Off Track with Hinch and Rossi Mar 4, 2026

St. Pete Recap 2026

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Concept

IndyCar

IndyCar is a type of car racing where special fast cars race on tracks, including big oval tracks and road courses.

Concept

owners points

Owners points are like a team's score in racing. If qualifying is canceled, these points decide where the cars start the race.

Concept

practice session

Practice is when drivers get to drive on the track before the real race to prepare and adjust their cars.

Concept

qualifying

Qualifying is when drivers race against the clock to see who starts at the front. If it rains, qualifying might be canceled.

Car

NASCAR truck

The NASCAR Truck Series is a racing competition where drivers race specially made pickup trucks on tracks. It's part of NASCAR, a big racing organization.

Concept

NASCAR Truck Series

NASCAR Truck Series is a type of car race where drivers race pickup trucks on oval tracks. It's one of the main NASCAR racing competitions.

Term

data systems

Data systems are tools in race cars that show important info like how fast the car is going or lap times to help drivers race better.

Term

deltas

Deltas show if a driver is going faster or slower compared to a previous lap by showing the time difference.

Term

lap times

Lap times tell you how fast a driver goes around the whole track once. It's like timing a lap in a race.

Part

dash

The dash is the screen or panel in front of the driver that shows important info about the car while racing.

Term

rpm

RPM tells you how fast the engine is spinning. Drivers watch it to know when to shift gears or avoid hurting the engine.

Term

oil temp

Oil temp tells you how hot the engine oil is. If it's too hot, the engine parts might not get enough protection.

Term

water temp

Water temp shows how hot the engine's cooling liquid is. If it gets too hot, the engine can get damaged.

Concept

racing data analysis

Racing data analysis means looking at numbers and info from the car to help the driver and team race better.

Term

debrief

A debrief is a talk after driving where the driver and team talk about what happened and how to do better next time.

Concept

track walk

A track walk is when you walk around the race track before driving to see what the road is like and plan how to drive better.

Term

start

The start is when the race begins and all the cars begin moving fast from a stop or slow speed, trying to get ahead.

Term

tires

Tires are the rubber parts on the wheels that touch the ground. In racing, they get hot and worn out, which changes how the car drives.

Term

braking

Braking means slowing the car down by pressing the brake pedal, which is important to control speed in corners.

Term

stint

A stint is how long a driver stays driving in the race before stopping for tires, fuel, or switching drivers.

Term

brake chatter

Brake chatter is when the brakes shake or vibrate when you press them, making it hard to stop smoothly.

Term

rev matching

Rev matching is when you give a little gas while changing to a lower gear so the car shifts smoothly without jerking.

Term

alternate tire

In some races, drivers have to use two different types of tires. The alternate tire is a special kind that is faster but wears out quicker. Teams have to decide when to use these tires to go faster.

Term

tire falloff

Tires get less sticky and slower the more they are used. This is called tire falloff. Teams watch this to know when to change tires during a race.

Term

first lap yellow

Sometimes, if there's a crash or problem right at the start of the race, the race slows down under a yellow flag. This is called a first lap yellow and can change when drivers decide to change tires.

Concept

largest winning margin

The largest winning margin means how much faster the winner finished compared to the next racer. A big gap means they were way ahead.

Term

softs

Softs are special racing tires that stick to the track better and help cars go faster, but they don't last as long.

Term

hards

Hards are racing tires that don't wear out quickly but don't grip the track as well, so cars go a bit slower.

Term

hard tire

Hard tires in racing last longer but don’t stick to the road as well as softer tires.

Term

pit sequences

In racing, pit sequences are when and how often drivers stop to change tires or refuel, which can change who wins.

Concept

oval race

An oval race is a car race on a track shaped like a big circle or oval. The cars mostly turn left and go very fast around the track.

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This is Off-Track.

Hello and welcome to Off-Track with...

For f**k's sake.

Inch and Rossi.

Alex, you can't look upset. You do this all the time.

If you have mesopotamia or whatever, I'm about to eat something.

I do it far less than you do.

No, I know. Well, you can't shake your head. We both do it to annoy Tim. Right, Tim?

I love it.

I'm trying to not chew right in the microphone for the sake of our fans and listeners that don't like that noise.

What are you going to do?

I feel like it's a made up phobia.

See, I understand the thinking on that, but I get so f**king upset when I have two separate sources of audio.

And I know some people that doesn't bother.

If the TV's on and somebody's trying to talk to me, I just shut down.

I know it doesn't bother everybody, but I know how much it bothers me.

