208 - The End of Pursuit

Hi, I'm Scott.

And I'm Seth.

And we are Track Walking.

Tonight, we catch up from a couple of our weekends, and we talk about a quote, and we attempt to

answer a question intelligently.

Actually, we had a lot.

We do have a few.

Yeah.

Which is fun.

It's a fun thing.

Yeah, because we've been, because we can tell about your weekend, but like your weekend

went into Monday, so we couldn't record last week because you were such a busy boy.

So we've like, we've done extended track things, but I don't recall ever being at a track for

this long before.

So it is Audubon.

We got there late, like 9, 9.30 on Thursday night, and we were there until like 5 on Monday

night.

And Audubon, with its famous like, I live in an asphalt death hell parking lot.

Yeah.

That was, that was Sunday and Monday, actually.

Audubon's one of those places, like I want, like I really want to love it because driving

it is cool.

Yeah.

But existing at Audubon.

Yeah.

It's a thing.

Air conditioning in an enclosed space is really the way to get through that, I think.

Yeah.

Comfortably, anyway.

So talk about the weekend.

Like what, like what was going on, what was your part in it, how to go.

Yeah.

So I went there to do some coaching and some setup for a few people.

I ended up being more busy than I typically planned to be.

And it went okay.

I was very busy, though.

Like the, it was the kind of busy where after I got done with someone, I almost like jokingly

wanted to say out loud, next.

You need like some velvet ropes so that people can just line up to hang out with you.

Take a number.

No, but it's, it was good, it's just the downtime was little bits and pizzas here and

there.

Like hard to find time for a sandwich type thing.

Yeah.

Well, we got to do, we did some setup checks for actually a Miata got on the street mod podium

over the weekend.

Holy crap.

Yeah.

Wild times.

John Road, a long time buddy.

He drives a DCT swaps turbo case series carbon bodied Miata.

Well, that's a lot going on with that, isn't it?

It's just like the whole thing and how much tire can he shove under that if he's been playing

with carbon body and stuff?

That's been the big missing piece for him is up until this year.

He's been stuck on two 45s.

That's not gonna tear.

That's just all that was available.

But of course the Vitur and now the Nan King come in much wider to 75 and 285.

And I think it's helping.

I've been wanting to talk to you about the state of tires because I'm sort of out of

the loop and I'm interested in it.

But I think that's a totally different show where we can sort of.

Yeah, probably.

Yeah.

But yeah, he did great.

So we checked his, checked a few other of the drivers I was coaching.

But honestly, overall, I kind of had a, you know, up on my white board kind of had a list

of everyone who is driving and just like some personal bests as like references and things

to focus on or, you know, for like Pete, who we do like weekend full setup stuff

for, you know, we've got his pressures and shock settings, wing angle, stuff like

that on the board.

And the number of times we got to cross off personal bests was pretty cool.

That's good.

So yeah, it was very drivers were excited.

It was good.

Pete had a bit of a disappointing end to the weekend and podium sprint.

He ended up going into turn four.

I think on his second hot lap and in high speed corners, you may not know this, but cars

actually like pivot on the middle point of the car.

Like the car just doesn't like dig in and turn in from wherever you are.

The front tires go in and the rear tires actually go out.

If you're like really maximizing that turn in.

And he was close enough to the edge of the track that when he turned in and pivoted

that right rear tire dipped off track and turn in it dipped off.

Yep, which happened to me at Heartland a few years ago that I was, I had just a little bit

of my tire hanging off at turn in and once I turned in that they just slid right off

and you know, you kind of long for the ride for a hot minute.

So that was a bummer.

But he, you know, he reset the overall record and then Mario, I think on that last morning

beat it by like a 10th.

No it wasn't even a 10th, it was some hundreds or something.

So that was cool.

Yeah, it was a good time.

And then that Sunday night was probably the most bizarre experience.

We've never stayed past a grid life event before.

Okay.

We've been there for like when the circus comes into town, but we've never been there

when the circus leaves town.

And boy, it gets quiet remarkably quickly.

So is anybody who's left just like scattered around?

Yeah.

There were a few people who stayed to Monday, but like a few, I'd say one, two, three or

four vehicles were still there.

And then, you know, a lot of the grid life staff were like packing up for a lot of the

night and stuff like that.

But you know, Becky and I installed her new race tech harness in her car and she

got some reading done and I stared at my phone for a while.

So you gotta have a little bit of downtime, gotta reset.

So kind of shouldn't, didn't realize how much downtime we'd have that evening.

I should have brought some of my books or something like that.

But there's the midwestern in you, like you can't just chill, you gotta be productive.

Well it's either reading or doom scrolling.

So it's like nice.

And there's moral judgments to be made about which one of those is better.

Well, yeah.

