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Episode 89: Rory's Pretty Good Goodwood Trip
Episode 89: Rory's Pretty Good Goodwood Trip
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About this episode
Rory shares his adventures from the Goodwood Revival, detailing his unique experiences and the challenges of dressing in vintage attire amidst rainy weather. He recounts humorous stories of locking himself out of his hotel room twice, including one incident at the luxurious Raffles hotel. The episode also dives into the thrilling racing at Goodwood, featuring notable drivers like Jimmy Johnson and the excitement of classic cars navigating the wet track. The camaraderie and nostalgia of the event are highlighted, along with Rory's reflections on the cultural significance of such gatherings.
Topics:
goodwood revival
vintage attire
locking out of hotel room
racing stories
classic cars
community events
camaraderie
nostalgia
jimmy johnson
luxury hotels
Rory reports back from Goodwood Revival, Peter and Matty end up NOT reporting in from Morocco, and we prep for more weekend motorsports coverage!
PRODUCTION NOTE! We had a liiiiittle audio leak on the call this episode, and your producer pal Matty made an effort to edit around it. Sorry if there are little dropouts/bits of echo left, or if you get some fuzz leftover here and there. Your buddy on the 1s and 2s should have caught it in-process, mea culpa. Hope you enjoy the ep!
USUAL PLUGS: Alloy launches in OCTOBER! Subscribe to the Alloy newsletter to keep up with Rory & Fernando, who are here to fix your internet: https://alloymag.com/
Get Peter's new record Half-Staff Blues here: https://peterpeterhughes.bandcamp.com/album/half-staff-blues (And look for a new record in October from Pop Filter, the guys he made it with!)
Your producer pal Matty, who writes these, has nothing to plug. Thanks for listening to the show!
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Car
Ford Thunderbird
"And it was like. Was he like crazy, that Thunderbird Roadster, like the Thunderbolt or whatever it's c..."
Car
A40 Austin A40S
"...crazy to see. And it's like, you know, the little Austin A40s are out there and it's like-"
Car
Chevrolet Camaro
"...ir class. It's like a total Rust-O-Mod second gen Camaro that was just, it did like 19 seconds."
Car
Ford Expedition
"...here, but one of his colleagues wanted to do this expedition. So it's a Sahara Desert expedition."
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Ford Focuses
"...t's basically two weeks driving around Morocco in Ford Focuses, lifted Ford Focuses. So you have, you have to us..."
Select text to request an explanation
Are you ready to talk about Rory's trip to Goodwood and what else?
The Hill Climb.
Yeah.
I was thinking, we can do, I mean, I don't have a ton to say about Watkins Glen this year,
but we can talk about that too, and then...
I was at Goodwood Revival as a representative of Alloy, the website.
I think we talked about it.
Maybe the first episode?
It was, yeah.
I'm tired?
Yeah.
It was you two talking about Watkins Glen and Goodwood.
Yeah.
We are, I don't, I mean, I haven't looked at what the date was, but we're, I mean, I
guess we could consider this the one-year anniversary episode.
Aw, that's so cool.
Of course.
Right.
But yeah, it was great.
It was super rainy, which was fun.
The first day I had this idea about I was going to do like a 50s kind of greaser guy
thing, like just T-shirt jeans and a, like a gas station attendant type coat.
Yeah.
Which I did.
Do you have the jeans?
You need like a very particular type of jean for that, you know?
It's got to be like super stiff, like, you know, un, you know, raw, but like even like
whatever it is, fucking unsanferized or whatever, you know?
And then, and then like, and not washed yet.
And then you have to cuff them like, like really awkward, like my cuffs, right?
I did the best I could with what I had.
And I think the look overall was convincing.
I did, I rolled up a pack of Lucky Strikes in my sleeve, et cetera.
But it just wasn't enough.
So the second day I relented and just put a jacket on and did the tie thing the normal
way.
But it was great.
I like good wood.
I will say the-
Did you have like a good, like, like kind of vintage, like waxed jacket?
Yeah.
Like a car.
Yeah, yeah.
And then I wore a, the second day I actually have, I somehow got a Banana Republic or somebody
had like a very traditional trench coat that was obviously immediately went on clearance
because no one's buying trench coats.
So I've spent sitting in my closet for years because I don't wear suits anymore.
But I got to wear that in the rain, which was like-
Perfect.
Pretty good.
It was like one of the few people there who had like appropriate rain gear too.
But I will say this, since Lynn Wordward, another journalist, outed me and told my
story to all the other journalists there.
I can tell everybody on the podcast that twice on separate hotels and separate good wood experiences,
I have locked myself out of my hotel room in the middle of the night.
Who among us?
Because they give you these huge rooms with like multiple doorways in them.
And so I-
Is this at the crazy ass fucking hotel?
This time it was.
The time before that was-
Raffles or whatever?
Yeah, the time before that was like at this insane country estate hotel.
Tell our audience about raffles.
Well, I'll tell you in a second, but the first time this happened, I walked out of the hotel
room to go to the bathroom and was not appropriately tired, I will say that, to be outside of
my room.
