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This is off track.
Blue Jays bro. Holy crap dude. How about that?
How about that? Here's what I've always said about
baseball and basketball back home is because we've got one team for the entire country, it really does unite the country in a very cool way.
And like hockey fractures, Canada baseball and basketball bring it all together.
And like you'll be traveling out in Vancouver or something in Western Canada and you'll see somebody with a JS a, you'll be like, oh my God, why does he have a Js a?
Oh, right. 'cause that's all we have.
That's literally the only baseball team in the country. Do,
Do you wanna know what blows in my mind is the, the Raptors have been good off and on for the better part of a decade.
Um, the Blue Jays have been good off and on for a while.
Um, and Toronto with, its with, it's the way the tax situation is set up, it's very hard to get athletes to come play for Toronto.
Sure. Is just because it sure is.
You're paying a lot more in taxes as an athlete to live in Toronto than you would be if you played in Chicago or Detroit or whatever, and Miami.
Right. Any of the 50 states, um,
that have an California FBA or well sure.
MLB team. Um, and yet they're still able to attract some
of the best players in the world to come play there.
So that just goes to show how good those organizations must be from like a management standpoint, because people are willing to make a substantially less money to play for these teams.
So the quality of of life must be pretty good for them to make that decision. Yeah,
Yeah, for sure.
It's a great point. And I think that it also kind
of forces the teams to be a little bit more aggressive maybe on finding young talent and bringing them up.
Mm. Right. And taking risks on guys to, to nurture them into
what becomes stars.
We definitely have seen that a lot with the Raptors.
We're like, we'll get these good players and then people will be like, oh, they're really good.
We'll take them. You know, . Yeah, for sure. For sure.
So it's, it's been a stepping stone kind of place, uh, in some ways.
But No, it's, it's a great point.
And like, it's the same in hockey. I know.
You've got more options.
There's six teams up there, so it's, it's a different conversation.
But like, if you're being asked to go play for the Panthers or the Leafs and they're both good, you're like, yeah, but I could have no state income tax in Florida.
That sounds cool. Mm-hmm .
So, yeah, there's, I think part of what it is, is those teams have such a support system behind them and such a fan base and playing for them, like mean something in a, in a different way.
Uh, I think that helps kind of bridge that gap too and, and make that happen.
But anyway, yeah. Series tied up at two, that game
that went 18 innings ridiculous.
Didn't watch So glad didn't watch.
I didn't stay, I didn't stay up for it. I couldn't. But
What's funny is everyone, everyone was like, oh, the, uh, this, that was the death sentence for, for, for the Jays because, you know, 18 innings, they're not as deep as the Dodgers.
They're gonna be tired. All this sort of thing.
First of all, first of all, these are professional athletes, right?
And aside from the pitcher and aside from Tani who was on base like nine times, it's a lot of, it's a lot of standing.
Like I know it's, you're, you're always on alert and you're always having to be ready because you never know when a ball's coming your way and you gotta make a huge play sort of thing.
So it's, it's a very anxious and stressful situation, but it's not that taxing on your body.
So like, when everyone was like, oh, they're screwed 'cause 'cause they're not gonna be able to do it.
It's like, well, no. First of all,
they're, they're pretty fit.
Second of all, they're in a must win situation. Mm-hmm.
Um, and they're pretty good at baseball.
And, and, and also like, you got potentially the hottest batter in the league right now with, uh, with uh, flat, what's his face?
Flatty. So it's
No idea.
Game idea. You care about baseball. I
Canadian, I, no, I care about things when it's the World Series, the Stanley Cup.
When it's the masters, I don't give a fuck about regular season baseball.
Couldn't care less. Right.
I don't about the Dodgers or the Blue Jays, but what I love is, I love seeing the two best compete in a Best of Seven series.
Yeah. On a Tuesday night. Like, what more could you ask for?
Right. What else has happened on a Tuesday night?
Exactly. Yeah. Um,
Um, I, I'll tell you what blew my mind.
I didn't know people from Toronto were called Torontonians.
How did you not know that?
What did you say they were called?
I didn't, I I've never given any thought, but he just said Toronto winds or whatever.
So I was like, oh, I wonder what that is.
And I looked it up and it's Torontonians and that just sounds my up.
You could have, I'm sorry, you guys call yourselves Angelenos.
Well first of all, I'm a Hoosier.
You know what I mean? , I mean,
arguably more stupid. Yeah.
You Know why ourselves, Hoosiers, we don't Just do we.
Exactly. Because literally nobody knows
why that that name Exists. Super. Yeah.
Anyway. Okay. Well you guys are both losing your
honorary Hoosier status. I
Feel like as long as I pay taxes here, I'm allowed to call myself a Hoosier.
Yeah. Yeah. So you don't actually,
I think you're losing your honest, that's fair. Hoosier status.
Apparently Hoosiers is an insult in Missouri.
Well, I think it started as a, there's a couple, we're not getting into the theories of Hosier and where it came from.
'cause there're, there's like three prevailing ones and they're all pretty obscure.
