This part of the episode is about a Porsche meet-up in Knoxville, Tennessee. They talk about what cars showed up and what it was like to walk around and photograph them.
The Porsche 917 is a legendary old race car. Hearing it at an event like this is a big deal because it’s tied to major endurance racing history.
Car
Porsche 963 RSP
The Porsche 963 RSP is an extremely rare Porsche that’s based on a modern race program. The speaker highlights that it’s the only street-legal 963 they know of, which is why it’s so special.
The Porsche 911 is Porsche’s iconic sports car. In this story, it’s being driven in a more aggressive, enthusiast-style way rather than as a stock daily car.
Concept
outlaw style 911 street car race car combo
“Outlaw” in car culture usually means a car that’s been modified to run in a more permissive, non-stock way—often with safety and performance changes that make it feel like a race car. The speaker’s phrase suggests a 911 that’s part street car, part race-car setup.
Tail of the Dragon is a well-known winding mountain road where car enthusiasts like to drive. It’s famous for lots of curves, so it’s a great place to see exotic cars in action.
The Carrera GT is a very rare, high-performance supercar from Porsche. It’s the kind of car that stands out because it sounds and drives dramatically. The podcast brings it up because the speaker heard it while driving behind it.
Graham Ray Hall Performance is a company that specializes in Porsche cars and does custom work. The speaker says they build or customize Carrera GTs with special paint and options.
Paint-to-sample means you can pick a specific color reference, and the shop tries to match it. So instead of only choosing from a list, you can get a custom color.
The RS4 is a sporty Audi model based on the A4. It’s meant to be quicker and more fun than a standard A4. The podcast brings it up as something someone might want within a certain budget.
The 370Z is a Nissan sports coupe that’s built to be fun to drive. It’s rear-wheel drive, which helps it feel sporty. The podcast mentions it because the speaker had one before switching to another performance car.
The BMW M2 is a smaller, sportier BMW coupe meant to feel quick and nimble. The podcast mentions it as a car the speaker thinks looks great and compares it to another sports car they had before. It’s part of a discussion about what they prefer in a performance car.
Concept
Cannonball
“Cannonball” is slang for a very fast, long-distance road trip attempt—basically driving as quickly as possible across the country. Here it’s mentioned to give context for the car and the owner’s experience.
The Cayman is a Porsche sports car with the engine placed closer to the middle of the car. That helps it handle well when you drive hard. People talk about it because it can be tuned or upgraded into faster, more track-focused versions.
Car
Mark 7 GTI
The GTI is Volkswagen’s sporty version of the Golf. “Mark 7” means a specific generation of that GTI, and the host is using it as a comparison point for how different cars feel when you drive them.
The Volkswagen Golf is a compact car that’s meant to be easy to live with. The podcast talks about the Golf’s performance version (like the GTI) as being quick for its size. It’s being used as an example of a car that feels fast without being huge.
Car
CL65
The Mercedes-Benz CL65 is the higher-performance CL model associated with a twin-turbo V12, typically delivering much stronger acceleration and a more dramatic power character than the standard CL600. The host wanted to experience the CL65 but used a CL600 as a stand-in because it was available to drive.
Car
Mercedes CL600
The CL600 is a big, luxury Mercedes with a V12 engine. Even when it’s tuned to similar power, it can feel less “fast” because it’s heavy and smooth, so you don’t get the same rush of speed.
A twin-turbo V12 is a V12 engine with two turbochargers that help it make more power. It can feel very powerful, but how fast it feels to you depends on the whole car, not just the engine.
A wrap is a vinyl covering put on a car to change its look or protect the paint. If it starts peeling, it’s usually time to take it off or replace it so it looks good again.
Diesel is a type of engine that runs differently than gasoline. People often like it for long trips because it can be efficient and has strong pulling power.
A “track” is a special road course where cars can drive fast more safely than on public roads. They’re saying the car works well for both normal highway driving and track days.
The Lotus Excel is a sports car that’s meant for longer, smoother drives. The podcast mentions it because it feels especially good on the highway. The speaker also talks about how they were able to drive it for a long distance.
Concept
range wise
“Range” just means how far the car can drive before it runs out of fuel. They’re saying they can go about 650 miles on the highway.
Rallies are racing events with timed sections, usually on roads or road-like routes. The speaker is talking about photographing those events and needing good sight lines from the car.
Airflow is how air moves around the car. They’re saying the way the rear opening is shaped helps the air move smoothly, so the ride feels calmer while they’re shooting.
Concept
long tail effect
This is an airflow/aero idea: the rear shape can make the air behave more smoothly. They’re saying the back glass makes the car’s rear act more streamlined, so it feels less “buzzy” at speed.
The Crown rally is a particular rally event they’re talking about. They describe it as their first one and say it changed their direction.
Car
Lamborghini SVJ
The Lamborghini SVJ is a super extreme Lamborghini. It’s the kind of car people chase because it’s fast and feels special, and the speaker is saying it made a big impression on them.
The McLaren F1 is a famous, very rare supercar. It’s known for being extremely quick and for having a special driver setup that makes it feel different from most cars.
A sequential transmission is a gearbox where you move through gears step-by-step in order. It’s often used in racing because it helps you shift quickly and consistently.
6XD is a company that makes racing-focused gearboxes. In this segment, the host is saying it’s known for being strong enough for high-power, hard-driven cars.
A Remastered 911 is a classic Porsche 911 that’s been rebuilt and updated. The goal is to keep the original feel but make it work better in modern driving. The podcast mentions it because the speaker saw one during a private tour.
“Bang for buck” just means you feel like you’re getting a lot of car for the money. Here, the point is that the GT-R is a strong deal compared with more expensive options.
The Corvette is Chevrolet’s sports car, designed to be fast and fun to drive. In the podcast, it comes up as an option people consider when they want performance around a certain price. The speaker also mentions that some cars can have annoying noises like rattles.
The Nissan GT-R is a high-performance sports car built to be very fast. The podcast mentions it because it has strong acceleration and a great sound. It’s brought up as a serious performance option.
The McLaren P1 is a top-tier supercar with a hybrid powertrain. In this story, the host drives it on track and explains that it feels very different and more intense than everyday race cars.
The Porsche 918 Spider is a very high-end Porsche supercar, and it uses a hybrid setup. Here, it’s mentioned because the host compares driving it to another famous supercar to understand the differences.
The Porsche 918 Spyder is a rare supercar that uses both an engine and an electric system. People talk about it because it’s a special, high-tech performance car. The podcast mentions it as one of several expensive cars in a collection.
Aerodynamics is how the shape of the car interacts with air as you drive. Here, it’s important because the airflow changes how planted the car feels at different speeds.
Downforce is the aerodynamic “suction” that presses the car down onto the road. More downforce usually means better grip, and the host is saying the car’s grip changes a lot as speed changes.
The Dodge Demon is a very powerful muscle car. People mention it when they’re talking about cars that can feel intense or hard to control because of how much power they have.
A transmission interface helps the car’s computers talk to the transmission. It’s what makes aftermarket tuning or upgrades work properly with how the gearbox shifts.
An ECU is the car’s computer for controlling the engine. A standalone ECU is an aftermarket computer that gives you more tuning control when you modify the car.
The Mazda Miata is a small, lightweight sports car that many people love for being easy to drive. In this conversation, it’s mainly a reference point for how “rough” or “crude” the Ferrari F40 feels.
The Ferrari F40 is a famous old-school supercar with a turbocharged V8. The point here is that it feels very “mechanical” and basic compared to newer Ferraris, but it’s still a blast to drive.
Boost is the extra “push” from a turbo that helps the engine make more power. The host is saying the car feels calmer when the turbo isn’t really working yet, and then gets much stronger once boost comes in.
“Turbo leg” is the feeling of waiting for the turbo to spool up, and then getting a big jump in power. It’s why the car can feel fine while cruising, but more intense once you ask for acceleration.
The Dodge Viper is a high-powered American sports car famous for having a lot of engine power. The host is saying that at around the “tame” end of huge horsepower, it feels more controllable than the truly extreme builds.
“Hand-built” means the car is put together more manually. The host is saying that because these cars are rare and made with more specialized work, replacement parts can be difficult to find.
This is a clutch made with carbon fiber to make it lighter. Because it’s lighter, it can feel touchier to use smoothly, especially when you’re trying to start moving without stalling.
When you start a manual car on a hill, you have to smoothly let out the clutch while giving enough gas so the car doesn’t roll back or stall. In this case, the clutch got slipped too much, which is why it was embarrassing.
The Subaru WRX is a popular enthusiast car with a turbo engine and all-wheel drive. The host mentions it because they stalled at a stoplight—basically showing that it can happen to anyone.
Autocross is a driving competition where you go through a cone course as fast as you can on a closed area. It’s usually shorter and less like a full race than endurance events.
The Ford Escort ZX2 is a sporty version of the Ford Escort from the late 1990s/early 2000s. In the story, it’s the surprising car that’s fast on track and basically outclassing more expensive cars.
A shakedown is a practice/test run before the real event. The goal is to make sure everything is sorted out so the car doesn’t have problems during the main race.
ChumpCar is a low-budget racing series where people race normal, affordable cars for endurance events. The host brings it up to explain what kind of racing those drivers were doing.
24 Hours of LeMons is endurance racing where teams intentionally use very cheap cars. The host compares it to the series his friends were doing to explain the low-cost racing vibe.
The Ford Contour is a Ford sedan that was made for everyday driving. The podcast mentions it as part of the speaker’s earlier car history, including other performance Fords they had. It’s not being discussed as a current supercar—more as a past model they drove.
The Supra is a Toyota sports car made for performance and driving enjoyment. The podcast talks about it in the context of the speaker’s early experiences with the car and related rally builds. It’s a model people often associate with fast, sporty driving.
Mechanical sympathy means treating the car gently and thoughtfully. Instead of abusing the car, you drive in a way that reduces unnecessary wear and damage.
A wind tunnel is a lab setup that measures how air flows around a vehicle shape. In car development, it’s used to evaluate aerodynamic drag and downforce so engineers can optimize the car as a whole rather than guessing from track testing alone.
LMP2 refers to a prototype racing class in endurance events, typically featuring closed-cockpit race cars built to a specific rule set. Comparing a special entry’s speed to LMP2 helps listeners gauge how fast it is relative to established endurance machinery.
Hendrick Motorsports is a well-known racing team, especially in NASCAR. The host is wondering if that team was involved with the car they’re talking about.
Some race categories are for cars that use both gas power and electric power. It’s a way to keep the competition fair while still pushing new technology.
The Infiniti Q50 is a midsize luxury car. It’s designed to be comfortable, with options that can make it feel more powerful. The podcast mentions it as a car name the speaker was thinking about.
“Stage one” is a beginner-friendly tuning step. It usually means simple upgrades plus a software change to make the car feel a bit stronger than stock, without major engine work.
Horsepower is a way to describe how much power the engine can make. “800 horsepower” is an extremely high number that usually means a very serious, heavily tuned car.
A laptop tune is reprogramming the engine control unit (ECU) using software on a computer. It changes parameters like fuel delivery and ignition timing so the car runs correctly with modifications (like boost changes) and can target better power or drivability.
Turbos are devices that use the car’s exhaust to cram more air into the engine. More air usually means more power, and you don’t always need full boost—so it can still be reasonable for daily driving.
A tube chassis is a car built around a strong metal frame made of tubes. It’s often used for track-focused cars because it can be lighter and built to handle hard driving.
This is a Porsche 911 GT3 RS (the 991.2 generation), which is a very track-oriented sports car. The host describes how it was rented for laps and how it was extremely quick on the Nürburgring.
Car
Skoda Octavia station wagon
This is a Škoda Octavia wagon, which is usually a practical everyday car. Here, it’s used on a race track, showing that even a normal car can be driven hard.
On the Nürburgring, “bridge to gantry” is a way to describe a particular stretch of the track. It helps drivers explain where they were on the lap without naming every corner.
The Lamborghini Urus is Lamborghini’s SUV. It’s a big part of what Lamborghini builds today, so factory tours may focus on it even if you’re hoping to see the supercar line.
The Lamborghini Revuelto is one of Lamborghini’s newer supercars. They didn’t get to see that production line, but they still found the factory tour interesting.
They’re talking about what it’s like to watch a race in Monaco. Because the track runs through the city, it’s hard to get lost and the race is always nearby.
The segment notes that the Miami Grand Prix is often an “upgrade time” race, meaning teams typically bring new parts and development updates there. This is part of the mid-season development rhythm in F1, where performance gains are timed around the calendar.
They’re talking about when teams usually bring their bigger car updates during the season. They mention races like Spa or Silverstone as common places for that.
Megajoules are a way to measure energy. In F1, the rules limit how much extra energy the hybrid system can use, and they track that energy in megajoules.
A privateer team is like a smaller racing team that isn’t the manufacturer itself. They may use the same kind of race car, but usually don’t get as much direct help from the factory as the top “official” team.
OEM support is factory help from the company that makes the car. In racing, that can mean better parts and more technical guidance, which can help the team go faster and fix problems sooner.
Team orders are instructions from a race team telling drivers how to behave on track—often to prioritize one driver’s championship chances over another. The speaker suggests that team orders affected who could have won, implying the outcome was influenced by strategy rather than pure racing pace.
Hennessey is a company that upgrades cars. A “Hennessey tuned TRX” means a Dodge Ram TRX that’s been modified for more power, which matters for how it’s presented in photos for an auction.
“Dino” means a dyno test—basically a machine test that measures how much power a car makes. Different dyno setups can produce different numbers, even for the same car.
