Ep.303 – Daniel Morad

So, Ambassador to Lebanon.

Expert in Silverstone-based public transportation.

And a big fan of the pyramids.

Daniel Morat, if you could describe this lunch we just had in one word, what would it be?

Aliens.

And now for Dinner with Racers presented by Continental Tire with your hosts, Ryan

Neversley and Shawn Heckman.

Welcome to Dinner with Racers.

Dinner with Racers.

I'm Ryan Neversley.

Hey, I'm Shawn Heckman.

And we are sitting here at a Johnny Rockets in Hollywood, California.

And what year, Shawn?

Year 2025, which is a year 10.

Year 10.

It's year 10.

Yeah, 2015 we were doing this.

Year 10 of this podcast, which is crazy.

Remember not having diabetes?

So we did our normal podcast this year where we tried to tag along on some of our race

weekends.

One of those race weekends that we do is Daytona where we try to get people from

overseas.

And apparently Canada now falls into overseas because we didn't know we were going to

go there.

It crossed like Michigan.

And so we're able to get ahold of Daniel Morat, who is a longtime sports car racing

driver, junior open wheel kid that came up through those ranks.

But somebody we've both known for a long time but never really got to know close.

Exactly.

So like Ryan said, I mean a working driver would be the way we would title him.

He takes opportunities as they come.

He was a karting stud, went over to junior open wheels, drove in the now defunct A1

GP series where he learned he was Lebanese.

And in the modern era he's kind of just known as a figure in different GT

ranks.

If you're a sim racer you're probably very familiar with the Moradness brand

of gloves and sim shoes and equipment.

And that's all Daniel, which leads to of course a lot of stories, such as Ryan.

Deciding that you're Lebanese?

Multiple career resets.

We learned that we are f*****g goals.

We are f*****g goals.

And conspiracy theories.

Tons of conspiracy theories.

Lots of conspiracy theories.

Yeah.

Now we had a delicious lunch at Bonefish Grill, which we have been to many

times in the past.

Yeah.

I can't remember all the guests because it's been a

lot.

It's kind of become disabled.

We've done Oliver Gavin.

Yeah.

Oliver Gavin, Augusto Farfus.

Yeah.

We did Farfus.

We did Albuquerque.

Yeah.

We did Farfus.

We did Albuquerque.

All kinds of stuff.

Yeah.

Bonefish Grill has become such a stable.

Yeah.

They're the tegary of dinner with racers places that we go to regularly.

When we walked in they're just like, oh, you want your table?

Yeah.

We don't even have to call.

They're like, yeah, go to your table.

Yeah.

It's right across the street from the Speedway, so you're looking for a

nice lunch there.

Bonefish Grill and Daytona.

They've been so great for us, but one of the things that's

awesome and great for us.

Because they're chicken sandwich, Ryan.

I loved it.

Thank you, Bonefish Grill, for that chicken sandwich.

What did you eat?

I had a shrimp salad.

Yeah.

Really good.

Cool.

And then you had a chicken sandwich.

I did.

Right.

Sure.

It looked like pasta.

But you know what else is better than that?

That sandwich that you had.

It's Continental Tire.

Tell me about Continental Tire, Ryan.

Well, 10 years ago we went to Continental Tire and we were like, hey, we have a really

bad idea.

Do you want to be involved?

And they were like, can you sell a bunch of tires?

And we said, no.

And apparently we can.

Well.

Because here we are 10 years later and Continental has had our backs the entire way.

And we could not do the show without them and also without you supporting them.

So please continue to keep that up if you want to keep this show on the road in a couple

of ways you can do that, Sean.

If you use the hashtag dinner with Conti, that goes a long way to tell Continental

Tire that you're engaged in paying attention to what we do.

So if you're on Instagram, Instagram being the one that they really, really

like, if you buy a set of tires, if you buy any sort of Continental product,

if you just see something that reminds you of us and you want to let us know

about the tech at Continental Tire in that post, but especially use hashtag dinner

with Conti.

That really goes a long way to sort of the trackable metrics era that we're in now

with advertising.

Or if you go to dinnerwithracers.com or even our Instagram profile, you'll see

there's a link to go to Continental Tire.

If you use the specific link on our website or Instagram, that link tells Continental

that we sent you.

And that is a huge, huge part of our sponsorship.

Got Nettletire.

Now we have a new thing we're doing this year that is a lot of fun for us.

We're at patreon.com forward slash DWR show.

You can join up with our dinner club there where we are doing behind the scenes efforts

to give you more content, whether it's stories about guests, stories about road

trips, previews of the guests that are coming up, the ability to ask those guest questions

before anyone knows they're even going to be on the show.

And we've been doing race previews and race reviews as well as just a monthly,

bi-monthly show where we're just catching up.

And honestly, it's been one of the most fun things we've done in a long time

because we're just letting our hair down, having a lot of fun with it.

So patreon.com forward slash DWR show.

And you'll join the dinner club.

There's a couple of tours that you can join with and we hope you'll join.

So, you know, who also is sort of an honorary member of this team now.

Shane, make his burden.

Yeah, SPG.

He he drove us all around the country this year.

The best team that I ever had.

Yes, Andrew Davis.

Cool.

Thanks, Shane.

And with that, Daniel Morad.

Meow.

All right, we're going to start in five, four, three, two.

What's going on?

Good. How are you, man?

Hey, dude, how are you?

It's good to see you, brother.

Yeah, doing all right?

Yeah.

So to go back to the beginning of your career,

the first time I think I ever saw your name, because you had carded before this,

but the form of the BMW thing, because at that point,

I was a mechanic and trying to become a driver and that came along.

I think I was because I'm how old are you?

Thirty four.

Yeah, I'm a few years older than you.

So that was I think I was already past any chance of that even being a reality.

But you were doing that.

And that was when it was like, dude, if you did the form of the BMW thing,

it can go somewhere.

But give me the carding career up to that point because before that,

I mean, even your carding career was really, really good.

Yeah. But well, funny enough,

form of the BMW is the reason I got back into racing.

OK. Yeah, no.

So carding, you know, quick background started when I was eight years old.

Markham, Ontario, Canada.

Yes, exactly.

And played hockey initially.

Weird. OK.

I mean, as a Canadian, who would have thought?

Yeah.

Started hockey, was good at it.

My uncle is a professional hockey player, my mom's brother.

He he got drafted to the Chicago Blackhawks

and then moved to Europe to play for like 16 years or 18 years

in Austria.

He played for the Olympic team, the Olympic team.

Yeah. As soon as my parents saw I was good at hockey, like, nope.

Really? Yeah, they pulled me right out.

Just didn't want that lifestyle for you.

Exactly. I did not want that.

And that was when I was seven, just going into my eighth year of existence.

And so for my eighth birthday, my dad,

he actually went go-karting with some friends.

It was this lifestyle of hockey or the physicality of it?

A little bit of both.

I think it was more so like the lifestyle.

Most seeing what your uncle's going through early practices.

Yeah. And having to drive you to a rink at 6 a.m.

Well, also just like travel all over the country, all over the world.

Yeah, I don't think they want to go through that.

Right. So then logically, racing is the next step.

It's so much safer.

Yeah. And you don't have to travel all over the world.

You have a full phase out, right?

Yeah.

And you're in a, well, I guess in a go-kart,

you're not really protected.

But you know, my dad went go-karting.

He's like, oh, this is actually really fun.

So for my eighth birthday, he bought like a used car.

It was 900 bucks.

OK, nice.

Canadian.

Yeah, Canadian. So it's like free right now.

I think back then it was very close.

Well, if you bang yourself up, it's free.

Yeah, you got that going for it.

So, yeah.

Well, is your dad a racer?

No, not even.

My dad had no interest in racing.

Like, where did the go-kart idea come from?

So there's a gentleman named Al Wortsman,

and he ran in the Motorola Cup.

And he was actually, he owned a company

called Concord Transportation.

And it's like a trucking company, and they did satellite,

you know, basically they had a software aspect to their company.

My dad was a software developer.

So that's how he got connected.

He was working for Al, and then they,

that's how they went go-karting.

That's the connection there.

And Al was actually a very important,

this guy, Al Wortsman, he's very influential guy

in my career as well.

He got me into my first year of car racing.

So through go-karting, you know,

I came from a working-class family

and, you know, we had a go-kart,

and I was like, oh, this is fun.

So we started driving up and down the street.

It's like, OK, the cars are bigger than us.

So we'll probably go to a go-kart track.

We went to Goodwood Cartways.

Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Like Paul Tracy, Ron Fellowes, all these guys.

Where Paul's dad was banned from.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

So, yeah, I started racing there,

and then one thing led to another.

And at that time it was cheap to drive, like cheap,

right, through quotations.

Yeah, it wasn't cheap.

It's still expensive.

But we would have a budget of like five grand a year.

Four-stroke go-karting, one set of tires the whole season.

Now it's like insane, like, oh, yeah.

I mean, I would never be able to race now.

It's not as a great one-liner.

Yeah, there's now a load-in day for go-karts.

I carted in the 90s.

That wasn't a thing.

We would have our Ford Explorer, and back seats down,

and go-kart in the back.

Our setup was taking the seats out of the minivan,

is the exact same thing.

So that's how I started racing.

And really loved it, and straight away was successful at it.

And in eight years of go-karting,

I won 13 national championships.

And that's part I wanted.

That's part I wanted to get in there.

So pretty much, yeah, it was really good.

Won pretty much in 2004.

That was like my best year of karting.

We did four championships, like Stars of Karting, WKA.

So like all these big series at the time, and won all of them.

Right.

The Ron Fellows championship.

They gave us, like, these weren't all just Canadian

karting championships.

No, the US.

He did floor to stuff, and yeah, yeah, yeah.

Who were some of the other names?

Names that, I mean, I don't really, well, Wiccans.

Heard of them?

Yeah.

You know, he's died.

He's done OK.

So Rob and I, we were rivals since like, we're friends.

First of all.

We're still Canadians.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

We actually, here's a little wilder play.

The funniest thing is that we would have sleepovers,

because he lived in Guelph, which is with your rivals.

So Guelph, Ontario is like, it's probably

an hour away from most of the go-kart tracks,

hour, hour and a half.

So I was in a place called Markham.

I grew up there.

Is it Markham like the technology capital of Canada?

Sort of.

Now it's becoming like, I think Kitchener Waterloo

is where it's like the Silicon Valley of Canada.

But Markham is where all the head offices are

for these electronic companies.

So I was there.

It's more central to all the tracks, most sport, Goodwood,

whatever, Innisfil is another track up there.

So he would stay over at my place.

Just to be close to the track for next weekend.

And so we'd play like our NASCAR, whatever game.

We'd just do, you know, beat the crap of each other.

And then Laugh.

And then the next day, we'd crash.

No, we wouldn't crash each other on track.

We never put a wheel on each other, but we raced so hard.

And that's part of the development for both of us,

why we kind of rose up the ranks so well.

Yeah, if you're going against a guy who's considered F1 talent,

you know what I mean?

Like you guys are both good at sharpen.

Every single year we split titles.

So we'd do four stroke and shifters.

And like, he'd win one, I'd win one.

And we'd win out of six races, three and three.

It came down to like a tiebreaker of who finished

like seven, one racer.

We never finished seven.

Yeah, it was like a horrible day.

No, it was first or second.

Second was a bad day.

So, yeah, I mean, that was, I would say Wiccans

is like the main guy that's needed.

But there's a bunch of other names.

Like, you know, Matt Lee, like at the time, he was very good.

He came up through the ranks in junior level.

He was these guys, these are the guys that had 53 footers.

Sure, right.

Cole Witt is another guy.

Yeah, yeah, for sure.

He went to NASCAR.

He's over in Stockholm World.

Yeah, so, I mean, who else really?

Those are just the big names that I think that,

who had the biggest trailer?

You know, it's like, who had the car haulers?

We had our little, at the point I was racing at the peak,

we had an 18 foot trailer.

And I was like, with a little closet?

Yeah, oh wow, look at that.

We were going to turn it into a toilet,

but it just turned into a tire locker.

Became practical.

Yeah, exactly.

But yeah, so just did that, go karting,

stopped when 2005 was my last full season of karting.

Then 2006 won the Scusa Supernats, which was nice.

Yeah, yeah, big deal.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Who was in that race that we might know now?

Joel Miller was like the guy.

Yeah, for sure.

He was like Tony Kart Factory driver at the time.

I may or may not have punted him and turned one

and broke the track with him.

Oh, wow.

Like set a barrier in half.

It wasn't really my fault.

It was like, oh.

Yeah, it was a little bit my fault.

But it was mostly everyone around me is what a horrible answer.

I think it was about three of us.

Pretty much everyone but me.

He was surrounded by enemies.

It wasn't even like, I didn't mean to.

I'll be honest.

I didn't mean to.

It was kind of like a check up.

Like, man, it went on that start.

I remember vividly everyone was berserk,

like banging side pods.

And then he just got kind of checked up onto a tire.

I didn't try to avoid it, I guess.

Right.

Not my problem.

Yeah.

So the story slowly more and more.

I guess it is my fault.

Shoot, I'm kind of a dirty driver.

You ruined Joel Miller's career.

Damn.

If he would have won that race.

Yeah, right.

That was it.

But actually that race was cool because it

came down to the last lap.

I was third at the end of the long straight

and I did a double overtake into the big break zone.

And yeah, I was like, I didn't really mean to do it.

But those are always the best ones.

That works.

Have you ever done that?

Yeah.

Or you maybe go to defend somebody and you overtake them.

Well, you think no way the ABS is going to keep up with this.

And it does.

You're like, oh, I couldn't do that the whole time.

Yeah.

I play soccer as well.

OK.

I played competitively when I was young

because I was a bit chubby.

So I did that.