But yeah. One of 'em is not like super complimentary. Mm.
But I'll take it. Just, I
Mean, neither was Yankee, you know?
Yeah. I think that's, yeah, that's a good point.
Now there's a whole very successful organization built around that name. So
Anyways, let's not get into franchise naming 'cause that's a slippery slope. .
See, I wasn't even talking about the Yankees.
I was talking about the term Yankee, but that's No, yes, I know.
But I'm saying they've, they've taken it now and have made it anyway.
Um, so yeah.
Go Jays, hopefully that keeps going the right way.
At least we know that for sure.
It's going to a, at least a game six.
So we'll go back to Toronto. Yeah.
Which has made me like really think about maybe going home for 24 hours and, uh, I know a pilot If you need one. Do you have an
In?
I don't, I haven't. I'm sure there's a way.
I'm sure there's a way. I would just go buy tickets.
I gotta just go scalp tickets. I don't even care.
Just like being in that dome during what could be.
Like I went to one of the World Series games as a kid in 93.
We used to have season tickets to the Blue Jays.
And like my dad said, he was like, okay, you can go to game four and it's a guarantee that you'll get to see a game or you can hold out for one of the later games, but we might not make it.
And I was like, oh, well I'm gonna take the guarantee I want to see.
And sure enough, I should not have done that.
'cause we ended up making it and winning it.
But, um, I have been to World Series games at the, what was then skydome, which is now Ro Roger Center before.
And it brings back a lot of fun memories.
I was like texting my mom, uh, what not last night, one of the games before.
I just saying like, it's so cool.
Like, I'm, I'm into this again in a way that I haven't been probably since the last time they were in the World Series.
And it just bring back these cool memories from childhood.
So I would love to, I dunno if it's possible, but, Um, I, if, if I wasn't going to be in LA with our esteemed colleague Timothy, um, and watching Ponies run, I, I would definitely go with you, but, uh, that's A Bummer. Alas, I cannot
Can.
But I mean, your pony runs a lot of times a year.
Blue Jays are only in the World Series. My pony
Is not running at all.
My Pony's in New Orleans talked About.
So are you in California to watch On Tuesday?
It's breed's cup.
Are you just going as a horse fan or is there like some sort of Horse fan?
Cocktail fan. Okay. That fan. Okay. Food fan.
Got it. Yeah. Breeders Cup. All right.
Tim Fan.
I don't know if I'm gonna buy that one. I get it. I get
it. ,
What do you guys, how do you guys feel about Pears?
The fruit? Not like pro, generally. Pro.
EAR not a IR. Um,
Against Why, why are you against Pears?
I just don't like 'em. Do you like apples?
I do. So I mean, what do you like about apples
that you don't like about pears?
Well, apples are crunchy because I have a theory. Okay.
Apples are crunchy. Pears are
not, don't taste like an apple.
No, they taste better. That's what I'm getting at.
I'm pretty sure. I think the taste of a pea is better.
It is juicier. Mm.
It is more flavorful, but it's a <inaudible> mess.
I think pears have fallen below apples in the, like, commonality Fruit.
So it's less many than, it's less messy than like a pomegranate. Yeah. But also
Not a very popular fruit for just walking around and putting your lunch bag as a kid and like, you know, walk around.
I'll have an apple, you know?
Right. I mean, the ultimate fruit for travel is banana.
It's, It, you safe for Travel, self-contained.
But once you start it, you have to finish.
It's, you're, you put a Half, half, half half in your backpack on A plane.
That's fair. That's fair. But I'm thinking there's gotta be
something like a grape where you just have like multiple self-contained, small ones Grape in like a Tupperware, but then you'd have to have the Tupperware at the end.
Yeah. Right. That's where like you throw,
I was, you know, again, I was Thinking it's Definitely not as more The sanitary fact that you don't have to wash it.
Like Yeah. You just peel a banana
and you eat it and you're done. And it's,
And it's not messy.
There's no residue. It's not messy.
Yeah. It's great for you. No, it's
probably, it's a good shout.
Yeah. Yeah. Like, yeah. Which the
On which go fruit is a banana.
It's not my favorite fruit at all. I actually don't.
What's your favorite fruit? But I
love the convenience of it.
My favorite fruit is a sumo orange.
Okay. Yeah. What, what
Can't you just say orange?
Just like, why do you gotta be the way that you are? ,
Be less you, can you? Yeah. So
A sumo a sumo orange.
So check this out. So check this out. Is a Japanese guy, .
And Can I just, I just wanna interrupt because I wanna tell you why I hate this right now.
I'm gonna try this orange and I'm gonna be like, damnit, he's right.
Yeah. .
Well, here's what's gonna stop you.
It's like $4 75 an orange. So seems aggressive.
I'm willing to do one. It's a, it's a genetically,
so you know, those, you know those oranges that when you look at 'em in the store, they're the like really warty ones and you're like, what the <inaudible>, what the fuck is that?
Like why would I buy that?
