Back again in time for the holidays

Who are you again? I don't know. What are you doing? What is this thing called?

I forget it's been so long. It only took us two tries to get our like our things connected.

So like we're not that bad at it yet. I mean, I think in our absence, the entire automotive

track community has collectively just left us behind because now there's a dozen podcasts

that people could listen to that are probably better than this one. Maybe more. There might be

like a thousand of them at this point. There was one point where slip bang was like the only track

ish podcast 15 years ago. It's embarrassing. But 12, 12 years ago, whenever we well, but like

we're, we're old heads now. So, you know, that's just, I don't know, comes with the territory,

I think if it might be interesting as an older person in the future, older than I am now to

like go back and listen to like the story arc of my enthusiasm for racing. Oh yeah. I bet it's

like really depressing to be honest. I don't know if it'll be depressing so much as it'll be

informative about just like, uh, yeah, where, what I did in the last 11, 12 years back in like

2013, 12, 2010, 2014 era, like, I don't know if anybody loved racing more than I love racing.

Like I thought it was the coolest thing in the world is all I thought about. It was like the

only thing that got me up in the morning that I had a kid and I was like, I got to succeed and

be a dad, uh, in order to go racing and not be a loser. Like it just gave me more fuel on the

fire to like not be, to like not be a failing businessman. Yeah. Yeah. But yeah, I was, uh,

yeah, it feels like a thousand years ago when I had a complete enthusiasm for racing. So, uh,

I want to start off with the important stuff that is the bike talk, but I, I only want to,

I only want to give you one stat right now. And this is the reason

this is the reason that, um, we don't record much is because, uh,

I ride or I have ridden

266 hours so far this year. And that is, uh, exactly the number of hours that I have not

put into slip angle this year. That's actually probably a, that's a, that's one of the reasons.

It's one of the five reasons I think. Yeah. Um, I got sick of thinking about race cars about

probably about May, but like, I don't know. I kind of lost like, uh, I lost something

somewhere along the way. I think it was July.

Uh, it doesn't quite correspond with podcasting so much. I still, uh, like if we, if you were like,

hey, every day at, uh, some available hour, if we both had an identically available hour,

uh, we have to talk for an hour every day, but like sick. That sounds awesome. Yeah. No, no, that's fair.

Yeah. The, the, uh, there is there, there's just the general like, uh, availability problem. Um,

your, your job is not as flexible now or mine's not as flexible now or like it's one or the other.

But also, um, there, there's like a, there, it got to a point where this year I just,

I just was really tired of talking about cars for a while. And I might have like gotten to

my, my rock bottom point, uh, with like automotive enthusiasm, like a few weeks ago,

a few weeks ago. Yeah. Uh, like completely, I was like ready to be, just be done with everything,

like car wise. I was just mad. I was like mad at the hobby, mad at the drivers who I mostly

love and like, but also like, I was just kind of mad about it all. Uh, and I couldn't quite shake

the anger, um, of like, you know, driver a like for five years has like every time they ask a

question, uh, via Facebook messenger, if they get my email or if they got my text, like, uh,

I try to immediately give them, you know, as best possible services I can or like,

you know, fix the problem right away or whatever. But then like, if this happened like half a dozen

times where like, you know, for years I've been, I've really tried to be like a good friend and

like a good host, uh, of an event to a single individual driver. And then like, I'll get sent

to Facebook post that like, Oh, some dumb little thing happened. And then they're just like shit

talking on the internet. And I was like, you know what, maybe I don't want to hang out with these

people. Yeah. It's like, it's like a million micro stupid interactions that like shouldn't

analyze, but like, you know, some of these people like, I've been on that. You've been in my bus

for 15 hours going to an event and like you volunteered for things. And like, you know,

you've been on staff or like, you like, we've, we're like regular text buddies and

you could also just like ask me to fix that because maybe we didn't even know it was broken,

but it said, you just had to like crab about it on Facebook. I don't even, like, I'm not even

going to give out a certain example, but that's a thing, you know, like it turned into like

less of a less, less of like a them and us and like turned into a little bit of an us versus

them. And maybe talking about it is like a way to fix some of that. It probably is.

I don't know. I think in some instances I'm too talkative.

And I don't know. I think myself maybe not disengaging from the podcast, but one of the

things that sort of happened is I'm like in the community, but I'm, I don't like, I want to draw

a distinct line to say that I'm like no longer of the community, if that makes sense.

Yeah. So like, I can have friends in the paddock and I can be friendly with people,

but like, I also have to acknowledge that everyone there is a competitor and like there are,

there are certainly specific things that are boundaries that shouldn't be crossed

while I'm at an event. And without naming any specifics, I know exactly what you're talking

about. No, but it's just like, oh, like, you know, maybe the, I thought these conversations

were casual and friendly, but like maybe in some instances that's, that's not how other people

see them. Or casual and friendly for you equals not casual and friendly for somebody else just

because like, there's so many, there's so many other, there's so many other little pieces to

like, this community has gotten big enough and like it's grown old enough that like,

you casually saying something that you like just kind of assumed as a thing might set somebody

else off because like that casual, like assumed correct statement might not be how they see a

thing and like, yeah, like that's a thing. There's, there's a million versions of that, like that

minor problem. And then like, I certainly, well, like, I just need to appreciate that

like the way I see things isn't necessarily how others might see them. And I have to acknowledge

that like, when I'm at an event, especially on their working, and I can have friendly

conversations with people, but I should appreciate that like, in this capacity,

they're not my friends. If that makes it like, I don't know if that's the right way to say it,

but like, it's, I mean, it's a different could be your friends, but you also have to

in and anybody working in a situation like that probably has to just like,

stay a little bit high level in, in some chats about, especially if there's like,

if you're talking about a drama, or if you're talking about somebody who's a controversial

person, or if you're talking like, like whatever, it's probably best to leave a sleeping dog

and not kick it. Mistakes were made, but you're fine. I talked with both of you guys the next

day and everything was chill. So I almost put my race car and bring a trailer the other day.

I feel like you live in a much higher high and much lower low than I live.

Oh, a hundred percent. I'm, I'm very like full stoke, full not stoke, but like there's,

and I'm probably not going to sell it because I've had it for, I've literally had it for 25

years. What would be the point, you know, even if I got like crazy top dollar, like it'd be 25 G's

and that's like a crazy amount of spares. And like the only allure is there's just like less

stuff in my life. And that is definitely, that's definitely an allure. I get that.

Um, but, um, I would really miss it at Honda made would like break my heart to not have my car

at Honda made. Um, and I don't know if I intend to race, but the last time I raced was at

Audubon last year and I really had a good time. So I probably shouldn't like write thing. I

shouldn't write off something that I loved so much based on like a year of frustration and a

lot of the frustration stems from just the financial situation that is a company like this.

Yeah. And like changing maybe in like, can we, can we segue into let's talk about the 2026

season a little bit and how like, uh, what the schedule looks like affects what you're doing

with cars? Uh, yeah, maybe. Um, obviously if, uh, if you listen to this, you probably have seen

the grid life schedule. We're doing six big events. Uh, there's some TBD and small events.

Um, but right now we really, so, I mean, we've done like, what was the most we ever did? Like

15, 16 events a year? It was a lot. And a lot of them were small little events like one days or

two days. Um, there's a good chance we'll have a few other likely gingerman events in there, but,

uh, but different. My hope is that you'll announce them at PRI at the latest. Uh, announcing them

later is man. Yeah. No, it's like a, especially if you know, it's like after April or February,

like we did last year, I think we did in March last year. It was just like not great. Everybody

made their plans. Um, but we've got some potential day tell. There's some conversations, but there's

been so many other pieces swirling around in like the keep the company afloat world that like,

we can't really think about a taco track day right now because, uh, other things. Um, and

currently the company is, uh, probably afloat, uh, which is great. Um, it was not probably afloat

a month ago. So, um, yeah, been a while. I mean, the stories I'm going to have to tell like once

I'm able to potentially tell these stories, the stories I'm going to have in six months,

two months, maybe even, uh, are going to be, uh, like highs and lows that I've never had. I've

mean, but that sounds awful. That sounds really exhausting.

