They mean a larger, heavier motorcycle. It’s harder to handle than a small bike, especially when you’re moving it around slowly or lifting it.
Concept
spray sun
They’re talking about sunscreen that you spray on instead of rubbing in. It can be easier to apply, but you can also end up using too little or too much.
Concept
pressurized cans
They mean sunscreen comes in a can that sprays under pressure. It changes how the product goes on your skin.
GM is a big car company (General Motors). In this case, they’ve been connected to the Epcot ride called Test Track through sponsorship, so the ride includes GM branding and themes.
The Chevrolet Corvette is a sports car made by GM. It’s designed for fast driving and is known for being one of the brand’s top performance models. When people mention “C8,” they’re talking about a specific generation of the Corvette.
They’re talking about how a roller coaster can be pulled up the hill. An older chain-based system can feel rough or uneven compared with newer designs.
Concept
magnets
They’re saying newer coasters use magnets instead of a chain to move the train. The result is usually a smoother ride because the motion can be controlled more precisely.
A brake shoe is a heavy-duty friction pad used to slow things down. When it clamps onto a surface, it creates stopping force—often in a noticeable, jerky way.
Concept
slot car
A slot car is a toy car guided by a slot in the track, which constrains where the car can go. The speaker uses it as an analogy for a test-track vehicle that’s guided by a post/track feature, emphasizing how it’s “rail-like” rather than free-driving.
A roller coaster is a track ride where you’re pulled along rails and the track shape makes you feel strong forces. They’re using it as a comparison for how the ride sensations matched what they expected.
A harness and lap belt are seat belts/straps that hold you in place. When the car brakes or turns hard, they can make you feel more firmly held—especially if the car’s motion is abrupt.
A switchback is a twisty section with sharp turns that zig-zag direction. It’s the kind of route that makes you feel how smooth and controlled the car is while turning.
Brake release is what happens when you stop braking and start letting off the brake pedal. If it happens suddenly, the car can jerk forward and feel uncomfortable.
This is when you press the brake and then quickly let off it again. If the car doesn’t transition smoothly, you feel a jolt instead of a steady, controlled slowdown.
When you slow down, the brakes have to be applied and then released. “Brake release” is how smoothly and how fast the car stops braking—too abrupt can feel jerky or unsettling.
An algorithm is basically a set of rules a computer follows. In this case, it would use ride measurements to decide when to brake and how to adjust the rest of the ride.
To speed up, you need a push (force). If you know how hard you had to push to accelerate, you can better predict what needs to happen next to slow down smoothly.
Term
calibrate it for that
Calibrating is adjusting the settings so the system works correctly for the current situation. If the ride speeds up differently, you tweak the braking to match.
Term
mass will, you know, want to fly through whatever pressure is put
Heavier things don’t want to change speed quickly. If you slow down, the “pushback” from inertia means you may need to brake longer and release more gradually.
ABS is a safety feature that helps a vehicle brake without the wheels skidding. It keeps braking controlled so you can stay stable and maintain traction.
Ferrari is a famous Italian car brand, especially known for racing. The speaker is saying Ferrari might be able to engineer a better solution, and they’re comparing that to how Ferrari does in different types of racing.
To “over engineer” something means making it more complicated or robust than you really need. The idea is that it might work better or last longer, but it could also cost more or be harder to maintain.
Endurance racing is long-distance racing where the cars have to keep working for hours. The speaker is saying the endurance teams are doing well compared to other areas.
A two-stroke engine makes power every two piston strokes. That can help a motorcycle feel snappy and strong at low speeds, which is useful for trials riding.
A trials bike is made for riding over obstacles at low speed. Instead of racing fast, you try to stay balanced and controlled while going over things like logs and rocks.
A wheel bearing is a set of parts that helps the wheel spin smoothly. If it’s destroyed, the wheel can feel rough or start to wobble, so you have to take it apart and fix or replace the damaged parts.
KTM is a motorcycle brand that makes a lot of off-road bikes. In this story, it’s the bike his buddy was riding when a wheel bearing failed.
Car
Yamaha Tenere 700
The Yamaha Tenere 700 is a motorcycle designed for both street riding and dirt/gravel-style roads. It’s in the middleweight class, and in this story it’s also much taller and heavier than what the rider is used to.
