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Reese's, Towels, & St Pete
Reese's, Towels, & St Pete
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About this episode
The hosts dive into a lively debate about Reese's candy preferences before shifting gears to discuss the recent IndyCar race at St. Pete. They analyze the impact of the new tire compounds and hybrid systems on race strategy and performance, highlighting challenges like tire durability and fuel saving tactics. The episode also covers the successful TV broadcast debut on Fox, fan feedback, and behind-the-scenes insights into race production. Personal anecdotes about daily routines and facials add a lighthearted touch, balancing technical racing talk with casual conversation.
Topics:
IndyCar race analysis
tire compounds and strategy
hybrid system performance
race broadcast and viewership
pit stop execution
fuel saving tactics
driver and team insights
fan feedback and production challenges
personal routines
facial treatments
Cars:
Toyota Supra
The guys talk about the merits of different kinds of candy, their routines -or lack thereof- for drying off after a shower, and recap the opener of the 2025 IndyCar season in St Pete.
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Toyota A90
"Transition over the break So you can, yeah, you can certainly feel it if it, if it reaches a full state of charge in the middle of the breaking zone, um, you kind of have in, in like your pre-event meeting, you'll have, all right, if we're hitting a 95, you're gonna want to be in YX. Got it. If you're hitting a 90, you're gonna wanna be in white it and then you can got it adjust the, the finite gain up or down based on that."
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This is, is off track.
Hello and welcome to another episode of Off Track with Hi Generosity. Yep. What's up?
What's your, what's your, what's your guys take on Reese's Peanut Butter Cups Forum?
Generally Pro. Yeah. Yeah.
They, but I think they're inferior to Reese's Pieces.
I disagree Reese's Pieces.
I completely, this is exactly where I was going with this.
Peanut butter cups.
Terrific. Is that a mini one
or did you just become a giant One of those two things?
Yes. .
Um, Yeah. Are you giant in all areas?
I, I'm, I'm glad you just can make sure to still eat while recording this dude.
Once again. Wait, Are you saying, I'm sorry.
Are you saying you prefer pieces over cups?
Yes. That's such an insane statement.
I like the candy shell and I like the movie et both of those things eat m to make.
Yeah. But I like the Reese's Pieces more than the m and m.
You guys are all wrong. Peanut
Butter.
M and Mss are better than Reese's Pieces.
Completely agree. I don't know if I have enough
experience with peanut butter m and ms to have an opinion on that. Peanut and
Pretzel m are pretzel Fire.
We're just, let's be clear here.
Honestly, all m and are ese pieces, peanut Reese's Pieces is like a Temu version of m and m.
Disagree, disagree. I think,
I think Diet M Reese's Pieces is better than a regular m and m. No,
But peanut butter cup might Be the only one Is probably regular.
One of the best. Probably one of the best candies out there.
It's one of the best chocolate inventions. Yeah. I think
Out there a hundred percent. It's
The, the But this, but you can't mess with the ratio.
They, they did well with the thin ones.
The thin ones still maintain a good chocolate to peanut butter ratio.
Mm-hmm . But the whole like,
double stuff ones, it's too much.
The OG still, I think the best.
I've never seen the like condensed little mini not thin version.
Oh. Like what? I just had like,
It still had the girth, but it wasn't as Yeah. Yeah. You
Know, it's like a, I think it's IH ween version.
I don't love using girth when describing stuff that we're talking.
I don't know. It just, it just felt weird.
But it's stuff that what that you're, that Youre putting in your mouth.
Mouth. Where
I going? This is a family show, Tim.
Is it? God, it's your mind.
Why do you have to take it that way?
I've never heard Girth used in a different context.
Do you know? Well, something I noticed the other day,
Girth.
I know that you raced a new car race, and we'll talk about that in a second. ,
You talked about an IndyCar race.
I did. I did. I watched an IndyCar race. Look
At that.
We actually have a in car shop to talk about.
I did, but we'll get there. I am.
He did because he was texting me questions.
He was like, is this good for Alex or bad for Alex ? Yeah.
That's most of the questions I get from Tim. Thanks Tim.
Yeah. That's so nice.
He's like, I don't understand what's happening.
Is this good or bad? Yeah.
I don't pretend to know what the fuck I'm talking about on here.
No, you're very public about the fact that you actually know very little about racing for someone that's been largely immersed in it for the better part of a decade now. Yeah.
We've been doing the show forever. Yeah.
Yeah. Yeah. That's a good point.
Um, I was, I was showering the other day and it's where most of my best thoughts happen. Hmm.
Speaking of Girthy, , dude, Jesus.
Tim, what's wrong with you? ?
It was Right there. So, so
It wasn't, I got, I got a shower, I grabbed my towel and then I realized that I have like such a specific towel off like choreography.
Mm-hmm . Do you notice that like when you grab a towel
and you're toweling off if you get outta the shower?
It's like the exact same movements.
Yeah. A hundred percent. No. Not at all. No,
You just, you just like completely FreeWheel it.
You're just shooting from the hip.
Yeah. That's wild.
See, 'cause I was having, 'cause I'm like, man, is there other things that you do every day that that's exactly just, and I'm like brushing my teeth.
I alter it. I, you know,
there's maybe different strategies I use on different days or whatever, but if I get outta the shower, it is the exact same series of movements.
I mean, I could time it down. I'm sure I do.
It is plus or minus two seconds every time.
Really? It's the exact same. Yeah.
I, I think the only thing that I do the same, and now I think, I mean, I got outta the shower 25 minutes ago.
Um, is I, I dry my face off first.
Mm-hmm . I do my hair. I do my head first.
I do hair first. Yeah. But I don't, but I don't think
that anything that happens after that is the same on The hair.
Then it goes like around the neck. You do the one
Arm. Don't do that at all. Top bottom
Armpit thing to the other arm, top bottom.
