Bald Eagles, Sebring, and Thermal

This is, is off track.

So, uh, why are you icing your lip there, Alex? No, you're

business .

Oh. It's one of those days where we can't swear

for Tim's sake.

Yeah. I almost, did you hear me delete that? Swear? Yeah.

Are you having an athletic I am buddy.

I'm having an athletic, it's been a day, I'm having a best day brewing non-alcoholic electro lime. Something

That looks good, that looks pretty solid as Tim Sips Pellegrino.

You know what I had the other day was, um, the, I think it was the Sam Adams.

IPA na and it was like ridiculously good.

I dunno if you've had that one, but.

No, but like, I'm blown away. What?

No, go ahead. What are you blown away by?

Um, just how all of them are doing it.

Like, even even Mick Ultra, which isn't really like, known to be a beer.

Barely a beer. Beer that people drink. Right, exactly.

They have a Mick Ultra Zero.

Um, I still think Corona Nas are my favorite. Guinness.

I like the Heineken zero zeros.

No, you're so in 2016. Yeah.

The problem with Heineken zero zero is it tastes like Heineken.

That's the problem. Um, it unfortunately did its job

and tastes exactly like the original, which is objectively pretty bad.

Uh, I haven't had the Corona one.

I have heard good, great things about it. I do wanna try it.

The Sam Adams one is fire. The Peroni one's pretty good.

Yeah. Um, the Guinness one,

I mean, I even had a, um, I, uh, had a Stella NA good, like, it's, it's incredible how they're all doing it.

Like Yeah, you got it.

It's like everyone got on the seltzer train now.

Everyone's getting on the na train.

Yeah. And you know what?

I like that they're doing it well.

Yes, because, and after like a beer with tell you doesn't make me fall asleep.

Yep. I tell you who isn't doing it? Well, wine makers.

Yeah. Yeah.

I, I don't think I've ever had a non-alcoholic wine dea colonized wine.

Very bad. Dea alcoholed whiskey. Very bad.

I have not tried it, but I've heard of a na gin.

That's not bad if you're making a gin cocktail.

So I'm gonna, I gotta try some of that.

'cause you know, I love meia gin and tonic.

Yeah. It is objectively one of the best cocktails.

It's just great. So, alright,

let's just talk about what's, what's going on with your face.

Yeah. It's not your business.

Is this like a you should see I, I know, but I'm still gonna ask. Yeah,

You should see the other guy.

Yeah. Okay. So other guy is

Connor.

'cause Connor also my face, sorry, Connor also has a messed up face.

It doesn't help if you just say this sentence again without the swear word. It's already in there.

Oh. Um, And also does Connor. Yeah.

I Mean, did you get it the same way that Connor did?

No. Um, listen, so, um, here's the thing.

Is the ly bumpy?

No, I, um, I was changing a light switch.

A light switch. Switch, yeah. Okay.

Actually installing a light switch.

Okay. And so I, um, had done everything.

I was being very safe. Like,

usually when I'm doing electrical work, I don't turn the breaker off, but like, I've grown up from that because like, it, the shocks hurt a little bit.

It'ss a bad idea. And it's not so much idea.

It's not so much that it's just like a race week and I don't wanna like, whatever.

Right. So, um, I was being safe.

I turned all the breakers off and I was stripping the, the plastic off of the metal wire.

Right. Yeah. Because, you know, I guess you have to, to

Do, and you were doing one of these and you punch yourself in the face.

Uhhuh , dude, You slow, you split it.

Good. So was it like the actual,

like strippers that punched in The face?

The metal, the, the pliers essentially? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Got it. And got It. Got like

the side of my face a little bit.

So tomorrow it's gonna be hilarious showing up to the track with like a black lip and a line on my face. And everyone's gonna go, ,

Who'd You get in a fight?

I'm gonna be like, no, I hit myself in the face with pliers.

They're gonna be like, sure. But that's truth.

That's just reality.

So I'm just gonna, I'm gonna tell everybody that Kelly did it.

That's fair. . I mean,

Although if they'd met Kelly, they'd be like, no, you'd be way more.

I was gonna say she did have way More damage. Yeah.

She wouldn't let you get away with it. That light. Yeah.

Oh, well, I'm sorry to hear it, pal. Um, it's

Okay. Listen.

Hiring professionals in the future.

No, because I got it done and all I did was hurt my lip.

All right. Um, where did you install a new light switch?

Like it wasn't an existing switch that you were just replaced.

You were like putting a new one in somewhere. No, so,

So there was already a junction box that in one of the guest bedrooms we had covered it.

It, it was covered up always and Got it.

The main light switch always worked.

So we never really questioned what the other one did.

Or actually never even looked behind the blank wall plate.

Right. And we

put um, a lamp.

We bought a lamp and we went to plug the lamp in and that outlet didn't work.

And we were like, oh, I think that light switch is one of those, this is one of those outlets that's controlled by a switch, which, so by The way, I hate those.

I hate them. Except in the case of like floor lamps,

Which yes.

I get Yeah. In

A, in a, in, in a bedroom.

Doesn't make sense in the living room. Makes a lot of sense.

Right. Where they're always on

and it's one of your like, main ways of lighting or space. Yeah.

Okay. Fine. I kind of enjoy it.

I get that. I think they're cool.

Instead of having to go to like Three, four knobs.

