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This is off track.
That's early long time. No. See James, how you doing pal?
I haven't seen you in hours. I'm doing well. I
Haven't seen you in hours.
I got a nice, I got a nice sleep last night.
A nice properly length sleep last night, thanks to you.
No problem. I didn't, no, no fault of anyone's.
I just that so much, so much caffeine on a Sunday that like I just can't sleep.
So is that like just your typical race day, like caffeine boost or did you take extra caffeine 'cause you were flying home after a race?
Um, yes. Got out,
Got out.
I think, I think a banana might be the worst thing to eat while recording a podcast.
Just in terms of the sound, Please feel almost time.
It's breakfast time guys. .
It's, we're doing this on Monday morning, which we don't normally do.
We, we haven't even done a Tuesday Morning at 9:00 AM Yeah, we're doing it Monday morning on 9:00 AM after a race weekend.
'cause we care that much about you.
And we were actually, James and I were talking about this on the way to the airport yesterday, Sunday, um, after the event.
And we are still, still blown away and also appreciative of all you who listened to this show.
Um, because it is, it's now everyone that I come across at the track, every single one of you, um, mentioned the show and how much you despise Tim.
So, you know, it's just a win on all fronts. Yeah.
For really all of us. And it's great. Yeah.
So thank you. Maybe
Not all of us.
I get Look. No, Tim also admit
You're back. So
I'll admit I get the odd person asking like if you're here, um, oh, me Too.
Because they just so they can find you and make fun of you.
Well they, a lot of them want like the picture trifecta.
Right. A a lot of them want a picture with all three of us
to say they've done it, which is greatly appreciated.
My, my usual is thank God no, you know, .
Um, but um, they do ask, they do ask.
It's not, it's not that they care, but they do ask. Okay,
So you had a big weekend, Tim, you uh, you ran a race for really no reason.
Um, yeah. Do you wanna talk about that?
I mean, same could be said to you pal. .
I mean, I Get paid to do the race.
You did it outta just, I don't know.
Did you at least raise money for some worthy cause or something? No,
I sure didn't.
I spent, um, I, I thought about it like the amount that I spent to get here and then also like pay the registration.
Let's break that down. So, I mean,
obviously we're talking about the Indy Mini Marathon.
It's a half marathon here, uh, in Indianapolis.
Let's, from from the day you decided to do this, At least a thousand dollars because you, I don't know if it's at least, But it's gotta be close.
Let, let's talk about the pure financial commitment.
Nevermind the emotional and physical commitment.
Uh, yeah, I mean the registration and then I, like I bought all the pre stuff.
Like I brought, I got the, the pre photo package thing, which I don't know how to get.
I, I got like the, IIII paid to get my, my metal engraved with my name and my time beforehand.
Yep. But Tim, but I didn't find where to do
that. But . But for
For sure you spent like $185 on shoes, right?
Yeah. Yeah. Okay.
It's for sure. You spent $500 on flights?
Probably. No, probably Didn't.
Thousand booked in advance. I booked in advance.
I'll, I'll pass, I'll pass.
I'll give him a pass on the flight.
'cause he comes to Indie in May.
No, but he's coming back. Oh
Right.
He's going home. That go tomorrow. Yeah.
No, this was just for this. No,
that was okay. Mm-hmm. Yeah. You're
Mean.
I stayed with family, right?
So I didn't have to pay for lodging.
You're in this a k maybe A little. What about less? But
What about all of the beers you consume yesterday to replace the calories you burned That courtesy of our good friend Depu . Oh, nice.
Deep. Got his credit card out.
. I went and watched, uh, I watched the race, uh, with BI
and Depu and uh, so that, that part, Let me guess.
No, there were Ubers there started with Coach And we did not go to coaches.
We went to, we went to Bischoff's Place.
Oh Wow.
I, it's funny because I was, I was actively texting with them.
I was actually actively texting with B and Deep with the entire race ever once mentioned you were there.
Yeah, we were talking about, 'cause we really wanna know why Jack Harvey is called dj because that was Just, yeah.
I also don't uncomfortable.
I do love that Nolan threw that out there.
And we will now investigate that .
Are you sure that Nolan didn't get Jack?
No. Confused with actual dj?
No, no, no. That, that's what I thought happened. Okay.
So when Jack was doing his grid walk, he found Nolan and Nolan just put his helmet on and they, they did a quick interview and he goes, Hey, what's up dj?
And in that moment I was like, oh no, that's so bad. You thought it was
DJ Clark? Yeah.
Yeah. And then, um, and then,
and then Jack kinda looks at the camera.
He is like, luckily nobody knows why. That's my nickname.
And kind of keeps going.
And so it was like immediately which Way worse. Now we need
Yeah, you've totally just opened Pandora's Box there pal.
We will be finding out and we will be broadcasting it on this show, which we now know is listened to by a lot of people.
Um, so I, I do want to touch on, on the off track listeners, because there was some funny things that happened during many, first Of all, phrasing.
Please don't, I mean we're gonna get gonna get you a lot of trouble if you start ing on the off track Listeners.
That's right. Not without consent, obviously , um,
there was, so there was somebody before the race who recognized me from the podcast.
And, and that was, that was cool.
And then as I was running up Main Street in Speedway, somebody goes, Hey, it's Tim Durham.
And I was like, that's awesome.
Like somebody from off track is, is recognizing me running.
At the end of it, people were like, come on Tim, you got this.
And I'm thinking, man, a lot of people recognize off track not realizing that I had a piece of paper with my name on it.
It's written. Yeah. Right there. Like they were just being
supportive 'cause they could tell I needed it.
That was just, that was just strangers helping strangers.
'cause I looked like I was about to die.