Uh-huh.
And went to hit the light switch and then realized that there was no light switch
on the wall and I was like, I'm not in my room.
And looked around and I was in the hallway.
And then-
The thing is, it's fucking English hotels, man.
Oh yeah.
Probably was not the only guy in the situation.
But so I'm standing outside and I'm like, fuck, like I'm gonna have to go down to the desk.
And I was like, can I pull a curtain off the wall to like attire myself to get downstairs?
Are you just like wearing like boxers and nothing else?
I wouldn't say I was wearing boxers.
But anyway, so I'm standing there and I'm like-
You're tiny whiteies.
Uh, yeah, I mean, there's, anyway, I was a bikini, a banana hammock.
It's like, let me get some clothes on.
Anyway, so I was like, fuck, I'm going downstairs.
I'm gonna have to find some way to cover up.
Oh no.
And it's not a big enough hotel where there's necessarily even gonna be somebody downstairs.
So anyway, I just randomly was like checked the door again just to make sure like
I couldn't force it and it was open.
The door the entire time I'd been there was broken and it didn't lock.
Thank God.
Well, you know, small fingers.
So this time I was at Raffles, which is in the old war office.
It is a, it's an incredible insane hotel.
So the old war office is, you know, the headquarters of the British military during
World War Two, which was purchased and turned into a hotel at billions of dollars
of expense.
A few years ago by Raffles, which is like a global ultra luxury hotel.
So the, an idea of like the Raffles situation here is like they have this building, which
is obviously like historical significance.
So they can't just fucking tear it all up and do whatever they want with it.
They got to kind of like be very sensitive to like how the properties maintained.
I think they signed a 200 year lease with the British government that didn't actually
even own the property.
Wow.
That's, that's optimistic.
I put, I put, that's, that's kind of like the forever, the forever stamp, you know, thing.
So because they couldn't fuck with the building, they needed a spa and gym and like a pool
and stuff.
This is like a hotel.
You can go into Winston Churchill's office.
You can go, like we went into his like observation tower that he like personally
occupy, they go up there and smoke cigarettes and get drunk or whatever.
So they couldn't fuck with the building.
So they dug underneath it like five stories underneath this massive building.
They hauled it all out to create like the spa and gym area, which is like just think of it
like what that must have cost, like without disturbing the existing structure to get
down like several floors underneath to build this like gym, spa area, insane hotel.
But one with a lot of doorways in the, in the room and I, this time stepped out
into the hallway in my boxer shorts, thankfully, realized again, what same
situation went for the light switch and was like, hmm, no light switch.
And I looked up again in the hallway.
This door does lock.
The raffles door is, is a modern brand new door locked up.
And so I'm like, shit, I got to go down to, and this is like a big lobby,
a big hotel.
There's going to be a bunch of people.
So that's where I just, I just go to, to Winston Churchill's observation thing
and just, and just curl up on, curl up in the corner.
And there's not really a good way to get up there without, without walking
past a bunch of people.
So I, is this the middle of the night?
What, what are we talking here?
Probably two or three in the morning.
And I was like, oh, I found a couch in the hallway.
And I was like, maybe I'll just sleep on the couch.
And I was like, no, you don't want to be discovered sleeping on the couch.
So I ventured into the hallway and found a door that was marked private,
which I of course opened and walked inside.
And luckily it was a linen closet.
So I grabbed a beautiful robe and a pair of slippers.
And I went down to the front desk and said, hey, I think I locked
myself out of my room and they're like, let's get another key.
And I was like, very good.
And they, it was totally cool.
Like, not totally cool, but it was way cooler than the first time.
But it's happening to me twice in a row.
And it only happens there.
Although I will say, I did, I mentioned it when I got home.
And I have been doing a bit of sleepwalking more recently.
There's a pretty good chance I was sleepwalking last night
because I woke up at three in the morning and could not find
my water bottle that I usually have on my,
and it is not anywhere in the house.
And I, so it has left the house somehow.
Interesting.
Your sleepwalking outside?
Are you going out to the, to the garage?
I don't know.
Are you going to look in the shop this afternoon?
It could be in the shop, but so anyway, survived that ordeal.
Look great if you just like woke up and are like
wrenching on the Porsche.
Yeah, it's like done.
It's like a.
Something out of 11 finally gets done.
After the second time doing this,
I took to placing a trash can or a chair
in front of the door because that can't be,
I can't be escaping my confines like that.
Can't be doing that.
So embarrassing.
But super nice hotel, raffles, very funny name,
I have to say.
Just one of those English things, you know,
it's like the fucking like checkers or whatever,
you know, where the prime minister goes to fuck off.
Yeah, exactly.
Like I have a funny name,
a cute name for like a very serious thing, luxury thing.
I mean, they give houses names, you know?
Yeah, right.
Like I remember meeting a girl like in college,
English girl and like we exchanged address, you know,
it's like, all right to you, whatever in her house
had a name and I was like.
Yeah, I think all of them do.
Okay.
