The RACER Mailbag, April 29

Welcome to the RACER Mailbag. Questions for any of RACER’s writers can be sent to mailbag@racer.com. We love hearing your comments and opinions, but letters that include a question are more likely to be published. Questions received after 3pm ET each Monday will be saved for the following week.

Q: Peter Corn’s excellent story about last year's winning Indy 500 car being placed in its forever home at the IMS Museum got me thinking: How do teams feel about a winning chassis/car going into the museum when it could very well be used the following year (except 2028)?

Is there a reimbursement from the series for the chassis/car? Do winning cars always get retired, or can teams opt to keep running them? I am fascinated how these teams manage car configuration, and can imagine there are some variables they can't control or replicate, and intangible speed which might make them hesitant to retire a winning car to the museum. Especially if that team was a one-off entry – say, had Ryan Hunter-Reay won with DRR last year, and DRR wanted to use that chassis the following year.

I searched past Mailbags to see whether this question had already been asked and didn't see anything.

Darrin, West Jordan, UT

MARSHALL PRUETT: The feelings would be different if there was a long runway left for the DW12s and, admittedly, much interest in the cars as coveted historic vehicles to possess and potentially drive. The cars have about 18 months of life before 100-plus DW12s are retired. And unlike their CART and Champ Car predecessors, there’s not much nostalgia to own a DW12 in the same way that old Lolas and Reynards and Penskes and Marchs and Eagles and Panozs demand.

Yes, the IMS Museum pays for the car; don’t know what was negotiated, but money changed hands. Winning cars do not automatically get retired. In this case, and with that closing window for the DW12 in mind, Ganassi has prepared a different DW12 it had in inventory for Palou’s 2026 Indy run instead of buying a new car from Dallara.

I’m also confident some of the trick go-fast items developed by the team, or that were done to the car, have been removed or returned to stock. And because I’m an anarchist, I hope Palou’s car sports a polished attenuator just to cause chaos.

Q: Is the Alex Palou car that was just added to the IMS Museum the actual chassis from last year’s 500? If it, or one of the other cars in the museum, were dressed up to look like the car from that year’s race, would anyone actually know?

Will, Indy

MP: It’s the real car. Nobody would know on many of the cookie-cutter cars. Only way to know is if the chassis plate on a Dallara IR97 or Lola T90/00 matched the winning chassis plate. Otherwise, replicating the livery is about all it takes to pass one car off as another. Separate from the chassis plate, it’s fun to look at some of the cars in the museum with the drivers/mechanics/engineers who were part of the effort and listen to them describe the little inaccuracies.

If any of the tricky go-fast bits were left on Palou's Indy 500 car, there would be a huge spike in IMS Museum tours by engineers from other teams. James Gilbert/Penske Entertainment

Q: Marshall, I saw the following question asked in last week's Mailbag:

Long Beach was the second race in a row where the in-car feeds in the IndyCar app kept freezing up. You have to get out and back in to make it work again and watch a few more seconds. I reported this in the app, but of course never heard anything back. I know you cannot do anything, but maybe by putting it in the Mailbag, it will be seen by someone who can do something about it. It really reduces my enjoyment watching races. Thanks.

I've been experiencing the same thing on my Apple iPad 8th generation. I know it's a little old, but it had been working fine until recently. I tried switching between several different cars, and it would keep freezing up. Tried switching between cellular and Wi-Fi connection. Same thing. Decided to uninstall and reinstall the app. Again, no change.

I went ahead and loaded the App to my Samsung Galaxy S25+ and it seemed to work OK. Just too small to watch on a cell phone. Then tried watching the same car at the same time. Cell phone feed did not freeze up, but my Apple iPad did. Was thinking maybe I should go to T-Mobile and buy a new tablet. However after reading that at least one other person is experiencing the same thing, I think I will hold off. Hope IndyCar addresses this soon.

Jay Indianapolis, IN  

MP: Thanks, Jay. We might need to start a RACER Mailbag IndyCar Customer Feedback Page each week for fans to share the shortcomings they find with apps, seats, merchandise, broadcasts, and so on.

Q: I have been a big fan of IndyCar for nearly 30 years and have traveled from the UK in previous years to races in Long Beach, Indianapolis and St. Pete on multiple occasions. I hate to be so negative, but I have found many of the road and street course events in recent years to be a chore to watch due to the fact that so many races have to been all about fuel economy. When they are all saving fuel there seems to be very little in the way of racing and very few incidents. It is now rare to see races on non-ovals with mixed up strategies where you do not know which one will work. Almost everyone does the same thing these days and the racing is really suffering. Long Beach this month was ruined by fuel economy.Do you think IndyCar should mandate pit stop windows like CART did in 2002?

Peter Williams, Surrey, UK

MP: Fuel saving is the new blame-all thing in racing, which is convenient, but rarely accurate. Long Beach sucked because the alternate street compound is harder than last year’s, so it lasts far longer and doesn’t make for big groups of drivers rising and falling at the same time.

Long Beach sucked because there were no early-ish cautions to create opportunities for alternate strategies. Newgarden tried, needed a late caution to make his gamble work, and went unrewarded. And Long Beach sucked because everyone has learned to save fuel at a high level, which provides advantages in opening up pit stop windows and shortening pit stops due to less fuel needing to be added.

All three items combined to make Long Beach a snoozer. And St. Pete. And Barber, where there didn’t appear to be much of a difference in durability between the primes and the alternates. Toss in a few extra cautions, and we’re having a different conversation. Dial up the alt tire degradation, and we’re having a different conversation.

Not disagreeing with you on fuel saving being a contributing factor, but it’s by no means to sole reason.