Fair. Like that was just the,
the the last mile support system. Yeah.
And I, and I needed it . What
Was your pace?
Um, I, I went in thinking that like I would, I just wanted to go faster than 12 minute miles.
Okay. And I did 1155 minute miles. Oh
Wow.
So, so were you like, do you have one of those apps that was like giving you speed updates?
Or was that just like, oh My, my reverse or whatever.
My, my trend is terrible. Right?
, it was like, I started at like 10 40, then 10 45, then 1115, then 1150 .
Like I just, I fell off, uh, right on the north ch of the track.
I fell off hard. Did
Right after you sent us a text message with a picture of you running across the bricks.
Yeah. Yeah. Um, did you
stop running at any point and walk or did you stay forward? No, I
Forward Momentum.
Okay. Forward momentum the whole time.
I did think I might throw up at one point and didn't. Okay.
So that I almost did, but no stayed.
I was getting passed by people who were like pushing other people because they have this, like, they have this program where if people can't run it, they, they're like in their, they're running wheelchairs or whatever and a volunteer will push them the length of the course. .
And I was passed by one of those guys, which was not great. ,
I'm sorry you did it. I didn't.
I'm not, I'm not, that's, I'm not gonna, I picked My base back up after that happened. I was like, I least
Pass guy.
Yeah. That's a s nice motivator. That's a nice shot. Oh man.
So, um, would you ever do something like this Again?
I, right after I finished I said never again.
And then like two days out I was like, yeah, maybe.
It's like, it's like doing Daytona. Yeah. .
It could be a fun tradition, right?
Like I gotta, I have a very easily beatable pr , you know, You got a goal, you got a benchmark.
Now. Uh, Tim, if if, if it's a free weekend next year
and you do it, I will do it with you.
How about we both do it. I don't wanna do it with you.
That was the mistake I ran with my brother and he was like a much faster pace than I was.
So that's where I think I hit that wall.
Oh, you tried to keep up at the, at the beginning. Yeah.
I did that once. We did the, the Turkey trot,
which is just like a 5K on Thanksgiving morning.
Yeah. Um, but I did it with Dixon
and this was when I was younger and I wasn't as big a runner.
Not that I would be able to keep up with him even in my running prime, but I was like trying to keep up with Dixon for the first like 2K and that was a big mistake.
K three and four were not fun. .
I kept up with him for the first eight miles, which is why the last That's solid man.
Last five miles were terrible . Yeah. Yeah.
Well good. Congratulations buddy.
That's actually a huge deal. What
Did you do?
You, I'm gonna wear the hell out of this hoodie, by the way.
As you should. Um,
you burned 2200 calories or something during the run.
Yeah, yeah. 2,240.
So how did you, what was your go-to replacement meal?
Margaritas. Hmm. .
They hit. I love your health
and fitness journey you're on.
It's really, it's really inspiring for, for all of us, you know, know does this Running for no reason and, uh, just months Of training, placing It with alcohol and sugar.
Boom, boom.
Look, here's the way I look at it. You for sponsoring that.
I was going to have those margaritas either way, so like at least I balanced it out.
You were a couple days earlier. Today's Cinco de Mayo.
That's true. I'm also gonna have those today.
What are we doing later, James?
I don't know. We should probably go find somewhere to,
I guess this is the worst day to go try to find somewhere to have tacos.
So we're probably not gonna do that.
Oh, maybe I get Becky to make her salmon tacos.
She makes bal salmon tacos. I'll be you. Anyway.
Um, congrats. That was good.
Um, speaking of food, I got, I have a, I have a little grind my gears thing here.
Do you ever, Alex, do you ever buy soup from like, like not canned soup, like, you know, whole Foods?
Foods or soup? Yeah, yeah. Yeah.
I, I mean, I have, you have, I don't make a habit out of it.
It's a, it's a desperation play if like, I'm, yeah.
Yeah. So I'm not a big guy in general,
but I do like having one of those on deck for like an emergency last minute lunch or something. If I'm
In between like refrigerated. Yeah,
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
That's a bad idea. Don't check in the fridge. Why?
Well, because that's not meant to be stored. It's got no like,
No, for like, for like a week.
Like, I, I got, I do one a week. I
Do one a week still that's pushing it, but okay, Whatever.
So do you, do you remember how like, so they were in like the plastic jars, but then they've got like the plastic seal on the top?
Yeah. It's sort of like how like a yogurt thing
would have like the foil, right?
Yes. But it's this plastic seal and it's un rippable.
The lip that they give you to pull on it is too small.
The glue is too strong.
The structural integrity of the plastic jar is weak.
So as you try to, you, you are like, you are like pinching it as hard as you can with this tiny little lip.
And then as you try to pull it back, the thing's just folding in and you cannot actually rip infuriating the plastic off infu.
You have to get like a knife out and stab the plastic and rip it off.
And it's a mess every time.
And I am, I'm so mad at whoever invented these things. You clearly don't have the same,
I'm a hundred percent with you James . Okay. No, I
I I've never done that.
When I thought you were talking about the, like the hot soup that goes in the paper cups with The lids.
No, no, no. I'm not keeping that in my fridge
For a week.
Right. That's why I was like, you are a psychopath . Uh, no.
So I've no, I've never bought plastic soup. I'm
Gonna buy you a plastic soup thing 'cause I just want to see your level, your particular brand of frustration would be extra entertaining while trying to open one of These things. .
It would just nothing but patient .
I'm laughing too hard at that. I'm sorry.
No, I think you were laughing the appropriate amount. That's
Rude .
I think, I think that was fair.
Oh guys, I am in a weird mood right now. Mm.
A way too laughy mood for this time in the morning.
