The RACER Mailbag, November 11

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: Who buys Andretti if what looks like a continued sale of the TWG portfolio continues? 

Matt

MARSHALL PRUETT: Tony George. Vision Racing reunites. AJ Foyt IV returns!  

Q: Who do you think might be interested in purchasing Andretti Global? Cindric? Cusick? Abel? HMD?

Steve

MP: Cindric can’t afford it. Cusick can’t afford it. Abel… can afford it. So can Malukas.

I asked one smart team owner to give me their estimate of what a complete purchase of the three-car Andretti Global team might cost, and he estimated somewhere between $100-$120 million. That surprised me, and who knows, the number could be high, but it starts with the value of each charter. I asked another business-savvy owner and he thought $60 million was closer to reality. My guess was $60 million as well, but as a multi-hundredaire, what the hell do I know?

The RLL charter sold to DRR is rumored to have gone for $12-13 million, and that’s the first and only sale so far. Buying charters from a true front-running team like TWG/Andretti would be expected to come at a premium thanks to finishing P2, P7 and P11 last season. That might put the charters in the $15-20 million range apiece, so that would account for $45-60 million alone.

And that’s where we’ll wind this down because there are more questions than answers to consider.

Would an Abel or Malukas want to buy one or more charters? Would TWG want to sell them individually or as a whole? Who would Penske Entertainment approve to buy the charters, since it truly owns them and controls all sales? Since Abel and Malukas already have their own teams, shops, and plenty of equipment, would they see any reason to try and buy everything from Andretti, or just the charters?

Would TWG allow the charters and the rest of their Andretti assets to be broken down and sold individually, or would TWG – or Penske – push for a complete sale, a takeover, where a new owner/investor group took on the team and continued running it as-is? So many angles to consider.

If Andretti's selling, who's buying? Perry Nelson/Getty Images

Q: Wow! ECR is getting a DIL. Good for them! It's a brilliant move. We have the new car coming in 2028, and I would think that it will take most of 2027 for ECR to get their DIL installed, up and running, debugged, and correlations developed. Acquiring a DIL now provides a great advantage looking forward to the IR-28. Again, brilliant move.

Which brings me to Chip Ganassi Racing. After losing a lot of engineering talent recently to Arrow McLaren, and now with teams like ECR upping their game, it looks like 2027 is going to be an uphill battle for CGR. Your thoughts?

John, Ohioville, PA

MP: Yes. Wrote a whole column about the big changes and challenges facing CGR with all of those changes.

Q: Corvette Racing has been a very successful program over the years, not just because of the many talented drivers, crew and engineers over the years, but also because of the leadership from Doug Fehan. I do hope he's enjoying his retirement, and he is probably missed in the Corvette camp. 

I get the sense he was like a coach in any stick and ball sport who gives a pregame speech to pump his players up before a game. A favorite quote I've heard from him whenever something doesn't go Corvette's way, is "you need 25% good car, 25% good team, and 50% good fortune, and we didn't have that 50% good fortune." That, in my mind, is a mark of a great leader – being able to shrug off and say "stuff happens." 

Do you have any favorite stories or quotes from Doug?

Brandon Karsten

MP: We still get to see Doug at IMSA races on occasion. Fehan remains one of my all-time favorites to interview and simply chat with about life and racing. He was a favorite ‘sanity check’ person on whatever topic where I’d get his private take on something to help frame it from a perspective that I trusted, and vice versa.

Personal favorites--we did a series of videos together (here, here, here and here) at Le Mans in 2013 that were fun and classic Doug; insightful, relatable, and all off the top of his head.  

Q: Can you tell us about Rick Rinaman? I can remember hearing about him on the radio or TV. 

Daniel Martins, Belo Horizonte, Brazil

MP: Indy 500-winning crew chief for Roger Penske who succeeded in every aspect of IndyCar. Classic Team Penske type. Hard working. Few words. Head down. Focused. Perfectionist. Drank a lot of milk at the Speedway with Helio and Emmo. Renowned for his efficiency and consistency on pit lane. Versatile as well; held many jobs. Saw him recently when Penske’s run vintage Indy cars at the Speedway. Mentor to the team’s younger crew members. Pure legend.