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The Thermal One

Off Track with Hinch and Rossi Mar 27, 2025 38 min

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About this episode

The hosts dive into the challenges and drama of the recent Thermal race weekend, focusing heavily on tire management struggles, hybrid failures, and strategic insights. They discuss qualifying tactics, controversial penalties, and a heated on-track incident between Scotty Mack and Devlin DeFrancesco. The episode also covers the unexpected Fox broadcast blackout, their improvised commentary during the outage, and reflections on the race's entertainment value despite low TV ratings and negative perceptions of the venue. The conversation wraps with thoughts on scheduling issues and upcoming Red Bull rumors.

Topics: thermal race weekend tire management hybrid failures qualifying strategy penalties controversy scotty mack vs devlin defrancesco incident fox broadcast outage race entertainment value tv ratings and perception race scheduling challenges

Hinch can't make it, until he can, but at least he's really tired and has bad internet (in Japan somehow). Alex breaks down his weekend and the positives he can take away from it, while fully dodging any conversation about pineapple on pizza. Hinch takes us behind the scenes on the power outage, and the guys talk about why Thermal has a bad rap.

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This is, is off track.

All righty. Um, this is gonna be a tough week, uh,

of podcasting for, for, for Your Boy.

Um, I think it's Gonna be our best week yet. Let's,

Let's see.

So we didn't do a Tuesday episode, uh, because James thought that, you know, we're in March and he deserved a vacation already, .

Um, so he, he flew to Japan with his wife, uh, whatever.

Um, have one work. Well, I mean, not for like 10 days.

Fair. Uh, so, um, we were not able to do a Tuesday episode

because, uh, Japan or James was in Japan on his way to Japan, uh, Japan adjacent.

And I was in the sim actually working on, uh, you know, improving my career and making my life better.

So, uh, we weren't able to do a Tuesday episode.

Tim didn't wanna just talk, uh, by himself, which I found incredibly surprising. Actually.

Let's be very clear. I was more than willing to do that.

I just think we, the amount of listeners we would've lost.

You weren't willing at all. You didn't offer once to,

to carry the, the weight of The ship didn't.

I would be down, I think we would lose half our subscribers if there was a, a me only episode.

Like, I don't know anything about race potentially.

People were mad at how often I talk in episodes where you guys are there.

That's honestly, so am I. Um, and then

Cool.

You got the rest of this. I'll sit out. Got,

It's fine.

I'll just talk to myself. And then we got Tim up in the wee

hours of the morning on Wednesday to record your main episode.

Everyone and James was kind enough to log on from his vacation.

Uh, not that it's asking too much, considering I logged on from my honeymoon.

Um, but, uh, but, uh, apparently, which I find this very hard to believe in Japan, the wifi isn't good or doesn't, Not a tech savvy nation Japan.

Right, right. They're really

behind the times. Yeah. Computer.

Every time the video, you're like, man, I hope they catch up. You know, .

Right, right, right.

They seem to be really struggling over there with electronics.

Um, so it's just gonna be old Timbo and I, uh, on today's episode, maybe James will pop in, um, if he, I don't know, maybe goes to Korea where the technology might be better.

I don't know. Did you try the wifi that,

that the toilet's on?

Don't they have those smart toilets there? They sure do.

Just gotta assume. Yeah, they sure

Do.

Yeah. So this is, there's, it's an amazing country.

I'm honestly, I'm so happy for James.

'cause like I don't think he's really ever been there other than passing through.

And I know Becky's never been there and it's definitely one of my favorite places in the world.

So I, I'm actually gonna plan and go at the end of the year.

Um, so I am gonna refer to him for all of the notes and the things, The stuff I'll go with you to Do you wanna come with Kelly and I?

You wanna be our our plus one? Yeah. Well, all right.

I mean, hey listen, that is an option for you now, Tim, you, you could come to Japan with us anyways.

Let's talk about, um, let's get straight into thermal because 'cause a lot happened a Lot. Okay. Yeah.

A lot, a lot of, a lot of unfortunate things happened, right, Tim?

So it seemed like from qualifying, I mean, one, it was awesome seeing you in the fast six.

That was just, that was, it was good to see you back where you belonged.

Um, and then it seemed, so I thought going in, you had like a P five P six car.

I don't talk to you really on race weekends 'cause I don't wanna bother you.

