PRUETT: What about the concerns over the physical stresses placed on the drivers and crews during doubleheader events?
BARFIELD: I appreciate the difference from the norm that these competitors, the drivers, teams, and all, have experienced over the years, but ultimately, for what I think is required on a weekend, it's not outside what teams in another series (endurance racing) might experience. To me, quite honestly, from having sat behind the wheel of a racing car before, I know that any of our drivers today is physically capable of doing it, and I'm certainly not questioning mental strength, but to me the mental burden, the psychological burden on doing two back-to-back races on a weekend is probably greater than any physical concerns I would have. I mean, it's going to be grueling.

I think that it adds a lot of, it puts a lot of pressure on all of us, officials included, it adds a lot of interest for fans to follow on the weekend, there's a lot of strategy to it. As always, the teams that really figures out how to manage all that mechanically and personally will certainly rise to the top and that's all we could ask for.

PRUETT: INDYCAR’s tech inspection team took a few lumps last year. Any changes or tweaks in that department?
BARFIELD: No, no personnel changes or anything. Ultimately, Rocket (Kevin Blanch), specifically, is the guy that is a great asset to the series. He certainly helped me on a lot of items getting up-to-speed my first year here. I don't think anyone is harder on Rocket than he is on himself, so in terms of what he ultimately learned from last year – and still kicks himself for it – I'm confident that we won't experience similar issues again.

PRUETT: Levying $300,000 in fines at Indy seemed to make a statement—was that intentional, and do you foresee anything like it happening again?
BARFIELD: Well, the difficulty with some of the specific violations that we experienced at Indy is that we had, similar to this process that we've implemented this year with rules changes, is that we wrote them into the rulebook, we did a presentation with competitors about the changes and what kind of motivating factors were behind those rule changes. So we really gave the teams a heads-up that this rule, it's changed in appearance, it's changed in application and we will enforce it.

And so to still have the violations when we told these teams four months ahead of time, before Indy, was very frustrating. So we felt like we needed to get their attention. And based on the nature of the violation, we felt that the monetary fines were absolutely appropriate.

So, yes, I guess in some ways it was a statement. Yes, I think it did achieve what we ultimately wanted it to, which is we didn't see the same violations again. It got their attention, it resolved the problem, we moved on and we didn't have to deal with that again. For me, I still have to be careful and we as a group have to be careful with how we apply monetary fines because it would tend to put a price tag on some items which, frankly, I'm not altogether comfortable with.

PRUETT: Your predecessor in race control was known for heavily engaging his stewards—his court--when arriving at a decision. I’ve heard you’re more of a unilateral decision-maker—is that accurate?
BARFIELD: I've intentionally chosen some very strong personalities to be up there. And as much as I will make my decisions, these guys contribute to the process with their opinions and, whether it's Bill Van de Sandt, Johnny Unser, Arie Luyendyk or Gary Barnard in race control as decision-makers, if anyone of those four guys sees me going in a direction that could potentially question the consistency or might be against something I've communicated in a driver’s meeting, they're very quick to catch me and put me back in the right direction. That's part of having a good team together.

I can't stress enough that, as much as I tend to make a lot of quick decisions all on my own, I've always said the stewards are a good safety net and they’ve proven that many times this year where they're pretty quick to catch something if they think I'm going in the wrong direction.

PRUETT: Leaving the pits open under yellows had mixed reviews in some sections of the paddock. Will we see any adjustments to how you make those calls this year?
BARFIELD: The painful part about that pit open and closed call, it really did, by writing in the flexibility to leave the pits open during full-course yellows, help us to achieve some of what we wanted to in the way of it not impacting the competition adversely and allowing us to have quicker yellows at times.

But it obviously isn’t perfect. There was a time that we left the pits open and it affected Will Power negatively…and there were times that we closed them…and it affected Will Power negatively... There's still no magic bullet for a full-course yellow process. By nature of what full-course yellow means, it could, regardless of how you do it, inadvertently affect somebody's race.

But to answer directly, I think that in our off-season discussions, we've decided that we would be much more liberal with applying the “pits are open full-course yellow” process that we introduced this year. I was certainly conservative keeping a lot of factors in mind that ultimately, through discussion in the off-season, didn't need to weigh so heavily in my decision on whether to open or close them.

PRUETT: I hate that contrived Fast Nine qualifying gimmick for the Indy 500 with a passion. Any chance that will go away?
BARFIELD: We honestly spent zero time on that. One thing to that point is I've certainly tried to leave alone some of that sacred stuff. I knew that that Fast Nine at Indy was recent enough that I probably could have messed with it, but honestly, it just didn't come up from enough different angles that it was a hot topic for discussion.

PRUETT: Switching gears from rules, what’s the environment been like within the IndyCar offices since the management changes started in October? A colossal mess? Not as bad as some might think? Better than expected?
BARFIELD: Well, first, I'd have to say I appreciate, both from an outsider before I arrived and then as an insider being there last year, that I appreciate everything that Randy Bernard has done and contributed. We will continue to reap the benefits of some of the good measures that he put in place. But, ultimately, life for IndyCar and all its constituencies and the fans goes on regardless of who’s leading the organization.

But, as nervous as I was when he left, it was clear very quickly after he was gone that there were powers that were continuing to pull in that same direction.

Obviously, Jeff Belskus stepped right in and assumed the leadership role with great style. That’s obviously not something IndyCar fans have been able to witness on their own. He was very open with everybody and very decisive, very direct. Ultimately, it didn't take long at all for probably everyone within the IndyCar organization, especially the executive staff, to immediately gain some confidence in how things were happening and the direction that we were going.

Ultimately, for me for what I've experienced internally, I have great confidence in the direction that IndyCar is going. I know that people like to read a lot into it and like to make a lot of assumptions and some of it gets very negative and it's frustrating to read that. I think it's very difficult to see what truly happens within an organization, but after a year on the job, I’m pleased with what I see going on behind the scenes.

Marshall Pruett is SPEED.com's Auto Racing Editor, covering IndyCar and sports cars. Now in his 27th year in the sport, Pruett was an open-wheel mechanic, engineer and manager before joining SPEED. He also contributes to RACER, Road & Track and Racecar Engineering. Follow him @MarshallPruett.