Sleeping In, Cute Babies, and Commercials

<silence> Hey, everybody, uh, Tim here.

Um, our thoughts and prayers obviously go out to everybody affected by this tragedy outta dc.

Um, it's unimaginable. I don't really know what else to say.

Um, as far as this week's episode, we recorded this on Tuesday, so thought it would be appropriate to put a little disclaimer up at the top.

Um, we talk about travel a lot in this episode.

We talk about missing flights.

Alex talks about maintenance on his plane.

Um, obviously when we were talking about this, we had no idea what was going to happen.

Um, so we just thought it would be appropriate to put a little, uh, tag at the top here.

Um, if that's something that you're feeling particularly sensitive about right now, completely understand.

If you wanna take this week off. Um,

we appreciate you guys listening and if you stick around, I hope you enjoy the show.

This is off track.

Hello. And welcome to another episode

of Off Track With Intra.

I know, but he wasn't gonna do it. I

Know.

It's, why am I supposed to do it?

This is, he pointed and I just, oh, I wasn't, I had another browser open.

I'm sorry, . I wasn't clicking with you guys. I,

I do find it funny when I edit these, 'cause I edit these as videos and then I export the audio, put the audio out.

Yeah. So just like seeing the light change on your

face constantly. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

As You're, you can tell for sure. Yeah.

And I try to like not include that when I can cut around it on the YouTube videos.

I don't know what you're talking about. It's

Impossible to change it. . Yeah,

I know what you're talking about.

I don't get it. Anyways, guys, um, welcome.

We, uh, we covered Daytona in the Tuesday episode, so if you are tuning into this episode, hoping to hear about Daytona, um, go, go check out Tuesday's episode because we get all the insight from James and his, uh, seven hours of Daytona.

We talk about BMW versus Corvette and all the conspiracy that goes along with that.

And then we talk about all the winners of the race.

So that's your Daytona recap.

Um, I'm gonna get straight into it. Travel podcast.

Coming back from Hawaii, uh, I almost, um, I almost missed a flight.

And I know that's not, that's not like crazy news, that's not that interesting of the story, but here's the thing. No,

For you that it's, yeah.

Okay. So here's the thing.

There's, there's only evening flights, um, out of Maui because of where it is, uh, on the time zone map and all that sort of thing going east back to the United States.

So like, the earliest flights are 6:00 PM all the way to like 11:30 PM And, um, so we had a seven o'clock flight.

We obviously got a late checkout at the hotel, um, and we were hanging by the pool and all this sort of thing.

And we were staying 45 minutes away from the airport.

We had done this drive multiple times, uh, throughout our trip there to go into that part of town for dinner or excursions or whatever we were doing.

And so at four 15, I just was like, we should go.

I feel like we should go.

And I looked at ways, I looked at Uber and everything said like 52 minutes.

Um, and, but I was like, I just, we need to go.

I had this feeling that we should go, and this was the first time of the entire trip that it was raining pretty good.

And so we were kind of just sitting in the hotel lobby bar.

So it was like we weren't doing anything.

It's not like we were trying to get the last bit of suntan or whatever, right?

So we go, we order an Uber, we get an Uber, and we start driving and we get about 20 minutes down the road.

So halfway there. And it is just complete gridlock.

Now, there was, ever since the fire in Laina and such, there's, you know, quite a bit of, um, uh, debris, uh, recovery and, and construction happening and, and all of this sort of thing.

But again, like that had all been little minor construction areas that we had driven through before.

So it had never taken more than 45 minutes.

And let me just put it to you this way.

Our flight departed at seven. It boarded at six 15.

We pulled up to the curb at six 10.

baggage drop off was six 15.

Thankfully this was still a domestic flight, even though it feels like you're out of the country.

So bag cutoff was 45 minutes, but it took one hour and 55 minutes to do a 45 minute drive.

And I was just thinking the entire, oh, and here, here's the kicker.

I was looking at flight options.

Hawaii's a very popular place, not a whole lot of flights.

It was gonna end up costing me. 'cause this wasn't a delay.

This wasn't an American cancellation, this sort of thing, right?

It was gonna end up costing me $9,000 out of pocket to leave on Friday.

So the next day, and we were gonna have to transfer islands.

We were gonna have to fly to Kona because that was the only way to get outta there and get back to Indianapolis. Good

Lord.

And I was thinking the whole time, I'm like, this is bullshit.

Because I didn't even, I wasn't messing around.

I was being responsible.

I wasn't, I didn't sleep in, I wasn't late.

I wasn't like, oh, let's, let's go to another bar really quick and let's do whatever.

Right? I, I was leaving essentially three hours early

for a 45 minute drive, and I was that close to missing a flight.

And I'm like, that is such a kick in the balls because it's like, it's one thing if you screw it up and you have to pay nine grand, it's your fault.

Right? It's another thing.

It's like, I didn't do anything wrong and this is completely outta my control.

And it's not even like you were trying to time it to the minute, right?

