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Ben Recaps Daytona
Ben Recaps Daytona
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About this episode
The hosts chat about snow days, AI-generated images, and their experiences at the Rolex 24 at Daytona. James shares a detailed recap of his team's race, including a brake failure that set them back five laps, a record-long fog caution, and a strong comeback to finish on the lead lap. They discuss the dominance of Porsche Penske in the top class, notable performances in LMP2 and GTD Pro, and the challenges of endurance racing. The episode wraps up with anticipation for the upcoming racing season and a preview of future topics including IndyCar news and F1 testing.
Topics:
rolex 24 at daytona
endurance racing
brake failure
fog caution
porsche penske dominance
lmp2 highlights
gtd pro results
ai image generation
snow days
upcoming racing season
Cars:
Chevrolet Corvette
Ben joins us to help recap Hinch -and everyone else's- 2026 24 Hours of Daytona.
+++
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"... of the Mercks and the speed of the Fords and the Corvettes and, and then it was kind of everybody else. And ..."
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This is off track.
Hello and welcome to Off Track with Hinch and Rosses.
No, nope. Shut up. Shut up.
We're all watching Ben.
Well, I was hoping he, he would make some noise right as the recording started, but, um, we need to work on his timing.
Uh, no wonder he doesn't have a job yet. Um,
Yeah.
The meeting to talk to about that. He's kind of slacking.
It's a little embarrassing.
Trust me. I'm aware. Um, well, indie got a lot of snow, so
everyone's, everyone's home stuck at home today.
So here we are, uh, we have a little guest with us, which is bud. Hi dude.
Hmm. My favorite thing, .
He's definitely, he likes the microphone.
He's that microphone but away. He likes the microphone,
even though he is pushing it away.
I think it's really an act of love.
Um, I have thoroughly been enjoying, as have the rest of the group chat.
Uh, I have not, Kelly's Kelly's recent discovery of AI tools and, uh, she has been now having AI generate photos of Ben doing some pretty impressive stuff. .
What? It's unbelievable that he could be doing handstands
and cooking pancakes.
Uh, yes. It's quite frankly, yes.
That's, that seems a little ridiculous, but I mean, he looks adorable when he fake. Does it?
Yeah. Yeah. Um, it's funny how, how AI still
with all of the money and smart people behind it have not figured out hands. Like that is still
Yes.
The dead giveaway and, and text, like hands and text.
They really, yeah. It's still struggling.
Well, I feel like, I feel like there's some things that they intentionally don't like copy on text because there's the opportunity to get into some trouble, Like copyright issues.
Yeah. I
See.
So that might be an intentional thing. I
See. I see.
Um, but yes, no, my, my my, where I thought you were actually going with that was like, we've got this remarkable tool that has the potential to, and is currently changing the world and it has almost unlimited capabilities, and yet you give it to people and they just make pictures of their babies, riding dogs through the snow .
I mean, how is that not making the world a better place, James?
No, no, it is. I I'm just saying that's like,
that's like buying, that's like buying a $50,000 camera and just leaving it on automatic and just taking photos at like Christmas of the family.
Right. The capabilities of AI are so vast
and we just use it for dumb stuff like that.
I mean, I do the same thing. This is not a,
this is not a shot at Kelly.
This is more an indictment of society as a whole.
It's like, look at this incredible tool we've made.
It could shape the future and change humanity forever.
And we're like, yeah, but funny memes though. . Look
At him doing a handstand .
Look at doing a handstand with his backwards hands.
Little, little freaky, little freaky baby.
Oh, I do love a snow day though. This is, I'm excited.
Um, I was just out driving around in, in Indianapolis, and you know what?
They've done a pretty good job. All things considered, uh,
trying to clear up the roads.
Not great, but for the Midwest, pretty good and for a good amount of snow.
Um, I just Ms. Snow days as a kid, I guess.
Tim, did you ever have those? Was it ever snowy?
I know about the big snowstorm was 78, but that was a little before your time.
