How Do We Get More Kids Racing? Ferdi Porsche & Rob Smedley - F.A.T. Karting League
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Brand
Porsche
Porsche is a famous car company from Germany that makes fast and luxurious cars. They are well-known for their sports cars, especially the Porsche 911.
Concept
carding league
A carding league is a group that organizes races using small go-karts. It's a fun way for people to compete in racing without needing a full-size race car.
Concept
karting
Karting is a type of racing that uses small go-kart vehicles. It's a popular way for young drivers to start their racing careers before moving up to bigger and faster cars.
Concept
Formula One
Formula One is a top-level car racing series where the fastest cars compete in races around the world. It's known for its high-speed action and advanced technology.
Company
Scuderia Ferrari
Scuderia Ferrari is the racing team for Ferrari, a famous car brand. They compete in Formula 1 and have won many championships over the years.
Concept
Ferrari Challenge
Ferrari Challenge is a racing series where people race Ferrari cars. It's aimed at drivers who want to compete but may not be professional racers.
Brand
Sauber
Sauber is a company that makes race cars, especially for Formula 1 racing, and has been around since the 1990s.
Concept
Le Mans
Le Mans is a big car race in France that lasts for 24 hours. Cars race around a track, and it's a test of how fast and reliable they are over a long time.
Term
drivetrain
The drivetrain is what helps your car move. It includes parts that take power from the engine and send it to the wheels so the car can drive.
Term
hybrid assist motor
A hybrid assist motor helps a car use less fuel by working with the regular engine. It gives extra power when needed, making the car more efficient.
Term
motor generator unit
A motor generator unit is a part that can turn electricity into movement and also take movement to create electricity. It helps the car save energy and go faster when needed.
Term
kilowatts
Kilowatts is a way to measure how much power something uses or produces. In cars, it's often used to talk about electric motors.
Term
horsepower
Horsepower is a way to measure how powerful an engine is. It tells you how much work the engine can do over time.
Term
power to weight ratio
Power to weight ratio tells you how much power a car has compared to how heavy it is. If a car is light but has a lot of power, it will usually be faster and more fun to drive.
Part
spool diff
A spool diff is a part of a car's axle that makes sure both wheels turn at the same speed. This helps with grip but can make it harder to turn corners.
Part
solid axle
A solid axle is a strong part of the car that connects the back wheels. It helps the car be tough and can handle heavy loads, but it doesn't move as smoothly over bumps as some other types of axles.
Term
thermal runaway
Thermal runaway happens when a battery gets too hot and can start a fire. It's a serious issue, especially in electric cars that use lithium-ion batteries.
Concept
F4
F4 is a type of racing series for young drivers. The cars are made to be similar so that the focus is on the driver's skill rather than the car's performance.
Concept
F2
F2 is a racing series that helps drivers get ready for Formula 1. The cars are fast and are used to see who has the best driving skills.
Concept
NASCAR
NASCAR is a type of car racing that's really popular in the U.S. It features cars that look like regular cars but are specially built for racing. The races usually happen on oval tracks and attract a lot of fans.
Concept
ice race
An ice race is a type of car race that takes place on ice, like a frozen lake. Cars use special tires to help them grip the slippery surface, making it an exciting and unique event.
Concept
car week
Car week is a special time when lots of car events happen, like shows and races. It's a chance for car fans to see and talk about their favorite vehicles.
Car
BMW 2002
The BMW 2002 is an older small car made by BMW that was popular for its fun driving experience. It's a classic car that many enthusiasts love.
Car
Audi S1
The Audi S1 is a sporty version of a small Audi car. It's known for being fast and fun to drive, especially in racing.
LIVE
The only places that Formula One teams go and look is in the European Cart World Championships.
So if you want to get there, the families have already spent like one and a half million dollars
to get there.
What sort of families can afford one and a half million dollars on their kids' hobby
on the slim chance that they're going to get picked up?
Welcome to The Inevitable, a podcast by MotorTrend.
Hi there, and welcome to this episode of The Inevitable.
This is our podcast, our video podcast, about the future of cars, the future of mobility.
And on this episode, what are the kids going to be doing?
Yes.
I forgot to ring the bell.
How are the kids going to get into racing?
And we have two incredibly special guests.
But before that, I'm going to let Ed Lowe here say a word or two.
Yes, The Inevitable podcast is sponsored by nobody currently, and we're currently seeking
sponsorship.
So please, if you want to sponsor an episode the whole season, t-shirts for us, booze
for Johnny, shoot me a note, Edward.loh at Hearst.com, H-E-A-R-S-T, or get into
our DMs, probably on Instagram, and let us know.
You missed a part of the intro.
You're supposed to tell the normal haters on YouTube to actually watch and listen to
this episode, because it's not about EVs per se.
It's not about that stuff that most of the YouTube audience tends not to like.
This is a really cool...
Just how are YouTube audience?
There's plenty of YouTube audience out there.
Yes.
This one is a very cool conversation with two really interesting guys, Ferdy Porsche,
and Rob Smedley, who are starting the Fat Carding League.
This is a new carding league that only recently came to the United States.
The goal is to democratize carding, which it can be horrifically expensive for anybody
who wants to get into the sport.
And we're talking about racing carts.
This is the stuff that would eventually lead to the top tiers of racing.
And...
So if your kid's dream involves your dream of them being an F1 because you didn't
make it, this is a cheaper way to do it than the traditional carding series.
For all of you fans of Formula One Drive to Survive and all those hot young drivers with
cool accents that come from fancy European countries, they came through carding leagues
probably in Europe and learned how to drive very quickly in what eventually becomes Formula
Cars via a program similar to FAT, yes, FAT, not PHAT, FAT, Carding League, which we'll
get into.
And our guests, again, you might know their name Porsche, you know, just an unknown Swiss
company famous for making refrigerators.
Nuts.
No, not that one.
The German sports car manufacturer, Ferdy is the great grandson of the founder
of Porsche.
And then...
Dr.
Porsche.
His partner on the technical side, the engineer that runs this, Rob Smedley, this guy worked
for, is a race engineer for a very small unknown racing team called Scuderia Ferrari.
Yeah.
And he also supported a very unknown and never won very many races, race car drivers by
the name of Philippe Massa, among many other race car drivers.
He very smart, you can tell, very experienced in the world of racing, Ferdy, also huge
racing fan.
And...
And can drive.
I saw this dude flinging around at Tycon on the FAT Ice Race in Austria last year, and
I was like...
Well, he would have to.
His name...
Can you imagine the pressure of a guy with the same Porsche, and if he couldn't drive?
I'm just saying, I was like, he was doing full Derifto on the ice, it was pretty
good.
This name is Porsche.
You know what?
Enough about us.
Yes.
Let's get Ferdy and Rob out here.
Ferdy, Rob, thank you so much for coming onto the show.
Well, thanks to Ferdy, you just got off a plane from Austria, is that correct?
In that case, Frankfurt today.
Frankfurt, okay.
So that's lovely.
Same, same.
Body-clockwise, it's like midnight or 1 a.m. your time.
I have no idea.
But it's fine.
Nine hours from now.
Thank you.
Half-eleven, maybe.
And Rob, also, for braving Hollywood traffic to get here, and then having to go back
in that traffic.
So, thank you so much.
We're talking about carding, fat carding, right?
So, first of all, this is great because we both have young sons, neither of us have any
kind of driving talent, and we haven't passed it on to our children, at least I don't think.
I'm a barricam.
I don't know.
So I was actually researching the fact cardingly because of a couple of folks I follow
on Instagram, and then when this lovely opportunity came through via your PR guy, Jordan, I was
like, oh, yeah, we definitely want to talk to these guys.
