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This is, is off track.
So Davis, how's your pool ? ?
Is it salty by chance? Yeah, it is.
It's so salty. But no, it's the perfect amount of salt.
Mm. It's the perfect amount of salt.
Like 3,400 ppm.
Don't See, here's the thing, Alex, is you're actually like the kind of guy that went and did all the research as to like how to do stuff.
And you start doing, everybody knows you do your own pH balancing and you learned all the science of the chemicals and whatever. No,
I don't because it's the salt water pool. But yeah.
Well you used to do that before you had a salt Water pool.
That's true. That's true. That is true.
But then on your recommendation, I decided to switch my pool to a salt water pool.
Did Tim just depart the conversation?
'cause he knows he's never gonna achieve having a pool. Uh, no.
I realized my air conditioner was still on and I didn't want the background noise Dedicated to the cause.
Anyway, so yes, I'm excited to get home and use my pool, uh, because it was switched over and it was, I gotta say, this is gonna sound corny, but it was unbelievably easy.
The boys at, uh, boys and girls at Timber Ridge Pools hooked me up in a big way.
And I called them, to be fair, very last minute because I thought I had people coming to stay at the house.
And I was like, I know they're gonna wanna use the pool.
And I've been wanting to do this because Alex has convinced me to do it.
So I call 'em last minute and they squeeze it in.
They got awesome system up and running and it is much easier.
Alex, you were right. That is
an amazing way to go about it. So
James, so James, I'm, I'm really happy for you.
That's great. Um, I'm really happy
that you found a great installer to do you a solid on a last minute thing. Great.
I did. And, um, I highly recommend them.
Timber Ridge Pool. Shout out to those guys
and girls again, if you are in the Indiana area and you would like to get your pools done, that's the place to go and get it done. Um,
Which is, which is awesome.
And, and I love that.
Um, I heard there are fans of the show, so if you're listening, guys, shout out.
Thank you for, for listening. We love it.
Um, James, can you use your status in life to get some <inaudible> internet ?
Um, amazingly yes.
When we complained about my internet, the people from a company reached out to make it better.
Well, they didn't. Um, and,
and then I told you a solution, uh, to fix it, which is you still haven't done it.
And then you're now somewhere where that set solution would be perfect.
Um, and clearly you haven't done that either. So
Is starlink your solution?
Yes. Oh yeah. No, look, I'm happy to do that, Alex.
I spent four days at my house in, in July.
I will spend three days at my house in August. So I haven't had
The Time Clearly spend enough.
You're welcome. Time to get a salt water pool.
No, I, that's the best part about it is I didn't have to do Anything. Here's the, here's
The, to make a phone Call.
Here's the wild thing. Here's the wild thing, James.
Mm-hmm . You got a,
a saltwater pool done via very good installers.
Mm-hmm . Maybe in part to this podcast. Mm-hmm .
Which exists because of internet .
And so I feel like maybe you should put the same amount of emphasis on the internet for the show to get you the pool that you need and the time that you need it.
So I would also Just, if we're gonna start criticizing each other, I would like you guys to start traveling with microphones. I could just,
Oh my God.
Tim. Tim, you know what?
Because I know you have to edit this in like eight minutes.
You, because I travel with that microphone every week and one time I forget it.
And you're gonna sit here and criticize me. Go stuff.
I was criticizing folks. That's what I would say.
I always travel with it. I brought it to England.
I brought it to Italy. I brought that to,
I brought it to, I brought all over the world. That's true,
Tim. It's true.
You need to travel with the microphone because Internet's so bad. That
Is part of it.
That is part of it. . But it's everywhere I go.
It doesn't matter where I Am.
Do you use an iPad? Like a Neanderthal?
I don't think Neanderthal's had iPads. Well,
They do.
I mean, it's pretty Neanderthal esque when you have a world of, of hyper performance laptops to Do, let me, let me professional Have, show on an iPad.
Let professional .
Lemme have, um, let me have my rebuttal. Okay.
So if, oh God, It'd be funny if you froze right now. . If
The good people at Star Lake were as fast and helpful and on time as the lovely people at Timber Ridge Pools, I could just make a call and my starlink would be up and running when I came home.
'cause that's what I did with my saltwater pool system.
And it was great. But I don't think that's
how it works with Starlink.
I mean, and I'm not told long Enough to Elon is, is way less busy than he was three months ago. So maybe that
Is true.
His time is freed up a little bit. Uh, I'll make some
Calls.
Well, I haven't kept up with the news since 2015. Did anything happen?
Right, Right. We landed on the moon.
Huh? Sick. Yeah. Yeah.