No, a lot of my houses has a number in the street.
I don't know.
I think the fancier type of houses.
Yeah, no, exactly.
The estate.
Yeah.
Good word though.
I will say like that was the most it's ever rained
when I've been there and it was awesome.
Like the cars, everybody still ran.
The formula open wheel cars still ran,
all the Shelby stuff, like all the big bore cars,
like everybody still had to go.
And that was like, I got drenched.
Like I stood out in the rain at the exit of that chicane
onto the front straight there where I shot
like some videos of cars kind of drifting
out of the front straight.
And I shot probably a hundred of those videos
and they're all crazy.
I mean, they're all like, every one of them is like,
oh, is he gonna slide off into the grass
and like ruin his several million dollar car?
Or was he gonna pop up into the stands with this car?
Like it was wild.
Like I said, the dress up aspect of it
is not my favorite part.
But I guess I'm just too like cynical
to like that part of it.
But I think it is fun for a lot of the people
who are there.
And I will say like there is something
on like a community level that's interesting
about everyone kind of doing something together
where it's like, I may not necessarily want
to be dressed this way, but I'm going to do it
so it doesn't ruin the time of the people who do.
Does it make sense to you?
Yeah, totally.
I mean, it's a costume party.
You know, it's larping.
And the kind of the epiphany that I had
watching it this year,
because I will dip in and out of just the live feed
just to watch it.
And yeah, I mean, like you're saying like the racing stuff
that I was seeing was just-
It's unreal.
It's like bananas man, so freaking crazy.
And just like, I mean, there was some really
just tremendous like just incredible slow-mo shots
of like a cobra just completely sideways through a corner
just like rooster tail and just,
and I mean, it was funny like listening to Jimmy Johnson
who I think we talked about last year,
but he was talking about,
he was driving one of those cobras
and was just saying like how much of a fucking handful
those things are in the rain.
And he seemed like genuinely intimidated by it.
Yeah, you can see him like coming off that,
coming off that chicane,
like the amount of steering that they're doing.
Oh my God.
It's like, it is like, you know,
the steering wheels are 15 inches across
and they're like,
like muscling those cars down the track
and to get them to turn.
Well, and the thing is, I mean,
like I mean sideways through the corners, obviously,
you know, full four-wheel drifts through the corners.
But I mean, they were having a fucking hard time
keeping the cars going straight
because the puddles were so deep and so dramatic.
And so, I mean, you would watch the cars like,
you know, underpower or braking or whatever.
I mean, they're totally twitching side to side.
I mean, they are not planted at all.
I mean, it was like, it was really, really
something to watch, but.
Wow.
Yeah, pretty cool stuff.
I'm sorry, no, I was trying to figure out
if I would know Jimmy Johnson if I saw him
and I would now, wow.
Yeah, he's quite handsome.
Holy Christ alive.
Oh boy, that's, I'll be here.
Sorry, what?
Yeah.
Sideways?
There's like a contingency of like extremely handsome men
who hang out together at this thing,
like Jimmy Johnson and the Frank Heads
and like all these like pro drivers
who are Tom Christensen.
Yeah, you run into them in the suite
and you're like, oh, hey guys.
True.
Yeah, exactly.
How's it going?
Pretty good.
Seems to be going quite well for you.
Good.
I met his wife, Jimmy Johnson's wife
when we lived in Charlotte
and I had a friend there who had a record store
and the building that his little, you know,
kind of, you know, indie record store was in,
it was kind of like this shared boutique kind of space
and next door was like some kind of boutique gallery
that was owned and run by Jimmy Johnson's wife.
So he's kind of with her.
Oh, just weird.
The Tom Christensen in the St. Mary's trophy,
I don't know, did you see that?
He was, it was him and Steve Soper,
who was like, Soper I think was in a fair lane
and Christensen was in a Thunderbird.
Yes.
And it was like.
Was he like crazy, that Thunderbird Roadster,
like the Thunderbolt or whatever it's called?
It's the, it's a Thunderbird,
well it's got the top and all.
The white one with the cool like the fairing
behind the driver, yeah.
No, no, it's a, I mean it's got the hard top on it.
Oh, okay.
Or at least it did for the race.
It's not the car I'm thinking of.
Like you could see him Christensen in the Thunderbird
tracking down Soper who like, he got within two cars
of him and it was like, oh, he's gonna pass him.
Like there's no way he's getting out of this
without winning this race.
And it was like, those guys were flying
at the front of the pack and like the confidence
that Christensen had is, what's crazy about all these cars,
see I think we talked about this the last time
we talked about this, but it's like,
there are fundamentally old cars,
but they have modern tires and like modern,
modernized braking stuff, a lot of them.
Like they're kind of like improved within kind of
the spirit of the event or whatever,
but like never in history has a Thunderbird
inspired that kind of braking.
It was like, it's so crazy to see.
And it's like, you know, the little Austin A40s are out there
and it's like-
I was gonna say, I mean the thing is like those two cars,
I mean, you can picture like an early 60s Ford Fairlight.