The Chevrolet Chevelle SS is a classic muscle car, and the “1970” points to a specific model year with strong enthusiast interest. In an auction-photo context, older SS cars often need careful lighting and detail shots to show condition and authenticity.
The auction block is where the car is shown to buyers and sold. If the photos aren’t ready before the listing, the car can’t be properly advertised for bidding.
Carb cleaner is a chemical used to clean the fuel/air parts of older engines. If a car hasn’t been run in a while, cleaning the intake area can help it start.
The Charger is a larger American car that’s built to be powerful. People choose it when they want a muscle-car feel but still want something practical to drive. The podcast brings it up as a car the speaker drove when they were younger.
Porsche is a well-known sports-car brand from Germany. In this story, it’s mentioned because the collector has a lot of them.
Car
Porsche 962
The Porsche 962 is a serious race car Porsche built for long-distance competitions. In this story, the cool part is that someone drives one on public roads, not just on a track.
The BMW M5 is a fast BMW sedan made by BMW’s performance division. It’s designed to feel like a normal luxury car, but with much stronger acceleration. The podcast mentions it as part of that performance-car conversation.
The T.50 is a supercar made by Gordon Murray Automotive. It’s designed to be very fast and fun to drive, especially on a track. The podcast mentions it because the speaker wants a car they can take to track days.
The BMW 6 Series is a luxury car line meant to feel comfortable and refined. The podcast mentions it as a possible daily driver, including a wagon version. It’s being discussed as a practical choice that still feels upscale.
The BMW M3 is a high-performance version of a BMW 3 Series. It’s meant to be sporty and quick, not just a regular commuter car. The podcast mentions it because the speaker didn’t like how the newer one looked.
The RS 3 is a small Audi performance car. It’s built to be quick and sporty, but it’s still compact enough to be easier to live with. The podcast brings it up while talking about different performance Audi options.
The RS5 is a sporty Audi model based on the A5. It’s meant to be faster and more exciting than a regular A5. The podcast mentions it while listing different performance Audi models.
The M5 wagon is a fast BMW wagon version made for performance. The podcast specifically points out that it’s very heavy—around 6,000 to 6,500 pounds. That weight is part of why it feels the way it does when you drive it.
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What was this Porsche event you went to? Yeah, so I went to the Porsche Platica down in Knoxville,
Tennessee. Harper Porsche, which is like the Knoxville area Porsche dealership put it on.
It was organized by a friend, Connor, who I've known through car forums forever. But anyway,
Porsche Platica, it was a celebration of the 911 R this year. They brought together, I think, 37,
911 R's the 2016 model and then five of the, I want to say they were built in 1967, the original
911 R race cars and a bunch of other stuff. I mean, there was Carrera GT's and race cars,
they had a 917 there, a couple of 962's. They brought Roger Penske's 963 RSP, which is the only
street car 963 in existence. Oh, okay. Race car. It's insane. Yeah. And it was just beautiful.
It was in a big rock quarry with trees and waterfalls and just beautiful trails everywhere to
kind of walk around and explore the space, explore the cars in the space. And yeah, it was really
fun. I saw Sunday's Carrera GT's made it down to the dragon too. Those are some sweet photos.
Oh my God, it was amazing. Yeah, there was, I think, we did a cruise on Friday through the
Smoky Mountains and Tail the Dragon and Chara Hall of Skyway. Oh, okay. So you were a part of
all that too? Okay. Yeah. So I showed up with my BMW, which is a no-go, and managed to find a guy
from Minnesota who also had driven down in his kind of outlaw style 911 street car race car
kind of combo. And he had an extra seat. So he gave me a ride. I snapped a few rollers along
the way and then we stopped right at the kind of start tail of the dragon and as a big group.
And when we took off again, we ended up behind the Carrera GT. That must have been an awesome
sound. It was so good. Yeah, I don't know how often Carrera GT's go through tail of the dragon,
but they should go through more, I feel like. I think there's two Carrera GT's on that
trip. One of them was one of the Graham Ray Hall custom spec ones. Graham Ray Hall Performance,
they're out of Indianapolis. It's a big car dealership, specializes in Porsche's and other
rare models, but they kind of retrofit and custom make now Carrera GT's, or customized
Carrera GT's with custom paint and options and that kind of stuff. Are they the ones that do
like that Porsche restoration program where you could choose your own? Yeah, Carrera GT,
you can go make it signal green if you want it to. Exactly. Yeah, so they've been doing that now
for a couple of years. I think they've probably done, I don't know, five or six cars maybe at
this point, but yeah, they make them in all the not like the paint to sample colors basically
that people want or literally any color someone wants in different leathers and all that kind
of stuff. Okay, yeah, I remember the local guy was telling me about that a few years ago. I don't
know if he was going to do it with his Carrera GT or not, but like it just would have been super
cool. Oh, yeah, yeah. This guy's a Porsche guy then. I am a big Porsche guy, yeah. Okay, yeah.
Okay, what's the number? If you were to get a Porsche, like let's say all the stars aligned
in next year. On limited budget, you get a Porsche. Oh man, unlimited budget, that's a tough one.
Probably a 997 GT3 RS4 liter, which is a limited edition, I think they only made
600 of them or something like that. Those are close to a million dollars now though.
But yeah, on a little more reasonable budget, I'd probably get a GT4.
Just like a bang for buck. Yeah, seriously, for a round, like I think
they're probably around $110, $120,000 for a nice one for like the first generation GT4.
Let's go on pause for a second and adjust this real quick. Oh, okay.
I don't have my own Jamie. I don't have my own. Pull it up, Jamie.
Yeah, no, somebody wanted, well, you know the white brothers, right? Like you just got that.
Nick just got that green one. I was so jealous. That car is gorgeous.
So different than the M2 he just got rid of, the 370Z he had before that. Like, I don't know,
it's crazy. Well, yeah, and I think his M2 had, I think he was, I was riding with him on a cannonball
a handful of years ago and he was telling me, I think it was around 650 wheel horsepower.
Yeah. So to go from that to a Cayman GT4, which on its own ride is no slouch, but compared to,
you know, a little hopped up M2 is probably pretty slow. It's makes up for it in the corners, but
yeah, I was going to say like, like, okay, here's a great comparison for you. I appreciate this.
So you just have a Mark 7 GTI before I had the Mark 8 and I was making 340 wheel and about 390
foot pounds, right? And then I hopped into AJ's GT3 from AJ's garage and I'm like,
and I'm feeling the steering wheel. It feels the same and I'm like, I don't see the height.
Yeah. Like it really, like it's like, well, yeah, you get used to a car that feels, you know,
I'm sure the GTI, you know, it is fast for what it is and you get used to it and that
sensation of speed and it's interesting comparing it when you switch to a different platform,
even if it's around the same amount of horsepower. Yeah, a handful of years ago,
I had a chance to drive a Mercedes CL600 that had been tuned up to about the same specs as a
CL65. So like 650-ish horsepower.
It was the V12?
Yeah, the twin-turbo V12. And yeah, because I was looking at one, I really wanted to get a CL65,
but there weren't that many available to test drive. And so the CL600 was for sale. And I was
like, well, I'll go check it out and see if it's, it should give a good approximation of what driving
a CL65 is like and took it on the highway. And it just did not feel that fast. Like there's,
because it's so long and heavy and smooth, you know, it pulls like a freight train, you know,
but that sensation of speed just wasn't there because the only way to tell how fast you were
going was by how quickly you just blew by every car next to you. But yeah.
We just rented an SQ7 for Texas 2K about a month and a half ago. And like that has the same V8
as the R6 is just smaller turbos from my understanding. And it just like you would be like,
I'm doing 120 or 114 in an SUV, like nothing. And it's like, but you don't feel it. Yeah.
Yeah. No, the big bodies. There's something nice about them. But yeah. You're a German car guy
though. I am. Yeah. That's where you land. Yeah. You still have that. How long have you had that
wrap on the BMW now? 56 years, something like that at this point. It's starting to peel a
little bit. So I got to probably pull it off this summer and either redo it or just leave it off.
But yeah, it's fun. It got spotted when I was down in Knoxville for the Platica. Someone posted
about it in one of the wagon groups on Facebook, I guess. And is it a diesel? Yeah. It is a diesel.
Yep. Oh, that's awesome. Yeah, it's great for just crushing highway miles. And I've had on
track a few times too, but it does really excel on the highway. And I made it all the way. So it's
a 14 hour drive from the cities down to Knoxville. And I did the whole thing with one stop, which is
pretty good. What do you get range wise on that thing? About 650 on the highway. Yeah. So I can
just go as long as my wagon too. Yeah. So there's plenty of room for all my gear. And half the reason
I bought it is because the back glass will flip up separately. So when I'm doing like rallies and
stuff with it, I can, if I have someone driving for me, I'll sit in the back and just pop the glass
and I can shoot out the back and I've got really good sight lines. And I've had it up to, I think,
like well over 100 miles an hour while shooting rallies. And you don't even notice because it's
with the back glass kind of covering the opening there, it kind of creates like a long tail effect
and smooths out the airflow. So it's nice and cozy back there. And yeah. Speaking of shooting
rallies, I'm pretty sure the year you weren't able to go was my first crown rally. Okay. That's when
I got called like 16 hours ahead by Justin. He's like, Hey, we don't have a photographer. Oh no.
And then that was the rally that literally changed my life. Sure. Yeah. I still remember being in
the SVJ because I got to ride with Randy's guys at the time. Oh yeah. And I, I missed that one.
That looked like a fun one. That was a good one. That was awesome. But I'm like riding this SVJ
for four hours, by the way. It was supposed to be like one stop. And like I'm sitting here thinking
like up until that point, I was just like, you know what, I'm going to get a few roommates,
work a normal full time job. You know, I had no, like my ambition was like, whatever, I'm just
going to be a gamer, you know, whatever. After that, I'm like, I need a SVJ, you know, like,
oh yeah, those cars are phenomenal. It's crazy. That was before he had a stray pipes too. And it's
but rallies though. What was your first rally that you shot? I think it was the very first crown.
Okay. Like 2014, I think, right? Yeah, something like that. Yeah. Yeah. 2013, 2014,
something like that. Yeah. And it went from it left from like a Buffalo Wild Wings parking lot in
Bloomington or something, I think, and went all the way to Chicago, like downtown Chicago. And
yeah, that was wild. I think the first car I hopped in was Dan Shonix. It's like a 1500
wheel horsepower for GT. And unfortunately, he had taken it through a car wash. And so I was
thinking, this is going to be great. This car will be so fast. Hey, it's impossible to shoot
off because the windows are so tiny. And there's not a lot of room inside to move around. But he'd
also just take it through a car wash and water got into the intake. So it was like cutting out the
whole time and he couldn't get on get on the throttle like at all. So we were just like,
everyone just left us for dead as he's trying to figure it out. So I had jumped out first stop and
hopped in something else and finished the rally in that. But yeah, that was that was a fun and
exciting rally and ended in Chicago and had a big party at on the rooftop of some hotel.
And how big was that first one? You know what? That was probably 25, 30 cars maybe.
Oh, wow. Okay. So pretty big for a first first go at it, I think. Yeah.
That was almost like a one and done rally though for Justin and Adam because they
there's some snafu at the hotel. We were supposed to get all the rallyers were supposed to get like
one free drink at the bar. And the hotel somehow interpreted that as open drinks or open bar.
And so like everyone was just getting shit faced and having a great time and I will never
forget that night. But yeah, and I don't think Justin or Adam will ever forget the bar bill
they got for that. That's insane. Yeah. So the next few rallies, I think they had to pinch
some pennies to like pay off the credit card bills from that first one. But yeah, I've had that
mistake. But the opposite way around, we didn't know we had unlimited drinks. Like I'll go to
Chow or whatever. Like the year we went, they gave us like six like bottles of wine to go.
Oh, nice. Yeah, just okay. Yeah, it was strange. Bonus. Yeah. So
Sean, he's also a bucket list. Yes, I just reached out to him this last weekend. So yeah,
hopefully that works out. Man, I miss that guy. I haven't seen him forever. Oh, he's like two hours
south of here. Yeah, like a bit of a haul. But yeah, yeah, he's still around. I think still doing
four GT stuff. He's at a saline now as well, which is sweet. Like good for him. I think I've
actually not seen a saline in parts. Like a seven or yeah, I'm not saying no, like a seven. Okay.
Yeah, I've only seen one, but it was like taking up three cars worth of bays like when I went down
to Calvo so long. Well, no, it's just because it was taken apart. Oh, okay, okay. But that's cool.
What was your first halo card that you shot? I'm gonna go all over the place. I got so many
questions there. All right, great. I mean, for me, my dream car is a McLaren F1. And so I had the
chance to, I've shot two of them now, I guess. But yeah, there's one, there was one locally here
in Minnesota that I was fortunate enough to shoot in a private collection probably 11 or so years
ago now. And yeah, those are still some of my favorite photos. I've gone back and reworked them
just because obviously over time you learn new things about how to edit and how to shoot stuff.
And yeah, so I went back and reimagined the photos, but yeah, I'll never forget shooting that car.
It was the F1 chassis number 67, if I remember correctly, I think it's the one that Elon Musk
owned and crashed and then got fixed. And then this guy bought it and he had it for like a year
or two and then it caught fire. And then he had to send it back to the factory and it was like a
multi-million dollar restoration to get it where it's at, but well worth it now because he's had
the car for probably 15 years and it's definitely gone way up in value. But yeah.
They're like about 20 million now? Yeah.
Something like that? Yeah, it's insane.
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out how one of the baddest transmissions on the planet could fit in your build. Let's get back to
the show. When did they start getting the, was it the W1? The W1, the new one you mean?
