10th Anniversary Special - Austin is at Road America!

Welcome everybody to Slip Angle Show!

I'm Austin Cabot and today we are at the legendary Road America in Elkhart Lake, Wisconsin.

Austin, I miss you so much it hurts sometimes.

Hi Abe, how's it going?

It's pretty awesome.

I get to see you once a year.

You come to Oshkosh for a big plane festival and you sometimes cross paths at Road America,

so we're here.

Yeah, it's really strange that like my two lives kind of crisscross up here in Wisconsin

this week.

So you go from airplanes at the Oshkosh Air Show, which is like 50 minutes away, to

Road America, like the last three years that's been the same weekend.

So the first year when it was with the IMSA event, we kind of did, Gridlife did the kind

of exhibition style time attack stuff during the event, showed up for that and that was

really cool.

It stormed that night.

I was camping in a hammock under some of the awning garages and I thought I was going

to die.

Yeah, it looks like it might rain again and you're motorcycling this weekend, so maybe

you'll, I don't think that the rain probably bothers you all that much.

No, no, we'll be fine in the rain, pretty much all conditions except for ice on the

road all right in.

So even in Tennessee in the winter time when I was still commuting, I would still commute

on the motorcycle.

The coldest that I saw was 16 degrees when I left the house in the morning.

Yeah, as long as there's not ice on the road.

I had a motorcycle for a couple of years and in Chicago, I would ride consistently from

like the beginning of March to the end of October, early November, which is about for

you.

Yeah, yeah.

But you and I have had a chance to talk a whole bunch already, so we didn't get that

part recorded, but Austin, nobody wants to hear about FTPs and stuff.

My FTP went up this week, I'm very excited.

I actually did do, Road America is very hilly.

I think many people would know that the front straight has a big hill on it, but from Canada

Corner all the way up to the start finishes uphill.

So last night, very late, I went out and did 25 miles of riding or so and had 1350 elevation.

So like a couple of like hills, certainly enough to put some work in.

So what we need to do, Abe, is when you start coming to more events, I'll bring a bicycle.

We'll start another podcast called Track Riding.

Track Riding.

And we'll just wear wireless mics and record as we ride bicycles around the track at speed.

Well, and obviously that would be better.

There'll be a lot of heavy breathing, but there's so much heavy breathing.

Also, there's a Strava segment between turn five and turn six.

And the fast time is 22 seconds.

And I worked quite hard and did 28 seconds.

And I'm pretty confident that the only way you could get to 22 is if you enter turn five

so fast that it's borderline approaching a wreck because there's the hill up to six is

pretty significant.

So you need your average speed to be high right away.

And I went through what I thought to be pretty quick and I tracked all the way out to the

curbing.

Yeah.

It was not nearly fast enough.

So it's one of two things for that 22 second time.

I think it's either a very, very fit pro driver that was riding here or they also wrote America

also hold cycling events here on the track a couple of times a year.

And there's I just read about they do some crit racing and stuff here.

It might have been set during that.

Could have been 22 seconds is real quick.

Yeah.

That's average speed of 30 30 miles an hour uphill between five and six.

Yeah.

The track really needs like a bicycle lap record chart here.

Eight minutes.

Is it really eight minutes?

My time from yesterday I'm riding solo, but my time yesterday was 13 minutes.

Eight minutes is flying.

Yeah.

It's four times slower than like a really fast car, but you're on a bicycle.

I mean, think about the power that it takes to do eight minutes around here on a bike.

That had to have been on the bike.

And I bet it's 450 watts the whole time.

Jesus.

Yeah.

That is that is moving on a bicycle.

So now that we're deep into bike talks, you should know that Austin likes airplanes.

Sometimes he likes cars.

He likes motorcycles and he likes bikes.

I do.

I do bikes.

Bikes are what I started off as or with as a kid.

Right.

So like rode my bike everywhere.

I was lucky to grow up in a community, two communities actually that had trails that

go out the whole community.

So I could ride my bicycle to school, friends houses, the pool, any of that stuff.

That was my first taste of freedom at like seven years old, getting to leave the neighborhood

on my bicycle by myself to go to a friend's house at a, you know, neighboring neighborhood.

But yeah, it seems like everything that I'm into now that I think about it has to do

with freedom.

Yeah.

Like, I probably many of many of the listeners in our age group have similar experiences

where they grew up, like kids just kind of roamed free.

Somehow you've managed to maintain the kind of adventuring existence that not everyone

gets to keep.

And I think it's gotten worse.

And I think it's because of a lack of responsibilities is really what it comes down to.

I think responsibilities and fear of the unknown, as we age, keep people from doing

a lot of stuff.

Like, like the trip that I did to Alaska, if somebody has the time easily accessible

to do, right?

Like there's roads that go everywhere, you can pay for credit cards with pretty much

anywhere you go.

Sure.

Right.

Nothing is stopping you from the time and the desire and drive to do it.

A lot of people have the desire.

Most of them have the drive.

It's the time I think like that trip to Alaska on the motorcycle that I did last year was

six weeks long.

So 13, almost 14,000 miles.

But you have done multiple many week motorcycle trips over the last 10 years.

Oh, yeah.

Before you were a motorcyclist, you used to host the slip ankle podcast.

Yeah.

That is true.

And actually as a motorcyclist on that one big trip to Rhode Atlanta, I recorded a bunch

of shows on the way to and from.

So I just it kind of I tried to string everything together.

Yeah.

Um, this weekend, it's been you, you tend to only come to this Road America event,

but it's Saturday.

There are quite a few people at this event.

We've got some unique features for Road America, one of which is the USF junior

formula series, which is really cool to see a nice thing to add to our our paddock.

What has been the biggest surprise you've seen since you've been here?

I think the biggest surprise that I've seen actually has to do with the people that I've

seen, right?

Like grid life was part of my life for so long.

Whenever I see a familiar face, they usually do a double take because they're not used

to seeing me at these events, but then you catch up and it's like nothing ever changes

like you saw them two weeks ago.

Yeah.