Every time we watch TV or a movie, all you do is talk.

Or look at your phone and you're not paying attention to anything happening on the TV.

So something that severely bothers you, you have no problem doing it to other people, that's...

Pretty much, yeah.

I feel like that sums me up pretty well, actually. Yeah, thanks. Now on the head.

Anyway, St. Pete guys, we did it.

We finally had a race in IndyCar.

We made it.

We went on the seasons underway.

And we don't have a month off.

We don't have a month off. That's coming thick and fast.

Because we don't have a month off and we're going back to back,

we've decided to make the Tuesday episode this week a recap of St. Pete

where Thursday will be a preview of Phoenix because we can do that.

So let's start.

Logically though, shouldn't the longer episode be the recap

and the shorter episode be the preview?

Yeah, but like we do the longer on Thursday and I feel like it doesn't make sense

to recap something the Thursday after it.

We should just do the recap as soon as possible.

Although we're recording this on Tuesday, so this is coming out Wednesday.

So like...

If you do your job, if you come out Tuesday.

Yeah, that's fair, but we all know I'm not going to do that.

Is there a reason why the long one can't be on Tuesday?

Are we like obligated to have a long one on Thursdays

or is it just one long one and one short one?

I suppose we could do the long one on Tuesday.

We basically have two races to cover

because we both race this weekend in different things.

We could just make both of them long ones.

How about that?

No.

Nobody hour and 20 minutes.

No, I think nobody wants to do that.

This episode, while it's the Tuesday episode,

it's going to come out Wednesday.

It should be a long one.

Yeah, yeah.

You guys do you.

I'm just here for a ride.

The Tuesday episode, coming out on Wednesday,

the wrong amount of time.

But listen guys, we have gone so off track.

Because I...

talking about St. Pete, I want to share a story.

A Chevrolet...

What are they called?

Cars.

What?

Cars.

No, the assigned individuals from...

Chevrolet.

Yeah, a Chevrolet engine tech, not on my team,

came up to me as we were walking back

to the paddock after one of the sessions.

And he said,

your podcast is a job creator.

And I was like, that's the first time I've heard of this.

Like, what do you mean?

Like, for me?

Because, yeah.

No, we'll get there.

And he said a couple of years ago,

you had Jim Leo on your show.

And his wife was listening and is a PT.

Not Jim Leo's wife.

You mean...

Not Jim Leo's wife.

The engine tech's wife was listening and is a PT

and ended up working remotely for Jim

as a trackside support person for clients of BitBit.

So I thought that was a pretty cool story, number one.

And then number two, he expressed his confusion about Tim

and what he does and that sort of thing.

Fair, valid.

Yeah.

And then on the topic of Tim and confusion,

one of our damper engineers listens to this show

and he was asking a bunch of questions about you

and like, who are you?

Why do you exist?

He was like, what does he look like?

All that sort of thing.

He was super excited to meet you.

Did I meet him?

Was really bummed that, you know,

you didn't really ever make an appearance to say hi to us.

So yeah, anyways, Tim has a lot of fans out there.

Wait, I saw you on the grid.

I generally don't try to interact with you on race weekends

except for right on the grid.

Why would you want to be a friend?

Sorry, let me get this right.

The only time, you don't want to inconvenience anybody

on a race weekend.

So the only time you make yourself visible

is right before he has to go do the most important thing

of the entire week.

I have to give him his bad race advice,

which if you watch our YouTube channel,

I actually put up on YouTube this year.

Please go do that, by the way.

Go follow and subscribe.

No, I just, because on the grid,

you're already getting bothered by everybody.

So what more does it really add if I'm there?

But like on a race weekend,

you're doing practice, you're debriefing,

you're getting ready for qualifying.

I don't, I want to be no part of the calculation for you

on a race weekend when you're dealing with all of that.

No, I could tell by the lack of text

or acknowledgement of...

Dude, I never text you on a race weekend.

No, it's fine.

To be fair, I do text you on a race weekend.

Would you like me to?

Sometimes you just don't text back.

So there's that.

Yeah, I used to text you on race weekends

and then you didn't respond.

So I stopped.

Would you like me to?

Don't make this about me.

Because I will corrupt it.

You're like your f***ing friends.

I will, I will

We're going to go back to the,

I'm going to go back to the,

Hold on, hold on.

Let's see my conversation.

This is not going to give you a downfall from here right now.

I have three unreplyed to text messages.

I'll just show you three blues in a row,

all questions.

Well, I know one was just a good luck.

But two that had questions multiple

questions I just went completely unanswered.

