PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP WITH F1 MCLAREN CEO ZAK BROWN

President Trump and McLaren Racing CEO Zak Brown took an apparent FaceTime call in the presidential suite during Sunday's IndyCar race in Washington, D.C. Brown, a race car driver himself, oversees the Arrow McLaren IndyCar team.

- CBS

PENSKE INDY 500 PENALTY FURORE - ALL THE REPERCUSSIONS

For the second time in as many years, Team Penske is involved in a high-profile IndyCar cheating row, resulting in everything from harsh penalties to questions about how the championship is governed.

After Will Power and Josef Newgarden were put to the back of the field for the Indianapolis 500 amid a row over the modification of a rear body part, IndyCar president Doug Boles - who only took over the role this year from Jay Frye - stepped out to answer questions about what happened, how IndyCar arrived at its penalties and whether non-qualifier Jacob Abel had been robbed.

Let’s go through what Penske did and the major questions the affair is prompting about how IndyCar is run.

What happened?

On Sunday before Fast 12 qualifying, Josef Newgarden’s Penske car failed pre-qualifying inspection because of some filler being added to the seam between the attenuator - including the pillar that holds up the rear wing - and nearby bodywork. Smoothing this seam over would likely provide a very small aerodynamic boost, if any at all.

The video below explains where the part is and where the work would have been done.

Prior to this happening, the #12 Will Power car had gone through and passed tech inspection, despite IndyCar technical director Kevin Blanch (known to most as Rocket) noting on the #12 car that “the attenuator might have been modified" according to Boles, who added Blanch “in his head was pretty sure that we had a rule, but he didn't have the rule book with him”.

The IndyCar rule book can be accessed in seconds from a smartphone. It does make you wonder what the point of the pre-qualifying inspection is if a car can clear it, roll out and qualify, and then be disqualified in the post-qualifying tech. Why not just do the post-session inspection rather than both if this can happen?

Once IndyCar alerted Penske that the #12 car would fail the post-qualifying inspection, Penske pulled the car out of line.

Boles had told reporters in the paddock any penalties would come after the race, but explained on Monday that while that is the normal procedure, IndyCar realised that wouldn’t be adequate this time.

“You realise the gravity of this event, it certainly makes you feel like: ‘you know what, we shouldn't be treating this like any other event,’” Boles explained.

No driver has won the Indy 500 from lower than 28th, and Newgarden’s bid to become the first driver to win three Indy 500s in a row looks much, much harder from 32nd. Power starts last in 33rd.

The team's car of Scott McLaughlin crashed in practice so also didn't start the top 12 qualifying session, but Boles says IndyCar has inspected McLaughlin's wing and it didn't have the seam and attenuator work the other cars did. That's why he has been able to keep 10th on the grid.

"We do have the attenuators from all three of these cars," said Boles.

"The #3 car attenuator from the crash with the crashed wing still attached to it was provided to us, and we still have it. That attenuator was not modified at all."

The penalty

It wasn’t immediately obvious when the penalty was announced why the Penske cars were being put to the back of the grid because there didn’t seem to be a rule to legislate for it. But Boles has clarified this.

“Thinking about the integrity and the importance of this race, IndyCar has a rule,” he said. “It's Rule 9.2.1: Penalties can be determined by the gravity of the violation and its impact on the fairness of competition. IndyCar has the authority to impose any or all or any combination of the following penalties against any member for any violation of the rules at any time.”

Boles continued: “For us, especially on that stage, we believed that allowing the two cars, the #2 and the #12, to start in 12th and 11th, which is a place that they might have actually qualified in had they been allowed to qualify, was not a sufficient enough penalty and did not present an appropriate enough result for the violation.

“Therefore, we have decided to move the #2 and the #12 car to the back of the grid.”

Why this reflects on Roger Penske

It’s less about Roger Penske himself and more his position as the owner of the IndyCar Series, the Indianapolis 500, and Team Penske as it competes in those events and at that track.

Honestly, ever since Penske took over the series in 2020 there have been conversations about whether IndyCar needs to have a separate and independent body for matters relating to rules and governance. This has never come to fruition.

Boles only took this job prior to this season starting and he’s had a mess of issues to deal with and this debate only really comes up when Penske breaks a rule!