So I really like that aspect.

And I think that's what has always driven me to the track to grid life events.

It always comes down to the people.

So to be honest, I haven't really watched the track a whole lot because I've spent

a lot of time just catching up with people.

Yeah.

Well, I said this to a member of the Houghton crew, Mitch, I saw him at Mid-Ohio and I was

like, Mitch, long time no see.

And I was like, wait, what?

I saw you at Midwest Festival.

That was a couple of weeks ago.

Actually, when we think about what we're doing at the track consistently over the summer,

it's like a this traveling family reunion that meets 10 times a year.

Well, that was always a crazy thing, right?

Like, especially when I was going to every single event, I would see my track friends

way more than I would see any of my actual family.

Some of them that even lived in the same town as me.

I believe that.

Yeah.

And the conceptually, that's what keeps me coming back because you could argue that

I don't need this additional complexity in my life and it's obligations on the weekends

and I'm traveling with family and I've got Sloan and blah, blah, blah.

But like the idea of not coming to see my track friends who are my family at this point

would be horrible.

Yeah.

So.

I mean, it's you get to catch up with people.

You know what's going on in their lives.

You get to know their kids, right?

You see their kids grow up.

Yeah.

Right?

We were just talking about Chris Stewart's kids.

Yeah.

Jack is what?

Maybe close to six foot now?

Like, he's pretty tall.

He's a pretty big kid.

And he's a junior in high school.

Yeah.

And it's just, it's crazy to see like him and Eames and seeing Sloan, right?

Like last time I saw Sloan.

I started kindergarten in a couple of weeks.

I think I saw Sloan in mid Ohio when you had the RV.

Yeah.

Right?

When she was a baby baby.

Yeah.

That was four years ago.

Uh-huh.

Like.

Well, and we were, Ashley and I were laughing even today about when we went to PPIR that

first year after Sloan was born.

We two, it's a 16 hour drive from Indianapolis to PPIR was 18 in a slow SRV Sloan was eight

weeks old.

Yeah.

And like, that's not a rational decision to take an eight week old to a music festival

many states away, but we did it.

The crazy thing, I think years down the road, right?

Seeing these kids being able to have these memories, they don't know it now, but they're

going to remember growing up, going to the racetrack with their family, you know, seeing

their dad race or even, even if it's not even racing, even though it's just hanging out.

Well, getting to be exposed to it.

And I don't expect that Sloan will ever actually want to be a racer.

I want to support her in whatever she wants to do.

But I would say that Emma and Maddie right now in timing are Sloan's favorite people.

And they're pretty good role models for my daughter.

And that's pretty excellent.

Here's Adam.

I don't know what you guys are talking about, but don't let your kid be a racer.

It's just too expensive.

My only input.

What are you guys talking about?

Hi, Austin.

Oh, we're just talking about track family and, and you know, just kids growing up around

the track, talking about, talking about seeing our track buddies, friends grow up around

us.

Yeah, it's fun to see like, we got like 10, 15 year old kids in the paddock that like,

I met when they were a baby at Honda me, which is wild.

Well, like I told Abe, I was surprised to see how big Jack has gotten.

Yeah.

And Jack, Jack working on the ops team, like when we, when we started grid life, he was

like three, four.

Yeah.

He did.

I think he's just got his license.

He's 16 now.

He did.

He was here.

What's, what's daddy Chris have him driving?

One of the Honda fits that we bought years ago and did that eBay challenge thing with.

Oh yeah.

So nice.

Or that's going to be a scar.

I'm not positive.

Not the Fiesta.

No, no.

Kyle owns the Fiesta.

Okay.

I might have sold it.

I remember, I remember doing the, the Sunday cup.

Well, it wasn't even, yeah, I guess that was the first year of Sunday cup when it was called

Sunday cup.

We did the build in the tech shed.

We did the tech shed build of the Fiesta at Gingerman just built it overnight because

those cars, that's, that's all you need.

Right now on track is TA.

This looks like it's probably A or B cars are quick.

Um, the, the builds in track battle have the builds in everything with grid life have

gotten crazy.

Like as somebody that comes once a year, essentially, even year to year, it's crazy.

But from when I was, I was doing grid life, every single event, the progression and the

lap times have just gotten ridiculous.

They're so, so fast.

So there was a new, a new track battle and limited record set this weekend, right?

So four.

Yeah.

Wow.

That is moving.

Yeah.

That's pretty insane.

And like, not all of, uh, you know, this progression comes from the car development.

Like the drivers who are driving within the series have been with the series for a long

time.

Yeah.

I mean, the skill level has gotten a lot higher.

Yeah.

Skill level has gotten, gotten a lot higher when, and having a place like grid life to

be able to come and drive and improve as a driver and have multiple events every year

that you attend, right?

It just, it lends itself to that before you'd have to string together events from different

organizations, right?

Or maybe you're going to the same track every time, right?

Cause it's, it's down the road from the house, which lends itself to becoming a better driver,

but having the experience of being able to drive from being a skilled driver.

And I set it back in the day, right?

When we first started the show that I've always thought of race tracks as like words, right?

And you learn to write your letters in each corner on a track as a specific letter.

Some of those tracks have the same letters in them, right?

You learn how to drive this type of corner.

You can drive that type of corner at any track that has that same type of corner.

But every track you go to has some little nuanced corner that you don't get anywhere

else.

So, but you learn how to drive that and then you add that to the skill set and then you

can write the whole alphabet.

But I mean, I think probably the grid life calendar over the years has had 20, 20 ish

unique tracks over, over the period, probably at least, yeah, probably 20, at least 15.

And so like, okay, we have drivers kind of going to all of these events.

I mean, there are some that don't miss events and their talent level kind of correlates,

right?

Like how willing you are to put in work and do all this different stuff manifests itself

as people who have confidence and ability at the racetrack.

Yeah.

Well, Adam says 18, 18 tracks, can you grab me, but what else is going on here?

We've got like this massive Hyundai booth here and they're given ride alongs and the Hyundai

product that they've come out with, with all of their in cars.