I, um, so I had a very nice flight home, which we'll talk about in a sec.
My flight out to Barbara, you know how we always talk about the early morning flights and people leaving the, the shades open?
This was happening and I, when I noticed it was happening, I was like, you've gotta be kidding me.
And I looked over and this guy is passed out face smeared up against the window with the sun just beaming like straight in.
I'm like, how is that guy even asleep?
Definitely that guy was in, he was in bad shape man.
But I just, I was like, I can't even, I can't even be mad at him.
Like he's literally gonna get a, like a sunburn on his face from this flight.
So I went down to Charlotte, um, on Wednesday to get in the sim before Barber I was on 4:30 AM or no, I woke up at four 30.
I was on a 6:00 AM flight. And um, I was supposed
to just be in the sim for the morning and a little bit of the afternoon and be on a two 30 flight home.
Had some stuff to do in indie and then was gonna fly my plane down with Ed Thursday, early afternoon sort of thing.
So get an extra, you know, 18, 20 hours at home.
And, um, so I board the plane in Charlotte and we pushed back.
And Charlotte, Charlotte is a very busy airport these days, especially in kind of the afternoon hours.
And so it was like a, it was an hour and it was like a 58 minute flight, uh, flight time.
But ultimately, like the slot they had booked from like your departure to arrival time was like an hour and 40 minutes.
So clearly they're putting a big buffer in for kind of traffic, uh, on taxiways and just getting up in the air, right?
And so we were on the, we were on the taxiway for a while and I, I wasn't bothered by it 'cause like that was to be expected and everything was fine and they weren't saying anything over the PA system.
And uh, my window shade was down and I was just watching a show and whatever.
And then like, it was about 50 minutes had gone by and I was like, this is, I mean, we should be, we should be pretty much like number one, number two in line to take off here.
And I open the window and I look and we are next to the taxiway and there's a line of like six planes that is just kind of shuttling in front of us.
And I'm like, okay, we're in one of those super small, like we regional jets.
Yeah. And I'm like, all right,
we probably are getting boned.
Like it's it's size prejudice here.
We're probably getting boned because they're trying to get the bigger planes out and you'll, they'll get to us when we can.
So I let it go and another 20 minutes goes by still nothing on the, on the intercom.
And I'm like, okay, like now we're gonna be late.
Like, okay, fine, 10 minutes late.
But like, it's weird that no one's saying anything and kinda let it go.
Another 20 minutes goes by still no one's saying anything.
Wow. And planes are just going by
and then all of a sudden I look to my left and there's no planes and I'm like, alright, well surely now it's our time.
Still didn't move. The next movement the plane made
was turning around.
Good, good. And going back to the gate. Good.
Still nothing on the radio or that's nothing on the, on the intercom.
And I'm like, this is really strange.
And so finally like people are start, I mean, it's a tiny plane, so people in row, like 15, you can hear and people are starting to like, like kind of get frustrated and antsy or whatever.
And so the flight attendant, I'm sitting like, the left side is only in the single seat and I'm in like row three.
So I'm like four feet from the flight attend .
So she, she picks up the phone and calls the, the cockpit and is like, hey, like people are getting restless or whatever.
So finally the, the captain comes on and is like, Hey guys, sorry.
Um, we had an a PU issue that we were trying to get reset and maintenance wants us to be safe.
A PU is auxiliary power unit.
It's the little engine in the back that controls all of the auxiliary stuff.
So it's not like super essential for flight, but like, you want it, I mean it's, you want, dude, they won't fly with the toilet not working, right?
If the EPU isn't working, they ain't going out.
Well they can, but anyways, right? Um, so they didn't.
And so we go back and, uh, they're like, no information.
They're just like, get off the plane and someone will update you.
And I'm like, that's pretty <inaudible> customer service.
Like, right, it, I understand there's maintenance failures, I understand there's things that happen.
You gotta keep people a little bit more informed of that and not just get off the plane and someone will talk to you.
Right? So anyways, we stand around the gate for a little bit
and there's nothing, nothing, nothing.
Finally they're like, go to gate E 15, there's a new plane.
Cool. So at this point we were only back in the terminal
for like 30 minutes, even though we're now like an hour and a half delayed, but we're getting reboarding and it was a fairly fast turnaround for getting a new aircraft.
So not a big deal. Get on it and push back.
And again, dealing with like a lot of traffic and, and all that sort of thing.
So the same sort of thing happens and we're sitting on the taxi wave for like 30 minutes and I'm like, all right, like to be expected watching my show again.
Then we're getting to the 50 minute mark again, still nothing from the pilots.
So nothing, nothing. And I'm running outta shows
here, right?
And uh, the next move the plane makes is turning around and they're like, uh, so this plane has an a PU fault.
Um, so we have to go back to the gate and now poop are pissed.
Oh yeah. So at this point, it's the same crew.
And I'm like, there's no way.
I think this crew, they gotta clock out soon. No, no.
I just think this crew sucks, right?
So anyways, we go back to the gate and I'm like, at this point it's, I would be getting into India at 10 o'clock and I'm like, this is dumb.
So I get off, I go to the gate agent, I'm like, cancel my ticket, I'll figure it out.
I'll go to barber tomorrow.
I'm gonna get stay the night, have a nice meal, get a full night's rest, all this sort of thing.
So I'll pause on my future travel adventure after I tell this story.
So I, I'm naturally curious flying airplanes and all this sort of thing.
So I want to keep track of when this plane, you know, actually got to where I was supposed to go anyways.
It was midnight after two missed approaches.
Like they, and it was no bad weather.
So I truly think these pilots were completely inept.
Not only did they go through two airplanes, Tim, you're muted.
