A Professional One

This is, is off track.

I feel like Tim or James has upped the professionalism of this show lately.

I was singing that with the polo talk. Well, no, no, no, no.

I've, um, I've noticed what, No, what did Tim say With your polo?

It looks very professional.

It's not a polo. Oh, it's a button down first.

All it said button up. Yeah. Um,

Oh, I thought it only went down two buttons.

Nevermind.

Um, yeah, we know Tim, you don't know anything about fashion, especially based on what you're wearing today.

Getting in his Dancing with the Stars era, taking his shirt off, Definitely the Deep V. The Deep

VI.

Um, How am I, how am I making it more professional For the past?

Probably seven or eight episodes. Okay.

I've noticed you taking notes, um, oh yeah.

About like things, things that I say.

'cause obviously you don't give a, about what Tim says, and then you come, you come back to said points later on.

And I just think that that is, that is very impressive. Um,

Oh, cool.

All right. Shows. So we're pro this behavior good. .

Well, no, I mean, I'm not gonna do it.

No, no. I'm not saying you should, but

No.

Yeah. Yeah. I just think that it's, it's amazing

and people, if you don't watch the YouTube version of this or you didn't catch the, when you did watch the YouTube version of this, should have a lot of appreciation for the effort and time that James puts into this, considering all of his other jobs and duties.

So that's little a compliment I wanted to give. That's

Yes.

Kind of you to say. I also keep a,

a running note on my phone of topics that I think should be covered.

I don't do that usually on the show.

I'm just looking at Twitter and Instagram. So

That's, no, we know , uh, Tim even tried to have, have AI fix your eyes.

So it looked like you were looking at the screen and Yeah, it was the most terrifying thing I've ever seen.

You, Tim was like, so there was this clip and Alex was like looking down camera Episode clip.

Yeah. You can watch it, it on all of our social. Oh yeah.

Oh, you actually let that out into the world. Yeah.

And by, oh, That's awful. Because

By way nobody has pointed it out. Okay,

Well go back and watch. Last week,

Clips, Days.

No, dude. Yes it is.

But whatever Tim used it was, and this is not a shot of you, Tim. This is like, it was

Just whatever was in Riverside, because the other one, right.

Without it, it was so blatant.

Okay, , let me, can I share something that bugs me a little bit when I'm editing this?

I can't wait for this. I have to edit it as a video

because we put it out on YouTube.

I'm not gonna edit a video separately from an audio file.

When we used to just be audio, I could just cut silences out without a problem.

I try as much as I can to cut all the ums and likes and coughs that you guys do when you're cutting video.

You can't cut, you can't cut.

Um, like, and go back to the same clip or there's like a noticeable jump.

So what I like to do is go from like a single to a double, but like, I can almost never go to a double because Alex is like this 90% of the time.

The James, if you are talking, Alex is like this the entire time.

Alex, if you are talking, you're like this half the time .

So Like, makes it really <inaudible> hard to edit around these cuts.

Tim, you're ignoring the fact that if you listen to this show, you know exactly who and what Alex is and no one is gonna be surprised or offput by him looking down at his phone while we're talking.

So What Alex is, what am I, James?

Sorry. I bet who Alex is. Oh.

Who No one will be, be surprised by who. He's Alex Rossi.

He is, he is a man who gives very few s about very few things And is very okay with That.

And that's, this is the best part about him.

That's Anyways About him.

So anyways, I was editing last week's clip and I added the clips in Riverside, which is where we record, I edit the main episode off of it, and there was this little thing, it was like, do you want us to make it look like he's maintaining eye contact with the camera?

I was like, well, that sounds terrifying, but yeah, let's give that a shot.

So that's last week's clip. Let's do it.

If you look at it, it's, it's all fake.

Alex is not paying attention. It

Looks Creepy attention.

I just don't necessarily look at you guys for an hour.

I'm sorry. This is, this is something that,

I don't know if this is a driver thing because we're used to having voices in our heads and I, and I mean that in a literal sense of having your pieces in and whatever, but like I can, I can almost have two separate conver.

I can listen to a conversation that I'm not a part of while having another conversation.

Or I can be like percent writing a text and totally absorb It, makes ease dropping totally awesome and easy.

So good at it. Um, like not to say, like, I'm,

I'm not like rude about texting when I'm just one-on-one with a person kind of thing.

But like, I could do, I, I, Becky is floored by it and it drives her crazy, whatever.

But so when Alex says he is paying attention, I believe him because I can do that.

No problem. It is, yes, you get outed

because we have video on right now, but I don't, uh, I think it's a thing I think we're used to doing.

We're used to multitasking.

Do you think that helps with your broadcasting now?

Because don't you like have a producer in your ear one still?

I would say I would never be able to do that.

That one's still hard. That was different.

Because what makes that hard is when you are talking and then someone's in your ear talking to you, right?

In the race car, you're doing something, but it's got nothing to do with your mouth.

Right. And words. So like you're taking in the information

while you're focused on something else, but they're two very separate things in the broadcast with the headset on.