Yeah, those should, I think they're, I just saw like an Instagram post like earlier this week that
was, I think they've built eight of them now for customers. Yeah, they're starting to get delivered
now, but yeah. Yeah, I don't remember how many of them they're making, but I'm guessing 350,
400 cars, something like that, maybe if I remember correctly. If they're counting like
Ferrari and actually labeling the numbers or not. So photo wise, this is how I discovered you. I
came onto the scene 2018 and I started following, getting to know the local community and eventually
I kind of followed you and I haven't been shy and sane as you were the pinnacle. It's like you
and Josh, but I was kind of like, I like this style. Thank you, I appreciate that. And Josh
knows I'll have him on the show as well at some point. And then he's like, give me grief for it.
But yeah, you guys are both Porsche guys too. Yeah, it's kind of funny how that worked out.
Yeah, I don't know. I don't know if it's a photographer thing to just gravitate towards
German cars specifically. It's just perfect, you know? Yeah, maybe. Yeah. But anyways, so
you were already involved in photography and your various stuff at that point. How did
Alex Bellas photography start? Yeah. So when I was in college, actually, I guess in high school,
I went over to Germany for an exchange program for three weeks over the summer.
And I brought, my dad gave me like very early, this would have been 2002, 2003, I think. Yeah,
way back when. And my dad gave me a little point and shoot camera that was 1.3 megapixels.
You know, not much you can do with that nowadays, but back then I was like, great, cool, I got a
camera. And all the pictures I brought back were of all the goofy cars they've got in Europe that
we don't get here. And then once I got back, I got like a nicer point and shoot. And then
when I went off to college, a buddy of mine was working for the school newspaper and would
let me play around with their DSLRs and that kind of stuff. And so that kind of got me thinking
about upgrading my camera. And then cars and coffee started around 2005, I want to say 2004,
yeah. So I started, I went to the very, I missed the first show, but I went to the second show.
I came back from school for the weekend to go to that and snaps some pictures. And so that was
kind of the start of me shooting car related stuff more often and started to meet some people
through there. And then my first page shoot, I think was, God, when was that? That maybe like
07, 08 maybe. The local Audi club was having a get together and basically they just paid me gas
money to come up from Mankato and shoot their little parking lot show for them. But yeah,
it just kind of branched off from there. I kept going to cars and coffees every week or every
month or whatever and meeting more and more people and expanding and
yeah, just always had fun with pictures and yeah.
How did cars and coffee evolve? Where was that before Chanhassen?
Yeah, so it used to be there, let's see, it was, what are the cross streets? It was right off of
62 and Shady Oak Road, I think. There's a caribou coffee there. It's funny because there's a caribou
coffee in one parking lot and then literally across the street there's a caribou coffee in
another parking lot. So it was a great place to get coffee. I think there's a Brueger's Bagels
there too. So it started in a parking lot and there's maybe 30, 40 cars the first couple times
and by the third show they had expanded from just the one caribou coffee parking lot to take over
the other caribou coffee parking lot and it started growing from there and it filled up that whole
business complex. And then I think it went straight from there to the motorplex because the
motorplex wasn't fully open yet but they built a few of the buildings and they had that main
central courtyard kind of place. So they started hosting the show and then it grew with the
motorplex to become the biggest cars and coffee in the country basically at its heyday.
Yeah, it's a bummer that got kicked out of there though.
Yeah, I think between the noise complaints and stuff dealing with the police and Chan
Assen who I think didn't want to deal with it and the owners of the garages there I think kind
of got sick of all the traffic and people poking around garages and that kind of stuff.
Yeah, and then they also had their ambitions to try to take over the show but
Tyler who runs it didn't want to really give up control and so it was easier just to
move it somewhere else and I think it went to Mystic Lake and then Canterbury. Oh yeah,
it was Canterbury and then Mystic and then back to Canterbury. It was perfect when I was at Canterbury
because I lived in Shakopee at the time and I was like and honestly I think those I haven't
been back since Mystic but like that was like the heyday for me. It was like the Canterbury one
like it was just cool man. Yeah, it was. Yeah, I mean the shows they're doing nowadays
they're still good. They just had a cars and coffee here on this past Saturday. Yeah, yeah.
And unfortunately. Oh, it was here here? Yeah, it was here. Okay. Unfortunately I couldn't make it
but I heard turnout was amazing so that was good. Is it just in this parking lot out here? I'm
guessing is it pretty empty? Here and I think it like went down the street and there's a
call to sack down at the end and a bunch of other businesses I think kind of took over
because you know Saturday night so it's no one's working back here so you can just fill up all
like five this past weekend. Yeah, yeah. So okay, so you start kind of branching out. Yep.
When do you become an actual business? Let's see. So I actually I filed my LLC I think in 2014.
I was kind of calling myself a business in 08. So around the time I started kind of getting my
first paid shoots and then I yeah it took me until 2014 to actually figure out oh I should
probably be paying taxes on this stuff and filed an LLC and all that kind of stuff.
And then in terms of going full-time freelance with it I'd kind of kept building my business for
another uh was that like seven or eight years after that probably until I felt comfortable
enough that I had enough clients that I could really leave corporate world behind and just
focus on my photography and yeah so I was 20 end of 2019 beginning of 2020 is when I
went full-time with Alex Bell's photography. And you're still full-time with us? Still full-time,
right? Yep. Yeah. You made it through tough periods. Yeah, actually COVID was during the
pandemic was great because there's no uh there's no traffic. There was a lot of spots that I had
always wanted to shoot that were like downtown Minneapolis that didn't have anybody there.
And so it was easy just like I can park a car in the most ridiculous place and no one's going to
come yell at me and I'm not getting in anybody's way. So that was kind of nice actually. But yeah,
yeah. There was a few spots I've had. Have you ever ran into like when you just had
a bunch of awesome spots and then people come ruin them and they can't go back there sort of
deal? Yep. I'm sure it was uh oh man I I don't even know if it's still there. I think it all
got bulldozed a couple years ago but there is called like Minnesota mushrooms or the apples
mushrooms. Yeah they have those big like I don't know what they're those big domes of whatever.
Yeah um man I love shooting there. Um but yeah that that got overrun with people after a while.
I think I'm turning it into a playground now is what I heard. Interesting. Yeah okay. Or some
sort of park or something like I don't know but my old business partner did donuts inside of Wando's
domes. Oh nice. And he had a stray pipe Jeep. It was so loud. I still got those videos I think.
You uh you know Laurie Simpson right? She's got the Aston Martin years ago. I think I
chatted with her on Instagram. Okay we did a photo shoot with her vantage and we actually
pulled it into one of those those domes and I I'm guessing they grew mushrooms or something there
because Minnesota mushrooms or whatever. Um turns out it's really slippery in there. Yeah. Yeah and
so we were both just like slipping and sliding as I'm trying to set up lights and stuff for a car
and yeah we both took a tumble and got muddy. Yeah it was pretty gross. That was a cool spot and
like when they bulldozed that they also had like these like mounds of sand and all that like it was
a cool spot. Yeah you could get like three or four different looks in the same location which is
hard to do yeah. Yeah I did probably miss that place. Probably like three or four shoots there.
Nice yeah. Yeah it was a fun spot and like close to everything and yeah kind of sketchy but not
not like dangerous dangerous. Not quite no there was a couple times where like I you know there's
like around the corner the river maybe a couple bodies got dropped off but no this is before all
that but yeah yeah. But no it was it no there's a lot of cool spots I've been kicked out of a
few I'm sure you have as well. Oh yeah yeah. Have you ever had anything get hostile? Luckily no.
Okay. Usually what works for me is just being polite and playing kind of stupid. Just oh I didn't
know I couldn't like I didn't think I was trespassing I'm sorry but nowadays I try to
line stuff up in either public places or you know get permission I had a time. You had a
certain point gets to that but like the whole like the playing stupid thing kind of works though
because it's like I'm not doing anything wrong. Yeah you're not hurting anybody. Right. Yeah you're
maybe mildly inconveniencing someone by being in their way for you know a half hour or something
at most usually. Oh yeah. Yeah and if someone makes a stink then yeah you pack up nearly and
find somewhere else but yeah it's good to have backup locations just in case. One of my favorite
roads to shoot on actually I can't go back there anymore not okay it's not like I can't go back
there but now it's it was the street that kind of just went into farmland I wouldn't I think or no
and it didn't really go anywhere but it was like this beautiful tree line twisty road
and it was always dead quiet and now they built a huge subdivision at the other end of it and so
like I tried it like when they were just starting to build up some of the buildings and there's
so much traffic through there that you know it could get a couple shots off and then would have
to leave and yeah so that's the other thing like it's getting harder and harder to find
quiet places to shoot where you're not in the way anymore but rally wise back to that oh yeah
most of all the rallies because you've done more than crown rally right you've done
yeah I've done mostly crown and cannonball so far yeah okay which year was your favorite
oh man um because there's always a crown story out there there's there's been some really good
ones I it's hard to pick a favorite it really is um I think honestly my favorite rally I've
ever done was actually a cannonball rally and it was it was that it was unfortunate because it was
a west coast rally and uh it was from LA up to Sonoma and they only had eight people sign up
or 88 cars I should say and a few of those might have been staff cars actually now
that I think about it so maybe let's say five people signed up um so it was nice and small
but like the itinerary was amazing I mean we got a private tour of the Peterson we got we drove up
the pch we stopped in Monterey and got to drive around Laguna Seca we got a private tour
on the track yeah we got a private tour of a singer vehicle design that was really
cool um yeah and then we ended up in wine country and it was just like a really night we rented a
big Airbnb where everyone got to stay because it was a small enough rally we could we could get
away with that and uh yeah just had a really great time hanging out spending time with each
other and drinking wine and yeah that's cool why why was it such a any idea why was such a low
ticket I think because it was um it was shockingly cheap entry like it was I think it I want to say
was like 1600 bucks to do the rally yeah that's impressive yeah exactly and so I think maybe
people thought it wasn't going to be as cool as it was it was kind of like a hidden gem kind of thing
or maybe people had low expectations because it was so cheap um yeah I don't know that that was
still it was just so much fun and maybe it was because it maybe it was better because it was so
small too yeah yeah I don't know friends rallies where it's like it's just so fun yeah right like
because I've gone down like the running rally side of things and it's like my first three-day
rally which was my first real rally yeah I think I was I think it was 650 for a ticket okay and I
was two hotels we had Foga to Chow that one I told you about earlier and it's like it was from
Minnesota to Colorado and I was like Pike's Peak I think it was like just like a month before crown
or just after something like that like it was sick yeah it's like but people didn't like you said
probably didn't think it was gonna be anything crazy yeah yeah I think yeah if you don't have
like a super established brand of and have um you can't show that you've done this before
you know people aren't really sure what to expect I was looking at like 22 cars on that one that's
awesome it's kind of crazy yeah I mean comparatively to the one I was talking about yeah that's a lot
more people but yeah I mean and there's been some really really some really great
crown rallies that I've been on to I west is always one of my favorites um usually it goes from
Denver down to Las Vegas and see some pretty amazing stuff along the way and yeah I'm yeah
they've all been fun I don't think I've been I'm fortunate I don't think I've been on a bad rally yet
with the exception of the crown where two people died but were you on that one yeah that one was
pretty rough it was fun until that happened yeah but yeah then it was just kind of a drag
yeah no I I'd imagine so yeah yeah yeah um are you involved at all with the new guard
are you like I know what I don't even know what that is with that with crown oh oh sorry the new
yeah they saw in all of them are you gotcha yeah yep uh I'm I'm only shooting one rally for them
this year but I shot all of them last year uh and yeah I hope to hope to keep shooting with them
for the foreseeable future yeah so I'm doing north this year so that's from Salt Lake City up to
Glacier National Park oh wow okay yeah so that'll be beautiful I'm I'm so excited to do that one
yeah I briefly looked at the routes but like yeah if crown was still like the price it was like
in 2018 when I couldn't afford it now I could probably swing court and afford it but now it's
like it's just a whole another it's a whole new caliber which definitely gotten more expensive
over the years and I I do want to give credit to ASA uh I mean Justin did a really good job of um
when when he sold it to ASA he did a really good job I think of getting things pretty dialed in
the transition yeah the transition all that actually I will say the transition looked pretty
smooth yeah everything I've heard yeah and I mean ASA did a great job of hitting
the ground running and and um kind of keep keeping things going and he brought in a lot of new people
which is great um yeah and and honestly it's actually it's more expensive now yes but
the accommodations have been nicer the food is has been phenomenal on every I have no
complaints about the food on any of the rallies I've been on I think it's tiers too right like
there's tiers of rallies as well yeah well it's not quite up there with like you know the gold
rushes or the gumballs or stuff like that but it's it's definitely like I would say uh not too far
off and quite compared to those rallies I'd say the experience is actually a pretty good value
yeah because last year when we did I think on west one of the hotel stops we stayed for two
nights at the st. Regis in uh Deer Valley okay and um it's an absolutely incredible five-star
hotel and um because ASA wasn't quite sure I think where to put media we ended up in a two-bedroom
suite that had like our own butler service and I'm like I don't belong here this is crazy I had the
most incredible view and we have like a patio and like a full deck that we could walk out on and like
look out over all these ski runs through through uh uh Deer Valley Utah I think yeah um and um
