Captain Roger’s NTT Indycar Series Round 1 of ???: The Genesys 300 at Texas Motor Speedway
Ahoy hoy! Hope you’re all well, wherever you are. A mere 258 days after the previous Indycar race, the great and capricious gods have seen fit to toss another one out of the heavens into our pathetic gaping mouths. And so the Autosport Forum clicks and whirs like the gears of some grand and dilapidated astronomical clock, the cracked bell sounds, ornamental catbirds spring forth from their doorways and its cast of dolls enacts its appointed dumbshow. It’s time for the first round of the 2020 Indycar season, sanz fans, sanz tyres, sanz everything. Whether you’re joining us at half-past-eff-this on Sunday morning or as a feature of your civilized Saturday evening, there are plenty of points of interest and the new-season glow won’t wear off for at least twenty minutes. Consider Schmidt-McLaren, who have a new partner, a new engine contract and new rookie drivers. Consider Consider Andretti Autosport, running cars for 2019 Rookie of the Year Colton Herta and at least temporarily for 2019 Workplace Dispute Victim of the Year James Hinchcliffe. Consider Chip Ganassi Racing, running a third car for the first time since 2017 and running two Swedes for the first time ever. Consider … actually try not to focus too much on the deflector shield and just hope that it stops drivers from being maimed or killed.
Where are we racing? What’s Texas?
Texas Motor Speedway is a high-banked 1.5 mile oval track most famous for crushing the hopes and aspirations of CART in 2001. Since then it has been alternately (or concurrently) loved and reviled by Indycar fans for its close/spread-out racing, packed/empty grandstands and considerable/nonexistent driving challenge. Essentially it’s the quintessential post-IRL oval, where the Indycars turn up on Friday with a given tyre and wing configuration and then that’s all we talk about as its effects ripple out and determine passing, laptimes, race strategy and sleep schedules for the evening’s race. This weekend has an additional complication whereby Firestone haven’t been able to manufacture enough new tyres owing to The Virus so they’ve slung into the truck a all the unused tyres from last Indy and told everyone that they’re going to like it. In consequence we have mandatory stint lengths on a single set of tyres (excluding caution periods) and unknown implications for strategy. Am I selling it to you? Point is you don’t know what’s going to happen and neither do I. This has become the general condition of the world but it’s important to recognize that Indycar got there first.
Anyway, here’s a track map. Posting this I'm sort of reminded of what Plato said about how geometric shapes are a higher and more real form of knowledge than anything that exists here on Earth. This is a nice oval with a dent on the top, the real one has bumps and dirt and three dimensions and who knows what else.
Last year Penske's Josef Newgarden made an extra pitstop to edge out championship rival Alexander Rossi as polesitter Takuma Sato crashed into his uninjured pit crew and Colton Herta crashed into an unimpressed Scott Dixon. That's as brief as I can make it! Anywhere here's a picture of Josef Newgarden excluding all his rivals.
As for a schedule, it’s all happening like the proverbial thief in the night on Saturday and there are no support races. Practice is in the heat of the day from 1-3pm Eastern Time, qualifying is at 5pm and the race gets underway at 8pm, or 1am if you’re in the UK.
What do I need to know about the teams and drivers?
Although you’d be a very strange soul to want to dip your toe into Indycar by watching an oval race in the middle of the night that fans are barred from attending, it is very possible that the lack of any sport at all (except NASCAR and marbles) has driven you to desperate measures and you want to know all about Indycar. You’ve come to the right place, if anyone understands desperation it is Indycar fans. But I can’t do better than Afterburner, who put together a wonderful primer that I will shamelessly quote here. Please raise a glass to Afterburner and throw your fancy cocktail blinis at me for ripping off his stuff.
Indycar itself has shockingly provided us with a list of its own drivers here, but ‘here’ lacks the benefit of hindground, backsight, and the surgical embarrassment of Captain Subtext only found… here. If you’ve had an unhealthy fixation on car counts, you’re going to love this COMPLETELY UNOFFICIAL season preview. Tread carefully, you Satoistic heathen.
Team Penske (Chevrolet)
Defending the 1 for the second time in his career is Josef Newgarden (#1), who is accompanied at Team Penske by mobile lemon flash grenade Simon Pagenaud (#22) and Australian racing interrobang Will Power (#12). This ensemble cast returns for their fourth season together and will be joined by guest stars Helio Castroneves (#3), not yet tired of trying for his fourth Indy 500 win, and Supercars Superstar Scott McLaughlin (#2) at the GMR Grand Prix and potentially other races. Team Penske is like a refrigerator--they have a lot of weight to throw around and they’re cool under pressure (with all due respect to Mr. Cheever).