Yeah. I mean, uh, Chris, Chris keeps using the phrase gun to my head, uh, for how he feels. Uh,

and that's actually like, if you think of it, like that might be one of the worst possible

human experiences to like actually have a gun to your head. Sure. And if you feel like that over

and over and over, just fine. Like, yeah, like everything's, everything has been on the line.

There was a couple of years of, you know, swing real hard, uh, and that doesn't always pay off

financially. Um, and wrote America was a couple of great years, but those were both really big

swing events. And we haven't talked about it too publicly. I did, I did put out like a statement

that how it in a red on heat exchanger, because he just like wanted something to say a couple

weeks ago. And it was basically like the, the contract, uh, financially didn't work for us.

Cause I think I've talked about it a bit. There is, there was a rev share in there

and it was just kind of like their typical, like the board of wrote America told us, this

is how we'll do this. If you want to do this, cause they pitched that event to us. Um, and

in 2023 I've, I told Chris, I felt like that's a really bad deal. Um, it's going to be really

hard to get there monetarily. And, but like we, we did swing really hard. We tried really hard

to make that event, uh, work, but like in order for good life to exist, we can't have an event

that doesn't work financially. And like to be frank, we couldn't pay the rev share right away.

And they wouldn't hold an, they wouldn't hold the date for us if we couldn't pay the rev share

portion, which was a sizable amount. It was more than I paid for my house. Um, and, um,

if they won't hold the date for us, we can't do it, but then they really wanted us to move

the date to a place that would not work in the calendar just so that, just so it fit better

with their like big events, you know, like they, they try to space out their big events

because it's a heavy lift for the team. It's a, a lot, a large impact to the track and stuff like

that. Uh, but it's not going to work. It's not going to work. Um, and so kind of the, it just

collided that like, well, you know, we're, we're square out, we're squared up with them now.

Everything's fine. And we didn't burn any bridges. Like we've had great post, uh,

everything like conversation. Chris and Chris and Mike, the president had like a really good

conversation after we squared up with them and stuff, but it was hard to even get to the

point, to the point where we could square up with them. Um, it just didn't work. So, uh,

hopefully in the future, it will work. We just couldn't come to an agreement. So anybody that's

really mad about that, it's a bummer. Like, uh, there wasn't an event that I immediately loved

so much as wrote America last year. Like that event was sick. Yeah. And like, uh,

it was a sick event. Dead mouse playing the inaugural event. Like that was awesome. One of

my favorite nights. One of my favorite nights I've ever had. Yeah. But I think everybody can

appreciate that. Like it was, uh, it's a really cool thing. Yeah. But if the, but if the ship goes

down, like, uh, if you, if you know the ship is going to go down, if you like go out to sail,

like you should stay at the dock. Uh, you probably shouldn't go sailing that day.

But yeah, there's, uh, yeah, there's no burn bridges. We've done a lot of events at

wrote America over the past 11 years and I'm sure we will do more events at wrote America. So,

um, definitely not done, but the story. Um, so do you remember how bad the event at

Watkins Glen went a couple of years ago? I, um, I did a root cause analysis and shared it with

Chris when everything went wrong. And, uh, yes, I recall exactly how everything went badly. Yeah.

Weather was terrible. Uh, the, the, their staff at the time, like didn't communicate with each

other enough. Uh, and then like, uh, it got real weird. Um, but the weather was obviously terrible.

I think we sold like two or three times as many spectator tickets as we actually checked in

because that's how bad the weather was. Thankfully we've sold them. Um, but, uh, the,

like one of the main people there that was our contact is still there and the new president,

some of the new leadership there has, has been really pushing and talking and, uh,

somehow like serendipitously almost, it feels like the same weekend worked and in our calendar,

that spacing is like ideal. And also wrote or like wrote America, uh, shutting the concert

down at 10 o'clock because of local ordinances and local like distance to, to houses and stuff.

Like definitely not ideal. Yeah, for sure. Um, uh, but Watkins Glen is like historically for

like what, I don't know, 40 years been a giant festival grounds as well. So there's a bunch of

built in things that work better from a large festival perspective, just like noise ordinances

and sound and, uh, layout and like it could be, it could be really cool. I hope people will

make the track. If you're listening and you've been to wrote America, you should probably go

check out Watkins Glen. It's just, I mean, the place is amazing. Well, among like motor sports

people, I don't want to say that it's a like for like substitution, but I think people who love

wrote America probably also love Watkins Glen. Um, and as somebody who's driven both of the

tracks, I think Watkins Glen is a much better race track. Um, wrote America, uh, from a track to drive

is incredible, but, uh, the straightaways and like just the general layout of the place does

kind of make it a horsepower track and like, uh, the SCCA runoffs has gone there a lot in the past

10 years. Uh, and they just, uh, there's a lot of like naysayers for that track. They just call it

America's dyno. Um, like there's something to be said for that. Like if, if there was an outlier

in, um, in some of our competition classes for race track, like tracks do kind of make some

of the parody. You try to like build something like rule wise. Like we've always tried to build

something that like works for all these tracks, but like it's hard to, to build for like Kota or

run America or even like a, a Daytona might be a similar one. You know what I mean? Right? Yeah.

Yeah. Those are difficult. Like, uh, at some point, like even pit race, pit race has some big

straightaways, um, big, big, big straightaways without digs leading into them or even with digs

leading in the case of road America and some spots like, I mean, it's hard to argue horsepower over

120 miles an hour at the streetcar. So you just like overcome that arrow load and you're just pushing,

you know, so first event is CMP and next is road Atlanta. Tell me about road Atlanta because I,

I, we went, we went with FD last year. Um, it felt like a little bit of like a trial.

And at the time I thought things went well, but I didn't know that we were ready to kind of like

jump in and it seems like this year we're hit. Yeah. FD, uh, pushed hard to have us as like a

support series last few years. And I think, I don't know that, I don't know all the specific

details. It's more of like a Chris and FD, uh, relationship like Chris and Ryan saves the president

of FD are pretty tight. Um, and we've been hanging out with them and talking with them for a while,

but we're working on getting a little bit more track time. It might extend into a Thursday evening

or a little more track time in the day. Um, because we kind of need an extra hour,

realistically to do everything we want to do. Um, but they have pushed to have us there for a while.

Last year the push was to have our wheel to wheel stuff and then, uh, GTA would do the time attack

and we, like we tried to make that work and then GTA actually pulled themselves out.

So we did not shove, um, GTA out for anybody that's spread rumors or not, but I know there have been

some rumors of like, Oh, good life. Good life pushed them out of Rhode, Atlanta. Like, no,

we actually were actively trying to make the schedule work. We had drafts. We had all this stuff.

And then GTA backed out. Um, and the entirety was shifted to us. And that was actually pretty

late in the game. It was like right before PRI. It was like actually like days before PRI last year.

Um, because we told everybody at the state of the grid at PRI that we were doing that a bit.

Um, but this year we're trying to, uh, so FD, uh, is changing how their, their layout,

like contract wise, like who actually owns the event. Cause in the, for the past, I don't know,

20 years, it's been 20, that event might be like 25 years old, whatever. It was like the first FD

major round. Okay. Three. I think it was an 03 22 years. Um, they're trying to change it to where

they own more of the event versus it was the racetrack that like brought in everybody and

like the racetrack sold the tickets. Um, and so FD is, uh, is, I mean, they're, they're a giant

advocate to, to partner with us. They really want to work with our on track series and, and us in

general. So there's some TBD there, but we're trying to have a full live stream there and make

that a financially viable event to have a live stream at. Cause for people that don't know the

live stream, you know, can call it, it costs like 65 to $105,000. Like it's a lot of money.

