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Term
understeer
Understeer is when the car doesn’t turn as sharply as you want. It usually happens when the front tires lose grip first, so the car feels like it won’t “turn in.”
Term
Indy car
An Indy car is a purpose-built open-wheel race car used in IndyCar racing. Because it’s designed for racing, small setup changes can make it feel like it pushes (understeer) or rotates too much (oversteer).
Term
debrief sheet map
A debrief sheet map is a way drivers record how the car feels in different parts of a turn. Instead of saying “it felt bad,” they mark where it pushes (understeer) or rotates (oversteer) so the team knows what to change.
Term
oversteer
Oversteer is when the back of the car slides or swings outward more than you expect. It can make the car rotate into turns, but too much can feel out of control.
Term
rear was just super bolted down
“Rear was super bolted down” is a driver way of saying the rear end felt very planted and resistant to moving around. In balance discussions, that can point to an imbalance where the rear has more grip or stability than the front, affecting rotation and corner-entry behavior.
Term
balance
“Balance” means how the car’s front and rear tires work together in a corner. A “neutral” balance is when the car doesn’t strongly want to push wide or spin—it's predictable.
Term
turn in
“Turn in” means the instant you start steering into a corner. It’s a way to talk about whether the car immediately starts turning the way you expect.
Term
weight in the steering wheel
“Weight in the steering wheel” is how heavy the steering feels when the front tires are gripping. If it feels light or numb, the front tires may not be getting enough traction to help the car turn.
Term
apex
The “apex” is the closest point to the inside of a turn. If you miss it, you usually end up going wider through the corner and the car may not be turning correctly.
Car
Hyundai Accent
The Hyundai Accent is a small car meant for regular driving, like getting to work or running errands. It’s built to be affordable and easy to live with, so it’s a common choice for people who want basic transportation. You might hear it mentioned because it’s a widely used, everyday model.
Term
qualifying
Qualifying is when drivers race against the clock to set the starting order. Your best lap time decides where you start in the race.
Term
three tenths
“Three tenths” means 0.3 seconds. In racing, that’s a small but important difference—enough to win qualifying.
Term
pole position
Pole position means the car starts first at the beginning of the race. It’s earned by being fastest in qualifying, so you get the best starting spot.
Term
tire
Here “tire” means the type of tire compound the car runs. Softer tires usually grip more but wear faster, while harder tires last longer.
Term
softs
“Softs” are tires that grip really well. The downside is they wear out faster than harder tires.
Term
hards
“Hards” are tires that don’t grip quite as strongly, but they last longer. They’re often used when you want the tire to hold up for more laps.
Term
stinting out a set
“Stinting out a set” means using the same set of tires for a planned chunk of the race. The idea is to make them last long enough to stay fast until you pit.
Term
pit lane speeding penalty
F1 cars have to drive slowly in the pit lane. If someone goes too fast, officials give them a penalty that costs time so it’s fair for everyone.
Term
drive through
A drive-through penalty means the driver has to go through the pit lane and keep moving, without stopping. It’s a time penalty for breaking a rule.
Term
VSC
VSC (Virtual Safety Car) is how F1 slows everyone down without sending out the real safety car. The cars have to follow a speed limit set by the system for a while.
Term
caution
A caution is when the race slows down because something happened on track. Drivers have to be more careful and usually can’t race at full speed.
Term
cycled back
“Cycled back” means your position changes because other cars pit at different times. During safety periods, that shuffle can move you forward or backward even if you didn’t change your pace.
LIVE
This is off track.
Where'd you park your Harley?
Outside of the dive bar, obviously.
Don't be jealous.
I'm not.
I'm not jealous at all.
I mean, yeah, well, people kind of like it.
No, we kind of like it.
No one likes it.
Dude, Becky likes it.
And to the point where she's concerned how much she likes it.
I'm concerned how much she likes it.
I'm really concerning.
I do it terrible.
Let's, we're talking about James' face, my handlebar mustache, and.
I get, okay.
I get why you kept it for the race.
Why do you still have it?
I don't know.
Okay.
We got to back up to the beginning.
So Thursday evening, I don't really know what it is, but it's some like charity fundraiser,
celebrity bartending event that happens at Seabkins outside of Elkart Lake, right?
Correct.
And last year, Louis Foster was on poll after he shaved his mustache for charity sort of
thing.
Correct.
And so this year, did you think you were going to be on poll if you shaved half your
face?
No.
So wanting back to last year, we basically peer pressured Louis into shaving his mustache.
Right?
It was like, Hey, if we can raise $5,000, will you shave your mustache in front of a group
of people?
And it's benefiting basically kids and vets, veterans.
So you'd have to be like a veterinarian.
Veterinarians are also great.
Yeah.
But they don't need any more money.
You and I give them plenty.
Yeah.
I was going to say it's expensive to have a dog.
Sure is.
So they're doing fine.
Anyway.
Yeah.
So basically it was one of these things where it was like, we got the 5,000 raised.
And so if you don't do it, you're basically just saying you hate kids and vets.
