Here's What The Dakar Rally Is Like Up Close

Hello, and welcome to the Truth About Cars podcast. I am Tim Healy, the managing editor,

and this week we chat with journalist and photographer Mercedes Lillianthal about the

Dakar Rally. T-Tech contributor Matthew Guy and I discuss winter sunglasses and the return

of Tony Smoke Stewart to the world of NASCAR. But first, a word from our sponsor eBay Motors.

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On today's Truth About Cars podcast, we're with Mercedes Lillianthal,

freelance journalist and photographer who just covered the Dakar Rally in Saudi Arabia.

Mercedes, how are you? I'm doing great. Thanks so much for having me on the show again, Tim.

Yes, you've been on before. You and your husband, Andy, had competed in the Elkhon 5000 in a once.

That was very interesting conversation. This will be a little bit different since you weren't

behind the wheel this time, but can you walk us through what it's like to go over to the Middle

East and cover off-road rally like this? Yes, it was a huge, huge bucket list of mine to cover

Dakar as a journalist. Heck, one day, if there's a money tree that presents itself and we win a

lottery, we would love to actually compete in the Dakar Classic Series. It's kind of a dream.

We've got a Pajero sitting right behind us behind the wall here. But to cover it as a reporter was

very interesting. I've never been to that part of the world before. Getting to the Middle East

took a bit of a doing. There were three different separate flights and multi-hour layovers and things

like that. But once I arrived, everyone was so hospitable and so kind and welcoming. It just

really was a treasure. To be able to go there on behalf of Jaguar Land Rover JLR, to see the

Defender teams, there were three teams competing with their new D7XRs. That was just wonderful to

see them in action and to see how well they were really doing. You said you were there on the

behalf of Jaguar Land Rover. Sometimes in the non-motor sports world, in the stick-and-ball

sports world, you have team coverage of games. The Chicago Bears, for example, have a reporter

that covers the team for their own website. Of course, you have reporters who work for

outlets that are not owned by the team. When you cover this for an OEM, how much are you also

doing that doesn't involve the OEM at all? How much freedom do you have to be critical of the OEM

or competitors? Are you working kind of more, are you kind of like being a little more public

relations for the OEM or sort of more, yeah, they're sponsoring you, but you're still on your own,

still independent? Right. Yeah, that's a really good question. I actually did not cover the

defender portion of the rally for them as internal, so to speak. I was an external

reporter. An external journalist, an external photographer. I bought my own equipment to do

everything in a lot of video as well with social media via Crenshaw culture. They hosted me,

but it was me as far as all the different coverage that I'm going to be doing via social media or

earned media. True journalist form with being unbiased no matter how things came about that I

got there, but yeah, it was really interesting. I mean, they did have some challenges with the

D7XRs a little bit earlier on when I was there for stage two and three, and they were very open

about it and seeing as this is their first foray into Dakar rally with those vehicles that are

based on the stock Akta. Yeah, so it's a bit like being in a pressure for us then. So Subaru or

Mercedes or whoever or Ford may host the truth about cars, but at the end of the day,

they're not telling me what to do, what to write, what to cover. It's up to me and I might even be

critical. So okay, I got, I got lay the land now. I wanted to kind of just clarify that because I

wasn't quite sure what that meant. So okay, yeah, so let's go then into the physical challenges of

covering. I've never covered an off-road race as a reporter. I've never driven a one. I've never

watched one as a fan. All the racing that I've seen, whether it was as a reporter or a fan,

I've never actually raced as a driver. Everything I've seen has been either a city street race,

like the NASCAR race that was in Chicago or a regular racetrack with seats like the Indian

apolis Speedway or something like that. So what is what is the physical challenge of, you know,

you're outdoors, I assume you're in the desert or something similarly remote, not in a city or town,

I'm sure. Yeah, I guess some things are kind of obvious, making sure you're staying hydrated and

probably walk a lot and stuff like that. But what are the physical challenges of covering

an event like this? Yeah, that's a really great question. And you have a lot more experience

with on-road and track stuff than I do, because I always find myself in the dirt and the dust. So

the physical challenge is great question. You know, we, as kind of a chase crew, so to speak,

with journalists, you're limited with, you know, timing and you don't necessarily know exactly when

teams are going to come through a certain checkpoint or, you know, come through the finish line or

things like that. They do have satellite trackers on each of these vehicles to see where they may be,

but timing is everything. And so getting out to the middle of the desert, you know, I flew in

through Riyadh and then Riyadh into Alula. And my time for stage two and stage three with the

WAC and going on course, so to speak, was all in Alula in the surrounding areas. So, you know,

we drove stock defenders out into the desert and tried to catch them. You know, we were out in

stage two, my first day actually covering that rally towards the finish line where they were

coming in and we just missed the defender teams coming through. We did have a chance to see some

SSV classes, some of the big man trucks, the T5 type class. Those are insane. Some of the

first experience with that. Mind you, I've got my cell phone, I've got my mic, I've got, you know,

my DSLR with my 200 lens. So I'm in full, you know, not full, but like usually I carry two lenses,

wide angle in my 200, but, you know, with being so minimal with kit, with camera kit especially,

I just took the one camera and one lens. So, but I have that on a harness so that if I needed to,

you know, whip up my camera and take quick photos, I can and then drop it down and take video with

my phone. And, you know, stage three was a bit easier when we went out there. We timed it perfectly

where we had a few minutes before the three defenders came through, but we also saw, you

know, ultimates coming through. We saw different classes coming through and it was really exciting

to see because that was a completely different area with kind of a secret viewing point that we

were at. And then I had a chance to drive as a woman in Saudi Arabia back over to the Bivouac

before we parted ways and I ended up taking a trip home. You mentioned driving as a woman in

Saudi Arabia. Is that still not allowed for, I thought it was now allowed? Yeah, it is allowed now.

