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Aprons, Vegas, Mick, & Being Thankful
Aprons, Vegas, Mick, & Being Thankful
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About this episode
The hosts dive into a casual and humorous chat covering a range of topics from Tim's experience working in a Cracker Barrel kitchen, including the fascinating antique warehouse and scratch cooking, to reflections on Thanksgiving traditions and food preferences. They discuss the recent Vegas F1 race, praising Max Verstappen's dominance and Lando Norris's grit. The episode also covers IndyCar news, including Mick Schumacher joining RLL and the remaining open seat at Coin, with speculation on potential drivers. The show wraps up with heartfelt Thanksgiving gratitude from the hosts, blending racing insights with personal stories and light banter.
Topics:
cracker barrel kitchen experience
cracker barrel antique warehouse
thanksgiving traditions and food
vegas formula 1 race review
max verstappen performance
lando norris racing effort
indycar driver news
mick schumacher indycar debut
indycar team lineups
host thanksgiving reflections
Cars:
Volkswagen Jetta
Rossi and Tim don't let Hinch make a smooth transition to talking about Cracker Barrel. We recap the race in Vegas and the championship fight in F1. We talk about Mick Schumacher taking a chance by racing full time in IndyCar next year, plus we keep up our annual tradition of reflecting on what we're thankful for this year.
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This is, is off track.
So, Tim, why are you sleeping on the couch?
I mean, you have a really big bed with two different sections in it.
Well, you know, uh, my mom is in town and, uh, yeah, But you have a really big bed with two different sections in it. I,
I just figured I also have a really big couch that's pretty comfortable. .
That's fair. I don't think I'd share a bed with my mom.
Yeah. Just James's mom
Feels a little, yeah.
We'd all obviously share a bed with James's mom. .
I mean, that's, that's a given.
You don't even, they don't even need to say that.
Like, we all know that we would do that again, like second, third time for anything. Right.
All right, Alex, I, I, I'm gonna need Joan's number real quick.
If you could just find that, get a text, that'd be great.
No Problem. No problem.
Yeah. Uh, James,
before you got here, I was telling Alex something though.
So Teddy is sleeping down on the couch with me.
'cause he usually stays in bed with me.
Um, Teddy knows that if I get up, that doesn't always mean that, you know, the day is starting.
Sometimes get up in the middle of the night, you have to go pee.
You just want to go to grab a cup of water or something.
So he takes a cue of, he will stay in bed until he sees me put on pants. Smart.
That's a smart duck. Have still in bed.
We apparently have a similar policy on the couch, so to keep him in bed so I wouldn't have to feed him and walk him before we started recording this at 6 28.
Am I, I see what you're getting at Tim.
I, I not wearing pants. Put it together. Wearing pants.
Not wearing pants. Do you wanna know,
I'm gonna be completely honest with you, Tim, knowing that it's six 30 in the morning there and knowing you as I do, I assumed you weren't wearing pants.
That's fair. I, I like that.
I, I think I've cultivated that like the pants air.
I figure at 2:00 PM when we record these things, you're not wearing pants.
A lot of times it's pajamas.
I'm not gonna, you're more, I'm not gonna say I'm here in slacks.
You're more dressed than I thought you were gonna be.
Yeah, this was on the back of my chair.
Yeah. Like, I thought you
were gonna be in your robe this morning.
I'm not gonna lie.
Oh, thought about it.
Um, speaking of robes, aprons are kind of like robes and Alex, except They don't cover your ass.
No, but they cover your front and they tie up.
There's a string involved.
It's just not all like ae because arguably robes, that's the one area they cover the least.
Yeah. Not at all. The same robes are open in the front.
Are they, are you just basing this off of the fact that it's cloth with a string?
Cloth with a string and you wear it on your body and it ties up from one side and covers one sideboard the other.
There's a lot of parallels. Yeah. There's some similarities.
These are robes. That's not what I, there
You go. Said
We found the transitive property of clothes.
Mm. Happy Thanksgiving.
Everybody. . So does that mean, does that mean, does
that mean an apron is lingerie?
I I think that's where we're coming. It certainly
Could be. Let's,
I think, yeah, let's be honest here.
If you're just wearing an apron Yeah, absolutely.
like, alright. Huh.
So what are like, Nope. Not even gonna say, keep that
Thought going.
No, no. Keep that going.
No. Gotten in enough trouble on this show.
Um, alright, James, please tell me why. Aprons, why?
Yeah, please tell me why aprons are like robes.
They're, they're not, I mean, other than all the reasons we just discussed, I just said, speaking of, I said Yeah.
So I was just gonna say how you've been wearing an apron on social media recently, and I wanna learn all about your employment at Cracker Barrel.
