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This is off track.
Hey, Alex. You remember last week when you said
that it's okay 'cause James doesn't work for IndyCar, so he could say what he wanted to.
Well, like only a third of them works for IndyCar. Now. ,
Yeah. Or does a hundred percent of me only work
for one third of IndyCar?
I'm, I'm very confused by how this all works.
Now, , I gotta ask, did you know it was coming?
No idea. Had no idea whatsoever?
No idea. Okay. No.
Um, and again, for those who are living under a, under a stupid rock, we're of course talking about guys, hello and welcome to Off Track with Hinch and Rossi and Ben .
Um, we've essentially just got a, a, a fourth host on the show.
Now he's a pretty regular fixture and we're here for it.
Aren't we, buddy? Yeah. Oh.
Oh, he doesn't like that. He doesn't like that. What
Did you do, James?
It's the facial hair. They hate it All. Kids hate it.
It's just a thing. Did you just ? I love how Alex just put a
Massage.
Just put him on his desk. Yeah. Yeah. .
Oh, it's layout. Doing stuff now. Where
That is?
He's on the desk. . He's good.
That was good. Um,
but yes, no, uh, had no idea that that was happening.
Uh, learned with the press release or the article or whatever like everybody else did.
And I think had the same reaction that everybody else did, which was woo-hoo.
Very cool. For, uh, for the sport.
Very cool for the series. Um,
Just to make sure we got the audio, can you do that? Woo-hoo again.
No. Um, damn. Thought that was gonna work here.
Here's what's, here's what's tough, guys, is if you're listening to this, we're not even gonna talk about this anymore because if we're, if you're listening to this, you've probably already listened to our interview with Mark Miles where we will have discussed all of these things.
The thing is, at the time that we are recording this, we have not yet had that interview.
So you by listening now already know more about what's going on than we do in the current time of us recording this, which is a weird kind of inception moment thing.
Yeah. It's like a Dr
who wibbly wobbly timey, wimy thing going on. You know?
Are those real words in Dr. Who?
It is? It is. Okay. Some people got that reference.
Very few based on our audience that I've met.
Very, very few. Um, but yeah, no, I mean, yeah.
No, no, no. We're not gonna talk about that anymore
because we're gonna talk about it on Tuesday.
We, we have already talked about it, but God, this is weird. I don't like it.
Do you need a minute? Do you need some time to,
To process sort This out?
No. Do you know, do you know what I don't love though?
Hmm. I would love your opinion on sensor
lights in bathrooms.
I don't know if I have an opinion on sensor lights in bathrooms, but I'm assuming just from this, that you do.
I didn't Let's just get to yours.
Un until this morning. Okay.
Because sensor lights in bathrooms when you think about it.
Little judgy. Little judgy. Because when you're Oh wow.
If you take forever on the toilet, so the lights go off, correct?
Well, that's, that's probably more of an indication that you need to like, figure out whatever's going on with your gut. Nope.
I'm fine. I've been operating this way for 38 years
and it's been doing me just fine.
What is wrong? Is that light telling me how long
to take my poop in the morning? .
Okay. I'm not here for it. It's like, i's kinda like,
I think this is just a you thing, man. It's,
There's no way.
There's no way. Please write not at off track, just Tim,
Tim specifically with all your replies as to if you enjoy your time in the morning, you know, doing your business.
But it's, it's like a, but Also I don't want that.
I don't want those responses.
That's why I want people to do it. Can
We, can we talk about the fact that you can't poop in the dark?
It's not that you can't, it's just very unnerving for some reason.
I don't know. It's very uncomfortable. I don't know why.
Especially if you're like, well, if you're reading a book, you can't do it. If
You have enough time to read a book while pooping you, you are pooping too long.
This is like, this is ridiculous.
You the best book you need to Read to see a Doctor.
The best books to read on the toilet are Dan Brown novels, because he has like really short chapters sometimes. So you can like
Hardy Boys.
Are those short The best for kids? ?
No, I haven't read a lot of Hardy Boys lately or ever, but yeah, no, as of this morning I got a real strong opinion on sensor lights and bathrooms and, uh, I'm not for, it's like a snooze button though.
Like, it goes off and then you like wave your arm around and then it comes back on again.
But it goes off like, I guess it's been five more minutes. All right. One more.