And it's not like you would respond anyway. Correct? Yeah.

So is that, is that how you felt? Did you have a car

that was about there or did you feel like you Well, let's, I mean you jumped straight into qualifying.

I don't think I, I think that's a little, your little part.

I didn't watch any phrase for the horse here.

Well, that's okay. So we're going into the weekend.

I think everyone, um, was, tires have been a big topic of conversation, right?

They've been a big topic of conversation since St. Pete.

They've been a big topic since the hybrid.

We've talked about it on the show.

Um, and last year during the, the fake race, the fake money race mm-hmm .

Um, I mean real money, but fake amount of money.

Um, there was, if, if people remember in the, in the final there was two 10 lap segments, right?

Where, you know, the, the top six from each heat, um, made it to the main event.

And then the, the main event James is here. Oh my goodness.

Hello James. It's so nice of you

to take some time outta your vacation to join us. Um,

You can just get right bent.

Get right. What Bent? I think he said bent. Yeah,

Bent.

Okay. Um, oh,

Bow out.

Huh? . So it's still super delayed,

so I don't know how this is gonna work.

But anyways, what I was saying was the, the main event for the fake race last year was two 10 lap segments with a mandatory pit stop.

So what you had some guys doing that were in the back was kind of go out and drive 20, 25 seconds slower than the leaders knowing that after 10 laps it was gonna reset.

And in theory you would be starting the final part of the main event with much better tires than the guys in front of you.

And you'd be able to drive through the case, your self, the case including In that Strategy, right?

Myself included. Yep. Me, me and Colton did that.

And, and I think a couple others, but my point is, this was last year, um, in much cooler track temps on, um, the primary tire and the tire dag was already a big conversation.

Mm-hmm . So going into the weekend, tire d was at the top

of everyone's mind and sure enough, that is what we got.

So, unlike St.

Pete, as I explained in, in the show going into this weekend, um, the alternate tire was not actually softer.

The alternate tire was the same prime as last year.

The prime was the harder tire, which is where they created or tried to create the separation between the two compounds.

So going into the weekend, everything was about tires.

Before I continue, James, is there anything you would like to add about the preview of thermal going into the weekend?

No, I think you handled it pretty well up to this point, so carry on.

Okay. Okay. Okay.

Um, so for us on the 20 car in practice, uh, unfortunately we had two hybrid failures.

Um, one in each practice, which was very frustrating, uh, for obvious reasons.

Um, very frustrating for the crew.

They had to split the car three different times, um, to, to get hands on the MGU and, and the hybrid unit.

Um, different failures each time.

So for us, it's, it's a very frustrating little object that is in the car currently.

Um, but to answer your question, Tim, I I did think that we had a good car.

We were in the twenties every practice session, but a lot of that was due to the issues that we were having.

Yeah. Um, so for us, we just needed a smooth session.

And qualifying was the first time that we had a smooth session.

Uh, I thought we were a yes, a fifth to ninth place car.

Um, it was cool that we were able to get in the fast six.

Ultimately the gap to, to the leaders, um, in that session was too big.

Uh, and, and for us, you know, we, we really struggle with ultimately managing the tires throughout the lap.

You know, it's very difficult. It's a long laps.

The longest, not the longest, but it's one of the longest laps we go to an Indy car.

So you are actually, the tire day was so bad that by the end of the lap you're actually having the tires start to to step down.

So there were some things we needed to do to improve that going into the race.

Um, but I think what was pretty cool was, um, we at ECR knew from the beginning that this was gonna be a red race.

Like we were, we were convinced and everyone else was like on the complete other spectrum and it turned out to be a red race and all.

I'm all I'm saying by bringing that up, it was, it's pretty cool that as a small team with the smaller amount of resources and knowing that we don't have the tire guys in England that McLaren has and all this sort of thing, like we were able to accurately kind of predict, you know, what the race was gonna be.

So I think that was a, a nice little, little feather in our cab. Yes. James,

The McLaren guys knew it was a red Race. Oh, did they?

Well they started Lugar on used reds and same with Palo.

Sorry, sorry, sorry, sorry. I'm talking about like Friday.

I'm not saying, I'm not saying actor warmup on Sunday.

Like we used an extra set of, we, we used an extra set of primes in practice 'cause we knew it was gonna be a red race. Like it wasn't even a question

For us.