Which is something that you say often.
Which is not something I ever said.
I have to cut that from almost every episode where you just go on your rants about like,
oh, these kids, these freeloaders, these sour patch kids, it's just disgusting.
This is going back to sour patch kids, which I like, and you somehow twisted this into
I don't like kids just because what, I don't have one.
We can just have established facts, sunrise in the East, James Hinchclose hates veterans
and children and sour patch kids.
These are established facts.
Moving on.
Here's the problem is the entire story is based around how that is an incorrect statement.
So anyway, we guilt Louis into doing it last year, bucks and shaves his mustache.
He goes on to win pole for the race.
So this year, same event, and Louis returned shockingly and he actually got there ahead
of me and sort of planned this out with Chris Wheeler, who we know well, who was the emcee
of the event that like, hey, we're going to try to get Hinch to shave his beard this time.
So I rocked up and, you know, I was very quickly cornered by Louis and Chris and Chris is on
the microphone is basically like, so how much is it going to take to shave the beard?
And I was, I forget exactly how it came up.
I think it was if we could do 10,000, would you do it?
And so now, so like rather than me being able to put out a really ridiculous number, he
was like, if it's 10,000, would you do it?
And I'm hanging and hawing because like, I obviously don't want to do it.
And then one of Louis sponsors comes up and says, hey, I'll match up to 10,000.
If you can raise it.
So now it's 20,000 and TK is there egging them on and Louis is egging them on.
And so I was like, all right, if you, if TK Louis also throw in 2,500 bucks a piece and
you guys raise it 10,000 and this guy matches 10,000 and we end up with 25 K, I will let
you shave my beard.
So they did and we got the money.
We raised $25,000 and 10 minutes and this was the design that Louis and Buxton came
up with.
So the handlebar was not a decision on my part.
It was not a request.
It was just what was bestowed upon me.
And so I had to keep it for the weekend, which I want to thank my bosses at Fox Sports for
allowing me to keep this horrendous thing on my face while I'm on network television.
Okay, but, but it's, it's, it's Monday at one PM and it's still on your face.
Yeah.
So, so I'm, did you just wake up and like, you had to record this and then you're like
going to go to the bathroom and fix it or like, what, wait, why?
No, I did wake up, go to the gym.
I had to go get a haircut.
So like, I haven't had a ton of time.
So you were at a barber shop.
So you have groomed, you have groomed other hair today and someone else has done that.
Yeah, I don't trust a lot of people with my beard.
It needs to come off.
It's very easy.
There's no, there's no talent.
So, okay, so all right, let me, let me try to explain this to you.
Okay.
I'm not going to clean shave my face, right?
That's a non-starter.
So what I'm needing to do, because I, nobody wants that.
I'm on, I'm on TV in three days.
I can't be that, I can't do that.
Like, nobody wants this is better, but this is 100% better than me.
Clean shaven.
I promise you.
And you clean shaven.
It's, it's fine.
Dancing with the stars.
You were a naked baby butt face with this.
You were the joker.
I wore obscene amounts of makeup so you couldn't really tell.
You could just do that again.
I don't want to, I can't do that on air.
I have a job, Tim.
Look it up.
Okay, okay.
Sounds all right.
Now looking through his phone to find pictures of me in 2016 with a shaved face.
Yeah, I don't like it.
So, so what's happening now is you can see here on the sides and on the chin.
Listeners, I'm touching my sides and my chin.
There's some stubble.
It's growing back.
And so what I need to do is I need to grow this out, let this grow as long as it can
until Thursday and then on Thursday morning before I go on air, I will trim the
mustache to match whatever level of scruff I've accumulated by that point.
So it's still going to be a good chunk shorter than I normally wear it.
But I do remember in 2016 being impressed by how quickly your, your beard grew back
after the joke to the point where I was like, did they CGI your beard off?
James, did you hire like a, like a person that would remove celebrity sex tapes from
the internet to remove pictures of you without facial hair from the internet?
Yeah, he was like, why are you doing the body issue?
Just a couple of these.
Hey, what's a little add on going to cost me?
So wait, wait, wait, you were clean shaven when you were the Joker.
Yeah, but I was wearing tons of makeup.
And then by the next week, I still thought it looked horrendous even the next week.
But Tim thinks the last time that there's actual pictures of me being clean
shaven was in 2012.
In 2012, I went to Red's Barbershop downtown Indy and got a straight razor shave.
And honestly, it looks better than.
Yeah, I think it's weird that when they did the Joker makeup on you, they had to make you tanner.
They had to put a fair amount of fake tan on to make it work.
Yeah.
OK, so look, we can all agree, we don't prefer this, but it's here for two more days.
And I keep forgetting that I have it.
So you go in public and you see people and they give you funny looks.
And you're like, why?
Oh, yeah, the thing on the face.
Yeah, I mean, you look pretty good there.
See, that's more scruff.
That's like kind of a level of scruff that I've got going right here.
Yeah. So why don't you just match your that's what I'm going to do?
I'm going to let it scruff.
