Chilton ends IndyCar career, Carlin IndyCar team folds
While F1 is booming with money, TV ratings, attendance and investors knocking down the door to get in, the IndyCar ‘spec’ series has lost another team.
The Carlin IndyCar team has been closed down by Trevor Carlin and its IndyCar equipment sold to the Ricardo Juncos and Brad Hollinger team for new driver Callum Ilott.
Like Carlin Racing, the Juncos Racing IndyCar effort has always been funded by ride-buyers, when it fielded a car, which was rare.
Many of the Carlin staff will move over to the Juncos/Hollinger 1-car effort for Ilott.
Max Chilton has quit IndyCar and eyes a move to endurance racing.
As a result, Carlin was forced to fold when the father of its main ride-buyer, Max Chilton, decided he was no longer write checks to keep the team afloat using his Gallagher Insurance company on the side of the car.
Carlin said he was committed to IndyCar this past August when rumors surfaced that it would only field Indy Lights Ride-buyers in 2022. In fact, the team said they wanted to expand to two cars.
Rumors of the team’s demise surfaced last May when Gallagher disappeared from the sidepods of the #59 Carlin-Chevrolet, replaced by Match Fit Pass. When Max Chilton was unable to race in the Grand Prix of Indianapolis due to visa issues (that was the excuse – when in doubt, follow the money), speculation over the team’s future beyond the end of the 2021 season became rampant.
Stephanie Tindall, Carlin’s PR manager and wife of team founder Trevor Carlin, said this was not the case.
“We very, very much are about entrant points and the Leader Circle money,” said Tindall. “It’s critical to the program when you’re a small team like us.
“There were reasons we didn’t put anyone else in the car. It wasn’t an ideal scenario, but a small team in a pretty slim year, having just come off the back of severe accident damage in Texas, it was a tough call. [Note: IndyCar oval racing can bankrupt a team when the car gets destroyed. With the oval track crowds so small, why do they bother with them?]
“It was very last-minute,” said Tindall.
IndyCar teams may be starting to get disillusioned. Having been promised a third engine manufacturer for 10 years, many believed moving to a hybrid power unit and Roger Penske buying the series would finally result in manufacturers knocking down the door to get in.
Nothing has happened as yet, and Honda and Chevy are about to begin testing the new engine. Is Roger keeping the third manufacturer under wraps, planning to spring a big surprise announcement?
Let’s hope that happens, but so far, it’s all just ‘hopium.’