Um, not only did they go through two airplanes in order to get on the, to get off the ground the first time, they couldn't get on the ground after two attempts at landing.
So, uh, probably a good thing I wasn't on it.
I can't imagine the passengers and the frustration they would've had when they were on their third attempt To land like the first one.
And then, yeah, this, and after the second time when you just feel the guy just hammer the throttle back down and like, take off again.
You're like, you have got to be kidding me. Yeah.
So my day just went, and this is where I believe I have a lot of patience.
'cause through all this, I was like, this is a a, a minor inconvenience, but I don't mind.
Like what, who cares many.
I'm gonna, it's where I need to go.
Let's say you hadn't switched off of that flight.
How many failed landing attempts before you walk up and you're like, Hey, I can do it. . No,
That's how you get arrested.
Um, so, uh, I, my engineer and some of the, and Christian and some of the people were staying at a hotel by the sim.
So I texted them like, Hey, let's go to dinner.
I'm gonna get a room. So I'm in the Uber 25 minute Uber back
to where they are booking a room on the Marriott app.
No problem. 150 bucks, all good.
Get there, go up to the front desk.
I'm like, hand her my ID checking in.
She's like, oh yeah, uh, we don't have you on the system.
I'm like, well here, here's, here's the, the confirmation.
Here it is, it's me and here I am.
And uh, she's like, oh, if you just booked it, yeah, we're having like a system issue and we're actually in, in negative capacity.
Uh, so I can't honor that booking.
Um, I'll refund it right now, but I don't have any rooms for you.
And I was like, oh, cool. So I'm, I just,
I'm now homeless in Charlotte.
Um, so, uh, that, that was just my adventures getting to barber.
I, I thought I handled it with a lot of grace.
I couldn't get to Birmingham.
So I actually had, did you bunk up with Christian and Drive?
Um, so where did you stay?
Across the street. Okay. There's plenty of hotel
That is just, dude, I, so flying down, I was on the same trajectory as, uh, Kevin Lee.
And we had a stop in Atlanta and then we were going to Birmingham and we had a, we had a similar kind of thing.
We pulled over on the taxiway leaving Indy and we kind of sat there for a minute.
I'm like, that's not great. And I
was watching the time disappear.
It was a pretty tight connection in Atlanta anyway.
And, uh, they had, they're like, I forget what problem they said they had.
They're like, yeah, we had some problem.
But we looked at it out there like, we just, you'd be fine.
Sat there, it's fine. I'm like, I don't love that.
I don't love that, but like whatever.
So, uh, so we take off and like we're doing the math in our head.
We're like, we gotta switch terminals.
Like this isn't gonna be good.
So we're like texting each other on the plane and we both had our Delta app up and we're like, they're offering us another flight 'cause we're not gonna make like, like we can maybe make it if we sprint.
Do we try? And we both was like, nah, pull, pull the shoot.
And we did the in flight adjustment to the next one.
So that was kind of nice. And look,
while we're talking travel, before we get into racing my flight home, I wanna talk about my flight home.
I had a great trip here, street home, . It was not the best
smelling trip I've had in the air.
Um, but it was so, uh, Alex and Ed were flying home and graciously, uh, agreed to let me hitchhike a ride back to get me home significantly, sooner than I would've been otherwise.
And, um, it was, there was some weather, I don't know like where that rates on your weather experience, Alex, At the bottom, that was not weather at the bottom. That was just some clouds.
Some clouds. But like there was some
turbulence in the clouds.
Dude, there's no turbulence until your head is literally pounding the ceiling and the autopilot disconnects. So no.
So that's happened. Oh yeah.
And that's okay with you . It's fine.
Okay. Yeah. I'm not gonna lie, it was, there was a few,
few, like jostle in the back, you know, back in steerage, , uh, that was, uh, some of the bigger like movements I have felt in a small aircraft.
And like, I wasn't worried, like I was fine, but it was just like, oh yeah, like it's clouds and small aircraft.
Like they're not a, they don't love it. Well,
No.
So that's why, you know, so what we were flying through was green and we've discussed the color scale, right?
Yes. Purple back.
I mean, moving, moving a, a significant amount, right?
But like completely within the threshold of the plane, right? Not a problem.
Not a Problem. Then you've got, then you've got yellow,
which is like, you're, you're moving more, but still, well, within the threshold of the plane, then you've got the specs of red where your head's gonna hit the ceiling and the autopilot's gonna disconnect.
But still, as long as you are like at the maneuvering speed, and as long as it's not like solid red, it's just little flickers of red again, you're fine.
Okay. Purple. You dead, you die. Right? .
So like, if you, if you think about the scale, like you were at a one out of four, right?
So you can imagine why the four is so bad, right?
And why it rips wings off. I can. Yeah, dude,
I don't even wanna, I I I would have nightmares even trying to imagine what red would be like based on that being green.
So, um, I was, let's put it this way, I was very happy I had not cracked my diet coke that I had 'cause I would've been wearing it , uh, and I would've I would've owed you a it bad.
No, no. There was a couple that like, it would've,
like the coke can would've hit the ceiling again.
Oh, I thought you were saying that the carbonation would've exploded.
No, no, no. If if it was an open can,
it would've been everywhere for sure.
But I want to clarify. You're saying
that if you had spilled the diet Coke on his plane, you would've owed him for spilling rather than he would've owed you for the diet Coke?
Yes, I would've because I, it's because it's his flying.
But I, no, no, it wasn't.
First of all, ed was actually piloting, um, okay, okay.
And I was observing.
You were, well, no, no, this leads to the next part of the story where you had a very active role in descent Jx.