I'm going to let it grow a few more days and then I will I'm not going anywhere.
Like, I'm just going to go on a plane.
So people will just not talk to me on the plane, probably, which will be nice.
I go anywhere. I'm just flying internationally.
Yes, exactly. Exactly.
You know, it doesn't count.
Well, it does, but I'm going to Austria.
So. Oh, OK.
Yeah, you don't have to go.
Look at 2020
I remember that was like, OK.
I mean, there's a shot of me in the barber chair.
Yeah, it's pretty. Yeah, it's good.
Yeah, I don't think I think you need to give yourself a little bit more credit.
The fact that you think you look worse clean shaven than you do right now is.
I did think about like just leveling it up to just the mustache for Sunday,
like not the handlebars, just the good old fashioned.
All right, I get it. You're a TV guy.
I understand you got to do what gives you the confidence
and congratulations on raising 25000 dollars
for being a very selfless individual.
So that's the most important moral.
Does it feel weird to know you have a 25000 dollar beard?
Like that's the market value of your beard.
No, I bet it's more.
Never thought about it like that.
You could have gotten more. Yeah.
I mean, in a different. Oh, you think it was a different scenario.
Yeah, no, I'm probably going to raise more.
Yeah, 100 percent. Yeah.
Hey, I'll be.
Yes, racing for kids seems way less benefited.
And that's what matters.
It seems way less like way less work than a golf outing.
Just. Yeah, it's true.
I was once a year raised in ten minutes.
I raised just enough money to basically mash the amount that we do
from the golf outing. Don't tell Bischoff.
Don't tell him that all the work that he puts in
matches the amount that we got in ten minutes of me standing there,
getting shaved by two men.
God, that's a terrible sentence out of context.
Objection phrasing.
So, Alex, you got home this morning, right?
Because it's Monday. Yeah.
You were supposed to get home last night, weren't you?
I was.
Hmm. What happened?
There was some weather. Was it purple?
And also like I just wasn't in the mood.
And don't worry, I get to wake up tomorrow morning and fly to Mid-Ohio.
Oh, my God, you test Mid-Ohio.
Yeah, I can't believe you guys are testing this week tomorrow.
Now I feel less bad.
Now I feel less bad about you having all these back to back races
because you guys then also take the weeks off and go testing.
So do you want to know what's wild?
So we have Mid-Ohio, like in a week and a half, right?
Yes. And then the Tuesday following Mid-Ohio,
we're going to test in Milwaukee. Milwaukee. Yeah.
Yeah. Do we race?
We don't race the weekend after Mid-Ohio.
No, but then it's Nashville.
And then it's Nashville.
And then the cluster begins.
And then you're basically on track.
You're basically on track every week from the start of May.
Pretty much.
Interesting for a series that doesn't really test a lot.
You guys are testing a lot.
It is what it is.
Anyways, cool.
What? Same for not everybody.
At least it's not the same for everyone.
Happy, happy belated Father's Day, guys.
Thanks, man.
How was your I mean, I know you were working
and so you weren't with little man, Tim.
You were flying.
We have with Hazel.
We had our we had our space camp graduation.
So I would say I I'm not sure I want to dedicate
an entire episode to that.
I'm not sure if that's so much fun.
Is it everything you hoped and dreamed?
I just wish it was longer.
Well, like four days, three days.
It was Friday, Saturday, Sunday.
Oh, yeah.
No, you need to do a full week.
Yeah.
But the full week is the kid one.
And it's like, yeah, Hazel's definitely going to be doing that.
But like, I don't think I can sneak in there.
No, nor should I know it's really not for you.
A bunch of reasons.
Yeah. No, it was really cool, though.
I had a really good time.
It was the least tuned into a race I've ever been for.
Like, at least I can't be true in 11 years.
I like, at one point, I looked at the app
and I saw Alex running second or third and I texted James.
I was like, wait, what happened?
I could tell he was zoned out
because that was the only text message that I got from Tim
in a broadcast, which is very rare.
No, it was it was a blast.
Well, I had a lot of fun that I sent you guys.
I sent you that video, James, the multi axis trainer thing
where they just spin you. That was your favorite part.
And it was really cool.
I definitely thought I was going to throw up, but I didn't.
But do you know why you didn't?
They explain why people really throw up on that.
Center of yeah, because your stomach is like right in the middle.
So your stomach's not actually moving that much.
Yeah, kind of weird.
But I have sat on that exact same machine
and been spun around.
I think we need to do an off track excursion to space camp.
I think we could set this up. No.
I think we need to do a two thirds of off track excursion
to space camp.
No, but you got to do like the real thing thing,
not like just swing by and say, hey, it was,
I think you'd like a lot of it or or or bear with me.
What if we do an off track little excursion on the vomit comet?
So now hear me out.
Why don't we just do an episode from space?
Well, we can.
I'm sorry, is that an animal or a human?
That was that was an animal who I'm not entirely sure how he managed to do that.
I mean, it's probably great for the door.
I'm very impressive considering how stupid he is.