It's the exact same thing.

And that throws you off at first, like, for sure. But it, it does,

You have to have, you have to have, you have to have one ear open. Right?

I would have to like, I can't even, I can't even ear Do two headphones. Yeah.

So one ear always will have the broadcast, like your microphone and, and Will and Townsend's microphone's going.

And then the other one keys up with the producer or director or whoever.

But yeah, it's, it is, it is trippy when, 'cause like sometimes when we're doing like the front of the grid stuff at the top of the show, or like anything on camera, top of the show, it's a different system that we use.

And those ones, you can't have separate audio.

So you either have to have one earphone out.

But sometimes, like when we're doing the warmup show, the warmup shows are the hardest because we always put the warmup set like in pit lane or right beside the racetrack race cars are loud.

So if you leave one out, it's sometimes too loud to hear anything.

So you put both in.

But what happens then is as soon as the producer talks to you, all the microphones essentially get lost.

Like you don't hear anything in your ear.

And 'cause you got earphones in and there's cars going around, so like, will could be talking to you and asking you a question and that, and someone's talking to you at the same and you're like, oh my God, I hope he's not asking anything important.

And you're trying to listen to what the producer's saying.

You're like, take that in. Try to lip read what he's saying.

It's really tough. No way.

The warmup shows are tough. That that

Is hard. Yeah. Okay. It it

Throws you off, huh?

There you go. It's a little, little lessons

of the insider info of, of the TV world. How about that?

So, um, like, uh, what, uh, hmm.

What should we talk about James?

I wanna talk about the fans in Milwaukee, If you listen.

Okay. Okay, let's, sorry.

Do that. What were you gonna say? I

Was gonna say, I hope everyone that Li is listening to this show caught this week's Tuesday episode.

Yes. Um, and if you didn't, you should,

you should definitely go listen to it afterwards.

'cause we had, uh, Christian Rasmussen on, um, who has been, let's, let's face it, um, the, the top of the headlines for the past two weeks for very different reasons, um, .

Um, but he has been, he has been the guy that people are talking about.

So go listen to that, um, because we are gonna talk about Milwaukee and, and a lot of what goes, what went into that weekend and, and the goods and the bads, but, um, probably won't talk too much about Christian himself.

So you should, um, go, go listen to that one if you're curious on what he has to say.

Actually, before we get to the Milwaukee fans, because that'll lead into the Milwaukee race and Milwaukee stuffs, there's just one other major topic that we should probably cover as we pretend to be a racing podcast from time to time, is there was some big news in the Formula one world earlier this week.

If you're listening on Thursday. Yes.

Cadillac F1 announced their drivers.

Yeah, No big surprises. I would say no.

And, and I think that that's a good thing.

Um, yes, I would've been, there really wasn't any other option in my mind that made sense.

I mean mm-hmm . You look at,

you look at who's available on the market and who they signed is two multi-time race winners who have very recently been in the best machinery, um, on the grid in Red Bull and Mercedes have a decade plus of experience in Formula One.

Who else would you sign to a brand new team that has never been on the grid before?

And that's just it, right? So obviously it's,

it's Sergio Perez and, and Val Trade BOTAs.

And you look at the last eight years, they have been on the either driver and or constructor championship winning team for eight of the last eight years between Mercedes and Red Bull.

So the last two teams that dominate the sport, they've come from, they've been part of those championships, they've won races, um, over 500 grand Prix between them experience wise.

And yeah, when you're building a brand new team from scratch, you want to fill every position you can with as much experience as you possibly can, right?

Yes. There's gonna be room for people that are new

to the sport to come in with new ideas and new ways of doing things, for sure.

But you need to get the basics right and the fundamentals right.

And especially going into next year with a rule set that is brand new and pretty extreme compared to the last rule sets or any real rule set change that we've had in F1 in a long time.

I think having drivers that know what questions to ask have been through a development process before, all that stuff is still gonna be advantageous compared to, to two or even one rookie driver and one experienced driver.

So it's huge. And also, man, just think about this.

When was the last time you can think that there were two drivers available with that kind of experience that, you know, there were only a, each of them have only been outta the car for a year, . Like that's,

Yeah, I mean, it was, it was perfect timing for, for Cadillac to have this happen because there was such a big influx of rookies that came into the championship for, for this year.

Mm-hmm . Right? So guys that were hugely experienced

and talented who weren't at the end of their career quite yet.

But, you know, formula One is a, is a game of getting the next youngest 20-year-old, right?

That's the, the, the next max for Tappin or Kimmy Reichen or whatever.

Um, so they were kind of by the wayside.

So I mean, it, it worked out perfectly for them, um, because obviously, you know, they weren't finished really with their career yet in their mind in F1.

And, and as we said, I mean, I think it's a, it's a win-win and a perfect decision for Cadillac and it's gonna be nothing.

But, uh, that is one thing they're not gonna have to be concerned about.

They're, they're, they're gonna have so many fires to put out, hopefully not literally, and so many problems to solve, right?