No. Like, look, when we're here,

when we're home in Indy, right? We're, we're,

We push the on, we're Irresponsible with like how close we put like one slight, if someone Four highway Like missing the flight, no problem.

But like, you were going hours in advance.

Like you were well clear of what you normally would've Done.

Yes. I was, I was planning on getting there

and getting dinner, having a beer, like hanging out, like whatever.

Right. No stress needed. All the stress goes deliver

All so much stress, man. So much anxiety.

And the Uber driver was like, yeah, we don't get rain very often.

So people were just panicking.

Like there was no crash, there was no issue.

There wasn't like a mudslide.

Like there was two hours of traffic. 'cause it was wet.

I feel like, does Hawaii not get rain? I don't know why.

In my head. I figured they got like

a good amount of rain. It's

A pretty lush green place.

I kind of thought they got a bit of rain.

Okay. I have a Question.

I think they get rain in the mountains. I don't think they

Get certain elevations Rain, like at the beach. Yeah.

Weird. Yeah. How many flights have you guys

missed, if any, That were not connections and my fault.

Because of you? Yeah. Oh, one.

One One. So I, I'll talk about it. So it was London.

I was going to, I was going to like Barcelona or something, or Italy or wherever, right.

And it was a 9:00 AM flight. I was staying at the airport.

I went out the night before with some of the engineers and mechanics and everything.

Stayed out a little bit too late.

I woke, I had one of those panic wake up where you're like, like, 'cause you know, it's like late.

And I looked at my phone and I was like, oh.

And just went immediately back to bed.

Like it wasn't even worth, like, it was boarding when I woke up.

So I didn't even, like, there was no stress.

It was like, that's a problem for me to deal with in four hours. I'm gonna get some more

Sleep .

But I've never had one where I've like been running to the gate and missed it other than like a connection being Yeah, yeah.

Delayed or whatever, right? Yeah.

I, I had one.

I've done two and both are oversleep.

Alex, I was with you for one.

Oh, I remember that Was passing in Texas By Southwest.

Oh, Austin. Yeah, yeah, Yeah.

The other one was, uh, I was in Moab, Utah.

I was working on the movie after Earth and I, I had a 6:00 AM flight out the day after we wrapped, but we had a wrap party.

Mm. And so I was at the wrap party till like two in the

morning and I, I woke up like two at that Point. You can't go to bed.

Yeah. I woke up like two to three hours

after my flight, had already left again.

No stress because it's like woke When I, I woke up and the, the flight had landed. , .

I can't remember the Austin one.

Were you, did you wake up and it had already taken off? It was

Like 15 minutes before takeoff.

It was like they would close the boarding door as I woke up. The funny,

The funny thing about that was, didn't you like lose a credit card at the bar?

I had lots of the card for Lost the Card.

Yeah. . I lost the card. It already reported it missing.

So it no longer worked until the new one got In.

Oh, that's right. So you had to borrow his fucking book.

I had to pay for his flight. Yeah. . Yeah.

That was all that, that was All that.

Oh, that's terrific. I had, I had one that I missed,

which like, I guess it's my fault, but it really wasn't my fault 'cause I got there early enough, but I don't know if I didn't, if I had like not checked in online or maybe I had to check a bag or something, but there was some cutoff and I was, it was close, but I got there and I stood in line and there was only one person working check-in.

And I was the second person in line and the person in front of me took, and I think I had like 15 minutes of leeway.

They took 20 minutes. And I got up there.

I was like, oh, that's the worst. I was like,

I've been here for 20 minutes.

Yeah. I need to get on this point. I always wonder,

What, What is closed?

They're like, sorry, it's closed.

Yeah, because closed And it's nothing.

Do you gotta be a bully at that point? Right?

You gotta push your way through and be like, you have this limit impose you need to deal with my, yeah, I guess I just, I honestly didn't, I honestly thought, 'cause like she clearly saw me there.

I had been standing there the entire time.

So I kind of just figured that like there was a way around it and she would kind of like, Like a buffer. Yeah,

Yeah.

Like just some kind of, you know, control, delete things you could do and, you know, reset something.

VIP no. So I just stood there

A lot of times A new flight.

People don't realize that at the airport.

They actually like, have special flights reserved for people who are mean enough to the employees.

wasn't. It is. It's up to those employees.

Spirit Airlines. Yeah.

I did not, I, uh, I I, there's one flight, there's one flight that I should have missed.

You've never, you've never missed a flight from Oversleeping.

No. That's

Incredible.

There's there's one that I almost something proud Of Because , I, uh, Are we lesser people? Tim? Seems like it.

Well, I mean, I still miss that.

We make worse choices. . You guys are both way

better at sleeping than I am though, To be fair.

One of them was because I was hanging out and partying with you, which was fun.

The other one Will Smith was pouring drinks at the after party.

I wasn't gonna leave.

No, it was worth it. It was worth it. Yeah. No,

The problem with the one with me is I went to Bed Pal.

Uh, we have different Was he said, she said Trip.

Yeah, , But no, the one that I should have missed.

So like, and it kind of from sleeping, uh, road America one year, like junior categories.