Like, it's a, it's not a good looking orange.
Okay. Like, this skin's super thick
and it's got the point and all this sort. Yeah.
It's warty and stuff. Yeah.
Well this is a genetically modified citrus that a guy in Japan created.
And he was like, I love oranges, but I hate the, the randomness of an orange.
Like sometimes you have a great orange and then you grab another one and it's trash, it's dry, it's sour, it's not juicy.
All this sort of thing. And he was like,
I also don't like the little white stringy things on an orange because like mm-hmm .
You, you either eat it or you spend extra time peeling it, it gets on your fingers and it's a mess and whatever.
Right. And third, I don't like the seeds.
So he was like, I'm gonna create the perfect citrus.
So he created the sumo orange, which has none of the white stuff.
Every single one is bomb diggity and it's seedless.
So like you are getting the full orange experience without any of the bullshit a hundred percent of the time.
Okay. Okay. I'm for it. The
Genetically altered part.
I, I can't tell if I care about or not. I feel like I should
Counter, I Dunno what I do.
I don't know that, did you know lemons are not naturally occurring? We invented them
Actually.
Yeah, I did know that. Yeah. Okay. All right.
You're onto something there.
And this sort of thing is used in other areas of agriculture. Fine.
Yeah. We're not talking about like creating humans here.
Okay. So let me ask you this. It's alive.
Let's say you bought a normal orange and it was one of the ones that just happened to be good.
Like it's gonna have the white stringy things on it. Fine. Yeah, yeah,
Yeah. And
Seeds, but like, and seeds.
But it's just, it's just good. Mm-hmm .
Are you gonna say that that orange is better than any other fruit as well?
Because you just really love the taste of a good orange and sum?
Orange is just win because they're consistently good.
Right. Right. I would say, I would say it's really close
between that and like in cherries.
Oh, nice. Okay. I like that. But yeah,
I like that mean that it's probably a tie between those two.
But cherries are hard 'cause it, they're only good for like one or two months a year.
Right. Whereas again,
Well, they killed Zachary Taylor get It all the time. Is
That like a president or something?
Yeah. I don't know why I knew that. Um,
He died because he ate too many cherries and drank too much milk.
Yeah. I, yeah, we, we, we gathered.
Um, do you know the difference?
This was a con this is actually just reminds me of a conversation that came up in the, uh, production trailer at an IndyCar race with my beloved Fox colleagues.
Um, we were talking about favorite fruit and then Georgia actually was like, well, what's your favorite, like, casual fruit and your favorite non casuals fruit?
And I walked in and in this conversation I'm like, I'm, I'm sorry. Good
Answer.
No, good question. Peas for casual kiwi for not casual.
Wow. Okay. So you actually kind
of understand what she means by that.
Yeah. Because we went into a whole debate about
what classified a casual or a non casuals fruit.
What was, how did you, yeah, I don't understand.
How did you define?
You don't understand why there's a question. Yeah.
It just seems obvious to me.
'cause like, yeah, there's gonna be some fruits where it's gonna be a thing.
You're not gonna sit down and like casually have a kiwi because that's a process. Wild
Though, is but, but people eat kiwis through the skin.
Well, those people are psychopaths. That's
Well, I married to one.
Well, we need to end that .
Isn't it like a fuzzy, isn't it like fuzzy?
Why did, why didn't you tell us this earlier?
We need to extricate you from this situation as soon as Possible.
Blink. Blink twice if you're in trouble. .
No, I also, not all the time, but she can.
And apparently you can. It's apparently a thing.
And, but, but, so we kind of tried to define the difference between casual and non casuals.
Fruit was like, if you have to do anything to it to eat it, it becomes non casuals. So like, okay.
But no key a For example, but Like, you gotta peel a banana, you gotta peel an orange.
Right? But like, those are pretty cough.
You have to dehydrate a raisin, You know?
So I would not consider raisins a casual fruit under any circumstances whatsoever.
Really? Yeah. I barely consider them a fruit, but I don't,
I mean, they're not dehydrated, But isn't a grape of fruit.
Sure is. But, so would you classify
Like the, okay.
Would you classify, um, olives as a fruit? I hate
That they are, aren't they?
Yeah. But like, yeah, They're on
As and they're pit or Are they seeds?
No, they're fruits. Or they've got a pit.
They're fruit. Right? Yeah.
I hate that. It's like a, it's like a peach, but gross.
I mean, so essentially interesting.
Essentially a, a dirty martini's healthy, it's might as well. Well, yeah.
I think we've all known that it's a Fruit beverage.
Yeah. I'm having, I'm having a fruity beverage.
Yeah. Gin martini.
Um, um, but all alcohol's healthy or they wouldn't use it at hospitals.
You're not consuming it.
Yeah. You're, you're using your
alcohol in a different way than they are. Yeah. Yeah.
Yeah. They're using It's
Sterilize.
To which paraphrase?
New girl rubbing alcohol for my outside injuries, drinking alcohol for my inside injuries.
That is very depressing and sad, but accurate.
