Flying, Weather, and Iowa

This is off track.

Alex. Hello everybody. Welcome to Off Track with Generosity.

Alex, tell me about your flight home from Iowa.

Like, I want you to know that I heard from our friend Bobby that weather had been a little bit suspect and that you had a bit of a wild ride home and then text you like, Hey man, I heard your ride was a bit wild.

And I want the details because what you said to me makes like I nearly threw up in my mouth.

No, I'm good. I know you're good.

Now, why don't you describe to me how you were doing it eight o'clock on Sunday.

Fine. I was having lasagna with my wife and son, Alex.

Six o'clock on Sunday. Alex answered the damn question.

I'm not going to, It was fine.

Why didn't you hit some weather?

We picked our way through some weather.

We didn't hit weather. We, we, there was actually,

believe it or not, a window over Terre Haute.

So we, we flew south of our trajectory to split the gap between some storms and we did that.

And then we came around the southwest side of Indianapolis and landed VFR, um, at executive.

Um, didn't even need any control or help or approach or anything, so.

Oh, so it wasn't even as fun as when we came back from Barber or wherever it was?

Uh, no, I mean it was, I i it was, uh, I mean, I don't know that fun is, is a term that I would use for, uh, what Sunday was, but um, it was coming back from Barbara was certainly more fun. Yes.

Okay. All right. I, I hear you.

What I experienced on Sunday.

Yeah. Got it. Got it, got it, got it, got it, got it.

Um, cool. All right, well that's good.

Yeah, I'm glad that you're here. I,

I was really, I was really not super impressed with some of our pilot friends and their decision making, considering they were in a much smaller aircraft, none of whom are instrument rated, taking off from noon Iowa and flying to Indie exec, thankfully.

But did they, they stopped somewhere, right? They had a pit

Stop.

Well, they weren't until they texted, they were flying solo to stay, you know, clear of clouds that they were able to text me and they were like, Hey, how was it?

And I was like, not awesome.

And they were like, cool, we're gonna land in Illinois.

Um, so like, I don't know, like I guess that's good decision making in the moment, but also probably just shouldn't have left.

It's that whole Titanic theory that we talked about so many times. I

Love it.

Yeah. But like, but like we were, we,

our plane is much larger, much faster with onboard weather and two instrument pilots versus a much smaller, less powerful, even less powerful and smaller plane with no weather and no instrument pilots.

So I don't know.

Anyways, I'm not saying that what we did, I would do it again, but certainly they shouldn't have done what they did.

So fair that that's the, uh, that's the travel story, uh, part of this podcast.

Um, let's talk about Iowa and um, you know, the people, I have so much travel, we this Show.

Oh, I have so much travel to talk about. We don't

So much travel to cover.

We don't have much time. We don't have that much

Time.

I know, but Okay. Alright,

fine. We'll do that when you leave.

Okay. We don't have that much time. I gotta go.

I got things to do. Uh, you look

At, you're going golfing. Are you going golfing?

I'm not. I'm going to the dentist. Uh, unfortunately.

Hey, me too. Um, , I golf this morning, hence. Oh,

That's why. Okay.

That's why. Yeah.

Um, let's talk about Iowa because we may, we probably have to go through a lap by lap dissertation of both races, considering I don't know that anyone that listens to this podcast saw it based on the TV numbers. ,

Sorry James, don't Comment.

James's fault. It's not James's fault. It's not Fox's fault.

How are, is anyone supposed to know that there's, how, who is gonna be able to watch the race when no one knows the race exists?

Like, I don't know.

Yeah, that's Therein lies the problem that we've talked about at length.

We don't need to go into it.

Um, really disappointing to see the TV numbers, um, And the attendance Numbers.

Huge. Disappointing to see the lack of attendance as well.

Um, you know, I think that we, uh, we may be, I don't know that we, meaning James and I, but I think we as a series, uh, underestimated the power of a-list musicians, um, and the effect that they would have on getting people to a racetrack.

And, and so when said a-list musicians went away, um, so did everyone else, and that just, it sucks because it ended up being two pretty decent races, I thought, Unfortunately.

But that's, that's the thing though, right? Is how much

of it is that the big music acts were, were promoted and people knew they were gonna be there.

And so people showed up.

Like no, I'm not saying that we would draw an Ed Sheeran crowd, were not as popular as Ed Sheeran, but like he talked to people in the area.

It sounded like there was very little promotion done locally and that, I don't know how you're supposed to know that there's a race happening if you don't tell anybody.

So I don't know, man. I I'm with you.

I don't, I really don't wanna get into it.

We've, we've beat this one. We all have voiced our opinions.

They haven't changed because the actions haven't changed of certain people and groups.

Um, and we move on with what we're two like unexpectedly good races, I thought.