I would like you to explain to everybody after this for me, a fairly choppy, bumpy ride home, you know, and then there's like some what, see this is okay, the previous, the previous like, I don't wanna say sketchiest, but like, one of the, like things I've been on my toes about in a smaller craft was with these two flying back, I think from Barbara a couple years ago, , it was when Alex, when Alex pulled off like a cross wind landing that was so impressive.
We came in at a 45 degree angle and he, and I'm like, okay, this is, hmm.
And the two of them are just like back and forth.
They sound like they're so calm.
I was so impressed at the communication reading off this, that, and the other, whatever.
Alex is just like raw dogging this thing down sideways into the air in the airport.
Crazy dude. So, and that was fine.
So my, that was my previous benchmark.
So now we've had some like turbulence, which for me was kind of turbulent.
And, uh, and then we're coming in and we're like, now we're landing in pure clouds.
Let me also just preface this by saying an hour left in the flight.
I'm listening to all this banter back and forth about the weather.
And it's like, mm, I don't think that the airport we're supposed to be landing at, it's gonna be good enough.
We should divert to the, to the international airport.
And there was this back and forth, and then the decision was made, okay, we're gonna go to international.
Like, okay, we're taking the safe route.
I'm just sitting in the back silent, I'm not asking questions, I'm just kinda listening and observing.
And then, and then we get 20 minutes down and there's some chatter back and forth.
And apparently things have have improved slightly at, at the other airports we're like, well, you know what, It's, it's not so, it's not so much they improved, it's that, so the weather reporting is, while it's, it is accurate, it is still a automated device that is reporting passing clouds, right?
So it's not, it's, it's, it's, it's real.
But it's also the reason why we decided to go back to the original airport was 'cause two planes, five minutes in front of us touched down and were actually able to cancel kind of their IFR clearance before they even got on the ground.
Which means they busted out of the kind of cloud layer before like the minimums, which meant it was more than good enough to get in.
So it wasn't right.
It was more that we, we would've, we would've still gone to the international airport had, um, two other planes, Those two planes not just in front of us.
Yeah. So you had like, like immediate real time
Feedback.
Pilot reports from someone that, it's like when you go to indie and your teammate goes out first at minus two and is like, it's fine.
You can come in at minus three if you want, and then you go to minus three and go out.
That's the racing equivalent of this now.
But, so in my head, I didn't know the details of that until after.
So in my head it's like, oh, the weather's not good at this one.
We're gonna go to, now the weather's good enough, now we're gonna give it a whirl.
So we now we head to the original one. I'm like, okay.
And we're flying through clouds and now we're coming down and we're just like, I'm looking out the window and I can see the wing almost, right?
Like I can almost see all over the way .
And so they're coming out and then something is going on.
I can tell something's not entirely right because Alex is like, I got it, I'm on it.
And then like, they're just back and forth and it's like, I'm like, nah.
And then Ed says something and Alex is like, I got it.
Just do that. And Alex was like, I got it. Fly the plane.
This is on me. And they're like,
and he's like pretty active and moving around.
I'm like, okay, okay.
Then we broke through the clouds and the landing was fine, but there was a moment there where I'm like, I don't know what's happening.
And I'm just looking down out of the window, like waiting for the ground to be right there.
Anyway, got down. Totally fine.
Alex, do you wanna explain what happened that required you to get so involved in the landing?
Uh, so on an instrument approach, you've got lateral and vertical guidance.
Um, and there was, there, there has been an off and on issue with the autopilot, um, and capturing basically the vertical glide slope.
So it's, it's using GPS to vertically descend you and keep you at the correct descent rate and to keep you at the correct altitude above any towers or terrain or, or that sort of thing.
The, that all was working in terms of the GPS and, and the plane was receiving the information for the lateral and vertical guidance.
For some reason, the autopilot itself was not flying the vertical guidance.
So the autopilot was tracking the center line of the runway and it was just fine, but it wasn't descending.
Um, it wasn't descending, so it just basically leveled out at an altitude and it wasn't coming down.
So the only thing that I was doing was I was just manually descending the plane myself following the glide slope with my hands and eyes.
So just adjusting the altitude to track the glide slope.
So it was, it was not a big deal.
Ed could have also just disconnected the autopilot and hand flown the plane to the needles, which is the lateral and vertical guidance.
So it wasn't, it wasn't as bad as it may have seemed, um, because where it would've been bad as if we weren't getting any glide slope indication in the first place, but we weren't getting exactly where we needed to be.
It just wasn't doing it automatically. Right.
So it was fine. Yeah. So
In retrospect, James, do you, are you glad that you were listening in to hear all this?
Or would you have preferred to have just landed in ignorance and not known that Alex was like, or would you have seen him doing something?
I'm still very conservative, so what we were doing was fine.
Ignorance is bliss. Ignorance is always bliss.
You, I, I like being blissful, but I, I'm also, I'm also, you know, weirdly fascinated with the flying thing.
And so I was happy to listen and uh, but yes, no, like I would've felt better if I didn't know what was happening.
But I was fine. I was fine.
I'm a good passenger. You were great in
Those situations anyways. Race cars.
So back to, yeah, now that you've listened to 30 minutes of a travel podcast, let's talk racing.
Barbara. Uh, Alex, good job. That was
A good day. Thanks James. That was
A good day.
I know that's your, yeah, that's kind of your tone about the whole thing, but Uh, Listen, I, I don't really want to talk too much about my weekend itself.
Um, 'cause there's a lot of underlying things.
Uh, the, the Cliff notes are, we, we had a test, um, and like most of my IndyCar career, uh, anytime you have a good test, it usually means the race weekend's gonna be.
Yeah. Um,
and so we, we had some, we, we just were really chasing our tails all weekend.