Oh, okay. And what, what gave you that confidence?

Um, or is that like I can't Secret.

Well, I can't, I can't tell you that. Yeah.

I can't tell you that. . Yeah.

Um, I had a question before we move on from qualifying because I was, I watched qualifying with some friends of mine and, and Alex I've seen you do this in the past where you will wait in the pit and go out at the last possible second.

And I understand that that can be risky because you did that in the fast six, right?

You went out and you just set one one lab at the end.

I understand that can be risky because like if a red comes out it can throw off the timing or things like that.

What is the the possible advantage of waiting like that? We knew

It was a red race, so we didn't want to put You Didn't wanna use didn't two sets sets of use.

Red didn't wanna wear on the tires. Yeah. Okay.

Yeah, no, because I was just watching, I was like, I know there's a reason.

'cause obviously they didn't just forget to go.

I don't know what it is.

And I like to sound smart when I talk to my friends.

I'm not, but they know even less about racing than me.

So like, I just, it's like, like teaching somebody piano when you're one lesson ahead on piano . Like,

I just, I don't get that analogy. So no,

You've never heard that . Um,

So okay, I didn't watch qualifying but James, there was a lot of controversy, uh, about some penalties that did or did not happen.

Oh, I thought there was controversy about pineapple on pizza. What

Was, uh, what was your viewpoint on all of that? It's

Actually interesting that you bring that up.

So, um, there were a few instances of what could be perceived as interference, I assume this is what you're talking about.

Yep. And ultimately there were no penalties issued.

So I actually had a conversation with IndyCar about this and I was specifically asking about the Polo Patto one.

Is that right? No, there was Patto Dixon,

there was Patto Dixon and Polo someone else.

I don't remember who. Okay.

Polo someone else.

Um, because to me the polo someone else won looked fairly egregious because obviously everybody was trying to go soul on the out lap because of all the tire day getting everything that we've kind of already touched on. Is it

Christians?

What's that? Was it plo and one of the Christians?

I'm trying to remember who it was. I

Honestly don't remember. I honestly

Don't.

Yeah, I'm sorry. That's, I shouldn't

have cut you off. That's not important.

No, that's right. It looked

to me like Palolo had someone in front of him as well, but it's still kind of on the car going slow to get outta the way of the car at a lap.

Again, highlights the, the risks you take in kind of being outta sequence a little bit.

'cause again, whoever it was, I'm really, I'm kicking myself, I don't remember who it was.

Um, but it doesn't matter. So when I asked Indy car about

it, Indy car sort of acknowledged that they caught polo at a bad time and it was probably impeding, but it, it ended up becoming what IndyCar deemed a non meaningful lap.

How is that theirs to decide?

So, okay, so I had the same question and I was like, well that's, you know, what if a red comes out and then everybody's lap is just their first lapse or whatever, fine.

His point was IndyCar's stance was because both drivers, okay, so as it happened, they're like, look, we like to give it a second and let the whole session play out so that they have time to really see the whole situation in totality and give themselves ample time to make an educated decision, which I respect.

So his point was, at the end of the session, both of the drivers ended up in the fast six, they ended up advancing.

So what is the point of penalizing someone on what ended up being a non meaningful lap for the driver that was impeded, had that driver not made it in, they would've looked at it differently, potentially had a bunch Of other scenarios played out.

But this is still, but this is still the same situation that we've talked about before in terms of like, okay, race to race contact, you're gonna get a penalty if the other guy's day is ended, meaning he can't continue.

Just what, what is it the needle responsibility if you, if you just dump him from fourth to 20th, but he's still able to continue, there's not gonna be a penalty.

So it's like it, the rule isn't gray, the rule is black and white.

So why is there, why is there some judgment calls involved?

I have the same argument and mm-hmm .

The response was, Andy Carr's position is they want to be involved in making the story about them and penalties as little as possible.

So where I see the, I see the concept and I respect that they're trying to be involved in the outcome of a session or a race as little as possible.

And I'm all for that.

Wh where I struggle is just that it does leave it kind of gray and it's, it's tough to know if and when a penalty is coming.

So again, I see their point.

Both guys made it in so it didn't matter. Yeah.

If one guy hadn't made it in, then yeah.