Sounds like a big step for man.
Anyway, I am not home.
I'm looking for, it's a giant leap actually for mankind.
Yes. I'm not home. I'm up still up in
Canada enjoying time up at the cottage.
I can't wait to get back to home in Indianapolis in my beautiful pool and use it in the beautiful summer before it's too late and has to get closed up.
Um, Alex, you are not in Indianapolis. You are somewhere.
Uh, that apparently is very busy. I mean,
To be fair, I I I feel like you should be where I am considering it's Wednesday.
Yeah. So Thursday is normally a day when people fly into
races, but Hmm.
Why are you up there on a Wednesday?
Don't you normally fly into Thursday?
Yeah. Well this is, uh, this is the Java House Grand Prix
of Monterey James in case you, Uh, little lecture stuff.
I did actually, you know, I just learned that.
I'm not gonna lie, I only just, I only just heard that today, but Yeah.
Yeah, yeah. Do so
A little extra, little extra stuff for you going on. We
Just, we just, we just got a lot of things going on here.
Um, pretty exciting.
Introducing Peel and pork pods to a whole new demographic, hopefully.
Mm. Um, so yeah.
Are there a lot of Java House for the team?
Are there a lot of Java House locations out west? No,
James, there is none outside of Indiana.
You know, we're just, we're just trying to, we're just trying to expand nationwide one Got it.
Demographic at a time.
Because you can just order these Java House pods online, can't you? Mm-hmm.
You sure can it Online?
You can, you can order for your friend when he, when he feels bad about not getting a box. Yeah, yeah,
Yeah.
You, which he did. And then you already had the box in the
mail, so now you feel bad.
So where can people go, where can people go and get these Java House pods online?
Well, they can go to java house.com.
They can go to this little, little boutique website, uh, called Amazon, um mm-hmm.
Which does carry them. Um, you know, they're, they're known
for their books, but, uh, ultimately they also do sell Java House pods.
I heard they recently expanded from books Yeah.
To coffee pods. So that's incredible. Right. I
I mean, it makes sense. Coffee and books.
It goes together like Hammond tuna fish, I mean, they're sure things that I like mm-hmm .
Um, do they, is there like a discount?
Can you go on java house.com
and use Rossi at checkout to get like 10% off your pods?
No, but you can use another discount code and I really see what you're doing here, James.
And it's, it's very, it's very good.
It's very good to keep, um, the, the, uh, the things in balance.
Right. Um, I've
Just asked you because I like discount codes.
What's the discount code? Yeah.
Well it's a, it's a Java House GP for 27% off.
Oh, 27. What? That sounds like a really good deal.
Oh my.
It absolutely incredible. It's absolutely
Incredible. What
So good. Tell us about your thing.
No, I'm good. I just wanna ask.
No, No, I wanna know. I need a good book to read
with my pods that I'm ordering from the bookstore While we drink the pods beside sitting beside my pool and We're all back in Indian.
Uh, that was fun.
That's good time. What do you mean you don't
Know if it's still for sale? I don't
Know.
I haven't checked, checked that website in a while.
Do you have any left? Yeah, I have too many left.
Have too many big be for kids. Left. It turns out,
I feel like we told really Violent for kids books.
I feel like we told you that you ordered too many.
Oh yeah. No, you did. You did. Okay.
Okay. We love the enthusiasm. Yeah.
you believed you believed in you and that's a good thing because Lord knows not a lot of others would have in that. Yeah,
That's fair. That's
Fair. Right. Including us.
Alright, well there was a race. Yeah. We
Should probably Go back for Alex. We should,
We should probably go back in time and talk Toronto for a hot minute.
Alex.
Yes. James. How did we feel?
I mean, we talked going into Toronto, you were hopeful that there was some stuff that you guys found that would be better.
How did practice go Bad.
Okay. But then how did qualifying go?
Badder. Badder. Got it, got it.
How'd the race go though?
Baddest. Baddest. Yeah. , I'm gonna say that. Yeah.
Yeah. Can we, so I feel like there has been
a weird amount of like weird bad luck in IndyCar this season for a few people in particular.
Mm-hmm . I feel like you were one of the drivers
that has had, uh, uh, an uneven amount of just weird, bad luck happening.
Mm. What happened to you on Sunday is one
of the most bizarre things I have ever seen in motorsports.
Yeah. I was pretty surprised in the moment. Like
When it happened.
What did you think happened?
Because, all right, so for those that don't know, you come outta the last turn, you, you like, you like breathe up against the wall, something that happens 10 times during a race, totally fine.