Yeah.

But it was good weekend.

And then Becky got to Monday.

We drove Autobahn full and that's really neat.

Like Autobahn full is cool.

And the event organizers did fine.

But I've never seen so many large incidents during a track day before.

Like people hitting things or?

Yes.

It was pretty wild.

We had two fairly major incidents.

One of which made it so that we couldn't do Autobahn full.

We had to switch to only doing north for a couple hours while they repaired three full sections

of Armco.

Yeah, there was a grass fire.

Another car hit a barrier.

And then there were multiple offs and fluid like it was just a strange.

And this was like on a Monday, like people have to go to work the next day, you know.

Was it just a group of guys out trying too hard or was?

I don't really know.

It was a strange one, though.

We jokingly said they were on like version 12 of the schedule by like one o'clock.

They're just winging it.

Yeah.

I mean, doing their best and they did, I think they did a good job with what they

had.

It was just, it was tough.

But yeah, Autobahn full is good fun.

My favorite part is the long connector from north to south.

It's like this very long duration, high radius left hander coming around the end of paddock.

It was pretty cool, so.

Becky almost got a sub three minute, which I don't know if that's a thing, but should

be.

Yeah.

I think it's an easy thing to do or a easy number anyway.

With the full course, though, like that's a lot to remember and it's yeah, it's so we

were actually thinking like in terms of a track this long, is there a more technical

track and like is there anywhere?

Is there anywhere else in the U.S. where you're sitting three minute lap times?

Well, and that's what we were trying to think like even NCM is mid twos and it's a shorter

track.

I mean, it's certainly more technical, but it's a shorter track.

Right.

This is a very long track that's not wrote America that has a lot of turns like it's

pretty unique.

It's cool.

I hadn't done it since grid life did it back in was it 19?

I think.

Yeah.

That was the weekend.

Yeah, long time.

It was really early.

Yeah.

That's when we did north.

No, we did south and north and then we switched to full on Sunday or something

like that.

Yeah.

Adam was just experimenting.

He was like, dude, I got an idea.

It'll be awesome.

And then they got done in there like, I mean, it was awesome, but what a pain

in the ass.

Yeah.

I mean, it reminds me of, you know, one lap when we, you know, when

we actually did configuration changes during the day and stuff.

Yeah.

When we used to do that at Crescent when we did big and little and then the 3.1.

Yeah.

We did that for NCM.

Yep.

It wasn't the same year, but it might have been the year after.

Yeah.

You go from one small course directly to the other one.

And then in the afternoon, they connect the two.

It's what we did with NCM too.

It's a wild good time.

It's fun.

I missed that.

I actually missed that at NCM when they stopped doing that and we're just doing full course.

I was like, oh, but I kind of missed the character changes and, you know, it's, it's a different

skill set to do.

Yes.

You know, instead of doing the same track twice, you do three different tracks during

the day.

And one of those years we did that, the autocross was there too.

So it was like four separate events in one day.

That was a lot.

So, yeah, it was good.

Mooncake's doing well.

I heard Mooncake's got a crapped on a camber right now.

It does.

It's got high fours.

Jesus.

And you want to know the crazy part?

Knees more.

Yeah.

So, yeah, so we're going to add some more and see how it does.

It's doing that, um, that women's day at Gingerman, I think it's called the empower her or empower

her.

Empower her.

I forget which one.

I want to say it's October 4th.

So if you are a woman or you know a woman who is interested or drives, uh, she came out

for that one.

I think it's going to be good.

So I'm going to play the role of crew chief and cheerleader.

Becky's just going to be awesome.

She's going to do her thing.

Red.

How about you?

You did some, you drove a long way from Michigan to Texas to do tiny bike things.

Yeah, I left, I left my cottage at 430 in the morning on Wednesday.

I got home.

It was just because I woke up.

It was like, well, I woke up.

I might as well turn the water off, turn the gas off, lock the doors and start driving.

You're getting old where like it just happens.

Yeah.

So it's like once I've slept for seven hours, my body's like, all right.

That's good.

The night's over.

Figure out something else to do.

Um, and so I ended up getting home mid, mid day on, on Thursday.

You know, it's, it's 20, basically 23 hours.

Um, so, uh, I flipped 32,000 miles on the car I bought in February.

Crazy.

Um, um, got some stuff done on Thursday, woke up on Friday.

Um, went to the track, made sure the motorcycle worked.

Um, definitely did was happy with that.

Got home packed everything up, made dinner for my wife, went to bed, woke up Saturday morning

at 430 so we could leave at five.

Okay.

Um, to drive to Denton, which is actually where my youngest goes to school.

Didn't see him all weekend.

Um, and, uh, went endurance racing on Saturday and sprint racing on Sunday.

