205 - Round 6 - Begin!

Hi, I'm Scott.

And I'm Seth.

And we are track walking.

The weird delay is because I forgot what to say first.

It's like when you're going to introduce yourself and you're like, I'm, who am I?

I thought I was supposed to say something else, not like, you know, my name.

Jesus.

Who are we really, Scott?

And I am.

Do we know?

And I am going to be finishing my dessert because Seth told me it would be unbranded

if I finished my dessert while we're recording this.

He's like, I can't eat desserts here while we're recording.

I'm like, why, why would you not do that for the first time ever just because we're back

after a two and a half month break?

I mean, kind of, feels kind of special, right?

It is.

But I don't feel like we've, I mean, maybe we've changed.

Have you changed while we've been away?

I feel a little older.

I feel older after racing this last weekend, but that should, that should fix itself

within the next couple of days.

Maybe.

I'm like, each one you just like take a notch out, take a notch out.

It's just.

It was harder.

I was talking to somebody else at the track and I was like, this is noticeably

harder than when I started racing motorcycles like six years ago as I approached my 50th

birthday.

Also, I feel like I have a good excuse to be like, no, I'm racing motorcycles

and I'm 50, which I technically won't be till next season because season will end,

the season will end before I turn 50.

But that sounds more impressive.

And when you're 50, you can be an old man.

I feel like that's the beginning of old man stuff.

Yeah, you can really lean into it at that point, I feel.

Yeah.

I want to get some tweed and some corduroy.

I did.

I did have one of the drivers that I'm coaching.

They looked up my arrow video when I had all the little wool tufts

on the Miata from five years ago.

This was like 20, 20 time, right?

And like, you look so much younger than like, you don't look bad now.

You just like to look so much younger than that.

It's just clearly been a hard five years.

I mean, yeah, I mean, it's been a five years.

And yeah, can't say it's hard, but like, yeah, I am older.

I'm in my 40s compared to my 30s, five years.

Yeah.

It's a thing.

There's a period of your life where you kind of feel like you stand still for a

while and you're like, no, this is I know who I am and this is good.

And then all of a sudden you look in the mirror and you're like, whoa,

something distinctly happened.

Got old.

Yeah.

So last time you and I saw each other, just kind of a nice surprise.

You came out to rev up and yeah, we actually did an episode there,

didn't we? A live, a rare live episode.

Oh, yeah, we were walking around the track.

We did a track walking, track walking episode.

We did.

Yeah. For the first time.

It's been a few, it's been a minute for that, too.

Yeah. Yeah.

I'm getting to the point where I've almost walked more laps

around Gingerman than I've driven around Gingerman.

I'm not saying much and I'm trying to think, oh, so I had to look it up again.

So we started our first episode aired beginning of November, 2020.

So this is technically our sixth season of track walking.

Oh, yeah. Wow.

I had to do the math.

Yeah.

Somebody also asked me how old I was today and I had to do that math.

So just becomes irrelevant.

And I feel like, I feel like the show to this point,

like I don't really distinguish one season from another.

It's just like, all right.

And we're back after not having talked to each other for several months.

Right.

We'll have to have any listeners be like, no, you guys were different

from season to season because I don't necessarily feel like we are.

We're in a different place individually.

Yeah.

Yeah. I guess that'd be an interesting question.

Not just the development of the show, but yeah.

Development as human beings, perhaps.

Yeah.

So Rev Up was fun.

Yeah.

Had a good time.

It was good.

And lots of things have happened since.

So yeah.

I honestly.

So like full, full disclosure, I have paid more attention to your

cat's Instagram than yours.

Good.

Honestly, I think my cat's Instagram has been busier than mine.

God, I was thinking like the last couple of weeks I need to do,

like get back to like just those little live update things like me

talking at the phone just to like, because I've been doing a lot

this year and I haven't really talked a whole lot about it.

Because I've been busy doing the things.

Right.

So and you know how good I am about pausing and documenting

things.

So here I am.

Not really talking.

I mean, talking about wanting to do the thing.

Right.

Yeah.

But you.

So after rev up you, you like drove up to Alaska and around

Alaska.

We went to Michigan for like four or five days.

Right.

Sort of unpacked and repacked and got ourselves mentally ready

for it.

And then we wrong way from Texas if you want to get to Alaska

by the way.

Yeah, but it has some significant advantages.

So if you drive to Alaska from Texas, the logical thing is

just sort of aim for depending which way you're going up

either aim for Seattle and then go up along the coast or you

sort of go, okay, what's the shortest route to Calgary?

And I'll go up from Calgary.

Okay.

And if you think of either of those two lines, neither of them

are super exciting, especially if you go from Texas to Calgary

you drive across the Great Plains like the longest possible

way you could drive across the Great Plains.

Yeah.

But we went from Michigan across to Calgary.

And we did that by first driving to the northern part of Lake

Superior.

We drove up to Thunder Bay and went to an amethyst mind and

sort of dinked around for a day.

And then, and we did that primarily because we wanted to

drive across Ontario instead of driving across the United

States.

And highly recommended, if you zoom in on Google Maps for

Western Ontario, like anything east of where farmland is in

Canada, there are a billion little lakes and they're

connected with rivers and there's big passageways and

people go canoeing up there.

And I'd always seen that but I'd never driven through it

and it turns out you're like it's bedrock with little

bits of tufts of trees and dirt on top of them, but it's

these little lakes that have been scooped up by glaciers.

In rock.