Ah, I don't think we've discussed the fact that you've now cooked your favorite meal on earth.
The Cracker Barrel Catfish. Mm. I
Love, I love that.
That should have been a ten second segue.
And Alex, you and I were like, oh, it should have been, Nope, not allowing that , What do you wanna know?
Have you seen these videos? Have you seen these videos of
I have. I have seen these videos.
I wanna know what it was like working the kitchen at Cracker Barrel.
Pretty fun. I've always imagined that
at least for a period of time, being a bartender or being a cook in a kitchen would be fun because it's like, you gotta, you gotta manage your time and you're kind of running all over the place doing different things all at once.
And it's gotta, the ingredients have to come together at the right time in order for it all to be hot and presentable and you're cooking more than one meal at once.
Um, so I feel like that fast-paced, like having to be thinking on your feet sort of thing would, would be, uh, a cool job to have.
Obviously there's a lot of stress and pressures and annoyances that come with that as, um, any of you that work in the service industry can probably attest to.
Um, but it was cool. I enjoyed it.
I, it, cracker Barrel, uh, what's, and this is not a ad, I just wanna say I was impressed because like their, their whole thing is like country style, home style kitchen and food.
Right. And like, there's nothing,
there's literally nothing in our kitchen that's frozen.
Like it's a real, it's a real kitchen.
It's not like your other chains where things come <inaudible> or, or, or freeze dried or whatever.
Right. And they just kind of flash fry it Yeah.
To, to get it up to temp.
Like it's all, it's all from scratch now.
A lot of it's fried, but still it's um, it's, it's scratch cooking.
So I mean, they make the biscuits from scratch every single day. Wow.
I love biscuits so much. Yeah.
Did you learn, did they give you the recipe so that way you and Kelly can make biscuits at home?
They did. I do have it.
I don't think I'll be making it at home.
It's a lot of quite bad things for you. Oh
Imagine there's lot of butter involved those.
That's all of Yeah.
I feel like that's all of restaurant cooking.
Yeah. It's, mm. It's not great.
Yeah. I'm actually, I'm now just thinking back
to specifically Cracker Barrel biscuits and they are exceptionally buttery And flaky and Delicious and no flirty.
Yeah. Yeah. I'm not mad at it. I'm not mad at it at all. No.
I'm here for it. I'm still gonna eat 'em. I'm sorry.
Eat 'em at all. 'cause I have no self-control.
So I, I was genuinely shocked to learn that all the like stuff on the walls is actual stuff.
Me too. So, fast forward to the second video.
So they have an, they're headquartered in, in Tennessee, outside of Nashville, and they have an antique warehouse.
And it is, it is the most valuable asset the Cracker Barrel has because every single piece of antique paraphernalia, branding, cookware, logos, signs, whatever is all original, not a single thing, is a replica.
They own the original Coca-Cola, like drink Coca-Cola sign.
And they had some Coca-Cola executives that came, um, for a meeting at the, at their headquarters to discuss whatever restaurants in Coca-Cola discusses.
And they went on tour of the facility and one of the executives noticed the sign in the warehouse.
And it was like, how do you have that and what do you want for it?
Because we'll pay anything. We've been searching for this.
It's like a lost Monet sort of thing.
And Cracker barrel's like, get outta here, don't care like it is. So
When you say the, or like, do you mean like the first ever Coke sign or like one of the Original, like one of the, one of the first, like there's a collection of like, I don't remember how many of them, but this is one of them.
And they've, they found they have them all, or at least have the One have they know Possession of them all or, or they have lent out still owning them.
Right. But they're, they're right.
Being used somewhere else.
But this one, they had no idea where it went or where it was.
And it was in the Cracker Barrel warehouse in Lebanon, Tennessee.
So I feel like we should take An offtrack field trip Because I want to go See this place Because I feel like it's incredible.
I'm a Knick Mack guy. Everything is categorized.
We can see. So everything, every vinyl record,
every picture, every magazine, everything is, is original.
The only thing that um, was, is, is not original is they said some of the food, um, cans Right.
Had deteriorated. So they'd, they, the aluminum
is not original, but they had preserved the label and put the label back on fresh aluminum Oh okay.
Sort of thing. So, um, but
So like what, what, what, when you say all original, like what is, what exactly do you mean by that?
Meaning there, if there was a rolling pit, right.
That looks old.
This wasn't a recreation of a rolling pin from 1983.
Right. It's an actually a rolling
Pin from they weathered after fact.
It's just exactly right. Okay. Yeah.
And then did you make a frame while you were there?
Is that what I saw in the video?
I did, I made a picture frame.
So all of their artwork is, um, again, original.
