Welcome to another in-wheel-time podcast, a 30-minute mini version of the in-wheel-time car show that airs live every Saturday morning, 8 to 11 a.m. Central.
I'm driving the 2025 Chevy Silverado EV, and Jeff has the motor minute coming up on the in-wheel-time car talk show, howdy, along with Mike out of this world Mars, we always need more Jeff Zekin, I'm Don Armstrong, so glad that you could join us on this rainy Saturday here in Texas.
It is. Temperatures about to hit 70 degrees, and later this weekend, supposed to go down back into the 20s again, oh my god. It's kind of like being in Canada.
Oh, really? Courtney Ender's joins us from Canada. We're exactly O-A, where are you from? Yeah, I haven't started talking like that yet, y'all.
And we're in a small town called Stratford in Ontario, just about an hour away from Toronto.
Okay, very good. Well, I hope that you're having a good time up there. I understand it's a weekend off for you, and that's a rare thing.
It is, and it's a snow day, which is also a rare thing. I went like 14 years of my life without seeing snow, and now there's probably two feet outside, so...
Oh, there you go. In your cap.
Yeah, I'm just going to say, well, I'm glad that you're indoors. I lived with that for the first 11 years of my life in Wisconsin, and I'll tell you what.
And Jeff is from Detroit, so we know all about the snow thing. We're glad that we're 70 degrees and raining in Houston, Texas today.
You miss it.
Well, so, hey, congratulations on your new appointment at NHRA TV.
Yeah, thanks. It's still very weird. It's been a whirlwind of a couple of weeks, a couple of months with the pro superstar shootout, and then that.
It almost just doesn't feel quite real yet. I saw my name on the poster. They posted the other day, and I said, well, by God, they went through with it.
Yes, apparently they did, because I see you. I got the press release right here in my hand, and I thought, oh, there's Courtney down there.
Andrews will be contributing to live in both the Mission Foods and Lucas Oil Drag Racing series during the upcoming season.
I go, I know her. Yay!
And, you know, the other thing that really kind of excites me, Dave Freiburger is going to be on there with you along with Jordan Vandergriff.
Others, and I guess that you'll be doing some interviews with your sister. That'll be kind of weird.
Yeah, you know, I've gotten used to that. I know we're going to talk about flow here in a minute, but I used to be so nervous to interview her.
I could interview Greg Anderson. I could interview John Forrest. Like, everything was normal, but when Erica got in front of me, I just thought, we were going to turn into 10 year olds, and she was going to take the microphone.
You don't know what you're doing.
She did it.
Yeah, exactly. Well, I'm so excited. It's kind of like a brand new job for me, too, because I get to keep track of you.
And since you're the only one that I can call on the telephone, or Mike Mars, and get you lined up to talk to us, we think that's wonderful.
Well, now we've got another ender's to follow. Yes, we do.
Follow Erica all the time. Now, we've got Courtney.
We've got to follow Greg Anders, but you know, he's too hard to keep up with, as you well know, since that's dad.
And then there was a stocking incident.
There was there was that.
All right, so congratulations on that, and I assume that you're going to be.
Where are you going to go to Florida?
So I am next couple of weeks is crazy. I've got this weekend off, and then I had Thursday to Gainesville.
We're going to go test my boyfriend Spencer Hyde just got a ride with Jim head racing.
So he will be taken over the funny card duties there. So we go license there.
I'm just going for fun. We'll support all the things. Come back home for a couple of days.
Get my mom set up here to watch my dog, and then I head to the World Series of Promo in Braydenton and head right over to Gainesville from there.
The last like two and a half months, I basically lived in Braydenton and Gainesville, Florida.
But so yeah, about Wednesday, it's go time.
I'm so excited. And I know you are too, even though that you've been doing the drag racing thing pretty much all of your life.
Because I know that you started off in your under your dad's tutelage with junior dragsters along with your sister.
And there's a movie about both the sisters called Dolan the Blank.
Right on track.
Disney movie, the very successful Disney movie, seen by millions and millions, especially girls.
And that was, was that 90s? That was the 90s, wasn't it?
I just that off. I was catching it. You're making me catch it faster.
2000s, but close.
No, it came in a 2003. We filmed it. No one came out. No three.
And then last summer, flow racing released a 20 years later documentary called Speedquines.
And you can actually see that on flow racing, which it's in front of the paywall as well.
So don't have to have a membership. And it is very different than Disney. Here's Disney, here's Speedquines.