But yeah, it's rock everywhere.

That's why.

I mean, there's trees growing on top of it.

Right.

But there's never a place where there's more than about

three feet of soil.

And so the terrain is fantastic.

It is really, really neat.

Is it good for off-roading?

I don't think so.

I think it's too steep and weird.

There's very few roads through that part of the world.

Sure.

They actually historically moved by boat because you

can go hundreds of miles on connected waterways.

And so when they did all the fur trapping and lumbering

and a bunch of other stuff like that, they did it by

boat or they did it over the ice in the wintertime.

So there is a lot more exploring I want to do in

that part of the world.

But if you have to drive west or east or west across

North America, I highly recommend the northern

most route, which is like US, Canada 1, I think,

goes all the way across Canada.

Okay.

Very cool.

But we did that up to Calgary and then we went

up through Banff and.

Banff?

Banff, B-A-M, B-A-N-F, whatever, the parks.

Oh.

The big fancy parks.

I was just thinking B-A-M-F.

I know what that stands for.

No, B-A-N-F, maybe two Fs.

Yeah.

Through the Canadian Rockies, big, big beautiful

Canadian Rocky stuff.

The roads had only been open for a couple weeks.

We were early in the season because this was the

end of May.

Yeah, sure.

And you did a pretty good job on your Instagram

actually like documenting some of this stuff.

Yeah, if somebody, I didn't see what I posted

on Instagram, they could go back through and

look and sort of track where I went and the

route that we took.

But yeah, we ended up going up through Canada

sort of the eastern route to the eastern

route up to Canada.

There's sort of two routes.

You can go up the Alcan.

We have to go up the Alcan eventually, but

there's sort of an eastern route that connects

you to the Alcan and then you can come down

along the West Coast to Seattle.

So those are sort of the two routes up through

Canada to get to where you're going to be in

Alaska.

We went up on the eastern route and down on

the western route, but we went up and then

we dipped over to Seward, I think, along

the coast.

We went from Canada into the U.S.

briefly.

You know, we took a ferry over to another

part of the U.S.

And then you had to go back into Canada

to get to the rest of Alaska.

So all of that was very cool.

And then we went along the southern coast of

Canada as much as you could.

And then as far west as Homer, which is the

farthest point you can drive west

continuously in North America.

There's roads west of there, but you have to

take a boat to get to those roads.

So if you were to take a ferry around to

like the west-west coast of Alaska, there's

some roads over there, but you can't,

it's one of those, you can't get there from

here, things.

You have to take a boat to get your car there.

So we did that and then we drove back

across through Anchorage or back across

through Fairbanks and back to the Yukon

and back from the Yukon down to Seattle,

down to San Francisco to see my daughter,

across there to Colorado to see my sister

and then back to Michigan.

It took us 33 days, 11,800 miles.

So where did you get your oil change?

Got our oil change in Whitehorse Yukon.

That's pretty cool.

Yeah, there's a Subaru dealer in Whitehorse Yukon.

And it was just one of those things where it

was about the right time.

It would have been, you know, to go from

Whitehorse down to Seattle was an extra

like 1400 miles or something.

And so that's the only place where we spent

two nights was in Whitehorse because the

next town where we could really stay south

of Whitehorse was like a 10 and a half hour

drive and to get an appointment,

to get an oil change at the Subaru dealer

because I'm trying to be like good about

my new car because it takes, you know,

it's a modern car so it takes whatever

the modern oils are and does all that stuff.

And so I knew the Subaru would have all the

Subaru dealer would have all the good things.

You also know the ramifications if you don't.

Right, yeah, I just didn't want to fight

with somebody.

I want to have a little certificate that's

like I swear to God it was a Subaru dealer.

It was Subaru Canada but like y'all are

sort of the same club.

Yeah.

And so there's no way to get an oil

change and still leave town early enough

to get to the next town.

There's so many places where you're

driving through British Columbia and the Yukon

and those areas where like towns are,

towns where you can stay because we

stayed in hotels basically the whole

time because we were very bougie.

They're like six to eight hours apart.

Got a plan for that.

Yeah, you just have to pay attention.

And we were, I was, I went against

my usual traveling thing and we were

actually, I had hotels usually about

four days in advance.

I would sort of look at where we were

and where we thought we wanted to be.

So we were sort of, we were still making

up as we went along.

But we realized if you got to some place

and you couldn't get a room, you were

fucked.

Like there was nothing to do and we

actually watched that on the way back

down we stopped in a place called

Bell 2 and Bell 2 is named after the

bridge because it's the second bridge

that crosses the Bell River.

And that's the very creative names in

that part of the world.

And the place we stayed was actually

a heli skiing resort in the winter

time.

And we had made the reservation there

like four days before we came in and

we got a room and then we sat down

at the little cafe to eat and you

had people coming in because the

check-in was at the same counter.

They were like, do you have any rooms?

And they're like, no.

These are all people driving north then

because it's everybody's driving up to

Alaska and we're driving back.

And they're like, okay, do you know

what the next town is?

And they're like, it's four and a

half hours north.

There's a place there but we already

called and there are no rooms there.

They're like, what's the next one

after that?

And they're like, it's another

three and a half hours after that.

And I, good luck.

You get people with like mini vans

full of kids.

There's no place to stay.

And it's, I know it's part of

how I live my life but I just

can't imagine.

Especially like if you're,

like if other people are relying

on you, like just

winging it day to day.

It's fun though.

Once we got down to the U.S.

we did wing it.