Yeah. I mean, you've not watched them, but, uh,

I mean, I, I, no, I think they were Would You classify them as good or would you classify them as acceptable because they are not good compared to Iowa of old?

It was not good compared to Gateway.

It was not, it was good compared to the absolute atrocity that was last year.

But I wouldn't say that they were good races.

So I would say that they were great races compared to the atrocity of last year.

Okay. They were acceptable compared to Iowa of

days gone by.

But I'd say they were good on, on par with some of the good races we've had this year in IndyCar. Yes, I

Do think it was better, but I don't know that it was like sensationally better.

Yeah, no, definitely not. Sensationally better.

Um, I said I think it, I think it puts it on par with like a decent IndyCar race in 2025.

Um, you had, you know, last stint passed for the lead in race one in race two, you had no idea who was gonna win, you know, until the end because of the way the yellows were falling and pit strategies and whatever.

So I think, I think the, the lack of knowing who's gonna win the race is a big element, even if like, you're not just being spoiled passes, but is there any, Is there any oval race where you know who's gonna win?

Like even last year you can't say you knew who's gonna win.

I mean, last year you like once, yeah, once everything settled in you kind of knew 'cause there was literally no passing, but like Right, but There's still, there's, there's the whole ye there's always a risk of a yellow right at Oval.

I mean, man, you Can't say sorry. We'll, okay,

Race two from dead last, last Year.

Let me, let me, let me re Yeah, exactly.

We didn't know he was gonna win, right? And that, but

That's what I'm saying. Like, but

You said, oh, you said it wasn't a good race.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Right. Okay.

So, but you know what I mean, there was, there was a race at the end, I guess I don't because I participated in it.

Right. And while it was easier, no, seriously,

while it was easier to use Lane two, um, while there was certainly more comers and goers, um, end of stint versus beginning of stint and all this sort of thing, you were still driving this race to extend your stint as long as possible in the hopes of catching a yellow.

So it was the majority unless you Were a Chevy.

What do you mean? You were just,

'cause you couldn't go as long, doesn't mean you weren't trying to do It.

Nope. Patto, Joseph Lucas, those guys didn't pit on fuel.

They pit tried to do an undercut and it absolutely hosts them.

Well, let's, we'll get to race two and how those guys literally went against conventional wisdom on short tracks.

But yes, I see what you're trying to say.

Right. But it didn't work.

What I'm saying is like the strategy was to go long. Yeah.

Was to try and catch a yellow.

You also were driving again to a regulated right front tire temperature, sidewalk temperature.

You were getting told from the timing stand, all right, you gotta back down for the next six or seven laps because your tire's about to explode.

If you don't back down, tire's gonna fail.

We had tire failures in both races.

My point is that while this could have been visually a bit of a better race than it was in 2024, it was still nowhere near what it should be from a series of our standards.

It's nowhere near where it should be.

With the amount of effort that went into the testing that was done last off season, the test that was done three weeks ago leading into this race, all of the conversations that were had, I guess I'm just frustrated.

This has nothing to do with my results in the car.

It was still bull. It was not fun.

It was just like, it was not racing. Racing.

It wasn't, it wasn't good. Um, yeah.

So that's, that's where I'm saying like, it wasn't really that much different.

Okay. I think that's all totally valid and totally fair.

I think the, the difference is 99.9%

of people watching at home don't know any of that.

And visually just the product was such a big step forward from last year that I think it would, it kind of got everybody happy.

And also, like even just talking, you know, coming into this race this weekend, last weekend, we weren't super optimistic it was gonna be much better after the test and then the decisions that were made based on arrow and engine and tire and whatever.

But the second lane came in more than we thought.

We saw some good side-by-side racing.

Did we see 275 laps worth? No, we didn't.

We had stretches that were kind of dull.

But that's, that's a lot of races, right?

So, um, I didn't think it was like decidedly worse than a bunch of the races that we've had this year, you know? Um,

I mean, but maybe that's just that, but that's the outside lies the problem there.

No, but therein lies the problem.

Like it is just been, this year's been tough. Like

This year has been tough.

We have had some boring races, but like if people cared about the drivers, they would tune in either way.

So the quality of the racing is still not the problem.

We can all sit here and argue that it could be better or it should be better.

But there are other racing series whose racing is far inferior in terms of an entertainment standpoint.

And they do just fine because people know who say Elliot is, people know who Orlando Norris is and they care about those People.

Yeah. I mean, I mean that brings up an interesting point.

I, I was so disappointed and maybe I'm just not in a good mood today, but it is what it is.

Um, I was so disappointed to see the video from Yes.

In Ohio Yes. Of Kyle Kirkwood was Yes.

In Plains clothes and he was going around, um, various campsites and, and kind of being undercover, right?

And being like, Hey, can you name the three Andretti drivers?