So they have a team of 10 people who sold job for Cracker Barrel.
It's to travel the United States going to auction, curate auction and estate sales and just collected all that Matches. Matches.
Does 10 people that that's their job.
Yes. And so they, they get all this stuff
and it's just, that's what they do.
And it all comes back to the warehouse.
And then every, I think it's two years stores rotate their imagery Right. What they display.
Oh, okay. And so they've got, in the warehouse,
they have a mockup of a store.
And so they'll be building, there'll be trial, trial and error of all the different things they want on the wall.
And they'll go be building it and then it'll be blueprints and they'll send it to that store and they'll redecorate it as was designed.
And then the other stuff comes back and it goes back into the inventory.
And it's all categorized, categor categorized.
It's all electronic barcoded. It's incredible. And
Then they, they stripped down that one at HQ and then redecorate it again and send that bundle out to the next door.
Yep. Wow. That is a wild setup.
Yeah. That is crazy that they go to that much detail.
It's not, they just don't like send a box of stuff and say, put it up.
They send a box of stuff in a very detailed set of plan saying, set it up exactly like this.
Yes, man. That's freaking cool.
Just so we're clear, this is not, you did not ask me to break.
Like this was not preuss that we were gonna discuss this.
I just saw those videos. I'm like, this is actually kind
of fa like the warehouse thing.
Really. Like I was surprised.
Anyway, last question on your Cracker Barrel adventures.
Actually second last question. Did you put an air tag in the
frame that you put your picture in and put on the shelf?
No. Should have. Good idea, but no.
Okay. Well guys, here's the, here's the new thing.
There's like the ultimate Easter egg hunt that's happening.
There you go. Okay. Somewhere in the country,
at some point in the next, some number of years, a framed photo of Alexander Rossi in Victory Circle at Indianapolis Motor Speedway from 2016 will end up on a cracker barrel wall.
And if you find it, Tim will pay you 10 grand.
I love when he forgets to unmute himself, , and then his, oh, I hope this week's video has you Go, I'll put that in .
Uh, no. First person
to find it gets a guaranteed home visit from Alexander Rossi he'll, 10,000 from Tim.
He'll hang out with you and Yeah.
And then he will won't around For me.
He'll fly you around in his plane. Yes.
No, seriously, I get you Get to drive his car at a race of your choosing.
No, let's do this, let's do This.
How about none of that? How about
none of that? You just get to find How
About, how about if you find it and you send a picture of and and the location and yourself in the picture and you send it to us on social media.
We'll get you two credentials to an IndyCar race of your choosing Deal. Love that idea.
Fir first person to find it.
Yes. Yes. Yeah. First one to, to send it in.
So you better be going to a lot of cracker barrels for a lot of years.
'cause god knows when that's gonna show up.
It could just be sitting on the shelf for the next five years.
We just don't know. But keep an eye out. Yeah. All right.
That's, uh, that's, that, that's just, I just wanted to talk about that.
'cause I was curious. Alex, you're on vacation? No,
I'm not.
Oh God, I hate you so much.
It's literally raining in Indianapolis right now. Is that, is
That Cincinnati ? I'm
In Indianapolis.
It's just a, it's a filter.
Um Oh, right. It's one of those yeah. Backgrounds.
Yeah, I'm on vacation. I am in, uh, The Bahamas.
That's how they said you pronounce it. Uh,
Bahamas.
Bahamas. Bahamas.
And I'm here with, uh, my, my dad and his wife and her children and their significant others.
And obviously Kelly and Baby Ben.
So, um, just a little nice family Thanksgiving vacation.
That's pretty cool. So that's your Thanksgiving sitch.
Tim, what are you doing? Yeah.
On this holiday weekend, you mentioned your mom's in town. Yeah.
Over your to Universal Studios today and do an early Thanksgiving thing.
She's actually flying home for Thanksgiving.
She just came out for like the first half. Got it.
Got it. Are
You gonna like do a meal though? Are you gonna cook a
Turkey?
Yeah, we were talking about doing a meal.
I was like, oh, you know, I'll get Turkey and stuffing.
She's like, do you like Turkey?
I was like, not particularly. She goes, Hazel's vegetarian.
I was like, yeah. Was like, so
how about we just do something else?
And so I'm gonna make a beer, canned chicken for my mom and I, and some mashed potatoes and stuffing and things like that.
So it's gonna be, it's gonna be a low key. I
Love that.
I love that Turkey. Turkey.
I mean, I don't know if we talked about it on the show, but Turkey sucks.
It's not, it to the best part, A Turkey is the smell of Turkey.
Like, you smell a Turkey cooking in a house, you're like, that's good.
And then you eat it and experience like, no, no. Yeah.
