Car Week Newbie

1,000 cars, sir, you have 1,000 cars.

I don't think I'd attempt to try this stunt.

Oh, we owe this horsepower to Uncle Sam's.

Too big a car.

Look, I put my beer belly on it.

Yeah.

You immediately tell somebody how many cars you have.

You'll really give those up at a yuppie, something to think about.

Stay on the bar.

Don't go off the bar with your Bronco.

1980 Volvo horns, what's right?

Meet me.

I'm a man's coolant.

And he's like, oh, I thought I'd be small.

It's for a small car.

And I'm like, yeah, but it's still an automatic transmission.

They're never going to be light.

It's definitely going to have to crash.

Starting off with Brad Beggin on the car.

That's the West.

Internet.

You know, is this a Nigerian oil print?

I also wish you drove a tan Camry.

Anyways, that's a very horrible podcast content.

A very inside joke.

They love to be driven hard.

All right, we are at another episode of Auto Off Topic.

And what's up, Brad?

Silence.

Great start.

All right.

Welcome to Auto Off Topic.

And I guess we were car week, Brad.

And I'm going to say that's why we didn't have a podcast, not that it was rusty Subaru

wheel bearings that were keeping me away from podcasts, but I mean, isn't that why we didn't

have a podcast?

Yeah.

I was in the middle of doing that.

So you don't have to hear me talk about them anymore.

I was also not, I was also in a car week last week.

The night we could have recorded, I decided to work on that instead just to get out

of the way.

It would have been Monday night.

Who wouldn't have anything to talk about because you only recorded the past Thursday.

So it would have been fine.

People will live.

It, yeah, we'll go over some project car updates.

I went to a race.

You went to car week.

Yeah, I don't know.

We'll start with the boring stuff.

So like Stephanie's car is all set.

It's quiet now.

It's got new wheel bearings.

It was way easier to just do the knuckle with the bearings.

And I got lucky on the cross track, it was 180 bucks for knuckles and they came with the

bushings in there.

Even though the parts catalog looked like they did not have any bushings in it.

So open the box and there were bushings in them.

I was like, yes.

That's per-

Sweet.

One less thing to press in.

Exactly.

Was able to cancel the order of getting the bushings from Japan because they're cheaper.

They're cheaper that week.

Now they're not that cheap.

Right.

Which is an annoying thing.

Things are going to be expensive real fast.

Especially if we want.

The car is all set.

It is, yeah.

That car is now just normal Subaru loud inside, so perfect.

Which I guess normal Subaru loud is better than not too loud.

The only thing I can definitely hear now is the snow tires that I've left on all summer.

So that's expected.

Oh, you weren't trying to find the point where.

Yeah, but they were, I mean, they're from like 2018 and they're kind of worn.

So I was like, you know what Stephanie, at this point, just leave them on.

And come October, November, we'll just buy a new set of snow tires.

And then next year, I'll worry about the summer tires.

So that car is all set.

I think, I don't even think I talked about it.

I did look at my mom's beetle.

My dad and I would jack up the front.

The front wheels were locked up.

They're like, I didn't realize how tricky they are to adjust the drums.

They have no auto adjusters on those things.

You have to adjust each shoe on each side individually.

That's a nice like they were just like really tight.

Like the pedal is pretty firm, but they were like basically barely off the drum.

So I backed them off what I thought wasn't that far and like, you know,

spun, you can like hear it, hear the shoes hit the drum.

Oh, yeah, that must be all right.

Get in the car and the pedals like on the floor.

Like that sucks.

It's like so annoying.

So he already had, my dad had already ordered a front brake kit,

disc brake conversion.

So the only thing he didn't have was the poses.

And I was like, yeah, these hoses look pretty dried out.

There's no point in putting nice disc brakes in Arizona.

Yeah, Arizona car.

So that would make sense.

Yeah.

So he ordered that stuff and I just haven't gotten to it yet.

We're going to do that.

Maybe this week.

I don't know, we get to it.

That's how I've been deal gets pretty straightforward.

It's like maybe they're off a carbon gear or something.

It's like adapter brackets, some air cooled in some market

that was probably built longer than they were built for American market.

Probably came with them.

Could be a later beetle.

Who knows?

Yeah, I don't know.

It's got like adapter brackets.

You basically like take the drum off and you have to disassemble the shoes.

You just unbolt the hard line from the soft line

and just throw that whole assembly away.

And this is a new adapter plate you bolt on, holds the bracket.

You know, the it's the disc with the wheel bearing in it.

And you just you're good to go.

So look at you choosing all these cars to work on

that you can just buy parts for that just work.

Volvo's and Volkswagen's.

Yeah, who would have known that's the key to happiness.

So in the meantime, all that I did work a little bit on the Volvo.

I don't think we talked about this.

You know, it's not like we couldn't go back and listen to a tape of it.

But I got the manifold on there.

I got the exhaust set up.

I did talk about putting the flex pipe in there.

So and lined up the manifolds.

And then I used the original aluminum manifold I had bought.

To use with like s use or I was going to put the adapter plates on it for.

The McUnies if I was going to use them, because either way, you needed a separate

intake manifold to run the header because the factory one is connected cast iron.

And use that as a template and then marked the misabi.

And it's like a prouncing misab intake manifolds, what need the material

that needed to come off of them.

And I used I went to Harbor Freight and got like this air powered belt sander.

It's got a little tiny belt that's like half an inch wide.

Yeah. And yeah, it works great.

It was like an auto body for getting.

Yep, spot welds.

Yeah, it works really, really good for like 30 bucks.

Um, and I was able to just shave that down and they fit nice.

