Why You Might Never Have to Bring Your Car in For Service Again

Hello, and welcome to this week's Truth about Cars podcast. I am Tim Ealy, the managing editor,

and this week we discuss mobile car repair, NASCAR, and floor jacks.

T-TEC contributor Matthew Guy talks to us about floor jacks and Denny Hamlin closing in on the 60,

NASCAR wins. We also have Amit Chandarana from Kirby to discuss how his company helps dealers

provide mobile car care. But first, buying a car should feel secure, start to finish,

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If you like what you hear in the Truth about Cars podcast, please go ahead and leave us a review.

You can also find us online at t-tech.com. That's T-T-E-A-C-A-D-C-O-M on the Truth about Cars

allspulledout.com. We are your home for car reviews, car news, opinions, and so so much more.

Give us a look at t-tech.com. Here on the Truth about Cars podcast, we are always talking about

the stuff that we use in our homes and on our cars or in our cars, as the case may be.

And just about always, we have t-tech contributor Matthew Guy with me to discuss that.

Matthew, how are you doing today? Doing pretty good, Tim. How are you?

I'm doing well, doing well. So, let's get into it. You are talking about floor jacks this week.

Yeah, so this is definitely something that, you know, you would use, we talk about on our

cars and in our cars. And this is definitely something that's a great thing if you're just

getting into doing maintenance on your own vehicle, things of that nature, if you've got

the space to do that safely, then it's a really good idea to save up a bit and invest in a really

good car jack. And I know that most cars come with a jack. You know, there are a lot of cars

that also just come with a inflator kit, but we're not talking about those. We're not talking

about those little scissors ones. We're talking about the ones that you might see. If you've

ever watched NASCAR, if you've ever watched someone change a tire in a professional garage,

you know, they might have used one of these. And it just slides under the car, it's got a great big

handle. And then once you safely secure the car, you jack it up using the handle. And

this just came to mind because I was working on a vehicle over the weekend. And I got my

jack fair spell ago, but it was from eBay. And it is a, there are different weight ratings

for these for anyone who might be familiar. And I had one for a long, long time that was like two

or two and a quarter ton. And then I upgraded this one's a three ton jack. And my own personal

belief with this type of stuff is buy more than you need. I don't recommend that for everything

in life. But I certainly do for, you know, these service jacks and these floor jacks for

cars because safety's the top priority when you're using these things. Absolutely. Yeah.

Yeah. So if you're, if you're, if you're just getting into servicing vehicles or just getting

into doing a bit of wrenching on your own, and you can only right now splash out the cash

like a two or two and a quarter ton jack, which would be 5,000 pounds or less,

that would be okay for smaller vehicles, some sedan, some small crossovers. But

once you get any bigger vehicle than that, it's not quite as robust as one might want. So

look for, I think, investing in a three ton jack. You can get some pretty affordable

four ton jacks these days. That might be a bit overkill, but three ton seems to be a pretty

good sweet spot for both usability and price on eBay. I would think so. Yeah, for sure.

Yeah. And there's some new technology, even since I've thought mine,

that has seeped into like affordable jacks. Up until just a couple of years ago,

people would often, you know, you'd look at these things and you would see one big hydraulic,

for lack of a better word, one big hydraulic ram at the back of the jack underneath the handle

that you, that you pump to pump up the jack. And I've noticed a lot of them, a lot of these

even affordable jacks on eBay now have two rams, which doesn't sound like a big difference,

but it actually pumps up the, it makes it easier to pump and it makes it quicker

to get the car off the ground as well. So I like to think that's maybe some trickle down from

racing. I know it's not, but I like to think that when I'm working on a car, you know, pretend

I'm part of a pit crew or something ridiculous like that. That childhood imagination never leaves

us. Yeah, so anything we should know about obviously safety matters, and you've already

touched on that just a little bit, making sure you have the right weight, making sure you place it

in the right spot in the car. So you have to consult your owner's manual for that because

it's different in every car. Anything else we're missing here, whether it's safety or

affordability or anything else that we should talk about. Once the car is in the air on the

jack, you know, it's good to buy a jack with some steel jack stands as well. And, you know,

use those so that there's no failure point. The thing with hydraulic jacks is that there is

a possibility, however rare it may be that, you know, one of the hydraulic seals will break

and then the jack will drop unexpectedly. And that's never a good thing. So

especially if you're underneath the car. Right. And even if you've just got

your hand in the wheel well doing brakes, it's still going to hurt. So, you know,

put some steel jack stands underneath your car at the appropriate places. I love the way you said,

look in your owner's manual, look for help and advice, but where to place these things.

And it helps a lot, you know, just for peace of mind, even if it's a brand new jack,

who knows what might happen. Other than that, you know, go for, you know, save a little bit,

invest in a good one. And, you know, it's one of those things that you'll have

for a very long time. When it comes to anything involving the safety, investing in and making

sure the product quality is always a good idea. Yeah, absolutely. Just a good quality product.

And there's one that I want to try. It's a new, I suppose, type of not new, but

it's become a lot more, it's become a lot more common. It's a pneumatic jack. And

very quick lifting time. There's little to no physical exertion with this thing.

And, you know, it can be a bit disconcerting at first, you know, because you hook up a

compressor, an air compressor to it. And then basically this big airbag just blows up and

inflates and then raises your car that way. So you need more gear, right? You need a compressor

to operate it and things of that nature. It's a completely different operating style.

But I would like to try it then just to see, especially for like some low-profile vehicles

too, you know, some sports cars and things of that nature, something like that invest and at

least investigate something like that if any of our listeners are working on that type of car.

Absolutely. So with that, we'll go ahead and finish up this week's stuff we use

second here on Truthwell Cars. Thank you, Matthew. Thank you.