And you know, it's like, well, not an analogy,

but sometimes you do a cross and you score a goal.

And you're like, yeah, that meant to shoot.

That was a shot.

That was totally aiming for that.

Yeah, yeah, that was a shot, not a pass.

Tech, he gets shot.

So yeah, go karting, ended then, did formerly BMW and.

So how does that jump happen?

So that jump, that was an interesting one

because it's like, well, we have no money.

I was fully funded in karting from 12 years old.

From a factory standpoint or from a sponsor?

Yeah, so from the teams, I would say.

Because I mean, I think it works with car racing as well.

It's a business.

So you take the best guy.

They're making you the reason to go to that team

and buy that car.

Yeah, so then they have a bunch of customers

that will be like, oh, well, this guy's winning.

Yeah, well, especially in that era.

So it's not so much now in junior racing because it's all spec,

but karting was open enough with chassis

that it's worth having one or two really good guys

that can sell your car chassis.

And so that's where you started.

Who was it, who were you driving for?

So I drove for Burrell at the beginning.

And then that was my junior.

So when I was driving in junior,

and then I moved to senior and drove first kart.

So Bobby Wilson was like the guy at the time.

And so I ended up switching over to first kart

because he was slowing down and they scooped me up.

So yeah, well, I wouldn't be able to go kart.

Like I wouldn't have been able to continue

because at the time the prices were ramping up.

So all we were responsible for was the logistics.

Getting you there, yeah.

And all the carts and everything was supplied.

So your family could help you with that,

but that was as far as I could.

And mechanic.

So we had a mechanic, Paul Lapierre.

He was like my mentor.

He was like my big brother from 11 years old until 16.

Sure, but were you still living in Canada,

like home and everything?

We've heard these kind of stories where a lot of people

have gone to Italy and had to live in America.

Well, I did move in the end.

Oh, OK.

So yeah, so I did the karting and got fully funded

for all that, except for the travel and mechanic.

And then I got picked up by e-karting news

for the scholarship program for BMW.

They gave me the chance to go to Valencia, Spain

to try out for the Formula BMW.

Well, it's not the team.

It's like a scholarship program.

So they give you a $40,000 scholarship

towards driving in the Formula BMW series.

Right, because late 2000s, there was this Formula BMW series.

It's not around anymore.

2004 in the US, I think 2002 in Europe.

Yeah, but.

But a lot of top names came through there.

Right, not too different to say Formula Renault,

except it was all spec in the sense

that it was all controlled by BMW.

And so everything was under one paddock.

Well, yeah, the teams were, there were individual teams,

but it was a spec series.

I drove for AIM initially, and then I switched over.

Actually, that was an interesting transition,

but I'll explain that.

So it started with the scholarship, had no money.

So like, we just went there anyway.

It's like, it was fully paid.

Maybe I win it.

There's five guys out of 40, I believe, that were invited.

Maybe it's 30, 40 guys.

So these are all like carding kids?

Carding kids, yeah, exactly.

And this is for anyone that wants to race

in the Formula BMW USA.

So it could be anyone from all over the world,

for Australians, Europeans, whatever.

And so five guys get selected,

and so I was actually one of the five selected.

I was only 14 when I first did that.

That was before I stopped carding.

I kept going in carding.

That was the first time I did it.

So I was 14, going to be 15.

And so won it, and my dad's like,

well, we don't have the money, so we can't do it.

Even if you won 40, you ran, it's 200,000.

Yeah, exactly.

So where are we gonna find the other 160?

The math isn't math.

Yeah.

So, okay, let's do carding again.

You know, do senior now, senior carding,

and so I did that.

And then again, next year,

got invited back to the scholarship.

So again, won the scholarship,

but again, don't have the money,

so we turned it down.

And Ron Fellows actually,

I don't think he helped financially in any way,

but he did connect us with AIM.

Yeah.

And got us a good deal with AIM.

Which is one of the best teams in Canada.

Yeah, very, very soon.

AIM Autosport, Ian Willis and Keith Willis.

Yeah, the best.

Andrew Bourdine, like those guys.

Top program.

Yeah, Mark Wilkins, bunch of really guys.

Exactly.

So Ron connected us,

and then I turned the deal down already.

So it's like, well, we lost the 40 grand.

USD, which is like a million.

Yeah, right, yeah.

Canadian.

Could have bought the series.

Yeah, pretty much.

And so we actually made,

so this is where Al Wartsman came in.

He helped a lot with that first year.

He got me going.

And he's a friend of your dad's?

Yeah, so he used to be my dad's boss.

And then my dad did his own thing.

He started his own company to write software.

But they stayed in touch.

And still to this day, he's very close to our family.

That's cool.

Yeah, Al, he got my baby, the stroller.

Oh, nice.

He bought the stroller on my...

He's definitely still part of the family.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

He's a very nice stroller.

Very nice, smooth.

So he helped you...

He helped me get that first year of car racing.

So he funded the whole thing.

And won the first race weekend.

Mid-Ohio.

Yeah, Mid-Ohio.

Race weekend, started 12th in the rain.

Easy peasy.

No, I think everyone just drove off.

I didn't.

Yeah.

So it was great.

Yeah, yeah.

And then I think you had to pull that year at Lime Rock.

Yeah.

And then that was kind of it for that year

in terms of success, right?

Yeah, I finished fifth or sixth in the championship

that year, but was a rookie champion.

OK, gotcha.

So that was good.

Yeah.

It was tough to compete against the bigger teams

like Euro International, which was like the Red Bull team.

Sure, sure.

And Autotechnica was also a very strong team.

But we were such a small team.

We did an amazing job with what we had.

And like no testing.

Right, sure.

So that was fun as well.

And yeah, so rookie champion.

So with that, you get the scholarship.

OK, gotcha.

So then I became a BMW junior in 2006.

In 2007, I'm a BMW junior.

And so we start...

That scholarship's worth 40 grand.

Oh, still a 40 grand.

Yeah, 40 grand.

You still have a big deficit.

Yeah, yeah.

So here's the thing.

We don't have the money.

We don't have the money to do the next year.

It's like, Al, you can't keep asking him to do the next year.

Well, you know, it's tight.

So we got a little bit.

But it's like, well, let's just start the season

to see where it goes.

You know, the classic junior mentality.

It's like, let's go race by race.

It'll work.

Yeah.

Meanwhile, the internet's like rich kids.

Yeah, absolutely.

Everyone's a rich kid.

Yeah, yeah.

I wit.

I'll be honest.

I thought you came for money.

Yeah.

Everyone does.

Until today.

Yeah.

But you always act like a normal person.

So that doesn't make you a bad person if you did what you didn't.

So yeah, so we, going into the preseason testing,

we're like going through it's like, OK, well,

let's do the first race.

And we actually had Euro International,

which was like the biggest team.

Yeah.

They were the big team, which I didn't realize

there was this like business model that they had where

they just bring in the top, you know,

whatever the top talent is, put them in the car for free.

And then they would have the program subsidized

by the three or four other guys.

Yeah, exactly.

So that's, and plus I got the scholarship.

So it also subsidized a little bit more.

So it was like, not that expensive,

because when you actually think about it,

the team, when you take away the profits from it,

and the running costs are not that expensive for formerly BMW.

So they made it work.

And they had this business model for a lot of guys.

Wiccans, myself, Alexander Rossi a year after me.

I think Gabby Chavez after.

But either way, you could run on a much more

partial program because you're the good one.

You're the guy that's showing that they are a good team.

Yeah, so that's like, well, this guy

is the most promising driver for the next season

that can win for a row.

So if you're in customer racing, you're also

the one that the other three clients are bitching about.

Yeah.

They're giving people all the good stuff.

My whole weekend.

Yeah, yeah.

Yeah, exactly.

Literally yesterday's phone call.

Yeah, yeah.

That's saying it.

No, and they're Canadian.

They're lovely.

So yeah, I mean, in the pre-season testing,

the Euro-International, Antonio Ferrari

came up to my dad and said, hey, I'd

like your son to drive for my team.

It's like, hey, what's the catch?

He's like, yeah, for free.

It's like, yeah, nothing's for free in life.

Yeah, right.

Come on, buddy.

And literally until, no joke, the Tuesday

before the first race of the season,

yeah, they were like pushing to get me in their team.

Yeah.

And finally, we're like, OK, listen, we have no money.

We can't do it.

So let's just do it.

It's a good team.

So in the end, Aime had a driver, Natasha Gasheng.

Yeah, I kind of remember that.

Anyway, she had a license, I think international,

she could not compete in Formula BMW.

No, sorry.

What was it?

I guess she couldn't compete in something or other.

And he said, yeah, we'll pay for everything.

So I was like, all right.

So showed up.

And sure enough, the team paid everything.

It's like, OK, let's go.

And we won the first races.

And actually, we finished first and second in the first race.

And then the next one was Montreal.

So we won both races in Montreal Grand Prix

and caught the attention of Helmut Marco.

So then that's where I got scooped up by Red Bull.

So that was the initial meeting off the podium.

He pulled me into the hospitality Helmut did.

Then the next race was Indianapolis.

Again, won in Indianapolis.

And then right there, he gave me a contract.

And that was F1 support, right?

Yeah.

Yeah, both those races.

Yeah, exactly.

Yeah, because at that time, BMW still had an F1 program.

So it was a big part of it.

It's a 2007.

So it got the Red Bull contract on the spot.

It's like, OK, let's sign this,

because even though it's not the best contract,

but you get the helmet.

You get the helmet, man.

Yeah, exactly.

Man, it was like, it gave you superpowers.

You felt like an absolute hero.

I remember thinking, I'm like, why don't I just

pay my helmet painter to paint my helmet like Red Bull?

You don't understand.

I mean, you probably do.

It's like the thing you aim towards.

That was the only path towards F1.

And for me, it's like, I have no money.

This is the ticket right here.

It doesn't matter how the contract is.

It's better than literally zero contract.

OK, so walk us through the Red Bull contract basics

when you first get it.

Yeah, so they cover everything.

They pay for everything.

For the driving part.

Yeah, for the driving part.

Even though everything was already paid for,

it was still just to be associated with that.

And if you win, you move on.

I knew that.

And for me, my whole life was,

it's not about finding angles or anything.

It's literally success.

Success is going to work, yeah.

And that's where I was wrong.

OK.

Success doesn't always take you to the top.

With Red Bull?

Yes.

It's actually a bit more tricky than that.

I don't know if you've seen their driver roster in the second car.

A little, yeah.

Yeah, no, it's extremely tricky.

And I didn't realize that.

And it definitely rewards a strong mind,

which is why guys like Max are, I mean,

Max is a, I don't give a f**k mentality.

And man, I respect him a lot.

And I think that's what you need to be

if you're in Red Bull, because I'd win races.

I broke a record at the time for most wins ever

in the series in a single season.

And Helmut would call me and say like,

why didn't you win the race by a bigger margin?

It's like, that's the kind of stuff I would get.

So I'm like, hmm.

What would you say Max?

I'm sure this is part of the test.

Mumble?

I'm like, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa.

I was very shy.

I didn't talk.

Just so you know, I'm very outgoing and talkative now.

I was extremely shy.

Sure.

Back until when I stopped racing,

that's where I developed my people skills

and learned how to talk.

My four years out of the car,

which probably were the most important four years of my life

because it got me back even stronger in a better spot.

And I understood it, the racing and the business more.

Because I thought, if you just win, then you're moving on.

I mean, it does help, but.

I got a one line email at the end of the season

saying I got dropped from Red Bull.

Yes.

Yeah, what would it say?

Dear Daniel, you will not be continuing with the Red Bull

junior team for 2008 and onward.

Something like that.

It was literally one line.

One email.

Yeah, from Helmut.

And I was just like, yeah, from Helmut.

I don't even think he wrote it.

Sure.

Do you still have it?

I'm sure.

Yeah, you probably could find it, right?

I think my dad probably has.

He probably pinned it on the wall.

You probably find it in your email.

I don't manage my own email at that time.

Right.

So your dad's like, things have changed now.

You know, like I managed my hotmail account, not

my professional account.

Right.

My dad was kind of like my manager,

but he was a good racing dad.

He wasn't like an intrusive one.

That's cool.

He really was right behind the scenes and was silent.

Yeah, yeah.

Because the racing dad thing can really screw up a career.

Did you ever get a reasoning on why you were like, oh?

I tried to.

Yeah.

Couldn't get a hold of anyone.

Like, I tried to speak with Helmut.

Yeah.

Didn't care.

Right.

It's not result-based.

It was political.

There was an angle why I, he didn't want Canadians.

Wiccan's got dropped as well.

Yeah, Wiccan's got dropped a year after or a few years.

Maybe a year later.

So maybe there's a lack of value in the Canadian market.

Exactly.

It was not a big market.

Now it's an emerging market.

Canada's pretty big for it.

Yeah, it's kind of surprising.

I would have thought that it would have been.

Yeah.

At the time, it was not.

And there were other countries that were emerging.

Let's say they have their top countries.

Then they have ones that are trying

to focus on building the brand.

I get it.

It's business.

I didn't know at the time, but it is business.

So they pushed a lot of French drivers

because Torine was banned in France.

And they just lifted the restriction on Torine.

So then they picked up French drivers.

So in the end, Daniel Ricciardo

and Jean-Eric Verne were the guys who,

I was promised Formula 3.

If I win the Formula BMW title, I get Formula 3.

And they ended up taking that spot.

Taking that spot.

Yeah.

So not Red Bull Market Space, but yeah.

So you never get an answer on it?

No.

So I didn't get an answer.

He just kind of ghosted me, which is standard.

And then the following year, so I'm

like trying to make it happen.

Like we get back with Euro international.

They're like, OK, let's put an Atlantic program together.

We did a few races in that.

But it was really bad.

It wasn't the same level as Formula BMW.