I'm going to do a little bit more work to them to give a little more

space for the nuts and washers.

Um, and then I'm going to clean them and throw a coat of that

aluminum blast paint on them, but that's coming along.

And then in the meantime, I wrapped the exhaust header with heat wrap and

that came out nice and I've got that in there right now.

And because I'm recording this podcast tonight, I am not working on the Volvo.

So I would have been working on putting the intakes on.

Um, that's the next thing to do probably next week.

And I'll try to get the webbers all mounted up and I have, uh, cold start

delete kits for them.

I was told to get because the cold start valve can leak and

only then make it rich or end of the vacuum leak.

So you just get blanking plates for that, take it off.

Um, apparently just got those in the time because the guy that sells all

the nice Weber parts from the Czech Republic said he can't ship to US anymore,

which is cool.

Love that for us.

Um, all the hobbies getting all the hobbies getting their ass kicked here.

Uh, super thrilled and make all Weber parts here in the United States.

So that's awesome.

Um, anyway, uh, yeah, that is what I've been working on in that car.

I think I don't, I think I've done to it was just, just working on that stuff.

I've been trying to strip the fan because the fan is like aluminum and

somebody, it's supposed to be yellow and somebody painted, you know,

it's factory yellow and then somebody painted it like black and then red

apparently and the Citrus strip worked on some of the paint, but some

of the paint just won't come off.

Like it's just some of it's just stuck on even with Citrus strip.

It's weird.

I'm not to get out like, uh, like the wizard thing.

It's like, whizz it off.

Aircraft.

Oh, it's a very tough stuff.

So.

Um, yeah, uh, and then it's funny.

I'm looking at it.

I can't remember how the fan was attached to the water pump.

Like the pulley has four bolts and then I'm like, I don't remember how I

took this fan off.

So I gotta look.

Yeah, I don't.

Yeah, usually I don't know.

I don't remember now.

I got to look back at pictures and like put the parts together and

see what's missing.

I have everything.

I know it.

Yeah.

It's a factor.

And then I was also like, so.

But then I was like, wait a minute.

I have a electric fan kit I bought for the Montero I never installed.

I could just use that.

I'm like, maybe I'll just do that.

Just have an electric fan.

Yeah.

I'm like, I can just get it again.

It wouldn't be a bad idea.

It's just something I got from Summit.

So.

Plus.

No, it is a clutch.

That fan in that car is not a clutch fan.

It's just a direct drive, right?

It's still like a ton of noise.

Is it a clutch?

But the problem with the problem with any mechanical fan, they make a ton of noise

and you want to hear that intake sound.

And I think that the big fan like that would be better for not like swirling

the air around the like trumpets for those.

Webbers do.

It's pretty some weird size.

I think it's a really small and I have like a 12 inch fan.

It might just fit in that radiator.

So let's get the probe and everything.

I'm like, I might just do that.

That seems like a better idea because you can definitely just bolt

the pulley, the water pump without the fan.

Yep.

I was able to repaint that and strip it.

It was red.

So it was like, boy, 100% a big fan.

And I'm a big fan.

I'm a big fan of those electric.

Yeah.

Hey, I'm a big, I'm a big fan.

Yeah.

I may, I may, I may an enjoyer of the electric fan with that little probe

that goes in the radiator.

It seems to be like it just works.

Yeah.

The more I talk about it right now, I was like, I don't remember

if this was a shower thought this morning.

Maybe it was more to talk about it right now.

I'm like, yeah, that's probably the way to go.

It's just easier.

Yeah.

And then when you can put your words on, you just have a swinging fan

because it doesn't have a shroud or anything.

It's just swinging around to take your fingers off.

And you're trying to like,

well, if you're working in your Swedish car, you're going to have

your, you know, suck right in there, elbow patches and your tie on.

So yeah, it's, yeah.

The more I think about it, it's like, it would be, it's going

to be really annoying.

You're trying to tune the thing and this fan is just making

a ton of noise and blowing air around.

So yeah, I'll just do that.

Decision made.

Glad we worked this out.

Problem solved.

Yeah.

The kind of things we don't get to work out together in the garage anymore.

Yeah, that helps too.

Well, I haven't worked on anything.

I spent like an hour in the garage last night fiddling with

engine parts on the Corolla, but it doesn't count.

And I'm probably down for the count for the next at least

week or so.

They had to have some

precancerous spots moved up my back today and they told me to

not like work on cars for a week.

So don't move around.

They didn't say no, don't work in cars for a week.

They basically said don't do anything like gross and disgusting

and sweaty and like too much movement for the next week

because you have a bunch of stitches.

So I won't have any project or updates right next week either.

But I did spend.

Sure.

Do I just move into events now at this point basically?

Or do you want to go something on that side of town?

I mean you want to talk about my event first?

Country town?

Country.

Something on that side of the country.

Sure.

What was your lame event?

Myself was your friend.

My buddy and his son.

We went over to...

No, I'm rocked.

Walken's Glen for the cup race.

Yeah, it was pretty cool because it was like

Yeah, that's not him actually.

Pretty heavily favored that SVG was going to win.

And spoiler, he won.

Like, handily.

So.

Not by a lot again.

Yeah.

Which really changed people's minds because people kept saying

like, oh, he's going to really be equalized

when he gets in a track like Walken's Glen

and they're going to know how to drive that track.

It's not the same style track and he went out there and...

Yeah, I remember.

Because he did not do well at Coda this year.

And all the announcers were like, oh, he's been equalized.

All these guys have run Coda before.

It's not a street course.

And I don't know, there was something around the car

or something he just didn't have it that day.

And then he went out, obviously, Chicago,

Sonoma, Mexico City, yeah.