I don't even know how to continue this conversation. .
No, I don't know where to go from here.
I don't think there was supposed to be anymore than that.
I think that was it. That's all I, that's all I had.
That's all I had. Um, Alex, how was,
how was your weekend off?
It's been a, a busy stretch, IndyCar, 47 races days.
I have to poop eight days throughout the month of July.
And finally got a weekend of no racing and no traveling. And how was that?
The weekend was great. Um, I rode my bike.
I got on my smoker.
I got like 11 hours of sleep a night.
Um, I saw your wife. Yeah. Um,
Yeah.
You spent more time. Those were the
highlights that I have. Yeah,
Yeah, yeah.
Played golf twice. That was good.
What else did I do? Um, caught up on stuff around the house,
bought a new rug.
Um, because here's the thing, I've learned that furniture and rugs, you just have to, you just have to understand that, especially with you and I James, we have the, we have the same problem because we married people who like a certain aesthetic.
Yep. And so they just have a lifespan
of three to five years.
Yeah. And that's just the di in, in this period of our life,
we're not gonna have rugs and furniture for decades.
Yeah. It's just not possible. That's a thing.
So, um, anyways, what I have found is, and I really wish I found this sooner, but uh, home Goods is a hell of a, is a hell of a store.
It's essentially for me, it's like I don't, it's Where, where would you go?
It's, it's, it's like its own contained little outlet. Okay.
So it's got all the name, all the name brand stuff, just last year's style or a style that didn't sell or whatever.
So like super high quality stuff at like a 75% discount.
And so, you know, I always thought, oh, going to Nordstrom Rack, Nordstrom Rack or Restoration Hardware Outlet or whatever, like that's a, that's a good deal because it's on clearance.
Yeah. But you're still paying for that name that you're at.
Right. Whereas when you're at HomeGoods,
not only is it on clearance, there's no markup for any sort of brand.
They're just basically wholesale price. Minus. Minus.
So like I got a $2,000 rug for 399 bucks and I was like, that's pretty cool.
And now if it only lasts me six months, I don't really care. So I
Don't even feel bad about the fact that I'm gonna bring Teddy to your house next week.
Well Teddy pisses on couches, not rugs. .
So I haven't found he's gotten better.
I haven't found he's gotten better at that.
I haven't, I haven't found the home goods for couches yet, but I found Okay.
The solution for rugs.
Oh, they don't have couches.
That's what I did this weekend. I mean, they do, but
Not the couches.
Well, yeah. 'cause we just bought a couch,
so I'd be really upset to know that they had nice couches at home goods at shockingly low prices when we did not go there for our new couch.
Mm. But yeah. Mm-hmm .
It is, I feel like the, I feel like the dog thing really, really takes years off your couch's life. Oh.
And it's not even that they make a mess out of it.
It's not like they're, it's just wear and tear.
They're pissing on it. It's just wear and tear. Yeah.
It's just weight on it that shouldn't be there. Weight
Claws maybe also.
And then the thing is they start sleeping on top of like the back pillows and eventually just deformed them to a degree that they're unsalvageable And then they have all these little oils on them, so they just leave this residue.
It's great. It's nice.
Yeah. It's just such a gross way of describing
that, but very accurate. .
But dude, it's funny. So like
Domesticated wolves for this, We have, we have hardwood floors right through most of the house.
And Bonner lies under this particular chair.
And then at night in our bedroom, he, he lies under like the dresser and we had to move, set pieces of furniture.
Um, and there the, the hardwood is like sandpaper there just because he lays in the same spot for such a period of time and dogs are naturally oily.
'cause that's how they keep themselves clean. Right.
And it's like, it's almost burned a hole in where he lays. It's wild.
That's actually kind of hilarious.
Do you guys have an opinion on Tim?
You're sometimes smart with stuff.
I heard this term and I hear it all the time, but it just like, it just caught me off guard again and someone, when someone says on accident instead of by accident, but then it's on purpose, I would definitely say by accident.
But you say on purpose, so, right.
So I can't, 'cause I keep hearing it.
Every time I hear it, it just sounds so wrong.
It sounds like the person literally doesn't know how to speak English.
But then I'm like, but wait, it is on purpose.
So why would it be by accident?
Or is should it be I should it be by purpose as well? ,
Were you thinking about this in your, your four hour this morning?
