The Porsche Cayenne is a luxury SUV, meaning it’s a bigger family-style car with a more upscale interior. The GTS version is meant to feel sportier to drive than a standard Cayenne. They mention it because they used one for a week-long trip and reviewed how it worked in real life.
Freedom Factory is the group/brand the hosts are talking about. They’re saying some of the people in the race work there, and the whole setup feels organized like a traveling show.
Place
Stafford
“Stafford” here means the race track location they visited. They’re saying the track owners were friendly and they liked the facility.
Oval racing is racing on a track shaped like an oval. It’s different from road courses, and the hosts are saying they don’t usually do this kind of racing.
Topic
Mayhem
“Mayhem” is referenced as a filming activity connected to the Freedom Factory operation, where staff or participants get to drive as part of the content. In this segment it’s treated like a recurring show/production element rather than a generic word.
They explain how the Crown Victoria race is set up so cars are kept similar and safe. Instead of letting people change lots of mechanical stuff, they focus on making sure the driver’s seat and belts fit correctly.
The Ford Crown Victoria is a large sedan that’s known for being tough and long-lasting. The podcast talks about a race where people use Crown Victorias, showing there’s a dedicated community for them. They mention it because it’s the focus of an event they were involved in.
Tire pressure is how much air is in the tires. Changing it can change how the car grips the road and how it feels, so some races limit it to keep things fair.
In racing, you use a special seat and a multi-belt harness to keep the driver firmly in place. That helps protect you when the car is going fast, turning hard, or hitting bumps.
An outlap is a warm-up lap. You drive it to get the tires and brakes working well before you start your timed laps.
Concept
building the plane while flying
It means you’re learning and adjusting while you’re already doing the hard part. In this context, it’s like figuring out the car’s behavior while the race situation is already happening.
A safety meeting is a talk before racing about how to stay safe. It usually covers what’s allowed, what to avoid, and what to do if something goes wrong.
An endurance race is a long race where the main challenge is lasting the whole time. You can’t just go as hard as possible the entire way without thinking about the car.
Topic
race that's in a series for points
In a points series, drivers earn points at each race. The season standings matter, so people often drive more strategically than in a one-off event.
Formula Drift is a drifting competition where drivers try to slide the car in a controlled way. It rewards skill at keeping the car sideways while staying on the right line.
Person
Kyle
They’re talking about a guy named Kyle who makes videos and has done every one of these races. The point is that he’s already very experienced with how the event works.
Bobby Earnhardt is a racing-related person in the lineup, and the host says he’s related to Dale Jr. The mention is mainly to show the event had well-known racing connections.
Ben Hobson is a professional drifter. The host mentions him to show that at least a couple of people in the field were experienced with drifting and sliding.
Von Gittin is mentioned as part of the same Formula Drift Pro 2 team setup. The host is using it to emphasize that the drifting guys came from real competition backgrounds.
A limited-slip differential helps a car avoid spinning just one wheel when grip is different side-to-side. The important part here is that the event doesn’t allow changing it if it makes the car no longer stock.
Term
smaller oval
A “smaller oval” is a shorter oval track. The idea is that it keeps speeds down so the racing stays safer and more controlled.
Term
big oval
A “big oval” refers to a larger oval track layout, which typically allows higher speeds and longer straightaways. The speaker says the Altimas are faster than the other cars, so running them on the big oval would make speeds too high for safety or control.
Term
Crown Vicks
“Crown Vicks” sounds like a nickname for another type of race car in the event. They’re using it just to compare which cars are faster.
The Hyundai Grandeur is a Hyundai sedan that’s meant to feel more upscale than a standard model. The podcast mentions it while talking about how people might see it as a “bigger” or more impressive car than it is. It comes up because they’re connecting that idea to their racing or driving discussion.
Term
16th mile
It’s a very short race distance—basically a sprint. People use it to compare how fast cars accelerate over a tiny stretch, not a longer drag race.
Front-wheel drive means the front wheels do the work of both steering and pushing the car forward. The host is pointing out that the car was FWD, yet it behaved like it was rotating in a very unusual way.
Rear-wheel steering means the back wheels can turn too, not just the front wheels. That can help the car “turn in” or stay stable, depending on how it’s programmed.
A drift is when the car slides sideways while the driver keeps it under control. “Full drift” here means it was doing that for a big part of the lap.
Term
red and only if cars are right in the racing line
A red flag means the race is stopped immediately for safety. Here, they’re saying they only stop it when the danger is directly in the path where cars are racing.
Term
van pri
They’re talking about a special kind of race for vans. The track has a jump, and everyone has to hit it during the event.
A roll cage is a strong metal frame inside the car meant to protect you if the vehicle flips or crashes hard. The hosts point out these vans don’t have one, so the driver has less protection in a violent event.
Stock seats are the seats that came with the vehicle from the factory. The hosts are pointing out that these vans weren’t upgraded with race-style seats that better support you in hard crashes.
Three-point belts are the normal seatbelts most cars have—one strap across your chest and two around your hips. The hosts are saying the vans aren’t set up with specialized racing safety gear, just standard belts.
The “double bounce effect” describes a suspension/impact behavior where the rear wheels rebound off the ramp and then hit again, causing two distinct compression-and-rebound cycles. In the hosts’ explanation, this is part of why the van’s rear end gets kicked down into the ramp after the initial launch.
“Donkey kick” is what people call a nasty, sudden bounce when a car goes over a jump. The car’s front can kick up or down hard because the ramp and landing don’t give the suspension enough time to settle.
A “flat landed jump” means the car lands on a mostly level surface. That helps the suspension take the hit more smoothly instead of slamming into a weird angle.
Here, “suspensions” means the parts that help the vehicle absorb bumps and landings. Good suspension lets the tires stay planted even when you hit the jump over and over.
Ed Bullion is a race driver the hosts are talking about. They say he was new to side-by-side racing, but he drove aggressively and got into some big crashes while still continuing.
Wheel-to-wheel racing is when cars are racing next to each other on track. The hosts contrast it with time attack, where you’re mostly trying to set the fastest lap by yourself.
A subframe is like a strong metal platform under the car that holds important parts in place. If it’s dragging, it usually means the car was hit hard enough that the underbody is damaged and scraping.
Marshals are the track officials who watch what’s happening on the circuit. They make safety calls—like whether a car can keep going or needs to come in.
Term
pitted in
Pitting in means driving into the pit lane to get help or repairs during the race. It usually takes time, but it can save a damaged car from being done.
Slate sync refers to aligning video/audio recordings from different cameras using a shared reference moment (a “slate”). In motorsport coverage, it helps match what happened on track across multiple angles so the footage can be edited or compared accurately.
Term
caution cameras
Caution cameras are track broadcast/official camera feeds used during caution periods (when the race is slowed for incidents). They provide a consistent timing reference that can be used to sync other onboard or side-angle footage.
“External batteries” refers to adding a battery pack outside the car’s usual electrical system to power race electronics (like cameras, data loggers, or other onboard gear). The point here is endurance—using a larger or more robust power source so the devices survive the full race.
A caution is when something happens on the track, so the race slows down for safety. Everyone has to drive more carefully and follow the rules, and that can shuffle who ends up where when racing restarts.
“Single file” means the cars line up in a single line instead of side-by-side. It’s a safety setup that affects who gets the best starting spots when the race goes fast again.
“Double file” means cars line up two abreast instead of one long line. When the race restarts, that can let drivers gain spots quickly, but it’s also more chaotic.
A restart is the moment racing resumes after a caution period. Because cars line up in a specific formation (single file or double file), restarts are often where position changes happen fastest.
Wheelbase is the distance between the front and rear wheels. A longer wheelbase can make the car feel more stable, but it can also make it harder to react instantly if the car gets shoved or loses grip.
“Late braking” means you wait until the last moment to slow down for the turn. A “hockey stop” is a quick, controlled slide to slow the car and point it into the corner.
Left-foot braking means using your left foot to brake instead of your right. Some drivers do this so they can keep better control of the car while also managing the gas.
Richard Childress is a famous person in NASCAR. Here, the host says he battled Richard for a long time, basically saying the guy really knows how to race even at an older age.
The radio is how drivers get instructions during the race. The host is talking about situations where someone might claim their radio isn’t working, which can change how they follow official directions.
Race control is the officials’ command center that runs the race. They decide things like when there’s a caution and they can give drivers instructions over the radio.
Trail braking means you don’t fully stop braking before you start turning. You keep a little brake on while you turn so the car turns in more smoothly and predictably.
The “front right tire” is one specific wheel that carries a lot of the cornering load. The host is saying their driving style helps that tire last longer so the car turns in better later.
A “front tire” is the tire at the front of the car that helps the car steer. If it gets damaged, the car can’t grip well, so teams often pit to replace it.
A “pit crew” is the group that works on the car during pit stops. Their job is to swap tires or fix problems fast so the driver loses as little time as possible.
A column shift is a car where the gear lever is on the steering column. In a race, you have to move it to the right gear fast—if you miss the timing, the car can lose power and feel like it’s bogging.
“Bog” is when the engine doesn’t pull like it should and the car feels sluggish. It usually happens when the RPM drops too low for the gear you selected.
A control module is a computer box that controls how the car responds to your inputs. Here, it’s part of the system that decides what gear you’re actually commanding.
“Flex and slop” means the shifter linkage has some looseness and bending. So when you move the lever a little, the car might not shift exactly when you think it does.
That “nitrous bottle” is a tank of a special gas used to make the engine feel stronger for a short time. Drivers usually save it for certain moments because using it wrong can cause serious problems.
In racing, flags tell drivers how much time is left. A “double white flag” means there are only two laps remaining, so drivers know they’re in the final stretch and need to be ready to push.
A caution is when the race slows down because something happened on track. A “triple caution” means it happened three times, so restarts keep resetting the race and it changes when you can safely pass.
Full throttle means the gas pedal is fully pressed for maximum power. When drivers say it “kicks,” they usually mean the car suddenly feels much stronger right then.
A “50 shot” is a nitrous boost amount—basically how much extra power the nitrous is adding. So it’s like turning on a big temporary power boost for acceleration.
The “button” is the switch the driver presses to turn on the extra power system. Because it’s placed on the dash, you may need to take a hand off the wheel to use it, which can be risky during restarts.
“D” means Drive on an automatic transmission. The speaker is saying using “D” makes it easier because you don’t have to keep moving the shifter while you’re also trying to steer and hit the power button.
IMSA is a big professional sports-car racing organization in North America. The host is basically saying the event looked and sounded like a high-quality pro race broadcast.
“Blast radius” means how far the dangerous effects of an explosion spread out from the center. The host is making a joke that the fireworks were big enough to feel like that kind of “radius,” even though it’s just a show.
A “tire roll” is a game where you try to roll a tire through a specific target. Here, the target hole is tight, so you have to roll it carefully—no forcing it.
LIVE
What up everybody? Welcome to the Smokentire podcast. This week's episodes as always are
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All right, folks, on this episode of the podcast, Zach and I, we survived our first Cletus race and
came back to tell you all about it. Plus, we review the Cayenne GTS we were driving for our
week long trip to the Northeast, and boy did we get stranded out there. It's the smoking tire
podcast. Let's go. We avoid a lot of crashes. So many, so many. I went and like on the plane,
I watched the highlight, the video they sent. So I got the outside shots of it. And some of the
things that had happened in the car, I wasn't sure what was going on, but now seeing the replay,
I went, oh, that person hit Cletus on purpose and then did a burnout against him, which you and I
drove past, but there was so much smoke, I couldn't tell what was going on. So yeah, I learned a lot.