my god it was just incredible I remember I was on the phone with my wife just telling about how
amazing the room was and there's and the doorbell for our room chimed and I was like who the hell is
that at our room and yeah it was our butler introducing herself and she's like yeah so
mr bellis if you need anything I'm you know just let me know and you know we can bring you fresh
coffee in the morning and fresh orange juice so if you need any your clothes washed and
an iron or anything if you want any help packing on your before you leave let us know we're happy
to help with it totally accidental yeah I was it just blew my mind um so anyway yeah so I've
got no complaints about any of the crown rally uh accommodations I think it lives up to the price
if not hits oh I think it punches above its weight actually oh I absolutely I think that's kind of
always been like the selling point of crown like yeah I mean it has gotten more expensive but again
I I still think ace has done a good job of of continually like stepping up from where from
where Justin kind of left things off and yeah hopefully I end up on one in the next couple
of years we'll see what happens it'd be awesome take the GTR oh there you go yeah but that's
perfect car for it too honestly it's uh it truly is like bang for buck it is it's hard to beat
because like they're down to like 120 right like they sure they correct that is so much money or so
much car for the money yeah well it's like what do you get if you go 80 grand more maybe but like
what can you get at 110 maybe a c8 I guess but then it rattles yeah you know what I mean right and
especially the GTR I mean that's very similar if not better performance than like a GT3
yeah well that's the thing is like I got to compare and a GT3 is going to be significantly
more expensive yeah well it's like the only GT3 you can compare price wise is an older one like a
15 sure but it's like it's so it's not even in the same league right um so yeah and by the way I
was smacked out in a GT3 I would love to drive like a newer one yeah totally or AJ I think you put
an exhaust on that one I think if they had an exhaust at the time I drove it I probably would
have enjoyed it more they do sound really good yeah not that the v8 twin the twin turbo v8 and the
GTRs are any slouch either though that sounds awesome it's insane um have you gotten to drive
some cool stuff over the years too then I yeah luckily I've been very fortunate to drive some
cool stuff um I think like the all-time favorite driving experience I was shooting a private track
day up at BIR with a client and um he had not quite the whole holy trinity but he had a p1 and
two 918 spiders up there in addition to an eventador and a bunch other whole bunch of other
Porsches and other crazy stuff and um yeah I I'd done a bunch of racing back in the like around
2010 for a handful of years I'd done some racing and so he knew that I could wheel a car all right
so he tossed me the keys to the p1 and let me take it out for a few laps around BIR and that
blew my mind and then I was so fortunate because I came back in and he's like well you can't
just drive that you got to compare it to the 918 so I took the 918 out and I like I was probably
23-24 maybe 25 at the time I'm like I have no business driving these cars but I wasn't gonna
say no I'd be an idiot to say no yeah yeah um so yeah those are probably my did you get on them
pretty good too oh yeah I mean I drove them like you're 23 right yeah yeah and like you know I
prior to that I I've had hundreds of laps around BIR so I know the track really well
but you know that's driving it in like 140 horsepower like golf GTI or something you know like
mark 2 GTI or a Ford Escort or something like you know whatever shipbox we were racing in
world racing league and jump car at the time so going from something like that and trying to
calibrate with a p1 or a 918 was was pretty insane but you already had like you said hundreds of
laps at this point so you were pretty familiar like was it intimidating oh very intimidating
especially with the p1 because the steering is so direct it felt really really dirty and that's a
car that like it makes a lot of air like it has a lot of arrow down you know downforce and everything
and I'd never driven a car that actually drives differently depending on speed with you know
because of the downforce it's making and so I I felt really uncomfortable driving the p1
it was fun I wouldn't trade that experience for anything but um I was also scared shitless the
entire time because I'm like I if I crash this thing I am forever bankrupt um I mean I think
the owner would have probably been very nice about it but yeah I was like I can't I'm not
going to risk anything so I probably drove it like six or seven tenths and even that was
pretty scary oh yeah well I remember like you know I think it was a Clarkson did a review on it
and it was like the scariest car he's ever been in or something like that yeah the uh so I found it
so it was a I came up the day after the for the second day of the track day they had they had it
reserved for two days and the driving instructors were playing a game of who can get the highest
entry speed in the turn one at BAR which by the way if you didn't know this is notorious as one of
the fastest turn ones in the U.S. of any racetrack um and a buddy of mine Chris who was one of the
driving instructors at the time said he turned in a turn one at 195 miles an hour in the p1
yeah yeah and then they got a puncture not not well he like it was like after that whatever so
they had to um I had to help Kevin from Amola find a the right Pirelli tire to to bring up yeah no
big deal yeah um yeah we were shopping around trying to find one at the the tire rack uh warehouse
at Roseville um and no dice but they managed to overnight one um from their uh I think it's in
Indianapolis where their headquarters is their their main their big warehouse um yeah so Kevin
ended up getting a tire overnighted up to the tracks so they could get the car going again but
you said the other cars were 9 18s yeah okay yep and so yeah then driving that afterwards was um
a much calmer experience that that car felt it didn't feel quite as fast although honestly
lap time wise is not too far off but it definitely felt a lot uh easier to drive refined probably
yeah for sure for sure yeah um I still I don't know part of me still likes the p1 a little bit more
I think I'm maybe even a little bit of a McLaren fanboy over Porsche sometimes but um yeah I don't
I'm just I have to pinch myself that I got to drive both of those I think that's part of being
young too like I sometimes I wish I was like 10 stupider because I okay I had like like one time
I denied like driving a demon like when I was like earlier on it's like I'm like at that point I knew
enough to be like ah this could go sideways but like at the same time it's like kind of would have
been cool yeah to launch a demon right um yeah sometimes I just wish I was just a little less
smart yeah I feel like as I've gotten older I've turned down some of those experiences too um
because you can't be just like a dumb 23 year old anyway right exactly although I'm really
glad I said yes when I was given the opportunity to drive an f40 uh I had a buddy that um yeah I
connected with him and we were shooting he's just like oh I've never met anyone that knows so much
about f40s why don't you come check mine out and we'll just hang out and have a couple beers and
talk about it whatever way that sounds cool and then he was like well you know why don't we take
it for a drive you can kind of see what it's you know like uh get a feel for what it's like and
get a sense of it and I'm like that's cool and so we kind of finished up the drive and came back
and he's like ah you know what I've had this car for a long time I've never done this before but uh
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you can use coamin oxide for five percent off let's get back to the show again I'm not going to say
no I would be I would forever regret that if I said no uh and that was definitely another one of
those kind of meet your heroes moments uh he said I was the only person who's ever let drive the car
besides himself and um yeah it definitely lived up to the hype okay it is it another again very
intimidating car to drive but like mostly because I you know if you know how expensive they are
like I don't want to break anything uh but in terms of like driving it around it felt like a
you know like a miata on steroids kind of um like the build quality is about the equivalent
to a miata honestly kind of shitty kind of rattle what year was that was nine about the same time
as the miata came out so like 94 95 um yeah uh god I know that's sacrilegious to compare an f40 to
a miata but I mean when you look at it 30 years ago right yeah um materials have changed since
oh totally totally uh yeah just like yeah it felt very like kind of crude especially compared to
like a modern ferrari but um yeah that was so much fun and as long as you're out of boost
because that's the other thing the v8 is it's a pretty small v8 and the turbos are pretty big
so it takes a lot there's a lot of turbo leg before you really get going and so if you're
just kind of cruising around out of boost it's fine it's it's not that scary aside from the
value of the car um but yeah then I did I asked very politely like would it be okay if I kind of
got on it a little bit I don't know I made sure we were on like a very long straight away and
there's no other cars around and yeah uh that was that was pretty cool getting to actually wind it
out a little bit that's freaking cool dude I don't think I I would say no so quickly yeah like well
I just I don't know what it is it's like well like what's your what's your dream car that's
that's been so tough like it's got to be an nth car still okay I still want like a
tame 1200 horsepower on the auto viper I don't want a 2000 horsepower one anymore I know my limits now
because like I've driven like a thousand horsepower Mustang I'm like all right this is manageable
well okay but if Aaron handed you the keys to one instead wanted to go take it for a spin or
you know would you really say no I think depends on like it well is it a sequential or is it a
manual because like I don't drive manual enough to be confident in my manual like truth it's not
because I don't want to just like I've never owned the manual car let's say it's one of the
automatic cars they've built I think so okay maybe I would be so careful yeah no I get that there's
also the rarity of parts too right like like they're all hand-built it's not like it's going to be
down for a week right like there's no more windshields left in the country for those cars
like the I like my friend scooped up the last four in the country like oh yeah of course yeah yeah
so it's like I don't know I think I think if I have a more of a savings account I'll be like okay
I'll pay you off in eight years yeah I don't know but I still think like I just wish vipers were
getting so expensive because like they they have gotten expensive it's kind of like
you ever like go walk on a beach and you're like trying to get to the pier and you keep
getting closer but it keeps getting further that's what's happening to vipers right now
that's the perfect way to describe that absolutely I was gonna go with like a kneel the grass tyson
quote yeah yeah I yeah totally know how that feels yeah every time you think it's attainable
just get further away oh man I thought I thought of one more driving story yeah a buddy of mine out
in uh kind of the seattle area has um I think he sold off a bunch of his cars but I he had at
the time a career gt a black one and um I shot a couple of his other cars and I shot some pictures
of the career gt and he's like oh do you want to drive it and I was like yeah and he's like okay but
this is a tricky car to drive and like I just I want to lay some ground rules you know um don't
drive it in traffic don't uh don't stop it on a hill and don't roast my clutch I'm like okay I mean
I you know whatever I think I can figure this out it's it's a manual it's fine whatever and I knew
that they were tricky because they have such a small little carbon fiber lightweight carbon fiber
clutch um so I'd heard that they were tricky and I heard that the I read that the trick was you let
off uh you don't touch the gas at all you just slowly release the clutch and the car will start
to roll and then you roll onto the throttle so I actually managed to like get it off the line
just fine no problem um and then as soon as we kind of left the it was stored in an airport
hangar and basically like three blocks outside of the the airport um it was like 430 in the afternoon
and near seattle and so of course there's a bunch of hills everywhere and uh we're in traffic
and I ended up at a stop sign on a hill in traffic and uh my buddy another buddy of mine
who was in the car behind me filmed me as I proceeded to roast his clutch trying to get
away from the stop sign and it took me oh my god so embarrassing I saw it probably
between six and eight times trying to get away from the stop line it was so bad I'd never been
more embarrassed in my life and of course there's a video of it too and so my buddy's just relentlessly
made fun of me on car forums for like three years afterwards but yeah anyway that was it was another
another great experience where I was just so nervous about what the car was like that I felt
like I didn't really get to fully enjoy it but yeah well that's my thing is like I like a month
and a half ago like I was driving a wrx and I stalled twice at a stoplight and I was just like
it's like really that just happened like it happens to the best of us it no it does I've
seen some of the best drivers stalled their shit I'm like hey like it's you're not
I can do it too it's not a big deal yeah yeah and it's like I'm not like
bad by any means like I'm just a granny shifter I'm like all right nice and careful yeah you know
driving Miss Daisy yeah but yeah so I mean you've had quite a few experiences over the years but
you said you were doing some track stuff in the early 2010s were you just like like autocross days
or like it was um yeah so I was shooting a track day up at BIR and it was for the Ferrari Club
at the time and there was a couple of guys who were about my age it was all like old dudes that
were driving like you know these vintage Ferraris and stuff and um very slowly you know because
just to warm them up and not really they didn't want to beat on them too hard um and then there was
this red Ford Escort ZX2 like a 1990 late 90s early 2000s Escort that was just ripping around the
track terrorizing these Ferraris and I'm like what the fuck is that thing and so I got talking to
the guys that were racing it or that were that were driving it and they're like oh yeah you know
we're just doing some shakedown stuff before we've got a track event here in a couple weeks or whatever
and I was like oh that's really cool how did you guys get into racing and so they're kind of talking
about and this is like the the heyday of um chump car which is now champ car and then there's you know
lemons racing 24 hours of lemons that kind of stuff um so it's kind of like it was a similar
series to 24 hours of lemons um and they're like yeah it's just it's a $500 race car basically
and the more we got talking about it they're like yeah do you want to drive with us
and I'm like yeah what do I need to do and so like when you got to get a helmet a fire suit and
like this that and the other thing and so yeah they told me where to go and I bought all the gear
and then like uh it ended up being like the following year because it's kind of in the fall
and it ended up being the following spring that I ended up racing with them but um yeah my very
first race was like the first weekend in April at Road America and like the snow still hadn't
cleared from the infield and there was like ice sheets of ice on the track and it was terrifying
but yeah I went out there and I had a great time and just kind of stayed with those guys and we
did a bunch of racing for the next 56 years and most of them still still do some racing
here and there but uh yeah it was really fun for a while there. What were you racing again?