One or more of these three drivers will almost certainly be in the title hunt by the end of the season, and with the specter of contract negotiations dogging Power and Pagenaud, my money’s on Newgie. More important than this, however, is the battle to determine who will claim the Chalice of Excellence and who will be DISAGGREGATED BY JENGA BLOCKS in the ruthless final season of the world-renowned (okay not really) Penske Games:
Andretti Autosport (Honda)
Indycar’s largest team by car count and weight of expectations, Andretti Autosport’s full-time 4.5 car attack will likely also see at least one driver in the running for the title by the end of the year. Italian-American emotional Instant Pot Alexander Rossi (#27) remains the outfit’s best hope, with wingmen Ryan Hunter-Reay (#28) and Zach Veach (#26) on the outside looking in, each facing pivotal seasons. Also present is the aggressively mediocre Marco Andretti (#98), whose offseason spent at a driving school has at best highlighted his humility and at worst signaled a potentially imminent transition to the pit wall.
Andretti Autosport’s remaining 0.5 cars come from a new joint venture with Harding-Steinbrenner Racing and aforementioned Young American Phenom Colton Herta (#88), living proof that Carlos Huertas was only a few letters away from being Indycar’s Next Big Thing. An off-season rumor temporarily linked their sixth Indy 500 entry to the world’s most recognizable Asturian before someone nixed the deal…Chip Ganassi Racing (Honda)
Metronomic bipedal frost monster Scott Dixon (#9) continues with Chip Ganassi Racing (aka “F**kin’ Steve Gough Boat Parking”) for his 19th season; in only five of those has he finished outside the top 3 in the championship. Collectively lowering the temperature in the Chipster’s outfit alongside Dixon are Scandanavian scallawags Felix Rosenqvist (#10) and Marcus Ericsson (#8). While Ericsson and Rosenqvist both managed podiums last year, the picture here remains clear as ice: never bet against Scott Dixon. It took a punctured radiator and a faulty battery in the closing races to keep him out in the cold last season, but… the cold never bothered him anyway.Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing (Honda)
RLL maintains a two-car lineup for the full 2020 season. The eponymous Graham Rahal (#15) has been scheming a return to full-season form since 2015 and hasn’t won a race since he became the only driver to decadently double up at Detroit in 2017. In the other corner is disconcerting catchphrase elect Takuma Sato (#30); you can easily number the veterans among us by uttering the commentary team’s sacred words, “Here comes Sato!” and counting the number of people who instinctively hit the deck. None of us has ever actually seen Sato fly out of a television set and into our living room (thank God), but this is Indycar, therefore it cannot be discounted as a possibility.
Do not be alarmed if any action undertaken by Sato (and perhaps some in which he’s not even involved) elicit an idiosyncratic bellow of “SATOOOOOO” as if we were all members of some Satonian cult. We understand. When one chooses to walk our way, one is both fan and detractor--we live by the code: no attack, no chance. This is the way.This is the way.
Dale Coyne Racing (Honda)
Verizon IndyCar Series Veteran Coyne continues his alliance with Vasser-Sullivan Racing to field improbable redemption pathfinder Santino Ferrucci (#18), who maga-nanimously assumes the mantle of team leader after pseudodad Sebastien Bourdais’ fate was sealed (masterfully?) at the close of the previous season. The Rooch will be partnered by Japanese Super Formula Warrior Alex Palou (#55) courtesy of support by Team Goh. Both of these smokin’ drivers will be going whole hog this season, but the team has lost engineering guru Craig Hampson to none other than…Arrow McLaren SP (Chevrolet)
What’s that? McLaren, you say? Indeed, The Organisation Formerly Helmed by Ron Dennis has returned to Indycar full-time. Sort of. A late-season deal with The Team Formerly Known as Arrow Schmidt-Peterson Motorsports has formed a technical and naming-rights partnership with McLaren which will hopefully involve McLaren contributing the level of their 2017 Indy 500 performance (and the correct shade of papaya orange this time). Sam Schmidt and Ric Petersen, however, maintain ownership of the team.
Not-actually-McLaren thus enters 2020 packing not-actually-Irish hot-shot Patricio O’Ward (#5) and not-actually-British rookie Oliver Askew (#7) for the full season, with not-actually-a-samurai Fast Freddie Alonso (#66) gunning for racing’s Holy Trinity in the Indy 500. Outside the 104th Indy 500, the team also continues to hold its third car open for Robert Wickens (#6) should he wish to return.
The team is affectionally referred to as SPAM, to the immense annoyance of corporate HQ. (canned laughter)Ed Carpenter Racing (Chevrolet)
Ride-sharing racer Ed Carpenter (#20) remains an oval-only contestant, entrusting the keys to ride-hunting American Vagabond Conor Daly (#20) in the event of tracks with right-hand turns. Daly will commandeer a third car for the Indy 500, where both will be teammates to JUMBO-sponsored Rinus van Kalmthout (#21), who has Americanized his name to ‘VeeKay’ (not to be confused with the wholesaler of questionable glassware which goes by the same name). All of this happens to be staggeringly appropriate, because in May, Carpenter’s team will be a jumbo-sized threat daily, and it would be no surprise for the rest of the field to find themselves eating ECR’s fumes.AJ Foyt Racing (Chevrolet)
It’s been a widely-accepted axiom of contemporary Indycar racing that acts of Congress move faster than AJ Foyt Racing’s restructuring process has gone. Having lost its primary sponsorship from longtime $$$ supplier ABC Supply, AJ Foyt Racing will field four drivers in two cars this year. Tresibaman Charlie Kimball (#4) will do the lion’s share of the work, contesting the entire season, while the sister car will feature semi-retired French fry Sebastien Bourdais (#14) for races 1-3 and 16, six-time Indy Lights podium-finisher Dalton Kellett (#14) for all the road and street courses in between races 3 and 16, and then Tony Kanaan (#14), who was winning championships while Josef Newgarden was still watching Where in the World is Carmen Sandiego?, will be in the hot seat for all the oval races.
