Im a indy native. Lived hear my whole life. Qualifying and bump day are almost more of a tradition than the race itself. Guaranteeing starters in the Indy 500 is the most un-Indy 500 thing ever.

If Jim Clark wasn’t above basic IndyCar training, no one is, even Max.

You were right about 40+ cars trying to qualify in the good old days. There were years when there were 50-60 driver/car combos. In fact Pole Day used to have 150k people in attendance.

IndyCar has THE perfect opportunity to make itself more appealing, given the current ills befalling Formula One. Messing with the showpiece event like this is so not the way to do it.

I feel like Indycar behind the scenes is a mess right now under Penske ownership, especially after postponing the hybrid engines to potentially adopting a NASCAR style charter system for the Indy 500. Bump day is what made Indy 500 qualifying exciting, where any driver has a shot of qualifying or being narrowly bumped out like Fernando Alonso in 2019 when he failed to qualify for the 500.

I think Indycar as a series needs changes, but bump day on Indy is so great. Fernando failing to qualify wasn't a shocker to me. Ovals are a completely different skill. You have to hit marks the width of 1 sheet of paper just to eek out an extra tenth of a mph.

My buddy Mike Reggio was Engineer on that Juncos car. Their original car was a brand new Indy only special. It was fast. No danger of being bumped. When Kyle crashed it, there is a TV image of Mike hanging his head knowing how F'ed they were. They had to build up their road course car which was a shitbox to oval spec in those 72 hours. They didn't think there was any chance of it being fast enough.

Charters and Guaranteed Spots are garbage. It’s bad in NASCAR. It’s bad in IndyCar. It’s bad for racing in terms of competition. This is like the 25/8 rule all over again.

Indy car marketing is so bad that it hasn't been on my radar since probably before the pandemic and I used to love watching the CART world series at the turn of the millennium.

Approx 70% of the NASCAR TV money goes to the track owners. NASCAR owns about 50% of the tracks. The charter holders (teams) want a bigger slice of the pie - hence, not signed. The teams have hired a hot shot anti-trust (monopoly) attorney vs NASCAR claiming, We can't compete with this pitiful amount of prize money. Stay Tuned.

There’s so much more natural rivalries and excitement in general in IndyCar races, I haven’t watched Drive to Survive yet but I bet a tv series could help out

Open wheel convergence is on its way. Until then Indycar is going to be throwing a lot of SH** at the wall and seeing what sticks. Chassis and engine competition is so huge right now. More manufacturers more money and more fan attention. HPD and Ferrari have already worked out a portion of this convergence. They are using very similar engines in two different racing series.( Indycar, GT3 and Hypercar). Indycar being a spec series was just a cost saving tool until a better solution presents itself.

Watched the highlights reel for nascars Las Vegas race, the grandstands were maybe 1/3 full.

Penske needs to sell to Liberty, or Trackhouse. I am their (Indy Car) largest demographic, 61 years old . I could care less about the series anymore, I have gone to WEC and IMSA. Penske and Miles do not have a clue, this series needs new blood, way younger blood. My opinion , but Roger wanted was the Speedway, the series was thrown in, kind of like buying a used car and getting free stuff left in the trunk. Look at the coverage at Laguna Seca when the Herta family drove a 25 year old CART car, I was more excited to watch that, then the race that occurred the following day.

The nascar teams want to re up the charter agreement. It’s nascar that refuses to even show up to meetings and negotiations. The teams have now hired an anti trust lawyer

I hope that there will only be one guaranteed car per team...so that both sides can be happy. Every charter-team has a spot, but the majority of the drivers have to qualify like always

I think the upcoming Dan Wheldon documentary on HBO has the opportunity to do a lot of good.

The unfortunate thing is, the racing in IndyCar is so much better than F1 that it might as well not even be the same type of sport. It’s just the advertising and social media that’s woeful.

I would love if they got more America in american racing tho. Driving in mexico, brasil, argentina, canada. Once in a while. I loved the motegi circuit races. I hope they get the new regulations soon. And yes the social media is shit. I used to watch all the races here in argentina. And now i only know they race when its May ofc.