They use the bleeper button a little bit.
Okay. Well, it's a grown-up version.
How come I didn't know about that?
I don't know, Ray Ray.
So, you know,
a lot of people, yeah, a lot of people don't know about Ray Ray.
It's my alter ego.
Yeah, yeah, in more.
But in fact, I reminded my good friend where that all came from. Steve Parrot with Nissan.
I saw him at the Houston Auto Show preview that we had a couple of weeks ago.
And I said, hey, how's it going?
He said, fine, Ray Ray. How are you?
Because it was him that I dogged on a phone call to get some information about a Nissan product.
And he'd never answer the phone. So I just went into my Ray Ray.
Full Ray Ray.
Yeah, the old Ray Ray thing. And really took him into another world that he didn't know what to deal with.
And so still getting treatment for that.
Yes, yes, yes. But anyway, great guy, but it started off with a whole different world.
At my funeral, I'll be Ray Ray Armstrong.
Anyway, so let's talk about flow racing.
You know, and I've seen you doing bits and pieces that were posted on Facebook and other sources of website stuff.
What is flow racing?
So flow racing is a live streaming company. It's actually flow sports.
They do everything from actually watching a, my buddy was at a baseball game in Dallas last night.
And it was a collegiate game streamed on flow. So they do wrestling.
They do cheerleading, which is varsity TV huge. They do marching band competitions.
A jujitsu, like I said, hoops baseball racing is a huge part of it racing and wrestling and cheerleading are probably the biggest parts.
But flow sports has about 500 employees.
And then you get down to flow racing.
Big and late model, big and dirt. They do some NASCAR off TV stuff, just kind of like an HRA TV style.
And then about four years ago, five years ago, they bought speed video, which was the live streaming company for drag racing.
They were doing a lot of that. And we acquired the PDRA, the NMCA, some TX2K stuff.
And kind of morphed it over into the way that flow racing usually does step up your big dirt.
I've heard a bit. But now over the past few years, we've been concentrating a lot on the content side as well.
So we live streamed drag races. But also when they hired me full time three years ago, we created the content department.
So I handle everything that goes on the website that has to do with flow drag racing.
We've got our own flow drag racing social handles now. We don't have to hide under the big boys because there's thousands of late model and dirt races on flow.
And there's maybe 30 to 40 drag races. So they gave us our own little subsidiary and we're just kind of rolling.
And now we've got the pro race. We've got PDRA. We've got maybe trying to do some NHRA stuff here in the future.
But live streaming is definitely where everything's moving to you.
Are you still going to continue working for flow and do NHRA TV?
Oh, yeah. Flow is my home. Flow is made this very clear with Evan and the boys at NHRA when they I aggressively called them.
I've been knocking on their door for three or four years. And I don't think that they took me two to seriously until we started doing the pro superstar shoot out a couple of years ago and putting out these content pieces, shop tour with John Forrest, Amtron Brown, Ron Caps, doing some stuff with Erica, Dallas, Glenn, Greg Anderson.
I did a ton of content pieces long form that go on the stream, but also on the website. And I just kept knocking and with the unfortunate moving on of Alan Reinhardt going back to IHRA, I knew with his blessing.
I knew there would be some holes there and that they were going to be rejuvenating what they're doing. And I sent a pretty bold email and got a nice phone call the next day and kind of figured it out. But yeah, Flow is my priority.
I worked there full time. I still work with Elite. I help with team management stuff. We've hired PR reps, content people to do what I used to do there, but still help very heavily on these sponsor and team management side. And then I'll be doing some announcing don't really know what all the NHRA stuff is going to entail.
We're going to see what my balance is in Gainesville, but I know it will be promod heavy. I'll teach is going to be in the booth for promod. And I've worked with the promod series for the last six, seven years.
So I'll be up there doing that, doing some sportsman stuff and try and get in where I fit in with the boys and girls on the start line and top end. And if anybody knows me, I will I'll be knocking on everyone's.
I love that. Yes, well, we're your biggest fans and we're so excited for you at this venture that you've got going. So now I want to turn our attention to a couple of things.
I've heard a lot of rumblings about Freeman and the elite motorsports boys getting into top fuel. Is that is that true?
Well, here's the here's the short and true version of Richard Freeman. You've met him done. Yes, is the world's most interesting man. Right. Like you can't predict this guy for many things.
Exactly. And he's always what's next. Let's grow. Let's change. There's some things in the top of your class. He would like to help parts cost regulation safety. He's a big part of the pro organization and kind of had some words about maybe trying to get involved in there. He's very in touch with Tony Stewart.
