The open test is one of my favorite motorsports broadcasts of the year because it is truly built to purpose for one of things I love most about watching racing: meditating on the driving itself without thinking about anything else. For the second year in a row, I’m pretty sure I heard every minute of the broadcast because I had it on in the background while I went about my days.

There was not really any news to report, which is good because the only kind of news that can really come from such a test is bad news, and there was none. Katherine Legge’s HMD-run Foyt car had a bit of trouble getting out on track — some kind of clutch issue — and she had to make up her refresher on day 2, but she did so in time to run the whole of the long session that day with everybody out on track.

There’s not a whole lot one can say about performances because some teams don’t even bring speedway cars to this test, but the one I do want to shout out is that of Caio Collet. I was so obsessed with Dennis Hauger last year that I did not expect Caio to be the one who sent it the most at this test. I will begin expecting that.

It turns out to be a slightly more interesting — in a good way — effort. Not that Foyt is any slouch at preparing Speedway cars, AJ Foyt Racing is going to be more of a technical partner for this entry. The 11 car is actually being operated by HMD Motorsports, an IndyNXT championship-winning team, which is taking this opportunity to step up to IndyCar racing.

The effort is backed by Legge’s incredible sponsor, e.l.f. Cosmetics, and the livery looks as beautiful as you would expect a beauty company’s race car to look. Everybody wins here. Foyt gets another piece on the board with a driver making her fifth Indy start. HMD is incentivized to execute a perfect race, as this is its first time in the big show. Katherine gets the best race car she’s had at Indy in ages. I cannot wait.

And that brings us to a full field of 33. May is almost here.

I don’t really get this one. It is apparently some sort of technical alliance, but do these teams actually need each other’s help in any meaningful way? Apparently it’s not a proactive one like most such alliances, like how Foyt is essentially a Penske farm team and MSR is the same for Ganassi. It’s more like, if Juncos finds something that DRR doesn’t, or vice versa, they’ll share their little tips and tricks for making speed.

The only more significant thing this brings to mind for me is the rumor that Dreyer & Reinbold want to go full-time in 2028, when the new car comes out. Perhaps Juncos wants to get out of their charters. And who could blame them? They have to keep giving Sting Ray Robb one of the cars to drive.

This has major “Year 1 of N” vibes to it. RHR is, obviously, a safe pair of hands, but Jimmie Johnson has been about as vocal as he gets (not super vocal) about wanting to do more with Legacy Motor Club besides run okay in the Cup Series. It’s great that there is still a fast-flowing pipeline for NASCAR team members to do some IndyCar racing after the conclusion of the Hendrick deal. My question is, is Jimmie looking to bring some drivers over in coming years?

IndyCar does not currently have a problem filling a grid, but the industry — not to mention the race car — has been quite stagnant for a long time, and there is near universal agreement that it’s too financially strapped to move much. Something must be done to reward the investment of going IndyCar racing, and charters are working wonders in NASCAR (now that the lawsuit is over). Now the key is that IndyCar charters actually have to become valuable.

IndyCar has a cultural tension it will never be able to resolve, so it should stop trying. It has always been an elite sport — motor racing in general and open-wheel racing in particular always have been and always will be — but IndyCar comes from a region that is culturally humble, the sport has always valued getting covered in grease wrenching on your own car, and it has had a tendency — which has waxed and waned over decades of industry evolution — to let upstarts into the field to see how they stack up against the big guys. Even though it costs millions of dollars and millions of engineering hours to be any kind of serious IndyCar team nowadays, the culture does not want to give up those affectations.

Nevertheless, IndyCar has buried the news ahead of the Month of May Deluge that it will no longer allow unchartered entries in races other than the Indianapolis 500. People I know are pissed about this. I’m not sure why. I don’t see any evidence that anybody even wants to race in IndyCar outside the 500 except massive global race teams like Prema, and from all appearances, they just misunderstood or mistimed their ability to get charters by showing up first with a couple IndyCars and going racing.

The teams who are in the series now — plus the two manufacturers who will be granted charters when the new car comes online in 2028 — have made unspeakably massive investments in keeping the IndyCar Series going into the 21st century, when it was by no means clear that it would. I see the argument that if someone new wants to get into the championship, they should do it by paying back one of the teams that’s in it now. It’s not like there isn’t an abundance of chartered cars that are only entered because doofuses like Sting Ray Robb have people willing to pay for them. Surely Wright Motorsports or somebody like that will someday be able to convince one of these teams to part ways with a charter or two.

It would be a different story, though, if this arrangement included the 500. You have to let people come take a swing at the Indy 500. That’s the one event where it is even theoretically financially possible for them to find sponsorship to do so, and it’s part of the grand tradition of the greatest race in the world. That’s why the series is called IndyCar. It’s not called PortlandCar.

That’s not to say I wouldn’t be intensely interested in seeing behind the scenes of how Larson handled it. The question of Kyle Larson’s greatness as a race car driver is a subject of far, far too much discussion, and I guess that’s why it seemed like a good idea to some people — including Larson — to try to “prove” it by doing the Double. What we saw from the outside was, let’s just say, inconclusive. But I am still very open to seeing greatness in the telling of the true story of how he went about attempting this almost impossible racing feat.

If it’s a puff piece, though, I’m going to deduct a couple greatness points.

As for the question of whether there will be a Bump Day this year, this makes 32 confirmed entries for the 33 grid spots. The Katherine Legge ride with Foyt that many have sussed out has not been announced yet, but with no Colton Herta at Andretti, I haven’t heard anything else credible out there.

Andretti Global never actually committed to running its fourth car this year, as Marco has hung up his helmet, but it was widely understood that they were keeping it warm for Colton should he be available, which he was supposed to be. Now that he isn’t, Andretti has decided to concentrate on its full-season entries.

To which I say, uh, like what? You can’t get somebody to pay for the most well attended sporting event on Earth, but you’re going to get somebody to pay you to race in Portland, Oregon, where everyone is a militant bicyclist?? Give me a break, man.

Somebody needs to buy this shop for pennies on the dollar who actually intends to go racing.

Engine leases are a chokepoint. We don’t know what’s going on with Prema Racing, and therefore we don’t know whether one or both of their leases will be available. There seems to be some momentum on still running one Prema car with Callum Ilott, which would be nice. Katherine Legge and her devoted sponsors are wrangling for the other one, but there’s also the minor detail of a Chevy team who would be willing to run it.

On top of the 25 regular-season drivers, Helio Castroneves is back with MSR to continue attempting to win a fifth 500, and Takuma Sato is back with RLL. Arrow McLaren has confirmed Ryan Hunter-Reay in its fourth car, and Ed Carpenter will drive his team’s third car as per usual. Andretti usually runs a fourth car, and Marshall Pruett reports that people contacting the team with interest have been told the seat is taken. We can presume that’s for Colton Herta. Dreyer & Reinbold Racing intend to run Conor Daly, and Abel Motorsports hope Jacob will actually get to start this year. That would be 32, some of which are not confirmed.

Will we get to 33 with Callum or Katherine — or better yet 34 with both? Stefan Wilson and Devlin DeFrancesco are also reportedly seeking rides. The problem is the rides don’t exist. The best case seems to be 34 if Prema gets its act together and some Chevy steps up to prepare Katherine’s car.

DRR is clearly a great team for him to run the 500 with while he figures it out, and they are rumored to be targeting 2028 to get into the series full-time with the new car in 2028. He seems like a shoo-in for their veteran driver if he is able to work on the program with them starting now. Landing ARCO to sponsor the team is a pretty solid start.