Was it one of the X2s as well? Yeah so it was a Ford S4 ZX2 I also raced we had an SVT contour
and then uh and then that was like the first couple years I did it and then for like the
they had a they found a 87 GT or no it was like a 90 I don't know it was a Mark II GTI rally shell
it was built up as like a rally car it had a really really nice cage in it and yeah we just
basically built that back up to be a drivable car again and I want to mark two in the worst way
oh they're so much fun yeah they're so light and possible and man I had so much fun with that car
I was I didn't have this level of mechanical sympathy that I have now so I I did break a
lot of things but it was it was fun it was a really fun car um yeah I love to especially when
you raced at Road America I would love to like dive bomb people on the brakes in the turn one
and like they put you know there's the brake markers so it's like 54321
and most people would brake at like especially going in a turn one because it's again very very
long straight away so you've got you're going well over a hundred miles an hour usually by
time you get to turn one and most people would break around like the 33 and a half kind
of and start start to slow down I would wait until one and just mash the brakes and because there
was no weight over the rear it would just lock up the rear wheels and then I would just flick it
and then you get right back on the power again and just use the slide to kind of slow me down
and yeah it worked out great it was so much fun and there's somewhere out there there's a couple
pictures of me just like full lock like you can't see my face but you can tell I'm smiling under
my helmet I've never driven Road America in person but like I know where the braking zones are
because I'm on a sim breaking out one is insane oh yeah it was nuts it like yeah I started off
by doing it by accident uh you know that's the best way to learn things you're probably doing what
60 buddy I mean that's straight in that car I want to say it was probably a hundred and fifteen
hundred and twenty okay that makes sense yeah um and again there's a pretty big runoff so like I
even if I didn't break it all until I you know really ran out of room and couldn't make the turn
I'd go in the gravel and yeah that was driving a Pepsi can what are you I know well you know
it's got a good cage I trusted the cage I did have a cage at mine the one I was in did not have a
cage I'm this guy and I'm pretty sure he was on coke at the time I don't know I know that he did
coke frequently okay and we're ripping through like you know like the fun twisty roads over by
like flying clouds yeah they are ripping through those in this thing and he's squealing every corner
and this thing like it was the craziest little mark to like it I don't know who owned this before
but like custom like ceiling liner from joey and fabrics like it was beautiful yeah and I'm just
saying you're thinking like I might die in this car it was the most fun I ever had as a passenger
but dude those are some fun I remember driving those roads all the time I grew up not too far
from there uh and yeah I remember ripping through those roads kind of on line snap and that kind
of stuff yeah I haven't been to lion's tap and god knows either the place slaps so good the thing
is like there's so many good burgers around here like I kind of like because again I used to live
in shock to be like lion's tap was like the furthest I'd go yeah sure and now it's like
I'm on the other side of the cities in Plymouth and I'm like man there's a lot of good stuff around
here yeah okay non-Minnesota people may too now for a second here but uh what's the best burger
in the Twin Cities I mean okay I'm pretty biased but uh Matt's Bar the Juicy Lucy that's yeah
who created a Juicy Lucy first though I'm going with Matt's Bar on this one I know it's a big
topic I have now the people from the rest of the country can join in here because in terms of fast
food burgers I'm gonna go out on a limb here and say uh Culver's is the best for fast food burgers
I was just talking about this with my dad too like yeah I don't really care for in and out
yeah in and out is overrated it's all right but like when it comes to like overall experience
like Culver's kind of wins like five guys is cool but they don't have the rest
and also you need to finance that fucking burger oh my god seriously yeah yeah but
where's carna when you need it occasion fries from five guys those are good I haven't had five
guys in a year year and a half and it shows you look great I know I try kind of best uh but no
it's like every meal is like a 2000 calorie meal you're gonna pass out you're gonna get a call
from capital one there's a time and a place yeah but uh yeah Culver's is like my go to especially
Florida now too oh really I was down the floor I'm like is that a fucking Culver's like finally a
reason to go down to Florida no I'm kidding but yeah like uh five guys is all right I like their
burgers but I feel like their fries are unless you get them animal style are just so bland yeah yeah
or you mean in and out or sorry in and out what did I say five guys yeah yeah yeah I've got his
cave fries are just yeah yeah in and out fries are like cardboard basically unless you get
them animal style I've never been impressed I you know what I like I like shake shack okay
yeah shakes rocks pretty good I haven't been there as much but yeah yeah okay aside from burgers
you mentioned Florida there for a second um did have you shot many track events I've shot a bunch
of track events not uh yeah I've been just sebring and 24 hours a day telling them now so yeah those
two are in Florida um yeah I try to get to at least one or two track events a year um usually
club events but uh yeah but if I if I'm in the neighborhood or if I'm you have a good like a
paid reason to go to the track or something um then yeah I'll go to that I think I'm going to the
Detroit Grand Prix uh at the end of May so that'll be fun another person going I knew I should have
it's like it's like in a week and a half I think it's not too late I'm going with cannonball
okay and so cannonball rallies pretty emsa race right or is there a different one yeah okay yeah
so cannonball's leaving from the cities I think and taking the what is it called the badger express
ferry across oh yeah yeah Michigan just over logistics on renting that is like the timing is
never perfect yeah yeah but anyway but it'll be a rally to the Detroit Grand Prix if you want to go
uh I think that's the same weekend I'll be in Dallas okay yeah that is I think that's Memorial
Day weekend is it I thought maybe I got my dates wrong not the last weekend maybe I do good okay
now I never tried to check my phone on on camera but now I have to and since this is posting tomorrow
might as well Detroit Grand Prix 2026 all right I might be wrong oh yeah it is the end of the month
okay this is um wait is that indie indie car uh I've not been paying attention to be honest
here's like I'm going to yeah I'm going I'm going along on cannonball they're going to a race in
Detroit I just oh yeah yeah it's indie yeah okay yeah I got invited to go to uh Imsa 22 weeks
before okay indie I've never been any car did you pay attention to any car not really okay I want
to I heard just like I went to the Indianapolis 500 a handful of years ago um but I spent
most of my time in the snake pit the big EDM festival in the middle of the track uh getting
absolutely shit faced on hard seltzers um so I don't remember a lot of the race I watched maybe
30 laps of it okay yeah I watched the very start of it and then hung out in the snake pit the rest
of the day and uh yeah I was I was okay with that I don't watch F1 I do I love F1 WC
I love Imsa I'm I have an appreciation for NASCAR but I don't particularly care to watch it that's
kind of where I'm going in circles it's just not really my thing but having driven uh race cars on
circle tracks like in anger like in an actual race it's a lot harder than it looks uh so I
have an appreciation for what they do but yeah I don't find it particularly interesting from
outside the car I didn't have an appreciation for circle tracks period until I read Adrian
Newey's book I don't know if you read it how to build a car did you read it I have not
read okay yeah no fair enough but like I didn't realize just how much it's even harder to engineer
to just go left I bet compared to turning sure optimizing one direction versus an overall package
and I was like oh that makes sense yeah and I suppose like testing in a wind tunnel is probably
tricky or two yeah because well I mean I guess you know which way the wind's going to be going
over the car but but still it yeah presents some challenges well it's like think of it like if
you're setting up like coilovers in your car you know it's you're setting it up to kind of match
whereas like every corner is different on those cars yeah and I'm just like oh just yeah I've
talked to some guys that worked in a NASCAR too and I'm just like this is like kind of insane
like yeah so underappreciated seriously well the cool thing about those NASCAR cars though even
though again not a big fan of watching the racing uh but like the retired NASCAR cars occasionally
pop up for sale and bring a trailer and whatever and for like you know 40 50 grand usually that is
so much car for the money if you just want like a track day toy because I mean most of the time
people buy those and then they actually do set them up like a normal car with like you know
the same uh spring rates and stuff on the covers and that kind of stuff uh and balance
about and then like that would be so much fun to rip one of those around BAR or some other road
course road America you know yeah it's like not nothing but I've never actually seen a car like that
like on like a normal track yeah I mean they've raced it like Lime Rock and I wrote they do
wrote America and that kind of stuff so they do get to a couple of road courses because you
imagine like a NASCAR going to like a grid life or something oh man like India like the unlimited
class I mean you know if it'll fit into a class but be hilarious oh what year was it 2019 I want to
say or like early 2020s um there's the garage 56 class and the 24 hours of them off oh yeah to come
around and they had the yeah like and it was so freaking fast it was like you know kept it was
faster than like the LMP2 cars yeah and I remember seeing all the memes of it just being like
this huge massive thing just like running down all these tiny little race cars just bulbous yeah
that's the best way to call it just a brick yeah and 900 horsepower brick just chasing down everybody
and sounding way better than all the little 50s who was behind that was that Chevy like oh like as
Chevy or is it like Hendrick or something I think it was Hendrick Motorsports that was doing it yeah
is it a documentary on that I should probably watch that yeah yeah that'd be interesting and
because I think garage 56 is an actual class that uh that is like part of the 24 hours little
mass so like you can compete and that's I think we're like this the hybrid supercar class is kind
of falling under that was for a while yeah yeah yeah and so people can bring
like test vehicles and stuff or like the remember the the delta wing I forgot about that thing that
okay I want to say cool but it kind of wasn't but it kind of what you know what I mean like it
was just a weird wasn't it like it was like two skinny wheels up front and like a wide in the back
from the correctly yeah yep looked like a rolling okay sorry you might have to cut that part off
it looked very phallus shaped but you know very aerodynamic I can't speak to how well it handled
but uh yeah anyway I always admired that car for for just doing something different you know
something different yeah yeah I remember looking into those I should it was they had like a good
run I think they ran it that car in various configurations for like five years or something
yeah god that was around the same time I think Nissan built a front wheel drive GTR to go racing at
Le Mans really I didn't know that yeah they built a front wheel drive prototype or like LMP
I sort of GTR huh to to go racing at Le Mans and it did not do well but
unsurprisingly yeah yeah but again kind of cool and different try something new yeah exactly
come out this r36 and I hope it's something cool I do too it'd be nice to keep that name plate going
at least yeah well I know they're bringing a skyline name plate back for like Japan okay we saw
those articles like it's going to be basically like what is it some sort of infinity yeah like
the Q50 or whatever it is but yeah yeah those are kind of cool too like the uh what's the fast
one like the the Q50 red or something like yeah they're cool like I wouldn't buy one but you know
no they're neat I'm I can respect it sure like I gotta remember like sometimes the problem with
this podcast is I look at everything through a performance perspective and after like realign
myself sometimes like not everybody needs an 800 horsepower Nissan like some people just want
a stage one yeah whatever that means right yeah you know exactly a little more juice than stock
just to have a little more fun with it like my car I might I might just do like a normal stage
one sort of set up on it like literally I might not even do anything besides like an intake and
like a laptop tune because like I want a second race car but that's a different conversation
well yeah everyone has different priorities and if you can get a race car then you know
by keeping your daily relatively stock yeah nothing wrong with that I love turbos yeah dude
when I it makes life so much easier if you want to tune things they're the best like I listen I've
driven fun supercharged cars I've heard quite a few supercharged cars yeah I love turbos turbos
are great they are because you can keep them still fuel efficient for like on the street
and then you just crank them up when you want to yeah go fast and boogie yeah I think when
mark seven like even like I think I was still getting like 32mpg most of the time that's nice
yeah and I was like with I was averaging 90 going everywhere like I I miss who I was those days
sometimes I used to live oh man um so you're doing a lot of this track stuff then um have you ever
gotten into like a dedicated like built like race cars the most have been like streetcar stuff
um it's mostly been streetcar based stuff that I've been driving I don't think I've ever driven
anything that's like a tube chassis car okay really but yeah maybe someday I don't know yeah
never say never yeah exactly yeah I love the opportunity or even just shooting one would be
fun I whether it's one of the radicals over there or yeah I don't know yeah that'd be keeping my
options open did you you never really brandish much into doing video though have you just
really I've done the occasional reel just you know but um yeah not really a video guy it's
it's interesting and I definitely see why it's so important and so popular and all that
but I don't know I just I like to focus on the craft that I'm that I'm already comfortable with
I guess and try to get better at that you know get a little bit better at that every day
yeah and it just feels daunting to like really dig into video editing software and try to become
you know an equivalent you know to be a good videography good videographers a whole different
set of skills I feel like then a photographer do you remember like it's kind of faded away because
it's kind of a trend but like those fast like transitions and like it got a little intense I
try to do some of that and I'm like this really isn't worth my time yeah like that's why I like
doing the podcast because like this is like I've kind of perfected this like I'm gonna do this for
my day job as well here soon which is gonna be all super related for the most part fun I'm super
excited for that nice hopefully we can jump on that soon we'll see TBD on that okay and what's
to do there but but like I get the whole like you're in your craft and it's like just keep
perfecting that because the video thing like I do it but like not at the level of some of these
other guys right exactly there's so many great videographers out there and you know if I ever
whenever I have a client that reaches out and is like oh hey do you do video too I've got some video
needs I'm always so happy to refer friends in that space and and then I get to work with my
friends which is also fun you know get to branch out and like uh Jacob from Golden Peaks or those
guys yeah there's so much fun to work with and yeah really good at what they do so I'm like I
can't compete with that in the video space so I'm gonna stay in my lane and you know bring in other
talented people to work with when I whenever I can how in touch are you with the local community
because I've started to notice this and maybe you felt this at some point like I don't think I know
anybody here locally I stepped away for like maybe like a year and a half and I'm like I don't know
who all like the goat like because like I kind of burst onto the scene and I was like the photographer
for a while like um like the new photographer around here like I made a name for myself a little
while there absolutely I'm like I don't know who any like the new talent is yeah uh do you ever
feel like that sometimes or yeah a little bit I mean it what I'm going with that's like I don't
know who to refer you know what I mean sure sure yeah um that's a good question I feel like
from where I'm sitting anyway it feels like there's a handful of people that do it that do
photography or videography professionally that have been doing it for you know a while now multiple