We went to Sipkins. Mm. Discovered Jagermeister. That's

A painful Morning.

A very, very rough morning. Mm. Got to the airport.

The girl I was dating at the time, and I were so tired and so hungover that we laid down on the floor at the gate and fell asleep.

And literally the gate agent kicked us awake.

And she was like, are you guys on this flight?

And we're like, yeah.

They're like, we called last call like five minute, like, you have to get on right now.

And I'm like, oh my God. . So we nearly overslept at the, at

The, at the gate.

I did, at the airport, at the gate.

I did that in Nashville. After you podium James. Yeah.

I, like, I got to the airport from my flight and I was like, I I need to get a little more sleep before the site.

So I fell asleep, but laid in a way where they couldn't board the plane without like stepping over here walking on me.

Yeah, no. So like, I was like asleep with my feet

blocking the area aboard.

That is, is, that is a wild move.

Considering you would've known half the people on that flight.

Yes. That was when I sat next to James',

uh, title sponsor.

We did, yeah, you did, You did sit down next door cast That was come to board.

I, I audibly heard somebody say, oh no, he's on our flight .

I remember that. Like what? I made it .

So must everyone else's stupid dismay. But it works.

It's not stupid.

Oh man. Good times.

Okay, so this is not really related to anything we were just talking about.

It's certainly not trap related, but it is racing related and it's something we've done before and I would like to do it again.

Um, in the past we have talked about something called the Rod Campbell Award, uh, which is something to help, uh, people get into the world of motorsports, uh, looking for careers in motorsports.

They have an application process that we have announced on here in years past.

Uh, aj I, who was one of the winners previously, he now works for Spire Motorsports, who's, you know, they've got a NASCAR team.

It's the agency that, that I've been with for long, long time.

Um, Townsend Bell was, uh, who was actually Townsend Bell's father-in-law.

Rod Campbell, who was an industry genius in the commercial and marketing side of motorsports.

So anyway, it's, it was an award that was established in 2021 to perpetuate a launchpad of opportunity for young professionals, approximately 18 to 23 years old, looking to begin successful careers in the automotive and motorsports arenas.

And the winner will be selected by a panel of very experienced industry people, um, companies that are all kind of somehow associated with Rod or, or somebody that he knew.

So you'll get four to six weeks of paid apprenticeship.

And I can tell you that I think it's been going on, so four years or whatever now everyone that's won this award has ended up with a career in racing.

They're all gainfully employed and enjoying themselves.

So we're gonna create a link, um, on Twitter to, uh, the application, uh, Tim will put that up.

They do have to be in by February 1st.

I'm cutting this a little bit close, so hopefully if you're interested, you've listened in time, uh, click the link in Twitter and who knows, we might see you around the racetrack later this year because it's, uh, a very cool program and a very cool thing.

So thank you AJ for reminding me.

And go get your applications in.

Tim better submit it. He's,

He doesn't quite make the cutoff. I'm

Good.

Um, I , so when I was in Daytona, it, I had a, I had a really funny like, time there with my new Italian friends.

So like, I had two Italian teammates, Marco and Andrea, but then also all the Lambo people are like, they're 90% Italian.

Right. And so we had,

Marco is pescatarian, so his dining options were a little more limited.

So we kind of were really bouncing between two restaurants the entire time. There

B Fish Grill and No, there's a, there's a little Italian place Oh.

In like right beside one Daytona there, like right across the track, like right in the same plaza as like PF Chang's and all that stuff.

Right. So we end up in this little Italian

place more often than not.

But I have to say, man, eating Italian at an American restaurant with real Italians is one of the funniest experiences ever.

Because like you had ordered, so like, Jordan ordered a, uh, an eggplant Parmesan, right?

And they were like, what even is that?

And then it shows up and it was like, it was like a TV show.

Like the, the, the reactions were so comical and like borderline sta like, I dunno if it's racist to be, to be like, they're like, ah, wha what?

They were so upset at what Americans bats off as Italian food and one, one meal we had with like all the Lambo people, this was like 10 people at the table.

And every time something showed up, it was like immediately assessed and judged by the entire table.

And you either got to like, oh, or the, ah, what is this ?

It was so funny, man.

So my only question is like, if you wanted to really make their lives better and give them the Italian food that they wanted, why didn't you just go to Olive Garden Every night?

So that actually was, he Didn't wanna be family.

He didn't wanna be family with them there That was talked about.

Apparently they actually kind of like going to Olive Garden, amazingly Probably just 'cause they take the piss the entire Time.

Yeah. I think it's just like the novelty of it.

They're like, what These guys, there's, there's no planet that they Also like that, like the version of American food is just American food.

Like you would just, you could just go to fast food restaurants here.

Like I would never, you would never go to Italy and have like a version of American food that we don't already have at home. Yeah,

No McDonald just go to McDonald's the same.

It's just, it's arguably better over there.

It's probably a better like quality ingredients for sure. ,

um, that, but that was why I texted you and asked you about that Italian place at Road America.