I mean, just big fucking gigantic S thing, you know,
and a T-bird, which is, you know,
I mean not quite as big, but still,
still a, you know, big American car.
And the cars that they're out on the track with,
are like, like Austin's.
Like they're little like tiny,
like basically like mini-
Yeah, from that era, you know,
it's so funny to see them all, you know,
and they're all kind of, despite their,
their obvious kind of visual dissimilarities.
Like they're all pretty close on pace.
Yeah, it was, yeah, it was awesome.
It was so much fun.
It's always so good.
You know, it's, again, the racing,
the level of competition and the intensity of,
like there's nowhere on the planet that I know of
outside of Goodwood to see these types of cars
operated in this way.
Like the, you know, I did,
this year I did the Monterey Historics
and Goodwood again together.
And it like, it is night and day,
the level of like going for it,
yeah, that's the exact phrase that I was gonna use.
Just like, what on earth are you doing with this car?
Dude, Kristen said with the door open,
I like cut towards the end of it, holy shit.
It is, it is bonkers and it's so fun.
I think like, you know, I got around a little bit more
this year than I have in previous years
and saw some, went to the parking lot
and saw some other stuff and like,
and it's just what an environment and like, what a cool,
it's so weird.
I was thinking about, I wrote in the,
on the Alloy Instagram page,
we did like a little report or whatever
and it was like, there's nothing
that I can think of that is like this,
like maybe like theoretically it would be like
Burning Man or something where it's like,
everyone is kind of like doing the same thing.
I was like, I was initially, I was like, okay,
maybe Star Wars Disney world or whatever.
Like they have the Disney thing.
But I was like, not everybody at that thing
is participating.
You know what I mean?
Like most of the people are just there
in a T-shirt and jeans or whatever or two choices.
Furry convention?
Furry convention, but like, I think even a furry convention,
like you're in just a normal hotel in most cases.
At least the ones that I've seen.
So I think like, yeah, it's just a singular,
like I said, I don't have really anything
to compare it to and I don't have anything
to really point to that's like an analog
that people would kind of understand except good wood.
It's just like, it's its own very silly thing,
but it's really, really cool.
Yeah, the thing that I was gonna say before
is my epiphany watching it.
And as far as the non-automotive aspects of it,
what's striking to me is,
because what's the slogan that they use?
It's like revive and re-something.
It's kind of like.
Revive and thrive?
Yeah, I think that's what, yeah, revive and thrive, right?
And what is being revived here?
I mean, what it clearly is is this kind of like,
a reclamation of, if not peak of the British Empire,
but like this moment where of like kind of
immediate post-war Great Britain, right?
Where they had kind of taken out on the chin,
but there was this, still this kind of this spirit
of the British Empire, we're still standing and...
Still an empire.
Right, and so it's, I mean, the whole event
is just kind of suffused with this nostalgia
for this kind of this lost era, right?
And this is what's being kind of celebrated
and revived essentially.
And I was trying to think of like,
what would be the American equivalent of that, right?
Like what would be, if you were gonna do
kind of peak American Empire,
like what would that be?
And that's what I realized is like,
oh, it would be, because it's the moment
and actually like to be perfectly analogous about it,
it's the moment where your past actually peak empire,
but you still think that you're in it
because that's what the 50s is for the British, right?
And the 80s and 90s is exactly that for the US.
And it's like, I mean, and it's a joke, right?
And I mean, the event was even kind of like
conceived as kind of a piss take, right?
Because it's Radwood, right?
It's like, it borrowed the name from Goodwood,
but it's like, we're gonna do like a rad version of it.
But I actually think in a very real sense,
that that's why Radwood, I think,
kind of took hold in the way that it did
beyond just being like a fun car show.
Because people, I mean, it's not, you know,
I mean, I haven't been to one.
I don't think it's quite the same degree
of kind of everybody there is dressing up,
but it's obviously like, it's a big part of it, right?
That I mean, a lot of people do.
And you know, the, you know, I mean,
as somebody who was there during the 80s,
I questioned a lot of the...
Nostalgia.
Well, just not even the nostalgia,
but just the accuracy of the fashion choices.
I think a lot of that shit has been retconned.
Like what we now associate with the 80s
is kind of a bastardized and not even exaggerated,
but just like, just kind of off version
of what the real thing actually was.
Yeah, the palette was a lot more yellow and brown.
And like what you would think of more as 70s
than it was like the super neon 90s.
Well, I mean, there was neon stuff too.
I mean, I mean, it's, I mean, I,
I mean, the 80s for me kind of started with the,
like what would, what we now think of as the 80s.
And I kind of thought this at the time was that,
that kind of all started with the 84 Olympics
in Los Angeles and the kind of visual,
kind of motifs that they put together for that,
like kind of crystallized that kind of pastels
and you know, just that palette of just,
yeah, the kind of neon-y stuff
and the kind of geometric shapes and whatever.
Anyway, we're getting off track.
But the, yeah, it was just a funny kind of thing
to realize that like, oh, we do have this.
It's Radwood and it's celebrating exactly the same vibe.