Um, we had a new build, the, the father and son that I'm racing with, um, put together

a bike, another Honda 70, but put a different motor in it.

110 cc, uh, motor that goes in the Ovali race bikes.

And so it roughly doubles the horsepower that we had in the bike.

Geez.

Which is roughly four times the horsepower that the bike came with stock.

So it's, um, is a lot like, we're not really sure what the final result is going to be,

but the bike was running, was running well in the morning.

We went out and tested it.

Um, cause we weren't sure which bike we were going to ride because we had the bike

we've been running all year and we went out and ran it.

We're like, this is faster.

Let's run this.

Let's do this.

It's awesome.

And then right at the end of practice, a, the, the spark plug wire, which we had

zip tied back, flopped in a funny way, landed on the header and melted to the core.

It's a copper core spark plug wire.

You could see the copper.

Suboptimal.

Um, so we wrapped it up with electrical tape and zip tied it the rest of the way

out, went and did six laps by Cranfine.

We were like, all right.

I mean, if it works, it works.

Is this the fastest bike you've raced there?

No, the, the bike that we put together whatever three years ago that the boys

and I put together would have been faster than that would have had probably

two, two more horsepower than that.

Um, bigger chassis.

Um, that would have been faster than this by a couple of seconds.

Based on the lap times we put in at the beginning of the race, this bike

should be about three seconds a lap faster than the bike we've been running

all year.

So instead of running, we ran a lot of 54s, um, during the race, 54 second

laps and, um, for the, the 16 laps that the bike continued to run.

Um, put in, put in a fast lap of a, of a low 51.

Um, so like without even really getting used to the bike.

So we're, we're three, I think this new bike will be three to four seconds

a lap faster, which is like a lot.

Yeah.

Um, but it made it about 12 laps in started missing at about lap 16 came

in and he's like, it doesn't work.

Shit.

So cut the transponder off of it.

Um, and as I was zip tying it back to the leg of, of my bike, we went

to the organizer.

We, there's a, there's a thing where you can swap bikes during the

race, but you automatically go back to zero laps.

It's like starting over again.

So 20 minutes into the race, um, we started our race.

So we were, you know, roughly 20 laps down at that point.

Yeah.

Um, so that, that takes out any chance we have of doing particularly

well, but as far as the championship goes, you know, we still

got in 230 laps, something like that during the day, which is

better than, better than the bike running for like two hours

and then breaking.

And then we're like, crap, no, no, are you going to do?

So it's going to fail, fail early, fail hard, fail early.

Um, I did, um, I did see, I was invited and joined your little,

uh, bike Facebook group where they only occasionally post things.

Yeah.

And you were called out specifically first lap of one of the

races of causing a yellow flag.

Okay.

So I didn't cause the yellow flag.

Okay.

So, um, did you go down?

Yes.

I was going to get to that because that's what I saw.

So endurance races went fine.

It was fine.

Okay.

Sprint races, um, the, the clutch on my 70 is weird right

now.

Um, it's slipping under the two, three shift, but then it catches

back up and grabs.

Um, so the bike is suboptimal.

It did make it the entire endurance race, although the last

15 minutes, my, one of my teammates who was on it was like,

it's fucking broken.

It's like, finish the race.

Shut up.

And when the bike is cold, it works better.

So I spent as much as I could yesterday not riding the

bike, then going out and doing six or eight lab sprints

and then bringing it back in, turning it right off again

so it would get cold again.

And had a pretty good day.

Um, had some good battles.

Um, got to my last race.

Um, there was much bigger fields than usual.

There was probably half again as many riders as we've had

for most of the sprint races.

So instead of having four and five people per race,

we had a lot of races with like seven and eight people.

It's pretty cool.

Um, but it makes it a little more chaotic.

Last race, I think there was eight, eight people in the race.

Seemed like a lot.

Yeah.

Like it feels like a lot when you go through the first couple

corners and everybody's bunched up and things are

happening and, um, had a okay start, you know,

I have to paddle the bike to start because that's the,

the fastest way to do it is get two steps in help push

bike forward.

Um, still the slowest bike starting by far.

Are you allowed to like be off the bike and like jump on to

it and push?

Yeah, it's not really better doing that.

You just put it in gear and then you have like one foot

forward and one foot back and you go push, push.

And by then first gear catches up and it's okay.

Um, it's not a lot slower than the people around me,

but you know, it's, I always lose position on

starts just the way it is.

And then usually my corner speed by the time I get

to the first corner, my corner speed is higher than

the people in front of me and it's a whole thing.

And so typical corner one, which is this big banked

left-hander, big, fast banked left-hander.

You kind of, you know, it's first gear, second gear.

And if you didn't have people in front of you,

you wouldn't really have to let off.