A “middleweight adventure bike” is a motorcycle that’s not too small and not too big—meant to be easier to ride than the biggest touring bikes. “Adventure” generally means it’s built to handle both regular roads and rougher surfaces.
“700cc twin” means the motorcycle’s engine is about 700cc total and it has two cylinders. That combination affects how smooth it feels and how it delivers power.
“Twisty back roads” are roads with lots of curves. Riding them well usually means being smooth with steering and speed.
Term
one and a half lane wide twisty roads
They’re describing very narrow, curvy roads. On a bike, that means you have to be careful about where you ride in the lane and how smoothly you set up for each turn.
Adventure bikes are motorcycles built to do more than just street riding. They’re made to handle rough roads like gravel or dirt while still being comfortable on pavement.
Semi-knobby tires are tires with extra grip blocks for dirt and gravel. They’re not as “spiky” as true off-road tires, so they work better on regular roads too.
Second gear is a lower gear that helps you crawl or climb with more control. It gives the bike more “pull” at low speed, which is useful on rough terrain.
Stability here means the bike feels steady and predictable over bumps and rocks. A heavier bike can keep going in the direction you’re aiming instead of getting knocked around.
Stop signs and traffic lights make you stop and start a lot. On a heavier bike, stopping and getting going again takes more work and can feel harder in traffic.
Stopping distance is how much road you need to slow down and fully stop after you brake. A heavier bike usually takes more effort and more space to stop.
Dropping a motorcycle means it tips over while you’re moving slowly or stopped. It’s more likely with heavier bikes because balancing takes more effort.
Gravel is slippery compared to pavement because the surface isn’t solid. When you’re stopping or riding slowly on it, the tires can grip less reliably.
The clutch is a lever/pedal that controls when the engine starts turning the wheels. If you let it out suddenly on slippery ground, the rear wheel can spin instead of gripping.
Loose gravel is slippery because the ground shifts under the tires. That can make the bike slide or spin more easily than on pavement.
Car
Yamaha T7
The Yamaha T7 is a motorcycle that’s meant to handle both street riding and dirt/off-road. The speaker is saying they rode this bike off-road more than most T7 riders.
Company
Ford DX2 Lemons car
They’re talking about a “Lemons” style race, where the cars are usually inexpensive and the goal is to finish and have a good time, not build a perfect race machine. Their team was managing a Ford DX2 for that event.
Lap time is how long it takes to go around the track once. In racing, it’s a way to measure speed, but in long events it’s not the only thing that matters.
The windshield is the front glass that keeps wind and debris away from the driver. If it breaks during a session, it can be unsafe and usually means you have to stop and fix the car.
This is the mindset used in long races: the first job is to make it through the whole event. Speed matters later—if you break early, it doesn’t matter how fast you could go.
A run plan is basically the game plan for the whole race weekend. Instead of just trying to be fast for a short moment, the goal is to keep the car running and make good decisions for hours.
AIM Solo is a device that records driving data during a track session. They were trying to get it to talk to their computer so it could automatically capture lap information.
Data acquisition just means recording car and driving information while you’re on track. They learned they needed to set it up ahead of time so it would work when they got there.
A green flag means the session is officially starting and it’s time to drive normally at speed. They were happy because they were finally getting to race.
This hose moves the pressurized fluid that helps you steer with less effort. If it bursts or leaks badly, you can lose power steering and end up with a lot of fluid on the ground.
The power steering pump is what creates the pressure that makes steering easier. They kept the pump belt turning but ran the system dry as a short-term fix.
Term
hydrologue with fluid
They tried to block part of the power steering system, but it caused the pump to act badly—basically not being able to circulate fluid the way it should. That made them realize they couldn’t just cap it and keep going.
Power steering fluid is the liquid that helps your steering feel lighter. It also helps keep the power-steering pump cool, so if the fluid is wrong or low, the pump can overheat or wear out.
A “lemon race” is a race where people bring cars that aren’t great—often broken or unreliable—and try to finish anyway. The challenge is keeping the car running long enough to complete the event.
A tire temperature probe measures how hot the tire is getting. If the tire is getting too hot or heating unevenly, it can mean the setup or driving needs adjusting.
A pyrometer is a tool that measures temperature, usually from the surface. In racing, it helps teams check tire temps quickly so they can tell if something’s off.