The same thing.
It's like, it's the time that it's like,
it's exactly why we are nostalgic.
And for that, you know, whether you live through it
or not, why young people, like we're all kind of stuck
on the 80s and 90s, even as the nostalgia cycle,
like we're now into, you know,
we're now like a couple of cycles past 80s nostalgia,
but it's like that era has stuck and-
You know what's funny about the Radwood thing too
is like because it's American,
it like immediately got co-opted by an insurance company
and the joke and the spirit of it is completely dead
and it's now just like a kind of shadow of itself.
Is that right?
I mean, I knew that like Brad and who was like Bradley
and somebody else who kind of started it
and they kind of sold it off,
like after like a few years, right?
But I didn't know who was running it these days.
I mean, it seems like-
Haggerty on set.
Oh, Haggerty does.
Oh, okay.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
I mean, it seems like it's still healthy, right?
I mean, they still do them.
Yeah, they still do them.
It's weird.
I guess like the vibe has changed quite a bit
and obviously like,
I think the tongue and cheek part of it has kind of like,
is not, I don't think they get it necessarily,
you know what I mean?
Like it's like,
so it's not really kind of the same event
that it was and like, you know,
it's like necessarily gonna be like a little bit less edgy
and like a little bit less kind of cool and immediate
just because it's like,
it's not a grassroots thing anymore.
It's a big thing.
I don't know if it makes money or whatever,
but it seems like it's still there.
Well, it's just, it's a fun car thing.
I mean, and that's, you know,
it has the kind of double appeal of being like a fun thing
where people can dress up
and also those cars are, that's cool.
People are into now, you know?
Yeah.
You know, not without reason.
Yeah.
But yeah, the good with thing, man,
it's like, it's hard to say like I recommend doing it
because it's like,
the way that we do it is so insane,
like we helicopter in every day.
I recommend doing it in exactly the way that you do it,
which is getting invited on a press trip
with a major manufacturer,
with somebody who's really good at throwing a great party
and will put you up at the most fucking insane hotel
in Great Britain.
Yeah.
I will say though, I do think it's fun to do on a normal.
I will say too, it's like very easy
to get a press credential there.
I know, like I found out, it's like,
you can really just apply with anything.
Tired media?
L.A., tired media, whatever you wanna do
and you will get a credential.
But there are tons of people there camping,
having a good time.
I was gonna say, is there camping there?
People camp?
Oh yeah, yeah, yeah.
I mean, it's a really like,
as crazy as it is the way that we do it,
like it is very accessible.
I don't think it's very expensive to buy tickets.
I think it's like under 200 bucks to buy tickets.
So it is something you can conceivably do.
And I think like, if you wanted to drive in
and park there every day, like you can,
you're gonna wait in traffic a bunch,
but like that's not that big of a deal.
I've waited in traffic for dumb or shit.
So it, yeah, it's good.
It's a very, very fun event.
I will say.
I didn't realize you guys fucking helicopter in every day.
Yeah, the helicopter in every morning and helicopter.
So the helicopter lands on the,
no, it lands in the lawn of the hotel where we stay.
So the hotel is like this country estate called South Lodge.
Hotel outside of, okay, got it.
So the helicopter is really just kind of convenience
to get you around traffic.
Yeah, that's exactly.
And it's like, South Lodge is,
the other thing too, like the helicopter thing,
this is gonna sound crazy, but like the,
you can't go back.
You can't, I mean, once you've done helicopter.
No, what I'm gonna say is the.
You can't go back to driving.
You can't go back to just fucking.
The cost of staying in a hotel
that's like close to Goodwood is super high,
but like the further you get away, the cheaper it gets.
So like the helicopter thing allows you
to pay less for the hotel is the way
that it was explained to me by the PR people.
So they're really saving money by,
by charging eight helicopters and flying all of us in.
If that's true, that's fucking insane.
There's no way they're saving money doing that,
but it's just not as crazy, I think.
But it's a, I mean, it's a flight.
It's probably a 30 minute flight in and out every day.
But they, so you wake up in the morning,
they have like a breakfast spread out your breakfast.
And then like they take you in golf carts
to the helicopters and you board a helicopter,
which like I got to fly in an old Bell 505,
like an old one, like a Bell 505-3,
which I don't know what year that would be.
And that the pilot of the helicopter
was really into joking about,
about how dangerous helicopters were.
And it was-
That's so funny, that's awesome.
Yeah, and how easy they were to fly.
But he was like a younger guy
and was like, he was having a really good,
like I was giving him a hard time about it.
And he was really, really,
yeah, really, really good sport about it.
And then he's like, yeah.
He's like, you know, the cool thing about a helicopter
versus a plane, and he was like talking all kinds of shit
about fixed wing aircraft
and like how it doesn't take any skill to fly him.
It's like, you know, a plane wants to fly naturally.
If you put air over a wing, it wants to take off.
And like, he's like, this thing does not
want to fucking fly.
He's like, I'm fighting it nonstop.
But he's like, the cool thing is if I see a pub
I can land and go walk into it.