Yeah. With starting a team from scratch with a brand new car

and, and all these sort of things, they're not gonna have to worry about getting drivers at the speed.

They're not gonna have to worry about explaining to drivers, you know, how this needs to happen and this needs to work.

Or, you know, working and developing a young driver in their mindset and their approach and their philosophy.

Like that's just, those guys are plug and play.

Let's focus on everything else, right?

The pressure formula one, the, the commitments required, media sponsor, all that stuff.

You're not getting anybody up to speed, right?

You talk to the Ollie Berryman's or the, you know, the head jars, the BTOs of the world, Antonelli are doing this for the first time.

Anton Antonelli being like, the jump from F two to F1 is so monumental on the track and it's even bigger off the track.

And so I think it's such a great point is you don't have to worry about getting anybody up to speed.

You don't have to worry about, you know, you know how these two work.

There are 10,000 data points on them, you know exactly what you're getting.

They've taken very different approaches to their sabbatical years, right?

In that Valerie signed on as a reserve driver for Mercedes.

He's been at every race, he's doing all this stuff.

Checo went home, he's hanging with his family training on his own recharging.

And look, man, I was the first guy to look at the host decision to bring Holgenburg back after three years outta the car, right?

He did a couple super sub appearances, which were very impressive.

But it's like, where's the motivation for a guy that's been gone for three years?

He's done two races in three years and performed well.

But, and he's come back and not only did an an incredible job with Haass, he's now been signed onto a factory program.

Audi, like his career got a complete second wind.

So anybody that's like, oh, well Checko, you know, he was, he took off.

He wasn't at the racetrack, he was minding his own business.

He wasn't sure if he wanted to come back.

It's like, it's not how it works, man.

Some drivers struggle to be at the racetrack if they're not racing.

'cause they're real racers and they don't like just being there.

And that's not, that's not knocking re's approach at all.

It kept him front and center every weekend.

He was asked about if he wanted to come back and the answer was always yes.

And it was never a doubt.

He's getting inside information on what Mercedes is doing in 2026.

So you've, you've really just got everything.

And in, if you look at their careers, right, you've got, this is gonna maybe sound a bit harsh, but like, you've got Valry who was probably more known as a Saturday guy than a Sunday guy, right?

Like his performances against Lewis when they were still Won a lot of races, For sure, for sure.

But like against Lewis, he was half a 10th plus or minus most qualifying sessions on his day in a race he could beat 'em.

But often in the race, that's where Lewis had the bigger advantage.

I guess. Again, you're comparing against

like one of the best to ever do it.

So maybe that's not a totally fair assessment to call him a Saturday guy, but he was exceptional on Saturdays.

And then Checko almost conversely right, was usually not qualifying as close to Max or some teammates, but his race pace was always what he was really known for, right?

His tire management, which is obviously a huge part of, of F1 right now.

So you've got a guy that, you know, overlap is as good as anybody.

You've got a guy that over a stint, you know, can take care of the car as well as anybody.

Look, you've got all these elements into, into the pool now, so it's very cool, it's very exciting for them.

Um, America's F1 team has arrived and, uh, so, So let's, I'm glad, I'm glad you just said that.

Is there, I I'm, I'm fully on board with their decision.

I think they made the correct decision.

This is not, this is not a question of that.

Where, where does this fall in the category of America's team if there's not an American driver, right?

Like that's, that's always been this topic of conversation, right?

There was a lot of resentment against Haass from the American fan base for never having an American driver.

Haass wasn't really, Cadillac is gonna be much more America facing than Hoss ever was. It'll lean

Into It.

Yeah. You know, there, it's Cadillac number one.

Number two, they have, they're gonna have manufacturing and buildings not only in Indiana as we know, but also with GM in, in Michigan with GM and in Charlotte.

So there's a lot more American base base stuff happening, but there's still not American drivers.

Does that matter?

So I'm gonna say no and here's why.

Who drives for Ferrari, Char and A brick and a on gas?

Nope. Lewis .

Yes. Yes. A brick. That one Alex,

Right?

Yes, yes. My bad.

Yeah. And that is like,

that's Italy's national team, right?

So it can be an Italian team, they don't have to have an Italian driver.

This is, at the end of the day, we're going racing and you have to have the best drivers, the highest performing drivers in the car.

Sure. I think that as a team, the fact

that they're prioritizing speed over performance over nationality is huge.

Is very important. Like, that's, that's a great thing.

I think where the, the emphasis now has to lie for them among the a hundred thousand other things they have to do is really start a driver development program that is geared more towards American talent.

Hmm. And I, and I think that's, that's something

that they're looking at doing.

And you know, you've obviously got, there's all the rumors about Colton Herda, then you've got Kyle Kirkwood, who's now won a bunch of races this year.

Um, there's already an association with the Weldon Boys who are doing very well in the junior categories and might age up kind of well to end up in a, in a position there, you've got Jack Crawford who's running in F two competitively at the minute, who's an American.

So I, it's very much on the cards I think for them.