Something that you can get away with all weekend long and you right rear corner, you Get away with explodes.
You can get away with like a lot more now.
Like you can way more, our suspensions are pretty strong.
They're pretty robust And you hit nice and flush, which normally the floor kind of saves you Actually actually didn't hit James.
Well, yeah, I guess not.
Um, but two of the concrete blocks weren't perfectly aligned and there was a lift that was, what would you call that?
Like four mil, five mil maybe.
I mean, I work in the correct unit, so I'd say like an inch and a half to two.
Oh, it was an inch. It was that big.
Was it was two inches you would say? Yeah. Is that okay?
It was, yeah. I guess on tv,
look from a distance it looks even worse from That.
Oh man. The fact that actually pause. Huge shoutout guys.
Thank you for not being like, man, Alex is really dumb and just crashed.
Like it was, it, it's very hard, um, in anyone watching in that moment to like see a scenario that is weird because like that's a corner that's very easy to smack the outside wall and Day many right. Rears
Have to that wall and your day's over because it's, it's just, it's not that it's a terrible mistake, but it's a mistake nonetheless.
And, and it, it's a dayer.
Um, and you guys kind of watched the replay and you were like, wait a second.
That doesn't look, that doesn't look like that.
That looks a little abnormal.
And then you actually were able to zoom in kind of on a wall and notice that it wasn't aligned properly.
Here's the thing. We all know that it is, um,
a huge, a huge task to build a temporary street circuit.
Um, and it's, it's something that requires a lot of moving parts when you're dealing with cities and unions and all of the bureaucracy, bureaucracy that goes into, um, having a government involved in building a racetrack, right?
It's not just the IndyCar people and the promoters getting to work and, and doing their thing.
But I I will say, um, this isn't the first time something like this has happened, number one.
Number two, when, when you showed up to do the track walk on Thursday, which was at 5:00 PM you can't say that you're at all surprised that something like this happened, um, because quite frankly, like, it, it, every year it seems like it's a huge scramble just to get walls and fences up by the time the first session rolls out.
And, and it's just, it's, we are a, we are an elite professional sporting organization, right?
And, and so there has to be, I mean, at Least occasionally, No, we are, I mean this is a professional sports league.
This is, this is the, the highest level of open wheel motor sports in North America and the second highest level of open wheel motorsports on the planet, right?
So there's gotta be some level of, of, of standard, I guess.
Um, and so it's disappointing to have a day end when it's ultimately like a manufacturing default of the track.
Like it's one thing if your day ends because the car breaks or the engine fails or whatever, and it's people that are pushing performance limits, right?
To try and gain that extra advantage or whatever.
You're going out on a, on a, on a what is supposed to be a controlled environment, right?
And, and again, like it's, it's not that it was a massive glaring error, but clearly it doesn't take a lot to make a huge difference.
And like it surprises me that the, that the impact that two inches had, if we call it two inches, had the impact that it did, dude, it, I've never seen, and maybe maybe walls have been like that forever and guys have hit that forever and it's been fine and this was just a perfect storm of whatever, right?
But like the, the, the, the impact ended up being so violent through the car.
It ripped a drive shaft outta the gearbox, it cut an upper wishbone in half, like, it, it actually like destroyed a right rear corner of a car. I
Mean this, this just goes to show what I've been saying for years, which is two inches can do a lot.
Well, , but it's just like, I, I haven't caused, and, and Ed and I were kind of laughing about it, like I haven't caused that amount of damage to a car since I stove it in a wall like in Indianapolis, right?
Like this was like, it was an entire corner of a race car gone.
Yeah. Body work floor.
Like for a, for a a two millimeter right.
Caliber. Yeah. Yeah.
Everything like the right rear is gone.
Um, so anyways, um, ultimately, Well hold on.
It's, uh, lemme let me, let me ask you this.
Do you think that, like when you did the track walk on Thursday, did you see stuff like that?
Or do you think there's a chance that throughout the day, one of the support series, somebody cranked the wall there and it moved it an inch and that's, it was just, it went unnoticed because I'm, I don't know if I didn't look that closely at it.
Remind me, was there a banner across the, the two pieces of wall in question?
Like it did one of those things that might not have even been vis like visible until the banner got ripped off in the impact?
Or was it two separate banners, two separate pieces, Whatever.
I honestly don't know the answer to that question. Okay.
Um, looking at the picture, it looks like it's two banners, but again, like that's hard to say.
I don't, I don't know, I don't know if your video is clear enough, but Yeah, it looks, yeah, it doesn't look like it's one, does it?
It looks like there's a wind down The middle.
It looks, it's kind of wrapped. Yeah.