And the Johnson's horse powered garage team and and Erica just kind of trying something different. Well, it was very early in conversations weren't sure what the Capcom boys were going to do.
Anything like that. And on a podcast on the 4th of July when I was supposed to be off, Richard Freeman announced that he wanted to go top fuel race.
Became just a storm of nonsense. I get phone calls. I have to get out of the pool. I've had a couple more houses. I'm like, now I have to write a press release. Now I have to go to work.
And the intention was to try and put something together, but we were nowhere near announcing. And that's a Richard Freeman M.O.
And the car is on the back order light crazy. The NHRA still has a rule where you can't race to professional categories.
So we've been doing work behind the scenes timing, getting Eric out of the car, putting a stop watch on me, get on a scooter, go get her, change your fire suit, bring her back.
How long does that take to try and prove that with TV, we could do it. Nothing's really moved yet. I don't cars are year or so on order.
So nothing's happening yet, but Richard Freeman has always got his hand on the go button to make a move. So we'll see.
Okay. All right. Well, I'm not going to hold my breath on all of that.
But I will say Erica will never not race pro stock in order to do that. So as long as things are in order the way they are at the NHRA, she will not give pro stock up.
Yeah, because they're going to have to change the rules there. Yeah. And you know, from my experience with NHRA that goes back a long way.
I will tell you that changing the rules for something like that. It's like pulling IT as my mother used to say.
Yeah, it is. And we've gotten somewhere on it, but we'll see. And Eric has been running the same class for so long. She's won six championships and is by no means board.
But as you know, you know, well, that girl needs a carrot and something new. She's been running the promo card, the winner series.
And I think for now, that's that's filled that void.
Well, and on the same subject of Erica, last season wasn't all that great for her, although she did finish in the top 10.
But we're all used to her being right up there, challenging for the number one spot and winning six championships. So what does this season look like?
Well, last season, I'll be I'll be wrong, vulnerable with you guys. Mark Ingersol, our main crew chief. We share crew chiefs that elite motorsports. There's nine cars, five crew chiefs and we share.
Mark Ingersol had a double lung transplant middle of the year last year saved his life. He's going to be OK, but he still can't travel for another year.
And we would be crazy to say that losing our main chess piece didn't affect things. We were great. Chase Freeman picked up Tim Freeman everybody.
But Mark's been a part of our program for 10 years and he's a he's a big personal pillar for Erica out there physically on the racetrack.
And so dealing with that was was a bit tough. We we still had the opportunity to win the championship with Aaron and maybe could have and should have but didn't. So it's the way it goes.
But we've got some more stuff going on this year. Mark still not out. Jake Harrison and other crew chief of ours. It's got some stuff going on that he's getting treatment for.
So it's going to be it's going to be tough. There's we've had a pretty flawless storybook situation with elite the last 10 11 years.
And we've got some some uphill battles to fight this year. But there's the team has come together. We should showed it at the pro race this past weekend that through the shifts and everything that we're still the top notch there.
And so I think I think Eric has a lot better this year. Mentally again she finished fourth. Nothing I tell her all the time. You won the mission foods too fast to tasty shoot out championship.
You finished fourth. Like just because you only won one race. It's been a long time since she only won one race, which we've never won before.
So that was cool. But it just says a lot about your career when you finish fourth and do so well that you're wildly disappointed.
But to say that she's not pissed off and hungry is an understatement. So that's a scary Erica. That's an Eric. I'm excited to watch. Yeah, exactly. Well, I will tell you finishing fourth out of 18 slots.
And I'm bad sister as you know. Yeah, exactly. I mean heck. I mean, that's pretty good. Some some people don't even make it out of one season and make it to the 18th slot.
But she's finished first six times. Yeah. So there's all that it's so weird. She always does them in twos. And I said it's your third. It's not your time. You got to give somebody else a minute and then go back. Yeah, exactly. Well, it's great to talk to you.
And we sure appreciate you taking the time of your Saturday off in Canada and in Canada A. Yeah, to talk to us and don't go take up in a hockey sticks and pucks and get on the ice this weekend. Wait, wait, wait, snow machine racing snow.
Oh, yeah, get into that. No, anything to worry about with me getting involved in any winter activity.