And just wrecked everybody.

And won every other road race, yeah.

And then, you know, a race track like Walken's Glen

that they've been in just like Sonoma,

they've been going to for at least 40 years.

Like, they should know how to make a race car.

Other teams should know how to race there.

I don't know.

It also to me felt like a little bit like defeatism

where they're just like, this guy's just going to win.

We'll just not try.

Yeah.

So, yeah, we're all fighting for second place here, guys.

I don't know, whatever.

It was a good race.

It's a cool track.

Your theory about Kyle Larson, though,

is probably more than true there

because he doesn't want to be embarrassed by him

because Kyle Larson himself has said he's doing this

the whole time.

That was really weird.

He's spun five laps in.

So the brakes failed.

Spun the first turn.

They went in, did something under the hood,

filled with something, and then he just went out

and did hot laps.

He did set the fastest time.

Sure, because you're in the back of a pack,

and you ran the fast lap of the day,

and you just got in the air.

Right, but it was just, it was very odd.

And maybe there's some merit to your theory where

he was sandbagged because he doesn't want to be embarrassed.

Chase Elliott, you're probably super embarrassed

because you had the most road course wins

pre-Gen 7 car, and you haven't even finished

maybe top 10, I don't know, on a road course

in the last five years.

He's got a second and a third.

He's got a second and a third, a couple of them there.

He has not done great.

A lot of the younger drivers are adapting better

to the road courses than the veterans

who came from the old car.

But then, you know, the old car is what's in the XFINITY,

and SVG was rocking them in the old car.

But also, so was Connor Zilch until he saw off his car.

Until Connor Zilch spun, yeah.

Well, yeah, until he spun SVG, which is, I don't know,

is what it is, I guess.

Didn't see my clean pass.

But yeah, see, then he fell off his car and broke his car.

Just like insane luck.

Or just like an insane circumstance, I don't know.

So anyway. Or lack of luck.

It was like the, they made a rule change

based on the window nets in the celebration.

It was outside the car, should have been inside the car,

but it wasn't a rule and now it is.

Or vice versa, I don't remember what it was.

But Daskara was like, well, the reason he fell was

because he tripped and got tangled in the window netting.

And then there were several changes about that.

Richard was a decent race.

Tyreware was cool.

Except for Austin Dillon.

I thought it was a very good race.

Yeah. Yeah.

At least he didn't wreck people out of his way

as he was here like last year.

That should have been a 23-11 victory

because they were dominating all day.

And then Victor in a circumstance.

No, he, for Tyler Reddick.

Oh yeah.

None of his own accord.

Yeah.

Swares hit.

Yeah, he was hit.

Or something.

And spawn.

Yeah, it was like.

Swares hit somebody.

Yeah.

Into him, so.

It was, I thought it was Ty Gibbs.

And then.

Because I was mad at Ty Gibbs.

And I was like, ah, actually, I guess that was weird.

Well, they made a mistake.

They didn't get the Tyron.

And then.

Yeah, it was lucky that they didn't go out on the track.

But then you still get a penalty

because of your service out of your box.

But the other.

Sure.

They must have been, it must have been a real heads up

to get up to stop in another Toyota box.

And they had another Toyota team

with the wheel back on for him.

It literally rolled to a stop behind him.

Like the best that failure could go.

But they didn't.

They put that one back on.

They didn't put that wheel on the car,

though.

They put a different wheel on the car.

Did they?

Nope.

Because I thought they were saying

he had to come back around again

to get the different.

No, he had to come back around.

It's a penalty for service out of your box

to stop and go.

Oh.

Yeah, that's why he had to come back around.

That I knew for sure, yeah.

Yeah.

Anyways, they went from dominating to wrecked

and to left down.

So.

Yeah, I don't know.

I was unfortunate.

It's been a decent racing.

I don't think, you know, I think the car is fine.

People complain about the car is wrong.

People complain about Toyota road courses are wrong.

I think you've got a lot of drivers

who are just comfortable with contracts

and they're not racing as hard as they want

to on certain tracks or as they should.

And the other issue is, you know,

maybe they're finally getting it right

with the tire compounds.

But if you've got tires that don't wear out,

then nobody loses time

and nobody can make masses.

So that's a problem.

And that they seemed to have found the strategy

spot with a tire that wore out at Richmond.

Yeah.

On this track surface.

Yeah.

That's the issue with the lack of tire wear

is that it becomes a fuel mileage race.

Nothing's more boring than a fuel mileage race.

Yeah, I don't know.

They're working on it, I guess.

It's not.

It depends on the track.

And the new 2026 season schedule is out.

And it's interesting because they moved

Watkins Glenner way up to May.

So.

And then New Hampshire's moved up to, yeah.

Well, for heat, I mean, better for weather.

Rain.

I feel like it'd be more likely to rain in May

in the Northeast than it does in August.

But they don't mind rain in a road course

because it doesn't cancel a race.

So.

No, it was pretty uncomfortable there.

Wasn't it like 90 degrees?

It was hot.

High humidity when you were there?

High humidity.

Oh, OK.

And then they moved New Hampshire up to August

or it's like now, you know, it used to be in July.

This year's in September.

They used to do two races.

One in like July and September.

Now they just got one.

They move around.

So it's going to be in August.

So actually, I think like this weekend next year.

So, you know, we'll see.

Yeah.

It's great they move them around like that.

But I guess.

Little Sparrow's going to be an actual points race.

Different races.

Different things.

Yep.

That's cool.

And I'm excited about the San Diego track.

What's going on?

That should be fun to do.

Cool.