They took whoever is left in the world of being a mechanic.

Well, these were the bad days of Atlantic that stuff.

Yeah, it was falling apart this year.

And also, my car was falling apart.

You're out of money, right?

So how is this coming together?

So we did a deal with another friend

of the family who had this company.

He did really well in investments.

And he's like, yeah, I want to get in a race car.

It's like, I have a little bit of money.

It's like, OK, let's do partial season again.

Yeah, right, right.

So let's make it happen.

So that's why I only did a few races.

And it was a train wreck.

It was a train wreck.

Yeah, really bad.

So stopped after a little bit, but.

You realize you were Lebanese.

Bing, guys.

We dug into the family history.

No, so in order to get that, that's how that all came about.

We need to give the context, but go on.

Yeah, so I'll get to that.

No, actually, it's not.

I can explain that to the fans.

Like, what are they talking about?

No, I'm having that.

So how that all came about was actually funny.

It's funny how if you don't, you know,

some times you can feel sorry for yourself,

and you just sit, in life, it doesn't matter what industry

you're in.

It's called the morning ritual, sir.

It is Tuesday.

Sometimes I do.

But you have two choices in life.

You can either, when the door gets shut in your face,

you can either stand outside the door

or you can break down the door.

Sure.

Right?

You can knock on it.

Yeah, you can knock on it.

But most of the time, if it gets slammed in your face,

yeah, I mean, that's also, that's a sneaky approach.

I like that.

There are three options you have now.

Pick the lock.

So at first, I was feeling bad for myself,

and that was the turning point in my career for the worst.

That's 2007 into 2008.

Yeah, you're still a baby, too.

So I'm 17, 18.

Right.

But you went from, like, I'm a Red Bull junior,

kicking ass for the W.

I guess good people.

You know how it is when you're in the good program?

Like, everything you touch is just magic.

Yeah, can't go wrong.

And I had that all through carding.

I didn't realize what it was.

Sure.

People tell me now in hindsight, like.

Right.

And you're young enough to be invisible.

Because you look at Ryan, and I'll defend Ryan in the sense

that Ryan has absolutely had that program,

but it came after years of not having that program.

So you came in with the appreciation

that you had, whereas if you don't have that prior to it,

you don't know.

You're always good.

Yep, good.

So I had the reverse.

I didn't know any different.

I just had really good programs.

You know, thanks.

My dad did a great job in putting the programs together

for go-carding and always in the right spot in a program

good enough to perform.

And then in car racing, it was like also, you know,

just had so much confidence.

Pretty much did great things.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

And then get shut down.

Right, right.

And you're like, wow, that's the moment

you realize that winning isn't everything.

Sure, yep, yep.

And for me, I couldn't cope with that in my mind.

I lost so much confidence.

Yeah, because now you're in a partial-funded team

in a failing series and not doing well.

And it went downhill big time.

So mid-season, I actually, so here's the thing.

This was kind of a cool story, because I had no money.

I scraped money, points together, airline points,

to fly to Silverstone, because I was trying

to get back with Red Bull.

So I've been emailing Helmut.

Baby, baby.

I've been emailing Helmut, and he answered finally.

And I said, you know, I really love to meet you.

So then, I guess it was his assistant that emailed me,

because he had, yeah, yeah.

So from his email said, OK, come meet me

at the Red Bull Energy Station in Silverstone

for the F1 Grand Prix.

All right, so I get everything together.

I'm like, I'm going to fly to England.

I'm going to go meet him there

and try to get back in the Red Bull team.

No credentials.

Exactly.

I didn't really think it through.

But Euro International was running

Formally BMW in Europe.

So I kind of like tried to get credentials for the support

paddock and go in with them walking through it.

You're into the pit lane and stay in the pit lane

and then go to see them.

Yeah, right, yeah, that's what I would do.

That's I snuck into the paddock.

So you can do that.

So that was, but to get there, no money.

Right, yeah, yeah.

Really none.

I did it on my own with my airline points.

And from Heathrow took a bus.

It was a disaster.

Eight hours it took me to get to Silverstone.

I had no idea what I was doing.

I was 18.

Yeah, good on you for going for it, though.

Yeah, like 18 young to be going.

I guess I'll just go across the pond.

Yeah, I mean, I wanted it so bad.

And it was my only hope to continue racing.

So I thought.

So go over there, eight hours.

And it's like Silverstone Station.

I'm like thinking, that's it.

That's it.

Nope, that's not it.

It's still another five miles away.

Yeah, right.

So I'm like, I walked.

No, you did not.

I swear.

Jesus Christ.

Ten hour flight.

Yeah, yeah.

With luggage?

Yes.

I dragged my rolling luggage for five miles into stones.

Yeah, right, right.

So I'm like a hobo on the side of the road.

I've got a meeting with Red Bull.

You know who drives by?

Connor Daley and Derek Daley.

No way.

They stop, because I know them from the project.

They drove past.

Stop!

It's like the classic animal movie.

I imagine the context.

You're like, that guy looks like Daniel.

You can ask Connor, like, stops, reverses.

It's like, hey, like, what are you doing?

Like, you didn't ride?

I'm like, yeah.

Jumped in the car with them, and they brought me to the track.

Nice.

So that was nice.

I didn't have to walk the full five miles.

I only did like three, I think.

Sure, sure.

Yeah, so it was the whole time trying

to get into the paddock, trying to talk to Helmet.

So I finally get in.

I see Helmet, and he's like,

Daniel, what are you doing here?

I'm like, you told me to come meet you.

He's like, no, it must have been my assistant

that answered you.

I'm like, yes, I'm like, are you serious?

And he's like, I'm like, so there's,

I just want to see if there's any chance to get back.

He's like, no, there's no chance.

And he shut it down.

That was it.

No thanks for the effort, because of course, he

has no clue how much.

No idea.

He's a prick.

Yeah, he's a fucking asshole.

But I mean, everyone knows it.

It's just the way he is.

Yeah, yeah.

But also, I have to say that it was a great,

like I have to thank him for.

No.

Yeah.

I mean, really every single.

Stop stop being Canadian for every single mistake.

There's an opportunity to learn.

OK.

Yeah, I learned that that was a big mistake.

I should have never gone.

No, but it's crazy how life takes, you know,

weird direction because if I didn't go there,

then I wouldn't have been Lebanese.

And driven to A1G Team Lebanon.

So.

How does that trip lead you to being Lebanese?

So I was already doing the A1GP Team Canada stuff

as the test driver.

Let's give some context.

So it's not a thing.

It's A1GP.

A1GP is the World Cup of Motorsport.

It was like at the time.

It was a single make series.

At the time, I drove for Canada.

Every country has a franchise.

Yes, exactly.

So Wiccans and Hinchcliffe were

the two race drivers, but they're also a bit older than me.

So I was trying.

They picked me out of Formula BMW to do the test drives

because you need a Friday driver for like the 30 minute

or one hour session.

And I did that.

I did three sessions, I believe.

And they all went really well, always.

Yeah, you had one where you were like P1, right?

Right off the bat.

Always in the front.

Yeah, yeah.

And it kind of like was great.

You know, caught the attention.

And I went from like I drove Formula BMW

straight into A1G.

And let me tell you, for anyone that doesn't know,

it's 140 horsepower to 550 or so.

Right.

And with paddle shift.

Way more aero.

Oh, yeah.

I was like, man, this is what Gran Turismo is in real life.

Yeah, yeah.

This is awesome.

Like, we talked about it on Bleak-A-Moulin's episode

a little bit because he had a story about it.

So I raced against him and like, man, it was no joke.

These guys were like, it was the best of the best.

Exactly, right.

The guys that didn't make it to F1.

It was supposed to be like a country cup, basically.

You know what I mean?

So you are dealing with guys that are like,

I didn't keep my F1 or Indy car right,

but I can do this now.

Yeah, exactly.

So extremely challenging.

Yeah.

So I showed well in the rookie tests.

And Canada, of course, every opportunity is just,

it's like the worst possible things that could happen,

all happened.

So Canada shut down as a country because we were already

in discussion that I would drive for them potentially.

As an entrant.

As a racing driver.

The country was still fine.

But the Canadian entrant went, yeah.

So yeah, they lost the franchise and then it's like,

well that's an opportunity gone.

So I was in Silverstone and of course I knew a few people

in the paddock and knew David Sears through his daughter

and we were friends.

And she introduced me to her dad because they ran

A1GP Team Lebanon.

OK, because basically A1GP was a lot of the junior level

teams in Europe running those series.

So David Sears ran.

Supernova.

Supernova, right.

So Carlin was one of the teams.

Exactly.

A lot of different teams.

Yeah, these are teams.

So it'd be like one team for the DB2.

One team could run like one car, two, three, four cars.

So it'd be like New Zealand, Lebanon, Brazil, India all

under one.

But meanwhile it's all supernova, effectively.

Exactly.

So we all share data and we race each other.

So how does that turn into you being Lebanese?

So basically because we're friends and whatever

and a lot of friends in the paddock.

And I told the story about how I just flew all the way over there

and got shut down.

So you're there that weekend basically with David Sears.

Yeah, so GP2 was racing there.

And so that's why I got introduced.

And they're like, yeah, well, we run.

You're Middle Eastern.

Your last name is Middle Eastern.

Do you have?

Right.

Yeah, because at the time they had.

We're getting to the bottom of it.

So they had so much investment from Lebanon

from the franchise.

And they scored zero points in three seasons in A1 GP.

So now they're looking for someone

who can help deliver points and make the country proud.

And my grandfather was born there.

We're not like technically my background is Assyrian.

So if you understand the history of the region,

the Assyrian Empire, the Persian Empire.

So it's very ancient, known as like the first civilization.

Yeah, absolutely.

And this current civilization, because who knows how many.

Yeah, give it a minute.

Yeah.

Who knows how many more there are.

They're on January 21st.

Who built the pyramids, right?

Like, aliens.

Come on.

I know that all my friends are going to tease me about this,

because I'm like super curious about that stuff.

Oh, yeah?

Oh, OK.

Well, we're going to come back to that.

Yeah, we'll come back to that.

That's the real stuff.

We love weird shit like that.

That's the real stuff.

You like my last career.

If I'm not racing, I'm going to be investigating

all the weird phenomenon in the world.

OK, we're in.

This is the second.

Yeah, this is going to be our next show.

And also ancient structures and things like that.

So you love all the new era of history channel.

So, man, where were we?

Pyramids, rewind.

So my grandfather was born in Lebanon.

So they're like, well, that's enough to qualify you

to be Lebanese to drive 14 Lebanese.

But literally the country of Lebanon

at a sort of national prize put money into this program.

So there's a family, the Auchi family.

So they have a very wealthy family in Lebanon.

And they were the franchise owner.

OK, I love some sort of national pride.

Yeah, they love, I mean, Middle Eastern culture is,

I would say like I'm very Canadianized.

Sure, like I'm Canadian.

But not in this moment you were.

Yeah, right.

Yeah, I became Lebanese.

Very Lebanese.

So Lebanese.

Understood, understood.

But honestly, nobody cared really.

There's a lot of in Montreal, Canada.

There's a huge Lebanese community.

Actually, there's massive communities outside of Lebanon,

like Australia, which I realized

once we started racing there.

Oh, yeah.

Incredible.

Yeah, yeah.

I think Australia has the largest community of Lebanese

outside of Lebanon.

So any race you go on, anybody,

Lebanese heritage is all about your car.

Yeah, and they're so proud.

It was actually really nice.

More so than Canada.

Like, they're more proud.

Which is saying something, because Canadian race

fans are pretty good.

Awesome.

They're diehard.

Yeah, they're super passionate,

but there's not many of them.

So the whole country, it almost felt like everybody,

like at the airport, they were there to greet me

when I went to go visit for the press conference.

It was incredible.

And it was really cool.

So how does this get sold, basically?

So you and David Sears, he's doing it deep there,

like, well, how can we sell you?

And so you realize you've got Lebanese heritage.

Yeah, so he's like.

So he did a 23 in me.

Yeah, put it in things together.

He was like, OK, so you have enough Lebanese.

You have to go back two generations.

That qualifies you, so let's get all this done.

They had rules.

Yeah.

And it had to be 1-8.

Yeah, I'm guessing they were probably

pretty lenient on the rules too, like close enough.

I think that the series also kind of finagled it.

They're like, whatever, even if it's not.

But it was all good.

It was all legit.

They really needed that.

If your grandfather's from there, that counts to me.

Yes.

There's a real family heritage.

Also, there's some boundaries when

you start getting the family heritage

and declaring what your portion is that maybe they

said, let me get in.

So yeah, good.

You say you're Lebanese, you're Lebanese.

So listen, whatever.

I would be from anywhere.

I understand.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

When you're a hustler, you're a hustler.

Yeah, you're trying to race.

Through and through.

Yeah, I just want to race.

It's like what I want to do.

Oh, that's the con.

That's what I was saying.

That's what I was trying to say earlier.

So every pro driver has a con.

Almost every racer.

Was it just racers?

Yeah, every racer has a con.

You lied about your age.

You lied about you had the funding.

You did time at the track or whatever.

You'd already driven the car and you'd never

seen them before.

Oh, I've done that before too.

Yeah, for sure.

Sure.

In your case, you're Lebanese.

Like, so it's not a con artist.

I just realized that now.

So anyway, OK, so you con your way into being Lebanese.

David Sears sells this to the family

that's funding it on that end.

Yeah.

And away you go.

And they actually hit hilarious because the contract

was so bad initially, like in terms of just no perks

and no money, nothing.

I'm like, whatever, I don't care.

I don't need to make money at this point.

Is it a supernova contract or?

No, it's with.

It's done with the franchise.

OK, with whatever it's Lebanon is at that time.

Exactly.

So I like all the perks unlocked as soon

as I got one single point.