As of June of 2018 is when they allowed it for women, yes, for women to drive. So,

Westerners, Saudi Arabians, anybody in the world now as a woman is now allowed to drive in the

country. So, that was, that was very interesting for me. You know, one, I've never been to this

region at all and I was very respectful of how I dressed and what I, you know, what I said,

how I appeared because I'm being very respectful to their culture. And then, you know, being a

driver, it was interesting when I ended up driving, I drove in the desert from the viewing point back

over to the Bivouac and in part of the city. And what was interesting is there were police

lined in every intersection and I wasn't 100% sure what was going on. I mean, obviously Dakar

rally, you know, any big rally, Baha, you know, 1000, any of those types of rallies, you have

police presence, you need to. But we got word that the prince was coming in unexpectedly. And so,

stage three was kind of, ah, you know, everybody was running around trying to figure out what to do

and I think they even changed course a little bit because he was being expected. And as a woman

driving past all of the police presence was just had really interesting feelings because of, you

know, hey, I'm here, it's legal, I know, you know, but it just made me think about how it was way

back when in 2018, when they first were allowed to start driving to set myself into that, even though

I'm a, you know, Westerner that I've been able to drive since, you know, early on, like everybody

else in the country was really, really fascinating. Okay, yeah. So then you also mentioned it took

three flights to get there. I assume it also took three flights to get home. Can you walk us

just briefly, don't to go too deep in detail, but just like what cities you had to connect in?

Yeah, so on the way there, so we were visiting family in the Midwest. So I flew out of Minneapolis

and then I had a layover in Dulles in the East Coast and then Dulles over to Riyadh and Riyadh

into Alula. And I think by the time I got to the place that I was staying was, I don't know,

one in the morning or something, somewhere around there. And then on the way back home,

we left Alula or I left Alula and then I had a very short overnight in Dubai. So that was my

first time in UAE. And then I had just a couple hours I stayed within a hotel within the terminal

because I literally had a few hours sleep, take a quick shower and then go from Dubai over to

where did I go? San Francisco and then went through customs there and back home to Portland,

Oregon, where I live. Okay. Yeah, it's a lot of travel. I mean, anytime you fly to the other side

of the world, it's going to be two or three flights, I think. Right, right. Yeah, I'm not sure what the

longest continuous flight in the world is right now. I think it might be like 20 hours to Australia

or something like that. But yeah, it's a lot of travel. So back to the race itself as opposed to

all the travel, what did you kind of see with Ford? I don't know how they wound up. I know there

was some talk when I was in Detroit for the Detroit Auto Show that Ford was really getting to win

because they'd never won this race before. And they were doing fairly well at the time. I don't

think they won, but I don't know that off top of my head. How did Ford end up doing it from what you

saw? That's a really good question. I saw some of the Fords come through on stage, stage three,

actually, but I didn't have a chance to really get to talk to them. I did pass their area in

Bivouac and took a couple photos of video and they had literally a whole entire city area that was

there. So it was interesting to see, but that was when everybody was out competing. And so

there were a few mechanics, but they were kind of holed up with their computers and whatnot. And

so I didn't have a chance to go in and actually talk to them in person. And same with Honda too,

with Hot Racing. But it was neat to see all the different teams that were there and then also

check out the Defender area of the Bivouac. They had so many different semis

and each semi had a role. So if they had tools, if they had consumables, if they had

differential parts and spare engines and all those types of things, we had a really in-depth

tour of all of that in addition to clean rooms and suspension bits. I mean, it was pretty incredible

to see how they did this as a newcomer to the Dakar in this fashion as Defender with their

D7XRs. And to see, I mean, they basically said we can rebuild an entire vehicle if we need to right

here. So yeah, it was really fascinating. I have a lot of coverage of it via Cranchev culture,

VR and social media. For me, I would love to just take one of those semis and plop that puppy,

you know, plop that puppy right on our property so I can use all the tools because, you know,

every person that was there, that was support. And I believe it was like 100 or 120 people,

it could be off. Every person had a role. Every vehicle had a role. They had different RVs for

like the drivers. They had rooftop tents that lined the tops of some of these semis for support crew.

They had a whole fleet of different defenders that had rooftop tents on those and support supplies

to and vehicle recovery supplies within those defenders so that more support staff can be there

and then be all on site. It was fascinating. My short time there was stage two and stage three.

I think they were up until about three in the morning making sure that all those vehicles were

ironed out, dialed in, and in tip-top shape for stage three.

Yeah, I want to talk to you about defenders specifically in just a moment, but

overall, you've touched on this already a little bit so I don't want to belabor the point too much,

but what was the OEM presence like you mentioned, Honda, Ford? Obviously, you were there on behalf

of Jaguar Land Rover. What is the OEM presence like in an event like this, which is one that

probably isn't well known outside the car enthusiast world?