Right. Yeah. I understand you flick a switch. Yeah. Yeah.

But for a small bedroom, dumb. Right. Completely agree.

Anyways, this was our solution.

So I went and bought the light switch and did it and punched myself in the face while I was doing it.

But it's all done. Beautiful.

It's on the house, isn't on fire.

So I can see that as success.

Um, one other thing that I just, I gotta tell you guys about, 'cause it was wild.

I, I forgot to send you the picture.

Becky and I were walking the dogs, you know that pond in front of the neighborhood?

Yeah. And there's like, there's like some,

there's like a field behind it and then a bunch of trees.

Big tree line. We were walking in this field

and Lou was kind of running a little bit ahead of Becky, who was a little bit ahead of me and Sully kind of thing.

And there was this like shaking in the tree and then all of a sudden a bald eagle came swooping down at Lou and be like, I, it didn't even register in my head what was happening.

Old mama bear, Becky clocked immediately, like, Becky freaks out if like a sparrow flies over top of Lou.

'cause she thinks that a bird is gonna just pick her up and fly away with her crows.

It was very small, doesn't matter. Lou was very small

and Becky's very protective in this case.

She just saw a bird move and decided to scream and start running towards Lou.

By the time I registered that she was doing the right thing, it would've been way too late for me to do anything.

But this thing then just like saw Becky coming and was like, all right, I don't wanna mess with that little appetizer and swooped away.

This thing was very large.

Appreciate it. It was very huge.

And like it was, we hadn't been on it.

Like, it just would've, like Lou was gone.

Like Lou was off, off into the, off into the distance, never to be seen again.

And the thing like, then went back up to the tallest tree in the neighborhood and just sat on the top and stared at us the whole time. It was really creepy.

Dude. They're the national symbol

of the United States of America.

Of course they're gonna be big and badass.

I am. I've never appreciated them more.

I just really don't want them to attack my dogs. Yeah.

You should've let it have Lou. Well, come on.

I I think there's other food sources out there for it.

This is like, um, exactly a scene from the proposal.

Great movie Sandra Bullock. Yes.

Forget the other guy. And that the dog gets

Ryan Reynolds.

Ryan Reynolds, sorry. The guy gets swooped over Canadian.

The dog gets swooped away. Yeah.

Um, by the bird thing and she has to go run around and chasing, throws her phone at Anyways. I wonder

If that's where Becky's fear came from.

I wonder if she saw that movie and then immediately started roaring about Lucy.

Yeah. I think that's when I realized the dogs could get

snatched by big birds.

That's fair. Um, all right. Well

It's also what then I realized that that's how you could get a Canadian citizenship in the United States.

So it took a little page outta that book. . .

Yeah. Fair enough.

Yeah. Oh, Tremendous.

I, I have an update on, on one of our other older stories.

Okay. I got another package

of Java House coffee and products. Oh yeah.

This time actually from The team. This one came.

What hold Do you feel like, Um, I, here's the thing.

I don't think I would've gotten it if we didn't record that episode. .

No, I disagree because the very nicely written handwritten card from Ed signed by the entire team.

Yeah. Does not reference the episode at all.

I know, ed, if if this was because of the episode, he would've made some smart Alec comments.

Okay. It just kinda seems like the timing of it jerk.

Nope. Just kind of seems like Well then

yeah, I guess I'm, I guess I'm, I live five minutes from the Ed Carpenter racing shop.

You live 2000 miles, so it took longer to get there, but either way you're a bad person.

Mm-hmm . Big fan of the all.

That's what we learned of all the pods though.

I've been, I've been having all of them. .

My caffeine intake has gone significantly up since I've gotten these boxes.

I also, someone at Sebring and we'll get to racing in a second.

Someone at Sebring at an autograph session. Oh

Yeah, you did. That

Came up to me.

Yeah. I did it for the most part.

Missed a couple laps, but, uh, Dropped a car on your foot.

Try to explain. I didn't drop it.

A car was dropped on me. .

Um, try to explain to me the cold brew thing again.

Try to settle the argument and now I feel stupid.

'cause I can't remember the, uh, I can't remember what it was.

It was like, it's cold brewed and it's like the brewing process is cold and it is served cold.

That's like a true cold brew.

Yeah, that's what I was saying.

Is it? I don't remember the fight

and I really don't want, I just, you know what?

I shouldn't have said anything. Nevermind. Coffee's dumb.

Don't drink it unless it's from Java House and what and, and whatever.

Okay. Doesn't matter. Moving on, moving right along.

There was some racing this weekend. Um,

Yeah, let's talk about, let's talk, do you wanna start with sea ring or formula? Uh,

Uh, let's talk about, uh, formula.

Uh, 'cause it's got a one in the title, so it should, we Could also talk about the players' championship and the fact that there was a shootout between Nope.

AJ Spawn and Roy McElroy. Okay.

Whatever you wanna talk about golf.

That's, Nope. Whatever. I'd rather

Talk about change, bro.

The NASCAR race change, Bro.

Vegas. Yeah. I change know that happened. You

Changed, bro.

I'm well aware. Yeah.

Yeah. Okay. Just so we're clear point.

We used to be very aligned on the non-golfers. You,

I get so excited to watch golf.

It's weird. It's weird. I've reached that point. Oh, you're,

You're even like watching it now.