Endurance racing is like a long-distance race for cars. Instead of just going as fast as possible for a short time, teams try to keep everything working and finish the whole event.
Gingerman is a reference to Gingerman Raceway, a motorsports track in Michigan. The hosts mention it as a likely destination for a race weekend, which helps ground the episode’s track-focused planning.
Track walking means walking the race track before you drive it. You look at where turns are, where you’ll need to slow down, and what the track looks like so you can plan your driving.
And it's kind of jerky. That's apparently old news. Nobody does it anymore. They're all
magnets and it is wild. Not only how smooth, like you can actually feel,
you can see as you're approaching when you're about to accelerate because there are these little
fins in the middle of the tracks, but there's like one, two, three and like maybe five of them
sometimes. So you can see like, Oh, this is about to be a big one or like, all right, this is just
like keep us up to speed sort of thing. But as you pass over them, you can feel like one, two,
three, four, five, like you can kind of feel each one, but it's smooth.
You're riding a railgun though.
Almost it is. And it will accelerate you going up, which is wild. The combination of forces
happening there. Yeah. But then of course, like you also remember on the slower ones,
I don't think they've found a way around this, but it basically is a big brake shoe at the end.
Right. There's something on your car that sticks down like some sort of fin rotor,
if you think about it, and these giant brake shoes, like just clamp onto it.
And it's always jerky and it's always like, like wanting to peel your face off of your skull
sort of thing. Right. And so that technology doesn't seem to have gotten any better.
So we're on test track and you're in this like fake car thing and it's got three rows and there's
like, was it, I think three rows of three or four people, like it's a, it's a big vehicle
and it's got tires on it. And it's like, it's basically a giant slot car, if you think about that.
Okay. Like it's got a post in the ground and you can of course see it like around the track
and that's kind of what's guiding you and doing the whole thing. Okay.
And so the acceleration was fine. You know, there wasn't anything super weird about that,
but what stuck out to me especially, I think my mindset changed because this wasn't a roller coaster,
so to speak. Is it two dimensional or do you have up and downy stuff? It did have some up
and downy stuff, but it was like road elevation kind of things, right? Okay. So there were some
whoops, definitely cambered corners, like a giant banks, like almost a half a dish to like
really get up to speed and stretch your legs a little bit. But what really stuck out to me was
when you're on a roller coaster, there are certain sensations that I just expect to feel,
right? I expect to like go fast some more than others and I expect like when it does stop
to like feel restrained against my harness or the lap belt or whatever, right? But we're in
this car and it's like really presenting at the beginning like a different experience like GM,
you know, like what kind of body do you want on your EV? Do you want the SUV? Do you want like the
more open top like sports car thing, right? So I'm like, okay, we're in car world. And we come
up to like the first deceleration zone and it was the jerkiest thing I've ever felt. And instantly
my coaching brain comes back on and I'm like, what the fuck are we doing here? Like you're
presenting the joy of driving or like you're trying to inspire people. I would hope the driving's
fun because the middle part of the ride, like they had fake trees and it was like kind of the
switchback with some elevation, like kind of mountain driving sort of thing. And then to have
the jerkiest brakes, like I looked over at Becky after the first one, I'm like,
breaker release was pretty abrupt, don't you think? And I got like, it took me out of like the
enjoyment of riding this stupid thing because I'm like, do better. You know, it's like, sure we have
this like given technology on some of this stuff, but like there's got to be a better way to present
like the joy of driving than like jerky on and off the brake pedal and then go through a corner
and then accelerate and then back on the brake release, go through it like, come on GM,
like they're going to listen to this. But still, like there's, there was a big opportunity here
that you guys could have really shined through and most people wouldn't have noticed, but it would
have made the ride a whole lot more enjoyable and I think it would have done a better job of what
they were trying to do. There you go. Yeah, I wonder what sort of, I wonder what sort of box
they were working in. If it was just sort of like, look, we have these existing technologies
and the goal is to make it feel more like a car than a roller coaster.
Right. And I mean, the, the like the surface, you know, had dashed and solid lines, yet,
you know, your fake trees and shrubbery on the side, you had your big like
test track thing with a, you know, a speedo on a big sign as you were approaching it. So you
could see, you know, you're getting up to like 68 miles an hour or something. So like
some of that stuff was cool, but like, I don't know, missed opportunity, I think.