Then you like do the chest, then you roll it down the back.
Do like the back dry til it's around your waist. Never
Done that.
Oh, I, I, no, Honestly, I just dry my face and then I get dressed.
That seems, yeah. Very uncomfortable.
Yeah. I'm just a little moist,
Constant, constant state of swamp ass with your wet on.
Terrible. That's just awful.
No, I don't do that. This goes around online.
You have to do your, your privates last and then the towel forgets by the next day. Well
Your privates Because you don't want I know, but you don't want start with that.
You don't want start there. Didn't go face. No,
No, no, no.
That's true. The towel will forgets
by the next day. Oh, man.
How often do you wash your towels?
I try and do it once a week. I'm once every, yeah,
it sounds three days, probably three, four days. Yeah.
I pray once a week probably. Sounds right. Probably
Should be.
I mean, you're never home enough, James.
So it's like, yeah, that's true.
You only shower three times a week anyways in your house.
How often do I do my towel whenever housekeeping comes in?
Right. . Although, you know what I, I,
I will say I predominantly don't, I, I opt out of housekeeping pretty much everywhere I go.
Now, if I'm, if I'm there for interesting, like four days, like it's a Thursday to Sunday, IndyCar weekend, I will not get housekeeping.
Why? No. I want to freshly make any sense.
Not by me every day. I see
Why Saving, saving towel energy and water and are You kidding me?
You do it for the environment.
It's probably for the environment and partly just like, I don't know.
I don't need people in my stuff, you Know?
What do you have that you're protecting? I don't.
No, it's not, it's just, it's just, I don't know.
It's just strangers coming in your bedroom.
Dude, that I'm All for it. I couldn't disagree.
I think this is the thing that I'm going to disagree with you more than anything that we have discussed in our entirety. Anything of our friendship, anything.
Anything. I don't know. We had like, anything,
four episodes about hot dogs. .
So like I, if you have the opportunity to get your room cleaned and freshened up with new towels and tight sheets and dusted and all this sort of thing, water's replenished.
Coffee pod's replenished.
I am taking that every single time. It's not even a discu.
They, there was a period of time where they were offering like points if you didn't get your room clean.
I was like, no, keep your points.
Yeah. I want my room clean.
So it, it obviously all kind of like, started with Covid, right?
And then I was just like, yeah, yeah. I don't need it.
Like, if it's one person and it's four days, there's at least two towels, sometimes four towels.
I could still use a brand new towel every day.
I feel like they, most of the hotels have the sign where they're like, if you want fresh towels, you know, leave on ground or whatever.
If you don't want to waste the water, you can hang 'em up.
Your cows up hang up. Yeah. Yeah. I do that.
But like, I very much like how tightly they make a bed. See,
The first thing I do when I get into a tightly made bed is rip the sheets out from under fence Because I love it. I hate that feeling. It. I love it.
Dislike, man.
This is yet again, yet again I, does Becky agree with you?
No, not, not. She's not as strong on this one.
So this Isano, this is another thing that you and Kelly are the same. And me and Becky, the
Oh is Kelly. Like that.
Which is which is why, which is why we all, it all works in our respective little arrangements. You work,
We work and we all work.
But it's just a perfect symbiotic balance between us all.
Yeah. No, Becky definitely prefers having
that, uh, having that.
But also she likes, does she like tight sheets?
Yeah, yeah, Yeah. Same. I cannot.
Kelly immediately pulls sheets out from the bed and I'm like tucking them in harder.
I have two follow ups from last week's episode one. What
We talking about last? I got a facial
Last week.
I got a facial. Oh. After Alex talked about it. Big fan.
Gotta make that part of my monthly routine. I enjoyed it.
I don't know if it did anything for the skin on my face, but I just kind of like, it's having somebody Rubbed my face.
If you go to the gym once, it's not gonna improve anything.
It's like you gotta what?
I've been wasting my time at the gym. Oh.
Never doing that again.
Um, other follow up, I got a box of a bunch of Java House stuff, but I'm not convinced Alex didn't just send me that.
Hang on, hang on. We are not just,
we are not just leaving the facial thing at that.
We are not just stopping.
That was not a one sentence update. Why? I need specifics.
Where did you go? Did you go on your own?
Did you get a recommendation from someone?
What kind of facial was it?
How long did have a group on walk me through the process? I don't
Know.
I did have a group on, I did get a group on.
No way. I mean, I'm gonna try it.
You know, like , I'm not gonna commit full tilt if I don't know what it's like.
That's so good. Oh.
Oh, that is, I can't believe you called that man. That's so good.
I got a Groupon for a place around the corner.
It was, uh, it was this.
So it was, it was suggested to you by Mr. Groupon?
Yeah. I went Groupon map, walkable copy. Found a place.
Incredible. It was awesome. Incredible.
I was a big fan of it. , you
Went by yourself. Yeah.
Yeah. So what did
they do? I mean, how did you know what this was
In it?
You don't go with someone else to a facial?
Yeah. That would be weird. I Don't
Know.
It's a one person show. I don't know. Maybe a couple facial.
Well, I suppose you could.
She, she had a real job.
So , like I was texting her like what she was up to during the day.
And uh, she's like, oh yeah, work's been a bitch.
I was like, yeah, me too. I'm getting a facial.
She's like, didn't you get a massage earlier today?
I was like, yeah, but that was the morning. This is the
afternoon .
She's like, this is research for the show.
Alex talked about facials and now I need to know what it's all about.
Um, so what, so is it like a I, what is it? How do you do it? I what?
I don't even know. They like just put stuff on my face.
They did a mask. They did like a roller thing
with some spikes or whatever that she said was like getting rid of the top layer of skin.
And she's like, be careful of direct sunlight today.
I was like, well I walked here so that's gonna be a problem. Uh, ,
I like all the layers of my skin.