Yeah. I almost, like, I had quick hands and avoided T-boning Richard Childress in the driver's door,
which, yeah. Someone spun him into the wall and he was facing backwards and then you go past him
and I go past slower because I had more time to react. That was a whoa. Yeah. I mean, who,
I got close to him once and I backed, I was like, do not hit the 80-year-old legend. Yeah, but he
was hitting me like crazy. That's fine. I was like, if I hurt this man, they will kill the person they
don't know, which is me, and they will, you know, celebrate him forever. Driving the number three.
Right. You don't, you don't kill someone driving the number three. Yeah. That's no good. I explained
it to Sarah last night, like, his car and who he was and she was like, oh, wow. I mean, yeah.
Yeah, but dude, that motherfucker had no front bumper left by the end of the race. He had to come in,
they cut it off. Yeah. That's in the video, but they had to rip his bumper off with a sawzall.
He smashed into me a bunch of times. A whole bunch of times. Are we good? Does that really
do exist? Hi. Yeah, we're here. Hello. Hello. Welcome back to Los Angeles. We actually are,
you're going to hear this out of order. We have one more show we recorded in Connecticut that's
going to go up on Thursday, but it's nice to see you all again. If the show is a couple hours late,
it's because it took Zach and I three days to get home from New York at a good time. Detour to
Boston. No worries. Yeah. Little planes, trains, and automobiles, shit. The automobiles portion,
well, yeah, we went to automobiles. We took a fucking expensive ass round trip Ubers to JFK and
back. We went to JFK as sightseers. And yeah, so we took an Uber and then we took another one and
we took a train. Train was really nice. The train was good. The Osella train was nice. A friend of
mine who was also in Boston at the time, he's like, oh man, the train sucks. And I was like,
what are you talking about? And he goes, he took non Osella. Non Osella was, I get, I think,
more problematic, but it was great. Amtrak experience from going Philly to New York back
and forth. Actually, Philly to Stanford, I would go to that same station, from college. And like,
the Osella, if you've got an extra $30, the Osella is definitely the shit. Or yeah, medium grade.
But if you've ever been to Europe, the Osella sucks. But outside of that or Asia,
it's in America, it's good. It's good. Good for America. Yeah. But then, yeah, walking distance
to hotel. Yeah, it was nice. Saw some really old stuff in Boston. Boston at 7 a.m. on a perfect
day is a really nice place. By 9 o'clock, not so much. It's like New York City, if there was a
zombie apocalypse and no one went outside. Like, we were the only ones walking around pretty much.
Yeah. And New York is not like that. If you go, if you went to like Wall Street at 6 a.m.,
it would be ish like that, like where people work but not really live. But yeah, it was,
it was an interesting side detour. But here we are. I liked it. All worth it. Because we got to
do a fucking Caledis race. The New England 900, which right up until we got there, we didn't
really know how, what, what 900, man. Are we going 900 miles? Is this race 900 laps? Exactly what is
it? It was 90 laps. And man, there's, there's so much to talk about, about the day that we had out
there. But I really would like to start with the fact that considering, especially considering
the fact that their product is chaos, you know, that is crashing and really putting on a show
for an audience. The professionalism and organization and the helpfulness and friendliness
and sort of general on-it-ness of the entire staff. Yep. Both the Freedom Factory people,
because they, I guess it's like a big touring circus. Yeah. And also the guys at Stafford were
lovely. That's a, that's a, I don't do a lot of oval racing and ever really, but we met the owners
of the track. One of them was racing in the race. Yeah. And they were just the nicest people. And
it was a really nice track. The surface of the track was really good. Yeah. The condition was
great. Conditions were nice. It was clean and, you know, it was good. Their bathrooms were clean.
Some other bigger tracks we've been to. I mean, this is a small track, small footprint, like in
the forest. And everyone was just so nice and helpful. And I mean, the Cleo's team, they were
doing so many things because there are a lot of pieces to this operation. And everyone was,
that I met, was like in a good mood, working quick on top of stuff, but also seemed to be having a
great time because they're still filming Mayhem. Yeah. Or some of them, as we'll talk about,
got to drive in Mayhem because that's like, what a company perk. Yeah. I don't know if they rotate
through their staff every event or if you have to like work your way up to that. But 25% of the
field are people that work, I think at least part-time at Freedom Factory. Yeah. And like,
remember like, I mean, this was many years ago, when I went to watch Guy Fieri do an episode of
Guy's grocery games, and he had like five jobs at once. And everybody was like really calm about
all of it. I was like, this is like a well-oiled machine. Yeah. Like this whole experience was
like a louder version of that, basically. And Garrett, you know, Cletus is a really sweet guy. I
mean, really, really fun, really, really cool. He's fucking like 65 you know, good-looking
dude. You understand with his attitude, his sort of general vibe, his look, and his brain like,
oh, this is why this guy is like, he's not old. He's like in his early 30s, this dude. Yeah,
but he was. He's fucking on it. I remember we were standing at the wall after the ultimate race.
And, you know, in the day, he had given us the safety meeting. He had done a two-hour meet and
greet. He had raced in the ultimate race, which we'll talk about. And, you know, he emerged
unscathed, which is not easy. He's emceeing stuff. Yeah. Like he knows he's the face of the operation.
He's also helping oversee everything, although he's got Alan, who's like the real logistical dude.
Yeah, yeah. And I said, this is amazing. That guy's got brain power. I was like,
Cleetus, this is amazing. You're driving in two races. You're doing all this stuff. You're talking
to the people. Like that's just a really impressive, and he's doing it all with like a nice smile,
but calm. Yeah. And he goes, how lucky am I to do this? Like, why would I not do that? And it's
a great point. I mean, it is, but it's also like a kind of a testament to like a good support
organization. Sure. That like, there's not a lot of like running around and like, you know,
sort of like playing catch up to anything, even when the product that they're selling is like,
you know, madness. Right. I mean, they've been doing this now, I think for nine years.
And so they've refined it. I don't know. I don't know if it was this,
if Ruffer in the early days, things usually are. Imagine the first two or three. Maybe. Yeah.
And they just, they learned. And I mean, I just, I went in the support trailer, like in the infield,
every bin was labeled, labeled. They, like they have thought of every possible problem with
the driver's performer and the crew. And there's just a solution is easily visible, or someone
knows where it is. Yeah. And, you know, we've been on TV productions, which granted different,
but smaller, a lot more running around usually. Yeah. And I mean, when you've got like cars
crashing and blowing up and like just a lot of general unpredictability
in what you're trying to cover, it's like, wow, that's like, it's one thing, like when I watch,
when I watch Guy Fieri do it, like, you know, they're cooking in a fake grocery store, like
there's limited boundary, you know, I mean, it's, it's still a big production, but like,
this is like louder, bigger, and with, you know, a bunch of people racing that like have
zero to track record holder. That was who was racing in that race. Like,
Ryan Priest, I believe is the track record holder there.
Yeah. I think you're right. And then there was also someone in our race that had literally
zero racing experience. So like, that's some spread in a small track. And then, you know,
the other events of the day, who knows who's driving in those? I mean, surely some of them do
some racing, but I bet some people want, this is their first thing, and they show up with an
Altima or a van and just go for it. Right. So there's three races. Folks take in a break because
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and 365 Day Returns. Quince.com slash tire. We were in the Crown Victoria race, which is
the most legit of the races. Their team provides what are intended to be identical crown vicks.
They don't let you open the hood. They don't let you adjust the tire pressure.
They don't let you do anything other than make sure your seat and harnesses fit properly
and decorate the car as you see fit. And my nephews, I have to say Jack and Henry absolutely
crushed. It's like a BMW art car. It's like a war hole. It's very avant garde and colorful and
delightful. And I'm not sure my sister will ever forgive us for introducing them to spray paint.
I was originally just letting them use brushes and shit. And then we had some extra spray paint
from Zach's car and they were occupied for the next. I think Jack, I look over and he's standing
on the roof like folded over and just spray painting something. I remember as a kid I got
to spray paint something and it was like pivotal, just so enjoyable. And they went nuts. But this
like your car was so easy to find in footage for me. It was so helpful for slating and stuff
because it's bright yellow. See, I am truly an editor's subject. They gave you a good canvas.
I know how to talk to an editor. This is what they should do. And I don't know,
did you ever tell Cletus your idea, but you should put it out in the world now.
Oh, to just have kids come paint everybody's car. Make a wish, whatever, make some sort of
charity thing where the kids get to paint a certain number of cars in however they want
is a great idea. I think that should be a thing that gets done. It was really fun to watch actually.
And I bet you if it was me and I was like six and got to paint a car that then went out in what
appears to be to a six year old, a professional grade race, I would think I would tell everybody
that shit at school. That would be one of the best moments of life, truly. Yeah, it was super
cool. Your car looked amazing. It was very fun. My car drove really nice, I have to say. I mean,
you know, I hadn't driven it. So we got no practice. They don't let you touch the car
aside from sitting up, fitting the seat. Yep. So we drove, you know, you drove 100 yards and
you're qualifying. That was nuts. And it was, all right, you guys are gonna roll onto the track.
You have your Outlap and you have three. So you have three laps to qualify and learn how your car
works. And, you know, we've driven cars like we've jumped in a lot before. But still, like,
you know that you're getting three laps and then you go racing a couple hours later and you're
going to have a real educational race, I gotta say, you know, you're building the plane while flying.
So, you know, there's 24 cars in the race. I qualify and, you know, you, you, you,
it's a short track race. You can't win it in qualifying, right? But you can definitely lose.
Two people crash their cars during qualifying. I forgot about that. Yeah. Yeah. So just
learn the car, try and figure out a line, try and figure out the limit of the tires,
try and figure out the brakes, try and figure out if you can change gears manually, effectively or
not, and don't fucking hit the wall. So I qualified P 18 out of 24. Not impressive. Didn't sound good
when he read in the driver's meeting, but like multiple people were like, actually,
being at that two thirds spot is a is a fabulous place to be for the first half of the race.
Yeah. We'll get to why. And Zach's had a different mission, which is don't fucking
explode your spine further. Yeah. I mean, as, as people, the listeners of know, like I'm back in
serious back pain and I'm leaned over a lot. And so I was really nervous going into this and truly
every like hour was going, should I pull out of this thing? Like, should I
see if Parker wants to take my seat? Should I tell, like, should I just not do it? Because,
you know, and then they show the highlight reel. And then in the safety meeting, they're like,
all right, everybody, it's not really a demo derby. This is what he says. He goes,
it's not a demo derby. We really want to try to race. He goes, but if priests is up front,
I'm taking him out and everybody laughs. Like half the conversation of a 20 minute, very funny
driver's safety meeting was about when it is actually okay to hit people. Cletus then says,
I plan on touching every car in the field. And I'm like, I'm in the field. So I was pretty freaked
out. So I, my qualifying, I was 20th. I was happy to be at the back and not have hit anything. And
it turned out my, my quote strategy would work out pretty okay. Yeah. I mean, it's what's funny
about this race, unlike, you know, an endurance race or something, or a race that's in a series
for points is like the cars only kind of have to make it to the next race. Correct. They're not
yours. Some of these guys are, you know, there were four NASCAR drivers and two Formula Drift
drivers in this race. There were five guys that work there. Yeah. You know, if I worked there,
and especially if I worked on the cars, I go, well, if I, I got to fix it anyway, I'm going to bang
it up. And boosted boy Kyle, who's a, who was a very sweet guy. I talked to him a little bit.