James, yeah,

I can't answer some of the questions. Okay. You know what next race weekend? I'm mad. I am gonna

I'm sticking to you like white on rice the next race weekend. I'm at

We're gonna have a great time and there's so many people they're gonna get to meet you and

And put their face to a voice and and make fun of you in front of me and I can't wait for

That's fair. That's valid. Right same Pete. Well, since james went first

Uh, why don't you go first? How was your truck debut beside?

Very sweaty. It looked like oh my god

And why were the trucks so quiet?

Oh, they make a bit of noise when they've been noisy and why did the race take four hours?

There's a lot of different explanations for this

Um for these questions

And how did you start third?

Owners points because qualifying got rained out

But to be fair in practice

I was fourth even though I only got one lap because practice was also rained out. Sure

So that's kind of how the day went we Friday we had practice and

Weather was coming in so it was supposed to be a 50 minute practice and then straight into qualifying 10 minutes later

But due to rain which came about 10 minutes into practice

They went off owners points and luckily my team was had a very good season so far

And so my team and I started uh first and third

But literally like everyone else got like three maybe four laps

We had a problem getting started and once we got going I literally went out had one lap and then that was it. Yes

Not to be rude

But if that car was third in points

Why did they pull out said driver to put you in it? So that

Both trucks that spired this year are running for owners points and they don't have full season

Guys in either car got it. So they're there's like Carson house of r

Who's one of their drivers and cup does a bunch of races? Kyle bush does a couple races. They've got some drivers

So it's just

So this one was open and and that's why I always put in so

Yeah, essentially we're now going into the race

I'm starting on the second row of my first ever truck race

Or NASCAR sanctioned race of any kind and I've had exactly one lap

in the car at the track

To say I was under prepared is maybe a bit of an understatement, but you kind of just grip and rip it in that series and so

That's what you do. I tried to ask as many questions as I could but it was

Here's the thing

Before you get to the race itself. I want to I want to explain something about

I don't know how it's like in the other NASCAR series

I can only talk about trucks, but I assume it's kind of similar

Maybe less one cup because I think they've got data now, but trucks don't have data systems, right?

You don't get lap times on your dash

You don't have deltas

Which is surprising because the the dash is like a surface tablet like it. Yes, there's your driving a tesla

Like what is it showing if there's no lap times?

rpm

more rpm

water temp oil temp

It's about it rpm in a third way. There's three different ways that they show rpm

Right, so rpm is very important in in truck racing

Apparently what I've realized alex and you know this

But you don't really appreciate it until you're on the other side of it when you're in any car or any other

Form of racing that has data

Your entire weekend revolves around data you spend more time

doing data

than you do driving the race car

it's

pre-session is pre-weekend

And then it's pre-session

It's in in session

When you're in the pits

Is post session

It's that night when you go to home and you're in the bus and you look at your laptop looking at video or data or whatever

Your weekend revolves so much around data that when you take data out of the equation

The amount more time you have is comical

But still like I was trying to build my schedule time to hang out with him

Well, no a bunch of time to do my other job. So it sort of worked out

I was gonna say I didn't really see you much until after the truck race either. I was very busy

But I had built my schedule around kind of like an hour beforehand and an hour after every session

To look at to like just get prepared do data do debriefs whatever whatever

Then I got there and I realized there is no data to look at

All the prep that you can do is already done short of doing the track walk

And so it's kind of like, all right, here's here's the rough plan for the session

We're probably going to get one change if it doesn't rain

And here's what we're going to try and you were just going to run and get your lap

So you can feel tires going off and stuff didn't get to do that

Then my debrief for my one lap was yeah, I was a little loose and five

Okay, cool. Have a good night. Let's see you tomorrow

And so that was the extent of that and then so like I guess

Had you gotten a full practice slash offline session in would there have been

much discussion of changes to make to the car or

It would have been a 10 minute discussion rather than a two minute discussion

But it wouldn't have been an hour and a half of deliberating and pouring through data and trying to come up with all these things, right

So like and this is not this is not a criticism

It's it is just the way they operate. It is a very relaxed program in a lot of ways from like a time standpoint

obviously, it's very serious and the guys in to it full-time are very talented and it's

It's it's insanely fun

But it is like way less stressful in a lot of ways because you're not just

Horing over data the whole time trying to find out well to be fair. I think

Even at the cup level that exists to a certain extent because I remember when

Kyle Larson, um his first year at McLaren

Now McLaren is

I mean, they're probably on the heavy end of meetings, but they're not an outlier

