Oilpressure

Athletes can suffer the strangest injuries, away from their respective playing surface. Patriots wide-receiver Irving Fryar severely cut his hand, supposedly while fumbling around in a knife-drawer the week of the AFC Championship following the 1985 season, as his team was preparing to face the Miami Dolphins for a berth in Super Bowl XX. There was a cloud of suspicion surrounding the circumstances, and it was later determined he suffered the laceration in a domestic dispute with his pregnant wife. Regardless of how it happened, it caused Fryar to miss the game. The Patriots won the game without him, only to be trounced by the famous 1985 Chicago Bears.

In 2002 Broncos quarterback Brian Griese injured his ankle, tripping over his golden retriever. He was ultimately able to play the following Sunday, but caught a lot of razzing from his teammates. If that was not the truth, the real story never came out, but Griese was released at the end of the season.

It’s a pretty long list of goody incidents. Giants wide-receiver Plaxico Burress once shot himself in the leg and almost bled to death at a New York City nightclub. A Jags punter nearly chopped his foot off with an axe…in the Jaguar’s locker room. There have been multiple knee and ankle injuries resulting from elaborate touchdown celebrations , yet they continue.

The NTT IndyCar Series is not immune from such accidents away from the track.

In 2021, Rinus VeeKay was having a breakout season. He had won the GMR Grand Prix in only his second season of competition. He followed that up with a podium finish at Belle Isle and was beginning to be mentioned as a possibility for a top ride for the 2022 season. The week after Belle Isle, VeeKay was mountain-biking. He hit a tree rut at a strange angle, crashed and broke his collarbone.

The injury caused him to miss the next race at Road America. The crash also apparently affected his psyche, because even after he returned to the cockpit at Mid-Ohio, VeeKay was never the same. He became a late-season afterthought as he struggled for a best finish of sixteenth, after the injury. Those top-ride conversations also came to an abrupt halt, as many were questioning the Dutch driver’s maturity, or lack there-of. Fortunately for him, Ed Carpenter still believes in him – for now. It should be noted that VeeKay has only had one podium since the injury almost three years ago – a third at Barber in 2022.

This was a long lead-up to the latest off-track injury to creep up. Arrow McLaren driver, David Malukas, fractured his hand while mountain-biking this past weekend. Surgery for the fractured hand of Malukas was performed yesterday afternoon. All indications are that the surgery was a success, but now the healing process begins.

The timing (and judgment) is poor on the part of Malukas, with the start of the season less than four weeks away. It is still to be determined if Malukas will be able to drive at St. Petersburg or not, but it’s almost certain he will not be ready for a hybrid test on Feb 20, and a full-field test the following week at Sebring. Will Arrow McLaren rely on data from Malukas’ two teammates, Alexander Rossi and Pato O’Ward; or will they put someone new in the third car on the off-chance that Malukas will not be ready by St. Petersburg?

We’ve heard all kinds of names tossed out. Some are sentimental favorites, while others are much younger.

The first I heard of the Malukas incident was Monday night, when a friend texted me about it as if I already knew. I quickly went to Twitter and saw the news. He suggested Callum Ilott as a fill-in. That makes a lot of sense, and in fact – I can’t think of a single reason why he couldn’t serve as a fill-in. His WEC schedule doesn’t seem to conflict with testing or St. Petersburg.

Other names I’ve heard tossed about are Conor Daly, which also makes a lot of sense. Jack Harvey is a possibility, but I think he is going to be announced at Dale Coyne Racing, sometime soon. Both Daly and Harvey drove on non-ovals as recently as last season and are both known for giving engineers decent feedback from their experience.

Nathan Brown of The Indianapolis Star even threw out the name of Tony Kanaan, since he is already employed by Arrow McLaren as their Sporting Director, Brown mentioned Kanaan’s close association with the sponsor of the Malukas car – NTT Data – as another link to connect the dots. It may happen, but I doubt it. The only time I would still like to see Kanaan in an Indy car is at the Indianapolis 500.

One name I’ve not heard is Oliver Askew. I don’t know if there is a conflict with Askew’s Formula E duties, or if he is even still running that series. Askew was fired from Arrow McLaren before the end of the 2020 season, but was brought by McLaren in to sub for the injured Felix Rosenqvist in Race Two at Belle Isle in 2021; so that debunks any bad-blood theory. Askew was also brought in by Ed Carpenter to sub for the aforementioned Rinus VeeKay at Road America, after his mountain bike experience. Askew has not driven an IndyCar since the last three races of the 2021 season for Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing. But I’ve always thought he was given a raw deal by McLaren and was very underrated.

But if I’m making calls to drivers for Sebring and possibly St. Petersburg – I’m probably calling Ilott first and Daly second. Ilott is one of those drivers we always ask “How would he do in a top ride?” This would be a good chance to find out. We’ve seen Daly in Andretti equipment, and know he can produce; but I’m very curious to see how Ilott would do at McLaren.

I think we should know something sooner than later, regarding the prognosis for Malukas as well as who his possible replacement would be. I’m also betting that we are about to see the end of mountain-biking by drivers. Put that in the same category as motorcycle riding and parachuting as pastimes that are considered taboo.

Here’s wishing a speedy recovery for David Malukas. He’s a likeable driver who is now in a top car. This is not the way he wanted to start his career at McLaren.

George Phillips

This entry was posted on February 14, 2024 at 4:02 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.