By Dan Layton
For those of you who don’t know him, Bozi Tatarevic is a veteran, championship-winning IMSA race car mechanic and over-the-wall pit crew member (Vasser-Sullivan Racing); reporter (Motorsport Network, Road & Track, Race Car Engineering); and active social media contributor on Instagram, X, Threads, etc. (@bozitatarevic). He also has his own YouTube channel (https://www.youtube.com/@BoziTatarevic1). Bozi’s at St. Petersburg taking in INDYCAR from a mechanic’s perspective. Here are his thoughts and impressions after Friday’s opening sessions:
“The INDYCAR races I’ve attended previously have all been with IMSA – mainly Long Beach and Detroit. I’ve also been to a handful of Indy 500s as a spectator. My first impressions today come from just roaming the paddock looking at things – like I’ve also done for some NASCAR races. The first – and coolest thing that stood out to me – are the wheel guns. In IMSA, the budgets don’t allow for fancy wheel guns like I see here. While in NASCAR they went really fancy for a while, but now they’re all spec and controlled by the series. But here, there’s all kinds of interesting stuff.
“Even the practice guns are pretty unique, and then seeing some of the race guns when the teams brought them out for pit stop practice are really special. A lot of teams are using the Paoli Hurricane, which is the frame that most of the F-1 teams use, but the Hurricane is such a high-budget piece that I don’t know anyone in IMSA that uses it. The NASCAR wheel gun is kind of a hybrid of all those pieces, but it’s in a very small frame. That’s the first thing I noticed today, INDYCAR guys get to tweak on them. Looking at them, a lot of the individual pieces are modified. Then, looking at the Penske wheel guns, you could see that whatever they had from their previous [pre-spec] NASCAR stuff they transferred over to INDYCAR, because they couldn’t use it any longer in NASCAR. At least the guns I saw today. They were an older generation, but highly modified. That was a cool thing to see.
“My goal this weekend is to absorb as much as I can. I was visiting with a friend of mine, Kyle Sagan at McLaren, where one of his jobs is to oversee the pit crew. I’ve had conversations with him and was fortunate to work with him once on the Lexus IMSA program. He helped us out one weekend at Long Beach where we needed help filling in for a [missing] tire changer. He changed tires for us on Saturday, then went back to his regular job in INDYCAR on Sunday, which was kinda neat. He’s always a good resource for me, so he was one of the first people I talked to today.
“He’s doing a lot of stuff on his side with video analysis and he’s pulled in some AI stuff so we talked about some of that. Then we got into the topic of the shuffle of crew members, there’s a lot of movement lately between both teams and series. There are people paying big money now for good mechanics and engineers. So we talked about that, and some of the people he’s brought in [to Arrow McLaren] and some of the new training stuff he’s done.
“So a lot of what I’ve done today has been pit stop focused. Seeing a lot of the people in pit lane, some I’ve know from the IMSA paddock, learning some of the intricacies of going over the wall in INDYCAR and why those things are important. One conversation I had with Kyle focused on his work with the drivers. Where they stop in the pit box is critical. In IMSA for example, we wait until the car stops, then can run over to wherever wheel you want . But here, everyone is already in position when the car enters the pitbox, so if the driver misses their spot – stopping short for instance – then you’ve lost a bunch of time as the crew guys have to reposition themselves. So the pit stop analysis tools he uses are for both the crew and the driver. It’s those little, intricate things that can make a huge difference in the race. In IMSA, and even NASCAR where I’ve covered a lot of races, it’s entirely different.
“For me, seeing all of this stuff, brings up an idea I’ve had for a while. I think it’d be cool to have one car and pit crew from each series (INDYCAR, NASCAR Cup and IMSA) and do like, some cross-over stuff. There are so many skills and little things that I think could translate over [from one series to another] but I think it would be really interesting to see all the detail differences in pit stops between the series.
“Really, what I’ve been chasing today, is to try to find a baseline of knowledge for me. Outside of that, I’m going to get into some of the more technical stuff. My goal is to build up an array of background information so that, by the time I get to the Indy 500, I can have enough information to present a complete picture to my audience. For example, how the hybrid system affects things, and just see how everything [in an INDYCAR team] comes together.
“Another example is the Ganassi announcement today of their AI connection. I’ve talked to their people as asked for some time tomorrow to sit down with someone on their technical side to ask them things like ‘are you using AI in a specific manner, or is this just a trial run?’ Because on the NASCAR side, AI is being used as one of their strategy tools and it’s fascinating.
“The difference in the hybrid systems between INDYCAR and IMSA are really interesting, too. I’ve been looking at the cutaway hybrid system (on display in the St. Petersburg media center) and it really demonstrates the differences. The INDYCAR system is much more of a sudden burst, almost like a shot of nitrous. Whereas in IMSA the hybrid is employed as part of the overall race strategy. The packaging of the INDYCAR system inside the bell housing is really cool. It’s a very different approach and I’m interested to see how it’s used on the ovals.
“Eventually, I think hybrid technology will come to NASCAR. Their current car was designed to be able to fit a hybrid battery, but they haven’t implemented it yet because they haven’t found a way to make it all work as they want it both technically and from a cost perspective. So anything I learn this weekend can be banked for future use.
“Finally, everyone has been very, very welcoming. This includes the series, the mechanics and engineers at the teams. There are a lot of ex-IMSA mechanics in INDYCAR now, and vice-versa.
“My goal now is to connect with people in the paddock and absorb as much as I can. Then, when we get to Long Beach, I can just stay over [after the IMSA race on Saturday] and have some built-in stuff that I can follow up. And I want to do some stuff around the ‘500’ as well. For now, I want to get a baseline on things here that I can use in future articles for Motorsport.com, Race Car Engineering and my other outlets.”