And Kyle was the one asking this and the majority of everyone was like, uh, Colton Herda and then crickets. And it's like

If they even got Colton, If they even got Colton.

But my point is, we are at an Indy car race.

This was at the, this wasn't the city, this was at the track.

This is your second most successful driver of the season by a factor of three mm-hmm .

Right. Driving for one of the largest

and most predominant organizations in the championship.

Arguably the most famous name in North American racing. Yeah. In

Front of your face.

And you don't know that it's him.

Not only did you not know what he looks like, you didn't Know his name, you can't name Exactly.

Yes. It was horrendous.

It's embarrassing that, that was funny.

Insane. We don't know how many people they went

and talked to that did know it that they didn't show.

'cause that was kind of the joke was that they didn't know who he was. Like

If you, if you wanna dress him up in costume and make him not look like him and do that, that's funny.

Newgarden did this at indie 10 years ago and they put prosthetics on his face.

It was brilliant. It looks nothing.

I talked to him, I had no idea it was him.

It was unbelievable. It was really funny. They

Did it with Scottie Mack and Joseph.

Not like dressed up at Nashville, but it was out like on Broadway.

So I guess it wasn't at a track.

So I remember them doing this two years ago. Dude,

This isn't James James's point is it has nothing to do with recognizing Kyle or not.

It's, they can't name 380 drivers at the Racetrack.

Nobody cares about the drivers because nobody knows who the drivers are.

Only the one got popular once all the drivers got really well known because there was cameras in their houses and going on vacation with them.

And there's a reason why companies spent a lot of money marketing stuff.

It works. And our product is our drivers.

It's not our cars, it's not our races, it's our drivers.

And we're not doing that at all.

And it's really, it's really bad.

And like what the little bit that has been done this year has been, actually I'm gonna get myself in trouble so I'm just gonna stop there.

Um, anyway, race one was, uh, exactly what everybody thought it was gonna be.

The Joseph show from Pole, just doing Joseph things.

So he came into the weekend with six wins at this track.

I would like to draw attention to that race in 2022 that Patto mentioned when we spoke to him on Tuesday where Josie was leading and he crashed.

So probably should have been seven.

Uh, I wanna point to 2014 when he finished second to Hunter Ray, you know, like a last lap kind of thing.

So like, yeah, fine, he lost, he didn't win that one but like was right up there.

Um, and then I feel like, so yeah, seven fine.

And then this weekend should've won both should've won both LED 200 and something lapse, lemme lemme rephrase that.

Could've won both, uh, LED 200 and something laps in race won.

And ultimately it was the green flag pit cycle that, that got him there.

Pata just did an unbelievable job on the in lap.

He stayed out a lap longer, did the Overcut, which is usually not more powerful in Iowa than the undercut, but he just made it up on the apron.

Kudos to him. Uh, pit stops for within a 10th of a second.

So it wasn't on pit lane, it was really on the apron.

And then Pat's defense on the out lap was like just perfect.

So could have won that one.

That would've put 'em up to, it should have been eight.

And then you look at what happened to him on Sunday and man, the amount of bad luck that that organization in general is having right now is really tough to understand.

Like it's, it's tough to comprehend how much stuff is going wrong.

Obviously Saturday was great for them, 2, 3, 4.

And then Sunday McLaughlin gets taken out on lap one will has a mechanical problem and then Joseph gets caught in pit lane when a yellow comes out.

We first time he drives his way back up to the front bleeding again, happens again with like 20 laps to go.

Unbelievable. Unbelievable.

That said, why is Joseph so good there, Alex?

Because he is still, he didn't win either race, but he could have won both easily.

What is it that is so different even compared to his teammates? I don't know that

I have an answer for that James.

Um, I will say that this weekend he seemed much more beatable than he has in years past.

Um, so I do think that with the repave and the lack in comparison of Tire day to years past, um, people have been able to close the gap to him.

Um, because before it was a foregone conclusion and, and all 25 drivers knew it going into it that like, I'll give Joseph two wins.

Like it's just not, there's no, there's no competing with him.

Um, and it was really his way of being able to still get through traffic as tires kind of begged and that sort of thing.

And, and his just confidence in his ability in the car and, and lane usage and and that sort of thing.

Um, as that's kind of gotten easier for everyone, like the Gap has certainly closed.

But yeah, I mean he's still, you can't argue that he's not still the benchmark, um, but it doesn't feel as dire as it has in the past.

Like before there was like no answers.

Like who, like you just, you The gap was so big You feel inept.

Yeah. And now it's like you can look at things here

and there and be like, oh yeah, I can see, I can see how that can, could be a difference maker.

But um, no, you, you can't take away what he really, he can do on all ovals.

I mean he should have won Gateway this year. Yeah.

He shoulda have won Gateway could have won like a hundred laps into the race at Indy.