He's not the greatest, but he figured out open a double door.
Good friend.
It's like the scene when Jurassic Park.
Fine.
It's like the double or not a open doors.
Hi.
OK, I don't have a good segue for this, but I need to do a delayed.
Thank you to somebody that I meant to do last week.
Should be good.
Some people probably know Justin Vining from Twitter.
He's the guy who posts up at IMS in May and paints a lot of the stuff
and has really impressive paintings of of races and IMS in general.
And this year he did a bunch of the ones of the Wiener mobiles.
I reached out to him on Twitter just saying I liked his work
and asking how I could buy a painting from him.
And his response was to just send me one.
So I just wanted to say thank you to Justin.
Beautiful.
This is a really, really cool painting that he sent me of the Pagoda.
It's too nice for my apartment, but I'm excited to hang it up
and find a place and put it on display.
So if you want to, I feel like it's very Beverly Hills.
That's fair.
I keep thinking I'm in my old place.
So it's really cool.
He sells him online.
Yeah. Where could people go to buy their own?
If you would think I would have that queued up right now, right?
Yeah.
I thought that guy was trying to like softball.
JustinVining.com.
He has his paintings up.
He has a lot from from this year's 500.
And I think he's in England right now painting.
So it's cool. Check it out.
Even if I can buy one, give him a follow on on Twitter, check out his art.
It's it's really cool here into art and racing.
Terrific. And who isn't?
Rot America, Happiest Place on Earth was this past weekend.
Alejandro Rosario, you had an up and down weekend, but ultimately ended up, I would say.
No, I think it was.
No, I think I think at one point, if you go down enough,
like the space time continuum, you just start at the top.
Like it just got it.
If you keep digging at one point, you just right.
You start digging up.
You come back and then no, you just you're now at the start, right?
Where you can do that to dig down, which we also did throughout the race somehow.
Well, then a P six at the end of it's not bad.
All things considered.
Considering it could have been a second or third, it's not awesome.
But, you know, could have been a 25th like Christian.
Well, yeah, been there.
Yeah, it was.
It was weird how similar it was
to see a ECR machine pull up dead stick right on start, finish once again.
I was like, I didn't get out quicker.
All right.
So, yes, if you listen to last week's episode, we had tested in North America
with the 2026 tire and we had a really good test.
Andretti was there.
To Foyt was there.
Foyt McLaren McLaren was there and we were in Ray Hall and we were the best car
against cars that were good benchmarks, let's say.
And we show up to practice and both with the same exact everything as you would
because you were literally on track nine days ago.
And the balance is completely different, like shockingly different.
And so we kind of scrambled in session
to try and get the balance back in the window.
So which way to go?
Just the most understeer I've ever had
in driving an Indy car, like, you know, how on the most teams
have a have a debrief sheet map, the drivers will fill out.
Yeah.
And it's kind of like a sliding scale of, you know, minus five out of five is understeer.
Zero is the cars kind of neutral and good.
And plus five out of five is oversteer, right?
And you kind of fill these squares out through the different phases of each corner.
And very rarely are you kind of past a three on anything, right?
Like it's it's a lot of ones and twos and zeros.
And I had the majority of my map was like fours and fives, like of understeer,
like to like an alarming, an alarming scale.
Yeah. Yeah, that's like knocking the walls down.
That's that's no, I went off track probably 11 times in practice.
We caught a couple of just like we got a couple of them.
I was like, this can't be real.
Anyway, was it so did it?
But can I ask a question?
Did the balance feel like the rear was just super bolted down
and was overpowering the front or was the rear kind of the same,
but the front just wasn't turning?
The rear felt super similar to the test, like good.
You know, you could piss it off and like the the carousel
was super neutral and the king was pretty neutral and entry one is neutral.
Like the normal road America balance that you know, right?
Like seven was hard to be flat.
Thirteen was on the limit to be flat, but it was.
And you just kind of lived with it.
But then like you would turn in and there wasn't even like weight in the steering wheel.
Like like you could literally with your with your the top of your finger
just push the steering wheel down.
We saw one when you went off in 14.
And that's honestly like I kind of said that I'm like
because you you went off on the exit, but you missed the apex by a mile.
Like you you turn in and the front just didn't do anything.
And yeah, it just it looked like it was like something under the front of the car.
Yeah, that's what it felt like.
It was good. It was horrifying.
So anyway, and Christian, the 21 car had had identical comments.
So like overnight, we like we're like,
well, we we don't need to wholesale it because we were good.
We were there like we just need to work clearly
like outside of a tire window and like the balance is just we just we don't have the balance, right?
And so we just like made a couple like adjustments to like just reduce understeer.
And so we go into P2 and P2 was a good chunk better.
And then we go into qualifying and qualifying was a good chunk better again, balance wise.
And and it was like a lot of Long Beach, Deja Vu like
car balance is great execution was what it needed to be.
And we were like eight tenths off.
I was eight tenths off my group, Christian was eight tenths off in his group.
And we didn't there was nothing that we looked back on and it's like,
oh, we should have done that different or that change was bad.