When it comes to the situation regarding NASCAR's charters, I think the teams will likely go to the CARS Tour if a new deal can't be reached. This is because of the fact that the CARS Tour is owned by former NASCAR drivers Kevin Harvick, Jeff Burton & the biggest one of all Dale Jr along with a current NASCAR team in Trackhouse (in which Pitbull has an ownership stake). I could see a situation in which Trackhouse tells the other teams in NASCAR to reject the charter & defect to the CARS Tour very similar to how golfers left the PGA Tour to join LIV Golf a few years ago. The CARS Tour would likely get a major spike in popularity if this happened & the sponsorship & TV money would follow the teams. However when it comes to the schedule, the CARS Tour would likely have to use tracks already on its schedule (many of which would need upgrades to accommodate a larger grid) or go to tracks that are not owned by NASCAR because there is no way that NASCAR would allow a rival series to use its facilities.

It's interesting that all the other big time racing series have gone to the charter/franchise model which was basically originated by Tony George with the 25/8 rule, and he was raked over the coals for that. As for bump day, I know Alonso and some years ago all the Penske teams being shut out and also (often forgotten) Bobby Rahal, as defending series champion, being bumped, but I don't really think this new system will make that much of a difference. I'm old, so I remember when Indy qualifying and bumping used to draw over 100,000 fans for the event. Just look at an old Indy highlights film from the 70's and the grandstands were packed. Recent years when I watched, there was barely anyone there besides the teams and TV commentators. Those old days ain't coming back as much as we wish they would, and if you have 8 or 9 spots still open to outside qualifiers that's still a good number spots to shoot for. Basically a quarter of the field.

The charter system is going to happen is because the financial model works for the teams. The issue is tradition at the 500 and the 33 fastest. The teams can't sell sponsors on the spectre they cant make the largest race by far. The sponsors of a car that gets bumped tend not to like it. The days of the 20 or 30 plucky underdogs fighting for a spot on the grid are gone. Most years, there is 34 or 35 entries and bump day has drama but not like days of old. I dont want to see it go, but I do know the economics of racing are radically different now. The charter system gives value to being there all season. However the one race that drives sponsors isn't guaranteed as it stands. Tradition or business?

Let's compare the Daytona 500 Qualifiers with charters to it without Charters: 2007: No charters, 61 drivers entered, even Big money teams missing the show (Red Bull, MWR). 2017: Charters, 42 drivers entered, one of Premium Motorsports cars and Carl Long's #66 DNQ'd. Excitement.

Fun fact locally it was noted 2 days before the auto sport article that the guaranteed spots in the 500 were no longer on the table. So I don't know why auto sport published this

I'd imagine what will happen will be what always happens in IndyCar now. Roger Penske wants charters and guaranteed Indy 500 starting spots, so that's what will happen.

Aidan, I really appreciate you commenting on this. I think your opinion about clinging to the past ways is very true. I think a lot older fans ridicule the guarantee because it's part of what fractured CART and IRL. But I really think many older fans have this nostalgic dream or feeling that anyone can enter the Indy 500. They just want that dream to live on, even if it's bullshit because the reality is that even if the person off the street attempted to be an entrant for the Indy 500, they would need to jump through a series of financial hoops like engine, and tyre leases, as well as purchasing the car. There's no financial shortcut, it takes an army of investors and at least entire year of planning just to enter the Indy 500. I'm not even talking about qualifying. But many of these knucklehead fans who worship the bump day don't even realize how impractical it would be for a person off the streets to buy into everything they need to enter, only to discover they wasted their money and their investors time because they couldn't qualify. The financial risk is painfully real, but these knucklehead fans think 'so be it'. By the way I'm in my 50s and gone to the last 18 Indy 500s. I have never been to bump day qualifying. I'm sure it's entertaining in its own right, but I personally feel nothing but sympathy for the financial loss of anyone who doesn't make the 33. I am perfectly okay with the guarantee as I would've rather Graham Rahal drove his own (slow) car from the 33rd spot. I also welcome the charter, but think it should be setup as team membership, not individual cars like current leaders circle payout to the top 22 cars. The latter system was designed to fill up the grid. Lastly I would recommend Indycar create a team championship with mandate of 3 cars per team before they initiate any team charter system. Having team championship would bring more validation to establishing a charter.