Oh, OK.

You know, money, prize money, business class flights

around the world, like everything.

What position got points?

So 10th place in the feature race,

8th place in the sprint race.

OK.

So they're two races.

It seems achievable.

On what is relatively spec.

And they got zero points in three years.

At that point, nothing's going on.

But the team had gotten points for other countries.

So it was still a good team.

Yes, exactly.

And they ran Germany, which was in the previous version

of the cars, the Lola Zytec, which they were dominant

because that was the Formula 3000 car.

And they were like supernova was the best team.

Now, what I didn't know when I walked into

was the series was in financial trouble.

They didn't have enough cars.

They couldn't produce the cars because they didn't have

the money.

And we were like potentially not going

to have a car for the first race.

So because Lebanon is like, well, we're funding.

They're helping the series pay bills and stuff.

We better have a car.

So we ended up getting the test car, the 11th hour.

Awesome.

It's just what you want.

Yeah, exactly.

So we get the test car.

There's no spare parts.

There's nothing.

Yeah, it was great.

I did no testing.

And you know, Atlantics were good.

It was like a decent prep.

But holy jeez.

It was not enough prep for me to go physically into this car.

I only did a few races in Atlantic.

And then it's like Formula BMW before that.

You're right.

Yeah, you drink through a fire hose.

My neck?

Yeah, I'm sure.

Yeah, I looked in the opposite direction a lot.

It's like turn right, look left.

What was the first race you got points at?

First race.

Oh, right out of the gate.

So you're a hero now.

Absolute legend.

They're like, give whatever he wants.

Yeah, I was so happy.

It was Zenfort, the first race.

It was like the worst place for physicality.

It's like, you know that track?

It's all like the middle sector.

It's four right handers in a row.

Yeah, right.

And like fourth, fifth gear.

Like, god damn it, I can't even hold my head up anymore

after five laps of qualifying.

No, no joke.

We're laughing at five laps I couldn't see anymore.

I couldn't keep my head pointing right.

Like I couldn't look into the corner.

So I was like, oh, this is going to be a really bad race.

I won't be able to finish this race.

It was like a huge eye-opener for me.

And thank goodness it rained.

Yeah, right, right.

Yeah, so.

Oh yeah, so it brings the G's way down,

way less hard on the neck.

Yeah, so first race was a sprint.

So in qualifying, I don't know where it was.

It was pretty bad.

Passed out.

Like 15th or something, out of 22.

It's like really bad.

I couldn't actually deliver the lap

because I couldn't physically drive the lap.

With new tires and everything.

You just couldn't hold it.

It was too much energy.

Like I couldn't do it.

And you said you were kind of chubby as a kid.

Were you skinny?

No, at that point I was OK.

I just was, I didn't have the muscle mass.

I didn't have the neck either.

I came from formerly BMW and Atlantic.

But most of it was street circuits, so not like high G's.

Yeah, not ready at all.

So first sprint race, it was raining.

So I got from like, I don't know where it was.

Outside the top 10.

Up to 10th.

But 10th was not points.

8th was points in the sprint.

It was like a 30 minute sprint, and then an hour and 10.

A 70 minute feature with two pit stops.

And so I clawed my way up from, I don't know, where?

Like, again, outside the top 10.

Up to fighting for P3.

Oh, shit.

OK.

Yeah.

And I'm actually pretty decent.

I'm OK in the rain.

Middle High was my first car race ever, and we won.

Backtrack really quickly.

All the way back to I was 12 years old.

Got my ass handed to me by Wiccans in the rain.

My first year of shifter car driving.

He already was very experienced, and I think he lapped me.

I finished third still, but he lapped everybody.

I'm like, holy jeez.

I don't want to ever have this happen again.

This is the worst feeling ever.

So the next day, I went back to the track with my dad,

and it was like 2 degrees Celsius.

So it's so cold, raining.

I spent eight hours in the car.

My fingers, I couldn't feel them.

And I practiced and practiced until I figured out

how to drive in the rain.

And since then, I've been actually pretty strong in the rain.

So and again, in ZenVort rain, so it was really strong.

Picking your way up there.

Moved up the field.

And yeah, two laps, I think it was the white flag lap.

We were overlapping a car, and there's a puddle I didn't

realize because in the rain, you typically

break offline down the inside or middle.

And I was going out into the first turn at ZenVort.

They were going like 290 kilometers an hour.

And there's a massive puddle.

So before the brakes don't hit the puddle

and just aqua plane spin out, I'm like, oh god, this is going

to suck.

Yeah, it's going to hurt.

Oh, yeah.

I was probably the biggest shunt in my life.

And just a passenger.

But guess what?

Because the conditions are so bad.

At that point, everyone dropped out.

So finished P8.

Yeah, right.

And the points.

Yeah, because we lap so many people.

We didn't have time to get around.

We went to Lap China twice for the second time.

It was really bad, the conditions.

So yeah, I guess I won't make that mistake anymore.

Right, right.

Actually, you know what's funny?

They actually modeled in iRacing the same puddle in ZenVort.

That's actually there.

It's actually there.

That's pretty awesome.

OK, yeah.

Did a good job.

So I hit this puddle, spin out, but still finished 8th.

I'm a hero in Lebanon.

I unlock all the perks of my contract.

I'm flying like a king at 18, business class everywhere,

prize money, and making money now.

Yeah, this is the first time you got painted, right?

Yeah, exactly.

What was the prize money for it?

You could make good money.

I think it was like $50,000 for a win at that time.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, especially in the 18-year-old shape.

You're not making a penny anywhere.

And now you can get probably a couple thousand dollars for.

I think that season we made like, I don't know,

maybe $80,000 or something?

Yeah.

All right.

That's not a bad deal.

We're living relays.

First time?

It went back to my dad for all the investment.

I literally bankrupted my dad.

Yeah, OK, that's fine.

Like my parents sacrificed everything for me.

And yeah, I put them in a bad spot.

Like they mortgaged houses and things like that.

And so everything went back to my parents.

So when naturally.

We asked, what was the dumb thing

you bought in this case?

You're like, no, dad, sorry.

Yeah, I'm sorry about my career.

Yeah, right, right, right.

So yeah, that was cool.

Because first race, even though it ended in tears,

still got points.

And the rest of the season was kind of a train wreck.

There was good performance.

Good performances throughout the season.

But test car, not good.

It failed every race, like wiring looms, this, that.

Yeah, they're like, it was a disaster.

I think out of 14 races, we only finished two.

Oh, wow.

That's horrible.

On our own, without an issue.

Or without something intervening,

whether it's in qualifying or whatever it may be.

The series was very, very corrupt.

I found out there was a priority list for teams

they want to give better parts to.

I found this out because one race.

So once the Lebanese, like the owner of the franchise,

threatened to pull out, literally, how much power?

I don't know.

Like the thing, I was coughing.

There was so much more vibration and power.

I was in one session, I went P1 by like 710s.

I'm like, oh, that's what it's like.

I can drive.

Because sometimes I'd be like down 25Ks on the straight.

And then now I'm like, holy jeez,

like this is what it's like.

And that's kind of the point where I realized.

And again, confidence level was not so high.

It was very shaky still.

And that also affected me.

I'm like, man, OK, so it really doesn't matter what I do.

It's all about what I have and the politics behind the scenes.

And it only gets worse and worse.

Or does it get better?

What do you mean?

Does it get better?

No.

I sound so cynical.

No, you don't.

You don't at all.

It's just the way it is.

Like not a lot of people on the outside realize this.

They just look from a surface level.

They look at like, this guy's good.

This guy's bad.

You don't know actually what's

happening until you peel the layers of the onion back and see.

If only there was a form of media and content in a series

and really hit the stories.

You guys know any?

So, yeah, I mean, more people need to know this,

even about like drivers, like the silvers, golds, this,

that, like people don't know this stuff.

What's funny is fans think when you get rated up,

like ranked up, it's a good thing.

They're like, oh, congrats.

I got upgraded.

My career's over.

I thought so too.

I got upgraded to gold a few years ago.

I'm like, oh, God, this is the end.

I'm done now.

Thankfully, it was like good timing

where I just won a big race in the eight hour.

It's like, yeah, you can use that to get a job.

Thank goodness that was okay.

It's not bad.

So anyway, so A1GP.

Yeah, so A1GP, terrible year.

At the end of the year, a serious bankrupt is done.

And so my sponsor or like the Lebanese guys are like,

okay, well, let's do, let's try to get to F1.

Because now they're team more at this point.

Yeah, they're like, okay, you're the guy.

Yeah, yeah.

You're the guy that's going to bring Middle Eastern pride.

We don't need A1GP because you can still, as a dude,

take us to the top.

So it's like, what's the next step?

It's like, let's go to Formula One.

Let's buy a Formula One team.

Yeah.

So that's when I was 18, 19, basically, I was 19.

And it was like my year, yeah, turning 20 that year.

You're still well on the window then.

Yeah, exactly.

So that's when like Kaderam and all these new teams

were coming in.

I think three new teams joined in.

Yeah.

USGP.

Yeah.

And so they're like, OK, let's put a bid.

So they had a bid.

Oh, they got that far.

Yeah.

Oh, wow.

They met with Bernie and they had Lola, Cosworth.

They had the whole shebang.

But I guess the entry got denied.

And during that year where they

were bidding to get a team, I was doing GP3

because I was like, OK, what's the stepping stone to F1?

GP3, get the experience here.

So they're paying for that.

That was the first year of GP3.

So it's like now FIA Formula 3.

So like 27 of the 30 drivers were champions

in single-seaters in Europe.

It was like insane, so competitive.

Wiccans, Gutierrez, Rossi.

Everybody had won Formula Renault or Formula BMW

or whatever it was.

If you go back in 2010, look at like Michael Christensen,

Langer.

Heard of them.

It was good.

But again, very, very political.

And I won a race in the series.

So that was good.

Showed promise.

But again, with status Grand Prix status.

Yeah, yeah.

So yeah, Wiccans was my teammates again.

And we actually, it was cool because we

lived like five minutes from each other.

And we hung out all the time.

And really good buddies off the track.

And after they got the F1 entry bid denied, they stopped.

They're like, well, we don't want to play with toy cars

anymore.

That was like what the response was.

Like we're not going to play with toy cars.

It's F1 or nothing.

So the only interest for them was to have their own team.

Like you, yes, being a Lebanese driver, cool.

But the idea of having you as a driver only to represent them

wasn't good enough.

Yeah, they kind of wanted to have their whole thing.

So and it was bad timing because the economy was really

shaky.

And that was it.

End of my that career is over.

That career is over.

Yeah.

So I'm like, well, I have debt.

I've literally tried everything to pay for a flat

and whatever.

It's like, I need to pay these debts off now.

It was like a real debt.

Yeah, what were your debts from?

Like just living expenses and just trying to get by.

That's what I'm saying, like so you, like just living.

OK, so it wasn't like you owed someone so who funded a ride.

No, no, like they also wanted us to.

So the Lebanese guys also wanted us to have skin in the game.

So I had to fund a little bit.

Like they wanted to see how hungry I was for it.

Yeah, that's what it was.

Yeah.

So it's like, yeah, I had to pay for like my living

expenses and stuff.

And it's like, well, I don't have any money to pay for this.

I'm not working.

Right, right.

It's like all the money that we won from the A1GP stuff

and whatever goes towards this and.

But your debt was.

Sounded like an actual credit card.

Yeah, like credit cards.

Yeah, exactly.

It wasn't that you took a loan you couldn't pay.

No, no, it wasn't like horrible.

Like it's not bad.

It's stuff you can get out of.

But you were saying you're having a hard time

getting an apartment.

Yeah, so like I shared a place with another like my third

teammate.

OK.

Yeah, so it was interesting.

It was interesting that I stopped.

And I'm like, OK, well, I need a job now.

And I thought, OK, I'll do like driver coaching.

So got connected with someone in Canada

to do like manufacturer events.

OK, that drives and stuff like that.

Yeah, exactly.

So I actually got straight into something

like the Audi driving experience.

So corporate driving program.

You're wearing the Polo.

You're doing like the media ride.

Yeah, you're in the car.

You're in the car and you're on the radio.

Yeah, yeah, exactly.

But I was so shy and I probably couldn't talk to anyone.

But I was like shadowing another guy, a guy named Jeff Boyce.

And he used to race as well like F2000 and stuff like that.

He had a little bit of a career and then ended up

doing driver coaching and got into the corporate driving

events.

So he was a great mentor for me because he was very outgoing

and he was funny and.

Just go to that, you know, to doing those events,

you know, and being able to get a lot out of people.

Yeah, 100% and like I said, very shy.

Yeah.

Couldn't talk to anybody.

So I just stood beside him and like I was supporting him.

I'd go get the cones and like try to,

he would give me like little bits is like, OK,

go introduce this person and like try to teach them what

they need to do in this module.

So I do that and I got more and more comfortable with it.

So after a year, then I started to emulate what he was doing

but then have my own little style.

Yeah, of course.

Yeah.

And we have like 50 people a day or every half day.

So we'd have like 100 people a day,

all different walks of life, you know, doctors, lawyers,

accountants, like whoever would be an Audi owner.

Yeah.

And you need to like somehow find something

that you can connect with.

Because it's more it's more of an experience rather than

teaching person how to be a race car driver.

If you're doing a half day program,

it's literally like get them in and out

and make sure they have a good time to talk to themselves.

Exactly right.

Yeah, so it's like entertainment.

Yeah, herd and cats like and now we're going to go here guys.

As a guy who a year and a half earlier was like a Lebanese hero.

How are you?

Yeah, yeah, exactly.

How are you dealing with this?

So I'm not bitter of anything.

I'm just kind of down and defeated.

Because I'm assuming you see no path.

I see no path.

And it's like, man, I was supposed to be an F1.