So I'm gonna do the beer, canned chicken.
Yeah. I think it even like,
looks better than it ta Like the presentation of a well cooked Turkey on Thanksgiving is like, you know, that's an important thing and it's a beautiful thing.
And then yeah, once you start eating it, it's like you put a piece on your plate 'cause you feel obliged to, the only way to choke it back is absolutely drowning in gravy.
And you really just fill up on the 47 different sides and casserole. Well,
You, to be honest, you're full before you even get to that part of the day.
Um, so if you're doing it right, the only way to choke it back is with some cocktails.
Well, yeah, you're full of, you're full of beer and dips of of yeah.
Various sorts. I do have to say, I know ,
I know we've talked about this, excuse me, um, plenty of times.
But America does do Thanksgiving so much better than Canada does.
And its a lot of fun. I do. Like, why don't say that.
Don't be like that. You're half Canadian,
so don't insult your own people. I'm
Not.
I'm not. My son is,
I'm not, uh, two thirds, two thirds of your family is Canadian. All right. So,
So that, just Careful there, pal.
You are a, you are a majority Canadian household.
Now I would like you to know .
That's A good point. And when Becky
and I come over, you are numbered four to one, bro.
Like Yeah, four to one.
Next time we come over for dinner, you are gonna sing.
Oh, Canada to us upon entry.
Okay. . So get
Get learning if you don't know it already anyways. Oh, that's fine. Um,
Yes, America does Thanksgiving.
Very good. Hence why I left to go to The Bahamas.
Um, and hence why ? You're leaving to go to the Middle East.
Yep. Yep. Sure I Am. Makes sense. It's,
I'm a little, I'm a little disappointed on the timing, uh, you know, happy to get to go to, uh, to Qatar for the race, but, um, I do love American Thanksgiving While we're pronouncing things correctly, is it not cutter?
Yeah, it is, but it just sounds wrong from us.
So I just, uh, it, it, I wanna, my gut feeling is, and I could be totally wrong on this, but my gut feeling is like if you're, if you're speaking in an, in an Arabic accent, then yes, it's like the French don't say Paris.
Right. They say Paris much better than that.
But like, I feel like Right.
We are allowed to say Qatar if we are just being us, I think.
Okay, good to know. All right. So
I've been saying guitar, cut.
Guitar. Guitar. So,
Uh, Guitar you've been seeing What guitar?
Do you like it? Do you like it there? Guitar?
I've only been the one time and Okay.
It's, it was Okay. Airport's
Cool.
Okay. I got to play paddle, which was nice this year.
This year they're putting us up in an all inclusive hotel, which I, I cannot, I cannot verbalize That's for a dry country.
No, in the hotels, they're, they're licensed.
That's the like, only place you can get alcohol. Got it.
But to that end, I cannot like verbalize strongly enough how bad an idea I think that is.
Um, you know, I I it's, and I'll, I'm gonna be, I'm gonna be totally honest here.
It's not me that I'm worried about.
Um, you know, a Alex, you know what it's like you travel with, with a race team, you know, uh, a race series is kind of the same and, uh, you know, no, I'm not gonna call out Specific departments.
F1 personnel and mechanics, even though they are held to a, obviously very high standard in terms of doing pit stops under three seconds and this sort of thing, they, they drink with the rest of them as good as the rest of them. It's because I've heard
It's a drinking series with a racing problem.
Motor sports mechanics and personnel in general are just land pirates. ,
yes. .
I mean, without obviously to like robbing and pillaging, but like in terms of the alcohol consumption, of course land pirates, right?
Yeah. Why is all the rum gone? So,
All right.
So we're, we've now burned about 20 minutes on nothing.
Uh, there was some Noose.
James hasn't even talked about his cutter time.
Okay. I haven't got, I'm not, haven't gone yet.
I don't know. I'm just telling you that.
Yeah, I'm, I think we're gonna lose a, I think we're gonna lose a few good men out there , you know, with, with the, for the Yankee situation. ,
yeah. Um, yeah, I'm, I'm very curious to see if everybody
that goes to Qatar is still employed when we leave Qatar, let's put it that way.
Hmm. Okay. Um, but yeah, I'll, I'll try
to not have Turkey in, in Thanksgiving.
Tradition on Thursday.
Well, before we get to the news though, while we're talking of one, we haven't covered the race from Vegas.
We covered the penalty on Tuesday, but the race in the weekend itself, we haven't in a shock to absolutely no one max for Stepin won.
I think we all kind of predicted that, but dude, honestly, the, the race doesn't, compared to the previous doesn't, no, he doesn't winning his driver in America, I think that was his eighth win, uh, on US soil.