Right, yeah. Dakar Rally has been going on for a really long time. It actually started as the Paris

Dakar Rally itself. It had a different name. It started in 1978, I believe it is. It usually is

right around Christmas time and it finished in 1979 at the beginning of January, but it's had

different places throughout the world, whether it's Africa, whether it's South America or now

since 2020, I believe, in Saudi Arabia. But as far as the vehicle manufacturers themselves,

with the stock class in particular, there were the three defenders, there were two factory-backed

Toyota Land Cruisers, and then there were three privateer entries that had Nissan patrols.

The stock class is really fascinating. If I may focus on that just for a second, because

it's revamped. FIA was updating the regulations with Defender to basically say,

now we've got different kinds of vehicles. They're not the same type of older style vehicles that

were running back in the day in 78, 80, that type of thing. They've changed a lot. In order to bring

companies like manufacturers like Toyota, Defender, maybe Ford would do the stock class.

Maybe not, I don't know, but other different manufacturers to be part of Dakar in this revamped

stock class, they worked with them to update the regulations. That to me was really fascinating.

Defenders send themselves, they said, we welcome more manufacturers. We welcome this to be a proving

ground for a vehicle that basically was built, the D7XRs was built off the same assembly line

in parts with the stock Octa. They had a lot of different upgrades and a lot of changes that

they were able to do, but they all had to stay compliant within the regulations.

Those regulations are really interesting. How you can change production-specific key things

such as engine and stuff like that, but you can still do a lot of other changes

to make it really ready and some upgrades as well. That's really interesting. What was the kind of,

I don't want to have you repeat what you've already touched on, but what was the kind of

spread over the different teams from mile to mile, I guess, to be the way to put it?

Oh gosh. Well, the T1 Ultimates are, I mean, they're nuts, and not nuts, if I came out wrong.

Absolutely insane as far as their capability and what they're able to do. You can pretty much do

anything. Again, I don't know what regulations can allow T1s to do what they can if there's

anything they can't do, but they're super fast. They're wicked. Everything's modified.

They're very, very quick. While I was there for the two stages that I was there, I had limited

time, so I focused mainly on the stock class because I wanted to understand that, of course,

to make sure that I had my coverage correct. In addition to the T1 Ultimates and all the

different classes, there's another facet within Dakar Rally, which is Dakar Classic. Now, they

run regularity rallies. If you haven't heard of that term, maybe you've heard of TSD rallies,

or Time Speed Distance Rally. Which is what Alkan was, which we talked about with you.

Exactly. This is like Alkan 5000. We're going to be going to Thunderbird Rally in Canada,

and in me, we're going to compete this weekend up there with our personal Subaru,

things like that. It's within the umbrella of Dakar Rally, but it's done a different way where

it's more regularity fashion, where you have to be perfectly on time, perfectly on course.

You can't really be very early or late. Those are all classic vehicles. I think that they have

another set of regulations that they need to follow up on and make sure that they're in

adherence with too. My next question is more overall, and this is probably something that's

not very easy for a reporter to answer. I'm going to try anyway. Dakar, like I said,

is not necessarily well-known outside of the car enthusiast or racing enthusiast,

not industry, you don't have the word looking for, but community, I guess, would be the word

looking for. I assume part of the reason is because it is a different part of the world and

probably difficult to televise in the proper time zones. It might be on TV, on delay,

then that's part of the problem. I'm not even quite sure if it is on TV. Even if it isn't,

like F1, obviously, when they race in other parts of the world, you can DVR it if it's

overnight, or maybe it'll be casually shown on time delay, at least that was the case in the past.

So, not you, but how does the organizing body or the people who run this rally,

how do they sort of, what can they do, especially in this year of 2026, where

everyone's information age is so fractured and so siloed and it's harder than ever for

one major event that's not the Super Bowl to break through. What can anyone do to really kind of

get Dakar to be on the same level as, if not the same level as Daytona 500 or Indy 500,

at least in the same level as, say, an F1 race that's going to draw some eyeballs on TV and on

the internet and on streaming? Yeah, that's a really great question. I think some people,

it's like out of sight, out of mind, they don't necessarily know what they see. Oh, okay, I see

a little bit of coverage on social media and they just flip through to the next thing. That's probably

where I'm at. Yeah, and as a reporter, this is my first time going over to Dakar personally and

having boots on the ground effort. I think in this type of an instance, there are, in North America,

but the US particularly, F1 obviously, NASCAR is absolutely huge. It's just like the Super Bowl,

right? I mean, American football versus soccer or cricket or things like that that are different

in other parts of the world, rugby, for instance. But I think the closest thing that we would

probably have would be the Baja 1000 that would be down in Mexico. I think for me, off-road racing

or off-road rally raid competitions, which is what the Dakar basically says, it's so fascinating

because there's every type of vehicle, there's every type of class, there's ages of vehicles.

