Episode 190: Tom is the Nastruck Hero We Need

0:00Hello everyone and welcome to the Lizard Brains podcast, I'm your host DJ Allison Drini. I'm joined by my co-host and probably the most famous man on at least Lime Rock social page today, Tom O'Gorman. Hi Tom. How's it going? It's going great. We are spamming Lime Rock social page because they put up a post of like, hey, we have this NAS truck and it's designated for a free agent. Now how free that is, we don't know, but I made a little post, put in the discord of the podcast. Like, come on everyone, spam Tom.

1:00And I know you deactivated Facebook, but there's like 500 comments on this thing and half of them are like, Tom O'Gorman. That's so cool. I'm definitely feeling the love even though I can't even though I'm not on Facebook, but I don't know. I'm going to be, I'm going to be like jaded for a little second because like, I think it's a third percent chance that it actually happens. And maybe that's a little high, but it's a non zero chance with, come on, that's cool. It's cool to be that, yeah, I haven't felt the love in that way in a long time with it being like, man, everyone's paying attention to what's going on. Like, I remember back in pro racing, like on a race week or after I won, maybe a race that I won. And I would just see people that they post on Facebook and show that they were watching and it felt like we were all doing it together kind of thing. Yeah. That's how this feels. Yeah, yeah. But anyway, it happens is with like, it's like, that's like a $50 to $70,000 endeavor realistically. And even if it's not, it's still only half that, that's $25,000. Yeah. To do one little race. Yeah, but what if it feels irresponsible?

2:01Okay. But what if it's worth like $50 to $100 to like enough people? You know, that's, that would be pretty mind blowing because I, I would throw in like a hundred bucks. I'm like, hell, yeah, let's get, let's get Tom in there. Like, let's see, like, I don't know if, I don't know if that's like speaking for everyone, but if it's worth it to them, so they can see somebody that they know and respect and that you've helped, you know, via podcasts and outside of the podcast and stuff like that. Like, I think like to me, that would be like, money worth well spent. So like, don't feel guilty on that, right? So like, if, if this opportunity does come up and it, and it is happening and there is like a check involved, which let's be honest, they're not just giving out charity over here. This is like a, business, like their post is like a marketing thing of like get people engaged, like, you know, generate some buzz for the race because it's the racetrack post in it, right? But if, yeah, if enough buzz gets created where it's like Tom Agorman, like, I'm not like, we might as well

3:03throw them in the truck. Let's reach out to them. Like, let's, let's at least try to figure it out. That's, that's what, that's where I'm at. Like, let's try to figure it out. And if it, if it feels icky to you, then I will take it on. I will run through the, like, like, what you're gonna see you driving. Oh, yeah. I mean, look, if it still feels icky after we got the funds or whatever, I'll just put blue sunglasses on. I'll be like, yep, I'm Tom Agorman. And, uh, and I'll drive the truck, which, let's be honest, you would do a better job driving the truck. So it might as well be you, okay? You would definitely do a better job drive. He's going to, no, Tom thrives on driving stuff. Well, that drives like crap. So, and I bet that truck freaking sucks. So, yeah. So yeah, you would, I, you would, you would do, I would be so entertained just watching you out there, like, trying to figure it out. That would be crazy. I would need to get it. I would need to start a, like, fitness routine tomorrow. Yeah. To be in shape to drive the truck, which would be fine.

4:06Dude, can you imagine better motivation than, oh, I guess I'm driving a NAS truck in July. Yeah. Yeah. Right. Right. Yeah. Yep. That'd be pretty sick. Hopefully. NASCAR is so foreign to me. I don't even know how any of that works. That'd be fascinating just to be inside of that world for a weekend more than anything. Yeah. And then think I would have to come out. Hopefully I get like a pit pass. And I'm like, I'm going to be like taking notes from you though. Like, I want you to take in the weekend. But like, I'm going to be asking you questions and like, taking notes. And it's going to be like, like a four part or like podcast series or whatever. Yeah. We could do it daily. Yeah, we could almost have to. Yeah. We would definitely have to. Yeah. But yeah, that would be, that would be wildly entertaining. So it would be pretty fun. I don't know if a lot of people, honestly, this is making me feel like we should just do like a remind everybody who we are podcast and tell some stories sometime. Because there's so many things that maybe like new listeners or people that we've met since COVID or whatever, they probably like maybe haven't heard us tell all these stories that even though we've told them

5:08seven times, but I did a crowd. I only got into pro racing because of a crowd fun campaign that I felt, I felt a little weird about, but I put in a lot of effort to make it feel like people were getting something out of it, even though they were just giving me money. And I raised eight grand, I think I raised about half of it on, what did I use? Indiegogo is what I used. So I raised about four grand on there. And then I had people just giving me money, like walking up to me and be like, I know you're raising money on the thing, but I'm just going to give you this cash. And I got like four extra thousand dollars doing that. Well, that's such a wild way to like you support the thing. But I know. But if people believe I had levels where like, hold on, if you gave me 20 bucks, your name was on the car. Yeah. And I still have the hood with all the names. And then I had t-shirts at $50. And I think I had a couple of prizes that no one donated enough to give away. But I was like, oh, some people, I think I think I had like reds tickets, maybe like since 90 reds baseball tickets that my dad procured through the full throttle go kart track situation. Yeah. And like they donated that to the car. Like it was crazy to see how it

6:11came out. And it really, it grains not that much, but I stretched it to go to two race weekends. So I do feel a little bit like I already burned my you realistically, realistically, you should really only use the crowd fun thing like once, no matter what you're doing it for. Like that's an emergency situation or like this is a once in a lifetime opportunity type thing, right? I'm saving my second one. It's a little like, yeah, yeah. I'm saving my go find me. If you go past two, what are we doing? You know, stop asking for money. I'm saving my go find me for GT3 ride at Bathurst. So I just, there you go. Yeah, I just, I have to, we have to build the audience enough and then I can cash in on my one go fund me. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I'm waiting. I'm waiting. I'm going to be like 67 years old. I'm going to finally cash in on it, but like I'll get there. I love it. You just be able to like fist bump at that point and they transfer funds through your like neural link. Yeah. Exactly. Yeah. I can't wait for that. You just win, you just wink at somebody and they get money. Yeah. Uh, well, were you going to ask

