Platform Tennis Aficionados & The Nanny

This is off track.

Good morning. Hello

and welcome to another episode of Off Track with Hinch and Rossie.

How are you? The one that's late when I'm the one up

at 5:30 AM Oh, I'm sorry.

Uh, have you been to the gym yet today?

Yeah, just got back.

Why do I feel like that's not necessarily a factual statement? , do you even,

Do you even have a gym membership anymore? Yeah.

Still with Equinox You pay a lot to not Go.

When was, when was the last time you went to Equinox?

I went on Monday, so it's been a bit, but I was there Monday.

Oh. It's not bad. I just feel, I just feel like

for a couple hundred dollars a month for the amount that you go, you could probably just do a Planet Fitness like nine nine. I

Try to go three times a week, at least.

I didn't know that. That's my fear. Yeah.

I, I retract my statement.

I figured you hadn't been since you were done training for your marathon.

No, I, I, I don't work out or anything, you know. Oh, .

It's smoothies and eucalyptus towels. Oh my God.

Wow. No, Eucalypt. I go and work out towels.

I do Movies, eucalyptus towels.

You don't swim anymore though, do you? You were a big swimmer for

It's been a while.

I'm, I'm not trying to get back into it. Hmm.

I do thi I'm like, Alex, I pick up a hobby.

I just don't do it as well as Alex does.

Yeah. Alex goes in like 10, 10, 10.

What was your hobby? When was the last time you like

adjusted the water stuff on your pool?

It's all automated now, dude. We've been over this .

Um, it's also closed. It's not,

Is it not, dude, it's minus one out there right now.

It was 75 on Saturday. It's minus one today.

Well, I was in it on Saturday, So that is good for you.

It's getting close on Thursday.

Anyways, , um, Tim, Tim, what are, I wanna know what your hobbies are besides 3D printing. Oh, I had 3D

Even.

You're not doing Astronomy.

Yes, he does. Dude, I was at his house.

I shut Alex, I did a lot. Yeah.

I was at his house for Halloween, a total of like 12 hours I think.

And he, dude, we were driving to San Diego and he was printing <inaudible> from his phone. ,

like he, it, the printer never stopped during the middle of the night when we were not in the house.

He was printing, he was upset.

He couldn't print something because he didn't have the right filament in.

Mm-hmm . And it doesn't automatically change it.

Three. You printed that yesterday.

There you go. I dunno what that is.

He was, he was like, oh, do you want a, a little candle holder Halloween?

A little Halloween like decoration thing.

I was like, no, I don't. He was like, cool.

It's coming right up. . So he's

he is 3D printing everything. He

DD Printed items for his house like that are functional like a, like a dog leash holder.

And there was something else that was actually dunk poop shoulder.

No, that wasn't the cool one.

There was a cool, there was actually something I was like, that's awesome.

I forget what it was. Anyways,

It's a lot.

There's a lot. I don't, there could be anything

In here.

You need print something for like your, your glassware or something. I don't know.

Glassware? No, I don't think so. Oh, oh, no. Yeah.

No, I have the storage. No, the storage. Yes.

He cre he 3D printed a a fridge organizer device.

Yeah, because I have the, I have the per cans, but the shelf that I want to have 'em on, it's not tall enough for Perry a cans.

So I designed a little like slot thing to hold them.

It's actually fairly impressive. That's

Actually not, I'm not mad at that , Even though you, you get it like next day on Amazon for six point 99, it's still impressive.

It was like 56 cents worth of filament to print it.

I mean Yeah, once you get over the upfront investment , if you're gonna use it a lot, it makes sense.

I think I'm pretty well past that upfront investment.

How often this gets used.

I printed a bunch of these little like pumpkin token things for Hazel's class for Halloween.

Okay. They've articulated legs. Yeah.

Articulated legs. He says this,

This little guy right there at the Christmas ornament with his legs hanging over my bookshelf next to the caution sign.

That's also 3D printed .

It says caution don't approach before coffee.

Wow. Tim Original. That is so lame.

I didn't design that one. I found it

online. I thought it was funny. You

Want all of these things You I was gonna get in Cracker Barrel .

True. Um, I'm sorry. How many of these things do you design?

I was just gonna say it's so a good amount.

What you're designing them on what, like the software that comes with the machine? Yeah,

It's called Blender.

It's like a 3D, uh, like a 3D design software. So you build stuff in

3D.

Okay. Yeah. I didn't know how to use it.

I've just kind of been figuring it out.

Lot of YouTube tutorials.

I have that unfortunate belief in myself that like with a YouTube tutorial, I could do anything.

I actually, I'm with you on that. I also feel that way.

They're pretty good these days. I've, they're

Shockingly oppressive on YouTube.

It is. It's amazing what you can learn off YouTube.

Mm-hmm. I feel like I wasted a lot of money on college.

This isn't an interesting topic.

If you believe that, what are you gonna tell your daughter to do?

She's gotta go to USC .

Oh, not even just has to go to college.

She has to go to USC specifically. Yeah. Got it.

I feel like you still want your kid to have the college experience, even if it's not necessarily, I think there's a lot of life lessons.

I, I don't know. I I think,

I think we put too much emphasis on college.