Well, dude, let Me, you're not just playing it.

You're watching it. Let

Me, let me introduce you to a little bit of golf watching.

It's actually awesome. Anyways, okay,

let's talk about Formula One.

So, uh, in summary, as you would expect McLaren picked up where they left off because there wasn't really a re change.

Um, Tappin is still carrying Red Bull and making anyone else that is in the sister car look like an absolute buffoon .

Um, all, all of the rookies really struggled minus young Kimmy Antonelli, which good for him because I, I, I'll be the first to say that I was a, um, pessimist, um, just based on, not because I, of course he's gonna be good if Mercedes F1 is choosing to put 'em in their car.

But a little bit of pessimist because a lot of the guys, not a lot of the guys, the other guys that took the career trajectory that he did at that age had pretty much won everything Riken in for staffing.

Right, right. Um, I forget who else, but they, they

Other young dudes, everything Kimmy while showed glimpses of speed and performance wasn't ever really mega.

And F two, um, never really dominated his teammate, all this sort of thing.

But that we kept hearing that he was like this generational talent.

And while it's probably still too early to say that, I think what he did in probably the toughest possible conditions you can get in a Formula One car, um, he drove from like p nowhere 17, 18, 16 to fourth and was the only rookie I believe that finished. I

Mean, uh, Bearman finished as well. Okay.

But he was like on the lead lab.

He was, he was like the last car or second last car, um, that finished.

Yeah, no. So look, a bunch of different things you,

you brought up Kimmy, we'll start there.

The pressure on him was immense first F1 race with Mercedes replacing Louis Hamilton, the second biggest driver change story of the entire year, of which there were many, only two teams have the same lineup as last year.

And his first time in public driving an F1 car ended pretty poorly.

Mm-hmm . Very publicly. Very poorly. Yes.

And so the pressure on him was immense.

The conditions couldn't have been more difficult.

He did have a, a small spin in the race, recovered though, didn't hit anything, didn't get beached.

So, uh, yeah, I think he ended up getting classified.

Um, fourth.

He was fourth and then got a penalty, then it got rescinded.

So right behind his teammate. Unbelievable.

Really, really impressive.

In the same way that I'm not going to, uh, give a season assessment to an Isaac Haja who unfortunately had his incident on the pay lap.

Or a Liam Lawson who had a tough weekend and dfd as well.

I'm also not gonna say like Kimmy is the second coming 'cause he had one good race.

There's, there's a lot of racing still to go and a lot of situations he's gotta still experience.

He handled one of the most difficult ones brilliantly.

And I hope it keeps going.

'cause it's fun watching generational talents show up and like live up to the hype, but let's, it's one we got a data point of one.

So incredible weekend for Him.

Yeah. The, the only thing I'll say is like, he was,

he was pretty close to George all through practice and had some bad luck in qualifying.

Um, whereas um, Liam was nowhere near Max.

Like Isaac was also very, very competitive and was close enough to Yuki, which incredible, if this is a real quote, I we're kind of jumping around here.

I apologize guys, but Helen, Marco, red Bull, boss guy, whatever.

Well, no Red Bull advisor guy who thinks he's the boss but probably really isn't .

Um, Yuki through most of the weekend was like quicker than both Red Bulls.

And so there was a quote that said, there's no guarantee that Max will finish the season than a Red Bull.

He could very easily be be put in the cash app RB or whatever because it's the quicker car of the family.

Which obviously won't happen.

But still wild that that's even a Statement.

But could you imagine if that actually was a thing, like if, if the RB was actually that good and the Red Bull was actually that bad, that it was like an un an unfixable situation, right?

And they got to call it like May maybe after Monaco.

And they were like, no, this is, we're not fixing this.

And they actually just, they finally gave Yuki a Red Bull seat by taking away.

I mean would that of, of all companies would, they would be the ones to do that. That wouldn't even be

Much, would be the one to do it.

Surpris that much. But even for them, man, that seems wild.

But then the max comes back and wins a championship 'cause he switched cars mid season. .

That would be the coolest story ever. Like imagine having

That's amazing.

It's, it's amazing. They don't wor,

I mean they're not allowed to, but imagine they were allowed to do this and kind of like go work a lot together, split development, kind of split development ideas and find the one that goes Better that has put Max in Whichever one's the best that weekend.

Even you could like bounce it Around. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

So good. Um, okay.

So big props, Lando because, because for the first time, you know, he came into the season as the favorite.

Mm-hmm . The preseason test went well,

which means the pressure is fully on him.

And that's a different scenario that from what he's been in, it's a different scenario for drivers to be in, in general and under very difficult circumstances with first his teammate breathing down his neck than late in the race, his, you know, a mistake, changing conditions, calling the right strategy, and then dealing with Max on a restart with seven to go or whatever it was.

Checked all the boxes. And that was a really decisive win.

I think it was one of his most composed drives that I've ever seen.

That one's gotta go down as one of his best races.

So he's firmly planted his flag as the guy to beat this year, which is awesome because Oscar's very close to him.

So I think it's gonna be a great battle there. A

Hundred percent.

You know, I think, um, there, there's a lot of mixed opinions of Lando, which I think are a little bit unfair.

Um, but I think a lot of it comes with his just brutal honesty with his like self-assessment of himself.