It would snow a lot. My school was like, they,
they prided themselves on not doing snow days.
So in the 12 years, That's the, why would you go to that school?
I know. It was awful. And the 12 years that I went to
that school, we had a single snow day, uh, that said, like, I I, we had a few two hour delays.
I do remember though, like how much fun it would be as a kid when it would be just buckets of snow outside and you'd go build a fort, right, .
Yeah. Like if you had enough,
you'd just build it with the snow as is.
But then like, if, if it wasn't enough, you'd just wait for them to plow.
'cause then you'd have the big bank of snow and dig in the tunnels and things like that.
Yeah, yeah. Tunnel in the bank.
Snow Is good. So I, I've been feeling pretty jealous
looking at all the pictures of, uh, of snow, uh, everywhere else in the country except for California.
Well, I will, I will, um, say, so I have a, I have a snow threshold.
Um, and, and it, it was time or height?
Height amount. Quantity. Yeah.
Um, because I, I really enjoy shoveling my driveway and my front path and, and all that sort of thing.
Like it's, it's good exercise, it's satisfying, it's all of this sort of things.
Mm-hmm . And for typical Indiana storms of your dairy
Management, couple A year, two to four inches.
Um, it's a nice couple hour little, you're outside in the sunshine, you work up sweat even though it's cold out, blood going, it's great.
11 to 12 inches is beyond that threshold.
So for the first time in my life, I actually caved and I had my driveway plowed.
And lemme tell you, it's nice.
It's nice. It's a lot, it's a lot quicker
and cleaner than shoveling it because you gotta like, your driveway's a decent size that that's Yeah.
That's gonna take one dude a long time.
Especially with, with a foot of snow, that would've been right, Right.
Not great. And, and so like, we had a, an appointment to get
to this morning at 8:00 AM and I'd forgotten that I had signed up for this and I opened the garage at seven 40 and there was no snow in the driveway.
I was like, wow. Now I haven't gotten the boys
Yet, was never, never shoveling again.
That's not true. Because I feel like the bill is gonna be
way too high and Very upsetting.
I feel like I'm just, I'm just gonna throw this out there without the knowledge of whether this is a good idea or, or not.
Have you looked into getting a flame thrower That works way, that is way less effective, uh, than you think it is?
Yeah, because yeah, Alex, we you were here when, But it seems like it'd be a lot of fun.
Lot of fun. Not cost effective or time effective.
We had our buddy Drew came over over Leaf leaf blowers are about as fun as and as effective. I think
Way less fun. Way less fun.
Way less fun if it doesn't shoot flame.
What leaf blower do you use? Yeah.
You're still, you're still blowing snow.
No, that's Not the fun part of a flame flower.
Yeah. This is bizarre. Fair. Yeah. Yeah.
Is worse than your dead body in the the lazy river thing. .
Which by the way, that's, that's a perfect segue if we're done on snow, that segues perfectly into, um, this weekend, uh, this past weekend at Daytona for the Rolex 24 and before, no, nobody died in a big body of water.
I don't, that's not where I'm going with This. I was wondering,
I had a lot of people though, come up to me.
First of all guys, just thanks for listening.
We got a lot of fans in the InSpa had a lot of people come up to me over the weekend, our fans of the show, and we really appreciate it.
A lot of people were sharing their opinions on dead bodies in, in large quantities of water.
And, um, I, I'm not gonna lie, Tim, overwhelming majority on our side, but Alex, I was shocked at how many people were kind of okay with your take on it. It's weird
Because I, I went to a, uh, Butler University men's college basketball game, uh, on Friday night and shout to other people that listen to the show and, uh, overwhelming majority agreed with me.
So I feel like you're No, Not buying that. There's just no way. That's true.
No, there's, There's just no way. That's true.
It is deadly. True. Actually, ,
Uh, I got more than one person yelling at us for eating on air.
'cause they have that like me or whatever it's called. Yeah.
Misophonia. I think that's the one.
So they were like, I had one, I had one woman like, beg me to stop eating on air.