By by any means he was like blown away by the amount of time

Yeah, and in the office and with an engineer coming in the day before

Yeah, a lot of cup guys show up the morning of that they get on track kind of hear from their crew chief

All right, we've done x y and z and they get in and drive

Talk about it and then that's it and then they just leave and go play golf or go out to dinner with their family

Or whatever there's there even though they have data to a certain extent

It's still nowhere near the level

analysis probably how they can do 87 races a year

Well, but at all seriousness that is part of it, right? Like if you're only

Yeah, you don't burn out the same ways if you tried to do 36 consecutive Indy car weekends

So you just you would not survive

So anyway, so that was like an interesting revelation. But yeah going into the race essentially completely blind

and

Two goals don't look like an idiot and don't ruin anybody else's like

Championship by taking out a full-time guy or something like that, right?

So at the start

Pretty cautious because you just don't want to you know, I have no idea how to I've never done a start

I didn't have time to do a practice start

So it just is the first time coming out of the last corner

You know side by side with somebody on the inside barreling it in and just hope it for the best

And and then that whole first stage is just kind of like settling in

But it's it's figuring out the tires and the tires

I've never driven anything like this the

Way they go off

Is so big

And the amount you have to back off

How you drive is so dramatic

I was over driving the ever-loving out of the thing

For the first two stages because I could not wrap my head around how much you had to back off when the tires started going

Like, you know when you qualify an IndyCar at St. Pete you probably break it to 300 into turn one, right?

And in a race when the tires are wearing you may be breaking like the 350 that's like the adjustment that you make

In the truck you were breaking at the 500 first of all at the start

And then you were breaking it like the 650 by the end of the stint

And and by the time you arrived to the corner like you're off the brakes and you were you were going so slow

You were crawling through the corner that you're like

I have to go faster than that next time. There's no way this is it and then you go a little bit deeper

Everything walks up you got brake chatter. You're missing the corner by a mile and you look like an absolute moral

I'm like, this is so hard trying to like rain yourself in especially with your racing guys at the end of the stint

It was it was

It was an education man. I learned so like I wish so badly. I could have had a second race on sunday

Because just knowing a even a little bit about how those things race and how they fall off and everything you'd be in such a different position

Now in the race I did um pitch it off in turn 10 all my own because I missed a downshift to hit neutral

rookie move on me on that one

and came back up through the field

and then

late restart

Got hit and turned five got spun around went to the back

And then came back up to through the field went a little bit off strategy. So we had slightly newer tires and

drove back up to 10th

That was after though

Some serious contact from Dario Frank Hedy who was also making

a truck series start who got it very wrong in turn one on like lap seven or something and just

Robert I thought it looked great. It was a very Alex Rossi

circa 2018 kind of move

and uh

And dude, it was it did damage the truck a little bit but only in right handers

So it was only worse in like one three four six seven eight

nine

11 13 and 14 other than that though

was solid

Yeah, there's not many left handers. It's st. Pete. It would seem um, okay. What was

Explain a little bit. How how does one go off strategy in stage racing?

Do you not just does not does everyone not just come in at the end of a stage for tires and fuel and

The order is kind of locked

Not necessarily because you can pay it right before the stage break and then that way when everybody else comes in under caution

You cycle back up to the front

So if you're if you're if you're close enough to the front of the field you can do that without losing a lap

So that's an option

Uh, but then you don't get stage points. Why would ever? Oh

Okay, so that's that's that's the motivation there. No, but ours was more um, you know late restart after I got spun around

We kind of came in for new tires because we were at the back anyway

It was just kind of that ceridial

But then how did you make up all of the time loss in pit lane?

Was it there was a restart there was a there was a caution

But everyone else would have had new tires too

No, they had pit recently so they didn't pit again. We just pit again for a fresher set

Got it. So was it I probably didn't have any laps, but you're saying you're saying it was that big of an advantage

Like a six to ten lap tire delta

Yeah, oh, yeah

Yeah, like like by laps four you're probably two and a half seconds slower than a new tires. Yeah

100%

Dude, it's i'm telling what i'm telling you like you feel like it's a pace lap at the end of the stand

But if you go any faster, why are you so sweaty because it's a million degrees in those things

It was not physical in like the driving sense. It was just

So unbelievably hot

So I was very I was very warm when I got out of the car. Yeah, so

Okay, was

Was there anything that you could compare the driving style to forget when the tires go off

Was it anything like anything any v8 similarity any

GT3 similar like anything nothing gt3 the only similarity I give it to the v8

Is that it was it kind of responds to the body roll in a similar way

So having that little bit of a of a slower brake application and then that sort of tabletop brake pressure