Like if she wants to go to a, if her idea a profession that doesn't require college, I'm all for it.

Or a trade school or things like that.

I think we put way too much of an emphasis on like, you have to go to college 'cause college is the thing that you do.

Well that's everything. That's a lot easier said than done

when it's your own kid.

So there's some conflicting things there. .

Yeah. I mean, you know, you've got two college

Dropouts. Your dad now

On this, so. Oh, I don't

Have to deal with that.

I Finish college for 18 years. College.

College might not exist.

That's true. , I was really banking

on like, affordability.

Like, I was like either by the time Hazel gets old enough for college, like tuition's no longer gonna be a thing or it's just gonna be so laughably expensive that it doesn't count.

But I was like really hoping it was gonna be the tuition's no longer a thing and it's looking like it's going the other way.

It's Yeah. Super not gonna be what you said.

That's not gonna be a thing. Mm-hmm .

Um, just, uh, you know, marry a Canadian, get her a Canadian passport and then she could go to school in Canada.

I don't for Penn on the dollar. She

Could Canadian passport if I married a Canadian.

Yeah. I feel like if she's your

kid, you could figure that out somehow.

I did. Now Ben has that option, which is cool.

Ben can go to a good school back, back home for pennies on the dollar.

Hey. Might be doing that.

Our college education system might be messed up, but at least our healthcare is too .

I mean, I'm not gonna sit here and brag about hours, so let's let's, let's not go down that rabbit hole.

Um, what, uh, what is, how is, how was everybody's weekend?

How's everybody's weekend? Tim, what'd you get up to?

You seem to be on a roll. Uh,

Let's, you know, it's 5 45 on a Monday, so Yeah, let's get into it.

So it, it just literally just ended for you.

Hazel speaking of her has a project where she and some of her friends in class had to make like a boat out of styrofoam and stuff and they have to like launch it down a pool.

She can't 3D print it. I know.

They were like, we have to build a boat for science class.

I was like on it. She's like,

can't have any plastic. I was like, I'm

out .

Good luck kid.

And so here, YouTube's a great place to learn stuff. .

Somehow my house became the one where we all like got together on, on Saturday for her group project.

And it's, I dunno if you guys have seen it's raining space.

Yeah, exactly. It's, it's raining in LA so like,

all the parents were like, well, I don't wanna drive.

I'm just gonna hang here while the kids work on it.

So we doubled the amount of people in my tiny ass apartment.

Um, and I had told myself like, very sternly, I'm going to let Hazel and her friends figure this out on their own.

If they ask for help, I'll help, but I'm not gonna like, I'm not gonna be one of those dads that's like building the boat for them.

We all became those dads that are like building the boat for 'em.

And I gotta say, none of us know how to build a boat. Yeah.

Like they would've been much better off without us.

It's, it's rubber bands and popsicle sticks and styrofoam.

And they were doing better before we got involved.

I once built a, in physics class in high school, we had to build a car that was powered by gravity.

Right. So essentially you had a weight,

everybody got the same weight and you had to use that weight to propel the car.

So it was some form of the weight drops, A pine pulls Derby, pull a string and No, no, no, no, no, no, no. It's on a flat surface.

Oh. So you release the weight, it, as it falls,

it pulls some string that you've wrapped around an axle and, and it's all about, it was all about how far you could go with it.

Right. What distance you could get.

So a big part of it was like making it light and making it roll free, like less mechanical friction so that I could go further on the same weight.

And I gotta say, man, I really, I knocked that one outta the park 'cause I built a transmission for it.

It had like, on the axle I had different sized like kind of sprocket type things and wrapped the string around it.

So off the top it accelerated way faster.

And then the last few, like polls, it was really small.

And then I had it really just go and it was, it just rolled so free.

It was beautiful.

It's the only thing I did well in physics class.

So you just needed more, more classes to be about cars. I

Just, I just need more car related stuff.

and didn't, didn't actually fully appreciate that until later in life In that chapter of the Great Gatsby.

What car was Gatsby driving? .

He was in a 36, uh, Deusenberg. It was,

I was gonna say it was a deusenberg.

I'm proud of you. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Okay. So it would've worked.

Wow. This is actually, that's actually, wow.

I have a one track mind, no pun intended. .

, uh, Alex, we, we saw each other on the weekend.

We saw each other a couple times actually. Mm-hmm .

You got me to go golfing kind of. Not really. Hmm.

So Tim, you know how much I love golf, right? I have

A golfer, regular John Daly. Is that a golfer?

That's that's a golfer also has a drink named after him.

Yeah. I learned this this week.

Isn't isn't that just an Arnold Palmer with vodka?

Sure is. Sure is. Yeah. , which is John Daly. Yeah.

Yeah. . Um, no, so I don't like golf. I don't, I don't golf.

And, and Alex was like, let's go golfing.

I was like, okay, fine. It was a nice day.

It was gonna be a nice day. A go golfing. I was a bachelor.

Becky's, you know, outta town, just working.

And the day before we're going golfing.

I had a super old man moment. He, he

Pulled a Tim, I pulled a Tim, you hurt your back.

I injured myself while sleeping. It was my neck.

But yeah, like four o'clock in the morning and you know, like, you wake up and you kinda just like, you tense every muscle just kinda get under stretch.