Like that's I won everything.

I did everything right.

Helmet Marco fired you.

You're somebody.

If I didn't have that, I don't know if I would.

Been in the paddock to get the 11.

Yeah, like everything leads you to something.

If you do nothing, you'll get nothing.

Absolutely.

So you have to kind of stimulate life

and put your energy out there.

It's crazy.

I'm learning so much about energy.

Now that you have a little one or just a life in general.

Oh, you're 34, right?

Life in general.

It's amazing how you can like.

Manifest destiny?

The funniest thing is like anyone that says, oh,

you're a conspiracy theorist.

Yeah, right.

You know what the funny thing is?

You know the difference with the,

you know what the difference is between a conspiracy theory

and the truth?

Six months.

I was going to say validated data.

Podcast host?

Six months.

That's pretty good.

It's good to learn.

Yeah, so, yeah, I mean, I just felt bad for myself

for a little bit of time and then said, OK, well,

got to get back up on your feet and do something

with your life.

Otherwise, you're just going to be a failure, right?

And I'm like, I'm not going to do that.

I want to make money, have a good living,

learn something.

So the Audi driving experience was amazing.

Four years of that, got to the point

where I was comfortable enough to actually lead my own programs.

And then I got into the product presentation realm of the company.

Like going to dealerships and things like that.

Yeah, so I do car unveilings and speak in front of 500 people

at dealerships now and do like a five-minute talk on the car,

walk around.

And then I started doing sales training for the sales guy.

So we do.

This is where the personality starts to cultivate.

Exactly.

And that was huge, very important.

Because at this point now, I'm like, OK, I'm learning everything.

You're a product specialist, essentially.

Yes, I need to.

I learned everything.

I've developed myself.

I've gotten better as a human.

Got my confidence back.

And now you have a real skill set

that you can use in any business industry basically

out there.

Sales are always going to be somewhere.

And this whole time, I'm still going to Daytona, by the way.

With your helmet open, yeah, for sure.

Back when you could do that.

A sad puppy.

Back when you thought people were getting rides.

Yeah, you could walk up to a team

and maybe drive their car that day.

Exactly.

No, no, you had to send in your thing two weeks ago.

Yeah, exact.

It's not even like that.

It wasn't that long ago.

No, no, exactly.

It wasn't that long ago.

And it was fine.

2012, 13, 14, I went to Daytona.

Yeah, not that long ago.

So did that.

And it's like, man, I was an A1GP.

It's like, I want to go into the GTs or whatever

prototypes we'll take.

And also, you're seeing kids that you race against.

Everyone around.

BMW, all that stuff, they're doing it.

Yeah, so you're like, I could do this.

Yeah.

It's just like, damn.

Yeah.

Did anyone during that time champion you?

Like, well, Wiccans is a bad example because he was busy.

But was there a Wiccans type who would see you at Daytona

and be like, oh, let me introduce you to my team owner.

Let me introduce this client.

There was a, not really.

No.

I think, no.

Nobody's there to help you.

Not really, I would say.

Every man for themselves.

Every man and woman for themselves kind of thing.

And it's such a tight, like it's a tough world, right?

So yeah, I'm not, yeah, it's not an argument I'm just curious.

I personally would want, like, I think it's in my nature

that I would probably, if somebody was in need

and I saw they had the potential,

I would want to introduce them to somebody

if it's on an opportunity.

And those do exist in the existed then.

That's how I'm curious about it,

but it was doing that.

No, nobody really helped me.

It depends on the circles you're running in.

Absolutely.

If you're spending four years in parking lots without a seat.

Yeah, you lose connection with that guy.

So I didn't really have a huge sort of client

carding.

Yeah, so, right, yeah.

They weren't seeing the guy that's now

I'm able to talk to a dealership full of people.

So like, he's quite weird.

So that was interesting.

It was depressing, you know,

don't go into Daytona every year with them.

And, you know, at that point,

I've been paying off my debts and everything.

And everything is good now.

I'm earning good money, actually.

It's a good living.

I could probably do this.

At one point, though, I said to myself,

like, I had a revelation, like, dude, like, what are you doing?

Like, just stop and look,

because I'm always about trying to better yourself

and learn new skills and be better

and, like, maximize your potential.

So I'm, like, standing in the parking lot one time,

like, dude, you're kicking cones in the parking lot

and you've done so much, like,

like, I'm ready to do this now.

What's the plan?

Like, what's the path back?

So is it okay?

I can't go back to the Rolex.

Like, nobody's going to want me

because they're like, young single-seater kid,

you're just going to crash the car.

Yep, yep.

So let's go back to the bottom.

Let's restart this thing.

And so I said, where can I go

where I don't really need budget?

Like, or maybe I can get a little bit.

Something, yeah.

Some sponsors are, I don't know, find some money.

And I'm like, I don't know where to even start.

Yeah, right.

I've never...

My credit card's paid off.

We'll do it again.

No, no, no, no, no.

Absolutely not.

And plus, I don't think my credit card limit

would be high enough to...

So, so, so I end up looking and doing some research,

like, okay, where can I go

that would give me that opportunity?

So I said, Porsche GT3 Cup.

A lot of guys that have had success there

have moved on and got opportunities.

So looked at Canada.

I said, that's a perfect opportunity.

I'm from Canada.

The Canadian series is great.

A lot of good drivers there.

And there was Faf who was running.

So I contacted Faf and tried to get in with them

and they denied me.

I contacted, cause Faf and Allegra were together.

Allegra was running the Faf team.

Then Faf went off on its own.

So then I contacted Allegra.

I'm like, okay, this team's in Tampa,

but they had Spencer Piggett in the car.

Young Indie Light Sky or Star Mazda.

Thinking, he's doing like the single-seaters

and he's also doing the Porsche Cup.

Maybe, maybe there's like an opportunity,

like what's that all about?

So then I started looking into it.

And so I contacted the team and cold called them

and said like, hey, I'm Daniel Moore.

I'd love to, you know, look at the team

you guys have done so well.

I'd love to, you know, maybe look at opportunities

to drive with you for the Porsche Cup series.

And that was in April of 2015.

The season starts mid-May.

Yeah.

So that was like mid-April.

I was like, after I went to Daytona,

I think I also went in 2015.

I'm like, yeah, this is not gonna happen.

What's the point?

So then I am like, let's do GT3 Cup.

So called them and they're like, oh, so what have you done?

I'm like, yeah, you know, formerly BMW

was like champion there and stuff.

And they're like, huh, okay.

Send over your resume by email.

Here's the email.

I sent over what I've done.

It's literally taking me the time.

Yeah, right, yeah.

I think they're like, no.

So it was like a five minute call.

I spoke to Andy Green.

So he was a team manager at Allegra.

They called me back a few minutes later.

Now with Carlos de Casada on the phone, team owner.

Tony Ditto, who was the chief mechanic.

And he's actually now also at Winward on our car.

Oh, cool, right on.

And then Andy, Tony, Carlos all on the phone.

And they're like, oh, you know, what happened?

Like, why'd you stop racing?

Like, man, you were Red Bull Junior.

You won the formerly BMW.

And Larry Hahn, who was the engineer.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, I've known Larry for a long time.

So he was also on the phone.

Larry said, you did formerly BMW and won that.

And because Tommy did it.

Yeah, exactly.

And he was part of that.

Anyone that can win that series is worth our time.

So they asked, would you be interested in coming down

to meet us?

I'm like, yeah, when?

I can come tomorrow to Tampa.

How far are you from the airport?

Yeah, I checked online.

I'm like, cheap flight.

Get there at 9 in the morning.

I could be there all day, leave at 5.

And so I met with them, had lunch.

And they're like, yeah, you know, let's see.

You know, here's the budget's whatever.

I don't know.

I don't even know, like, $175,000.

That's out of the way.

I'm like, oh, god.

I'm like, aw, reality check.

I'm like, OK, I'm going to do my best.

And at this point, we have like three weeks

before the first race.

I'm like, OK, whatever.

It's like all depressed on the way back.

And then they called me.

They said, listen, would you

be able to come to Mosport to test?

We're going to be there like the week

before the first race.

Like, maybe just come test the car.

So it was Carlos's car.

So that was Friday before the first race weekend.

It was like a regional race.

So I'd never driven a GT car in my life.

Did 10 laps in the car.

And we, unofficially, it was a good day.

Very cold, you know, optimal conditions.

Yeah, right, right.

Yeah, yeah.

Broke the lap record unofficially in the cup car.

First time on, like, 10 laps.

So they were like, it's my home track.

So I know I've been doing the Audi driving

experience, which was a lifesaver for me,

because I drove the R8 around.

All the time, yeah, yeah, yeah.

It's fast enough, like, we're

doing, like, 128 in the R8.

Rating at racing schools helped me

become successful in racing, because you're driving stuff

all the time.

I forgot how to drive single-seaters.

At that point, I'm driving this big, heavy single-seater

on a street tires.

Road car.

On street tires.

Exactly.

And, you know, we have to keep the tire on the car

and be really smooth with it.

So jumping the GT car.

I had no idea what I'm doing.

My home track, which is super helpful.

And it's been so long since I've driven a single-seater.

I forgot how to drive with that.

My head's in road car mode.

So it's road car with a little bit more grip and power.

Yeah.

Also, they've got good people on that team.

So I'm guessing that car wasn't too bad.

It was very good.

You know what I mean?

So it helps you, because you're just

going to find the limit.

Yeah, it's like you're trying to get a box out there.

Yeah.

And, yeah, right away, they were, like, all impressed.

And they continued to do their weekend,

because they had a few cars.

They had, like, four cars, customers and stuff.

And Carlos was supposed to race.

And he called me back on Sunday.

He's like, hey, can you come back to Moseport?

We'd like to talk to you.

I'm like, OK.

I still don't have any money at this point.

Together, he's like, hey, what you did was really amazing.

And I want you to drive my car this year.

So he gave me his car.

He said, I'm going to put you in and fund you for the year.

OK.

So I'm like, perfect.

And at that point, I still didn't give up

on trying to find a partner.

Because I thought, you know what?

All these Porsche dealers are on the cars.

So Andrew Bourdine, because I ran with AIM.

I know Andrew on E&M.

Andrew went to school with a guy named Francesco

Policaro, who has the Policaro Group.

And they have Porsche Center Oakville.

So he's like, hey, they just opened the store.

In September 2014, this is 2015, they want to get into racing.

They love it.

Let me introduce you.

So we, with Andy, went to meet with them on Wednesday

of the race week.

We're on track for the first test of Thursday.

They strike a deal.

And yeah, then the dealership funds the whole year.

Jesus.

Yeah.

That's awesome.

So at that point, Carlos had a lot of respect for me.

You're hustling.

You're putting things together.

I still hustled it.

You could have just said, thanks for the ride.

I'm just going to drive now.

Yeah, exactly.

So he said, nobody's ever done that, all the junior kids

that I put in.

They're like, yeah, yeah, yeah.

They talk, they big game.

I'm going to find sponsors.

They never come through.

Of course not.

Came through.

And actually they ended up sponsoring our Daytona effort

for the Rolex 24.

They sponsored Michael, so Carlos's son.

Yeah, yeah, it's a very fruitful relationship.

And I still have a really good relationship

with the Policaro family.

Would a pre-driving experience down in Mora

have been able to do all that?

Or not?

Absolutely not.

I would have never picked up the phone.

OK.

Yeah.

Never.

I was so shy.

So everything I learned in the four years,

it made me such a better human in every aspect of my life.

And I even had the confidence to meet my wife now

and just things like that.

I was really shy.

I'm telling you.

Very late bloomer.

And it's so funny when people hear that,

they're like, it's impossible.

Yeah, but I have no, I don't buy it,

but I do understand what you're saying.

Impossible.

So those four years of not driving,

having to do what you had to do in terms of learning

how to market really did make it a big deal.

You would never have called Allegra.

Never.

And would have never and then had that extra initiative

and then put together deals to show the hustle.

Yeah, exactly.

And that led to everything for me,

because Carlos single-handedly, you know.

He's really kind of made what you are now.

Yeah.

Put me where I am.

And then Carlos is like, well, what's next?

Let's go to Daytona.

Let's just do the one race.

So I'll get a GT3 car.

And let's go one race effort.

Let's get all the cup guys.

And he asked me, he's like, what do you think, driver-wise?

So actually sitting at the road at Atlanta banquet,

he decided on the drivers as we were sitting for dinner.

He's like, what do you think for drivers?

He said, so we thought, you know,

it'd be kind of cool to take the cup drivers,

the champions from Cup, so Jesse Lazar, Michael,

Degasada one, obviously Michael's going to drive.

He won the gold cup in the US,

so the previous generation car, myself.

And Michael Christensen, right?

And Michael Christensen, which was a cup driver,

and somebody who actually I raced against in the GP3.

Oh, yeah, that's right.

The year I drove with Carlin, I actually

got offered a Porsche Junior contract.

But it was in a way where it wasn't like everything.

You had to bring money.

So you get 100,000 euros.

It was 300,000 to run Super Cup.

So you had to find 200K.

I'm like, pfft.

No, exactly.

It was like a very short conversation.

Because the guy that was in charge of the junior team was,

he was at formerly BMW.

So he was managing it.

OK, so that's how you get, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Yeah, so that was the connection there.

Relationships, yep.

It's like, yeah, you know, there's an opportunity to,

because I was explaining to him, like, hey, it's not going.

Well, I don't have the money to continue in single-seaters.

So Michael actually went down that path.

And he ended up going into the junior team.

And he was such a great driver.

Obviously, you look where he is now.

So, Carrera Cup championship.

Now it's time to go to Daytona, 2017, I think.

Yeah, so 2017, Carlos puts everything together.

And it's like, let's go do Daytona.

Really good driver lineup.

Really good strategist, by the way.