It was like the car was good.
Like we went from we talk about this sheet, right?
Of zero to minus five and plus five.
And like it was all zeros and ones and twos.
And you're just there's no there's no lap time.
So that was a pretty broader discussion, right?
Saturday night going into warm up.
So we kind of just like tried some stuff and warm up like just the directive
from management was I don't want people to keep doing the same thing,
thinking we know what we're doing because we don't know what we're doing.
So get outside of your box and try something that you think will solve
or at least give us a direction.
And warm up was the worst car that I have ever driven.
I was I was DFL and warm up seven tenths from 24th.
Oh, for me to not be last, I would have had to find almost a second to not imagine
driving around on like a lap and you just like you're nailing it
and you're like you're seeing the Delta just go down and it's like three tenths,
four tenths, five tenths, get through that through 12, six tenths.
You cross the line like hell, yes, six tenths on that lap.
Where are we at? Still pee last.
Sorry, what?
That's yeah, you need another tenth to be 24th to be 27th fourth.
Right. OK.
So Christian also was well, actually, I was 24th and he was 25th.
But then he put on reds and low fuel at the end and spammed overtake
and like went up to fifth.
So then I was DFL seven tenths from 24th.
So not a great feeling going into the race.
No, oh, horrible.
Like.
In our in pre-event strategy meeting,
the strategy meeting revolved around and I'm not kidding you,
like how do we not go a lap down?
Right.
It rode America.
A minute. The longest lap to go a lap down.
It was like a concern.
This is this is the priority. OK.
What did we do?
We went back to the qualifying car, which had a good balance
and just continued to try and improve that car for the race.
And we got into the race and immediately things were good.
So we started 25th, the first stint on reds.
We got up to, I think it was 17th.
And then through that first pit cycle, we.
We came out and it went yellow,
but not too many cars were affected by that.
There was a couple of guys that we cycled in front of
because they had to take emergency service and that sort of thing.
But like we took the restart again in 15th ish or something.
So like still good.
And we were quicker than a lot of the cars that we were around.
Passed a couple more cars, got up to 13th.
And then again, pitted and this time
caught a pretty big break from from the yellow standpoint,
which is when Christians car ground to a halt
on the start finish straight.
Q conspiracy theorists.
Oh, OK, yeah, they're going to sacrifice the car
that's pretty much at a leader circle to help the guy that's 16th
in the championship. Yeah, OK, that makes sense.
And so we we went up, we cycled up to third
and we're running quite good.
I mean, we were stronger than power.
We weren't quite as good as is Armstrong and Malukas.
But, you know, I think we were, you know, our pace throughout the race
was we were a top five car, which was obviously a huge turnaround
from what we had dealt with the whole weekend.
Came in for a final stop on the early side of the window
because that had been working for us all day
because you're obviously protecting yourself against yellow,
which is the the new thing you got to do, I think with the new way
that Indy car and race control is is doing the races as we talked about.
Had a bad stop went from third to eighth on track, unfortunately.
But then through some attrition, we got back up to sixth.
And that was the story of our day.
So plus 19, but the bigger fact of or the bigger thing to celebrate
was just that like we actually rediscovered
you have to make a car go fast around America.
So that was that was nice.
And yeah, hopefully we can we can continue to evolve on that
as we get to mid Ohio.
But quite frankly, it's just it's hard, man.
Like I it's it's the sport is such a it's such a mystery.
It doesn't make sense how you can leave a test super happy and competitive
and in the same conditions.
And not have anything near what you had, but that is the way it goes.
That is the way the the race was pretty awesome, I think,
from a entertainment standpoint, I am going to respectfully agree.
OK, I thought it was very entertaining.
Yeah, Tim, I normally at this point like to get your opinion
as the less inside baseball person, but we know that you didn't really watch.
So Huntsville Airport was great.
Yeah, I mean, you have a phone.
I'm not sure why you couldn't have had it up on your phone.
Still trying to get out of there earlier.
Yeah, hang out with Hazel.
Yeah, he likes racing.
I didn't get to by the time I got to the airport,
the race was like eight laps left.
So I did watch the last eight laps.
But so like while you were in the Uber to the airport, you were doing well.
Exactly. He's in the museum.
And then we're we're still doing the graduation stuff.
Yeah, this sounds like a lot of excuses.
A size don't care about what you guys do for work.
It was a good race or a new personal life.
I really don't care about your mustache.
Did you forget what the little microphone button does?
Just press that.
Would you press?
Could you do me a solid and just press that?
I don't see the little icon telling me that.
It's weird not hearing a Southern accent out of that mustache.
This is what I should have done for the truck race.
I acknowledge that now.
And if I run it next year, I will probably do that and go full Jimmy Hinge.
But yes, no, the race was good.
Polo, hey, pretty good at qualifying.
Can we talk about how he was on pole by three tenths
and had his fifth consecutive pole position?
Three tenths, man, in this series, I get it's a big track, but still.
Man, poles are pretty, pretty easy, though.