I was gonna say like, either, either, uh, pineapple or grapefruit would be my non casuals favorite fruit.
Grapefruit, eh, with or without sugar?
Without just bitter as, yeah.
What I like about grapefru Butterball, I don't like, Yeah, it's a mother, but it's, it's good.
It's, it's a pain. Grapefruit.
It's a little, it's a lot of work.
But what I like about them is you eat.
So I, you know, you split it in half and I like cut out all the little squares.
Mm-hmm . And I eat it with a spoon,
obviously. And that's delicious.
Yeah. And Then you can squeeze it into the bowl.
And then you get the juice too.
So it's almost like you get two meals outta it. Yeah. And then
You get two experiences.
Like if a bottle of tequila's next to you, you've got a cocktail.
It's a nice, it's a nice cocktail.
It's, it's a nice Paloma. It's
Called Paloma. Yeah. Yeah.
And um, so yeah, I'm, I think I'm, but, but, but I do love pineapple.
I do, but pineapple, I feel like you can get bad. Pineapple.
I haven't really had like a, a bad grapefruit. Grapefruit.
All free. Would you choose a for the work?
Would you choose a pineapple over a watermelon? Good Watermelon.
Good Watermelon is pretty good.
And not that much work compared to a pineapple.
I mean, arguably less.
I would, yeah, I would say it's less.
I'm saying it's, yeah. Compared, it's not as,
I mean, if you have a sharp knife, it's really no worth at all.
I don't love the seeds in a watermelon. I don't
Keep them. Well that's seedless.
I don't love. I know. So we're gonna go seedless.
That's a different conversation. Well,
Everything, if you can get anything seedless, you should get it.
Yeah, that's true. Especially Kiwis. I hate kiwi seeds.
Okay. Fun story. And then we need to move on, like pretty.
Yeah. So we are at the point in Ben's life,
we're introducing solids slowly.
Okay. And so number one was,
um, banana.
Right? That's like, I feel like the def defacto
Number barely solid. Yeah. For
First thing, right?
You mush it up and you give it to 'em. Hated it.
They were like, all right. What about avocado? Hated it.
Okay. This is, this is going well. I
Like brunch, Uh, peas.
Kids love mushed up. Peas hate it.
It good man. We want peas.
Fourth thing that he tried Kiwi. Yeah, love kiwi.
Oh yeah. Which is wild
because like, that's not, it's not like a No, That's a weird one.
Yeah. It's not like an an, uh,
a just a super forward facing. It's sweet. It's
Very flavorful.
Yeah. Yeah. It's just like a, I don't know.
And the seeds like, it's like sand weird. Okay.
You tell him that one day he can just eat 'em like an apple if he wants.
No, no. Do not tell him that.
Well, part of tell him he's, well, he's wondering Kicked outta the house if he does that part of me is wondering if like his aunt Becky ate a kiwi in front of him like that.
So that's why he thinks he likes Kiwi. He
Does have a low key crush on Aunt Becky.
So that might be maybe he's trying to her It Was though.
No, not anymore. . not as
of, not as of 12 minutes ago when he learned that she sometimes eats Kiwis through the skin.
Oh boy. We have something to talk about.
What happened as of 23 minutes ago, 20 time Indy 500 starter in 2006, Indy car, rookie of the year, Marco Andretti has announced his retirement from motor racing. Wow.
There you go. How did all three of us miss that?
I had No idea. I literally,
I literally went on racer right before we started recording just to like see if there was anything new and exciting.
And that must have been 24 minutes ago. . Yeah. Yeah.
Wow. Okay. Alright.
Hey, I honestly, congrats.
I'm, I'm, I am I'm happy that you two are both like Yeah, no, I'm glad none of us knew.
Congrats to Marco.
I think I, I don't think it's often talked about enough.
The challenge that he had despite some of the advantages that he had, the challenge that he had, because you know, there are, there are quite a few drivers, right.
Who are second generation mm-hmm .
And there's this, there's this expectation whether that be from the fan base or the family or the, the media or whatever that whatever accomplishments the older generation did, the younger generation should do, should at least match or do better than, and Marco not only had to deal with second generation, but he had to deal with third generation.
Yeah. And, and like tears generation
because of his uncles, you know?
Right. So despite the advantages
that he had in terms of coming up in a racing family and having the support of a grandfather and a father who were in the racing industry, like there's no free lunch.
And there are a lot of challenges that I'm sure he could speak to, um, about why in some ways that probably made his career harder than it should have been.
Yeah. Um, so I just, I think that he deserves a huge amount
of praise for, for a being a professional race car driver for the better part of two dec two decades plus.
Um, and also being able to go out on his own terms.
Like, that's, that's pretty cool.
That's very cool. And, and you're totally right.
I mean that's, uh, that is a, that is a double-edged sword if there ever was one.
And uh, yeah. He handled it, he handled it well.
All things considered. 'cause that's some pretty big shoes
to fill on the, uh, on the old edge ready family tree.
But like you say, I mean two decades in the sport, that's huge.