He had come from last to fifth, so like Right, right.

He was gonna be in the conversation at Indy. Of

Course.

Um, and really, and we've talked about this before, it, it was kind of a surprise that it took him so long to figure Indy out with, with his kind of dominance on all other ovals, whether that be short or not.

Like he was, he was Lights outta Texas too. Mm-hmm .

Um, so, you know, it was only a matter of time and obviously we saw with two back to back five hundreds.

He's, he's just, he is the guy on ovals.

Like it's not, it's not Iowa specific.

Um, it used to be Iowa by a mile, but no, I mean we're gonna go to Milwaukee and he's gonna be the guy, we're gonna go to Nashville, he's gonna be the guy.

Um, and we all just gotta pull our heads out and we're <inaudible> figure out how to make him not the guy.

Um, because, because that's the reality of the situation. So

Remind everybody we went in with lower power, um, but a hundred, a hundred less horsepower.

Um, we went in with the downforce, you know, downforce numbers maybe a bit higher, but the, the big thing was that they moved downforce off the floor and onto the top side of the car.

So they took off things like barge boards and strikes, which generates downforce from the floor and just added good old fashioned rear wing, move it to the top of the car.

Um, and then a little bit of a different right front tire to address some of the concerns with that, that comes from the higher down force and whatever.

Um, and I, and I think overall drivers seemed a little bit more comfortable running in dirty air, a little bit more comfortable using the second lane.

How much of it do you think is the package versus the, the track just sort of weathering for a year and in the second lane being a bit better?

I think it's, I think the, the big, the big win was the lower boost.

Um, you know, having the lower approach speeds to the corners, um, allows you to have a bit more margin on balance.

Um, a slightly bigger window there where you're not so on knife edge going, you know, 10 plus miles an hour quicker into the corner.

Um, and I think the weathering of the track, you know, willpower brought that up.

I I hadn't put two and two together, but I think that makes, that makes some sense because certainly, you know, the discrepancy between lane one and lane two was, was lower than it was last year.

Um, but ultimately the big thing and my opinion of this ever since really the beginning of this whole dilemma, um, with the repave was really, it had nothing to do with, because people talk about, oh, only lane one was rep pave.

That's actually not true. Lane one and two.

Yeah, it's is repaved.

Um, the difference is, you know, no one wanted to use lane one in 2023 and earlier, or sorry, no one wanted to run Lane two in 2023 and earlier Iowa either.

But as the tires fell off so much and you were going 2, 3, 4 and a half, four seconds elapsed slower, lane two became an option because you could still go quicker than a car that was struggling even on the less preferred line. Right?

Yeah. It was still less grip

up there, but it was just, yeah, Right.

But it was like if you were doing better than the car in front of you, you could afford to go on the lesser grip because you had more grip in your tires.

The problem with last year was there was no dig, so Lane two is never an option because it's more distance, the balance is worse and no one is falling off.

You're doing 18 whatevers in perpetuity. Right?

So Lane two is never gonna come in obviously.

So 2025, I don't really think anything changed other than the balance window was a little bit bigger 'cause you were going slower.

And number two, there was a little bit more dig because the cornering speeds and forces were higher because we had more downforce and we were going slower into the corner.

So you were asking more of the tire and thus when you were doing 30 laps in a row in 18 five, it was actually more taxing on the tires.

And so you would start to have to slow down a little bit, which allowed cars that were either had saved in the beginning of the stint or were set up a little bit better to start going to that lane one and a half and getting half a wing and clean air and, and able to keep it clean and, and start getting that kind of groove going.

And that's what you saw. You didn't see a full blown lane

two for 275 laps.

Right. You saw it as a, as an option when guys were,

you know, coming up on laps cars or when they were just better than the car in front or, or what have you.

Or there was, there was four cars in a line down on lane one, if you were the fifth car in line, you could move up to that lane one and a half and make it work.

So I, I think that's truly what you saw, which was a result of, of a lot of factors.

Um, but again, like I still think, you know, we had tire failures in the race.

We didn't solve that problem.

We were still driving to a temperature limit.

So we have not quite figured out the, uh, the solution to the puzzle that again, is critical as I am of the situation.

It was not brought on by IndyCar.

Like this wasn't this, and I've said this time and time again, this wasn't anyone's fault.

Um, but we are nowhere near having a solution for the problem that was presented to us, unfortunately.

Well hopefully with two races worth of data and feedback that as a, as a conglomerate, everyone can get together and, and make some calls that kind of help that problem out.

Um, I know a lot of people were asking, excuse me, are asking about, you know, if I was even gonna be back on the schedule.

The rumor going around is that there is another year on the contract likely to be just one race next year was the rumor.

I don't know if this was actually put out anywhere or if this was just rumors.