And I, I'm just like, I can't do that.
'cause it, it bugs Tim so much that even though it offends you, one of our fans, fans, fans, my my desire to ruin Tim's day is so much greater than it is to fix, you know, anybody listening's day.
So what I agreed to was we would give slight warnings when it was coming.
So if you have mesothelioma or whatever for the next 10 seconds, mute your podcast.
It's all right. Because I enjoy ruining your day so much.
I broke into the fast garage and messed with you guys breaks.
Wow. Wow. Okay. All right. So perfect. Wow.
Um, Daytona, uh, James. Yeah. Is that what happened?
Because yeah, I was watching and you were like, first through fifth and then I stopped watching and then you were lapped down and then you didn't tell me why. So
Your Brakes failed. Well,
First of all, let me just add in one last thing about Offtrack fans.
I got a lot of Sour Patch kids over the weekend, um, .
And, and the funniest part was did you throw 'em out?
No baby little baby. The here's the baby boy.
So I opened up the first pack 'cause they were, I had so many packs sitting there.
I was like, I gotta have some, because I love Sour Patch Kids.
I was always, I was never up for debate. I don't,
That's not, I remember that. Yeah.
But here's, oh God, I hate, you hate so much kids And you hate Candy .
Oh. So I opened the first one.
I was like, I'll just have a couple and would you know it not even because of you.
I ended up finishing the whole bag and I'm like this, and now I'm, now I'm copping <inaudible> for something that I don't even actually do.
Apparently I still polish off an entire bag. So whatever.
Thank you for the Sour Patch Kids.
My tongue is still raw, but I did enjoy it.
I haven't had in a while. I feel like we should,
we should like, be strategic about the things we say we don't like.
If people are just gonna give them to us, like, ah, don't you just hate how like gold Bullon feels?
Yeah. I hate, I hate stacks of 10 grand. Yeah.
I, you know, didn't say I hate them.
I like he them did. Oh my God.
I hate, I hate having way I got them in a Way because I use it too quickly.
I just hate, You know, what would be the worst thing, the worst thing for me right now would be like a bunch of shares of Berkshire Hathaway.
I just like, do you know, that would annoy me.
No. Do you know what Alex really hates?
Guys Hugs from strangers, .
And that's a lot cheaper than stacks of cash.
So if you feel inclined, just, just go up and hug 'em. Here's the thing, James, unannounced,
You can't mail those .
No. But enough, enough people show up to your place
of work, your place of employ that.
Uh, yeah. Anyway, back to the race.
Um, yes, Alex, we did have a bit of a problem.
So the weekend shocker was good.
That was not a slight at faf, that's just, no, it's Daytona. It's just
Daytona.
It doesn't have a problem unless you're the six or seven.
Anyways, So, um, yeah, we had had a pretty good week of practice.
Our car was not like our, I I mean, I hate to say it and apparently you're not supposed to talk about it, but like, our BOP wasn't great in the sense that our car was not very quick on the strait.
It was really good in the infield.
So like, overlap we're, I mean, we actually weren't that close in qualifying.
We were pretty far off, but we could make up some time on the infield.
But you lose so much time on the straight, and unfortunately at Daytona to get passes done, you need straight line speed or to avoid getting past, you need straight line speed.
So, Hmm. We were up against it a little bit.
But that said, we started 10th, I think Sandy kicked us off and he was doing a remarkable job.
Got us up into like eighth, I think.
I took over, got a, we got a speeding penalty because the car was accidentally in the wrong gear.
And evidently the PLC is based off gear and RPM rather than wheel speed, which seems nuts.
So we're gonna look into that.
So did a drive through, fell all the way to the back, and then got back up to eighth.
By the time my stints were done, handed it over, and then the next time I, I kind of disappeared to go have a nap.
And when I looked again, we were five laps down.
So evidently I hate that. What happened? I hate that so bad.
So we had, we had a, a, a part of the, of the right front caliper fail.
And so not a failure they'd ever seen before.