I, uh, yeah man, congratulations buddy.
He's now gets to focus fully on being a dad and his other business ventures.
'cause he is always been an, an entrepreneur in his spare time.
And, uh, that's awesome. I'm very excited for him.
Did you just text him right now? ?
Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Same. I'll be texting. Do we
All just, do we always do that Do we, do we just do this in a group chat?
I'm gonna wait, I'm gonna wait till afterwards. Um, wow.
Okay. So there you go. That's official.
And congrats to our, our good friend Marco.
On a tremendous IndyCar career. 20 Indy 500 starts.
That's nuts. What are you
At? I'm at nine. Tim,
How about you? How
Many have I, have I been to ?
No, no, just asking anybody you've started.
Oh. Um, um, you know who keeps track?
I mean, most people who do 'em, , you have a pretty accurate tally.
Uh, James is really too short of what he should be here.
Yeah, I'm, I'm, I'm I'm the same as you, but I have Right.
Two, two attempts that didn't go super well. Uh, .
Why? What happened? Well, one of 'em,
I just didn't qualify Tim and the other one I nearly died. So one
Of 'em, Tim, basically what happened is one of 'em, you forgot to turn the other one right?
He forgot to stay flat.
I forgot to go fast. . No, I was, I was flat. I was flat.
I know, I know. It was, I I tried 11, qualified
for 10, started nine.
It's a weird stat. It's a weird, weird thing there.
I mean, that's actually kind of, kind of cool. Yeah.
There's more in there To have.
Like if you got like eight top tens or like seven something, you know.
Oh, like keep the, keep the thing going.
Yeah. Yeah. I'd have to look into that
One poll.
Have to look into that. You know how that goes. Yeah.
We know where it ends. Yeah. Um, some,
It's, it's like, what is that Christmas song with the turtle doves and stuff? Uh,
Yeah.
12 days of 12 days and Christmas. 12 days.
The 12 days of HCH racing.
The 11 things of Hinch at Indy. So
The what, when's the last time an Andretti hasn't raced in the Indy 519 58?
Yeah. Maybe me Bele will just carry on this year.
Or Mira's got a really step upper game.
Luca, we need Luca to, I mean, he is the right age.
We need to get him in. That's a great question actually,
Timbo, because it would've been before Michael, but when Mario was doing F1 or something Right. When he was over there.
I mean, we would, this is why we need some of your stats guys. Yeah.
Like, it's gotta be, it's gotta be like, like seventies Marcos had such a, such a good track record at the 500.
I mean even I was just thinking about that, that first one from oh six a few nights ago on what could have been there and just, I don't know.
It's gonna be weird. It's
Um, it's gonna be very weird because I don't know, it's Yeah, you're right.
And Andretti has been a staple of the speedway for so long.
It'll be interesting if he comes. I doubt it. But maybe
I feel like I wouldn't if I were him. I don't
Know. He's a pretty,
He's a pretty Savvy business guy, so I could see him being in some ambassador to role of, of some brand of doing something and like probably making more money doing that than he was driving the race car. Like
Mario's better market thing to do. Yeah.
But I also imagine there's gotta be a poll to like, just watch it from home, right?
To just have that be the first time.
The Indy 500 is a, is a normal day.
I think if you were stepping away from the sport and we're kind of making the conscious decision to kind of really completely step away from the sport and really never go back to a track for any reason or have any connection, then yes, I've gotta understand that.
But I, I don't know, I don't see that being the case.
I don't see Marco being the kind of guy that's gonna start hanging around, you know, 10 races a year or anything like that.
But indie's different in India is special.
I think to Alex's point, there's some opportunities for him there.
Um, and I don't know man, like there's, there's, if, if he's made that decision, he's at peace with that decision.
There'll be something cool about going and experiencing the Indie 500 without the pressure of being a driver or without the pressure of your dad being in the race.
Like, he's literally never had that his entire life.
He's either been in it or a family member's been in it.
And so you might like, I can't wait for the day where I can just go sit in the turn one stands and drink beer and watch Danny 500.
Like I think that would be awesome.
Let me be your guide. , maybe
This is, I'll reach out to Mark.
I'll be like, Hey, let me show you how it's properly done. , lemme
Show you what the, the co lots like on Saturday night, what the snake pits like Sunday morning and how to get into numerous hospitality suites without being invited their beer.
You have no business being in. Yeah. Um, yeah. Well, cool.
We'll see. I, I mean I hope I, I hope he comes.
I would love to see him there in May. I'd love to
Get, he also announced He's writing a book, so we got that to look forward to.
There you go. That'll be a I can't, I can't wait for that.
Can't wait. Can some stories in that? Wait, yeah.
I'm actually gonna have to go through.
I'm not gonna you to proofread that. Proofread that
Before it goes out .
Yeah. I think all of us
Could be a little trouble on that one.
Yeah. Yeah. Oh, good days. Um, okay.