You'd be kind of building speed through the whole

corner.

It passed a lot of people in that corner, didn't you?

I have passed a lot of people in that corner.

It was, it was a little chaotic.

Um, I didn't do as much this time.

Um, people are getting better throughout the year.

So a lot of the people that were not as good earlier

in the year have been getting better.

And so I'm, I'm, I'm being less awesome because

the people around me are less sucky.

It's just a proportion thing.

But good first corner, you know, went from,

you know, whenever position four to probably

position five second corner.

Um, there's a young rider.

I say young, I think he's eight.

And, um, he was inside and I took him outside.

And he takes a little bit of a funny line through

there and I knew he did.

Um, and he just, he takes a wide exit.

So I gave him room and he kept coming and I

gave him room and he kept coming and I kept

giving him room.

I was like, dude, if he takes this to the dirt,

then he's going to take me to the dirt.

And this is some kids eight year old and we're

both going to die.

And luckily he left me like not a lot of room.

So he's on my left.

We're going into, so we're like fifth and sixth

places.

There's four bikes in front of us.

We're going into the, the tightest, slowest

right-hander.

And in front of me is, uh, my teammate,

my 15 year old teammate from endurance racing.

And he tries to make an inside pass on this

right-hand corner that is never going to work.

On, on you?

No.

On a guy he was going into the corner with.

Um, a guy I really wanted to race today.

Uh, older gentleman in his early 60s that I

dearly love.

Um, he and I race, race close against

each other.

Have a good time.

This pass was never going to work.

Luckily he kind of realized it at the

last minute and dumped the bike up on the

curb rather than hit him.

Um, and bike goes up on the curb, bike

falls over.

I'm three bike lengths away.

There is an eight year old to my left.

And it was like, shit.

Like I need to try not to, to kill this

15 year old who just fell in front of me.

But I can't not hit him.

And so, um, I fall on the brakes kind of

aimed for more motorcycle than human.

It feels like that Sophie's choice.

Do you kill the 15 year old or the eight

year old?

And I didn't, because of how it was, I

just, I knew the eight year old was over

there.

Right.

But I would have had to bail really hard

left probably into him.

And it just would have been ugly.

Like it would have been bad.

And you know, you're trying to do all of

this in half a second.

You're trying to evaluate all of this

like immediately sort of based on, you

know, how you go into a corner and you

sort of like know where the chess pieces

are.

And then you're like, should I have to

make a move?

And you have to remember at that moment

where everything was.

And so I basically T boned a bike that

was on the ground.

Ass over T kettle tucked and rolled

landed on the 15 year old.

The bike came over and sort of like

rolled over me.

And I kicked the bike off.

You know, immediately was like, are

you okay?

He's like, yes.

Damn it.

I'm like, you're okay though.

Yeah.

Okay.

Cool.

And he picks his bike up.

He's got a broken bike brake lever.

I was like, good fuck you.

Kickstarted my bike.

Go to go straight.

And the handlebars are like 20 degrees

off straight.

It's like just all the way crooked.

And I'm like, no.

And you know, we're far enough behind.

We're a third of a lap behind at this

point.

It's not like I'm really going to catch

up.

Right.

But it was like, no.

So I just finished the lap and came

in.

Yeah.

But oddly, so the only thing that

hurt afterwards is my thumb, my left

thumb was sore.

And so I'm wiggling it.

My wife is like, why are you wiggling

your thumb?

And I'm like, making sure it's fine.

It's just not, it's not broken.

But I want to make sure it's not broken.

She's like, okay, because if it's broken

I was like, no, it's okay.

And I got up this morning and I have,

I have a big goose egg on my left shin.

Yeah.

I've got a big sore swollen spot

between my shoulder blades.

Maybe from where the bike hit you.

Yeah.

And my left thumb hurts.

It's like the weirdest rant.

And it feels like somebody threw me down

the stairs just in general.

Right.

Like not a lot of stairs, but like four

or five, somebody pushed you down

stairs and you're like, oh, I'm old

and that hurt.

It's a very specific number.

Yeah.

And that's, but not like a flight of

stairs.

A stoop.

Somebody pushes you off a stoop type

thing.

Like a split level.

Yeah.

Yeah, like that.

So I'm getting good at evaluating

how much it hurts when I do stuff

now.

So yeah, that was my last race of the

day.

And that's the last sprint races of

the year.

They changed the format.

So they're going to do an endurance

race at the last round of the year

instead of sprints at the last

round because they've been,

we had 22 endurance teams at this

last race.

Wow.

And they've just been for whatever

cultural reasons,

endurance races have been much

more well attended than sprint

races.

So they made a decision to do

that.

We've got one more sprint or one

more endurance race.

And then into the year trophies,

we should have the bike together

to race the fast bike at the last

endurance race.