Oh yeah. Because I'm trying to like, set them up

with good restaurants throughout the IMSA calendar. That's

The best. Yeah.

Yeah. I, uh, I'm excited.

I can we go there this year at all? Right. He priority.

I have a plan. I really wanna go.

I'd love to go. Are you, are you doing Sebring and Petite?

I'm doing Sebring. Or were you just the Daytona.

Okay. So you're, you're the endurance

Guy. I'm the Enduro guy.

George was one of them. You weren't the fourth guy.

Okay. No. Cool.

So back to back to travel.

I had a funny, I had a funny thing.

Have you ever, do you ever, do you ever think you're like way better at packing than you actually are?

No, I'm pretty perfect at it Because I'm pretty good at it too.

But I had this thing where like, I packed for this trip, and to be fair, I did an entire two weeks in Daytona in a carry-on.

Mm-hmm . Pretty proud about that. I

Mean, don't need anything in Daytona. That's fair.

I mean, dude was cold. You needed sweaters and jackets.

That's fair. It was weird.

But I went to go pack all my stuff up and dude, I struggled to get my bag closed, like struggled to get it closed.

I'm trying to do the math here. I'm like,

I don't have any more stuff.

Like, I folded everything really ni tight, compact.

Everything was good to go. And it was so bad.

that as I like the, it's a hard case, right?

It's a hard shell case, but it's like, it's like bowing out in the middle.

Mm-hmm . It's like oval shape now.

And I was pulling out the handle and the handle broke.

'cause there was like so much tension on it.

I'm like, I'm like, ugh.

So I had to travel home with a broken . So

Did you just carry like under your arm?

No, luckily it, like, it, it would go to the first notch, but then anything above that, one of the arms just had snapped and just pulled right out.

Okay. So like, I had to just have my backpack on my back

Super low And had like super, like, I'm leaning into this thing, carrying it through the airport, hoping nobody Yeah, dude. It was so,

Um, so bad.

But Okay. That's not physically possible.

So what did, what, what changed? You must have figured it out.

I don't know. I, I still haven't figured it out.

It's just like, I'm just like, I guess I didn't do this as well as I thought I did.

Or like, maybe it was this bad on the way here and I just don't remember.

But I don't know, man. It's, I feel like once you wear,

like if you've laundered everything at home and you fold it up nicely, you do get buy yourself a couple extra mil compared to like, worn clothes.

Even if you still fold them up.

There's something about clothes fresh outta the like dryer that just fold a little tighter.

No, I'd buy think, think they're less stretched.

So maybe that's what you're saying, right?

Maybe. I don't know. Yeah.

All right. Um, well so how, so what was your weekend?

We talked about my weekend back in the Tuesday show.

Uh, what did you get up to this weekend, pal?

Let's see. I,

so we landed Thursday morning, the Old Red Eye program.

I, uh, well I'm not allowed to talk about riding my bike, so I didn't do that. .

I, I didn't do much man. I stayed at home.

I spent my entire Sunday watching football. Yeah.

Because that's what Americans good Americans do. Um, were you

Happy with the outcomes of The games?

Terribly upset with the outcomes of the games? You know, I think every,

Everybody wanted the bills. Everybody wanted the

Bills there.

Everyone wanted the bills. Everyone thought

that it was gonna be Josh Allen's time.

Everyone was very aware of the fact that the chiefs this year, even though they were 15 and two, they weren't like they'd never scored above 30 points all season long.

They had won like six games by kind of very strange endings.

Like one guy doing an easy field goal.

One guy, um, they blocked an extra point, which is crazy to think about.

Like the refs gave him one.

So there was all of this kind of underlying thought that okay, the Chiefs aren't actually as good as their record shows.

The bills are the best they've been all year, or be best they've been in years.

Josh Allen's been to this stage before.

He's gonna know how to handle the pressure and all this sort of thing.

And it just, it goes to show one of my good buddies was like, there's no way the chiefs lose.

Um, and not because of the reasons of the ch of the refs and the conspiracy theory and all this sort of thing.

It's for one reason.

And it's like they have the best quarterback Yeah.

Slash player in the league and the best coach.

So they're not gonna lose.

So it doesn't matter very much like we saw in the Belichick Brady era.

Right. You know, that team wasn't the same team

that was winning Super Bowls at the end as the team that was winning in the beginning.

When you have that chemistry and that connection, you have two people at that high of a level.

It doesn't really matter what your surrounding pieces are.

You can put the pieces together, like the puzzle pieces are gonna connect to be successful.

So as much as I wanted to see the Bills win, it's very reminiscent of kind of that patriot period of time, which is weird that it's happening so quick.

You know, we went from the Patriots dynasty, which we were like, we're never gonna see anything like this again.

We're never gonna see anything like what Tom Brady's done.

And immediately we're seeing exactly that same thing. This is

Handoff.

Yeah. Which is, which is weird.

And ultimately what, like, it'll be interesting if Patrick and the Chiefs continue this progression 'cause he's on track to kind of beat slash match all of Brady's records and the Patriots organization all this sort of thing.