So, uh, for one of the event, for one event per, per event, the event, the, like the live stream

has to like financially be viable in order to do it. So, um, you can do like a, you can do a worse

live stream. We've done some cheaper ones with like drone only and stuff, but you almost can't

at this point, like it's the costs and, uh, and everything has gotten a little crazy, but FD

also has their own insane live stream and insane production trailer. And there might be some

collaborative efforts that'll save some money, but, uh, there's a lot of TBD there. Some of that

will probably be sorted out in the next couple of weeks, but not, not like pre-PRI. This is,

is this PRI week? Yeah. PRI is, uh, I'm going to PRI in 48 hours. No way. Yeah. PRI starts

for us, starts Wednesday, Wednesday morning. Cool. Are you going to cruise up it or are you

no, my, um, I can't this year because I have to go to Northern Indiana. My mom is having, uh,

spinal surgery to like repair some discs and stuff. And she lives alone and her best friend is like

also has cancer. And so like there's not, there's not anyone that can take care of her and her dog.

So Ashley and I didn't give her a choice. We just said, pack your shit. You're moving in with us

until you're better. So, um, I go up tomorrow night and then bring her back here on Friday and

she'll be here. I don't know how many weeks. Okay. So no, no time for PRI. Is that a big

scary surgery? I don't think so. It's just like a, you have to get it right and, uh, you really,

really don't want to injure yourself after you go through the repair. No, that makes sense.

So even like little stuff, like doing laundry or, you know, putting the dishes away,

anything like that could be seriously detrimental and all of those things are hard to do on your

own. And if you're not mobile, add to that. She has a 100 pound golden retriever. So like

you just can't, you can't do those things. So now you have a hundred pound golden retriever.

At least for a while. Yeah. Okay. It's a good dog at least. Yeah. Still is the best. So,

yeah, that's good. That's good. And my mom's been like really mobility limited the last,

you know, year or a couple of years. And so I'll at least get the opportunity to

take the dog on walks and stuff like that. Okay. That'll be nice. That's kind of fun.

You have a dog for a little while again. Yeah. Yeah. How's, uh, how's biking life been?

Um, I have really big news. I think I shared it with you, but, uh, so I've been traveling

a lot. Let's start there. And so I, I hit my mileage goal for the year, uh, in October,

my, my mileage goal was 4,000. And following that, I really was just like, okay, well,

maybe I can hit 5,200 because that's a hundred miles a week. I think I'm going to fail to hit

that second one specifically because I've, I've been away traveling for, um, I think like three

whole weeks in the last couple of months, I was in, uh, Munich and in the Netherlands

for 12 days, I think. And then I just got back from a trip to Japan and Taiwan.

And those weeks off really put me in a hole and I wasn't able to make up my mileage, but, uh,

I got to see some cool places and I'm pretty stoked on traveling the globe actually. So

yeah, you were texting me from your work number, uh, because you were in Taiwan and

you also found like what sounds like the coolest little bike shop in the world.

Yeah. Uh, my, so the, the trip to Tokyo, I went from Louisville to Houston and then a direct

from Houston to Tokyo. And, uh, on this trip, my company wouldn't sponsor me to fly business

class, but they would have, uh, paid for premium economy, but I had some difficulty booking the

flights and like getting the travel system to work. So we don't use melon. We use something else,

but like it was, it was putting up errors because I had like 10 flights I had to coordinate.

Yeah. It uses melon, which is one of those things, but that's right. So all of the premium

economy seats sold out. So I flew from Houston to Tokyo in coach and it was 14 and a half hours,

which is a long time on an airplane. It's the longest flight I've ever had.

That's so many hours. I can't do like nine or 10 without losing my mind. I went to Hawaii

a few times. It was hard. Yeah. And so, um, when I arrived, it's, it's the next day and I've been

up a while and my host also is a cyclist and he's like, look, I know you're tired. I gave you,

I give you three options on what to do for dinner because I arrived about dinner time.

He's like, well, we could eat at the airport cause my hotel was in the airport.

We could go out for dinner or I could take you into the city and show you this

awesome bike shop. And I was like, let's, let's go. I also just realized that I said

that flying to Hawaii is hard. And that is the stupidest phrase.

Stupidest sentence you can ever see it, but it is hard. It's so hard.

Nonstop from Chicago to Hawaii sucks. I bet. 14 hours to Taiwan sounds really hard.

Yeah, it was. Or is that Tokyo? Tokyo. And then the flight to Taiwan, I think was like

three or four hours. No big deal. But, um, Taiwan is a wonderful place. It's recently

been featured a lot on some of the premier cycling YouTube channels as being this

not hidden, but like under talked about cycling Mecca that everyone should go to.

And I happen to be there and there is this massive hill climb that you can do that occurs

annually. It's like a serious, serious race. And I can't do it next year because I already have a

big race on my calendar, but maybe in 27, I'll fly to Taiwan to just go do this race.

So, um, when you say it's like a Mecca for cycling, would that be just because of the events

or because of the terrain, the terrain, like apparently the, the roads are almost pristine.

And there I think are 250 plus like mountain peaks on this island.

And there are, you know, just world class roads to cycle on.

I'm using my phone to record. So I'm not going to touch it. I am. I'm running through the board

now in case anybody thinks I don't sound like crap. But so, yeah, so I don't want to Google it,

but how big is Taiwan? I really don't even, uh, you could cycle from north to south in

a couple of days. So is it like 100 miles across? I think it's like 400 kilometers top to bottom.

So like three, that's like, what, 300 some miles? Yeah. Yeah.

Um, that's pretty big, but like not, yeah, not totally.

It's not impossibly big. Like you can't see from one side of the island to the other,

but it's like way bigger than like the big island on Hawaii or something.

Probably. Um, so my, my trip to Hawaii got canceled. We're going to go to Disney instead,

but, uh, in part it's because, so I wanted to go to Hawaii to go climb this mountain, uh, on

Haleakala is like a 10,000 foot mountain climb that you can do where you're, the, the

road starts basically at sea level and you go all the way up to 10,000 plus.

Um, crazy observatory, like above the clouds. I'm going to skip that this year because Sloan

wanted to go to Disney world and she's spoiled. So we're doing that instead.

When is this spring break?

When is spring break? Because I'm coming to Disney world.

April 4th through 10th, something like that.

It's probably the week after we're going to be there. We're going to go down to,

we're going to go down to Orlando and we got a condo our neighbor, our next door neighbors who

are like good buddies of ours have gone down and they got four, four kids like from four to 14.

And Emma's like right in the middle of all that they've rented the, they've rented the condo

like it's like 15 miles from Disney. They've rented this like same condo in the same

giant condo complex. And there's like seven pools and like a bunch of restaurants in this

thing. It's like a, it's a town share, you know, like a timeshare like town home kind of thing.

Like it's a big, huge complex and they love it because it's like a hundred bucks a night.

So they just go down there and hang out. Um, and they've been telling us for like two or

three years, you should, you guys should just come down and hang out. It's like so cheap per

night. Like it's cheaper than going to holiday and in two towns over. And so we're doing that this

year, but the girls want to do Disney for a couple of days. Sure. Like I could do maybe one day at

Disney, but like it, Disney's a lot. Like it's a, I'd rather just like sit and read a book.

Yeah. So I'll probably be sitting at the pool, but, um, so we're going down there, but it's

probably going to be the week before that. I think we're end of March, spring breaks always like

end of March into early April. So maybe we'll wave on the way. Maybe we'll leave and you can

pull in and get the same place. Yeah. Yeah. Um, but in lieu of a trip to, uh, Hawaii, Hawaii,

I, I told Ashley there's a bike race in Kansas and it's in the middle of nowhere, not far from

Topeka, uh, where we used to race at Heartland and this town has become the

global hub for elite gravel, uh, racing and, uh, gravel racing is like dirt roads, um,

you know, two tracks, stuff like that.

So would a gravel bike be like a mountain bike or would it be a gravel bike right now?

Like the, I mean, the mechanics or the technology is changing a little bit, but

think of like your no suspension, hardtail mountain bike from the 90s and put road handlebars on it.

That's pretty close. That's like sort of where they are. Um, but these races, they're the race

in the world. The big one is in Emporia, Kansas, and it's a 200 mile single day, like all out

bike race and, um, the single day meaning 24 hours or single day meaning like

started, I think the pros finish in like eight or nine hours. Good grief. Yeah. They're, they are

flying and it's like the terrain is kind of hard. I mean, it's not wooded, but like it's

you have like to go 26 miles an hour. You are hustling. Is there a lot of elevation?