Mm, no. I was thinking about it over my 30 hour travel day
yesterday. .
Yeah. Let's talk about, let's talk about, uh,
hungry and everything.
'cause I don't, I don't have an opinion on, on purpose or by accident.
So you just got back from Hungary. Tell us about it.
I did. I just got back from Hungary, so I, uh, I flew home
from where Laguna on the red eye and then had like 27 hours at home and then left again for Hungary to go work for me.
Uh, and I had never been to Hungary, the tra the country or hung rang the track.
Did you have goulash? I did not have goulash.
I apologize. Howard.
You know what I also like also screwed up by not doing something else that I meant to do, which was, they have these things here.
I dunno if you've ever had them, I forget what they call 'em.
I'm trying to remember the name. But it's like a,
like imagine like a doughty kind of material, but it's in the shape of like a, it's like a cylinder but with a hole.
And then you put ice cream in to the hole.
So it's almost like an ice cream cone made out a donut, but it's like a cinnamon sugar or like a chocolate or whatever.
And you pack it full of ice cream. Ho looked amazing.
But I also didn't stop for that.
I think I had like Italian food .
I don't think I had some Greek food.
I didn't get it right. Okay. So Budapest,
Budapest is one of my favorite cities. Why did you like it so much?
Dude, it's, it's, again, I I you, you travel so much for racing, right?
And like, people are always like, oh you're so lucky you get to see all these places.
And it's like, yeah, I get to see all these airports, these hotels and these racetracks and like maybe a night or two you'll get to go like have dinner somewhere, like on the town or whatever.
And so all you really get when you're traveling for this is a sense of whether or not you'd ever want to go back to that place and actually see it.
And 100% Budapest is now like, near the top of the list of cities that I wanna go back to and like actually just visit.
Um, we had a, we had a nice hotel.
We were right on the river outta my room.
I could see the like Buddha castle and it was like, the architecture was beautiful.
The people were all very friendly that we came across.
Um, I just, yeah, I would just love to explore it more tons of history there and, and everything.
So I thoroughly, thoroughly enjoyed my time there.
That the track itself is also great.
Um, I guess they'd spent a ton of money on it since last year.
So like, brand new pit building, brand new grandstands, resurfaced the track.
So like everything about it was really nice.
And for a racetrack in the middle of nowhere where it's just two lane roads going to and from getting in and out, shockingly easy compared to every other track that we go to that I've been to at least with F1 and sometimes IndyCar.
So take notes the rest of the racing world on that.
Um, and yeah, I mean look, I mean, I didn't to drive the track but Alex, you've, you've been around the track.
I assume you enjoyed your laps around hungover ring.
Yeah, I, I um, I have the same opinion as you.
Like I think the city's incredible. The people are great.
Um, the track is, is a lot of fun.
It's, there's a lot coming at you kind of at all times.
It's not the best to race per se 'cause it's pretty, it's pretty tight.
Um, fun fact, pretty much all of the grand charisma movie was filmed at Budapest at the hungover ring.
So even though they pretended to be at place X, Y, and Z it was mostly there.
Um, but yeah, I just think it's, it's always, it's, it's one of those events that often is overlooked by people I think just because it's not a, it's not a destination per se.
Um, it's not super relevant in pop culture if you will.
But it's, it's just such an amazing, um, part of the world that I found and, you know, it needed a little bit of an investment from the track standpoint.
So I can only imagine what the track is like now.
'cause when I was there 10 years ago, it was, it was still pretty awesome.
So I'm glad you feel that way. I'm glad you liked it.
And uh, you should probably talk about the race.
'cause I wanna be honest, dude, I recorded, uh, practice qualifying and the race.
'cause I had every intention of like, I have a weekend off.
I'm gonna watch it all. I watch not a single lap. So, well
Between your, I have no idea about anything.
Your smoking and your rug buying and you're golfing 11 hours of sleep and 11 hours of sleep a night.
I don't know how you could have fitted in.
Um, right. It was good. I
Was, uh, it was on accident. ,
We're all gonna be saying that now by by the end of the month.
Um, it was a great weekend.
So first and foremost just, it was great being back there, you know, with the F1 TV group and getting to, uh, getting to kind of get my F1, you know, legs back.