When you think about it, you have to go faster than everyone else.
Dry faster than the other guys. Yeah.
Yeah, he's doing that well.
It was interesting because I think I feel like going into the race
after a warm up, there wasn't a super clear indication.
There wasn't a unanimous decision over what tire was going to be better.
I don't know if you guys felt strongly one way or the other,
or you didn't really care because you were just trying to keep your heads
above water set up wise.
So the top three, I think, started on the softs
and then a couple of guys on hards behind there.
And it seemed to be that in that first in, it became somewhat clear
that if you're if you're stinting out a set, the the hards
were going to be better over a full stand.
Felix was really moving in that first in at the end.
And well, I mean, Polo is still fine out front,
but it does seem like clean air is a pretty big deal
because that kind of came into play with Lundgaard being able to do what he did.
But we had, yeah, we had some
interesting cautions that fell at interesting times where
eight races ago, it would have played out one way.
Today, it's playing out a different way.
I'm curious, you know, we talked about in Detroit, but let's talk about it here.
Curious, your thoughts on
and kind of how that was all played and, you know, the debris caution and
the grojans caution and stuff.
And so the first caution
was I don't know that I know that what it was for.
I know that there was a caution for grojans tire coming off, which makes sense.
There was a caution for Christian
stranded at a high-speed part of the racetrack
over coming over a blind crest, making sense.
There was a debris caution of cautions.
OK, I don't, yeah, I don't know about that one.
Where was it? It was a small piece.
I think it was a small bit of carbon exit of five, maybe.
Interesting. OK.
Like online on the exit curb.
So, yeah, like, yeah, yeah, very hittable.
Yeah, very. Yeah.
So I think that makes sense.
And then there was one other one that was like it was a quick.
Obviously, Graham at the end.
Oh, strong blew up, which makes sense
because he's blowing oil out of his car for three quarters of a lap.
That was yellow. Yes, they did go yellow.
But then he got it off the track.
He did a good job parking it behind the thing, five.
So that way it could be a quick turnaround. Yeah.
But he was blowing up from one to five.
So like, yeah.
But if he had stopped in between, let's say, one and three,
you would have had to get a tow truck and like we wouldn't have gone green again.
I'm not saying he did anything wrong.
I'm saying like that mandates a caution.
Oh, yeah, yeah. No, no, no. Yeah, no.
Completely agree, completely agree. Yeah.
So yeah, but this was a day where there was some ebb and flow
because of where the cautions fell and not making, you know, best efforts
to kind of keep pits open during pit cycles, because the Grosjean one
was right in the middle of that first cycle.
Hello, which is kind of funny, not funny, but I find it interesting
that there's obviously a lot of noise on the Internet and there always will be.
But like, there's a lot of MSR at a tough day, right?
Like, I feel so badly for Armstrong.
Yeah, we'll get to that.
I mean, we'll get to that.
But there's a lot of like noise around what happened with Felix
and the fact that, you know, he was leading and was in control of the race
and ultimately ended up finishing eighth because he was burned by a yellow
and that sort of thing.
But like, he also got to the lead because of the yellow that benefited him
and her pillow.
So it's like, well, and give it and it take it like that.
And they had here's the thing.
They had opportunities to not get burned by that yellow and right.
They didn't take them.
So like it was outside of a window.
You have to strategize differently these days.
And I think that was a big miss, honestly, on the 60 car
because he was fast.
I do think MSR.
I mean, MSR could have had a 12 if if everything kind of fell
the right way for them, for sure.
Those cars were so quick all weekend long, every session.
So, yeah, they they kept Felix out after, you know,
the guys he was racing and pitted for like a couple laps.
And I thought that was a risk because of the long lap, a few guys did get burned
again, like Dixie got burned again by just going long and then having to do
the emergency service.
So I felt I felt bad for him that two races in a row, they got done for that.
And then, yeah, so so I don't even remember exactly which one,
which one Lundgaard benefited from.
But he was kind of off strategy.
He must have like paid under a yellow, like after a after a caution,
like one of the quick follow up cautions or something.
So he just topped off and had more fuel.
And he ran really late into that final stain.
And he was just pounding out fast laps and clean air.
And with all the racing that was going on and some pit stop problems and whatever,
there was a nice big gap and he slotted back onto the track in like third or fourth
on red and then on red with only like 10 laps to go.
Yeah. So it was like a beautiful, beautiful play by those guys
who had a rough weekend, kind of like you.
They tested here, but the car was they didn't qualify well.
He wasn't happy with the balance, all these things.
I think their strategy meeting for the race was also kind of like,
yeah, we got to just kind of make it through this one.
Because I talked to afterwards and he was like, I still don't know how that happened.
Well, I mean, it's the old it's it's the nine car of old.
Strategy like spin on lap one, break your wing on lap one, get a puncture on lap one.
And like, oh, yeah, fuel save to the end and win.
Not saying that one guy fuel save.
Like he was legitimately bad ass and fast and it all worked out for him.
But like that was that very much reminded me of it.
It was a very old school time. Yeah. Yeah.