I don't know. I I may be repeating something

that was put at a press release as speculation.

I have no idea. Um, and we don't fact check on the show.

So, and then, but though the one thing, so on the way home, 'cause my travel stories allowed me a lot of extra time on the way home, uh, I just put out a tweet saying, you know, Hey, what everybody think of the races in Iowa.

The response was overwhelmingly positive.

Everybody thought they were two really good races.

That's awesome. Okay. The, the, the two things

that were in almost every response, like an overwhelming, if there was a hundred responses, 90 of them said rather it was one race and rather it was Saturday night because everybody's like, racists were great, nobody was there.

Like everybody, I didn't ask about attendance.

Everybody just decided to throw in the fact that they noticed there was nobody watching in person.

And a number of those people mentioned, they're like, yeah, it's the middle of July in the Midwest who wants to sit outside for two and a half hours at noon?

And so the, the calls for the night race were plentiful.

Now I don't know if that puts us in a position where next year it's like, if we wanna be on network, we have to be during the day because nighttime primetime, those are harder windows to get.

Obviously we got it for Gateway.

Um, I don't know, I don't know if that's the issue. Issue.

Network window really helped us here, Val.

Fair enough. And so do we take an FS one spot

but make sure we can put it at as a night race and 'cause I mean, do you, do you feel that a night race would help all of these causes?

Just lower track temps means lower tire temps. Yeah. Maybe.

And helps the second lane. I

I think, I think any, I don't know that anyone has ever gone to or watched a night race on an oval in IndyCar and been like, that sucked LA or I wish we didn't do.

I wish we did it at noon.

That's the thing. Like I, I can't think

of any track we've been to.

Everyone wants, everyone wants a short oval night race or a big oval night race.

Like Texas at night was sick. Like everyone wants that.

That was the point I made to somebody was I don't, I can't think of any oval that we run at night and in the day where I preferred the day race, dude, even in it close, even Indy two years ago when we started like five hours late, that Was better. Pretty missed the night. It

Was almost the night race the closest we've had to race. And it was great.

Great. And honestly and honestly this year might

as well have been night with how cold it was and overcast.

Like it was 50 degrees and cloudy so it was pretty dark. Um,

Exactly.

Yeah. No, all os are better at night without a doubt.

So hopefully that's something that can be taken into account moving forward.

Uh, alright. Toronto coming up, uh, we're in the middle

of this slog that is July back to back to back to back to back.

How do we feel? Yeah, what do you think?

I'm excited to get back to Toronto.

Um, I'm excited to get back 'cause I only did one practice session last year and uh, I just want, I don't, I that that's weird.

Like I've never missed a race in my career.

Um, I don't like that I did miss a race and so as much as it was just a, a little broken thumb, like I feel like I've got, uh, unfinished business maybe is the right term there because um, I just wanna go back and, and do the whole weekend.

I don't know. So there's some excitement there.

Um, other than that, it's one of my favorite cities, um, but least favorite tracks.

So we got that going for us. Um, so yeah, we'll see

This is like, not like Portland, which is one of your least favorite tracks and one of your least favorite cities, so it could be worse.

Right, right. It be worse. Well

At least we got that coming up.

Yeah. Yeah. Um, so based on Detroit

confidence level, like where do you think, where are you gonna qualify? We

Will, dude, here's what's so wild about this season is like we are in this 11th to 15th place Purgatory hell, .

Um, and it's crazy.

Like even even Iowa, we had a super strong test.

We were, we had a really good practice one and we go out and we qualify 12th and 15th and I'm just like, how, how are we just stuck in this bubble of mediocrity?

Um, little did I know what was to come over the next two races and 12th and 15th would've been pretty sick, but I digress .

Um, so I think, I think we will qualify, uh, 11th to 16th.

Like that is, that just kind of seems to be our pace.

Um, which is, is not horrible.

Um, but you know, we, we, we still need to take a big step.

Um, I I think street courses are not our, our thing.

Um, but that being said, our best results this year have come on street courses.

Um, so it may not feel that it's that good while I'm out there, but we're, we're getting, you know, top tens and, and you know, knocking on the door, our top fives on street courses.

So I guess that's something to look forward to.

Um, and hopefully that we can end this part of the season in the same vein that we've been for the other three of 'em.

So let's say, uh, top 10 and qualifying top five in the race's Goal.

That would be awesome. I would,

I would feel pretty, pretty pumped about that. Yeah,

Pretty neat about that.

Did is, are Kelly and Ben coming?

Kelly and Ben are coming. Um, Kelly. Nice.

So this will be, well he's not going to the race.

Neither is Kelly. But this will be the first,

uh, trip they've taken.

Um, or we all have taken as a family, so that's pretty exciting.