So we're pretty hyped about that.

He has an extra motor, that same

motor, which is a story why he has

two of those motors because I

used to have two of those motors

and then he bought them from me

and then he was going to give me

one back.

So for next year, we're going to

have two of those bikes that make

way too much horsepower.

And we're going to go be a

horse and try to mess with people

who have better bikes than us.

So we'll see how that goes.

Sounds like a good time.

That was a good time.

The only thing that was,

that I felt bad about all weekend

because I didn't run over

anybody's kids so I didn't feel

bad about that.

My wonderful, loving, amazing wife

was like, I'll come with you.

I was like, do you want to come

with me?

She's like, no.

But I will come with you and

drive because driving back at the

end of a weekend like that by

yourself is unpleasant.

And so she came and she drove,

but that's just like sitting at a

racetrack for two days.

Yeah.

Is not awesome if you're not a

racer.

Yep.

So she's wonderful, but I felt

bad about her doing that.

So at least the next round is

an hour from home.

So she won't have to do that.

So that'll be nice.

And when is that?

That is the first weekend in

November.

Oh, thanks.

You got a minute.

Yeah, there was supposed to be

the six hour round in October

and they've had scheduling

problems and weren't able to get

that scheduled.

So this is the first year since

I started racing that we won't

do the six hour.

So that's kind of a bummer,

but it's one of those things

that happens when you're

living in a world where you're

the lowest priority series that

runs at any of these tracks.

Sometimes this happens.

Yeah.

Well,

I happened to upon a quote

a few weeks back that I sent

you.

Yeah.

And I thought it was pretty

deep and provocative.

And you're like, but no.

Because part of half of this

is silly.

And we want to talk about it

for a little bit.

The quote is,

there is no prize to perfection

only an end to pursuit.

There is no prize to perfection

only an end to pursuit.

And I want you to talk about

how you thought this was deep

and amazing.

And then I'll talk about how

it's

all right.

So here's the thing.

I

and I think this this is really

our only sticking point is that

it's presuming that perfection can

be attained.

Which

right.

Which

nobody here believes.

But

I think in the framing of it.

You know, say say you get this

thing that you've always been

chasing.

No, you you get the new car.

You get the new job.

The bigger house.

Perfect.

Perfect family.

Perfect life or perfect.

Whatever.

Perfect lap.

Let's say.

Let's just say it.

You get these things.

Nothing happens

except you

get to quit

trying.

You get to quit working at something

because you got it.

Like there's no reward.

There's no like enlightenment.

Because

the pursuit of perfection

is just effort.

Like that's that's what it is.

We don't like life doesn't have

an awards show.

Right.

I mean, I feel like it should

sometime.

Hey, you got through a Monday.

We want to do the normal people

Emmys this year.

Well, like, like Scott,

you've been nominated for like, you

put up some badass trim this year.

Thank you.

Today, Monday, hard to

so tired.

But yeah, so I just kind of

liked that I connected these two things.

The pursuit of perfection

and

the idea that like that's really

all there is to

perfection.

Because we I think

we agree that you just you can't

get it.

But it's the pursuit.

It's the effort.

The striving and the struggle

that that's like that's all

there is.

Right.

And that's I connected it to

to art.

There's artists who have a thing

like that who

who say something along the lines.

If I'm still making art, it's because

I'm not happy with it.

Because they'll make art

and they'll be like, you know, I can do

better.

And they'll make more art and they'll

be like, you know, I can do better.

Performance musicians will

perform something to be like I can do

like I can be better at this.

And so everything they do

is in pursuit of like making

the best art that they can make.

But in making a particular piece,

they realize there's something that they

could do better.

And so that requires them

to make more art in perfection

or in pursuit of doing

better than they did before.

And so like the only thing to do

is continue to hate what you're doing

just a little bit or quit.

Like those are your only options.

And I would

like when you started to talk about

the artist, my mind goes to

speech writers, orators,

authors, people like that

is that they talk about it as

then like things that need to be said

or things that they need to say.

And

it's interesting.

I'd have to think that their

version would be

that I've said everything

I need to say.

But I'm not sure

that's ever

accomplished.

No, I think there's certainly

people who

who write

like a write a book

and get out

all of

the good stuff they have in them.

You save up a life's worth of

of thinking and contemplating

and you pour out everything you can

into

into a work

and you send it out into the world

and you don't have anything

that beautiful and profound left in you.

I think that

happens.

God, that seems tragic to me though.

It's like

then

do you just die?

Like what

like the next step

it only seems like that's the thing.

Like if you if you write

and you're like it is done

and then you keel over

and that's it.

But the idea that like you

you get all these big ideas

out of you

and then you just kind of go

into stasis mode

for the rest of your life.