Yeah. So, But
That's a great visual, so Yeah.
Yeah, yeah. It's an inch, yeah. Inch, inch bit maybe.
Yeah. Um, so yeah,
I excuse Ben.
He's, he's very vocal. Um,
He's so upset about it. He,
He has a lot of opinions about it.
Um, . So I, I just, I I don't know man.
Like, I, I don't know.
I, because ultimately in all other scenarios you are rewarded for being like that inch perfect, Right? Yeah,
Yeah.
And I I'm not saying that this was intentionally being inch perfect, like should you leave more margin probably.
But this wasn't like a, a situation where there was a correction into the wall.
This was like using and, and the amount of street races that I've done, and maybe this is why it's not a problem.
Ultimately the amount of street races that I've done in races and qualifying, whatever, where I come in and I have white wall tires, you've done the same thing.
Yes. Like you, you white wall tires on street courses,
like that's, yes you do.
You have to like it, there's so much lap time in, in using all of the width of the racetrack.
It's um, it's wild that either you, you are able to get away with that all the time because this does exist or this is a case of this doesn't ever really exist and this was a kind of small miss on the build of the track or the repair of the track after a hit.
And this was the end result.
Like, I don't know which is which, but the fact of the matter is it happened, it ultimately happened because the barrier wasn't aligned properly.
How it got to that point. Who knows? We'll never know. Um,
It is, it is cruel and it is tragic and it is unfortunate, but at the same time, like I don't want to throw anybody involved in the track construction under the bus because it is incredibly difficult, like you mentioned off the top, to put a track together like that. It's two
Definitely two barriers or two pieces.
It wasn't covered up.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. There's a lot
that goes into it that is, you know, something that certainly could have evolved over the weekend, over the day.
You know, it is unfortunate. It is, it sucks.
Um, you know, I I think back to F1 practice, first practice in Vegas the first year when a manhole cover came up and rode off an entire F1 car for Carlos signs.
I think back to Detroit in 2012 when a piece of rubber and concrete that we saw coming up for the entire race and race control did nothing popped up and sent me into the wall.
Uh, I've been there. I get it.
Street, street tracks are tough and it sucks.
I I I feel bad that your day went that way 'cause you were having a good day.
You guys were, Sunday was not going too badly.
I mean, I don't know. 'cause honestly, my yellow is
what is what ruined true my strategy.
True. Um, so I don't know.
I don't know how it would've gone.
I, I did send Patto an invoice , um, for part of his prize money and uh, he was like, oh, 10%, three grand, no problem. .
Um, so, so 'cause he was, he was in pit lane when the yellow came out.
You just, you just Apple pay him request that or Apple request.
Uh, yeah, I mean we, we, we, we, we, we have, we've got a, uh, this I'm gonna see if, if he just blindly Accepts it.
Um, so I think that, you know, starting on, on the primary tire, um, was certainly kind of the, the alternate strategy.
It was the, the gamble knowing how poor the greens were.
Um, we saw a lot of cars come in even before the first yellow to get off the greens.
Then we saw the majority of the rest of the cars come off the greens at the first yellow.
What really surprised me was the two cars that didn't, and they ended up second and third on the day.
Yeah. Which is incredible.
Um, because it, it, it looked at that moment that, that was like a complete fumble.
A completeness. Completeness, yes.
The way those guys were falling through the field just struggling to hang on for dear life, holding up traffic three, four seconds off the pace.
You're like, oh, you guys biffed it, you, you, you went for it, you punted and it didn't work.
And man, did it ever work. So
60 laps later, here we are, uh, with a, um, Patto win and a arena, uh, second and, and Kiff and Securus first InCorp podium and third, obviously you guys, Al already listened to the Tuesday episode with reus.
But, um, I mean, just a huge shout out to to, I mean, him obviously, um, but also Kiffin as well, man.
Like that's, it's huge. We,
we talked about it I think last week or two weeks ago.
Um, kind of the, the role that he's been on, not only in races but in qualifying and to, to go slap a podium up there, um, is is pretty legit.
I mean, what a what a rate of development.
Not a, not a easy place to do it either, right?
Like he comes off, it's Not even like, it's not even like he fluked it either.
Like he had to deal with Colton for 25 laps, 30 laps, trying to close him down. So,
And like he never quite got there.
It's not even like Colton got to the point where, you know, it's tough to make up.
You're on a guy's gearbox, you're faster, but it's tough to make the pass.
Like Colton was probably two seconds behind him.
I think that's as close as he got.
So, uh, so yeah, he had to drive if he had to get it done.