Um, I think we, we easily should have been in the top 10 qualifying.
I didn't, I I locked the front tire and turned nine and, and missed the transfer by six hundreds.
And that's just the way it is in the series.
And, and it was my mistake and that's fine.
So I was upset that, that I underperformed in qualifying.
Um, so that was motivation for me.
Uh, especially in the first stint when I, there was a tire offset.
So the team did a good job, uh, on pit lane especially.
We were fifth in the pits.
The strategy was called perfectly.
So we finished eighth, um, which I think was kind of our pace all weekend.
I don't think we were better than that.
Um, but so going into the weekend, there was a lot of conversation that we've had on this podcast.
Um, Nathan Brown put out an article that uh, referenced this podcast, which is totally fine.
And, and I stand by everything that, that we said, and I love Nathan.
And, and that's fine. Uh, there was a lot of comments that,
that I saw kind of come out of that.
And, and it was referencing kind of my, my quote post long beach of how like, I don't like this style of IndyCar racing.
And you know, my take on why there hasn't been any yellows is because, um, you know, the street course tire in particular, you can't, you can't push on the red can't hustle it.
Yeah. You can't hustle it.
So everyone's kind of driving to a, to a tire target, lap time target.
And so you're kind of at 85% of the capacity of the car.
And when you're that far under the limit, like you're not taking risks and it's easy to not crash.
Right. Going into barber, I was really expecting, uh,
because ultimately the tires remained unchanged from the alternate standpoint.
The primary was actually more robust, um, than it had been in years past.
And this has always been an alternate race.
Um, for the most part there's negative DG on the red now with the hybrid there, there was some dig, but it was still without a doubt the preferred tire.
But the point is, um, everyone was gonna go into this race as a three stop, no fuel save.
And because the, the red tire was as strong as it is and because the primary was actually even stronger, not from a performance standpoint, but but from a durability standpoint, it was gonna be a flat out race.
Everyone was gonna be a hundred percent the entire day.
And I was like, they're for sure gonna be yellows because it's a flat out, it's a flat out three stopper and people were just gonna hammer.
And there was no yellows. So no yellows.
My whole point and my assumption of why there was no yellows, which I thought was based on pretty good logic and facts was turned out to be completely wrong.
I am, I am, I don't know what it is, James.
I don't know why we didn't have a yellow and barber.
I don't know why there is, uh, the, the, the field, the, the field's always been talented.
There are still some guys in the field I think that are like, I don't know, I don't know why it's different.
A wood is your opinion. Like, I'm, I'm perplexed by it.
Dude, we sat in the car for an hour and talked about this. No,
I know, but you have to have our listeners. Like I
Know we're, we are both, we were just, we got into the car and just kinda looked at each other.
We're like, man, like what is happening right now?
It's, you know, the one person I heard say, oh, well the cars are too hard to follow now, so you're not as close to passing.
And they're always hard to follow.
Uh, I I don't think it's any different.
I don't think it's any different. And
There was still a race and lunges, like Dude at a race like barber where, and we'll kind of, we'll kind of get into like the race itself, but there was, there was a lot of ebbing and flowing 'cause the, the blacks were not as good as the reds.
And so at some point you came out on blacks and people were getting passed and people were passing people, like there was On track action.
Not everyone was on the same strategy. Right.
So there was exchanges and like Yeah.
And, and the pit windows were nice and big.
So it was always happening throughout a, like it was, and we had incidents in practice.
We had guys going off, look, we had two, we had, we had Ucci have a massive save outta three that could have very easily been a yellow.
We had foster go off in 17. That was so nearly a yellow.
But yeah man, I you, you guys are just driving good.
Can you stop it? I don't, I don't think it's that either.
I mean I, I'm very, I'm very, I'm perplexed. I don't know.
We have not, so it was the last time we had three consecutive green races was 1986.
And, and if we wanna be like weird about it, we've had 3.95 consecutive races.
'cause it was the first five laps of St. Pete.
First six laps of St. Pete. Were, were yellow.
And we've been green since it's been, it's been 300 and like 39 consecutive green flag laps.
I don't know. Look, we're going to any GP next turn one
turn seven something's happening.
Something has to happen. It's just like a long of average.
I mean something definitely ha something will definitely happen in the 500.
The five hundreds. Dude, you say that, do you imagine,
do you remember like 2018 or something?
We went like 152 laps before the first caution. You
Remember that until fricking bordea boned my chances of winning it was 2019.
19. Yeah, because he's over Simon. He's over it.
Simon kept, Simon kept leading and like he wasn't having any fuel.
Fuel and it was just like, oh, you're so hosed.
And then he got that yellow. Anyways, so it's,
IIII stand by what I said.
Um, I just was wrong.
Like I, I don't know why this is happening.
I don't think that Barbara was a bad race.
Like I think that no, it was actually a, a good race.
I don't think it needed yellows to be a good race.
I think you take polo out of the conversation and it was a great race, right?
Um, you know, what he's doing right now is crazy.
But I think throughout, I think the racing was good.
Like you can, it's a high speed road course with a hybrid that's heavy and <inaudible>, we all know that.
But you could still follow and you could still pass people and pretty much every corner.
So like, I thought it was very reasonable and for me that came because you're, you're, you're kind of like, you have tires that you can actually drive.
So I don't know. That's my,
That's my, yeah.
I look, I I don't think that your opinion on street courses is inaccurate because there were enough guys that dropped a wheel that had that been in a street course you'd be in the wall and that'd be a yellow, right?
So when you can push that hard, those things are gonna happen.
We just happen to have a green race. It happens here.
We've had it at mid Ohio.
We've had it at other road courses.
It's, it's not a thing that's completely unheard of.
