St. Pete begins now! Excited to see my drivers Kirkwood, Daly, and Malukas get on with it. And also excited to see how Jacob Abel settles in, a driver I coached for a couple years in karts when he ran with us. Great kid and great family there, would love to see him do well.
Also curious to see how Prema stacks up. They have every ingredient to do well, but Indy is tough competition, not to be underestimated.
Here to watch as a fan - first time outside the 500 that I bought tickets to a race in a decade or two. 
Andy’s first race in IndyCar - performance engineer for Prema on the 83 - couldn’t miss it! 
Kirkwood was on rails. Didn’t even look that fast honestly.
Penskes looked fantastic through 1/2/3 - like they aren’t even trying that hard at all yet. Arrow guys are the opposite - look like rock stars in terms of excitement but just doesn’t show up much on the time chart.
The option tires are going to be wild - come in fast and sticky and also go away quickly too. Should be pedal down and three stops hopefully!
Turns 3 & 10 look even skinnier than normal somehow. Going to be some carnage…
Sleepers? ECR - both cars looked solid.
Bummers - Foyt cars just don’t look the same without Cannon there. Hopefully that changes though - kinda fun when Santino is in the mix & causing headaches… and gotta pull for a Malukus comeback this year.
Agreed on all fronts Dan, enjoy!
And tell Andy good luck!
It’s that time of year! Official 500 practice is live. Not too much drama yet. Happy to see my guys (Daly, Malukas, Kirkwood) near the top 10 so far.
Working on Kirkwood’s and Malukas’s helmets for next week… Nothing like cutting it close! Always strange to see the cars out on track while I’m here working on their helmets.
That is crazy! I would have thought the helmet was used the whole month! Do you make those guys separate early-May helmets too?
In an ideal world they would be used all month… But some drivers are more proactive about approving their designs than others. 
Daly’s was done a couple months ago because he had a great theme and concept to me already in February. The other two guys weren’t able to get the designs approved until last week. Sponsors, team requirements, etc. can all change literally up until the week of the race, so sometimes it gets very tight on timing.
Usually I’ll do 1 or 2 for them to start the year, which gets them through March. And then after that I am trying to get all 500 things done BEFORE May, but usually it doesn’t work out that nice.
Have been out here covering the first couple days for TrackSide Online (TSO) - a gig I did for a bunch of years until karting took over life, hobbies and free time… lol
The big dogs aren’t playing around. I can’t see Newgarden or Palou not winning - they are just a quantum leap ahead. Dixon, Power and McLaughlin are close but not quite in the same realm.
A lot of good second tier possibilities and anyone of maybe 15 could roll the dice on strategy or track position and shock the world.
Andretti has been MIA until you look on the No-Tow list and realize they have been pretty
deliberate in their approach and not just burning it all down. Kirkwood looks
Schwartzman and Prema came alive today. Again, if you watch the process and procedures on the 83 car in particular - there is purpose to their plan. Illot is looking better but maybe a tick behind their teammate.
Palou season for the taking. I think he is a great driver but I think some of them teams are just showing up miles away from him for some reason. I ready for the hybrids to be gone and replace it with twin turbo alternative fuel.
I agree that indy 500 it’s going to be dominated by one team and a lead follow session, unless crashes come into the mix.
Marco’s last Indy 500? AA has the talented drivers, but for some reason can never connect all the dots like Penske and CGR.
The TV coverage in my opinion has been terrible, I think Fox needs to step it up. The announcement of a App can be good if it is affordable. However I am fine with a combo of youtube and antenna.
Wut? Tell Me more! Unfamiliar with this.
Also, I’ll be at Pitt soon for the 6hrs! I’ll try to track you down.
They’re talking about 30-40mph gusts of wind on Saturday for qualifying… 
That could be an insanely difficult day.
It’s definitely windy at the Speedway already, can really tell on the balcony of the 4th floor in the media center. I can see that being a big problem for Shwartzman coming in with no experience on the slowest team.
I’d really be worried if I were Ferrucci though, he has not looked fast at all yet. Supposedly they swapped to the road course chassis, that’s how bad their speedway car was.
Yeah Santino seems to be hating life this week. Even after they “fixed” the setup and swapped cars, he went out, felt better but as soon as they turned up the wick and he got in traffic it was sketchy and he came right back in.
Lots of teams are struggling to find the right balance with the extra hybrid system weight on the rear. Kanaan was talking about how usually they set the car up to turn in and float through the corner, but with the hybrid weight they are having to set the car up for more understeer at apex and exit otherwise the extra hybrid weight is too much of a pendulum on entry and the car is scary loose at turn-in. Rahal, Santino, and lots of others were complaining about that exact issue. Combine that with the potential gusts and these cars are going to be dancing on a very fine line…
The hybrid strategy and how they are deploying that energy through the lap and through the four quali laps is super interesting too.
Have they been talking about the hybrid strategy for qualifying on the broadcast? I can’t hear it from the media center TVs so I have generally no idea what they’re talking about.
Thinking about it now, I’m not sure how strategy would work for quali. Could try regen through the corners to deploy on the exit? I have no idea
Some are using it in big bursts, some are trickling it through the whole run. They’ve been talking about the different approaches.
Seems like you can use more near the end of your quali run to offset the tire deg and keep speed up on the final lap.
Penske seems to be using a little every lap. Daly did similar but saved some for a big run on the last lap. Some tried to burn it all early and then regen for another boost at the end.
Lots of different philosophies and I love the extra strategy it’s offering for qualifying especially.
IndyCar subscription coverage - we started it probably 25 years ago and it’s still going strong. I bowed out when I took over the karting program at Pitt way back when. Or should I say when karting took over my life… 
Fun to go back and click the keyboard a little in haste again!
When are you in town?!? Will definitely buy you a beverage. See if we can get you out in a proper kart too!
It’s been winds straight out of the south too - going to be insane T3 Trap Speeds with that kind of wind. Today was moderately windy (under 10mph) and Newgarden tripped that gate at 238+ today without the boost turned up. Delta between T1 and T3 was 4-6mph. Just one more thing to process in qual trim after the bars, jacker, hybrid regen/deploy, 5/6 gear changes and going nearly 240 in to corners…. Yikes!
Yeah that’s been fun for sure! Today there was more playing with the options with the track clearing up at times and allowing for legit sim runs.
Most consistently rewarding move seemed to be a full deploy crossing the line on the last lap or exiting 3 on the last two laps. Malukus and Power both were rewarded with going as fast or quicker on the last lap where Josef on dead opposite strategy of using it early and often, along with regen during the run, threw a bomb on the opening lap but fell off a mph by the end.
Good stuff and a fun twist!
At my house the Fox INDYCAR video quality is terrible.
This sounds interesting. Did they implement this this year? What do I need to tune into to see what you guys are talking about? Youtube link?
Better not get a tire on the paint… hope everyone emerges unscathed…