So for our audience, who I'm sure is as ignorant as we are, what is the fact-
As loves our audience.
I just sort of-
There's ugly-
How many views is this gonna give?
They smell bad.
They smell bad.
But they can drive.
Maybe.
What is fat cardingly?
How do you tell?
How do you explain?
What's the pitch?
What do you tell people?
Okay.
The very elevator pitch is we build a system, Rob actually started building a system, and
we came in a little later and then added the fat to cardingly, and basically the whole idea
is to democratize motorsport because it's a sport that 1.6 billion people watch, and
it's really hard to get in, and cardingly is a very sort of expensive sport to do,
and it's not like the ball sports of any kind.
And maybe we're still not exactly there yet, but the whole idea is basically that
now it becomes a question of do I bring my kids to piano lessons, or do I actually bring
them racing?
Piano lessons is just an example here of something that is kind of-
But you're paying a reasonable amount of money, whereas you're always here like everyone
is an F1 now, they started karting and they were rich, and there's a lot of poor kids
who start karting because it's expensive.
So if you want to, there's this weird notion which is none of it's true, there's
so many myths to debunk here.
If you want to get to F1, there's these families that kind of start in karting, the only places
that Formula One teams go and look is in the European Cart World Championships, right?
So if you want to get there, the families have already spent like one and a half million
dollars to get there, and then maybe you're going to get picked up because you're in
the mix.
But what sort of families can afford one and a half million dollars on their kid's
hobby on the slim chance that they're going to get picked up?
Right.
So it's crazy, right?
I'm sorry, one and a half million, over what time period?
From what age to what age would they be spending money?
They're talking like kids can start at six, seven, all Grand Prix drivers or even the
top Indy car drivers, they'll start at like six, seven, and then they will elevate
the ways up through the categories of karting, eventually they'll get to European
Cart World Championships, something like that, and then they're going to get picked
up.
There's this myth that maybe they get picked up.
So between six and seven to what, like 15 or 16, you would spend, they're like 12 to 14
by the time they start to compete at the top level.
And yeah, but you know, the reality is a, like who can afford it, nobody, right?
You know, 0.001% of the world can afford like one and a half million dollars on their
kid's hobby.
And then be, even if you get there, right, like the chances of getting picked up and
the chances of getting sponsored are just so remote and so slim, 20 out of 8 billion.
The crazy thing is the sport is such a sort of numbers based, the stopwatch doesn't lie
kind of sport, right?
Like it's only about timing.
And then for the fact that it is like this, the whole system of, or the whole way for
kids to get into the sport is completely different, right?
It's based on money.
And then like there's some old white guy sitting next to the track and looking at
a kid who's potentially going fast.
But it's not at all data driven.
And that's also one sort of big angle of carting league is that we can normalize the
data of all the kids that race in our house.
So tell us what you're doing differently.
So how does fat change the paradigm of what, you know, the F1 feeder pipeline cost, cost
and accessibility, right?
So we collapse the price point by, if you say that you want to be, you know,
a national level card and it's like 100 K, 150 K, something like that.
You can do our championship in terms of dollars for about 5K, right?
We realize it's still 5K, but there's many, many more families can afford 5K per season.
Then there is families that can afford like 150 K per season, right?
Yes.
And anymore.
So where in those other, and I know a little bit about how the, the
carting has developed like Lewis Hamilton, that there's that, the, the, the tail of
him being signed at whatever, I think four or five years old or whatever.
And then, and then watching.
Yeah, 12, I think.
Was it 12?
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Well, early age, I guess it's the newer generation that's being signed much
earlier and being watched because of what Lewis did.
But when you talk about one and a half million to go from six to 12 years old
or 100 to $150,000 for one of these championships, what, what's involved
in that cost?
Like what are people paying for the car, the cart?
The problem is now, and that's also where our league is very different,
right?
Ours is arrive and drive.
So you come, you get a ticket, you get into the cart
and you drive.
The way it works now is that there is a lot of people who make money off of
these parents who are kind of like wanting to bring their kids into the
sport and who have no idea how to do it.
So there's a mechanic.
There is somebody who sells you the tires.
There's somebody who bought, you buy the card.
So the current model is like Ferrari challenge where it's like you, you
have to buy your own mechanic.
You got to pay Ferrari to service the things.
You're buying the tires and you guys, it's like more arriving.
Well, actually it's even less regulated than Ferrari challenge.
You've got a whole like base of different chassis.
He's the Ferrari guy.
Yeah.
A little bit of history with Ferrari.
You know, so there's a whole range of chassis that are open.
There's a whole range of like different engines.
And then, and then, you know, you're going to, the top teams will
be buying like multiple engines, you know, like 10, 20 engines for
a season, something like that.
They will be constantly getting tuned because these are two stroke
like high performance engines.
So the costs are like really high.
Like just your capital costs, right?
Of the, of the equipment that you're going to buy.
Then you've got multiple sets of tires, but then it's even
deregulated about how much time you can have on the track.
So like you can get kids that the, you know, there's, there's
actually kids, there's a whole swathe of kids that aren't
going to school anymore.
They sat on a, on a go-kart track for like five days
a week testing, like throwing like thousands of dollars a day at it.
Um, and this is the, this is the perceived path to, to Formula
One.
So what we're doing, it completely changes the
paradigm. It's, it's, it's arrive and drive.
It's fixed cost.
You know, there's no, like the family can plan, right?
You can't, you can't really plan in an unregulated sport.
Um, how are you planning for what your budget is?
You can go into it and say, I'm going to be really squeaky,
but then a new part comes out, a new component that you've
got to have unless it's not, you know, or maybe your
engine isn't performing.
So you've got to spend more on that.
And, and, and what you find is the families kind of get to
a limit where they can't spend anymore, right?
And then because they can't spend anymore, um, they're
not keeping up with the guys at the front and then, and
then it becomes a miserable experience for the kids.
So we just want it to change the whole game and collapse
the price point and make it much more simpler.
Okay.
Could you walk us through like, like what, what a
season of fat carton looks like, like from, from, you
know, the, the family's involvement, like I'm
going to, cause my kid, he's eight.
He just started carting and he loves it.
He's just like totally into it, which is like
another, you know, everything he likes is a
fortune these days.
But, um, but I'm interested in fat
carton cause will is right here.
You know, so what does the season look like?
So normally in the beginning, we have tryouts.
So the, the idea of that is to get as many kids
into that, into the cards as possible.
So that's a few weekends that we just host tryouts
basically for the kids in the, in the new geo.
You just mentioned willow.
So Southern California is our third hub that we've
opened and basically we want to get as many kids to
try the cards and see what it's like.
And then ideally they commit to buy a season pass
and the season passes, uh, 10 races and you go
through these races, you collect points, you
basically do the full season and you try to
qualify for the world finals, which are
happening for the first time this year.
Also in willow springs in December.
Oh, nice.
Yes.
We like willow springs.
I saw that car track.
That is like, that looks like, uh, so willow is
the third hub, the latest hub.
What are the other two places you're, so it's
not just, it's not just one racetrack,
but it's almost always a geography.
Oh, got it.
So, um, the first hub was in UK where Rob is
based, uh, basically where all the F1 teams are
based.
So I think it's kind of, we have a good crowd,
right?
They're all really skeptical, you know, like
they come from the old system.
I think it's, it's a cool, uh, it's a cool
proof point that, that, um, we're at what
96% occupancy rate there.
Yeah, we're nearly sold out every, every year
there in the UK now.
Second hub was in Chicago and sort of
Midwest area and now we're in Southern
California.
Chicago, what like Chicago has a lot of
cars.