Yep, amazing.

Spencer Pumpelly.

There we go.

The big sexy.

I mean, just hearing Spencer's voice on the radio,

he's a racer, first of all.

It's always great to have a racer.

He's understanding what you're going through.

And that's huge.

So just the calmness and so much confidence.

Anything he said, it's like, just do that.

How to do?

We did all right.

Yeah, a one-off.

Is that the same watch?

Yeah, I changed the band on it.

Yeah, way ahead of you.

I had Mitch Slyre.

Yes, and my race car.

So you guys ended up winning this one-off team that

was just put together.

Yep.

Goes out in Wednesday, Daytona.

Well, the GT3 Cup team.

Yeah, yeah.

We all just step up with Larry and Larry Hawn,

Tony Ditto as the chief mechanic,

and Andy Green as the manager.

I mean, that team is stacked, you know what I mean,

in terms of who you're bringing.

However, you're not doing pit stops every weekend.

You're not doing any in all the other slacks.

But funny enough, the pit stop is what won us the race.

Really?

The last pit stop, we beat the land Audi out.

Yeah, we came in together.

They came in front, and we were behind them,

and we left ahead of them.

So the guys did an amazing job.

They won that race for us.

So it's just amazing how, I mean, I was in disbelief.

I said, how can we do this?

Yeah, right.

We're just cup drivers.

Yeah, right.

I think probably the first time I shed a tear in racing.

And I couldn't even control it.

I just kind of rolled out of my eye.

When we first sat down, you kind of almost hinted

like you didn't want to talk about Allegra in a weird way.

You said, I don't know if we want to talk about that.

Why is that?

Well, I don't know.

I thought you wanted funny things.

Oh, OK.

That's just a little bit.

I was like, what was the fallout?

I thought, yeah.

You want me to be funny?

No.

I actually took a course before I came here.

So I would argue there were sort of two,

and kind of the modern era, if we want to call it,

there were kind of two points that kind of put you

back on the map, so to speak.

That first one was winning Daytona.

You have the Carrera Cup championship.

You do well with Allegra.

Now you're Allegra's guy.

You win Daytona.

You're kind of, I don't know if the lead guy on the program,

because Michael Christensen's obviously really good.

Not really the lead guy.

Yeah, right.

Because I drove with pretty much all the factory guys.

Like Pat Long drove with us.

Jaminé drove with us.

Christian drove with us.

Yeah, they're decent.

They're decent.

Yeah, yeah.

But it was such a great year for me to learn from all.

Sure.

And that's kind of my point.

Yeah, but you're still doing just as well as them.

I think at that point, you're seeing is very good.

So you have a good few years.

Yeah.

I'm of the personal opinion.

You might disagree, kind of jumping ahead a little bit.

You're showing up with Windward in 23.

To me, that, for me, took you from being a good driver,

like any GT driver, to like, oh, this kid is the dude.

Yeah, that was a good race.

After Daytona, I got a deal to do to run a Mercedes.

That was another good one, because the first time

I jumped in the car was like race weekend at VAR with Ryan.

Yeah.

OK.

We did well.

We won the race.

Yeah.

We showed up, and we won.

And it's against Geron and Mercedes as well.

So that was also a really good one.

And that year is how I established the relationship

with Mercedes.

Mercedes, sure.

And it's a long process of how it all built up,

because I met Steph and Wendell.

And did two years, 2017, I got the deal

to run with CRP in GT World Challenge.

I have to say that nobody ever gave me

that opportunity to be earning money,

because I wasn't really earning money with Allegra.

Yeah, right, right.

So 2023, is it Friday practice or Thursday practice?

It was on Thursday.

So Thursday practice, Lucas Auer, a very good driver,

just gets it wrong, come out of one, has a huge hit,

screws up his back, destroys the car in the process.

It's a bad crash.

He's out.

And he's out from basically here.

He's genuinely hurt.

And the car is going to need a day and a half to get rebuilt.

In fact, they switched to another state.

They had to switch to the car, right?

They cut the roof off, because he had a back injury.

So he was really hurt.

And I mean, the first thing for me was, I mean,

I never thought, OK, maybe I drive the car.

But it wasn't my first thought.

I was just concerned about Lucas,

because he's in our team.

And we're spending time together now.

Because you're doing GS at the time, right?

Yes, yes.

So basically, this is a winward car.

I got into winward.

I mean, if you want to backtrack a little more,

how have I even gotten to winward?

Yeah, sure.

Because we talked about the gold and silver rating.

I've been silver, right?

Like the whole time I was silver.

I'm a wearer.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

So everyone's like, man, you're a silver?

In the pro-pro class at the same time?

Yeah, everyone's like, you're a silver?

That was like the thing in the paddock.

Like, what?

Until I did spa in 2022.

And in qualifying, I went too quick.

And racing stuff.

Yeah, exactly.

How it should be.

Yeah, they look at that.

They're like, OK, well, you're ahead of platinum

drivers.

How's that possible?

Yeah, as a silver.

So I got upgraded to gold in 2022.

The provisional was like, yeah, you're upgraded to gold.

Shouldn't you be platinum?

You're faster than platinum.

No, I should be wood.

And then winward contacts Mercedes

and says that they're interested in having me drive with them.

In GT4.

With Bryce.

Yeah, thank you.

And now, full circle, now we're at Daytona.

Lucas gets hurt.

And I'm obviously concerned with the guy's health.

Meanwhile, there's like 10 drivers calling.

They don't give a s**t.

And that's the worst part about racing.

There's no sympathy or empathy for anybody.

It's like cut throat.

I don't want to put myself in this.

Yeah, they don't care.

It's like, cool, the guy's like, he's hurt, whatever.

Don't care.

Don't even ask.

So in the end, it took a little bit of time

because they were looking at options of having other factory

drivers in the car.

And I'm an expert driver.

And I now stepped up from SIM to now expert.

So it's like non-exclusive.

In terms of the universities.

Yeah, hierarchy.

Yeah, so I'm just doing GT4.

I did a good job in the GT4.

And they thought, OK, this guy's, what he did in Indy

was pretty good.

GT4 was smooth.

Obviously, we didn't have a good result in 23

because we had an issue.

But the whole weekend was smooth.

Right.

But to be very clear, Lucas crashes on a Thursday.

They've got a thrash to get the car ready for the race.

Yeah, they sent the truck driver and some mechanics

over to Texas.

To get the old car.

Grab the old car.

Ripped it over here.

Or ripped it over to Daytona.

It was like the car that finished the last season.

So I doubt it was prepped for the day.

It wasn't prepped.

It was a bare bone, like chassis.

They put it together.

They got it on Friday.

They put it together overnight.

They work basically from noon on Friday all night.

Zero laps with the car before the race.

And I get the nod to go in.

And so Russell starts the race.

And my first time driving.

And I have been driving GT4.

Well, that's what I'm going.

Every other driver in the series has done the roar,

all the race practice.

You haven't driven this car at Daytona, period.

Well, I drove with Allegro.

But not this particular team.

Right, but not this Mercedes, this team, this whole thing.

And the GS is the five days of practice

everybody else had had.

The funniest thing about that, so let me tell you

about the out lap.

Yep.

So I'm driving GT4.

So that's my first time driving GT4.

I'm not a GT4 guy.

You're sure?

I've done GT3 Cup in the Porsche.

And then transitioned direct to GT3 cars.

So I drove the Porsches, the Audi, and then the Mercedes.

So then I do the full weekend of Daytona, the roar,

and the race and the GS and GT4 car.

So that's a little bit different, even though it's a Mercedes.

Go out in the GT3 and, I mean, hit the pit speed limiter

off button.

And I'm like, go, God!

Yeah, it's a different world.

It's so much faster.

I forget how this feels.

Yeah, right, right.

And cold tires.

You know how bad the cold tires are?

Yeah, for sure.

Daytona is.

What did they send you in?

It was so Russell did a, I think he did one stint,

I believe, the opening stint.

Then I did the next two.

OK, so it's like mid-afternoon.

Yeah.

And so I get out there.

The out lap is still at Nightmare.

Yeah, I know.

He did a double stint, then I think I did a double stint.

I think that's how it worked.

Sure, sure.

So then we're starting dead last as well.

Russell did an awesome job on it.

He drove up.

We went from dead last.

Like, I don't know how many cars there were, 27,

I think?

Sure, sure.

Up to six.

Yeah, total wheel man.

Then I get in the car.

I'm like, oh, first time.

OK, whatever, just take it easy.

Like I said, mentality is 24-hour races.

And I always think to myself, the first time I did Daytona,

I started the race in 2017.

And a guy, I was getting swarmed.

The greatest thing was I went from 8th to 12th.

And I finished the first lap in 6th,

my first everyday Daytona.

Because guys were firing it off.

So dumb.

One guy tubbed the car out of the kink on lap one.

And I was like, wow.

Was that the red car?

It was a Lambo.

I think it was a black Lambo, the change racing.

And I'm just looking around like, oh my god.

Do these guys not know that we're in a 24-hour race?

Not 24 minutes?

Long day ahead.

So yeah, then I get in.

I'm like, all you have to do is just get comfortable,

take your time.

It doesn't matter.

Like literally, you can go laps down.

We went laps down in the first year

and Spencer guided us through.

The pit cycles and we did everything.

So I'm like, there's no stress.

Just get comfortable.

And my first lap, cold tires, I had the entire GPI field

coming through.

So they're getting me from kink all the way through 5th

through 6th.

I'm like, oh my god.

Splitting me through 6th.

I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry.

I'm on the banking in the middle.

I'm like, don't move, don't move, don't move.

Zipping the rear tires of the cold rear is the worst.

And I was like, holy.

Talk about getting thrown in the shark pad.

So after the tires came in, it was like lap one.

Lap one was like two seconds off.

Lap two was a second off.

Lap three was four tenths off.

Lap four was like fastest lap of the race.

And the engineer on the radio was like, yeah, good job.

Just keep going.

Like first lap, second lap.

Or maybe it wasn't fast lap.

It was like, right there, right there.

I'm exaggerating.

No, I don't think you're up to it.

I think it was close.

It was something like that.

You have to check.

But I don't think it matters.

Then, yeah, every lap was like, OK.

You could hear the engineer's voice like getting more.

And he's like, oh, we're going to be all right.

Yeah, because they've lost Lucas Tower

and you have driven.

He was the star.

Yeah, right.

Exactly.

Right.

And like he's I drove with him.

Super star.

Yeah, he's a he's one of the best in GTs.

And so it's like going along in the next lap,

I see the Delta.

I'm like, OK, it's not bad.

Next lap, it's like, see the time.

Like, and I can hear the voice, great job, great job.

And then the next lap is like, you are the fastest on track.

Like, OK.

Yeah, we're here.

We're here.

Then I just calmed it like I felt very comfortable

and clicked it off and we went to the lead of the race

after I drove.

And we were pretty much in front all race

until the very, very end.

And yeah, I was like a heartbreaker

because of the just the jumble up at the end

and right with the mix up with LMP threes.

And it's just such a disaster.

Yeah, yep.

But we got redemption.

We got the following year.

Yeah, 2024, I didn't finish the race in 23, new to the team.

But in 24, they gave me the chance to finish the race.

And that was my first time kind of closing out a big race

like that and big pressure.

Oh, yeah.

But I love pressure.

Yeah.

You know, the more adversity, better.

And I learned that from my junior level.

The harder it is, the more fired up I can get,

the more intense and focused I get.

So yeah, when people piss me off,

it's actually great.

Yeah, that's the feel the same way.

So yeah, if I'm too relaxed, I almost

need to find a way to get myself in a spot where

I have some intensity.

So yeah, 24 closed it out with massive pressure.

And that's where I got attention from within AMG

and within Windward and all the top guys in Windward.

They're like, yeah, actually, if you could do that,

then we want to give you the chance

to drive in our European car and the factory car.

So Mercedes and Windward put me in with Maro and Lucas.

And that's the toughest thing you're ever

going to do in SRO GT World Challenge with Europe.

Yeah.

It's insane.

It's like the DTM of GT3 racing.

All right.

So we're going to jump to some other stuff.

But this is going to come out.

This is going to come out well after the 24s happened.

OK.

How'd it go for you?

Obviously, we won.

Yeah.

Yeah, we won.

Third time.

Really?

You beat the 44?

Everyone.

Every single one.

Everyone beats the 44?

Yeah, everyone did.

Spencer, he actually came under our box

and he actually called strategy in the end.

He wanted to do it for old time's sake.

I see.

OK.

Yeah, he came in, came through clutch.

We were two laps down.

He rallied.

Spencer single-handedly.

Yeah, single-handedly got us.

He spoke to Beau.

I see.

And he manipulated the result sheets.

Yeah, we ended up winning.

Now we have controversy.

We didn't know that.

He is a conspiracy theorist.

That is fair.

All this is happening with the tinfoil hat on.

I got you.

Extra pointy.

So I would say among pro drivers who also sim race,

you are one of the more well-known guys.

I mean, Verstappen is probably the most infamous

of pro racers.

But I mean, certainly among North American drivers,

you are way up there as far as guys who do it.

So where did this all start?

Yeah, sim racing started with COVID.

Like everything got off.

So you weren't on it in any of the stuff before then?

I had a little rig, like a dinky one

that I would play a little bit with my friends.

But I didn't really enjoy sim racing

also because the equipment I had was not the best.

Was it all the same complaints everybody has

in terms of feel and tires aren't the same?

And all that stuff.

So also I had a hard time with depth perception

because everything's 2D.

It's flat screen.

So I got VR, which helped a lot.

Yeah, for sure.

But the stability wasn't great.

It was very choppy and the frames per second were really low.

And it helped me connect a little bit more with the car.

So I used VR for, so I think I started driving like,

so 2015 was the first time I drove on iRacing.