Yeah.

It's, to me, it's an insane value for what it is.

Yeah.

Like they've done some really cool stuff over the last couple of years that I would have

10 years ago, you could have told me like, Hyundai is going to bring out some performance

cars.

I would have laughed at your face.

Right.

Like I just would have.

It's just like not at the time, it wasn't really how you identified the brand and their

racing program has been really strong and the cars are unique.

I, Adam, have you written in one of the, the IONIQ 5Ns?

Yeah.

I wrote in the one that we have.

It's fast.

It's like you're just fast.

Electric cars, in my opinion, are cool.

I think everyone on the show knows that because it's.

Abe's an electric car fanboy, but they're real fast and they are cool and you don't have

to go to a gas station.

I think you're an anti-gast station fan.

I'm firmly anti-pumping gas.

We're going to buy your cigarettes though.

I don't buy cigarettes.

I know.

I'm just kidding.

Amazon.

Amazon a whole carton.

I love being able to charge at my house.

It's a gym.

If I lived in an apartment, I would not be so electric enthusiastic.

That seems like it would complicate it a lot.

So now with the infrastructure that's out there, it keeps constantly getting better for

electric cars.

Personally, for me, living out in the country and liking to drive cross country without

a plan, it doesn't work for my lifestyle.

But for a lot of people it's the perfect vehicle for them. Yeah

So Adam talk to Austin

You're not even doing anything important

It's a Saturday at Rowland Road, America, which means it's the busy day for us

Yesterday morning was absolutely like hairy busy. It was crazy

I should say the yesterday felt on the competition side felt a little bit soft because we didn't have

We didn't have any races. We only had practice and quality yesterday

Which meant that like things were just a little bit lighter felt like but

This track always presents challenges and I think there was a decent number of

Driver collisions with walls which sometimes happens and it's always a concern at Road America

Yeah, I mean we've talked about it before any track that's built for spectators

The spectators want to be as close to the action as possible

Bringing people as close to the action as possible means walls, right? So like any pro circuit

Unfortunately, that's the way it is and walls just aren't very forgiving

Yeah, yeah, concrete ones are not very forgiving tire barriers a little bit better, but yeah concrete does

Unfortunately, we had to move a couple walls back yesterday. Yeah

So you you came from Oshkosh

You you ride a BMW is it 650 GS are 1250 GS adventure

Okay, that's 7.9 gallon tank, which for a motorcycle is gigantic. It's one of the biggest tanks on the market

So I haven't I'm not an expert on BMW motorcycles because I've been out for a little while

At the time they had a GS 650. Yep

This one is a what you just said but say it again

R 1250 GS adventure in BMW nomenclature the R means that it has a

Flat twin, so so the pistons are it's an opposing twin. Is it a 1200? It's a 1250. Okay. Yeah

So it's it's a decent size motor the newer ones are water-cooled the old ones are air-cooled

Okay, but that's BMW's first motorcycle had that same style engine. Sure. So for a while having the 911

the Porsche and

Flying airplanes I had a flat twin

The the four-cylinder airplanes a flat four and then a flat six and the 9-11 like my whole life revolved around around flat motors

Wow, so

So it's a it's kind of an adventure bike. Yeah, no, it's it's totally it's called an adventure touring bike

And what it is it's it's a bike that's made to ride

Almost anywhere you can't on single track. It's not great

But like when Ewan McGregor did they did long way round back in 2003 they did it on these BMWs, okay?

And I bought it specifically

Well for two reasons one I wanted to ride to the top of Alaska sure and there's 600 miles of dirt road to get up there one

Way and then 600 miles back. So it's 1200 miles of dirt

Wanted to do that and then also just I

Started taking a lot more longer trips like the bike when I got back from Alaska. It was a little over a

Year and a half old and it had 41,000 miles on it when I got back and you had purchased it new

Yeah, yeah, it had seven miles on it when I got it

This is the first motorcycle

I've ever I do I do what's nice like valve checks and stuff the pistons come right out the side

You don't have to just simple anything. Yeah, I take my my cylinder skid plates off

And then you remove the spark plug and then you remove the valve cover and it's right there crazy thing about it magnesium valve covers

How do they like how do they keep time? Is it a chain or is it gear driven or what is it?

Um, I think it's gear driven in those

Yeah, are they so it's gear driven. So some of the newer ones like the Honda VFR 800 that I had was

There was a chain

But my older VFR 800s are straight gear or straight driven or sorry straight cut gears that drive the cams

And it sounds like a supercharger. It's pretty cool

That bike shaft drive as well. So there's no chain maintenance

Okay

So especially on a long trip where you'd have to clean and you know everything you do

You do a thousand miles in a day and then you got to do chain maintenance when you get to the campsite

So that's the other part too. I do I camp off the bike a lot, right? And it's not that I love camping

It's just that I hate spending money

so

So just camping off the bike you live lends itself to like if you can save some money

It helps. Oh, yeah, absolutely reduces your obligation to work job. Yeah, anything to not have to go back to work

So I actually to do the Alaska trip. I stopped working last May and I'm still not back at work yet

So currently working on our cabin that we have in Tennessee

Stripping it down to the bare wood

Having to seal all the cracks up and then changing the color and it's just it's a huge undertaking

I knew it was gonna be a lot of work

I didn't know is quite gonna be this much work and it's so hot in Tennessee right now

Well, you were you're doing you're trying to do adventure on the cheap how the trip last year to Alaska was six weeks

What did it cost to execute?

if I don't include the set of tires that I bought like if it was just

Camping fuel all of that probably about three grand

Three grand for a six-week like once in a lifetime

Once in an annual Austin type vacation

Is a good value. Oh, yeah, absolutely. So and that was that was camping

I was gone for 36 ish nights and I camped for 28 of them

Yeah, so but I wanted to swim in the Arctic Ocean. So I actually went to the Arctic twice

So there's two highways in North America that lead to

The Arctic Ocean one of them is called the Dempster Highway

Which was just recently the last little bit was completed in 2017 before that it was just an ice road out to this