I don't know if I want to get rid of the top one. She
Said, she said it looked like I needed it.
She said I, um, yeah, I don't know.
It was okay. Well, alright. It was relaxing.
I'm gonna start doing it once a month I think. There you go.
Is that that How often you go Alex? No,
I'm probably once every seven, eight weeks. So two months.
Okay. All right. Alright. Okay.
Now the other part though, I got a box of Java House stuff.
It came in which the morning, it's hilarious.
Episode was released.
Which the episode was me talking about not getting a box.
Alex, I have to ask, did you just send me that or did it come from the team?
Because there was no like, note that it came from ECR.
It was just very clearly from Amazon.
So I kind of feel like Alex just sent me that .
Oh, you for Amazon? Yeah.
That was definitely Alex Mine came from the team and had a nice letter, handwritten note from Ed.
Yeah. Okay. So Alex, thank you. I like all of them.
Mm-hmm . Mm-hmm .
You know, So you're doing my part.
It was totally, it was totally worth it.
Just for the moment where you sent the text to the two of us being like, ah, man.
Sorry. I was talking all that smack on the podcast, .
I just got a box of stuff. It was totally worth it.
Just for that moment of you feeling like trash for being so mean.
Uh, the white peach tea though. I like it. Mm-hmm.
What's important to remember in all this, Tim was fundamentally you were not sent a box.
You know what though? I still got a box. Right? Mm. Okay.
So for part that was was about the thought of it. Yeah.
It's just the actual stuff. Yeah. Good. Good to know.
You're very materialistic.
Materialistic that I thought you, you've Seen my place.
You see how much stuff I have stuff.
I'm obviously very stuff. Yeah, yeah, you do. Big
Fan of it. Word stuff.
There's a, I think Diamond Rio has a song about this.
Just big fan of stuff.
Mm. I mean, stuff's neat. Stuff's cool.
But meaning behind the stuff is also pretty Well, it doesn't matter.
You know what? Okay, cool. A team sent you
something 'cause you work for Fox.
My friend sent me multiple things because he thought I was upset.
That's a pretty good meaning. Outta of my own. Outta
His own, outta my own bank account.
Yeah. I don't know.
That feels a little more meaningful to me. Mm.
It was. Sure does. Just to make you feel
bad, .
No, it wasn't. You know what? I felt
bad He didn't get anything.
Take Yeah. I'm a nice again, nice person.
People don't believe it. Nice guy. Anyways.
S .
I'm kidding. I'm kidding. We should probably cut that.
We should probably that. Um, you know, you should,
should just, you should just, uh, I just, Just bleed today. Yeah.
We we did it guys. We really did it here.
We went and did it. We did racing.
We did racing and we did racing.
Um, well from a event success standpoint, we did it well from a, from a TV success standpoint, we did it exceptionally well.
Thank the sweet Lord, baby Jesus.
Um, from a racing product standpoint, not so well, not the best.
Um, and we can talk about why that happened and it's just, it's um, it's, it's comical.
It's typical. It's typical IndyCar.
Everyone's heart is in the right place, I think when these decisions are made.
Um, but there's just never, I don't think a full understanding of the repercussions of decisions sometimes. I don't know.
So are we talking about the new soft compound tire?
We are, we are, we are talking about that.
So for a little bit of background And it's not new, Just what do you mean?
Oh, it's like 2023 or whatever.
Yeah. New from last year.
Okay. I wouldn't say new. Different from last year,
Different from last year.
Mm. So it was, it was kind of put on Firestone to
intentionally bring a soft that was a little bit softer so that way it was a little faster, but then also had higher deck because, Well, what was, what was put on Firestone was not that what was put on Firestone was they wanted a, they be an IndyCar wanted a larger separation between the compounds.
So they wanted more of a pace difference, right.
Um, between the a green, which Wiley Tire Do we, Do you, Do you agree with that Direction?
Um, I, because on the outside looking it sounds like a good idea.
Yeah, I, I agree with the pace difference.
Here's, here's where it all fell apart.
Um, and I just, I struggle to understand, I think, um, the decision because there are very smart people at Firestone.
Uh, there are very far smart people, uh, at IndyCar on the competition side.
And let, let me take this a step back.
So the, there's been a big focus and a big priority this year, um, that has kind of come a little bit from Fox, but also a little bit from IndyCar to try and eliminate the races where the green flag drops and everyone just goes into an immediate fuel save.
Because a fuel saving two stop is much quicker than a flat out three stop.
Um, not much quicker, but it's marginally quicker and you're avoiding all of the yellow risk with the IndyCar close pit rules.
And so what they're doing by extending some of these races is taking the two stop outta play.
Yes. Obviously if there's a yellow flag early
that's extended and all stuff's always possible, it'll come back.
But by just looking at it on paper and your pre-race strategy meeting, no one's gonna try and do a two stop because the, the save to get the fuel number would be so much slower.
You would never, it, it would never work.
So some of these races, I think it's five races in total distance, increased immediate three stop, it's gonna be flat out the whole way gonna be awesome.
Better for the show, better for Fox, better for fans, more physical on drivers.
Um, less of a, of an emphasis on, you know, fuel saving technique.
More of an emphasis on outright pace and, and who has the better car and balance and all that sort of thing.
I agree with all of that completely.
What happened this weekend was they wanted a bigger separation from the, between the two compounds.
I'm for it. I agree with it.
I don't know if it was taken into consideration that from, I'm sure it was, but I don't know if there was enough emphasis placed on the fact that between 2024 when we were at St.
Pete last obviously, and this year, there's a very big difference in the cars.
There's an extra almost a hundred pounds.
There's the hybrid, there's all of these things that are going to be very detrimental to the life, durability and performance of the tire.
Right. Because hybrid came in middle of last year.
So this was the first time within at St. Pete. Exactly.