Maybe, you know, fair. So I, I kind of get it.

'cause because ultimately you would've just ruined Belows day without it having, Probably not. He's still would've won.

Although he still would've Yeah. Still

would've won by fight.

He only would've won by eight seconds instead of, you know, right. 15 or whatever.

So, okay. That's that's fair. I that's fine.

Like whatever, we don't really need to get into the nitty gritty of it because you're right, both cars made it in.

So while it may have been a difficult situation for whoever was involved with Polo, it didn't really matter.

However, there was a penalty that was issued this weekend.

Um, and I would like to discuss it because listen, it, despite maybe our TV rating would've been even worse had this not happened.

But we had a fight, we almost had a fight.

We almost had a, we almost had a big argument or we had a big argument.

It almost came to physical contact.

I'm stunned that it didn't.

Um, between our, our guy Scotty Mack and uh, also our guy Devlin d Francesco. So are we

James, are we glossing over Pineapple on Pizza and Gilmore Girls and Jennifer Lawrence Pineapple, Pineapple and Pizza's fire.

And you guys have known this. I grew up in California.

Hawaiian pizza is phenomenal. Anyways.

I don't think I ever knew this from Canada, but, okay.

No, but I'm not saying it's from California, but like, it's a very west coast thing. Okay. So I just

Feel like we've had a lot of pizzas together.

Never once have you been like trying to sneak pine.

'cause I know you heed it and I'm not, I'm not like a guy that like, oh, I have to have it to prove a point. Like, I mean,

sometimes you are that guy, but You're very much that guy.

Yeah. , I guess. Shut up.

Let's talk about this incident we watch today night because I, I promise you I didn't choose Top Gun Devlin, Scotty.

Oh my God, yes. Oh yeah.

This is what we talked about at the beginning of the episode.

Stop talking. People want

To hear about Devlin and Scotty. So

Based on Twitter, a lot of people want to hear about pineapple on Pizza.

Oh my God. That's all I'm saying. .

Alright, fine. Evelyn and Scotty.

Okay, so I, I saw the end result before I saw the incident and I just thought the end result was hilarious.

I just thought that was, that was just the epitome of both of their personalities.

Not in a good way or a bad way that it's, they, they just, that was them.

That was them raw. I loved every second of it.

I, as much as I was surprised that there was no like, pushing or shoving, I was super proud and impressed by both of them that there wasn't.

And so it was like a very respectful, kind of heated argument that I'm just so happy was captured on television.

So, um, what, what happened was, uh, I'll tell you at the back of the pack, which unfortunately I'd been a few times, uh, it, it's very difficult to get formed up.

Um, you know, we've done a lot of work with IndyCar because, uh, in the past, you know, you'd only have four or five rows formed up and then the green flag would go.

So IndyCar's done a lot to try and slow the safety car down earlier and order to slow the leader down so that all the whole field can bunch up and get into, you know, whatever it is, 13 rows of two and um, you know, have a nice but packed up, bunched up start for the fans, for the tv, for all the competitors, everyone.

And that's the fair thing to do. So

they've done a really good job of that.

But it's still, it's still difficult for the last four or five cars to really get to the back of the line, get paired up before the leaders are going.

Right. And you obviously want to be in that position

because you want to have the best opportunity to be close to the cars in front of you to, to have an opportunity to go forward.

So what Scott was doing was he was trying his best to like get up to the back of the pack.

'cause you can't obviously just go full throttle into the back of them because there's a, there's a yo-yo effect and you gotta kind of time it and it, it is harder than you would think.

And at the same time you're trying to put temp in your tires into your brakes.

You're trying not to drive offline.

And so I think as much as this was Devlin's fault, I do think Scott was a little bit responsible because honestly, I don't think he's really started at the back very much.

And so I think he may have had just a small lapse in the fact that you're so focused on getting to the back.

You're so focused on keeping your tires clean.

You're so focused on getting a run into turn one that he probably forgot that like Devlin should have been right there or would've been right there.

Or maybe he's so used to already being formed up that like he can see the car to his inside.

And in this instance, Devlin wasn't quite there yet 'cause Devlin was trying to do the same thing.

And Devlin is frantic.

Like he, he's frantic outta the car, he is frantic in the car.

So he was probably stressed that he wasn't gonna get there in time.

So kind of maybe fired it into turn 15 a little bit too quick.