As I was doing that, I looked over at the clock and I just heard the most obnoxious noise go in my neck.

I'm like, huh. Oh my God. I was in so much pain, .

I was in like, absolute agony.

So like, I just, I just lay in bed for the next three hours like this until Becky's alarm goes off and then have to get her to the airport.

I go see like my physio Mike, and he works on my neck.

So the next day I, I was like, I probably shouldn't go golfing, should I?

He was like, well, no, but movement is good.

So I was like, all right. I'd already said I was gonna go.

It's a nice day out. I was gonna go hang with my buddies

and maybe I'll put, you know.

So we go, Alex hosts us at his, at his country club.

Mm-hmm . Shut up. At, at the club.

Did did you wear your Marco Andretti shirt like I did when I went there? ?

No, I did not. He was so mad. .

But did you know that you're not allowed to wear hats there unless you've been a member for at least five years? . What?

That can't be real. That's not

A real thing.

I had the same reaction at first.

I was like, oh my God, I hate this.

Oh, you're kidding. Okay.

Okay. .

Alex did have me going on that one for a sec.

Anyway, so, so it was me, Alex, and Connor.

We had a fourth friend who was supposed to come, but he didn't make it.

And I basically decided to just, um, just chip and putt.

'cause that wasn't like too much swinging.

It wasn't gonna hurt too bad.

So anytime we were chipping distance, I'd just throw a ball and I just drove the rest of the time.

And it was great outside. It was beautiful on one hole.

It was a short hole. And they were like, you know,

hitting stone irons off, off The tee box.

I didn't bitch, what'd I bitch about?

Oh, it's too bumpy. Oh, where's the car path? Oh

Yeah, dude.

Yes, I did complain about that. That's the same thing.

You're, you're, you're, you're saying say three things, but it's the same issue that, yeah, that doesn't count.

Anyway. Uh, so

I claim Pebble it has X, Y, Z. Yes.

Pebble has much better grounds.

I mean, it was, I don't even know why people play in other courses.

It's insane. . So , so we get

to this one hole and they're banging seven irons off a tee box.

'cause it was like, what, 120 yard hole or something?

First of all, no, don't make us look like a bunch of wankers hitting a seven iron, 120 yards.

It was like a, maybe, maybe it was longer than that.

It was like 148.

Okay. 48 fine. Sorry, I don't know. I don't speak golf.

And so he's like, Hey, this one's not even that far.

You should just play it. And I was like, okay, fine.

I'll play it. And so as we get up

to the box, Alex goes to Connor.

So our, our other buddy that did make it, he's a big, uh, consumer of Fireball.

And so the golf cart just came, you know, he is a member of this, of the club also.

And the golf cart just came prepped with a couple of Fireball shots in it.

And, uh, I should Start playing golf. Mm.

Mm-hmm. So, yeah, you'd love golf with this guy.

So as we get up to the box, guy says the counter, he goes, Hey, if James beats us in this hole, we both have to do a shot of Fireball.

And I was like, okay. Like I'm not gonna, I don't play golf

and I haven't been to swing all day and I'm injured.

So anyway, so I win the hole and I go to Alex and I was like, so buddy, where's your shot of Fireball?

And he looks at me and he goes, James, I'm a father now I don't do shots. And he stormed

out .

It's true.

It kind of, I just stand there like, what just happened?

I love it. I, you know what though?

Because that is, that is the one thing about parenting that nobody talks about The advantage you have.

Do you know how many social gatherings I've been to that I didn't want to go to since Hazel was born?

Zero. Because I have a built in Oh yeah.

Perfect excuse for everything now. Mm-hmm .

And I'm just glad Alex embraced that early.

'cause you can get at any like, No, so it's not, it's, it's the, the very quick realization.

And you always, I always admired this about you, Tim, even before Ben existed was you were like, if I have Hazel or I'm going to have Hazel, like I'm not gonna drink because, well, why would I, sort of thing.

Yeah. But then, but then the, the Stark reality,

and I've messaged Hunter Ray about this, um, since then, like the stark reality of having to care for a child with any sort of hangover is horrible.

'cause it's the worst thing for a child in the middle of the night sober is horrible.

I mean, it's not, but it's hard.

And so I just can't, I can't imagine coupling those two things together.

So yeah. Great. Excuse smart.

It also makes sense why when we used to always, I used to always go to that charity event that Ryan and Becky would host, uh, for racing for cancer.

The kids weren't there the most years.

And uh, let me tell you, Becky and Ryan were taking advantage of the fact that they probably normally don't drink because taking care of kids with a hangover sucks.

Golfing with a hangover. Not a problem.

Uh, coaching people in motor sports, evidently also not an issue for Ryan.

Hungover did that a couple times. Um, yeah.

You know, school, school series and then, oh, let's try.

So, yeah. And then on Saturday we were supposed to go

to the basketball game, but you had commitments otherwise.

So mm-hmm . Connor and I went to the basketball game.

Mm-hmm . And you know what, you know what was awesome about

that night is, I think, and we were talking about this a little bit, I've, I've been traveling so much this year that one of the hardest things about being gone as much as I am is like, you lose touch with people, right?