Exactly. And so to go so aggressive is to go
to the 2023 tire, which had quite a bit of degradation on the, on the alternate to the point where I think only two cars made it beyond like 24 laps, 25 laps.
And the stint is 31 laps.
And it was Rojan who was in clean air and it was Patto I think who was just hanging on for dear life.
Rojan in 2023. Yes, he was. Oh, got it.
I thought we were talking about this weekend a mile.
Oh yes, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. So back to 2023.
Lot of DA lot of dig on the alternate, but that tire couldn't do a full stint.
You introduce all of the weight and the extra power that's going through the rear axle, the extra demand on the rear tires through the braking process and the regen and all that sort of thing.
It's not too farfetched to understand that what happened makes sense because the tire with a car that was a hundred, almost a hundred pounds lighter struggled to make a tire last.
So obviously the car is a hundred pounds heavier, that's producing more horsepower in the traction zones of corners is gonna eat through tires.
So that is what ended up happening.
And the sad part of it is the whole push in this off season from IndyCar is to eliminate these fuel saving races.
And what ended up happening is no one could run the alternate tire long enough that it ended up being just a massive fuel saving race because everyone was just trying to run the alternate for as little time as possible.
So that's my only disappointment with this whole situation was not that the tire was bad, the tire was a, was a good tire, it had great grip outta pit lane.
It was good for like, I love the kinda one lap shootout style qualifying there.
There was no like, it wasn't blistering, it wasn't falling apart, but it's like this tire was never good enough from a durability standpoint to be able to handle the weight of this car.
Which is why we ended up getting the race that we got ultimately.
Same for everyone, everyone to deal with.
It just a little bit of a shame that it wasn't more of a bar and burner event and that, you know, the guys that starting all the all on the alternate just literally drove around for one corner.
Yellow happened, pitted got off of 'em and ran the prime for us race.
So it's a little, yeah, it's a bummer. But
I mean without that first lap caution, it's a little bit different, right?
Because all the guys that started on the soft, they would've had to at least run a certain number of laps and then their Yeah, fuel saving wouldn't be quite, it would be a three stopper and the fuel saving the other and the other stints wouldn't be as bad.
They literally pit on lap three because it was under caution.
And then they're just doing essentially a two stopper 97 lap race rather than a, you know, three stopper, a hundred lap race.
And so yeah, it's massive fuel save and that's why there wasn't a ton of action, But, but I feel like everyone knew there was going to be a caution on lab one.
Like it's just, that's just St.
Pete race one IndyCar 50 chance The first, the first three laps or whatever.
It's, yeah. So wait, but if that's the case,
and sorry if this is like an insensitive question, why didn't you start on the Softers so that you would be able to come in and pit No, that's a fair question.
Um, because I would've been 15th on that strategy versus fifth on the alternate.
And if that first caution doesn't come out and the predicted stint length that people were gonna get outta the tires was the five to 11 laps, we were gonna have a huge advantage and got it.
Hopefully be able to build on that throughout the race.
Instead, all those guys essentially got a free pit stop and the people that started on the primes had to make up the 28 and a half seconds.
'cause we had to do an extra stop under green flight conditions.
And that was always a risk that we knew we were gonna take.
But you'd rather be fifth on the alternate strategy than 15th on the prime. A hundred percent.
Yeah. Makes total sense.
Yeah. And you end up with <crosstalk>.
I was, I was, I was incredibly surprised though.
And I'm just, I, I'll, I'd be interested in hearing your opinion, James.
How many cars in the top six started on primes? Insane.
And the fact that the MSR cars didn't even split strategies.
They qualified fourth and fifth and both are on primes.
Why wouldn't you put one on the alternate fourth whatever.
Yeah. Like how do you both do the same thing?
It was like, it was like five in the top six I think. I know.
And that was the wrong strategy.
I thought, I thought when I saw that tire declaration, I was like, oh, Colton's gonna win this by a fricking country mile.
And as soon as the, as soon as the yellow came out and turned one and he pit he came out 10th.
He was 10th with his first stop done. Yeah.
Like it was, it was game over.
If he hadn't had a, a bad second stop and then a, an a unnecessary third stop, Let's Talk about what happened in the pits for that car.
But that was his race.
I mean, it was his race they called it. Right.
And he was quick, whatever.
And I remember speaking to him after the declaration came out and I was like, dude, what's going on?
He goes, I don't know what we're missing, but we're either gonna look really smart or really dumb.
They, they were missing anything like that was, I was stunned with how many people up there floored were, were on. Yeah,
I figured, I I figured there was an outside chance without the, ignoring the logic that you just said, which a lot of people would have to take into account if you're outside the top 15 or whatever Right.
You're gonna <inaudible> outside the top 12, you're probably gonna look at being the first driver on the alternate strategy sort of thing.
Yep. But with how bad the sauce were,
it would not have surprised me if it was the, I think only once in my career I've ever seen every single car start on the same compound.
I was half expecting that at St. Pete.
I was like, nah, someone will roll the dice and do something different.
But like, it's so bad.
Like everybody knows the ideal strategy is this for the, the pole sitter to not do it for this second row to not do it.
I just, I really don't understand what they were thinking.
And even though Colton got boned, like, you know, Scotty Mack obviously was on pole.
He was the leader on that strategy. He came home fourth.
Right. And that's with the problem that, um, uh, Colton had,
Marcus got held up on a stop as well.
Like he probably should have been like fifth or sixth and that would've been the best you could have done on that, on a stretch.
I don't know. It was weird move man. Very weird move. Yeah.
Yeah.
So first time at St.
Pete with the hybrid, just in general, did it feel any different?
Was anything different? I mean, obviously we saw some issues
in turn three in practice. Is
That just because, I mean, mine broke in the race, so I don't, I don't know.