'cause we have three races left on the IndyCar calendar and then I shift over full time to that world and do the rest of the season from back who onwards.
But, um, the weekend was interesting.
You know, Lando was kind of the class of the field the entire weekend.
Like McLaren were head and shoulders above everybody.
Uh, Lando had like a decent chunk on on Oscar most of the, uh, most of the weekend, which I guess he's always run really well there.
He'd never been out qualified by a teammate there.
All these things. And uh, and then we got to qualifying
and dude qualifying was so bizarre because Q1, everything's normal standard kind of, you know, balance of power, whatever, Q2 there started being like some cloud cover and the temperatures dropped a little bit.
And then by Q3 it was like very cloudy and the wind did 180 degree or 90 degree shift depending on who you ask.
The wind shifted significantly and picked up quite a bit.
The amount that these cars slow down and change because of the wind like is insane.
You, you and I drive high powered open wheel cars.
You have raced in Formula One.
We understand that these cars are affected by weather conditions and things like wind.
Alex, I can tell you that like being down in the pit lane, you felt that there was, you know, a change in the wind.
Sure. These guys came in
and it was like somebody had thrown gravel on the racetrack.
Like it was six tenths slower from Q1 to Q3.
It's, it's like a five minute gap or a 10 minute gap.
Call it 10 minutes. The guys were like,
the cars are undrivable.
The balance is completely different.
And the lap times dropped off over half a second.
So I have a, I have a question.
Do you think that that is, um, do you think it's a result of the wind or do you more think it's a result of the, these teams and engineers and everything and the simulation side is so good at predicting kind of the optimized setup going into the weekend for whatever conditions that they forecast are gonna have happen.
And they are, are really ultimately for the most part driving a pretty neutral and balanced car.
And then when something like this happens, it's more that the, and this is not saying that the drivers aren't good, it's that they're so not used to driving a car that's kind of doing things.
They don't expect that.
That's why, because it is hard to imagine that the wind ultimately is causing that amount of performance drop.
It's that the wind is causing a balance shift that they weren't expecting, which is causing this performance drop.
Does that make sense what I'm saying? I I,
I, it a hundred percent makes sense what you're saying.
I think it's more a function of it happened in 10 minutes and you had one lap to figure it out.
Right. Great point. Yeah.
It's, it's, if if they'd had an hour practice session with that wind, they probably could have got back to within two tenths maybe.
Sure, sure. But it's just, we drove it
and then 10 minutes later drove the same track with the same car. It's pretty
Wild. It shifted that fast.
Yeah. And like, or that,
but like that's what I'm saying is that from on the ground, the shift didn't feel like a monumental shift.
But those cars, they're so aero dependent and they're so sensitive that even like a relatively moderate shift from like the sense of just you standing out in in the elements had that big of an effect on on the cars.
And so it was, it was interesting.
So anyway, that meant that McLaren actually didn't get a poll.
Uh, LeClaire got another poll, which was very impressive and he was just as shocked as everybody when he was interviewed afterwards I saw a quote, he was like, right now I do not understand Formula One.
Yeah. He was like, I don't understand
anything in Formula one today, .
Which was pretty funny and uh, and accurate and like even Lando and, and Oscar, like I interviewed them after qualifying and they're both just, they were like just laughing.
They weren't even mad that they weren't un pole.
They're like, yeah man, we have no idea how that happened like that they should not have been, we're gonna win.
But like, man, it was funny seeing the confidence of, even though that, you know, hungover ring is such a track position sensitive place, right?
And they were not starting on pole.
They were both not remotely worried about not beating the Ferrari .
They were just kind of worried about beating each other.
Doesn't that sound cool?
I was, it must be so nice, man.
So I mean that just speaks to how good their cars are, right?
Course. Like for, that's not even confidence in them.
That's just the car for Sure. Or is it
Of both?
No, no, no. It's, it's, it's the car.
Like they know that, that, that was such an outlier thing.
'cause everything changed, right? Like everything in
that one 10 minute session was so different.
So they're just like, yeah, it's, we're gonna, we're gonna beat him in the race.
Like I'm not worried about that. But um,
so they're just laughing and Claire's like, they're like, how did I get here?
Like what is going on?
Um, and then the race was actually, it's one of those classic things, right?
We've talked about this a bunch. You could have a boring
race with an exciting last 10 laps and people will remember it as an exciting race.