So they need to hire you as a technical director to perfect brake release on their
roller coasters. We can do better. We can do better. The hard part would be like, you know,
with each car and the temperature and how many people are in it, like all of that would change,
but I felt like with the data, like speed data, you could, you could write an algorithm that's
far better than what they had to do a better job. I don't know. I don't know.
You'd feel like they could analyze the force it took to accelerate the car
and then adapt the whole rest of the ride to that. Like you would know,
because you could pull that data from, from the first acceleration zone, you'd be like,
all right, this is, this is our inputs. This is the speed we did. So when we go up to braking,
we can calibrate it for that. Yep. Yeah. Like, all right. So this accelerated slightly slower,
so we'll need to start braking slightly earlier. But of course, like, yeah, I don't know, like with
the physical mechanisms, maybe you can't brake earlier. So that's, that's fine. You know, just
hold the maximum brakes a little bit longer. And then, you know, you'll have to release them a
little bit slower, a little bit. You know, you have to drag it out a little bit more because the
mass will, you know, want to fly through whatever pressure is put. I don't know. Like, there's,
there's stuff that can be done. Right. So I don't know. Maybe, maybe our
GM, ABS friends will, will know somebody in GM and be like, hey, should I take a look at this?
This is a test driver position. I never thought it would be a thing like, like roller coaster
calibration to get the desired effect. I'm sure they have to do it somewhat anyway.
That is a thing for sure. But like,
But it must have been roller coaster people that calibrated. It had to have been, right. It's just
like this is within safe limits or like it's not too jerky or something. It wasn't a, it wasn't a
car person for sure. Wild. Yeah. So that was disappointing. You're such a nerd. Dude, it's
every time I like do a deep dive or like get trained in a certain area.
Like once I went to seminary and you know, started preaching and stuff like that,
I can't go to a service and not think about the structure and kind of tear apart the sermon. I
can't enjoy a sermon anymore. And it's really sad. And it's, I mean, this kind of just demonstrates
that like it's really hard to shut that part off. I guess I didn't mind our Uber drivers so much.
I was usually talking or like doing something else, but yeah, something like put me in the
mindset of like, Oh, we're like, we're doing something other than a roller coaster right now.
That has to do with automotive and like it just irked me. Really got me good.
So I love that for you. This is the good part about being a geologist at heart is like rocks
are rocks. And occasionally you see like somebody makes, make fake rocks or something. You're like,
those are bad fake rocks. That's just not how it works. But I mean, it's not like the rocks are
offensive usually. So see like, you know, a gorilla cage and you're like, okay, those are bad fake
rocks. But I understand the point is so that the gorilla can't climb them. So it's okay.
Yeah, do better GM, do better. Or we just have to like, like we have to find a new manufacturer
for that. Yeah, I don't know. Let's get, well, yeah, Ferrari could do better.
They could over engineer it. I, they could, I, it's hard because I'm coming from the F1
side of things. And it's like, they're doing okay right now, but like, they can always mess up a
decent strategy. That's true. But then you look at their endurance teams and
they're doing great. So yeah, they're good at that. Well,
anyway, back to all things motorized, you got to do a different thing.
I did. I drove 800 miles each way to Georgia this weekend to visit a friend of mine and drop off
some motorcycles. How many are you down to now? I'm down to 12, I think. I'm not like, I don't,
I don't think I have to get rid of any more. I think I have like either I'm going to keep them
or there's known homes for all of them. So I think, I think I'm done getting rid of motorcycles
right now. It's just kind of a big deal. That feels like a milestone. Yeah. The car also touched
the ground. Yes, the 911 is on the ground. I rolled it like three feet and I need to call people
about finding someone to do stuff with it this week. So we'll see. Maybe by the time this show
airs, it will be off getting the love it deserves. I'm excited. Anyway. But I went to Georgia and
I've been to Georgia before, but this was North Georgia around Rome, which is sort of
Northwest of Atlanta. And I've never had a reason to go there. Like, why would I go to that part
of Georgia? I don't know. It's not really on the way to anything, except now my buddy who used to
live in Houston lives there. And so I went and visited him. And the first thing to know is that
he and his cousin live really close to each other. And between the two of them, they have 120 acres
of woods. That's a lot. It is a lot. And there's nothing flat. There's no flat anything. This is
the rolly part of Georgia. I wouldn't say it's mountains. They have things named mountains and
you know, they probably go up five or 600 feet at the high spots. But I mean, everything's just
rolly. It's like valleys. It's hills and valleys everywhere. And so we rode around. He has a 125
two stroke trials bike, which is immensely capable. And I brought out one of my electric
trials bikes. And so we just rode through the woods, hopped logs, went up hills, crossed streams.