But I'm very happy that they didn't force the issue because they wanted to be able to say that. I,

Again, I, I agree and I think people should, should have a little bit of, of understanding of that in the sense that you're, that the comparison to Ferrari is absolutely right.

And, and this being a US effort isn't about the drivers, it's about the fact that it is America.

It is an American brand with American manufacturing going into the number one manufacturer championship in motor sports.

So I think that's the big takeaway.

The last thing I wanna talk about on this topic is, is Colton, right?

You know, for, for so long, you know, obviously we know the connection that Colton has to Dan Towers, um, obviously has to, the Andretti global organization, um, has been linked to some version of this team for, for several years now.

Um, and you know, there was a, there was a crossroads in his career where he, he had an opportunity to go to F1 that was, that was stifled by the FIA and the super license restriction and, and all this stuff that we've, we've talked, um, about quite a bit as each year goes by Colton's getting older and older.

Do you think that for him, and, and I don't want you to put words in his mouth, I we could have him on the show and talk about it, but do you think for him, this is a, a, when this announcement came, it was kind of like, man, that this was my opportunity and I've got a great career in IndyCar.

Maybe I don't care about it anymore.

Do you think that that's, that's kind of where he is at?

Like, I don't know. That's,

It's such an interesting question. Let's say,

Colin, let's just, let's just put yourself in in his shoes.

Right? Right. Well, okay, look, I mean, you could,

you could use it with the rumors that started circulating this, this past weekend about Alex Palolo being in the running for the second Red Bull seat.

Right? So you've got an example where you've got two drivers

that are doing very well and have great careers on the IndyCar side of things, and they're not 21 years old anymore.

Right? Is it a situation where you want to leave something

that you know, that you're competitive at, that you're having a great time doing, making a good living, and go roll that dice and risk that, you know, risk losing that opportunity and going over there and it being a disaster?

Because again, you have to acknowledge that the track record of drivers going that way isn't awesome.

It hasn't provided a ton of success.

It has had some, but there's more misses than hits.

So if you're in that position Yeah.

Like, are, do you wanna roll that dice?

Do you, are you confident enough that if things don't go well over there, you've always got a home back in IndyCar?

Maybe. But if it, if that's a two, three year experiment

and in that two or three years, you know, the field in IndyCar gets super deep and there's no weak links and there's no obvious good seeds for you to come back to and you're kind of on the outside looking in, do you regret it?

So it's a, it's a tough, tough situation to be in for. Do

You think, do you think that had Colton had a different year this year, do you think Cadillac would've taken a different approach that we just talked about with the, the V and the Sergio situation and plugged in a, a young American driver and an experienced driver?

Or do you think it still would've ended up being this what we got?

I, I would hope not for all the reasons that we said, it's great they've got the two.

They have. Yeah. Right. Great.

Like it would've been, I think it would've been a slam dunk to say like, he's the reserve driver and you know, any, like, once the IndyCar seasons, because obviously you're gonna need, if you had him, you'd need a second reserve driver.

'cause there's quite a few conflicts in the summer, but there's eight or 10 races that don't conflict.

And he could be doing sim work and he could be, you know, doing, they don't have TPC testing obviously, but, um, he could be doing fp ones and he could be getting some experience to eventually be in the car if that was, if that was the trajectory they wanted to take him on.

But I still think it's advantageous to have that over 500 grand Prix worth of experience as they get off the ground with a new reg set, with a new team, with everything and, and Everything.

So it's a rarity. I dunno, but I couldn't, I couldn't agree

more. . .

Yeah. That's like four different things in a row on this

episode that we've been like totally aligned on, Huh? Yeah.

Huh. And I don't think we're gonna disagree. Time. Time.

How Awesome. Changing. Well, I was gonna say,

I don't think we're gonna disagree on how awesome Milwaukee was. So dude,

We could bring up Red Vines and Twizzlerss again.

I am so happy we go back to Milwaukee or we're we raced at Milwaukee.

What an Yes. Unbelievable racetrack events, fan base

city, all of it.

Like 10 outta 10 no Notes, guys.

It's, it makes me so happy.

Like, we were the biggest curmudgeons on this show when it was announced that we were going back to Milwaukee and it was all, we've tried this before and everybody was excited to go and nobody showed up and screw you guys and blah, blah, blah.

And then last year you, you showed up and you proved us wrong and that was phenomenal.

And then this year you brought friends and even more people were there and we sold out like GA tickets.

I don't think we sold out a beer this year.

They prepared for that, which was great.

Thank goodness. That's a big improvement. Yeah.

Yeah. I mean, it is. It is.

Wisconsin, Wisconsin knows how to drink and that's why I respect it.

Yeah. Fan base. I keep holding these up. Amazing.

So many people showed up, so many fans of the show, which was amazing.

And guys, it still blows me away every time, every weekend, the, the disparity in our fan base.

It could not be bigger, it could not be bigger.

It is the broadest demographic of people and it makes me so happy.

Um, yeah. But it's funny, like you sometimes ,

I dunno how to say this without it sounding bad, but I sometimes have people come up to me that are like, there, you know, they're, they're elderly.