Because there's steel brakes, right? So like you hit but the cars waste so much

So you hit the out of them off the beginning

But you don't need to start bleeding off right away because like the brakes aren't doing very much

They're just screaming trying to slow this thing down

So then you know you do your modulation at the end

but um, I would say brake trace shape is probably the closest to the v8 and just that

Yeah, because it's a slight build up and then more of that tabletop thing but other than that, man

They're so fun in the high speed like through three and through the kink

They're just you could just four

I just four wheels sliding it through there like little lift of the throttle when you're like

Catching it like you get so sideways of those things and come back. It was it was amazing. It was so much fun

Were they were they more powerful than you expected?

They were about what I thought because it's not a ton of power

Like the the the top speed is pretty good the acceleration is not like crazy

Which is good because again the tires go off so fast that like getting power down is yeah

Like coming out of 14 your short you do not get to full throttle before you're pulling second year because you're just like

You know chasing the idea

So lots of short shifting for that sake, but no man. It was fun. I got beat up a lot

You're you're using the clutch on every shift

No lift to shift and then just rev match on downshift all left foot braking

Dario was doing the old scg the clutch, but yeah, yeah not on that not on that program not about that life

So, okay, just quickly one last thing like the guy that ended up winning started 28th

Why was he so good?

I I have no you think I saw him. I have no idea. I don't know if he did some

I don't wait in the stages to get up there to get track position. No, he just drove through just drove through

Yeah, couldn't tell you

Like in the stage one he was like 11th end of stage two. He was

Well leading and then he walked away

Yeah, I think I think the fact that you have some guaranteed restarts helps

Yeah

And like what the the back you always use the same

No, oh, yeah, the choose thing was fun because then like you

I would say there was only one time

That I didn't

Just do the op it like just take the next spot

Sure, because I had one restart where I restarted on the outside

And because like before the race my crew chief and I were talking he's like

We're probably gonna want to take the inside like more often than not, right?

And I'm like, well, yes and no because accidents go outwards

So well, sorry, that's why you don't be on the outside

But I'm like but guys can like fire it up the inside and it's I don't know

It's we'll see I get the grips not as good with the paint whatever

But he was like, yeah, if it's like if two guys in front of you go right

You should probably still go right. I'm like, yeah, I think I think you can go left at that point. Anyway

So I just ended up left on one of them

And everyone stacked up on the inside and rolled around the outside and picked up like three spots

I was like, cool. So the next restart that guy went left

But I was like, nope, I'm doing that again and did that again and it worked again

but having the having the

Option to choose having that control is actually kind of interesting because it sort of puts

It puts it in your it puts your fate in your own hand a little bit more

We're like if you do if you are on the outside of a restart and somebody like wipes out an entire row and just takes you with them

You put yourself on the outside, right versus so so should any car consider it?

I don't hate it. I really don't hate it. I especially don't hate it on ovals

Well, I think it'd be very interesting at first. You would have to have a double file

Right, so we stopped doing is that is that a viability you think?

Again, I would love to see it on ovals. I don't think it's a good thing for us on run street tracks, but I think on all this is great

We could have used any sort of entertainment

We'll get to that

We'd have to have yellows in order to do that. But yeah, that's true. That's true

So that was it. So got back to a top 10 very happy at the end of the day mad at myself for all the dumb little mistakes

So are you gonna do another one?

Well, I've been offered one more this year and I'm seriously considering it but there's some scheduling stuff

I'd have to adjust would it be an oval? No, it's another road course

It's the only one that's not spoken for for them

Got it

But then next year who knows next year knows I will definitely do st. Pete again if they come back

And I and I'm giving the option because that was I mean based on the the fan turnout

I think people would be shocked if they weren't back

I think people were pretty happy about it. There's a lot of truck fans out there. No, but anyway sure was

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So then

And like i'm gonna just i mean while let's just touch on that real quick before we get to your race

But the turnout was incredible like friday was the busiest friday i've ever seen there

Dude every day was the busiest i've ever seen there, which is yeah, uh a continuation of

Kind of what we were getting to last year

Which is pretty cool. I mean it's you always wonder if

You know, you've you've kind of peaked in that area or you know, you've you've reached your

You're just limit of how many people are going to come to an indy car race each year

And it doesn't seem certainly one race in doesn't seem that that's the case

It does not it does not

Uh, all right speaking of indy car races. Alex. How was your weekend?