There's a lot of cars.
Yeah, there's a lot of people in there.
There's a lot of culture in Chicago,
in Indianapolis, like all around that
area, you know, there's a lot of tracks.
Yeah, lots of tracks.
That's right, close to India, yeah.
Yeah, so we're kind of, we, we, we
go between India and, and, and
Chicago.
Okay.
So that was the first year, so the
first year was this year, as Ferdy
said, um, oh, dear.
So for the podcast listeners, that
was a mobile phone.
Papa.
So, okay.
So, go ahead, go ahead.
Do you want me to start again?
No, no, that's fine.
Oh, we're running?
Yeah.
Okay.
Keep it going, for real.
This is a relaxed, yeah.
So, so three hubs, UK, and then in the
UK, what would have been, where, if
you're at 96% occupancy, who are you
taking from?
Like, what's the, is there a league
that you're, that you're competing
against?
No, no, this is the beauty of it,
right?
Everybody, like, when, when we
first started this, everybody,
like, in the incumbent system,
you know, the really expensive
system, they were like, oh, you
know, like Robert Ferdy and
moving in, they're going to take all
of our customers and I'm like,
do they like, we don't need your
customers, right?
If your customers want to come,
they want to come.
Right.
Like, because we've collapsed the
price point, right?
Here's a stat for you.
Because we've collapsed the
price point as far as we have,
we open up the market by a
thousand decks.
Yeah.
So this is like blue ocean
stuff, right?
This is new market stuff.
We're, we're bringing like lots
of new families into it.
In fact, the vast majority of
the, the guys that we brought
in from both Midwest, in the
UK, what we're seeing in, in
California, are new families
who wanted to do it and
haven't had the opportunity.
And that's always the resounding
message that we get.
It's always the recurring
message that, you know, we
couldn't have done this without,
you know, like, you know, little
Jimmy or little Jane, they wanted
to do carding forever.
They just couldn't have done it.
So, so we're not taking from
anybody, in fact, we're creating
the market.
Because very few people are
like, well, I was going to
spend 150,000, but now I'll
just spend five.
You're right, they're still
going to spend the 150, right?
Yeah, I think you cannot,
yeah, sorry.
So, like, it's coming
from Formula One, right?
You see, like, this, the
pathway of these, these guys
that get the Formula One, and
this is well trodden pathway.
And what you've got to imagine
in our series is you arrive,
you're given your cart,
the, it's a full service, so
everything's taken care of,
right? But you can't buy an
advantage, right?
So, so there's lots of people
in the world, and not lots
of people, but there are
people in the world who have
the means that don't want to
be in that system, right?
I don't want to be in a
completely meritocratic
democratized system.
Right, all achieved.
I don't rather give myself an
advantage. And hey, that's
that's that's capitalism.
That's very interesting.
Yeah, it is racing. I think
that bit's wrong. But but it
is the nature of capitalism,
right? There's nothing wrong
with that. But here's an
alternative for you.
There's an alternative that
works, that is meritocratic,
that is democratized, that is
much more affordable, much more
accessible for all the
families. So if you want to
be here, you can. And we do
even get families from this
super expensive. Oh, yeah.
Coming in. Yeah, for sure.
Yes, because like they're
getting priced out, it's
becoming more and more
difficult. And they see this
is something that actually I
can like, I don't have the
bank rob myself and my kids
can have fun.
And even like in the F one
pedagnow, right? It's not like
every F one driver has spent
the fortune. Some of some of
them were lucky also in a
sense, or I don't know, like
Schumacher grew up on a
car track and therefore had
the possibility to like
drive a lot even without
big money behind it. So there
is obviously, there's
obviously already some drivers
in the system who who made
it out anyways, right?
How did you get involved?
Because this originally was a
program you Rob had started
and then fat, first of all,
okay, so what is fat? And how
did fat have this become the
fat carding league?
Yeah. So fat used to stand
for Francais-Allemant
transits. So it was a transit
company, like a trucker
company, basically that
yeah, that transported fashion
from Paris to Germany.
And they sponsored all the
coolest race cars of the
80s, 90s, early 2000s,
Porsches, Ferrari, Sauber's
everything. We up to now
we found like 60 or
something race cars that
had like either a small
fat sticker or like a full
fat livery. And they won
them all twice. And basically
it kind of derived from what
what I started in Austria,
which is ice race. So we did
ice race pre COVID twice.
And the whole idea of that
was change, change how
motorsport or open up
motorsport to a younger
crowd, a younger group
of people, right? So I
obviously grew up on a ton
of car events. And I
always thought this is so
cool. I love the things.
I love the car as like the
conversation starter, but
everything around it is kind
of boring. And I wanted to
create something more fun,
more open, add some music,
culture, something like
something that like young
people would feel that it's
okay to come into this
sport. And I think now
like a lot has changed in
the last six, seven, eight
years since we since we
started this. So I think
like the whole sort of car
culture thing has opened up
in a sense, right? I think
Instagram did a big job,
job, etc. So I was just
because I went just before
you get to how you get in
the car. I went to the
ice race in Austria last
year. And it was A, awesome
and B, though, I was, you
know, I noticed like the
price point because you know,
I go kind of Pebble Beach
like, you know, 15 years
in a row or whatever. And
it's great. But like a
quail ticket is 1200 bucks.
It's 400 bucks to get on
the lawn. It's 1200 bucks
to stay at the the Hyatt,
which is basically a motel,
you know, per night. It
is the money is
impossible for for most
people. But like, you
know, you guys were
trying whatever was 100 euros
or something like that. And
it was packed and it was
youthful and everybody was
partying and fun. And it was
just like a really good
time. I was totally
impressed.
Yeah, I mean, the motto is
even fun over speed, right?
Because the ice track, you
can obviously never make
sure that the guy who
starts first and the guy
who start starts at the
very end of the of the
day have the same
condition. So it's not
like your typical sort of
proper race where like
everybody takes it super
serious. And like that
automatically kind of
transforms it into fun
overspeed and sort of like
bringing people together and
just enjoying like using
the cars, the conversation
started, but basically the
people bring the party. And
so then COVID hit. And I
thought, okay, I started
something that is really
cool. People like it. I
met some cool people
through it. There's some
sponsor activity like
people want to get
involved. Maybe there is
something there. And that's
when I kind of like looked
at all old race cars
from Porsche and the
logo is on there because
I was looking for something
that could kind of
encapsulate what we
started with ice racing
kind of opened open it up
for us to to do different
stuff than just a winter
event, basically. So you
acquired fat the brand or
it was it was it was
dormant, basically. Really?
Yeah, it was not there
anymore. And I like I
literally stumbled like it
was very it was a very
fast process, right? I
looked at the Le Mans
winners of Porsche. And
there was fat
international. I was like,
what the fuck is that?
How cool is that?
Because I mean, it kind
of already has this like kind
of like has everything
that we did with ice
race anyways, in the name
already. And it has
heritage. It has a cool
logo, etc.
It was a great
logo. So it was a what a
delisted company in France
or something. And you just
buy the it was a German
guy. And I don't know if
the company was based in
Germany or France, but it
was going between the two
countries. I wrote him a
letter also I've been
touched with him in a
sense. He never really
replies. But I heard I
heard from a friend. I
think he's he's rather
old now, but I heard
from a friend of his
that he really likes
what we're doing. And it's
great. He's excited. I
did sentence.