It was just it was free form of motorcycle riding in its absolute best.
Yeah, it was it was really, really cool to just it was it was playing on motorcycles. And he's
like, I know where this valley is over here. And we ride over a thing and hop over logs and slide
down a hill is like, Oh, wait, barbed wire fence, we got to turn around, we go back up another thing.
And he's like, Okay, watch out, these logs are really slippery. And I'll be like, whoop, and almost
crashed my bike and just just had a really good time. But because I have the electric trials
bike, I'm limited to about an hour of riding. Okay. So we went for about an hour went back home and
he's like, and we fixed he has a KTM 500 that he does woods racing with. And he had the most
destroyed rear wheel bearing I've ever seen in my life, like all the balls were gone. So it's just
an inner race and an outer race. It was so weird. So it required a lot of hammering to get all of
the things out. And then things went back in pretty well. So we fixed his motorcycle. So that was
pretty cool. And he's like, we should go ride on the road. He's like, do you want to ride the 500?
Which I've ridden before, it's just basically a big dirt bike. He said, or do you want to ride
the Yamaha Tenere 700, which is technically a middle weight adventure bike. Okay.
It's a 700cc twin. It looks like, you know, just a big adventure bike when you look at it.
And I was like, yeah, I kind of want to ride that because I know a couple other people that own
them and everyone who owns one will like grab you by the shirt front and go, this is the best
motorcycle I've ever owned. And they're very intense about how good this motorcycle is. I was
like, man, this is my opportunity to ride it. This is way bigger than I'm used to riding a bike.
Yeah. It's pretty tall. By some margin.
By some margin. Yeah, it's, for me, it's pretty tall. I can't flat foot it. I actually, I can barely
sort of put the balls of my feet down. Okay. But I'm not comfortable like paddling the bike
forwards and backwards with my feet. Like I just don't have enough leg length for that.
I'm finding out I have short stubby legs for how tall I am. Motorcycles teach me that.
And the bike weighs 450 pounds.
Okay. 450. So how much do the bikes that you normally race
weigh? The 70s that I normally race weigh about 125. Oh, Jesus. Okay. Got it.
And the dual sport bike that I have, the Kawasaki dual sport bike that I have,
weighs just under 300 pounds. So it's like. Still. It's half again as heavy as that. And it's just
big. Yeah. And you can barely touch. And I can't touch very well. But Rome, Georgia,
has been around for a really long time. It's one of those places where you're like,
they've been building roads here for, I don't know, 220 years or something.
And they had no impetus to ever build a road straight because nothing is flat. So you have
an amazing network of twisty back roads, most of which have a really good pavement on them
because it doesn't really freeze there. And we went for like a three hour ride on the most
amazing network of one and a half lane wide twisty roads that have a 40 mile an hour speed limit,
which we may have slightly exceeded. And it was so good. Like everything about it was just
so good. And is this the bike that you rode? Is it? I don't, again, I don't know much about
bikes alone, adventure bikes, adventure bikes like can go off road, but they can also go on pavement.
Yeah, they look like the big, they look like the big old school Dakar bikes. So they're,
they're tall. They've got upright handlebars. They've got, usually they have semi knobby tires,
mostly because they, you know, you got to look cool when you're doing that, even though most
people never take them anywhere more than a gravel driveway. But you got to do that. And
the particular bike I was riding is considered the most off road capable bike in its segment.
They're supposed to be very good at that. And this particular bike has been ridden hard and
dropped a lot. So I didn't have to worry about it too much. So that, that made me feel good.
He did, my friend Mike took me to a dirt road, a winding dirt road that went up a mountain that
had more rocks than I was comfortable riding on. But once you're going, you can't just like
stop. You just kind of have to be like, all right, I bet it will be fine. Just put it in
second gear and ride up and see how it goes. And like rocks, are we talking like gravel or what?