She's obviously going because uh, all her family is quite close to the city, so she's gonna go introduce Ben to all of his cousins and aunts and uncles and that sort of thing, which is pretty nice.

Sounds fun. Okay, nice.

Um, Tim, what are you doing this weekend? Well,

I was gonna go to, to Toronto, but I broke my jaw, uh, somehow.

And so I'm gonna relax a little bit and let that heal and catch you guys in Laguna Seca.

Why don't you go ahead and explain to the crowd how you broke your jaw.

I dunno. Uh, I was flying out to go visit our,

our friend Marco last week.

And I had a pretty severe tooth pain while I was flying out and couldn't find a dentist that could see me last week in, uh, in Nazareth, Pennsylvania.

Not a bustling metropolis old Nazareth.

And got back home yesterday, had an appointment, figured like worst case scenario I was gonna need to get a root canal 'cause it felt like the nerve was dying, got an x-ray and I have somehow broken the root of one of my teeth and had a hairline fracture on my jaw.

Mm-hmm . They were like the, the dentist was like,

you fall, did you get in a fight?

I was like, no, , I don't have any bruising that would indicate an impact.

'cause it's right over here. It's like a little

swollen. They, I have no idea.

So the working theory fall that you grind your teeth so aggressively at night that you broke your own jaw and broke the nerve in a tooth.

So that's, well, I broke the actual, like the nerve is okay.

I broke the tooth, the, The root.

Sorry, you broke the tooth and the jaw still bad. Still bad.

I, the other thing is, I had a dental procedure with these guys like a month ago and they had the thing that like props your mouth open.

So the only other theory I would have is maybe they broke it.

So two things on that.

Uh, uh, does your lawyer work on retainer or percentage?

Percentage? And why are you going back to the same

Dentist?

I'm gonna a different dentist.

Like I went to them because I just figured it was a root canal and they're like, it's broken.

And they're like, uh, sorry, the only fix is the most expensive option.

So I was like, you know, I'm not sure it's their fault, but it might be their fault.

So I'm going to a different dentist today for a second opinion And then to a lawyer for, uh, some, some counsel On that Super uplifting note, guys, believe it or not, um, you gotta go to the dentist to go to the dentist, so, Well, I hope you have better luck than Tim.

Well I can tell you my jaw isn't broken and if it was, it wouldn't be for a lame reason.

Like sleeping might be I'll come up with something else. It might

Be after this visit. You never know.

I do love that. Like, my old joke has come true that most

of my injuries are re sleep related.

Incredible. I was flying out of Nazareth

or Allentown and I mm-hmm .

Was, uh, I had a pretty bad mood because I was in pretty bad agony from my, my tooth and everything.

And so I ordered some chicken tenders at the, uh, at the Nazareth Air or Allentown airport restaurant bar thing.

Okay. I got some chicken tenders, took a bite,

looked down completely uncooked chicken.

It had just been breaded and like thrown in the boiler for a few seconds.

I was like, what? You know what? I finished this.

I ate a bite, you know, I don't, I'm going to get sick now.

And they're like, you'll be fine.

I was like, well I'm glad I have the medical opinion of the person at the Allentown bar or slash restaurant, but like, I, I don't, I feel like there's a reason we don't eat raw chicken.

So I went and forced myself to throw up and they were like, probably smart sir.

Like sir, I just want you to know that like we check the temperature of the meat when we cook with the meat thermometer, but it broke this morning.

I was like, see, just, you're just winging it.

You're just like, can Keep, he was like, yeah, that feels like 1 65 had chip it.

So that's the story of how I ate raw chicken.

So did you get your meal for free?

Uh, they comped it and then they're like, do you want anything else?

It will be free. I was like, no. Like I don't I

No longer, you've proven that your ability to cook food adequately is quite poor or it's quite poor.

So, um, how was it the, we, like how, how would you tell, what'd you do in Nazareth?

Did you just have a good weekend? It was

Lowkey.

We played, this is gonna sound like I'm lying, but this is actually true.

We played a lot of chess and okay, I hung out with, uh, Marco's, Marco's baby and Marissa was there with her baby and cool, and Sage's wife brought over their baby.

So it was cool. It was a baby

and chess filled four days and that was great. I had a great time with it.

It's too many days for that list of activities. .

So I was flying out to Iowa and I had, I had like tweeted or Insta, I, I did, I tweeted it, um, some, some, some delays that I had like by travel, it wasn't that bad, right?

I had a connection somewhere Dallas.

And it was one of these things where like, so like on the route to Dallas, we already got told that our flight was delayed leaving Dallas to go to Iowa.

Fine. So you get there, burn some time in Dallas

and then we've gone through like the first two hours of delay time to board.

So we board get on the plane, last person's on the plane, they come on, they say, Hey, turns out there's a maintenance issue with this plane and it's gotta go into service.