Yeah. Last year, you know, there was quite a few times

where, you know, most people wouldn't place the blame squarely on his shoulders, but he like shouldered all the blame and says, it was my fault, I'm not good enough.

Like I'm not world championship material, all this sort of thing.

But like he is, he is like more than capable and has all of the qualities.

And the big thing for me was like, how's he gonna manage a wet start, like first race of the year?

That was one of his like Achilles heels last year.

Like everyone knows he's one of the fastest drivers in the world in qualifying.

That's not a question. He sp smacked it on pull,

fine, wet start.

We're stepping who we know doesn't give a care Right.

And is gonna be good in the wet, gonna be good off the line, is gonna be able to handle it.

And he did. So, um, I'm excited

because I think it's gonna be, um, another year of back to, what was it with Lewis and, and Max 21, 22.

21, 21. I think we're gonna have that.

I think we're gonna have the, that Lando, Oscar McLaren powerhouse.

I think it's dumb to say that Red Bull is not gonna make a step and figure some things out, especially at your kind of, um, more traditional Barcelona's austria's, the tracks that they've been dominant on for the past five, six years.

I think obviously Mercedes has taken a step Ferrari.

I think that was actually an outlier.

You know, I would, I wouldn't be surprised if they're actually more competitive this weekend in China.

Um, so I think we're actually gonna see a title fight, not only between Lando, Oscar and Max, but potentially between Lando, Oscar and Max George Charles Lewis, which is pretty amazing.

Unreal. Couldn't Ask for, couldn't ask for anything

More.

You really couldn't. Um, except for, you know,

maybe not changing the rules next year.

So, uh, enjoy it while it lasts 'cause it won't. Mm-hmm .

Um, hope 2025 keeps you entertained enough to hang around for the next three years.

Well, everybody sorts out the new cars.

Um, but you, you mentioned Lewis, certainly I agree with you.

I mean this track's always been a little bit of an outlier performance wise.

It's not one that you can really assess, um, a car's general performance on.

But I think that, I, I'm trying to think back.

I don't know if there's ever been more attention around a driver going into a race than what Lewis was facing in, in Melbourne.

And you've got a guy that's obviously had tons of attention on him for his entire career and even for him, I can't help but feel like it was maybe a bit of an overwhelming weekend.

The amount of attention and pressure and expectation that was on him just being a Ferrari for the first time and the weekend was up and down.

I thought he did a great job in qualifying to get that close to Charles.

Obviously the team missed the something in qualifying a little bit.

Uh, and then they Ferrari themselves in the race strategy wise.

But I thought, you know, the radio interactions with his engineer were interesting and I thought he handled them pretty well.

Uh, all things considered because it's, everything was new and it was a condition he'd never seen before.

But, uh, not the result that they wanted.

But I think there's a lot of potential there.

So I'm with you. I think if, if that team, you know,

at a different track has the pace, those, those guys are both gonna be fighting for wins.

Mm-hmm. And it's gonna be really cool seeing

Louis' first win in a Ferrari.

Yeah. Yeah, for sure. Couldn't agree more.

So br let's talk about stuff that is more directly related, related to us.

Um, well just run us through the weekend.

I want to give 'cause we don't really need to talk about it, but I wanna give a huge shout out.

Um, what the seven car has done over the past 36 hours of motor sports is incredible.

Like they were, they were pretty dominant in Daytona.

They were incredibly dominant in Sebring.

And it's hard enough to win two, two hour races back to back to win the two biggest endurance races in North America.

Back to back against all of the competition that we know exists in GTP and IMSA and the talent of drivers and teams, et cetera, et cetera.

That's crazy. So good job. Them must be nice. Um,

Must be great.

Wish we could've done that when I was in that car, but whatever, Whatever it happens, um, yeah, no, great for them.

Congrats to all the, all the class winners.

Um, for us on the faf wagon, the plaid mobile, it was a tough weekend, honestly.

It was a, it was a bit of a bit of a struggle weekend.

We um, wasn't that it To be expected?

'cause you were like one of the only teams that didn't test. Right. We were

One of the only teams that didn't test and, and we definitely felt that it is the team's first year with the car.

So that's even more on top of that.

Uh, we obviously have two great, very experienced drivers in the car with Marco and Andrea, so I wasn't too, too worried.

Our engineer David has experienced with the car, albeit in a different championship.

Um, so yes, it was always gonna be a little bit of an uphill battle, but we were, you know, hopeful going in.

I think it's twofold.

I think as a team we definitely did not hit the hit the setup correctly.

Uh, we did not get where we needed to go, um, where we needed to be.

But man, it's so funny. Like you do Daytona, right?

And you've got the roar and then you've got the race weekend and even then every year we sit there and be like, man, I wish there was more time.

Like we just didn't have a lot of practice.

Like I didn't get a lot of laps in, you didn't get a lot of lapse in.

I never tried new tires. Like man,

I just wish we had more practice.

You've so much practice at Daytona compared to Seabring .

Oh yeah. Oh yeah.

Or two practice sessions at Seabring before you go into the, the night session kind of thing.

So it it slaps you in the face, man.

And because we didn't test, we have to set up the car, so we need the, the main guys in the car to feel it out and whatever.

So we were having some issues.

Um, the first session we had a bit of a mechanical problem and some, some car stuff like setup wise.

So then the second, so I didn't get in the car, car second session, supposed to get in the car.

