IndyCar’s Bravery Problem — with Paul Pfanner

This summer, for the first time in 15 years, IndyCar unveiled a new chassis. The Dallara IR-28 has a chance to change everything about the world’s fastest wheel-to-wheel racing. And when the car takes its first green flag in 2028, maybe it will.

Paul Pfanner founded RACER magazine in the early 1990s and bloomed that brand into the media empire it is today.

Ten years ago, IndyCar management asked Pfanner and a few other visionaries to help dream up what the next IndyCar could be. The car that group proposed is not the IR-28—but that, Paul says, isn’t important. 

What is important: Whether anyone at IndyCar is asking the right questions. And whether they’ve got the guts to be brave.

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This show’s format rotates weekly, because squirrel. We call this format “GUEST TEACHES EVERYBODY.”

This episode was produced by Sam Smith. 

Thanks, as always, to our friends at BFGoodrich for supporting the show!

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PAUL’S COLUMNS ON MOTORSPORT:

https://www.pfancom.com/insights?author=5f6d579bf52bd37e3669f9d6

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DAN GURNEY’S WHITE PAPER:

https://legacy.allamericanracers.com/wp/formation-of-cart-dan-gurney/

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ABOUT THE SHOW:

It’s Not the Car is a podcast about people and speed. We tell racing stories and leave out the boring parts.

Ross Bentley is a former IndyCar driver, a bestselling author, and a world-renowned performance coach. Jeff Braun is a champion race engineer. Sam Smith is an award-winning writer and a former executive editor of Road & Track magazine.

We don’t love racing for the nuts and bolts—we love it for what it asks of the meatbag at the wheel.

New episodes every other Tuesday.