I don't know if there's a nicer way to say that, but like, they're, you know, and, and I sometimes sit, I'm like, man, some of the things we say on this show, I feel like I shouldn't be saying that in front of certain demographics, but they listen and they're sunlight.

Like that's a topic that, you know, you wouldn't expect a certain area of our fan base to be totally into. But I don't know.

Listen, it's amazing. Um,

I think the main takeaway from this is James can't do an impression of himself and he doesn't have respect for the elderly.

Those are my two takeaways.

Where, where did the first one come from?

Oh, you, you were like an impression of Oh, we were curing, we were like, oh, people aren't gonna show up.

You were doing an impression of yourself, didn't sound anything.

Like you got it right and you hate and James hates old people, which is ironic given his advanced age, how Old I am.

That was a, that was a stretch, Tim. Uh, nice try.

Speaking of listeners on the show, Yes, I had, I had a very special, I had a very special kind of situation present itself to me on Sunday.

So I got a, I got a, a dm, which is a direct message for the elderly , um, on Instagram .

Oh no. Are there any other demographics of our fans?

We can insult . Are we just trying out

serious, gimme a better word. Like what, what

Am I supposed to say?

Experience nothing Long term Race fans. Mm.

No. Anyways, I got a dm, um, Ray

HARs buddies From someone that I didn't know, and I opened it and it was this gentleman explaining, um, that his girlfriend was, was a, was a big fan, um, of the show.

And, and had watched me since I had kind of come over from Europe and all this sort of thing.

And they were gonna be in Milwaukee and he had a plan to propose to her.

Um, and he wanted to know if there was anything that I could do or any time that I had to kind of be involved.

And I was like, immediately, yes.

Um, that what, what an honor that is.

Uh, so I, I put him in, in touch with, um, Brie, uh, who's the, the head of comms for ECR and, and kind of manages all of our schedules and stuff.

And they, this, this gentleman and Brie formulated a plan, uh, for the grid before the race.

And essentially ECR was gonna reach out to him, um, on social media and be like, Hey, you wanna, you want a contest?

Um, and we randomly selected a winner and your prize is kind of two race modes or a race mode, two race modes, you and, and a guest.

Um, and you can come meet Alex, uh, before the race and get a picture and sign some autographs and ask some questions and that sort of thing.

And so we, we did drive our intros and I walk up to the car and, um, they're there.

And, uh, and I meet, I meet his girlfriend and, and talk to her for a few minutes.

And, and she's just super pumped about being at the track and, and being in Milwaukee.

And so I'm like, all right, let's get a picture.

And then the plan was I was gonna sign a hero card to her and ride on there.

So it was to Deanne, you should say Yes.

And so I, I handed it to her and it was the most perfect timing because she kinda looked at it and was a little bit confused trying to understand like what I wrote and, and what she was reading.

And by the time that she looked up, he was on his knee, uh, with a ring out.

And so she said yes.

And, and it was, it was just a really cool thing to, to be a part of before, before race.

So, yeah. Amazing. I love that. Yeah.

Love, love you love, love happening at the racetrack. What

A call, Sam, she said Yes though, because that would've been, could you imagine? Mm. Tough.

Yeah. 'cause I mean, you gotta remember, there's, there's,

there's three outcomes to that question.

Yes. Maybe There's no,

and there's, I gotta think about it. ,

right? See, could have been, could have gone two outta three

of those are not the answer you want.

Very, when you're on the grid.

Very public setting as well. Yeah. It's always a risk.

Always. At least it wasn't like on

a jumbo Toronto or anything.

We didn't, we didn't have it on the broadcast.

That could have been potentially not great, but it turned out to be like a good luck sign for you guys.

'cause you ended up having a pretty good race. Alex.

So why don't you walk us through your Weekend.

I don't want to take too much time 'cause we don't have that much time left talking about me per se.

But, uh, we, we went into the weekend with, with a bit of a new philosophy.

Um, Milwaukee was not a good, uh, track for the team last year. , um,

I, I just, sorry, I just wanna jump in.

And this is how, you know, we're recording earlier in the, in the day and that Tim's not on his a game because when Alex says something like, we went in with a new philosophy, the fact that I was just, I literally held my breath waiting for Tim to chirp in with what are you trying to do better?

You trying to finish higher? You trying to drive faster.

Like one of those types of jokes.

And you just sat there with a thousand starry. Yeah.

A thousand yard gaze and nothing. I got

Nothing. I don't know.

It's okay. Sorry, Alex didn't mean to a call call. Can't

Think of, can't a good qui for that. I'm really tired.

Yeah. , you got nothing? All right.

All right. Oh, oh, did, did you have a big day yesterday?

I mean, it's still, 5 45 is an early time to get up anyway, and then to immediately get on camera for two episodes in a row.

Anyways, we went in with a new philosophical approach from our good friend Socrates. No, I don't know. Was

It to try to win?

You can't see it Now. It was, I'm, I'm trying.