I'm glad you got to the road course because it's still on my bucket list

to make it to Watkins Glen.

I have not been there yet.

I need to go there for the NASCAR or the historical or whatever.

What I didn't go to last weekend was even I bought a ticket for it

with Circuit Legends.

I was just to worn out from working on stupid Subaru bearings

and driving the weekend before all the way out to Watkins Glen and back.

Even though we split it, it's still a lot of driving.

I just didn't feel like driving another three hours that weekend.

Go out to Lime Rock.

You know, it's a really good event.

I just hung low all weekend.

So yeah, it's really good and it's worth going to.

That's a great life, right?

But it was also, I mean, it gives us an option.

It's nice for all the people that can't go to car week.

It's something to do on the East Coast.

And they clearly put it all the way over here.

So you're not competing with car week.

Yeah, definitely not.

Does anybody, every car person in the West was there?

I think car week go.

So it was a bit of a time.

Well, as a first timer, it was for lack of a better word, overwhelming.

I'd never even been to Laguna Sega.

It was on my list of much like walking Glen track I need to go to.

So to go from never having been there to camping there for a week was kind of a big change, but totally worth it.

I don't know.

I don't even know, honestly, other than just like go over my schedule and what I did, like it was just so much happening the entire time.

There's never not an event you can go to.

And they don't all cost tons of money like they talk about, you know, the quail being like a seven or $800 spectator ticket.

Sure, but there's probably five or six free events that same day.

So it's pretty amazing the amount of people that are there.

I do wish that I had gone pre influencer days.

Because there's a lot of that like younger YouTube energy, which I don't love.

But running around trying to be able to rev and do burnouts and all that kind of stuff.

So that was a little bit disappointing.

I would not expect that at a high brow event.

But I guess because of the way car culture is now in 2025, that's just what you get.

And the expensive people are the expensive cars that are owned by the people that can afford them.

They these new super cars, they want the attention.

So if people are going to record them, they're going to rev.

And there was a lot of that going on, which is annoying.

But I mean, other than that being the only real negative, it's an amazing time.

Amazing time.

We did.

Again, I don't even know where to begin with the story because it was just so much happening.

A huge thank you to my friends that invited me out there to hang with them.

Michael from Italian Design and Racing and friends of his and mine that were all going out there.

So kind of put this whole thing together.

Have I said wow enough?

I don't think I have.

Okay.

Does it go like Sunday to Sunday?

Tuesday.

Yeah, we'll start.

We'll start.

We'll start a break.

I don't know when the official thing starts.

There are events the previous weekend.

They call the pre-reunion at Monterey.

And that's where the just racing starts.

I feel like Monday and Tuesday don't have a lot going on based on what I heard or what I saw happening.

I didn't get there till Tuesday.

I do know that like downtown Carmel, I guess the name of the town.

Gets crazy like all week.

We never went really downtown because it's not our scene.

That's where all the supercar people are.

But I guess that's where like you go like sit and have dinner and just watch multi-million dollar cars roll around.

So that was not in my plans because we can't at the racetrack.

So yeah, I got there Tuesday night.

There wasn't much of a story to tell Tuesday.

I flew in on the same plane that Michael's dad was on.

So he was getting a rental car.

So he gave me a ride afterwards.

And then we all met up.

So in the area of Car Week, the central like meeting area is the Embassy Suites Hotel.

It's a big property with a large parking lot and it's not like coned off for just guests or anything.

Like there's a chillies or something in the same parking lot.

So it's a big parking lot.

So most people when they're meeting groups meet there.

So that's what we did.

And I got a ride back to camp in a David's Mark 1 Escort.

So first night I'm there.

I'm rolling around at a Mark 1 Escort.

It's a sign of a good night to come, right?

Our good week to come.

David's Mark 1 Escort is a dark blue with an improperly said BDA.

It's not a BDA.

It's a later motor.

It's a Cosworth out of a Sierra RS Sierra.

So that two liter Cosworth Turbo is what's in his Mark 1.

So yeah, that was basically night one.

It was pretty simple.

Got to camp, set up camp, hang out there, get camp.

And then it's time for day two.

And day two we started with a little car show for little cars.

A little car show is an event that's just, it is.

Yes.

Good call.

It's supposed to be 1600 C season down.

So it's not micro cars by any means, but micro cars are there.

But yeah, anything 1600 C season down.

So David had his Escort in there because it was originally a 1.3.

Even though at some point it's been swapped to a two liter Cosworth.

They let it slide.

There were a few things like that in there.

It was, it was a, we'll call it a stretching of the rules for some of the cars that were there.

But it was like, it was a neat catch all show for a lot of stuff that wouldn't have a home at a lot of other events during the week.

Like if you were in car week with an MG, that's where you'd go to that show.

Because, you know, it's not fancy enough for the concourse or the quail, but it's perfect for like the little car show.

And I'm sure there are other individual meets you could go to for a vehicle like that.

I just was unaware of them because I only knew, you know, my first year there.

I was like, just show me the way.

Like, no, I'm just going to step back and relax and just wherever you need help, I'll help.

Other than that, I'm just going to follow along pretty much.

So it could be more stuff to learn and more events to go to that would fit other cars.

But so far, a little car show is the element I'm aware of was also the first time I have ever seen at a car show under NSU.

So that was cool.

Sure.

It was a shorter wheelbase version, like the TT style.

Yes.

So mine is the 1200C, which has eight inches.

I think I think it's eight inches extended.

Wow.

Behind the front wheel before the door.

So it gives more leg room.

Yeah.

Earlier cars were shorter, but I think it's eight inches.

So anyway, one of those was there.

The guy's Instagram account is at Retro Sporting.

