I worked on this car in 1998. The PC-27 was a very small car compared to the Reynard. It was all designed around the new Ilmor engine, which was tiny. This meant we had all sorts of cooling issues, specifically for the gearbox (which was bespoke). It would run at over 150* C. The new Ilmor didn't make even close to the same power as the Honda and Cosworth. Also, we were on Goodyear tires. They were absolutely hopeless. We did a massive amount of tire testing, which reduced the chassis development time to some extent. I don't know if any of it was worth the time.

The linked suspension was a hydraulic 3rd spring. Reynards used a mechanical 3rd spring. The mechanical solution was better. The car had driver-adjustable anti-roll bars front and rear. We were on Penske dampers. I think, at that time, Ohlins were the better option.

Al was struggling with life. Andre couldn't do anything right. You could see the confidence drain out of the guy as the season went on. Nazareth was a nightmare race. Al ended up running the PC-26. Al was a good guy to work with, but he was not in 1994 form.

I think the maximum aero numbers on the PC-27 were probably very good, but it was much more ride-height sensitive than the Reynard of the day. We could be fast at smooth tracks, but when we had to raise the ride height for bumpy street circuits, we would suffer. The dampers weren't good for bumpy tracks, either.

John Travis worked very hard to make a fast car. I think he was a pretty good designer. The engineering staff in Reading was strong, but arrogant. There was a HUGE internal team fighting between the engineering staff and mechanics. It was an absolute nightmare year in terms of the team moral. The team manager was the biggest dickhead I've worked with in over 30 years of pro racing. If I saw that guy in the paddock today, I might go start a fight with him just on general f-king principles.

We ran the PC-27 on Firestones for a single test with Hogan at Sebring. JJ Lehto did the driving. All of us were in Hogan shirts to avoid problems with Goodyear. The tires weren't all that much faster on a single qual lap, but they had a big advantage on a longer run.

Oh ya, one last thing, Magnetti Marelli sucks.

A fully detailed analysis of a Penske car. My day is going well

Great video! I had made a video on the PC-27 a while back, and that conversation with Travis really amplifies my belief that the PC-27 was a great car. I would assume the PC-29 would've been an evolution of the PC-27, since all the numbers said the car was the best chassis on the grid and Travis seemingly thought it was a very very good chassis. Also didn't realize a simple gearbox design could be fucked up that bad...

Out of the park. Great detail.

I miss this era of Indycar when there was much more manufacturer involvement and  teams built their own cars

16:32 It was more than just being close corporate friends.  Penske had a contract signed with Goodyear that made it impossible for him to switch tire brands as long as Goodyear stayed in the series (per Al Jr's biography).  While it was possible to fix the other issues of the car, none of it would do any good when Goodyear couldn't hold their own quality control between different tire sets much less take on Firestone.

Thanks for the video.  I love learning new things about this period.

00:31 that’s my shot of the Eagle entering the pits at Nazareth after qualifying in 1999.  Alex Barron at the wheel.  Very cool!

For what it’s worth re: transaxle complexity:

Reynard was also switching between longitudinal and transverse internal arrangements in this period and both were supplied by xtrac with minimal drama. Neither are exceptionally hard to assemble or rebuild given the xtrac documentation that the teams most certainly had access to. This makes me lean heavily into Penske’s issues being personnel or process-based rather than an inherent design problem.

God those cars were beautiful.

Saw the debut of the PC-27 at Nazareth when Ribiero didn’t qualify. Al Jr actually abandoned the PC-27 for qualifying and racing and drove and I believe crashed a PC-26. I loved every minute of their failure, being a Paul Tracy fan. Paul was their test driver, they screwed up getting rid of him and the results the next three years showed.

I miss Penske not being in Poole. Still got a brilliant framed picture that I picked up when I visited in the 90's.

The part about the 2001 Reynard not being the step forward Reynard promised it was, which led to draping it in PC bodywork is wild. I always wondered because for most of 2000, the exterior of the Penske entries looked pretty standard.

Great video.  This was my favorite racing series and era of all time.  It was soooo good!

FYI, .030" is NOT 30 degrees, it's 30 thousandths of an inch, which we refer to as 30 thou.

Very interesting video, thank you for putting it together. Quite surprised by the state of Penske facilities during this period.

From a driver perspective Little Al's first marriage was finally heading towards divorce towards the end of the 1998 season, then his daughter Cody was paralysed around the start of the 1999 season. Then he ended up with a broken leg from the first lap crash in Miami to begin that year too.

This was definitely worth the wait. Hell of a job CLF!

after finishing this, i give you a giant amount of credit.  some interviews have good questions, sure, but this one you REALLY asked salient questions.  each question i was like "wow, what a great question", and genuinely curious about the answer.  BRAVO!

i disagree with your analysis in the very last chapter.  i do think the goodyears were the most important aspect.  none of us know for sure if the story about the guy who rebuilt the boxes was actually solely to blame or not.

thanks for the vid.

17:08 To be fair to the Reynard, for 2000 CART had mandated a smaller rear diffuser exit area, and this probably took away at least 300 lbs of downforce at 150 mph (the 99i (and probably the 98i as well) had more downforce than the 2Ki, and about comparable drag)...

I said this in your last video on the PC-27 all those years ago, but love this car. It's probably my favourite Penske Indy car and a lot of that is purely because of how much like an F1 car it looks when in road course trim thanks to the nose. It's a little bit of an ugly duckling CART car as a result, and it reminds me a bit of one of my favourite ugly duckling F1 cars, the McLaren MP4/10  from 1995.

Also, I love how Penske had a base in my country (UK), and that it was in Poole, Dorset, of all places (not even within Motorsport Valley man!). Though I'm not sure why they had a base in the UK in the first place, maybe it was a legacy from the team's short stint in F1 in the '70s? And the fact that their base wasn't within Motorsport Valley might have played a part in the facilities being behind?

I suppose I should explain Motorsport Valley. It's an informal term for what is I guess the area where the majority of the motorsport industry in the UK has grouped itself. Mostly based around the counties of Oxfordshire and Northamptonshire, but also perhaps taking in other parts of the Midlands such as Warwickshire/West Midlands Metroplitan area (think Jaguar (based in Coventry) in terms of international success from this county) and Leicestershire (Donington Park and a major airport in the East Midlands Airport), think of say, Silverstone (which is in Northamptonshire) as its epicentre. It's well-connected in terms of major roads (e.g. the M4, M40 and M1) and airports (East Midlands, Birmingham and some of the London airports such as Gatwick and Heathrow).

Most of the current F1 teams have bases in this area, the only exception being Ferrari. Aston Martin and Cadillac have bases at Silverstone itself, while Audi, Mercedes, Alpine, Williams and Haas all have bases in Oxfordshire. The Red Bull teams are based just outside the main congregation area in Milton Keynes, Buckinghamshire (of course RB's main base is still in Faenza, Italy), while McLaren are even further out in Woking, Surrey, far nearer London.

So with the main hub of the British motorsport industry being further away from where Penske's British base was in Poole, not to mention that Dorset doesn't have much in the way of easy road connections, given that there are no motorways in the county and even the dual carriageways can be quite hilly, and the nearest ones to Poole specifically are in neighbouring Hampshire to the East around Southampton and Portsmouth, which is still a bit of a drive away, with the nearest major airport being in Southampton, maybe that made things a little trickier in some way? Or am I just talking rubbish?

This is a great video! I’ve often wondered about that car.

Ribiero failed to qualify for Nazareth because of a dull back injury from a qualifying crash.
He backed the car into the wall so hard there was transmission fluid on his gloves.

This is so cool, thank you for taking the time to do a full-blown deep dive.