This cry for more independence started last year when Penske was deemed to have broken the series' push-to-pass laws, which resulted in some of the strongest penalties ever dished out by IndyCar including disqualifications for the St Petersburg win.

As a side note, that controversy led to Penske suspending Tim Cindric, the team's IndyCar president, and team manager Ron Ruzewski, for last year's Indy 500. Both will now be suspended for this one too as they’re Newgarden and Power's strategists respectively, and them being suspended was part of the punishments for the attenuator infringement.

At this stage, my opinion is that an independent rules body would help Penske more than anyone else! Every time it breaks a rule or one of its drivers does or doesn’t get a penalty in a race, it’s immediately vilified in a much harsher way than any other team would likely be.

Even today’s penalty, you could argue the $100,000 fine and suspension of the strategists of the two cars is as much a signal of intent to appease people making links between Penske’s ownership of the team and series in the paddock as it is purely assessing a course of events.

The word integrity keeps being used by Boles and it's used in the initial IndyCar statement. I wonder if IndyCar felt it had no choice but to give Penske a bigger penalty than it might have other teams to avoid being accused of a conflict of interest.

We can’t know the answer to that fully. But at this point an independent body has to be a priority for everybody.

“I get the optics challenge, and it's definitely something we should think about,” said Boles, when asked about Penske's position as team owner and series owner.

“How do you manage the optics challenge? A lot of these challenges, while they roll up to Roger at the end of the day, I think they are certainly below him. There are things that happen that don't ever get to Roger.”

He added “as far as the series goes, we are open to looking at wherever we are”.

Equally, this is an undoubted rule infraction at the event that matters most of all, by the team owned by the championship and circuit owner.

McLaren’s Pato O’Ward neatly summed up how that looks after qualifying on Sunday night.

“I’m not an engineer so I can’t tell you what they were doing, how much speed that is or if it is speed. But obviously it’s not in regulation, the rule is pretty black and white," he said.

"Those cars should have been in the last chance qualifier. Obviously they didn’t do anything in the Fast 12 but they should have been brought into the LCQ.

“Because they had that yesterday, I guarantee you, and until someone pointed it out today, so if they were disqualified today they should have been disqualified yesterday.

“It’s a shame really because they don’t need to be doing that stuff. They’re a great team, they’ve got great drivers, why are you doing that? Makes no sense.”

Explosive allegations

During the Boles press conference, Racer journalist Marshall Pruett put it to Boles that “multiple teams” have “alerted IndyCar prior to Sunday that those modifications existed”, and “I’ve found and circled these components on the cars Saturday, Thursday, going back to April at the open test. I've had teams tell me they have photos of these modified attenuators from this race last year”.

On the same topic, Indy Star’s Nathan Brown and Pruett even noted that the seam appeared to be filled in on the car on display in the Indianapolis museum to represent Newgarden's 2024 win.

Pruett added: “These cars have gone through tech many times, and either this has been missed or wilfully ignored.”

Boles’ reply in full: “So I guess the first way to respond to that, it was found on Sunday. So those are the facts. The facts I know is it was found on Sunday. This penalty is based on what happened on Sunday.

“I have had teams tell me since last night that they have photos of cars - not just Penske cars, other cars - with things on cars that are not within the rules, and I've asked them why no one has sent anything to me or ever said anything to me about that? So I have never heard that.

“I know that's around the paddock, but I have never heard the news. If somebody had told me that was the case, I would have gone to Rocket and talked to Rocket and made sure we paid attention to that. In my conversations with Rocket, Rocket has said that he does hear from teams occasionally about a lot of things, but he did not specifically say that he heard something about this particular issue.

“Again, I'm just going on the facts that I have. The facts that I have is I know that yesterday the car was not conforming to our rules. I can only make a decision on what I know.

“I can only encourage people if there are photos of cars with things illegal on them, they need to tell me. Then I can address it, but I can't address something that happened last year when I wasn't even in this job, and I can't address something that happened on Saturday if nobody had the guts to come and tell me it was going on Saturday.”

That sounds like a challenge to IndyCar teams: come forward with what you have.

Why isn't Jacob Abel being allowed to race instead?

There’s been a clamour for Jacob Abel to be reinstated to the Indy 500 grid after being bumped out of Last Chance Qualifying on Sunday.