Like one of those things. Right? Of course, of course.
Um, so yeah, five laps to get it fixed by the time it was all said and done.
And what was amazing about that?
Okay, so, so we're five laps down now, and it's like, okay, now we're just out there trying to get laps back.
We, we still had 14 hours, I think left in the race.
Like, let's just go get some laps back.
And I, so I got back in and right at the end of my stint, we went full co my second stint.
So like my time in the car, we got a full course caution for fog.
Mm-hmm. So I jumped outta the car
and under that caution, we put Andrea in who was gonna be finishing for us later.
And the fog really set in and got comfy.
So I had left and I was supposed to be done for the night, and I went and grabbed a little bite to eat, head back to the motor home, had my nice little bowl of pasta and was just winding down and was about to go to bed.
And my phone rings and it's like, or tech, it buzzes.
It's like, Hey, you up.
It was like, it was like the race car version of a booty call.
It was like, you up. And I was like, oh,
I had a feeling this was coming.
And so like, yeah, this fog on the forecast is not going anywhere for a while and we'd like to give Andrea a bit more time to rest, so like, if you don't mind.
And I was like, yeah, I'll do it.
So they come, they pick me back up, I go back in.
I spent two hours.
So Andrea had been in the car for like 30 minutes, 40 minutes.
I go back in two hours driving around under caution, let me tell you, not great.
Not a ton of fun. So like, you just make a game out of like,
how much energy can you save a lap?
Like what's the lowest amount of energy use you can do in a lap?
And like that keeps you, keeps your mind occupied.
The crew is great. We were like cracking jokes back
and forth and like just doing an a MA on Twitter through the radio, whatever we could to get through it.
After two hours, I was now up against the rule that is you cannot drive more than four hours in a six hour window.
So they had to pull me outta the car.
They put miracle in the car, heated two hours, and then we got Sandy back in the car and heated an hour before it went green again.
So it was like a, I think it was like a six hour caution by the time it was all said and done.
Long, longest to NIMS of history, Longest NIMS of history, little part of history, which is, you know, it's nice to be part of history.
Um, that's like, that's like two Indy, five hundreds of driving around under caution time-wise.
Mm, mm-hmm . Think about that. That's awful.
It's just, it's just terrible.
But we got great again and it gave the other two, um, the two full-time guys a chance to rest.
And so I went to bed after that, obviously about like 5:00 AM five 30, something like that.
And when I woke up around eight or nine, we were only two laps down.
And then by the time I got up to the pit box, we were only one lap down.
And then with two hours to go, we got our last or less than two hours to go.
We got our last lap back and, uh, we were on the lead lap.
We, we knew we didn't have the pace of the cars that were leading our class, so we rolled the dice a little bit on strategy and it actually got us up to the front for a little while.
Like, we led some laps in that last hour, hour and a half.
Um, and we were kind of, we had kind of settled into fourth place.
And then on the last like two laps, we were super, super critical on, on energy.
It's not gas, it's energy, the way it's done on imsa.
And so we had to go in like massive fuel save, ended up finishing six, crossed the line six.
But, you know, we rolled the dice.
We were trying to do something kind of cool, hope for a miracle a little bit, but just honestly super, super oppressed that we came back from five laps down, having missed six hours of green flag running, which is, you know, you're just trapped laps down when that's happening.
So, mm. Um, huge effort from the team.
Like, it's the first time that I finished on the lead lap with Faf , which is sad to say, but true progress.
So, uh, progress, progress. We're,
we're making progress last race for the Huan.
Those guys are gonna debut the new Lambo, uh, Terio, GT three car in Sebring.
But no, that was great, man. It was, it was,
even though it was not the result at the end of the day that we wanted, we were all just kind of really proud of the, of the hustle and the team and the fight and the comeback and, um, it's the best I felt leaving that race in a long time.
Even though you're like, you know, bummed about the result, especially when you were running at, you know, in the lead with 60 ish minutes to go.
But, um, yeah, it was great man. No rain. We did it.