We never considered getting a

hotel room ahead of time

once we crossed the border again.

There's too many options.

Right.

But that's the thing, like you

weren't in the middle of

the frozen tundra of.

Absolute nowhere.

Like there was one place where I

found, I think we were in

Haines Junction

which is in Alaska.

And the place, the place we

made the reservation was just

like the something lodge.

It's like, cool, it's fine.

45 bucks for the night.

We go there

and there's a rope across the

driveway.

Like a big, like not open

rope.

I'm like, we're at the right place.

I have reservations.

Yeah, so we park at the

rope and we walk underneath

and go up

and knock on the door and the dog

loses its mind on the other side of the door

and maybe he comes to the door and she's like,

you staying here tonight?

Like I hope so.

Okay, cool.

We're not actually open.

Looks like what?

She goes, I decided not to open this year.

But I let people make reservations

online.

So it's cool.

And she talked to her for a while.

Did all this stuff.

And she's like, you can walk down

and sit by the river.

Like nicest woman ever.

And you know, when we were driving in

her husband comes around.

He's like working on a semi over there.

He goes, did she find you?

I'm like, yep, she found me.

He's like, cool.

Walks back around behind the semi.

It was, those are just the kind of

interactions that we had repeatedly.

Like there was several places where,

you know, you're staying at a Chinese restaurant

slash hotel slash gas station

slash everything.

We ate food at a Chinese restaurant

slash post office.

Like the post office boxes was like

the counter where you ordered food

and then the tables and then the post

office boxes right there.

And that was cool.

I mean, because especially in the winter

time, like you're

you're not going to keep more

buildings warm.

No.

So, yeah.

It was really neat.

The whole experience was really neat.

We saw, we did, we did the most touristy

thing we did as we took a boat trip

to go see glaciers and wildlife.

Yeah.

And on that trip, we did see,

saw glaciers.

We watched glaciers cave into the ocean,

you know, draw up big house size

pieces of ice, which is dope.

But we saw orcas.

We saw humpback whales.

We saw a billion little puffins.

We saw, you know,

sheep on the side of the cliffs.

We saw walruses and seals and,

you know, it was, we saw everything.

Like we ticked all the boxes that

day when we went out.

It was very cool.

Yeah.

See it, see it soon.

It's going to continue to change

as it has over the last 20 years.

The glaciers are.

The, the super, the,

the wonderful women who owned the

boat and did the trip we were on

showed us pictures from 10 years

before.

And the change in that glacier

was dramatic.

And they were like, we don't know.

They're like, clearly we only have

a certain number of years before

this isn't going to be reaching the

ocean.

There was a secondary side glacier.

It was one of the things where it came down

and it split and it came in and the one

off the side didn't come to the ocean

anymore.

So if you want to see glaciers

drop ice into the ocean,

do it while they still go all the way

to the ocean.

Because it's going to end.

Yeah.

So, yeah,

that's a really cool trip.

I'm glad you and your,

your kid were able to

make that happen.

Yeah. And like I was telling somebody,

I was telling,

actually I was telling my wife the other

day because he went off to school last

week.

I drove himself up to school last week

and I felt weird.

Year two, right?

What's that?

Year two.

Year two, but he drove himself.

Like last year,

he couldn't have a car last year

because of the rules of the school.

And this year it was,

he just packed his shit up and

you know, wave goodbye and took off.

Which felt,

a little bit weird.

But the,

so I sat around for a couple days

and you know,

I'm doing stuff.

I've got plenty of stuff to do,

but I felt weird.

My wife was finally like,

what's going on?

I'm like,

I think I miss him.

I think I'm mopey.

Yeah.

Because,

you know,

we spent

for 33 days,

we spent every day

together.

Yeah.

Like,

that's a lot of time to spend

with another human being,

much less your 17 year old.

Who,

17 year olds can be notoriously

fickle about wanting to spend time

with their parents.

That's true.

So,

so yeah,

it was weird going from

spending that much time with him

to having him just take off.

And he's such an independent kid.

You know,

he left here

and four hours later,

he said,

I'm in the parking lot,

made it.

And then I didn't hear from him

for five more days.

Yeah.

Because,

like,

he's doing his thing.

He doesn't need to talk to us.

He doesn't need to text us.

He's independent

and it's fine.

But,

yeah,

we had a really good summer.

And I feel

like,

I know what a privilege it is

to have

that block of time.

Very few people have

a month

to go do something.

Yeah.

I'm glad

you still apologize

for your summers.

It keeps you real.

Yeah.

It's

it's really special.

I mean,

a lot of,

if you live long enough,

you know,

anyone who lives long enough

is going to find themselves

retired eventually,

either by choice or by,

you know,

my arms don't move enough

to do the job that I do

anymore,

that kind of thing.

So,

like everybody will eventually

have time

if they live long enough.

But,

the thing that's special

is I have had huge blocks

of time

and I've had a wife who

both makes a good enough

living that I can take care

of that,

but is also

is very accepting of the fact

that I'm like,

so,

we're going to go do a thing.

And I understand

you can't come

because you can't take

time off work,

but it's cool

that we go do this, right?

Right.

Because not

every,

my wife has had so many

people say like,

I couldn't,

I couldn't have my spouse

just like take off

for a month or two months,

which is essentially what I do.

They're like, it would feel too weird.

My wife is like,

I really don't want

to trap my family

in my house in Texas

for two months.

That would feel weirder.

That's fair.

So, yeah.