7:15something about the crowd fund? I cut you off because I was in the middle. Oh, I was going to say something along the lines of like, uh, it, it's not up to us to judge whether we think it's worth it or not. It's like if people feel like that, like putting that money toward you going to drive an ass truck or whatever, like it's up to them to decide if it's worth it or not. So yeah, just from the, yeah, I haven't decided how I feel about it yet. Obviously, I haven't engaged yet. Yeah. Maybe I'll engage tomorrow or something and just just long enough that it's like the seed's been planted. They've been spammed enough today. Yeah. And then you're like, then like, hey, rip the engine cord and fire it back up again tomorrow. Yeah. I don't know. We'll see. We'll see. I think, um, I'm like, uh, I was, I was feeling like warm and fuzzy is like scrolling through all the comments and like seeing everyone just being like, oh, that's the best part for you. Yeah. So that was cool. That was y'all are awesome. I feel the love. Uh, how was your week, Ben, Tom? It's pretty good. I commentated the road Atlanta super tour, which is the SCCA, like national level

8:18club racing, um, Friday, Saturday and Sunday. I have some, uh, there was some like interesting things that popped up. I don't know if you're telling stories about commentaries. It's very interesting, but we had, um, first of all, also get this out of the way first. I cannot believe how many licensed race car drivers had their car breakdown or be in an accident and they got out of the car on the track and it's not on fire. It happened like a half dozen times. I cannot believe how many times it happened. I was like, we finally just started talking about it on the, on the, on the broadcast. We're like, well, we're full course. Yeah, because Rhode Atlanta had a corner worker get hit and killed a couple of years ago. Yeah. So they, they seem to be appropriately, but extremely gun shy about like anything that's happening on track that involves safety or people or workers. Like, they just go full course yellow right away. And they actually went black flag all a couple times just to like get the cars off the track from circulating. Yeah. And then resume them. But either way, that meant every single time one of these dumbasses got out of their car on the race track. We went full course yellow. So like the third or fourth full course yellow where we're only under yellow

9:21because someone got out of their car. We're just like, well, and we're under full course yellow because this person got, you know, we just started becoming, it's interesting because we run the, we run the spectrum as, you know, when you're an autocross commentator or an answer, you're mostly informational. You're, you're like, maybe partially entertaining. Yeah. But so we're, we are track side and we're also like the voice of the event for the participants in a lot of ways. We make grid calls and we like, we can communicate information about that stuff. But we're also on the broadcast for entertainment talking about the races and like, where is the, where is the fourth wall with that? So there are certain things that we don't talk about and certain things that like we'll make announcements for. There's this group having a party tonight and it's at 530 and here's where it is. What is, what are some of the fourth wall things that you don't talk about? Um, I'm trying to think of a good example. That's a great, I mean, something like when the driver gets out of the car and we go full course yellow. Actually, we had one happen at button willow that was interesting two weeks ago. They only have one ambulance

10:22on the property. Yeah. And somebody tripped and fell or hurt themselves in paddock and the ambulance had to leave the track side to go to the paddock. So we went full course yellow because there was an incident in the paddock that took away the safety truck that there and then on top of that, the closest place to get a new ambulance is not Sacramento. What is the town near button willow? I don't know. Some other town near button willow. Some other town. It's 40 miles away. So if they have to transport somebody from the track, they have to send a new ambulance from there. So it takes however long 40 miles is to get to the track before we can go back to green flag. So we essentially had this like 25 to 30 minute delay because the ambulance left the track to deal with this person who hurt themselves or got hurt something and they leave it. They got transported and we had to wait for the new ambulance to show up. You know, did they leave it? That's something we wouldn't talk about because it's like, it kind of makes the track look dysfunctional a little bit or the event feel a little dysfunctional, but also it's just like, yeah, important information. That kind of stuff is like, we know it's going on, but we don't talk about it

11:24versus at some point when everybody keeps getting out of their car, we could just be like, and everyone keeps getting out of their car. Don't do that. That's why we're full course yellow, you know. Yeah. Did they leave it? Well, of course yellow, that whole time they're waiting for a ambulance to show up or did they just flag the race and go like, yeah, crap happens. I don't remember. It wasn't as long as it could have been. So they either, I think they just did a black flag and put them on the pit lane for a while. Okay, because circulating and during a yellow is so annoying because you have to pay attention. Really boring. It's it's worse than driving in traffic because you have to pay attention enough to like, you know, so you don't run into people, but then also like it's not engaging enough to like, you just sit in their board like you're just like, come on, I'm in a race car. I want to do race car stuff and you're just like, cruising around slowly. You don't even have cruise control because it's a race car. I think you guys were retired by this point, but at the VIR 24 hour champ car race, they always do like a, it's a half hour minimum amount of time because they have to go deliver

12:26like food. It's either new workers to their stations or they delivered dinner to them something. Yeah, it's like, wait, it's well into the night, like 12 hours into the race and you just, you end up doing like 40 minutes of yellow flag code 35 just driving around because like logistically, they have to do that. There's no other way to do it, I guess. Yeah. But it's just part of the thing. I don't, I think you guys had retired by then. But yeah, those types of things, you're like, I got the stint where I just drive around. You're like, oh, no reason. Yep. You're like dang it. You know, that would suck, especially like, you know, because most of the people driving around like 40 minutes under yellow flag, like they paid for that stint. You know what I mean? Yeah, right. That sucks. I'm about the guy. I wonder if you had, you remember, hold on, I wonder if you had like inside knowledge of like the schedule getting laid out and you're like, you're like, I don't want that stint or I want a discount because like, it's not going to cost anything to run the car for 40 minutes, just driving around slowly. Like, I wonder if I can negotiate that in. There's a guy that owns, I think he owns the race team

13:29in GT3 cars. They do all the big like endurance races around the world every year. And he owns a house on the property at Bathurst. And he's a bronze driver, but they run in pro because in the pro category, the bronze driver doesn't have a minimum drive time. So he could literally like, or it's like an hour, right? It's like nothing. So literally anytime there's a full-course yellow that seems like it's going to be a while. They pit in and they put him in and he drives around under yellow or like the least consequential stint possible. It does his little hour in a 12-hour race. And then he literally like goes back home. And they always talk about it on the broadcast like, yeah, he's done his hour. He's probably back at his house. That's so strange. I want to be the pro for that guy because you're just like, you know, it's literally like a lot. He has his two pros and they always do the rest of the race. Like, that's the dream game right there. That is the dream game. Yeah. Yeah. It's like the owner wants to participate, but doesn't even, like, he doesn't even want to drive the car. Like, come on. How bizarre is that? Yeah. Yeah. I don't know. Maybe it's a little too intense.