Fat joining Rob, how
to be involved with the
cars. So I mean, from
the ethos of what we're
trying to achieve, it was
kind of a perfect match,
right? So we tried to do it
or we already kind of
try to change motorsport
from the spectators
perspective. And he had
a like he had created a
tool basically to change it
from the ground up. And
so we met through a
friend. And Rob was in
the middle of raising
money. And I figured
this would be a perfect
match for fat to get
involved. And then also
kind of like, in the
beginning, I didn't even
thought that there was a
potential to do a full
joint venture. But that's
kind of what happened. We
clicked and I decided to
do this together.
Like, so like, we're not
when I started it, I
wanted to see whether it
worked. That was the
point, right? So we can
build it. I put some
money behind it. We
built carts like we
designed all the electric
drivetrain. We run the
championship. We kind of
got the model and proof
of concept and we run it
for a couple of years in
the UK. But what I was
always cognizant of
because like I'm an
engineer by profession. So
I wanted to like do it
under the radar, you
know, I didn't want to
start a business which
was all about like
marketing with no
substance underneath.
I've done it like in
probably the exact
opposite of a way to
build a successful
company. But I got the
product like somewhere
near right. But I
always had in the back
of my mind that that
what I what I can't do
what I don't bring is
is is brand, right? Is
is brand is, you know,
making this actually like
a community driven,
action orientated like
entity. And I always knew
that I wanted to like I
wanted to make it cool,
right? Sorry to
interrupt. But the fun
thing is he says that
but he built exactly
that. I mean, that's
basically what carting
league is, right? People
already kind of like go
there and gather and
like, like it already
kind of holds. I notice
at the ice race, like
the branding is so spot
on. Like I'm like, oh,
I need to get like a
scarf that says fat,
even though I don't at
all, I live in LA, I
don't need a scarf ever.
But a scarf, I got a, you
know, a toke, I bought
like a flask. I was
like, this is so cool.
Yeah, it's just from my
point of view, like
that's what I wanted. I
wanted it to be like
cool. It's got to be
like for the kids by
the kids, right? Right.
It's it's not it can't
be about like, you know,
some middle-aged guy
starting a carting
league. And that's
when like 30 and I
started where the
second middle-aged man
had to be like, you know,
like something very
differentiated in terms
of the brand and the
community in the field
and the and the look
of it. And that's where
I like 30 and I started
doing it. I was like, this
is like, great, like
you why don't you guys
just take care of all
that stuff. Nice. And
I'll carry on doing
the notes and ones.
So for the listeners,
if you're totally new
to this, the look just
Google fat for the
ice race, the carting
league, the merch is
really cool. The logo
is cool. It's got the vibe.
It's got the 70s, 80s
racing vibe, white
and blue, cool color
way. It you'll get it
once you see it. The
website is actually very
slick to the way the way
you you kind of engage
with it. I was doing a
little research. But
let's talk about the cars
because this is where you
came in, Rob. Like, so
they're electric
carts, fully
designed from the ground
up by you and your
team. Like what's
specs? What are we? What
are we? What was the
mission here for the
for the for the kids?
So so number one
mission is this, that
they have to be racing
carts, right? People
like, you know, it's not
always if you're completely
new to this, and you
think a carting, maybe
you think of like the
indoor thing like the
leisure, the fun end of
it, right? But there's
lots that already
exists, right? That's
already like a democratized
and a saturated market.
Like, you know, there's
big, like businesses
over here. There's K one
to the big one.
I want to talk about it.
I want to talk about it.
K one is across here.
There's a business
called Team Sport in
Europe. You know, I
think those guys are
like starting to like
go into each other's
market, whatever, right?
It's kind of democratized.
You can go and do that.
It's a bit of leisure.
But if you want to go
and do the outdoor
stuff, like where is
a standardized and
democratized league,
right, which is like
affordable or more
affordable. So that
didn't exist, which is
what we're doing. So
these are outdoor
racing carts, right?
You can start at five.
You can, there's three
categories for the for the
for the five, six year
olds, then you go up to
like the 10 year old
kind of thing. And then
you go up to the bigger
kids, like, which go all
the way up to 16.
These things will do
like 65 mile an hour.
They're proper racing
carts. They handle like
racing cars. They teach
the kids how to drive.
It's no surprise that in,
you know, we're in the
market where we've got a
bit of maturity in the
UK, always the same kids
that win, right?
Right, which, which means
that they are the best
kids. They're going to
be coming across here to
compete with the best like
us kids. And because
the, the carts are like
a single fleet of a single
standardized fleet of, you
know, more or less
similar performance and
you kind of dodge about
the carts all season.
You're never given the
same cart. So you're
in and out of different
carts. So, so your,
your, your performance
is like kind of
standardized across the
season. You know, it's
average balance balanced.
So, so it had to be
racing carts and they
had to have like a given
level of parity.
And the best way to do that
really was through the
electric drivetrain. So we
designed the electric
drivetrain from the ground
up. Basically, like, I
just took the knowledge
that I had from like an
MG UK, which is like
the electric part of a,
of a Formula One car.
So we took that pretty
simple, like three basic
components. We've then
started to design like
all a an integrate our
own electronics are behind
it, which is really cool.
That's going to blow it
up. And yeah, we're on the
third generation of the
drivetrain now. We'll
continue to, to, to
iterate. Jen, generation
four will be coming out
in the back end of next
year. And we'll just
continue. Like we just
want to keep pace with,
with technology chassis
themselves are fairly
simple. They're a tubular
steam, tubular steel
frame.
Are they like off the
shelf?
Yeah, we, we, we have a,
we have a partner that,
that we do that with,
you know, there's no,
there was no, I don't
want to, you know, as an
engineering, we didn't
want to build an engineering
business that did like
tubular steel, steel
chassis, because it's so
simple to, to, to kind of
just go out and get a
partner to do that. So we
do that. And we build a
lot of components there
bespoke bill for, for our
specification.
And the MG UK is that's
the hybrid assist motor
from a F one car or like
in motor generator unit
kinetic WC. Yeah.
Yeah. Yeah.
The whole idea basically
is electric makes it
easier to maintain. It
makes it cheaper and
make sure that that
the playing field is
leveled. Right. So everybody
has the same power. And if
the parents complain
afterwards, we can show
them that they have the same
power. Yeah. Or just
throw them in another, you
know, well, okay.
And I mean, and one, one
more thing, maybe the
cards or the card still
behaves like a combustion
card. So we, the power
curve is basically similar
to, to a combustion car
because otherwise you
could kind of like, say
that if you go from an
electric car to like
combustion car racing
after what, what, what
it's kind of the idea
of the whole thing, right
is to end up in formula
one at some point, then
maybe you haven't really
learned driving properly
if you can cheat your way
out of corners.
Is there a single single
single? No, no, no. They're
just the single single
speed. Yeah. Okay. Well,
then there's that right
because you're not, you're
not teaching kids to
no, but, but even, even
like the, the incumbent
system doesn't do that.
There are shifter cuts, but
like, you don't, you
don't do that until you
get in a car, but
nobody's shifting any
more these days, right?
People are getting like,
two pedals, right.
And then, and then, and
not that I would know
anything about this.
What, what, what's the
power? Like, what do you,
what do you tell people
the output or, and then
it's a bad, the battery's
on board. How long can they
go? Like what, what's a,
what's a race distance?
So, so the biggest one
is around about 12, 13
kilowatts of power.
Like all up the cart
will be like, with the
kid in it will be like
160 kilograms.
So that's like 20 horsepower
and 340 pounds.
I wouldn't have been able to
do that.
We wouldn't have wasted the
rest of the hour.
I've spent so much money
doing a period of metric
conversion.
Anyway, power to weight
ratio is really high.
You know, you can't just
like, you know, you're not,
you know, flat everywhere
with that type of power and
that type of weight.
They're fast.
They're fast.
And then last like
25 minutes, something
like that.