And that's basically what we got because it was LeClaire Ptri Norris on the grid and Lando actually got the best start, but then sort of just got jammed up on the inside of turn one fell way back to fifth.
Um, Le Claire kept the lead and led the whole first stint.
So Lando had to pass his way back up to third.
And then once the first two guys pitted, it was supposed to be a two stopper.
Once the first two guys pitted, you know, will Joseph Lao's engineer came on and basically was like, Hey, uh, we're gonna try to do this in a one, I think it's really our only shot.
Are you cool with that? And Lando, he's on the radio,
he's kinda like, yeah, whatever, let's take a, take a stab at it.
Like you could tell he was almost like a little defeated that he had lost that place at the beginning and he was sort of just cruising around in third.
And dude, it's so interesting this shift in F1 to teams giving the drivers so much say on the strategy because there were a couple different scenarios where you've got the engineer coming onto the driver and being like, Hey, we're thinking this and we're thinking that, but what do you think?
Like, do you think this is possible?
And I just find like, we had this conversation, one of the post shows, it's like, should drivers be doing that much of the strategy work from inside the cockpit?
Like I dunno how you feel about this.
'cause we, we've seen like Russell do it a couple times and he gets praised for like calling an audible and it ends up working out well.
But now it seems like the default mode for certain teams and certain drivers is let's have a nice long open conversation.
Let's get a lot of feedback.
It's like, dude, this guy's racing a Grand Prix right now.
You have all the computers and the simulation data.
You should probably be directing the strategy unless there's something so huge he's feeling in the car.
Do you think it's because F1 has become ultimately so popular and the drivers have become so powerful in a way and iconic, especially the top guys.
Like I, I highly doubt these conversations are necessary.
I mean they might be, but like, are these conversations happening with Ocon at Alpine, Alpine, whatever, right?
Like ha It's do do the team. Sorry.
Ha do the teams slash engineers not wanna be lambasted by an audience because the driver is like, ah, blah blah, blah.
I got boned by the strategy versus Hey, we're gonna have this open conversation and we're gonna go down as a team or we're gonna succeed as a team.
'cause I think I, I mean especially on the Ferrari side of things, like it's become such a almost joke with how bad Yeah.
They at least are represented to be from a strategy standpoint that I'm just wondering if other teams are trying to like avoid that just because of how That's a great point. How big it is.
It's a great point. Thank you. It's
A terrifying thought every once in a while. ,
it's a terrifying thought, but it's a very valid point.
What's funny though is the two, so like, you know, pry had a really weird back and forth with his crew and a couple others and Le Claire had this one exchange, so something ended up breaking on the Ferrari in the final stint and he just absolutely plummeted.
But he gets on the radio and he's like kind of, he's upset and he's sort of venting.
But what was so funny about it is he was try, he was trying to like speak in code.
He's like, man, we talked about that thing.
And when we, when we discussed how that was gonna go, if we had just, I could have done certain things differently and better.
Like he was trying so hard you could hear him pausing to think like, don't say the word.
You know, like I need to, I need to say this, but I can't say the actual word 'cause I don't want anybody to know what we're talking about.
And it's like, man, that's just so distracting from inside of the car.
But then you get GP and Max and you get Will and Lando and they were very like, everyone's using like plan A plus five and you know, Delta Sigma Alpha Blue 22.
And then Will's just like, okay, we're gonna one stop, we're gonna pit in about three laps 'cause he's catching you at this pace and you're gonna have to make this tire less, this many laps out there for the whole world to hear.
But like at that point, no one can affect what you're doing.
So it's like, yeah, just have the conversation.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
I I think that also I, on the IndyCar side of things, there used to be a lot more effort into like coding things and now it's pretty much this is what we're doing and this is how we're gonna do it.
Because what ultimately are you trying to prevent?
Like the only thing that I could see someone wanting to kind of keep under wraps is if like they're on poll and they're gonna try and, you know, hit a fuel number from the beginning right?
And do a stretch of two stop instead of a three.
And they don't want to allude to the fact that they're hitting a massive number while leading and controlling the pace.
But other than that, like once the, the race is established and, and people are gonna, people are gonna do what they're gonna do and what they feel is best for their strengths.