Like, you miss just going and interacting with your friends or like, you know, you can, you got our group chats and, and you stay in touch texting or whatever.

But like, it is different when you're not there to go to things and see people in person or whatever.

And so Connor and I are like, all right, let's meet at Prime for a drink before we go to the game.

Okay, cool. So we go to Prime and there we see Bird

and Bella and there we see Lauren and bi and uh, a few other people and it's just like, oh, like this is just where the community hangs out.

And then at the game we ran into Christian Lard and Dev d Francesco and, and some people.

And it was just like fun going out with one person and running into like 10 people that you knew.

You mean living your life in the, you live in I Don't, I don't get to do that very often, Alex.

Yeah, no. So it was a nice, it was a nice thing. I

Know.

It was a nice Thing. That's,

It's Sad.

That's why we No, it's just like you gotta, you take things for granted, right?

Yeah. Like you don't realize, um, how nice things are

until you don't have the opportunity to do it anymore.

But listen, you're almost done. Almost done.

I mean, you're not, but you are .

I just have like 24,000 miles to fly and then I'll be done.

Yeah, yeah. And 20 more days on the

road, something like that.

Why are you complaining? So, no, but it's so true. .

It's so true. 'cause you're like,

everyone's like, oh that's so cool.

You travel so much for work and you get to go to all these cool places, blah, blah, blah.

And yes, that is a hundred percent true.

That is very accurate. But it's also super cool getting

to like be home and hang out with your friends and see people and live in your house.

And not fall behind on everything that needs to be done here And play golf. But not really.

It's a balance. I am looking forward

to having a good neck again and then actually going and playing.

Although then, oh yeah, I forgot. That was the other thing.

So then the next day we played, we went back to the club, I hate you .

Hey man, if we're gonna, if we're gonna lay in a hunter ray, which by the way, can we just talk about how floored we were when we learned that he actually listens to this show frequently and knows how much shocking dude, the fact that we were calling him old as dirt and frequently mentioning his yacht without him, without knowing that he was listening.

Yeah. That was just how we naturally behave about it. Yeah.

Now that we know he listens poor guy, it is gonna make this show.

It's gonna get real bad. Anyways,

were back at when his yacht Butler tells him what we said this week.

Oh man, . Oh yeah. 'cause he doesn't listen to the shows.

He has his butler write them out and and recite them back to him.

Mm-hmm. While he's on the bow of the yacht, uh,

sipping a cocktail.

Um, but yes. So back at the club we uh,

wanted to play Paddle.

So I have to play Paddle in Abu Dhabi against to the William Shriners Ade Ade, whatever.

I don't care. I'm not gonna call it that.

That just sounds weird outta My mouth.

Well, no, 'cause it's two different things.

Okay. So yes and no. Yes.

I mean, but no, what Okay.

What we played on the weekend was not Paddle.

And it was not Adele. No. It was

Paddle.

No, it was not. It was not. Yes. So, no.

Let me, let me explain.

I have a friend who is a like championship winning tennis player.

Canadian kid. We went to high school together, Scott.

And he is literally in the paddle business.

He is a partner in, in a couple paddle facilities and one of them is in Vegas.

So I reached out to him, I was like, Hey man, would love to play this week when we come out.

Are you gonna be there? And so we started chatting

and I was like, yeah, I actually played this morning for the first time in indie at my buddy's club.

And, but I was like, but it was weird 'cause it had chain link fences instead of plexiglass walls or whatever.

And he goes, oh yeah, that's called platform tennis.

And he sends me a picture and it's exactly the same, it's the same floor.

It's the chain link fences, it's the ball not paddle.

It's called Platform Tennis.

Interesting. Mm-hmm .

It's weird that the people that have four of these courts and built an entire facility around these four courts think it's paddle.

I think they probably did that because no one on earth has ever heard of platform tennis.

And so they're like, great point.

Well we'll just call paddle. 'cause no one's gonna be like,

oh, I wanna sign up for the platform.

What the hell's platform? Who the was sitting there being

like, you know what the world is missing another paddle sport that's somewhere in between tennis and pickleball and paddle, let's call it platform tennis and just, I don't know, change the ball on the surface. It

Too many.

It's also weird because it, there's no, aside from the scoring, there's absolutely zero net commonality.

The net, I mean, but the net's shorter and smaller.

Like it's actually nice just The net, but net.

But the net's, the, the net's the same as paddle.

Yes, that is true. So it's weird.

'cause like it, it's not tennis.

It's very far from tennis. Very

Far from tennis.

I mean it's wh I Mean it's more ping pong, it's more adult sized ping pong.

Well it's, it's more like pickleball than tennis.

Well, except you can't, no, because you, when you play doubles, you have someone living at the net, whereas pickleball, that's not allowed.

Yeah. I mean it could live just outside the kitchen's

Quite, it's quite far away from pickleball. I don't know

That's that's debatable either way.

There's too many racket sports that fall within, like if you do the Venn diagram of Platform tennis, I guess is what we're gonna call it, is awesome because it's a winter sport.

You, it's like the only sport that involves a ball that you can play outside in Indiana when it's snowing because I ge I guess it's because it's on a platform under, maybe that's, maybe that was the whole point because this is a winter sport.