I don't, I didn't know him at all. I talked to him a little bit before the race. He's done
every single one of them. Wow. So, I mean, he's a YouTuber, but he's done every one of these
races. He, he says he lives like across the street from the track, from freedom factory. Oh,
so like, he's at all of them. That's awesome. So, you know, you know, there was a 10 out of,
I think it was 10 people in the, in the race. It was their first race. But of those 10,
one was, you know, one was Childress. One was, what's his name? Fucking Bobby Earnhardt,
who is Dale Jr.'s nephew, who was a lovely guy. Anyway, the, the competition was like,
for the most part, pretty fucking fierce, if I'm honest. Yeah. Yeah. It was almost everyone had
more experience driving oval racing than us, except for two people. Two people. Yeah. I think
Ben Hobson, who's a Formula Drift pro, pro driver. Yeah. I mean, sorry, meaning like,
what's it called now? FD Pro. Pro 2. Yeah. So, he's, he's Pro 2 teammate with Von Gittin,
who's also there. He was brand new. And then there was a guy. But if you're an FD driver,
like you can fucking drive. Oh, you can drive and you can slide. And then there was the guy that
was the sponsor from Wayland, who had never done anything like this. Yeah. So, in us.
And, you know, have a decent amount of racing experience, but not on ovals. That's a new thing.
So, I was fucking stoked and, you know, just, just sort of happy to be there. And so, after we
qualify, they have this Nissan Altima race, which, in, in, in which, in which they don't provide the
cars, fans sign up and bring cars. The cars are not caged. Okay. It's run what you're brung.
But as long as it's a stock Altima. Yes. And can't, it has to be completely stocked. So,
like Cletus has an SCR. Right. But like, and speedy cop was telling us that even if you,
like, so the SCR, Jeff, Jeff speedy cop block, he's a fucking lunatic. He is an absolute lunatic.
Um, he's like, you know, the SCR has an LSD and he, and speedy cop had like a manual v6,
but he's like, I can't take the LSD out of an SCR in a junkyard and put it in here because
that's not stock. So, it's interesting that like they're so strict about that regulation.
And think how, think how out of hand that would get. I mean, it could, it would be even worse.
Yeah. Like it would be even worse. And we should say that they run this on the smaller oval because
if these cars were on the big oval, they'd be going way too fast because they're way faster
than the Crown Vicks. Yeah. They're 300 horsepower. They're lighter. And they're lighter. And
Cletus told me, he goes, he goes, you wouldn't believe people will, he goes, look around a
bunch of these cars have tags on them. He goes, Pete, there he goes, the optimism. He goes,
there's people that legitimately think they're going to drive their Altima home from here.
And I think he said that before the race started. Yeah. And I was like, really,
why do they think that? He goes, I don't know. And when you see the race, you will be,
you will wonder why they thought so too. Yeah. Because you win, you know, the purse is $2,500.
So, if you're a dumb person, you will drive your car there and you have this amazing delusion of
grandeur. And I get it. And you're like, I'm going to race this thing. I'm going to win. I'm going
to go home with the prize money. No one's going to touch me because I'm going to be too fast.
I don't even think this oval, the mini oval is an eighth mile. I think it's a 16th or something
really mile, whatever, whatever that is, like it's like a quarter mile, might be a quarter mile.
I'll get a picture of Stafford. No. It might, it's not, no. It might be a 16th mile, right?
It's tiny as shit. You couldn't, you couldn't run track on it. Anyway, it's,
would it have 42 cars in the field? Yeah. 40 laps. 42 ultimates. This, this might have been the most,
the most brutal motorsport I think I've ever seen. And they, at one point, it was,
it looked like a war zone out there. And we walked up to one of the freedom factory guys.
I forget his name, but homie with the long white beard who looked like a shorter John
Daly. You fucking rule. Now there he is. There's the photo of him. This guy. I fucking love this guy.
He's only holding a red and a green flag. He said there are no yellow flags in this race.
And we asked that because this is, I don't know, lap 24. And we, if you go here, just for people
watching, to our left, we're standing at the K rail. There are cars with bumpers. There's cars in
infield. Can you command plus that a couple of times? But zoom in on that. The big thing is
the dust cloud because people have started cutting the infield as the apex. Okay. Here's my favorite
car in the whole race. Zoom in on number 50 there. Is that it? Is that Mr. Krab Walker? Yes. Yes. Okay.
This is my favorite car in the whole race. Yeah. This fucking car, somehow it got like
both its rear wheels for cocktail out of alignment as if it had rear steer, but locked to the left
full, full left. Okay. But this is a front drive car. I'm sorry. Like it's the wheels are pointed
to the right. So the rear wheels are towed out. Yeah. Left rear wheels are towed in and I mean
like 10 degrees. Yeah. So it's as if you had a rear steer system that was fully locked in a left
hand turn, but it's, you know, it's a front wheel drive car. So this thing, it's better this way
than the other way. Correct. But he was basically doing a full drift around the whole track,
involuntarily while driving the front wheels like clean. Yeah. And he did like over half the race
like this. It was amazing. But so here, like, you know, out in the distance, there's a car pulled
over here. The infield got it and it got duster than this where you couldn't see. And there were
dead cars strewn around. And this is when we asked that guy, we go, when do you throw a yellow?
And they said, we only throw a red and only if cars are right in the racing line. Yeah. And you
kind of look and you go, well, the racing line doesn't exist. So I think a lot of these guys
are real close to the racing line, but they, they let it run. I don't think they red flag this whole
race. And they did one. They won one red flag because there was it in the right now in the in
this photo, the densest part of that smoke or dust is the apex of the far corner. Yeah. And a car did
die and like right there. And so they did have to. But yes, speedy. So speedy cop won that race,
which was, which is just crazy thing to see. I mean, these, these folks are going four to five
wide into a turn that's really for two cars, maybe three legends cars. And, and speedy said that
last lap he was turning in, I mean, people just T boning each other and they use the other car
to keep them inside the track and they'll just shove you out. That's which I have also seen
happen in NASCAR, shout out Parker Kligerman. But this is really violent. There's a car with an
airbag deployed like the curtain. I don't know if it went off there or if it had already gone off.
I mean, the destruction that was happening. Fluids everywhere was total madness. Yeah,
it's the truly the roller derby of motorsport. Yes, exactly what it is. You know, if, if
there's two kinds of people listening to this, people that are have actually seen roller derby
in no time. People are like roller derby, more like no, roller derby is the most violent sport
I've ever seen people like people do. I think the injuries I have seen in that sport after
dating a roller derby girl for four years were as gruesome as anything I've ever seen in any
other sport ever. It was just shattered bones. I mean, horrible, horrible sport. It's so violent.
This was that. Yeah. And so after that, you know, you know, cleanest races in this fucking thing,
I don't even remember if his car finished or not. I don't actually think it did. But,
you know, now the track, because he's here now. Oh, yeah. That's him standing with us and the
races still happening. So yeah, right. So he then has to do, you know, sort of like a,
like a hosty bit to a 7,200 person crowd while they clean the whole track. So he's doing like bits
and games to like an enormous, you know, 6,000 people, 7,200, 7,200 people. And they're doing
all kinds of, you know, games and prizes and fun little bits, which, you know, is after getting
out of a really crazy race to go straight to that is something. Yep. And then they do the van
pre, which is like the ultimate race, but it's mini vans and they put a fucking jump in the track.
Yep. Not just a jump, it's a jump with a flat land. Yep. Folks, one more quick break for
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And you are required, so the van pri is interesting. It is a judged event. So it's
crowd response. Who put on the best show? But every van is required to hit the jump at least once.
And you can hit it at whatever speed you want. You can hit it going front or backwards. People
did that. But some people chose to hit the jump every time until they're, as long as their van
survived it. And like I thought the Ultima race was the most violent crazy thing I'd seen. And
for me, this one, there were fewer vans. But the sends, like the height they were
obtaining of like seriously five feet off the deck, landing flat on asphalt. And then the sound of
like a bank safe hitting the ground. And they go around again, and they do it again, and they go
around again, and do it again. And the real reward of being a driver in this event is that they put
the jump right in front of where the Crown Vic drivers get to hang out. So you get the up front
view. I think no, I mean, like because of the jump, the carnage is also completely excessive.
And from where we were sitting, we got to look, look the drivers right in the eyes as these things
fucking nose dived into the asphalt. I think the Ultima race was more violent from a racing
perspective, like people crashing into each other harder and just like people continuing to try to
race with their cars, like even more fucked up maybe than the vans. But the jump is unique.
Totally. It doesn't even look like that big of a jump when they put it down. But the way the van
like it a donkey kicks a bit. The first time we saw someone hit one of those,
I think the wheels were like eight inch eight feet off the ground for real.
Like it blew me. I was like, Oh, they're going to get a foot of air because the ramp is 10 degrees
pretty low. But it donkey kicks so hard. And I think Cletus told us it's kind of by design.
He's like, you'll see. Boy, did we ever see. I'll pull it up really quick.
It was a true spectacle. Also, I mean, these vans, no roll cages, stock seats, three point
belts, which, okay, here's just lap one. Yeah, that's a kaka kaka. Yeah. I mean,
it really the fact that the van is front wheel drive, it's so front heavy and then it donkey
kicks the back, you know, because the front, the it's not just the wheels that go off. It's
bounces off the ramp, which then kicks the rear wheels down
into the ramp. And then it has a sort of double bounce effect on the rear wheels.
So when I did that, that article for road and track about how to jump a car,
and I got to interview the guys, you know, from global rally cross that literally designed the
tabletops. They were like, in the early days, we, we, the ramps, the takeoff was too short.
And it caused the donkey kick and the landing was too short. Yeah.
By, by making the takeoff ramp incredibly long and the table and then the landing incredibly
long, they're like, we can make a jump as big as you want. And the car can hit it almost any
speed once they clear the gap and land as deep or as short. And it's be pretty safe. This is
what the early days were like because of the donkey kick problem. This is the exact opposite of that.
It's no landing. It's a flat landed jump. Yeah, it's, it's unbelievable. It was so nuts.
I also, I got to be, say, I'm pretty impressed at the ability of most of these vans,
suspensions, to handle even more than one of these. I agree. You know, there was,
there were vans that hit this thing 15 times, which I don't know how those people are alive.
Well, we talked to one of the kids and it is a kid, like he gets out and I was like,
you guys are insane. He goes, that was the best. And I said, how old are you? And he's like 20.
Yeah, right. I get it. You know, and me, me with current back problems, I am,
I'm sendee from the future, you know, the ghost of sendee past or whatever. And he's like, yeah,
have fun. It was, it was batshit. What a thing to see. Yeah. And then, you know, I think as a,
as a driver, you know, you watch that, then you get into a car with a cage. And how can you not
be like, well, I am, I am responsible to put on some kind of a show here. So like, I was like,
I, you know, I don't want to crash out of this race. I want to finish the race, see if I can do
well, you know, but like, if I got to hit somebody, you know, so be it, like, whatever.
And I got hit a bunch too. I mean, it was, was a, and some of those, like,
you know, on TV, if you get brushed into the wall, that doesn't look like a big deal.
That's a fucking hard, that's a hard. It's a shake. There's a video,
it'll be in the collab video, but there was one of my favorite moments, kind of like lap 20.
But I'm behind you and Ed and you and Ed, and he's, his car is bright green, yours is bright
yellow, so it's easier to spot. Ed Bullion. Ed Bullion was quicker than I expected. He was also
another, I can't believe we didn't mention him earlier. He was a rookie. He has very little,
he has no wheel-to-wheel racing experience. He's done some like time attack type stuff.
He has some track experience, but, but almost no wheel-to-wheel experience, but he fucking sent
it. Yeah. He, he did a, he did a fabulous job. I have, I had to show some respect to Ed. Definitely.
And his, his, his aggression was, was amazing. He, he had some, he showed some skills. He really,
he really was good. He was, you and him were like neck and neck for most of it. Yeah.