This fishing village called tuk-tuk-tuk

Northwest Territories like there's nothing out there, but this fishing village

But what's really cool is you can camp right on the Arctic Ocean. There's this little like peninsula that sticks out

There's a sign that says Arctic Ocean that you have to go and take your picture with with your motorcycle

But yeah, but there's the hard part is there's no facilities out there. There's fuel in the middle

So it's like 250 miles between fuel stops, okay, which on most motorcycles. They have smaller tanks

So the seven gallon. Yeah, the seven almost eight gallons comes in clutch if you're riding slower

You get 350 400 miles

Like 40 depends on how fast you're going usually for me 72 miles an hour is like perfect on cruise control on that thing

You're getting about 44 45. So which is pretty decent if you slow down though

You you can go a lot further. So but I did I granated a TPMS sensor out in the middle of nowhere about a hundred miles in

So I was wearing goggles and I got a bug splat on my goggles and I'm sitting there wiping it while I'm going down the road

We're doing 70 miles an hour on dirt whatever were you with other people? No, it's just me

But there was there was a rock in the road that I hit and I guess the rotation of the wheel hit

Perfectly where the part of the wheel the TPMS sensor was right under it shattered it on that bike

Unfortunately the valve stem threads into the TPMS sensor. So at that point it wouldn't hold pressure. Yeah, so I ended up

I rotated as a 90 degree valve stem. I rotated it up 90 degrees

Put a zip tie around it to keep it shut

You know like hold it up against it zip tie and then I ended up riding 1700 miles with a zip tie around it

Would break every like 200 kilometers and I go tired start. Yeah, go flat

So but I kept the TPMS up right so I could read it when it started going down

I

Realized that if you add some throttle and go a little bit faster, right?

The centrifugal force would actually keep the valve shut more so you can get a little bit further down the road

Yeah, stem in or whatever. Yeah, so because there's really hardly any facilities out there

Do you take like a bunch of tools and stuff like that when you something?

I took enough like I have a toolkit specific to the bike and now anytime I work on the bike

I use that same toolkit so that I know I have all the tools or know what I need to add

The crazy thing was I was coming through a place called a hurricane something

On the Alaska Highway. There's a wall stickers, right? Yeah, right by the door team skill of corn sticker

Allen skill of corn had been a couple years ago. Yeah, so that was that was pretty funny

I had to take a picture owner or something. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, I think he's out in Arizona

Maybe doing political stuff out there. I don't know. I haven't talked in a long time. Yeah, so I did my CRX one time

For an sec a majors race. He was trying to qualify for run-offs

crashed it

Crash it a little not a lot. Ah, it happens. Yeah, I had to do a fender and a bumper and a

Headlight and tied to a tree and pull that corner

Yeah, that car that car love being a race car, but man a lot of people crashed that car and it's like

So died here in the kink. Oh, really? Yeah, the guy the guy that bought it from the guy that I sold it to

Dad it died on the stream for run-offs in the kink

And it still had a big old grid life sticker on the window and a bunch of people thought

A bunch of people messaged me like hey, is that your car? Like yeah, I sold it free advertising for grid life man. Thanks

So Abe and I were talking about the rush cars earlier

I asked Abe if he had ever gotten to drive one the answer was no. Have you no, okay? I don't want to know you think you might end up

With one. Yeah

Time space for money for a rush car

Fitting the grid life trailer probably yeah, just hang it upside down in the ceiling in the in the semi-trail

But Abe and I were talking the running cost of those things is actually very like a hundred ten hundred twenty dollars an hour

That's so cheap. That's like with like

The time-out factored in like time out of the engine and time out of like nuts and bolts and blah blah blah

It's pretty wild

I'm trying I want to find the stock pile of motorcycles that they have where the motors come out of

Yeah, they do because it's just it's just all of these bikes without engines

But all these other hundred brand new brand new chassis. Yeah, like that's that's crazy supposedly before he passed away

Dave the founder he was trying to sell them to a company in China who was going to re-engine them or something

I mean, they'd actually be good like electric motorcycle conversions. Yeah, I maybe that's what it was

It might have been some company was gonna but I think they were all gonna go overseas somewhere

Okay, but yeah bunch of brand new motorcycles. Yeah, you think that what what are those Suzuki motors?

The Hayabusa motors. It's not a high-busier. It's 1000 cc. Okay. There's a thousand cc

Yeah, Jixxer Jixxer 1000 just XR 1000 Jixxer 1000. Okay. Yeah, you'd think that like Suzuki would like open up an engine program for

So in those things do those things have reverse

Suzuki GSX GSX GSX s1000. Okay. Do they have reverse? No, they don't so if you like end up nosing up against a wall or something

Yeah, you think that they they do it the way that they do like gold wings where they run that they reverse the polarity on the starter

Then you could yeah, I don't think they came with that engine. Okay, there's a thing but not with yeah

Well, no if you somebody could make something. Yeah, so

They also if you spin you have to clutch in really if you backwards roll it the starter turns into a like a rat like a

They call it the can of rocks. It sounds like you have a pop can full of rocks. Oh, really started just explodes

It doesn't hurt the engine except to change the starter. Okay, but also can't restart and they're stuck

So really gotta get in the habit of like doing a few things differently than a real car like clutch in if anything goes stupid

Just to protect the drivetrain and the chain and all the things 15 years when those things are like

The used ones are like very worn out. I would love to go buy one and just have fun with it

Yeah, like there's a couple of them that have been engine swap to yeah

People put a high-business one in Florida and but the chassis are pretty robust and it's it's pretty basic to frame design

Yeah, when Tennessee's pretty lacks on their street legal requirements the street legal high-business one in Florida's for sale

Really? Yeah, you imagine that like in the mountains. They put a plate on it. It'd be so cool. Yeah

Awesome, I've boosted probably

Like another 50 horsepower, too. Oh, yeah, they're like 200 horsepower. Yeah, I think they're like two a little over two