With Penske’s cars in violation of the rules many have asked why Abel still has to sit out a race he thereotically might have qualified for.

Boles' argument is that the Penske cars passed inspection and were therefore deemed legal on Saturday, so they made the field based on that. Who took pole and who was bumped happened in a new day of action on Sunday. To throw the Penske cars out entirely would undo the work the cars deemed legal did on the Saturday.

“Those two cars, the #2 and the #12, qualified on Saturday,” said Boles.

“They had passed tech. We did not see anything illegal with those cars in tech. So, therefore, we are starting the 33 fastest cars in the Indianapolis 500. The #2 and the #12 just happen to start at the back.”

He added “do I feel gutted for Jacob Abel? Absolutely” but “in this instance I don't think that the result for the 33 cars should be changed”.

A thoughtful Abel replied “yes and no” when asked whether a part of him felt he deserved to be on the grid in light of the Penske revelations.

“I do see all the comments. I do appreciate everyone's support and everything saying that we should be in the race because we were legal and all of that,” he said.

“But at the end of the day, we knew what we needed to do on Saturday and we knew what we needed to do on Sunday. And unfortunately, we just came up short.

“I want to be in the Indy 500 more than anything in the world, but I don't want to be there on a technicality. I want to deserve to be there.

“We had our chance just like every other car did. And we didn't make it, simply put. We had issues with our cars.

“As much as it stings, there's a reason we aren't there and we knew what we had to do and we didn't get it done.

“So, yes, again, I appreciate all the support. I appreciate everyone chanting that I should be in there.

“But at the end of the day we knew what we had to do and we couldn't get it done. And that's kind of the reality that we're going to have to live with.”

What happens now

Practice! After Newgarden was told he couldn’t run in qualifying yesterday, he ran around the track! He even ran up to the radio booth and correctly predicted Robert Shwartzman would win pole in a fun, laid-back interview.

But if winning three in a row wasn’t enough of a first, he’ll have to do it from a starting spot no one has done it from before.

IndyCar teams found some inventive ways to update their starting positions on social media, many of which involved a graphic with the crossed-out starting position with the new one scribbled on.

Teams still have two practice sessions to perfect their cars for Sunday’s race. That’s all Penske can focus on and is within its control.

- Jack Benyon

MICHAEL ANDRETTI CEDES CONTROL OF ANDRETTI GLOBAL RACE TEAM

Michael Andretti has restructured Andretti Global to give co-owner Dan Towriss control of the organization while Andretti will stay on as a strategic adviser of the team he has led since 2002.

Andretti in early 2023 confirmed he had sold part of the company to Towriss, owner of Gainbridge and holding company Group 1001. Gainbridge is one of the largest sponsors in IndyCar and also sponsors Andretti driver Colton Herta's car.

The team has rapidly expanded with Towriss' influx of cash, and Towriss has been part of Andretti's push to join Formula 1. Andretti is still listed as CEO and chairman of Andretti Global, which is the name the team changed to when Towriss became part of the ownership group.

"Michael's goal has been to transition to a more strategic role with Andretti Global and focus less on the operational side of the race team," the team said in a Friday statement. "Michael and Dan Towriss have been working closely on developing this new structure, one which Michael is excited to see take shape under Dan's guidance.

"Michael remains engaged and will continue to serve as a strategic advisor and key ambassador."

The transition was first reported by Sportico, a publication owned by Roger Penske's son. Andretti and Penske have been at odds the entire season with Andretti complaining Penske was not spending enough to properly market the team and if he wasn't willing to pump in the needed cash, he said Penske should sell IndyCar and Indianapolis Motor Speedway.

The comments infuriated Penske, and his leadership group slowly began dealing more directly with Towriss. The amplification of the resentment between Andretti and Penske grew as the season went on and in late August, Andretti leadership noted there was a clear conflict of interest when Penske driver Josef Newgarden was not penalized for various maneuvers while winning at Gateway outside St. Louis.

Andretti Global said it would share more details of the changes "after Michael and Dan have had an opportunity to speak to the team."

Andretti Global fielded three IndyCar teams this season and won the season finale with Herta at Nashville Superspeedway. Andretti drivers have won the Indianapolis 500 five times.

