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Timing or Talent

Off Track with Hinch and Rossi Feb 10, 2026 26 min

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About this episode

The hosts dive into a lively discussion about the Super Bowl commercials, sharing favorites like Budweiser's horse and eagle ad, Dunkin's nostalgic spot, and Pepsi's playful polar bear rivalry. They critique the game and halftime show, comparing it to less memorable sporting events. The conversation shifts to motorsport, debating whether timing or talent is more crucial for success, with insights on career trajectories and era-specific driving styles. They also explore potential IndyCar rule changes, highlighting frustrations with the command blue flag and suggesting improvements to qualifying procedures for better broadcast excitement. Plus, a fun recap of a Universal Studios trip adds a lighthearted touch.

Topics: super bowl commercials super bowl game analysis motorsport timing vs talent indycar rule changes command blue flag indycar qualifying format universal studios florida celebrity endorsements quarterback impact in football sports broadcasting

The guys catch up after a weekend of football and ads, then they get into some interesting questions about IndyCar: what's more important to a successful IndyCar career, timing or talent? Plus, what rule would they change if they were in charge?

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This is off track.

Hello and welcome to Tuesday's off track with Hin Rossi. And this is

A Tim, a warning robe.

Tim's in a, Tim's a rope.

And this is a warning to the people that don't like hearing people eat stuff.

Alex is almost done his cereal.

I'm done. Okay.

Give it 12 seconds. I was gonna say like

What you do eat quickly.

What, uh, what cereal are you eating?

What's a GoTo cereal for you?

Honey Nut Cheerios. Solid.

I'd have taken you as a CT Crunch guy.

Dude, I don't eat as a what? Hap Captain Crunch Cinnamon.

No. Cinnamon Toast Crunch. I don't like that either.

Oh, dude, I , I love Cinnamon Toast Crunch in an unhealthy way.

No, which is why I don't eat it.

I, I, oh, sour Patch gets all over again. I

Was just, I was waiting. I teed that up

For you.

So I, uh, we, we've, we've talked about this before.

It's been on probably a hundred episodes or so, but like breakfast, breakfast foods that are that level are just dessert and like, I don't feel okay eating that.

Cheerios are pretty much dessert as well.

But I feel like there's some, they're on the edge, right? You can't,

Can't see the sugar on top, top of the square. Right.

Like Oreo os, lucky Charms, captain Crunch, CIN Toast.

Come on. That's not breakfast. Yeah.

That's not part of a well-balanced diet. Shut

Up.

As say, I don't know. Every commercial I've ever heard has

said this is part of a balanced breakfast.

So are you telling me they lied to me in ads? Alex,

I am telling you, they lied to you in ad Speaking of ads, guys we're coming off the Super Bowl.

Mm-hmm . Um, super Bowl's, known for its commercials. James.

Mm-hmm . I know you watched Tim. I know you probably didn't.

I had it on on my planes.

What, what were your top three?

Uh, super Bowl commercials.

'cause I have mine and it's pretty clear cut for me.

Um, I would, I'm I I'd be lying if I said I caught them all.

Okay. I think we should set aside the Cadillac, uh,

livery reveal, because I think we should probably get into that separately.

Well, I wasn't, I wouldn't say that was gonna be in my top three anyways. Well, that's

Maybe part of why I was saying let's set it aside.

Okay. Um,

It wasn't my top three.

I liked the JFK stuff.

Dude. What? And have you seen the full minute video? No.

No. It's way cooler. Like it's,

to actually see the whole thing is like they did a really good job on it.

Uh, so that yes. Would've been in there. Um, oh man.

Alex, why don't you go first? 'cause I need help.

I need you to jog my memory on some.

I know that Sophia Vega was in like eight commercials, which was a lot.

Um, all right, well, so number one without a doubt, the latest Budweiser commercial. Incredible.

Um, is that what the, the horse and the eagle? Yeah.

Like just, yeah, That was pretty solid. Fantastic.

That one picture, like when it's jumping and then the Yeah, that is, that was cinematography. That is, that was good.