But Mahomes is only lost to two people in either the a FC championship game or the Super Bowl and one of those people's, Tom Brady.

So it's like when there's these comparisons about the two and like who's better and all this sort of thing, like that's always gonna be I think a, a pretty big lever in the sense that through all of his success, only Tom Brady and Joe Burrow beat Mahomes at least up until this point.

So, um, the Super Bowl I think is gonna be the least interesting Super Bowl we've had in a long time.

You think it's gonna steamroll it? Uh, chief Eagles

chiefs are gonna steamroll it.

Um, but yeah, that's okay.

It's funny 'cause like all of America's bummed, like the amount of people that are like boycotting the Super Bowl, like will they actually, I don't know, but a lot of people are threatening to just because it's the least interesting Super Bowl we've had in a while.

A lot of people in upstate New York might do it.

Like I could see that happening. Mm mm-hmm .

I could see the, uh, , the whole state of New York actually really just not money to participate. Yeah. Yeah.

Um, the also, the also other big storyline about it all is, so I know they don't fall football just that much, but so the Eagles their, their success, um, and so much of it is coming because of Saquon Barkley running back.

He, if he wasn't benched for the last game for, you know, just protecting the roster and his health and everything, he was gonna break or he was on track and could have broken, um, the all time rushing record in a season, even as it stands, he's fourth overall.

And he came to the Eagles after being with the Giants for like four or five years.

And he was a, he was a top prospect in his draft class, was always known to be like this elite running back.

He had some injuries a little bit early on in his career, but like, when he was healthy, he was that guy.

Right. And going into contract negotiations with the Giants

for the 2024 season, he was asking for a pay raise and he was asking for, it was either 13 million or 17 million.

Okay. Regardless of what it was,

the giants weren't interested in paying it.

They were giving a lot of their cap space to Daniel Jones, who was the quarterback.

They paid him $40 million.

He didn't end up even making it to the end of the season with the Giants.

He sucked that bad. So Saquon is like,

you don't see my value.

Screw you. I'm outta here.

He leaves the giants, the giants are perpetually one of the worst teams in the league.

They overpaid this quarterback who doesn't even play for them anymore.

And he went to the Eagles and he is now performed as the guy.

He's broken every single record or beaten every single other running back this year.

And it just goes to show like, there is, there is something to be said for like believing in your worth, right?

And your value. 'cause he could have very easily taken the

easy road and been like, fine, I'll take my $7 million and just, you know, make a DA nice living and I might find success with this team at some point down the road.

Or I can say, screw you, you don't believe in what I'm doing.

Go to a different organization and literally become the best back in the league.

I mean, it's, it's a cool story when that works out. What

Did he end up getting paid at the Eagles?

I think it was very similar, right? I

Think it was Just the point that it's like, I've given so much to this organization, I've shown you what I can do.

Um, these people believe in what I can do.

And they built a lot of incentives into his contract and that sort of thing.

So he ended up making a huge amount more money. Yeah. I was

Gonna probably double whatever his base was based on getting, But now when he goes back to the table to negotiate, like he's, Oh, next one's gonna be outrageous.

Massive, massive. Be 20 plus massive. Like it'll be insane.

Yeah. Good for him. I love, I love success stories.

I love it when people bet on bet on themselves.

It's fun to bet on me. It works and it work. Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. Sorry, , I don't like it when you do it, it fails.

That's terrible. It's super awkward.

A small correction from earlier.

We've just been informed live breaking news that, uh, the Rod Campbell award applications are open until February 4th, so you have time no excuses.

Um, so after Daytona, uh, Evan, my brother-in-law and I went to Miami to visit Marco and meet and Billy and meet young Mira Ra, which was awesome.

That sold photos. Yeah. Um, cute kid. Damn that this

Oh, look at the parents man.

I know, I know. But like, sometimes you see that

and like the kid comes out a little bit off at first.

No. Like they grow into their faces,

but sometimes they're ugly babies.

This is not an ugly baby.

Well, I'm like, let's be honest, all babies are kind of ugly.

I think all babies are kind of cute.

Mm. It's weird to get an ugly

One. I dis I disagree.

Oh, interesting. Yeah.

Interesting. And I hate the, I hate the people that,

I mean, I guess, you know, when I get to that point in my life, like, you're gonna think your baby's cute, but like, I hate the people that think their baby's cute when everyone knows their baby's not cute.

I I, I want be the parent that if I have an ugly baby, I'm like, yeah, he is.

I was just gonna say It. Yeah.

The counter to that is I love parents that are like, don't say that he's, something's wrong with him.

Like, we really hoping he grows into those ears or that no is or whatever.

And you know what, 99 times out of a hundred they do. Right.

It's like the, those ugly babies.

But it is hilarious when there's just like a Yeah.

That thing's just not proportioned Right.

For a, for a little kid.

But it's, I also, I also hate when parents lie and they say they don't have a favorite kid because that's just Oh, a hundred percent.

I love the parents that are like, oh yeah, it's him or her 10% because it's impossible not to.

Yeah. Yes, I do. I do have one.