It was not immediately clear what happens next with Andretti's ongoing effort to enter F1, which has been heavily blocked by both the owners of F1 and the majority of the 10 existing teams on the F1 grid. Liberty Media, which owns F1, has admitted it is under investigation by the Justice Department for possible anti-trust violations in not allowing Andretti into F1.

Andretti and his father, Mario, in 2021 formed a special purpose acquisition company (SPAC) that was separate from Andretti Global and called Andretti Acquisition. The SPAC was designed raise cash in an IPO to buy and take public another business.

Andretti in March closed a merger with Zapata Computing Holdings, a generative AI company. Andretti Global is Zapata's largest customer, while Zapata is a sponsor of the motorsports team.

Zapata, per filings, is paying Andretti Global $9 million under the agreements while Andretti Global is paying Zapata $6 million. The agreements expire at the end of 2024, per Sportico.

Michael Andretti holds nearly 13% of the diluted equity of Zapata.

- Associated Press

JOSEF NEWGARDEN WAS ON TOP OF THE WORLD AFTER WINNING THE INDY 500. THIS YEAR FEELS MUCH DIFFERENT

AP Photo 

 INDIANAPOLIS (AP) — A social media post designed to introduce drivers in the Indianapolis 500 to the general public put Josef Newgarden in an awkward light when the reigning race winner was asked a simple question.

“Which IndyCar driver would you take on a road trip?” asked the questionnaire.

“Solo” Newgarden responded.

An odd answer for a driver who a year ago was practically inseparable from Scott McLaughlin, his Team Penske teammate. The “Bus Bros.” had a media company, a YouTube show and merchandise. They appeared to be the best of friends and McLaughlin celebrated Newgarden when the Tennessean finally broke through to win his first Indianapolis 500.

Twelve months later, the Bus Bros. are no more, the friendship apparently unraveled after Newgarden went solo and unfollowed everyone on social media — including his wife — in a bid to rebuild his love of racing. Winning the Indy 500 wasn't as fulfilling as he had expected; for the two-time IndyCar Series champion, racing had become a grind of too many failures and not enough successes.

Insulated but re-energized when he returned for this season, Newgarden scored an emphatic victory in the opening race in St. Petersburg, Florida. Six weeks later, IndyCar discovered illegal push-to-pass software on the three Team Penske cars and threw out both Newgarden's win and McLaughlin's third-place finish.

AP Photo 

Newgarden returns to the speedway for Sunday's race as the defending Indy 500 winner but caught in a cheating scandal that has damaged his pristine reputation and that of Team Penske. A deeply embarrassed Roger Penske suspended four team members, including team President Tim Cindric, Newgarden's strategist.

If the drama is distracting Newgarden, he's not let on.

He qualified third to complete Team Penske's first front row lockout in Indy 500 qualifying since 1988. McLaughlin won the pole and Will Power qualified second.

Asked how different this year has felt from last season, when Newgarden won in his 12th try, he felt nothing much has changed.

“Feels really similar to me in a lot of ways. I feel a lot of respect for this facility and this race, this track,” Newgarden said before turning the topic to how good his Chevrolet was a year ago. "We were fortunate enough as a team, as a group, where it just fell into place for us. We had a great car. ... it was our day.

“I feel the same in that regard. I think I’ve got another great race car,” he continued. “I had sort of let go of the fact that I was ever going to win this race. It’s such a tough race to win, I think you had to be comfortable with that. I think that rings true for a second. I’m happy to be here, happy to have a shot.”

PADDOCK UNREST

There remains dissatisfaction about the scandal, particularly from teams who simply don't believe the Team Penske explanations as to how Newgarden, his engineers and McLaughlin found nothing to be amiss when their horsepower boosts worked when they should not have. It took IndyCar said Penske drivers had manipulated the push-to-pass software system on their cars; Penske and Cindric called it a miscommunication and breakdown in process.

Zak Brown, head of Arrow McLaren Racing, said the Penske punishments were too light; he called Cindric's presence at Penske's sports car win at Laguna Seca two weeks ago while under suspension “a bad look.”

There is skepticism that Cindric won't be involved in some form in the race. IndyCar set no parameters on what the suspended team members can or can't do, leaving the discipline to Penske to dole out. Penske owns not only the race team, but IndyCar itself, Indianapolis Motor Speedway and the Indy 500.