The heat from it is designed to be a winters sport.

The heat, the from underneath with these massive blowers.

And so you can literally be playing when it's snowing outside and the surface is dry and you're warm. So

You know what that's a, is that where the heat comes from?

That makes a lot of sense. Yeah. Mm-hmm .

Because now the picture that the guy showed me, 'cause he was like, was it like this?

And he sent me a picture and they're wearing pants, jackets, gloves and ts.

So yeah, this is a winter sport. Didn't put that

Together. Winter sport. Yeah.

Okay. Now it makes sense. Now I know why we needed

platform tennis so that tennis people could get play in the winter. There

You, So episode titles gonna be platform tennis aficionados, Platform tennis aficionados.

Join us, won't you, Because we're trying to get zero listeners this week. , .

Alex, what else did you do this weekend?

Nothing. I replaced a faucet in my kitchen.

Nice, nice.

Couldn't have done that while you were here, Replaced a faucet in his kitchen.

No, that would've been tough from California.

No, I would've been happy to if you had a faucet. It was

Spray.

My faucet was spraying him when he was here.

Hmm. When I was doing his dishes. Timothy.

Yeah. That was a nice thing about having Alex here is

like, usually if I have friends, they come over and they trash my place.

Alex came over and I could just it up just, I woke up the next morning about an hour before we had to get up and I could just hear him doing dishes downstairs mm-hmm .

And I was like, I'm not gonna get outta bed.

But it's appreciated, you know?

Yeah. . Yeah. One of the best guests at like a, at a,

at a party because he'll just come over to your house and immediately start cleaning dishes. My

Kitchen was cleaner than before he got there.

Yeah. Yeah. Which is not saying much.

No, that's a low bar. Because here's

The thing, here's the thing, Tim, even though we were leaving in an hour, I couldn't, I couldn't exist in that space for an hour. Yeah.

With that, with that there. Yeah.

Oh yeah. I had to fix it.

Is there, is there, was there any racing news we can, we can go into? There's no,

Yeah, No.

Yeah. So yeah,

so IMSA was testing down Daytona couldn't help but notice you weren't there.

So I'm assuming you're not playing on running the 24th this year.

No, I mean actually to be fair, I wasn't there.

I am planning to run the 24, so that's not a pretty good indicator.

Uh, okay. I didn't see,

I didn't see who was quick or anything.

I was happy to see that Connor Zi got to test the Cadillac hypercar after the complete and utter bull.

That was the FIA, not letting him run the WEC finale because he didn't have enough points or something because he quote unquote lost the Xfinity Championship in the last race.

Absolute horse. But I'm glad he got to do

that daytona's cooler than that track.

Anyway. So hopefully he's in that, uh, that's fine.

Louis Foster resigned with Ray Hall, which is interesting.

I'm confused. Keep going. Yep. Keep going.

Keep saying that thought.

So you're saying he wasn't signed for 2026? No,

Wasn't saying that he had another year.

They've already signed an extension to keep him there past 2026. Oh,

Okay. Why is that weird? Oh,

Good for him.

Good for him. I do find it weird

that there is this kind of trend because we've seen it in F1 a couple times and I feel like the Kirkwood situation was the same as well because Kyle announced his extension, but he had a contract through 26.

I'm fairly certain it wasn't like he was a free agent at the end of this year.

I'm, I'm fascinated by this, by this approach of resigning guys before their final year in their contract has even started Will power would like a word ?

It's, I don't know how I feel about it.

On one hand I get that if you think you're staring at a, like a, a super talent and you really don't wanna leave offering them an extension before they even have the chance to go, you know, test out the market and and see what else is out there.

I get that from a driver's standpoint, man, a lot of drivers like that security, you know, having, having a contract in your pocket before you even enter a contract year because you could be having a great year the year before and life's good and you love the team, the team loves you and six races into your contract year for whatever reason.

You've had a slump, you've been taken out, you've had mechanical issues, whatever.

And you're sitting down there in 23rd and points and it's like, damn, this is not a good position to be in for a contract negotiation.

So there's, there's definitely benefits on, on kind of both sides, but it just seems, most contracts that I had, and Alex you can chime in on yours, Tim, say nothing.

You'd have, you'd have an option, you'd have a clause in the contract that says up to a certain point in the year of your contract here, you could not engage with other teams.

Right. So you kind of had exclusive negotiating terms

with the team you're currently with.

So you couldn't go out and kind of play the field and see what was available past a certain date.

So if your team, why wouldn't you at least wait to make sure that the driver is doing a good job in the first part of the year?

Or, I don't know, unless you are really worried about losing them.

Um, I think you're missing a potential possibility slash reason that I just please, it just clicked for me.

Um, his primary drop light, um, re-upped their deal with RAHA and extended for like a multi-year deal.

Mm-hmm . Like a week or two before that.

So I wonder if drop light was like, we're only going to renew if Louis is in that car.

Good point. That is a good point.

So I think that that's a, a scenario where a team may have not gone down that road.

Um, especially with someone like, don't get me wrong, Lou's probably very good and and will be great, but like his first year wasn't, I mean, it was, it was fine for a rookie sort of thing, but like, I don't know that it wouldn't necessarily be a, it's not like he won two races, right? It

It married it. Yeah. Yeah, yeah.