14:31But he still likes to be like a part of it or something. I don't know. Yeah. Yeah. He was the guy that taught me what Pelican is in Australian. What a guy. And now we have an emoji in the discord. Yeah. This guy's in full. Okay. What else was from this weekend? We also had a really unfortunate series of events. It was, it was kind of like often on raining all weekend, which produced some like really, really good racing. Honestly, I don't know if people think of the broadcast for SCCA races of like, oh, that's on. I'm going to watch it for the entertainment value, but like the spec me out of races are always good. The SRF races are always good. You know, I see some people too, but I think more people should because they end up as SMX races were really good. But it was raining off and on. And at the very end, it started to what happened? What happened? Trying to jog my memory because it was like the, oh, okay. So something happened where somebody was broken down or had a spin and they had to go full course yellow. And during the full course yellow, it started to rain super hard. And all the cars on track, it was Formula Lannix, Formula Continentals and Formula Enterprise. They're all on slicks.

15:34The track had been like a dry line. And they just made the call. I think it had five laps left. Like, this is just dangerous to ask them to keep racing. And because you can't just go do a pitstop in club racing, they, they flagged it early. So while they flagged that race early, and then they had a like switch around for the next group to come out on the grid. And then they did like, oh, everybody came to grid before the rain came. So we need to give them time to go change their rain tires. So they gave them 20 extra minutes to go back to paddock, change the tires, come back. And somehow a car got out out of the grid leaking oil and essentially leaked a full out lap of oil. And the corner workers all caught it because the car's smoking and they can smell it and everything. So they wave off the green flag. They bring them down the pit lane. And then when it rains and then oil hits the rain, it just goes everywhere. Like there's not a stream of oil. It's not a line of oil. It's like a lake of oil. The whole track. Yeah. And the only ways to fix it are to wash it off with more rain or more water or wait for it to dry. That's the only options.

16:37And the track couldn't get it good enough to race. So we ended up like the last hour and a half of the broadcast. We were not there was no racing. There was like the blue balls of are we gonna you know the anticipation of are we gonna get a race. And you and Greg are just on the mic this whole time. Well, no, no, no, we did a lot of breaks. But then we had Eric Grill who's the VP of SCCA in club racing. He was on with us a little bit. So we're just like filling, filling, filling, filling, filling. And then it's just like, okay, no race. Everyone go home. So that's kind of the bummer. But everything else like most of the race was really good. What group didn't get to race? Cause man, that would just be that would peeve me so much. It would be so annoying. It was the big group. So like GT one GT two. Oh, those cars are really expensive to like. Yeah, that's sexy. Yeah, they spent all the money to to be there. And then I mean, they they raised on the other day though, right? Uh, yeah. So at least they got some racing in. But yeah, it's like when I when I did my spec MX five race there, you know, I won that in a sim racing competition.

17:38And I go there with winding road racing. They provide a race car for the weekend. And I just have to show up and drive it. And uh, both races ended ended under yellow cause production cars would like stick themselves in sand traps. Uh, and for some reason, so like each race was like a little under 10 minutes long. And I should have had an hour of racing. And instead I had like 18 minutes of racing like for the, you know, for the whole weekend. So like I was just a little bit bummed leaving that. So but I can't like at least I got to take some green flags. You know what I mean? So yeah, wow, what a what a bummer for the for those those guys. But yeah, what do you do? Like what are you going to do? You're going to go out there and race in the oil? Like that's that's the problem. We were, you know, me, uh, we were having a discussion. Uh, like it was surrounded surrounded around Luke McGrew. And during that discussion, uh, it just made me realize that sim racing is just the better platform to compete because I would never have an sim racing. There's so much annoying stuff that happens in real life that gets in the way of the, you know,

18:42the goal of of the everything. Everyone is there. Mostly everyone is there to compete. And there's just so much real world stuff that gets in the way. Lightning, uh, a car oils down the track and it's wet. Uh, some other like like they, uh, they they can't fix the barrier or something. And now it's like it's it's not like that stuff never happens in sim racing. And you just get to do it. Like the competition is going to happen unless yeah, like I racing servers are down or something or like your computer breaks or something like that. But let's that happens so less often than real world stuff, just getting in the way of having the fun. Yep. Yeah. And there's even levels to that because that's why like when I play sim racing, I don't want damage on. Damage is one of the worst parts about racing. Why would I want that part? I personally, I hate dealing with setting up a car. I think it's obnoxious. I want to fix that up. I don't want to have to go through all of that work to make the car quote unquote better.

19:43And like, I just want to race. Like so even that you and I have the different level of that. Yeah. Yeah. True. True. Yeah. sim. I like, I like Kevin the car drive the way I want it to. And you're just like, I just want to drive the car. So true. Yeah. But then every after time I get the setup from somebody else or I play with it and it turns worse or it's junk or I can't drive it. And half the time I'm like, oh yeah, I would never want to drive the car any other way than this. So I see the value of course. Oh, well, anyway, so that was most of my weekend. There was something else from last week that I did that I thought would apply, but I can't remember right now. What did you do this weekend? Um, kind of just like a wholesome weekend home, didn't you? Oh, yeah, I went, um, I went bowling with my, uh, with my dad and my sister and, um, and my, uh, little little brother. And, um, I suck at bowling. I'm really bad at it. I, uh, my sister took a video of me bowling because they were like, you look like, you look so wacky

20:47when you go up there. Like they're all like, you know, they have like, they have like, they're like, balled, they have like a little towel and they're like wiping their ball down. And I'm just like, I don't know, the pink one's cool. And, and, uh, I go up there. I like, my, my thumb doesn't like go in the ball correctly. So I just put two fingers in and I just kind of like hold underneath it. And then I just like fling it sideways, like down the alley or whatever. And it like, it like works for the most part. Um, but like my sister recorded me and my god, it looks frickin ridiculous when I go up there and throw the ball. And I found my, my right arm is still sore. This was on Saturday. We're recording on Wednesday. My right arm is still sore because the way I was trucking the ball down the alley was, um, was like, I, I looked like a maniac, uh, but I had some kind of consistency with it at least, uh, but you know, you have to show us this video now, right? You can't just say all that and never show us. I don't know. It's a little weird. Look, I've had enough embarrassing things happen this week. And I'm going to, I'm going to embarrass myself on the podcast because that's what this, that's what this show is for. But I had a, I didn't mute my mic on

21:52team's moment, uh, earlier this week. And I'm going to share it with everyone. And so I'm in, I'm, I'm being trained on a new thing at work. And I'm in a call with a bunch of people I don't know. So like they, this is like the, these are the first impressions of yours truly. Uh, and I didn't mute my mic. And I have this thing with my cat where the cat will come up. She'll meow at me. I'll stand up and go like, like, oh, where are we going? And I'll chase her down the hall, go and Google a, Google a, Google a, like, and like, like we're skittering down the hall. She goes to the treadmill. I turned it on and I give her a bunch of pets that she walks in the treadmill. And in the middle of this, uh, somebody in the call goes, uh, DJ, you're not muted. And so I'm running down the hall, like baby talking my cat. And, um, and the whole, uh, the whole