Gravel plus like fist size and slightly bigger rocks and sections like parts of the road have
been tried to wash out with rain and all that's left is the big huge rocks. Yeah.
And it turns out a bike that has a ton of mass associated with it just sort of like
goes over things. It doesn't get deflected. It doesn't act super weird. It's got a ton of
stability in the fact that you have 450 pounds moving at, you know, 20 miles an hour and it's
going to keep going the direction it's going for better or worse. Yeah, for better or worse.
But it was pretty magic to do that and just have the bike just be like, no, I'm going to go through
there. If as long as things don't get really sketchy, I will stay upright and just sort of like
let the bike do what it wants to do and it'll make it through. It was refreshing to have to
realize that about those bikes because I haven't ridden a bike that heavy, certainly not off-road
before. That's about to say it seems like a revelation that like, oh, this is what I've
been living with all this time. More like this is what I've been afraid of.
How's that? Like, I don't want to ride heavy bikes. I've ridden a few heavier street bikes before.
Do not enjoy them. Dynamically, when you're moving, they're okay, but they're just,
I mean, you can tell they're heavy when you're moving and when you're not moving and when you're
getting going and when you're pushing the bike around, everything about it sucks. So there's
nothing, there's no time where riding a heavier bike to me is better than riding a light bike.
And partly that's because I don't do like big long freeway stretches. Like there's places where
heavy bikes have an advantage 70 miles an hour with a 20 mile an hour crosswind. Yeah, being on a
my Kawasaki 300 pound bike. If you're in a heavy crosswind with that, you're moving across the
lane when the wind blows. That's terrifying. But have you changed your mind about that a little?
Yeah, I have. Okay. So we rode up the mountain. We rode back down the mountain. We rode into town.
I figured out a whole bunch of stop signs and stop lights are where I don't enjoy the bike.
Oh, just longer stopping distances, I assume.
Just having to stop, like having to stop something that weighs 450 pounds, put your feet down,
you know, go through the gears, put it in first gear, put your feet down,
wait for the light to change, get the bike going again, you know, all of the stopping and
starting, you just have so much more mass to deal with. And I'm reasonably nervous about dropping
my friend's motorcycle in town. It's never a cool thing to do. Dropping a bike in traffic
doesn't make you feel good. No. And then we rode back to his house and he's got a crazy
half mile long gravel driveway, but we stopped at the bottom because we needed to talk to the
guys who were fixing the phone lines. And you come off a paved road and it's a gravel hill
that goes straight up. So we stopped as the gravel was going up. Not a problem. I've gotten
pretty good at stopping at this point. And when I stop, I can either tiptoe with both toes or I
can sort of like one cheek it and get my other foot all the way down. And so as we've been riding
through the day, my technique was to put the bike in first gear as I'm coming to a stop,
one cheek it and put my left foot all the way down. And that allows me to put my right foot on
the rear brake if I need to. And so we're at the bottom of the hill and he's talking to people
and he's like, all right, we're going to go through here and ride through the field and go up. I'm
like, cool, that sounds awesome. And I go to release the clutch and the rear of the bike spins
the tire just a little and we're on loose, like completely loose gravel facing uphill. The rear
of the tire spins just a little bit and it scooches the bike toward my left foot,
which makes the bike start to lean to the right. And my right foot is because of how I'm sitting
is off the ground and there's no way for me to put it down. And I just go and tip right over.
Like there is nothing I could do. It was just the dynamics of the situation was like,
shit. And then the good thing is, if you drop a friend's motorcycle, the adrenaline surge is
huge. And I think that was the only thing that allowed me to fairly comfortably pick up a 450
pound motorcycle. Yeah, I've got to imagine, I am imagining right now, it's a mix of
like worry that you messed something up on the bike. Embarrassment that you did it in the first
place. And I don't know, maybe nerves that somebody saw you or is going to like think poorly of you.
Oh, and I did it right in front of the two telephone workers too. Like they were right
there and they watched me go tip over and then hike the bike back up. So yeah, it was all of
those things at the same time. Perfect. So it wasn't a great thing. But then we went on the
field, we rode some like actual dirt trails that went around the field. It made me feel like a
badass. I was like, I have ridden this bike off road more than most Yamaha T7 riders ever ride
off road because I rode through some fields and did little jumpy things. It was great.