Ford will not return to Indycar anytime soon. They wanted to come in during 3.5L V8 era but because they were the sole engine supplier and sponsor of Champcar at the time, Tony George told them no. The Ford family said that's fine, you'll never see us again. Roger would need to put in some series time and effort to change the Ford family's mind and he has shown he doesn't want to do that lately. Between needing to mend fences with Honda and Chevy just being a badge on an Ilmor (i.e. Penske owned company) product, I can see Indycar being truly spec long before we end up with more than two engine manufactures. As for the charters, there's no good answer. For them to be worth anything they need to include the 500, but if you do that then you have given up on the 500 being the fastest 33. Not that it hasn't already been different from that in the recent past. Anyone remember when it was the fastest 35 because Tony felt bad AFTER bump day? Those were insane times. If a charter doesn't include the 500 then the return for one won't get you a meal from the Wendy's across the street. They are truly in a no win situation between the teams, fans, and their own interest.

I don't mind Indycar using a charter system, but that system should _not_ guarantee a spot in the Indy 500.

I find this charter system even more stupid than the 25/8 rule. 25/8 was created so that the irl teams won't be bumped in favor of the cart teams, on the other hand this charter system is supposed to be created because of... uhhh... to be like nascar I guess. It's the only logical (and still stupid) reason I can think of why they are proposing this.

9:24 And an exhibition race at a private, country club circuit where only the homeowners in this country club and fans willing to spend thousands and thousands to watch this race in person. And the race will be behind a paywall on a streaming channel too.

Bots are at it again...

Penske ownership has been a complete dissappointment with little hope that it will get better. I hope I'm wrong this isn't something I want to be right about. But I don't have confidence at all with Penske

Just to let you know Aiden, I appreciate your little comments in the small print of your photo images. Lol

Some more explanation from the nascar side: the teams want the charter agreement to become permanent, rn its not. They want a bigger split of the revenue from the tv deal, right now a disproportionate amount goes to the tracks( alot of which are owned by nascar), and nascar themselves. Cost cutting measures, and a bigger presence in nascars decision making. All of this has been going on for more than a yr now, and negotiations have stalled since nascar will only meet with teams one on one, and the teams have said they will only negotiate together.

Using the Indy500 to prop up the value of an IndyCar team (making it the basis of a charter) is a huge mistake. Smells like the Indy Racing League.

If I didn't think the IndyCar series was in imminent danger of collapse, I would generally be more upset by this. The way Graham Rahal got bumped last year was very high drama that aided the fan experience, but it was also a major disaster for all of his sponsors. And the teams in IndyCar are having a really hard time keeping those sponsors around. I don't like it for the show, but I get it for the sport. If IndyCar survives into the next decade, I'll be surprised. But if it does, it will be because the big teams are taken care of.

i know not related but what's your thoughts on the Alpine thing and the hole Jos vs Christian

The one thing about the 25/8 rule you missed was the way the schedules were structured initially, CART teams could’ve run the full IRL schedule and gotten those guaranteed slots, but CART last minute added races like the US 500. The guaranteed slots weren’t implemented just to lock CART teams out they were implemented to try and get them in at the expense of the CART sanctioning body.

You mentioned Alonso's bump from the 500 despite being a Le Mans winner, but the thing was... He entered Le Mans after Toyota's fiercest competition had left the series, and WEC bent over backwards to accommodate him by messing with their schedule and allegedly sandbagging smalltime LMP1 teams at Toyota's behest. I'm actually more for the charters than against them, but I think Alonso's bump illustrates how much longer a shot the 500 is than Le Mans for an F1 veteran, as well as how much less IC meddled with him entering than WEC.