years and then there's just the usual group of like spotter kids that are just running around
there's nobody like in the middle anymore is there like kind of like really like on the way to be a
bellis which was where I thought I was headed for a while sure yeah it's and it's yeah I can't really
yeah it's it's either like spotter kids or it's people that have been doing it for a minute um
I yeah there's probably some up and comers that I I just haven't met yet because I kind of took
a break from the car scene around here for a walk for the last couple years anyway like
I haven't really been going to many car shows I'll maybe make it to like one or two cars and
coffees a year if that um yeah like I end up just traveling for work a bunch and so I'm not around
on the weekends are you traveling around the country like every month pretty much a little bit
here and there okay yeah um and not even just around the country like uh I guess this was a
couple years ago now but um I spent a month in Europe over the summer um yeah one of my buddies
who runs uh he runs a motorsports travel agency and also like a sim support company basically um
so I'd gone on a couple trips with him uh just for like you know 10 or 12 days kind of thing
in the past and then he was like well I've got some other trips I'm trying to plan out so like
do you and I have a some a sim client I got to help move a racing sim for he's like would you be
willing to come and help me move this racing sim because it's too heavy to move by myself
and then also we can just bounce around to all the cool car stuff in Europe for basically a few
weeks and uh you know we can kind of plan some stuff for some some future trips and then he had
a couple clients coming in that wanted to do uh do World Ducati Week at um Masano circuit in in
Italy on the Adriatic Coast and he's like so you know I'll use some of the money from that to
basically pay your way to come out with me and so yeah so we flew into Geneva which is where his
sim racing client was and pulled the sim this this massive motion sim rig out of this guy's
basement of his office basically um and loaded up in a sprinter van kind of thing and then drove
it to Zurich to his lake house and uh installed it in his lake house over a couple of days and
then from there we returned the van and rented a car and just kind of drove up through um drove
up through France went to the Bugatti factory went to the uh I think it's called Malouce it's
spelled like millhouse but I think it's pronounced in France Malouce uh museum which is incredible
car museum in France that is just it's huge and they probably have I think I counted over 70
Bugatti's in the collection which is just insane most from vintage but they also have some of the
modern stuff uh yeah and then from there I went to the Bugatti factory and got a private tour of
that which is really cool and then went to the Nurburgring and spent like four or five days at
the Nurburgring um you know driving and just kind of exploring the area and going to do anything fun
on the ring rent anything well I didn't want to spend the money to rent a car there so I just used
our rental car um and apparently they have like people from the different rental car agencies
as like spot working to spotters at the track to try to track make sure their rental cars aren't
being used there so we just like scraped all the stickers from the rental company and then sent
it um and then my buddy Chris who was on the trip with rented a GT3 RS for a handful laps and that
was pretty amazing was this pre-coven no this was this is 2024 oh okay okay yep so new GT3 RS
probably yeah yeah the 991.2 yeah yeah yeah because I know you could like I think a little yeah
the rental stuff is crazy it was yeah I think it was right before the the 992 GT3 RS came out
oh yeah that makes sense yeah yeah um but anyway I mean that thing was I don't know
the 992 was out by then but anyway it was a 991.2 GT3 RS that he was ripping around the track but
even in our Skoda whatever Octavia I think Octavia or whatever they're called station wagon um
you know he's a he's also a driving instructor up at BIR and he's been around so many race tracks
and so he took me out for a lap in our Skoda and then let me drive it afterwards um for a lap
and in his lap you know this thing makes 200 horsepower this little Skoda and we passed an
800 horsepower RS6 Avant and like a bunch of like Porsche GT4s GT3s all that kind of stuff and I'm like
and okay I passed a car I was pretty proud of that um and by the end of the lap we're pulling up to
so bridge to gantry is kind of the the the lap uh and we're pulling up to the um the pull off to
to X into the paddock and he's like uh can you pull over and I'm like what what what and he's like
I'm gonna throw up and so I actually made him car sick and he spent the rest of the day like
on and off just like puking because oh my gosh yeah um I don't know if that speaks to my driving
skills or he also said he's just uh he's not a great passenger which was weird for driving
instructor but anyway that was super fun um but yeah and then from there we went down to uh Stuttgart
went to the Porsche and Mercedes museums and then we got a private tour of Roof and their facilities
oh so cool and then back to Zurich and then down to Italy for to meet up with uh these two couples
that were coming in for World Ducati Week and then from there down to um uh Masano to do all
the Ducati stuff and then back up to Bologna and then we went on factory tours of Lamborghini
Pagani Ducati there's it all right there too yeah it's all right there yeah and yeah uh went to the
Ferrari museums um yeah it was great it was a great way to spend a month all those are pretty
like within a few miles of each other aren't they yeah like I think it's like maybe a
15 minute to half hour drive to get to each one so it's kind of like Detroit pretty much yeah it's
like everything's like right right there this little valley yeah that's freaking cool who had the
who had the coolest tour oh man um that's a tough one uh I my favorite was probably Lamborghini
really just I really like the museum part of it's really nice and then the factory itself is also
just beautifully set up and unfortunately they took us through the the Urus line and not the
Reuelto line but that's okay it was still pretty interesting to see um and then the year before
that I was out there with the Ferrari club and we actually got to tour the Ferrari factory which
oh that's right that was that was the coolest factory did you go to Monaco then too right for
race yep yeah that was that that was amazing that's probably my favorite race I've been to
yeah that was super super cool yeah um is mana how's Monaco spectating in person
it's actually pretty good um it's such a small little city and it's pretty easy to get around
everything is it's not necessarily well labeled but like the track is just kind of omnipresent
in Monaco because it the track is part of the city right so you can't really get that lost
you know you're maybe off by a block or two but then you just like you know you walk around until
you find the track or where you're supposed to be and then there's signage to get to your seats
all that kind of stuff and um yeah it's it was really fun um whenever like qualifying or whenever
the race ends basically whenever you know one of the parts of the event ends um all the yachts
in the harbor will start honking their horns and stuff so it's just this cacophony of of horns
going off and yeah it was it was cool and then like walking around the city and you can go up the
hill to the castle and look down over the harbor and the track and everything and um there was a
yacht with an f40 on the on the deck oh that's right that year yeah yeah i think is that the yeah
that's the year when like the photo went viral i think yeah yeah yeah i think they i forget what
car they did the next year but anyway yeah it's just amazing seeing all these huge boats um yeah
so that was super fun too are you a Ferrari guy for f1 oh for f1 yeah i'm a hamilton guy so wherever
Hamilton's at i'm i'm written for Hamilton um but yeah i i so i was a Mercedes guy for a while
and was a clearing guy before that and i'm a Ferrari guy i guess so you've been a hamilton
guy since like he came on the scene yeah that's i think when i first started watching f1 was maybe
a couple years before hamilton started okay so i've been watching for over 20 years now um so you're
the perfect person to ask then how do you feel about these current regulations oh boy not a fan um
but that being said i'm trying to keep an open mind and this last race was great i i haven't
watched it don't spoil it for me really yeah well i was on the platica tuesday i know but i
was a platica and then i had a 14 hour drive home yesterday so i haven't had a chance to watch it
yeah uh that's on my list for tonight okay how are you you've got no spoilers so far
no i've somehow managed to avoid it my entire algorithm is all portion of stuff from the
platica then right now like it is okay i won't spoil anything thank you i appreciate that i have
a hunch i think i know who won but i don't want to remember to be honest good i actually can't
i'm blanking on it i'll stop something about it yeah um but nonetheless uh uh regulation yeah
they're already making changes changes to it i i you know like i said i haven't watched the
race so i don't know how those changes are well miami's always been upgrade time anyway regardless
of us missing these last couple races i think miami's always been upgrade race i think you're
the last 23 years and then it's usually like i think spa or something or silver stone is
when they roll out the next kind of the mid-season upgrade yeah yep and then after that i think the
next set of upgrades is like um what's another street circuit the super hot as one thing is not
singapore um whatever oh that one yeah that's another one that is hot but yeah yeah spain maybe
or one of the spanish grand prize i don't know it'll come to me whatever yeah but the point being
is like that there's like three like main upgrades for the season i think but but now they're already
talking about like going to v8's going back to okay so you saw that much at least yeah yeah no spoilers
there it's like yeah okay great do that why are we messing around with v6's i i mean i think it was
needed like somebody commented like this is like the oems had these restrictions to go you know
into these crazy fuel efficient cars i don't know yeah i mean i get that if there's technology
that can trickle down into street cars then that's great but so far that's really only happened with
the amg one well i guess a little bit with like ferrari is kind of implementing some of the stuff
and a few manufacturers have started messing around with like the electrically driven turbos and that
kind of stuff well there's that too but look at what's coming into the hybrid stuff yeah the the
whole like uh whatever the new spark whatever combustion system like that started in formula one
and now it's going to be in your in my four hurricane or not hurricane is a hurricane it's a
trickle down but like i still think like it kind of got away from focusing on f1 for f1's sake
yeah which is like make it the coolest fastest cars on the planet like why are we not like
what's this ulterior motive we gotta go out here folks yeah although i will say i appreciate that
we're 2026 the cars actually got smaller they finally yeah exactly so they're going in the
right direction there because you know you need small cars to to encourage passing because the
cars are too big and the tracks are you know not especially if you're doing a lot of street
circuits it makes passing much more difficult and we've already seen this season there's been a
lot more passing artificial yeah i know that's kind of the downside it was it was almost perfect
i know yeah just give them like what's the what do they use megajoules or whatever like you have a
couple extra megajoules a storage yeah yeah why not or kill a watts or whatever who cares i don't
know something but it's like they're artificially limiting it for some races like i remember seeing
articles about that it's like oh we're gonna give them an extra two and it's like let's just
ramp it up yeah give it all the battery power yeah and i'm i'm i'm okay with the whole hybrid
system in general but yeah i would love for the v8s to come back so they at least sound good
you can make it a v8 hybrid why not sure that's fine you're probably going to ship your car soon
or know somebody that will and as someone who used to work in freight logistics i understand
the difficulties of finding reliable transport especially when trying to make it to rallies
race tracks or to warehouse to hide your corvette because you're going through a messy divorce and
when she says everything she means everything any who next year is the proud owner of sure thing
logistics having traveled much of the country with every type of vehicle you can imagine
he's got the experience and reliability that you want to ensure a safe journey for your pride
and joy if you want to find out what it takes to ship your vehicle go to sure thing logistics.net
fill out the intake form and be sure to let him know i sent you let's get back to the show
that's my brother's thing is like he tries to watch f1 and it's like for the last few years
like it wasn't all like there's some exciting times but like if you're not watching the whole
season it's much less exciting whereas like mcell you could throw out any race oh yeah insane racing
i was just watching uh i was also just watching world challenge on in the background the other
day i'm like this is three wide racing yeah but or the the race the mcell race at laguna seca this
past weekend yeah with uh our homeboys from jdc motorsports winning the race yeah yeah like on
other bucket list guests there that's that was so cool that they won that i love that for them
yeah and they've got a really great facility too down in chock up here i did some photos yeah i was
like 10 i live 10 minutes away from that facility most of my life there's um yeah usually once a
year once or twice a year there's a Porsche club event there where they they do have like an open
house so if i if i find out about it i'll let you know okay yeah because that's always a fun one
yeah no that's cool my friend uh nick plachinic i'm i don't know if you follow him like he did that
the roar or whatever with them like yeah that's cool that's uh and they're like a
privateer team technically right yeah like competing against always right exactly yeah
and i don't know for sure that i i've always had a theory that like the o that oems will kind of
water down the the privateer cars but um i mean the fact that they won this past weekend uh
you know goes to show you that maybe they don't so that's good yeah well so yeah how does that
work do they just buy a car from the oes and modify them i guess i don't think they modify them i
think they just they get a car from the oes and i feel like the oes support their their factory
cars a little bit better i would imagine than the customer cars but maybe i make it assumptions i
don't actually know that but yeah i mean i could see it but it's easier because obviously you've
got that factory support built in right you know if you're one of the works cars versus a privateer
team oh did you you have the guy that engineered in the office next door exactly yeah oh how's
this work where's your privateer team you gotta send get a whole email chain started just to get
a little bit at 36 years later yeah yeah it makes you wonder like how teams like mclaren are able
to win with a mercedes engine you know what i mean like you know mercedes wasn't doing all that hot
you know where did i finish last year second or third i think we're yeah i think mercedes finished
third last year yeah whatever yeah unless you win no one cares as it turns out i think that
breaks my heart though is that hamilton took sign seat i know yeah same i feel like okay i love
hamilton i wish he would have stayed at mercedes for another year he'd actually probably be in a
lot better position had he stayed in uh in his mercedes for a couple years i would actually
be too though because mercedes is finally competitive now well yeah yeah they're okay less yeah maybe
yeah i just i science got a raw deal for sure and considering that he won more races and had more
points at the end of the season than la claire absolutely baffled me as to why they cut him
but i get it la claire is there is ferrari's golden boy so it's kind of like mclaren they'll never
get rid of norse right because that's zack browns guy yeah like he was with him like he was with
him for so long yeah you know piastries obviously i think piastry would have yeah
won last year had uh yeah had zack not given team orders a few times there yeah yeah it makes it hard
to watch i what i love piastry though he's i think i don't know i think australians are just fun
people in general i think because i miss daniel rickardo so much yeah he was he was my favorite
driver for a long time even though or well one of my favorite drivers yeah him and hamilton were
always kind of when they were both on the grid that's uh i'm sure he's gone to therapy over that
like like to make every wrong decision you know like in his career like literally yeah like i
dude i've pinned down those roads and it's like if i would have just done this this and this it'd be
all different and it's like to do on that level it's a bummer to think about like
what might have been yeah because you can't go back like yeah he can probably go do whack or
something he could probably crush it you know but like oh man can we just get rid of stroll right
what the hell is he still i mean i know what he's still doing in sports because his billionaire dad