What are those 1300 cc? Yeah, okay. Yep. Yeah, the

Driving one of those cars on the street though. Like it's got like turn signals and crap. Yeah, like what a crazy idea

Whatever happened to your motorcycle powered

The dude that I sold it to is here racing GLTC and like a maroon 240 over there Matt Beck, okay

And he sold it back to me

He did a bunch of work to it

And I I stupidly bought it back because I was like, yeah, I could play with another car and then like six months later

I was like, I can't even look at this car. It's too busy. This is a couple years ago

Let the I sold it at the last PPIR. I think okay, dude from California came out and bought it

Yeah, because that was the that was when I bought my Godzilla swap truck from Colorado

I picked I picked I dropped the car off and I picked the truck up. Okay, put it on the trailer and take it back home

And yeah, because the truck didn't run when I bought it

But I sold it to dude in California who has completely redone

the drivetrain to like a different motorcycle engine and then

He's built all this crazy like homebrew aero and he's running it in B mod in autocross

Okay, which is actually like a really good life for that car. Yeah, it's not a great track. It's fun

Yeah, it's not I would I looked at it again after I bought it back and I was like hmm. This is not where I want to die

I don't want to die in this like it was fun

But if I'm gonna die, I sell a lot of metal tubes

Yeah, I don't fit very good and it's designed in the 90s by people that weren't worried about safety as much

So Matt had built a really nice new cage for it. So it was a lot lot safer

Okay, but still like it's still bunch of one-inch thin wall tube. Yeah, it was brazed together. Yeah, really?

Yeah, that's how they do that's old school. Yeah. Yeah

It's it's living a it's living its best life as a pretty wild autocross car crazy crazy wings

The dude's making all his own stuff. It's pretty neat. Yeah. Yeah, aside from the my vintage 9-11 right now

I don't have any fun cars. I don't really have any plans to what year is that 9-11? It's an 84

Yeah, but I did I spent a little bit of time with David Calzada last night and he was showing me their NC build

Yeah, that seems like it'd be a really cool dual-purpose car and John Raymond just built one. Oh, really?

He built a case-wap NC. Okay. I drove it at

Taco track day

Also kind of crashed it oops. Yeah, I

The yeah, it's real fast. It's just it's like a full effort K-24. So it's like 220 to something like that

ASM actually threw it together for him and just a half cage in it right now

It's pretty fast

But it was having weird issues were like the clutch pedal randomly would stay on the floor. Oh really and

It it went to the floor

Coming in I downshifted going into five

And I was running on a civic line. So I got way out on the curb

You know the big square curb on the outside right of six. Yep

And it the pedal went to the floor and like I had this stupid moment where I was like wait

What and I stopped driving for a second and then I spun and the back of it just like graze spectator hill

Oh, really? So I had to buy an exhaust

the exhaust

It didn't do any metal damage to the car or a bumper got scratched up, but he's put a different bumper on anyway

The exhaust like

Grab the hill and bent upwards and bent the sway bar. Oh, really? So I did buy a sway bar. Oh, geez

Yeah, I felt really bad. He was like, yeah, whatever. Yeah

Yeah, this is embarrassing

I think if I if I wanted to go build something and have something fun to drive in the mountains

I think that'd be it's a good chassis. Yeah, it's so much more modern. You put tons of tire under it, too

Yeah, and they got people put like 275s under OEM bodywork. I think yeah, right 255s are like no big deal

Yeah, that's like standard. I'm like 10 inch wheels. Yeah

But yeah, they're they're a lot stronger than old me had us to like the crash better

It's like a better overall car when those chassis

I think share a lot in common at least suspension design wise with the RX-8. Yes, but the RX-8 is a really good chassis

It's identical. Yeah, like you can pull. I think you can bolt everything onto it from RX-8

But like something's different heights or something. I forget, but I know you put RX-8

Axles and hubs in the back which makes it stronger people the when there was a bunch of them in GLTC. They were doing that

Because I guess the rear hubs are weak link or something

But yeah, cool cars. Do you see RX-8's on the road at all anymore? I haven't seen one in years

I can't remember the last time I saw one that wasn't on a racetrack. Yeah, like I just I don't know what happened to them

I think they were everywhere. The renaissance motor just like

People bad

It needed enough love from you know from like a rotary perspective and like the pedestrian people didn't do that

Yeah, they didn't beat on them enough. They didn't put you know, whatever you got to put in oil

Yeah, they burn some oil that you can buy a lot of RX-8s for like two grand

Yeah, almost no compression. That'd be a good case. Well candidate to I don't know if David's done those yet

Some people have we've had a case of RX-8 out, but like all DIY

I don't think anybody's sold a kit for it, but I could be wrong. I could be wrong

um

Yeah, David and I were we're talking about

Those weekends that we spent in your shop. Oh, man

Just chopping my old NB up getting drunk and taking apart that dent that remember how dented the bottom

Oh, it was so bad the first the frame rails were literally like caved in the first came out

It lived as like a stance life car before you bought it. Didn't you buy it with like a built engine?

Yeah, it had a built engine and it was a built 1.8 sold the engine

Originally, I bought when I bought it the plan was for it to be my my my wheel the wheel car

Um, look underneath and it's like this chassis. Yeah, it was pretty rough. Yeah, it was it was pretty rough

I'm we're like on a counter and the bottom of the car was like this flat

Because it had been jumped over railroad tracks. Yeah, it's just drugged down. Yeah, it was rough

But it served its purpose

It's so weird like looking out the windows at the tower and there's like festival girls just walking around in their underwear

So what a weird place grid life is it's uh, the paddock's pretty poppy today compared to yesterday

Did they do they re-release b or no?

I'm not sure so i'm not paying attention. Uh, it's john's problem. No, but uh, we a friend of ours who's been on the show

Just had a hard impact. Oh really?

Probably should talk about it

He's okay with stiff. I guess. Yeah

I hadn't seen uh, mike jusolt's car in a long time. It looks a lot different than it used to. Yeah, he

Yeah, yeah, yeah 200 miles an hour. What uh, where did he crash?