22:53call, uh, heard that. And, um, yeah. So that's great. So, um, later in the day, I sent, um, I sent a, uh, uh, a video of me chasing the cat down the hall to the, to the group saying, well, you, you heard what it sounded like. So this is what it looks like. And, um, yeah. Yeah. So, that's so funny. I understand the embarrassing, but it's also very cute and charming. Yeah. I'm, I'm, I'm a serious person, damn it. I swear. Serious age back, man, serious business man, man over here. Fucking yelling at his cat, running down the hall. Uh, oh well. Yeah. I've all had a moment like that. I'm sure I can't think of one for myself. I wish, I wish I had like a proximity sensor on my computer where like if I walk away from it, and I don't click a certain button, it just goes like, he meant to be muted. So are you just wearing a headset all day then for work? I have like, uh, like that little

23:57in-ear Bluetooth headphones, you know, that you normally have paired to a phone. I have that paired to my computer. So I, I, I can actually walk all over the house. Hmm. It's very convenient. Yeah. I guess if as long as you run the risk of, like a maniac away from your computer, I must, I, I like, so the, what makes it worse is that so we're all being trained on this, uh, this new like very complicated thing. So the meetings are being recorded. So that means that there's a recording of the audio of me like, like yelling at my cat, running down the hall. And I can't bring myself to go to listen to it, because I think I would die. That's so funny. Yeah. So if, if I have to refer back to those videos to like help with, uh, this, uh, new process I'm going to be doing, uh, I'm just going to skip over that part. I'm like, oh, I know what's coming. No, no, I'm just going to skip it. Uh, um, I remember the other things. So I, I noticed, uh, on the sim racing side of things,

24:59I kind of locked in on sim racing this week a bit because I want to get used to this rig. And I said, I'll give myself a week to never adjust it once I kind of get it close, right? Like, try to try to stop thinking about adjusting it and just get used to it. Yep. Which has been working really well. But I also noticed my safety rating, which if you're not an eye racer is essentially like how safe or clean of a racer you are. And it goes up when you race clean and it goes down when you crash into other people or get crashed into or whatever. Yeah. Uh, it had dropped. So you get, uh, you get downgraded if you're below two. It's on a total of four, right? Yep. And you get upgraded if you're above three. Is that right? Correct. If you've done the, um, like the required race, so like it, let's say your B class and you're trying to go to A class, you need to do two B class races and have your safety rating above three. Right. And you can only race in certain series if you have a certain level of license. Anyway, all that to say, I have a B class license, but I noticed my safety rating was like 1.13.

26:02So you were about, you're about to get rid of quit so many races or gotten crashed into or crashed myself out enough. Yeah. I was like, I can't, and I like having B because I think B is the highest level of, of things where you can drive everything and not, uh, not be missing out. If you have an A license, you can really only do like the top level basically endurance races, which I don't care to do. So I don't care about having A. It's not even an endurance race. It's just like the 40 minute imza playlist races. So it's like GTP, LMP two and GT three. And like that's basically, it's so it's like, uh, imza, uh, simulation. Uh, and if you don't belong, I would, yeah, if you don't feel like getting crashed out by LMP two drivers, then like, like, you don't need an A, you don't need an A license. Yeah. So I was like, I'm going to take this day this afternoon. I started it like two, thirty three o'clock and raced until it was above two. And it raced up to 2.7 after like three or four races. And it was fine. But all of that gave me something to kind of focus on the sim for and get a little bit more use to this rig, which was all positive. Yeah. So I feel like pretty good about this, this rig and the specifically I racing. I haven't played much

27:05of set of course yet. And it sounds like a set of may not take to this stuff as well. But I'll get there eventually. I've been enjoying I racing. That's good. I have to share these rare moments with the podcast. I want this. This is rare. I want more than anything for Tom to enjoy I racing. I've been doing officials on my own for fun is weird. Yeah. I've just been I've just been so busy time. I want to do officials and yeah, I just I feel like I've I haven't really done any races for myself in a while. I did. I mean, I have Thursday nights. That's like where I do my one league race like a night. And then sometimes coaching will get canceled. And I'm like, oh crap, what league races tonight and I can make those. But yeah, I've just been I've just been insanely busy. It's making me think and I know I have a lot of clients that listen to this, but it's make me think that I might have to increase my rates because I'm like having the book people like two weeks out and I don't want to have to do that. I want to if somebody wants help, I have an open spot. And I'm just running out of spots. So I don't I don't want that to be the

28:09case. I want if somebody wants help, they can get help. So that's it's a tough line to walk with that because it is I mean, it's functionally just a monetized business. Yeah, no matter how much you like doing it. So everyone always gave me the advice to raise your prices until you start to lose clients, but that feels gross, right? Because you have you have clients you like you have clients you've been working with for a while. You have people. Yeah, exactly. They are more enjoyable to coach or they're more engaged. And often as you price people out, you lose the people that you want. Yeah, exactly. You lose the people that can afford it. And then all of a sudden you're just doing it for work. I mean, I struggled with this with coaching to an extent. But mostly in the sense that I do like the $500 weekends for grid life and I could coach five people that would make my coaching rate or I could say like, well, I'm going to raise my rate for that. And I'm going to do $1,200 a day. And like one guy will be able to pay that.

29:15But I rather work with five of people, five people that I like and that are kind of doing the level of stuff that I can relate to. And it's interesting. I don't know how I mean, I think people who are not in our position have a lot of easier. And I think a lot of people at this podcast will relate to us more. So then that like that pro coach doesn't think about that stuff as much. Yeah. Or maybe they just don't either they don't care and don't feel the sense of obligation or like, I don't know if obligation is the right word. But that grassroots effort that you and I are used to. Yeah, I try to put myself in somebody who's like a pro coach who's probably mostly either gotten their experience working for like Skip Barber and out as a privately or just was racing and started privately coaching. I don't know if they can relate to that grassroots sense of like what we feel. You know, when we're when we're talking like pricing and money and things like that. Yeah, right now about that. Yeah, right now. I think just because like race season is starting up and people, you know, they want some direction for the race season. So I think that's why the coaching