The session that I really want to talk about is, I mean, because Vegas, the last, the first two years was like a really good race.
It was a lot of good action. There was a lot
of passing whatever year, three slightly less good race, but the qualifying session, Terrible race.
Yeah. So boring. The
Qualifying session was extremely entertaining and it was genuinely super, super impressive.
Like there are obviously very impressive drivers in Formula Formula One, we talk about it a lot.
We, we love giving, you know, the guys the credit when credit's due.
This was, this was one session where I ha my, my respect for everyone, every single one of the drivers actually went up so high.
Like look at it on paper.
You've got a street circuit naturally slippery and hard to get around, right.
The, the asphalt is not like the street circuits in Monaco or Jetta or whatever that is basically just a racetrack put down on the road.
It's just good old fashioned road asphalt for the most part.
Uh, temperatures so cold, the tires barely work.
A downforce configuration, meaning you got the lowest downforce of the year, then you throw in rain.
And let's not forget there's walls everywhere.
Like worst case, like I cannot think of another element you could add to make it worse.
In fact, sorry, I will make it worse.
Park fur may rules mean you cannot change the setup of the car between qualifying in the race.
The race was gonna be dry.
So you had a dry setup on a wet cold, low down forced street circuit.
What? Yes, Alex, what makes that worse?
If you're gonna say like a meteor hitting the track, I, No, I mean, that would make it, that would make it worse for sure.
I don't think it would make it better. I
don't think that would improve things.
When did I miss When they got rid of, uh, tire blankets on wet tires like Two years ago?
Okay, well I guess we don't run wets very often in F1, unfortunately.
That's just, I didn't, I didn't realize that was a thing.
So that makes it hard because these guys, I mean, they're used to going, these, these cars are obviously very fast.
Um, and tire temp is a big thing in terms of getting the car on the right operating window, even when it's dry.
And so they, it's every day they have, they have tires and blankets, they leave them onto the last possible half second they roll outta the garage and they immediately have to start pushing to maintain the temperature in the tire because if you drive slow, you'll start to lose the temperature, which means you lose grip, which means you lose more temperature.
And it's a, it's a vicious snowball effect to the <inaudible>.
On the flip side, you leave pit lane on a cold tire, it's very hard to push to generate temperature because you don't have the grip.
So you have to like push through this phase of what you gotta drive the out of it, not crash to generate temperature to get the grip.
And doing that with no blankets. Yes, IndyCar does it.
Yes, other championships do it. It's not unheard of.
But in F1 it is something that's fairly new.
So yes, I agree that that session looked horrible and really was one of those sessions where I was pretty, pretty content being a spectator on my couch. Yeah,
Dude.
100%. 100%.
Only one guy clipped the wall and it like, kind of barely clipped it.
It was, it was sort of like he just overcorrected slightly and hit the front.
Didn't even like have an over steer and, and take out a rear corner.
And, uh, I thought we were gonna have, you know, we set the record in Baku for a number of red flags in a qualifying session.
I honestly thought we were going to maybe give that a run for its money 'cause of, 'cause of all those, the confluence of factors and circumstance that made that one of the most gnarly sessions ever.
And when a guy like Vertin gets out, he was like, yeah, that wasn't fun.
You know, , it's like, yeah, it's gotta be pretty bad.
Gotta be pretty bad. So anyway,
that part was super impressive.
The race Lando off, you know, Lando, first of all, credit to Lando because this is, this is the other thing too, right?
When it's a session like that and it's all those things that make it so hard, and most of the drivers bar like Alonzo, I think got outta the car and said, worst conditions I've ever raced in, had no fun doing that.
That was awful. It was terrifying.
When you're the guy that comes out on top of that, that's pretty, like, there's extra bragging rights there, right?
Like getting pulled one thing for sure.
Getting poll when everyone else is like, that's the hardest conditions I've ever seen.
That's a, that's a nice pat on the back there.
So he starts on pole and then he tries to out Max Max into turn one and he didn't quite do it, But now at least he tried.
I that's exactly, that's just gonna say, I was like, what's your, what was your take on that?
Because I was proud he went for it. Mm-hmm .
Because like at this point, you know, he's been, he's been kind of owned by Max on multiple occasions over their, you know, careers together and he really went for it.
But I, man, I gave him the credit for, you know, he's, he's got more to lose than anybody at this, you know, goes in with a 24 point lead or whatever.
And uh, I thought it was awesome.
What's funny though is, is Max is inevitable in turn one lap one, like he never screws up a launch.
He is always going to lunge the <inaudible> outta you.
He is never gonna like, oh, just take it easy.
And so when Lando knew this was the case and went super aggressive to cover it off, max was like, nah, I'm good.
and Lando just out broke himself and um, lost the lead anyways.