And Scott wasn't really giving him room and they touched, and Devlin got a drive through.

So I thought it was 80% devlin's fault, 20% Scott's fault.

I'd be interested to know what you think of it, James.

And if you love the fight as much as I did, Um, I'll be honest, I, I didn't look back at the incident since the race and because it was the start of the race, we kind of like showed it once from, we only really caught it.

I, I wanna say I've only seen it from Scott's onboard.

Um, so have I, so have I.

Okay, so yeah, I, I, and I know we replayed it, but also just the race was going on so we didn't, you know, focus on last and second, last place too, too much. Why did

Something go on with the broadcast that distracted you?

Not at that point, um, too soon.

Uh, but yes, no, I, I I, I think fundamentally from what I remember seeing, yes, I would also put more of the, more of the blame on Dev.

Um, and I found the fight afterwards kind of hilarious.

It was one of those things too, right?

Where like Scott's Day went from bad to worse 'cause his hybrid ended up having issues, um, joined the club.

And so he was just, Yeah, I have no sympathy. Was

Just, yeah, take a number and get in line.

So that was probably part of it.

But like the whole, I'll show you, the video goes, okay, show me the video and then it's, well, I'm gonna go find the video.

And then they just kind of walked off and it was just sort of like, it was a lot, it was a lot of that.

Like, well, I'm gonna read your phone. Okay, read my phone.

Well, I'm not, now I'm not, I don't wanna read it.

You know, it's It was just like a weird like, like relationship argument I felt.

Um, but look, I love seeing the passion.

I love seeing the passion. That's

what this sport's all about and needs more of.

So I'm, uh, I'm not against it at all.

Um, all right.

So that was, that was a, that was a big topic.

Obviously tires were a big topic.

Um, it, it, we all could have predicted the fact that a tire dead race was gonna go to Polo.

Like that's not even, like, I don't even think anyone would've ever questioned that.

Um, obviously great job by Patto and McLaren because quite frankly that isn't usually their strong suit.

And they were by far the second best car.

Um, there was, I was gonna say all green race, yes.

There. I, yes, before the race you'd put money on Pelle

'cause it's a tire race, right?

And he was starting third for sure.

And, and, and again, a team and drivers that maybe don't have that reputation were ahead of him.

So you're like, yeah, first for sure.

But when he came out of the last stop, 12 seconds behind the leader, I was like, ah, maybe not, maybe not.

Maybe he's gonna come up a little short. Oh boy.

Did he not come up short? Did he come up so long? So long.

Crazy. One of the longest.

Arguably, arguably longer than average phrasing.

Yeah, that guy's, what's that Phrasing?

Are we No, nope. No. He, he, he, he came out long.

Okay. Yeah. Real long. Yeah.

He came, he came out the pit heart, What was the girth Situation and ended up long.

Mm-hmm . That's awesome. Gross

What You said.

It's pretty cool to, to, you know, come out hard and then still belong.

But here's the thing. So , Here's the thing.

Christian did a really good job of, of keeping him behind, keeping polo behind him.

He had a lot of pace in hand. He had a lot of pace in hand.

And had he gotten around Christian, he would've closed that gap up, whatever, but he didn't.

So he pit and it was like 12 seconds or whatever.

And then, so like, let's, let's like add a couple seconds.

He could have had there, he closed up that 12 seconds past Patto and then ended what, eight to 10 seconds ahead of him.

And the last four laps, he was just cruising behind Nolan.

Like he didn't even try to pass.

It was like three cars all racing for position at the end of the lead lap.

He didn't even bother pushing the the matter because he was eight to 10 seconds ahead.

It was the teammate car of the car that he was racing.

Not saying anything would've happened, but that's just one extra layer of wrist that's not necessary to take.

And those guys were running paddle's pace anyway, so it's not even like Paddle was closing in.

So like he could have conceivably won that race by 30 seconds.

Do you know that there was think slightly a period of time before he got to Nolan?

There was a period of time where he was 3.5 seconds quicker than anyone.

I just, did anybody else have new sauce in that last stint?

Uh, power And Power also drove through the field and ended up what piece? Six

At the end.

Well I will, I I will, I will say, and I'm not taking, I don't like he was phenomenal.

I'm not taking anything away from what Will did.