So if like car or whatever is hitting a 75, like there used to be all these different types of codes and everything, and now everyone just does essentially the same. We
Need, we need 3.4 cool , Right?
There was a, I remember Hunter Ray, he had a lookup table on his dash, like there was a certain page he could go to where like whatever code he was given, he could go to the table and it was the, the, the number that would be be displayed on the dash.
And it's just like, that's that's ridiculous. Too
Much.
Too much. Yeah. Not good. Not good.
So anyway, it ended up coming down to like, so it was kind of a stagnant sort of boring race.
It wasn't like a ton of action on Track.
Max was making crazy passes happen from everywhere in the field.
'cause he's Max and then, uh, it came down to Oscars on the two stop.
Lando was on the one and he caught him up 12 seconds and the last stint to be right on his gearbox, like the last five laps.
And Lando held him off.
So, you know, and it's, it's, I'm kind of glad it went down like that because I always find it interesting, you know, we, we chat about, people are like, oh, Orlando's not as mentally strong as Oscar and blah blah blah, blah blah.
But, and I think we've mentioned it on here before, I really think that whenever Lando has an issue like that, it's, it's when it's internal, it's like his own pressure.
It's qualifying, it's single lap, it's stuff like that.
But there have been so many examples of Lando having a car on his gearbox clearly faster and him just driving flawlessly in those situations and staying in front.
And that's like, that's not easy to do, right?
You've got the pressure of a guy that's caught you by 12 seconds, clearly faster.
He's a teammate in the same car, he's the guy you're battling for the championship with.
Like, this win is really important to close that gap.
Basically the highest pressure situation you could put a guy in short of it like being in the wet and he was absolutely flawless.
Great execution. I know it's a tough track to pass on,
but like they have DRS and you know, guys were making passes on track, whatever.
So I thought it was a really impressive win in shows that like from a, from a mentality st standpoint, like, you know how tough it is being in those situations and like driving absolutely flawlessly is a big deal.
I agree that I, here I'm gonna make a bold prediction.
The winner of the constructor or the driver's championship is, is gonna be Oscar Orlando.
That is very bold. It's very bold. Mm-hmm.
That's like predicting that Polo's gonna win the IndyCar championship. ,
which on note, oh, not yet. It's not yet.
But let's, we can pivot. Might as well be.
So, uh, we, uh, might as well be, yeah, I had, uh, an interesting travel day back from there.
So my airport pickup was two 30 in the morning, uh, on Monday.
And so I decided to just not go to bed.
So we went to this place in Budapest was like the ruins bars or the ruin bars or whatever.
Did you ever go there? Nope. No. It was very cool.
It's like, I guess some old, you know, world War II place and they just made these grotty bars inside of it.
Like, it's like all this like rundown buildings from, you know, remnants of the war or whatever.
And then made 'em into these really cool bars, which is a lot of fun.
Anyway, went out with a bunch of the F1 crew, uh, two 30 pickup to then get on my flight from Budapest to Frankfurt, and then my flight from Frankfurt to Chicago, and then my flight from Chicago to Los Angeles where I currently am for some Fox stuff.
And then, uh, straight to Portland.
But actually, hold on, this is a funny story.
So we're here in LA for, it's their like football seminar, the fox, like football.
I don't even know what that means, but it's what it is.
And towns and I are invited to come out here.
And so we're at this resort and they've got all these people here.
We're doing these, these, you know, sessions later today, whatever.
And so I get up in the morning and I was like, all right, I'll go to the gym.
Well when like bunch Of NL People NFL was here.
Yeah, . So you like walk into the gym
and I'm like, I open the door and I was like, like I'm walking through, I know someone behind me.
So I hold the door open for Michael Strahan who comes in and then I look inside and there's just like all these football players Gronk over here just on the cable machine or whatever.
And I'm like, Hey man, you guys using the fifteens, can I just sneak in here and grab the ?
It's like nothing more emasculating than sitting in a gym.
Yeah, no, I'm, I'm super an athlete as well, you know?
Um, I really like, you know, just yeah, no, no, Totally beasty Canadian.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
So funny man. So funny.
Yo, bro, can you spot me on these uh, 20 fives?
I'm really pushing it today. .
I bet. So did you just exclusively stay on the treadmill?