Like

keep experiencing

and like there's

there's got to be more

always

or something different.

There's a bunch of authors

the one that comes specifically to mind

and I can't remember his name

but I know the book.

There's a book called

The Confederacy of Dunces.

I've heard of this title.

It takes place in New Orleans

like

characters that you don't like at all

but fascinating characters.

Oddly brilliant book.

It was published posthumously

because he poured

everything into this book

and

killed himself.

In

I don't know if it's direct

somebody will have to correct me

if it was directly in you know

an effort to get it published

if it was just found afterwards

I don't know what's going on

but it was published after his death.

Brilliant piece of work.

But

I mean

that was it.

Like he

took

everything

into this work

years of writing

and then died

that's all you're ever going to get out of him.

Yeah.

And

think of

think of so many painters

like I think one of the reasons we don't

like live artists

is because there's always the potential for something new

but if you

if you can look at their whole body of work

is brilliant then you're like

cool they did that thing.

Well what have they done lately?

Yeah it's

I don't know we

we look at

a continuously creative process

different than we look at

work like I wasn't alive for

I don't know like Hemingway

doing his works but

certainly J.K. Rowling

we talk a lot about her personal stuff

but the books

the Harry Potter books that were written

are

really good pieces of literature

for the genre

like they're an

it's an outstanding series of books

the world building

the character development

all of its phenomenal

I don't think she had anything

left in her when that was done.

She's written some other stuff since then

that's not nearly as good.

Sure.

So

but

Yeah in

in context of

race cars

Yeah we just kind of what we do here.

Right.

Some of what we do.

Let's be real sometimes.