There was a huge advantage to the guys that did not make it into round two.

Like a massive base advantage. Exactly.

But, but there was, I mean, shoot, Joseph didn't make it into round two.

There was a lot of, there was a lot of good cars that didn't make it into round two and Will was the only one that really did anything with it.

So I'm not taking anything away from him.

But yes, will, will and Palolo in the last stint had a massive upper hand on pretty much everyone in the top 12 because they were on the only guys on Newsoft.

So like credit to 'em.

Um, but still like at that, at some point Paolo had to run used Reds, uh, and he still made those work just fine.

So it's not, it's not that he had some tire advantage 'cause he had some failure or whatever and just had more tires than everyone else.

Like he did the same strategies everyone else and just still curb stomped all of us.

Which I was, I I talked to Colton, I talked to Colton afterwards and I was like, man, It, it's a tough look for all of us.

Like I'm not, I'm I I, you can't, you can't sugarcoat this anyway other than he is just mopping the floor with 26 other drivers and engineers and, and everyone, Everybody outside of the top seven in points is already a full max point race weekends tally behind him in the championship after.

Do you know, after two races, Do you know that there's only one driver that is finished in the top five, both races and he happens to have won both of them? Well

That explains part.

I mean, 'cause I remember seeing that and being like, like eighth place is 54 points behind Polo.

You get 54 points for a perfect weekend and he would win on a tie break.

So seventh Place is still within a full perfect race week providing, sorry, providing Polo doesn't start around because by starting he gets like a handful of points. So it's really

Points.

Listen no, it's, it's, dude, we're fine.

'cause he's known to like just throw stuff away.

Yeah, no, he is definitely known as like a peak early and then taper off kinda Guy, right?

Like, and he's definitely not a guy that like can maximize stuff.

Like when he has a broken front wing and when you hear Below you don't think consistency, you know, that doesn't jump to mind.

Yeah, no Mind worst finish Right now his worst finish on the year is first.

So there's that .

Yeah. But, um,

At, at least he was fighting a fever this weekend.

Was he? Actually, I didn't even know that because

I'm not gonna lie, he was, he was sick as a dog.

Was it? IIII think I know the answer to this,

but was it like, not that, I know it was very hot, but was it not that physical?

'cause you were driving around 14 seconds off the pace.

Oh my God, it was the easiest, I think it was the easiest race that I've done in IndyCar, no, uh, sorry, road and street course race that I've done in IndyCar just because you're so, You're four to five seconds off the pace.

And we've, we've talked about on the show, like the physical effort that's required to get that extra half second of lap time, like is massive, the physical effort to drive within a second of, you know, the peak lap time still pretty high, but when you get to two and a half to five and a half seconds off the ultimate pace of the car, it is not, it is not physically a challenge.

Like it's, it's mentally taxing because you're, you're so careful with your inputs and your right foot and you're just staring at tire temps and you're trying to manage the tools to like, you know, move the, the temperature bias forward and rear words.

And you're trying to like, okay, if the left rears really hot, you know, I'm gonna try and balance it out by going faster in left hand corners than right hand corners and that sort of thing you're thinking about and such.

But you're not, you're not physically working hard, you're kind of just cruising around.

Um, which honestly is prob, I mean, it's probably a blessing because that place, if the tires didn't dig and it was 90 degrees, like that would've been immediately to the top of the list of the most physical places we go.

Um, because it is, there is a lot of corners.

There is some very high speed, high load sections, um, like in qualifying it's, it's, it's, it's hard work.

So I I think that I, I'm not complaining that it wasn't hard, but I think it was a little bit like it wasn't an, an enjoyable race.

Um, which is unfortunate to say because I feel like obviously the audience thought the same thing, which I don't think is necessarily fair.

And I, and I want to talk about that for a second because I, we had a last 10 Laps pass for the win.

I don't think it was a bad race to watch.

I don't think it was a bad race to watch at all.

I think there was a lot of elements, parts I was entertained by.

I think there was a lot of elements, um, of the race that, that were interesting.

Um, obviously as you said, there was, there was a battle for the win.

There was a great battle with Christian and Pallo, there was a lot of stuff happening in the midfield.

I mean, power drove from 21st to sixth.

Like there was a lot of things that happened despite it being a caution free race.