And he got crashed. He got spun around twice. The third one like broke his tie rods and his car
was done, I think. Yeah. But like, he was involved in a lot of pretty gnarly accidents and then kept
going and kept going until, until literally one, you know, later in the race, I'm following him
and I see sparks and I get to the right and I was like, oh, your front right suspension's
collapsed and you're just dragging subframe and it just like shooting out like a freaking rocket.
This is amazing. That's where the, that's when the marshals, when they see the sparks like,
how, let him do one more for the crowd before he comes in. Yeah. No, he pitted in. I mean,
there's so many stories to tell from this thing, truly. But no, Ed did great. So, you know, it's,
it's. Oh, where I was going with the hitting the wall real quick is you guys are in front of me
and I'm watching, so you're on the outside and I'm watching Ed, I'm going to get in the camera,
like you're, you're both are exiting corner one and he smacks into you and pushes you like
wide and you guys kind of rub and I'm like, whoa, my friends are car fighting and I'm like,
literally staring and watching and not at all watching what I'm doing and I hit the wall
and you can see in the in-car, my head goes, and then, and then from your rear view, you could
see my car and my car goes, and I literally was like, okay, Zach, time to focus, like stop watching
I was watching the movie and I needed to focus. Oh my god, that's so funny. Were you able to
slate sync my camera to the, to the other video? You know what helps slate? Caution cameras. So,
you and I, you and I were synced. I didn't sync, I didn't sync it with the whole broadcast. Yeah.
I could have done that, but I did it later, but I synced ours easily because of the green lights.
Did both my cameras survive the whole race? No. They're only the rear? Your rear made
the whole race. Your front, my front died at like lap 76 or something like that. There was
almost no way it was going to fucking last the whole race. Yeah. Next time we'll do external
batteries or something like that. Yeah. Yeah. The race was, the race was from a time perspective
significantly longer than I thought. Yeah. We were sort of, we, we, we sort of thought the
race was going to be about an hour and a half. The race was like two hours and 20 minutes or
something. Yeah. It was long. There was a lot of cautions. A lot. 11 maybe. Yeah. A lot. There was
a lot there. So, okay. Let's see. You started the beginning? I mean, we don't have to like,
I was, I was trying to drive in the beginning. I think I was trying to be too clean actually.
And about, you know, and I sort of lingered around whatever, 17th, 6th, 16th, something like that.
And a car, you know, I would gain position when cars would crash out. And I'd be like,
well, if I can hang on for a while, I can get a bunch of positions this way. And I found, you know,
so when you would go to the, when you go to caution, they'd go single file. And for the restart,
you'd go double file and they would have a cone and you would have to pick a side.
And, and so it would actually be kind of random who ended up sort of where in the restarts. And
I found out I started doing math early. If you went high, you'd gain probably two positions
almost every single time. Yep. And so I, on one of them, I gained like five positions. I had a
really good fucking choice on one. Well, I was right behind you. It was funny about that is
before the race, I told Cleese about my back and I was like, because he said when, when you throw
caution, we're going to reset you. And I said, how do I stay at the back to not be in the fracas?
And he's like, oh, just pull over, let everyone go by, get in the back. That's fine. Yeah. And I
was like, great, that's what I'm going to do. So we were at the back and you and I chose high. And
all of a sudden we're 6th and 7th in line. Like, and I went, well, I'm fucking in it. I was just
so the restarts are really where it's crazy. I mean, because they're literally the people behind
you are having their bumper on your bumper and they're full and they're pushing you into the
cars in front of you. So you kind of just got to like be like, all right, like that's what's
happening right now. And, you know, some half the time that would result in somebody crashing
and half the time it wouldn't. So at one point, we didn't even make it a full lap three times in
a row. Yeah. I'm like lap 68 or something. That's one of the race director who's super pro. But
in the safety meeting, Cleetus was like, there will be times where I think his name was Ryan.
Ryan's just trying to communicate with you guys. There's times where he might sound mad at you,
but he's not. There's times where he might be mad at you. The three in a row, he was mad at all
of us. Yeah, he was like, what the fuck are you guys doing? And he wasn't wrong. It was a lot of
cautions towards the end. But man, it was wild to watch from the back and then watch later in
the replay. Those, those starts and, you know, everyone's going, going, and then someone just
wiggles a little bit. And you, I would think like we got new tires, shout out Nitto. We've got long
wheelbase cars, but they pirouette real fast. It's just, it's like this domino effect.
If you lose this back in, it's while someone's pushing you, you know, that's, that's that.
That happened to me on like lap three or something. I ended up spun into the grass and I was like,
really kind of glad to have gotten it out of the way that early in the race. I was like, oh,
all right. And so then I had, you know, four or five laps to sort of like drive fast by myself
on the opposite field to sort of catch up to the back of the field, learn the track a little better,
like at speed. Eventually fucking Cletus comes around and I'm like, and he, and he fucking
fucking taps me on the side and I'm like, okay, but then I'm like, oh,
I'm just going to stick my fucking nose on his bumper and chase him right around the track and
like learn how to do this properly, just like a lead follow and watch his brake lights and watch
his front wheels. And I, that's when I was like, okay, fucking late break hockey stop at the apex,
smash the throttle straight wheel to track out and one break, one gas. That's it. Left foot on the
brake. And after that, I was like, now all right, now it's fucking go. I wish I could
have done the first half of the race sort of knowing that like, but now we know. Yeah. And
then it got, then it got real fun. I, I battled with Richard Childress for like 15 minutes.
This dude was on it. I mean, he, he might be 80 fucking years old, but this is a guy who knows
how to race a car. Yeah. Running the number three black car where it's like, you can't get,
you can't hit him, but he can hit you. Got a kind of crazy.
I, right before the race, he was parked next to me and I said, Hey, man, you know, any advice for
a total newbie? Yeah. And he's so nice. And he's just like, let them figured out at the front and
just stay out of the shit and then, you know, start racing towards the end. And that philosophy
worked. That's actually, yeah, that's pretty much what everybody said. Honestly, the craziest people
were the, the dudes who just worked at the freedom factory. All of them guys like,
were the most unpredictable, crashiest drivers. And one of them who, you know,
I think tried to pretend like his fucking radio wasn't working, you know, they, they would resort
you in the cautions and, and fucking he, and he would be like, I was told by race control to like
go in front of my, you know, and he was just like, no, I'm just like, wouldn't give up the position
and hit me. And then he gave me the finger. I was like, what the fuck? Yeah, there were a couple
of people, you know, they'll call it out. They'll go, you were 419, I was 55, for example. And if we
ended up, if I ended up in front of you and during a caution, they'll reset it to what it should be.
And they go, Oh, 55 move behind 419. And they'll go 12 move in front of zero. And there was a call
on the radio that was like, five times. And I was like, Hey, zero, I need you behind or whatever
the number was like, zero, you got to get behind like, guys, we need to, you know, and someone,
either the radio stopped working, because Ed did say his working for some reason at lap 20.
Or they were pretending to, because they're just using it to get an advantage. And in the case of
me, they told me to get in front of this car, the dude fucking hit me, wouldn't let me in front.
And then they didn't like, say anything again. Like, all right. But I didn't, I decided that I
didn't really like care that much, you know, where we finished, I just wanted to like, have a good
race, fucking get to the end, you know, try to do my best to put on the best fucking show I could.
I was having so much fun, you know, mixing it up with all these different people,
depending on like where cautions flew and stuff. And, you know, in the beginning, I was trying the
whole like trail break in and breaking a little softer, because, you know, it's funny. So three
days before the race, I had a zoom call with Parker Kligerman, which I filmed. And I was like,
give me all the pointers. I've never done this before. And my idea was that I would use this
secret weapon, beat you, and then show you the video today on the show. That worked out real
well, didn't it? Because I finished four spots. It did not work. Sorry, Parker.
I was like, you know, trail breaking differently and all this different stuff. And then for me,
at the end of the race, like the last eight laps, it worked out better if I break earlier, let off
earlier, and then let all four wheels just carry me around. And then I like, I passed Vaughn,
I passed Ben, I passed speedy cop. Like it didn't like the hockey stop, but it was just so much fun,
like watching other people's wheels, watching how some people seem to come in so hot.
And it would work. And they'd go around. And then the next lap, they'd come in too hot and just
and they would just spin past you into the infield. And you're like, all right, that's a little too
much. When I, when I say the hockey, the full hockey stop move, it wasn't a formula drift slide.
It's not that it's like three degrees of oversteer. It's like just, just where you start to take the
wheel back the other way. I feel like that unloads the front right tire a little bit from,
from getting, from getting worn down. And it helps you able to turn in earlier, like later into the
race. Like most of the position I actually gained was by people either crashing or by guys going
really fast up front and blowing their front tire off and going in for a, for a new front tire,
which you could do. You could, there, it was amazing. They had a pit crew for everybody.
So if your car broke or something was off or you wanted new tires, you could go in and get them.
But I was like doing the math on that. And I almost everyone who went in for a front tire,
I actually, because they went in when there was a caution and I watched it later and I
actually got back out before the caution ended anyway. And it was actually because I hit the
wall and I was also curious how my tire was doing. And they were like, it's fine. So I,
that's when I learned I wasn't driving it as hard as I thought because I don't know about you,
but I couldn't feel any real loss of traction in the front. I had to watch for when the car
was going the direction I didn't want to go. Right. So there's very little, little feedback.
No, yeah. The hardest part of the whole race for me was actually, you know, when you, on the
restart, you have to, it's a column shift. You've got to get the car into first gear. Otherwise,
it'll just, it'll bog. And in the column shift, it's, you know, it's one at the bottom, two,
and then D. And if you're, you know, in a racing situation, it's incredibly difficult to actually
hit two and not go past it to D. Well, I would add that, you know, the distance at the,
at the actual control module, like in the, in the steering shaft, let's say that the distance
from one to two is one millimeter, but the flex and slop somehow at the end of the column shift
where you're holding it, five inches. So like I, I messed up that start. I think I only got it right
once or twice of going one to two because of the times where I tried to do it and met and went to
D, I was actually slower than just leaving it in two and flooring it like early. It was, it was
worse for me to go to three, you know, one to D and it would bog and have to go down to two and
downshift. And that was worse than just leaving in two the whole time. So here's what I found with
my car. And I found out the very sort of end of the race. If I just, if my foot was on the floor
board, right, and I went past two to D, it would still only shift once to two.
I was wondering about this. And then I would, it was easier to get to two from D while breaking
for the next corner. So it was actually that is, that was the move. It was go,
is way easier than trying to stop it in the middle. And once I figured that out, and then
I could always downshift down to two as I turned in. And sometimes it would engine break the rear
and it would help me get a little extra. I should have done more experimentation,
but there was like, there was so much information process, so much to pay attention. I mean,
the highlight video, like the number of real accidents that you and I weaved through. Oh my
gosh. At times got hit a little, but still made it through. I mean, like this was slalom
shit. I felt like I had a true days of thunder moment. And during the red, where there was
shit spinning around me. And I was like, yeah, that was turn one. When Ed hit the
wall hard, like you and I went right. And then a car was spinning like, fuck. And we had to go
left around this whole thing. That was awesome. The other thing that I was disappointed is the
whole nitrous situation. So they, so every car has a 10 pound nitrous bottle in the back. And
all they tell you is save it for the end. And if you have to hit the nitrous under full throttle,
if you don't, it will blow the intake off the car. And I talked to like, we talked to Vaughn,
we talked to Kurt Busch, we talked to Parker, like, save the nitrous, save the nitrous. Well,
in watching the replay, I learned a bunch of the people at the front use the nitrous by lap 10.
Like, priests was hitting the button on lap 10 to just maintain, to keep position because they know
that passing is hard without it. So that was pretty interesting. So were they out of nitrous
by halfway through the race? Yeah, for sure. But throughout the race, they were counting down.