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Here on the Truth About Cars podcast, this week we are talking with Amit.

Have you seen our same Chunder? I'm sorry. Chunder Rana. Chunder Rana, thank you.

The CEO of Kirby, and so Amit, can you kind of walk us through what Kirby is to start?

Yeah, absolutely. Thanks for having me, Tim. We are a mobile service platform, so we

operationalized dealerships to be able to take their service department,

mobile, sort of like Uber Eats and DoorDash does for everything else.

Okay, so obviously there has been some movement in this space. We're starting

with OEMs. I know Tesla has done sort of a remote service program where the technicians come to your

house and work on the car. I know some luxury dealerships have done this from legacy automakers

here and there over the years, whether they bring in tech to your house or they pick up the car

and bring it to the dealer, that kind of thing. So first of all, is that what Kirby does?

And second of all, what is the demand like for the service?

Yeah, good question. What Kirby does is it used to do that. So Kirby used to have our own tools,

trucks and technicians, and we as an independent party did that. We did the repair and the services.

So we did that for about three years. The entire time we were basically building this

software to operationalize everything. And then in early 2024, we shut down the direct

to consumer business, if you will. And then we optimized that software for the dealerships

in the United States. There's 18,000 of them. A few of them started to call us and say,

how did you get the right band to the right place at the right time and all that good stuff?

And we said with our software and they said, can we use that too? And we said, oh, like bulbs.

Yes, you can. So to answer your question, that's exactly what we do now is we provide them

the software and the operational training and all of the tools and best practices.

So that's what dealers are doing. Those legacy OEMs, the 17 manufacturers are now

through their dealers in some way, shape or form, offering these services to customers.

And the demand has been actually, I say this with all due respect, it's been much larger and

faster than we thought it was going to be. In fact, we hit some really cool milestones in the

company. And we have about 120 dealerships that we work with right now. Okay. So let me make

sure I just have this correct. So if I'm a dealer, if I'm John Smith Toyota,

and I want to bring mobile services to my customers, I would buy your software to kind of set that up

and facilitate that process. Yeah, that's exactly right. Our software helps operationalize it with

the scheduling and the routing and the data and the updates. And then we would help you

throughout the process. So we would install the software, we'd help you if you needed to get

connected to someone to upfit the truck for John Smith's Toyota, we'd connect you to them,

and then we guide you and hold your hand along the entire way. And you're no longer direct

to consumers. So it's all dealerships. That's correct. It's dealerships. We're starting to

get some phone calls from independent repair facilities. But right now our full focus is on

dealerships. Yeah. So both when you were direct to consumer and now that you've shifted to a

dealership model, I don't know if you track this, but how many consumers are actually,

obviously, dealers that are buying your service or using your service, but it's the

consumers getting their car repaired at their house. How many consumers are doing this?

Because it seems like, like I said, Tesla had made some inroads into this area a few years ago,

and I feel like during my own time working dealerships, even 20 years ago, there was

always a little bit of, you know, let's try and bring things to the consumer if we can make it

more convenient. But I have not seen anecdotally or talked to a lot of people who've really

taken advantage of a service like this. So have you, as you work with dealers,

I know you said you have, I think you said 120 dealers if I heard that correctly.

But what are you seeing in terms of like, how many consumers are actually, whether it's a luxury

brand or a mainstream brand, whether it's Alexis or Toyota, Tesla or Ford, how many consumers

are sort of taking advantage of dealers who offer or independent shops who offer, you know, come to

you service? Yeah, I think the best way to be able to measure the amount of the adoption

from the consumer standpoint is when we see the amount of upfitted vehicles. So let me just

tease that comment out. A dealership has to be able to go do this. So they could take any,

like a Toyota dealer could take a RAV4 that has all of the accoutrements or it's upfitted,

or these General Motors dealerships that have massive, bright drop, you know,

Amazon style vans that go out and do that. And I think one of the best indicators of the success

of this or the adoption curve really speeding up is dealers are adding more and more of those

vehicles. IE, it's similar to a dealership adding more service bay capacity. At the end of the day,

the adoption is limited by the capacity of how many of these mobile service vehicles can get

out there. And what we're seeing is about three to six months into a relationship with

a dealership, we're seeing them add more of those vehicles. So the capacity is increasing.

No one's adding capacity unless there is a demand fueling that. So anecdotally,

we're seeing a lot more demand to sort of give you some data and some numbers on this.

The average dealership hits about five to seven appointments a day, about 35, 45 days into working

with us. And when they do that, that is the equivalent of a $200,000 service bay that you

would add at your dealership because the average service base probably getting about

five or seven appointments per day. So what you're doing now is you're increasing capacity

at the dealership because you take this mobile service vehicle that goes out to do five or seven

appointments a day. You've now unlocked the capacity of those five or seven appointments to come back

into the shop because they're no longer taking up your service drive. So it really takes a

holistic approach to increasing the capacity of service at a dealership, whether or not it's

mobile or traditional. Makes sense. And I hadn't even thought of that angle of

if you have a truck doing five appointments a day that all of a sudden frees up a bay. So

that totally makes sense. How many consumers or customers of the dealers that use your software

are, you mentioned bright drop, how many are fleets, whether it's local postal service,

local delivery fleets, that sort of thing. I really think, just kind of off the top of my

head, I really think delivery services and fleet services could really do well to have

save time and money by having a dealer come to them. Yeah, it's a big component of the

business. I couldn't give you a number because it really, it depends by brand and it depends by

geography, right? If you're a small Toyota dealership in X part of this country, you might not

have access to that level of fleet if there's not an airport nearby or there's not an HVAC

company or an Amazon shipping center. But I would say typically on the domestic side,

more of those dealers tend to lean into the fleet business probably two to three months into the

business because what ends up happening is, remember, no matter what we're still dealing

with humans, the human being you go to at their home that has a Chevy Silverado in their driveway

might work for a company that has 150 Chevy Silverados at the office. And that usually

creates that connective tissue where the person who gets the service says, wait, can you do

this for our 150 fleets? And that story I'm telling you is a real story. I mean, we have a Toyota

dealer in Southern California that their second appointment was with a lady who had a Tacoma.