He does a lot of B sedan style stuff in Northern California.

So cool to see that.

He's on TwinWebbers, had cool exhaust, had, you know, cool vintage racing buckets.

I need to look to it, but we'll just need to see it on our NSU.

While we were there, David is from England, and he had met this guy there the year before who owned the English pub that's on the same street as the car show.

And I guess they both were, you know, from a same basic area and they both favor the same soccer team.

So they made a, he made a joke that he's going to send him team shirts for all of David's friends to wear to the shirt, the pub the next year, which I was unaware of.

And obviously if anybody knows me, knows my level of anxiety, wearing matching t-shirts to everybody is way up there.

What team was that?

When I played along, I wore the shirt.

It was kind of, it was definitely funny.

Need the t-shirt?

I don't know.

Maroon and blue.

Like Manchester United or?

I did, but I get back to them for next year.

I don't know.

Crystal Palace or something?

It was definitely not that one.

I would have remembered that.

Yeah, I don't know you.

Man, it's exhaustive.

No.

I repair sports league soccer teams.

Yeah, I don't, I have absolutely no idea.

We'll follow up next week.

I'll dig some pictures out and find out what it is.

But anyway, it was, it was funny to be in an event like car week and people are everywhere and like we all showed up with that shirts.

The owner came out and next thing you know where, you know, first people sit down and a ton of great food for a significantly lower price than it would have been if we didn't go wearing those shirts.

So that was cool.

Yeah, that's how you got to do it, right?

They keep car week cheap.

Let's see what else happened this week.

I did the DWA

morning meetup with a good, not a morning motors.

I guess maybe it's maybe they call it a morning motors, but we met at a Starbucks and

hung out there for like an hour that everybody got into cars and drove.

I think it was like 15 or 20 miles to a spot on the side of the one to watch the tour go by.

Now, the tour is all of the cars that are participating in Misslewood Sundays.

This is like what we said, Misslewood.

People beach concourse.

But they drive them on a just like just like Misslewood was.

Yep.

So they drive them on a loop, you know, a few days before the actual concourse.

This was on I think Wednesday morning.

So we got the spot for that.

Super cool driving down the route with all those, you know, so called guys that we all know on Instagram but don't know in real life.

Super cool ride with all those guys.

We took the David and I went in the Mark 1 escort again.

So cool to have a car there that fit in with them as well.

Met a ton of people there that I've known through the internet, but never knew in person.

Chatted with Sloney.

Cool.

From Instagram and from our discord, he was there.

Took a minute.

We were talking to realize who each other were.

Ryan from Ford.

Oh, yeah.

I've met him and he's the message.

Last name right now.

I can't remember his last name right now.

Massachusetts.

Yep.

I met him there.

Yeah.

Big jerks we are.

Frank from another pointless, from another pointless automotive podcast was there.

So it's cool chat with him.

I'm glad that I didn't recognize who he was when he started talking to me until he was like Brad, right?

Yeah.

Ah, it's just like totally overwhelmed.

So much happening.

So yeah, we watched that.

We watched that event.

Left there.

We were going to go to the Ferrari owners club show because that's where we had some of our friends vehicles were at.

But as we were leaving, we were stuck in a little bit of traffic to head back up the one.

And when David started coming off the clutch, I could hear the brakes make noise.

And I was like, huh, like a little, little chirp.

I was like, that's not good.

And then, you know, go a little louder, go a little louder, go a little louder.

And then go to the point where he would clutch in and the car would start to slow down.

Oh, they locked up.

It's like, hmm, this is definitely not good.

So as soon as we had a free.

Yeah.

So as soon as we had a free spot, we could pull over and bear in mind, we were only going like 10 miles an hour.

We weren't going fast.

No, we pull over, we get out and the front brakes are actually smoking.

Yeah.

So that's also obviously not good.

David happened to have an infrared thermometer with him because he's been.

Yeah, checking his, you know, his gauges for his fans and everything.

Pulls it out.

Okay.

Brakes were 588 degrees.

So that's too hot.

Yeah.

It's not good at all.

So now we're on the side of the road.

We're like trying to figure out what's going to happen.

We don't know what to do.

We're also not in cell service.

There is one of the cars from the tour across the street.

It's some big Chrysler concept car.

They had a bunch of Chrysler concept cars in the concourses here.

He's also broken down, but he already has a tow truck.

The tow truck driver's like, hey, do you guys need a tow?

But at that time we had just pulled over.

And we're like, no, we'll figure it out.

So he drove off.

Then it hit me.

I was like, wow.

Do you guys need a lifeboat?

No, no, no.

We'll swim.

That was dumb.

That was really dumb.

Yeah.

Exactly.

We were joking about afterwards.

All I could think about was the scene in Dumb and Dumber with the tour bus full

of all the bikini girls is like, he goes, oh, are you dummy?

It's that way.

But anyway, yeah.

So the tow truck drove off and then we were sitting there.

Probably could have been a bad choice, but turned out to not be.

So we started taking like an inventory report we had for tools and then realized we didn't

have the number one essential tool for working on brakes, which was a jack.

So that wasn't going to work very well.

And then going to the tools, the only things we had, because we had taken everything out

of the car before we left were like a one of those cheap ratchets like ratcheting wrench

sets and not ratcheting wrench like ratchets and a few wrenches like between seven mil

and 12 mil.

So we're like, all right, what can we do to make this car work?

I was like, well, the wheels don't roll.

It's cooled off a bunch.

Now it's down to like 150 degrees.

The wheel is still not rolling.

So obviously letting it cool off didn't help.

So maybe the only thing I can even consider doing here is maybe crack the

bleeders and relieve some pressure and something will move.