Well, i can't wait to see the tv writing by the way. I keep refreshing twitter hoping that it'll come out while we are

Recording but not yet. Um

How was my weekend? Well, uh, it went it went in some ways better than expected and in some ways worse than expected

The the the main thing that was really encouraging and good was, uh, the cars that we

rolled off with

And the cars that were developed

In the sim and on the offline sim and everything were actually really good race cars. Um, so that was

a nice

revelation and and kind of reaffirmed that what we're doing

Um, and all the time we're spending on this part of the program

Is not a waste. Uh, so that was the system works

The system works on the same token

Uh, we have and and i've alluded to it a little bit, but i can't get into too much detail

Um, we have some some very significant

Uh upgrades, um that have been worked on really getting to we're almost at a year. Um, but not quite

And you know the testing of of set upgrades has has reached a point where you can only

verify and confirm

So much without it actually being on the race car. Um, so you can only you can only um

Learn by running right and so we did that and and we took um a couple different

stabs at it and um

The goal was that because

Christian I like a very similar car

That anything that he found, um, you know would be able to

To be applied to my car and kind of be a copy paste thing if we got into that situation practice one was was semi successful

for both cars

and obviously a big reset um overnight of of the track conditions with all of the the rain

I haven't seen a storm like that in st. Pete ever. Um, so that was that was pretty wild

Uh, and so practice two started out damp

But we were yes james go ahead. I I would like to just because you're about to just

Blow past it and then talk about the rest of the session

I would like to talk about the first five minutes of that session where you went out there

And drove like an absolute maniac in damp conditions and had a lap time that it took

The rest of the field like 25 minutes with the track getting increasingly better every second to be

That was awesome to watch. It was very entertaining. Thank you for doing

Well, we didn't really get much running in practice one. So we that was our our only

Practice two is our opportunity. Um

So anyways, so practice two uh was

Was good, um and the car felt good

So we were we were pretty confident going into qualifying. Um

That being said we had to we had to read there was some other things that went on. Um

And we qualified last which

We were kind of laughing about it. Um

Because that's good

It is first of all, I I've I've crashed in qualifying before or had a car failure in qualifying before and I've never started last

And this was one of the better cars that I've ever had in st. Pete

including some years at andretti and to take that thing to last um is really such a culmination of

Errors or failures that it became comical because it was like

strategy errors timing errors car errors driver errors like well, I know obviously there's some reluctance to tell the whole story but like

Is there any sort of uh insight you could give as to what caused you in a good

st. Pete car on merit to qualify?

tfl

I really can't

I would get in a lot of trouble from a variety of different people

Um, but let's just say it was it a truly a comedy of errors

Which while in the moment you were very pissed off about

By sunday morning

You couldn't help but chuckle because it was like this is just so absurd that

You just have to bring some sort of levity to the situation

So the the good news or so we thought was well, at least we have a bunch of new alternate tires

I'll have board a 17

exactly

Where with this new rule on street courses you have to run two sets of the alternate tire

Like we should be in a pretty strong position because the car is fast

We have a significant tire advantage on everyone really except joseph

um, and so this should be this should be pretty good

and then warm up happened and in warm up you run both sets of tires to try and get an idea of like

You know how your balance is and and what the the falloff is on on on the alternate and when the crossover point is from from

Reds to blacks and all all the standard stuff and very quickly realized that

the alternate tire was not a

Tire that was of any use to us on the 20 car

really

So that was that was a sad realization because like the the ace we thought we had

In our pocket was was really just a joker card

But that was that was a used set right that's the set from practice one that you're allowed to carry over to warm up

So was there any hope that maybe a new set wouldn't have that sort of got it?

No, it was pretty got it. It's pretty cut cut and dry

So that that was that was a little bit disappointing to find out that being said

It was pretty clear that it was easy or

At least easier than expected to hit a two-stop fuel number

And so we were we were very convinced not on mute when he thinks he's on mute. Sorry, hurry

We were very convinced that uh, the two-stop was going to be the way to go

However, when you're starting dead last you are going to try and not do what everyone else does

um, so we went into it a

If there was a first lap yellow, so we started in the alternate if there was a first lap yellow, we were going to

Come in immediately put on alternates again

And kind of try and fulfill that obligation right away because we knew our best performance was going to be on the primary tire

So we wanted to do to do the bulk of the race

on the primary

And that was all

That was rolling pretty well like

There was there was a moment in the race that

um, you know, we were a second and a half quicker than the leaders who were managing tires and fuel

um, we were in cleanish air and

When when scott's yellow came out, which is we need to talk about that

As soon as i'm done, which will be very shortly

That really put the nail in the coffin for the three-stop guys reanus included

He did an amazing job to kind of recover how he did to to ninth

um, the big difference there is

They were able to make the alternate tire work, which ultimately was a faster tire over a stint even with the fall off at the end