And she asked, can you do this for my other location? And the technician said, sure, I don't

know what that means, but like, yeah, let's see if it's in our area of service. They went there

and she had 14 Tacomas. She owned an HVAC company. And so they got that business soon

after that. So we have examples of a lot of dealers who end up doing a lot of direct

to consumer business, excuse me, a consumer business that leads to fleet business also.

I would say the distribution depends on the brand and the location, but most dealers end up

some way, shape or form dealing with some type of fleet or fleet tail, rental car companies,

other dealerships that have your brand on the lot that need recalls completed,

and then the smaller HVAC companies or the Terminex Tacomas as they call it.

Yeah. So when you were working direct to consumer or even now as you work with your dealers,

what kind of repairs can and can't be done at someone's house, someone's fleet place of business?

I assume that some fleets may have their own service, but hey, so maybe that makes life a little

easier. But just thinking of the average suburban house or the average strip mall

office park where there might be a bunch of vehicles parked in the back parking lot,

what are the things you can and can't do when it's someone's house and how much does the weather

play a factor? Yeah, good question. Our data shows about 37% of what can be done at the

dealership can be done via mobile service, and that's based off op codes that we're analyzing.

And we like the illiterations here, but it's think about filters, fluids and flushes,

blades, bulbs and batteries, oil changes, things with tire and wheel. So it depends on

the type of upfitted vehicle. You could do a full tire change with some of the vehicles or you

could just do a tire rotation. And then the thing that we haven't talked about is really the torque

or the gateway drug in this entire industry, which is the recalls. There are 73 million open

recalls in the United States. Okay, that's a lot. 27% or 19 million of those are just a

software update or an inspection. And so if you think about 18,000 dealerships out there

and about 19 million recalls, there's a lot of mobile business that can be done with just a

Starlink connection and a OEM laptop. Yeah, I was going to say, do you even need to go to the house

if it's just a software update? It's funny. I just had this conversation with somebody else.

You do. And again, I'm going to use this example crudely. You can tease this out, but

there are folks who can't connect a Wi-Fi to their own home router, let alone connect

your car to your home Wi-Fi and be able to be able to do that for 45 minutes and make sure

that there's no breakage in there. But there are dealers that certainly have all of the technology,

you know, such as a Starlink connection, a VPN authorized OEM laptop with a couple diagnostic

tools where they can knock that out in about 35, 45 minutes in your driveway.

What's your pitch for dealerships that have not used the service who have not

used Kirby, who have not used any type of service or even just themselves and not sent

technicians to a consumer's home? You know, a lot of dealers probably, I don't mean a stereotype,

I worked in the dealership world for a few years, a lot of our conservative in terms of

resistance to change. A lot of dealers are, this is the way we've always done it. We don't want

to do it in a different way. Or they will, but only if it doesn't cost them too much money.

You know, a lot of dealers just don't want to spend money. They don't have to spend.

Any business was watching the bottom line, of course. So, you know, and some dealers probably

just like, well, you know, my tech is here and he's making money and consumers used to

bringing the car in when they need to. And that's just the way it's been for forever.

So how do you sort of pitch that to dealers who have not really gotten involved in the space

before? Yeah, we typically start with asking them the problem we need to help them solve

for. Right, Tim? If there's not a problem to your point, and that's okay, right? That's 100%

fine. We don't do what we call doughnut dropping, which we don't drive past dealerships and ask

them if they want to buy what we've got. We're typically looking for a profile of a dealer that

has some problem that they need to solve for. And that typically starts with, you know,

four or five things that the dealership is. Look, dealerships are, I wouldn't say they're

averse to change management. They're just gunshot because they've touched the stove.

There's been, you know, 29 software vendors that came through this month that said,

we can change your entire business with one flip. And that's not how we operate. We

talk a lot about, we start with Simon Sinek. We talk about change management. We talk about

the why, the emotional connection to should we do something different, not only for ourselves,

but for our consumers. And then you hit them with some data points, right? You know,

the 18,000 dealers are competing with 273,000 independent repair facilities.

Tim, for you to go from your house to your local dealership, you're going to pass 17 different

oil change and tire and makos along the way that you could stop off at that they will knock out

whatever you need to do in about 55 minutes. So we have to hit them with the emotions of,

you know, if you keep doing the same thing, customer evolution is going to take place, change.

But then we go back to what problem can we help you solve? And there's usually five areas

that they're trying to solve for. Number one is capacity at the shop.

Whether or not it's capacity between seven o'clock in the morning and 11 o'clock in

the morning on the service drive, whether or not it's weekend capacity, technician capacity,

or just simply landlock dealerships. We talked about this, adding new capacity at a car dealership,

breaking walls, planning, permits, disruption and the actual construction. It's expensive. It's really

expensive for what five to seven new repair orders. The other thing we talk about is whether

or not they're looking to expand on their profit center. It is a profit center that

is limitless. If you think about it physically, there's no walls. You can go add 10 trucks or

you can add two and you can expand the accordion as much as you want to. And dealers are really

doubling down, if not tripling down on service department and parts department fixed operations

profitability because the roller coaster of the new car side is just that, right? Taxes,

tariffs, affordability. That's where the average car is now 13 years old on the road.