But, um, we had some reds, we had some mechanical issues again.

They threw me in the car. I tried

to do the last 10 minutes on my out lap, the red came out and then they ended the session.

So I literally had an out and in.

And then we go to the night session where I was never scheduled to drive at night.

And so my only I, so what time?

10 laps only laps. You get

Only laps.

I got 10 laps in the car at Seabring before the start of the race in conditions.

Completely un representative of what I was gonna be faced in the race.

So that was an interesting thing.

But, um, honestly man, like I felt comfortable out there.

It was nice, it was nice to kind of jump in and not feel like I needed much more than that.

I mean, I would've loved more than that, but like I didn't feel like I was missing anything too badly by only doing a couple labs.

Um, and then the race.

And then, so then the other side of it was, and I, I hate saying this and this is what I've always hated and we talked about this a hundred times on here.

The BOP for our car at this track was not great.

Um, as we've said before, there's one kind of BOP that's Daytona very specific for that track.

Our car was very fast there. We were good.

We switched over to Seabring now and the rest of the year's BOP.

And it's not, it's not awesome.

So I am hoping that the team gets some help on that.

The manufacturer gets some help on that moving forward because the car is very heavy.

Everybody's power is the same now with the torque sensors.

That's the point. So you don't have

to worry about power necessarily.

Um, a lot of it's acceleration and we are the heaviest car, so that's hard on tires.

It's hard on, hard on lots of stuff anyway, so we knew it was gonna be a long race and a long race was just made longer because, uh, within the first two hours we had two separate sensors fail that were mandatory SA sensors.

So we had to come in and change them and we lost a lap for each one.

So, you know, one of the rules in IMSA is you have to have a minimum tire pressure.

Uh, it's a minimum average over a lap after a certain number of laps.

Well, one of the, one of the pressure sensors went out and then there was the torque sensor, um, you know, tied to the new.

So, okay, I understand the torque sensor, um, because that's how they control everything.

The all TPMS failed or just one and you had to pick to replace one.

Yeah, just one. And we had to pick to replace it. That

That's a mandatory pit sub one.

They think you're gonna somehow cheat and gain an advantage on one tire.

Yeah, I don't know. I don't know. I guess that's

What, That seems impressive.

So, so yeah, I understand If like the module went out that sent like all of 'em via Tom, but, But it's, it's tough because they're the, the torque sensor, the part that failed is, is a part that you have to buy for the rules from the person you have to buy it from.

You don't touch it or modify it.

It just is a failed component. So that's just bad luck.

And then the other one that failed, there's kind of a homologation concern on the Lambo.

It's getting a little bit too in the weeds here, but again, nothing we could have done about it.

We had to install it the way it was installed and ultimately led to a failure.

So it's a bummer.

Um, and we just never caught, I mean, we thought we were early enough in the race, we can still get the laps back and still, you know, fight for a top five maybe whatever.

Dude, we just, we had six hours of green flag, seven hours of green flag or something in the middle of that race and just would never able to get the Laps back.

So knowing all, all the yellows were in the beginning, like there were so many yellows All in the beginning of like, Yeah, l and p clown shows.

And we even had, we even had two that could have been eligible, but in both cases the gt one of the GT leaders stayed out ahead of us.

So we never got the wave around.

So it was, it was just one of those days, man.

But, um, big learning day, uh, fun to be back in the car.

Sebring is a wild event, man.

I don't know if, I mean, it's something you gotta see.

It's, it's a totally different vibe from Daytona and it is wild.

Like the end of the race. Everybody runs to turn seven

and light a pile of couches on fire.

You know, certain parts of the infield are up to some very suspect things, Debaucherous things, Very debaucherous things.

Lots of, lots of, you know, creation happening, I think in, uh, in the infield of Sebring during, uh, creation during the 12 hour things. Memories.

Oh, I thought you were thinking Humans.

Oh, maybe, yeah. Maybe a little bit of everything.

Um, the whole spectrum. So no, it was, it was fun.

The, uh, so funny travel story.

Of course, I had booked a flight on Sunday back to Indie on the later side.

I think it was like a three o'clock flight because my, you know, you're staying in Seabring.

Orlando's a two hour drive. And I was like, race ends late.

And in case we do well and we're celebrating maybe into the early hours of Sunday morning, I don't want to have to wake up at six and do a two hour drive with little sleep.

So I booked a later flight, well at around 11:00 PM I'm like, okay, well clearly we're not celebrating much tonight.

I can get to bed early, I can get to the airport.

There's an 11 o'clock flight, I'll get on that one.

So I switched my 11 o'clock flight, get to the airport and there's already rumblings of some weather that's moving in on the east coast.

So at one point we had a ground hold for like 45 minutes and I ran into buzzkill at the airport.

He was flying straight to Palm Springs.

Well, he had a, he had a travel day from hell. But that's not our

Story to tell.

Yeah. Hellacious travel day. Mm-hmm .

Uh, well it's kind of tied in 'cause we were texting each other 'cause his plane was supposed to leave about an hour before mine.

He ended up being on the tarmac for like two hours back and forth, whatever.

They ended up having to dump fuel.

We were talking to you about that.

So I, I'm starting to worry that this is gonna be the same story and it's gonna be bad.

The weather broke enough. We got clearance.

We were about 45, 50 minutes late, but got in, took off.