At some point, we fans just have to face up to the fact that we just can't have our sport without the spectre of the money it takes to participate. As much as I'd like it that corporate America would be so keen as to make the expenses a team faces a non-issue (as in the days of yore, because it wasn't cheap then either!) that simply isn't going to happen anytime soon. So today's reality is that teams need the assurance that they can reap the rewards of the biggest race of the year. So, yeah, it sucks balls but there it is and I don't know what to call it all other than necessary.

I was there for bump day I. 2019. That moment was better then the whole race. I don't like this 24/9 rule. Now if they reduced it to say 12 and 21. Top 12 in points and the rest still have to qualify for the 500, I don't mind it. It will add storyline leading up to indy. Imagine the talk around that top 12 at the indy gp.

I swear every racing series in the world is trying to reduce their car counts and by extension, interest in their respective racing series. And don't give me the "less cars but higher quality" argument because that is total poppycock.

INDYCAR has the show 100 Days to Indy. It’s on the American CW network (which is most famous for shows like Arrow and Riverdale). The logic of sticking it there according to the people involved is they wanted to explicitly target a network with young demographics because the Indy fanbase skews too old and they are trying to look to the future. The network execs were satisfied enough with ratings to renew it and the producers enough to keep going, so here’s hoping they can recruit some new blood with it.

Still my favourite channel

Hey, a fellow motorsport Trekkie! LLAP!

The money talk kinda reminds me of the 2010,11,12 when they tried to get more viewers in. The one million dollar challenge at Las Vegas in 2011 the entire week was getting ad time, spreading the word, all week up close and personal with the teams & drivers. Then the race happened. Needs a marketing strategy & group to push the brand more than Penseke being an owner who runs a team. A Netflix series on IndyCar, about the series the 500, especially the 500 will be a hit

usac in the old days not only ran the 500 they had the whole championship or champ car trail that had both paved and big dirt tracks and those brave men and ladies also did the pikes peak hill climb as part of the trail, though they split the big dirt track division in 71 and called it silver crown that they still have to this day, cars that harken back to the front engine roadsters and coffin nose openwheel cars since the start of raceing in the usa, racing on fairground tracks usually of a mile in length just like the one a few minutes up the road at the state fair where they did indeed run till 2020 when the fair board decided haveing a place for harness horse training was more importent then auto racing tradition, though that was the track where the first sub minute mile was reached in 1903 and it was watching a race there that the founders of the brickyard got the idea to build a racetrack but origionaly was to be more of a roadcourse for highspeed car testing around 5 miles till they settled on the 2.5 mile oval. a charter systom I would not much like, should be pay for the dues you have the right kind of car and the fastest get to race, the indy 500 is the thing of ledgends and is held at the largest permenent seating capacity venue in the world, its unlike any other auto racing even in the world, and while it might not be everyones cup of tea, the cars reach some of the fastest speeds in all of motorsports, only thing really faster is drag cars. 237 mph as a record thats hauling and they race without power steering, its a feat of engineering and endurance with little margin for error.

Regards the drive to survive element there is the new “100 days to Indy” that is on paramount+ but it’s not been very well marketed… much like indycar. I’ve watched the series and it was quite good but needs to be more in depth

I hope, just for the banter, Penske doesn't give Andretti a guaranteed slot. It would be hilarious.

Thanks for the indycar coverage. Do more if you can. KZfaqrs can perhaps make up for some of the poor marketing from indycar itself. Getting the series to be talked about. They have great racing most of the time, too bad more people don't get to experience it.

I grew up in Indianapolis and have seen all the BS with the 500. Thought Rodger's ownership would open the series to more participation. It's a spec. series so let anyone that can buy a car get a chance to race it. The best scenario would see Edd Carpenter bump Max from the race.

To put it simply, they want an exclusive club and if you ain't on the list, you ain't coming in, ever! A bit like F1 at the moment regarding Andretti/Cadillac.

Like in 2021 when Will Power, a Penske driver, qualified on the last row. That was a story.

As we‘re not around F1 right now: watching the Asian Le Mans Series recently I noticed Rich Is back as a sponsor! Yeeeah, the energy drink…

the band analogy was very good. for that it instantly made me think of ANVIL

40 sounds unreasonable but 39 actually would make sense if a third supplier was found since even in a worst case scenario you still have 7 entries.