This is like these fuckers in Seattle that tell everybody it rains all the time. Just to keep
them away and keep Seattle to themselves. That very well might be true. This is the,
everyone save the nitrous, save the nitrous just so they can use their nitrous and stay ahead.
I think it's true. I mean, the irony is that if I'd used it earlier, I would probably been up in
the middle of the fight and then gotten hit out anyway. But nobody could really tell me,
because they go, it's a 10 pound bottle. And I go, how many seconds of nitrous is that? Yeah,
because I you tell me it's 40 seconds of flow. I can count that down. I can remember that. But
one of the commenters said, I think it's 60 seconds. Oh, then I probably did have a little
bit left. Yeah. So through the race, they were counting down in our ears. They go, hey, guys,
we're at lap 10. We're at lap 20. 30. And then once we started crashing out all the
time, they stopped doing that. And they didn't tell us lap 20. They didn't tell us lap 10.
And then so basically where I'm going is like, we didn't know where we were again until there
were like 10 laps left. I didn't even know that from, yeah, I didn't know we had 10 left. And
then I didn't notice the double white flag for two left. And so all of a sudden, I had hit it a
little bit. And I was like, okay, when's the they're going to tell me 10 laps, and I'm going to start
using this bottle and passing fools. And then I drive by and I look up and go check her flag.
After the triple caution, that was 18 laps to go. I remember that there were 18 laps remaining
when the triple caution happened. So after that, I was like, all right, on the third triple on the
third caution, I was like, now there's now it's time to start using it. And I absolutely noticed
the difference if the car was in first gear when you hit it. In fact, there was a substantial,
I was full throttle then button and it was a kick. So it was probably like a 50 shot
on a 200 horsepower car. I think that's what it was. And that explains why
on some of the restarts, there was a car, I think it's number 24, Kyle, would pass every time.
And I was like, how's he doing that? It's because he's hitting the button one and
he's just behind me and then they hit go and he's next to me. Yeah. So that's, so people were using
it earlier than they were saying they were should use it. But so they also put it on the button is
on the left side of the dash. So if you're using the button, you kind of need your other hand to
steer. So it's really hard to column shift, steer and use the button. That's how I found out. I
was like, I'm going to try the D thing because I can just be sloppier with it with my right hand
while I'm steering. Yeah. So that that I think is, I think they put it on the dash rather than
somewhere more accessible on purpose. So you have to take a hand off the wheel to use it.
I think that's an intentional choice. That might explain why so many people crashed on the straight
away. Truly on restarts because they don't have their hand on the wheel and all of a sudden like,
oh, shit, and you can't catch it. That really makes sense because there was some interesting
stuff happening. Yeah. But goddamn, was that a fun, fun race, fun, so exciting, interesting.
And then they do this live stream. I mean, they've got, they've got live stream cameras in the cars.
They've got drones. They've got commentators. I mean, it is the coverage is as good as any
IMSA race I've seen. It was amazing. So I don't know for, for 20 bucks or whatever it is for the
live stream. It's a hell of a product. It's a really impressive production. I mean, and then the
fireworks display, you know, they were using terms like blast radius. And I was like, ha, ha, ha.
And then no, no, it was a fucking huge fireworks display. I was like, shouldn't those go higher
before they explode? That was cool. And then I love that, you know, in between the events,
they have to clean the whole track up. So they run the van race and then there's fluid everywhere.
And they did this tire roll, which was basically they brought a bunch of people down from the crowd
and the goal, I don't know, what are they 100 feet, you're 100 feet away from a wooden board
that has a hole in it that is like half an inch too wide for a tire. And the goal is to roll
the tire into the board. And so I'm standing next to one of the producers and he goes, yeah,
we just built this thing. It's a new idea. And 30 of us tried it at Freedom Factory and none of us
got it. He's like, I don't really know how this is going to go. First person gets up, 17 year
old kid who just graduated high school, like literally whatever a month ago. And he's just
spends a lot of time like looking, looking pushes it gently, doesn't force it just lets gravity
take it. Fucking first shot. Yeah. And you only get one shot and it rolls through. He wins $5,000.
The crowd goes nuts. And I think the producers were like, oh, shit, well, we need more time to
clean stuff. So then they added more money and they started, you know, raising the stakes again.
So for every miss, they'd add a grand to the prize. But like, what a cool way to involve the crowd.
They get a huge reward. I mean, the kid was obviously so stoked. Yeah. I mean, what an amazing
moment for him. Yeah, it was good. It was just a really great clever idea, just as they break up,
you know, the races, just what a production, the whole thing. It was, and you know, and cleanest
is a, you know, the fact that he was a host quote first before he became a driver, you know,
or fucking PT Barnum was it helps because he's actually MCing the whole thing and he's very
comfortable doing it. He makes a very good, he makes for a very good host. Yes. So that's pretty,
that's fucking, it was, it was an unbelievable time. I mean, I gotta, you know, is this our
crash avoidance? This is our crash avoidance. Can we, can we watch it? We're gonna put it on,
it's going to be on Instagram by the time this, this show goes up. So Zach is in the Black 55
and I'm in the yellow and art, art car. Was that cleanest? That's cleanest.
Yeah. All right. So that's you, you and Ed and Matt hitting each other. That's when I get distracted
and hit the wall. So funny. Oh, yeah. So there's Richard Childress oversteer.
Someone, Richard Childress in the infield, someone hit the wall. Oh my God. There's cars just
everywhere. Here's the days of thunder moment where there's a no, they're about to be cars just,
yeah, this is, there's just cars spinning all over the place. You go around. This is me. There's like
a, yeah. Oh my God. This is like, that was me and this guy just, I thought he's about to turn in
and hit me more, more days of thunder. Oh, here's, this is the craziest crash. That was a huge pile
up. You got right through because this is your, so your camera first, yeah, two cars that spin to
the infield. And so everyone stays out wide and they go, okay, like we're going to just drive around
what's happening. Well, those cars still have momentum on the infield and they decided to and
they decided to rejoin the track, whether by choice or not. And then they just and spin it.
They started to come across, come across and hit it. And you, that's like, you, and you get hit.
So, and the, the dude I hit, I bumped into there, that's the guy, David, who owns the track. Oh,
it is. Yeah. The white car. Yeah. That was David. He owns the track. Great driver. And then he goes
wide and ends up hit, like almost hitting the accident. And then you and I go through, I mean,
there was just, look, there's five cars stopped on the track. Speedy cop hits squirrel,
oh my God. And then they all come to the stop. Look at Farrah. Yeah. So that's you and I passing,
you know, we got another person facing the wrong way again. And it all happens like so quickly.
Yeah. And the cars aren't going that fast. But when these accidents happen, they, the cars stop
moving so abruptly and then cause more. And you have Crown Vic brakes. Yeah, you do. Mine were,
were warped. It's just, it's carnage, man. This is, this is like, for years, if you just so much
as rub fenders with somebody in a race that I've participated in. Straightaway crash on a start.
Sure. You're just going to be, you know, you get penalized if you do shit like this in other
Exactly. Like I watch F one, but I, this was like a palette cleanser for all of the traffic.
And that's it. Sparky. Wow. Yeah. That accurately captures what being in that race was like. I
think it's as gorgeous. Good times. Really good times. I hope that I ended up finishing seventh.
Yeah. Which is pretty respectable. I'm happy with that. I was 11th. Zach finished. Absolutely
happy with that. Moving up nine spaces for you. Moving up, I moved up nine spaces as well. 18th
and 7th. We both moved up nine and I didn't get hurt. Honestly, I was the most comfortable
all day sitting, just sitting in the chair. Actually, that was a super comfortable race car.
It was. It was more comfortable than WRLC. It was because all the seats seemed like brand new.
I mean, they are really on top of it. I mean, I can't thank them enough. I've been wanting to do
this for years, you know, and I'm really glad that we had the opportunity. And I was like,
I was nervous, nervous, nervous. I got three laps in. I started having fun. I was like,
I'm so glad I'm in this chair right now. And I didn't bail out of it, especially after hitting
the wall and realizing it didn't hurt and the chair's good. Yeah. If you're strapped in, you're
good. Yeah. Please invite us back. Yeah. It was very, very fun. We didn't totally destroy your car.
Put up a good, good showing, I think. I think not destroying the car because I met the guy that
adjusts my seat. He's like, I'm the body guy. I go, what do you mean? He goes, well, after these
come back, we got to hammer stuff out. We can or we change the doors. You know, we, they keep these
cars alive. They don't want to build a new cage. And all right, body guy, like I made your job
pretty easy. So great time. What a good time. We did make them. We, we, we didn't ask the right
questions beforehand. Like when they were like, gates open at 10. Driver's meeting is at, you know,
four. We weren't like, what time should we actually show up? So we showed up at 10 and we were,
we had a very long day in the sun. We did. I was very tired. So we stayed at the world's worst
red roof in East Hartford. Yikes. It was a, you know, honestly, the bed was firm enough. I was,
the bed was better for me than the nice place, the Dagny. We stayed at in Boston.
Oh yeah, it was. Oh, I'm glad you, I'm glad you enjoyed it. But the shower and bath situation,
I was like, I'll definitely, I'll bathe in the sink.
Wait, do we want to talk about the Cayenne or we should talk about the Cayenne? I think,
if we, if we, should we, yeah, well, well, let's do, let's do Cayenne first, right? Yeah.
Because Porsche was very kind. They let us borrow the new Cayenne GTS, which is a 493 horsepower
gasoline only non-hybrid, excuse me, twin turbo, four liter V8 in, of course,
Carmine Red. They call it GTS Red now, but it's Carmine Red. Really, really neat car.
A lot to like, honestly. It's, it's fast and loud. Sounds good. The steering is really nice. The ride
is really nice. They fucking, they've dialed in these air shocks. So nice. Like, compared to the
ones like in my Taycan, like granted, this is a GTS, but it's also newer. Like just the, the,
the rebound on the air spring is really nice now. They, they're really, it's really well damped.
Just like such a nice thing to drive around, like to use as a, it's not, you don't have to,
it's granted, it's a Cayenne, but like, it's not too harsh. It's not too sporty. You can use it
as a car, but it still gives you a good sporty vibe. And you know, we're in Greenwich, Connecticut
back roads. Like they're windy and they're undulating and like having a car with great
steering and a good gearbox, like is important. Definitely helped. Improved our vacation work
trip. For a way to have a vehicle to run around where we were with like curvy back roads, curvy
highways, pretty smooth tarmac everywhere. It was a very good tool for that. Almost everywhere.
Because you, before you came to Connecticut, I went down to Long Island to see my, my in-laws
at the beach. And I have to drive across Long Island and, and where they are down on the south
shore. The tarmac is a garbaggio, is exceptionally garbaggio. When you get across that state line
into Connecticut, it's a whole other level of tarmac quality. And so on some of the really hard
edges, there's no way to hide that it's got the big wheels and, you know, the sport set up.
So it's not great on the really harsh edges. If that's your life, I might consider not a GTS.