I didn't really race with it. Um, so that's cool.
That's awesome. At least you had
that extra weight just carrying around a hundred pounds for no reason.
So that's just, yeah, I mean, why wouldn't you want ballast that costs 300,000 pounds, $300,000?
Like why wouldn't, why wouldn't you want that?
Like it's, it's the best kinda way.
I mean now we have so much, much more like weight distribution to, to play with anyways.
Um, what did the hybrid do? The hybrid.
Um, so they've increased the energy limit, um, that you can use throughout the lap.
Um, so basically IndyCar compared to what Chevrolet and Honda compared to last year, um, kind of Come up with wasn't track specific last year.
Y yes, but this, it was still much higher than anything that was last year.
Okay. So like, alright. Yeah. Their, their goal is to
Increase it. The range has moved up,
Right?
Yes, exactly. It was supposed to be even higher than it was,
um, in St.
Pete. But Christian, my teammate had a failure in Sebring,
which kind of caught everyone by surprise.
'cause they had done like 3,500 plus miles on the dyno at this increased energy limit level and had no problems in this sort of thing.
Obviously, thankfully something popped up in testing, didn't ruin anyone's weekend, but they backed it down.
Um, and so they're just trying to ensure that the reliability is there for everyone before they, you know, continue to ask more of the hybrid, which is obviously the right thing to do.
But for sure, um, because they've, they increased the energy limit.
Like there's actually more performance and more lap time coming outta the hybrid, um, than there was last year, you know, last year.
You know, I think the most we ever saw like a lap of using it versus not using it was almost two tenths of a second.
And I think that was at mid Ohio.
Um, keep in mind that most of the races that we did last year were on ovals with the hybrid.
It was only mid Ohio, Portland and Toronto.
Um, so mid Ohio was the biggest delta of, of the hybrid this year.
I think we're, we're expecting to see kind of more in the three and a half, four tenths range.
Um, that's awesome. Which is, I mean, double and,
and is a, is a useful tool at that point of like making a difference of, of teams and drivers that are maximizing it and utilizing it Right.
And that sort of thing. So that's all good.
So I will say that, um, the hybrid definitely had a bit more of a, of an impact.
You felt it more, um, you, I mean, in theory you could have used it in the race.
I I didn't, but in theory that would've helped.
When did yours go? Uh,
I don't know off the top of my head.
Somewhere in the 20 to 30 Okay. Range. Um, is it,
Is it, is it like just super second nature now?
Like you get to St. Pete, you know, your Yeah.
You know, your spots on track where you're supposed to deploy it, it regens automatically and it's now just like muscle memory, you don't even think about it kind of thing.
Yeah, I mean the only thing that you're kind of managing, um, is especially in St.
Pete. Uh, so whenever you have these kind
of fuel saving races, so the number one way that you save fuel, um, as we've talked about on the show a lot, is you do what's called lift and coast.
You lift off at the end of the straightaway have a coast phase and then you hit the break.
Whereas in qualifying, it's just immediate throttle to break in the coast.
Phase it.
Well the more time you have off throttle is in theory, the more time you're gonna have re jenning the energy.
So if your lifts are getting bigger and bigger and bigger, 'cause you're hitting a, a bigger and bigger fuel number, you have to turn down the regen gain so that you're not filling the battery in like weird places.
Right. So that's the only thing you're kind
of managing is like your fuel number, um, decreases, meaning you're saving more fuel and lifting more.
You're also decreasing the efficiency of the regen on the off throttle time.
Um, but other than that it's all, it's all super second nature.
So when you're doing that, is that something that you as the driver are just sort of feeling out?
Like, okay, you're, you're starting to lift into turn one at St.
Pete mm-hmm . So, you know, through experience that
that amount of lift to get the same amount of regen in that longer amount of time you pull it back X amount Or do you have to like do a couple laps and sort of see where the state of charge is by the end of a given break zone?
Can you feel it if it maxes out before you get to when you Yeah.
Transition over the break So you can, yeah, you can certainly feel it if it, if it reaches a full state of charge in the middle of the breaking zone, um, you kind of have in, in like your pre-event meeting, you'll have, all right, if we're hitting a 95, you're gonna want to be in YX.
Got it. If you're hitting a 90, you're gonna wanna be in
white it and then you can got it adjust the, the finite gain up or down based on that.
But you kind of have a, a baseline knowledge of, of what, what block you want to be in, depending on kind of what fuel number you're trying to hit. So
And so as the driver, do you just know all that?
Or like when the team says, Hey, we need this amount of save go to white two, like is that part of the message or are you like, I know this amount of save is in that setting range.
So I It's both, but the big thing is, so it, it is a powerful tool because it does affect the balance, so mm-hmm .
Sometimes what you'll want to do is you'll want to have, you know, you won't want to reduce the, because it, it helps slow down the car, right?
Right. So it gives you braking depth the
more regen you have.
So there might be a white or whatever rotary, it's different for every team.
There might be a regen offset that is the most efficient way of doing it.
But you would rather say, okay, I would rather deploy slightly less efficiently and make sure my state of charge is lower going into this braking zone.
'cause I feel like I can get more lap time or my car balance is better.
Like, let's take for example, um, turn one.
It's a great, it's a great example because it's a super challenging braking zone because it's a runway as you know, James, when you're kind of turning from the outside wall to the apex, you're crossing paint, which is substantially less grip than the tarmac on the runway and that sort of thing.
So even if, you know, the most efficient way to have a, the ultimate lap time with the hybrid is to, let's say drain to 30% state of charge out of turn 14 down the front street.
But if you're lifting coasting, the 30% is gonna fill up in that breaking zone.
And that's a bad thing. What I would rather do, instead
of turning the region down, I would rather deploy an extra 20% to 10% Right.
To ensure it doesn't top up then, and I'm not losing the engine braking, the deceleration capability in turn one.
