Oilpressure

It’s hard to believe, but there was a time when teenagers held parties, where they sat around and played games. Those days even pre-date me. The parties I attended in high school in the mid-70s, usually consisted of a keg of beer iced down in a bathtub that was located in a classmate’s home, whose parents happened to be out of town for the weekend. Activities were limited to loud music, and consuming mass quantities of the aforementioned draught (now shortened to draft) beer. The only games we played consisted of the pursuit of members of the opposite sex. If successful, led to a whole new list of potential activities.

But if you’ve ever watched Leave it to Beaver, apparently there was a time in the late 50s and early 60s when teenagers attended chaperoned parties where G-Rated games were played. One of those games was called Telephone. The premise was to gather many people in a large circle. One person would start each round by whispering a phrase or a few sentences into another person’s ear. The phrase would continue around the circle until the last person repeated to the group what they thought they had heard. Invariably, it would be far different from what the original person had started. The idea was to show how things get twisted the more times a story is told.

This game always seemed stupid to me. If the exact same words made it completely around the circle, it would be correct but boring. If the phrase made it all the way around intact, do you think people cheered? No, it was a letdown. So people would purposely change things just to spice it up – which also defeats the purpose. In full disclosure, I have never played Telephone mainly because it seemed like a complete waste of time. I think our parties in the 70s were probably a lot more fun.

While the execution of Telephone was flawed, the idea behind it presented a hard truth about society. We all tend to exaggerate. And every time someone repeats a story, they put their own spin on it – just to make it sound a little more exciting. By the time a story has gone through several layers – it hardly resembles the truth. That happened this week in the racing world, and it only took me four entire paragraphs to get around to it.

This past Tuesday, Jenna Fryer of the Associated Press posted an article on McLaren’s interest in sports car racing and possible entry into either the International Motor Sports Association (IMSA), the World Endurance Championship (WEC) or both. It was an interesting article and I would suggest you take the time to read it. The problem is, it ballooned into a story that was actually a non-story.

What got everyone’s attention was one small paragraph in part: “(Zak) Brown wants to be in WEC in 2027 and in IMSA in 2028, and he’s reviewing McLaren’s current participation in both Formula E and IndyCar. Whether that means he scales back, the teams remain status quo or he drops one of both of those programs remains unclear.”

Those were Jenna Fryer’s words, not Zak Brown’s. They are fair words.

What I can tell, Brown is going to review all of McLaren’s racing programs to make sure these expansions make sense. As a businessman, he has to. Plus, this isn’t Dale Coyne deciding if we wants to put his own money into the No. 18 car or not. Zak Brown answers to a Board of Directors. A move like this requires careful planning and presenting the idea to the board, so that they can vote on it. To randomly expand into other racing series without analyzing everything thoroughly would be totally irresponsible.

With their Formula One team being their core racing business, Brown has to look at the other racing series McLaren is involved in. That’s the only prudent thing to do.

Brown never once said that we are going to scale back our IndyCar program. Jenna Fryer mentioned it in that paragraph, simply because there is always that possibility. If people don’t realize that, it’s because they choose to ignore that possibility.

But what do you think people took from her article? Zak Brown is going to shut down the Arrow McLaren IndyCar team, or drop a car or two at best.

IndyCar fans are bad about seeing a catchy headline of an internet article, but not actually reading the article. They read headlines and take it from there, or they see a paragraph like that and take one person’s speculation or thinking out loud, and take it as the gospel truth.

The past couple of days, I’ve seen tons of people on social media making offhand comments that Zak Brown said he is going to scale back their IndyCar program. More informed fans correct them, but that leads to an argument from fans claiming they saw a video of those words coming out of Zak Brown’s mouth.

Things got so bad that on Thursday, a Racer.com article appeared where McLaren insisted that any expansion was not going to come at the expense of their other racing programs. Jenna Fryer never said it would impact McLaren’s IndyCar program. She said it could. It was a fair point, and one that she shouldn’t have to apologize for (not that she would).

It is amazing how some fans can read an article and walk away with the point that was intended. Then other fans can read the exact same article and come away with a totally different take. The big problem is, they are the ones who are spreading the false take, and because it is more dramatic than “McLaren is going to expand into IMSA and WEC” It is much more dramatic sounding to say “McLaren is going to scale back or shut down their IndyCar team, so they can move to IMSA. Why did they just buy out Sam Schmidt if this is what they are going to do?” It’s exhausting.

It’s unfortunate that McLaren felt the need to put out a statement and get in front of this thing, but there is a lot more at stake besides fake news. Arrow McLaren sponsors get nervous when they hear false reports like this. It’s better to get out in front of it than to let it fester – even though it’s false.

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again…The best thing about the internet is that it gives a voice to those who previously did not have one. The worst thing about the internet is that it gives a voice to those who previously did not have one. But I’d better not complain too much. If it wasn’t for the internet, I wouldn’t have been behind this keyboard for the past sixteen years.

George Phillips

This entry was posted on January 31, 2025 at 4:04 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.