No problem. I land to like everybody else I know

that was in Sebring that had a later flight, call it noon or back.

And they're like, oh, delay, delay, delay.

Canceled or like delay, delay, delay.

Misconnection canceled, stuck in Atlanta, stuck in Detroit, stuck here, stuck in Orlando.

The number of people that got absolutely hosed on that day.

Like a lot of my team flying back to Toronto, 10 hours in the Atlanta airport.

Brian got rerouted three different times.

Ended up it was, had like a 21 hour travel day.

By the time it was all said and done, my manager Don ended up having to spend the night in Orlando.

No hotels available because every flight got delayed and canceled and whatever.

So it was just like an apps.

And so I was sitting there being like, if I hadn't changed my flight, it would've been, Or you had some like level of success.

Well, here's the thing. I would care less if it, it was

because we were celebrating a, a result.

Right, right, right. If we had a ba if we finished 10th

and I got, so I've spent an extra day in Orlando.

Yeah, bad. It would've bad. Very upsetting. Very upsetting.

Um, so yeah, luckily I was so lucky I made it, enjoyed a really nice afternoon at home.

Um, but it's funny because Brian and I were flying Southwest, uh, out there.

We flew together out there and we had this hilarious thought.

Imagine you've got like a relatively early boarding and you know, it's not a full full flight.

You got a relatively early boarding number.

He was like, how about the strategy of just like sitting in an empty row in the middle seat?

Oh, I've done it. Because people will walk by

and be like, that guy's actually insane.

I've done it. That person's

so crazy. You've done that. Have done

It.

You seen the video? No. Have you seen the video of the guy

who like, as people are boarding, he is like tapping the seat next to him, like inviting them to sit next to him.

Like see, like stroking the sea. Like yeah, this one's

Open.

Nobody would take it.

It's like, hey, here's a way to make sure That.

I just Thought it was hilarious Though.

I did the, I did the middle thing and then it got towards the end and someone called me out on it and so I ended up sitting in the window and they sat in the aisle.

But still the middle remained open. 'cause it Right.

'cause it was late enough in. Yeah, yeah. Yeah.

It's not a bad strategy.

'cause you do look pretty insane sitting in a middle seat by yourself. Mm.

I feel like Alex can give people just, people just assume.

People just assume that you're saving it for someone.

I don't think, like, I didn't get like literally the question was are you saving that for someone?

And I was like, no. And they were

like, .

Okay. In that case I'm gonna keep moving. 'cause that's

Weird. Yeah, yeah.

Yeah. it still ended up

with them thinking you were insane.

How was your sim day pal? Sim

Day was good.

We don't need to talk about that. No one really cares.

Um, I flew my airplane down though. This is a cool story.

Um, and I had a 49 knot tailwind down the pipe.

Pushed to pass at One point point.

At one point I was doing 269 miles an hour over the ground, which Nice is incredible.

Um, and all it did was really make me want a bigger plane, faster plane to do that without wind.

Um, because it was pretty, pretty legit.

I got from Zionsville to Concord, North Carolina an hour and 38 minutes.

Seriously. Which is faster than an American Airlines flight

can get from That's international to Charlotte.

A hundred percent. That's insane. Yeah.

Yeah. That doesn't actually make a ton of sense.

It does because I don't have to climb to 32,000 feet and I'd also don't have to fly departure and arrival corridors.

Yeah. I'm just a straight shot, so. Yeah. Yeah.

Interesting. Okay. Mm-hmm .

So what uh, what are we shopping for?

I think I heard, I heard Han's got a jet for sale. .

There was an interesting bit of news over the weekend.

IndyCar related. Was there?

The Arlington date was announced for the race next year.

Okay. And the dates irrelevant.

It's just, it just fired up all the people that once again have issue with us racing in Texas and it not being at TMS and I just, people, I'm so over it, man.

Yeah. I'm so over it. You didn't go uninteresting.

You didn't go to the race. Yeah,

the race had been bad for five years.

It was like, stop.

How can anyone be upset about what was presented in terms of the Grand Prix of Arlington?

It looks so sick.

Oh, it's just a parking lot course.

You know, be follow the leader racing.

I'm like, we had freaking follow the leader racing at Texas Motor Speedway because the track was so bad at the end.

Mm-hmm . Like stop. Mm-hmm . Just give up. Mm-hmm .

It's like the, I hate to say this, I'm gonna regret saying it, but I'm probably, you know, I'm still gonna say it. Welcome

To my life, bro.

the people that are upset about not racing at, sorry about racing at Arlington instead of racing at Texas Motor Speedway.

I'm not saying that you can't miss the racing at Texas and hope we go back one day, but I'm saying the people that are like anti Arlington because that you think we should instead be racing at TMS.

You are. This is gonna hurt.

This hurts to say you are no longer the fan that we're looking for to be honest.

Because you, you're so stuck in what Indy car was.

You're old. It's not even that.

It's your, you're, you, you vision of the, of the series is old, right?

Like sure we have to grow at the times, right?

Did I love racing at Texas when it was good.

I loved that place. I loved some of those old races.

I had a blast at Texas before they repaved it and ruined the track.

Nobody showed up. It's not worth driving two 20

and risking your life at a track that, that has terrible racing that no one is watching.

Like what, what is the point? What is the appeal?