It was, it was Tim and and me. Did it work? .

So, so I mean, you can make, have you guys Considered just doing that? Every race?

There you are now are, thank you. Yeah,

We are now. So anyways,

I'm going back to my crossword puzzle.

A very Oh, you thing. I don't pay attention.

A very poor track for the team last year, year.

The only person who pays attention to this show.

Well, you and the old people the elderly So Well experienced.

We, we, we prefer to be called the elderly .

That was like your word. I didn't think I could use it.

any Ways.

So James, how you doing? ? You're the worst.

The the worst.

Like, do you want me to talk about It?

Yeah, I do. Sure.

I mean, at this point sure. It's this point.

Yeah, we tried something new and it worked anyways.

, that was our weekend.

I go back to bed. Oh, no so close pal. So close.

No. Okay, so you tried a new approach

and you guys qualified well and you were confident after practice.

And then you went to the race. And the race was interesting

because you did that.

We did a low line practice, right? Mm.

But even in last practice, we were worried.

And even the first part of the race, it didn't look like the low line was working as well as maybe we even saw it last year. No,

I, I I agree with that.

I don't, I don't really know why.

Um, I, I think again, you know, there's, there's a little bit of, last year was the first time we were seeing this place in a decade.

Yes, there was a test there, but ultimately people weren't super dialed in.

So race one was, was very chaotic and, and the low line was, was ripping and, and you could kind of drive anywhere and, and make it work.

Race two, the low line was a little bit less good, uh, last year than it was in race one.

And it was, it was different conditions as well.

So we thought maybe conditions were something to do with it.

But after this year, I think it's pretty clear that just as, as everyone's cars get a little bit better and people are able to manage the deg a little bit more, um, you gotta be quite off pace in the, in the preferred line, which is lane two to, to make the low line work.

It was still usable, it was still effective.

It, it still allowed you to get by cars, but it wasn't as much of a guarantee as it was, uh, in race one last year.

So what that meant was the race was still awesome, um, because there was tire dig and, and there was still a huge advantage, um, from, from being on, on new tires versus even like 10 or 15 lap old tires.

So as we know, especially on, on short ovals, that makes for, for great IndyCar racing.

And there was a enough yellow, so there was enough restarts.

Um, and, and there was enough kind of variance in, in strategy.

And the undercut, uh, was super powerful and effective.

Kind of like we used to see at, at Old Iowa.

Um, you know, if you're willing to take the risk of, of being caught out by a yellow, you can make up a huge amount of track time, um, with fresh tires as other people were kind of struggling at the end of the stint.

That was something that on the 20 car, um, we had a plan to, to at least do in the beginning.

'cause we felt we qualified a little bit out of position in, in 12th.

Um, you know, we thought we were, uh, uh, a better than that.

So we were planning on the first stop to kind of come in early, take that risk, find clean air, and, and, and, and use the undercut to our advantage, knowing that we also felt that we had pretty good stint pace, um, so that if we had to go a bit longer on the second or third stint, like we felt that we could manage as, as long as we were able to get track position.

Um, so that's what we did.

And, and it worked really well, uh, on the first pit exchange.

The first cycle. We went from 10th to, um, fourth, fourth,

um, and we lost one spot ultimately over the next 150 ish lapse to, to Pato.

Um, but, you know, it was kind of, I I was racing the, the five car and the 12 car until he went out kind of all day.

Um, so even before the end, like it was, it was a really positive, um, weekend for ECR, you know, to, to be on the same level as Andretti, as McLaren, and as, you know, some of the Penske cars, um, was, was really a big accomplishment.

You know, I think there was still a, a, a pretty large gap to the 10 car, um, to McLaughlin to Lucas before he had his issue in pit lane.

So, so we by no means, um, solved everything, uh, but clearly, you know, the car was good enough, um, to, to be competitive and, and when the opportunity presented itself at the end of the race, um, Christian was able to, to grab it with both hands won the race.

I was able to pass, um, Patto who was also on new tires.

So we didn't quite have the same ability to get through traffic that Christian did, but, but still we're the, we're the second, um, second car on our strategy.

So just a, a huge, hugely positive weekend for the organization, one that was so needed.

Um, especially with having the new ownership, uh, come on board this year and, and the realization of, of how challenging the sport is and, and how hard it is to, to compete with the best teams.

Like I said, we know we're not there yet.

We know that there's still, uh, a huge gap that we have to close.

And, and just 'cause you have one good weekend doesn't mean that we're gonna show up in Nashville and have another good one.

But in terms of the morale and, and just the, the encouragement to everyone that like, okay, we, we are capable of doing this.

And, and yes, there's a, there's a long journey and a long road ahead, but when you have that kind of incentive that that happened so recently, instead of like, oh yeah, we won a race the last time the team won a race was 2020, right?

So it's like, oh, we did this last week.

So it, it makes everyone excited to, to just put in that little bit extra effort.

And it's really cool to be a part of.

It's, it's such a great point, right?

I mean it's, this is literally what fuels people in racing, right?