Is that is the, um, number two? Yeah, sorry.

Okay. Okay. No, no.

Uh, I saw the, the Dunkin one that like, throw, throw, threw back to like every, That was my number show.

Yeah. That was my number. That one was

Great.

And old tamp Tommy was in there.

So , uh, it is a special place in my heart, um, for that one, but no, Dunkin Duncan killed it with that one.

And then number three, um, was Pepsi.

Because, you know, we've had the, the Pepsi Coke Wars for a long time.

I feel like it kind of disappeared for a little bit.

I don't know if you caught this one, James, but you know, the Coca-Cola mascot is the big polar bear, right?

The bear, yeah. So it was essentially the polar bear was

blindfolded and was doing a blind taste test between Pepsi Zero and Coke Zero.

Okay. And It shows Pepsi Zero. Right. Right.

And then it's the whole sequence of events that fall along after that, including The cold play concert, Including the reference, the Coldplay concert reference where Nice.

Yes. Um, he got caught Right.

Doing something he shouldn't be. Um, right.

So I thought that was cool because A, it brought back the, like the rivalry b the Coldplay kind of thing was awesome.

And then just animated teddy bears. Polar bears, yeah.

Are cool. Everybody

Wins.

You. Can you imagine those? That

Was my top three.

You're, you're so bad At having an affair that there's a Super Bowl commercial about it.

The best. Like I was just thinking the fact that they are

that much part of like the zeitgeist now.

Like Hmm. That's a rough, well, that,

That the lady is now, so she obviously got fired or she resigned or whatever you wanna call it.

Right. She no longer works there,

but I saw she got paid like six figures to go give like a Ted talk somewhere about like, oh, what about like redefining yourself after struggles just Like, Hey man, it's a good PR spin. Good

Honor, I guess. I guess,

Um, the other one that I liked was, um, the one with Matthew McConaughey and um, Oh, uh, uh, the other attractive guy.

Yeah. Um, um, Bradley Cooper. Boy.

Thank you. Yes. Yeah, that one

Was pretty good.

Uber Eats Uber Eats. Yeah. No.

So during that, Kelly was like, how old are these dudes?

Right? Because she was like, man, they're,

they're nice to look at.

And Bradley Cooper's like 52 and McConaughey is like 56 and she's like, man, we, we have so much life left to live.

It's like, yeah. I mean,

Were you, was she worried that you guys were running out?

I don't know. I think she just in her mind thought like,

50 year olds are old and then she saw that you can still be attractive and fit at 50 plus.

You sure can. There's a lot

of great examples of that in Hollywood.

Yes. Yes. Uh, and and beyond.

It doesn't just have to be in Hollywood.

But yeah, those guys are doing great for themselves.

And like, I gotta be honest, I don't think Matthew McConaughey's the type that like goes out of his way to take super good care of, like, like his lifestyle choices seem like pretty normal, you know?

Mm-hmm . He's not like sleeping in cryo chambers. No.

And you know, only eating organic vegan, grown on the moon kind of stuff.

Like that guy smashes Bud Lights and parties and has a great time from what I understand. Correct.

He's No, Tom Cruise. Tom Cruise. Cruise.

Like also like 15 years older than him, so who knows. And still

Moves like a 30-year-old.

So. Exactly. So maybe he's onto something.

Mm-hmm .

Uh, did you, I mean, I did not care for the game itself.

Oh. It was terrible. I thought that was a pretty,

pretty bad game. So

I saw my favorite thing I saw online and I, I couldn't, I couldn't find it 'cause I wanted to reference it Exactly.

But it just said this, this Super Bowl could have been an email .

Yes. So I, um, I don't, I don't want

to offend anyone when I say this.

I, I, I love how we just know that there's gonna be a plethora of people affected by the next thing coming outta your life, or it's gonna be the least Offensive thing ever. .

No, I think, I think exactly like three people will be offended by me saying this.

Okay. And, and I, it is nothing against them.

It's just the, the, the circumstances surrounding the event.

I compare this Super Bowl to the 2020 Indy 500.