And to think that we're like deviating from the DNA of IndyCar racing.

'cause we're going to another street course guys, street courses are fun.

They're great events. They get good attendance.

This is why every F1 track that's been added over the last five years has been a street course.

Like it's, it is the future of the sport.

We gotta stop living in the past.

We gotta embrace the future.

These races can be good races, they are great events.

So just, I would love to add another mile and a half track to the schedule.

A hundred percent. It's just gotta be one that makes sense.

And as soon as we find one that makes sense, I'll be the first guy in line to promote it.

To buy a ticket, to be a part of it.

You know, I think it's great for the series, but to sit here and say, excuse me, to sit here and say not going to Arlington is the move and going back to TMS is the move is just, it's shortsighted.

You're stuck in the past. Please understand

what they're doing as a series is the right thing to do.

And join us. Come on man. It'll be fun. I promise you.

It'll be a, it'll be a great event.

Um, that's my little rant on that Was retweet favorite quote Tweet thumbs up. All

That jazz Double tap heart . I

Well it's race week speaking.

Oh, welcome. Welcome to the show.

Tim, you uh, seemed like you had a nap. You had some food.

Did you finish your lunch? You left,

You left at one point. Um, so now you

Just, I forgot that I had To just running the timeline, So I went and grabbed it.

I kept seeing you look at your phone and like refreshing a certain page and smiling a lot.

What were you looking at ? Is that

I was, uh, your Instagram profile.

Oh, okay. That's creepy. Um, yes Alex,

we are headed back to thermal.

It is not a Fake faux race.

Yes. Whatever that was like exhibition race

and built for built, unquote built for tv.

So it's a full race weekend. Um, what's, what's the deal?

What are, what are we doing with Ty Tires was a huge conversation piece last year.

I read something about the tire rule that they tried in St.

Pete is going away. Is that

Correct?

No, no, no, no, no, no. Oh, sorry. It's

Just, I just read the headline.

I didn't read the article.

There was a change to the tire rule, uh, this off season that is giving one more set of alternates.

Um, less in in Replay taking away. Yeah.

And right. So same total set of tires.

Um, just one more red, one less black.

I think they're so concerned about the dagg of thermal that they're like, Hmm, no, no, we'll give you that black back and take away a red because lord knows you won't need it.

Um, so this is a one-off amendment to the rule based on the perceived level of dag that is going to exist.

Thermal. Um, so that is the situation.

Uh, I think they're right for doing that.

Um, because let's be honest, last year was, you know, high seventies maybe touched the low eighties at some point, um, was a car that was 105 pounds lighter.

And you had myself and Colton driving around 28 seconds off the pace and heat races trying to save tires knowing that there was gonna be a competition yellow and the whole field was gonna be re bunched regrouped.

And we were gonna have fresher tires to drive through the field in theory.

Um, so what that's gonna mean with temperatures in the high eighties, low nineties, 105 pounds, um, is potentially pretty bad things in terms of tire life.

Um, and but that is yes, In the, in those races you are on the, the blacks, you're on the hards.

Yes, we were on the blacks James. Yes. Good.

Yes. So, okay, so the reds are, are like,

there's just no way, I mean you have to use them now, right?

I mean in the, in at the exhibition race last year there was no tire rule.

Reds didn't even exist, Right?

So you have to use them at least for some amount of lapse.

Well yeah, you have to, yes.

It's the same tire rules in the race.

So you have to use the set of new red. It's some point,

It's gonna be take two, everyone's gonna start.

Correct. But all the, all the idiots

that started on primaries in in St.

Pete will now just start on, uh, on the, the sauce.

It's not nice to call your podcast host and idiots.

Okay, fine. All the idiots in the top 10. Yeah.

Scott McLaughlin. Dude, it was like

Start on prime.

It was like four. The top six

Six.

No, I know. Wild. Wild. Absolutely wild. Um,

Um, interesting.

Although look from a TV standpoint, I wish they hadn't done that and that you guys had to do like four pit stops in the race and do like three Oh James four lap stints with James.

Yeah. St. Pete already added a pit stop from last year.

So it's gonna be an extra stop from whatever like the normal should be. Yeah,

That's True. I promise you that. That's true.

Well the tires are different though, right?

The street course tires not the road course tire.

So we're not sure the level of increased debt have they?

So, okay, we talked about this before. St.

Pete Firestone was asked and tasked with, um, making the, the difference between the hard and soft bigger and degradation on the sophomore, which yep.

We can safely say was accomplished was the same like mandate requested for the road course tire In a different way.

Um, by making the prime harder.

So that that, like I agree with a lot, you know, they, they realize the weight and the demand, especially on some of these, um, high grip road courses.

We go to Barber Road America Laguna, now that it's repaved, um, it makes a lot of sense to make a more durable prime tire, which will give the separation in lap time delta to the alternate.

Right. Um, but yes,

for street courses it was the flip flop make the alternate softer so it it could be fine.

Um, in term the prime actually, I mean it is a more robust tire.

Uh, so it might be fine. It doesn't matter.

The alternate is still going to be hellish. Uh, yeah, yeah.

But everyone's gonna have to deal with that.

And yes, you're gonna see a very similar thing to St. Pete.

Yeah. 'cause the soft is still gonna be softer than

what the heart was, what We had last year.

Right. Sorry, The alternative is still gonna

Be soften Prime Last year.