So it's, it's, it's gonna go out of service and into service maintenance, whatever.

We're like, cool. Awesome.

So we deplaned and during the deplaning process, I found out that Brian heard I was on the flight.

And so Brian and I were sitting there waiting for some updates.

So we're sitting in the gate and the guy comes over the thing and goes, uh, okay, great news.

We have found a new plane. Uh, better news.

It's a bigger plane, so you guys are gonna have, you know, more room and there's gonna be some free seats.

'cause there was a full flight. Now there's gonna be

some free seats in there.

Uh, so this is all great.

But, but eh, but because it's a bigger plane, we need an extra flight attendant.

So we found a plane, but now we need to find one lone errand flight attendant.

Got it. No, I,

and then no further up, no follow further up on, no further follow up on timing that it said, we're gonna find one if you have any questions.

I'm going on break for 20 minutes, so don't ask.

And we're, I'm just like, why would he not just wait until we knew all the information?

So anyway, so he says nothing, but then the app pings and it tells us that we're now departing like in another two hours.

Two hours. It's like, okay. So then Brian

and I go grab a bite tea, we come back, we board the plane again, then the guy, the last person's boarded captain comes on and goes, uh, so guys, some not great news.

We have a light on in the cockpit.

And I was like, I looked at the guy, I was like, he's he's messing with us.

That's this is this is that, that's funny.

That's, that's legit. Whatever.

And then he just keeps talking.

I was like, oh no, he is not, that's not a joke.

He's not, he's dead serious.

And he, so he is just like, yeah.

So we've got, um, we've got maintenance coming out to take a look at it.

Hopefully we can just fix it here.

Hopefully, hopefully we can fix it.

Is words you always wanna hear when on a, yeah, on an airplane thing to be muted.

So yeah, that's just always what you want to hear, always what you wanna hear.

So we sit there for like another 30, 40 minutes, whatever it was.

He's like, okay, we got it sorted. So then we're like, fine.

So we closed the door, we start taxing and we're taxing and we're taxing.

And then we taxied a bit more before we started taxing and then subsequent taxing.

And then we pulled over and stopped.

And I was like, I've been here before too.

This is where they realized that they didn't fix the light and we have to go back and probably depl again.

So we're sitting there and the guy and then there's nothing, there's no information, no updates.

We're just sitting there for like another half hour.

And then finally, whatever was the issue was resolved.

Maybe we were looking for a place in line.

'cause we were so late, I don't know.

But they didn't tell us anything.

So we eventually take off like seven hours late. Fine.

Here I was being like, you know, I was complaining about my slight delay in the grand scheme of life.

Not all that bad. While this was all happening,

we were getting regular updates from my friend and colleague, Townsend Bell.

Townsend was also having some travel issues, as a lot of people were this past week.

There was some crazy weather, whatever.

There was some weather, which we didn't even even cover the tornado.

We didn't cover the tornado. It wasn't a real tornado.

I don't think it was over. It was exaggerated. It's fine.

Um, but a tornado did. Oh no it didn't.

I was, someone replied to like one of the tweets of somebody posting a picture, like that's actually just a something, something cloud.

And there was not actually a tornado looked, Uh, tornado to Me.

It was definitely tornado adjacent.

So anyway, we proceed to get updates on Townsend's travel.

Those acute, uh, very aware listeners and followers of Indy Carr watching Practice One would've noted the absence of one Townsend ballot on the broadcast when Townsend finally got to the track.

Um, I had him tell us the story.

I'm gonna play it for you now. I

Left my house at 10:00 AM on Thursday. .

What time is it? What time is it? What time is it?

It's midday Saturday. It's noon on Saturday in Iowa. .

No way. Walk us through it. Wow. Uh, let's see.

Started out at LAX flight, delayed weather in Denver was my connection.

Delays, delays, delays.

Finally boarded the plane, sat at the gate, closed the door, opened the door, deplaned us, uh, wouldn't make my connection.

So I was gonna spend the night at Denver Airport.

I said, okay, I'll just try to again tomorrow.

Went to Friday, went back to the airports and went back home.

Had a great night. Went back to the airport.

Same thing happened. Boarded the plane.

Weather delays this time, taxied all the way out to the runway.

Sat for two hours on the plane, came back to the gate, deplaned us.

Now I'm getting a little worried about getting here.

So in a panic, I booked a ticket on Delta that left in about 40 minutes on the opposite side of LAX, which is about a mile and a half.

Started running to get that flight.

Got a text that the United flight was actually gonna leave after all turned around, went back to the plane, then they canceled that flight, .

So, so then I didn't have time to get the delta that I bought.

So then I bought another Delta flight, red Eye to Detroit, which was delayed.

Uh, got to Detroit, uh, had a three hour layover.