But when the road is decent, this is great. I really liked the seats. You know, it's,
it, there's nothing revolutionary about it. It handles well. The rear steer makes it feel incredibly
agile. But the start stop. Yeah. Start stop and the auto brake. Yeah. These are two things. And,
you know, I drove a Cayenne GTS. Can I have this? Yeah. Three years ago, I went to Atlanta, drove the
then newer Cayenne GTS. And I remember I was turning on a mountain road and there was an engineer
behind me. And all of a sudden, the car slammed on its own brakes because it thought I was like
heading towards a cliff. And I was literally just driving on a curve. And I pulled over and I was
like, did you see that? And he goes, yeah, I did. The reason I bring that up is because you and I
were trying to make a left turn onto a highway. And there was a, there was a gap and you hit the
gas to drive left across oncoming traffic. And it hit the brakes. Yeah. Just like that's two
different times with years of, you know, I would hope, um, what's what I'm looking for, development
time, where it almost caused a pretty big problem. Like it, yeah, like I was making a left across
two lanes of traffic. There was enough room to make this left. But after I had moved about three
feet, the car decided that no, I would not be making the left. I didn't have enough room. And
it stopped me in a place that is dangerous. Yeah. Um, which is crazy. But then you have the start
stop, which to me is like in this, it's like pretty unforgivable in this car, the way that
this operates. And I had a problem with this three years ago or two years ago with the S version
of this same thing. Basically in an effort to be as efficient as it possibly, possibly can,
because this is a heavy, thirsty car with no hybrid assists or anything like that. Shout out
to my in-laws house in Long Island. Um, and, uh, okay, in an effort to be as efficient as possible,
it cuts the fucking engine off before you stop moving, which is insanity. I mean,
like real, like pulling into a parking space, I'm halfway, you know, into the space and the
engine cuts off. Now, as I'm decelerating, it cuts off at like, let's call it five or six
miles an hour from five, before you get to zero. The problem is then it doesn't lock the steering
as you're going from five to zero. But let's say, holy shit, actually I need to, uh, either coast
a little further because I'm breaking to zero. I need to either coast a little further or I need
to apply throttle. When it goes to start the motor back up, it locks the steering for about a second,
because it's not a particularly good fast engine startup. Yeah, it is a little slower than some
other cars. It's not that different. If you have 48 volt mild hybrid, it'll do really fast,
but this, it doesn't have it. It's a traditional starter motor. So it's like, when it restarts,
it like, thinks, cranks, and then fires. But in the meantime, you have locked steering.
And so you are in a seriously precarious position, because multiple times this situation has happened
to me where I've slowed down almost to a stop, but I was then going to make a left. I was waiting
for a car, an oncoming car to clear, but then I was going to make a quick left. But now I come off,
the engine shuts off, I come off the brake, and now I can't make the left. But I'm trying to turn,
and the steering's fucking locked. This is like crazy. Well, the other time it happened is you
were parking, and you know, you're pulling it, you're just like a right hand turn into a parking
spot between two cars, but it turned off and then locked the steering, and you needed to adjust
our position in the spot. But it stopped us before we had completed pulling in. You were going to
pull in all the way, and then back up shimmy. But it stopped us three quarters of the way into the
spot, and it just turned off all of a sudden. And I wish that the car's proximity sensors,
which it obviously has many, because it stopped us from turning left across traffic, would go,
oh, you are parking now. There's other cars around you. Maybe we leave the engine on so you can shimmy,
shimmy, and then be done. Yeah. This is a choice. This isn't like something's broken. Like they've
decided, and I told them this years ago, they've decided that in the name of efficiency, the car
should do something super, super dangerous. And that's fucking crazy to me. And the hybrid one
obviously doesn't do this. Engine comes on, engine goes off, whatever.
There's an easy way to fix it. Just don't turn the fucking engine off until the car's stopped
for two or three seconds. How hard is that? I can't fathom why a company would make this choice.
How much, what tiny fractions of a percentage of efficiency they're saving by not idling the
engine for a couple more seconds or making sure you've actually come to a stop? Yeah, I don't know.
I don't know if it's, you know, with EU regs and stuff, and like, because they report all the
CO2, and does this get them 100 points less on that report or something? So is that the lesser
of two evils for them, but operationally, still pretty problematic. Yeah. And, you know, you
have to, there is not a hard button to disable the start stop, it's in a touch screen, you have to
go in, you have to go into vehicle, and then, and then do it. So it's two button presses to turn
it off. And as you showed, like, if you, if you turn it off, but then you change modes, and like,
you go to sport mode for a bit and go back to normal, didn't it turn auto stuff back on? So
even if same driving session, you haven't turned the car off, it's just the mode change, it puts
it back, which is annoying. Yeah. So that would, that would really drive me insane. I would find a
way, like, I don't know. Like, if they could do an up, like an OTA update where they, for that last
complaint, if you, if you have manually turned off auto stop start, the car should know you don't
want it on for that drive, regardless of what mode you change to. I completely agree. Just update
that. Yeah. But this, it's, I can't, it's so dangerous. I can't believe they're selling a car
like this. It's just crazy. Because the rest of the car is so nice. It's got plenty of room in the
back. Yeah. Big trunk. Great brakes. Great, great. Yeah. Comfy seats. Great steering.
You know, no glitches in the software. Like, car play integration was lovely. Like,
generally, like an incredibly nice thing to use, you know, in the Northeast as your car.
Just a fabulous thing. But like this, it's like, fucking come on, man. Because, because you just
won't remember to turn it off every time. You're just going to forget. And it's going to remind
you that you forgot by doing. It's in kind of scary ways. Yeah. Yeah. And, and, and then, you know,
because what happens is if it turns off at the wrong time, then it's, because it's a sporty
gas one, you fucking smash the throttle and then it's like real jumpy. You know, the turbos spool
up and go, oh, you know, and you're like, oh, shit, you know, you go too hard the other way with it.
Really, really fucking infuriating for something that's like a considered luxury product from
a brand that knows better. I mean, yeah, they're so good at most things. Yeah. This is just one of
those. This is surprising lack of refinement, especially because it's a complaint we've had
before. Yeah, crazy. But I, you know, other than that, I do really like this, like this vehicle.
But we, when we took my dad's hybrid to pizza, that's really all you need. Shout out to Sunrise
Pizza. Yeah. I mean, that definitely rode softer, which was really nice of course. And having the
hybrid helps a lot with so many of these things. And his massage seats. Oh, it did.
Yeah. Also shout out to my friend, Mike Zimmerman, who fucking rode his Husqvarna
from Long Island to the race on the fucking Connecticut, Massachusetts border,
back roads. And then at midnight, when the race was done, rode a fucking home. I think they did,
it was 320 miles that day. Yeah. Just, you know, rocking around New York back road.
It was after midnight. I know. Yeah. And I was like, are you going to ride back right now? And
he was like, yeah. Yeah. He was really excited about it. Left his house in Long Island, took the
ferry over to Connecticut, did all these back roads, came, got to the race at, you know, whatever,
five, you know, it's the whole time of the race. And then rode his motorcycle two and a half hours
home after the race on like a super moto. Yeah. Narley. Very cool. Yeah. That's a boss move.
Yeah. Shout out to him and Julian. You love to see it. But yeah, thanks to Porsche for,
for giving me a ride for the week. Fix your start stop, please. Let's go to the people
over at Patreon, patreon.com slash the Smogantire podcast. It's where you go to ask us live
questions on the show and then watch the show live, early, get the show without ads,
get extra show and get early exclusive access to collabs and things such as the dope ass blazer
I'm wearing right now. You can buy it. I just fixed our website. So our merch tab
directs to the blazer site. Zach's blazer is up there as well. Did Nick tell us who sold more
blazers so far? You were ahead last time. I haven't, I haven't checked since then. No, you were, you
were ahead last time, but this is my, my blazer and I fucking love it. And oh, our newest collab
is coming very soon with tactile turn the pen maker again. We've done one with them before. It
was great. We are now making the pen that I've been carrying around for a year, the smaller
brass pen. But I have here a prototype. So this is what the brass looks like when
it's new compared to what it looks like after Matt's fucking hands have been holding it for
a year. So it has a patina, right? Wow. And then this is a, this is what the clip is going to look
like that goes on it. It says the smoking tire down the clip. It's subtle. It's not, not super
aggressive. Well, it's a bright red clip, but then the brass pen. So it's a good contrast. Yeah,
it works. But the one that we're making is the size of mine. Oh, okay. Yeah, yeah. The size of
you look different. Yeah, I asked for the wrong thing in prototype. But it's the smaller one
that is really, really nice for your everyday carry, as well as to leave on your desk. But it's
smaller. It's a little lighter. But with the brass it you get this patina after like a year.
It's pretty cool, huh? So that'll be fun. That's going to be exclusive for patrons at first. And
if we have any left after they are done with them, then they will go to the general public.
Look at those handsome guys and those blazers. Wow. What's this is doing? What happened?
Does the website just have problems? You go to that and Cloudflare wants verification.
Oh, wants to make sure that you're not a robot? Yeah. Except you are. That's true.
Very interesting. Let's go to the people. The Duffel Shuffle Retirement Club says,
is the Crown Vic the perfect car for automotive dirtbag activities? And what are their cars
stand out for this task? Cletus said, and he's right, that the Crown Vic is the great equalizer.
I mean, in qualifying, the difference between first and 20th was one second. Yeah. In the race,
it was less. In the race, it was about a half second. Wow. It was the difference in lap times
between first and last. It went a bit quicker. Well, you can't go as quick in a field of cars.
You're limited by space and you drive a little differently than if you have a whole track to
yourself. But also people at the back that might have been more conservative in qualifying got
get quicker. But it is hard to pass people in those cars. They're the same speed. And so
you've got this nitrous thing, but also, and that's worth maybe a half a second of lap on the
nitrous. And then even super-duper talent is only worth about a half a second of lap in this kind
of racing. And if you really over, if you use too much nitrous on a straight and you really overcook
it in a corner, you know, either you'll drift too much and lose speed or you will hit a wall.
Yeah. What other cars stand out? I mean, dude, anything with a V8 and a manual is really your
your king of dirtbag cars. I think, I think the 2010 Camaro SS has overshadowed the Fox
Body Mustang as the king of dirtbag cars. That's probably true. Yeah, that's a good time. I mean,
F-body Camaro's things that like you'll see on a lift, like lifted for fun, which is cool.
I feel like that indicates that the platform is ripe for fun. Yeah. I saw in Greenwich the day
before you got there, which is, you know, fucking the land of, you know, blue, gray, and tan,
I saw a lifted Crown Vic duly that was a guy advertising his canine guard dog business,
like German shit. And it was, the guy was sitting in it, talking to somebody in a parking space,
and he was the meatheadiest meathead fucking ever, just sitting there trolling for fucking mommies
in his dirtbag ass car. I can't believe that car was allowed in the town, honestly. I know.
I know. Granted, just like a sundown town, but if you have a Genki car. Well, because here, like,
I've seen, where was I? I was at a shooting range and this truck pulled in with a huge
wrap livery on it. It was like a lifted weld wheels, everything, but it said canine dog training on it.
But it was like a new Raptor. You know, it was an $80,000 truck, not a $2,000 Crown Vic lifted
and turned into a duly. Yeah. Josh G says, what skills transfer from endurance or road racing to
the cleanest 900 and what aspect of this different type of racecraft surprised you?
I mean, knowing you can't win the race in qualifying or on the first lap.
Yeah. Saving the car. Yeah. And sprint racers don't think like that. You know, in these,
if a race is 30 minutes long, they don't think like that. They're going for it on turn one.
I'm used to doing a two hour stint in a race car and then having to hand the car off to somebody
else and maybe even two other people. So like, I know to make the car last, you can't fucking win
if you don't finish. And yeah, you know, how many cars finished the race out of 24? 14?
14. Yeah. I mean, so a whole, and a bunch of them were really fast.
Cleetus didn't finish. Yep. You know, like at least.
Squirrel didn't finish. I think.
One of the NASCAR drivers didn't finish. Didn't Ryan, did Ryan Priest finish?
Oh, he might have been out too. Ryan Priest may have not finished. I mean,
these are fucking NASCAR drivers. So like, technique, you know, beat them, you know, like,
so yeah, if you don't, you can't win if you don't finish, certainly.
I think, I mean, eyes up as much as you can. And now you're limited because of Hans and like,
you know, looking around to one, you can't look to the other side of the track really.