And,

it's your

start of your second year

being

kid-less

at home

to feel more familiar

with this time.

Yeah.

I think I know more of what

to do.

Like, I understand

that I don't want to just

sit around my house in Texas.

And it took me a while

to come to terms with that last year.

And now I'm immediately like,

all right, time to go.

Like,

when there's nothing holding me here,

there's nothing holding me here.

I stayed

for a couple of weeks

after my son left

because this weekend

he's gone.

I had a motorcycle race.

So I had that to do

and wanted to do that.

And then next weekend,

he's home.

So I'm staying,

I will stay through

when he's home

and he'll leave.

Next weekend is the holiday weekend.

He'll leave on Monday

to go back.

And I will leave on Tuesday morning

and go back up to Michigan

and bring a motorcycle

with me this time

and actually spend some time alone

exploring back roads

and doing things like that

before I have to come home again.

Still

committed to finishing up

this dead thing

and actually being home

and my kid's home

for this last year

that he's here.

So I'll be driving back and forth

a lot.

The Subaru's already got

just under 30,000 miles on it.

Dang.

And I bought it in

February, I think.

Yeah.

So.

About time for tires, isn't it?

No, they're remarkably,

they keep getting rotated

every time I bring them in

for the complimentary Subaru

maintenance thing that I have.

And they're wearing very well.

So

I imagine, you know, probably

right about the time

the warranty on the car

ends, a bunch of shit

will just go pear-shaped

and the car will be like

nine months old

and falling apart.

But whatever,

it's been great so far.

It's like such a delightfully

mediocre car in every way

that it is perfect

for just being like,

no, I'm driving places

and doing driving things.

Yeah.

It's kind of like how

minivans are good.

But no one likes them.

Yeah, like nobody likes it.

But it's astonishingly good

at being a minivan.

Right.

And

that's a little bit what the

Subaru, like the Subaru's like,

it's not a minivan.

It's a completely different

experience.

But it's just like,

I don't know.

It's good.

It's got heated seats

which are comfortable.

It gets 30 miles per gallon,

basically everywhere.

It's got the all-wheel drive

is good for shenanigans.

Like there's basically anything

that has tire tracks down it,

not ruts,

but if it's got like tire tracks.

Right.

We can go there.

Have you gotten a picture

of one tire up on a rock yet?

Still waiting.

No, I didn't find any place

really cool for that.

I mean, I kind of did that in New

Mexico right after I got it.

I sent you that one in the road

where it's just like,

it's kind of lame, but.

And you finally got to open up

the present from our mutual

friend.

I did.

Put the widow at him

on the back of the car.

Yeah.

We, uh,

Chandler,

mutual friend of ours.

Long time me out of buddy.

He, uh,

he has a good 3D printer.

Access to a good 3D printer.

And he printed a widow at a

and some widow,

um, traction boards.

Yep.

Little, little traction boards,

a little gas can,

and a little gas can,

a little Jerry can.

Yeah.

Very cool.

The car's been great.

Like it's,

it's hard at that set.

It's easy to talk bad about

Subaru's like super easy to

talk bad about Subaru's.

Yes.

But the boring what cars they

sell are remarkably good

at being cars.

I think it's been that way for

a long time.

The Forester that I had was

like boring as shit,

but it was really good.

Yeah.

And a friend of mine who raises

motorcycles is like,

man,

legacies.

I love them.

I don't know why.

There was at Lime Rock a few

weeks back,

there was a legacy wagon on

track.

That's cool.

I mean, it's just wild to see

because you're like,

oh, here it comes.

It's still coming.

There's more car left.

Okay.

There's the back of it.

It's just

so long of a vehicle.

And then you see them next

to a full-size truck.

Yeah.

And you're like,

okay, actually, they're not

that big.

No, it's just,

I mean, it's got the face,

you know,

face of a car in the front

and the body of a short

mini van.

Outback.

Right.

How many races have you done

this year?

Just the one.

No, so this was my

third race of the year.

That's what I thought.

Third race weekend.

I did two before I left.

I was able to do one with

Sony over spring break.

We did one with the team

either before or after that.

Over the summer,

Sony did another one with the

team.

And then

she soloed one

because

they had,

that's a whole story.

They had the rest of the team,

the father and son,

had a family thing that just

like came up and they were

like, we can't actually

race this weekend

because the race was in

up by Dallas.

Okay.

And they're like,

we can't drive

four hours each way

and go do that.

And he was like,

I feel really bad.

It turns out just before

he found out about that.

Sonya had scheduled an appointment

to have her wisdom teeth out.

Oh, that was,

yeah.

I remember

I remember hearing she was

thinking about doing a race

like the day after she got her

wisdom teeth taken out.

Right.

So her wisdom teeth were scheduled

to be out at two o'clock on a

Friday

and she was trying to figure out

if she could,

if the nerve block would last

long enough that she could race,

she could solo a four hour

endurance race on Saturday

before the,

before the nerve block wore off.

The answer is no.

She didn't quite get that far

because

she couldn't do it by herself.

Like there's no way to do that

endurance race by yourself

and do the driving by yourself

the day after surgery.

And

Shannon

actually

she looked at

Sonya and said,

look,

I'm not supporting this decision.

I'm not going to drive you to Dallas

and do it.

And there's a little bit of

gnashing of teeth

and then Sonya was like,

okay,

like you're,

you're actually right.

That is the right

decision.

That's, that's fine.