We built the battery to last
like 25 hours, 25 minutes,
sorry.
But, but we never really
get anywhere near like
depleting the battery all
the way anyway, because
of the way that we run the
event, like the three
categories are constantly
out on track at different
times. So when, when one
category is out, the other
one's in charging and the
kids are away.
I think quick charging
is how do you charge them
with the track?
We built our own charging
system.
So we built that from the
ground up and we just
plug it in.
And we set all that up.
So each, each, each circuit
that we go to, it's like a
roaming championship.
Right.
We go there, we set up,
we set up like the pit
lane, we set up the like
all of the baby formula
one, like a baby formula
one, and we put all the
charging out and the, the
cars roll in and roll out.
How, how, just how quick
to charge? How, how, how
long does it take?
Well, I mean, you can
like for, for your more
nerdy.
Yeah.
Nerds.
Yeah.
For your.
We have a couple of nerds
that live.
So, so, so we, we charge,
we charge, charge it around
about, we can charge it
around about like
three, four C something
like that.
So we can charge.
We could charge if we
wanted to in about
20 minutes.
We're currently developing
a battery that we can
charge in two minutes.
Yeah.
We wouldn't do that because
you don't need to, right?
What's the point?
Yeah.
Well, the carts are out on
track and like the other
other categories are out
on track running.
So you just charge to
that, to that window,
but we can really do what
we want.
Like we're not limited
by.
So you don't pull the,
it's not like a pull
the battery out.
No, no, no.
I'm, I'm, I'm a bit
of a like when it comes
to that type of stuff,
I'm, I'm, I'm a purist
because I'm like, okay,
if you can have
removable batteries,
you can have sliding
seats, you can have like
are all like movable
by the drivers,
you know, like in a,
in a leisure cart,
but that's not a racing car.
That's, you're adding
mass and you're adding
compliance to the vehicle.
Okay.
And if you had compliance,
like the one thing that
you need out of a racing
car is stiffness and,
and, and like a complete
lack of compliance so that
the driver can feel
the tires through his
the, yeah.
Buttocks.
Buttocks.
There's a few times that
like they have to be a
racing car.
What's, what's the
big difference between
like what, like a
typical indoor track would
have and what the
car, an electric car from
K1 and one of yours.
What would be the big
what would be the big
differences?
Mass.
So ours would be much
lighter.
The chassis would be
much more flexible.
So like you start to drive
it like, don't forget
that like a cart is
like a single axle.
Yeah.
It's like, so it's kind
of like having a spool
diff in the, in the car.
So it's a fixed
solid axle at the rear.
So the only way you
can get it to go
around the corner at
high speed is that
you're going to lift
one of the wheels up
at the back.
So you're going to
have a very flexible
brake.
We design all of the
chassis and all of like
the vehicle dynamics.
We've got like full
simulation tools where
that's all been designed
in so that the car
will go around the
corner really quick.
So the difference is
that these are much
lighter.
They handle like,
like almost like a
racing car.
They handle the same
in a racing car where
you break on top of
the corner.
You turn very,
very late and
acceleration and power
is a completely
different ballgame.
You couldn't put
our carts in an
indoor track.
It would just be
broken kids in like
the first hour.
Okay.
Which is fun, but
it's not legal.
Yeah.
It's a neighbor's kids.
I've seen the pictures
on the site,
but now that we're
talking technical,
where does,
like where's the
MG UK and the battery
relative to the
driver?
Is it the side
and back or?
So like if you take
the biggest and
heaviest one,
which is like the
20 horsepower one,
we put like the motor
and the,
we put the motor
and a single
battery,
a single like
one kilowatt hour
pack on the,
on the right hand side.
And then we put
two,
two other
single kilowatt hour
packs.
So it's like modular
on the left hand side.
And then that kind of
like balances.
We played about
with it in simulation
and did lots of
calculations to get
like the balance
like really, really nice
so that the things
like, you know,
it doesn't go around
the court like a
right hand corner
different to what it
goes around the left
hand corner.
We did a lot of
NASCAR.
Like to go around.
Yeah.
Both directions.
Okay.
Now I'm going to put
I'm going to put my word.
What do you know about
Europe?
I'm not anymore.
I'm going to put
my concerned parent
head on and say,
well,
I've heard all these
things about
Tesla's
catching fire
or the cell phones
and the
the batteries
and the cell phones
exploding.
You expect me to put
my kid in between
two of these big
batteries.
How dare you like
small batteries?
Yeah,
they're bigger than the
battery in this
bigger than that one.
Yes.
Yeah.
So I mean,
what we what we've
been very like,
you know,
even in formula one
when you think about
what is the principle
parameter that
you are designing for
you're in racing,
you're always
designing for safety.
Right.
And this may sound
weird to people
like kind of a watch
formula one,
but I've never been
on the inside,
but you're
the number one thing
that you're always
designing for is safety.
You do safety.
You do legality.
You do reliability.
And then you do performance.
And if you always
have that hat on,
like from a design
point of view or an
operational point of view,
you're going to make sure
that you're never in a
situation that you regret.
So one of the things
that we have designed
is like a battery
monitoring system,
which,
which connects via can.
If there's any of the
eeks out there,
network canvas.
Yes.
Yeah.
So we connect
through can protocol
into the battery
management system
and also into
the ECU.
So we can monitor
all of these things.
So if we start to see
any kind of like
temperature increase,
which is outside of the norm,
the system,
no device,
the engineers,
there's the smart
alarms that tell us
what's going on.
And then
at that point
when we see that
we're going to get
thermal runaway
just to debunk
another myth.
It usually takes around
around about nine hours
before it sets on fire.
So you can actually
put it in the back
of your car,
drive up to Scotland,
throw it in the sea,
and it would just be
on fire.
This is another clue.
You know,
Rob's a real engineer.
He used thermal runaway
instead of saying
fire.
So there you go.
Okay.
So you can tell
he's English.
All right.
So real quick,
real quick,
I looked it up.
I did the math,
I should say.
So it's about
60 and 17 horsepower
and 352 pounds.
Okay.
160 kilograms.
Still,
still hell of a
power to weight ratio.
Yeah.
Okay.
So I can tell
pretty advanced telemetry.
You can see
what each kiddo
in the car is doing
around the track
at any given time.
So they can come back
and look at their
cornering speed
or their racing line.
And is that part
of the learning
and the training?
So,
so this is
very mentioned
it before.
This is,
this is a real
differentiator
for our league
is when we sat down
and we thought about
like scaling this,
right?
The ambition is
that we want to scale
it into 50 different
countries, right?
Now,
so that means that
so,
so 50 different places
around the world
in the next five years.
Well,
right?
So that's going to,
if we're going to have
the traditional method
of scouting,
like I go in
and standing on
the side of the fence,
that's going to keep
me and Ferdy really
busy at weekends.
Now he has
like a playboy lifestyle.
Right.
Like,
I don't want to
eat the fear.
You got to maintain
that.
Yeah.
It's good.
It says the man who spent
like 25 years
and from the one.
No,
but in like,
like jokes aside,
so we need to have
a data-driven
like system
where we're actually
identifying the kids.
So we've designed like
an electronics box.
It's still in early stage
like development is
but like through,
like having an RFID
like wristband on,
on the kid,
they tap into the cart.
We know which kid
in which cart
in which session
in which country
on which track.
We know all of that,
right?
Wow.
And then we start
to drag the data off.
We put that in the cloud.
We're using exactly
the same type of analytics
and simulation
because we built all of
that internally
that we would have done
in Formula One to make
like the driver go faster
but we're using it now
for a completely different
purpose.
