LIVE
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.
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.
Yeah.
So Rev Up was fun.
Yeah.
Had a good time.
It was good.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Yeah.
Can you,
can you list
like a rapid fire list
since I saw you at Rev Up?
No.
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.
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
About this episode
Scott and Seth return after a two-and-a-half-month break, reflecting on their lives and adventures since their last episode. They share stories from a recent epic road trip to Alaska, discussing the scenic routes, wildlife encounters, and the challenges of finding accommodations in remote areas. The conversation also touches on their racing experiences, coaching updates, and personal growth, all while maintaining a light-hearted and humorous tone. Listeners will appreciate the blend of travel tales and automotive insights, along with a glimpse into their lives outside of racing.
Original notes
Seth has driven a lot, and seen things... Scott has coached a lot, and has a new cat!
Here we are - year/season/round 6 of the episode! We catch up on what we've been up to during our annual hiatus.
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Scott and Seth
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