Like it's gonna, it's kind of like, for me being a huge fan of football and Super Bowls and everything, it, it was two teams that were like, nah, in terms of like the, the, the storylines around it, in my mind mm-hmm .

The lead up was kind of, nah, there wasn't a huge amount of anticipation.

The halftime show was what it was. Right.

I mean, it appealed to a certain demographic.

It didn't appeal to another one.

I personally didn't know any of the songs.

A because I don't know who bad Bunny is, B because I don't speak Spanish.

Um, so like there was nothing memorable from my standpoint there.

And much like an 8,500 in August in front of No Crowd is kind of like not a lot memorable there.

So nothing against Kuma obviously.

Um, but I, I feel like this one, when you look back on the history is kind of gonna be like that indie five hundreds.

Like, wait, who, who won that one again? Like

Yeah.

You know, I, I'm curious, I'm curious to see like what the ratings will be, because that ultimately tells you, right?

Like I know that, sure. I know that there's gonna be a, a,

a default number 'cause people watch, like I watch, I don't care about either one of those teams even remotely and I watch the Super Bowl, right? Like same.

Yep. But there's, I I do think

that the difference in like that last sorta call it 5 million, right?

The difference between 50,000,050 5 million is, well, yeah, well it was a, this was a banging game or this was like one that people were excited to watch.

And I don't know if it's just because we don't care about either team and like, especially being, you know, people who live in Indiana, they like actively hate the Patriots and like boycott anything related to them that like, maybe it seemed more tamed here. I don't

Know.

No, I just, I feel like a huge amount of what drives interest in a team, rightly or wrongly is the quarterback, right?

Mm-hmm . And, and what they do and, and the plays they make

and, and how they are a a, a game changer.

Right. You know, there's, there's often a lot

of sports podcasts talk about different levels of quarterback and you have game changers, right?

You have your Josh Allen, your Patrick Mahomes, your Tom Bradys, right?

And then your game managers who are the guys that are, they don't turn the ball over, they kind of follow the script.

Right. But they're not going to put the team on their back

and make a difference themselves. Right? Yeah. They, they

Like Moneyball it.

Right. And I feel like we had a perfect example

of those two quarterbacks not taking anything away from them, but like that has was probably the lamest quarterback matchup in recent memory.

Yeah. Like Drake Defense, Dan, Sam, Donald, right?

It was, yeah. So anyways, what were you saying Tim?

With all your ball and knowledge?

No, I was just gonna say . Yes.

That's like two weeks in a row.

It's not me with the bad internet. Oh, this

Happened last Week.

That was, that one was such a, such a harsh cut.

I feel like the internet straight went out at his house.

Yeah, I agree completely Tim.

Everything that you just said we're totally on board with and we heard every word of it.

Yeah. Yeah. Let's go with that.

I think your internet's still waking up Pal. .

I just turned the computer on for the first time since Friday, so, you know.

Well Tim, um, since it's Tuesday episode and we have nothing of relevance really, well actually we'll save it for Thursday.

I wanna hear about your trip on Thursday. So James

Oh, I will be gone for the Thursday episode if we're about to record.

'cause my heart out is in three minutes. Hmm.

Well great point, Tim. Don't tell us. We'll tell that for

Next week.

Okay. Yeah. In three minutes bro. Actually yeah.

Give us, give us the three minute synopsis.

Why were you, why did you just turn your computer on?

Well, uh, Alex, you know, we were supposed to go see the Artis launch but uh, nasa, nasa, NASA a very pretty Hard to send people to the moon Again.

Yeah. . Um,

it's a significantly bigger rocket.

Uh, a newer thing. We're sending a lot more this time.

Yeah, you're right. It's not a tin

can designed by eighth graders And they had a hydrogen leak, uh, and the launchpad.

Yeah. Which makes sense. We talked about this.

Hydrogen is the smallest atom. So anyway, um, yes,

we did already talk about this.

So we had the flights to Florida booked all the dates in March where they could do the launch, um, conflict with IndyCar races.