So her appointment was on a Friday

and then on Wednesday

the

the oral surgeon called

and the oral surgeon had an emergency

on his end

and he said,

we have to reschedule this.

I can't do the appointment on Friday.

And so Sonya

gleefully said,

yay,

let's

we'll reschedule it for Christmas,

whatever.

I don't care about that.

And so she went

and sold the race.

Anyway,

and

had a great time.

So

that's my daughter.

Now she's

and she did that

and then she drove herself

back up to

Indiana

to go to school.

So yeah.

Well times.

It's crazy.

So that's been my whole summer.

Basically.

A lot of driving.

How much time

did you actually get up

at the cabin?

About a month.

So we're up there

about a month.

Yeah,

short.

And Shannon was up there

for two weeks.

She worked

worked from home

for a week

up there.

And then her parents

were up there for the

second week.

She was up there

and then Sonya

and her boyfriend

actually came up

for a week.

So

like I was up there

for a month,

but there's people

there for the majority

of it.

So you

feel okay about that?

How do you feel?

Yeah,

I enjoy having people

there,

but we didn't have

much like super quiet

downtime,

which we usually do

in the summer.

For

explore

shenanigans type things,

which is

I do.

I didn't bring a motorcycle

up with me

because I knew

what the schedule

is going to be like,

but it felt weird

to not go

dink around,

to not spend

a bunch of time

playing by myself,

which I've done

a lot for

the last

three,

four years.

Is that why

you're chomping

out the bed

to get back up there?

I'm so excited.

Yeah,

I'm like

ready to

go back to the

trailer,

justify owning a car

with a 3500 pound

tow capacity

to tow

whatever it's 700 pounds

of motorcycle and trailer.

Yeah.

And

have you thought about

just putting it

on the roof?

My wife

actually said that.

She's like,

your friends would love

you so much

if you put it

on the roof.

Yeah.

And I don't like

loading motorcycles

in the back

of a pickup

if I can help it

because it's

like going up

and down.

Right.

So I don't really

want to put it on the roof

of a Subaru.

Yeah,

it'd be cooler

if you did.

It would be a lot cooler

if I did.

It'd be way cooler

if I did.

All right.

Fine.

But

is this the bike

that has the chainsaw

holder on the front?

No.

This is just

going to be,

this is the

the Kawasaki

that I bought

this spring

through this last winter.

That's just sort

of the,

looks like a dirt bike

with cool fuel injected.

Lovely motorcycle.

Yeah.

Goes 65 miles an hour

kind of the max speed

but it will do that

all day long.

So it'll let me drive around

on the main roads

better than the scooter

would have.

Sure.

It's telling somebody

this weekend I was like

the scooters my favorite

bike in the world

and if it weren't

for all of the other

people driving on the roads

I would never need

another motorcycle

but I have to,

I do have to live

with other humans.

It just kind of sucks.

Yeah.

It's like the appeal

of getting a cabin up

in the UP.

Yeah.

There's other people

on the roads.

Like I can't do anything

about that.

I guess.

Should look into that.

Yeah.

So I've been everywhere.

You've

been busy.

I've been everywhere

but I've

been a lot of places.

Yeah.

Can you,

can you list

like a rapid fire list

since I saw you at Rev Up?

No.

Honestly,

I would have to

take out my calendar

to remember

where I have been

and what I've been doing.

I feel like you've had

more full weekends

than empty weekends.

Yes.

This summer.

Yes.

And part of that

was by design

as we talked

back in January.

You know part of the

theme this year was to,

you know,

kind of get out there

a little bit more.

Which

I haven't done

as good of a job this year

as I would like to.

But part of that

is because

we've been busy

with the schedule.

So I haven't been able

to,

you know,

like get to a WRL race.

You know,

get to these different paddocks

that I really would like

to get to

because I still have a job

and,

you know,

other things too.

A family.

Yeah.

But it's been

good

and busy.

Not good

because it's been busy,

but it's good

and busy

at the same time.

Your drivers seem

to be doing

pretty good.

Yeah.

So we've got

so we partnered with

Chris Rice

and Pete Greenberg

again this year.

Chris did

three

kind of early events.

He kind of front loaded

the season

and he did pretty well.

Not quite as well

as last year.

But,

you know,

he and I were talking

really with some of his

results last year.

He kind of,

I don't want to say

lucked into him for sure,

but like

he had some things

break his way.

That just didn't.

This year.

He'll still finish quite well

in the season championship,

I think.

I don't think he's going to win.

Pretty sure he's not going to win.

But yeah,

still drove well.

It was a little more

conservative with

car prep

and

all of that

because he knew that

after the four

events, he was kind of,

you know,

he's done with

that borrowed car of

that, you know,

he was driving

and he was kind of

retiring for Sunday cup.

Club SC,

whatever you want to call it.

So yeah,

it'll always always be Sunday

cup to me.

Exactly.

So yeah,

so it kind of came into it

with a lot more of a relaxed

attitude about it,

which

kind of played interestingly

over a few of the weekends

because he

was almost having a hard time

at points like turning on the

like,

I need to go kill it

right now

sort of thing.

But he did great.

It's always good to see him

hang out

and Pete

is doing

quite well again.

He's won

two events in a row now.

Car is doing well.

Our setup keeps getting better

from year to year.

Because we've just got

more experience to draw from.

You know, the shorthand of,

you know,

reviewing video and data with him,

you know, just is,

I don't want to say effortless,

but like it's just easy

because we've been working

together for so long

at this point.

So that's been good.

He's got a few more events.