And he's like, and then like several minutes later
and he's like, but I wouldn't drink
if I went to the pub.
I was like, no, I got you buddy.
This guy rocks.
But just fish and chips.
They do have an NA, an NA, yeah.
Dude's rock.
That's very funny.
So you take the helicopter in,
you land on the airfield at Goodwood
because it was an old World War II airfield.
And then you get picked up in vintage
Landrovers and Jeeps that drive you up
to like the a tent, like an FBO
and someone hands you a glass of champagne
or a cup of coffee or both.
And then you're on campus at Goodwood
and you can walk up to your hospitality or whatever.
And then at the end of the day after the last race
you walk back to the airfield.
They do the same thing in reverse
and you go home and do it again the next day.
But yeah, it's wild.
It's a very, very crazy thing to be able to do for free.
And then
but yeah, I was the whole time this year
I was like trying to get updates from Jimmy
because he was driving the Lada in Hillclimb.
Yeah.
Which the car ran flawlessly, full power the whole time.
I don't, Jimmy thinks it's not making as much power
as it could be making.
He doesn't think it's all the way to 200,
which is believable.
I don't, it could be underpowered,
but which would be great news because he ran a 22-2
which was very fast, I think.
You said second in class?
No, so he actually didn't end up
at the end of the day second class at the time he was.
But I think like the second fastest car
in the event is in their class.
It's like a total Rust-O-Mod second gen Camaro
that was just, it did like 19 seconds.
And then there were a bunch of cars like in the low 20s.
I think he was, there were a bunch of,
the bunch of them in the 21 range.
And I think his best was 20.2 something.
I did, or 22.2, I don't know how I did this
but at some point I took one of the rear wheels
off the car and then like finger tightened it.
And then that's how Jimmy drove it off the hill
and Ryan the tech guy noticed it
before he ran, thankfully, and sent him back in.
So he did miss one run.
But yeah, super successful.
He said the car was awesome to drive.
He noticed that the wheel lugs are just kind of jiggling
as they go around.
I mean, I've driven it a bunch of people around the street
and like gotten around in it a little bit.
So I must have kind of loosened them over time.
Luckily, I ordered the wrong studs when I put it on.
And so like the wheel studs are like three inches long.
So it's like plenty of room before those things
eventually spin the wheels off.
Rory, two week pit crew suspension for the next races.
Yeah.
Put Dale Jr. in there instead.
Yeah, super successful.
And I think like Jimmy gave me a bunch of stuff to improve.
I think like we're now at a point
where like I can send away data from the motor
to get it actually tuned like to get a tune for the build
which I think that's huge.
I think last year it was like,
A, we didn't know how much power we were making.
We didn't, you know, we couldn't get it to make power
consistently and now it's like, it's gonna be,
yeah, it'll be a totally different machine
when we run it again next year.
With the Aero package and...
I mean, we can start to dig with some of that stuff.
Like he wants brakes and some more power
and then there's a couple of other like
suspension-y things that we can kind of tweak on it.
We're now at the point where we can like improve the car
and we're improving from like the point
where it's currently a 22 second car.
Which, yeah.
We've got a lot of head room.
A lot of head room.
And I would say, sorry, Maddie, that one's been done.
The cool thing about it too is he is like faster
in the lotta than when we ran the Specmiatas in 2019
when we got the real Specmiata,
like the real Mazda race car.
The lotta was faster up the hill.
So, yeah, it's like faster than some people
who actually know how to build a race car.
Exciting times.
Pretty good.
So, huge, yeah, huge success from Goodwood
and from the Empire Helclimb.
Wonderful.
I was bummed I couldn't be there,
but next year we'll all be there.
That's true.
Can we talk just briefly about the message
that you sent to me and Maddie from Goodwood
on I think it would have been like Saturday.
I think it was Saturday evening as I was making dinner.
The, can you guys be in Spain?
Oh, fuck, yes.
On Monday.
Yeah, damn.
That was such a...
Brother, if I had any money at all.
I want listeners to just have an idea
of what it's like being friends with Rory.
Because I mean, it's been a while
since I've gotten one of these texts where...
I have never to this point
also gotten one of these texts.
Now you know.
You're one of several people who got a text.
Like once you guys were out,
I was like immediately trying to figure out
some other folks, but yeah.
Listen.
Well, I mean, the thing is, I mean, I wasn't out.
I was fucking, I was in all the way.
Yeah.
Yeah, basically, I mean, how did it happen Rory?
You just, you...
Ian Dobson who he runs this company
called Automotive Events.
And when we went to Patagonia a few years ago,
Ian was the guy who put it together.
Another Subaru trip.
Yep, he puts the good with thing together.
Like the person behind how everything operates is Ian.
Brilliant guy, super cool.
A lot of rally experience and just great dude.
But he walked up to me.
He and Aaron Cole, who's like the Subaru PR guy,
and he was like, what are you doing Monday?
And I was like, well, I'm supposed to be flying back
to Michigan, but what do you got?