So figured we're probably not gonna go as the plus one and plus two of Alex Rossi on any of those dates.

So we, Hazel and I just decided to keep the trip anyways, we went to Universal in Florida and just had a nice weekend there.

We got super delayed on the way back 'cause there was a medical emergency on the plane.

We had to go back to the gate and then they had to refuel us and it just was hours of sitting on the plane before we took off.

So I am exhausted right now, just woke up 'cause I misread the texts and Yeah. But great weekend.

So as somebody that frequents Universal in LA, how does it compare to the Universal in Florida?

Not even, not even comparable.

I mean they have so much more room in, in Florida there are four parks in Florida and each of them is bigger than the one in LA I think , sorry, There's four different universal parks. Yeah,

Yeah.

There's, there's Universal Studios, there's Island of Adventure, there's the water park's name I don't remember.

And the new one, which is bigger than all of them combined Epic universe. And

Those are all universal.

Yeah. Yeah. Parks. And so trying to take over Disney,

We stayed at a hotel Alex recommended, which was like a, felt like we were sleeping in a space station, had a cool pool.

We did, uh, we did all three parks except we didn't do the waterpark.

So we did three of the four parks and yeah, great time. Exhausted

High Highlight like ride or exhibit or experience. Um,

The Epic universe, the new park is incredible.

And they had this really cool thing called Ministry of Magic ride, where you like go that one the line Twilight was the coolest part.

Um, . Yes, exactly. Uh, no that one. The,

The, Yeah, like the line you, you do, you go through this giant set that looks like the Ministry of Magic from Harry Potter.

And like the attention to detail was ridiculous.

I guess that's a, that's a nice strategy.

It's nice when they put the effort in to make the line entertaining because yeah, I imagine you spend a lot of Time in know people be sitting there for three Hours.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Sounds like that's your time, Timbo.

It's my time to go wake up. Hail,

Thanks for joining us. Thanks.

Thanks for joining us this Wonderful Tuesday. Oh,

Alright.

As so we had a cool guest lined up that we are gonna get to at some point, but due to Politics, I was gonna say political reasons he cannot, uh, be here at this time.

But, but not bad political reasons.

Watch understandable political reasons. Yeah,

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

The, the timing just did not make sense on, on his organization side, which I totally get.

So we're gonna get him on at some point and we're gonna have a, a really fun conversation with him about his past and his current, which is gonna be fun.

So in lieu of that, as we've managed to burn most of this episode talking about the, the Super Bowl.

Anyway, I have a few random questions that chat, GPD uh, uh, devised for us to discuss.

But I do think there's a couple Good, there's at least two really good ones in here actually.

There's, ah, there's a couple good ones.

So I wanna start with this one.

'cause this is something I think is, I've got a strong opinion on and I'm curious what yours is interest.

And the question was, is timing or talent more important in Motorsport?

Well, James, I think that's an impossible question to answer because Okay.

Timing, I would say is more important in the avenue to the top, in the path to the top, right?

We don't have to go into the examples even recently of Indie Lights champions, right?

Who Oliver ask you where's he at sort of thing.

Um, guys that had a lot of promise that don't, that don't end up making it.

Um, but at the same time you can have all of the timing align and the politics align and all this sort of thing, and you can get to the top, but that doesn't mean it's sustainable without the underlying pace performance and talent.

So I think, I think timing is more important to break through that barrier, but then that's not gonna carry you once you get to the top.

Does that answer your question?

That does, that's a good answer. Okay.

That's a, that's a well thought out for a ten second, um, deliberation in your mind about that question.

Um, I completely agree on the timing being the defining factor, getting there, right?

Because if you were the most talented kid, you know, in the world and, uh, you were really getting into that sort of like pro 2000 indie lights range and say, I don't know, 2008 tough things probably didn't, unless you had tons of money, things probably didn't work out for you, right?

But if you came in like the early two thousands through the, the, the hottest part of like the Red Bull driver search in the US and you were American, you know, you had a much better shot at having an opportunity in a car when the sport is healthy, you know, then it's kind of about talent.