I think it was an okay race. I think what really hurt,

and I don't want to talk about the scheduling conflicts and the NASCAR head to head and all of this stuff, because ultimately that's completely out of our control.

That's the network's decision.

There's always gonna be something else on TV that doesn't matter.

What is sad, and I don't know if we should have predicted this or could have predicted this or would've predicted this, but the fact that thermal has such this negative connotation in everyone's mind is ultimately, in my opinion, what killed the event on tv.

And I really struggle to understand why I, I I I understand that this isn't, this isn't like the epitome of IndyCar racing.

There's no history of the track.

There's, there's not the the same feel no.

That a Long Beach would have. It's yes, it's

This feeling.

It's this, it's this perception that it's the, the, the race that's priced out of the market for real, for quote unquote real race fans.

And my, I just, I just don't buy that as an argument because like, I, I can't afford to go to Monaco for the Grand Prix.

Like that's still a sold out race every year.

People still tune into watching. That's a,

Most Races are insanely, like, don't, that's not an excuse, right?

Like, I get that some people, But that seems to be the s sentiment online. A hundred

Percent.

I No, I agree, but I I don't know why I don't know where people get off using that as an excuse to not, if that, if anybody didn't watch the race on tv because the perception is it's a, it's a rich person's playground and I'm not welcome there or I can't go there or whatever.

Dude, again, and I got in trouble for saying this about the whole Arlington Texas Motor Speedway thing.

You are not the fan that we need.

'cause if you're not gonna support the Reason Watching Devil matter where we're racing, like please, please, because I'm struggling to see how that helps.

So the, the one, the one count, and I'm gonna say I agree and I was entertained by the race, but the one counter I'll give is last year, if you watched that where you and Colton were 20 seconds off the pace to, to stay for that.

And I understand last year wasn't a points race.

It didn't really seem like a, it it seemed kind of like a joke last year with that whole thing with the, with the for sure the caution in the middle of it.

I didn't see anybody online. So if you're coming off of

Comment on last year, I know, but if you're coming off of that as your last experience with it, I can understand why maybe you don't have that. Listen,

Listen, I don't agree with that.

I watched it and I thought it was entertaining race. Uh,

People, people that are fans of this sport, people that watch St.

Pete people, everyone knows that thermal was gonna be a real race.

Like, it, it, it's not, that's not a, that's not a reason.

I also think, and it has to change. It has to change.

And whoever is in charge of this needs to, I don't care what the roadblocks are, fix it.

The three week gap is insane.

Like, it's just, it's just insane.

We have so much investment and so much momentum coming off the Super Bowl, going into St.

Pete record TV numbers, fricking, everything's good, everything's badass, and then we disappear.

I don't care why you don't think you can do it, can do it.

Put another race in end of discussion. Yeah.

So obviously there was, uh, one other big story coming out of thermal and that was the, the, the hiccup with the Fox broadcast.

And I don't know who's, I don't know who, uh, well there was also the, the other story was your Christopher Walken impression.

Um, well, so what Happened, thank god you didn't say anything worse. I

Know I was thinking about how bad that could have been with what I've cut out of this show. Okay,

So let me tell you the story.

Let me tell you the story. So we're talking, calling a race,

talking about something.

All of a sudden every screen in the booth goes black.

I'm like, huh?

Now were like, the lights still on in The, in the, the lights were still on and like the no signal thing was coming across the screen. So I'm

Like, oh boy. Huh.

And but it was one of those moments where like, and like town even looked at me, he was like 14 years of broadcasting.

I've never had this.

And we're like, I don't know who to look.

I don't know who to look at. I don't know what to do.

I don't know what the hierarchy is here.

I don't know what the protocol is for this.

You're just, so we're just, yeah, I don't know what to do with my hands because like obviously we're not the technical people.

We're not gonna be able to necessarily fix it.

But if there's also anything that we can do to help, we would like to be able to at least That.

Did you try turning it off and turning it back on Again?

I mean, for all intents and purposes that's what we did as a, as a group, as a collective.

And so, yeah, one of the, one of the breakers went on one of the trucks, which, you know, the, I haven't, I haven't heard like the postmortem on it.

The, the running theory was that because it was so hot and those trucks wasn't That hot Equipment dude in the sun.

It it is. And like those, those trucks operate like

I was in the sun breaking Out heat.