30:18as of like the last like month and a half has just been super busy for me. I don't see the eye racing coaching like carrying with this like velocity into the summer. Normally, it gets like, you know, where you have only have like a couple appointments a week. Just because people are busy, like people are, you know, they're working on their car and and I do share this advice with the coaching clients who like jump off for the summer. They're like, oh, yeah, I'm going to be hanging this the same up or whatever. But I think it's really important to keep sim racing the whole year, even while you're driving the real car. And this is the reason I give is you need to be able to connect the things that you're learning and sim racing over the winter to the real car. And you need to like be able to do that like back and forth switch. So the real car can transfer into the sim and the same can transfer in the real car. It's not like a hundred percent clean handoff when you go right from the same into the real car. And then you don't go back to the sim for another six months or whatever. But if you if you are doing both

31:23at the same time, the things that you learn, the things that you're trying to put together and turn into subconscious executables, those things will transfer easier over a longer duration of time of doing both. If you just do one or the other, you'll have a percentage of handoff, but it won't be the full 100% handoff of all the things that you've been working on the whole winter. Yep. Yeah. For a long time, I treated it just as race craft practice and not even practice, just staying fresh with race, race craft is all about like being able to see what the trajectory momentum of cars around you at all times is and plan to do whatever you can with it. Like when you boil it down, I think it's pretty pretty just that. So if you're doing three races a week in your sim and you're seeing the mistakes people could make or you're seeing how like that person's trajectory is going to give you an opportunity here or there. You start to like constantly see those things firing. Yep. You're racing, you're racing like four or five times as much as the person that's starting next to you on the grid on your Sunday, you know? Yeah. Yeah. Definitely.

32:27So like you think about that. It's and it's not even you don't even have to be learning a new thing. It could just be cementing those pathways in your brain that recognize the patterns, the mistakes, the like you will recognize those things just a little bit faster and maybe just that little bit faster means that you're actually able to capitalize on those things. It's just a great tool to to stay fresh and to just have your actions be more automatic than they would be otherwise. I'm curious how by the way, we're hosting a Sim Race this weekend. It's at noon. It's a two-hour endurance race and I racing that you can do by yourself or with one other person and guarantee be competitive anyway. But I'm curious because it's also a NASA weekend with a lot of our audience. The people who we'd similar with, it's like pretty overlapped into that of it. Yeah. You're curious to see if it fills to the same number because we usually get about 50 some teams. Yeah. What if it'll be more full because we gave it so many options. We have six different cars in the race, six different classes. So there's lots of options and it's only two hours

33:30so it's not that big of a bite. But also it's getting into people's race seasons. I can't believe you're going to VIR for a day and then coming back for this race. You're maniac. The guy I'm coaching was like, well, why can't you do Sunday? I didn't have the heart to say like, Kuloa of a Sim Race. It was like, I'm sorry, I have a conflict. So I was trying to, he really wants to get better at VIR and this is the only VIR weekend that works for the whole year. So I was like, well, I can come out Saturday. But I'm not going to miss my own event, Tom. Come on. I get it. I get it. Yeah. What would it be if like, if like, oh, come to our thing and like, do the thing and then like, like, I'm not even here. I just think that's a bad look. I'm trying to figure out what I'm going to do about that with our ASM track day at Black Hawk because we got dates from them and this overlaps with one of my SCCA commentary weekends. So I'm thinking like, I either don't go

34:31to my own event and then like, Andy and me. Oh, Tom, I lost your mic. I don't know if that's a lie. Okay, you're back. You're back. No, we have a huge thunderstorm picked up as soon as we started. That's why keep looking and it's like crazy wind. Okay, okay. But maybe that was that. Anyway, Black Hawk. Oh, because I can either like, go to my own event and commentate all day from Black Hawk and hope they have the internet for it, but not really be able to help. Or, but that'd be it for hands after the whole day. I could at least be social, right? And like, we take enough breaks and stuff and the SCCA stuff. I could pop in and out and out. I haven't decided what I'm going to do with that yet because I mostly don't trust the internet up there. You get a commentating remote and I don't have good internet. Then I just like, didn't do my job. Look, if anybody knows the internet situation at Black Hawk, I mean, you could, you could just, uh, what about cell service? Is that like, okay? That's what I mean, the cell service is trash there. I could probably ask them if there's like some internet I could connect to. Yeah, but it might not be like almost hardwired. Yeah, but it might, it might not even

35:33be like good enough internet. It might just be like some DSL like 10, like 10 gigabyte down, like quarter gigabyte up or whatever, because it's just a racetrack. Like, how good of internet does a racetrack need? You know what I mean? Especially, yeah, there, it's not a, it's a very club race track. Yeah, very, very club level. It's like they like, I don't, they barely have bathrooms. So I've never actually, like, kind of like someone I have a conflict instead of telling him, you have a similar race hits close to home. Actually, I bet there's probably, there's of the eight or eight hundred nine hundred thousand people, whatever, listen to this. I bet at least a hundred two hundred of them have used that before. Oh, absolutely. Yeah. Sorry. I have a conflict. I can, uh, can't make it. Yeah. So I'm, I'm willing to bet that at some point, my coaching client, uh, he might already listen to the, to the podcast or maybe he doesn't. Um, but if you're listening, uh, C6 Corvette owner, uh, hello, welcome to the podcast. I'm sure you heard about it in this last

36:34weekend of coaching and I, and now you're listening to it on your way home. I'm sure we had a great time and everything. Here's the thing. This podcast is a big enough deal that you have to be at your own sim race. And I'm going to get to raise a NASCAR. Oh, I have the shirt. Oh, look at my ass car shirt. Did you do that on purpose? Nope. Tom's like, hmm, what's, uh, what's, uh, uh, perfect shirt for when I became famous on, uh, Lyme Rock social media. Yeah. The, the, the Yaskar pride LGBT merch that NASCAR sells, but they would love that. Lyme Rock, my, I don't know, it's Connecticut. I'll take those, I'll take those fans. Hell yeah. Yeah. Um, we had a couple really good questions recently. I don't know that anyone's like huge, but do you want to jump over to that? You have anything else from this week? No, I, I remember last week we hinted at a, a topic, uh, but me and Tom didn't talk about it at all. So, uh, next week, oh, Tom,

37:40we're going to have to figure out something, whether we record early of when I'm in Las Vegas for the pro solos, but we'll, we'll discuss that later because I'm going to, I'm going to be in Las Vegas for, uh, a whole week. So remind me what your topic idea was. Uh, take a lot of planning. Rational, texted it to me, rational, versed or irrational fear, like while driving on a track. Do you want to think about that more? Because I, I don't really understand that as a topic, but I'm curious to hear why you thought it. I'll explain it to you because I want to hear how you, how you work past that in your own head or how you would help other people work past that. Yeah. Okay. Interesting. All right. If you want to plan for it, we can do that. Yeah. I'd rather, I'd rather record. Okay. Questions. Tom, do you have one queued up and I just need to hit the button? Yeah. Okay. Okay. This one comes from a name I had not heard in a while and was so surprised and