Is winning. It's, it's, it's you and MA's golf game.

It's that one shot that you hit well that, that fuels you for the next 108 that you just are awful at. And

It's 104. It's

So details, you know?

But yeah, it's so great that that that Ted and, and you know, all the, all the new elements that are, are part of that team, got to really experience that now, know what that feels like and that just, I mean the, the burner gets turned up to 11 mm-hmm .

You know, when you talk about lighting the fire under a group to, uh, to try to go get that feeling again.

So, uh, credit to the team, congrats to Christian.

I mean, we, I say we talked to him on Tuesday, if you haven't listened, what we didn't talk about a lot on Tuesday was just how dude, how loose that kid is .

And I mean that in the, both like the metaphorical sense and in the little sense on an oval.

Mm-hmm . Wow.

I've never seen that many corrections on an oval.

I don't think outta one car that didn't either end up four laps down or in the wall ever.

And like you see the moment, and like normally when you see a, an onboard of a guy have a big moment, maybe like two or three big moments in a row, you're looking for the adjustments to the tools.

You're stiffening up the front bar, you're soft in the rear bar, you're right on the weight.

Jagger no hands were on the wheel, hands didn't move, just carrying on.

Like it was no big deal.

It was like, is this, is this how indie cars are on ovals now?

Like are we seeing what No. Okay.

No, no. He

Like, like I said there, there's a, let's be honest, um, you gotta give credit to the 10 car and, and Alex, you know, he was there.

He he do, he was dominating that race. Um, we'll get there.

Um, ultimately, ultimately ECR made an aggressive strategy call.

Um, we were very surprised that really we were, we were stunned that we pitted fifth from fifth and came in for new tires and came back out in fifth.

Like we were fully I expecting Yeah.

To cycle back because we were looking at it, we're like, we're like, who, who's, who's gonna pit?

And I was like, uh, I think if you're 10th on back, go for it.

And then you like you and Patto pit.

I was like, oh damn, okay, we're going for this.

And immediately, so the Penske guys are just like, ah, .

So, um, it it, it worked out in a perfect way and it played into Christian's strengths For sure in, in a big way.

You know, being willing to, to take huge risks and kind of just muscle your way through a situation that maybe he can do for 250 laps.

Like, I'm not gonna say that he can't at this point, but certainly for 20, 24 laps, he tires, he's definitely tires, he on new tires, he's definitely gonna go for it sort of thing.

So it is not, it is not the future of IndyCar oval racing.

I don't think that that is what the 10 car is doing.

I don't think that is what McLaughlin was doing, right?

Yeah. I don't think that had Joseph taken new tires,

that's what he would've been doing.

But certainly in this instance and, and for our car that we had, he was the right guy to have in it.

And when I look back at his data and, and his onboard, I'm like, yeah, I'm pretty good with fourth.

Like, congrats dude, . That's that's great

Dude.

I was sweating in the booth, dude.

He, he, I guarantee you, he, he aged his engineers right on that race just watching.

He did all this, the steering traces like, like those guys have lost years off their life.

So I talked to, to my engineer who's also the technical director, um, of the team and we were kind of debriefing after and he was like, so how was it?

And I was like, man, I was pretty loose.

Um, you know, throughout the race, I, I took four turns of front wing out Christian also took quite a bit of front wing out and he was like, Christian was also loose, um, and crashing every corner, but he just didn't hit anything .

So don't really have much to say.

Like, we need to get the rear better for sure.

And and, and honestly that was Christian's comments after the race.

He was like, yeah, we, we need to make the rear better .

And it was like, yeah, no bro.

Um, but anyways, uh, yeah, just in summary, the best, the best two car result that that team has had in history.

Um, so amazing. Just, uh, an awesome thing to be a part of.

Golf clap. Um, you mentioned it, it's impo it's impossible

to not talk about the weekend that Palolo had. Don't I think

It was the most impressive of the year. You

Know, we, I completely agree.

I completely agree. I, I said as much to him afterwards.

I, I said as much to him after qualifying.

I was like, that's the most impressive pull that you've had all year and sixth of the year, which is insane.

Short tracks. Chevy tends to have the advantage.

Uh, we saw that at Gateway.

We saw it for the most part at Iowa as well.

Um, the fact that him, and, and you know, Dixon ish also was up there.

He was there thereabouts.

But to have seven tenths of a mile an hour on the field in a Honda when it's a Chevy type of track was unbelievable.

And then you go into the race and his ability to take care of tires on an oval is evidently as good, if not better than it is on road courses, which is saying something.

'cause he is pretty good at it on road courses, .

But like, you know, you, you sort of set the tone of the race when, 'cause you were the first of the leaders to pit on that first cycle.

And the, and the undercut killed it.

You said you went from 10th to fourth or fifth or whatever it was.

And then, you know, Paolo's just standing out there and he just kind of keeps going around it keeps going around, it keeps going around and I'm like, man, like he's gonna lose a lot of time here.

But it's like, oh, he already had such a gap.