You had some airflow when you're just stationary on asphalt and, you know.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. And again, these trucks have a lot

of equipment and they're, they need to be cooled and whatever.

I, I don't know if that's ultimately what it was.

That was the running theory at the time.

And the reboot process takes about 15 minutes.

So we kind of got a, we had phone calls with people in the truck and we established what had happened.

There was a couple different ideas thrown around.

At one point we nearly just fired up an Instagram live to try to keep going.

Um, that was, that was kibosh for a few different reasons.

But everybody on the ground, um, with Fox, IMSP did a remarkable job.

When you, when you realize how complex these things are, um, did a remarkable job getting everything back up and running when we did, when it did get fired back up. ,

It's a process, right?

There's like stages and you gotta make sure that everything's talking to each other.

'cause there's pictures and there's audio and there's graphics and there's timing and scoring.

And it's not just like you flick the switch and it all comes back on, right?

This is a very complex set of systems.

So at one point we got pictures back and then, you know, our producers telling us in our ear, like, okay, we need you to talk, we need to get our audio worked out, whatever that means.

I don't know. So we were just talk, we were just check,

check, check, check, one, two, talk, talk, talk.

You know, will will, Townsend, Townsend Townsend, James, James James, whatever, whatever.

Just kind of going through all this stuff.

And they were like, just keep talking, just keep talking.

So we just kind of started jokingly commentating on the race as if, 'cause like we just, they need us to just keep talking to make sure everything was going.

And after that was going around for a while, I was like, man, everybody's like having a stressful minute.

Let's bring a little bit of levity into the situation, try to give everyone a truck a laugh.

And for some reason Christopher Walking came out.

I don't know why, I dunno where it came from.

Maybe it's 'cause I'm watching severance right now.

And I did not know in that moment that somewhere in the world that feed was going to people.

I think it was, I got a text, I don't know, I don't even know.

I just got a text from a buddy of mine and I'm like, in Europe.

And he is like, great Chris for walkin impression.

I was like, what did, what did you say? I'm sorry, what?

And, and then I, and then I go on Twitter and it's just like, I'm like, oh no, that's get that.

My immediate first thought I was like, what did I say Before?

That must've sunk, right? Like, just trying

to remember every word that I just said.

Exactly right. Exactly right. So Alex

Rossi's a dumb bitch.

No, no. He said that during Qualifi.

I say that now. Oh right, okay.

I said that at the top of the show on networked.

Yeah, that was my opening, whatever.

Uh, but yes, we, we got here, but what was so funny about it is, in all honesty, so the, we got our telestrator right?

And when the whole power went all, sorry, when the signal got lost, the Telus froze at the last thing.

And so when it fired back up, we had this, we, we were keeping tally.

So we got a laptop with timing and scoring up and, and luckily from where the booth was, we had a pretty good view of the track.

'cause we were up on top of that timing and scoring tower.

We got a 360 degree view of the track.

So we were doing our best to keep track of what was happening on timing and scoring.

'cause it was right in the middle. It was right

before pit cycle started.

So a whole pit cycle happened and we were taking notes and keeping track of who pit when and all this stuff so that we could put together a little summary of what people missed.

And the best part was, it was, it was, it was, um, frozen.

It had the top five.

And then when we came back 10 laps later, full pit cycle top five was the same.

Like, ah, you guys didn't miss much.

Here's the quick recap, .

I mean maybe that's, maybe that's, maybe that's the argument against it being a great race.

Um, anyways, so listen, thank you for hanging in there.

Uh, in order to, you know, get the majority of the broadcast out, I know people like to point fingers at that stuff happens.

Ultimately they didn't miss really anything.

Um, it won't happen again.

Uh, there will be adjustments made, guys don't be, don't be <inaudible> and not support a race just because you didn't buy the ticket, because that's not, that doesn't make sense.

Like you still listen to fricking Taylor Swift, even if you don't pay her outrageous concert prices. Um, great

Point.

There's, there's a lot of, there's a lot of stuff happening on, uh, the eastern part of the world, um, where James is right now going into Japan.

Not this weekend, but next weekend.

There's rumors swirling about Red Bull and Red Bull doing Red Bull things.

So, uh, tune in next week to hear all about that This has been off track with Hinch and Rossi Off Track is part of the Sirius XM Sports Podcast network.

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