38:40happy to see pop up. I have no idea how this person still knew how to find us or whatever. But this comes from Jonathan Sexton, who, for some context, when I started out of crossing in Cincinnati, um, I had a civic that my parents bought me to go to high school. It was like a 97 civic coup, like $2,000 car. And it was an H stock, the class. And when I started going to events, there were two really fast people in H stock, Jack Burns, who's won some national championships and Jonathan Sexton. And Sexton was driving a Sion TC in this class, which like no one did, but he was really fast. So I remember, so I, I like paid attention to him because we kept being in the class together and I, we got to know each other and stuff. Anyway, so he joined the discord and asked this question, what's the best old Cincinnati SECA region auto cross lot river downs or Ford Sharonville? And those mean nothing to me. Yeah, those mean nothing to nobody. But I

39:41loved the context of like how this question popped up because it has so much history behind it. I think River Downs was actually never got to auto cross at Sharonville. Sharonville was this Ford transmission plant and they would let people auto cross in the parking lot where the people would park for their nine to fives during the week. And apparently it was this amazing lot and it had these huge divisional events, 300 cars. Everybody would plan for this and they lost that site like a year or two before I got to auto cross there. And I would always hear these stories. I'm sure everybody who's auto crossed has the stories. Here's these stories from the old grizzly auto crossers of this site that they used to have that was great. And that was this one for us. But River Downs was a horse racing track and that was like the main lot. It was terrible. It was long and narrow and bumpy. That's the one you said that you prefer. I know because I never got the other one. But this one was where I like started auto crossing essentially. I'm John the biggest blank. But what was that big airport that was down in like southern Ohio that people no longer run at? What was that one? Wilmington. Wilmington. That's the one I always hear about because

40:46when I started auto crossing is right when that site became no longer a site. What is Tom? Here's a question to you. What is the best auto cross site in the country? Lincoln. Why do you say that? Just the space and the courses that can be created? Yeah. And also I like that it has some texture to it in the sense that it ends up creating like a very small amount of elevation change and texture that I think I'd cite like Toledo. Toledo to me is actually a little bit frustrating because it's so smooth and polished but it's all grained in one direction. Yeah. That it the car does weird things as you transition along the direction of the graining of this perfectly smooth concrete. And I've never lucked. I've never really loved the feel of that site. But then when you go to Lincoln and Wilmington was like this too, Wilmington actually had bigger rolling texture to it. Like these kind of elevations up and down across it because it was so old. There's no it's not consistent enough to become so like you start to notice those inconsistencies.

41:49I guess that makes sense. Yeah. No, I hear what you're saying. Okay. What? This is dorky ass. Does Lincoln. Yeah. Does Lincoln. If you include the outside space like restaurants and like places to sleep that are relatively affordable stuff like that. Is Lincoln still at the top? Yeah. I love the downtown area in Lincoln. I think it's cool. Okay. Also, I used to every year, solar nationals, I would go to this one place and get my haircut. And it was always the best haircut of the year. What? You would go to which is from the same place like three times. And after the third one, I'm like this is the same one and it's always a good haircut. So that you would just randomly end up at the same one. Yeah. Back when I was a little gypsy and I never had to like work in haircuts on the road. You know, I I'm trying to think if there's any other one that really stands out to me. I used to love Finger Lakes. Wilmington, of course. And I love an airport course. Yeah. So Finger Lakes is good. I just like the area of Finger Lakes too. We used to have this place called Blyphil.

42:51In we used to auto cross in a place called Blyphil, Arkansas. A bottle is how they would say it. And it was a dump of a town. It was one of those towns that you can picture from like cliche cliche movie where what used to have a booming industry and now everything's washed up and everything's closed. So it literally had like a hotel with a restaurant. But it was a Mexican restaurant. And they had a sonic. That was like all you could eat there, but it was this really, really long wide. So it ended up being runway style courses because it was so long, but it was also wide enough. It wasn't a square anyway. The pro solos there were really fun because it ended up being a runway course straight out turn around straight back. Yeah. I love that place too, but it was a dump of the town. You just basically we would eat we would eat Sonic one night and we would have margaritas in Mexican the other night. So it worked because that's what you do it auto cross anyway. Yeah. But the rest of the town was trash. It was horrible. I think I think I'm risky heard about it. Yeah. I heard it was used to go there.

43:52I think Charlotte should get mixed into that too because it does have some elevation changes and the town's really nice. Like there's just there's a ton of places to eat and stay at Charlotte. And then you can camp like I just think I just think that's that's just a great site. And then it's fun to panic under the bleachers. Yeah. So like you have like shelter from the sun. So you're not like completely destroyed at the end of the weekend. That's probably my biggest gripe with the weekend. Is you have to bring the infrastructure to have like a place to chill. So like if it's just like a local weekend and you're not bombing off your buddies like basically Villa that he made out of pop up tents because you know the whole region bans together and makes like like a living space with a simrig shout out to Alex Peel. Then I think Lincoln hits a little different. I've never been there for spring Nats. I'm trying to get out there this year. We'll see if that happens or not. But it's weird. It feels really empty. Yeah. That's that's how I'm guessing it would feel because I've only ever been there for nationals.

44:56So I'm curious what that's like is like a local lee site. Because actually it's starting to be hard to. Food would be hard there too. Because there's you think of does a food truck show up for the locals? I doubt it. I don't know. I taught it starting line there once. So we had a one day event that it was like just 24 cars on that huge site. And then the local the local the next day and they reset up one of the old nationals courses and we got to run it again. That would be sick. But it's it is weird to be on that site with like a hundred people. What an advantage to have that as your local site. That would be huge. I guess I the reason that I think it would be an advantage is my first time maybe even my first two times I went to Lincoln. The the sheer amount of space to me throws off my census speed because every every other place I'm running there's like things to hit and like stuff nearby. So you see that stuff whooshing by in your peripheral and that gives you a sense of speed without