And I, I've told my one friend, I'm not gonna call him out on here, but that's fine.

He has three kids and he is very, I mean, he's, doesn doesn't even hide it.

I'm not sure if he's like told them to their faces, but like they could figure it out very easily.

And they're, you know, young enough to probably be affected by that.

I was like, dude, you should probably just tone it down a little bit in front of your kids .

Mm. Like, this is gonna cost you money in therapy later if

you don't just throttle back a tiny bit. .

But yes, they all have it. But dude, what are the, so,

so Marco was like, he was texting us.

He's like, do you guys wanna do, do you guys wanna do brunch?

And we're like, sure. He's like, on Monday.

And I was in my head, I was like, Can you brunch on a Monday?

And then he was like, I booked a reservation for brunch on Monday at 1 45.

And I was like, Marco, that's lunch. That's,

That's borderline past lunch.

And I, I don't even know how you can justify yourself calling that even as a, on a Monday at 1 45 and that is lunch everywhere in the world.

Did you go to Carpaccio? No, we did not. Mm.

We went to, because That's usually his only, that's, yeah.

You know how Marco gets into, like, he had just has these things and that's the wheelhouse he lives in. Yeah.

He's got his places Right.

I just figured he only ate lunch of Carpaccio.

'cause that's only where I'd been with him for lunch in Miami.

Las Fuegos is where he went. It was delish.

Although I, I do have to say, man, eating outta in Miami is like a Unaffordable.

I don't know how people do that.

I don't know how people dude Do it.

Dude. It's, it is, uh, so here we were in Hawaii, and so me

and, and the my buddy who, so the other couple we were with the, the guy we were, um, at the bar at the Four Seasons.

Right? And so the girls were getting a massage

and we were kind of there early watching the football waiting to join them for dinner.

And so we had a couple cocktails, um, and we were like, man, these, this is pretty steep.

Like they were 19 to $26 and that sort of thing.

And, and you're like, man, you know, Hawaii is, it's an investment.

Like the flights are, the flights are a lot of money.

The hotels are not cheap, all this sort of thing.

And, um, the food and beverage ain't cheap either.

And, but we were like, oh, that kind of makes sense.

And then I brought up, I was like, you know what?

But I still think, I still think Miami's more expensive.

Yeah, you're gonna save money on the flight, but the hotels are super aggressive.

And I was like, I think the food's more aggressive.

And he was like, no way. Like there's no way.

And I was like, let's Google it.

So we went on to um, uh, shoot one of the hotels in South Beach.

I'm drawing a blank on it right now.

And we pulled up like the bar menu, the cheapest cocktail, the cheapest was $27 .

There was one that was like $43 and it didn't have like gold or caviar or whatever.

It was just like, it was like agin drink, yuzu, whatever, $43.

Yeah. It's like how on earth do you vacation in Miami?

That's wild, man. It is wild.

That's crazy. It is. Yeah.

Like we went out, we were watching the football game on Sunday night and um, went out, we're at this bar, got a couple drinks, only two of us were drinking.

We got like a snack and a couple drinks.

And when the bill came, it was one of those things I was like, I'll, I'll get this one man.

Like whatever it's, and, and I, and I grabbed the button.

I was like, oh my God, What is happening here?

What has happened at this rush at this place that has led them to feel it's not criminal to charge us this much money for a couple of drinks.

It was, it was wild man. It was wild.

But yeah, I, uh, not rushing back to, uh, to eat out at a regular basis down in old Miami.

No, I'm good. I'm good.

Um, so we're jumping around a lot here, but that's okay.

Uh, so I had to take my plane to get its oil changed yesterday.

Just like take it to like Midas or what, how do you want to do that?

Speedy, uh, speedy Lube, quick lube, whatever.

Uh, no, take it, take it up to Muncy.

Got it. And it was having, um, so

before, uh, like a year ago, there was like, it was doing this kind of pacing thing when you're on autopilot and it ended up being just an elevator trim tab needed some WD 40.

Okay. I mean, cool guess WD 40 fixes a lot of things,

Does fix most things.

And then, um, coming back from Michigan over New Year's, like the alternate air door was a little bit, um, like it was jammed a little bit.

So the alternate air is how you redirect airflow to the engine, bypassing the filter.

'cause you don't need to filter in the air because obviously there's no rocks or bugs or grass in the air.

Um, and if you imagine if you're flying through ice that the filter's gonna freeze.

Whereas if it's just an open pathway into the engine, that's not gonna be a problem.

So anyways, so the alternate air door wasn't working, and then the speed breaks, which are little like metal flaps that pop up on the top of the wing, um, they weren't really working either.

So anyways, the, these aren't things that prevent the plane from flying.

It's not a safety thing. I mean,

it is if you're flying in ice, but assuming you're not.

So I took it there, uh, oil changes.

I was like, oh, while you're looking at it, can you, can you just go through these couple punchless items?

Yeah, yeah, yeah. No problem. So anyways, I'm sitting there,

three and a half, four hours goes by, come out.

They're like, all right, plane's good.

Leak check's good, you're good to go.