Maybe.

There's no other options here.

So let's throw the dice and see what happens.

So I did that and they opened.

Moved enough fluid through that it popped them and both front both front wheels

were stuck and both front wheels freed up.

So we drove it back to camp instead of going to any other places with

light touches in the brake pedal and a big dose of e-brake to stop the car.

Because it seems to be that when you've pushed the brakes too far,

they could hung up somewhere along like a rage or something.

Maybe.

Who knows?

The brakes have not been rebuilt since the car has been in this country.

So we don't really know the history of them.

We figured out they're upgraded to Capri brakes.

So they're a larger brakes than the Escort 1.3 would have had.

But we made it back to camp.

He used the car the rest of the week sparingly just to go to events

he had pre-registered for and it worked out.

Got it back on the trailer and it's back home now to be

actually worked on and have new calipers put in it because

they are definitely sticking.

Did I actually do anything by cracking the bleaters?

I don't know.

But the wheel freed up.

So whether it was chance timing or it actually did something,

at least we got the car back in the car.

Get back.

Yeah.

We got the car back to camp I should say.

Yeah.

Get back to where you once belonged.

So yeah, the next day was a car show called the paddock.

And at the paddock, there was a Radwood curated display.

So Mark, who was with us, had his car in the Radwood display.

He has a, I think it's 1989, Maserati Shamal.

Which is like the ultimate evolution of the bi-turbo, basically.

It was never sold in this country.

Big box flares like a Starion, twin turbo V8 manual transmission.

Very cool car.

They only made 360 something of them worldwide.

I think there's four in this country right now.

Super cool car.

So that was in the Radwood show.

Michael had his green Ferrari 550 race car.

In the Radwood show.

And the paddock show was more of a catch-all for other things.

So David put his escort in that show.

So I think it's a new show.

Oh really?

The second year of it.

It was absolutely horrible.

Yeah.

So the Radwood part was cool.

When you first walked in, you walked into the Radwood thing.

They asked them to bring 50-some-odd cars.

I think there were 60 cars.

In typical Radwood fashion, they laid it out the way they normally do.

It looked really neat.

And cars were not parked side-by-side.

They had good display going on.

But then you walked over the hill to where the other part of the show was, the paddock part of the show.

And the cars were all parked side-by-side in parking lot rows.

And they were like five cars and then like 300 feet and then like six cars.

And then 250 feet and then five more cars.

But it wasn't on purpose because they had them all parked and they had the lines.

Like they had flags in the ground and lines painted in the ground to show cars were to park.

So they must have expected hundreds and hundreds of cars and they got like 50.

So that wasn't positive.

And then what really stunk was you were stuck there all day.

You couldn't leave after awards if you had a car on the show.

And the show was like, that's long.

Three to eight, which is a long time.

And we've been there since noon because they wanted us there before one to stage the cars in the field.

Which obviously, that's another story.

So we're staging the cars in the field and David had me roll with them in case I had to jump out and stop the car by hand.

Or we're rolling across the field because you know the break situation.

And we're rolling in, what is the name of that super car with like the shift or linkage and like the nautical themed interior.

Okay.

Now a pre-pegani.

Spiker.

So it was some like special spikers celebration was happening at this event and there were five spikers there.

Of the 40 cars, five of them are spikers.

Like, okay.

So we're rolling in and nobody told us where to go.

We're just following the car in front of us.

And the car in front of us is one of those spikers.

We pull into like the area where they're parking it.

And a guy outside was like, oh, are you guys in the spiker exhibit?

No.

We're at a Ford Escort.

Obviously not a spiker.

So he's like, oh, okay, never mind.

We'll find somebody else straight where to go.

All right.

So he followed this guy in a golf cart across the field.

And we go past everything, not another car around us, but the only car within 200 feet in every direction.

He lines us up, like spends all this time lining us up in the spot.

He's like, all right, this is where you're going to go.

We'll build off you.

Okay.

That's cool.

So you walk away.

We go walk around the show.

I go back to the car like 45 minutes later just to change my sunglasses.

The show is on now.

Gates closed.

Not another car inside of our car.

All by ourselves.

No car near us.

No need to go anywhere near us.

The car is just sitting in the middle of like the middle of the golf course in the middle of the green.

Just hanging out there.

It's like, okay.

Well, I guess the car stays there.

Nothing around it at all.

I'll have to post a picture because it's comical how far away it was from anything else at the height of this car show.

What else happened?

We spent a lot of time at the racetrack all day every day from 8 a.m. till 5 or 6 p.m.

as we did racing.

Just constant from Tuesday to Saturday.

The coolest thing there this year was the Iraq celebration.

It's the first time ever that all five generations of Iraq car have been on the track at the same time.

So that was cool.

They had everything from the 1973 Porsche 911 RSR cars to the late 90s Dodge Avengers.

Obviously, Dodge Avengers weren't production based anymore.

They were full on NASCAR style cars, but just a very, very, very cool, cool event.

And the coolest part about it was they didn't just have gentlemen drivers driving the cars.

They had the people who drove the cars when they were on track for Iraq back in the 80s and 90s.

So seven generations of Iraq cars by about five.

So Jeff Gordon, Kurt Busch, Bobby Labani, Bill Elliott, Mark Martin, Ken Schrader, Danny Sullivan, Scott Pruitt,

like those dudes who drove the cars back in the day.

All those guys that is named were driving cars weekend on track together.

So very cool to see.

Like just one of those motorsports moments that you'll or that I'll never forget.

Other than that, it was pretty standard, standard fare for vintage car racing.

There was an F1 display with the 50 years of F1.

