noted before that some level of IndyCar management reads the Mailbag, even if it's just to plug their ears, can we please, please get The Zibs involved as a musical contributor to some future IndyCar promos? Might they play a quick set on Legends Day or something? I hear their drummer is something of an IndyCar enthusiast. Might just be some part of that mysterious link to the young crowd we're supposed to be striving so badly for.

Henry, Richmond, VA

MP: This promo, on their YouTube channel that went up last Wednesday? Hard to answer since you didn’t mention what the ad contained.

As for the other part of your question, I have it on good account that Roger absolutely shreds playing "Eruption" on his replica Eddie Van Halen "Frankenstrat" and wants to open for The Zibs on their next visit to Indy. We will make this happen.

Q: Here's another reason IndyCar falls further and further behind.

I'm a long-time fan who welcomes new technology and find Peacock just fine, although side-by-side is a necessity. On the Thursday before the St. Pete race I go to sign on my IndyCar app and it says it has been upgraded. That's fine. I click on it, and up comes a new screen wanting me to sign in. Of course I'm on the road and don't have my password handy, but no problem, right? Just ask them to send another and click it in. Oh, I tried, three times. Got the code, typed it in and the screen said it was accepted so I could continue. Each time I hit the continue button it said no such account exists.

Another frustrating fail with an IndyCar item. Sheesh, is Harlan Fengler back in charge?

Mark, Milwaukee, WI

MP: Honest question: Why didn’t you just create a new account for the weekend and revert to using your existing one when you got home and had access to the password?

THE FINAL WORD

From Robin Miller's Mailbag, March 8, 2017

Q: Do you ever get tired of answering the same questions over and over? Please don’t ever retire the Mailbag.

Mark Suska, Lexington, OH

ROBIN MILLER: No, Mark, because people take the time to sit down and write, and I try not to use too many duplicate questions each week, but there’s a lot of passion in some of you fans. And I answer every question whether it gets published or not because I appreciate people’s interest. But to be honest, I might scream if I get one more question/suggestion about going back to front-engine cars at Indy. I get it, I loved the roadsters and Herk and Parnelli and A.J. but it’s not going to happen. We’ve got Wallen videos and YouTube to remember those good old days.