Actually lost second as well, um, by the time they got to turn four.
But no, I was, I was proud of him because that would've been, like you said, at that point in, in the championship, he can just, he can finish second to Max for the rest of the year and come away world champion.
But he's still fighting tooth and nail because he knows as well as all of us that, um, he needs to still keep beating Max no matter what the math says.
Yeah, exactly. And then the, the other part of it
that I thought was so funny was after the first stop, or the stop I should say, um, Orlando gets around George who had got him in the first stint in the, you know, off the start there.
And he was, he came on the radio and he was like, are we sitting here still taking care of tires or are we going for it?
And the team was like, no, no, let's go for it.
Get around George and let's go chase down Max.
And dude like flipped a switch past George in half a lap, which in and of itself was like, man, he's just sitting there really taking care of these tires.
And he is like, let's go get Max.
And then GP Max's engineer comes on the radio goes, uh, alright, max, uh, Orlando's now P two.
He has been told to come get you.
It, it was like, you could hear it in his voice, , it was so good.
And Max, I don't think he even replied on the radio, or at least they didn't play it.
He just replied by absolutely like, hammering fastest lap after fastest lap was like, yeah, go ahead bro.
Come get me .
It's just, it's, he's so much better than everyone else.
And Lando is like in the top 0.1%
of race car drivers on planet Earth and Max is just infinitely better and is so unfair to everyone.
It's dude like, thank God he doesn't just have the best car this year.
Like it's, uh, I'm really curious as to what happens next year on a lot of levels for a lot of reasons.
But yeah, Max's Max's ability at the moment is just so Ridiculously good.
But what's what's funny is it's uh, I think gp, his engineer said two years ago after his third consecutive world championship in a row, he was like, what's terrifying and equally awesome for me is like he's just scratched the surface and is getting better.
Yeah. And like that's, we're seeing that play out.
So he has not at all reached his, his limit or his his capacity, um, to be the best, which is insane.
And he's also, the other thing I love about him, and I think Alonzo's, the only other guy I've seen do it kind of to the same extent is, you know, he kept, he kept himself in the running in the first part of this year, having no business doing that, right?
Like the races that he won, Suzuka and ela, like no business winning those races.
Right. And he just ke his car is just not
what the McLaren was, especially early in the season.
But it sound, it sounds too simple to say, like he just never gives up, right?
Like we all never give up, but like some guys you see, like they, they they're doing 99% when you know that your car's not as good.
I don't mean to brag, but I give up a lot. Yeah.
You've never even, you've never even made it two 99%.
Nevermind, you know, you don't back off to 99% if at first you don't succeed. ,
No . If at first you don't succeed, try try again.
If still you don't succeed, burn race, all evidence that proved you tried in the first place.
Nope. That's better. Sounds exhausting. Yeah.
Yeah, a lot of work Throughout this year.
A good chunk of the year, he didn't have the fastest car and he just kept pushing as if he was still fighting for wins every single week.
And that's why he's still in the running and that's why he's max for Stepin.
Like the Ferrari guys, I know they're trying to do a good job, but like at some point on a given weekend they check out and you can just, you can see it.
It's, you know, you've seen it from every other driver.
I it is, it is. Not even naming names.
I've just, Fernando's the only other guy I've seen, like remember when he was driving the McLaren Honda and they were, it was just not a quick car.
Like he would fight for those 15th place finishes like he was fighting for a world championship.
Oh, unfortunately, like I, you gotta love that kind of like you and Mikhail fighting for 12th in Road America on The last like 17th, but yeah. Yep.
Whatever. Anyways, um,
Terrific.
IndyCar, now that you Brought that up, IndyCar News.
IndyCar News, uh, one more, one more seat is gone.
So, uh, mixed Schumacher has been confirmed and to RLL in some obscure car number, but essentially replacing, uh, Devlin in the 30.
Um, so that lineup is complete, which means that there is only one seat left at Coin.
Well, depending on what happens, Premo, Depending on Premo.
Yeah. But there's one seat left at Coin, which, uh,
Dale did say that he would have it done by Thanksgiving, but he also said he'd have it done by Halloween, neither of which I really believe at this point.
I always just figured we'd get it right before St. Pete. Yeah, yeah.
I'll have it done by St. Pete. Yeah, I'll it done by St.
Pete. Yeah. But Schumacher, so
Again, it's a big win for the series.
It's a huge win, man. He, um, you know, obviously had
that test that was fairly successful and I think we, I'm sure we talked about it at the time, like it is anytime that RLL tests a European driver at Indie gp, they are stacking things in their own favor quite aggressively.
Not a criticism, there's not a lot of places you can go test.