And then we got back towards the house and he's like, we're going to go up the big hill. And I
was like, we are not going up the big hill. I am parking in the garage. You can go up the big
hill. You did what you came to do. Yeah. But you had a genuinely wonderful time riding a bike that
I was curious about, but didn't expect to like in the way that I liked it. I'm trying to be more
open minded about some motorcycle experiences. So it was a revelation. It was very good.
I'm going to drive 800 miles to do it. So are you going to get one?
Not something that big. That was a big breath then. Yeah. I think if somebody said, hey, we need to
ride to Alaska next summer, that would be the bike I would pick in a heartbeat. Okay.
But I'm not planning on riding to Alaska. I'm planning on riding back roads and doing things
like that. But it has opened my mind to the fact that maybe I could deal with slightly
more powerful, slightly heavier bikes than I think I like and for specific purposes.
Yeah. Or I mean, maybe I can do more trail riding with heavier bikes. I mean, I've ridden some heavy
bikes off road like single track stuff and I don't like them as much. But yeah, it made me think that
maybe I don't know what I think I know and maybe I should be more open minded and more exploratory
with stuff. I'd love that for you. Yeah, it was interesting. And then all during the weekend,
my daughter was messaging me because she was at Mid-Ohio.
Racing, well, she wasn't racing. She was team managing their crappy college
Ford DX2 Lemons car. And the last time they ran, they got about 45 minutes of lap time.
They broke a windshield like three minutes into the first practice session and they
exploded their transmission like 20 minutes into the first race and got like 25 minutes
the second day after they disassembled and reassembled it and then blow up the transmission
a second time. Heroic things for their first event, but crappy for driving.
So they put the car back together this time and they had like a real sit down conversation
with the drivers like, okay, nobody needs to try to go fast. That's not at all what we're doing
here today. We are going to try to survive the weekend and do that in the best way possible.
And if we can drive a little bit fast, that's cool, but we do not need to do that. We need to do all
the other things to figure out how to drive the whole time. Actually have a run plan.
Yeah. Right. And that's the thing, like learn how to show up for all the hours of the race.
And after we can do that, then we can learn how to be fast while racing because being fast for
25 minutes doesn't mean shit. No. It's a lot better to be slow or medium slow for whatever
it is that the 10 hours of racing that they have than fast for 25 minutes. Yeah. So they
had some real conversations. I'm proud of them about like for a bunch of, you know,
20 to 23 year old college kids, it's, it's remarkably mature of them. So they so
so yeah, they ran practice until it started raining and they were like, cool, let's not
crash the car in the rain. Again, mature decision. Yeah. And they ran. The reason I was getting
a bunch of emails is because Sonya has my old AIM solo and she was trying to get a start,
finish set and they couldn't get it to communicate with the computer to put a lap on it. So she was
trying to figure out if she could like, she asked the organizer, she's like, when the track
is cold, can I walk out on it and set a start, finish? And they looked at her like she would
ask them the dumbest thing in the world. And they were like, no,
no, you can't do that. It's like, oh, okay, Ohio is so picky about track walking.
Yeah. So also they, they learned that they should really figure out their data acquisition
prior to going to the track. But you know, we, this is how we learn.
Yeah. And the Saturday, they took the green flag, which they were very excited about.
Yeah. And they ran for all but the last hour until they blew the high pressure power steering hose.
And, you know, vacated a whole bunch of power steering fluid and did all that stuff. And they
brought the car in and scratched their head about it and realized they weren't going to be able to
think about it that night. And not able to buy a new high pressure power steering hose because
the ZX2 is a weird ass car. Yeah. Did they just decide we don't need it? Like I would have?
Well, they experimented with a bunch of stuff and they figured out if they tried to block off
the high pressure side, the pump tries to seize itself with fluid, tries to hydrologue with fluid.
And so the only thing that they could figure out to do was to drain all the fluid
in sort of like zip tie the lines up out of the way so no fluid leaked out of them.
And just run the whole system dry.
Sure. With still, with still a belt on the power steering pump.
Yeah. That's the part I probably wouldn't have done, but okay.
Right. And I did like, I messaged her. I'm like, you do like the entirety of your team understands
that power steering fluid acts as a lubricant and a cooling fluid for that pump, right? Yeah.
And she's like, yes, but also we'll probably just buy a new pump after this race. Yep.