Yeah. So it's rolling hills the whole time. The most elevation that I've ever done on a bike ride

over the course of like 60 miles or something is probably 4500 feet of vertical, not up down,

but just up cumulative. Um, and the race, the 200 mile is about 11,000 feet of vertical.

Really? Yeah. So it's just like punchy hills the whole time. You're just like climbing and

descending and climbing into semi. So it's like, it's a lot of work.

Like a ton of what 200 foot climbs to 300 foot climbs. Yeah, I think so.

Over and over and over. And so I told Ashley, I was like, okay, well, so there are a few ways

you can get into this race. You can be one of the top 50 pros in the world. Uh, and that might get

you a spot or you can raise money for a, one of their preferred charities and you have to commit

to raise like $5,000 or some big number. Uh, you can pay for one on one coaching through their like

network or you can enter a lottery and the lottery is only open two weeks and it happened

to be open in the period when I like logged into the website and I was like, Oh, well,

the lottery is open. Maybe I'll just apply. Uh, they take your credit card information when you

sign up for the lottery and you find out you get into the event and they charge your credit card

immediately. And it's a little bit like chop top where you're not supposed to transfer tickets

and you are really, really, really not supposed to defer. So if you get a spot, you're supposed to

get a spot in the race. Sure. And I told Ashley, I was like, if I get a spot, I'm going. Yeah. And

so up and I was like, Oh, also that means I have to buy another bike.

What? What? Yeah. And so I, I was on the plane back coming from Taiwan and I got the email like

while I was on the flight and I was like, hell yeah, let's go. So I'm doing a bike. Well, I probably

pick up my bike on Tuesday. I would guess. Oh yeah. You, uh, last I talked to you, you were like

talking about like what you wanted to do. Yeah. Well, I told Ashley how much it was

yesterday. So that was, that was an experience. Yeah. I might have to tell my wife about something

that I just bought. Would you just buy? I sold my Honda fit. Did I tell you that? Yeah, you did.

And I sold my fit. A great car sold it to my best friend for, for life's son, who's 18. And it was

his first track experience when he was 15. He came behind me and I was like, Hey, hop in, let's go.

And he drove gingerman and I coached. He almost drove off the, off the face of the earth and turned

10. That will happen. Yeah, that will happen. The ABS was broken at the time because I had

put a wheel bearing in backwards. Speaking of, hold on, I got to interrupt the story for a second.

Speaking of Chad McCurdy, uh, who famously drove way, way off in turn 10, bumped one of my group

chats and was like, Hey, do you still have that video? And apparently a Facebook messenger did

like a purge of old media because it wasn't in my list of like saved stuff anymore. Yeah. Yeah.

I was like, well, man, you probably drove off half a mile off the track, but no, I don't have it

anymore. I literally put a, I put a couple of really high end showers in about a probably

six miles from gingerman, but I had to drive around the turn. Like I had to take a left at

turn 10 off of the main road. This is only like a month or two months ago. And I'm actually surprised

how close turn 10 is to the road right there. Really? Like it, yeah, there's a, there's an

intersection right there and it's probably only 600 feet from turn 10. No way. Yeah. It feels like

the track is right there. Like it looks like you're standing on the, you know, the curb,

like the Burma on turn two. Sure. That, that's what it feels like. No. Yeah. No, but you're like

pulled back more than that, but like there wasn't cars running cause it was like after the season

was over. It was in November, uh, but like it's not too far. Next time we're there. Like if you do

a track walk, just look, look straight at turn 10. There's a road like probably only 600 feet

of, you know what? I'm looking now and it's your, you're probably pretty close. I'm looking at the

scale. I couldn't be more than 800 feet. I bet it's like five or 600 feet. It's way closer than I

thought. I'd never been on that road before. I took a left and I was like, holy crap. I moved

that corner worker station right there last year with a telehandler. And it looks like it's the

size. What's pretty wild is it means that if you go way off, I know they have the sand there now,

but if you had gone way off, depending on how fast you were going, you probably could have

made it to the road. Uh, I certainly think if somebody, if a really fast car went, went off

without slowing at all, like if you did nine real fast and you lost breaks completely coming

out of nine and you like barely hung onto it, I bet you could hit that road. Yeah. But you could

almost jump the road and hit the church probably. It's, and there's no fences. There's definitely

some vegetation and it kind of like, it gets undulated and it's not. And there's some trees

off to the left, which we've actually had to pull cars out of, which is the scariest part

of gingerman is pulling cars out of the left. If you go left at 10, but by the black station,

like, uh, like if, if you go straight and don't turn at all, there's trees over there. Oh yeah.

I see those. They did cut down a lot of those because, uh, John and I have requested to cut down

a lot of those. If you can't kill it with a car, they don't kill the person in the car. So

like the, the verbiage I said to Mike was like, Hey, if you think a car could kill the tree,

it's fine. But if the tree could kill the car, let's get rid of it. Yeah. But yeah, it's way

closer than intersection that I thought it was. Like you could see it like it's so, it's like,

it feels like it's right there. I didn't realize it. So we're talking about this, but I didn't

realize how close the community is to turn three. And there's like, there's houses. There's like

a hundred feet. It's right through the woods. And there's like, there's a bunch of houses

right behind 10, right behind seven, like there's houses right there. And it feels like you're in

the middle of nowhere, but you walk like 60 feet through the woods and there's like a house right

there. I don't usually explore like the, the property of genuine very much. So I'm not surprised

that you know, but I don't, I mean, you're not missing much. I've been, I've been going there for

like 25 years and I've never driven down this road over there. And like literally in November,

I drove down that road and I was like, they're people that literally live behind turn seven

and turn eight and like and turn three. It's like right there. Like Dan, Dan owns a little bit of

property, but not a lot. Like the trees kind of obscure all of it. I probably obscure most of the

sound. There's some berms there to obscure sound and stuff. But like there was like three little

kids playing in a yard and I bet they could just like walk over the little hill in the backyard

and be on turn seven. Well, I never noticed this before. For how long has there been sand at turn

one? On the inside or the outside? Yeah. Quite a bit. I mean, there's always been,

there's always been like kind of an obscured berm. If you like a berm and like a pit, if you go,

if you went really far off, it raises up a bunch and there is a berm. So you can't like cross,

say somebody like completely lost brakes, you couldn't hit the straight away after turn two.

Sure. I always just saw that as grass, but no, it's probably got a six foot,

it's probably got a six foot berm to it. And there's, there's sand out there and it's always

been some sand out there and they stirred it up a whole bunch recently. The reason they actually

stirred up all the sand berms around Gingerman is because Peter Zhang went off hard and three.

Yep. I remember that five, six years ago, totaled his Subaru. He had a street mod Subaru,

STI or WRX went off so hard and the impact was so much that he broke his back.

Yeah, I remember that. And he didn't realize until like two weeks later that he actually

had fractured some pieces in his back and he's fine now. But that was actually the reason that

they stirred up all those sand that sand so much. And then the next year they made the sand so deep

and 10 that Pete Limburg rolled his fit when he went off sideways and then he stuck his arm

out the window to stop the rollover, which is an instinctive reaction. You should definitely resist

because you're not gonna. But and he's fine too, thankfully. But yeah, you win some battles,

you lose some battles. And we, yeah, we've experienced a few of the ups and downs of

good sand, bad sand, too much sand. Like there's a fine, there's like a fine balance. It's really

hard to find in a trap outside of a turn. So yeah. So you, you did, you did buy a bike.

Well, I put a deposit down and I, is it a preexisting bike or are you building this?

Um, it was like, it was one of those things where the shop owner just was like, well,

I built this, this is perfect for you. And it was actually perfect for me.

I don't know that he had me as the target customer, but he just like pulled it out from

his behind his back and he's like, this is what you want. And I was like, God damn, that is what

I saw you comment. You said the dude is like pretty rad and also races and rides a lot.