That's the oldest it's ever been. So you take service bay capacity, you talk about profit

centers, you talk about needing to complete these recalls. I mean, not only do they want to

complete recalls for safety and customer satisfaction, they get fined. The manufacturers

and NHTSAs don't play well when these recalls stay open. The last part of this is tied to

the customer. The customers evolve. Just like none of us, I would say most of us don't look to go hail

a cab. We need to go know that that Uber vehicle is coming and what the price is going to be.

It's completely changed the behavior of a customer. Chipotle does a really good job of

delivering these burritos to you and charging you 38% for fees and convenience and their

stock price is doing wonderful. So that genesis of the customer changing has absolutely been

one of the driving factors because that's why retention and loyalty has declined at dealerships,

not because the service is bad or the technicians are not trained or the coffee isn't good. It's

because simply people are choosing convenience. That makes a lot of sense. And speaking of

convenience, I think my next question is going to be, and I think it's a nice little setup

there, is as you look at consumer habits, again, when both when Kirby was direct

consumer and now as you work through dealerships, is this been, for lack of a better word, a class

thing when I say class, I mean luxury versus mainstream. So has it been consumers who own a

Lexus or infinity Mercedes BMW more apt to if their dealer offers a service through Kirby,

are they more apt to use the service as opposed to Ford owners and Dodge Chevy, that sort of thing?

No, the conventional thought process there is that this is great for the luxury customer.

I can tell you from the distribution of the brands we work with, they are not majority

luxury dealerships. They are majority mainstream dealerships. This reminds me of going back

to 2016, 17, 18 when I was a part of a company called Roadster. Roadster was a digital retailing

platform. And I got frustrated when I would hear from dealers when we were in market, oh, this is

buying online, this omnichannel commerce platform. This is going to be great for the

Mercedes-Benz customer. I don't know if it's going to land for the Chevy customer.

And I would ask them why. I guess the perception is money, but if the cost is the same

or no cost to the consumer, then probably wouldn't matter, right?

So that pause that you and I just had is exactly what I got back from them when I

asked them why. Why wouldn't the person who spends $299 to have their Uber Eats delivered

or Chipotle delivered, who's probably not all driving a Mercedes-Benz or a BMW,

why wouldn't they pay $999 for the $100 oil change because of the convenience factor?

In fact, I mean, there's a whole generation of folks who don't know anything different.

They're literally going to, if it doesn't come to them, it doesn't exist. So the reality is this,

I don't believe that there is a class difference in this by any means whatsoever.

Now, what a dealership decides to do, what the elasticity test of going out and doing this

is completely up to each dealership, right? When dealerships do warranty repairs and recalls,

obviously they're not charging extra for that because that's covered by the manufacturer.

In addition, there are manufacturers out there that we work with. We've talked to almost every

manufacturer. We work with about 11 of these. The manufacturers are paying additional funding.

So they're giving, they're paying extra hour on the RO or there's a flat that they pay you an extra

15 bucks per repair to go out and do mobile service. Multiple, we can triple click that all

day long, but because the manufacturers are helping subsidize this, because the dealerships

see retention, which helps you sell more cars because customers are happier. It really is not

distributed across any one brand or segment within the industry. It's really for everybody,

and I'm not being selfish about the way they say that. I mean, it's, and one can make the

argument that somebody who's driving the Mercedes Benz could potentially have their admin

clear their schedule for the next two hours to take their vehicle in. Whereas maybe working

mom who's on three zooms today and picking her kids up in her Nissan or Toyota probably needs

the service to come to them and is probably much more willing to pay $9.99 for that because that

convenience factor and the efficiency of time is way more important to that individual than it

might be to somebody who could have the admin clear the schedule. That makes a lot of sense.

I think this might be my final question. We'll see if anything pops out of this,

any follow-ups. But the other thing I was going to ask you, and we've kind of touched

on it a little bit already and forgive me if it's repetitive, but what is the consumer

knowledge of this sort of service? I bet you if I went down to the street and asked a bunch of

different people who live in my neighborhood, if they knew that their dealer offered this

ability through Kirby, or well, Kirby helps obviously, or if the dealer offered the service,

or if Tesla offered the service, which it did for a little while, I don't know if it

still does, but I would imagine that only a few consumers, only a few car owners really know this

because I think car owners too, even people who use DoorDash and Instacart and every other mobile

app service there is probably don't understand or realize, and maybe their dealer pushes it.

I don't know. I haven't dealt with dealers directly much recently, but I would imagine

a lot of consumers don't know that dealers might offer this ability. And so as you've

built up your business with again direct to consumer first and then now helping dealers

provide the service, what is your what is your like perception of consumer awareness of this

as a service? I'll go back to the way you originally asked it. It's low. It's low

because that's what we're seeing in the original date, in the original, in the

origination of a dealership that starts. Consumers, it's funny you say it that way because that's

exactly how it teases out. They almost don't believe you. So the adoption is, the adoption

is fast. The awareness is low because while dealers are onboarding and going through this,

getting their skis under them, they're not doing a lot of merchandising with this. They're

making sure that they can Monday morning quarterback it for a few weeks and ensure that they've

got the operations down. Once they do that, then they start hitting the gas with some

merchandising education. So the consumer awareness is pretty low on this thing.

The adoption is very fast once the consumers become aware of it. And I can give you anecdotal

examples of how and why real quick on this. So you know, one of the things we do in our

marketing toolkit or our toolbox when our dealers success managers helps a dealership,

you know, they'll go the first month and they've got a few appointments in,

they assessed like, oh, we didn't take this thing with us. We forgot to put that in the crate.