So, uh, last, so racing stuff, now that we've covered fruit and retirements over the last 30 minutes, um, racing stuff, Alex did you, did you pay attention to the Mexico City Grand Prix at all?
I watched, I watched all of it. I watched it all.
Amazing. I think what I want to talk about is,
so we can get to like what happened and who won and all that stuff.
But I really wanna talk about all the corner cutting and what your opinion was on all that.
'cause like turn one lap one, you had Maxus turns one, two, and three.
You had Le Claire skip turn two and everybody came back on in places and there were no penalties or reordering assessed later in the race.
Hamilton cuts a corner, a penalties assessed.
What is your take on all said lawn mowing. Oh.
And then actually for step, and did it again while racing Hamilton, A little relief that inconsistency exists seemingly in all forms of motor racing in terms of the stewarding and policing and rules making.
And we've always said, we've always said it's a thankless job, right?
Yes. And, and I do believe that, um,
and I'm sure the FIA has their reasons, like you wouldn't, they're not making these decisions blindfolded and just pointing at something. It's not a lottery.
I'm not throwing darts at a dartboard. Right.
Um, does that mean I agree with it?
No, but I, I I I don't know, I guess I disagree Break with this More if we, if we break it down.
I, I disagree with the Lewis penalty.
I just, that one seems a little bit, it just seems a little bit weird.
Like again, we come back to the consistency factor of it, right?
It's like if you're gonna penalize like the FIA and that Formula one is so uptight about track limits, right?
Like we see it all the time in qualifying, like it's, you're a millimeter over a white line and it's a black and white rule.
So fine. They, they enforce it
and everyone knows that they're playing by that rule and you have to drive accordingly.
They're pretty, they're pretty black and white about track limits in, in racing.
They're pretty black and white about owning a corner, right?
Even if you're the inside guy and you fire someone off, as long as you're by their front axle, like it's your corner and the other guy has to, has to let you by, even if it's a complete dive bomb.
So again, they're black and white about it and I just, it's, it seemed like Mexico they weren't.
And that's where the frustration comes in.
It's not the the penalty or the lack of penalty.
It's, it's why are some getting penalties and, and others not, I guess is my biggest complaint.
Completely agree. I think when they tried to
explain it mm-hmm .
The prevailing thought was that, and the term, one thing, Tappin kind of went in and forth and kind of came out in fourth Mm-hmm .
So they said there was no advantage gained.
The caveat being to George Russell's point, and this is a very IndyCar thing, Hey, the drivers that stayed on track should have some sort of benefit here.
Because if you could just go in and forth launched on the outside, and if you, if it sticks, awesome, but if it doesn't, there's no penalty, there's no downside.
Why aren't you just doing that every lap? Right? Right.
Not every lap, but like every opportunity. Yes. Mm-hmm .
Totally fair. And that part I agree with.
So for the way that their rules are written, sure Max didn't get a penalty, but I can see why George thought he should and don't disagree.
The Lewis one's a little different because the Lewis one, what he got a penalty for was leaving track and gaining an advantage.
And because he went into the corner side by side with Max came outta the corner four seconds ahead of Max and didn't back up at all.
They're like, well that's a lasting advantage.
Now that advantage was exacerbated because he, George and Bearman all started racing each other through four and five.
Had max just gone through by himself, that advantage wouldn't have been as big.
And so like from the Ferrari pit stand, how are you supposed to look at that and be like, Hmm, if we back up to only being a second in front, maybe they won't do anything, but if we stay here they will.
Like, it's really hard to know what the judgment call is gonna be there.
And because there were others that didn't really have consequence, it seemed a little harsh that he got one, but I don't Know, like old.
So, so like if we look at, if we look at the start of the race and the max penalty or the max instance, I don't think Max should have got a penalty for it.
Um, because you know, he was, I I don't feel like he was trying to fire it.
No, I agree around The outside, like he got pushed onto a curb.
We all know how dirty Mexico City is offline.
He locked up on, as soon as he got on the curb, he was three wide.
He wasn't gonna crash out two cars by turning in.
He wasn't getting the speed out of it.
And he almost took it like the fact that he didn't crash is incredible.
Have you seen unbelievable like the, the the a the onboard and the view from Mike turn three, like It's the onboard is insane.
Incredible. So he definitely didn't do that on purpose.
Um, and that is what you would deem a racing incident where I think I IndyCar did a really good job is when you look at the Portland situation, right?
Mm-hmm . So for, for a lot of years Portland was uh,
just a complete, as you know, James was a complete debacle and turn one lap one and Kyle Novac.
And, and the stewards were sick and tired of it.
Like it was, it was pathetic that we can't get through turn one every single year.
And so what they did was they, they, they said that if you cut behind the turn two curb at that sequence in Portland on lap one, it doesn't matter if you were pushed there, it doesn't matter if it was an honest mistake that got you there.
It does not matter how you ended up there.
If you do not go left hand down and get through the chica barricade setup and rejoin the track that way, you are immediately going to the back.
You have to treat that white line and that area behind the turn two curb as a wall end of discussion.
And what happened from that point?