No, dude. There was actually more guys on the treadmill,
so I was like, I came to lift, I was gonna do my like, my like dumbbell lift that I, that I do sometimes on the road.
I was like, yeah, screw it. I'm just gonna go for it.
And uh, yeah, it was funny. It was, it was interesting.
It was interesting. Mm-hmm .
But it was funny, you could definitely tell the guys that are like retired versus the guys that are still playing.
Like there's some dudes that were like doing way more intense workouts and like all of us TV folk were on a little bit more of a casual program.
Sure, sure, sure, sure.
That's pretty, I mean, that's actually kind of cool.
I think I would've, uh, just turned around and walked out. So Good for
you. .
I nearly did. I nearly did.
I nearly, I was nearly gonna like fake a phone call and be like, oh yeah, no, I'll be right there.
Like, oh, it's emergency. Yeah.
This, this isn't for me. Oh, there's a
Gym with heavier weights. Heavier. I'm on my
way .
Oh, the adult gym is, oh, it's down there. Okay, cool.
You guys have fun kids. Yeah.
Um, so Portland is coming up this weekend.
Alex, how do we feel? Is it, yeah,
Is it fine James?
Yeah, yeah. Okay. Feel great.
It's gonna, I think, I think this will be the hottest Portland Grand pri on record, which Is Oh really?
Which is par for the course of Indi of IndyCar. Yeah.
It's like 94 degrees on Sunday, which is 94. Awesome.
Nine four. But you didn't pack appropriately for that
Dude, I did this entire trip.
So Budapest to LA to Portland on a carry-on 13 days on the road, carryon, boom.
So no, Alex, to your point, I did not pack So that yeah, appropriately, that little shack it that you wore is not gonna play very well in Portland.
Well it was chilly on Sunday in uh, in Okay.
That was the only long sleeve thing that I brought though, so I'm glad that I had that.
Um, no dude, that's the best part about Fox is they dress me baby.
I just show up in my little quarter zip.
Do they actually Heck yes bro.
Have you not noticed that I'm well dressed on Fridays, Saturdays and Sundays?
No. Why don't you start paying more attention?
I just figured you were taking like you like Buxton had a good influence on you. He
Had a good influence on Fox to dress us. Yeah.
Nice. Okay. It's been great. Um, 94 degrees on Sunday.
Yeah. So it'll turn into a tire day grace.
So it'll be really tough for Alex to clinch the championship.
Hey, at least you be I Portland bad at making tires last and go fast.
Yeah, He'll probably still do it on a two stop.
Anything, anything other than the heat and tire dig for the layman to look out for in Portland this weekend.
Turn one, turn one.
Do you think we'll actually get through lap one without a yellow? No,
I feel like we did last year, two years ago, years Ago I think.
Didn't Aaron Lichens just post something about like five of the last six IndyCar races have had a lap one yellow. Yep.
Yes. That makes sense. It has gone gone a little
different than the start of the season. There was a
Lap one yellow last year.
It wasn't turn one though.
It was Dixon absolutely blown up at a turn eight or whatever, remember?
Oh yeah. Someone jumped over that group and spear into him,
Fired him into the wall on the outside of the strait.
Yeah. Yeah, no I um, it's funny
because like, so I raced there three times, never made it past turn four and then, um, went to the TV side and then I guess the next year there would've been a caution and I think the next year they're like, Hey, let's put you down at the apex of turn one, like right up against the guardrail to like watch all the chaos unfold and you can report from down there.
NBC did this with PT a couple years before and I was like, yeah, cool.
So I'm down there and of course first time in half a decade where everyone just gets through clearly and I'm just like down there like, oh, everybody did a great job.
Where were all you guys for 20 18, 19 and 20?
Ah, or whatever the years were 20 18, 20 19 and 21.
Do you like that track, Alex?
I don't mind it. I don't mind it.
It's um, I wouldn't say it's the worst layout that we go to. Um,
What would you say is The worst track?
It's kind of to, it it, it, it can be fun. Oh.
I mean it's a real close tossup between Detroit and Toronto Fair. Uh,
One of those. One of those for sure.
Uh, okay. So you enjoy it to a certain extent.
Yeah. Yeah. Um, anyways, uh,
what do I think it's the last road course race of the year?
Um, I think that as we saw in Laguna, I think people are the, the level of cares that are given have decreased substantially.