You know if you achieve perfection

like if you

won

time attack

Yep

which is

even in framing is

on its face feels absurd

well and there's different ways to win time attack

Right

but like

it was the perfect lap

it's

the fastest car

it's

nothing's gonna touch it

ever and ever and ever

etc

then

all that's left is

to

stop

Yeah

well to come off and go like

it can't be better than that

I can't think of

a single high level driver

that would ever make that statement

Yeah at least not in

with some

data and retrospect

and stuff like that

Right

Yeah

but even the notion of this

and

and so okay you do

the perfect

fast lap

like is the joy

like and I guess this is where

the crux of it is for me like

is the joy

in the getting

like is the joy in the

the achievement

or is the joy in the pursuit

and at least this quote

seems to suggest that if

the joy is in the perfection

in the getting

then once you get there

is nothing left

there's nothing else to do

then

something else

but I think what you and I

might suggest

is that if the joy is

in the pursuit itself

then there will always be

something else to do

something else to try

like even if you can't do

a better lap like you can

go drift it

you can

take up airplanes

like go try something else

Yeah and I

when you sent me that quote

I immediately looked at it as being

very sarcastic

Sarcastic

which is to say

like if you're

perfect the only thing

you have to do is quit

which is a deeply

sarcastic opinion on

trying to perfect

anything

to me anyway

at least that's how

I would be

if somebody did like I did that

perfectly I'm like cool go home

there's nothing left for you to do

that's for

and I think there is

I do think a lot of people

a lot of high level people

are

a bit sarcastic about the idea

of perfection

with any of that because they understand

the more you understand the nuances

of the thing that you're doing

the more you understand how

impossible it is

to achieve every one of those

nuances simultaneously

sure

and so the closer you get

to perfection

the more perfection is

impossible

or

now they're using the word

perfection so this I don't think this

would hold up but like

if perfection is your

goal

like if we replace the word

perfection with goal

and you achieve it

then maybe you just need better goals

like maybe your goals

aren't

lofty enough but again

they're using the word perfection

right not like

I'm gonna wake up and not die

today

it's a perfect day

it's a day

but does that qualify as perfect

I don't probably not

well if your goal is not dying

then it's a binary

yeah it's still hard

for me to say that's perfect

anyway

set binary goals

just yes or no

I mean

it's like past fail in school right

honestly that's how I do

a lot of the racing I do

like

the idea of a participation trophy

for the racing I do sounds amazing to me

because just getting

getting there and

and being one of the

people

who's racing motorcycles

is for me

a victory

I don't

I enjoy

winning races on the rare occasions that I do it

but it is far from being a necessity

I like

I enjoy a good battle

for sixth

absolutely as much as I enjoy winning a race

just being there

racing motorcycles is a success

for me

and I know that sounds all wishy-washy

and like I'm not a real competitor

because you should want to win things

but

I'm over

I'm over trying to win

in that way I just

I want to be doing something enjoyable

with people

that I enjoy doing that thing with

I think you've just been beat out of that

drive

from a young age

yeah I mean there's some of that

mid-westerner part of

you know

but how did the other kids do type thing

like if you ever have a great

day and you're like oh my god I did amazing

and then you know the adults in your life are like

okay but how did the other kids do today

yeah comparison

the thief of joy in all that

yeah

all right well

I thought it was an interesting quote

I mean it's not a bad quote

I think it's a good

like

if you've got friends who are into this

sort of thing I think it's a good thing to like

throw out and be like what do you think

about that I think

it'll elicit a lot of

different perspectives

yeah and it's an extension

of the you know get

get four or five people together and like

what are we trying to do here

like what are you trying to do what are we

trying to do what's this all about

something to it's an

interesting group conversation to have

yes there is

no prize to perfection

only an end to pursuit

there you go

enjoy that

all right

we don't we had a question

yeah we don't have a lot of time

we don't have enough time

to just like chat about it don't we

we do

probably

we just don't do a good job answering

how's that

sure

I mean probably weren't anyway

but hey right

okay

how do you know when you're ready to

race wheel to wheel safely

and what mindset

preparation should you bring into

comp school or your first race

weekend

what do you think

I'm very curious

about what you say because we exist

in much different worlds

we both race well I race

wheel to wheel more than you do know ha

but it's true

but we were you know we've been

parallel racing

wheel to wheel for a couple years

now a fundamental difference

is

like on Saturday I was racing

against a literal eight year old

right

a gentleman in his

in his early sixties at the same time

15 year

old

we had in the endurance race

we had a guy

at least two guys

this was their very first time

on a motorcycle

on a racetrack

and they were in the endurance race

and they were making

questionable decisions

but they didn't hurt anybody

and so

the barrier

the barrier to entry

not just like

you have to buy leather you have to enter

you have to take this class

that's written you know with a test

that's written for eight year olds to pass

and

in the expectations for racing

in the series that I race in

is

can you make your way around a track

safely enough that you don't

cause other people to

be hurt

and if the answer to that is yes

this is an environment

where you can go get better

you know the only time I would say

don't go racing is if you're

because if you don't know how to race

and you want to be awesome

be like that's the complete wrong attitude

to have

you should want to be better

than you are be humble

and learn how to do that when you're well

in the presence of other people

and I think

it's a real like growth

learning mindset that you're talking about

yeah like it is

the bottom

of racing motorcycles

is where like this is the

lowest level of where you can

possibly start racing motorcycles

on a track we're all there

to

have a good time and to really

appreciate those people that are

starting we're going to be careful

around them we're going to give them room

we're going to hope that they pay attention to us

and you know learn and get better

but we really do like I said

all the a bunch of bikes have been getting faster this year it's amazing

there was people at the beginning of the year who were

really bad at racing motorcycles

and now I have a hard time keeping up with them

they've gotten better they've gotten

more aware they're safer to be around that's

beautiful beautiful part of racing

and I don't think that racing

tiny motorcycles is the only place that happens

I know people who have raced

lemons racing

and

there is that's another

place where I mean I don't think you want somebody who

doesn't know anything

lemons racing

but I think in that

world you you have

a low barrier

to entry and room for

growth within the series

you just need to go be safe

but you can learn

everything else while you're participating

true

yeah and I think for me that's

where the crux

of this question is because he asks

safely

how do you know when you're ready to race