So once they get their skis under them, you know, 30 days in, the next call is, hey,

we're getting two appointments a day, but you said five to seven or you said 10 and we said, yeah,

let's talk about this. Tim, what have you done from a marketing standpoint? So have you

put point of purchase materials at your dealership that says something like,

we know our coffee is great, but your couch is probably more comfortable.

Oh no, we didn't do that. Okay, when you send out your newsletters or your Instagram

or the taglines, does it say anywhere on your website or any of those digital properties that we

now offer at home service? Oh no, we haven't done that yet. Tim, have you guys started answering

the phone at the dealership to say, hey, thanks for calling Tim's Toyota. Are you calling for

at home service or would you like to bring your vehicle in? Oh no, we're not doing any of that.

Okay, so then let's try some of those things and let's see where you are. And then there

are, you know, basically 10 appointments a day in the next two weeks. And those,

even that one last one with the phone tip, it's really interesting when we do that.

We do this at dealerships. We'll go help a dealership do this. And it's crazy how the customer

or the other end of the phone is literally just dumbfounded and paused. When you say,

would you like to bring your vehicle here or would you like us to come to you? You just get

this 10 second pause like, wait, wait, what'd you say? You do that? And that's when it starts

to become a lot of fun where we say, yeah, absolutely. We offer that level of convenience

for you. And here you go. Yeah, so that's actually really interesting. I kind of figured

just thinking it through my head that dealerships were probably on the hook for that more so than

Kirby, but sounds like you're at least willing to help them. So that's interesting. Is there anything

we haven't touched on that you would like to kind of go over that maybe I missed or you missed

just anything that before we wrap up that it's like, Hey, this is something Kirby does, doesn't do,

we want to kind of talk about a little bit. No, I don't think there's anything on the Kirby

standpoint from what we do. I'm always impressed, I will say, by the automotive industry and its

willingness to continue to adapt to these customers. The dealer partners have been wonderful,

the risk and the investment that they're making to make sure they can meet the customers where

there are. I commend them. I mean, it's not easy to do this. That's why partners like us and

others help them do it. But it's really cool to see them adapt so that they can take care

more customers and also protect their investment and grow. What is your competition like? I assume

Kirby's not the only company in this space. We're literally the only one. There's no other one that

exists. Really? Wow. No, no, that would be wonderful. We certainly have some competitors.

Some of them do a little bit of what we do. Some of them do a lot of what we do. Others do

things in the ancillary spaces. I think part of our success and our growth rate has been

because of our full focus on optimizing mobile service for dealerships, just the software and

our support. There's certainly other things we're looking at down the pike,

but we want to just stay fully focused on serving the dealers for their mobile service operations.

No chance of going back to direct to consumer anytime soon?

We have no plans to go back to direct to consumer anytime soon.

Okay, excellent. I appreciate your time. Let me see if I get your last name correct this

time around. I messed up the first time, but I had your bio just I just had it right in front of

me and I missed the place. There we go. Amit Chanderana, correct? That's absolutely right.

Yeah. So we've been chatting with Amit Chanderana, the CEO of Kirby that has spelled C-U-R-B like the

curb, the Kirby you might hit, and then the two E's at the end like the B that flies around.

So we've been chatting about mobile service and how Kirby helps car dealerships sort of

facilitate providing actual service at consumers homes, although that customer is

private residents or a fleet. So Amit, excuse me, Amit, thank you so much for your time.

Yeah, you're welcome, Tim. Thanks for having me.

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Just about every week here on the Truth About Cars podcast, each and every week we discuss NASCAR,

what's going on, on track, off track, and all parts or all things motorsports or at least NASCAR

motorsports anyways, particularly the Cup Series and particularly this time of year, the playoffs.

So again, with Matthew Guy, TDec contributor, and we're going to discuss what happened in the

St. Louis area and how a very well known, if not popular driver has come close to a

milestone. So Matthew, how are you doing today? I'm doing great. It's a good day to talk about

playoff racing. Yeah. And so we have Denny Hamlin winning. I think he said it was his 59th win. And

that puts him close to 60. He might be the last driver ever to do that. We'll talk about that in

just a second. But I wanted to say the reason why I said well known is because his popularity is

a little controversial. I don't mind the man, but I know that he has his haters out there.

Absolutely. And he's got his antagonistic new slogan. I mean, he's always talked about,

I just beat your favorite driver and 11 against the world. I mean, he talks about that to the

Gears and things. And this time he was saying, hey, if they either get on the bandwagon or

get run over by it, that's his latest thing. That's his latest thing. And definitely,

there's always room for a bit of bragging and a bit of personality in NASCAR. Not hurting anybody

by saying these types of things. No, no, I don't think so. He's not throwing fists or anything.

Not throwing fists. And you know, I mean, Denny Hamlin, people are going to say, oh, no, dirty

race or whatever. But stuff happens on the track no matter what. And it's a personality. And

he's chasing his first cup championship. Yeah. And I don't see him doing a ton of dirty stuff

but maybe I'm just missing things or maybe the broadcast isn't quite giving me to it.

But one thing that you said, and I wanted to pick your brain on this, and I actually think

I want to push back a little bit. I want to hear your take first. As you said that you believe,

you said this during our pre-show talk, that you believe that he might be the last driver to

reach 60 wins, assuming he hits 60 either if he gets another win this year. I believe he's

still going to race next year when he's 45. I don't think he's had anything in retirement

yet. Or if he gets a win next year, he'll hit 60. I disagree slightly. I don't think he'll be the

last one to get there. But I want to hear your thoughts first on why you think he'll be the

last one to get there. Yeah. And I love this. This is going to be a great debate, man, because

I mean, he's at 59. So he stands just outside the top 10. Kevin Harvick has 60. And the only

other active driver who's ahead of him is Kyle Bush, who's not had a ton of success.