Everyone played nice through there and it was all of the incidents went away and we've now gotten through Portland three years in a row through turn one essentially. So
Must be nice F so F1, I'm not saying do you have to do that?
You, you can't obviously do that for every track.
But, but there needs to be something that's done because there are so many tracks with this massive amount of runoff.
And this isn't, Mexico's not really an example 'cause it's not like it's a paved runoff.
Right. The fact, again, like we said,
that Maxin crash is crazy.
But I do think because a lot of the way their tracks are set up, there needs to be a more hard and fast rule like they have at Monza, like they have with track limits and qualifying that if you Montreal final, she came Montreal, they've Got that.
If you, if cut a corner, you have, you have to, you have to go mm-hmm .
And pay your penalty. So that way there's no speculation of
how much of an advantage did he gain or did he not because they were fighting or he was going through the grass so he couldn't have gained that much and, and that sort of thing.
It's just, it's rule it's done with everyone knows it and they play by it because if that's the case, I don't think Max puts his, again, max didn't intentionally ship it in there, go off for sure.
I don't, I don't think he goes three wide there and exposes himself to that in the position he is in.
He probably has to lift and stays in forth and tries to work his way through the two Ferraris.
Through through the complex.
Yeah. Or, or even if there was like gravel in that corner.
Also true. Also true.
Like is that gonna make guys just behave better? Yeah.
Um, either way Lando won it running away, which was a super impressive drive all weekend long qualifying the race just absolutely dominated.
Now you're world championship leader, which is kind of cool when you think about the fact that he lost 18 points in Zan VT through something not of his own doing.
Um, Oscar again had a bit of an off weekend, but I thought did a really good job in the race, kind of found his rhythm, found his groove a bit more, and, and got back up to fifth, nearly fourth.
But Oliver Bearman hung on to fourth for his best finish of his career and a tied best finish for Haas, which was pretty freaking cool.
Um, I mean he ran up in a podium spot for a long time there.
It's just, you know, max got him at the end.
Do you think that P'S kinda lost his edge and that it's Lambos to lose now?
Or do you think he's just had two bad weekends and when we get to, I mean Brazil, he could blitz the field like he'd done at, you know, five or six tracks this year.
No, I don't. Do you think it's
substantial or do you think he's in his head?
I I would find it hard to believe that Oscar would be flustered.
Um, I think he was better at Coda than the result show.
I think everyone's gonna lose to Max in Brazil.
So I think really it's, it's Vegas and, um, guitar cutter, whatever you wanna call it, where Oscar's gonna have to, to show what he is made of.
And, and I think those are tracks that should suit him very, very well.
So I think tho that if, if he comes out of those two, like still missing a couple tens to Lando, then yeah, it was a, it was a mental breakdown, but I don't imagine that being the case.
And then I guess the, the other way to look at it is, is he losing his edge or is Lando just really stepped it up because even in the first half of the year, a lot of people would argue that Lando was maybe that little bit quicker over overlap, but made more mistakes.
So did Lando just sort his program out and now it's just harder to beat and because everybody else has developed their cars a little bit more than the McLaren there's just more cars in the mix now, so they're not just fighting over first and second anymore and Yeah, I don't know.
It's tough to say. You know, it's,
I was half say was expecting with how dominant Lando was in, in qualifying, I was half expecting him to bottle up a lap at some point.
Um, and he never did. Yeah.
Like that's, that's the thing, right? And was on
Pull by like three tens. So yeah,
That's a good chunk.
He executed very well over, over the weekend.
Maybe his best Grand Prix weekend total. I
Agree. Yeah.
Of his career for sure.
And when you consider, we've said that already this year, it shows that he's still getting better. Yeah.
Yeah. Good point. Good point.
I still think, I still think, um, max is super alive in this because he's gonna, he's gonna, he's gonna win the sprint and the feature in Brazil, just book it.
Very good chance. Like that's gonna happen.
There's any weather, it's a done deal. Well,
Even if there's not, like he's so good there.
So then I, I imagine it's a 25 ish point gap with three to go.
Like, And I think Vegas is gonna suit the Red Bull better than the McLaren Mm.
Um, Qatar should be a McLaren one too.
Well it seems like hands down, but any track that is in the United States of America, max just Max wins.
Yeah, So true. Yeah, he's good there.
All right, so weekend off, we, we, I think we last spoke you were doing your testing, but the second day got canceled, right?
Hmm. Do we, yeah. Interesting.
Do we not go, do we not go over the damper stuff and, and all that sort of jazz?
I don't think we did. Tammy, did we do that?
I don't think we did. No, we did not. Okay.
Well should we run through it quickly?
Um, let's run through it quickly.
Let's probably some fruit chat. He can trim down . Yeah.
So absolutely not.
So yes, IMS test I, the second day was really focused on the, uh, the spec damper or the idea of a spec damper.
Um, the first day was spent going through breaks and, and we already talked about why that's, uh, a, a positive thing.
Um, and seems like those are and worked.