Like I said, mid Ohio was a great weekend for Kiffin.
He backed it up here first podium, always cool to see.
Um, cool to see Delco racing back on the podium, you know, with Reus, um, Patto, that was, that's really the guy we needed to win the race.
You know, when Paolo's finishing down in 12th, that helps keep the championship alive.
That is what everybody wants to see.
Minus Palolo, I say alive, I mean mathematically not over.
Yes. Um, so look, it was in a lot
of ways kind of best case scenario.
What was interesting man is like, you know, we talk about straight courses in 2025 with IndyCar.
You kind of talk about Andretti Global and they, you know, they had pole, uh, they had all three cars, I think starting the top eight.
They all kind of went different strategies.
None of them were on the Pado strategy that won the race.
None of them were on the Reus Kiffin strategy that came second and third.
They all kind of pit at different times and they ended up fourth, fifth, sixth.
So like still shows like a pretty impressive street course package that they weren't on the winning strategy or the second best strategy.
They were all on different strategies and they still were right there.
It's, it is what, uh, Brian Herda always said in the beginning.
He was like, if we're fast, it really doesn't matter what strategy I choose.
Like , if you're fast, like every strategy looks good sort of thing.
Right, right. Which, which was certainly the case.
I I will say I was, um, IndyCar put out a, a little stat, I don't know if you saw it with um, like the street course rankings now that we're done with that part of the, the season.
Um, obviously Kyle was the best.
Um, but I would be very interested, assuming you didn't see this to who, who do you think filled out the rest of the top while it's six?
Okay, so it's not below because he had a DNF in Detroit and he had a 12th in Toronto.
Uh, I mean, reus might be in the top six.
No. Oh, what about Kiffin?
'cause I know Kiffin had a strong Long Beach. Yeah. Okay.
Kiffin, Kiffin is in there. Uh,
Colton's in there makes Sense. That makes sense. Yeah.
Scott Dixon. Dixon because Makes sense.
I'm sure he is in everything. Yeah.
Um, Marcus Erickson surprised. Yeah. He made
It really Okay.
And, and Patto. Okay.
So yeah, I mean, it, it's very like looking on the year Marcus has had, I would not have said by any stretch that, like, I thought, I thought truly Toronto was like his first result of the year period.
IIII was literally about to say, well Marcus wouldn't be in there either, but .
Right, right. It's just that kind of just goes
to show the year that he's had.
Um, and, and you, you mentioned something earlier kind of talking about the luck or lack there of it that I've had.
I also wanna talk about the flip side of it.
So we obviously know like Joseph's had incredibly bad luck.
Horrendous, um, McLaughlin equally so horrendous, Marcus equally so, but there has been a lot of guys that have actually had like really good luck and I, and I don't mean good luck in, in terms of getting like good results, but like there's a quite a few cars this year that have not d Nfd any race mm-hmm .
And that's, I feel like kind of weird.
Um, you know, usually everyone in the top 10 of the championship and, and we still have four ACEs to go.
Right. But usually everyone in the top 10
of the championship has one and like there is several cars that don't have any.
And I, I just find that, I find that kind of unique. So, so
I, I have these numbers.
Let's look at this. 'cause this is always one
of my favorite stats to look at is the laps complete.
So only one driver has completed every lap of the season at Award.
Uh, very close behind is Lard.
Yes. His teammate, uh, Dixon Daley.
So you have a few guys here that are within kind of 15 laps, call the 99 percenters.
David Lucas, Graham, Ray Hall, Connor Daley, Scott Dixon, Christian Lingard Paddle Award. But,
But, but, but that's, but those are the people I'm talking about.
Like, yeah, this isn't, this is not anything, I'm not talking anything bad about, um, uh, uh, Lucas, Connor, whoever else you just said Graham, but these are, these are cars that you usually have DNFs.
Right? Right. Whether that's mechanical issues
or they get dumped in a corner or they crash or whatever.
Like those are guys you would, at the beginning of the year, you would expect to have have one.
Right. And they don't.
And that's just, that shows how important consistency is to having a strong season, having a good year.
Um, and I just, I think that there's, there's an, it's not quite even this year.
Like you've got guys that have either super bad luck or you've got guys that have been pretty lucky throughout the year and then there's really no middle ground.
It's kinda like it's either going well for you or it is, it's kind of my point.
Yeah. So I, I've got this, this chart that we get as part
of our stats thing.
It's, you can't see here, but it, it, it lists all the, the DNFs and it, there's an x if it was a mechanical failure and a c if it was a crash.
And there are just a lot more markings on this page this year than what we're used to seeing.
But then these few lines stand out and it is Patto.