It's an easy place. It's down the street.
I'm not saying that they're cherry picking the track and, and that it just happens to be one of their stronger ones.
Um, I'm not surprised that Mick wanted to come.
I'm not surprised that he was happy to sign there.
I would've loved to have seen him test at least one other place.
Uh, but then at the same time it's not like there were a lot of options for him to like go shop around.
So if he wanted to be an IndyCar, that was kind of the, the best option out there.
And it seems like he wanted to be an IndyCar.
So I think it's great.
Uh, I love that, uh, that he's doing it at a time when so many F1 guys have said in the last 2, 3, 5 years, whatever, that they're like, yeah, ni car's cool.
We watch it. We love the racing,
but like I would never do it.
Ovals scare me, like two dangerous, not worth the risk.
And you know, here comes a kid that doesn't have to race if he doesn't want to races 'cause he wants to race and he's choosing to come mix it up with us. And I think that's awesome.
A hundred percent. Um, and l let's call it what it is.
Um, while his, his career F1 was probably over, um, he had a pretty thick, uh, job for a factory, um, prototype team in the world Endurance Championship, uh, which I'm sure paid very well, he could continue living in Europe, um, race on track, Ken Eight races a year like pretty pretty relaxed schedule And he's taken a, a big, big, you know, swing at coming
to a completely different championship on tracks he's never seen before and a style of racing that is unlike anything he's, he's dealt with.
And you know, obviously you combine that with, with the learning curve of the ovals and um, it's, uh, it's gonna be a challenge for him.
But it's cool to see, as you said, like he's embracing all of it.
It's not just a, oh, I'm gonna do a part-time program, see how it goes.
Like he's, he's fully committed to, to the process and, and wants to be successful at it.
I'm, I'm really curious about RLL for next year.
You know, kind of putting on my commentator hat and looking ahead because they've done some crazy hiring over the, over the season.
They've brought in a lot of people. Yeah.
Very aggressive hiring strategy. Gavin, right?
Gavin Ward is now part of the team, which like, you know, when he left McLaren, dude, like we didn't hear anything about him for a year.
Like I, I, I don't know what he's been up to.
I dunno where he went. I dunno who he's been talking to.
But then yeah, he just sort of pops up, uh, joining Jay Fry and the gang over at RLL off the back of some other kind of hope, high high profile, uh, hirings.
Now you got Mick in there.
Um, Louie got resigned like we talked about the other day.
So yeah, it's gonna be, it's gonna be really interesting to see, I think, I think Deb's looking at some sports car options, uh, now that that's, you know, that seat's gone there and that opportunity on the IndyCar side's gone for now.
And like you say, it's down to one.
So who do we, who do we know is in the mix?
Who do we think's got a chance for the final coin seat again?
Well, let's just say, let's just say premise is either not there or coming back with the same line. Sure.
I mean I think, I think it's your defacto guys.
You've got Connor, you've got Leanness, you've got, um, you know, guys like Uri VIPs who obviously is an RLL guy but continues getting passed over.
So at one point I'm sure he and slash Ray Hall would let him go, like if there was an opportunity. Um,
Same with Toby salary.
Toby salary. You've got like Hunter m
Ray, you've got Oh Yeah, true.
I would say those are probably off the top of my mind.
Those are the, the main guys.
But I mean I think it's really leanest and Connor, right?
Or the, the highest profile. Well there was,
There was a lot of rumor about Rojan maybe making a triumphant return.
Yeah. And so I I was, I was kind of hearing that too.
Um, but the fact that it hasn't happened has made me think that's less of a, less of a thing because, you know, Roma is a, isn't a driver that's gonna bring money.
You might, you know, he might have a, a partner here or there that can, can be an associate for a couple races on, on the car, but, um, you know, he's a paid driver and I feel like if Dale was gonna hire a paid driver at this point, he would've just done that.
But I think, I don't know, I don't, I don't know, but I would, my my gut says it's, it's a con leans sort of situation going on here, but who Knows?
So I mean, let's put on your team principal hat.
Say it was your guys' decision, who would you Go? I'm not answering that
question. . .
There's some biases here. It's uh, that's a tough one. Yeah.
I mean it's an easy one and a tough one at the same time.
Um, you know, I could tell you who I, who I wanted the car.
I mean, I'm not gonna, but I could.
Um, but it's, it is, it is interesting because again, with, with that being the kinda last seat, the fact that we were able to just list off like five or six different drivers, um, you know, that shows that IndyCar's in a pretty solid spot.
There's a, there's a lot of good shoes out there that, you know, deserve a shot.
I mean, you look at what guys like McElroy Ray and s did in the couple races they did for Coin, you know, Yuri like you say, has been there and I don't know, is he, is he gonna be doing something with their sports car program?