Laguna he crashed at laguna. He did crash at laguna

Uh, he got cars been crashed a few times a bunch of times. Yeah bike speak laguna with us

Yeah, I think he crashed it lightly when we were here for an ass car. I think that's right. Yeah

Maybe we should maybe we should talk to mike

Make him not crash his car. He's he's been on the show once or twice. He's a really good guest

I mean, maybe we should talk to him about not crashing his car. Oh, well, sure. Yeah

I don't think he's trying to cars really fast. Do you see the new front end on it too?

It's like it looks like a camaro, but it's got like no frontal area because

The top of the bump or the top of the like the front headlights is now like a little wing

Yeah, i'm looking at it right now like literally it you can see the hood behind the grill

I guess the air just goes straight through the grill. They took the frontal area way down

So it's probably breaking 200 here again. We should we should ask him about that. That looks pretty cool

But yeah, it's super unique when I walked up up to it in grid yesterday

I had to take some pictures the carbon work is so exceptional too. Like I they must just I feel like everything mike does is exceptional

Like artistically exquisite in addition to execution. What did Fleming run yesterday? 203 204

What was our record to 204 something? Okay, but he beat that. Yeah crazy

Yeah, I was thinking about it the other day and we we had talked

Right around now marks about like the 10 year anniversary of this show probably 20 2015

It was right after we started. It was like a month or two after the second grid life. Yeah. Yes. Yeah, I think we recorded like show number

Four or five at Honda meet that year. Yeah, probably yeah, and that's when I think that's what Brian was there

Yeah, I went to itrx belated that year and we had like 50 people on for three hours. Yeah, and that's when that itr

That's when we had uh peter on two. Yeah, that's true. Yeah super awkward. Yeah, yeah, julie. That's coming here. You talk

So what else

airplanes race cars bicycles

Did we finish our motorcycle talk?

I mean I I can talk about motorcycles. Can we talk about bicycles for a minute?

Yeah, let's talk about bicycles. So something that I haven't purchased

That you are trying to convince me to purchase is an e-bike. Oh, it's the best thing ever

So I'm I'm really skeptical on the nature of this e-bike because I bike for fitness. Yeah, and

Uh, if I bought an e-bike it would reduce the obligation for fitness

Potentially you can still get a good workout, right? The the main thing is you don't burn yourself out

So you can ride day after day after day long rides and you're not that gassed, right? The recovery time

Is a lot a lot lower, right? But but for somebody like you that's very analytical

Who wants to record pretty much every data point? Yeah, it's not

Maybe not what you're looking for but is a good recovery day bike or an off-season trainer

So I thought so the the and we're talking

Pedal assist e-bikes not the ones that you see like the rad power bikes that old people ride around with throttles and stuff

There is no throttle just just for the listeners

Because they probably have an idea of an e-bike in their head

Sure, the bikes that we're talking about are much different. They're they look like road bicycles

like road bike in a

Drop bar drop bar bike capacity, but they have pedal assist and the amount of power assist is actually quite significant

It's like I think it's 250 watts. Yeah, it can be mine can be up to 320. That's so much

Yeah, so which means that like climbing this hill up the front straight at

Road america you could do it quickly

Without pedaling at all

No, you still have to pedal. Well, I mean like yeah, you don't have to put a lot of input in yeah

So typically I ride mine the way I have it set up you can do different percentages of power, right?

So anywhere from zero to 100 zeros no assist 100 gives you 100 and matches what you put into it

Generally, I ride it at about 20 to 30 percent

Right, so it gives you just a little bit and as a gravel bike with 47 millimeter tires

You might want a wide. Yeah, you might want a little bit especially on some climbs, right?

But generally I ride it with just enough assist so that it overcomes the weight of the bike because the thing weighs 30 pounds

It's carbon frame, but it's 30 freaking pounds. So it's it's real heavy. Yeah

The bike shop that I go to in Louisville and I really really like

supporting that business

he has a

Cervelo Ravita, yeah that he basically

That's got the tq like tq motor out of germany have a market for like that's that's not primarily his business

Yeah, um, and he's selling it at cost and he's he's got it listed for five and I thought about buying it

only because

It would make my commute like if I wanted to commute on a bike it would make it attainable

Yeah, where I could I could ride steady at close to 30 miles an hour and get to work in 45 minutes

Which is reasonable versus me going out with my current bike. It would probably be an hour 20 or something like that because of the hills

but

At the moment, I don't know that spending five grand on a like a commuter toy

Is necessarily what is reasonable. Yeah, I think if you're going to commute on it

Every day like that was your main vehicle to commute on it might make some sense

Especially from the fact that when it's hot you're not going to be as sweaty, right? You can crank it up

I have a shower option at work. So it's it's not that part's not have you commuted by bicycle yet. No, okay

Go and do that on your regular bike specifically because

I would want to be going 28 miles an hour so that the speed differentials were

small. Yeah

in a couple of roads that I would be on

at

Regular pedal speed. It's it'll be a little bit dicey. Yeah, and if there's not a wide shoulder

No, like yeah, that that's when it gets pretty sketchy and in the south

People in the south aren't necessarily used to seeing bicycles on a regular basis on the side of the road. Yeah

Hippies and people that have had too many DUIs. That was sure and there's neither command any respect. Yeah

Um, no, so like that's sort of what I've been thinking about but I don't know

I don't know a lot about the mechanics of e-bikes. I don't know are the components

All very durable like yeah, so mine mine is all SRAM asx. Okay, but like the the motor

Yeah, I don't know anything about the motors that power they've been around long enough

That the motors now are pretty hashed out. Um, you have companies like Bosch

That you know develop e-bike motors

Mine is a company that works with specialized. I forget their name

Right now, but they've been doing that same style motor for probably 12 years

Okay, so which is an eternity in a in a bicycle. Yeah and cycling

So they keep making improvements to the motor putting more power in it

But the the overall design of the motor is fairly one application where I could see the benefit immediately and I

My bike mechanic was telling me about it

Actually is if you have a person in a relationship who's seriously into bikes and in big in fitness