Oval racing is basically freeway racing, which naturally belongs to stock cars. Indy car may never be able to overcome this with vmax being around 200 mph across most series. The Indy 500 is the one exception to all of this.

American here, someone fill me in on the Rover 25

This May will be my 48th consecutive Indy 500. If they pass "25/8 2.0", it'll be my last.

The last charter talks, the wanted to owners to pay 1 million dollars. But all the owners said no. The owners have been spending money support Indy car for 20 to 30 years. They are not going to want to pat a dime.😂😂😂😂😂😂

10:50 You described the Indycar reddit page perfectly.

imo if they need it that bad have it only one car per team guaranteed, harder to throw in new guys for that spot too.

2.2k!! Come on people!!

Cummings is an engine supplier. The guy said to name another engine supplier...

As I wrote under another video, I would only guarantee the top 25 teams in the championship the points, but not a place in the race. Teams and drivers who only drive the Indy 500 are then, similar to NASCAR, not eligible to score championship points. If a championship team fails to qualify for the Indy 500, it will at least receive some points even not starting the race.

A Charter is a bad idea. It failed with the IRL. It was horrible and ruined the 500.

I think Indycar should dump all this hybrid drivel and copy the Super GT and Super Formula engines. Even better if they can share cars with the Super Formula series too; I heard something about them looking into that a few years ago, but it never seemed to happen.

Hi Aidan, you should consider doing a story time on Indycars current engine regulations beginnings. In 2021 it was Chevy, Honda, and Lotus. The lotus engines were abysmal. So bad most teams switched away before the Indy 500, and the program was basically dead by the end of the year.

Certaily going to be interesting to see what happens

On one hand, tradition is very important to motorsport fans, on the other hand, bump day has been dying when only 1 or 2 cars go home, and why should some part timer with a piece of crap car bump a full-time driver who is actually racing for the championship!? As long as IndyCar doesn't add green-white-checkers and playoffs and stages I could accept guaranteed starting spots, but it should only be for the top 22 in points, no more than the 25/8 rule.

Gone backwards since the reunion

I’d like you to do a video on Lella Lombardi please Aidan, F1’s best female driver

As annoying as it is to see a bunch of goobers in Red Bull merch at the races at IMS it’s a sign that F1 fans are giving Indycar a chance and I’m here for it.

Always good to have a reminder of just how dumb Tony George was (screw over two of your biggest five races in Toronto and Vancouver because MURICA!). Should have one of those every year.

I'm on minority, but what charter would've like is a much more distributed tv and prize money to the teams, right? I feel gave IndyCar teams a bit of a headroom would've secured their place over the next 10 years or so. Of course, if they could negotiate a deal where every race except indy 500 they would guarantee the spot, that would be great. However what caviat they would ask to compensate that? Might be even bigger prize cut which in the eyes of the penske corp is not a great option, or they would ask the to had open development like F1 which would skyrocketted the cost even further and they'll eventually ask Penske to up their prize.

Indy should do what F1 ISN't doing and it could have relatively easy success. Bring back chest cavity pounding V8s and V12s that the fans love (I had one guy a year or two ago genuinely think some idiot groundskeeper had started up a zero turn lawnmower when infact he was hearing the start of the RACE!!) and allow software development with aero bought to about what the cars need to stick to the track and no more.

It is a national seriers technically but I would consider it more of a regional seriers due to size of the United States vs. Say Europe. Think of it this way. Comparing indycar to BTCC, Aussie V8s or any other national seriers. Indycar would have far more views outside of there own country then any of those are national seriers. Put it this way, in terms of viewship, in New Zealand, indycar ranks 3rd behind F1 and Supercars. WEC doesn't get close, Motogp isn't as high. Indycar is 3rd for good reason

Indycar did have a Netflix style show on the Computer Weekly channel.