I did one race with a Logitech G25 wheel on a wooden frame.

I'm like, this is whatever, OK.

So it didn't do anything until my buddies were pushing me.

They're like, man, you need to get back into it.

So I got an aluminum frame in 2008 or 2018

into the 19th season.

Did Daytona on iRacing with the iRacing?

On an old school rift?

Yeah, the original rift.

Yeah, Oculus Rift.

And I had some Fanatech V2 and the classic,

like that's what you think the best stuff is at the time.

I felt like a hero, but I still wasn't very good at iRacing.

It's very common that the pro guys don't do as well.

I wasn't into it because I just didn't get my mind.

I could wrap around.

And at this point, you're starting to race again in the real

world to the pride.

No, this is before COVID stuff.

No, no, but you're doing like Allegra stuff.

And cleric up so you don't you're not getting your fix in the way

that exactly.

So then when the racing shut down, then I was like, OK, I

already have kind of this aluminum frame.

So then I started slowly upgrading my equipment.

I got better pedals, better steering wheel base,

like the motor direct drive now, instead of the belt

driven and driven motor.

And so I felt a lot better, a lot more intuitive to drive.

So I felt the feedback a bit more and catch the

oversteers and feel the understeer.

So I had like a Simucube base, the original Simucube.

Antonio Felix D'Costa, a buddy of mine, he asked, he's like,

hey, do you want to come drive with a few of the drivers?

Like we have a group going on.

We're going to organize some races just to have fun.

Right.

But these are all like proper pro guys.

Yeah, D'Costa.

Every pro you can think of in every top series.

That's into iracing.

Yeah.

Even the ones that weren't.

Guys got rigs.

People got rigs and just got into it.

And we would do, so the funniest thing was the combo

was the most random thing ever.

It was V8 Supercars at Sonoma.

Historic, like the NASCAR historic layout.

That's the most random.

Yeah, I was going to say, we could do way better.

That style to play, but no.

Whoa, that was a lot better.

I'm sure you can find probably better things.

Well, you've done.

Yes, yes.

Very us.

You guys have done some very creative races.

I know that I've seen this.

I actually got inspiration from some.

So yeah, I love what you got.

Kentucky DP cars.

Kansas.

Or Kansas.

I can't see this road, sir.

Yeah, the roval.

Me.

Kansas road.

Yeah, yeah.

That was good.

But every day.

Was this for streaming?

It was just you guys having fun.

Then I started streaming it.

I'm like, you know what, let me stream it.

Three people that were wanting to watch.

And then it got bigger and bigger.

And then Lando was driving with us.

And Lando was really chilly.

And we were just buddies at that point.

Lando drove every day with us.

So that was nice.

And he was streaming.

And he had like 10,000 people watching him at that point,

which it grew to like 100,000.

Because it started growing.

Twitch grew so quick because everyone was like inside.

And then video games blew up.

So I didn't do it because I was like, yeah,

there's going to grow.

It's going to blow up.

Yeah, I didn't do it because I

had been doing your own kind of branding up until that point.

Like the Maradona stuff had been interesting for a few years.

Yeah, that started after the first Rolex.

My wife is the entrepreneur with all that.

She's the one that started it and pushed it.

And it was not me at all.

The Maradona stuff.

Yeah, Maradona.

She's the one that had the idea because I made a logo,

an M logo on Microsoft Paint using some straight lines.

And we evolved it to like rounded corners shortly after that.

So we made a hat for Daytona.

Like I made 10 of them.

Like we embroidered this privately.

And I had a few in my buddies.

So then after we won and I had a picture with it

on social media, some people were asking like,

how do we buy that hat?

So my wife, Jess, she's like, we need to sell these.

But so this goes back, like it's way before you were streaming.

This goes back to 2016, 2017.

So by March, we sell the 10 hats like a few minutes.

Wow, we're so popular.

10 hats in a few minutes to like my family.

No.

Exactly.

They're all going to my mom's house.

Yeah, yeah, wow.

That's weird.

She just.

So then Jess ended up finding, through one of my friends,

a manufacturer to make hats.

And there we were.

We went like a thousand hats for the first run

and we started selling them like people were buying them.

And then it evolved later on to shirts and hoodies

and lifestyle.

And we didn't really have like an angle.

We just kind of wanted stuff that was,

the goal was to make apparel that was not limited

to the racetrack, but racing inspired.

So you wouldn't have like a shirt that,

you know, if you went to dinner with it

and people would look at you funny.

Yeah, right, right.

So that was the kind of the idea behind it.

So it evolved and with COVID it actually changed drastically

because then we started making racing gloves,

like similar racing gloves and go-kart gloves.

So they're for both.

Cause I kept ripping my real gloves

and I'm like, oh, I don't get a lot of these.

I get like two pairs a year

and I don't want to put holes in them

because it's a lot of driving.

You drive a lot, way more in sim than all of the rest.

You may get like 10 laps a weekend if you're lucky.

Yeah, that's about what I got so far.

You and me both.

So yeah, we ended up making sim racing gloves

and that's how it kind of took the next step.

And then we made performance gear like jerseys, shorts,

sim racing socks with padding on the bottom

so you don't hurt your feet on the pedals.

That's actually a pretty good idea.

So you don't, with shoes on the sim racing,

you have a hard time feeling what's going on

cause you don't have the Gs,

but with socks on, you can like roll your feet

a lot more and curl your feet and feel the pedal

and it's a lot more fine tune sensitivity

rather than brute force like in the real car

you pound the pedal and you get that feedback

and you can manipulate it off of the feeling on your body.

You're manipulating the pedal feel with your foot

and how much pressure you're giving rather than strength.

So yeah, we made socks, gloves, this and that

and yeah, didn't really mean for the twitch thing

to be a thing but I actually enjoyed it a lot

and it was cool to interact with people

and I've always been since getting back into racing

I said, I want this to be fun.

I want to include people in it.

I'm so privileged to be able to do this.

Yeah, we were so lucky, right?

But the big giant fucking M logo, the Moradness,

this started with your wife.

Yeah, so I made the logo for her.

I married you, I'm gonna be part of something at,

is that what she said?

She's so smart, like she's literally,

not just because you know,

you have to say this by default to your partner.

We're not married.

Well, my like Jess is, I've been with my wife

since 2006.

I saw her for the first time.

2007 I talked to her for the first time.

Where'd you see her?

So her brother was my teammate in Formula BMW way back

and then yeah, I met her there

but I didn't have courage to really talk to her.

This is a pre Audi driving experience.

Yeah, so on MSN Messenger, we became friends

and I was an MSN master, you know,

just such a smooth talker on the,

well McKee is, he has to look her in the eye.

Such a coward.

But no, I was like in the friend zone

and for three years we were like friends

and then at one point she was like,

she thought it was funny.

Good start.

Yeah, that's all I have.

Yeah, that was the best.

No, me too.

I think I'm funny.

No, you don't.

He's got race cars.

Yeah, you race cars and you look like that.

I don't have either of these.

I hated to use that.

Well, yeah.

But it is intriguing.

Yeah, I never did that

because I hated people.

Like I didn't want my,

I was never like a playboy or anything.

Sure, sure.

I didn't like talking to girls in that way.

Like I was just shy.

And I didn't want anyone to know what I did

because I didn't want them to like me for that.

Sure.

I get that.

But you're still a handsome guy.

Yeah, you're stealing Sean's thing.

When he's like, oh, I have a splint.

Oh, I have a splint.

You're like, yeah, you're like,

no, I'm sorry, you race cars.

What do you want me to do?

Tell me.

You look like this.

Yeah, exactly.

I got an apple watching you bot.

Yeah.

I can't.

Well, I don't know.

That was the whole thing, though.

Like I had not a lot of confidence first of all,

but I also didn't want to use the race car driver thing.

Yeah, I get that.

Well, plus her brother is, so she's not impressed.

Yeah, right, yeah.

Yeah, and with her, it wouldn't have mattered.

But before, even with other people,

if we went to like bars and stuff in Canada,

you know, 19 is the drinking age.

So you can go out at 19.

And I was DJing when I was younger.

So is this...

Hang on there.

I have questions.

So I was in the clubs and stuff,

and I didn't like the nightlife.

I don't drink.

I was gonna say, you're shy.

Yeah, so but the greatest thing is

you don't have to talk to anyone when you're DJing.

Sure, okay.

And the DJ easily.

Yeah, exactly.

Again, also intriguing.

Yeah.

He's flying in mysterious.

What's cool about DJing is a lot of pressure,

just like racing.

You're in the car,

kind of the pressure's on you to get the job done.

DJing, the pressure's on you

to make everyone have a good night.

And to play good music and to be smooth.

So I studied how to be a good DJ.

I learned how to use harmonics with mixing,

not just beat matching and matching tempo.

So when I want to know something,

I go like 100% all in.

I want to be a master at whatever I'm interested in.

So you first meet Jess through basically your teammate.

Yeah, and it takes three years.

But then you talk to her online for three years.

Where does she live compared to you?

She's in Montreal at this point.

How far away is that from what you live?

Toronto, it's five-hour drive.

Five hours.

Yeah, that's a problem.

You can't just hang out anyway.

No.

Yeah, so then what finally breaks the wall down

so you can go in there?

No.

She actually, because like our families,

we were teammates, like my parents and her parents

knew each other.

She's one of the Lebanese dudes.

Yeah.

She wanted to actually go to school,

like to fashion school, fashion communication.

So that's her background in fashion design.

So now you see the more...

Now I'm seeing the more madness show up.

Okay, yeah, yeah.

So here's the picture that we're painting.

We're going in very abstract directions here.

Welcome to the show.

This is the show, sir.

Yeah.

Is everyone following along?

Are we still here?

This is what we call the editor's problem.

Yeah, right, yeah.

So Jess is doing fashion design.

She wants to go to a university in Toronto.

So she was like, well, hey,

can I come stay at your place?

And can you drive me around?

Oh, wait, she says this.

And we're friends, right?

At this point, I'm just a funny guy.

And then when she spent more time with me,

she realized, like, actually,

you know, I kind of like this guy a lot.

And yeah.

So that was the little spark that...

Was your tour guide.

I was a tour guide, yeah.

So for all the tour guides out there,

there is potential for you, you know.

For all the best friends, you know what I'm saying?

Never give up.

I can also lock you into the friend zone.

Never give up, because at one point...

She's going to break down.

Yeah.

She just goes against her will, no matter what.

Or you'll be miserable forever.

So when she comes to town for that first time

to stay with you and you're still in the friend zone,

do you, in fact, pull out all the...

Like, oh, we got to go to this one place,

which is an amazing view.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Oh, you did this.

You have no idea how I mapped everything out.

That's what I wanted to hear.

And my driving was very...

She commented on how smooth my driving was,

which is something she valued very much.

Okay, okay.

She said I was very...

Almost as smooth as you're operating.

It's like, you know race car drivers

can be obviously incredible talent drivers on track,

but very, very rough drivers with like harsh inputs?

Yeah.

Or if they're trying to show off and be cool.

Because I was such a nerd and very bad with talking to girls?

Yeah.

Okay, I mean, this is kind of lame,

but I read Men's Health Magazine,

like how to be smooth with women,

like how to talk to girls and how to be...

Did they give you the dumb advice like,

wear something fun?

No.

Not like that.

It was like actually pretty...

I don't know, like, I guess...

Just be yourself.

Listen.

Smell good.

Yeah, be tall.

Like, god damn it.

Have money.

Yeah.

Well, two things are not going my way.

I hate this magazine.

The advice was like, listen and be yourself.

Abs are sexy.

I was like, well, also don't have those.

Forget about carbs, dude.

All I have is humor.

How many abs do you need?

One?

Yeah, I got one giant one right here.

It's great.

Yeah.

So, yeah, I didn't, you know,

definitely didn't hit the checklist of that well

in the Men's Health Magazine,

but took as much as I could from that.

And, yeah, I guess...

Listening and being attentive was one of them.

Yep, yep.

And picked up on the cues of her being anxious

in terms of driving.

So, it was a smooth driver.

And we actually got together in 2010.

September 2010.

So that's when we actually reconnected.

I was doing an Audi.

Let's say you reconnected at the time

when you weren't a race car driver anymore.

Yeah, I was still driving.

I was still driving and she stayed with me

even though I was on driver.

That's how you know.

Yeah, that's how you know.

So, but she went to,

she clearly has like a passion for clothing and apparel.

Oh, yeah.

She went to fashion school.

She went to France to only further this.

So, if I see like a big M or Adna's hat,

I'm like, fuck that hat.

Yeah.

I'm actually picking on your wife.

Yeah.

Exactly.

And she's just trying to support her husband.

You pick on my wife, you're picking on me.

Okay.

Because we're a team, bro.

Okay, yeah.

All right.

That's the thing, like, no matter what,

my wife and I are 100% a team.

I get that.

She has the same personality as me.

Tolaris, we're born eight days apart,

literally the same year.

Like, I'm April 24.

She's May 2.

We're both tourists.

Like, we are the same, but different a little bit.

Like, I have a bit more of a,

she's very introverted and she's shy

so it can come across like maybe not so pleasant at first,

but she is the most, like I said,

she's very passionate and she's a protector.

So when you're in the circle, she'll kill for you.

You know?

And if you betray us, you're done.

Yeah, got you.

And for me, I'm a bit more lenient.

Like, I'm open with everyone.

She's French.

Yeah.

But the Maradnes brand is very much a collab.

Yeah, I'll be honest.

Everyone gives me credit for things,

but I want more people to know it's her.

Right, exactly.

It's not me.

Like, I may come up with a few designs here and there.

Obviously, the marketing piece of it.

There are, I think,

my intentions good with what I'm about to say,

but I don't know if it's going to come off that way.

You can say anything to me.

No, I know, I'm just trying to think how to phrase it.