45:59even realizing that it's giving you a sense of speed. So they were to get out the Lincoln. You're like hitting the rev limiter and you're like wait what and then you look down thinking your car's broken. You're expecting to see that check engine lights and you're like oh no I'm at the rev limiter. Like like it's just the sense of speed is like completely off. Which is crazy. You brought that up probably well before the the podcast when we like really or when we met. Yeah. And I'd never thought about it before but then as I ran back because this was like to probably 2017 2018 the first time you said this to me. And we've been going there since 2009 for Nationals. So I've been there a lot at this point. And you brought that up like I struggled this year because I couldn't get I was going too fast. My census speed was wrong. I thought there was no grip like my first two years actually IDNF runs in Nationals competition by going too fast into things. Yeah. And I'm like I guarantee you I just didn't notice that I was going faster because I didn't have something like that. Yeah. It's like I even did that and didn't realize it. I bet. Yeah. Well to me it was like wow there's like no grip out here. And it wasn't that there was no grip. It's just I was going faster than I thought I was. So I had less radius available

47:06uh to turn which means that both of us were doing a bad job at something more fundamental but yes exactly which I mean you're going to lack of scenery to totally play it into it. Very few people on their first Nationals have like the fundamentals freaking nailed down. So I mean that's just not how it works. So damn you, Andrew Palata. Yeah. Except Andrew Palata. He had the fundamentals nailed down. He did. And to all other first time solar nationals winners. So must be nice. Must be nice. When I went I was convinced that would be me though. I don't know what you said. Nope. I thought it was a thousand percent convinced that I could win my first year. What was the what was the podcast that uh Kinshren Dell was doing auto cross talk I think is what it was called? Yeah. Yeah. Uh I was on an episode of that. That was probably my first appearance ever on a podcast auto cross talk. Look for 2017 rookies if you want to find it. I'm the first guest. He like recorded a bunch of people who like were there for their first Nationals. And I

48:09explained to Kinsh how I thought I was just going to win this thing and you get to you get to hear my Dunning Kruger curve uh where I explained like that is not the case and I didn't even trophy. So yeah. Yep. So the podcast that got me into podcasts Taylor Wargo. But auto cross talk. There's a lot of great episodes on there. I'm actually curious how it ages now that I have a little bit more of an understanding of auto cross. But I just remember listening like Brian Peters and same strano and you know all like the legends of the sport in that podcast and they all describe driving in different ways. And I just remember listening because I listened to all sorts of driving podcasts when I first started driving is I'm sure a lot of a lot of people um uh listen to our podcast and you're just like if the whole podcast you listen to the whole hour and a half hour whatever of the podcast and you come away with one little nugget where you're like dang I never really thought about driving like that before whatever

49:12I always felt like dang that was an hour that was an hour well spent like I the rest of it whatever I couldn't care for any of that but if I came away with one thing where I was like dang I'm gonna have to I'm gonna think about that for a little while and try it at my next auto cross event or whatever like I just yeah I just ate stuff up like that. I would listen to podcast where I didn't actually think they really knew all that much about driving but it would just make me think about driving I would think about the ways they were explaining something incorrectly which would make me think about like why is it incorrect and uh like how do I put how would I put that into words and like explain the thing that they're explaining and because it would just make me think about driving in a time where I normally wouldn't be thinking about driving. I think auto cross is probably more conducive to that style of conversation than road course driving because it is even more abstract than it's all the same ideas right but a road course driver I've met so many road like road racers who don't think about weight transfer they

50:17only think about like breaking zone that's my break point and then I drive my line yeah and that's the like they've stopped thinking about it fast that point and I works for some people but it doesn't work for a lot of other people especially like how do you teach someone new off of that yeah yeah yeah that's how you end up with these like rigid minded drivers at track days and road race groups who like can't function when they go off the line or when they lose a break like if the break markers aren't out of they go to a new race track they can't find the way out of the paper bag for the first lap not even lap day week yeah we went the I did the first weekend ever for SECA club racing at NCM yeah as all these people who have literally only been driving like middle-hi-o engenderman for the entire racing careers it was a mess no one knew where to go I watched my old videos of it and I didn't know where to go wait where do you think oh yeah because like I learned it on a set of course a mod so when I got there at least I knew where it went which is like a huge help just knowing which way the track goes like we're being able to watch

51:18a video and yeah just knowing which way to go before you get there is like that's such a huge help when it comes to learning a race track especially a track like NCM like what a daunting track I wonder what the first couple weekends of Ozarks was like because that's like NCM on crack yeah true it's like CM but you can't see anywhere and it's like 30 some corners right like it's like NCM is 23 yeah and Ozarks like somebody somebody in the chat look up how many corners Ozarks is but I think it's in the 30s so bummed I still have never been there yet oh we'll get there eventually maybe in a NAS truck yeah right we're gonna test there I think Ozarks is 19 I want to see if I'm right hmm somebody look it up please anyway uh that was a fun reminiscing uh stint after that question thank you Jonathan good to hear from you okay I am going to uh hold on I gotta get rid of that one okay uh I'm gonna scroll for a second I got it wait hang on what I just realized something

52:18both of us have an iconic John in our lives who was autocrossing a sion TC when we started I have an iconic John John Loughlin it wasn't he in a sion TC when you were like that guy I got to ride with him no no he was in uh he was in a uh NB Miata oh okay when I met him he had a sion TC and I'm just realized holy crap that's crazy for both of us to have that stat no yeah lives yeah John Loughlin uh I he was beating me and I'm like I should be faster than a Miata and um so I like went up to him and I remember being like so nervous to ask him to drive my car and like in hindsight it's like like oh yeah sure I'd love to um and that was his answer uh and then he took me out and I sat passenger seat and I was like oh my god he's like driving to the element and then hitting the brakes when he gets there I like I don't know why I'm like time I was so bad at this when I first started I'd be like I'm at the speed for the next element hell yeah when I get there I'm gonna do so good yeah

53:22why would I want to go faster right now because now I will be going to fix the speed that I need to be when I get there yeah I'm I'm already going the speed I need to be why would I like I'm not I'm not hurry here what are we doing racing yeah that's such a traffic-minded person you know that person that talks about their commute and they want to pass me and they think well now I'm at the same stoplight as you that was you on the autocrats cars had no it's just because you raised to the finish you think you're better than me we're all gonna get there at the same time anyway the that ended at the same time for all of us oh no that's like an SNL skit for out across yourself uh you throw like a car guy in there like a hood opens up and people just start like being pulled over there yeah yeah yeah I like to skit we need to make this skit I only like the people that listen to this podcast will get it but it will be entertaining for us so okay uh did du du du devin from hookdown driving ask uh what level do you need to drive a car

54:25to fully understand its behavioral characteristics uh like is seven tense enough nine tense can it be done on the street uh do you need it uh can it be autocrats or does it have to be tracked to understand its behavior so what do you think Tom I have to reread this question I'm trying to find it uh uh February 23rd is when it came in so level do you do okay I interesting so I've I've done shock tuning on people's shocks before just driving around on the street because like there's spectrums right like you have like you can be like 80% there just by like just driving around like you don't have the car doesn't have to be like absolutely at the limit at least for like shock tuning because it should just it shouldn't feel like it crashes it shouldn't feel like marshmallow we soft uh like you can get like mostly there but