So you have to time it to be, you know, when the sport is in a, like, it's, it's so cyclical, it's so difficult.

There's ultimately only 20 something seats available at the top and timing's just a huge part of that.

You know, got the F1 side of things.

How many, to your point about, you know, indie Ice champions, how many F two champions have not ended up with a Formula one opportunity because there was only 20 seats and there was just nobody bad enough to fire and maybe this kid was better than them, but that opportunity never presented itself, right?

The talent at the top part.

That's an interesting, I've never like seen it broken down into two parts, but that's an interesting take.

And while I, I do agree with what you're saying, let me add another layer to it, right?

Because, and, and I think I already know your rebuttal, I'm not sure, and I'm not saying this is my position, but just another layer to think about is there are different generations of, and eras of whether it's IndyCar or F1 or nascar, whatever, where a certain driver's driving style is going to be more effective in that car than another car.

And if they just time, if their timing is just wrong, like if their career path just led them to be there at the wrong time, you know, like, like, like let's we'll use F1 as an easier example just because the errors are so much more clearly defined, right?

If you were like really good in the ground effects car and now we don't have ground effects anymore, like let's say may, maybe Kimmy Antonelli was gonna be the best driver on earth in a ground effects car and he'll never race one again in Formula One and now he's like results tank or Something.

Yeah, I, well, yeah, I didn't, I don't think I have a rebuttal for that.

I think that is a very, that's a very real possibility. The

Ultimate like rebuttal I think to that point is, well the most talented people on earth will figure it out no matter what the car does, right?

Like you need some luck to get there. Yeah.

But then like once you're at the top, if you are the most talented, it doesn't matter your timing, you'll figure out a way to win.

Yeah. Yeah.

That's probably so a healthy mix that that, that is probably correct.

Um, yeah. And, and I think the timing

aspect can be opened up a little bit to, this doesn't really apply on the F1 side.

Um, well maybe a little bit.

I would say on the F1 side, well no, it applies on both, you know, you take guys like Fernando Alonzo, um, my point that I was making is, you know, you've got guys in IndyCar like your Scott Dixons and Will Powers and, and everything, who while they a hundred percent should still be in race seats and are still competitive and are winning races and being on pole and all that sort of thing, their time is towards the end, right?

And so you have these guys that are, you know, at one point gonna time out not because of any other reason other than you're not gonna drive a race car when you're 48, right?

So depending on when the timing don't tell Dixon that well, in theory, right?

So depending on where the timing of those guys phase out and your Yep.

Insertion and rise in performance comes, like that's, that's a timing aspect of it.

But obviously one that's completely out of your hands and, and impossible to predict.

But yeah, no, it, it plays a factor.

But I'm gonna stand by my, my original answer.

Um, alright James, the other one, the last, I think we'll do one more for the time that we have.

Have, um, and I really wanna get into this because I can't wait.

If you could rewrite one rule on IndyCar , I knew you were going with this one.

Okay. Well you, you clearly

have one that you're thinking of.

So you start I went First, last time pal. Oh shoot.

Okay, well I gotta, I gotta think for A second.

Alright, I'll go first. Okay.

I think everyone's default that they're gonna go to is all close closing the pits, right?

There's, there's so many re closing the pits under yellow.

Right? That's been, that's a dead horse's been

beat too, too many times.

I'm not gonna choose that one. I know. Yeah.

I'm not About that one. My number one rule that I hate,

or I guess it's a lack of a rule, is not command blue cars.

Oh yeah. Until you are a lockdown

to the entire field is the most stupid thing on earth.

And we are the only racing series that does it.

It's so funny, man. 'cause I, I was, oh, you know, I,

I re rewatched the whole season.

Fires me up in prep for the next season, right?

So I'm, I've been going through all the races and the number of times this comes up like on a road track Oh.

And you're just like, uh, but didn't they change the rule last year where that if you're like the last car in the lead lap, you can no longer use your push to pass to defend against the leaders.