Those are, those are going ahead for 2026, which is great news.
Um, the dampers are a project or an idea of a project for 2028.
Um, there's a lot of conversation about it.
People correctly assume that a series would want to go to a spec damper, um, to help alleviate some of the cost, right?
And while that is part of it, that is not the main reason.
Um, so the, uh, the new car, obviously there's, there's a huge push, um, from everyone, um, drivers, fans, the series itself, uh, to reduce the weight of it.
And, um, custom dampers, especially street course dampers weigh a lot, you know, all of the, the, the inverter technology and, and everything that goes into these dampers all attached to them because they're open and unlimited.
They're just, they just add componentry and stuff and things and, and they end up being pretty heavy.
Um, so there was an idea that it would be a pretty decent win-win, um, to reduce cost and save weight as a, as a two twofer.
Um, if the dampers like a spec damper was up to the task.
And lemme just tell you James, um, there's a reason why teams spend seven figures on a damper program and it's been going on for the better part of a decade and all of these things Yeah, because you don't crash.
Like it's not, the car doesn't become undrivable. Yeah.
It doesn't become a a <inaudible> box.
It, it, it's all fine and it all works seemingly okay.
But there is a, there's a substantial lack of grip, or I should say a grip reduction.
And if you're feeling that, um, on a 51 degree day, which is what we were having by yourself at Max Downforce, like that's a pretty grave and extreme problem coming to the month of May when you're in traffic.
And it's 82 degrees on Memorial Day with 123 degree track tent.
So mm-hmm . Um, the spec damper project, while
not Impossible, is seemingly something that is not incredibly viable, um, just because of how far away they are from the dampers that all the teams have developed for this period of time.
And kind of like we discussed on the last episode, like there is something to be said for not being a completely spec championship, right?
Yeah. And I think that's part of the allure
of IndyCar racing, um, to engineers and to designers and to mechanics and that sort of thing.
And there isn't a huge push from the teams themselves to like get rid of the damper program.
So this was more of a, the, the, the series is, is doing their due diligence and trying to look at all avenues to, to save costs, reduce weight and all this sort of thing.
And then, so they're just trying to, to tick the boxes.
And the most important place obviously is you would wanna make sure that Indy 500 is not negatively impacted by that.
And I think that they learned a lot last week in terms of it would be at least with the, the damper selections that we had at the time last week. So that's where we're at. So
Does, so does that mean they're going to keep trying?
Like it's rare you just try something once and it doesn't work.
You're like, Hey, we're not gonna go any further. I
Don't speak for them, but it, it, I I it didn't seem like Get them to Pri it didn't seem that anyone was surprised with the results.
It's not like people were like, oh my God, really?
It was like, yeah, Because then the, the question kind of becomes if to get it to the same grip level, you've gotta add all the same stuff.
We're not actually saving any weight, so what's the point? Correct,
Correct.
Right. So it, it was, they were, again,
going through the due diligence.
It didn't cost anything to do it.
Um, it was a safe test because me and Kuma both did it and it wasn't diabolical and, and that sort of thing.
And, and, and him and I both blindly, like we, we joined at the end of the day and had a group kind of debrief and discussion with, with IndyCar and the, and um, Olin, uh, the Damper company and our respective engineers and like without speaking to each other, everyone kind of came to the same conclusion.
So it was, it was all very productive.
Um, and again, happy to be a part of it.
This is why we test and I head to Phoenix next week, so that should be cool.
Phoenix Tire Test, Phoenix Tire Arrow and Arrow Test. Yeah,
That's gonna be very interesting. Very interesting
Slash important.
Getting ready for our NASCAR IndyCar double header at Phoenix next year.
Yes sir. Sure. Which is gonna be fun. Cool.
Okay, well good place to end.
But as you mentioned Phoenix, and that leads to our NASCAR IndyCar double header.
Let's just casually mention that in absence of an IndyCar race or an F1 race next weekend, there is in fact the NASCAR championship decider at Phoenix.
Um, Hamlin, Briscoe, Larson, Byron, those are your four that are going for it.
And I'm very curious to see how it all shakes out.
'cause I think Byron was the regular season champ.
Denny has won everything but a championship and wants to shake that, you know, best driver, a never win championship thing.
Mm-hmm . Mm-hmm . All while suing nascar.
Very interesting dynamic. Good for him.
Got Larson, who's done it, Briscoe, who's been strong.
So, uh, I'm gonna watch, I'm gonna watch that race because I'm gonna be honest, I'm curious. I'm not. And, um,
Well, you're gonna be betting on, on, so I'm All about the Breeder's Cup this weekend.
Yeah. So I will pay a lot of attention to that.
And you pay a lot of attention to nascar.
And then we will talk about it next week. Okay.
Well, let's text update each other as the weekend goes on so that way we have some understanding of each other's programs.
And that way we can discuss on the show.
And it's not just like two monologues of Yes. Beer Cup.
Go Phoenix. Go Tim. As usual.
He'll contribute next to nothing and People will still complain that I talk too much. .
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