It'll be, I think guys will be on a little bit better behavior 'cause everyone's kind of had a week off to to chill out and recover and, and reset.
Um, but certainly as we get to this point in the season, guys are, guys are desperate for one reason or another.
Um, whether that's or want a pop result, a certain champ, champ championship position or just to get a good result before the year ends or to prove their value or what have you.
So, um, I think it'll be a, an entertaining race.
Um, I certainly think Alex is obviously gonna win the championship and that's about it. Do you wanna
Know what's crazy if he locks it up in Portland, which is highly probable.
There are a few scenarios in which he does not, but it is unlikely he will wrap it up with two races still to run in the championship.
I'm double checking with our stats gurus on this, but I have reason to believe that has quite literally never happened before in IndyCar history with two full rounds to go under, like under the current point system. Sorry.
I mean that doesn't that doesn't surprise me.
Think about he's won eight races, dude.
No, I know he's won half the races.
We've run more than half the races we've Run so far, right?
Like no one's done that.
So of course this hasn't been done before.
Shouldn't be a surprise. It's a crazy thing.
No, it's not a surprise, but Like this.
And quite honestly, I'm quite honestly, I'm surprised it's not already wrapped up.
So true. So I mean,
without Detroit it might've been right?
So 'cause when you think about it, so the last time it was won before the final race was him in 23.
The last time before that was welded in oh five and then I'm, I think it was like 2000 or something when the current point system started.
So in 25 years, only twice as it ever been wrapped up with still a full race to run and then, and he's gonna be the first guy to do it with two full weekends to go.
Like imagine he was just like, I'm good and just doesn't run the last two takes a week off, be pretty funny.
Hangs out with, hangs out with his kid and his wife goes on vacation.
They just put something here.
Here's thing, here's the thing.
If it was the F1 schedule or like the NASCAR schedule, he probably would, but yeah, because he knows he's not gonna race for eight months, he's probably looking forward to it. .
Good point. That's a great point.
That's a very good point. What's,
What's gonna be, what's gonna be really frustrating is that even though he has it locked up, if he continues to win when he has literally no reason to , So that's the other thing, right, is he has, He just gets, gets to the fi the, the finish line and waits just like, God, I'll just get last, I'll let everybody else have one. ,
I sometimes do that playing Mario Kart.
I'll like let Hazel catch up.
I was gonna say he, he will be doing the exact opposite because like the championship's already a foregone conclusion.
So now it's just about what are the records, can you win?
And right now the record for wins in a season is 10.
So with three races to go, he could be the first in history to win 11, which would be pretty nice.
That's sorry to Happen. He has won, he won in Portland.
He, he's won 50% of the races he's ever run in Portland.
He's got first, first, second and 12th.
That's his record in Portland so far.
He won the last short oval that we were at and we've got two short ovals coming up soon.
Is Nashville a short Oval? Oh no, sorry. No, sorry.
Nashville is a speedway. Sorry, sorry, sorry, sorry. Yeah, I
Mean he won the last Speedway we were at, He won the last Speedway we were at, he won the last short oval we were at, he won the last road course we were at, he won this road course last time we were here.
So what I'm saying is, and like, so wait, hang on.
No, but like, but like, but like Honda Honda's really struggling .
Hopefully, hopefully they can turn a corner and, and you know, get something done.
But let's hold on, let me, let me just, let me work this outta my head for a second.
He won at Barber, right?
Yes, He won at Indy GP he won at Road America?
Yes, he won at Laguna Thermal thermal lag.
So he is won every road course so far this year because Kyle won at two street circuits in a short oval paddle, won at a short oval in street circuit.
So he is won every road course so far.
He won this road course last year. He won
the ? Yeah.
Oh boy. What are you saying?
I don't know that he is good. It's really good. It
Would seem so, would seem so.
Seems like. So he went the last road course.
He won the last short oval It The last We get it, we get it, we get it James.
We get it, we get it, we get it. what's your point?
I don't have one. I'm, I'm done. That's it. Okay.
Time to go. Alright, well, uh, I look forward to Portland.
I, well, you know what I mean by that?
Uh, sorry, that wasn't, Not as much as out.
Listens at Hates. Yeah. Well, yeah, fair.
And yeah, best of luck out there pal.
I will see you out there.
Safe travels and yeah, go.
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