The RACER Mailbag, June 17

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 12pm ET each Monday will be saved for the following week.

Q: The video of Arie Luyendyk's record Indy 500 qualification run came up on my YouTube feed and I had to watch it. Dang, those were the days! They really knew how to set up that car and, there was no apron! I think it’s still going to be a while until we see those speeds again. Any idea what his corner entry speeds were, and if he ever lifted during that run?

Dan Schertner, St. Louis Park, MN

MARSHALL PRUETT: There was an apron. Went in four years before Arie’s 1996 Indy record run. "They" was Tim Wardrop, the late and definitely great race engineer who had an amazing connection with Arie.

Here’s a wild thing to consider: Arie averaged 236.986mph in a Reynard-Ford/Cosworth that was two hundred pounds lighter than the last pre-hybrid cars in 2024 and had 50-100hp more, and Scott McLaughlin was able to set pole at 234.220mph, which isn’t light years away from the record. If IndyCar can come in lighter and with more power on the 2028 as promised, the record should be eclipsed.

Arie was flat throughout the run, I believe, and he would have been turning into the corners above 240mph to average 236.9 over four laps.

Q: IndyCar TV ratings seem to be in an upward trend this year. Any assumptions about if the track attendance is also up? Love seeing how competitive the series is this year across drivers and teams. 

On another note, I enjoy watching the Indy NXT on FS1. Long-term, I think this will help with name recognition as drivers move into the top series. Hopefully those ratings will improve over time as IndyCar gets more popular. I certainly see that with NASCAR – I know the guys in Cup instantly because I've been watching them in Truck and O’Reilly.

Jim, Milwaukee, WI

MP: Every IndyCar race I’ve been to this year, except for Barber, looked and felt more populated with fans, and some by a remarkable amount. Even Phoenix, which was a NASCAR weekend, had a stout audience for the IndyCar race.

I harbor no expectations for NXT drivers to achieve name recognition while in NXT, or for ratings to rise in a meaningful way. But that doesn’t mean the racing isn’t great.

The series is celebrating its 40th anniversary and has never been a place – under all of its array of names – to bring serious awareness to its talent. There have been a few exceptions with Paul Tracy and Greg Moore and Marco Andretti garnering extra attention, but as a whole, it’s been five decades of needing to get to IndyCar to capture the spotlight. 

Great racing for those in the know. Aaron Skillman/Penske Entertainment

Q: What has happened to Santino Ferrucci these past two seasons? He got the long-term contract with Foyt when he was driving more aggressively. Since he signed the contract, that fire seems to have subsided. He got shown up by Malukas, and now again by Collet.

How long does he have left on his contract?

John Hardaway, Culpeper, VA

MP: Santino is up for renewal at the end of the season. I’ve never seen a fire-free Ferrucci, but yes, the guy who dog-walked Kirkwood down at Detroit last year hasn’t been present, which might not be a bad thing. Could be a case of maturing, but to your point, the electric drives that Santino delivered last year haven’t arrived so far in 2026.

He had four straight top fives to close the opening half of the 2025 season and has a pair of eighths are his best this year and he hasn’t stood out in the same way.

The Foyt team as a whole has regressed this year, and Santino, as the team veteran and established team leader, is the prime example of that rearward move. The results by Collet haven’t been great, but if there’s been a Foyt car to make a strong impression in a race, it’s usually been the rookie until something goes awry.

We know the team loves Santino and the team’s sponsors adore him. And we know he can deliver front-running results after placing a career-best ninth in the 2024 championship. We also know that being beaten by Malukas last year (11th in the championship to Santino’s 16th) and the visuals of Collet – an unheralded newcomer – doing extraordinary things in the sister car isn’t helping his value on the driver market.

It’s not uncommon for a player in whatever sport to have a season that’s slightly off after they’ve been in that sport for a good while; whether it’s summoning the same motivation, applying the same focus, or dealing with distractions in their personal lives, this isn’t the first time where someone like Santino – in his ninth year of IndyCar – is trying to find the way back to their most effective selves.

Q: I have a question about the caution laps run after a restart following a red flag at the Indy 500. I attended my first 500 in 1962. In 1964, on the restart after the Sachs-MacDonald accident on lap two, they did two unscored laps before given the green flag to start lap three of the race.

It was the same for the restart following the big starting line crash in 1966; the same in 1967 after rain pushed the remaining 182 laps to the next day; and the same after the Swede Savage crash in 1973. In all these years, the cars did two unscored laps in single file behind the pace car, then given the green flag and scoring resumed.

Why do they now score the two yellow flag laps when restarting the race after a red flag? 

Peter, Indianapolis, IN

MP: A different sanctioning body, at a track owned by different people, with a different series, so the thing that was done differently more than 50 years ago by completely different people would have no bearing to how things are done today. A lot has changed in how races are run.