It is Christian, it is Conor Santino had he, I mean he's fallen down on the laps completed because he didn't, um, obviously start the race in Toronto.
Mm-hmm. Uh, actually let's look at his completed lapse.
But like, but I feel like Armstrong rosenquist those cars as well.
I, I've, I I just, they haven't had anything bad really.
Well, Felix did in Toronto.
What happened to Felix in Toronto?
Uh, he spun and then Nolan just smoked him.
Oh, dude. On like the,
like last lap, like two laps of ago or whatever. Yeah,
Yeah, yeah.
Well he was dealing with a, with a bit of a broken front wing and he had like, his wing got broken on lap one and he just drove around with an injured car all day long.
I kind of felt bad for him. Um, but yes.
So we'd be remiss without talking about Patto because we sort of talked about second or third, but props to him for making it happen.
Uh, I liked the strategy call that they did.
Same kind of thing that co uh, Colton did, um, right off the bat with the starting on the alternates and getting him off for that first caution.
Um, Toronto held true to having cautions early and often, but Locklin's deal was a tough break for him.
New gardens deal was a tough break for him.
I still cannot believe, man, that Penske don't have a result.
I mean, I think I saw there's like between all three drivers, the best driver on the team has four finishes worse than like 24th Or No, it's, I saw, I saw a chart and I forget who put it out, but they were like, do you think, like the question was is, is Penske having a generationally bad season?
Yes. And it looked at like, the past 25 years
and like the dots are all kind of like this and then they are up here for a while.
The dot for this year is like subterranean, like it's, it is so far beyond anything they've had before in terms of badness.
I would, I would be interested to learn and I'll, and this will be something I talked about this weekend because it's one of the things I brought up in our production meeting, but like, like has Penske ever had a winless year and when was it like, especially with three cars, you know, like we're not talking about two cars.
We had two chances every weekend.
We got three chances every weekend.
And here's the thing, it's not a pace issue.
They've had several weekends where they should have won and with multiple drivers and it just didn't happen.
And that's, you look, that's, that's racing. That's IndyCar.
It is what it is. But like to go an entire 17 race season
with three cars and not have a single win at the end of the year.
My God, you know, I'd, I'm gonna be floored if that happens. I mean, but I
Mean there would, there would definitely be butts on the line if there were butts left.
There's no butts just gonna say there's no butts left, man. ,
that's gonna be gonna be wild. Yeah.
Uh, and Powers, you know, the top of the charts for the team and he is the one that apparently is on the chopping block from an employment standpoint.
But that one I don't entirely understand.
But uh, look, I still think he's got Pace.
I still like he's got race wins in him.
I don't know why you would replace him, but is what it is.
One thing I do just want to touch on, because I saw a lot of comments post race on the interwebs.
So we as Fox as the TV broadcast missed one of the restarts and it was the restart where Joseph and Jacob got together.
So we were on a commercial break, went green, we missed that, there's an accident turned one we missed that.
We come back from commercial and you're just staring at Abel's car on top of Newgard.
And a lot of people were very upset about the fact that we missed the restart.
I would like to say one thing from like a bit of a, in like a bit of a, just kind of a way, but like it needs to be said.
'cause I've done it. We've all done it. Everyone's done it.
If you've never produced a Motorsports broadcast, maybe just throttle back on the vitriolic language when you have an issue, if there's something you wanna say, by all means have an opinion.
But like, if you've never done it, kind of like a little bit just calm <inaudible> down.
You know what I mean? Uh, I think it's important
to understand there's a lot of things that go on behind the scenes that people don't realize.
And if we count all the cautions and all the restarts that have happened in IndyCar in 2025, it's the first one we've missed.
Uh, and there's a reason for it. Right?
It's not something that we just do arbitrarily.
There was an issue that caused that particular situation.
We know it, it's not what we, you know, we obviously aim to not do that.
We know exactly what happened.
We effort every weekend to make sure those things don't happen.
So like, just relax.
We also have replay machines, so like, calm down, it's fine.
Uh, I just needed to get that out there.
'cause it's annoying when people kind of go after a group when they don't really know what's going on.
I'm sure I've done it, so I'm gonna stand up and own that.
But also I'm trying to let everybody know that we're aware of what happened and it was not intentional.
We try to make sure it never happens, but just, just half, just half cup of, you know, of backing off from where you guys are.
That's all I gotta say about that. So,
Honest question.
Um, how, how does that happen?
I'm just curious. Like what sequence
of events needs to happen?
Because I mean, you have race control, you know, when this, it's ending and going green and it's not like a 15 second heads up, like it's minutes.