I was like, oh, so what was wrong with everything?

They're like, oh, I just need some WD 40.

And I'm like, so that's, that's now three for three things that I've paid you about $500 in labor for if I have any issues from here on out.

Yeah. Do I just spray WD 40 on it?

See if that solves it? And they're like,

yeah, .

It's like the, it's like the plain equivalent of, sir, have you tried turning it off and turning it back on again?

It's, it's like these are, these should be machines that are like, you know, highly, I mean they are, they're highly engineered pieces of machinery.

Yes. But they're also made to be so simple

for like reliability sake that like WD 40 just Yeah.

You, like, you want, you want to think that it takes like a technician that's got several years of specialized training that it exclusively works on this particular problem of this particular type of aircraft.

I'd love to hear that. But it's really just like Skeeter

from the back scoring some WD 40 on it. Yep. Good to go.

I think his name was Billy, but yeah. All right. Yeah,

That's, uh, that's kind of funny.

But yes, it's annoying that it cost you $500 to figure out it's just needed a square to WD 40.

But also like, as cool as it is, it's terrifying.

I'm like, this thing is functioning based on its WD 40 intake or like the, or the, is the landing gear not gonna come down next time?

'cause I didn't put WD 40 on it lately. We'll

Fix that.

We'll just open up the latch from the inside. Right.

Ready to go. Yeah. Good to go.

Um, so I'm assuming that means that you bought a bottle of WD 40 that you're just leaving in the plane now?

Well, yes. Obviously that's what we

Did.

Okay. Yeah. It'd be weird if you didn't do that. Yeah.

Yeah. Um, what, uh,

what do you have going on this weekend? Well,

This weekend, um, nothing which is, this is kind of the last weekend off before it all gets, it all gets pretty crazy.

Um, I was in the sim yesterday, in the sim tomorrow, so I was in the sim yesterday.

Um, so we'll do, actually, believe it or not, we're doing three sim sessions before St.

Pete. So that's, that's pretty good. Seems like a lot.

But, um, Two test days.

Two, well, we get two half days of testing. Yeah.

Um, but no, I mean, the season's coming up man.

So like really getting super, um, specific and aggressive with the training stuff.

And you're that this time of year where you're starting to, you know, very carefully watch what you eat and, and that sort of thing.

So all the, the fun and games are over and we're just getting to that point where it's finally, it's finally over, man.

When we're recording this, we're a month out, we're four weeks out, so, God, it's coming quick. God. Yeah.

It's coming quick. Like,

Well, I don't know, it's funny 'cause it takes forever to get to this point.

And then Yes, before we know we'll be in St. Pete,

Like this weekend we're, we're into February and February's gonna fly by.

Yes. And yes, we went from

Like, was the shortest month of the year, but yeah.

God, I hate you so much. That was like,

that's, I feel like that's, I mean, it's the shortest by two whole days.

So that's why it flies took that one, like, Tim was just itching to say that Joke, but flies, flies by.

But no, it's, it's, it's gonna be, it's gonna be here before we know it.

I still feel like there's so much to do on like, our side from the TV side of things.

Like we're still putting the team together and we've actually, we're doing some kind of cool, Where are we at with Pit lane reporters?

Is that, is that a thing?

Do we have them or are there going to be them?

There are going to be some, there are going to be some, uh, I do not know new faces, Old faces, Dude, I, I honestly don't know.

Oh, no idea. Okay. They are, they are being very, um,

Why is that, why is that so hard?

I would think that's easier than, than the booth.

I think there are actually more options for pit lane.

Um, that's fair. And

More resumes and Yeah.

And, and you, and they gotta try to figure out exactly what they want.

And you gotta make sure you're balancing all the different elements and, you know, are these people also gonna do work on the next broadcast?

Like there's a lot of different things you gotta sort of sort out.

Um, I am nervous that, not nervous.

My, like OCD brain wanted all that sorted and like, look, it's not my job to figure it out, so I don't really have to care.

But if I was in charge, I would've wanted this sooner than this.

Um, but it's gotta be coming any day now.

And I mean, in their defense, 'cause like we've asked, we've been like, Hey, where are you guys at with this?

And in their defense they've been very, very tight lift because we're all on in the same industry and we're friends with all these people.

So anything that they told us would probably end up leaked somehow to the group.

And so it's probably better that they just keep it to themselves until it's official.

Um, but yeah, that'll be coming soon.

And then we're doing something really cool that, um, I've not done before.

But I guess it's not a rare thing to do in the industry, which is like, we're gonna go, we're gonna go do a test, we're gonna test, we're gonna test the broadcast team by going to la So like Seing, No, no, no.

We're gonna go to la we're gonna put on an old race and let Will Townsend and I call it No.

Yeah. And so like the producers will be there.

That's actually the big people from Fox.

So like, they can kind of in real time interject some notes, some thoughts, Hey, this is the tone we want, we want more of this, less of that.

And the first time we're doing it isn't on network television, you know, primetime weekend network television calling the first race of the season.

So I've, I would've loved that opportunity before.