He had like five seconds to play with so he could go an extra 5, 6, 7 laps still come out in the same track position and now have shorter stints to worry about later in the race.

And it's like, man, and like all he talked about on the radio after every pit stop was, how long is this thing gonna be?

Alright Alex, we need another 48 laps outta this stent.

He goes, okay, I gotta take care of the tires.

And he was just so methodical, so precise.

So everything that Alex Polo is and had it not been for the, can we talk about the like random sun shower that caused the yellow?

I never even saw it. So you didn't see any rain?

No, There was rain on the leaving window. Yeah.

Oh no, no. It definitely rained.

Like there's a couple of the onboards like had a decent amount of rain.

We saw some drops on our window and, but like bright sun, like sunny warm, everything's great.

There's just some freak little 32nd shower.

But I mean credit Danny car, they, they, they threw it as soon as they saw any kind of moisture on the track, which is what you do.

Actually, a couple like that, they were really quick on the gram caution, which it gave them a lot of credit for.

They threw that caution when there was ilot lost an engine and there was concern of maybe some fluid.

'cause they saw, I think it was Kirkwood's onboard was right behind him and there was a ton of Kirkwood's screen, so they threw the caution.

So I think race control was really on it this weekend.

But yeah, I mean Palo's gotta be, be, look, he, he's won it.

He's having, you know, a career year, but like still, when he thinks back to mid Ohio and he thinks back to uh, Milwaukee, he's gonna be like, ugh, I should already have 10, which would be matching the record.

And I got a shot at setting the record in Nashville.

But I don't know man, you would've circled the last quarter of this season as like a, oh well I like P'S got a buffer, his lead in the championship going into the last quarter because it's heavily because Pat is coming, new garden's coming, Pat is coming, new McLaughlin's coming, Colton's coming, you know, nah bro, no.

Mm-hmm He's in five race Also sorted, Right?

And five oval races. He's won two, could've been three.

Now look, you can play, you can play it the other way too, right?

Like Iowa Race two, Joseph lost that race, right?

Joseph was robbed of that race because of two times he got sent to the back on a time to caution.

So this one would've been a more like legitimate, I mean, pull to flag win, you know, would've been incredible.

But still, just the level of that guy's operating on is, uh, pretty Neat.

Listen, I hope he goes to F1 if that rumor's true because man, does it make the rest of us breathe a sigh of relief Outta here.

Got outta here.

The, the other, the other props I want to give is to Firestone because that tire from, at least from my seat, tell me if I'm wrong, but that tire seemed perfect.

It was like good grip with new, it was the right amount of day percent.

It didn't make it like scary.

Like you could make it to 50 laps.

It wasn't like you were saving your life to get To 50 like wild vibrations. Right,

Right.

Like, oh, it, it's a wonderful tire.

Very, very good. Yeah. So they've nailed that balance,

which is so hard to do, um, at that place.

So credit to everybody there and yeah man, just credit to the fans of Milwaukee for coming out.

Um, at the time of recording, we have not seen the viewership numbers, so I don't know how many of you watched on tv.

I hope it's many. Uh,

'cause it was a heck of a race, obviously.

And you know what's funny is I, I'm not entirely, I'm not a hundred percent sure, but I'm pretty sure that we went long into golf this weekend.

So everybody that was upset in Portland, they got their, they got their, you know, it's all evened out, uh, live sports.

Anyway, um, dude, great job all weekend.

Awesome result for you. Awesome result for Christian.

Awesome result for the team. Uh, we head to Nashville,

30 seconds on Nashville. It was a,

It was a good race last year.

Um, I, I imagine it'll be very similar, you know, we're doing the weird, uh, two tire compounds again.

So alternates and primes.

I don't think that that made the race great last year.

Um, I think the, the arrow package, do you Think it was a negative?

No. Or was it kind of, I think transparent.

It's a weird thing to, to have in there.

And the production of the events and the people that turned out was also very, very good last year.

So hopefully that continues to, to grow, um, as we have moved that race to the new location.

But looking forward to it. Very

Cool.

Alright everybody, thanks for tuning in.

And we got one left on the old Indy car calendar. Should be

Lame.

A banger, but yeah, it's lame, but it should be good.

So definitely watch or come or both.

Leave your TVs on as You leave, watch, and come to go to the Airport.

Yeah, I don't like The way you said that. ,

this has been off track with Hinch and Rossi Off track is part of the SiriusXM Sports Podcast network.

If you enjoyed this episode and want to hear more, please give a five star rating and leave a review.

Subscribe today, wherever you stream your podcasts.

We are at Ask Offtrack on Twitter and Instagram.

And if you wanna follow us on Twitter, we're at Hinch Town and at Alexander Rossi.

If you wanna follow them though, we have no idea why you would.

He's at the Tim Durham on Twitter.

Find us on YouTube and subscribe to our channel for exclusive video content.

Off Track is produced by Tim Durham, and by that we mean fi.

A Professional One

About this episode

Request an Explanation

Want to learn more?

More from Off Track with Hinch and Rossi