Um, the race itself. Yes.
Here's what I loved about this race.
It was, it was a, it was imp if there wasn't a yellow off the start, no one was even contemplating a two stopper, right?
So everyone was gonna be pushing the whole day, which is the best.
It's what drivers love. It's what fans love.
It makes good racing and it's fun. The, sorry, three things.
The second thing was that the difference between the hard and the soft was pretty big.
Massive. And at some point you had to, you had
to swallow the pill that was the hard tire and figure out when you were doing that.
And it wasn't like super obvious what the answer was.
So bunch of different stints where people use the hard, so that mixes it up.
Love that. And the pit windows were big.
It wasn't like it was a three stopper with two lap windows.
So everything, all the action happened.
If you have an all green race, the only thing that saves it is big pit windows.
'cause if everyone's pinned within the same two laps, you have follow down four laps of crazy train action and then 25 laps of follow the leader.
Right? We did not have that. We had 13 lap windows.
And so guys were pitting early.
And how did the overcut versus the undercut and the blends and the out laps, like we had some really good racing not for the lead.
Granted fine. But
That's not IndyCar's fault. That's
Alex's fault.
That's nobody's fault. That's Alex's fault. Yeah. Yeah.
That's Or is it the rest of your guys' fault for not stepping the up?
Dude, dude, I came, I came into, I came into the trailer and you know, I was talking to Ed and, and Matt and Christian.
I was like, man, we all suck . .
Like this is getting embarrassing.
Like we are all not talented.
'cause this is absurd what he's doing to all of us.
It makes us look like fricking clowns.
He, he's the max for Stepin a IndyCar. He's just also in
A good car.
I, I really ho. No, I really hope so
because like I hope he's not like the fricking I don't Alex Alban of IndyCar . 'cause that would suck.
Uh, I have two, two follow ups. Just one.
'cause I know Alex, you wouldn't be able to contribute on this.
I thought Fox did a great job on the broadcast of focusing on the mid-pack battles and because if, if you were just watching the front.
Yeah, but I'm saying if you were just watching the front there, there could have been an argument that that was a pretty boring race.
You guys kept it entertaining by show, uh, showing and highlighting a lot of that.
So I thought, you know, kudos to you guys.
You made it entertaining to watch. Thank you.
Um, the other point I'll bring up is there's a lot of chatter online about like, would it be good for the series if below were to hypothetically go to F1 and, and, and go.
And I just wanted to hear your guys' opinion on that. 'cause it's like,
No, Would it be good to get rid of the best guy?
Like would it make it more entertaining?
But then what does that say? That's okay. Absolutely.
That was my opinion, but I just wanna hear. No, yeah,
Look, anytime, anytime someone dominates an F1, they all get, you know, bitchy about it and whatever.
But it's, it's just part of the sport man.
Like Jimmy Johnson dominated an NASCAR for like five straight years and you know, NASCAR wasn't gonna benefit from losing him.
Um, so no, I don't, I don't think I, I, yes, I see the, I see the theory in that, but I don't think in practice that actually works or makes any sense.
Um, thank you for the kind words about the broadcast because that one from our seat felt to me the whole weekend was the best weekend by far.
And you know, I've been saying this to you guys since St.
Pete. We're just gonna keep getting better and better.
More and more stuff's gonna come in and I thought everybody did a great job.
Definitely the focus on the battles on track was great.
You know, our director Mitch, is he came in here knowing nothing about Motorsport, did an incredible amount of research in the off season and has really, really started to figure out how to cut these races.
And uh, and it was awesome.
We had stuff that was working, um, for the first time.
Like we had our deltas in qualifying, which was great.
That's been something we've been working very hard at getting.
Um, I know it seems like it's something we should have been able to have from the beginning.
I don't wanna talk about it doesn't matter.
It's here now and and we've just got more stuff coming.
That's gonna be great.
Um, so yeah, that, that was a, that's a, that's a, it's a, it's a fun weekend.
It's a fun race to call because we had some challenges and not having yellows and able to set stuff up.
We still had to fit in all the things that you have to fit in, in, in a, in a broadcast from a sales standpoint without any yellows, which is tough to do when you've got a race that's actually pretty good happening.
So I, I, yeah, I thought everybody did a great job and it's just kind of great to see the whole team, you know, leveling up every weekend.
And it's just getting me even more excited for the 500.
I've also been, you know, part of some of the meetings about some of the stuff that's coming for the 500.
There's some fun <inaudible> coming I think.
I think it's gonna be cool. Any, anything you can preview
or just all surprises? I cannot, I'll
Surprise.
So before, before the 500 we've got, uh, the indie g which, you know, thank God we only do it once these days.
To do it four times a year.
Yeah. And, uh, there's, there's something new coming.
So in, in lieu of all of these conversations, whether people are vocal about it like us or not, uh, it's the been the common consensus that prior to Barber, the first three races weren't exactly stellar from a burners, from Right.
From an entertainment standpoint.
And so there's a new rule, uh, coming for the gp and I would like your opinion on it, James, because while I commend IndyCar for trying something, I don't know that it's the solution.
But again, like they're being, they're being proactive and they're not waiting till like 20 27, 20 26, sorry, to do something.
They're doing it in race five.
So what's happening is the tire rules in IndyCar have forever been, you have to run one set of a new version of each tire in the race.
And then whatever you do after that is kind of up to you.
Well now technically The rule doesn't say that the hards have to be new, but okay, The Reds have to be new, Whatever.
So you have to run a set of new alternates and then, sorry, obviously a set of my, Someone was gonna call us out on it.
I had to say it. My back.
I actually, someone was gonna call us Actually.
I actually didn't know that. So , uh,
you learn something new every day, guys.