Yeah. Yeah. He, uh, I'd been talking to him about this race. Um,

he has done it a few times. And so I was talking to him about it. Um,

and it was like, yeah, this is what you want. This is the bike. So when, when,

when you pick it up, ask him, uh, if he built it for you without you asking, I'm curious.

Well, it's like, it wasn't a guarantee that I would get a spot. So it would have been silly to

build it without that for sure. But, um, in part because like Jake Price and a couple of other

people from my friends down here were asking me if I was going to be interested or like wanted to

start training for an Ironman. Jake's picking up running and a few other friends are picking up

swimming. And I thought really, really hard about it. And, uh, I know people who have done full

distance Ironman before, and I know how much like of your available time it takes to train for those

three different sports to compete at that level. And I was just like, I don't want to devote that

much time to swimming and running. Like you just don't want to. Yeah. And so we only want to do one

of them. Yeah. I only, I only want to do the one thing. And so I think most people would say that

like, uh, a race distance of let's say a hundred to a hundred and 12 miles, like a hundred and

12 miles, these, the Ironman leg, uh, for biking. So for context, like a hundred and 12 miles would

be like your standard, let's say marathon equivalent, the bike race that I'm doing in Kansas is 200

miles. That's pretty well. So, and that's not the longest distance that they do. They also have an

XL that is a 350 and the 350 goes through the night. All off road too. Yeah. All of it. I mean,

off road meaning unpaved. Correct. What's the most mileage you've done in one session? One day,

like I did 85 this year. Okay. So like, but like, I probably could have went out and done quite a

bit more, but I was just time limited. I think I did that over the course of like

five and a half hours or something. Oh, okay. You've got five and a half hours all to yourself.

Yeah, not really, but I take the time anyway.

Yeah. Well, so you bought a stupid thing. I put a deposit on a stupid thing. What's your stupid

thing? So, so for years, I've really started and it's been like, it's been exponentially

increasing. How much I have missed having like a car that I could like, uh, okay. Yeah. Sarah's

working at after dinner, Emma's going to bed car that I could get in. I've ever since Emma's been

alive. I haven't had this car. I turned my civic into a race car around then,

but I've really missed getting into a car and going for a drive street car

and wanting and like having a car that I wanted to go for a drive in. Didn't have a roll cage

as a roll bar. Uh, but also like, yeah, I've had my fit and my fit's been like a great car, but like

I drive, I walk past it in the driveway and then I walk past in the driveway again on the way out.

Like, and I never think about like hopping in. I never thought about hopping in it going for a

drive because it like, it like didn't stir my soul. It was like a fun car on track.

Well, it's like a different thing. I think when cars become race cars, they become like

they could be your favorite tool, but it's not a thing you use for enjoyment anymore.

Even the fit, like I enjoyed it on a racetrack. I enjoyed its convenience of existing,

but I didn't want to drive it. Do you know what I mean? Like it wasn't like a thing that I was like,

I cannot wait to go drive that. Um, and I think that's probably been a thing that has really like,

it's like sucked the joy out of, uh, out of me in regards to like me versus this hobby,

the sport, whatever. And I think that some of the success of grid life has probably been because

Adam has been stoked on cars. Like, would you say that's probably not a stupid thing to say?

No, I don't think so. Like, it's probably, I mean, intuitively it makes some sense because like,

I'm kind of the mascot of motor sports. And if I'm not into it, like, what are we doing? You know

what I mean? It's a fair question. Uh, so like, I, do I want to be into this and what am I into?

And I think my interest have changed and I really want a street car. I don't want a street car that's

stupid fast. Um, I want a street car that is reliable, but one that I have, I've turned enough

wrenches on to understand. Uh, I also, because of like just the place that I operate, um, fiscally,

I want to have something and I've wanted to have something that like, oh, I put X dollars in,

it's probably worth a little bit more than X dollars and it is not depreciating. Um, because

I hate depreciation and depreciation sucks. And if I went out and bought a new, you know, whatever,

it's going to be worth $20,000 less next year, right? Right. And I have no desire to have anything

new. Um, I want something that's from the nineties probably or early 2000s. Um, and I've always really,

really loved nine 11s. Oh man. I've always loved nine 11s too. So much. And my buddy Kyle,

tall Kyle move. Have you ever met him or no? No, if I have, I wouldn't recognize his face.

Uh, he's, he's a big old giant dude. He used to rent a house from my parents next door. He's been

a buddy of mine since he was like 15. Um, but, uh, great fabricator, like actually incredible

fabricator. Uh, his, uh, Instagram is I think tall under short Kyle or tall Kyle. Uh, he has recently,

as of the last two years, bought a couple of nine, nine sixes, like, which is like a 95 to

04, uh, nine 11, which is the first, it's like the most unloved generation because the first

water cold ones, they had, uh, some engine issues. If you neglect them, they had bore

scoring or cracking heads or there's a bunch of dumb things. Um, he bought one and put this kit

from company called rent 27 that you put a 2.7 liter Audi v six in and then you can turbo the

daylights out of them and they're just really ridiculous. Take all this stupid stuff from

Audi and get rid of it. And you just like, I think you actually use the Audi ECU, but like

you get rid of all the dumb sensors and you like, you can make like 600 wheel and the trans is strong

for like 650 700 wheel. There's also a giant contingent that makes LS swap parts for them.

You can buy everything to just bolt it in. You got to cut like one body member out of the back.

It's not structural and an LS bolts right in place. Great. And I've never had an LS.

I kind of want to have a big cammed LS. That's so dumb. And it's pretty dumb. Um, but also like,

man, LS is really cheap. Unless you, even if they're even cheap, like realistically,

you can buy a brand new, you can spend all the money and buy a brand new LS three,

525 horsepower with a warranty. And it's like cheaper than like the machine work and rods and

pistons to like make the same thing out of it. Like a LS one, like it's stupid. They're so reasonable

and they're the most supported engine of all time. And gosh dang, if you like Google cammed LS

and watch some YouTube videos, just like, that's what I want my car to sound like when I started

up. And so I'm probably going to build an LS swap 9-11 because I put a deposit on a 9-11 in

Minneapolis. No way. Yeah. I'm going to go to Minneapolis. Is it like a Carrera? It's a 996,

9-11 hardtop. It's like a dark blue, like 170,000 miles. The dude had the engine like totally gone

through like a couple of years ago, drove like eight months and then it jumped timing.

And he pulled the engine out. It comes with the engine, which is probably totally usable still,

which I will sell. And I'm like, it's barely a five-figure car. Like I've just paid like just

over 10. Nice. They're so cheap, dude. And this thing's got like perfect paint, perfect body. The

guy owns like a detailing shop. And he's like, yeah, the PPF's got a little bit of, you know,

age shown, but like it's a gorgeous car. And man, I've never been more stoked.

Make it awesome. I want to just, I want to, my, so my only goal right now with the car

is in some configuration to drive it to Lime Rock. Like I want to, I want to drive it all the way

to Lime Rock. I want to have the best possible day. That would be my favorite. My favorite day of

the year was driving my fit to Lime Rock this year. I had your least favorite day was trying to drive

it home. But yeah, when it broke one mile away from Lime Rock, I don't think we, I don't think

we've even done a podcast since then, have we? Now life's been hard. Before we pooped out,

tell some stories like one mile from Lime Rock. There is a 100 mile, 107 mile, 100% gravel loop

that is accessible from Gingerman by like, you know, the, the road that's behind turn three.