“Do I think Tim Cindric is engaged during the Month of May? Yes. In what way, I don't know the rules they set out, I don't know that,” Brown said. “But do I believe that Tim Cindric is sitting on his couch, turning on the race and watching it as 5 of 6 million other people are? No.”

Newgarden can win a $440,000 bonus from trophy-maker BorgWarner if he becomes the first driver to win back-to-back Indy 500s since the award was established in 1995. It's been claimed only once — by Helio Castroneves after 2001 and 2002 victories — and only five drivers in 107 runnings have won “The Greatest Spectacle in Racing” in consecutive years.

Newgarden is the race favorite, followed by McLaughlin and Kyle Larson, according to BetMGM Sportsbook. The odds made McLaughlin a little nervous and same for Larson, who couldn't understand why anyone would “waste their money betting on me.”

Said McLaughlin: “My first Indy 500, I was headed out to driver intros and some guy screamed at me he'd bet $20,000 on me to win. And all I could think was ‘Why?’”

AP Photo 

LARSON EFFECT

This year's race has NASCAR star Kyle Larson in the field as he attempts to become the fifth driver in history to complete “The Double” and race in both the Indy 500 and Coca-Cola 600 on the same day.

The 2021 Cup Series champion is the first driver to attempt the 1,100 miles of racing since Kurt Busch in 2014. Weather is not in his favor with the Indy forecast calling for rain on Sunday.

Larson qualified fifth for his debut Indy 500 and a year's worth of prep has gone into his joint effort between Arrow McLaren Racing and Hendrick Motorsports. Rick Hendrick, his boss, now seems to be having second thoughts about pulling Larson from Indy to get him to Charlotte Motor Speedway in time for the evening's NASCAR race.

“At this point, just hoping the weather cooperates to get all 1,100-miles in. It’s been something I’ve looked forward to for close to two years,” Larson said. “It doesn’t look too promising for Indy on Sunday, but I think for me, where I sit, if it’s going to rain, I hope it rains all day. That way it can just get pushed to Monday or something. We can get (NASCAR) in on Sunday night and then come here Monday.”

McLaren boss Zak Brown said the decision would be solely for Hendrick to make.

CHEVROLET vs. HONDA

Chevrolet clearly had the speed benefit in qualifying when the engine maker claimed the first eight spots in qualifying. But Honda showed it can hold its own in race trim, which means there is no obvious favorite for Sunday.

“I think Chevrolet has a little bit of a power advantage right now, but you never know once the race starts,” said Chip Ganassi, who failed to qualify any of his five Honda-powered cars inside the top 12. “I’ll take a handling car any day over horsepower.”

BROWN'S OWN DOUBLE

Brown has his own eye on the weather and a plane ticket on hold for Saturday to take him to the Monaco Grand Prix if it appears the Indianapolis 500 will be rained out.

He would then attempt his own version of “The Double” and watch his F1 drivers Lando Norris and Oscar Piastri on Sunday in Monaco, then return to Indianapolis for the 500 on Monday. If he decides to stay in Indianapolis but the 500 is rained out, Brown said he'd travel to North Carolina to cheer on Larson in the Coca-Cola 600.

“I just hope it's not a rain delay,” Brown said. “I hope it's either a washout, chucking down rain and we're not racing Sunday and leave, go to Charlotte, and come back. That's the delay I want.”

- JENNA FRYER

NASCAR, INDYCAR ICON TONY STEWART'S NEW PASSION FOR DRAG RACING

Tony Stewart stands next to his dragster after finishing fourth in his first professional final round at the NHRA 4-Wide Nationals on April 14 at Las Vegas Motor Speedway. (Photo by Will Lester/Icon Sportswire via Getty Images)

 CONCORD, North Carolina -- A guy in a Home Depot t-shirt, a woman in an Eldora Speedway hoodie and a kid in a Dodge drag racing hat walk up to a bar.

No, that's not the start of a joke. It's an image of reality. It was at Charlotte's zMax Dragway, site of the NHRA's fifth event of the season, the 4-Wide Nationals, held earlier this month on a 1,000-foot straight-line show palace built in the shadow of the Charlotte Motor Speedway.