And he's like, I think that one of his colleagues,
and I'm gonna flood some of the details here,
but one of his colleagues wanted to do this expedition.
So it's a Sahara Desert expedition.
I mean, it's basically two weeks driving around Morocco
in Ford Focuses, lifted Ford Focuses.
So you have, you have to use a Ford Focus.
That you supply yourself.
You buy like a $500 Ford Focus, put a lift kit on it
and like a few other things.
But it's supposed to be like a super cheap.
Man, I'm looking at this now, I'm so fucking mad.
I'm not on this.
It's a super cheap way to do like a really crazy adventure
and you end up, you sleep outside two of the nights
and you're really kind of on your own
as far as like getting through the route
and surviving this thing, which is like, man.
In some way, but I mean, but also,
but I mean, the reason that they use all the same cars
is because they do have support vehicles,
they've got spares, they've got, they've got cruise.
So I mean, it's, it's-
You're not on your own on your own,
if you run into trouble,
they can get you out.
Right, they can get you going again.
So it's this, you show up in Malaga in Spain
and then you go across the streets of Gibraltar
and then, yeah, you make a huge loop around Morocco
and come back up across the streets to finish.
But man, it's incredible experience
and it was like the appeal of it for me too
was like, A, the car had been prepped.
So Ian and his, he had prepped the car
so you'd know it was gonna be super tight
and like it was gonna run great
and like be really, really effective
as a car for the situation.
But the cool thing about it was I had,
I didn't have anything on me.
So it was like, I had, I think a Leatherman
and like my Goodwood clothes,
but like my initial thought was like,
I'm just gonna go do this.
I will go get in the car and do this trip.
And then I realized I have a wedding and I couldn't do it.
But it was like, it was the idea of doing it
in my Goodwood clothes with like the stuff
that I brought for Goodwood was so funny
and a feeling to me is like, oh man,
like this is gonna be such a mess.
Just driving around Morocco like in your 1950 British costume.
I mean, actually pretty kind of perfect.
Yeah, totally perfect.
In my fucking Lawrence of Arabia shit.
Yeah, and my bass loafers
would have been so fucking cool.
But man, this is the kind of stuff too
that it's just like, I don't make a habit of saying no.
And it was like, this wedding is super important.
And I already like, I'm on the hook to pay
for an Airbnb with my friend John.
So, and I'm his ride out there.
It would have been very shitty for me to leave.
But man, it's so appealing.
See, I just figured you just had like too much stuff
going on with Allie ramping up.
Oh, I mean, that's definitely true too.
I mean, just like the next two weeks, you know,
just kind of like.
It would not have been responsible even remotely to do it.
But like, I was talking to Fernando about it
and I was like, it would have been a mess to do,
but it's also like this is the,
it is never a good time to have this stuff happen.
Like it is never a good time.
It's never the right time.
It's like having a baby, you know?
It's never the right time.
You just gotta fucking do it, yeah.
And it's like, you can't, in my opinion,
you cannot go through your life saying no to stuff.
Like, here's a free car,
go drive around Morocco for 10 days.
Like, it was like, it wasn't gonna cost anything.
You know what I mean?
Yeah, so the story was that basically,
there was an entrant who had their car down there.
They had to back out of the last minute.
So the car is just down there fully equipped,
ready to go and ready to go with no crew.
And you need at least two people to run this
because of the amount of driving that it is.
Peter could be in Morocco right now,
but I could not afford a plane ticket to be his buddy.
Maddie and I get this text and with a link to this thing.
And I just kind of jokingly reply.
It's like, oh, you gotta Ford Focus for us.
And Rory comes back.
It's like, yeah, no, there's one there.
It's ready to go.
And that's when I realized it's like, oh, he's serious.
Yeah, yeah.
The number of emails or text messages
I've gotten for Rory over the years
where it's like, can you be in place X,
you know, in 48 hours?
Yeah.
Listen, next time.
And I mean, with this, it was kind of like,
I mean, I went, it was when I realized
that you were serious Rory, it was kind of,
it was great for me because just what it did,
because I've been out of that kind of that mode
in that mindset for a while, now basically for a year,
you know, and the way that when I realized
that you were serious, that the kind of almost
just like mental muscle memory kicked in.
I'm just like, oh, okay, I'm fucking on the computer.
I'm looking at logistics.
I'm just like looking at flights.
I'm like, how can I, how can I get there?
What, you know, what it'll take
and who else can we get to go, you know?
And Mad, when you said you couldn't do it.
And then I was just like, you know, I'm texting people
and it's just like, fuck, fuck, fuck.
And like really thinking, and the thing is,
I mean, this is like, I mean, it's five o'clock
or six o'clock at night here.
And this means like getting on a plane,
like the next morning, basically, like at 11 a.m.
I think there were some early afternoon flights
that could have gotten me there.
So it's like less than 24 hours to turn it around
and get it together.
And I was just like, I was so fucking ready to do it.
And I'm just thinking like, God, I mean, yeah.
Like I said, like, I don't know that I would have come back.