Yeah, it's there. Yeah, I believe that there's a 100 mile loop on the, the gravel map that I could

do. Yeah, there's some, there's actually like a lot of cool little lakes and all kinds of cool

stuff are on there. So this big shower door job that I had is on this. It's the most insane

lake house I've ever seen. It's on a lake I've never heard of, probably five, six miles to the east

of Ginger, like directly east of Gingerman. And the windows on this lake, on this lake house, I mean,

the front window in the living room is commercial aluminum and glass. Most of the, most of the

window panes are like five foot by six foot, like they're huge window panes. And it was,

I walked it out with my foot. I think it was 50 feet wide and 35 feet tall. What? Yeah, it was

the biggest, it was the craziest, like it was the craziest view I've ever seen. It's the biggest

craziest window. It's a structural window wall. It's insane. And I, I mean, I did a couple of

crazy shower doors for them, like one of the wilder shower doors and the other one was like a

kid's bathroom. But it was like, yeah, five miles east of Gingerman. But the first time I went there,

to measure it, the reason like you, the reason you say what's around there. And I'm like, oh,

there's this cool stuff. And then I just recalled, I drove up there in my Honda Fit like a month

before to met to double check the measurements on this, because you do not order $6,000 shower

doors without double checking measurements at square and level and everything. I went there and

I'm on the way back. I had taken my fit up there. And I'm on the way back. And there was,

it was like, it was like a mile from this crazy house. And this place is probably on 50 acres

of property. There's a big huge gate. You got to know the code to get in. You drive like,

you probably drive two city blocks off the main road before you see the house, like it's

through this property. It's pretty cool. So I drive out of this beautiful, beautiful property,

I lock the gate, I take a left onto the road. And then there's like, there's like a fire station

and it's really little. And there's like some cool farmhouse and then there's something else.

And then I like, I come upon this, it's probably 15, 15 years old. And he was on like,

a mini bike with, you know, like a cheap mini bike with like the Briggs and Stratton motor.

Oh, like a Dan DeVries type mini bike. Yeah, like a dirt bag mini bike.

And he's just in the middle, in middle of the road. He doesn't have any shoes on

and the kid couldn't have been more than 15 and he's smoking a cigarette. And in one of the hands,

he's got a hoagie and he pulls off to the right and he waves me by. And as I'm passing him,

he flicks me off. Nice. I didn't pass him like aggressively or anything. He just like told me

to fuck off. It was really, it was such a contrast to the house that I had just seen.

But yeah, it's a very diverse area up there. So that's nuts. Yeah. I was like, yeah,

that dude had some vibes to him though. Dude, I can't believe I hope the dude's doing well.

Yeah. No, so I bought a crappy old 27 year old Porsche.

I'm really, I'm really excited to put an LS in it. I'm probably going to sell the M96 and

put an LS, which LS totally depends on my monetary situation in a few months. Like

the thoughts of crepe motor have came up the thoughts of $1,000 all aluminum 5.3s have came

up. Those all aluminum 5.3s strapped with, you know, they sell all variants of headers and

turbos and turbo manifolds. And there's a lot of room in the back corners of the bumpers for a

turbo. All I'm saying, like there's a lot of ideas. I don't, I don't actually know.

I don't know what I would do. But the car comes with like it just had brand new feel coil overs

put on, which we like the owner feel drifts with us and he's a cool dude. So maybe I,

maybe if I don't like him, I can have him revalved. Just had like brand new OZ racing wheels put on

it and like some decent tires and he, he's a detailer. So we made the paint look great

and the interior is all stock. It just has coil overs and wheels and it had a bunch of maintenance

done to it and the car fax is clean. Send me a picture right now. It reflects all the maintenance

that he told me it had. And you said it was dark blue. Yeah, it's like a dark blue. So can I say

there is a 9 11 turbo I think here in town that has it's dark blue. I don't know what the color

because like, I don't even know Porsche colors, but it's got there's so many. All of the emblems

stuff are in like gold and the wheels are gold. And I was like, man, that car looks sick with a

dark blue color paint. I'm really, I'm really into how it looks, dude. Hang on a second.

There we go. Dude, dude, the third picture I'm about to send you like the color changes a lot

in the sun. Like the third picture is so good. The car looks so good. It's a dark purple,

bluey color. It's just a clean looking little car, dude. And I haven't told my wife about it yet.

That's awesome. Yeah, I'll probably tell her about it sometime. I mean, you can tell her by

just taking her for a drive. I've got to build the car first doesn't run, dude. Oh, yeah. Well,

just hide it somewhere. But these cars, these cars like in, in like beat condition are like 17

and 19,000 bucks, like beat up streetcar. And like this is the best body I've found in a 996

of like any of them for sale, realistic, unless you're like spending like 50, 60,000 bucks.

And if you put an LS motor in these things and you got a decent body and there's been a,

there's been several LS swapped ones with like rebuilt titles for sale for like $40,000.

And it does not cost $30,000 to LS swap one of these things. It costs like, if you spend all

the money, it's like 10 grand and swap parts, 12 grand and swap parts plus an LS. So like you

could go whole, I could go whole hog on this thing. LS swap wise. And it would be worth

five to 10,000 bucks more than I paid for it. Yeah. So it feels, it feels like a great place to like

have a 911. Yeah, if I want to, if I want to have like my next 10 years of streetcar

and probably be money ahead because these have bottomed out. And if you look at the

trajectory around 11s, they do not get cheaper after a certain point. So

I think if I could offer any feedback to this car is I don't like black wheels.

Yeah, I'm not in love with the wheels. I think it might need some Volks or Volk knockoff

T 37s. Yeah, but they're not terrible. They're not like some of the Porsche OEM wheels are

pretty gross. Yeah, I just don't like there's like no contrast between the tire and the wheel. And so

it's just, I don't know. Yeah. Yeah. The dark wheels in our dark blue car, like this kind of

disappear. Yeah. This car looks sick, man. But but that that color though, dude. Yeah. The picture

I'm re sending the one picture to you like check out that color dude. It's so good. I mean, I'm

into it. And I already text you a picture of my bike. So yeah, I'm in for my bike a little bit

less than you're in for your car, but not that much. Yeah, probably not that much. Probably only

a few thousand bucks. But yeah, I'm, it's gonna be a project. I mean, I'm probably gonna have to

put the civic so I sold the fit. I have traded my I've likely traded my enclosed trailer for

the equivalent of $7,000. This is buoys trailer. Yes, likely. But I don't know my next door

neighbor really he wants to take he wants to move to California with it. And my next door might

cross the street neighbor. He wants to use it to move to California and he might not want to

bring it back. Speaking of trailers and I know that the reason this trailer is like special is

because you said that the axles on it are super heavy and like everything on it is actually

really nice. I thought of you the other day we passed by a truck that was like toting a, you

know, a two place car trailer, but it was an open deck trailer. And one of the wheels was on fire.

Oh yeah. And it was, it was so on fire that the tire caught on fire. And like in the five seconds

or 10 seconds as we were driving up to it, it went from like a white smoke to Oh, very black

smoke. And the guy was like trying to he had like a tire iron and was trying to get the wheel off.

And I was like, dude, this shit is going to burn down. Oh yeah. Very like it definitely could

burn down. And like the amount of fire that was in front of him, like in his face, I was like,

you've got maybe 15 seconds before it's time to get away from that.

You need an extinguisher right now into a lot of water right now, dude.

Yeah. So like the reason that I'm thinking about like maybe not owning, I'm going to let,

I'm going to let Vic take it to California. And if Vic doesn't bring it back, he's like

going to pay me what I paid Buoy. But like, I think I did tell Buoy that I wouldn't make

any money on it. So that's what I told him I paid for it. And I would take that much for it if he

didn't want to bring it back. But it doesn't have, it was issued in a state that doesn't have a title.

And so it's just like in the certificate of origin got lost from the dude that he owned it

where he bought it from. And like, I'm not going to really sell it. I can't really sell it.

Unless I like somehow convince featherlight to send me their certificate of origin or whatever

they got to do. Sure. But but I also am like kind of sick of racing and like it's a whole process

to own this many vehicles and trailers and like I store it and like, yeah, Vic, if you want to

take this into California, fill these your belongings, bring it back. I'll still have a

trailer. If not, sure, pay me that much like whatever right to do that. Like I bought my wife's

wedding wedding ring from him. He's like the local jeweler, but he like has a place by Yosemite now

and he's like slowly moving his stuff there. He's in the 70s. So my trailer might get to go see

Yosemite, which is cool. But it's cool. But yeah, like less stuff. And maybe any streetcar, dude,

I think, I think, I think that might well, like most of your best stories recently, and I think

it's probably just just because it's the opposite of what we do all the time.