It was on that adjacent 1.5-mile oval that Tony Stewart won a NASCAR Cup Series race and the NASCAR All-Star Race, completed the second half of a pair of Indy 500/Coca-Cola 600 one-day "Double Duty" marathons, and won a pair of pole positions in an IndyCar. The NASCAR Hall of Famer's Stewart-Haas Racing HQ is located one exit up the highway from zMax and he has even fielded wining cars on the four-tenths-mile clay oval dirt track that sits adjacent to the drag strip.

But now the one they call "Smoke" is smoking the tires on an 11,000-horsepower NHRA Top Fuel dragster. Sure, racing is racing and Stewart has excelled at every racing discipline America has to offer, a series of crossover moves matched only by the likes of A.J. Foyt and Mario Andretti. But drag racing, the one area those legends never dared to wander for more than a one-off event, is another planet. Here, races last four seconds instead of 400 miles and left turns are very, very bad.

Walking through Nitro Alley with a man who has infamously crashed through his near-53 years with all the delicateness of a wounded crocodile, one witnesses a Tony Stewart rarely seen in the wild. He smiles. He signs autographs. He answers questions. He is downright ... happy?

"Takes some getting used to, doesn't it?" Stewart joked as he snaked his way through the fans strolling the midway, taking advantage of the NHRA's fan access, allowing them to stand right next to the machines as they are being built and tuned, soaking up clouds of bitter nitrous oxide as if they're sampling department store perfume samples.

"Pretty much everything in my motorsports world was somewhat under the same bubble, just some things were off to the side, some were somewhere in the middle. But they all had aspects that were very similar," explained the only man to win championships in USAC, Indy Car and NASCAR, all while making countless appearances at short tracks during the summer nights in between his big league races.

"But this sport, this is very different. Drag racing, it's on Fantasy Island over here. Every day I feel like when I go through the gate there's going to be Tattoo and his white tuxedo going, 'Welcome to the races today!'"

He points to that trio of fans wearing the Home Depot/Eldora/NHRA merchandise, the ones waiting for him to walk over and autograph their gear. When Stewart works those ropes, he likes to don his darkest pair of sunglasses, allowing him to discreetly scan the crowd while he chats and scribbles signatures. As he describes it, he drops another old-school TV reference.

"Every time I go out to the rope to sign autographs, it's like 'This is Your Life' because there will be somebody out there with a T-shirt or a die-cast car from something else I did, whether it's NASCAR or IndyCar or a hat from a short track you've probably never even heard of before. That's especially true when we are here at Charlotte, or last week at Las Vegas, places where I have raced a lot of different stuff. I guess it should make me feel old, but this is the youngest I've felt in a long time."

For those who have spent time around Stewart over the past several decades, that youthfulness is shockingly apparent. His frame is nearly 50 pounds lighter than it was at the height of his NASCAR powers, at least partially responsible for his light-footed gait as he makes his way around the NHRA paddock. But the true power behind his newfound boyish spirit is anchored by the emotion that long eluded him, when he was emotionally unmoored to the point that his tantrums were once as anticipated and feared as were his moves on the racetrack.

The man is in love.

That's how he ended up at the drag strip in the first place, his courtship of Leah Pruett, a 17-time NHRA race winner. They were engaged in March 2021 and married later that year. Stewart, having already owned teams and series spanning short tracks and NASCAR, decided to invest in drag racing. Pruett competed in Top Fuel for Tony Stewart Racing, while Stewart started dabbling in the lower division of Top Alcohol dragsters.

This season, Pruett, 35, made the decision to climb out of the cockpit while she and her husband started trying to become parents. She has been diagnosed with an autoimmune disorder called Hashimoto's thyroiditis, a condition that prevents her thyroid from producing enough hormones. She has admitted that she struggled with controlling the condition enough to race without issues, so she made the decision to give her body a rest as the couple attempts pregnancy.

Stewart, who finished second in the Alcohol Funny Car standings in 2023, moved into her seat, despite no experience in a Top Fuel dragster -- the iconic long, skinny, winged machine that routinely travels at speeds of more than 330 mph. He has not yet earned a Top Fuel victory but has advanced to the semifinals in the past two events, both of which employ the rear four-wide format instead of the traditional one-on-one races.

Pruett has struggled with being on the sidelines.