Hey, every day, 10:00 AM on a Monday morning, already got in for the week, 10 Years into your career.
Yeah.
Relax nine. Um, so ,
Uh, so for Indie G they're mandating 'cause it's a three stop race anyways.
Um, they're mandating that we need to run two sets of alternates and two sets of primes, which means that everyone's ultimately gonna be on the same tire strategy.
It does not mean everyone's gonna be on the same tire at the same time, but everyone's gonna be on the same tire strategy.
So what are our thoughts on this?
Do we think this is gonna move the needle?
'cause like in some ways it's like, okay, it's putting everyone on the same strategy, but in other ways it's like, well for sure no one's gonna like save anymore because you have, everyone is gonna be on a three stop and everyone has to do that and everyone has to hammer to the end.
So, I don't know. I
Assume you're asking my opinion, right?
I'm sure not . So few thoughts.
I don't dunno. Which, which are Okay,
I'll start, I'll start on the last one.
So, um, NGP is a great example because that's one where historically there's been a favored tire mm-hmm .
But the odd car has actually been an outlier.
Just one of them, I guess.
Okay. All right, fine. I'll throw
Fine just one of Them.
I'll throw that point out 'cause we've already had this discussion.
We won't get into that. We won't waste the time. Okay.
Um, I, I guess what I, okay, so Yeah, well there's, that's Kind of how I feel about it.
Yeah, it's, it's, it's very nuanced, right?
Because with, uh, the way the tire rules are now in terms of having five sets of alternates and five sets of primaries, it does make this a little bit more plausible.
But let's say there's a situation like have they announced this is gonna be for the rest of the year?
Or is this They're trying it today? No,
This is, they're trying it this weekend. Yes.
Okay. So I, I do think it,
it works here better than maybe anywhere else.
So if you're gonna try something, this is probably the place to do it.
'cause for example, if you tried to do it on a street course right, with how bad the alternate was, it, it would be a disaster, right? If one of the tires,
Well it would just, it would just become a four stop.
Yeah. But it would be, it would be a farcical one
because you'd be doing two laps on one set of tires, pitting two laps on another set of tires, pitting and then driving. Like it would be,
It would be, it would fuel a number. Yes,
Dude.
It would be, it would be farcical, it would be terrible Here.
The, the alt the the, the hards are not that bad.
They're not as good as the softs.
So you're gonna wanna run the softs more, but having to do two.
Yeah. Okay. Fine. Um, I don't think that
the, I don't count thermal 'cause it's such an outlier of a track.
It's such a unique place.
So we've had two street circuits where we know there's an issue with the, we've had two street tracks that's fair.
Where we know the tires behave a certain way.
That I think still plays perfectly into your theory on why street races have gone caution free.
I don't think that's inaccurate. Right. So I I don't know.
It's, you know, that that's, that's a kind of different issue. It's
A diff it's a different box for Sure.
Right. Thermal is its own unique Yes.
Surface and has its own challenges, whatever.
So it's almost like, and I know this decision was not being made just based on Barber.
It was made before the weekend, but we now have had a, a race at Barber, which was a good race, which the tires were great and you could push hard on 'em the whole time.
And we didn't have a caution fine.
But that's happened before at Barber.
I guess what I'm getting at is I think that in my opinion, we do not have enough data points to really decide, oh my God, we have an issue here.
Let's change a fundamental rule.
Hmm. That said, I do agree with you that
I like the fact that they're thinking and they're willing to try things.
In my opinion it's too early to try.
But I'm also very, very open and happy to be proven very wrong.
Um, 'cause I, I, I'm not like, I don't feel super strongly about this particular format one way or the other.
I never like when you take less, when you take decision making away from teams, when it gives teams less freedom to decide what to do.
That to me, I don't love that. Mm-hmm.
But if it works, I'm, I'm happy for it.
The bigger thing for me is I think it's, it's almost too early to make that call, but Yep, I hear you.
We'll see, the the, the one thing that also is a little bit of a, a, a wrinkle in it and we'll end on this, um, is with this new rule, there is no requirement to run new reds.
So you can run, your red requirement can be met on used tires.
So while so, So sorry.
So the way the rules have been one set of sticker reds is saved until the ra, you are not allowed to use them until the race.
Correct. Are you now saying that that fifth set is free
to use at any point the weekend?
Yes. There are no tire. Okay. Rule requirements.
Okay. So that's gonna make it
qualifying interesting too because, Not really, because already You could throw two sets in the F six if you wanted, You could, but already because of the extra alternates this year you're running news in the F six. So it's kind what
I'm saying.
You could do two if you really would, if the used reds were good enough, which you don't know to warm up. You wouldn't.
Yeah, you wouldn't. Yeah. But I, I just think it's,
it is interesting because there is the potential that cars, I guess to your point there is the potential, the cars in the fast six will have no new reds and there is a potential that the car on 13th will have two sets of new reds.
So Right. There's a,
there's a bigger discrepancy potential than there has been in the past.
Again, the used red is, is a pretty good tire in DGP, so I don't think it's like a game changer, but it, it is something to consider.
So anyways, it'll be interesting to see how it plays out.
Um, as we both said, good. The IndyCar is thinking.
I agree with you completely.
I don't know that this is the, maybe the time to experiment with it in terms of what we've, the sample size of what we've already seen.
Um, but it is what it is.
Same for everyone is certainly not gonna make anything worse.
No. Um, so tune in to see how it checks out
or works out, I should say.
'cause it should be, um, there, there will be different approaches to how people go about and, and, and handle this, this rule.
And it should make for an exciting race for second through 27th. It sure
Will.
It sure will. This has been off
track with Hinch and Rossi.
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