Okay, good. Yeah, I'm thinking I'm thinking somewhere in a rubah. Yeah, it's in her drinks. Yeah, we go sand drag racing there. We love you. Thank you. Thank you so much for thinking of me. Well, always and you take care. Call us anytime. We'll have you on.
Yeah, y'all too. I appreciate it. Have a good weekend. Thank you too. Bye bye. Erica, Erica sister Courtney enters NHRA TV now. So, um, yeah, man, she's, she's got a presence out there. She does a mover and a shaker to say the least to say the least. All right, just ahead. A review of the Chevy Silverado EV and Jeff's motor minute after this quick break.
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Come along with us on the upcoming Hot Rod Tour of Texas April 24th through the 27th beginning in Victoria. We have links to their info and their site on inwheeltime.com. We do have that, don't we?
Yes, sir. Last Saturday, he said he was going to buy the time Super Bowl ended, it would be on.
It was. Inwheeltime.com and inwheeltime Facebook page, all that info and links to get to Hot Rod Tour of Texas is on their time now for the Motor Minute. Mr. Jeffrey has that.
Well, here we go. Speaking of NHRA, Angel Sampe is going to a closed canopy for the NHRA top alcohol ride for 20.25.
She's a three-time NHRA Pro Stock Motorcycle Champion in a 47-time event winner. I did not know that, but she's going to a closed camp canopy.
She's going to do that for next year and then get into the top fuel dragster position.
Another thing we have for the Motor Minute are blue bonnets are coming out. So if you're going to take a blue bonnet cruise, take your significant other, go to the Hill Country, go to where they're blue men, and that would be a lot of fun.
Well, that sounds like fun. What is that? Well, they're starting to bloom now, so they're going to keep things going forward.
Generally March through April. So that's all blooming out. And I know everyone's wanting to hear this. There's 313 days until Christmas.
Yeehaw. Counting down. Great. Well, that's great to know. By any something not.
Grandpa, you've got to keep up with these things. That's Paw Paw. Paw Paw, you've got to keep up with these things.
All right. Time now for this hour's car review. The 2025 Chevrolet Silverado EV.
Final assembly location, Detroit, Hamtramic Assembly, which has also been renamed Factory Zero. Did you know that?
No. Well, now you do. Available trim levels, LT Extended Range, RST Extended Range, and RST Max Range.
I don't know what the difference is between the Extended and the Max, but I had the half-ton standard pickup truck, and it was the LT Extended Range.
Seats including the driver, 5, all new in 2024. No changes really this year. Closed nose with slit lighting. It's attractive.
It looks pretty darn good, if you ask me. Sail panel at the cab rear reminds one and all that this must have some sort of avalanche theme.
Yeah. And more so is the actual panel that goes between the cab and the trunk. And that rear window area.
The rear window, that whole panel back there, including the rear window, comes out. And you can extend the bed up to 10 feet, 10 inches.
So it's unique, and I think it's a good deal. Big, oversized, squared-off wheel openings, typical of Chevy, black plastic wheel opening trim and black bumper.
Okay. What I like, the overall look is very good. Multi-tail gate and step bumper is also great. And that multi-function tailgate, it actually helps with the load, especially when you've got that mid-gate open.
So you can put your, what they put in there, a fiat when the avalanche came out. Remember that? They put something in there.
Anyway, inside the interior highlights, a very layered look, instrument cluster and infotainment screens. They work together nicely and it's a nice looking look.
So in other words, the instrument cluster is in front of the infotainment screen, but they're right there together, runs across the dash. You can see it in that picture right there.
Controls easy to use with intuitive placement. Avalanche multi-function mid-gate extends the bed of viability, usability to almost 11 feet. Quiet inside this cab. Cargo trunk room? Well, the front is a bonus, and I can't remember that it's up there.
Because I'm driving a pickup truck. Who remembers that there's a trunk up front? Did you open it? I did. How did you close it? I had to pull the hook down to make it come down.
Couldn't find a button any place to make it come down. What is wrong with that? If you go inside and push the button inside the cab again, it'll come down.
I know, but it's like a tailgate from the front. There's no push button to bring it down.
I don't understand that, but maybe Jackney Red knows something probably does. What I liked about it, the multi-function center console is outstanding, and I say multi-function because it is. It's got slides in it. The door opens up. It's got the phone charger. All the good stuff is inside there.
What could use improvement? Seating is a little firm for my old body. It's firm in the back there too.
Drive train. Well, obviously, it's an electric, so it's a direct drive. No transmission, 10,000-pound tow rating, haul rating, 1,500 pounds. Just remember, it's a lot of donkeys.