So I don't know if they would've otherwise made that decision unless the sponsor was like, Hey, we love them, we love RLL, we want to do this through 2020, whatever, lock 'em down and, and we're in sort of thing. So Yeah.

That's a good point. That's a good point. Valid argument.

I just, yeah. Excuse me.

Red Bull did it with Max McLaren did it with both their guys at some point.

And then of course you got, I always go back to that weird scenario where like, science knew he was leaving before the season even started.

That was a sore one.

So I have a question about the exclusivity clause and contract negotiations with, with drivers and stuff.

Like, does it, does it go into any manner of, of discussion?

Because I mean, like, would it be a violation if somebody's at the track and, uh, and a, a team principle just comes up and says along the lines of, Hey, when your exclusivity is up, you know, give us a call.

We wanna have a chat about that.

Like what, or is it like outline parameters of what you can and can't do?

Or is it just kind of like a, I don't know, it just feels like that would be really hard to enforce.

Yeah, it's it's pretty broad. It's pretty broad. So yes.

If if Chip Cani casually walked by you and said, Hey, call me on June 1st, you know, that's fine.

You just can't call 'em till June 1st.

Yeah. Um, do people

have off the record conversations before those dates?

Yeah, for sure. Like that's just, that's just part of it.

But some of it, some of it is tied into, like the team might have the option.

You might have an option year on your contract and the team has until x date to exercise it.

And if they don't do that, then you can start negotiating with another team.

If they do, there's, there's not a whole lot of point negotiating before that.

'cause if they go down to the last day and then take that option, then you just kind of wasted all that time.

It's, it's, every situation's a little different. But,

And then, um, on the, on the Louis Foster thing, is there also something to be said for giving the driver the confidence of knowing like, Hey, you're not every one of these isn't a, uh, you know, make or break thing that could kill your, your career.

We believe in developing you long term and we want to 100%.

Okay. 100%. And again, this is not a, it is not,

I'm not saying Louis doesn't deserve it.

I'm just this, I wasn't commenting so much even on that scenario Specifically.

No, I was just talking about hypotheticals. Yeah. Yeah.

And then what type of car was the chi Chitty bang bang.

I wanna see how much your weird car knowledge, but I haven't Seen that one.

Damn. Okay. But it was probably a mid sixties.

What, uh, what was the cartel? It was domestic.

Luis drove off the cliff. I don't know that one either.

Really? I mean, you came out swinging

with the 36 twos Inberg. Well, like,

Gimme a, gimme a movie.

I've seen, like I know the story story of Dumb and Louis even I've seen that.

Yeah. I haven't seen that.

Wasn't it, wasn't it a, uh, Thunderbird? They've

Been a, I think it was, I haven't seen that in a long time.

And I'm not James with cars, so can't even tell you when the rotor's messed up.

as we've established. So, um, in a,

in an update on the Cadillac Formula One team, as America plans to take over Formula One, uh, CCO got back into a car for the first time since Abu Dhabi 2024, 2-year-old Ferrari.

So how I understand, I guess why, well, may I don't, I don't actually, I don't understand any of that test.

Um, a why did Cadillac wanna do it? Mm-hmm .

And B, why did Ferrari Let them, so Cadillac wanted to do it for, um, the sake of getting all of the team working together operationally in like a kind of mock race weekend scenario.

So it was less about, it was honestly less about Checko getting in the car as much as it was like for the first time having all these people that have never worked together at a racetrack, going through the processes and procedures of getting the car ready to go out, running the car when the car comes in, the pa like, just all that sort of stuff.

That's super kind of basic and, and muscle memory.

By the time you get to the first race, none of these people have worked together on an actual car at an actual track before.

So it was more an exercise in, in kind of team building and, and ironing out some procedures and things like that on top of it.

Geco was pretty quick.

So, oh, why was Ada Ferri wanna do it?

Ferrari's their engine partner. It's a 2-year-old car.

The car's now relevant, the engines are relevant, the chassis are relevant, the arrows irrelevant.

There's nothing relevant about that car, so why not?

I'm sure they got paid for it. And so what,

how does it hurt them to let them do it?

But he was really quick. He was actually really quick.

He was, he is at ELA and I wanna say he was like, yeah, but less, But that doesn't mean anything.

He was in a car that is not his. And of course he's quick.

No, no, he's Sergio Perez. Like he's right.

I think it was just because he's literally driven nothing since Abu Dhabi 2024.

Like it's been almost a year since he's driven anything.

And uh, yeah, got in and was quick right away. Yes.

I know he's a professional and he should be able to do that.

Well no, but my, I guess it's like, who cares?

He is quick. 'cause it's not like that was a Cadillac.

No, no, I don't, I don't vehicle, It's just to make sure that he still know how to do it.

Winning Ferrari four mil, one cart.

Right. Okay. Yes. Fair. Uh, so that's, that's cool.

They've talk, he got In a ha at je He didn't Write to dry.

Right. Like come on. That's a real challenge.

Like that's really obviously Driver obviously was Fast metal.

Like what are we talking about? Okay.