Like some of your best stories recently are the time you took a streetcar out to a meet or an

event or you street drove with Sully and a few other people to XYZ place downtown Chicago. Like

those are the stories now. And I think it's in part because you're at the track 15 times a year.

So that's not the special thing. Yeah, I don't, uh, I've driven my car a lot on track, right? And

like, I don't remember any of those moments aside from like a couple of great times racing it or

fun. And you can only talk about that so much. But like, yeah, cruising it downtown like illegally

is way more fun than like, then like literally I keep insurance on it. Just I don't have plates,

but I keep insurance on it just in case I want to illegally like dirt bag it around Chicago.

Yeah, like it was as much fun as an entire race weekend. And like the gears and gasoline guys

like documented it on one of the road trip videos. It was like super cool. You know, we had so much

fun. But I think I might need a streetcar. I really miss having a streetcar. I don't.

I mean, I have a streetcar. I don't miss having a track car.

Yeah, I mean, my brother just bought a Tesla Model 3 and like I drove Chris's Tesla Model 3

and like if I had a long commute, it's the perfect car. Yeah, if I had a if I had to drive to

grid life every day, which I mean, there's an off chance I might need to do that a lot more next

year. That would make sense to have that. I don't know what your electricity rate is. But for me

in Kentucky, it's really, really hard to argue with because it's 10 cents a kilowatt hour here.

Even if it was identical to gasoline, like I would argue just the fact that it can do 90%

of the driving for you when you're in Chicago stop and go traffic like that just for like quality

of life issues like that's an argument for that. Well, and you have the fueling station in your

home if you are able to do that. Not having to go to the gas station is awesome. No, that makes

total sense. But when you're on road trip with one, like I drove Chris's with him back from

Lime Rock when my fit popped a spark plug out the head and then John Raymond had to battle the

rent a trailer and bring it home for me. I heard that story. I heard that story.

No big deal. I'll just get it home for you. And it turns out it was a big deal.

We should have the Motorsports Board of Directors on to talk about the U-Haul Rental

story at Lime Rock. I don't know why his U-Haul and him are just like oil and water.

But it did come back to me. It cost me about 1000 bucks to get it back and cost him like

24 solid hours of like frustration, which I was, if I had known it was going to be so bad,

I would have stayed the night like blown off family obligations the next day. No, you wouldn't have.

Like I would have figured it out knowing what I know, though, I could have fixed it by 8am

and probably been home by 8pm. Like, and I got home at 6pm and I stayed up like pretty much

all night. Yeah. I ordered like a Helicoil style like insert. There's like literally just

insert kits that like you just run the tap straight down through the head. You're like

vacuum on as much crap as you can. Pull the, pull the, all the, all the, the spark plugs out,

like pull the fuel plug, fuel injector plugs and just crank the thing for a while to clear it out,

thread the thing down in with Loctite and run it like, and it worked fine. It worked great.

It was perfect. And it came with like 10 of them. So I just like sent that with Caleb

winning about the car. It is amazing to me that you can, you can tap a spark plug

into a head and not get metal shavings of the cylinder that I did. Yes, it's amazing that

you can vacuum them out reliably. So you also like put a bunch of grease on the tap that pulls

like two thirds of it right back out with it. So you just like grease the tap and it just

like accumulates in like the four gaps in because the tap is got like four, four threading steps

and then like the gaps. So you like grease up to get the four gaps and it collects most of it.

And then you like blast in there with some, with some air and then you just like free run

the thing. So it cranks real fast and anything stupid, you know, likely will like go out the

exhaust pipe. So there's probably like 10 chunks of little metal sitting on the front of the cat,

but like it seems fine. And it was perfect. Like the car cranks perfect. The tap insert

thing was perfect. Like it even sets the I measured everything. It sets the spark plug

exactly the right height. It's got the right step on it and everything. It's yeah, like

they happen so much that there's just literally like a $50 kit. You just buy it and just do it.

It's so easy. That's wild. It was stressful. But like it was actually super easy.

It was stressful because I had never done it before. But like, yeah, there's like a nine out of

10 chance it works perfect unless you get like a chunk next to the cylinder wall and like scars

the cylinder wall. So there was like a there was like a one second, like one or two seconds where

it fired up on three cylinders. And I was like, Oh, no, and then it cleared right out. So there

must have been like a chunk sitting on the bottom side of a valve or something.

And but yeah, and I mean, I drove it thousands of miles after I did that, like a couple thousand

miles. It was perfect. But man, I was really I was I was so stoked to do the trip back from

limerock because I enjoyed the trip there so much. Like there was something really well,

see, but that's that's full circle, right? Highs and lows. Yeah, there was like a like

there's something about like a solo road trip across country where you you don't have like

a deadline to be there. You can do your own thing kind of but like it was a beautiful day.

And I just I really enjoyed that trip. Like I loved that trip like pulling in at like,

I think I got to limerock like around nine, 10, eight or nine, maybe I don't remember. But like

it was just like a vibe, dude, I had the best day. And I got it. I remember getting in the car

at the Airbnb, which was like actually on property right across the racetrack from this

from start finish. And I had taken a shower. I loaded my car up and I'm like, dude, it's such

a beautiful night. It's gonna be the day it was like 65 degrees out windows down, like crank some

tunes, listen to a podcast. I was stoked. And then the car threw a spark plug one and a half miles

away. Like I was such a bum. I was like so mad that I admit I feel like I missed that opportunity

to just have a gorgeous night drive and then like sleep somewhere on the side of the road for a

few hours and like get up and see the sun like sunrise over the mountains and like stop at a

sheets and get some coffee like I was so stoked on the trip. And I just did I missed on that trip.

It stinks. Yeah. Yeah. But I've also like this next car will be a 365 day a year car. I'm not gonna

not gonna not snow drive it. I'm not gonna not rain drive it like it is going to be a car.

They're galvanized. A car is a car, man. Yeah, it's not gonna be precious. It's gonna be a car.

And like, I'm real stoked on that. Yeah. Anyway, I do a podcast. We did. And I like I got more

stuff that we should talk about. But like maybe we'll save the next show. I'm interested to talk

about rules in part because one, that's something people seem to like about our show. And two,

I was more hands off on rules this year. So like I would be interested for you to talk to me like

you would talk to everyone else about why changes are what they are. Oh, for sure. Yeah. I threw a

lot of the a lot of the burden on like I did the first the first pass on things and then like

John has been really gathering and compiling people's ideas. And he and I talked for hours today

about it. So we're pretty close on what we want to do based on everybody's POV like feedback to

motorsport at Grid.life. There's been there's been a bunch of topics that like you and I have

corresponded on but like it's kind of like I'm it's not really a crazy rules change year. I think

like TC wise, we just like turn cup would just drop the allowed wheel horsepower and drop to 275s

and that's like the majority of the changes. It's not a crazy not not too crazy one. But I've also

I've never kept as good of notes for like ideas and thoughts and whatever as I have the last couple

years. Like last year in this year, the best notes I've ever had. So like we're talking like in

August, I kind of had a pretty good idea what I thought would be a good first pass.

And then share it with you with all you guys and like get some opinions and like almost everybody

that I shared it with before it was provisional was like, yeah, these are really good. So it's not

perfect. Obviously the drivers have had a lot of opinions, but like nothing crazy. So

yeah, they I think the biggest drama is that wrote America's not on schedule.

Yeah, I was just getting ready to say that. I think that that is the drama.

And that's through some fault of our own because of yeah, but like what does it say

you know, what does it say about an event? We had only raced festival there two years. Is that right?

Sure. Yeah, two years. What does it say about the organization's ability to create an event

and have it be a thing that's familiar and desirable and like nostalgic and all of those

things in a period of correct in a period of two years. Like yes, I think people we can collectively

be sad that we're not doing it again this year. But that said, it should give people the confidence

that you can replicate that vibe at a different place. It's not like I haven't thought about that.