That was kind of cool.

Or 75 years of F1 or whatever it's been.

It's a long time.

Walter Rural's 037 Lancia was there.

The Group E car.

Never seen that car in prison before.

I mean, again, I'm running out of adjectives to describe how cool car week was.

And if there's so much stuff in my brain that I saw, I don't even know how to get it out there.

Just you have to do it.

If you have a chance to do car week, you have to do it.

So.

Yeah, I'm pretty jealous.

Especially. Yeah, it was a good time.

Let me go sometime.

Well, I think it's gonna be a regular thing for me.

I'll talk about cost real quick.

I have friends that got hotels there or Airbnb's.

For the same amount of time, I was there.

The cheapest one that I heard was $3,200.

That was a hotel room with just two beds in it.

$3,200 at like what kind of hotel?

Right.

But that was the cheapest.

I'd like Motel 6 down.

Yeah.

If you want a room in one of the nicer hotels, you're a grand plus a night.

Yeah.

So another friend did an Airbnb and they spent almost 10 grand.

Yeah.

So that's the kind of pricing that happens at this event.

All of that being said, camping at the racetrack?

And RV spot at the racetrack for the entire week?

A thousand bucks?

I had an idea of what that would cost, given those numbers.

500, really?

That was gonna be my first guess.

Half of that.

The book would figure out?

Yeah.

But the caveat there is that's just, well, they book out really far.

And people who already have the spots have priority.

That being said.

I figure I was going with that whole thing.

Oh, if it doesn't include, yeah, it includes camping at the racetrack.

It does not include paddock or track access.

I mean.

So you had to buy that individually.

So for the whole week, that's $2,200.

That's two hundred and twenty dollars.

That's two days for camping.

And then you have to technically do that a Sunday again.

Because it's a separate thing.

Because there's lots of people that show up.

Yeah.

Sure.

Yeah, no, I'm not saying it's wrong.

I'm just saying that's the extra cost.

So, but all in, if you're camping by yourself, you're 500 bucks.

You're 750 bucks for the week, which is cheaper than the cheapest hotel by less than by a quarter.

Now, obviously when camping, you can bring more people in there.

So you can split that initial 500 and then everybody just buys their track ticket.

So it gets cheaper.

Obviously, the more people you do.

So we camped.

We had two camp spots, the two RP spots, because that allowed us to have enough vehicles.

And Michael has a car hauler that he wanted to park in camp.

It's a car hauler slash camper motor coach, I guess you'd call it.

So we had two spots because that would accommodate that big truck, plus all our tents,

plus any extra cars we had with us in our campsite.

So that worked out pretty well, but they were, I'd say six or seven of us total.

So that splits everything down super cheap.

So you can spend the whole week there for individually less than $500.

I mean, obviously that doesn't count getting there and food and all that stuff,

but most of the events are either free or if somebody you're going with has a car in,

you get in with the car.

The higher end events obviously are not like the quails $700 for a spectator ticket,

so I didn't go to that.

The Pebble Beach actual concourse is similar.

It's multiple hundreds of dollars for a ticket, so I didn't go to that.

But everything I did during the week, I was either with somebody who had a ticket for the event,

so it did not cost anything, or the event itself was free.

So I would say that the entire week cost me less than $1,000, including getting there.

So I flew there from Phoenix.

I think it was, I think we booked on points, but I think the equivalent was like $300 round trip directly into Monterey.

And then it's a 15 minute ride to the racetrack from the airport.

So it's a very, very convenient to get there, very convenient place to visit.

I guess there was another thing this year that was a camping event that was off track.

Yeah, that looked really cool.

I saw that sports car vacation landing.

I'm not 100% sure.

See, I like that.

It was cool, but also it looked too artsy for me.

I was like, I don't know if that's cool.

I don't know.

We'll see.

That was also a cheap way to do car week, but it was not at the track.

I think that being at the track added an extra level of like, this is unbelievable to me,

because again, having never been at Laguna Sega and then going to, I opened my tent door and stand up and look up

and you're just looking up the corkscrew.

So pretty epic.

So that's, that would be my suggestion of how to do it if you can get in there.

Obviously, I had an advantage because I went and established people who've been going for years.

So they already knew the ins and outs.

They already had the campsites booked while in advance and they have the, you know,

first right of refusal each year for them.

So I will definitely go back next year for sure.

And I'll have to find a way to make you enjoy camping.

It's the sleeping.

You can go as well.

Trouble sleeping on, unlike I just, like, I get it.

What you call it, a mat for a sleeping bag.

Air mattress.

I mean, you can get an air mattress, maybe like a bed.

Anyway, you don't like camping.

I understand.

You would have actually not loved it at night time there because it was cold and windy.

Very windy.

I'd never experienced steady winds like that.

I don't think for multiple days in a row.

It was just 35 mile an hour gusts and 55 degrees.

It was, it was chilly.

It was pretty terrible actually, but we enjoyed it because we were there at the racetrack.

And it was only after dark that that happened.

Getting your tent, you don't feel it anyway.

We had, so we have that big, that big motor coach with the stacker in the back, which is a huge truck.

So we parked that one way and then backed a suburban up to the other side of it,

or drove the suburban up the other side of it.

So we created like a little wall that's in between.

But even then we had a fire ring too, which is nice, like appropriate fire ring.

Even then there was one night that we went in the truck because it was too cold and windy out of the truck.

It is what it is.

I can live with that for everything else that was good.

And even then, that was a nice break for me from the 115 that we've had here.

So I'll take it.

But yeah, it was amazing.

I will try to do a little bit more stuff next year when I'm there.