He's not going to Laguna.

But he's got a few more events

and it's going to be

really close

for the season championship.

But it's going to be real close

between like

maybe five people.

It's a tight glass though.

Yeah.

This year Mario started out

really strong.

Evan McLaren is still

always

doing well.

Pete's been on a good run.

The last couple of events,

especially

and then there's

a couple of other drivers

who were just like right there.

So we'll see.

It will be interesting.

That class is really tightened up.

Like you can tell it's

it's a pretty mature class

for the rule set right now.

And the cars are

some great parody going on

car to car.

So yeah, it'd be interesting

to kind of look at the life span

of most time attack classes

and like

from a rules stabilization

point of view,

like at what point

do the cars like

really kind of start to hit their stride

sort of thing.

And I would probably argue last year

but this year

certainly like the formulas

and the

setups are just

there at the beginning of this year

ready to go.

So it's been good.

You know at

CMP.

Yeah, we

we were still doing podcasts at that point.

But yeah, all the

good life events that we've gone to.

I've been full,

which has been nice.

I hate turning people away.

It never feels great

because I,

you know, I want to help people and stuff.

I just

I've capped my

full weekend driver list at five

because really any more than that

and

the product that I'm able to offer

is just not as good.

It's just too hectic, too busy,

not enough time,

kind of stuff like that.

So we've been able to,

you know, we've been coaching a couple rush drivers

of, you know,

How's that?

How's that series going?

Seems seems

like the grid seem

big, especially later this year.

Yeah, I know that they

I believe they open more

tickets up

for some events,

which I think is part of it.

There's also like a bunch of prep shops

for rush cars specifically.

Right.

You know, the cars,

I mean, it's an appealing class,

for sure.

Yeah.

And the, you know, the types of tracks

that they go to and stuff like that.

So that's

it's really interesting.

I enjoyed my time driving

a couple of them.

Yeah.

Series wide, I don't know,

but for the few drivers that

I've been coaching like they've,

they're doing well,

kind of learning and

continuing on sort of thing.

So that's been good.

I've had certainly

a bunch of different time attack

drivers who've been fun

to work with.

You know, some track mod,

street mod, street,

club tier, Sunday

club.

Nobody from street GT,

but yeah, pretty much,

pretty much all the classes

except for unlimited, but

that's kind of hit or miss these days.

Yeah.

So that's been fun.

And then,

yeah, coaching a couple

GLTC drivers as well.

You know, racecraft and

raw pace for quality kind

of that kind of stuff.

So it's been, it's been really good.

Busy on those weekends, but

since I'm not driving or,

you know, I don't have any other

responsibilities on those weekends.

I, it's much less running

around.

It's more just like

either catching, watching a race

or sitting down, reviewing with

people like it's

pretty, pretty straightforward

really.

Feels manageable time wise.

For sure.

Yeah.

I'm certainly like mentally drained,

but I'm not like physically

destroyed at the end of the weekend,

which is something for sure.

Yeah.

Well, like actually racing

and, you know, putting the car up

and down and taking the wheels on

and off and doing, doing

that, that takes a lot out of you.

So.

Then we've been running around

with Revmatch,

which is a Midwest

HPD organization

kind of helping them

reimagine the HPD

program.

They're

trying to get into the time

attack and possibly wheel to wheel

world.

They're dipping their toes this year.

Kind of see how it goes

sort of thing.

So just been

helping them out doing

some coaching

over yonder and

talking with those guys.

So that's been good.

What tracks do they visit?

Gingerman,

Audubon,

Blackhawk Farms,

there's more

and I can't remember.

But yeah.

But real, real compact in the

like if you, if you were to drive

with them, you're not doing like

super long toes.

Right.

Yeah.

That is appealing.

Yeah.

And with, you know, with our

son and with

our other obligations and stuff

like, you know, there was

like three or four weekends or

whatever you could go and do with

them.

So kind of committed that

with them early on.

You know, I always think

stability for an organization is

helpful.

So I try to let people know

and as far in advance as can.

So that's been good.

Yeah.

Then been doing a bunch of sim

work with some drivers

and, you know, some

virtual, virtual coaching,

you know, long distance

and doing some

virtual

debriefs like after a weekend,

we'll look at some video, we'll look at some

data, that sort of thing

that the discord channel is

what we use for that.

So it's been, it's been good

and it's been busy.

So pretty early

on we kind of started talking

about how to

look at next year and how to

what we kind of want to do then

and stuff like that, but certainly

I think coaching is something

I still want to continue to do.

So that's something.

Is it what you

hoped it would be?

Yeah, I guess, like, I'm not

pausing because I'm not sure the answer.

I'm not, I'm trying to think of what I thought

it would be.

Well, it's kind of like

when somebody goes into teaching, like

you're like, this is, I'm going to be a teacher

and this is what I'm going to do and then you ask me at the end of your first year

you're like, was it what you thought

it was? Yeah, teaching

is not just like, you know,

seeing those light bulbs go off

in kids. It's a lot of like administrative

paperwork. Right.

I think so.

Again, yeah, like I

I think

the only thing missing

from my point of view

from what it had been

was just kind of doing it

full time on a weekend

and consistently over the course of a

season. And so

you know, traveling to these

racetracks with the trailer

but nothing in the trailer

is

different.

Can't say it's better or worse. It's different.

But I think the weekends are definitely

a little bit calmer, you know,

there's not a car to constantly look over

and worry about and think about stuff

like that. Right.