And I was like, well, I mean, I don't disagree with your willingness to break things. Like,
sure, have a good time. But that stupid little, that stupid little car ran the entire second day.
That's why I thought that made it. Yeah, I, it's inexplicable that it made it.
And they took the checkered flag. Not fast. But they were, they were a very happy team of
will college people for having basically completed a lemons race on their second attempt.
Hell yeah. And they got an award for the not being an asshole award, I think.
Oh. Which I mean, honestly, for a bunch of like 20 year old college dudes, if you can get a word
for not being an asshole, that's amazing. Yeah. Good. How many, how many people are on the team?
Um, I think there was 16 people who traveled to this race. Good Lord. Okay. Um, four drivers,
and then 12 other people that are working as crew and things like that.
Yeah. They should be able to, that's a lot of cooks in the kitchen. I'd love to see how they
organize and delegate and assign. That's, that's been a little bit of, a little bit of their problem.
The first round was, you know, there was, there was too many people that had opinions during
various times. And I think they did a better job this time of, you know, these are four drivers,
their job is to drive. These are sort of like the three guys we know, these are the three guys who
are like best at being a mechanic and will make the mechanic decisions and do the mechanic things.
And then, um, you know, Sony and a couple other people were sort of on the organizational bribing
the judges with cookies and sort of, she's there for, you know, she has her, her tire temperature
probe. She's got a pyrometer to check just to make sure there's no glaringly obvious
alignment issues. And, um, I would say race strategy, but like survival is the race strategy.
But, you know, also talking about that because she's the one person on the team that has experience
actually endurance racing and knows what it means to treat sketchy equipment in such a way that
you're going to make it to the end of the day and how that differs from trying to go fast. And so
she was able to, to give some advice and shockingly they, it sounds like they listened to her about
that. So that was like, um, what a lovely bunch of people. Yeah. Awesome. Well, good job. Yeah.
It was hard not to be able to, it was hard not to be able to help very much. I'm, I'm driving
through the middle of, you know, Mississippi and my daughter's texting me going,
how do I do this on an aim? Like, I mean, it would be easier if I had it in my hand.
Second would be if I could Google it. Third is driving at 75 miles an hour with a trailer.
Like that's really lowest on the, my ability to help you, but I can voice to text you some ideas
and you guys can run with them. Yeah. I should, I should message her about data stuff.
But I'll do that sometime. Yeah, you should. I hope, do you have a, do you have a lemons schedule
where you plan to be yet this year? I was, that was going to be one is like figure out what their
schedule is and kind of where they're looking at being and if something lines up well, I'd love
to go like hang out with them. And I know they're planning on being at gingerman when that race
goes to gingerman. Yes. And I want to say I'm somewhere else that weekend, but again,
it doesn't surprise me. I'd have to take a look. Yeah. I have a t-shirt for her. I need to get her
as well. Yeah. No, I think they would like the opinion of, I think there's a lot of people in
the paddock that looks at those poor children and wants to help them. But I, but I don't think they
would turn down opinions of somebody who actually genuinely understands some things about cars in
ways that they don't yet. Yeah. It's a thing. But congratulations. Yeah. Very, very proud of them.
So maybe they'll be good at racing eventually. Finishing, starting and finishing is a great
place to start. It really is. Well, we are at trackwalking podcast, Facebook, Instagram,
but join the discord. That's where the things are fun and happen. And we talk about car selection
and nonsense like that. Yeah. Yeah. If you can like share, write all that, the podcast,
because it does help and that's fun. So any questions or topic ideas to great place to
message us through the discord and, um, but to get your guys this feedback as well. So
appreciate it and all that. And congratulations to Sonia's team. Well done. And last congratulations
to GM on their roller coaster calibration. No, no, no. I'm Scott and I'm Seth. We'll talk to you next week.
About this episode
Spring break stories in Florida lead into a tour of theme parks, including Epic Universe and Epcot’s Test Track, where the hosts react to GM’s ride and the bright orange Corvette C8 Z in the exit showroom. The conversation then shifts to motorcycles: a long haul to Georgia, riding a Yamaha Tenere 700 through North Georgia’s twisty roads and rough gravel, and a funny tip-over that turns into a surprising appreciation for heavier bikes. It wraps with a college Lemons team that chose survival over speed and still finished.