No, he's had a rough year. He's had a very rough year right now. I mean, he's still a

wheel man. And then the right equipment, I do think he could add to that. Yeah, he's not quite

40 yet, is he? So he still has a few more years left. Exactly. He's either early 40s or late 30s.

I think he's still not quite 40. I agree. I haven't looked it up, but I think you're

spot on the money. So I mean, the next active driver who is full-time active driver right now

is Joe Logano at 37 wins, not years old, but 37 wins. And then beyond that, you've got

Kyle Larson at 32 wins, Keselowski at 36. So then they've got Truex in there at 34 as an active

driver, but we know that's we don't essentially retired. Yeah, right? Part-time at best. So

you've got Logano Keselowski, who I don't is he's got 36. He's not going to make 60. I don't

think by the time his career is over, Logano. And then you've got Larson, right? And 32

wins. So he, quote unquote, only needs 30 more wins, well, 28 more wins in order to crack that

number. So maybe, maybe, but with the level of competition these days, you don't really have

anyone running away with it like you did in the Jimmy Johnson era, right? And Jeff Gordon era in

the late 90s and early 2000s. And those types of numbers, I don't think we're going to see,

definitely not going to see Gordon numbers of 93 wins ever again. But that's why I do think

that Denny Hamlin is going to be the last guy to hit 60. What do you think? What's your take,

bro? Well, I think you're probably right that Bush and Keselowski won't get there because Bush was

40 and Keselowski is 41. And now we all know that racing allows careers to go a little bit longer than

the stick and ball sports. You can race, I think Mark Martin was full-time till he was 50.

All right, you can race and plus you can also race part-time, which you can't always do.

If you retire in baseball, you need to come back and play 10 games out of the season,

typically, right? But NASCAR, you can say, oh, I'm kind of retired and still,

you know, Jimmy Johnson is almost 50. He still races occasionally, right? You can still pop

into the Daytona 500, maybe five or six flagship races. So I think age plays a part here. And

Keselowski and Bush, you know, they're kind of early 40s, but they can still run another five

to 10 years. The thing is, Kyle Larson is only 33 and Lagana is only 35. So I tend to agree

with you that the domination of the nineties, where one driver can just dominate, that is probably

gone with these next-gen cars and the level of talent that is in the sport. But Kyle Larson,

who probably has been the most dominant driver of the past two seasons, right up there with

Logano, I think, and I think Larson, I don't have a number in front of me, but I think

Larson has more wins the past two or three years than Logano does. Larson is only 33.

Yeah. Hamlin's 44. So imagine what the damage Larson could do in 11 years,

or 12 years. All he has to do, you're not wrong, all he has to do is win an average of three races

a year for the next 10 years. Which he has 36 cracks at in a given year. There's 35 races

or something like that. I think the number varies a bit from year to year, but I think this year

schedule is a little over stuff compared to last year. And we're not even talking about younger

drivers who like Austin Dillon. Is it Austin Dillon or no, it's not Dillon. It's Ty Gibbs.

Ty Gibbs is super young, right? Now he doesn't have a lot of wins yet. I don't think I don't

have the number in front of me, but guys like that, Ty Gibbs, who's only 22. The guy who

fell off the car a few weeks ago, Cole, I forget his last name. He's only 18. He's not even

had more than a couple of races yet in NASCAR. The Dillon brothers, they're young.

These guys, if they get on a roll, the thing is, they might not right now. Well,

actually Austin's 35, so he's a little over that thought. But these guys might not right now

look like dominant drivers, but imagine if Ty Gibbs gets on a roll, because he's only 22.

Imagine if he gets on Kyle Larson like roll three to five years from now.

You know, so I'm not saying that the thing is, it depends on how long these drivers want to stay

in the sport. Because if someone like Kyle Larson might have a shot at 60, but he may also say,

I want everything I want to win. And I'm tired of racing every weekend. And I want to go broadcast

or I want to go fishing or I want to go hunting. Or he might say, I really love driving because

Kyle Larson likes driving his hands on as a steering wheel. And he might go till he's 50

or 55 or till his eyesight and reflexes don't let him race anymore. So that's really the wild

card too. It's just how long these guys want to go at it. I agree with you that it'll be harder

for anyone to dominate the way that Jeff Gordon did. But I don't think Hamlin's going to do the

last to get 60. I just, unless some of these younger guys just don't stick with the very

alarm. And we even talk about Chase Elliott, who's afraid his age, I want to say he's still

in his 20s. So that's a guy who's had a lot of success on road courses. So it really depends on,

you know, if some guys who've had some bad luck get on some rolls and are like Bubba Wallace,

he's a guy who hasn't won a ton. And he's he's around 30. Yeah, but Elliott's 29, by the way.

Bubba Wallace is right around 30. He has plenty of time if he ever gets it together and

has some better luck. He's come close to winning a lot of times and had some bad luck,

had some, sometimes it was bad mistakes in his part, other times bad luck. So he's only,

I said he was 30, he's actually 31. So he's got plenty of time left too. If he, if he starts

winning some of these races where he's been finishing second and third, he now all of a sudden,

he's got a shot at 60. So I don't think Hamlin's going to be the last to get there,

but it will be difficult. But I do think Larson has probably the best chance to get there.

Yeah, he's got the best chance for sure. And I'd love to check in,

in 10 years, in a decade's time when we're in season, whatever it is, 12 of this podcast.

Yeah. I'd love to check back in and see where we are. But the over under is, I feel 60 is,

you know, a good number to talk about where these guys are going to try to hit,

are going to try to hit that no matter where they are. Chase Elliott has 20 wins. Larson has

32, because Larson gets 36. Logano has 37 wins. If you're over 30 wins and under 35 years old right

now, I think you've got a shot. You know what? That's a pretty good braumeter actually.