But that said, like

I do

I haven't driven as much

of this season as I would have liked.

Which has been every year

for like the last three years, but

Jesus, yeah, it's

in fact

so that's been something

but the drives I have been able to do

I think I've been

pretty proud of

the one lap earlier this year

certainly being one of those

the few rush cars I've been

able to drive

we did go to

Gingerman

with the Miata

and I finally broke

my long standing personal best there.

Yay.

By and margin, which was great

and

you know, because I had really

stood like I'd been within a tenth of that

for like four years,

three years, something like that

mm-hmm.

So it's good to know that like

with a little bit of focus and stuff like

yeah, I can still

improve like I

still have something in there.

I was going to ask you if you knew what

the key was.

Honestly, my demeanor in the car

like it has been all year

was pretty good. It's very calm,

very level.

Actually, I posted it

on my

new personal best

on YouTube

and I didn't really realize that at the time

but I was like very level like not super excited

not

really ever getting down on myself just

go with like somewhere in the middle

and at the end of my

fast lap, you know, I looked down at the time

saw what it was and it was this really soft

fist pump like that

like really like one pump

small, soft

and get back to work like

that was like it.

That was the celebration.

Yeah.

So that was good.

I'm going to go do

some race car stuff with it soon

again

and Becky's been getting in some

good seat time as well.

She's got some personal best as well.

So

that's good.

Yeah

and trying to kind of figure

out what's next like if I

sell the Miata, which I'm

like, you know, if

somebody tomorrow were to offer me

the amount of money I

think it probably

would be worth like

I can't say I wouldn't take it

you know, just trying to figure

out what's next after that I think so

because I would you be

happy to see the car racing somewhere

I don't

know I

well I

it's not that I would be happy

or sad about it. I think

it would be more the fact that

what that car

represented to me

when I got it versus

like what it's transformed into

are very different things

and so

it's not like this it's not on a

pedestal for me anymore

because when I bought it

is not like

why I bought it is not why I continue

to own it and drive it

so it's kind of

evolved through a few different stages

with me

and so like I think it'd be good to see it

get out there and especially in the

GLTC rules you know the

it's definitely got a bit of a buff this year

I took out all

my ballast and I'm

still a little overweight

so

I could take out this stuff over the right rear

but it really just I need that

stuff to like help balance the car

yeah

so yeah that's something I was

150

pounds out of the car

just unbolted

that's significant

it was a lot

and so and that's when I run my personal

ran my personal best actually

it was with all that ballast still in

so it was

GLTC legal last year

not this year

well it'd be legal this year it's just

heavier than it needs to be

so

that's been good

yeah I haven't been

really doing much Sim driving myself

just because

we have been busy enough

we were able to do

a few cool

trips with our kid

and

yeah I guess probably the last

thing a note for me is we got it

cat

and

you that

phrase sort of under sells

what's going on

well I've always

wanted a Maine Coon cat

like they're huge

they're very

they kind of

they're cool looking cats

and our

my former cat Seabass

RIP

died

year ago January so it's been a while

and

just kind of wanted

to let that sit for a while

to jump into another cat

and you know we had the race season

and then we had our wedding

and the holidays pretty soon

it's just like we just didn't

want to

introduce a kitten to like all

that mayhem and nonsense

and so

um

yeah we got a Maine Coon kitten

which you get at three months

they are

giant poofy

furballs

at that point

we ended up picking this

one based on temperament

but also ended up being the biggest

cat out of the litter

and so he's

on the way back

from mid Ohio grid life

mid Ohio

Becky and Willem stopped to pick up

our cat

and so

he's now like five months old

and is like

a full grown

cat for any other species

and he has

at least another year and a half

of growing left

oh do they grow for that long?