'cause it's like such a challenging entry to that corner.
Right. Um, so that's a very,
we're getting inside baseball here.
That's, it's a complicated way of, of explaining it, but it's, it is driver specific, it is car specific.
Um, there's different mapping.
The teams do, like coming from McLaren, they were obviously with all of the F1 experience, um, and, and resources that they had as, as well as Formula E.
Like they were getting very trick and aggressive with, you know, blending the, the region with, you know, different throttle mapping and rev ranges and all that sort of thing.
And it was a really like, clever way of, of utilizing it for, for peak performance.
Whereas at ECR it's more like it's on or off.
And we're working on , you know, we're working on the, the, the tuning and shaping of it.
But, you know, it is, it is car team driver track dependent.
That's fascinating. That's cool.
It because it, it does, it makes you think a little bit, it's not what I think one of the big fears of the hybrid, um, has always been, well, sorry, before it was introduced, was that everybody would find how to optimize it and then everybody would just be doing the exact same thing at all times.
And there was no differentiation and it was just sort of there. But the
Way you're describing it, I think that's certainly the case in qualifying.
Um, but in the race there's a, there's much more windows to, to play with to make it more useful for Right. For
Yourself for, for single lap optimization, you know, to, to deploy X percent here, X percent here, x percent there and that's your lab.
Right? Yep. Interesting. Okay.
So, so your race, you know, we talked about it, you started on the, on the hards, uh, to try to do that alternate strategy.
Mm-hmm. The yellow sort of boned,
you spent a bunch of laps up front.
It was you and lard, right.
Kind of were the leaders on that strategy.
I texted , so my old engineer, uh, is still on the seven car and I texted him after the race and I was like, there was no worse car for me to stare at the backup for a hundred laps .
I was so annoyed that I was just looking at this <inaudible> papaya number seven for my entire day.
I was like, why couldn't it have been literally anyone else?
Like, title would've been fine.
Why did it have to be that car?
I did have that thought.
I didn't mention it on air, but I did have that thought that I'm like, yeah, he probably probably don't love that .
No, I didn't. I didn't like that at all.
Um, but no, I just to give a quick summary of our, our weekend, um, it was a, it was an uphill battle, uh, through some of it, um, poor execution qualifying.
Um, but ultimately, and it's kind of what I explained to you after, after Sebring, there's some really, really good underlying foundational properties of an ECR IndyCar, like some really nice things that bring me back to like the 20 18 19 andretti car feel feedback standpoint.
So I'm, I'm very optimistic about what we can do, like the team having, I mean we've, I didn't do a single pit stop going into this weekend.
Like they executed on pit lane strategy calls were right.
Um, you know, the development of like chasing the evolution of the setup throughout the weekend was spot on.
We know street courses are not our thing.
So like, we're very, we're very optimistic and think we can have a really good weekend in thermal.
So this was always gonna be a get through it, try and survive.
We were able to do that. So I think everyone is, um, content
with how the weekend, obviously you're never gonna be happy with 10th, but in terms of like the debut of this new ECR organization, um, the fan feedback and response to the new colors and the brand and, and all that sort of thing, and the job house activation, everything was just, I think a huge success for the first weekend.
Um, as, as a, as a new group, let's call it.
So thankful for that.
Yeah. More, more positives
to take away the negatives from the weekend.
Certainly. Yep. Have you watched the race back?
I have not watched the race back because I, no, I went to every effort Yeah.
To record it on YouTube tv 'cause there's no peacock anymore.
Right, right. I to record it on YouTube tv
and I've tried three different times to record it or to watch it and it says playback is unavailable. Uh,
Well it's, I'm actually kind of glad that you brought this up, Alex, because I've been hearing from a few people similar that, you know, we don't just have a streaming platform you can log onto and watch a replay like in years past, but very shortly after the race, um, uh, Indy car on Fox YouTube channel actually has the whole broadcast on there. So they did it like
Immediately, right?
Yeah. It's, it's Not aware of to, there used
to be like a window of time between Checkered and when it would be on YouTube and now like Right, it's like 24 hours or whatever and yeah.
Um, but there's, there's a, there's a 15 minute highlights reel or there is the full like two hour, uh, broadcast.
There's, you know, all sorts of stuff.
There's interviews, there are, um, onboard labs qualifying stuff.
So if you miss anything on, uh, FS two, Fs one or on Fox head to IndyCar on Fox as a YouTube channel and you can see all the stuff, see all the fun stuff that's happening. Somebody
Who did watch it.
Uh, well done James, you and the team did a very good job.
I know you said it was a little chaotic being the first one room to grow room to improve, but I thought you guys did a great job and hell of an audience, right?
1.4 million people watched. Yeah.
I mean, yeah, look, it was, it was a weekend from, from the old TV compound.
Lemme tell you, um, the, the viewership number is obviously fantastic.
It's a great place to be, to start this relationship.
Um, you know, peaking at 1.8 million, um,
average 1.4 is huge.
Um, it's the, the promotions worked.
Everything, you know, leading up to it obviously is going well.
So that's, you know, a 45% increase over last year.
The largest non Indy 500 audience since 2011.
Um, and what's cool is like, you know, I, I've been having this conversation with teams and, and other drivers and stuff.
When you're an IndyCar sales person and you're with for the series for a team, whatever, and you're now talking to companies to sponsors about viewership numbers, right?
Yes. Our Sunday viewership is up a good chunk
and hopefully that's a trend we can keep going.
But let's not forget that Practice One, practice Two, qualifying and warmup, we're all also on linear tv.
So you can add those numbers in as like a weekend viewership, a weekend number, not just the Sunday number.
So it's gonna be like, you could probably add another, I don't, I actually don't know the numbers to that, but I'm gonna assume you could add another three to 400,000 over the weekend in the, in the shows ahead of that, um, to that weekend number.