So using all of that
methodologies,
we're already getting
data on the kids
that we understand
what they're doing.
We're going to make
that much more granular
next year as we go
to the next generation
of this like electronics
box.
And then the next output
is we want to start
outputting straight to
the kids as well.
So we want to put it
on an app on their phone
which says to them
in this particular corner
you break too early,
you break too late,
you turn in too late,
whatever it is,
and you start
to give them that feedback.
And you can also show
them where they are
in the world, right?
Yeah.
Like you are
at the top 10%
of all of the kids
driving car.
And then they can like
So this sounds like
you got the business
of bringing democratizing
carting to the masses
expanding into 50 countries.
But then you also have
this maybe future
perhaps bigger program
which is driver development
like identifying
top talent and then
maybe you can be
their entryway
Fat athletes.
Yeah.
Yeah.
No, the whole
fat drivers.
No, I mean the whole
so basically now
we've we've developed
a system for 5 to 17
right and then
what do you do?
Right.
Basically that's
then you hit
another ceiling right
because F4 is usually
what you would do next.
Right.
That's around a million
dollars or euros
even then F3
2 million per season.
Right.
F2 which is right underneath
formula one and F3 and F2
you already follow
the F1 calendar
which already kind of
makes it more expensive
etc.
That's what F2 is
5 million or season
something like this.
So it's it just
becomes crazy expensive
again.
Right.
So we decided
sponsors of that
I mean right.
I mean yeah
you might have
sponsors at that
but but sometimes
you as the kid are
required to get
your own sponsors.
Sure.
And I mean
think of football for
like a sponsor
would just be additional money
for you if you're
I don't know
if you're
a cool guy
or whatever if you're doing
if you're doing great
then you should get
additional sponsorship.
That's fine.
But your talent
still gets you in the
into the first league
for example.
Right.
Which in motorsport
it doesn't at this point
right.
Yeah.
It's crazy.
So what we're doing
and what we're launching
this weekend
or showing the world
for the first time
is our own F4 car.
So we're
we're closing the loop
so over the next years
and then the winners
of karting league
will
will feed
will feed this
sort of fat
is this your design
is a four car.
No no no
we're just going to
like end the cars
into the current system.
Got it.
We will do like
you know
we will on like
this this massive team
of like
eight F4 cars
three cars
two F2 cars
but delivery is our
design.
Yeah.
And they're your
drivers.
It's basically
it's drivers that
through your through the
they can only come up
through the system.
Yeah.
We've got like this
this system called
like fat points as well.
So if you come in at
like five years old
you're collecting like
your fat points
all the way
to like your age
appropriate like 15
16 you get to the
world final.
If you're good enough
like we'll select you
to go into a shoot
out.
So like next year
for everyone
already mentioned
the the world final
that we'll do
in Willow Springs
on December the 14th
come to an open event
to support the kids.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Definitely.
And there from
the from the top junior
category we will choose
the best four drivers
and then we'll put them
into a week long shoot
out in
UK in the south of Spain
on next February
from there
January.
Okay.
January.
Yeah.
January.
He's the
he's the date.
Yeah.
Yeah.
So that's exciting though.
That's
super cool.
I mean that would have
made them into
simulators
cards
the F4 car.
Yeah.
We're doing press
trainings with them.
Like we're really
like trying to figure out
from the four kids
that made it
made it to that
to that point
who will be the fastest.
So many questions.
Yeah.
Okay.
And how long have you
guys been running
this program
sort of fat
carding in the U.S.
This is the first year.
So we open.
Yeah.
The second hub
was
Indy and like
Chicago area
that's cute.
That's cute too.
That is cute too.
It's like the half fourth thing.
Yeah.
It's so of an idea.
And then
Southern California hub
we launched in
August.
So we're
fairly new in the
in the U.S.
What
what's the talent
like in the U.S.
and feel free to break our hearts.
Like I know that
U.K.
is probably
a lot more history
and around
carding.
Yeah.
But so far maybe
one general thing
the cool thing
about carding league
also which is very
what it already exists already is
we have 40 percent girls
or 37 percent girls.
Yeah.
Which is cool
because actually
like it's one of those
few sports that boys
and girls physiologically can
both compete at
and be good at.
I mean I was just
I was just reading
you know like f1
fans right now
the fastest growing
segment is women
ages like 14
32 or something
No sorry
14 to 24.
Yeah.
It's like it's
really rapidly growing.
Yeah.
So that's great.
How are the kids in
U.S. fast right?
Yeah.
the on the same track which is why we come together in a world final like we
kind of have a decent idea of where they all rank now but we need to get them on
the same track which we'll do in Willow Springs and then and then we'll see
where that comes out so so the way it will work actually is that there's two
like junior categories two weight categories and so we will pick so the
the person who wins the whole event it's not just a final let's say you
know they've got to win the whole event over the three days so we'll
pick one from it so they will self-select from from from each category and
then and then Ferdy and I and you know another group of people get to pick
two wild cards as well oh we kind of see that okay maybe this guy didn't have
like such a great world final sure but we think that you know the town looking
at the data we over the over the full season we see that there's some
talent so you think I mean America you guys have set up two regions now
here it's we have a large population that likes a certain genre of motor
sports that carding doesn't normally align with which is nascar well I know
but so you feel like this this marketplace though is a is hugely
untapped I think for one for one carting is kind of the can be the base to any
sport like to any motorsport right can be rallying can be Indy car can be
NASCAR whatever right the junior sport is always carting in a sense so that's
that's for one second I think the US is like a fast-growing market in terms
of formula one specifically but also motorsport in general it's a huge
country as you said well yeah Indy viewership is also like best year ever
so far yeah 2025 and I know like like this year Kota the F1 race or 24 was
like 430,000 people showed up and the year before it's 440 so yeah it's
like it's the biggest rate F1 race by far yeah yeah yeah okay so let me throw
some stones at this though okay so first of all throw back though we got K1
speed here it's we've got one in Torrance like I can go there it's pretty
democratized I can throw it got my kid can go in there they're pretty fast
there's a leaderboard like nice you okay so you guys just totally poo poo
though that's that leisure stuff has no business there's nothing there's no
no no kid who does well at K1 could ever hope to achieve no I wouldn't
say that no I think like you can do all sorts of carting right you can also you
can also just drive around like I mean it's not it's not like there's only us
and then there is the 150k solution to carting right there's many but I think
we're unique in a sense that we are a merit-based system that will make it
very easy for you to come to be a part of it of it and if you're fast
we'll find you will spot you and then we have the ladder also right
we'll bring it into F4, F3, F2 yeah K1's not bringing you to F4 you know
I don't even know like they could right then we were just competing I don't think
they are they're just a business and it's different I think like what K1 are
doing is great right you know that so fun but it's a different area of the
market they have pizza yeah and it's the same you know like the the guys in
the UK who have a really big footprint there you know like we're like we're
good partners with them right team sport we kind of help them we want
to see their kids come out they they're big fans of hours because you know they
get kids that you know they come in and they they will start on the indoor stuff
which is slower heavier all the stuff that we've just talked about but that's
fine because these carts have to last a lifetime right you know it's $40 per
half an hour or something like that the problem is then what do the kids
do get to the top of that where do they go so for people like you know
K1 for people like team sport where do you guide someone when you're
spending like you know hundred hundred fifty dollars a month and the next step
is like you know ten grand a month it's like yeah something in the middle right
so so they like us because we offer like a throughput to their their better
drivers you know I think it's we're just we're differentiated we just we
filled the hole in the market that was there very well I would say and also
I mean it's a sport that 1.6 billion people watch right and it's constantly
growing so I think there is there's enough for there's enough space for
everybody I think and then at this point becomes a question if you want to
drive a Porsche or something else my second question then is when you talk
about it's a Ferrari when you talk about racing and kids where do where do
video games what is sim racing come into this is it is it additive yeah like
can you can that I mean my kids great on Mike he's great in Gran Turismo