Roger penske is not making indycar great again

I'm from Queensland way back we had the Gold Coast indy 500? We watched it because the "v8 supercars" where there too. The only indy car merch I ever got was a model of el plans car. Ide consider getting Nigels car one day. But I have over 20 f1 car models. I check up on svg in nas car way more than Scott in indycars. Long story short their marketing is rubbish for even a reasonably open minded foreign race car fan. They want to shut the gates on us then I'm ok with it haha.

Good thing

I we see indycar racing in outside North America like Europe

the charter has killed nascar and will do the same (again) to indycar. Penske should learn from his mistakes with cart and nascar

The charter system is a means of survival for the series. The inevitable is coming and Liberty Media will get thier hands on the series.

No guaranteed grid positions for the 500.

To steal an exmaple that Aidan will appreciate. Indycar is ECW, F1 is WWF(E) and Nascar is WCW. ECW was a viable alternative to the big two and was ahead of its time in regards to product however it didn't have the backing to get it to the next level and its ideas were stolen by the big boys and their talent raided with big money offers until it died. Indycar needs to adapt or it will go the way of ECW.

New outro?

I blame Dan Gurney.

Hope the hybrids never come, would be the final nail in the coffin of the purity of the sport. Unfortunately the day will come...

The Blackstar has been swapped for a Marshall it seem.

Renaults are not for sell in USA

Indy marketing is garbage. Today there are more race fans (not neu (no typo) show fans) than ever wanting to watch a top tier American series that doesn't seem like a contrived bumpercar fest for kids; there's big opportunities for an authentic top tier American series, will Indy seize the day, doubtful, they'll just jump on the bandwagon and follow the others when it's too late, trying to take fans from ball sports and reality TV who already love what nascar has become; instead of improving marketing (it's so bad it's almost as if they are trying to get less fans to watch races), their tech, rules and regs to cater to people who are already race fans, but have been disassociated by all the other series in favor of neu fan entertainment.

I can see Michael Crapmocker in a Ferrari wheelchair at Indy.

All the political infighting aside… Indycar really only has one thing going for it. With exception to the standing start in F1, Indycar has better wheel to wheel racing then F1 and this is irrefutable. But that all it’s got that is superior to F1. Its tv coverage from the myriad of different sources is convoluted and drains value from the experience. It’s cars are not only out dated but they are also ugly AF 🥴. They seem fast enough for the generally smaller tracks and courses they race on so I don’t really care about the engines except to say that “I don’t really care about the engines” is a bad thing for a fan to say about a racing series but it the same thing for f1 and there is probably not even a full 1% of fans who would not prefer N/A V-8’s over a hybrid V-6, even if it meant only having one engine manufacturer. I believe that many if not most of the drivers would hold their own in F1 but unfortunately they have to wedge in a mini commercial for their sponsors in every interview they ever give which takes away from their personality. And the tracks are well… not superior to F1 but damn good. The ovals are great fun for the spectator and the variety of other tracks suit the speed and performance of the cars very well.

Entertaining to watch, but I cannot get my head around an elite open wheel formula with a control chassis. The US has one control formula it’s called NASCAR you don’t need a second one. IMHO Indy need a couple of extra engine manufacturers a choice of say three customer chassis and a Ferrari entry. Ie what F1 was in the 1970s. Still much cheaper than F1 plus better racing

for me what bothers me the most is a prejudice of mine. Simply appalling seeing a spanish winning the IndyCar trophy, simply by doing the Ganassi game of saving fuel. Thank God in the Indy 500 you cannot thrive doing that

2:38 2:39 2:39 2:40

The Indy 500 used to be about a 500 mile race. Now it's a 500 commercial race. I've not watched it in over a decade. Racing in America has been so corrupted by greed that it just holds no interest for me. I watch IMSA's KZfaq channel. Specifically for the Mazda MX5 Cup. The cars are all the same specs so the racing is competitive. Sadly IMSA is the probably the best racing in America at the point in time. I say sadly because it's weird to watch 4 classes of cars racing at the same time, I can't keep track of who is winning what class. It's a mess. They should really just race each class separately.

bring back illmore

Please no. Its helped ruin NASCAR.