And guys, we got to remember that good old fashion Alex Polo made a legit mistake.
He got a pit lane speeding penalty and still got saved.
It's well, no, he didn't get saved.
The other guys stepped on their own and it's it's no, no, no.
The fact that he served his drive through when he had already committed
to pit lane and it went yellow is a safe.
Yes, that's essentially getting in the F1
a free under a VSC. Yeah.
Yeah. Yes, fair.
But right as that happened is when everyone else stayed out in that caution
and they got cycled back anyway. So like, yes, he. Yeah.
So rare mistake on his side, but nice recovery.
I think he ended up fifth right. Yeah.
He's right in front of you. Right in front of me. Yeah.
Another guy that got cycled to the front was Graham,
who was on course for this weird first.
Up and down the end of the year.
So he was podium than like bad race,
then podium, then bad race, then podium, then bad race.
And this was supposed to be one of the ups again.
And he was a corner away from pulling it off.
I don't know. Have you seen the incident between him and power half? Yeah.
And what are your thoughts?
Graham did that will did nothing wrong.
Yeah, whatsoever.
Like, yeah, what's we're supposed to do?
We're going to break here. Yeah.
Like you're when you're the car behind
and the other guys defended into the brake zone,
you were going to launch onto the brake pedal and just try something.
And if the guy, like, once you hit the pedal, your entry is committed, right?
You can't slow it down more because you are a racing driver.
You're already slowing on the edge of your abilities.
And then the car just fades in front of you.
Like, yeah, it's a tough break, man. I feel bad for him.
It was I don't think it was intentional.
I don't think he realized what was close enough to do that.
But I have to say, it's my race Graham for
30 laps of that race.
And he was driving a little bit like an like he almost crawled in front of me.
You know how from the carousel and I love Graham,
like I don't have any problem with Graham, like I drive people hard too.
So like this is not shade of Graham whatsoever.
Keep doing what you're doing.
But from the carousel to the kink, you know, like that back straight kind of meanders.
It's not a straight line down to turn 12.
Well, he was so busy like staring in his mirrors and like moving around
to like go the opposite direction of like the the curves that he dropped the wheel
and like almost like hooked it in front of me and like spun himself on the street.
I'm like, right. Relax.
Driving like that.
He was he was he had a point to prove on Sunday, which is totally fine.
You know, it's we all do at this point in the season.
And as you said, I don't think it was intentional at all.
Like he wasn't there was no malicious intent from either driver.
For sure. I think will was obviously Graham probably viewed it.
And in his mind, it was like.
Will will got Graham on the restart into one
because we'll had more O.T.
And then will fired it off track by himself into turn eight, right?
And so Graham kind of drove by and then so will in Graham's mind,
will was probably like red misting to try and get it back.
And Graham felt like he was just like trying to overcome his own mistake.
Yeah. But like in Graham's from Graham's seat, you get hit from behind, right?
And so like in your mind, you just got drilled.
But there's obviously other factors involved there.
But it was interesting because the yellow comes out
and when we're under a certain number of laps,
we no longer default to the previous timeline to set the order.
It is done by video.
And so the reason that power was reinstated into the podium
is because the yellow flies as soon as Graham hits the wall.
And by that point, no one had gone past will because he was still in the break zone.
And that is exactly where so the field is.
I'm very confused, James.
So OK, did this come to you via IndyCar?
That's just sort of your understanding.
That's my understanding.
OK, I definitely sat in meetings with IndyCar
where they said that after X lap, we don't.
And maybe it's just last lap.
I'm not sure I don't remember exactly.
But so I'm very confused by that statement.
And I'm not saying you're right or wrong.
But have you like watched the replay?
No, because like when I left, when we went off air and I left,
Will was not on the podium.
Kevin was on the podium.
So and then I just saw the tweet that he had been encourage you at some point
because I think I actually think you're backwards and I'm not.
I don't know because the rulebook.
I probably should know this, but also not my department to know the specific rule.
So the video clearly shows that Kiffin is in front before the yellow comes.
So the only way it could have been reverted is if they go back to previous timelines.
Oh, interesting.
Because the video is clear as day.
Like there is zero yellow.
There's a chance that Kiffin is like two car lengths ahead of him.
All right.
There's a chance that what I'm reciting is an oval only thing then potentially.
Potentially that might because I've definitely heard Kyle say meetings like at X point.
So let's just say there is there is some reason that he ended up on the podium.
Yes. Yeah. Right.
Yes. How it is weird. Yeah. Right.
Obviously, you know, great comeback from one guard, but dude.
Like I really genuinely wanted to shed a tear for Armstrong
because he had such a good it was his best weekend start to finish of an of his indie car career.
He was top three in every session.
They rolled off strong.
He did everything right.
Qualified well was racing perfectly.
Everything that he had to do, he was doing three laps from the end
and the car gives up the ghosts and it's just like, I think back, man, I think back to.
Like my first win and try to put myself in that position, three laps to go,
leading the race, everything under control and then the thing just in the bed.