does he have any hope does it translate to to this I think it does
actually I mean one it gives you like yeah I think it's a similar story to
what raptor said to letter carding anything that you that you do in this sport
and that were you like if you're good at I mean it's the same features in the
sense right also in in in sim racing I don't think sim racing alone will get
you or necessarily will get you in like into a proper racing career I think you
do need some seat time in the in the end also sure but it's a great like
way to enter also and I think at some point like when when when this really
works maybe sim racing becomes a sort of qualifier because we won't have
enough seats in all the in all the hubs so that's how we think about sim racing
right at some point maybe it becomes a sort of qualifier and I'm just here so
you say within five years you want to have 50 markets yeah hubs I mean so you're
gonna be this is a full-time job you're just gonna be open in marker hubs like
I mean it's fun and and to I think that the whole system like this really
becomes proper the more talent we have right and to the more like the more
places we bring this to the more diversity the more fun the more the more
different people like the more data we will collect about the kids and who's
fast can you tell us your next year your next us up can we can we yes we
can yeah so the next one is Texas yeah that's yeah so like Austin Houston or like
the whole so we'll be up in Fort Worth Dallas Fort Worth as far down as Austin
yeah get down to Austin come on like I love LA but Austin's so cool yeah
right there yeah it's a good facility I think it like over the next years the
US can or will probably have something like 10 hubs holy moly for us
it's a big country and also we can maybe like have hubs that kind of
travel right so they spend some time in the winter there for the south and the
summer there further up so I think there's also one you'd go to Portugal and
Spain and there's no not like this but I think in the in the dark region I think
we can also like even in winter time you can like it's okay to kind of keep
it there okay so that will for sure get a hub northern Italy we want to
get a hub to Spain France Portugal yeah so China yes yeah yeah yeah if this is
going to be global we've got to be in China we've got to be in Africa and we're
already in advanced talks about about going to Africa Kenya and we're going to
be we've got to be in India right you got to be in those three places yeah
lots of population you know like talent is everywhere opportunity isn't so we're
creating the opportunity nice okay that's great that's super cool okay let's take
it down to brass tacks okay we're in a cat we're in your third hub John your
son's eight he's eight and he's loves K1 and he wanted to sign up for the league
and I was like there's this fat thing happening okay my kid is he's gonna
actually turn five next Friday nice I looked at your I looked at your minimum
requirements he is just over the he's about 43 inches tall that's 110
centimeters and he he actually might not be 40 21 kilos yet but let's say
he is give him a couple protein shit I wish how does it work so is there event
tomorrow is that correct yeah okay so let's say around the willow reimagined
opening thingy there's okay our carting league is already in willow and if there
was I didn't check to see if it was if I could sign him up for that but let's
say I did I would show up with I could show up with him if he was if he was
six years old a mature the 43 inches tall and 46 pound limits yeah and he has
zero experience perfect okay so so we built a program which we call ready to
race driver training essentially okay and that over a series of I mean you can
basically do everything in one weekend it's a series of like three to four
half days so if you wanted to you could just do everything in one one
weekend we'll take you from never having sat in a car before to be ready to race so
it's a fairly imaginative title right the program so that was British
basically so you start on like you go through these three levels so we'd
start them on level one the beauty about the electric drivetrain is that we can
turn it right down to almost walking pace because the worst thing you can do
with a six-year-old is put them in something that is doing like at full
speed the little cars will do like 25 mile an hour yeah right that's really
really fast for a tiny kid that's never sat in anything before so we
kind of turn it down to like walking speed we've got a whole coaching
system and like a ten point plan for each of these different levels and we
just walk the kids through them and we bring them on in a really safe way that
they're super confident by the end of it they'll then graduate to level two they'll
go to level two for half a day and then they'll graduate to level three and all
the time we're increasing the power we're asking more of them we're teaching
them more skills by the end of it they're ready to race and then you just
buy a season pass and you enter into the championship it is so simple and all
the safety equipment for that even from the very beginning the helmet the suit
and the neck protector is available but you need to buy a
re-protector something or so what happens is when you come to us because so when
you come to us for the first time and I'm now assuming that you're going to be a
new customer maybe not to maybe not to have got the contract with me
December are you doing it at December in the at the finals yeah okay now we're
doing a ready to race no no the finals is literally just the finals
but the hub is here so yeah so when you first come to us in the ready to
race program we supply all the the PPE we supply the helmet and the suit because
we've got a pool of this stuff yeah when you grow so yeah yeah and the other
thing is like what we recognize you know we wanted to do it like that because
maybe comes down he doesn't like it right and then you've just dropped like
yes you know maybe $500 on suit and helmet and all the rest of it so but
once you get in so we have a pool of stuff for like our our driver training
program once you're going to do the the racing then the parents would would
buy their their own equipment so that's that's the only capital outlay
that that we we require okay very cool and then I have a question how do you
know my my kid early early reader can't get him to ride a pedal bicycle he's
not so pretty shit on the scooter like I don't have one day he's gonna see this
and he's gonna be like that you know what my kid was never great on any of that
put him on a cart and like he just loved it and like he he was in some race
with like there's like eight kids and he was somehow leading and then his cart
ran out of battery and he like laid down on the couch at K1 and cried for it
was inconsolable for a half hour and I'm like the battery died it's not your fault
mechanical it happens to the best drivers and he just couldn't do is there any
are there any clues when kids are so young about having the coordination or
the skill to being a driver any tip off kind of I mean it's all about
hand-eye coordination right you know it's all about what they can feel like
whether or not you see you see the kids who pick up like they start getting the
right lines you know we'll teach them the right lines but at five six it's not so
hard not so easy to comprehend but you start seeing it straight away you start
seeing the drivers who can drive okay you know I think it's that there are
signs but then all kids you know it's like it's like football so when I was
soccer soccer sorry soccer we'll be getting a cheeky
so it's like football so when I was very young I was actually a very very good
football player very hard to believe I'm maybe exaggerate no but I was I was a
decent player and I used to play at a very high level and then what happened
was penalty sucks yeah but then obviously like I stopped growing especially in
terms of like you know how bulky I was other kids like developed skills like
better than me and you end up like being fairly mediocre right I think that
happens in like in all sports sure and and so I think if you take your kid and
they're not very good at it you know maybe they're going to develop and we're
trying to work all this out as well like we use like a lot of artificial
intelligence to try to say like you know at very early stage you know the talent
ID system that we talked about a very early stage if a kid sat in the car
for you know an hour two hours three hours we can start to see trends and
we can start to see like are they like way above the median and are they
going to track way above the median and that like tells us like okay we've
got a there's a big alarm that goes off back in the Oxford studio in Vienna and
says right he's awesome get first refused so let me just review a couple things and
this this episode is going to come out after the October 11th sessions go on yeah
but for those of you who listen listen or in California or know about Will
Springs International Raceway up in Rosamond we should mention they've
complete I mean that is they went from like a real sketchy go-kart track to
like it looks like the best one in the world right now I mean I saw super I
saw James Palmfrey showed me like a drone shot he's filming a movie out
there with Sun Kang and I was like that's that's a carting track like
that's it's it's got runoff and it's colorful will have got a glow-up as a
kid say it looks beautiful the practice session that we talked about
starts tickets start from $384 per the website for tomorrow and then if you do
