Carpenter vented frustrations after being collected in a last-lap crash that also saw AJ Foyt Racing’s Sting Ray Robb get airborne in the second leg of the double-header round at Iowa Speedway last Sunday, an incident that came after he had also been the victim of a late clash in the first leg.
A combination of factors, headlined by the recent repaving of the corners on the 0.894-mile oval, led to what Arrow McLaren’s Pato O’Ward called “a snoozefest” and Chip Ganassi Racing’s Alex Palou stating that the race weekend was “the most boring thing I’ve ever done.”
Across a combined 500 laps, there was no on-track pass for the lead, while the opening race featured 100 overtakes for position and the second, only 95. This compares to last year when there were a combined 698 passes.
It also didn’t help that qualifying endured a bizarre situation due to issues with the hybrid unit for multiple drivers, including race one pole-sitter Colton Herta.
When speaking with a small group of the media after the second race, including Autosport, Carpenter suggested the new hybrid unit, which was introduced mid-season at the beginning of the month at Mid-Ohio, isn’t doing anything to enhance the on-track product and damaging the overall product.
“I’m probably going to get in trouble for speaking as candidly as I have, but I love this sport and I love our fans,” he said.
“We can fix this. We’re spending a lot of money to make our racing worse. Show me the third OEM that’s coming in. Show me that Honda’s leaving. We have too much momentum to make decisions that are hurting our sport. That’s my feeling.”
With four of the last six races being on ovals, including the season-finale at Nashville Superspeedway, Carpenter, the only driver/team owner in the series, sent a clear message to the fans.
“I think this was exaggerated a little bit because of the new asphalt, but at the same time get used to this,” Carpenter said.
“Get used to this. I tested at Nashville and Milwaukee, and talked to Alex (Rossi) after he tested at Gateway - the ovals are gonna look like this.
“Until we figure out how to get the downforce, tyre package right and get some weight back off of them… to me, I understand why we’re doing the hybrid, so we can say we’re a hybrid series, but it’s costing us a bunch of money making the product worse. I don’t see the point.”
That sentiment has been shared by several members of the paddock across multiple teams privately to Autosport throughout the season, but Carpenter is the first to speak publicly about the matter and believes it shouldn’t have been introduced.
“It (the on-track racing product) wouldn’t have been great,” he said, “but it would have been better because it’s the most expensive 100 lbs I’ve ever bolted on my race cars.”
And Carpenter doesn’t attribute blame on Firestone for the tyre compound as part of the reason for the lack of passing this past weekend.
“It’s easy to bag on them,” he said. “I think they made good adjustments from the test until now. You can only ask a tyre to do so much.”
Difficult to pass
While Carpenter believes the racing will improve as the track surface degrades, the biggest issue with the hybrid is how it hinders a chance to follow and pass others.
“To me, and from talking to people, with the weight of the cars now, it’s so hard to follow and I think that’s what you’re going to see in the subsequent events,” he said.
“It’s very hard to follow, which when you can’t follow close you’re not able to get a run to make passes; it’s a challenge. It’s something we’re going to have to figure out as a sport because we’ve got too good of a product to take a decisive step back in our product by something of our undoing.”
And he went a step further to note the feeling of having a hybrid unit in the series was more of a box-ticking exercise than anything else.
“You know, there was a ton of testing done to get the hybrid to where it is today, which they did a good job,” Carpenter said.
“It works. It functions. We are a hybrid series. But, it’s not impacting the racing and it’s asking a lot out of the car and then the tyres, and through all that testing they did, I don’t know that they really did enough tyre testing and we’re testing on the fly now at a lot of these places; we’re getting what we asked for, I guess.”
Overall, Carpenter wouldn’t mind seeing IndyCar leadership making the choice to pull the hybrid unit for the remainder of this season.
“I think so, yeah,” he said.
“I mean, I probably just bought two of them this weekend. Don’t know how much it costs, really. You tell me.”