Yeah. Great. Okay. Okay. You're halfway there.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Let's get the other

Half of the Way there.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. I just wanna make sure that we did,

we we're, we moved directionally correct.

Yes. But yes, that one is, that one is pretty bad. Yeah.

Um, yeah, it's, it's, I think it's hard to beat that one.

Honestly. The, it's just

Asinine From, from a, from a racer standpoint and like I get where it came from.

That rule was born from the fact that like, originally When we had 14 ovals a year, But, but also I wanna say there was a time when the rule was the command blew kicked in once you were a lap down to the leader.

Okay? So don't, don't quote me my, I'm old

and I've hit the wall a lot, but I, I think the rule was the last car in the lead lap didn't have to, there was no blue flag for the leader, but once they were a lap down to the leader, they got a blue flag and everyone else they had to move over for.

And there was a bit of an uproar that like whoever was leading was essentially being disadvantaged.

'cause they had to actually work to get by this car and would lose time and everyone else just got a free pass.

Sure. So then I think the rule

became, oh yeah, you're right.

Everybody has to work hard to get by rather than everybody gets a free pass.

So I do think that's something I, I get in theory the concept like, you wanna try to stay in the lead lap because if you get a yellow and all that stuff, which is not as prevalent in other series, right?

So that's why they may be less inclined to do that.

But I'm with you. That is a good one.

If I was a putting on my broadcasters hat, here's a rule that I'm not sure if I've ever talked to you about this, but this is a, like an idea that, that I came up with After.

I wanna say it was after, um, there's a couple different qualifying scenarios that have come up that have highlighted this in qualifying at least maybe not in practice, but in qualifying I would like to do away with the alt start finish line.

Okay. I would like qualifying

to be done on the start finish line.

And here's why. When you get down, actually, you know what,

no, I want the fast six, just the fast six to be done on the official timing line.

Reason being from a TV perspective, right?

You often have the last, you know, you gotta wait till the last car is across the line.

Okay? At most tracks,

by the time the last car's across the line, four of the other five are already in the pit lane.

Okay. IndyCar has a, has a deal with NTT where,

you know, that's, it's the, it's the NTT pole award and the pole sitting car's gotta be like carted down to the NTT pit stall, right?

Mm-hmm . Which if you are the first guy across the line,

you're already in your box and you're sitting in your car and you're just waiting Just sweating. Yeah. Just

Sweating and waiting.

And then when you get the, hey, you're the pole sitter, you're in your car and you can't really do anything mm-hmm .

Or like you're already outta your car and you kind of knew you were gonna be on pole.

So you've already high fived all your guy, there's no energy.

Oh, then the crew's gotta like push the car down mm-hmm .

Pit lane to get to the NTT pit thing and it's like all the energy is gone, all the excitement is gone.

The drama of the moment is dead.

And so if you have it where they have to do a full cool down lap, the guy lock guy crosses the line, Hey man, you're on pole.

You get that reaction in the car, you get the driver on the radio.

Yeah. Yeah boys, well done, well done.

And then the crew can all relocate to the NTT pit and the car can just drive there.

And then that way you get the, the, the instantaneous reaction of everybody.

Hmm. So you get some radio interaction, you get a more, so

My only, my only question is yes, from a broadcast standpoint, that's way better Purely A TV thing.

Would they be able to do that with timelines and like how would then sectors work?

I again, I don't know, but I have to feel like in the break between Q2 and Q3, they could just set the system up to be like, we are going off this timeline now.

I mean, I mean the sectors 'cause well I guess IndyCar doesn't do sectors on the broadcast.

It's like a rolling delta, so it doesn't really matter.

Yeah, right. Okay. No, I was thinking like in F1 words.

Yeah. Yeah. How would you do sector one, two, and three?

But they don't do that. Um, okay, I like it.

I'm here for it. Make it happen.

Alright. Just put That forward for those that listen,

Have that power.

So, uh, Mr. Bulls, if you're listening, uh, let's go ahead

and make some slight adjustments there. 'cause I think it'd

Be fun.

Oh yeah, brother. And while you're at it,