is paying his way but jesus christ it just i i always used to do the excuse like he was great
in like the lower levels it was f2f3 was he though but then like you see him like hop into
then you recently do like wecker some insect car some yeah he did some gt3 class some gt3
was like sucked oh god yeah so it's like all right he had a rookie teammate that was faster than him
so it's like yeah i know yeah i and i i'm sure he could drive circles around me
oh absolutely yeah he does not belong in f1 this is supposed to be the 22 best drivers in the world
right is he in that caliber still or do we need to get some guy straight out of off of 94 that's
been driving a Nissan ultimates work yeah exactly here's your shot right yeah whenever i get passed
in something it's not always an eson but it's almost always an eson oh almost i was driving
through Minneapolis the other way the other day on to drop some stuff off for my boss and i'm just
like looking to the left and right i mean i'm like these guys could both drive into me right now and
they wouldn't care no just have clapped out oh my god oh man um no we'll see i'm excited if we go to
the v8 route that'll be me because i didn't get into f1 like say what you will about drive to survive
but like my dad didn't watch f1 for 15 or 20 years drive survive came and then became like this
family thing it's yeah it's brought so many more people more eyeballs to the sport and new eyeballs
but returning eyeballs yeah people forget about i love watching it yeah yeah i watched i'm i anxiously
await every new season of drive to survive i didn't finish this last season did you oh yeah i kind of
got bored of the episodes in no that's fair that's fair i've also been way busier this year so
might be that too it was not their best season really yeah yeah i heard george is a prima
dama i don't like george what do you land on george he has a very punchable face but that being
said i think he's probably a pretty nice guy and he's most improved yeah he's a little less annoying
exactly um and uh a friend of mine is actually his like personal photographer and calls him around
all the races i mean he is hired to shoot for Mercedes and him and that's wicked yeah it's
awesome i'm pretty jealous would you ever do if you if that offer came across your table would you
do it like would you put the business to the side yes if if the right kind of job came across yeah
for sure uh i haven't heard anything back yet so tbd on this but uh i recently saw that singer
vehicle designs was hiring a uh photographer and content creator so i applied
and you know again we'll see what happens in california yeah so i don't have any big
aspirations necessarily to move to la but minimum salary has to be at least 200 to live down there
it was not even close it was less than i made last year so but tough but oh my god what a cool
opportunity would be so you can always go back to what you do yeah exactly like it or expand my
business out there i don't know you never know yeah and i you know haven't gotten a call back yet so
yeah who who knows it probably you know but i don't think i'd be having a day job again yeah like
yeah when i talk to uh the guys at car boy on company 23 like i got on the phone with mark and
he's like you want a day job i'm like if all these circumstances are that and it's like i'm
still able to do all my monoxide stuff like i travel once a month like it's still yeah nothing's
changed on the monoxide front outside of being a little lazy on the highlight side but but you've
got a day job now so that's okay you can get away with being lazy on that stuff a little bit i i have
some things in the works i think this summer i'd like to crank like last year i did 150 million
views and like that's awesome that's it's a little bit of a vanity metric but like i still i must
do ap stats is my favorite class like i your data guy i love data like i like seeing what works
right so like i get to use that same mentality with the day job to be like all right let's see
how we can improve this so i just i enjoy how i'm a big like effort and results out okay whatever
that looks like whether it's numbers money whatever anything else like an extra vein in my
bicep from working out of the gym you know which i haven't seen veins in a while but like i don't
know i get it that's what i'm at yeah you want to see a return on your investment of work right
basically every unit of time yeah yeah exactly i get that no i never say never man yeah never
i mean yeah i i love what i'm doing every single day i wake up and and i'm happy and thrilled to
be doing what i'm doing and owning my own business and all the flexibility and you know there's a
lot of challenges that come with that too and it can definitely be really really stressful sometimes
but yeah i don't know i mean i i love what i'm doing and if if but if the right opportunity
came up and it seemed like a good fit i would certainly entertain the idea i mean i think i'd
be stupid not to right yeah yeah that's i definitely thought about the fact that i might be a little
too feral at this point to go back to a corporate job but it's working so far for me yeah well that's
good how's as feral as a god oh it's but like i think it's also because it's a small company too
as i got that helps like yeah it's less than a dozen people that i have to work with on any
given day so that kind of helps like we're all pulling the same direction whereas if i had to
go back into corporate it just it's a little soul sucking sometimes oh for sure for sure i've
i've done that once twice now yeah so i get it yeah but it's also in the car world right yeah
because like what were you doing before you went full time with you're doing the morris i yep yep
i worked uh i was with morris and their corporate marketing department for almost five years um
yeah and i mean honestly that was i love the people i worked with we had a great time um
got to go to auto shows got to drive all the latest and greatest stuff and make cool content
around it and it was just just a really fun you know fun people to work with uh
also though dealership life can be really really toxic sometimes uh and i'm i'm actually really
thankful i didn't experience a lot of that in my time at morris um but i have a lot of other
friends that work at other dealerships and have seen all the toxicity that they have to deal with
fair enough um so yeah i i don't their part i miss the people i worked with i don't necessarily
miss the job as much um yeah i don't know i know i i get it and it also depends on like the day-to-day
and like who yeah who you end up with like yeah and how yeah co-workers can make a big difference
there and luckily i'm still friends with a lot of the people i used to work with and still
see and hang out with them on a pretty regular basis fair enough yeah so what's the next for you
like okay let's say singer doesn't work out which again never say never yeah we'll see you might
get that phone call back you never know but like what if that doesn't perceive what's next yeah um
i mean i'm i'm looking forward to some stuff uh later on this year hopefully a few more trips
definitely some rallies um and uh yeah i mean i i think i've got some pretty i'm kind of dialed
in with like shooting auction cars lately the last few years that's been a bigger and bigger
kind of part of my business is shooting auction stuff whether it's for bring a trailer or um
meekum or arm so the bees or you know stuff like that so um yeah i'm trying to see if there's a way
to kind of scale that part of my business up because it's actually pretty lucrative if you can
get you know steady work doing that um are you concerned at all with um what's
not it's not like it's like fiverr but like well what's it called again for like photography
like yeah anybody can kind of like jump in there and do some stuff or bring a trailer yeah oh i'm
yeah i uh it was the photo yes yeah what was it called oh man i remember i remember when that
first came out because i signed up for it and i was like this might be this might help me get a
lot of business and then i actually looked into it and i'm like no i have had friends like take
people off that platform and go direction it's worked well for them that's good so like yeah yeah
but you need to find someone who you have to get lucky to get connected with someone who has
enough cars that you know it's actually worth it because yeah i want to say that whatever service
that is takes a cut you know on top of it so you end up making i think i figured out i would make
like 60 to 80 bucks per car that i shot something like that it was not much i i looked into it i was
like i am good yeah and nowadays i'm charging you know anywhere from 750 to a thousand bucks to
shoot a car for auction so like yeah you know um yeah that it's tough to scale up when you know
you're kind of working for another service um but i've managed to through the years get connected
with i've shot enough cars to bring a trailer that they've noticed and have reached out to me
to hire me directly now for stuff so i shoot for their white glove service got so pretty much
anything that's through bring a trailer is topped here um white glove service they hire me to shoot
around the upper midwest so that's been pretty fun i'll just say do you do a lot of traveling for
that a little bit but yeah mostly just driving um i don't i haven't flown for an auction shoot in a
while okay most of the time it's just it you know and i don't mind driving um like i said i just got
done driving 14 hours each way to noxville to go to a car show so i mean yeah i i don't mind driving
but um yeah i uh actually right before i went down to noxville i had a shoot for meekum with three
cars it was a a hennesy tuned uh trx whatever the all fun with all the 630 horsepower right yeah i was
oh man i was talking to someone who told me that like yeah they dino way less than a thousand
but whatever anyway uh and then for the sticker it's fun yeah and then there's like a hennesy zl1
and then a 70 uh chevelle ss um but it was down in uh heron lake minnesota which is like
two and a half hours from the cities um and i drove all the way down there shot three jet black cars
in like mid-afternoon sun with not a cloud in the sky on a dusty little back road because
that was kind of just that was when the timing worked out and that was just that's the downside
about shooting auction stuff it's it's not really super creative usually and it's kind of just making
it work with what you've got available to you um but anyway so it was like you know it was like an
eight hour day of between driving down there shooting the cars coming home and i stuck my
card in my computer and i had a card error oh no yeah i was freaking out because i'm like i don't
have i don't have time to like the auction is literally next week is when the cars are going
across the auction block and so like they needed to be done like that week to go in the catalog and
all that kind of stuff and so i was stressing out and thank god for uh memory card recovery software
i managed to recover the images and and get the shoots done and what's the go-to software
uh i've never had it happen before so i don't know i can't say i have a go-to software but um
it was a sandisk memory card and so sandisk has a service that they uh company that they recommend
so i just used that okay i think it was like that worked out yeah i think it was like 30 bucks to
you know to buy the software yeah so i've had that happen to me on some samsung ones oh yeah
yeah that was rough that was a rough that happened like two or three times and i'm like you know all
samsung's i'm like you know what these are i'm just not throwing these yeah yeah uh yeah sandisk
i've had some issues with some of their well i think they had an issue with their hard drive like
their ssd's i think it was like a million years for a short like period it was it was like two or
three years i think that everyone's like don't buy these yeah and meanwhile i'm just buying them
up cheap and i luckily have not had any issues with them until this one memory card but that's all
um yeah so anyway the auction stuff is is is fun and you get to meet some interesting people and
i don't know if you're familiar with i'm sure you know bobby and steve's auto world like the big
gas station chain around here um so i think bobby passed away this is god probably 10 years ago now
but his collection was based in roseville and his estate wanted to sell it through mecom and so
mecom hired me to shoot i think it was 72 cars all sudden done which was like up until then i'd
maybe shot two or three cars by the same owner uh for them and so that ended up being like a week
long slog of oh yeah and they flew in a couple of people from mecom flew in a few people to uh
to help me kind of get the cars cleaned up and rolling and a lot of them hadn't been driven in
a while so it was a lot of like you know spraying carb cleaner in the intakes to make sure they'd
start and that kind of stuff and yeah um yeah that was a pretty intense week of just banging out as
many cars as i could is that the biggest collection you shot yeah okay yep at least for for an auction
yeah okay okay yeah we can leave this off the record but what's if you want your call okay what's
the most expensive collection you've shot oh boy uh yeah we might really want off the record
okay that's fine that's fine it's cool but yeah the guy's very private had to sign a
bunch of NDAs before i could even go down there what's okay they literally ran a credit check on me
before i could go credit check uh huh really i never had that happen before or since but that's
that's how private it is so wow okay so what you've done a handful of shoots then for the ultra
wealthy and again we can cut this if we need to but like what's that like because there's a level
privacy and security and all that involved i imagine i will say um most of the time when
i'm shooting stuff like that uh i end up dealing with like their assistants or mechanics or someone
like affiliated with them but not the actual person themselves um and honestly that's just fine with me
because the assistants obviously know how to communicate with that person so it's easier to
get paid by going through the assistant uh the few times i've i've definitely dealt with uh more
than my fair share of billionaires in terms of shooting their collections and that kind of stuff
and um most i can't say anything bad about any of them uh they've all been really nice people for
the most part um but yeah sometime i've had a couple of them like try to nickel and dime me
afterwards and i'm like that's how they became billionaires right right well yeah so most of the
time i'm i'm more than happy just to deal with their assistants and that kind of stuff and they're
a little more like on my level so i'm like okay cool we can actually like talk about stuff and
yeah i get star struck isn't the right word but like i i struggle to like to find common ground
sometimes with there's like a gravity kind of yeah even when they're really nice and like down to
earth there's still something about them that's like it's hard to have a like an easy conversation
i think it depends on the person absolutely totally like there's i don't know how to explain
like there there's just some sort of like this or uh gravity yeah it's just kind of around them like
i don't know it's kind of like when somebody like walks into a room and like i'm not gonna use
tom cruise as an example because he's really not that good looking but like let's say okay
chris hemsworth when he was doing the thorn movies okay sure you notice chris hemsworth when he walks
into a room yeah i don't care who you are you're like all right like the rock or something or yeah
the rock's a better example like all right this guy if he you know if his knees weren't as messed up
he could probably kill me you know like that's pretty enough yeah yeah like a
predator's entered a room i think it's like a natural male thing i don't know yeah maybe i'm
just making shit up i don't know mean i i guess the nice thing is when when i am
interacting with with some of these really really high net worth people it's um you know we're
interacting over a common a shared love of cars you know that's how i've always seen it that's why
dude i and then that that part that part they definitely breaks down a lot of the barriers
and makes it easier to to talk to someone and whatever but i'm so glad i'm a car enthusiast
like it has done more for me than anything like it's like truthfully like it is the ultimate
networking tool like from just like a we enjoy this yeah i can't think of anything else and it's
like a base instinct like if you're into cars it's um it's like a like being a caveman almost
you know it's like you car me car yeah friends you know like it's it's so it's like such a base
level kind of shared shared interest i guess for a lot of people well let's use rallies as an example
like i got right in an svj like i'm an 18 year old kid right like i drove a dodge charger at the time
i'm pretty sure uh and it's like i mean basically the same thing right it's like i'm over here and
it's like me having a camera got me into this car i got me on this event because you called in sick
or whatever um like i think i had another rally that weekend that thing that might have actually
been you then yeah but like it's like i can't do that like at the gym everybody has their headphones
on it's really like i'd love to meet people at the gym but like everybody's sure locked in on their
own thing everybody if you go canoeing everybody's like meet all these meters away like yeah like
where else can you network weekly like you do with cars totally yeah i mean i'm thinking back to