So I, I'm just curious like what has to occur for that to happen?
Uh, so you plead the fifth .
I just plead the fifth a little bit. It
Was like someone, was it like, I Don't need to, it was a miscommunication. It it was a
Miscommunication. Someone was in the bathroom,
There was a miscommunication. The
Guy with the green green button wasn't in the room for some reason. Okay.
We're gonna, we're gonna go with, it was a miscommunication.
Uh, there is a system in place that is supposed to avoid that thing from happening.
And there was a breakdown in communication somewhere along the lines and that's what led to that.
Right? Unfortunate follow
Up.
Yes. Alex, Are there butts on the
line? ?
Dude, this is Motorsport.
There's always butts on the line. Hell
Yeah.
That's how it works. Yeah.
Um, anyway, that, that all side.
So, uh, Laguna la Guana this weekend.
You're out there early because of the Java House 200 or whatever it's called.
Java House Grand Prix. What is it called?
It's not the 200. I don't know.
I was just throwing out words.
It's the Java House Grand Prix in Monterey.
All right. All right. That's why I asked.
That's what you're, that's what you're here for.
Are we excited? How do we feel about Laguna?
We feel great. I love this track.
It's, it's my, it is my home track.
Um, it's a track that I was introduced to motor sports on track.
I grew up coming to with my dad. Um, how
Old were you the first time you came here? When
I was three.
So 94. Um, wow.
For the IndyCar race, for the cart race, whatever it was. Cart
Race, car race.
Yeah. Car race. Yeah. Okay.
Um, max Pappas was my favorite driver as a kid, which is Wild.
Ben. It's Ben.
He's Ben's favorite driver too, believe it or not.
There you go. Um, and always
qualified really well here.
Um, I think I was told I've been the fast six four times here, um, since we came back in 19, but only one podium.
So needs to be a bit better in said races, but also some of these races are just a complete and utter show of a, of an event.
Um, yeah, in terms of yellow flags and, and crashes and everything.
I think with our new restart rules and, and all that sort of jazz will be much better.
Um, so I don't expect a race like that.
Um, the, the team was pretty good here last year and the good lord knows we need a, we need a good result and no better time to do that than my home race slash the title sponsor of the race is on my car. So
Anytime that Extra motivation all around A car sponsored by the title sponsor of the race does well.
I scream fix, I always have and I always will. Uh, and I, I
Gimme 50 years horsepower, please.
Yeah. . Yeah. Don't care.
I will not be mad if that is the case, uh, this time. Hmm.
Uh alright, that's great. I'm glad that, I'm glad
that you're excited about it and, and hopefully it goes well.
Um, what the people really wanna know is how was Ben's first flight?
He did great, man. Um, yeah, yeah, he did good.
He, yeah, no dramas. But I also feel like
Everyone was he, was he like, was he quiet?
Was he fussy?
Was he, or did he just sleep for four hours and Just sometimes awake, but mostly asleep. That's,
That's gonna lull you into a sense of security. No, it doesn't. The first
Two years doesn't.
No, it doesn't. I know that. Super easy. Everyone said it's
super easy in the game because all they do is eat and sleep.
No, I'm well aware when they're a toddler and they have opinions, it goes to hell because Hazel at elevens hard. I'll
Be flying him.
No, Hazel's perfect. Don't lie.
She's actually, yeah, she's really easy to fly with.
Was she ever a bad fly?
Like did she go through a phase where fly was a absolutely terrible Thing?
Yeah, like three and four. Three and four is rough. Well,
Remember, remember that was when he abandoned all of his screen time rules was on airplanes because he was just like, yes, whatever.
You need to keep your true.
Great point. Although I'll say the one thing
that it changed was like, I am no longer bothered at all if there's a sleep, uh, crying baby on a plane. Yeah.
Like I, the only Emotion I feel is I feel sorry for those parents.
Yeah. I'm not upset. I'm not annoyed.
Yeah. I kind of default to that now too,
because like the only person who is hating it worse than you is the person who's, who owns the kid .
Like, 'cause they're also having to hear it, but also it's their responsibility and they are carrying the weight of all 163 passengers on board.
Yeah. So, yeah. I I'm with you on that one.
It's, it's hard to get mad at that scenario. Yeah.
I don't know why, why, uh, Alex is not on board.
She's like, shut that kid off 10 times outta 10. He's like, shut that. I
Know there's ways Why, why was this the first race you wanted to, or first flight you wanted to bring him to?
Why make the trek out to California Will? Because
We are staying after, uh, because, uh, it's a late birthday trip slash present from my dad.