That's a really good braumeter. Because there would be 30 wins in, let me check my math because

I'm very bad at math. But if you have 30 wins to go and about a decade to do it,

it's about three wins a year, right? Yeah. Yeah. So that's not, that's not unmanageable.

And for some of these, for some of these tops here drivers, you know, a lot of them get two or three

wins a year, or you have a year where maybe you have a down year, but then you go back and have

five or six the next year. Maybe a braumeter should be 35 by 35. Oh, that's a good,

that's a good way of thinking about it. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And you know, and like I said

before at the outset, I don't have, there is not a driver where I say, God, that guy is

dirtier. I don't like him. Probably the closest would be Bush just because he has been,

he's earned the nickname, he's rowdy right now as brother. He's earned the nickname rowdy for a reason

and you know, he's done some stuff off the track with getting angry other drivers and maybe

throwing hands that I don't really like so much. But you know, he's a little bit overly aggressive

on track. And I have some issues with Carson, House of R2, although I think House of R is

more just a young, overly enthusiastic guy and not quite as much of a jerk as I think he's just

racing really aggressively because he thinks that's what he has to do. And I think he'll

mature out of it. But so I don't have the beef with Hamlin the way some fans do in the way some

media do or actually even say media or like pundits because pundits, excuse me, because media,

the beat writers, you know, they kind of keep their opinions themselves because they

sort of have to for objectivity purposes. But there's certainly commentators out there,

podcasters like us, who make their opinions known. But I've never had an issue with Hamlin,

even though earlier this year, he kind of snubbed me when we had a direct one on one interaction.

I don't know that I can't say if it was intentional, if you just didn't hear me. But

you know, I don't root against him. I don't, I'm not going to get mad that he's

going to get 60 and like, Oh my God, that jerk got 60. But that being said,

like he is probably not as a fan favorite. There's certainly not certainly not a fan favorite.

That's obvious. And there's a reason why there's some guys are just better with the fans than he is.

And you're right. I mean, then we've had this, you know, so many times in history of,

you know, whoever the villain happens to be whoever the heel happens to be in sport,

right? I mean, to use a wrestling term. And you know, whether that was

Darryl Walter back in the early 80s, you know, up to Denny Hamlin today. So these, these characters,

you know, I know that a lot of these drivers, they're all human beings, but for sure,

you can be guaranteed that some of them play a part on purpose, right?

And I think that's, that's fine. That's a good thing.

Yeah, I think, I think, you know, every driver is different. And I think it's hard

to really understand that unless you are a fan who gets press pass access,

you can spend some time talking to drivers, maybe getting autographs, that sort of thing.

Or if you are, you know, maybe your company, maybe you work for a company that sponsors a

driver and you get a chance to do a VIP meet and greet kind of thing. Or, you know, the other

thing is, in our case, I've had the chance to meet a few drivers as media. So you get a chance

to get a little bit of a taste of their personality, although it is obviously a public persona and

what they're like behind closed doors might be different. But you can see, that's a long

way of setting up how you can see each driver has different personalities. They interact with

people. And I've found some drivers to be sort of cerebral and kind of just high IQ for racing

and really thoughtful. I found some drivers to be really personable. I think Michael McDowell

is one of those. You have drivers like Bubba Walls, who are kind of straight shooters, but also

you know, personable, but a little bit edgy, a little bit of an edge to them. And then Ligano's

kind of always been smooth as his corporate sponsors, I think. Chase Elliott a little bit too,

and then Kyle Larson, I think, he's overcome his penance for saying a racial slur during

the pandemic. And he's very, very smooth with the media and anyone who talks to him, because

you know, he's obviously a high profile guy. And I think he's learned how to really just, you know,

interact with people really well. And then you've got Denny Hamlin, who is, you know,

like you said, maybe a dirty racer on track. Definitely a true, definitely extra troll people

with your favorite driver loss to me sort of thing. So, but I think Hamlin is also,

his act is sort of fun. Like I think Kyle Bush really is got a temper who really does have a

temper. Whereas Hamlin I think is kind of tongue-in-cheek with some of his, his attitude,

you know, I feel like he, I feel like he's overexaggering a little bit just to get attention

and to get a laugh. And he's probably not quite that guy. He's probably a little more of a nice

guy than he comes across as. I agree. And I do think that he's more leaning into a role

than like you said, called Bush because I mean, Bush would, you've, you've heard some of the, some

of the, some of the radio chat. I mean, it's absolutely berating people. And then,

yeah, he's rough on the radio, rough on the radio. And then I forget who it was that he was

upset with and ran into the car after the race at the end of Pit Road. And the other

happens all the time, but pushed it out of the way. Right. And yeah, I forget. I know

what incident you're talking about. And there's all kinds of stuff like that. So,

yeah, although it's hard to judge because people get emotions like, like Alex Bowman running into

Bubba Wallace a couple of years ago in Chicago after the race, I think it was the race that

Bowman won or Walter and the Hymns something like that. And those guys are, I think they're actually,

and if not friends, or ultimately friendly to each other normally. So sometimes it's just

a matter of not a guy's personality, but just he to the moment. And it's funny,

you talk about Bush being rough on the radio. Well, if you watch broadcast closely,

even some of the really nice guys who are really polished when they talk to reporters after the

race will be fbombing everybody on the radio during a race. Christopher Bell, they forget that

fans can listen in. So even some of the nicest guys get really angry. And I get it. You know,

you're driving faster competing for a lot of money. It's also a safety thing. If someone

does something stupid on the track, they could cost you money, they could cost you position or

win or they could cost you an injury or worse. So I understand why people get upset. But it's

just funny that sometimes there's a two-faced thing to it where a guy seems nice and calm to the

world and then on the radio is sounds like Andrew Dice Clay. I like that. That was awesome.