just this past weekend when i was down at the Porsche Platica thing i was i drove down there by
myself it wasn't like i was planning on meeting up with anybody in particular and yeah i ran into
some friends but like i bumped into i made so many new friends when i was down there i could not
believe how friendly everyone was teach me this because like i'm just now starting to travel more
alone for this podcast sure like i was not going out of my way to like talk to anybody or anything
i i don't really know i mean i think having the camera and being willing to take charge and be
like okay hey i want your i'm i have camera see camera i want your car here i'll take picture
you like picture now we're friends like it was basically as easy as that which is kind of cool
i got to meet i'm asking people to take photos of their stuff then yeah a little bit yeah i mean
and like i was yeah i was kind of there as media for the event itself so that helped a little bit
too i wasn't just some like spectator coming up with the camera necessarily so you're officially
there for the event like yeah okay yeah like yeah i had like media passes for it and whatever um
but yeah like i mean some of it was people that i'd never met before but i'd known through car
forums for you know like these were people that i like i've known for 15 plus years through car
forums and i talked to him countless times never ever expecting to have actually met him uh there's
this guy um his name's jazz and he's got this absolutely insane collection of Ferraris and
porches and all sorts of stuff and he brought a for uh a Porsche 962 race car that he
street drives on the street and he's from Nashville uh and he and his son came down
and were like driving it to the car from the track to the car show like on you know city
streets and stuff and like they just have this insane collection anyway i'd seen him and followed
his collection for yeah like 10 15 years and it was so nice i actually got to meet him and he was
so nice i walked up and i'm like oh hey i recognize you from my instagram and i know
that's super corny but like you're a badass because you drive a 962 on the street and he's
like oh thank you this is here do you want to like get closer to it or what you know like
and he was happy to chat with me and he remembered me from the forums which was cool and like
anyway and then i was like hey how about i get some rollers of your car on track and you can
just follow my way and that my buddy's gonna drive and all whatever and anyway so yeah that was it was
it's cool just have you have a camera and you like similar interest or similar cars and it's
makes a little easier to talk to people i guess i think i've kind of lost my way in that way
a little bit like yeah like i kind of missed it a little bit and i'm trying to figure out how to
incorporate it because like i i don't know what it is like something's been kind of like
missing recently like and i'm trying to figure out what it is and i think that might be one of those
things it's like i kind of was doing like the photos but like just for the sake of enjoying it yeah
you know totally like yeah we'll see what's gonna happen in the next few months yeah i the other
thing was like and it wasn't even just the car stuff it was like people would see the cameras
and then they'd want to talk to me about my cameras or whatever it's that's also a network yeah
totally shooting on a hunk of shit zoning or something yeah or a hustle blood yeah yeah yeah
okay what's this hustle blood okay so i i turned 40 this year and i wanted to get uh
actually like next week uh and i wanted to get myself something to kind of uh treat myself a
little bit for turning 40 and so um yeah so i had a bunch of old deus nikon dslr stuff i wasn't
using anymore when i switched to mirrorless and so i traded it in and i got a hustle blood which is
a swedish camera company and each camp it has a hundred megapixel sensor and each camera is like
hand built and tested and calibrated um so it's not so like so you know you're gonna get a good
camera there's no duds um and the build quality is absolutely insane that it's milled out of a solid
block of aluminum and like it just yeah it's um i bought it and then i did i don't know why i was
excited to get it it didn't really occur to me that like oh yeah no i need a lens for this too
to actually use it so for the first like couple weeks i had it it was basically just a paper weight
on my desk um because the lenses for the camera are like anywhere from basically they started
about 3,500 bucks and go up from there which i kind of blew my wad on just the camera body right
but i yeah i found basically the absolute cheapest lens i could find for it on ebay
um and that kind of got me going to start with at least so um yeah i don't know what's the use case
for that everything like what are you it's terrible for action stuff like any movement at all and
it's gonna and part of that might be because the lens i have is not a particularly fast lens it
autofocus is absolutely dog shit on that camera compared to what i normally shoot with um and you
know like it's like one picture or one frame a second basically to take pictures um so yeah it's
a really slow clunky camera to use the battery life is absolutely terrible okay um where's the
appeal right yeah i had multiple people asking me over the weekend like oh that are talking to me
about my camera over the weekend and i just it's i felt bad because i didn't really have a lot of
great things to say about it but the files are incredible it like the picture quality it's and
it is just really fun to slow down and not just snap a million frames because every photo is like
thoughtful now exactly yeah yeah so i actually have to like plan out and like be in the moment to
kind of to use the camera so it's yeah like i said it's it's so different from my z9 my
Nikon z9 that i usually shoot with um yeah it's really fun too it's really rewarding and and again
the images that come out of it are just phenomenal so i'm do have you posted any of them yet yeah
but you'd be hard pressed to pick them out of the okay the the photos that i regularly post so um
because yeah i posted a bunch of pictures from the platica uh on my instagram and i had my z9 and my
hustle blood with me at all times and so okay so you're shooting with that at platica yep
and so they're all kind of mixed together okay um so yeah you'll have to kind of go through and see
if you can guess which ones are which but see if i have any sharpness in me left yeah i feel retired
that's okay from photo yeah i did a photo shoot really to see and i'm like i still haven't edited
more than like three photos oh no but it wasn't like a picture yeah sure like i was testing one of
these cameras oh sure which surprisingly really good photos i bet yeah yeah it's crazy how far it's
coming the last six or seven years too yeah and now all the mirrorless stuff is is really fun to shoot
with and for a long time i was like oh mirrorless cameras are kind of dumb and um i just didn't get
the appeal i'm like i like my dslrs they work they you know i like the sound like the shutter sound
because there's actual mechanical shutter movie yeah um but you know whatever it's a doctor over
here huh yeah i'm a bit of a i don't know i want to make sure because it's my livelihood i want to
make sure that it's it's gonna work before i switch to it i don't want to like take a gamble
especially if i've got something that's already working like why would i leave that to try something
new that i don't know is gonna work for me oh dude cameras overheating on this podcast has been a
real oh really changing audio stuff like i remember one time i it was a pri and i switched to
kind of like those clip-on mics but then like route a lavalier through it and like one of the
episodes sounded so bad and to get it reasonable because like i i'd post there's only been two
episodes i've never posted and only one that i didn't film okay that was a conversation i work for
them now so it's okay okay but um and i remember it took me like 24 hours 20 hours of editing just
to make the audio reasonable oh my gosh yeah no it's like that's i get the whole livelihood thing
but i've had so much experimental stuff on the show and it's like i the comments have made me know
it but i'm like we're here now yeah you think i mean you figure out what works it just yeah it's a
lot of trial and error obviously with i mean with anything new you know it takes some trial and error
to to get it dialed in and figure it out but make it repeatable same thing with photos like yeah
you had so many people ask you over the years i bet like what's the best camera oh my god seriously
okay so just i'm putting this out there uh if anyone wants advice on what camera to get next
go to like a best buy or a camera store preferably um just because i want to make
sure those stay in business but like sort of like natural camera change or uh b&h or whatever like
go to an actual physical store and just play with the cameras see if they'll let you throw a battery
in them and and take and throw a lens on and take a couple shots and just see what meant you know
because the menu systems are all different on these cameras find one that makes sense to you
see how it feels in your hands like because if it's comfortable and you feel like you connect
with it you're more likely to use it than if it's if it feels overly complicated and and finicky and
yeah know what you want to use it for too one of my brother's friends was like looking at like
he's like i want to start vlogging from my channel or whatever and it's like kind of like a four
thousand dollar sony and then like all of them were like and including a notorious photographer
told him like you don't need that right yeah yeah yeah i think a lot of people do overpay
or overspend i should say on on camera equipment that is you know that they just don't need you
know um i think of so i bought my hustle blood used um because new they're like 9000
dollars uh and i paid a fraction of that um but i think of all the the doctors and dentists and
lawyers and whoever that are like oh i want to be a photographer and so they just go maximalist
and buy the most expensive gear they can find because they assume it's going to be the best
and that's not to say it's not a phenomenal camera but you know like you aren't going to want to use
a hustle blood to take cat like candid pictures of your kids or your pets or whatever which is
what most people kind of start doing with photography that's the main use case i feel like for most
hobbyist photographers that oh yeah oh i want to take pictures of my friends or whatever of my dog
or whatever so they go buy a camera and yeah the wife needs a camera so i've had that one
once or twice before and it's like you don't need this like they were looking at some similar
gear that i had i'm like you're good do you know yeah i mean honestly i hate to say it but like
iphone's and stuff and like the good androids and stuff takes such good pictures so good yeah
and with a little bit of editing like learn how to tweak some stuff in like lightroom mobile and
you're you're good to go how much do you use generative at all in like photo editing uh yeah
but only for like uh like removing stuff from pictures more clone stamp you for yeah basically
yeah yeah it's annoying how slow it i feel like it's really slow and clunky though well that's
because it's internal too though yeah like if you were to get one of these new mac books are coming
out that what is it the m5 chip now or whatever like the ultra like that's a big thing is like
it's like optimized for oh okay editing like generative yeah internally i've got the pre the
m4 chip i think that's like the black yeah yeah okay you find the same one i got yeah except i messed
up i didn't get more storage i got the first one that was available baby oh man yeah i went oh man i
definitely not over spent i got a good deal on my because i've got a buddy who works for apple
corporate and he helped me up with the employee yeah i did zero percent financing oh nice nice
no i snapped that day i was like i need an office to work out of i cannot do this here
anymore like i just need to go out that's why i just bought a same day nice um no it's cool uh so
yeah you you do a little bit of generative but like yeah you stay true to the photo probably
yeah exactly i like i'll only use it if i'm just trying to like clear clutter or um you know if
there's like a parking cone in the background i want to take out or a street sign that doesn't
look good in the picture whatever i'll take that out but or power lines or whatever people just give
me hell for the power lines i'll really like to keep them in there okay yeah i yeah i usually do
too i'm usually just too lazy to take them out for a lot of stuff but um you know if it's really
important i'll just shoot somewhere that doesn't have power lines there's a yeah yeah um but yeah
and i also have some clients uh like erin at enthmodo for instance who's very particular
not to not to throw him into the bus here because he's actually a really great guy
and a fun fun client to have there's a reason that his cars are as amazing as they are yeah
because he's very particular about everything in a certain way yeah i would love to see how he
makes breakfast one day oh my god i don't care what that plate looks like right like sausage on the
left eggs over here maybe it's not that bad but you think he puts extra hot sauce on it though
just because his cars are so spicy yeah yeah i don't know the party too yeah he's fun erin's
awesome um but we like when you're doing particularly like you're just making sure some
stuff isn't in shot sort of deal or yeah a lot of it is just i just want to make sure that like
there's nothing just just overly distracting from the car okay yeah that's pretty much that makes
sense yeah yeah yeah that was a dream cuz like when i was doing photos and video for a
while i was like that was like the dream client and then i just went full podcast uh probably two
years ago you're making it work man this is great yeah yeah yeah it's it's it's been a
two hours yeah problem anything else you wanted to touch on before you start
wrapping up i don't think so i mean yeah i don't i'm just happy to be here man just just another
good day yeah um okay well i finished every episode with one big question i don't know if you've
heard this question before but it goes like this you could pick three cars okay unlimited budget
and these cars have to be a show car a daily driver and a track car which cars are they gonna be
you can modify them in any way whatever you want okay um show car would be probably a
mclaren f1 okay because i don't know i i would be that could also go under the track car
it probably wouldn't be the most reasonable daily driver uh okay yeah show car would be
mclaren f1 track car would be the gordon murray t50 okay yep uh because then i can also drive it
on the street because it wouldn't be the t50s and then daily driver would probably be an e63 wagon
nice yeah sold one practical car and then two absolutely batshit insane ones yeah god i love
those wagons after driving that rs that's seven um r6 sq seven or oh yeah yeah sq seven i'm like
man i want an r6 the r6 is a really nice too though have you driven one yet uh yeah just a
little bit it felt a little video gamey you know like not super i mean it's meant to be a comfortable
and it's a big big heavy car um i wish okay i hated the the current m3 styling when it came out
you know the kind of big bug teeth look um but i feel like it works or maybe i've just gotten used to
it but i feel like it works on the it grew on me the wagon that we don't get here and i really
wish we could get the m3 wagon here or how about the rs3 wagon or the r3 would oh the new r3 wagon
looks so good yeah the one that schmi is giving away or sure yeah yeah i'm like it's in that green
dude yeah or the r the rs5 wagon or rs yeah that too or yeah there's five yeah as well it's like
all these like little sport bags or whatever to call like the big like because the big daddy is
you know like the the m5 wagon is what almost it's like 6,000 6500 pounds yeah it's something stupid
it's insane yeah i heard it's a great car yeah which is same with like the newer e 63s though the
new e 63s are big and heavy too um so yeah i mean i i still want an e 63 wagon but i would also be
perfectly happy with like a you know an m3 wagon if we could get one i don't know yeah that would
but but yeah anyway that would be my perfect three car garage is having one fast but practical car
and then have two just in insane other ones yeah well sweet on that note where can everybody find
you uh they can find me uh my website is www.alexbellisfoto.com uh or my instagram is uh
at alexbellisfoto sweet yeah awesome thank you for tuning in everybody and we'll see y'all next time
About this episode
Alex Bellus and the hosts move from rare Porsche sightings and rally memories into the realities of making a living as an automotive photographer. They compare dream cars, track toys, and daily drivers, but the conversation keeps circling back to access: factory tours in Europe, private collections, auction shoots, and the logistics of getting the shot. Along the way, they dig into camera gear, editing, and how car culture opens doors to networking and new opportunities.
Alex Bellus, is a Minnesota-based automotive photographer, joins the show to talk shooting road rallies, insane collections creating his business., We also talk about his month-long European expedition where he visits Bugatti, Lamborghini, and Pagani along the way. The obsession for Porsche is discussed plus the local car scene, and what it actually takes to build a sustainable photography business.