There are racer wives.

Vanity projects.

Who have vanity projects like,

we're going to make ourselves a thing.

You're like, what the fuck is this?

But like, your wife genuinely has appreciation for fashion

and she really is just trying to support her

shy and awkward husband.

Yeah, exactly.

100%, that's exactly what it is.

I mean, arguably, you could say

I'm one of the most shy people on the paddock.

Yeah, Townsend Bells has the same thing

as the fucking Nonsense.

So one of the things I read about you

is that you are heavily responsible

for the whole ACC versus iRacing drama.

Care to comment?

Yeah.

I mean, so let's give some context.

100%, it's, go ahead.

I said, of course, an iRacinger,

two of the three or four biggest

Sim racing softwares out there,

arguably, those two are the biggest.

And I don't want to interject my own opinions

because this is about your opinions,

but I am of the belief that you play what you play

and then you want to hear

that that's the most realistic one.

Regardless of whether it is or not.

You nailed it.

You're like, I like iRacing,

so I want to know that it's iRacing.

I don't want to hear that our factor is better, you know?

But so you get a lot of shit for this.

Yeah, there's a reason why certain people

gravitate towards certain things.

I'm not going to spend my time

because time is like the most valuable commodity in life.

Yeah, we're running out of it every day.

Yeah.

You can't buy more.

I mean, unless maybe some people can.

Not yet.

Ben Keating.

Yeah, Ben Keating will find a way.

He's got it.

Yeah, somehow he's reversed.

He's been working on it.

He's on another world.

But go on.

Sorry, this is about you and I and some racing.

So yeah, I mean, I play ACC.

I play iRacing.

Obviously iRacing is, if you look,

it's the thing I play the most, right?

So obviously I'm more comfortable with iRacing.

So I have more time with it.

I play ACC intuitively.

When I jump in iRacing,

it feels more correct to me.

And how I perceive driving a race car

and simulating a race car.

For others, they may jump into ACC

and perceive that that is the closer,

more accurate representation

of what a race car feels like.

Now, when I break it down into driving technique,

so scientific, not just having an opinion,

scientifically speaking, if you analyze the telemetry,

what you'll see in iRacing is that

it's a lot more sensitive

in terms of correct technique

and it punishes you for being incorrect

on the driving technique.

So for, let's say somebody who's not as skilled

of being finesse,

a more finesse smooth driver will benefit

massively in iRacing because the tire

punishes you by being rough.

If you're over-pushing or over-pushing the limit

and you slide, you overheat the tires very quickly,

which therefore reduces your grip

and makes you have time because grip is fun.

So I think that iRacing has amazing break technique

and the actual tempo and cadence of how you apply the brake,

how you shape the peak and release the brake off

to the absolute release point

and the 0% pressure point is very good.

Maybe it's not perfect, but it's textbook

in terms of going from a SIM into a race car,

you can be very good.

ACC, on the other hand,

Assetto Corsa, competitiony.

So it's the GT3 version of AC,

Assetto Corsa is probably the most used simulator

outside of Gran Turismo,

but Gran Turismo is more of a SIMCade.

So AC and ACC is more of a closed-loop platform,

so you can't mod ACC,

but you can put mods and rewrite software.

So half of that's getting edited out.

Sorry, sorry, sorry.

Assetto Corsa, the other one.

The Thor Trek has a wig.

Yeah, yeah, so.

The other one.

Yeah, it's very complicated,

but Assetto Corsa.

I'm a SIM racing nerd and you lost me.

Assetto Corsa is the other main SIM,

and it's GT3 focused.

You have a technique on the brakes

that is not as realistic,

because it's, I think, geared towards controller players.

It's geared towards the masses.

If I could drive on a controller,

maybe even faster than with the steering wheel

on Assetto Corsa.

I cannot do that in iRacing.

So I don't like to use ACC

because it just doesn't feel right,

and then people get pissed off at you on the internet

because they're like,

ACC is the most realistic thing out there.

Like you suck, iRacing is so expensive,

therefore you suck.

And it's like, iRacing gets eye-paying,

and they'll come up with any insult they can

to take you down and insult you,

because you're not in their corner

saying that their game's good

because they're good at that game,

and therefore they think that they can be a pro driver,

because they're good at that.

Essentially that's more or less it in that shell,

and then they take it out on me

because I give my opinion.

Because you're actually putting yourself out there.

That's why, that's why.

All right, I feel we've covered SimRacing well.

We have not talked about the most important thing.

Tell me.

Which is you said,

the difference between the conspiracy theory

and the truth is six months.

I would say it's validated data.

So what's your favorite?

What shape is the earth?

Oh, it's brown.

I mean, the earth is round.

Okay, birds, they real?

Yes.

9-11 inside job.

Wow, okay.

Got one.

Can jet fuel melt steel beams?

You know, it's so hard to know what's going on with that

because the world works.

There's video evidence what happened with that.

You know, the world is a business, right?

I'm not convinced, yes or no.

To be absolutely certain, I'm not absolutely certain.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

There's no absolute there.

So there's definitely doubt.

Yeah, right.

I doubt a lot of things

because I think there's probability

that it could be either or for like many circumstances.

The thing that sucks when you say that kind of stuff

is people are so fixed in their beliefs

that as soon as you say that,

they automatically put you into,

they paint a picture of you.

Oh, you're one of those guys?

Yeah, he likes eye-raising.

Yeah, right, exactly.

Oh, he's an eye-raising guy.

Things in life don't have to be absolute.

Right, yeah.

You know, like it's not a...

Two things can be true.

You know what I mean?

I can also think that what you just said

about 9-11 thing,

but also that I could be wrong.

Yeah, you know what I mean?

Absolutely.

I don't think that I'm an expert

at anything with respect to that.

But there's definitely plausibility that it could...

I have questions.

I would like some answers.

Yeah, exactly.

Anytime you ask important questions,

they can't be answered for whatever reason.

Maybe there's a good reason

why things can't be spoken about.

For instance, there's gonna be crazy,

but like UFO stuff, right?

I'm super intrigued by like what is that?

Because a lot of people talk about it,

but then you're made fun of.

And what I've learned in life is anytime

you bring something up and someone makes fun of you

without actually giving you evidence or a reason,

it's just like, yeah, you're crazy.

That's not a good reason, like a scientific reason.

I would like a scientific reason

as to why certain things are happening.

So yeah, it just, I guess it's more so teasing.

Sure.

A lot of my close friends,

some of them think that there's obviously potential for,

I mean, what do you guys think?

Do you think that there's a possibility

that there could be life outside of our earth?

Yes.

Mathematically, yes.

Do you think that there's technology that's possible

or things that maybe we don't understand

that could be happening?

Well, yeah, I mean, Don Garless told us.

Don Garless told us so, yeah.

World famous drag racer from back then.

It's in every record in drag racing.

Yeah.

And he just convinced that aliens are how we have iPhones.

He watched a documentary this year.

Where do you think we got this?

We're like, I don't know, engineering entirely.

You know, just simple things.

But yes, I do think it's very possible

that there's another...

Well, the idea of aliens and alien technologies

to me statistically has to be possible

because we do the math of the universe.

Okay, so what is your favorite conspiracy topic

to discuss amongst people

that you know won't make fun of you?

I don't know, like the pyramids.

Yeah, you mentioned pyramids.

The pyramids seem like a pretty legitimate thing

to ask questions about because it's physical there.

It's there, right?

Yeah.

And there's a lot of specific measurements.

But what's the conspiracy question?

I know you hate that phrase.

What's the greater question?

I think that the pyramids, based off of like

what people are saying,

the pyramids much older than what is being documented.

Because anytime people challenge the narrative on that,

they're always shut down and stripped of their credentials

to be able to even go and investigate it.

So anytime something like that happens...

I'm still confused what the question is, though.

Like, could the pyramids be...

Yeah, who built them?

Or were they before the Egyptians is the question?

Yes, that's the theory is that the...

I genuinely don't know.

That's the question, yeah.

Because I left history channel before

that started getting it done.

I don't believe you can carbon date stone, right?

Sand.

Sand you can, which is why some things were buried

and they could carbon date, like Gobekli Tepe,

which is in Turkey,

they can carbon date how old things are

based on them being buried in the soil.

But I don't think you can carbon date stone,

which is why there's so many theories on the pyramids.

This is hilarious that we're talking about.

I love it.

I love this.

I want...

I think more people should talk about it.

Yeah, it's fun.

It's dumb.

It is fun, right?

It's too short, man.

Take everything so damn serious.

It's just fun to think about the story.

Well, because here's the consequences

of this conversation is f***ing nothing.

Yeah, exactly, yeah, yeah.

More had dropped.

No, right.

I don't think you're losing your Mercedes contract

because you think maybe aliens built it.

Like it's not a thing.

Well, I think that there's...

I got one that might...

Thank you.

I think that there's potentially...

What if like with the natural disasters on earth,

what if we're not the only civilization?

What if there was another version of us before?

Sure, and then that was wiped out or whatever left

and then we've come back for the area.

It's possible.

Maybe they went down a path of a little bit

of a different path, not using electronics,

maybe more spiritual connection or using their mind.

And now we're so...

Everything is conditioned.

We're conditioned from really early on

into a certain society and program and path

that maybe we're more powerful,

maybe there's something else.

Sound frequencies, super intriguing

because sound does weird things, creates symmetry

and it's creating geometry.

So like, how does that happen?

That's very interesting to me.

Are you reading books on this stuff

or is this just like thumb it through the internet

when you're bored kind of thing?

Little bit of both.

Okay, so recommend a book for us.

Or a podcast.

Well, okay.

Bob Lazar.

Yeah, okay.

Bob Lazar, he was a big fan of Focus Bar History

channel stuff way back in the day.

So he's big alien.

His name's on Reddit every day.

Big alien conspiracy.

I like James Fox, he's a filmmaker.

He made a movie called Moment of Contact

and it's covering this incident that happened

in Virginia, Brazil.

So we do a pass along question on the show

and last night we had dinner with Alex Sims.

Do you know him at all?

Yeah, of course.

He drove for Status Grand Prix.

All right, his question, the first one was,

at what point did you re...

I like everyone.

If you could relive any moment in history,

what would it be?

I'd like to know, at least,

that's the first thing I'd ever want to know

is first of all, who built the pyramids?

That's such an intriguing question.

Go to the day they're building them.

You, who are you?

You guys are like, Steve, I'm Steve.

Steve made them.

Yeah, the mainstream theory on the pyramids

is like pulleys and ropes and things,

but when you actually think about it, it's...

Slave labor.

Yeah, all right, let's take it.

What's your name, Luke?

I just want my freedom.

But with the precision that it was cut,

all the stones and stuff.

Yeah, well it's that or they kill you.

No, but the precision, like how can you...

You can't, you're not slaves.

I'm sorry, I don't think,

I really don't believe you're a slave

if you're making something like this.

You're cutting this with precision.

You're putting, you know,

there's a lot of care put into this and thought.

Yeah, okay.

For it to be...

It's that or we cut your head off.

Yeah.

Yeah, I mean, also just,

how can you lift these heavy things

and line it up and...

Lots of slaves.

The measurements.

Yeah, just like hundreds of people.

Yeah, against their will.

Tonight we're gonna have dinner with

Kenwi Kubayashi.

Yeah.

Any question of him through us?

What would that be?

I guess, you know...

Do you believe in aliens?

Yeah.

Yes, that's a great one.

I was gonna add...

Your eyes lit up like, oh, you know.

Yeah, yeah, actually that's a great question.

Since we're on the topic,

we pretty much spoke about it for so long.

Yeah.

Do you believe in aliens?

That's a great question.

That's awesome.

And let's see what he says about this.

I actually am curious to know

how many drivers are interested

or intrigued by this.

If a fan were to listen to this

a couple years down the road,

what would you hope they take away

as your legacy?

I don't think it'd want...

I want it to be anything result-based.

I'd want it to be how I behaved

and included everyone in what I'm doing

and my kindness and sharing my sport.

Sport I'm doing, what I love, my passion.

That's probably what I would want my legacy to be.

Because, you know, everything else is just...

It's results come and go.

It's all materialistic stuff.

How you treat others.

And share your time is like probably the best

thing about it all.

Having said that...

Continental's got the check.

Beautiful, how are we going back to the track

on continental tires?

Meow, meow, meow, meow, meow, meow, meow, meow, meow.

I'm finished.

Man, you gotta bring me a chance

You gotta bring that sound, I'm gonna turn the thing away

Oh man, you gotta bring me a friend

You gotta bring that sound, I'm gonna turn the thing away

I'm gonna turn the thing back away

Oh man, you gotta bring me a chance

But I think that you've seen me turn the ring

When you're gonna pay the ring

And I can't stand the ring

And it's gonna get me back

Man, you gotta bring me a friend

You gotta bring that sound, I'm gonna turn the thing away

Oh man, you gotta bring me a friend

And I can't stand the ring

Oh man, you gotta bring me a friend

You gotta bring that sound, I'm gonna turn the ring away

Oh man, you gotta bring me a friend

You gotta bring me a friend

Send me into the station

Like I plan to leave down

Send me into the station

Like I plan to leave down

I'm gonna turn the ring

I'm gonna turn the ring down

I'm gonna turn the ring

I can't see it turning down the roads

You

Ep.303 – Daniel Morad

A1 GP

Moradness

Continental Tire

Ford Explorer

go-karting

BMW

scholarship program

late 2000s

Formula Renault

spec series

Mid-Ohio

Montreal Grand Prix

Red Bull

Formula 1

Formula 3

Silverstone

F1 Grand Prix

paddle shift

Dacia SuperNova

Carlin

Lola Zytec

F1

Formula One

GP3

GT3 Cup

cup car

street tires

Infiniti G25

Porsche 911

About this episode

Original notes