But just trying to look ahead and look for the cues that there was a crash happening proved
really helpful. Yeah. As soon as I saw dust, I lifted and I was watching and I go, okay,
I need to break or I need to get around this person. Sure.
And different. I mean, really, it's just in road racing, there should not be any contact.
Correct. Really ever. If there is any contact, even small,
you're getting, you're getting to talking to, if not an outright penalty. And in this, it's just like,
you know, rubbing racing, get with the program, dude. And so I've, I've never been in a racing
series where, where contact is this prevalent and expected. You know, so that was, that was,
I expect, you know, I expected it. They told me this was going to be it, but then you're in the
car. I mean, I came away with a deeper respect for NASCAR and cup drivers and whatever, because
the starts are kind of violent and you just got to learn to move, let the car move a little bit.
People are pushing you, you're pushing people. And that's just like, yeah, stay in control
while it feels a little out of control, which is true of racing. But, you know, they're just
managing like this contact friction shit, in addition to crazy arrow that we never deal with,
or people don't deal with in IMSA, F1, you know, whatever. Yeah.
Johnny Evie Gierberman, if you had the same idea as Cletus where you bought 40 of the same car to
run, but not a Crown Vic, what would you pick? We were joking years ago about doing the 12 hours
of Sebring with all Chrysler Sebrings. I think they did that in chomp or something as a themed race.
But like, Crown Vicks are really like unique in the space in that they're just such fucking tanks
and they have V8s and they're so ubiquitous and there's so many, like, so Camry's, I think,
is a logical answer. But the fact that a Crown Vic is rear drive and V8, it's a vibe,
because they cut the mufflers off these things and they sound like fucking race cars.
And that's, you can't do that in a Camry. You know, you've seen the like Toyota celebrity races
and whatever. But those are also, the other problem with the Camry is like it's a unibody car.
So on these things, like it's body on frame with the Crown Vic. So they can pull body panels off
and put new ones on and like they can keep these race cars going as long as possible. But if you
had a bunch of Camrys and they're smashing each other up, all of them are written off pretty
much. Otherwise, you're gonna have to like hammer out unibody. I mean, you can't just like take,
it's not Legos. So that would probably add your cost and the durability. I mean, these things,
the engines last pretty much forever. All of them had a cut out for cooling. I think they had better
radiators. They have the big scoops. Yeah. They basically keep them cool. And yeah,
then they can repair pretty much anything else. Yeah. That would be, there's not a lot of other
really good options in, I mean, you could talk about early chargers, right? Like 05, 06,
you know, 57 Hemi chargers. Still a unibody car. They're like 350 horsepower,
six, like they'd be fast. Well, I was thinking like if you went 90s, Silverado 1500s,
but you'd lower them so that you want that weight distribution low.
It might be tough to make them safe and or comfortable because if they're single cab,
wouldn't be very comfortable. And also with the Crown Vicks, like that second gear being exactly
the right length for this type of oval racing is kind of unique in the space also. And you'd
have to have a more complex car or you really don't even want a car that has a clutch pedal.
I don't think that would be that beneficial to people in this race. It would only help on
starts, but then it would, people would lunch transmissions, these folks would drive them like
they'd be slamming like a dog box and changing up transmissions. So you just like the whole
production, I mean, it's a traveling circus. That's amazing. So you need the cars to keep
working and keep the maintenance down on those things. Like everything about this is really
well thought out and the cars are part of that. Yeah. If money wasn't real, like Fox bodies would
be a good time. Yeah, but they're too expensive. Continuous south of please. Nervous in the
Nürburgring says best snack during the race in Connecticut. Didn't have a snack. I did get
hungry at lap 62. I really controlled my water in and thank you for giving me the electrolytes
before the race. That was a good idea. And I didn't have to piss, but I also was not that thirsty.
By the last 10 laps, I was getting tired. I was like, man, it's I've been in this car
for fucking two and a half hours right now. Like it's getting, but yeah, a second Jay Z has hit
the Supra. What other kinds of racing would you like to try that you haven't been able to try yet?
Well, in a perfect world off-road racing, like absolutely, I don't think I will do that.
Your back might not like that one yet. But again, perfect world off-road racing for sure.
But I would like to do more oval stuff, dirt oval or I mean, it was harder than I expected,
even knowing what I know about driving. And I think it'd be just fun to learn that skill. And
you know, as an observer, sometimes like the racing seems boring compared to
stuff with more corners or more dynamic movement. But when you're in there, like
once you're competing and there's cars near you, it doesn't really matter. Like it is very exciting
to do. Oh, when you're in the car, it's say what you will about it as a spectator sport. When you're
in the car, it's extremely exciting. Yes. And in many ways more exciting than road racing.
Because of the proximity. Yeah. I mean, you're just always, always an inch from somebody.
Dre from Houston says, how do you guys handle car guy talk that's obviously bullshit? I had a
lengthy conversation with a gentleman about his one of one Corvette C6 that is naturally aspirated,
non-nitrous, that's beaten C86s, Z06s and Hellcats and blah, blah, blah. And all I could say to him
was you showed him. I mean, yeah, you just let people talk and say, that's cool,
man. Nice to meet you. Kind of. I've tried to correct people or whatever. You can, you can,
if you really, you can, if they start to be ridiculous, you can start to ask questions that
you already know the answer to and ask and see if they'll, you know, how far into the weeds they'll
look at. But I have to deal with a lot of people saying some pretty weird things to me about cars
and you just go, yeah, man, that's cool. Nice. Oh, man, I'm glad that that seems like the right
thing for, for you perfectly, you know, and then yeah, then you move on. Alice in Snow chains.
That's really funny. What else? Alice? Is there a truck that's a car that sounds like Alice?
Alice, works up that a little bit. Why did it take so long for manufacturers
to slowly increase the steering ratios in performance cars? Was it not something consumers
wanted? Do you mean quick in the ratio, which actually would be reduced and reduce the steering
ratio from like 33 turns lock to lock to two? Why did it take so long?
Well, I think if, why did it take so long? You may need, no.
I, my guess is that steering was really slow for a long time, right? Like 40s, 50s, 60s. Some of
that was because you needed small gears so that the lever, you have the leverage to turn the wheels,
right? But then power steering came in, but I think it was just the times where people wanted
a slow ratio and it took a long time for a different car company to go, let's try making it a little
quicker for either, probably for racing. So the driver doesn't have to do hand over hand,
but that has to take time to trickle into the street cars. People have to learn to get used to
it and like it. And then journalists go, wow, we really like that the Ferrari has much quicker
steering and therefore it's easier to drive on this track or these corners. And now it's like,
you know, everything that's kind of sporty, combination of having E-pass. And I think just
the Joneses is people go, yeah, I want a quicker ratio that I don't have to turn around and around
as much. It's my guess. It may also coincide with stickier tires that could handle a sharper turn
in, firmer suspensions, things like that. I mean, imagine you had like a Dodge Polara that had a
Formula One style steering rack. You wouldn't actually even want someone to be able to steer
the car faster than that, right? So it all kind of has to evolve together, I think. Plus the
pendulum did swing too far for a little while. We would complain that the Ferrari ratios were too
quick. You had to move your hands so minutely to get the angle you wanted and it was really easy
to overturn. But it was definitely a little, I like it better now than if you go back to early
90s cars particularly. Early 90s was really peak where sports cars still had old school kind of
steering by, you know, 2005, 2006, like the 996s and the, let's say, oh, C6, C7 Corvettes,
things like that. The steering ratio started to get much quicker.
And then they got progressive racks. I don't know when those were invented, someone will correct me,
but that was also the stepping stone. Beeping eight-ass holes says, what does
original miles mean when describing a car? It could mean that the odometer hasn't been rolled back,
that the engine hasn't been replaced. Usually it means that nothing major has been replaced
and the odometer accurately reflects the mileage on the car. You know, you haven't had any major
accident rebuilds, major componentry replacements or inaccurate odometer readings. Usually that's
how I take it. I always take it as the engine has the same miles the odometer has. So the
engine was never swapped or blown up or whatever. And a lot of times people, if they do a full
resto on a car, they'll reset the odometer to zero. So if it's an old car, if it's an old,
you know, Mustang or something from the 60s, and if it has 5,000 original miles versus 5,000 miles
since the restoration is how I would take it. Sundervush optional carbon cook chair says,
recently encountered two 911 Dak cars at a gas station hundreds of miles off the beaten path
in bum fuck nowhere. That's cool. Where's the most unexpected place you've encountered something
cool or rare? Unexpected place you've encountered a cool or rare car.
I mean, I saw a Taurus X today and I didn't even know what it was like. Oh, yeah. Like,
wait, they made this while making these four? It was the freestyle and then they rebranded it
Taurus X. Weird. Yeah. Hmm. Unexpected place you've encountered something cool or rare.
I saw an Aventador in Tenerife. Didn't think I would see an Aventador in Tenerife. Yeah.
I've said, I've, in Monaco, I saw a 1989 Cadillac Fleetwood that had been registered in Monaco
since almost new. I thought that was pretty wild. That's a pretty good one. I think when we were
at the Nurburgring, there was that taller, the old Mini that was taller and had white rally wheels.
It kind of looked like it would drive in the forest around the Nurburgring. Oh, yeah. Yeah.
And that was just like, you know, M3 GT3, blah, blah, blah. And then this thing was out there.
Hundreds of miles. I mean,
I've more, I've more been like impressed when I've seen like, I've been off-roading in off-road
vehicles and been so far in the middle of nowhere on a trail and seen like a Jeddah. Yeah. Like,
with like six farmers in it, just fucking bouncing on the bump stops, you know. That
famous video of the town car in Moab. Yeah. That like pulls up next to these jeeps and then just
goes up whatever trail. It's got like a bicycle and the trunk's open and it just, it has enough grip,
you know. If you don't give a fuck, you can do anything with any car. It's like that. What was
the French, the Grand Tour thing they did with the French cars, where they just, there was just
the whole special was about how the French just treat their cars like absolute disposable garbage.
And they just did a bunch of quote, normal things in their French cars that destroyed them. It's
called Carnot, Carnage à Trois. Oh, yes. Right. Carnage à Trois. I miss when AI just meant to
shop in Westchester. Is there a point at which doing low annual mileage in a car is worse than
doing no mileage between competing interests of family and work? I find myself struggling to do
more than a couple hundred miles a year in my fun car. Would I be better to park it and store it for
a few years until things calm down? Or is some miles better than no miles? It's usually 15 to
25 mile drives at a time. I believe if you get the fluids up to temperature and things moving
up to operating temperature, it's better to do that once a month than to do nothing by a lot,
actually. If you can stomach also servicing the car every other year, then you'll be all right.
If it just sits, the seals start to dry out because you need the fluids inside them to
sling around and wet the top of the seal. Otherwise, it's going to dry and crack more quickly.
Self-lubricating systems. You've got to get that thing up to temperature
once or twice a month if you can. Even if you can't drive it, driving it is the best,
but even if you have to idle it until it gets up to temperature, that's better than nothing.
We do that here with cars. Edward Shifter Hands. I am looking to add a new car. I have a Camaro
4x4. I live in the country in Texas, so something alternating the drive to work on back highways.
I wouldn't mind something unique with some character, but it needs to be relatively reliable.
A big body cruiser or a 4x4. I wish we had the budget. I'm like, well,
Ranger Raptor would be great, but that's a $50,000 truck. I don't know if that's in your budget.
Interesting big body cruisers. I want to say a 96 Chevy Impala SS, but I would say Mercury
Marauder with a Kenny Bell Supercharger on it could do it. I would say some kind of
Mercedes station wagon could do it. A cord wagon if you want to go super reliable.