So it's, it's huge for teams that desperately need, you know, more sponsorship as the cost of any car racing has gone up, we now have a, have a very serious increase in value as a result of what's, of what's transpiring on tv, which is huge.
Um, though, yeah, the Weekend itself First race with a lot of new stuff, not a, a lot of new people, um, it was a unbelievable effort from everybody on the Fox Sports broadcast and from IMSP, um, to get that show going.
Indy Carr, I guess had a slightly different timing and scoring system this year, which I know created some problems in Pit Lane as well.
And, and that affected certain things for us.
So like when I look back at the broadcast and I, and I listen to some of the comments and, and read some of the comments online or whatever, um, first of all, thank you guys, overwhelmingly positive, which is huge and, and we all appreciate it.
Certainly some, some suggestions of things that fans would like to see.
One. Yeah, I texted one. I can tell you, you, you did.
I can tell you that, um, a majority of what was was received from fans in terms of that we already know and it's already been worked on.
It's just some of it wasn't ready in time for this weekend.
Some of it because of some of the changes on other things that were outside of our control wasn't available.
So we know 99% of what fans were talking about, uh, that they wanted to see.
And, um, it was, it was all things considered I think a huge success.
You know, the, the whole broadcast team right from, you know, the producer Pam Miller and you know, the execs at at at Fox Sports Shanks, ger Allman, and then, you know, Pam Miller, who's kinda the leader of the team, um, on that side, the new director Mitch, uh, was learning how to direct, uh, a motor race throughout the weekend.
Uh, yeah, I thought everybody did a tremendous job.
Again, there was so many little fires that we had to put out throughout the course of the weekend, but we, we got it done.
And again, it was, it's a massive, massive team effort.
Really, really proud of, of the group.
Um, really proud of Will.
I thought he did a great job first time, you know, calling him race.
I thought he was amazing. I I,
and this is not, not at all a dig on Lee, 'cause I think Lee is also amazing.
It was crazy like how different they were in their styles, but I truly enjoyed both like diff Oh that's just diff is just gonna be Yeah, diff is diff yeah, Diff is diff and we'll go down into the Sports broadcasting Hall of Fame as an absolute legend.
Uh, but the, the, the point was always kind of that it was supposed to have a bit of a different feel, right?
Mm-hmm . And, and Will was always
kind of a bit of a different vibe.
And, and I thought it was great. I thought it sounded great.
His preparation was off the charts.
I mean, he was, he was so committed to making sure he knew his stuff and, um, apologize for the dog barking in the background.
We haven't had that in a while. Teddy, you wanna add in
To this broadcast Haven's a that's off track.
Stable we need to bring back. Yeah.
Um, so yeah, will did a great job.
And then, and then Jack, I mean man, what a, what a trooper.
I know if you were, hopefully you guys listened to the, to the Tuesday show and we got a chat to him about that first day on the job , uh, on the broadcast side of things.
But I thought he did a phenomenal job as well.
So look, I can't thank everyone who tuned in enough and we hear your feedback.
We appreciate the feedback.
There's so much cool stuff that's still coming and um, and just, yeah, just, I, I I really can't wait for thermal 'cause we're just gonna keep getting better as a group and we're gonna keep making it better.
So I have one question. Um, obviously
everyone's talked about like the drivers are Cartoonized or animated Cartoon Eyes. Yeah, cartoon.
Yeah. Are are, are you
No, no.
I've had a few people ask if they did that for the three of us and, and I have not to my knowledge. Bummer.
Kind of bummer on Off Track's logo.
Well, yes. Yeah, I'm talking about
Podcast, but but off track logo doesn't give him abs.
That's where there's Fox. That's true. Give abs. Yeah. They
Okay.
Can we all agree everyone's got abs on a Fox Sports broadcast , Right? That's
Agree.
Scotty Maxx was the worst.
Scotty Maxx was not great.
Um, yeah, uh, Nolan looks like, uh, beavers and Butthead character, someone about the mouth just didn't look right there.
Colton's tweet about Scotty Max picture was pretty funny.
that, that one got me going. Um,
Alright, so, so you, you talked about all of the, the good things that have come about it.
You talked about like first weekend, like there's obviously gonna be, there's gonna be the Hits fan at different points, all this sort of thing.
Was, has there been feedback at this point that you've heard from Fox? Like corporate
Commandments from on High?
Yes. Yeah, I think, I think the, uh, I think the
overall feeling of it was very, very positive.
Okay. You know, and, and they were all there like a lot
of the, a lot of the big guys were there.
It was great to have them on.
Did they like site for it? Forget,
Forget the, the results of the T TV numbers.
Forget, you know, the quality of the broadcast or whatever was good, bad, indifferent.
Did they like the event?
Like I am sure it was the first time for some of 'em being to one for Sure.
Yeah. Yeah. For, for some of them it was first time at St.
Pete, first time at IndyCar Race.
And I mean, look man, nobody leaves St.
Pete as a first time attendee and thinks, ah, that like fair.
It's Such a good event, right? It's No it is not on
so many levels and for so many reasons and in so many ways.
Um, but no, they had a, they had a great time, um, very, again, very proud of the whole group.
'cause again, there was just fires being put out, left, right, and center.
It's gonna be infinitely easier for everyone in the production truck next, knock on wood, next time out and thermal if ev all these little things kind of get fixed.
Um, 'cause 'cause you guys had some issues with timing and scoring in pit lane as well, right?
That was like a, that was like a Oh yeah. Systemic thing on
There was a lot of IndyCar network issues.
I mean, I think, I think people maybe they realize maybe they don't, but like every single team has has an IT person now.
Like so much of everything that we're doing is all network based.
Um, it's the same for the series, the same for Firestone, Cosworth, Chevy Honda.
So there's a lot of demand.