And what that would have felt like.
Oh, dude, it is so hard to win these races.
It is so hard to win these races if your name's not Alex Polo.
And to know that you were there, you had done it like you done the work.
Everything that you had to do from behind the wheel was done.
And it's not like we were 20 laps from the end.
We were three. Was Christian closing on him?
Yes. Was Christian going to catch him and pass him?
Very, very unlikely.
He had pace, you know, in the in on hand, he was, he had enough push to pass.
He had whatever was three laps.
So I just, I feel so bad for the kid.
I feel so bad for the team.
They did a great job all week and long on both cars.
They were wicked fast.
And, you know, we kind of thought we were finally going to see MSR win a race
that wasn't the Indy 500, which is an insane thing to say that every race
they've won is the Indy 500.
But again, I think we've seen a lot of growth out of Armstrong this year.
And doesn't surprise me that he was in that position.
Him, David, you know, both those guys are just, they've leveled up in a big way.
And they're, you know, they're both more than capable and ready to win
and continue to win in the Indy car series.
And it's going to be, you know, it's going to be fun to see when they,
when they both hit that milestone, because it's a big deal for a driver, you know.
You're kind of a bad person to talk to about this because your first win was Indy.
So like that's sort of like skews how cool it was for your first win.
I agree with everything you're saying.
I think it's my first win.
Your first win, they don't relate.
They're not very similar experiences.
That's true.
I completely agree with what you said about Marcus.
It's just a matter of time before, because like he's good on everything now.
Like it's not like he's just good on road courses.
Like he's good on ovals.
He's good clearly at this Indy at Speedway as well.
So he's really taken a step, which again, like I think deserves a lot of, a lot of credit,
but also it also deserves the very real reminder that he is driving essentially a gas e-car.
So he's doing a great job, but his teammate is 170 points in front of him.
So yeah, he's, they've got all five of them have very good equipment and there's nothing wrong with that.
But it's not, this is not the, a little two car team that's taking it to the big guys.
Like it's Gnasi 2.0.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Gnasi squared.
Well, that was that.
Such a great weekend.
I just love it up there so much.
I love the track.
I love the area.
I love Elkhart.
I got to spend a lot of time with David Hobbs this weekend.
That guy's such a friggin legend.
He was great.
We had him on the warmup show, which was cool.
There was some great races in Indy lights too.
Indy next, sorry.
So yeah, all in all, just a tremendous, tremendous weekend up in northern Wisconsin.
You're going testing.
You're going to Mid-Ohio.
I leave tomorrow for Austria.
Nice.
Tim, what's your week look like?
I got nothing.
Cool.
I'm pretty excited about it.
Oh, we should probably say congrats to Colton and Riley Hertha.
Yes.
Congrats.
I mean, I'm not sure if they want congrats because they kept it so secret and hidden and
didn't want anybody to know, but it's now out there in the public.
So congrats to our friends on the nuptials.
Nothing like a Vegas wedding.
And one last thing to talk about.
Yeah.
So Joseph Newgarden crosses the finish line ninth.
This is then classified as 20 seconds.
Wait a second.
30 seconds.
Oh, we got a penalty.
For dumping Nolan Siegel in turn five.
And I just want to say that that's good because I got a 15 second stop and hold, which I thought
was in Detroit when I, when I dumped Grosjean and ended his day.
And I thought that was a significant penalty for what we had previously seen.
Obviously a 15 second stop and hold is not viable on the last lap.
So a 30 second penalty is essentially the same.
So again, so much of what we have asked for as fans, drivers, teams, owners, broadcast
partners, et cetera is consistency.
Obviously we're going to get the full report.
So the transparency part is going to exist, but hugely consistent on very, on two very
similar incidents.
Mine was unintentional with Romain, felt bad about it.
I'm sure Joseph was unintentional with Nolan.
He was just trying to pass Santino, I think, and Nolan was just there and it just happened.
Yeah.
It just sucks for him that it was one lap to go and a restart.
So everybody was crammed together and 30 seconds cost you that many places.
Yeah.
Yeah.
One of those deals.
And again, a consistent ruling, right?
It's not like it was a give up a spot sort of thing.
You ended someone's day and your day is kind of screwed too.
Yep.
Sounds, yeah.
I think it's a great point, valid point.
Props all around, golf clap.
Well, enjoy the weekend off kids and we will chat to you guys next week and hear all about
testing.
Enjoy, maybe get some Rogaine for your face.
Oh, that'd be cool.
Will that grow faster?
It will.
Okay.
That's what I need.
Don't get on there.
All right.
About this episode
The episode opens with a Harley parking joke and quickly pivots into a handlebar mustache charity fundraiser, including how the event pressured Hinch to shave and how the mustache look stuck around for TV. The hosts then shift into racing talk—practice balance swings, understeer, and strategy shaped by yellow flags, pit timing, and clean air—before wrapping with more weekend recap and penalty consistency debates.
Original notes
Obviously we cover the race at Road America in depth, but James has a handlebar mustache, so that‘s way more important.
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