We couldn't so we couldn't take advantage of that

seven to a

10th pace differential, especially in the first kind of 15 ish laps of of that tire, so

anyways, we finished 16th, um, but

For a moment it looked like it was going to be a pretty solid top 10 team executed great in pillain

um, again the car was

a serious step up from where it was last year

and the things that occurred

Certainly will not all happen again. We are prepared for a little bit more teething issues in arlington

um, but again, this is a sacrifice that that we knew we were going to make and we're willing to make knowing

how important, um

Street courses are going to be to to end not end

But the back half of the season when you think about detroit dc markham and obviously we hope to be sorted by long beach

So as much as it as it was kind of gross on paper for both cars

Um, there was a lot of very good little things happening. So it wasn't as as

Sad and upsetting as people may think it is

Right, I have a dumb I have a dumb question

Okay, when you say like going in you think it's going to be an advantage

To have more of the reds and then and that's last practice you figure out that the reds are actually not going to be that

Much of an advantage. I understand you said it was it was the fall off near the end of the stand or something

but like

How do you not know before the practice based on the conditions which tire is going to be better?

Well, because you only see the reds in practice one

And you only really do one run on them because you're you're trying to prepare for qualifying

And then in qualifying you're only doing two laps on them. So you don't really have an idea of what they do past lap five

So is it is it that they're so different year to year because firestone is updating the compounds?

There's the conditions firestone loves to change tires every single year

Okay, well, yeah, it was it was pretty well documented this year that the the street course alternate specifically

Had had a pretty sizable change because last year it was

Arguably too soft depending on who you want to talk to and to create it too quickly

Um, great for tv not fun for drivers and it was it was too big. It was too big of a gap

to the primary time

I actually think if we if we look at it purely from a

Dead curve standpoint and a pace offset standpoint like I think they nailed it like I think I think it

Weren't a really good place right now. I don't know now that we need the kind of

Forced to run two sets of reds situation, but it is what it is

I I think the tire is exactly what you would want it to be the alternate is a good chunk quicker

it does

Fall off especially the last six seven laps of the stand are very challenging

Um, and so you're gonna have comers and goers there. So I think it's I think that they nailed it

Okay

There we go. Um, okay. So some lessons learned some known sacrifices made and at the end of the day

The results not what you wanted, but the performance and whatever is

Within expectations

This is not

I've told people

This and many times is as much as there's good things happening

They don't happen overnight. Like it's this is a process to to get to where we need to go. So anyways all good

Shocker a tire day great alex pillow

One by 14 seconds. Let's talk about the race itself. Yeah, um

So it's really pretty status quo. It's really funny

We were talking about like, oh

In a bin in the post race debrief

We were talking about oh like why the strategy tools say that, you know, x was going to be this amount faster

We'll clean air will take all this into consideration

Ed was like, well, there's only one car that has clean air ever

It's the leader and then uh our chief engineer matt barnes was like no second place also

Yeah

Yeah, man, um largest winning margin in the history of st.p

Over 12 seconds. Um

Yeah, yeah, is it gonna is it gonna be another one of those seasons? Yes

It's gonna be worse. Is this like when schumacher was an f1

Yeah, yeah fun

Um, here's the thing no look and not not all is lost this one

This one was not great for everybody because last year

Yes, he won this race

But he'll be the first to admit that last year he won this race with the fourth best car because three cars in front of him

Made mistakes, right? There was a radio issue on dixon's car. It was a pit stop issue on colton's car

there was a

fueling issue, I think on new gardens car and then cockland just shows the wrong strategy

Yes. Yeah. Yeah, so

He openly admits that we just made fewer mistakes and kind of collected that win

This this was not that this wasn't that

The over cut seemed incredibly powerful

you had uh

ericsson used it to great advantage in the first in

But the greater advantage still went to polo because he saved even more fuel than everybody else

and

Yeah, just came out miles in front and never looked back is basically what happened there and when it's because I think at the end

If I remember correctly McLaughlin was on

softs

and blows on hards and

He's just so good on that primary tire like he's so good even when it's a red race. He can put on the hard and just

Use it so effectively. It's

Bizarre it was a good race other than that. I don't know

I don't know what he's doing

Well, he had some different strategies and you had guys like corkwood drive through the field and you know