You know, I went to St. Pete back in 2022.

It doesn't make as much sense because obviously NBC was a well oiled machine at that point.

With everything being new for Fox and new for Will and whatever.

I'm like, I, so I love that.

Like the, again, this is like, this is how driver brain works.

It's like, all right, we practice, we get it, feedback we apply.

And so, uh, I'm really excited.

I'm, I'm excited to get to do that.

Then two weeks we're doing that.

Um, and then it's just like meetings on meetings on meetings now, you know, about like graphics and about, um, like animations and about just all sorts of stuff.

Like, we're in weekly calls with several different groups now.

So it's, it's getting real, man. It's pretty exciting.

I'm, uh, I'm excited.

So on the Fox thing, uh, topic, the second IndyCar Fox commercial came out.

Yes. It came out during the NFC championship game.

I meant to bring that up when We were talking football.

Um, just fuels and commanders, which is a, I mean, huge deal.

Um, it came out in the fourth quarter after the two minute warning.

Unfortunately it wasn't that close of a game, but still like, what else are people watching?

Um, and it was, it was the same tone as Joseph's, it was the same sort of energy.

It was really featuring the driver and, and kind of a quick snippet of his story.

I don't think I liked it as much as Joseph's.

Um, that's probably 'cause Tom Brady wasn't in it, but , um, again, like, again another like absolute banger of a commercial.

Yeah. Such a cool thing for the sport.

They're just nailing it.

Like it's, they're, they're obviously doing this almost kind of satirical take on the driver's personalities, but like mm-hmm .

They're also nailing the driver's personalities.

It's not too far off. It's pr it's, it's,

it's on the nose, it's self-aware, it's tongue in cheek, but it gets, it's really well done.

Like Joseph, as crazy as some of those things were fundamentally very close to Joseph personality. I can't,

Can't wait for PATOS to just be jus boobies and sushi .

Yeah. That's, um, yeah.

Like that's, he's, uh, we love that exclusively What it's gonna be. He's

A, he's a simply, he knows what he likes.

He's a, he's a man of, of simple pleasures. And, uh, which

I think, I mean, those are hard to beat.

A lot of people would also be on board with those things.

Yeah. Um, so yeah, it's, no, it was, it was great.

PLO did a great job. And

look, that's the other thing too, right?

And you see it in every sport.

You could chuck an athlete into a commercial, especially one where they kind of have to be funny, right?

Like, you had to have kind of good timing.

The, the winks, the like, whatever. That's not easy to do.

These aren't actors, right?

No, I've seen a lot of commercials with athletes where the athlete's performance was just terrible.

just so bad. But like ,

I wasn't gonna name you personally, but Oh, a Hundred percent. Yeah.

Yeah. No, you,

you actually show you deliver when you need to.

You just don't like doing it. Mm.

And you know, when you don't need to and you just phone in , that's like the bigger one. .

But no. Yeah. Any car is, is is lucky man.

We got some guys that are like playing ball and they're excited and they're buying in and, And if, if the timing is correct, and this is a big, like, presumption, I'm not saying that this is gonna happen.

Don't quote me on this, on this, but like, if you look at the spacing of the commercials that would say the is gonna be on the Super Bowl.

Yeah. I, I genuinely have no knowledge on that,

but I have the same thought.

I really, really hope that's what's happening. Which

Is incredible because we've, being an indie, like we've seen the local what whoever network was carrying it do like a small indie 500 spot for the Indianapolis market.

Right. But no, if this was

to in fact become reality, this would be a national commercial which are valued at like tens of millions of dollars for IndyCar. Yes.

Huge. Featuring our,

our most popular driver. So biggest

Big deal, biggest audience, biggest televis vision audience like in the world ever.

Like that. This is the biggest watched event every

year. Mm. And

Uh, at least you being on Dancing With the Stars look pretty dark, Pretty sad, pretty pretty sad.

It was so cooler than The Amazing Race. I

Was gonna say definitely got more viewers than the Amazing Race though.

Yeah. So. Mm.

But less ies , Uh, alright guys, that is our basically racing list, um, update for this week.

Still, still have one seat to fill in. IndyCar.

We were just talking about how close we are to the season.

Yeah. We still have Why

Don't you, why don't we, um, We should get Dale on next week.

Let's get Dale Coin.

Let's do that and get him to be our Tuesday interview. Let's

Next week. Let's do that. Let's do that.

Let's start making calls. 'cause

first of all, I love the guy.

He's got a great story and the fact that he's been around for so long in this sport, Let's make it happen. All

Right.

We're gonna talk to Dale next week. You heard it here first.

Maybe hopefully, um, asterisk.

We'll see if he responds to us. Yeah. Yeah.

He might not even get the message.

He's sometimes not the quickest to reply.

No, but we'll figure it out.

Um, in the meantime, enjoy your weekend. Enjoy this.

You too. Oh, you've done this. I already did it.

And tech technically.

Enjoy the weekend and, uh, we'll chat to you soon.

Yeah. This has been off track with Hinch and Rossi.

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