Fans of the NTT IndyCar Series always like to play the “what if” game. What if Greg Moore had not been fatally injured at the end of the 1999 season, and had gone on to drive for Marlboro Team Penske in 2000? Would he have won the championship instead of Gil de Ferran? Would Helio Castroneves have become a four-time winner of the Indianapolis 500? What if Rick Mears had not retired after the 1992 season? Would he have won the 1993 Indianapolis 500, instead of his Penske teammate Emerson Fittipaldi and become a five-time winner of the Indianapolis 500?
Archive for March, 2024
The Biggest Surprise of the Early Season
Posted in IndyCar on March 27, 2024 by OilpressureRandom Thoughts on The Thermal Club
Posted in IndyCar on March 25, 2024 by Oilpressure
In a post last week, I praised former IndyCar CEO Randy Bernard for trying new things to see what worked. Some of them did, some didn’t. It would be inconsistent of me to chastise IndyCar, as so many have, for trying something new and different this past weekend with The Thermal Million Dollar Challenge. Did it work? You decide.
Thermal Preview
Posted in IndyCar on March 22, 2024 by Oilpressure
The operative phrase for this weekend’s $1 Million Challenge at The Thermal Club near Palm Springs probably should be The Great Unknown. No one really knows what to expect, in what is essentially a made-for-TV event.
The Luxury of Hindsight
Posted in IndyCar on March 20, 2024 by Oilpressure
Based off of what I’ve seen on social media over the past week, this has the potential to be a very unpopular (and long) post. Those of you that have been longtime readers of this site will not be surprised by my stance on this topic. My stance has not changed over the years, but newer readers may be a little surprised by my take. I don’t consider my stance to be controversial, but in this day and age – who knows?
A Lesson to be Learned by All
Posted in IndyCar on March 18, 2024 by Oilpressure
David Malukas has had a nightmarish start to his career at Arrow McLaren. His cycling crash in the offseason that required surgery t his left hand prevented him from driving in the season-opener at St. Petersburg. Before the opener, we learned that he would miss today’s scheduled test at Barber, as well as this weekend’s non-points exhibition race at The Thermal Club.
The Freedom to Choose
Posted in IndyCar on March 15, 2024 by Oilpressure
I was reading through Marshall Pruett’s Mailbag on Racer.com the other night. It appears that most fans were in agreement that last weekend’s season-opening race at St. Petersburg was a bit of a dud. Some fear that this is a sign of things to come this season – at least until the series goes hybrid sometime this summer.
Get Your Popcorn Ready!
Posted in IndyCar on March 13, 2024 by Oilpressure
Fans of the NTT IndyCar Series have been expressing their discontent with several things about the series for a while now. Things seemed to bubble over last fall, when there was nothing but one bad news story after another with nothing positive inserted for balance. There was yet another delay with the hybrid engines, the video game that had been on the drawing board for a couple of years was suddenly scratched. Texas Motor Speedway was off of the schedule for the first time since 1996 and so on. IndyCar fans love to complain, even when there is nothing to complain about. They had their pick when deciding what to complain about last fall.
Oilpressure 