The RACER Mailbag, March 26

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: Don’t want NASCAR. Just want competence. FOX failed us. Too much to ask for IndyCar, apparently. Richard Dulany MARSHALL PRUETT: A first-time problem with a blown circuit breaker, one that took 21 minutes of racing away, is being treated like the biggest failure imaginable by some who I can only assume live in a world of perfection where they never make mistakes or are subject to misfortune. It happened. It was bad. But nobody died. This wasn’t a hospital that lost power and went dark in the middle of a surgery. We didn’t get to see 21 minutes of a damn boring stretch of the race. If anything, the timing of the problem made the race better since some of the nothingness wasn’t aired. Pato led, and kept leading. If it happens again this year, yes, there will be some serious questions to raise about competence, and one or more people will probably be relieved from their jobs. For now, let’s get back to real life and call the Thermal dropout what it was: an aberration. Q: Darn it FOX! You screwed up a really good racing event with your technical problems. Maybe I’m in the minority, but I like the Thermal track, though it could use some safety barriers in certain areas of the track, and some grandstands. It could use some other support races like the Trans Am Series and International GT Series. Alex Palou is on a different level and I was hoping for a historical moment with Pato O’Ward and Christian Lungaard having aa historic Arrow McLaren 1-2. But Palou reminded me of Alex Zanardi when he dominated the series from 1997-98. I’m wondering if he’ll end up in F1, especially if Liam Lawson struggles with Red Bull Racing? Alistair MP: Alex certainly deserves a look from F1 teams, but it’s hard to make the argument that the perfect fit to replace a young driver with a decent amount of F1 experience who’s struggling is with a young driver with far less F1 experience. And pitting him against the best driver in F1 who’s crushed every teammate he’s had, barring Daniel Ricciardo, who killed his own career by leaving for Renault. Palou is amazingly talented, and would be a steadier operator, but the team wants instant speed and effectiveness, which wouldn’t be something Alex should be expected to summon. Given two guaranteed years? Yes. In this situation? Stay the hell away. Oh, he’s also under contract to Chip Ganassi Racing, which has sold all of its sponsors for the 10 car on Alex being its driver. So there’s that minor obstacle. Q: Not sure if this was a FOX coverage thing or what. I noticed during Sunday’s race at Thermal that the track edge kept changing from light blue to red? Just curious as to what I was seeing. Thanks for any insight! Hisham Bate, Indy MP: The curb is painted different colors in different areas. Q: I know you are going to get a ton of letters regarding the FOX broadcast. I get that technical issues can happen, resulting in the broadcast feed getting lost. However, FOX switched to the NASCAR broadcast from Homestead, but the ticker at the bottom stated the NASCAR race was at Martinsville. Oops. That just leads me to the point that FOX still has work to do on its graphics. When Palou caught O’Ward with 10 to go, the broadcast tags/flags showed Pato in first and Palou (right on his bumper) in third. FOX tried it again, but again Palou was listed as third. Those positions listed on the flag graphics disappeared. I can see they have not done anything about covering up the sponsor logos on the cockpit hoop for the in-car feeds. Sponsors are going to be pissed, and it puts the team owners in a really bad spot. Social media was busy Saturday with the broadcast graphics mistakes. McLaughlin in the No. 3 had Sting Ray’s cartoon face, among other issues. I’m not trying to pick on FOX, but these are broadcast basics in the year 2025. Once, can be forgiven, but not two races in a row. The technology and knowledge is there. Heck, they’ve broadcast NASCAR for years and years. It’s not a good look. On the positive side, the warmup show is great and needs to continue. John Balestrieri, Waukesha, WI MP: Definite grace period given during and after the first race with the graphics, and the widespread issues in simply delivering the graphics to the international audience. But it was clear that three weeks wasn’t enough time to get the majority of the problems solved, and in fact, some new ones emerged (Sting Ray McLaughlin was amazing). Where the blown circuit breaker was a fluke thing that didn’t warrant the hysteria that followed, there’s some serious quality control issues for FOX to address with its graphics and presentation. I heard from international fans on Friday and Saturday who were blown away by the 10 steps back FOX took from St. Pete to Thermal, with wrong feeds being shown, missing graphics, and mismatched audio — the booth talking about one thing and the footage of something entirely different being displayed. Most of that was cleaned up by the race, I’m told, but the shocker here is this isn’t a case of FOX taking its first crack at broadcasting a brand-new sport. This is the same network that airs NASCAR, the NHRA, and has had F1, American sports cars, and Le Mans as staples within the last decade. Why, exactly, it’s now missing so many of the basics on the domestic and international IndyCar feeds is a head-scratcher, for sure. This has nothing to do with lacking passion or excitement or talent. This is, as former IndyCar president (and college football player) Jay Frye likes to say, failing to execute the simple stuff like blocking and tackling.