The RACER Mailbag, October 14

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: Since Dale Coyne’s two weeks are up and he hasn't announced his 2027 drivers as promised, can we assume we’ll find out who’ll be driving his cars mid way through the first practice at St. Pete?

Bill Carsey, North Olmsted OH

MARSHALL PRUETT: I spent time with Dale and his wife Gail on Monday at Sebring while they were there with new Indy NXT champion Nikita Johnson. Dale’s first comment was “I knew I shouldn’t have told you two weeks…” and we had a good laugh. Johnson is widely expected to land at Coyne or Juncos Hollinger. We both agreed that Callum Ilott was the top veteran available on the market, and as I wrote in our last silly season update, an Ilott-Johnson pairing would be fascinating to see in action.

But to your point, who knows when we’ll learn the identity of both drivers? Dale is rarely indecisive. It’s usually a case of not wanting to pull the trigger too soon and missing out on a major F1 or F2 talent who could become available towards the end of the year.   

Q: I've heard some concerns about the 2028 IndyCar spec damper and eventual knowledge transfer between teams. Once a top engineer shifts teams they could, in theory, easily get their new team up to speed on the parts combination that worked well at their previous team. 

Is the spec damper being presented as a temporary solution that could be opened up in the future once teams are on their feet with the 2028 car?

Joe

MP: It’s not a temporary solution. Yes, just like today’s dampers, an elite damper engineer can take their knowledge to any other team and potentially improve that team. But most of the top teams already have damper gurus, so it’s more likely for a midfield team to try and hire away one of those gurus to help in this regard.

Q: So I’m counting down the days until the Roar and Rolex 24. Is there any chance Zak Brown brings the McLaren Hypercar? Could we see a line-up of Lando, Pato and Dixon? What a powerhouse!  Also, any other word on new teams or alignments for the 2027 IMSA season? 

Eric Jackson 

MP: I love your enthusiasm. There’s zero chance of it happening unless someone wants to pay a ton of money for it to happen. The downside of professional racing is teams no longer do such things. When it was mostly a bunch of wealthy enthusiasts who funded endurance racing, you’d get entries like these where it was largely based on passion instead of a business plan. But we haven’t lived in those times for a long time.

Granted, it would be smart for McLaren to consider it – a tough 24-hour test at Daytona as a reliability run before starting the full WEC calendar – but it’s not in the plans.

Having Lando Norris back as a world champion after last running at Daytona as an F1 newcomer would be cool.

Lando's well overdue for another trip to Daytona. IMSA photo

Q: I've been attending all forms of motorsports over the past 40 years. One of my favorite things to see is road racing in the rain. It's incredible to see drivers trying to find the limits of the track and cars.

It seems lately no race series want to race in the rain anymore. "Lightning in the area" seems to be the easy out. I'm not saying if there has been lightning in the area or not, but I've been at delayed races and have never seen lightning. This practice seems to be the norm over the past five years. Agree?

Ken, Lockport, NY

MP: So a group of unrelated racing series all became independently afraid of racing in the rain and all independently use the same cop-out of “lightning in the area.” Because fans couldn’t look at their weather apps and instantly debunk this if it were false?

And those series who issue those fake warnings… they just like screwing with their fans and creating fear and inconvenience by asking them to leave the stands and seek shelter… just for fun, right? Come on, man. Join us back in reality.

Sure, some series have more of a hair trigger with rain than others, but no, there’s no all-inclusive norm over the last five years.   

Q: My question (though potentially elementary) is about the role of spotters at the races. I understand the basics, that every driver is equipped with spotters located at various points of the tracks giving drivers valuable information about their immediate surroundings.

But these tracks are huge! There is no way that one spotter can see what’s going on at Turn 1 and Turn 3 at IMS from the same position. How many spotters does each driver have? Does that depend on the track they’re racing at? Are they the same spotters for every race? I imagine that’s got to be a tough challenge just to be able to listen to each and every spotter throughout the race, not to mention the voice of the strategists as well. How many voices do these drivers hear in their heads?

I’d love a little enlightenment on this. Thanks!

Scott Leming, Pendleton, IN

MP: Every team does not have a spotter or multiple spotters at every track. They’re a requirement on ovals, and the rest are optional. Spotters in Turn 1 and Turn 3 are mandatory at the 500. Drivers use the same primary spotter all season. Depending on the team structure, a team might have the race engineer and race strategist communicating with the driver along with the spotter(s).

Some teams have created the role of “car communicator” who is solely responsible for handling all chat from the timing stand to the driver to minimize the number of voices. Driving an IndyCar at 200mph while racing against 24 others is hard. Receiving input from a spotter is part of the job.

Q: I was wondering what your thoughts are on Scott Dixon being put on “gardening leave.” He is a great driver, and I don’t think it will have too much of an effect on him – at least, I hope it doesn’t. It seems that because he is going to Arrow Mclaren Chip Ganassi got his feelings hurt because of the two team’s rivalry.

I realize that it is probably part of a contract, but contracts are broken or bought out all the time in sports, and this seems kind of childish. So much for all the praise and the good send-off they gave Scott at the end of the season. I hope he has a great 2027 and beyond.

Steve, Millville, NJ

MP: Couple of things. Expecting someone who chooses to leave to honor their contract is childish? Said another way, the team’s most veteran driver opted to leave for one of the team’s two closest rivals, and Ganassi is supposed to make it as easy as possible? This isn’t playtime. They were sad to see him go, honored him on the way out, and would be doing themselves harm by letting him join the team one moment earlier than he was allowed.

If Lundgaard had a non-compete, I’m sure Arrow McLaren would have held him to it. This is a business. Fans focus on feelings and rivalries; I get that part. But championships are won and lost by people, so why on earth would the champions give a close rival an advantage by making one of the best people in IndyCar a head start at that rival?