It's electric, and you're going to suck up all of that charge if you put like a big trailer back there and a big load of gravel in the back. It's going to use it up pretty quickly.
It's advertised up to 484 miles on a single charge. That's a lot. But from my experience, you're going to have to feather the throttle at about 45 miles an hour all the way up to Dallas and back to get that 484 miles.
I traveled 404.8 miles, and I got two miles per kilowatt hour. I don't know what the hell that means. Do you know what that means, Mark?
There's a conversion tool that you can use. No, I'm not going to use a conversion tool. You use the conversion tool. I did. Did you? Good for you. I'm happy for you. I'll tell you what, my electricity bill should go up. What did you say? Happy, happy, happy.
What I liked about it, plenty of power, and it's quiet. What could use improvement? Charging infrastructure that has nothing to do with this vehicle, or any electric car, other than the fact that you can't find a damn place to plug it in. That's a problem. Still, I went up there to the Whole Foods, EVGO, fast charging station. I'm sorry, it's out of order. It's been out of order for over a year.
It's driving handling smooth, but it feels really heavy to drive. Base trim price, $73,100. Price is tested on this Chevy, $83,090. Base model price, $73.1. Competitors, the Ford F150 Lightning, the Rivian R1T, and the GMC Sierra. The fancier you get, the more it's going to cost you, just like everything else.
So would Tesla be in that comparison or not? Well, further down the line. That's what they say, but I'm sorry, I don't see it. You have to decide for yourself. If you want an electric truck, which I don't particularly understand, the thought process behind that, other than the fact that bragging rights, hey, I got an electric truck.
I don't quite understand it all, but that is what it is. That's my review of the 25 Chevy Silverado EV. I will ask you, if you're going to go out and look at trucks, look at this. It's worth a shot. It's a good looking truck. That is very much so.
All right, if you'd like to get in touch with a shoot us an email, the address here is info at inwheeltime.com. We'll be back after this quick break.
We'll be back after this quick break.
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That's it for this podcast episode of the inwheel time car show. I'm Don Armstrong inviting you to join us for our live show every Saturday morning on Facebook, YouTube, Twitch, and our inwheeltime.com website.
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About this episode
Courtney Enders, the newest star of NHRA TV, shares her exciting journey and upcoming projects in drag racing. From her early days under her father's guidance to her recent appointment, Courtney discusses the challenges and triumphs of her racing career. The conversation touches on her sister Erica's performance, the dynamics of the elite motorsports team, and the evolving landscape of drag racing media with Flow Racing. The episode also features light-hearted banter about snow days in Canada and insights into the NHRA's future.
Courtney Enders brings her infectious enthusiasm and deep drag racing knowledge to this episode as she discusses her exciting new role with NHRA TV. As the sister of six-time Pro Stock champion Erica Enders, Courtney offers a unique insider perspective on the sport while carving her own path in racing media.
Speaking from her temporary home in snowy Stratford, Ontario, Courtney shares the whirlwind journey that led to her joining the NHRA broadcast team alongside veterans like Dave Freiburger. What makes her story particularly compelling is how she's balancing multiple professional roles simultaneously – maintaining her full-time position managing content at Flow Racing while taking on NHRA TV responsibilities and still assisting with team management at Elite Motorsports.
The conversation takes fascinating turns as Courtney provides candid insights into Elite Motorsports' rumored Top Fuel aspirations. She describes team owner Richard Freeman as "the world's most interesting man" with his "hand always on the go button," while explaining the regulatory challenges preventing Erica from competing in both Pro Stock and Top Fuel. Listeners gain valuable understanding of the behind-the-scenes dynamics that shape racing team decisions.
Perhaps most poignant is Courtney's vulnerability when discussing Elite's challenging 2023 season, revealing how crew chief Mark Ingersoll's double lung transplant impacted the team's performance. Despite the setbacks, she assures fans that Erica is "pissed off and hungry" heading into the new season – a mindset that has previously led to championship runs.
For both dedicated racing fans and casual listeners, this episode provides a fascinating glimpse into the evolution of drag racing media, the personal stories behind the competition, and how the Enders family continues to shape the sport's future. Whether you're familiar with the Disney movie "Right On Track" that chronicled the Enders sisters' early career or just discovering their story, Courtney's enthusiasm for all things drag racing is undeniably contagious.
Disclaimer: This post contains affiliate links. If you make a purchase, I may receive a commission at no extra cost to you.
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