Um, and then the other thing, way to go Raman. ,

He didn't drive in the Dry. It didn't go dry. Yeah. .

Nice try though. Jackass.

Um, you know, Alex, how have you read at all how Pelli is or F1 is considering mandating two stops?

I have make the races more exciting.

PA page outta the old indie car book.

Well that was like, that was champ car like 2002 or something.

They tried to do that. Mm.

It was like mandatory pit stop windows.

So that way you couldn't just save fuel like you basically had could just push the whole time.

Mm-hmm . Did not work, has not stuck.

And as I've said before, quickest way to make sure you have multiple stops is bring back refueling, but whatever, I guess that's not gonna happen.

So do you remember they did this and they wouldn't get to brag About how fast their pit stops are?

It's true. Do you remember they did this at Qatar in 2023

because there was concerns mm-hmm.

Over the tires. Right. And so it was like they, they

give a maximum stint length.

Hey, the old IndyCar book.

Right. It ended up being a banger of a race.

'cause everybody was pushing 10 tens and it was super physical and it was really hard.

Whatever, whatever. Well,

they just announced they doing died.

Yeah. They they almost died.

Um, but they're doing it again in Qatar this year.

And I'm super curious as to why, because they didn't do it in 2024.

But all of a sudden this talk about mandatory two stops has come back up and there was a meeting about it with like the FYA world Council or whatever.

And now all of a sudden we're going back to a track they were at last year and now there's concerns over the tires and so we're gonna do this again.

They're not even positioning it as we're gonna try this as an experiment like they did in Monaco, which didn't work very well.

And so now they're just, I feel like, I feel like we're being lied to.

I feel like we're being lied to a little bit.

No, the FIA wouldn't lie about anything.

The governing body of the sport would never do that. Yeah.

Just say you're doing an experiment.

Um, I think it's, I think any, any sort of mandate like that, unless it is for a safety reason.

IE IndyCar Texas 2000, whatever it was. 19. Yeah.

Or Qatar 23 or whatever. Right?

Like it's it's super dumb. It's super dumb. It's very dumb.

Now IndyCar's approach that is going to happen this upcoming year, which I don't know if it's news yet, but I'm, I don't think I have to keep it a secret.

Um, where they're gonna mandate that we have to run two sets of alternates on street courses.

Um, I think it's because did last, didn't we try that Somewhere?

Well, we did it in DGP, um, GP. How's that?

Um, and but like where that wasn't that interesting was like the, the alternate tire is the preferred tire anyways.

So it's like well yeah, duh.

Like obviously yeah, we're gonna, yeah, we're gonna run more of those if we can anyways.

But three courses where the alternate is super not the preferred tire, um, I think is interesting 'cause you're not mandating an extra stop per se.

You're just mandating that everyone runs the tire by design.

Right? Right. Twice.

Um, which will definitely ebb and flow the race quite a bit.

Um, so yeah, I Mean it changes, you know, you, you look at like St.

Pete, right? Where there was that first lap caution,

half the guys that started on the alternates got off 'em and, and they could just run primaries the rest of the day.

It sort of eliminated, you know, the alternate Yeah.

The, the alternate. It

eliminated the fun, the challenge of it.

So now they're gonna have to do it the old fashioned way.

And, uh, yeah. I don't hate that actually on the

Street circuit.

You, you still take 'em off on lap one, you just put 'em on again.

Hopefully. Yeah. With one lap to go .

Could you imagine it was a big enough caution that people did two stops, did their mandatory two laps under caution and then, I mean, ooh, last year it would've been, So do we have to put in like a, it's gotta be two green flag laps.

Listen James, the, uh, the off season drivers meeting is coming up here in a couple weeks.

That's a very good point. Probably otherwise right?

And like you hate adding more stipulations, but Yeah. Yeah.

Good, good. Probably Like a good pile

up and you could easily do it.

Mm-hmm. And that would be bad. That would be bad.

Yeah. Well, well what else? Nothing.

Thankfully we have a race this weekend.

We do. You're heading to Vegas? We

Do Heading to Vegas.

Connor's already there.

Connor. Hilarious story Monday, by the

way, .

Hilarious story.

Um, I'm not gonna share all of the details, but, uh, myself and our buddies in pa are, um, in a group chat and, uh, we were all talking about the football game last night, which was Lions versus Eagles.

And, um, Connor was on flight out to Vegas, so he was texting and commenting and we were all kind of talking about the game as it was happening.

But then slowly around nine o'clock I fell off the chat and went to bed.

Looks like a couple of the other guys made it to 10 30, 10 50 sort of thing.

And that was, that was the end until five 20 this morning when, uh, one of the buddies in PA was like, Eagles will win the Super Bowl again.

Their defense is insane.

They look like Denver when they won with Peyton Manning and immediately calling a response, guys, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, .

And we're all coming to the realization that we're waking up to start a new day.

And Connor hasn't gone to bed yet. Bed yet.

So yes, Connor is living his best life out on the West coast, Having a great time out in Las Vegas.

That is so funny. Oh yeah.

No, I'm, I'm having a great season in my two fantasy football leagues. Um,

I mean, you're, you're, you're second to me, but that's okay For now.

Yeah, for now. Mm. Uh, that's still great.

I mean, I'm, I'm basically money ballish.