What you and renus were doing was fun to watch

Incredibly hard to pass like I was I was blown away with even with a with a tire

Offset like if you were on reds and they were on blacks

Or you were digging on reds and they were on blacks like it was it was a challenge to get by people

Yeah, yeah

Worse than normal worse than normal. I wonder why that is. I don't know

Everyone's just getting better. But yeah, some some notable drives. I mean we didn't talk about qualifying, but uh, obviously

McLaughlin on pole

Second-year row good for him

Ericsson second strong result there

It was third place that I think surprised the most people

Dennis hauger making his indy car debut for del coin racing and his teammate

And his teammate also in the fire zone fast six. Yeah, man

There's like some negative comments we can make about that

Based on some hiring that we've kind of already discussed a little bit

But at the end of the day the two guys had to get in the car and go get it done

And you know hauger out qualifying a guys as quick and experienced as grojan on this first time out there

It was pretty impressive and honestly boldly did a great job in the race too

I think they kind of lost out on pit sequences, which

Sometimes happens, you know with that squad just nature of the beast, but um

Really strong performance there. You already mentioned renus who was on that three stopper

kind of got

Trapped by that yellow a little bit but then did an incredible job to get himself back up to uh to the top 10

Again, we kind of mentioned kirk woods, uh kirk woods come back there

Yes, i'm not the worst internet or he just got tired of us

No, I heard I I think yeah, I think it was an internet thing or at least the computer saying I agree. There we go

I said that was your uh

That was a good good battle at the end there kirk witt trying to hold off mclochland and mudguard

Which he was ultimately not able to do so that's those two guys rounded out the podium

And what else was notable? I feel bad for

mick schumacher who didn't get to turn a single lap in his debut

And now has to go essentially have his very first race of any kind be his first oval race at phoenix no less

Which at least they've tested at so that's good, but that's definitely a bummer for him

And I think we we have to touch on

Uh will powers weekend um

So obviously

Both of us on on this show

included kind of predicted will to

show up in st. Pete in the andretti street course car and

Pretty much mop the floor with everyone. Um, I know he had a couple issues throughout the weekend

That that kind of prevented things from running smoothly

but I I think the the big takeaway from all of it is

you know, he

he is driven for

the benchmark organization for his entire career mostly

and

When you have that amount of time with an organization doing things one way

Or having one philosophy of above way to do things

That is successful

And then you go to another organization that is also successful that has another way to skin the cat

It doesn't matter that they're both race winning capable cars

It's a big task to kind of reset your mind and body to to what

The car needs in order to extract the most amount of performance from it. So

It'll come like he'll obviously figure it out

But it's certainly just a reminder of even though this is a spec championship

And even though he's going from

An elite caliber team to another elite caliber team

It's not just plug-and-play and the other thing I can't remember if we talked about it on this show

I was talking about with someone else off but like

You know in the test at sea bringing the test at phoenix like he was quick, right? He got there

But that's when you have eight straight hours in the car to figure things out when you have

You know two hours of practice before qualifying of which he only had one because he hit the wall of the second practice and didn't get a single lap

Yeah, you're not you're not going to be right on pace right away

Like that's it's going to take a couple weekends before you're into the amount of track time that you need at any given place

to really kind of figure out what he needs out of that car and and for the engineers to figure out how to give it to him and so

He's already shown in testing that he can get the pace out of it

It's just gonna it's gonna take a little bit of time like anything like you said, you know, none of these things happen overnight

It's the same with this sort of scenario. So yeah, give it give it time

But they're not going to give them forever, right?

Like they they hired him because they want that car to be competitive and they expect him to perform and to win races

And everybody's pretty confident that he will so it'll be interesting to see what happens

next week

Which is what we will preview in the next episode

And we're also going to talk some travel stuff from stp. We don't have time to talk about right now, but

Is very funny

This has been off track with hinch and rossy

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About this episode

The hosts dive into their experiences at the St. Pete IndyCar race, sharing behind-the-scenes stories and personal insights. Highlights include a unique story about the podcast creating job opportunities, the challenges of adapting to NASCAR Truck racing with limited practice and data, and humorous banter about race weekend communication. They also discuss the fast-paced schedule with back-to-back races and tease upcoming coverage of Phoenix. The episode blends technical racing details with candid, relatable moments from the drivers' perspectives.

alternate tire brake chatter braking dash data systems debrief deltas first lap yellow hards hard tire

Original notes

Hinch went truck racing for the first time after one whole lap of practice. And, while Alex's weekend didn't go the way he wanted it too, he's confident going forward with ECR.

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