Yeah, to me, it's like, this is the best thing
that can happen in your life is like something
just falling in your lap where you're like,
with no thought, no preparation, no like,
no premeditation, it's like, yes,
I'm going to figure out how to go do this.
And then you do it and you're there
and the thing is happening.
And it's like, you're not dreading it.
You're not preparing or thinking.
It's just like, okay, now this is going up.
Like this is.
And also, like the thing that keeps you from
like planning to do this kind of stuff
is just the kind of like the decision paralysis
that sets in where it's just like, oh fuck, man.
Well, if I were gonna do that, I would have to do this,
this, this, I would have to figure out this.
I would have to get this lined up.
I would have to, you know, and like the totality
of that is so overwhelming that you just say,
I just can't do it.
But when it's just like, it's so last minute
and you just kind of go like, okay, fuck,
yeah, I'm gonna fucking do this.
And you pick like, you do the immediate shit
that you have to do just the minimum.
And then the rest of it, you figure out as, you know,
you deal with each and I mean,
and it's a great life lesson because it's like,
if you're gonna do anything in fucking life,
this is how you do it.
You cannot be daunted by looking at the whole picture
all at once.
You have to just fucking like commit
and then figure it out as you go
and just do like the small discrete tasks
that will make the thing possible
and that is required to do it as they come.
But yeah, but the, it was just,
so yeah, long story short,
none of us could do it as it turned out and-
Peter could have done it, but-
Theoretically, we couldn't find another person
who was free available to fuck off for two weeks.
Yeah.
I think the phrase that I was just like,
surely we know like some more shift-less layabouts, right?
I mean, it feels like there are other times in my life
where I did know more people like that, but-
Everybody's just, yeah, grinding.
But the thing that it did inspire me,
like I just realized like, yeah, man,
I need to get the fuck out of town
and there's race at Indy,
IMSA race at Indy this weekend and I was just like,
yeah, I think we're gonna hit up our IMSA dude
and see about getting a credential and I did.
So I'm going to that, leaving tomorrow
and I will be camping.
I did look, I was curious,
I looked a while back just cause it was on my radar
and I was like, well, I wonder what it cost to camp at Indy.
And there's two tiers of infield camping.
One, I think is like the kind of deluxe,
if you bring your fucking motor home or whatever.
And that's like, I think it's like $1,200.
It's something fucking ridiculous.
And then the other, the kind of like lower
infield camping, like it's still like,
it's like six or $700 and I was just like, okay,
well, that's like, yeah, no fucking way.
There's also across the street outside parking,
like lot two or whatever.
And they say, and like, and on the site,
it has like, you know, in when it is describing,
you know, it's got the specs
of like how big the spaces are or whatever.
It's got one of the criteria thing is, you know,
like mood or ambiance or whatever.
And it's like, you know, quiet, family friendly, whatever.
The one for the lot across the street
is something like festive.
And, well, to camp across the street, $70.
Now we're talking for fucking for all four days.
Now we're talking.
And I'm like, well, I could do that.
That's fine.
I could swing that.
So odds of you getting stabbed
or having your tent stolen or something like that.
I mean, slightly higher, but it's a big swing price-wise.
Let's see, I'm curious to see what the,
just how festive or whatever.
I don't remember what the exact,
I'll have to look up what the exact terminology
they used for, how much of a shit show it's gonna be.
But I don't know, man, I can't, you know,
it's like people have fun at Walkin's Glen.
It's not-
Oh yeah, no, you can, it'll be great.
I don't know.
It'll be great.
I mean, it's fucking old people.
You're going to a race, you know what I mean?
Like it's gonna be grown-ups, probably a good time.
We'll see.
Look at the full report on the next step.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Anything else or do you gotta go, Roy?
Yeah, I gotta hop off.
I have one piece of news.
Oh wait, someone else has to type in the chat
because I don't have the chat.
Oh, I think I already did.
I'm being silenced again.
My toggle is off.
Yeah.
I have excellent news to make up for the fact
that my beautiful man was knocked out of Bristol
and is no longer in playoffs,
which is that they are putting him
in the special car this weekend
to make up for my pain and suffering.
What's the special car?
The special car is the jockey promo car
on which, uh-huh.
So we'll see what they do with the racing suit
and that'll make up for all of my struggling and pain
and having to see my beautiful sweet news
is Yolanda Shane Van Guisbergen
knocked out of NASCAR playoffs.
We knew he would be, but I love him.
Nice.
Yeah, it's going good.
So that's great news for me.
Special is just for me, special.
That is nice.
Yeah.
Very cool.
Wonderful.
Something to look forward to.
That's my weekend plans.
Besides my usual schemes, plots and more schemes.
Of course.
All right.
Should we hit him with a Stay Tired?
Yes.
Stay Tired.
Stay Tired, everybody.
Thank you for listening to the pot.
Thank you for hanging out with us
for one year of Tired, the car podcast
for people who understand that cars are bad.
That's exciting.
Oh, yeah.
Thanks for doing the ID.
The outro.
Thanks for doing the ID.
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