Um, and sometimes the first weekend out after everything's been sitting in a box for seven months just doesn't go as smoothly as you would think.
But yeah, I think that was, that was an IndyCar thing.
Not, not anything you guys were doing. Yeah.
And that's, and that's, again, that's not a, it's not a shot at any car.
Look, you're, no, you say everything, everyone's doing it again for the first time in six months.
It's a temporary circuit.
It's hard to get stuff moved around and wired and like the, the logistical effort of getting all that stuff up and running is a nightmare.
Um, but yeah, as a result there's just, there's lots of cool stuff that we weren't able to do that we have coming that's, that's on the cards already. So
Again, I mean, I, I imagine you guys missed my onboard so badly.
Like it didn't work. And you must have been like, man,
this race would be so much better if I could talk about Alex and just show people the magic that he's doing inside the car.
Just watch him tickling the controls of that Java house rocket.
Just, We needed a little more Java house in That, my buttons and my, uh, Using your buttons, Using my buttons, Holding that girthy wheel of yours and and tickling those buttons.
My, uh, my wheel is very phallic every time. Every time.
No, like, people come by like the grips, right?
So people come by. Your grips are weird, man. They're weird.
They're weird. So everyone, everyone comes by
and I'm so self-conscious about it now 'cause everyone's like, oh, I wanna see a steering wheel, right?
And so I just hold, Hey Christian, Can we borrow your wheel ?
I just hold the tops of the grips so that they can like, look at it without hopefully smart pudding two and two together. Yes.
Yeah, no, that's, that's fair.
Um, but yeah, look, congrats, uh, obviously to Pallo, I mean on just whatever the most palolo like win and then Do I know it's phenomenal.
Like he wasn't fast.
I'm not saying he didn't do a great job.
I'm not saying that the team didn't do a great job.
I'm not saying he's not deserving, but like, he was not fast in the race.
Do you wanna know what's interesting is he, he was only fast in that final stint.
Like I I I'm gonna say this in a way that, and you might, you might want to combat it a little bit, but like, he was fast when he had to be.
That's because that's, you know, how hard it was to pass, right?
Yeah, that's fine. And so,
but like when he was out front, he was, he was quick and he pulled away from guys and he was fast.
I do feel for Dixon, well I feel for Joseph because Joseph was the fastest car on track and okay, the only reason quite frankly, in my mind Joseph didn't win is 'cause the team missed the fuel.
Like they, they didn't get his, Is that what happened?
They short fill him on the stop.
I dunno if they short fueled him or if they just thought that he, they could cut him loose and he could do whatever fuel number he wanted or not.
But like, regardless the last two laps, they were like, you're outta fuel, you're posed sort of thing.
Yeah, but it's, look, it's, again, it's tough to pass.
I know Polo caught traffic and so Joseph closed up five seconds or whatever, but then it's still tough to actually get by a guy. That's fair.
Yeah. Um, but dude, the way, like when,
when Dixon came out of the Pit, Yeah, because I, I 'cause like 50 lapsed in, I was like, Scott's gonna win this race.
Once Colton had his problem, I like was doing the math and everything, I'm like, oh my God, he's gonna do it.
Nixon's finally gonna win at St. Pete.
And then that last stop and they're like, and here's, here's the blend with Polo.
And we were like, where the fuck did he come from?
We hadn't even mentioned him.
Like was, we had no eyes on Polo. It was incredible.
And then we're like, oh, I guess he's like super leading the race now.
It's okay. All right. I guess that's a thing.
It was, it was remarkable man.
And like obviously, so Scott lost his radio at some point in the race, wasn't able to pit when he was supposed to caught traffic.
And that's kind of where Polo ultimately got him in the exchange.
Uh, worst case was gonna be second for Alex, but I mean, you could see how bitter Scott was at the end.
'cause that one, he was kind of like, I don't say he was robbed.
'cause again, Paolo did a great job, but Scott didn't have all the tools available to him that you normally do have.
And so it, and essentially robbed him of, of a win at a place.
Only four tracks on the calendar he is not won at.
It's pretty incredible. And, uh, he's,
he's come second there four times.
Still hasn't won at Barber.
He is come second there six times.
I can't wait to get to Barber. I really hope he wins
Barber just for his sake. .
I don't, it's just I know you don't, but I don't, you know, I just, You like, I don't care Alex, I thought you loved Barbara .
Anyways guys, I think, uh, I think that's gonna do it for this week.
Um, yeah, I am speaking of Barbara.
I am testing there next week, so Cool.
We get to talk about that on next week's episode.
We get to hear about how, yet again, we have another new tire.
Who knows if we're gonna test on it, but we're gonna have one, so should be cool Guys.
Thanks for listening, watching YouTube for watching.
But thanks for watching. Thanks
For watching Fox. Yeah, we love, thanks
For tuning in.
Do not forget about practices on FS one.
Do not forget about qualifying.
The warmup show was something totally different.
Alex, I want you to check that out. Tell me what you think about
That.
I actually, I actually, our good friend Steven Bi mm-hmm .
Was harping on about warmup. He loved the couch set up.
He heard that that came from Wheel Boxton.
He loved the interviews. Yep.
He loved that whole sort of thing.
So I actually have seen warmup, uh, cool.
Because he said that it was like some of the greatest warmup TV he's ever watched.
And I have to agree it was the Best warmup TV for sure.
I I have to agree. It was warm.
It was at six eight was pretty for me, was pretty, it was pretty good. It was pretty good.
We can go watch it on Fox YouTube.
It sounded like you guys knew what you were talking about, which is shocking to me. But it's
A nice rarity.
It's a, you know, it's a rarity thing.
That's, anyway, thanks again guys. We'll see you next week.
We'll talk Barbara pre Sebring and whatever other good stuff happens between now and then.
This has been off track with Hinch and Rossi.
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