any of these the the regional round one practice is $420 and then if you go up
and you're in the regional championship or the pro championship this is the
season pass starts at 3,145 bucks that's all sounds pretty reasonable yeah
especially if like your kid plays hockey or something crazy where you got to
buy pads and helmets and gear every year I bought a tennis racket yeah tremendous
it's all your money do the prices I was gonna check the Midwest are they do
they vary by by hub or no they only because of the amount of races that you
can do so like in the Midwest this year we're doing like we were doing like
more races we had to come started earlier yeah because we started early
we started in April where we had to compress like a little bit so there's
a few races so it's kind of just program they're the amount of time the weather
dependent and they vary in the UK to the US they vary little bit so speaking of
weather I was wondering if we could change the topic here for a second you're
going to Montana yes yeah so the fat ice race in Montana yes so I am I
mean ice race kind of originally comes from Austria right that's where we it's
an historic event that we revive Zellemzi in 2019 for the first time
but that doesn't mean it can only be in Vienna right when we always over the last
years also saw like a huge increase of of Americans coming and like this is
such a cool sort of motorsport savvy or like car culture country especially LA
especially car week there's so many like I have a ton of friends here yes I
figured why not why not try and bring it here and so Big Sky Montana end of
February yeah yeah but Montana usually has snow I think it's probably more of a
risk for snow because we're not super high up right I think Montana has a high
up be it's rather cold and we don't need much snow right we need we need like
cold temperatures and then we can create the ice it's all frozen I mean it's
frozen lake racing it's not on a lake that's not allowed anymore at least
in Europe it wouldn't be in in Montana we didn't find a lake so it's next
to a golf course okay really nice setting and Big Sky so that's what an hour
from Bozeman I guess five minutes is it a one day or two days two days two days
two different to Austria two days okay lots of parties around it yeah as I
said fun over speed yeah less cars just because we don't have that much
space so 50 to 60 cars something so really trying to curate a crazy
collection of cars something you usually wouldn't see okay all
exotics vintage exotics it's everything so in in cell for example we had
everything from like you know this Eastern German Traby things all the way to
like an F1 car and Max for stop and driving it so that's kind of the idea
last time we had the event in the US in Aspen and we had a GT1 the Le Mans
winning car driver nice but we also had like a BMW 2002 so it's literally
like the whole idea is to to display or like to show the car world
basically like what's yeah so the one that blew me away when I was there with a
little Audi s1s and they like were just like straight piped they were spitting
fire they were just the coolest things but then like you know there was like
Beatles and you know the the Grenadier pickup truck like jacked up whatever it's
called the I was gonna make a joke master California we have all these
Montana play did yeah it's all great that weekend all those cars I'm trying to get
I'm trying to get two of I think one might have a Montana play but I got some
cool cars you'll meet him tomorrow my buddies nice yeah you should come guys
I think it's gonna be it's gonna be a mega event and also I'm there kind of
first time at a new location second time in the US and yeah so fat's got
the carting league you got the ice racing you'd get this driver
development f4 racing fat racing yeah we got a coffee place on Grossglockner which
is the highest mountain Austria and one of the best driving roads ever such a
good road you do like four or five big events a year it's only open in
summertime but you can always like rock up and private jet program or
something we don't have a private jet program clothing clothing yeah we do some
collapse so we do so basically the whole idea or what I always I think
everybody right like if you look at what racing looked like in the 80s or 90s or
70 everything was like better designed more attention to detail there was a
graphic designer who once looked at this before it was printed like people just
took more care of all that stuff and like we try to bring that like quality
back to do with fat because racing wasn't a billion dollars a season like
F1 is now or whatever it actually cause you had like one sponsor and so the
cars are beautiful you know like and and now there's like you know 80,000
sponsors and everywhere there's a GoPro there's like you know gotta have five
logos and it just looks a mess yeah look shit yeah right I mean that's yeah
that's because I remember at at a wrench port you brought the or you got
proper you were driving was that 962 yeah with the fat international on it
and it was like it's the white car with one logo and it was it just stood
out in like a sea of Porsches somehow this one was like God that's cool yeah I
mean like think about like the McLaren's of the like oh yeah Senna Prost McLaren's
like the 808 I mean they were so beautiful yes yeah Porsche engine they
would at least the early ones the early ones yeah yeah yeah but then but then like
even the the ones with the Honda engine I'm allowed to say that yes you
that's kind of like we we both love that you know and like even like when I like
started in Formula 1 like they're not like that things were just so simple I
don't want to look at it when did you start what year 97 okay 1897
just we got we I would I would I thought we would spend it like 30 minutes just
talking to Rob about his his career as a race engineer supporting drivers like
Felipe Massa including through the era where he had that the spring hit him in
the face but we're out of time so we're gonna have to have you guys back
on probably somewhere between the 40th and 50th hub launch whenever it opens
just to get an update on how this is yeah I like that but this has been super
awesome the site the best place for more information right is fat dash
carding league comm that's FAT hyphen carding with a K league comm and you
can see the California events the UK events everything one place by tickets
where's the merch I want to get some merch that's that's FAT hyphen
international dot com FAT international for the cool swag and it's been super
awesome to have you on we got you out of here at half 5
legends thank you I need a shower maybe you have five it's half four so for 30
please it's half way to five people yeah four thirty yeah it's half five it's not
half five it's half way to five o'clock we would like in Germany in Germany would
also be half five I know but like because that's logical not logical they
just say have four they also drive on the wrong side of the road so I don't
turn 50 I've never heard anybody say half five is is anything half past four so
half past four yes that's what half way to four no how can you never agree
you just like you know whatever it's just all the things whatever it says to me
half whatever I look at my watch I go do you mean for 30 they go yes I go great
forest this is the first time in the 33 years I've been on the planet I've
ever heard this utter confusion and nonsense welcome to Los Angeles
two great people separated by a common language kippling I think alright thanks
for coming on it's awesome chatting guys and best of luck this sounds amazing
it's not my kid up for this what my wife thinks
About this episode
Ferdy Porsche and Rob Smedley discuss the launch of the FAT Karting League, aimed at making karting more accessible and affordable for kids aspiring to race. They highlight the exorbitant costs of traditional karting paths, often exceeding a million dollars, and how their league offers a competitive alternative for around $5,000 per season. The conversation covers the league's structure, including tryouts, season passes, and a focus on data-driven performance analysis for young drivers. With plans to expand into 50 countries, they emphasize creating opportunities for diverse talent in motorsport.
Original notes
In Episode 118 of The InEVitable, MotorTrend hosts Ed Loh and Jonny Lieberman sit down with two racing powerhouses β Ferdi Porsche, great-grandson of Ferdinand Porsche, and Rob Smedley, former Ferrari race engineer to Felipe Massa β to talk about FAT Karting League, a bold effort to democratize motorsport. Karting has always been the entry point for Formula 1 hopefuls β but at costs reaching over $1.5 million for families, the dream has been out of reach for most kids. FAT Karting aims to change that with arrive-and-drive electric karts, fixed budgets, data-driven coaching, and a truly merit-based system that makes motorsport accessible again. Ferdi and Rob explain how the league works, why theyβre bringing racing to new generations worldwide, and how their mission extends from karting to F4, F3, and beyond. They also share details about the upcoming FAT Ice Race in Montana, global expansion plans, and why fun over speed might just be the future of car culture.
Guests:
Ferdi Porsche, Founder, FAT International / FAT Karting League
Rob Smedley, Co-founder & CEO, FAT Karting League; former Ferrari F1 Race Engineer
Hosts:
Ed Loh & Jonny Lieberman | MotorTrend
π Recorded in Los Angeles π
More info: fat-karting-league.com | fat-international.com
The InEVitable
MotorTrend
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