Unfortunately the bleak picture of Foyt’s current state is startlingly well-summarized by the fact that their most recent successful period came with Takuma Sato as their lead driver. While the elusive winning form they possessed with Sato may even be harder to locate than our favorite sticky-fingered filcher (this sounds way worse than it was probably intended to), Foyt perseveres and ensures some of our favorite drivers remain on the grid. As John F. Kennedy may have said, “Ask not what Indycar can do for you, but what you can do for Indycar.” Or something.Carlin (Chevrolet)
After a much-vaunted arrival to Indycar, Carlin has generally been invisible, and has evidently resorted to the strategy of hiring as many drivers as possible. Pen and paper handy? Good. Here we go.
Max Chilton (#59) will pilot the #59 for all of the road and street courses and the Indy 500, but none of the other ovals. The team’s other car, the #31, will be driven by either GP2 driver (easy, Honda) Sergio Sette Camara (#31) or driver of the identically-numbered IMSA machine Felipe Nasr (#31). At press time, no official announcements have been made as to which driver will race where, but conventional wisdom indicates that Nasr won’t be racing at the Richmond 300 on the eve of June 27 and then Sahlen’s Six Hours of the Glen on the morning of June 28 without the help of a certain Mr. Scott. Should neither of these drivers be able to cover for Max Chilton on the ovals, the team is believed to have contacted... Conor Daly (#??), who will presumably be available given he won’t be driving the #20 for Ed Carpenter on ovals. Imagine Daly miraculously finding himself in the championship hunt while racing for 47 teams!Meyer Shank Racing (Honda/Acura)
The time for tepid toe-dipping into the limpid pool of chaos that is Indycar is over for Mike Shank, who is apparently unafraid of what happened to his car in Long Beach and Portland last year and has ultimately decided, “Screw it, let’s get the full-season upgrade package.” After an unlikely stream of good results last season, actually British Jack Harvey (#60) will pilot the distinctively purple, mostly XM-sponsored, and one-time Acura-powered team’s 17-race entry. Now a series regular, they’ll be hoping for a spring of good results this year.And the Rest…
Indycar wouldn’t be Indycar without its small teams, two of which will be in the fray this weekend. Dragonspeed Racing (Chevrolet) will field the confoundingly-named Ben Hanley (#81) in its idiosyncratic Evil Knievel livery, while Dreyer & Reinbold Racing (Chevrolet) has recruited “Tats McIndy” Sage Karam (#24)--probably a good bet in a street fight. Dragonspeed will be making additional appearances at Long Beach, Texas, Mid-Ohio, and Laguna Seca, while Dreyer & Reinbold will also be entrants at the Indy GP and Toronto. Both teams will be accompanied at the Indy 500 by dual Roberts Buhl and Citrone at Citrone-Buhl Autosport (Honda), who have signed Spencer Pigot (#??) as their ‘Buhl’-wrangler for May’s pair of Indy rodeos in association with RLL.Conor DalyJames Hinchcliffe Career Update
“If we have to choose blow down or up, Canadians are gonna choose blow down ten times out of ten." - James Hinchcliffe
“Wait!” you screech, “Where’s my favorite Canadian Mayor?”
Well folks, I’m sorry to say that James Hinchcliffe (#29) is out of a full-time ride for the time being, with motorsports analyst being the primary gig on his resume. With the McLaren squall brewing behind closed doors, Hinch showed his ass and, not to be outdone, Arrow responded in kind. For the first time since 2009, there won’t be a Canadian slated to race in the full season.
Sebastien Bourdais very nearly joined Hinchout on his asson the street for 2020, but dutifully landed a full-time job with JDC Miller in IMSA’s prototype class combined with a few races for AJ Foyt in the #14. Like Bourdais, Hinchcliffe has been part of the furniture for years now, but while Bourdais would probably be something reliable like an oak end-table, Hinchcliffe is probably more like a rotating Murphy bed with a built-in harmonic oscillator. Fortunately for The Mayor, a cloud-computing call center support company decided they were in the market for such a bed; with the extra cash on tap, Hinch bagged a ride with Andretti for the GMR Indy GP, Indy 500, and Genesys 600, and may yet drive in more races.
I would’ve put him on the Andretti hero card, but there wasn’t enough room; instead, he gets his own.He is definitely in the office.
So, that’s the Genesys 300. Is there anything else I need to say? Oh, Genesys is an IT services company that specializes in outsourcing call centres and other forms of customer support. They are not directly involved in developing a Coronavirus vaccine but have at least brought James Hinchcliffe’s career back from the dead. Continue posting below! DEPOSIT YOUR CONTENT.