That was one of the predictions I didn't check. Fastest lap.
Do we know if Zech got fastest lap?
He did not. Okay. He did not. Well, it's, it was tough.
Those, uh, those Penske Porsches were pretty quick.
Um, I think the 31 car got the fastest lap though.
Oh really? Okay. Yeah. So like halfway. Um,
No, that's a lie.
Oh, of course. All right, well the seven car
had the fastest lap race winner led three cores of the race, yada, yada, yada.
Um, you get one guess who is second fastest?
Connor Zi? No, aj Almond Dinger.
No. Someone that really needs a break.
Alex Palolo. Yeah.
of course.
Of, and those cars like, weren't that good.
Like they didn't have a lot of speed, unfortunately.
No, I guess he just, Alex ot it though.
Uhhuh . Oh, I lied. He Was third fastest.
No, the sixth car was the fastest lap.
Oh, okay. And still, still second.
Yeah. Uh, very impressive, uh, considering that.
Mm-hmm. And, um,
He may have had the second fastest lap, but at least he had the second best average as well. ,
are you serious? Yep.
'cause again, those cars were not on the same pace as the caddies and the PORs, and At least, at least it was, um, almost a second better than his teammate.
So you're telling me this Palolo kid might have a future in this game?
Well, on track. Hopefully there was money in
It.
Track, yeah. Not off track. .
Yeah. Yeah. Um, I mean, do we talk about
That?
But we can, we can. No, we're gonna save that for Thursday.
Let's, let's finish up Daytona.
Um, so a that, that was probably very needed for, for all of faf, you know, Daytona mm-hmm .
Um, has not been kind as you mentioned, has not been kind to them recently.
They've been through a lot of uncertainty about the future and whether or not they're even gonna be racing and switching manufacturers and all of this sort of thing.
So, um, I'm sure in the middle of the race when this was happening, it was just like probably, uh, a pretty solemn attitude and, Uh, to deja all over again Right.
To, to come out the other side of that with success, I would call that, um, must have been a good feeling for everyone.
So good job, James.
Um, the rest of the race was honestly, uh, pretty boring.
Um, was it in the top class?
Uh, the, the Porsche Penskes had the field covered.
Um, really the, the whole race.
Um, I would say the 31 car had a incredible comeback, um, because they, uh, had to give, had to do a drive through plus a 62nd stop after the, the massive fog caution because before the fog caution, um, or rather during it, they left pit lane when the light was red.
Oh, no way. And they couldn't serve, they couldn't serve
that penalty until it went back to green.
Oh, damn. And so they went a lap down
with, I mean, time left, but only like, what was it?
Five hours remaining.
Five and a half hours remaining when it finally went green.
So the fact that they got their lap back and drove through the field and almost, um, beat the seven car was a cool fight to watch, even though they, they came up short.
Um, LMP two is always a super interesting class being as though it's, it's all spec.
Um, Christian Rasmussen was on for another good looking result, it would seem heading for a second Rolex.
And they got a puncture from the lead. Um, bummer.
Which, which kind of took them out of it, which was, I mean, that's the second time in two years where they've had a failure of some sort from the lead.
So that team, oh man.
And that driver lineup is, is pretty legit. Let's see.
L uh, it was cool story for LMP two because the, uh, CrowdStrike car and team finally won after all of that investment and everything that they have done, um, with the gentleman driver kind of running that program.
So that's, that was a neat story.
Gt D Pro, you obviously talked about your race.
Um, it wasn't really a, a huge battle at the front.
Um, yeah. But nonetheless, will power finished second.
Yeah, I say the BM BMW won, which was funny because like it was kind of nowhere all, all month.
I say all month. 'cause
I feel like we were there for a month.
It feels very in Ds doing that race now.
Um, but everybody was talking about the speed of the Astons and the speed of the Mercks and the speed of the Fords and the Corvettes and, and then it was kind of everybody else.
And BM BMW was lumped in that they had one car qualify really well and then at the end of the race their pace was just insane.