Thank you. And speaking about coloring outside the lines a little bit, I didn't mention this in

our pregame, lead it up to it. But I wanted to mention two of the track house cars,

Ross Chastain. So the one in the 88 after the race was over. And it's not unusual on the cool down

lap four. And this happens in all circuits, in all series. Well, it happens at your local

bullring too. Exactly, right? You know, when you know that the car is going to be weighed after

the race, the cars while the tires are still hot, they'll run the high line to pick up some marbles

so that it does add a few ounces of weight. And, you know, some of these cars, they're just,

you know, within a pound of not being legal. So what happened with the one in the 88 was that

they both of them turned their cars into the grass, right? As they were entering that

access road in turn three. Oh, I didn't see that. I switched away at the end of the

broadcast. After taking the checkered flag, right? And dirt weighs a lot. So if these cars did pick up

some dirt, if these cars, you know, did pick up some extra weight like that, that would have,

you know, masked any, any sort of, any sort of issues that might have shown up in post race

inspection. So the cop series managing director said, yeah, we're going to talk to you guys

about this afterwards. And they came out afterwards. And they said, you know,

we did not care for that. Oh, interesting. Like that's verbatim, right? From a NASCAR spokesperson.

And there is a rule in there, right? Yeah, I didn't know that. Talking about vehicles,

vehicles must not be altered or adjusted in any manner during the cooldown lap

around pit road prior to reporting to the inspection area. And I think, I always think

when I read that rule, I always think about, I don't remember what race it was that Jimmy Johnson

won. But after taking the checkered flag and coming back around, you know, to do a burnout in the

front, he was still going pretty fast. And he slid down through the grass, right through the apron,

and front of the car dug in, tore the front of the car completely up. And right after the race

was done, then before he was going to do a burnout, and the conspiracy theorists were

saying he was cheating, the front of his car was cheating. And then he tore it off on purpose.

And there's no proof of that whatsoever. Interesting. That's funny.

But those types of rules that exist now sometimes pop up because of those things. And

I wonder if there's going to be something else that pops up in the rule book.

I know that there's a lot of people and I love listening to like Junior's podcast,

when they talk about, you know, we're not breaking rules, we're making new ones, right?

This might be this might be part of that. So yeah, yeah, that's interesting. So I actually,

so I watched Hamlin's burnout, which was one of the longest ones I've ever seen. And I'm impressive to

I could not have the footwork to keep to keep that going as long as he did without spinning the car

or or losing enough grip that I would lose the smoke for him to hold that and hold the clutch

in the right spot and the throttle in the right spot. That's pretty amazing. And

and to not shoot the car off into the wall or something. So props to him for that. But I did

did not see Shane van Gisburgen and his teammate do that. And I wanted to touch on Shane a little

because I think he's not going to make around to he crashed out. I guess he did finish the race,

but he did have a crash. I forget what happened. I think he just lost it. I don't

think there was anything on to order or anyone else hit him. I think he just lost control.

If I remember, I might be getting my races mixed up because I think he's had some problems lately,

but yeah, he's probably out of the playoff picture after that wreck. So that's a bummer because we've

been kind of keeping an eye on we've been keeping our eye on him. And it's, you know, throws my

throws my projection. Because I thought I thought for sure that he's I mean, he started,

I believe, fifth or sixth and points. And I figured he would be far enough above the cut line

that even without a win, he would make it right now. He's 15 points below the cut off line. So

there's still opportunity there. But you know, there's some really, really good drivers, you know,

ahead of them, the Cintrick, Chastain, Logano, they're there, they're there in 12th, 11th and

10th. So and then because then I thought, okay, well, he'll be into the next round and then

he'll win the Roval and then be on to the third round. That's completely up in the air

right now. But I'll still stand by it just in case maybe he'll have an awesome race.

Or he could win and then guarantee. Yeah. But he, you know, he, he spun on lap 156. So like you

said, that puts in 15 points below the cut line. And I think we're going to have have him not

move on, but I hope I'm wrong. So because we'd like to see how you do in the Roval. I would

like to see just have, you know, he's still kind of an outsider, just to see him shake up

that A list of drivers who we've known for the past five years. So with that, if you have anything

else to add on enjoy Illinois, we should go ahead and kind of wrap her up. Or do you want to sort of

talk about at all next week? No, that was great. I know we'll have lots to talk about with Bristol

for sure next week. Yeah, yeah. So Bristol, like just a brief preview, super brief here. Always,

always a fan of the short track racing, the battle of attrition as much as anything else.

So it'll be very, very interesting race, especially since like the memory serves,

this will end the first round of the playoffs. I don't believe, I don't believe it's the fourth

race. I think it's three races four times. So yeah, so we'll see where Shane,

Shane van Gisburg in is, and we'll see what happens, you know, with setting up the second

round. So anyway, Bristol for those who do not know is a Saturday race this weekend,

not a Sunday. And it is at night. I want to say it says 7 30 PM on the schedule I have in front of

me, I assume it's Eastern time. So 7 30 Eastern 6 30. For those of us like myself in the central

time zone, and that would make it 4 30 for the West Coast folks. So anyway, yeah, Bristol

is the next stop. So excuse me. So Matthew, thank you so much for your time here on

the NASCAR segment for the truth about cars podcast. Thanks for having me on. I appreciate it.

That's it for this week's truth about cars podcast. I am Tim Healy, the managing editor,

and you can find us wherever you get your podcasts or online at tgac.com. You can also

find us online at the truth about cars also out.com. We thank Amit Chandarana and Matthew

Guy for their time and Matt Poskey for editing. Most of all, we thank you for listening.

We'll see you next time.

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