Then my flight to Des Moines was delayed as well for mechanical loose wire.

So that took about an hour and a half to fix.

And finally I'm here. Yay.

You got the whole gamut, man.

That's so my takeaway there is God didn't want Townsend on the broadcast.

Uh, , I think the takeaway there was nobody wanted anybody to be in Iowa for that race.

Yeah.

Um, But yes, I, And it, and it seems that people took the message.

A lot of people got the message .

Um, but you know, I think it was one of those like nice, uh, moments of, uh, bringing everything into perspective when I was complaining about a slight delay.

I just got in late the same day.

Townsend took like, took four, eight hours to get to Iowa from la.

So it was comically bad.

Well, onto Toronto, your ancestral homeland, My all From your backdrop and lack of good gear that you were already there.

Yes. I do apologize for forgetting my gear.

Uh, that was on me , but you know, we packed for Iowa and then I flew straight to Toronto.

We do this weekend I fly from Toronto straight to Laguna.

So I was, I was packed for a while and I just, it, I it's, I don't know.

It skipped it. Skipped my thing.

I might send Alex to the house to go pick it up actually, so we can have it for next week.

Oh, are you not? 'cause are you going straight from

Toronto to straight to Laguna?

I literally just said that. Yeah, I'm sorry.

So that's, that's on you if it's, I'm In a lot of pain. .

Well, well, um, um, is it really good if I have my equipment?

Yeah, that would be good. Okay. I'll ask him to go get it.

Uh, so yes, excited always to come back.

Um, you know, this was the race that made me fall in love with the sport, made me fall in love with IndyCar.

And uh, it's always fun and exciting coming back.

So we're here now.

Becky and I, Becky drove, excuse me, on Sunday and then I flew here, met her here and had more delays coming back.

Actually I had like a four hour delay in Chicago coming back from Iowa.

So I walked, um, I think I walked like over three miles around O'Hare airport.

So here's the other part of my travel story.

This is kind of the fun part.

I haven't told anybody this yet.

So check in in Iowa, fly to Chicago. Four hour delay.

So I don't like just sitting, like I didn't wanna just go to the lounge and whatever.

I don't wanna, so I had a quick bite to eat and I just started walking and I walked in and out of every terminal, I walked by every gate at O'Hare and walked around for like three miles, got back to my gate, sat down and then, uh, like, okay, it's time to board now at this point it's like two 30 in the morning or something stupid.

No, no, it's one 30 in the morning.

And we've walked, I've walked literally in and out of the entire airport stand up like, all right everybody get your passports ready.

We're boarding the flight to Toronto.

Tim, I can't find my passport.

, my passport sits in the same pocket of my pan.

I used it to check in in Des Moines.

I put it in my pocket that I always put it in. So

You had to retrace your steps, Tim, you couldn't even try.

I had 10 minutes to board and I had three miles to cover.

And so I was just like, oh my God. Oh my god. What?

So my options were don't get on the plane.

Retrace three miles of steps in the middle of the night at O'Hare.

Probably would've gotten some looks from the security and the staff that's like there getting the place ready for tomorrow and not even know if I'm gonna find it or get on the plane using my other passport.

'cause I have dual citizenship with the UK and go get a new passport.

When I got to Canada, the irony was Monday morning I had an appointment with the embassy because I had to renew that passport.

It was almost expired. That's part

of the reason I came straight here, was to get it done early.

Yeah. So now I'm not doing a passport renewal.

I've gotta do a whole new, because you've gotta send in your old passport. Yeah,

Yeah, yeah, Yeah.

So now it's like a whole, and so I was just like, oh my God, this is awful.

So I, I showed my other id, the guy let me on the plane.

I landed, I go to customs, you know, I've got Nexus, but I skipped out.

I just go straight to the, to the thing to talk to a person.

I was like, hi. Pretty sure I lost

my passport and my connection.

And they're like, got it.

So whatever filled out whatever paperwork got me through.

And so now I've been going.

But, but to do a full passport, full new passport. You know what you need

Your birth certificate then? Birth

Certificate.

Do you know what's not in Toronto with me?

And it's at my home in Indianapolis.

Oh, fun. So good friend Bobby Delve, swung by my house,

uh, yesterday morning and Monday morning.

Grabbed it, threw it in the mail.

It should be here as we're recording.

It should be here by now. It's not.

And, uh, I have to run to the embassy and go get an emergency redone passport.

Okay, well, uh, have fun with that. It's nice to see

That. I won't, I promise you I won't.

It's nice to see for once, uh, it benefited a Canadian to be part of the Commonwealth .

I'm not gonna dignify that statement with a response. Yes.

All right. So wish me luck at the Passport office.

I'll wish you luck with whatever you've got going on.

And I hope the new dentist is better than the last one.

This has been off track with Hinch and Rossi.

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