I have no idea how to play fantasy football, but I'm doing pretty well in both.

Uh, I'm confident I will not be last in either league, which is important for me, Alex, because as you mentioned year, I've been a bachelor the last few days and last year I was the worst.

And I don't know, I think, I don't know if we've talked about this on the show or not, so I apologize if we're repeating, but the punishment last year was the last place had to watch an entire show like a, a, a canceled television show every season of a show, every episode of the show, and then present a dissertation on said show to the group mm-hmm .

And we decided this before deciding the show.

And then once the season ended, and unfortunately I had lost a poll, went around, a couple nominations came up from the group, and a poll was thrown in the group chat, and we landed on the Nanny with Fran Drescher.

Now, I'm gonna be honest, I sort of forgot this was a thing.

And in the approach to, uh, our draft for this year, the Commish was like, so dude, when are we getting our presentation?

And I was like, oh, , I forgot I had to do that.

That's a lot of, that's a lot of f Tim.

Did you know that TV shows used to be 22 episodes a a season?

I know that you, I know that you did. Sure did.

I sure did. But didn't they used

to be like 18 minutes an episode? Well,

They're kids 22 minutes.

Yeah. Um, dude, there's, there's six seasons

and there's 22 episodes a season.

That's a lot of, that's a lot of Fran Drescher.

It's a lot of Fran should, so I You go back even older, they used to do more.

Do they really? Oh yeah.

Try and watch like Old Beat Witched.

I'm good. Um, it's good.

Like I, I remember like friends was 20 something episodes a season and stuff like that.

Anyway, so a couple weeks ago I had to start watching this.

And so on my flights, I've been downloading, like I've been downloading your Seatmates must Be so confused, dude.

I'm sitting on the plane and like what, like we've talked about where you sometimes put on like a, a graphic show, right?

Where it's like really murdery or like, like an inappropriate sex or something and you're on the plane like, oh, this is awkward.

I would rather that the people look over and be like, this dude's voluntarily watching the Nanny.

What is happening over there?

I so in Becky's absence, I've been burning through, I've already started writing my report, um, kind of going season by season.

Mm-hmm. And I gotta tell you, man, it's, uh,

22 episodes is too many in a season.

It's, it's a lot. It's, it's a lot of So where are you at?

It's a lot of television at this point.

I'm in season five, so I've, I'm like halfway through season five.

So I've got very close. So they, they kind of gave me the,

uh, they gave me the permission to get it done by the end of this football season. So before,

So is there any part of you that's kind of enjoying It?

There are moments, there's a couple characters that are pretty jokes, if I'm honest.

I, I have laughed out loud a few times.

Like that's interesting. Ever. I know it's

If you're on, on a plane and you're laughing at some zoo, what are that guy's Watching? .

The the Sun is like, got this, this super dry snarky, like he's a little prick, but he's hilarious. I love

That he's, he's referring to characters like we have any memory of the Nanny .

So you maybe seen two episodes of Nick and Knight when I just haven't turned the TV off in 1998.

It's this, this well to-do family in New York who? Fra.

Oh, I'm sorry. Accidentally becomes

You.

That, that for me caring. I don't Right.

I don't need to know anything about this show.

It's not gonna back my life in the least.

Fine. I'll send you the report when I'm done,

but no, yeah, there have been moments.

No, you have to give it on off track.

No, no, no, no, no, no.

So I just pulled it up.

I mean, is 1993 Fran Dreher kind of hot?

So here's the thing, man, here's the thing.

So normally in the show, her hair's like eight feet tall, right?

Yeah. Like it's teased and, and hair sprayed Yeah.

To like be a solid two feet above her head.

Uhhuh in one episode, she goes on like a fake date with Eric Estrada from Chips.

I I, I won't get into the details. It's it's in the report.

Um, but so she has to wear the helmet and when she takes the helmet off, her hair's just, just looks like normal hair, just like down and whatever.

And I was like, oh man. Okay. Huh.

Okay friend. Mm-hmm . ,

I See you. Yeah. When, when, yeah.

When she, when she laid off the, uh, the Aquanet it was, uh, it was a different program, but It's, I'm disappointed that we didn't choose a war show hearing all this, but uh, dude, It's the amount. Like

Anything that's going's gonna have that many seasons gotta be okay.

That's a valid point, but Okay. For the time.

That's the other thing too, right?

Like Becky and I over COVID went back and watched the entire show of King of Queens great.

Show you, you really do pick up on the things that are like super no longer appropriate to say on tv.

That was totally fine in like a family sitcom in the nineties, first First episode of the Brady Bunch.

They're like, she's like nervous about getting married.

It's like, yeah, why don't you take a tranquilizer ?

So yeah, we, we've come long way people don't realize.

Yeah, we've come a long way. Um, um,

I have to go wake, wake up Hazel, and get her to school because it's how it about six 30.

Okay. Uh, so I gotta be the one to end this one.

We'll get to Nashville next week. Yeah,

We'll definitely cover Nashville next week.

And, uh, recap Vegas and Nashville and whatever it is Tim decides to do on the weekend, this has been off track with Hinch and Rossi Off Offtrack is part of the SiriusXM Sports Podcast network.

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