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Most fans lament the offseason, but this one has been one for the ages. Since the checkered flag fell at Laguna Seca in September, three IndyCar regulars – including a four-time champion and another, one of the most popular drivers in the series – have lost their rides and none of them show signs of being in a car on the grid at St. Petersburg in less than three months.

Marcus Ericsson and Pato O’Ward have new homes for 2020 and Oliver Askew has gotten the break of a lifetime for a true rookie. Conor Daly has gotten about as good of a part-time ride that you can get, but there are still seats to be filled at Coyne, Foyt and Carlin.

But the biggest story of this offseason or any offseason has to be the purchase of the NTT IndyCar Series, the Indianapolis Motor Speedway and IMS Productions by none other than Roger Penske. Any fears that IMS would end up in the hands of a corporate conglomerate were swept away by this move.

Needless to say, it’s been a very busy and exciting offseason. But it’s that time of year again, when most of the racing world is taking its annual Christmas break. Therefore, I will do the same.

Spanish driver Alex Palou was confirmed for the full season in a Dale Coyne car yesterday. I’m assuming he knows that the bulk of their talented engineering staff has left the team. Other than that bit of underwhelming news, I doubt that there will be any further driver announcements to comment on throughout the holidays, so I am going to close the lid of my keyboard for a couple of weeks and take a short break. This will be my last post of the year here, but I will return with batteries fully recharged on Monday January 6, 2020.

I toyed with the idea of starting back on Fri Jan 3, but then the bowl schedule was announced and my Tennessee Vols will be playing in the Gator Bowl on the evening of Thur Jan 2, and I knew I didn’t want to be pounding out a post that night, so I settled on a Jan 6 return.

Many of you will be interested to know what I am giving my wife Susan for Christmas. As some of you know, we were married in May of 2012 and went on a nice week-long honeymoon at Indian Rocks Beach, just south of Clearwater, Florida. In the seven and a half years since then, she has done a good job of letting everyone know that every vacation we have been on has involved going to a race track. While that sounds like a perfect vacation to me, it’s not her idea of paradise. Now don’t get me wrong – Susan has grown to love racing, but she would also like to do something else that doesn’t involve breathing ethanol fumes.

So just before Thanksgiving, I told her what her Christmas present was going to be – a Caribbean Cruise in February. Since she gets motion sickness and has never been on a cruise, we are experimenting with a short one at first (four nights), but I let her pick out the cruise line, the ship and the destination. We will be going to Cozumel on Royal Caribbean’s Independence of the Seas over President’s day weekend (also over Valentine’s Day). A side benefit of that ship that I was not aware of is that within the cruise industry – it is known as The Indy.

So for all of you who think I am a self-centered bloke, who thoughtlessly drags my good-sport of a wife from one race track to another – take that!

In all seriousness, we will both be ready for relaxing in some warm sunshine in February. It will be here sooner than you think. We leave only fifty-five days from today (Dec 20).

And with another year of blogging under my belt, I am ready to relax over the holidays and take off a couple of weeks from this site. When I start back in January of 2020, I will have posted across three decades on this site (I started in May of 2009). That’s hard to believe.

Susan and I both want to wish each of you a very Merry Christmas and a safe and Happy New Year. Thanks to each of you who continue to come here three times a week to read my ramblings.

I will close out the year as I usually do, with the Christmas card that Susan created a few years ago. You know me. I like traditions and this photo has become a tradition. I will see you on January 6th.

George and Susan Phillips

This entry was posted on December 20, 2019 at 4:03 am and is filed under IndyCar. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.