yeah it's like certainly

like they say it can grow

like for up to three years

but like two is like

they're pretty much there at that point

okay

that's a long time for cats

that seven eight month mark

I mean they'll fill out after that

but their frame is as big as it's going to get

so

his name is Terry Cruz

because

I kind of thought it was a funny name for a cat

um

he's got the nickname murder mittens

or Eminem

because he has giant paws

because he's a baby

in like

a cougar body

cougar spirit or something

um

also noodle cat

because you pick him up and he's just like

noodley, wet noodley

uh he's

has like three modes

he's either sleeping

eating

or attacking everything

it's like really about it

like every once in a while he'll get snugly

but really only with Becky

okay

treating it like

it's her child

and so she's like very affectionate

takes it to work

so I'm

even though I wanted

a main cat

I am the spare human in this for sure

it happens like that

temperament wise these cats are

much more like we think

of a temperament of a dog right

which is why like the cat can go to work

and ride around the van and things that

that domestic cats usually suck at

right well and that's

that's been the kind of the crazy thing

is like immediately

doesn't care

about road trips

like we let the cat wander around on the

inside of the van

and

he'll sleep on the

dash if it's not too hot up there

sometimes he'll like

lay across the back of your shoulders

and your neck and just like hang out for

a bit

or he'll like sleep on the cooler in between

us

or like he'll go

wander around the back we won't see him for

like an hour and he's back there doing

something

and then the noise he

doesn't really care about

noise that much so

you know even the first like he was

at the track for like the first two weekends

we had him

and just doesn't really care

he's fine we keep him you know in a harness

and leash

because he would definitely go try to

do something

make friends eat things

yeah he's

a little suspicious of large dogs

but like he's made friends

with several of the track dogs already

it's just a little

wary

yeah and a lot more people visit

our trailer because they just want to see the cat

and so

I'm like

it's like I'm a grandpa again

like or like I'm the parent

and like the grandparents come into the house

they'll say oh hi Scott, where's your cat

yeah

if I visit your house that's 100% what I'm going to do

like give you a little hug

and give the cat a big hug type thing

I get it

so yeah he's been great he's currently

discovered that he can

climb the

screen on the slider

upstairs and so that's

the newest frustration

of mine

he's too big a cat to do that

he genuinely

so yeah

he's been good

that's pretty much that

that's fun I love this this is such a

such a great

sidebar of Scott's life

and Becky I told her like

you know you need to start an Instagram page

and she's like oh yeah I should so

if you want to follow a cat

on Instagram which is the thing

if you don't know

it's

trackcat underscore

murdermentons

on Instagram

so there you go

and I follow like six people on

Instagram and one cat and

I decided

watching the posts about Terry come in

I did actually follow

my ratio of people the cats

is way off there should be more cats

and fewer people probably because the cat

posting is far more interesting

yeah and Becky follows

squirrels raccoons I mean there's

that doesn't surprise me at all

actually no so

she's she's happy

cats happy

I'm doing well

now

things are good so this

the summer has been good

you know I'd like to

keep doing this coaching thing

and I don't quite know

like after the

northern season is done I don't

really have any

things scheduled but I would

like to so

if anyone's down south doing warm

things over the

wintertime when we have to close

up shop

holler at your boy because

yeah I'd love to get down

and go see some us tracks I haven't

been to in a while or

some tracks I haven't been to so that'd be

good time I will say in the

in the sim driving world

friend of the show

yet opened his

sim racing cafe and between you and I

off air I was like dude I don't know how the

finances work with that

and I was I was just over there

we did a watch party for MotoGP

week and a half ago and

I talked to him about it and he's like now it's

it's going good like awesome

like they're

they're actually contemplating

well they're another

another location in a different

city is well into the works

and they're looking at expanding

the space that they have right now because when

they do watch parties or

corporate events like they just don't have enough room

but you can't put 300 people in their

space and crap

300 people at a time want to be in their space

it's wild good for him

so he's he's got

his finger on the pulse of what's cool

with that and the sims are great

and they are

currently

finalizing the plans for a kids size

sim that is the

same quality as the big sims that they have

that's awesome good because

their sims go down to about

if you're right at about 5 feet

that's sort of the maximum smallness

for them and they need ones that will fit

smaller people because they have

a have a

demand for that so they're going to meet

meet that demand and get it so

smaller kids can drive so it's really cool from all the

like midgets and

short track stuff that's out there

like really

from four years old

I mean kids are kids are doing

this stuff and someone

is making a commercial cart

sim a small cart sim for kids

and they looked at that

and they don't

think the component

I don't know if I can say this publicly but I don't think

the componentry can

last to driving 8 hours a day

in a commercial environment

not that they're not good sims

they are but

they have to be so robust

right

so

so yeah I'm pretty

pretty hyped about that whole thing it's good

to see a friend

be successful on that

if another motorcycle friend is trying

to buy a racetrack in Arkansas

if that happens

I'll have a lot to say about that

color me intrigued

yeah so

it's fun it's fun I'm doing

nothing in my life personally but I have

people around me that are doing great things and

it makes me excited

yeah I may

I don't have plans currently

but

this year has gone

I'm kind of looking forward

to putting my car

away for the winter

in one piece with

nothing really to do to it

it's like I look at that

stupid sim

in my garage and I'm like

this may be the year

you might get that working

it's rapidly becoming your Porsche

it's

ouch

alright

that felt a certain way

alright

I have to be you to it now

you activated the

the competitiveness

in me the potential for

shameless there

but yeah

I kept looking at that

I need to be able to sell those three

large plasma screens

that came with it

and

each of those screens there are

55 inch plasmas

each of them has like its own

hard sided

roadie case

and

two of them come with

well made

tubular stands

and so if anybody is interested

for the most

ridiculous triple

monitor setup you could ever

possibly imagine

hit me up

because

I'm not going to use them

and I would love to get them out of my house

commercial portable

triple monitor

thing somebody must need that

I mean 55 inch

that has to be 4 feet

wide

it's a big screen it's 12

feet

it's 12 feet of screen

yeah

so

if you want to beat your friends

whatever your buddies are doing

it's not this big it's not 12 feet

worth I promise you

yeah hit me up but

anyway

yeah at track walking podcast

yeah we've got

a

I think we're going to try to funnel more people into the discord

and then

we've got a little thread

within that for like questions

and topic ideas and stuff like that

that we've gotten a few already so

link for that

is in the show description

show notes all that good stuff and

yeah I think that's going to do it

you

you have any last remarks

I don't we're going to get back to it

I'm excited to talk to you

I missed

this out

do you have any last remarks

yeah I know this is it

this is not it we're going to do more shows

this isn't like the last remarks

yeah

we're going to record a few before we launch them

I think just

to kind of help bank us for the inevitable

week

that we'll have to miss for

one reason or another

whatever it is

cool well yeah

talk to you see you

you got the short haircut again

I do

I'm a normal

like I have to go see a judge or bank

or something it's kind of my look right now

good for you

happy for me

all right well share the

episode do the like

subscribe all that kind of stuff

that's great so good to talk to you

and we'll talk to you next week

next week

you

Mazda MX-5 / Miata

Toyota Tundra

Mercury Cougar

About this episode

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