Maybe I, I don't dunno. I dunno.
Maybe they got the, the McLaren GT program now.
Yeah, there's, I don't know. I don't know.
Let say you got Connor and Lean.
That's the, but you know what, you know what's probably gonna happen is a month before St.
Pete, some pressure is gonna come out with some driver that was not even remotely on our radar because Oh, for sure.
That's what, that's what Valentino Rossi is gonna come race for Dale Coin, you know, in, uh, in St.
Pete. 'cause that's the kind of thing that, that Dale
Can do.
I mean, there's a, there's a big, there's a big rumor.
I have no idea if it has any legs to it, but there's a big rumor that Yuki with some Honda help is looking at IndyCar and Damn Dale is a Honda team.
Obviously. I don't know if there's any sort
Of truth to that, but It's, it's too bad 'cause I'm, I'm still of the opinion that Red Bull shouldn't be promoting Linblad yet and should keep you key and Lawson for one more year and then make a decision.
But that ain't happening. So Dude, that'd be so cool. Could
You imagine you on those things?
Uh, not anymore. Not, not since I told him
to pass up on Max Tappin.
Whoops. My bad.
What has that kid done? I was like,
He's too young.
Um, dude, could you imagine Yuki in the series?
I know that's probably a pipe dream, but that would be hilarious and amazing. Mm
Mm-hmm . It'd be very
Funny. You're like,
I don't know, , I don't know if I want that.
It'd be great for me. It'd be great for me. Uh, okay guys.
Um, that's that.
It's, we, we were, we argued we were gonna do a, a shorter episode 'cause it was Thanksgiving and we didn't, we've managed to eke out our entire episode even though we talked about Turkey for a long time.
So, um, and Aprons being lingerie And aprons being lingerie and bikinis being aprons.
Uh, ipso facto, but Are they sandwiches ?
Tim, Tim, let's not go there.
We're not gonna get the VP of Meat on again to discuss this.
We've already had this chat.
So let's sign off with our annual tradition, gentlemen.
What are we thankful for in 2025?
Mine's pretty easy. Yeah. The Bahamas .
No. Oh no, you're kidding. I'm
Thankful for Ben and use it now. ,
Steve, you know, race. Yeah, that's
A good one.
You're thankful for fatherhood. Yeah. Yeah.
Uh, Tim, you, you can't use that for the 12th year in a row, so you gotta go with something else.
Okay. You know what, I was thinking about this
because James, you and I were talking, uh, over the summer about, uh, you know, how how long are we gonna be doing off track?
And it was just kind of like, you know, were like, well, I don't know man.
I, I like having an excuse to talk with you guys, you know, twice a week.
So I'm gonna go equally as cheesy and say I'm thankful for this show.
It's, uh, equally as cheesy. I am,
I don't think, I don't, for The first time, cheesy I meant on, I meant based on my prior ones.
Oh yeah. Nice,
Nice recovery there, Tim.
I think he bought it. , thankful for the opportunity
to talk to you guys, uh, twice a week and just, uh, and, and keep whatever Tim.
Hi James. We'd much, I don't think we'd be as close.
I think you two would be as close of friends without this show, but I don't think I'd be anywhere in the mix without the show, so I'm thankful for that.
Yeah, come on. Those rooms aren't gonna escape
themselves when you're in town.
and, uh, and, and, and DTF is not gonna eat itself when I'm in la Lord Knows, Lord knows your kitchen isn't gonna clean itself. ,
I keep waiting on it. . I keep waiting for it to do that,
but no one of these days, I noticed One of these days, .
Alright, James, Man, your turn.
Um, look, it's, it's been a, a crazy year for me.
And, um, it's, there are a lot of times, you know, especially this latter part of the year where you're like getting kind of tired and you're getting kind of ready to be off the road and all these things, but then you sit there and you realize just, you know, how lucky I am and have the opportunity to get to still work in this business.
You know, I, I grew up, my entire life was racing.
I stepped away from driving and was lucky to find something that kept me involved.
And now I'm more involved than ever in multiple series and, you know, getting to do this, this, uh, this crazy thing.
IndyCar F1, still driving an imsa.
Uh, it's a lot, but it's, I'm very lucky to get the, the chance to do it.
I'm very thankful to get the chance to do it and that I've got a really supportive wife that understands me being gone a lot, and lets me do, uh, lets me do the things I'm passionate about.
So I'm thankful for that, man.
Alright, well, happy Thanksgiving everybody and have a I'll leave Nashville next week. We'll
Definitely cover Nashville next week.
Can't wait. This has been off
track with Hinch and Rossi.
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