I mean, heck, if you look at Mr. Dakar himself, Stefan Peter Hansel, he was part of the defender

team. He turned 60 years old. He was 60 and he's won 14 titles with Dakar himself. So,

you know, to be able to bring that story into the Americas in particular in North America and say,

hey, there is this very storied, long-lasting, you know, some controversy as far as, you know,

where it was in different nations, as far as, you know, some of the issues that they've had with

not terrorism, but, you know, just some issues that they had that they needed to change. In 2008,

they even canceled the rally. But there's a lot of history and there's a lot of guts and determination

and money and everything involved with this. It's just, and it's so electrifying to be there in

person and to see these vehicles take off, no matter if it's a really small vehicle or if it's a

huge man truck that's just blazing right past you in sand dunes, it's electrifying. I don't know if

any other word to be able to say it. It just sucks you right in right along with the dirt. And for me,

it's like off-road meets, you know, NASCAR meets, you know, the Super Bowl and it's all, you know,

conglomerated into one, one package. So for me, you know, I loved watching it from afar to be

able to see this in person and cover a couple of teams that were doing that and see the rest of

the vehicles and still highlight those. I mean, it really was just a memory of a lifetime. And I

hope to be able to do it again. And I hope more people see this rally raid, even the Dakar classics,

and go, oh, wow, okay, that's really interesting. I've never even heard of it. And so it's part of

my job to help bring rally as Andy and I do with timespeed distance rallies and highlight it more

in the United States and in North America, because it is such a unique, interesting, fun,

challenging type of type of event. Yeah, it seems like the only real, to me, and this is my opinion,

that to me, the best ways for this event to get more coverage in the United States would be to have

a time bill, a broadcast on a major network, such as ESPN or one of ESPN's offshoots,

something bigger than just like the Motor Trend Channel. No disrespect to the Motor Trend Channel,

but that channel is not being watched outside of enthusiasm, probably. And the other thing,

I think, too, would be a documentary on Netflix, something similar to Drive to Survive and F1

or something like that. So that's probably the best way to do it. But right now, I think,

you know, for me, I've always heard Dakar, I've never had a chance to really watch it. I've,

this past year, I caught a little bit of coverage in social media and passing just because

I follow enough car-related, enough automotive journalists, enough car-related pundits and

maybe even a few drivers or maybe someone else that I follow follows them and ends up in my feed.

You know, and obviously, I was with Ford at the Detroit Auto Show, so I talked, you know,

I heard Ford mention a little bit about how they were doing and maybe caught a few video clips

that the auto maker showed us. But I've never really had a chance to like, quote unquote,

watch this race or maybe back when I was younger, I may have read a few magazine features

in Car and Driver or something like that. But yeah, I'd like to see this race and other overseas

races that are not time zone friendly to the States to get a little more coverage. Now,

that being said, we're just, we're running out of time here, but I would like to, before we let you

go about your day, I'd like to hear from you on anything else from this event that you'd like

to talk about or what the defenders themselves that we haven't already touched on.

You know, I think touching a little bit more on the defender teams mentioning who they were

and how they placed throughout the whole entire 13 stage event would be important because those

are the ones that I focused on primarily. Sure. Walk us through that. Yeah, yeah. So the winners,

overall stock class winners of the entire 2026 stock car rally stock class was a 26 year old

Lithuanian driver. His name is Rakes and I hope I don't butcher this. Bachutska, I believe is how

you pronounce this last name. You know, I'm part Lithuanian, but it's such a small part of my family

and their name was easy. And their name was actually easy to pronounce. So I'm not any better

at it than you are. I apologize. I'm going to try and help you out with it. Yeah, but Bachutska is

my closest. Sorry, I'm German. I know German, but I don't know. Yeah, I'm part German too.

But he had a Spanish co-driver Oriole Vidal and they were racing number 502 and they took

first place in stock class. Then we had a duo of Americans. We had driver Sarah Price and

co-driver Sean Barrowman in number 504. They placed second in the stock class as far as a podium.

Then they had the French duo, co-driver Micah Metki along with Mr. Dakar himself that I mentioned

earlier, Stefan Peter Hansel. They placed in fourth place. So for me, taking a look up person

in close or in person in close with the D7XRs, it was really interesting to learn these teams

have not really competed with that type of vehicle before. They've done, you know, they've come from

either the SSV class, they've come from, you know, the huge man truck type of classes. They've come

from modos, you know, I mean, all different classes, but they've adapted so quickly to this

with what the defender said. So understanding that the stock class teams, they can't change

production type things like you said, the engine, for instance, gearbox, differential housings or

the external body. But what they can do, they can update a lot of different things like the

differential internals. You know, they replaced the OEM fuel tank that was normally a 90 liter

in the octa, I believe, to a 550 liter fuel tank, which is massive. I mean, this thing is massive.

It's right behind. They carried three full size 35 inch BF Goodrich and 17 inch wheel spare tires

in that vehicle. And behind that, they had stuffed this 100 and I think it's 145 gallon fuel tank.

You know, they have the same eight speed automatic gearbox as a production octa,

but it ends up having a lower final drive ratio. They've got different suspension,

but they ended up having to use the stock locations. You know, they had a bespoke rally

rally spec braking system with vented discs, you know, six, six pin piston front and rear or six

pistons in the front, I believe, and four piston real rear calipers, you know, hydraulic jacks to

raise either side of it if they had a flat tire, if they needed to service the vehicle in the field.