If your partner is less so this fills in the fitness gap

In that regard I can see that being like right away. Yeah, if Ashley and I were riding together

She would need the assist to be able to have both of us ride at a good but you both have an enjoyable ride

You can still get your workout. She's not feeling like she's dragging you behind. Yeah

So in in that regard. Yeah, it's perfect. It'd be better if you and her were the same size like jess and I are

Yeah, to where we can share the same bike. That's fantastic. Yeah, Ashley and I are not the same size. I think she's uh

I think she's a 48 frame and I'm a 54. Yeah, so yeah, jess and I don't even have to move the car seat

When we get in the car. We're both driving the same position. It's really nice

um, but you and I were talking about

The need for the next bike. Yeah, it's always just like motorcycles and to some extent cars

It's always the number of bikes

That you need is n plus one where in is the current number of bikes you have correct and I have

I have my old scott. Yep hanging in my basement not because I'm

Using it because well, it just that's where it belongs. Yeah, and they're not worth anything and I've got a

dino

That might turn into your winter bike

When there's crap on the road and stuff

Do you have that thing? I kind of want to get some fenders and I want to go out

I want to do some more rides when the weather's not I know it's super nerdy

I think fenders on a drop bar bike look awesome. Agreed. They look really cool

Um, and then I have a dino

comp or a dino air one of them

Uh, that's also hanging in the basement that I really should take to a bike shop and just have them like refresh everything and have it

Be awesome. That's what youtube's for man. You learn how to do it yourself

Yeah, I know time time. Abe has the money to be able to go to the bike shop

I don't I have to figure it all out on my own. Yeah, so, uh, the

The bike has those like mag wheels. Yeah, which um, and the last time I primarily used it at the track

um, I don't know if it's got like the

In balance in the tire or like the tubes are

You know like bunched up or something

But the the ride is a little bit lumpy and I I really is it when it's been stored

Is it been hanging or is it just been on its tires at the moment with no air? Okay?

But historically it probably was just yeah, so they're probably just flat-spotted and really like the bike the tires are probably so old

You're gonna want to replace that stuff anyway

but I uh growing up on like, you know dinos in the 90s

I cannot

Believe how heavy they are. Yeah, they're super heavy like they're made 25 pounds

They're made to be thrown on the ground by 12 year olds. Yeah for their entire life. Yeah

Like just jump off the bike while it's moving and let it crash. That's that's what those bikes can do. Yeah

uh, conversely

You hang a carbon frame road bike by its top tube if you clamp it people are like, don't do that

Yeah, yeah, I think that the first time you sent me pictures of it hanging in your garage with your storage solution

I was like, dude, you probably don't want to do that. Yeah

Um, but I don't know. I love bikes. I hope slone. Um, we bought her

A guardian bike which we had seen on instagram

And is that the one that's like a strider and then you can add pedals later. Yeah. Yeah, you can do both

Okay, um, but a big difference between that and like a department store bike is that it has a standard free hub in it

It's not a coaster brake

So you have a handbrake that controls both the front and the rear

But it's it feels like a bike in a kid size. Yeah, and

They were not inexpensive. I think it was like 250 or 300 dollars

But it feels like a real bike. Yeah, and I'm trying to get slone to be confident on it. She wrote it at Hanemi

But like I wanted I wanted to be on a bike because

Like you and I were talking about the freedom that you experienced as a kid. Oh, yeah because you could ride a bike

That's the thing. Yeah

So just being able to go around especially if you live in a place where like

The neighborhoods the streets are relatively quiet, right? Like growing up like around where adam lives

Um, perfect for bicycles for kids, right? Like you can ride between all your family's houses and everything

Um, certain subdivisions, but if you live out on a main road or something

A little bit different. Yeah

Adam growing up. Did you spend your entire, uh, like pre teen years on a bike?

Yeah, the entire entirety. I'm back now. I was over there. No, I'm back here. Um

Bikes in lego. So it was the only thing I did. We never had video games

We did have like a sort of working Atari like a

Atari or whatever. I don't know the only you drop the cartridges in the top

Uh, so we played pac-man once in a while. So if it was raining

Emma is now 10 my Emma. Yeah, she's 10 11 11

Just all three of us probably had a

Typical 90s childhood existence in that we were all over the neighborhood doing anything and everything

question is

Does Emma have

The same life that you had mostly

Literally were like two blocks from where I had that life, but she's got the park in the backyard

And now she's got the treehouse. We have a pretty cool backyard that that I've built and really good friends with the neighbor

Um

And their kids

So the next door neighbor has a four-year-old and an eight-year-old

And they are on our deck all the time. They're in the treehouse with Emma all the time

She's a little older than them, but she's like she's really good with them

So daniella next door has kind of grown up with Emma as like her babysitter sort of not really but

And she's a feisty little girl. So

Probably gets it from Emma a little bit

But she did she roams the neighborhood a little but not a lot. She's not she's not on a bike much

Well, quite a bit different. I have to wonder that like

It's weird that generally generationally. I was almost like a feral child and yeah kids

Probably won't get that experience. I uh, how'd you get on this topic by the way?

We were talking about freedom that came from having a bike. Oh, yeah

Emma rides her bike, but not that much. She has another friend who's her age

That's down the end of the street like thousand feet away

And she'll go over there, but I don't know why

It's like so much more uncomfortable

That my like my parents didn't give a crap go wherever we wanted

Uh, when I was in sixth fifth fifth grade six grade like her whatever

Um, I don't feel that way like I don't I don't know why

All right, it's like our neighborhood hasn't really changed. I don't know that the world is more unsafe

I think we're maybe less tolerant. I think we're too informed of the

Of the unsafe things that happen in the world like when I was when it was just like wgn channel nine in chicago

Like back then it was like half feel-good pieces too

And now everything is doom and gloom and you got the internet telling you how many people died in this and were throwing bombs there

And like it's constant the whole world feels like

Like now you know about all the world's problems versus like you knew about that one part of chicago where the bad things happen