"We knew she was going to struggle," Stewart admitted. "We've talked about it a bunch of times, but to make the decision she had to make first of all, and to execute and do what she's doing is super hard. I'm glad I'm a male race car driver. The female race car drivers are way tougher than all of us men because to have to take yourself out of a car to have a baby, to sit there and do what you love doing and have your career best finishing points last year and then make a decision you want to start a family. ... She has a million excuses to be off center every day and be frustrated and mad, and she's been amazing through it."

In the late 1990s, when Stewart made the move from young Midwestern Sprint Car legend to the major league level of the Indianapolis 500 and NASCAR, he was seemingly off center every single day. Since retiring as a full-time NASCAR driver in 2016, with 49 wins and three Cup Series titles on his mantel, he has found peace of mind by diving into piles of meticulous details, whether it be as the owner of race teams, racetracks, or even entire racing series. When one of those ventures ceases to become enjoyable, he moves on (see: the persistent rumors that Stewart-Haas Racing is seeking to sell off at least one of its NASCAR team ownership charters).

Drag racing is nothing if not meticulous. For all of its unmeasurable noise and barely controllable violence, success at 330 mph is found in the study of all things minuscule, from racers' reaction time to the go lights to the way that fuel is mixed and engines are torn down and reconstructed between each run.

"It's procedures that you have to learn and it's the cadence of the procedure and doing everything exactly the same every time," he said, pinching his fingers together to make his point. "I told the other drivers, when you guys make split-second decisions for the less than four seconds that I run, I have to take your split-second decisions and make split-second decisions out of that. That's how fast we have to make decisions here, because it's not just steer left or steer right, or get out of it.

"It's when something happens, your brain has to have the ability to quickly make a decision of, can I drive through this? Do I pedal this or do I just abort the run all together? And you have to do that in such a small amount of time."

Is that fun?

"So fun. I love it. I'm so happy. I hope you can tell. I hope everyone can tell. Y'all could certainly tell when I wasn't happy. I made that a little too obvious, didn't I? Hopefully, it's just as obvious now that I am happy."

Then, with a Smoke smirk, he added an asterisk before heading over to sign those autographs for the "This Is Your Life" trio at the rope.

"You think racing the Indianapolis 500 at 230 miles per hour or racing against Dale Earnhardt at Daytona or trying to control an 11,000-horsepower Top Fuel car is scary? That's nothing," he said. "I'm way more scared of being a dad. But I'm ready for it, too."

- Ryan McGee, ESPN Senior Writer

INDYCAR LEADER PALOU IN NEW CONTRACT ROW OVER 2024

USA TODAY Sports 

A fresh row over 2021 champion Alex Palou's IndyCar future flared up on Saturday after his Chip Ganassi Racing team reacted angrily to McLaren boss Zak Brown saying the Spaniard was reneging on a deal to join his outfit next year.

Palou's apparently now ex-management also chipped in, saying they were "bitterly disappointed" by the 26-year-old driver's decision.

"Anyone that knows me knows that I don't make a habit of commenting about contract situations," team owner Chip Ganassi said in a statement.

"Subsequently, I have been quiet since day one of this story but now I feel I must respond. I grew up respecting the McLaren team and their success. The new management does not get my same respect."

INDYCAR SERIES EXTENDED | GRAND PRIX AT ROAD AMERICA 180

 

SIMON PEGANOUT AFTER TAKING 6-3/4 FLIPS IN HIS MEYER CAR

 

SIMON PAGENAUT FACED HARROWING CRASH AT INDYCAR TEST

 

INDYCAR EXTENDED HIGHLIGHTS | HONDA 200

 

INDYCAR SERIES EXTENDED HIGHLIGHTS | INDY 500 | INDIANAPOLI MOTOR SPEEDWAY

 

INDYCAR SERIES EXTENDED HIGHLIGHTS | DAY 7 | QUALIFYING

INDYCAR SERIES HIGHLIGHTS | DAY 2 QUALIFYING | 107TH INDY 500

 

INDYCAR SERIES: GRAND PRIX OF ST. PETERSBURG | EXTENDED HIGHLIGHTS | MOTORSPORTS ON NBC

FAST FORWARD: 2020 GENESYS 300 AT TEXAS MOTOR SPEEDWAY

MOTORSPORTS: AMERICAN RACING LEGEND DAN GURNEY DIES AT 86

The first American to win the Formula One, NASCAR and IndyCar races, Dan Gurney, has passed away at age 86...