I mean, a ton of internal stuff. I'm not even touching on, but, you know, for me, it was fascinating

to kind of peel back the layers and look to see, okay, I know these, these three teams are very

accomplished. The co-drivers, the navigators are very accomplished as well. How did they react

when they just literally said, okay, here are the keys, just take off and let's go, you know,

with limited amount of experience behind those wheels and knowing that I think this whole

entire Defender program came into be with testing and regulation change and all of that, I believe,

less than 18 months. That's very, very, very short amount of time to work with everything,

to figure out how are you going to end up outfitting the vehicles while the regulations are being

updated, while you're trying to build the thing and then find your teams and all of that. And,

fascinating story. And, you know, we've posted a ton of, you know, now I'm doing recap wheels on

crankshaft culture, but I posted a lot while I had service and internet, you know, and time to be able

to say, okay, here's the story. This is what's going on as I am in Boots on the Ground in Saudi Arabia.

Very cool. Very cool. So once again, we've been with Mercedes, Lillianthal, freelance photographer

and journalist covering a lot of off-road and overlanding and talking about the Dakar rally

in Saudi Arabia. Mercedes, thank you so much for your time. Yeah, thanks so much, Tim. I appreciate

being on. Yeah, yeah. And we'll have you on again soon. And the next time you got you and Andy

driving a rally for sure, we definitely want to chat about that. So yeah, yeah, you know what,

that would be coming up this weekend. Thunderbird Rally in Canada. And that's what part of Canada

is that in? That's a good question. It starts in Merritt and wherever they take me, I haven't gotten

the navigator book yet. What province is Merritt in? Merritt is in British Columbia. British Columbia,

okay. So the Pacific Northwest part of Canada then. Awesome. So yeah, we will have you on again,

talk about the Thunderbird Rally in the future. Thank you so much for your time Mercedes.

Thanks so much for having me on.

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you know, Oakley's and Rayban's are 300 bucks and then $15 pairs like I got off Amazon that

all claim the same thing. And to these Jonesties, these cheap ones that I bought

really helped yesterday when it was super, super bright and it's been a long time since I've actually

wore sunglasses while striving. And during the daytime it helped a lot. Now one thing I did

notice was that I mean my prescription is fairly thick. Prescription is fairly strong so my lenses

are thicker than normal. And when I tried them on first I was indoors with artificial light,

you know, and the reflection that I was getting inside the glasses off of my lenses was biblical,

couldn't see a thing. So I thought, well, we'll try these outdoors in natural light and they were

just fine. So I think that's the difference, right, between something that has this UV400 protection

and I highly suspect that a more expensive pair like, you know, from Oakley or from Rayban or

something like that, the frames might be a little bit better quality, but I don't really care about

that. Right, I mean, it's just cheap sunglasses, I'm going to lose them anyways. So that's why I

tend to gravitate towards these things. And I just highly recommend, I mean, jumping on eBay,

picking up something like this for the sake of 20 bucks, I mean, you can pick up at least one pair,

maybe even two and save your eyes a lot while straight driving in the winter.

And you say you want to translate a little bit of money, you get this off eBay?

I did, yeah. And I was just looking for this notation that says polarized UV400. And I know

that there are some out there, I'm sure that, you know, claim to have this protection on it,

claim to have this UV400 protection, but might not, or might say, hey, UV doesn't stand for

ultraviolet, it stands for Uber, very, or something like that, right? You know, sometimes we run into

those types of things. I remember years ago, I was at a nameless place where you would buy goods,

it was a flea market, they were selling new products, right, put it that way. And at the time,

they were selling some bedsheets, right, brand new bedsheets in the thing. And there's always a

count, right, there's a thread count, right, so like 1000 thread count is much smoother than 300

count. And the brand name was called 1000 count. So it was a trick, right? So these were actually

very poor quality sheets, but the brand name was there. I don't think that's happening with these

eBay, with these eBay glasses at all, because I found that they really did a good job out in the

daylight of protecting my eyes. And at night, I did try them at night, I have no desire to wear

them, but I didn't want to see if it reduced a little bit of the sparkle, you know, of the dazzling

effect of the headlights coming towards me. And it did, it did a little bit. I find my eyes have

got such bad stigmatism that they're pretty starry anyways, the headlights that are coming

towards me, if I don't have the proper prescription on. So I choose not to wear them, I don't wear my

sunglasses at night, the Corey Hart. I was just going to say the song is stuck in my head now.

There's your earworm for today. But I do hardly recommend something, I mean, for the sake of

20 or 25 bucks, pick up a couple of pairs, keep them in your car, keep them in your truck. And

it does, it does help and they don't look super dorky. These that I have just over my glasses,

and then anyone who's fortunate enough not to have prescription lenses, you're good to go.

Yeah, I saw my contact lens wear, despite the fact that I'm getting older, and

my doctor's pushing me to at least get readers, but I'm, I'm pushing back because I had glasses

as a child, didn't love, didn't love wearing glasses. But so I'm a contact guy for now,

but I do have, I do have regular sunglasses, but I don't have these particular winters. So

maybe I have to check them out on each day, because I am, I'm a sunglass loser, I lose them

all the time. Yeah, I have a nice pair of Oakleys, it was given me once as press, press trip swag

years ago before T-Tac. I don't even know where they are. They're in my house somewhere. The

sunglasses, the two sunglass pairs I can find. What is the car right now? The other one is in

my coffee table. Both of those for $20 pairs from Walgreens bought in a hurry because I was on the

way somewhere and had lost my sunglasses or sat on them and broke them, something like that. So

it's good to know that these are inexpensive because I tend, like I said, I tend to lose

sunglasses or I'll put them on the driver's seat of the car and forget they're there and sit on

them and break them. I've done that a couple times. Um, yeah, so good to know that they're

inexpensive and there's obviously the safety component of making sure you can see when you're

driving. So that's, that's a huge thing. I think people always think of sunglasses as a summer

thing, but you need them in the winter just as much, especially when it's bright and like today

is here in the city of Chicago, it's bright with no clouds. And like you said, in urban areas, you

have glass buildings that can reflect the sun. And like you said, and I'm very familiar with this,

even though I don't live in the country, I have a lot of family in the farm areas of northwestern,

north, excuse me, northeastern Illinois, and I spent a lot of time driving out to, um,

to different parts of the state where there's a lot of corn fields and a lot of soybean fields.