I'll try to hit that downtown area.

Not that I love supercars, but just to say that I did that spot.

But other than that, I do it pretty much the same.

But I think this is going to be an every year event now.

Don't see why it wouldn't be.

Yeah, that's it, Andrew.

I haven't done anything else because I just got home.

Hey, that's it.

That's a good recap.

That's what we're at.

Trying to get.

The only other thing I did was I went to the local Marlite Gruzan.

That's always a good show.

I think I had one more this year coming up September.

I'm trying to get the Volvo, at least running it up.

They could drive it over there because it's not far from the house.

So we'll shake down that.

And then we'll see what the weather is.

They did one in October.

Last year, they had an extra one because the weather was nice.

And Saturday, it's Team O'Neill Rally Fest.

So I'm going to go up.

I already emailed them.

They were looking for streetcar versions or other rally cars to put in their car show.

So I emailed them and was like, hey, can I bring the launch up there?

I'm like, yes, absolutely.

So I was like, why don't we park it next to Tim's championship car?

So I'm going to bring that up Saturday.

Yeah.

That'll be a cool picture.

I'm just going to have to this podcast, get ready to do that.

I'm going to drive up to my place up there and work around tomorrow.

And then I'll go up Saturday.

Man, I'll say it sitting here thinking a lot, like thinking in my head.

Yeah.

Of all the things I forgot to even talk about from Caravans.

There's going to be a second op-ed on this next week, I think.

I can add some more things.

I'm just going through it like, you talk about Saturday.

I was like, oh, Saturday here is at this place called the warehouse.

They're doing a Hagerty Drivers Club event.

And inside the building is going to be all Italian cars because pro drifter Federico Shafir.

Yeah.

Federico is his name.

His last name I'm hard with pronouncing.

Sharifo?

I think it's Sharifo.

Yeah.

Sharif's 599.

Is that the French Ferrari?

I think it's a 599.

A 599 Ferrari in D1 Grand Prix drifting.

And he is in town.

So they're doing a thing with him.

We hung out with him most of the week in Monterey Car Week because he's friends with Michael.

That was pretty neat to meet a professional drifter and, I don't know, just be in that space for a while.

I just think it's why I said this.

So many things are in my head that are popping out that I forgot about.

So anyway.

All right.

Fair enough.

Go work on it.

My brain is fried, Andrew.

It's been a week.

Some of the cars are something.

It's been a week.

Yeah.

I can't work.

I think maybe we talked about...

I can't.

You did?

Maybe we already talked about it.

You did have a head gun on the Corolla and they said it was all good.

And then I think my suggestion is going to be...

Yeah.

Talk about that last week.

Yeah.

Just send the whole engine block to that machine shop and have them check it.

And it sounds like they're...

That was happening.

It's expensive enough just to have them do the rain.

That's what's happening.

Yeah.

I'm going to bring the whole amount of them.

It's probably the easy but not that.

That's where it's at.

So.

But yeah.

I really...

It's the easiest way.

Now it's late.

I want to go work on cars but it's too late.

So.

Maybe I can move on to other things.

No.

I'm looking forward.

Now I'm like, I'll do it next week.

Sorry, Andrew.

That's...

I just want to go work on cars.

But I'm done anything else.

No RC stuff.

Anyway.

I just wanted to say a big thanks again to Michael at Italian Design and Racing.

Josh Mead.

David and Mark and Mike's dad Jim just for having me along on that trip with them.

And I don't...

I don't envision never not going again.

Yeah.

So I hope they enjoyed my company.

Well, you might have to come out to Gridlife.

Because I'm going back one time.

One time.

So.

Just check it out.

I want to make sure I thank everybody.

Yeah.

If they're...

I mean, I'm sure I can make both things work.

Exactly.

Who knows?

I've just...

I've already been to Massachusetts twice this summer.

So...

Yeah.

Anyway, that's all.

I'm just...

I'm writing that...

I'm writing that last week's high.

I don't even know how to talk about it yet.

I think I need some more time to come down and maybe edit some more pictures.

Definitely.

Since you can't do anything else, why don't you post some pictures?

So good.

So there you go.

All right, cool.

So.

Planning on it.

What do we got?

Oh, NASCAR is back to Daytona this weekend.

So I'll be watching that.

Hopefully it's a cool winner like last year.

I had Harrison Burton win.

That was cool.

So maybe somebody else's cool will win.

And...

Yeah.

That'd be wild.

SVG.

Because it's like getting there.

There's only like two races left.

Playoffs.

So...

I'll maybe do...

Maybe this.

I thought Daytona was the last race.

I don't know how much I...

I follow it, but I don't follow it.

So...

I don't obsess over it.

Yeah.

I know enough.

I don't obsess over it.

Knowing the rules is hard.

Anyway.

All right, cool.

So...

Go follow us on Instagram so Brad can post some pictures,

press for him to post some pictures.

He definitely doesn't have an excuse.

So if he can't work on cars,

he should sit on the couch and post some pictures

while he's watching TV.

Right?

Sure.

Yeah.

On off topic.

Don't tell me what to do.

On off topic.

What do I want?

Facebook, I guess.

If you're still on there.

On off topic on threads sometimes.

I am also racing on Instagram threads.

Loose sky all the places.

Message us.

If you're not at the Discord,

you can come join us.

Hang out at the Discord.

It's free.

Just come hang out.

That's all.

Lots of cool stuff going on there.

People are always working on cool projects and cars.

So...

We're going to find you, Brad.

All those same places.

Essentially.

And go bully him into...

TSI.

SS350.

Yeah.

All right.

Cool.

As always.

Or just watch as I post.

And aim theroses.

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