So they played that one very well.
Strategically, uh, credit to them.
But yeah, power, like, yeah, had a little volume kn they cranked up at the end there.
Mm-hmm. Hmm. . But yeah, power's car did a great job too,
um, with Mo and, uh, Kenny HaBO and uh, Uh, Marrow Engel.
Um, thought he was gonna be on it for, uh, for a minute for a win.
Nolan Siegel did a great job.
Uh, his team ran strong for most of the race as well.
Ericsson and Kirkwood, uh, kind of had I think similar days to me.
Um, not at a ton of pace. Erickson was in the Lambo as well.
Worse. Worse, yeah. Worse. And then,
and then Kirkwood was in Lexus.
Uh, they were struggling for Pace as well, but it's what it's, that's Cindy, That's the, that's the, The last, the last storyline was, uh, in GTD, um, Scottie Mack was, was doing Scottie Mack things.
Um, and they were looking very good, uh, with a couple hours to go.
And the gearbox radiator got a puncture, so they, uh, finished DFL.
So, uh, as we, as we all know, that event is brutal.
Um, y once again, I, I didn't, I didn't miss it, especially when I woke up at 4:00 AM and I saw your fog yellow.
I I did chuckle to myself, uh, for a little bit.
I'm sure you did. I'm sure you did. Um,
And I sat on my couch, uh, with a nice coffee and some sweats on and, and watched the finish in front of the fire. So,
Well, Pretty good way of doing it, James.
Yeah. Yeah. It's the second best way to do it. I agree.
Um, here's the thing though.
It's, it's now race season guys.
It's officially started, like no more sitting around.
It's, it's here. Rolex has happened.
Daytona five hundred's coming up.
F one's testing on track as we speak.
IndyCar, you know, not too far down the road.
Um, you know, we're, we're a month away from the first IndyCar race.
It is now. Like, that's why I always love Rolex.
'cause it is like the unofficial kickoff to the, uh, the international racing scene.
I know we already had Chili Bowl, but from the international side, this is, uh, this is it.
And Ben has come back to give his final thoughts on, uh, his, his first Rolex 24.
Nope, he doesn't wanna comment. That's no comment from Ben.
Um, clearly not a Porsche fan. Uh,
I think that was the comment, James.
That was his, that was his opinion being registered.
I mean, that was a, we We have to, we have to give a shout out to, to Porsche and to Penske.
Yeah. Three years on the trot. Three in a row is tough.
Is well, especially the same car. I mean the seven car.
That is incredible. Um, I was a part of the seven car,
and let me tell you, we did not win three in a row. .
We didn't win zero in a row. Mm.
So, well, no, you did win zero in a row.
We won zero in a row. You're right. Yeah, yeah, yeah,
Yeah.
Um, yeah, no, I mean, look, any, any of these Hallmark races, Daytona 24, Daytona 500, Indy 500, any of those things, Lamar it's, uh, it's difficult to win.
It's difficult to go back to back and it's nearly impossible to do three in a row, um, as we've seen.
But credit to them, uh, like you say, very impressive feat.
Uh, congrats to all the class winners and good job by all the teams and everybody that slugged it out.
All the fans record attendance for the race.
So credit to AMSA and, and John Dunan and Daytona International Speedway for, uh, another great event.
And like I said, unofficial start of the season.
Here we go, buddy. Let's hear it. Let's stay
Tuned.
Tuned for next or Thursday, because we are going to talk about my favorite day of the year.
Mm-hmm . Content Day. Mm-hmm.
We're gonna talk about some lawsuits.
We're gonna talk about some IndyCar news about teams that, uh, or cars that won't be showing up.
And we are going to talk about something else that I just forgot.
ECRs Engineering, restructuring some F1 cars on track for testing.
Mm-hmm . And, uh,
and yeah, we're gonna get to the, uh, Nashville Recap.
Mm-hmm . This has been off track with Hinch
and Rossi Off Track is part of the SiriusXM Sports Podcast Network.
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