And when those fields are harvested this time of year and they're just blanketed in snow,

you're right, Matthew, you get a lot of reflection. So good to know that these sunglasses are out

there for a relatively cheap. And I think with that, we'll go ahead and, um, oh, I did want to

mention one thing. When you first said they go over your glasses, I kept thinking of the flip-ups

that baseball players wear. That's a different thing. So anyway, with that, those were there too.

And right. And so I don't, maybe I'll try those next time. I'll look like the actor who used to be

on the TV show, different strokes back in the nineties. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I don't, I don't

remember, I don't remember that from Drift and Strokes. I only watched the show a little bit,

but I definitely can picture them as a baseball player, uh, baseball players wearing them,

thinking of Major League or Bull Durham, something like that. So, you know, so anyway,

with that, we'll go ahead and wrap this segment here on this week's Truth About Cars podcast.

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Here on the Truth About Cars podcast, just about every week we talk about NASCAR and

oh my gosh, is it getting close to NASCAR? Seize it again. We'll talk about that in just a minute,

but we typically have ttech contributor Matthew Guy with us and he's with us today. So,

Matthew, how are you doing? Hey, Tim, doing pretty good. It's been a decent week for talking about

NASCAR and like you said, it's not too many weeks now before Daytona. Yeah, three or four depending

on how you measure things. I think we figured out in the pre-show meeting that it was three Sundays

from, by the time you hear this, it'll be two Sundays. It'll be one, it'll be February 1st,

February 8th, and then the 15th will be the actual race. So if you count that, the 15th

is the third Sunday of the three, so I don't know how you, some people will say that it's two,

some will say it's three, whatever. It's the 15th and it's not very, you'll be hearing this podcast

on January 30th. So as, you know, only 16 days or so from there. So with that being said, NASCAR has

made a bunch of news this off season. And one of the things, we've talked about it a little bit on

the podcast before, although it's kind of gotten buried in some more serious news.

Colleague Racing and Dodge are doing, so Dodge is doing this free agent driver thing where they're

going to kind of have a mini competition. It's sort of like, I don't want to call it a reality show,

that's not accurate, but not fully accurate. But basically Dodge has some, what they call free

agent drivers driving the truck series in the number 25 Colleague Racing Ram 1500 as Dodge

returns to truck. Are they returning or have they not been in truck before? They're returning NASCAR.

I can't recall if Dodge was ever in truck before and trucks have been around for a long time. But

so they're back in the NASCAR rule for sure though. Either way, that is definitely true.

So what this partnership is, is it's going to have, Ram will have five full-time truck entries.

So for those who don't know, the truck series is based on pickup trucks, obviously, and runs on,

usually on Fridays. So you have Truck Friday, the Xfinity race on Saturday and Cup Sunday,

and most race weekends, right? So we're going to have, Dodge will have drivers, Daniel Dye,

Justin Haley, and Brendan quote unquote, funny nickname, Butterbean Queen. It always makes me laugh

that nickname. So those guys will be full-time drivers, and then there's another driver who's

been announced. And then for the fifth driver, or the fifth truck, the number 25 truck,

this will not be, this truck, this number 25 will not be chasing truck series championship points.

Ram's going to have their kind of their own prize, and they're going to have different drivers

involved in this. But the big news is that, so they're not going to really unveil all the drivers

yet. But the big news is that Tony Stewart is the first one going to be driving the number 15.

And so I actually, let me clarify this, I think I got this information a little bit wrong,

because I was reading from an older press release. So the newest update is that Colour Racing has

five trucks, like I said, Daniel Dye, Brendan, Butterbean Queen, and Justin Haley driving full

time in three of the trucks. The fourth truck will be the rotation of free agent drivers. And the

fifth will be driven, number 14, will be driven by the winner of the Race for the Seat Reality TV

series. So there actually is a reality TV component. And I read, I either read the previous press

release wrong, or they had changed up plans. So that is my fault. I do apologize and hopefully

have clarified it. But anyway, Tony Stewart is now driving the 25 truck at Daytona. So obviously,

Tony Stewart, one of the biggest names in NASCAR Cup Racing here, excuse me, NASCAR Cup Racing

History, three time cup series champion. He, he was controversial in his time, had a temper,

a little bit. I believe he attempted the double Indiana, the Indianapolis 500 and the Coca-Cola

600. He had some, he's double IndyCar Racing. After leaving NASCAR Cup, he has been in the

NHRA Drag Racing series. And I believe he's done, I don't have his stats in front of me,

but I believe he's done quite well. He's now in his 50s and still, still rocking.