If we did it in two years, I think there's a chance that we can

move that enthusiasm to a different place. It's not the venue necessarily. It's the

it's the organization and community. I think big picture. It's it really is that like you know how

to how to do one of these at a certain point. So like you just look at the totality of what you

have for a map of the facility for allowances and time for you know what what can you do on this

property and like just try to make it make it as cool as you can like financially viable is the

thing because you have to not lose money in order to exist. Yeah, but but you know we know this

property a little bit already. They've been awesome to work with so far.

I wrote America was awesome to work with to just like the contract we couldn't we couldn't come to

an agreement like not us not them like it just didn't work right now like I bet you there's

a someday there like I would I would almost I would if you if you had to like force me into like

a bet and you just all right bet on will will you ever go back to write America and throw a

festival I would probably bet yes, there's a pretty good chance. Yeah, we just I mean it's

not a party if it happens every night too. That's true festivals you're not you're not thrown 10

festivals you're like you're half burning on six of the 10 you know so good spacing is huge

especially for the amount of like just the dumb little logistic stuff in the back and work like

catering and I can be personally a little bit bummed that we're not racing at Audubon because

well you know darn it the the racing at Audubon is spectacular but that that tracks not I mean

we'll we'll go back to Audubon yeah I'm positive we love working with them now like we've really

came into a good a good vibe with them will it be a festival ish round probably not like

there's no room to park anybody you can bring in five six hundred spectators and you're out of

room you know like there's no place to park yeah if you're throwing a tooth a 250 driver event

there's no place to park you can't you can't park there and any like any weekend we've ever

hosted there has not worked for drift and drift brings out spectators and blah blah like the

whole thing is hard yeah it's hard you're managing a lot of pieces for sure and it gets a it gets

exponentially harder if you're doing 10 of like nine festival rounds festival ish or festival rounds

that we do this year versus six nine is twice as hard as six and then you're also like robbing

from one to to do the other like staff talent wise and time frame wise and even like like there's

only so many social media posts and so many advertisements you can send to people before

none of them work anymore sure you know what I mean you just like right tapped out yeah you can't

dilute things so much so like to me the only explanation for it is it's it's not a party if

it happens every night I like I like that phrase I think what it does do is it makes each event

really really important not only from the driver's perspective or like important but

also significant but I think on the grid life side it means that like operationally everything has to

be perfect because there are no do-overs there's not uh we'll make it up at the next one it's like

you know yeah we've execution has to be 100 and we've probably gotten the staff to the point where

we can actually deliver on like we can do six midwest festivals we can do six uh wrote americas uh

of that level of uh of dialed even though like all of those everything always has a learning curve

but I think we've like jumped over enough hurdles where we can people people know what they can

expect from these things yeah um livestream wise operationally wise uh and like if there's a say

you have a given audience of 1000 drivers uh and you have 14 events um what's the what's the chances

you're going to have the cream of the crop and the best competition at 14 events not as good as

if you have six right it's just not you're just not going to have the level the talent is going to

inevitably rise which will make things harder for some people but also like what are we really doing

here like is that what we want it's probably what most people want they want to run against

the best of the best uh in their in their like respective class and and whatever so yeah yeah

I think actually this is like um I don't even remember the context of the situation I think

we were talking about f1 um we were talking about like uh the the drivers who are not racing within

the spirit of the rules or like um you know maybe teams or whatever that are not compliant or cheating

or whatever and I was just like um thinking to myself shit I sorry my my brain is completely

dead I I lost my train of thought don't remember what I was going to say I had something to do with

you know racing for for racing sake or something like that but I yeah there is something to be said

for like uh if you if you throw too many parties like none of it matters yeah that that's where

my head keeps going to or I feel yeah I feel like uh I feel like I feel like we're going to have

better events overall um by doing a few less events realistically yeah oh no sorry you help me

restore my train of thought I think it was it was talking about like wanting as a competitor wanting

your competition your your fellow competitors to be their best so that when you win it means the most

yeah uh if if you're not racing against like in in street mod if you're not racing against

Dewey and Jackie or whoever the fastest possible drivers are if like a bunch of Honda Fitz showed

up in street mod like you wouldn't feel that great about winning like nothing against Honda Fitz

but you want to run you want to like you want to beat the Deweys and the Jackies right um yeah

you want to beat the Cattiles and the Matans and like yeah you yeah you don't want to beat a bunch

of Adam Jabez that sounds like there's nothing weak I did sex we're a bunch of Haspins it's okay

now now there are drivers who are objectively fast racing in our series so yeah yeah I think

there's there's not any that aren't that are winning yeah but yeah like like the some of the

some of the crazier stories like barely got told this year like Jimmy Rock beating uh the

Autobahn overall record and then the pit overall record and like you know Honda Civic with no

no ABS that he's been working on for like four years yeah like stories the man who

owns and track has competed in a GT2 RS why suck prefers to drive the Civic

well yeah except for when the trans dies which is every I think it's every nine sessions the

trans explodes on average which is like a $12,000 quave like six-speed sequential

but still probably cheaper than the insurance on tracking a GT2 RS why suck edition so cool

I suck whatever yeah but I mean there's a there are some hitters in the series and like

we kind of owe some of these changes to them like we owe it to them to like make it really

matter because of how hard they're trying to you know yeah and if it doesn't if it like if you

throw a mid-ohio event you don't livestream it and like everybody's crabby at the camping staff and

like maybe we shouldn't do that in mid-ohio rules I love mid-ohio but like these it's too hard for

them to come here to have a bad time right like we sort of like you got to weigh these like

and there's no like perfect solution to any of these like choices you can always second guess

a choice but at some point we owe a really good event to the drivers that are working this hard to

get there yeah I mean like we owe them the best that we can do and I I would argue that the

that's historically been your motivation my motivation Chris's motivation is

mm-hmm no one has has gotten rich doing this in fact probably the opposite is true but the

our sort of historical guide has just been to to create the event and spaces that we want to

execute and yeah because that's the coolest best thing we can do yeah and obviously you want to

try to not lose money but there's been many events that we have gone into knowing we're

going to lose money but hey we said we're going to do this let's do as good as we can yeah and

in order to exist as a company and this I could say this but in order to keep existing we had to

take on like some some investor dollars this year because like we've tried too hard too many times

and right now we were at a place where like okay well we're not we can't mess around with

like a swing too hard event anymore we've gotten Laguna Seca to the place where it almost worked

last year it was like basically break even the team like the new the new a lot of the new members

of the team in the last couple years have really showed that we can pivot on like we can have all

these different plans and we can execute last minute on this versus that in order to like

remain viable and still deliver really good product like organizationally wise and team wise and like

I feel like we're in a really good spot people wise in order to like maintain you know we could go

from like a pit race this year all the way up to like a Midwest festival like with the same team

and and try to do this on like a without just like fire in the money gun which is an exercise in

a lot of different disciplines like you need to disciplined on this and that and everything and

like just you have to have a you have to have a thousand plans you know like and and choose wisely

as you're like as you're moving like even day of so and I mean I can't say I can't thank like

the the team motor sports wise you know John and Emma and everybody else like I can't thank you

guys enough for like you know just how professional we've been able to produce these events and how

quality we've been able to produce them on like a pretty limited budget you know so yeah yeah we

don't have an unlimited staff but it'd be a lot cooler if we did sure would but also we've got

pretty good staff for like not having a crazy budget so yeah well I think we did a raising ticket

prices I think we did a podcast we'll have to do another one soon where we talk about other stuff

thanks everybody slip angle was created by Austin Cabot and Adam Jubay co-hosted by Derek Yarbrough

and production by Abram Schmucker who mixes all of our terrible audio if you like the show please

rate it and review us on iTunes and come and find us in the pit setter grid like to say hello

Back again in time for the holidays

About this episode

Road America

Daytona

Honda Fit

Subaru STI

Subaru WRX

Honda Civic

race car

depreciation

turbo

LS swap parts

LS3

Porsche 911

jumped timing

LS engine

M96 engine

coilovers

OZ Racing

Volks T37 wheels

axles

tire iron

streetcar

track car

Tesla Model 3

Tesla Model

autopilot

Helicoil

Loctite

spark plug

metal shavings

cylinder wall

valve

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