go to wheel safely

but I think it's different in different places

I think being ready to race safely

in lemons

is different than being ready

to race safely in

gltc

I legitimately do and you can

argue with me and tell me that I'm wrong

maybe

I mean because I mean lemons takes

almost anyone

right and after the start

you tend to be spread out

you tend to be running your own

race amongst other people still very

much wheel to wheel racing

yeah I

know what you mean

and where my mind wants to go with this

is like skills but

I think if we're talking about

safely I think

fundamentally the skills

that are needed

is you need to know how

to handle a car when it's

out of sorts

because

if it's time attack this one to me would

kind of go away because

you're typically

much farther spread out so like

you'd be a

hazard to yourself

but maybe not to other cars but in wheel to wheel

like if the car gets sideways

you

should know largely how to handle that

if it's understeering into oblivion

you should know some of how to handle that

like there should be a decent

knowledge of car

control as a skill

to safely

be in wheel to wheel

I still think that's a

spectrum depending on

where you're going to be

if you're racing with NASA

and there's four cars in your class

and you're doing a staggered start

like you've got a lot more freedom

to learn as

you go

than lining up

with GLTC with 32 cars

on the grid

I'm not suggesting

perfection

as we just talked about

but

some competence

in this area

which would be hard to measure

for sure like what level

of competence

what would somebody

measure that against would be difficult

but outside of car control

I think

intuitive understanding

of flags

and communication

between cars and communication

with track staff

is

required

you need to know what the flags mean

and you need to

really be able to not have to think about it

very much

outside of that

I think a lot of it like you said

is

an attitude

of

not coming into it like I'm hot shit

I'm God's gift

to racing sort of thing but like

I've got stuff

to learn

this is a good place that I can grow

and develop as a driver

and so there's

humility but like also the desire

to want to engage other

racers

not only racing on track but

in paddock

learning, watching video, watching data

that kind of stuff like a desire

to like want to

improve

even from the

if we're only talking about safety

why would you not want to

put your car here in this situation

why would you not want to

make your car

this move in this corner

you know that there's a way

to get safer

on track as well as be faster

and sometimes those are

the same thing

but yeah

right I think when we talked about

last year when we had the growth mindset thing

I think anybody

starting out racing

at any point in racing should go

should be able to look at a race

that they've just finished

and go how could I have done that better

sure

and if you like if you follow

Formula 1 and you read the comments

of any of the

the teams or the drivers

post-race it's always about

what we could have done better always

yeah

well went well

what can we do better yeah

if at the very tippy tapas level of

racing

they finish a race and one of their primary concerns

is how could we have done

today better

at the level of racing we're at

I should also certainly be

a thought process that we have

like and you would want people

coming into racing to come in

with that thought process like how

can I finish this weekend

of racing learning

more

about

this thing that I'm trying to do

than I was when I started it

that's what I would love to see

with anybody who's racing new right like

like how can I how can

I use this weekend to learn to be

better

I

the follow-up question that we had to this

exact one was what are some signs

that you're not quite ready yet

and how do you work to close

those gaps

this is a terrible place

for self-evaluation

yes

I when it

when it comes to racing cars

especially

I'm a huge fan of

the ladder systems the

the clubs and organizations that have a ladder system

and have

experienced people

that are literally going to tell

you whether you're ready or not

yeah

because I think we're

early on in our

track driving and racing career

we're crap at self-evaluation

not just our ability

but our ability and our awareness

and all of those things

I think the people around us the experienced people around us

are much better at seeing the truth

of that than we are

and so

trusting the people

around us is probably the hardest part

either somebody saying actually

you're not ready to race wheel to wheel yet

this is what you need to work on

and to have your ego go

alright fine

or with a lot of us

having somebody go

you know you're ready to do this right

and

that's scary when you're not

sure if you're ready

and somebody who's quite experienced

goes you're ready to make that

step this is the thing you can do now

that was me

I kind of had to

trust the confidence of people

I trusted

to be like

I mean they say I am

so I guess we're gonna try it

when I started time-trialing cars

it was the same thing

you know people were like no you're ready

you're going to be on time-telt grid now

go get a transponder

and I was like

oh okay

it's when the mama bird like pushes

the baby out of the nest and it's like

you're ready and you're falling

you're like but am I

I'm flying

yeah exactly

you either hit the ground or you

do some sort of arm movement

wing movement

so yeah no that's

that's good

the whole self-evaluation

versus seeking outside

perspective is

big

because often times like especially when you're

trying something new like

maybe even not radically new

but just like going into a whole

new thing your nerves

and your feelings

could cloud a lot of the

objective analysis

and

reflection on like

what actually is coming up

and what is actually happening

and so

you may feel like you did terrible but

now you've got people around you

experienced people

saying actually for your first weekend

you did pretty remarkably

and here's why

yeah so

an indirect answer to the question

but I do like the

outside perspective take

and to trust those people

that's a hard

it's a really hard thing to

to trust people

that are giving you positive

or negative feedback

that's why they're there in your life

is to do those things

and I think I see that better

not now that I'm an old man

and I've been on the side of giving that advice

it makes more sense to me

than when I was just on the end

of receiving it

so yeah

alright

ask us more questions though we like them

yeah

we still have a few to get through

but yeah get in

it's in discord or I mean

use the facebook page if you want send us a message

email

I don't know get in touch with us

since got a letter

yeah

I love getting mail

it'd be amazing

it'd be such a standout

it's my handwritten note holy crap

it'd be amazing

but yeah we're at trackwalking

podcast on facebook and instagram

the discord

which is in the show notes is kind of where

we're hanging out most

these days

trackwalking chats is still up on facebook

if you want to say hi there too

but yeah

that's going to do it for us this week

we've got an interview coming up next week

and it should be a good one

I'm looking forward to it

anyway thanks for listening

for the two of us

I'm Scott and I'm Seth

we'll talk to you next week

208 - The End of Pursuit

About this episode

Mazda MX-5 Miata

Mazda Miata

turbo

DCT

carbon bodied

tire size 245

pivot

turn in

Autobahn

endurance racing

sprint racing

header

spark plug wire

clutch

endurance race

time attack

perfect lap

lemons racing

NASA

staggered start

GLTC

Formula 1

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