I just became a father relatively recently. So he's got a lot going on. And Matthew,

you're a longtime NASCAR fan. I do apologize for kind of rambling here. You're a longtime NASCAR

fan and you have watched his career from start to finish. I want to get your thoughts on Tony

Stewart driving in, driving antitone and not as part of the Daytona 500, but in the Craftsman

Truck Series before the race. Yeah. I mean, it's such a huge get for Ram. And it's not

unsurprising given Rams pensions for things being over the top and loud and in your face. I mean,

that's their brand, right? So getting someone like Smoke is a huge deal, right? I mean, Tony

Stewart is, like you said, he had, he had that personality in NASCAR. So he appeals, you know,

to, to a lot of people who like bold, brash personalities in the sport, because he was never

afraid, you know, whether he was speaking his mind to another competitor or to the media,

or to NASCAR executives really. I mean, he was someone who certainly spoke, spoke his mind. And

then the man had almost 49 wins, almost 50 wins had like stats are off the top. He had over 300,

had to have over 300 top 10s, had to. And he's the only guy, and I love this stat,

to win the title under three different sponsorships, right? Winston is first one back in 02. And then

it was Nextel in 05, and then the Sprint Cup in 2011. And because it's a little bit different

than Alan Kowicki in 1992, because Alan was the owner of that team. And then one could argue that

it was Stuart Haas racing, not just Stuart racing, right? But I think that's just semantics. So I mean,

he's, you know, the first, in my mind, anyways, the first owner driver since Alan Kowicki in 92

to win the Cup Series Championship. And that's the kind of person that I think fits really well

with the RAM brand. So the fact that he races for Dodge now over in the NHRA, I think this is a

really good fit. And it's not something that could have happened if he was driving a different brand

over in the NHRA. There's one great story about when him and, he tells about when him and

Lee Pruitt started dating, that they were going wherever, if they were being driven somewhere,

or if they were driving themselves in motorhome, or somewhere like that, I can't remember that

detail. And once they said, all right, you know, yeah, we're going to do this, we got to tell everybody,

some of their first calls were to their agents to say, all right, I'm driving Dodge,

they're driving Ford, how are we going to work this out? I just love that. I love that. I love

that, that story that he tells on some podcasts sometimes. And I think it's just a perfect fit

for Ram. So you're right, they'll have those three, Ram will have those three, three trucks there with

colleague. Their fourth truck is Tony Stewart, this free agent deal. And then the whole race

for the seat campaign that they're trying out as well, which is pretty innovative. You talk about

innovation, and you talk about new ideas in the sport, things like that. And that's one of them,

right? We'll see how it works out, we'll see how it goes. But this 25 truck is going to look

really good. They have one on the floor, you probably saw it too, at the Detroit Auto show.

Yeah, you know, I can't remember if I saw, I saw a couple of race cars. I saw an Indy car,

I saw a NASCAR Cup car, I thought I saw a truck that was number 24, which is not this one. So I

don't, I might have been, I don't think it was the Stellantis stand, so maybe a different brand,

but it might have been, I think it might have been Toyota, because Toyota is obviously heavily

involved as well. I don't remember up top of my head. But yeah, I'm excited to see this too. I'm

not sure if I'll watch the race, maybe some highlights or parts of it. It is, I do have some,

I actually have some plans. So that's February 13th. I won't be able to watch this race live

off the DVR. I do some plans that night. But just to clarify, it is February 13th,

not the 15th when the actual Daytona 500 is. So if anyone didn't hear the beginning,

Tony Stewart is not racing the Daytona 500. He's racing in the Craftsman Series truck

race that weekend on Friday the 13th, which is a little bit of an auspicious date, of course. But

so the superstitious out there might be a little concerned. But I think it's a good thing, you know,

it'll bring attention to truck racing, which doesn't, you can watch as truck races really,

the hardcore fans who watch every bit of racing, and those who maybe have a rooting interest in a

driver or a team. Truck racing, I don't want to say it's necessarily a stepping stone to cup,

although it can be, and often is. For those who know NASCAR, you know, there are lower levels

of racing than eventually if you're a good enough driver, and there's an opening you can get into

cup, right? Xfinity is closer to cup, obviously. And I think I always considered Xfinity kind of

like double A or triple A in baseball, or, you know, an Xfinity driver, a lot of the younger

Xfinity drivers are probably going to be in cup in the next few years if they're any good.

But of course, Xfinity has, you know, drivers who drive both races, Xfinity and Cup. You have

veteran drivers who are, who maybe are some of their tire from Cup who weren't really trying to

get into Cup. Racing Xfinity, you have, with truck, you've had a little bit of celebrity

action in the past couple of years, because former child actor, now almost 40 years old, Frankie

Munez, who I was, I'm knocked up in the middle, that's who's most well known for, he got into the

series, and he was, you know, I don't have his stats in front of me, but he was a serious racer. He

gets some attention. And he was, you know, a routine, a regular competitor in the series in

truck recently. So, so there's a little bit of interest there too, from anyone who remembers

him as a child actor wants to see him drive. And he clearly has an interest in racing and

some talent and some skill. So, you know, but that name gets gets attention to truck.

When I was younger, I used to like watching truck racing, because it was, hey, trucks are racing,

and they're kind of like NASCAR. That's kind of cool. But as I got older, I focused more on Cup.