The prime we had at the exhibition. Yes. Right.

Got it. Got it. Correct. Which was already not hard. It

Was our challenge, not awesome. Yeah,

Just be fun.

I'm looking forward to it. At least.

It's gonna be 90 degrees in the car, At least .

Um, the, the, the good news for Tim though is there's a 100% chance of, uh, less telescope, telescopic robberies.

Um, Tim, oh shoot. I forget what I was gonna ask.

You. Were gonna Ask if that guy went to jail. Yeah,

Yeah, yeah. That is what I was

Gonna ask.

Well, I never got an update.

They were like, we we found that like we, we've arrested this guy and here's a laptop.

I was like, do you need anything from me?

Like, am I a witness? They're like, nah,

not really. It was just like he

Admitted to everything.

He had all the stuff in his apartment, like pretty slam dunk case.

I have no idea. I have no idea if, if he was prosecuted,

if, if anything came of it. I,

My my experience with cops is when it's clear, um, what has occurred, they don't really do much investigation.

I was just gonna say, I feel like if you have to call the police for something, they, they should call you back later when it's resolved to tell you what happened.

Like if you call the police, 'cause you hear somebody screaming, they should be like, okay, here's the tea. It

Was just a Call of Duty tournament. ,

the guy was very into it. Everything's fine.

The gunshots you heard were from the game. I'm

Not asking for anything, anything other than like, I'm just, I want to know. Right.

So I'm just gonna throw this out. There.

Reason should do it. I don't think,

I don't think there's a lot of police departments that have what they would classify as like a ton of free time. Add that into their

Workload.

I think we should have a follow up rep that just, that works to the police department.

That just lets everybody know.

I think that you shouldn't be allowed to have opinions on these things or most things.

Quick, quick question. Have either of you, um,

we're going into some long travel for James.

Have either of you watched the Gorge yet?

Um, yes, I have watched the Gorge.

It it vaulted Tim, have you watched The Gorge?

No, I haven't. Spoiler alerts.

Turn it off if you haven't seen The Gorge.

'cause I feel like we're talking about it now. No,

I'm not gonna talk about it.

I'm just gonna encourage everyone that hasn't seen it to watch it.

It went probably into my top 10 movies that I've seen.

I loved it. I love Okay. Everything about it.

Okay. Um, I love the storyline.

I love the two characters. I love the plot twists.

I love the soundtrack.

I I just thought it was, it, it ticked all my boxes, guys.

Um, I don't know what that says about me, but, uh, I'm learning stuff.

You should watch it. Yeah.

Yeah. It's, look, I I'm with you.

I'm with you on like 70% of that stuff.

Some of the, some of the plot stuff was a little soft, a little, little, little, little comic booky in some respects for me.

Right. Which that's your thing. That's cool.

But for me, I, because it started off so strong and I didn't think, think it was going quite that way.

So there was the, the pivot down there. I was like the

CGI pivot.

I didn't love. Yeah, exactly.

But I still think that everything else elevated it.

Yes. My least favorite part

of the movie was below the, the Surface. Yes. Okay.

Yes. The rest of it I love. But

Everything else was phenomenal.

So I don't know. Um,

I almost wish there had been a way to do it and still make it interesting without ever seeing what was down there.

Like the unknown of it All.

I thought that's where it was going.

Same, But it, but it didn't, but whatever. Do

You, do you think you could, you could do that.

Do you think you could live in a guard tower for a year without any communication with anybody and like knowing there's another person right there, but not talking to them?

I feel like Alex could do that with ease.

I, well, I think I would do everything you're supposed to communicate with that person minus the zip line across the Expanse.

I don't know that I had the balls to do that. Um, this is

So weird hearing about it.

I've never even heard of this movie. And now I feel like ,

But, uh, well dude, it's the, it's the girl from, uh, the Queen's Gambit.

Yeah, no, I looked it up. Anna Taylor

Joy or whatever her name is.

Yeah. Anyways, watch it. You're gonna be on a plane.

Some of you hopefully joining us in thermal.

Tim, you're gonna be on your couch and, uh, James, I will see you this weekend. When do

You, when do you fly?

Tomorrow morning. When do you fly?

Tomorrow morning. What airline are you on?

I'm on the American one. What are you on? Mm,

I'm on la the Lata, The French one.

May we I, uh, I tried to get on an American flight and it was booked, so I went on a LA Delta flight.

Are you going LAX or are you gonna to Palm Springs?

I'm going to Puff and then to Pisa.

Oh, okay. Yeah. I'm going to

Slick.

Oh, slick. No slick then. Lax Slick

To PIs? No, to PIs.

Oh, okay. When do you fly outta lax?

Uh, Monday afternoon To Nert Toner. .

Nice.

Oh yeah, we're Nerds.

This, this bit went about a minute and a half longer than it should have .

Okay. I love it. That note. Yeah. See you next

Week.

We go. But we'll also exclusively talk about airports in

their, in their acronyms, but spoken out loud. You right.

What's, what Is the name of that? Like nasa. What?

It's an acronym, but you pronounce it as No, it's whatever. Somebody,

It's, it's, uh, initial and Initialism.

Okay. All right. Good luck,

Gentlemen.

This has been off track with Hinch and Rossi.

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Bald Eagles, Sebring, and Thermal

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