And well, I might also just like blame the modern subdivision as well

Like the sub in principle. It sounds like a great idea

But I grew up in like a city neighborhood not like I mean it was a small town but

I had probably close to a square mile of area where my dad was like just anywhere you want you can bike anywhere you want

Don't leave that area, but you're on your own and

The like modern subdivision is a much much smaller place. Yeah, and there's just not anything to do

Yeah, when when I grew up

My street, which is where my parents still live

it was like

Every afternoon it was just a bunch of older ladies sitting on the porches

And that's just what they did because there was nothing to do

So you just go sit on your porch and now there's like everybody's just like locked in their house watching netflix

So you don't get to know anybody

like

Hi Renee

Like I used to know all the old ladies on my street and like our best friends lived in where Jeremy lives now my brother

um, so two doors down and

My aunt lived across the street from him or from my best friends, you know, like everybody was right there

My grandma lived two blocks away and she's still there and she's like 95 definitely shouldn't be driving anymore, but

um, but now everybody just watches tv and like

YouTube yeah gross

But couch is comfortable

It's a weird thing because like I don't I don't know that Sloan will have the same flexibility either

but it feels a little bit unfair because that's like

That's how we grew how we grew up and we all ended up

Arguably well adjusted because of like we all have that sense of adventure, right?

So for like people our age to be like, yeah, I'll drive six hours to the grid life event

Like cool. What's it going to be like in the future?

Like if these kids don't grow up doing this stuff with their parents

It's going to feel so foreign even just to drive like two three hours

I have a bunch of friends that like for them to leave the chicago area in a car

It's yeah, they don't do it. Like it's it's incomprehensible to them. Yeah

So it's uh, I don't know what the future holds

but hopefully

Hopefully it's going to be fine. I hope

We're doing our part

Well, I at least on the grid life side. I said to austin maybe on the show that

It would be so much easier in my own life and yours too adam if we just did not do this

Oh, yeah, I we so much easier it

But but frustratingly it makes life pretty interesting

And like the idea of giving it up would be like, oh, well, I'm just gonna like it would feel like it would feel like

A reversion to more normal and I don't want it would feel like telling your family to fuck off too

You know what I mean? Like as much as I dread going to some of these events

I'm gonna be gone a long time like when you get here. You're like, oh

Back with the fam like yeah, it's kind of that way. We said on the show a minute ago that

Grid life is like a traveling family reunion that meets up 10 times a year. Yeah. Yeah

um

I've had like a it's weird. I keep having these like thoughts and

moments where

It's like I have one conversation with somebody and then like the next day

I have the same conversation with somebody else completely organically and I'd like I didn't bring it up

This happens like over and over and over

I had this kind of like almost a similar conversation of like yeah

I didn't go on the internet till I was 18 and like when I was a kid it was different like it's weird how like I don't know

I think we're all

Mentally connected a little bit somehow like the world

And I feel very in tune with a lot of people that were in the paddock with so it is kind of like a it is

It's very family reunion vibes. Yeah, my uh, my version of a midlife crisis currently is

Get fit take care of myself ride my bike

Oh, you're doing a great job. Thanks, man. I uh, I

Jimmy jimmy rock is a rider as well or at least was like a hyper competitive cyclist. Yeah

And I have about 10 more kilos of body weight that I want to lose. Yeah, and key. You know, you know, he's getting

If he says kilos kilos

Yeah, good life drivers better watch out. You're gonna have to start doing your weight in kilos on all your competition forms

um

Only 400 pounds, but when I said to him it's like, yeah other people have said you

You don't have that much weight to lose and he's like, yeah, you probably you probably got to be like cycling fit

You probably have 10 kilos. So

That's what i'm doing

I went out road last night and probably riding into nights. I have plateaued on my weight loss

My eating has been trashed since honey or since midwest festival. Yeah trash meaning like just average. So

I don't know

I should probably stop drinking and stop eating crap. Yeah, you could do that

Probably should do that. Yeah

But I think but I'm still doing my 150 squats every day. I'm still doing all my curls and remember remember that podcast

We were talking about. Yeah, uh, you exercise to be strong and you eat to be

You eat to control your body. Yes. Yeah, those two things are independent. It was uh,

It was just hard and I mean I didn't overeat on vacation. I just ate like regular stuff

I was skipping meals so I didn't gain weight. I haven't gained any weight in

A month, but maybe a couple pounds, but like I stopped losing weight. I was losing like

Five pounds a month. Yeah, that's and I love to lose like 20 more. So

for for me at the like

Not cycling as much not having the time

I still wake up and I spend an hour just walking on the treadmill every morning watching youtube

Yeah, and I feel so much better and if I don't do it, I'd feel really out of place

So just just being active. Yeah, right and you can if you're gonna sit and watch tv

Just walk on the treadmill and watch tv. Yeah, that's good for you. Yeah

Well, I think uh, I have to go back to work. We've got, uh

Impounds to execute and we've got tc coming up and all the things but austin

I love having you on the show. It's good talking to you guys

I hope we do it some more. Yeah, just let me know being able to ring you in will encourage me to be more assertive

with

Focusing time to record shows

I'm done with most of my life stress after this event like my big stressors

Got out of the building was worried about midwest was worried about this

Well, we got luna luna coming up and limerick. So you can select those I said most

I'm not as stressed about limerick

but uh, anyway, yeah, I'm uh

Not I'm not dreading life as much anymore when I'm dreading life. I don't really want to talk about it

Yeah, and so that's made me like not actually want to talk much

I want to thank everyone for sticking with the show for 10 years and what a stupid project

I mean, I know we're not releasing all that often, but we appreciate you everyone continuing to listen and

Sometimes listen to us talk about stuff. That's not race cars. So, uh,

Appreciate everyone. Thanks a lot and uh, rate and review us on spotify. Bye

Slip angle was created by austin cabot and adam jubay

Co-hosted by derrick yarbrough and production by abrian schmucker who mixes all of our terrible audio

If you like the show, please rate it and review us on itunes and come and find us in the pit set of grid life to say hello

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