But yeah, having Tony Stewart in this race will probably draw some eyeballs, for sure,

for people who are looking for something to watch on a Friday night in the middle of February,

who might not otherwise watch Cup or Accidity, or truck or Accidity.

And I remember when the trucks first came out in 95-ish. And, you know, the joke was, hey,

there's more space for advertising on the back. Right, just over what would be a tonne old cover

on a road truck. But it's, trucks have always been really fun to watch.

I think that the look of them, and Ram has gotten the look of this truck right.

There have been some, yeah, there have been some strange looking trucks over the years.

But that initial year, back in 95-ish, you had the OBS Chevy back then, so you had like the 95,

so the GMT-400 Chevy, you had the, I guess it would technically be OBS Ford.

So like that 95-96, they didn't change to the Jelly Bean until 97.

And then you had Ram, which was just really just a year out of the new Freightliner look, right?

That's just some really, really good looking trucks. And this one, this

number 25, at least, and I just went back while we were talking and looked through the pictures.

Ram had the 14, which is the reality show truck, or one of it, the sticker it up,

to look at the 14 at the Detroit show. And it looked good in person too.

It's not just smoke and mirrors using photos.

Cool, yeah, great, I'm sorry.

Yeah, so no, it looks really good. I like that Craftsman is back,

has got the Craftsman banner across the top of the windshield and then the driver's name

on the back, on the back window. I think that's pretty cool because NASCAR has been doing that

a little bit so that new fans can identify drivers a little bit better, especially in this age of

not having the same, right? Because one time you saw the Budweiser number eight, you knew that was

Dale Jr. But sponsors don't generally run the entire year anymore. So that's a difficult,

more difficult thing to do. So I kind of like this. I like that. And they've moved the name

around a little bit in Cup, but seeing it here on the back window of the trucks, I think that's

a really good idea. And you can see Stuart's name. It's cool. Yeah. And when sponsors, even when they

do run the entire year, sometimes they change up the look of the car. So, you know, I think it was

Napa with Chase Elliott last year was blue and white and yellow most of the time, the company,

the company's standard colors, but a couple of times they were black and gold, I think. So

just as an example, but we don't have much time left. We're a little shorter on NASCAR this week

just first and behind the scenes reasons just a little bit shortening the segment. So

in a saving room for Daytona in the future, we'll talk more about, we'll talk more about Tony

Stewart at Daytona as we preview the race in a couple of weeks. And then the week after when we

go back and look at the race and see what happened. So with that, Matthew, I'm going to have to go

and close the segment. Is there any other anything else you want to add on smoke returning to NASCAR?

No, looking forward to watching it for sure. Yeah, looking forward to it too. And the other

thing I wanted to add before we, before we wrap this is I'm looking forward to seeing

who else will hop, will rotate it and drive the 25 and if Stewart will race at the other races,

you know, I don't want to get, we don't have time to get into all his controversies. I was never

the biggest fan of his because of his controversies, especially the incident involving the death of

another driver and short track racing where Stewart kind of ran him over. I'm trying to make,

I'm trying to be careful here because I don't remember all the facts. I don't want to say

anything incorrect. I believe Tony Stewart ran somebody over. Is that, that's correct, right?

Well, there's all kinds of different, with that issue, because the other person who did get struck

by a vehicle was out on the hot racetrack. That's what it was. Yeah. Right. So that happened as

well. Right. So there has, there's some culpability. You know what I mean? Like the person was there.

Yeah. I'm trying to be careful here because I want to make sure we don't legally say anything we

can't. I don't want to. I got you. But I don't want to fame or, or, or label anybody, but

one of the cool things though about smoke is that he would just, if, if, and, and we've been in the

media pool as well. And sometimes like we've been on the side of interview and drivers and

sometimes there are some very strange questions asked, right? There's some and some people and

Stewart would be like, what are you doing? What are you asking? Like he wouldn't just

tow the line and just give a bland vanilla answer. So that type of stuff, that bit of

independent thinking is a little bit of the Denny Hamlin and Bush brothers.

And they're all over 40. So they're all part of that same generation. Well, the Bush brothers,

I think one is still, still as a three in front of his age, but not for much longer.

But anyway, they're all part of the older generation. So, and just to clarify, Tony

Stewart did strike and kill a driver. The driver had gotten out of the car to, to yell at someone's

and Stewart was clearly in charges. So I just want to make sure that I had that out there so

that we have the facts correct for all sorts of reasons. But with that, you know, I never was

the biggest Tony Stewart fan, but I am curious to see how he does in truck racing. And like I said,

I'm curious to see what other drivers, whether it's Jimmy Johnson or Martin Truex Jr. You guys

who retired relatively recently and they're still somewhat active. I know Jimmy Johnson still drives

occasionally, maybe sickly, a Leo Castor Neves in there or a Mark Martin or something like that.

But with that, or maybe a Dale Jr. But with that, we do have to wrap here on the TTAC podcast on

our NASCAR segment. So thank you again, Matthew for joining us. Thank you. And with that, we'll

go ahead and close out our NASCAR chat for this week here on the Truth About Cars podcast.

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the managing editor. You can find us wherever you get your podcasts. You can also find us online

at TTAC.com. That's ctech.com or the truth about cars all spelled out.com. We thank Mercedes

Alienthal and Matthew Guy for their time and Matt Poskey for editing. Most of all, we thank you for

listening. We'll see you next time.

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