Um, he got us, uh, on Pebble, so we're gonna go play Pebble on Monday.
Nice. Oh, very cool. Which is pretty cool.
Um, I'm nowhere near good enough as a golf if you need any tips.
I've played it five or six times.
All right. All right. Mr. In
Fact, the majority of my golf has been at Pebble an overwhelming majority. Yeah.
Yeah. Well that's nice for you. Yeah.
Yeah. I've only played three rounds of golf.
Not at Pebble, So, okay.
Alright. Cool. Your jets.
Yeah, there. Watch out for seven. It's a doozy eight.
You don't know what you're talking about.
I don't, there's, I parked one of them though.
You, you can do it. It's really,
you could probably actually bird it 'cause it's like 120 yards and it's like downhill for like, oh yeah.
And you just like, you like ship it onto the green and then put it in par three beauty. Yeah.
I've been, I've been to a car show there. Does that count for anything?
No, I'm actually jealous. 'cause that's
what I would rather do there and I've not done that. .
Did you go to like the actual concourse?
Yeah. That's pretty cool.
When you Friend Ed was my friend. Ed was MCing it.
Uh, that would've been like 20 11, 20 10.
That's cool. Do you know what these celebrate?
Do you remember what the celebrated mark was that year?
I think a Dusenberg, uh, Juan Best in show or whatever it was.
They would, those doozies I like do and Berks.
So, so do I. Um, You would,
Is it weird to anybody else that like, we're almost done this year?
It is really weird. Does it? I guess it's really weird.
We're not even in August yet.
We have four races left and then we're, I mean it's just, it's That's dumb.
That's really dumb. Becauses.
Everyone in the entire paddock is like torched right now because the stretch.
Yes, Dude. But then also everyone is like, wait,
you mean we get a weekend off and then it's two back to back and then it's weekend off done and then it's over.
Like, then what are we supposed to do? It's just right.
I mean, I, there there's gotta be, there's gotta be a better way of doing this.
Um, this is not the episode for it.
'cause we got seven months of an off season to talk about it.
But like , I just, it it is not working the way we're doing it.
So would it really be that much worse if we changed it around, I guess is, is the, the thought that I have and we don't need to get into it and I'll leave it at that.
Um, but I just, it it's sad.
It's really sad to think that all of this grind and all of the effort and, and money and time away from people's families and, and all that sort of thing.
It's all just gonna come to an end here in four weeks.
And like, you don't enjoy it because it's just, it's so much, so much effort to go from event to event to event to event to event all on the back of the 500 with, with like one week off in between six events.
I think it is. And it's just like in
that moment it's really hard to appreciate what you're doing, but then you get to this point where it's like, oh my God, we only have four left.
And you're like, oh, this is really, this is really, and then like, how do you keep any momentum? And I just, I don't
Know what I wanna, like, I'm curious and we're outta time, but like NASCAR do this 36 times and they have like two weeks off, I think two weekends off basically from Daytona to wherever they end their season are.
Is it the same for them?
Like are we, are we missing something?
Do they just have like different teams on the road that don't have to go back to the shop?
Or like, or are they just so used to that lifestyle that that is what it is?
And for us, because it's a fairly big shift this year from what the schedule was last year and has been for the last couple decades, that it's like hitting everybody a little harder.
Well, I think it's, I think it's, it's what you're used to versus not.
But also, and and having worked with Kyle, um, last May, the, the NASCAR weekends are way less intensive than an IndyCar weekend. Yeah,
I have heard that.
Yeah. Um, the drivers, there's no meetings, there's no,
there's no real appearances.
There's no, there's no mandatory anything. Right?
Like it's kind of, they show up at the last possible minute, um, they jump in the car and then they leave immediately.
So while the work that they're doing on the racetrack is very intense and very challenging and strenuous and everything, it's such a, a fraction of the event.
They're not, it's not a four day weekend for them. Yeah.
They're not showing up on a Thursday and Dick around all Day.
If you, you flew out on a We Friday afternoon, You flew out on a Wednesday and you're gonna be busy all day Thursday, all day Friday, all day Saturday, all day Sunday spent all day flying home.
Monday you'll get Tuesday at home. Uh, you know, like it's,
Yeah.
Yeah, yeah. So that's, I think that's really the kicker.
If you showed up Saturday morning, did a practice qualified race Sunday, and we're back in your house by 7:00 PM I think it's a different conversation. Yeah.
Maybe, maybe. Cool. Well, all right.
Uh, I'll see you out there momentarily. Um,
Oh no.
Well, on that noise and note, we will head out and we will talk to you guys next week. ,
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