If you're out in the middle of nowhere, Texas, make sure that you're near a service center.
Like if you have a Mercedes wagon, for example, that can take care of that thing.
Yeah. I mean, you could go like a big body Mercedes, like a S500 big coupe.
I'm going to go two door Tahoe. Oh, yeah.
It's got style. It's a truck, but it's also kind of like a big cruiser.
I do like a two door Tahoe. They're fun. Yeah, that's a good choice.
Two door Tahoe is a good one. I like that one. Yeah. Or maybe an O3 like F-150 Lightning,
if you could find a really nice one. They're pretty comfy. They're fast. Those are cool.
Tycon care of business. I'm looking at a Z8 for a summer weekend car. What are your thoughts?
No Porsches. No Corvettes. My thoughts are yes. I love a Z8. Big fan. Yeah. No notes. One of the
best looking cars ever made. Yeah. It's a fun 7 tenths car. Yeah. If it's not a GT3,
but it's a nice touring car, looks great, sounds good. Yeah. Relatively flat depreciation.
If you use it, they're kind of expensive to run, sort of like the E39M5, the services,
but flat depreciation. So pay the cost to be the boss and they still look awesome. Probably the
best looking BMW modern. And the inside also looks amazing. Yeah. Your poorest patron,
I doubt that, sir. For a city person that has off street parking and can charge
using a basic 110 outlet and does less than 200 miles a month, would an electric car be a burden?
Never had one debating trying an Ioniq 6. 200 miles a month, an electric car would not be a
burden. Nope. And it's actually a great choice. Yeah. Even if you only ever had to use public
charging 200 miles a month, yeah. You can charge it once a month. You can charge it once a month
and you'll be fine. I think an Ioniq 6 has at least a 300 mile range, if not close to four.
It's a very efficient car. Weird looking, but efficient. And if you're driving,
I mean, this is like eight miles a day. You can charge that on a 110 overnight, no problem.
Yeah. You can add about two miles per hour on a 110 charger. So, you know, you park that thing
overnight, you can add 30, 30, 40 miles. No problem. Yeah. So I think you'd be fine, honestly.
Run GMC. Nice. Listening to you guys talk about how the Testerosa is somewhat of a
disappointment and Chevy keeps pace at a cheaper price point. What do elite companies like Ferrari
have to do to distinguish themselves as elite hypercar manufacturers? Well, I mean, in my opinion,
the cars have to look really great. Yeah. They have to look unmistakably beautiful. That's just
my opinion. And if they don't deliver on that, and they're, you know, and they used to have very
exotic engines compared to what the American manufacturers were doing. And now Chevy's got
a flat plane crank naturally aspirated V8. It sounds like a fucking 458. They've got a twin
turbo motor that sounds like they're, that sounds better than the Ferrari's current twin turbo V8.
Like if the car's not beautiful, like what are we going to do? I think that's what you're left
with. And I think the interior should also be beautiful and interesting and made from materials
that GM couldn't touch because of the cost. GM's always going to have, they'll have leather, fine,
but they're going to have the button selection, the design of things. That's where Ferrari and
other companies could shine. And they're not right now with too much capacitive and stuff. That was
high tech a little while ago, but I think you got to go back to like... Levers.
550 style, like levers, toggles, you know, things that look and feel expensive.
Dude, imagine, think about a, in 1995, you had the 355 GTB and you had a Corvette ZR1.
They were about the same in terms of performance. And I know that because I just wrote it for the
Evoluto story, about the same in terms of performance. But look at the two of them.
There's a reason that, you know, that you look at the leather, you look at the interior,
they're not the same at all. The sound of the engines, the way that the whole thing is put
together. Now, they're both mid-engine. They have the same sort of engine type of technology,
the exotic technology. The interiors are screens. In fact, GM has more buttons now than the other
ones. You could argue that the Ferrari interior is more beautiful than the GM interior, but it's,
is it that much? It's, they're not in completely different universes of quality.
And we've driven cars that are cheaper than Ferrari, but their gauge cluster can do more
things than Ferrari. So, that's sort of why we can, we're talking about them in the same vein.
Like, if they don't hit the mark of untouchable beauty and interiors that are really caught above
what the other car is doing, the mystique only gets you so far. And you don't need to put an
aftermarket exhaust on a Corvette Z06. I assure you that, but you would on a Testerosa.
Lexus on fire says a 911 Carrera S manual, you can't, you'd have to get an old manual, I guess,
used and used S manual because now the, now you need a T. And C8 Z06 are about the same price.
What would be the better purchase for someone who would like a daily driver and commuter in
the Northeast on a four out of 10 on the twisty scale roads? I intend to drive it all winter
on plowed road with a good set of snow tires, 10,000 miles a year.
I mean, for a true daily driver, I'd rather have the 911.
Me too.
It's a little more comfortable. It's a little more user friendly.
A C8 Z06 is a fabulous weekend car, but I'm not really sure I'd like to daily one in four seasons,
even though I think it would be a fucking boss move for you to do it. If you said I'm dailying a
Z06 in four seasons, I'd be like, hell yeah, brother, good for you. You're a fucking, you're a boss.
But if you're asking which is actually the better move, probably the 911.
You know, if I'm driving in the winter, I'd like to have as much visibility as possible.
And I think, you know, rearward over the shoulder and stuff, the 911 has a much bigger greenhouse
for that reason. That's part of it for me.
Yeah. I think, yeah, I think I'd rather have a 911 for four seasons in the Northeast.
But either, fuck, you'd be a boss if you got that Z06. You would have, you would certainly have
respect of this podcast. Johnny Lieber, Contrary Man, Lieber,
Lieber, Contrary Man, ever driven in a Skari, have not, have not.
The biggest bush says, I asked about a few weeks back about a change from my E92 M3
in the 70 to 80k range. I have a curveball opportunity. Guy, I know locally looking to
Done my homework on them, but any thoughts on early 996s in general?
They don't do it for me. They don't really do it for me, but speed yellow is all right.
Factory Aero kit, some people care about. I don't really care. LSD is a good option to have.
That looks like a speed yellow. Aero kit baggage right there. I don't know. Speed yellow's bottom
right is the brighter one is speed yellow. That looks like it's a couple of different colors,
doesn't it? That one has been painted badly. It's not for me, but it's probably a nice entry
point into 911s. If you like the styling, for me that's what matters. If you like the styling,
if you like the way these wings look and stuff, then get it, truly. If someone doesn't like it,
that's a better one, right? That one looks less crashed. Evenly painted.
That one looks all right, huh?
Flying monkey. When buying a car, I know you guys have rules and one of them is no Florida cars.
Can you expand? Do you mean any car with any history of being owned in Florida or only
currently registered owned Florida vehicles? I mean all Florida registration is a red flag to me.
All history or current because Florida has floods, they have hurricanes, and it's the
fucking title washing capital of the universe. We were just talking to somebody, our friend,
very recently about how part of their actual business model is fucking washing titles through
their business in Florida for imported cars. Yeah, that and in one other place.
Yeah, I think you just like, I would have to get a really thorough PPI to really look at
are there signs of moisture, mold, flooding? I mean there's so much rain there, especially if
the car is really used, are all the seals really good or any of them cracking and then
water seeping in somewhere? There's just a lot of risks, I guess, I always feel wrong.
And also the humidity and it's nasty, it's just nasty. People put a lot of chemicals on their
bodies there, like lotions and things that end up just all, it's just gross. There's 49 other
states just buy cars from the other states. That's just my rule. I'm not telling you about
Florida, but you asked, so I don't buy cars from Florida. So jacking off the record,
Tesla cybercabs are popping up in Miami. Do you think two seat taxis have a place in US cities
like Rick Shaw's or Tuck Tucks in Asia or do four seat taxis still make the most sense? I saw a
cyber cab in LA, actually. Small. I haven't done math on this. I mean of all the grifty,
scammy shit Tesla has done, making the cyber cab a two-seater is not high on the list of
things they've done for me that's problematic. I mean, I'm sure somebody did some math and found
that the vast majority of cab rides are two or less people and maybe for some sort of efficiency
reasons or packaging reasons or whatever reasons, they decided that the math is better on doing that.
Even a business like Tesla does do some things in good faith. I agree. We've speculated before
about the whole average passenger ride is one or two people and then a side benefit,
whether it's planned or not, is if there's a party of four and they're all going somewhere,
they could take two cybercabs and then Tesla gets double the revenue for this group.
Yeah. I mean, Waymo's going the other way with their new
Vanny things that hold even more people. I think five people. So if it was me,
having done no actual research into the taxi business, just fucking on vibes,
I would probably have vehicles that sat for people because why not? But like, you know,
who knows? He's a trillionaire. He must be smarter. He must know the answer. He must know
everything. She likes a choke to get started. First time ever yesterday, I got stranded on top
of Mount Baker in Washington. The fuel pump died on my SC and I had to get towed a hundred miles.
Have you had to get a roadside tow? So many. Oh, my God. Are you kidding? I have a BMW.
Yeah. I didn't get towed by Crown Vic. Yeah. I've had two in the Kuntosh. I had to do my own
recovery in Pebble Beach when the Manx blew a fuse on me. Yeah. I mean, many, many. My 328 died
once. I forget why. My car, my car gets towed somewhere at least once per year, for sure.
I threw a helicoil. Well, I threw a plug out of the Crown Vic up north of Santa Barbara, had to
get towed like 130 miles to a place that could put a helicoil in it. Through the accessory drive belt
off the vanquish doing a doughnut in the Grand Prix New York parking lot. Had to get towed to
the dealer. Had to get flat towed with a friend in his RX-7 because we ran out of gas like cannon
balling from Colorado to the Bay Area. And then the engine blew up about a day later. We had to
get that Koenig Testerosa towed. Oh, yeah. Yeah. Pro tip. If you call roadside assistants and they
say, are you in a safe place? And you say no, they show up fast as fuck. That's a pro tip from your
boys here. Speedmaster. And then I have to go. Recently modified my ND Miata with a short final
drive. And it's now the most engaging street car I've ever driven with three shifts to get to 60.
And sixth gear is so long that my highway miles per gallon is unchained.
Other than your spider, what other cars could benefit from much shorter gears?
So there's not a lot of cars that could necessarily benefit from just a universal
final drive change, right? A lot of times cars can benefit from changing all but the top gear,
for instance, or something like that, like my spider. Fox body Mustangs. We used to do the
rear ends in all the time. Camaros. Mustangs are currently available with multiple rear ends
from the factory as an option. So that's pretty cool. Various trucks and maybe a Crown Vic race
car. Yeah. Probably. When I did my Crown Vic, the LSD, I think I shortened the gears slightly.
And I'm going to do it in my car when I get my axle seals done.
Yeah. So many, many cars can benefit from advantage in gear ratios. The Acura, the NSX,
honestly, you can do a shorty gear set in the first gen NSX. It makes quite a difference.
I have to interview some people right now, but thank you all for listening. We enjoy you.
Thank you for your patrons and your good questions today. I'll let you have more details as soon
as I have them on our tactile turn collab. Please, if you're going to get our Blazer,
get it in by August 6th. That's the limit for cutoffs for orders. And yeah, we'll see you next time. Bye.
About this episode
Cletus 900 chaos kicks off with a close call, then escalates into bumperless aftermath, brutal multi-car pileups, and a race control style with “no yellow flags.” The hosts break down event rules, qualifying, and why the Crown Vic format keeps cars competitive—plus how nitrous, cautions, and restarts shape strategy. Between on-track mayhem, they also cover the “van pri” jump spectacle, crowd stunts, and how production stays surprisingly organized.
Matt Farah and Zack Klapman recap their time racing in the July 18, 2026 Cleetus 900. This event is much, MUCH more than a race.
Show Notes
Factor
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