55:34I feel like the the closer you're driving to the edge the more fine tuning that will actually matter so like it's it's like it's on the same scale right like you can you can notice that the car is like not correct just driving around in the in the paddock if something's like really not correct right but in order to understand like the very last nuances of a car setup you kind of have to be like trying to put together a lap time right not even just driving 10 tents but like what is stopping me from from having the car in a position where this lap would be faster right yeah yeah I agree I took it let you're talking setup you mentioned setup but I took it just as even the characteristics for example I got to drive a first gen Acura NSX on parade laps during a track night and that's the only first gen NSX ever driven so I didn't I I was running the event so I gave myself space opposite the track and I did drive a little quicker but I didn't drive like a

56:36race car driver and I didn't have a helmet on and all this yeah so what I learned from driving it at 610s 510s I don't know is that like I thought I don't know what I expected from it but it's this iconic car right and I learned oh it still feels like a 90s car it almost feels like the Civic I drove to high school in a lot of ways the steering rack is slower than I would want it to be yeah the the the way it feels is very much more 90s than I expected I didn't have to drive very hard to figure that kind of stuff out or like what you're talking about you could totally troubleshoot a mechanical issue without doing that kind of thing but yeah you're not ever gonna that NSX could have had some sort of like snap over steer tendency when you get it loaded and you're not you know you're like there's something that you're just never gonna learn that until you put the car in that position like I think a good example of that is if you don't have enough rear camber on the car and when it's fully loaded up it's it will it will feel like it just snaps

57:37because you roll yeah because you just roll over to the sidewall and if it's never fully loaded up then you're like I don't know it feels good it feels good and then now you finally get loaded up and then you're like oh hey what was that you're on the sidewall yep so I think you can basically learn what a car it's basically like when you're car shopping you test drive it you can learn all that stuff from when you test drive it on the street but you kind of have to take it to a track if you're gonna discover all of those um nuances of driving it fast I'm I'm tying this to my head of like at what point can you actually start when you're when you're when you're when you're just a new driver so many people struggle by learning to go faster because they're not willing to go faster yeah it starts through that I guess that's the fear topic I just wandered my way into your fear irrational fear topic basically a little bit yeah yeah I um yeah I think um and obviously whatever uh I think you're right maybe this isn't like a fully set up uh question

58:43but oh that's just interesting you took it there I didn't think of that yeah I think uh I think it's as you get closer to 1010 so you're gonna start understanding like those specific nuances like like for example if the if the rear loads into the sidewall of the tire like you're just gonna you know it's it's just gonna feel like not as predictable as it could be I remember that was like my biggest takeaway when I threw some more rear camber at the GLTC Civic was that oh now like I can just it just glides around on the rear it doesn't like it it doesn't feel like I'm gonna lose it like rapidly because with with that car it was like a whole learning experience of like what should a car drive like like I didn't know like remember my first year I drove it on blown shocks because I was just like yeah this car is really unhappy on entries if you charge it too hard now I just didn't have shocks I was just driving around on springs but I didn't know that I've never driven a car in coilovers before right I had a similar thing with the TCA car we ran

59:45like five and a half degrees of camber in the back and the team took it down to two for one event because they thought they would be better and the car got so snappy I was like no put it back five and a half please yeah just like it would just mush in the tire so like I could be as it was basically backwards before I lost rear grip it was great yeah okay this is really interesting actually Ryan Kristoff who works in like calibration industry for automobiles he said in the industry it's linear range up to about point six to point eight g depending on the car then it's limit handling and those two can behave very differently depending on differential alignment tire pressures etc that that's like engineering minded answer to that or engineering experience answer for that yeah that's interesting because like what I'm I read that question and I'm thinking race car right but when you're thinking about like an OEM car and you're like you're trying to set it up for the so the layman doesn't murder themselves yeah or it's at least predictable if they're in like

1:00:47an emergency maneuver or whatever yeah you might have a car that feels real sporty it has like I'd like if oh like like at the five tenths limit you're like oh this car has a great nose right so then you design the car in that way where you get like the positive car reviewers from the people who are like this things on rails quote unquote like you know like acting like they're carving some canyons like really flogging their car right they're not but when they're actually at the limit now it pushes right but it felt like I had a good nose but now when it's actually at the limit it's like safe and like like you know in a controlled manner or whatever now I will say the most not understeer car I might have ever driven from factory is actually an Alantra N I could not the most oversteer is that what you said the most not understeer so yes same thing like would you count it as was it looser than a MR2 spider I've never driven one without a front bar so yes probably or not no probably not

1:01:54but I've never driven a MR2 without a front sway bar like a stock front sway bar yeah yeah yeah I don't know if I would ever get to the box stop but they I see them snaps been constantly and out of crosses yeah it's and that's like like literally from factory like I just I cannot believe how loose that car is and maybe like out of the showroom floor they maybe they have like toe in or something to like try to tame it or something maybe because I'm just thinking of the one I drove an autocross and I was just blown away how loose it was I was like I cannot believe they sell this car like this how am I how am I not driving down the highway and I just see like the headlights of these things all the time that's funny I had I've actually had some really interesting conversations with I'm glad Ryan spoke up because Dave Ogburn also did a lot of like vehicle calibration testing when he worked at good year for tire tire stuff so that's a little bit of a different perspective than Ryan's approach or Ryan's expertise expertise yeah field side whatever but Dave would tell stories of we need to have him on the podcast he'd be great but he has told stories of like

1:02:58the the rollover tests that they do where they have the the bar on the top of the car that it's basically like a balanced beam bar and it sticks out like eight feet on either side with weight on it yeah and they do they do like high speed lane maneuvers and and you know try to figure out they're calibrating what does the tire do or discovering what the tire does and the only way to figure out if it's going to blow out on a rollover with like a ship Cadillac escalade is by trying to flip it and he had some crazy stories about that stuff but we should have Dave on it's interesting because even at the even at the top level I mean in that position it's still the same answer to the question is you have to put it in that position to figure out what happens yeah true yeah because the cars behavior can change at like each tense of the seven tense right yep yeah it could be the difference of like every single load is completely fine till one time the tire blows out yeah yeah exactly but like thinking back to like the the behavioral characteristics of a car like maybe at seven tense it feels really balanced and natural and then you get into the

1:04:05bump stops and then the balance changes or this the sway bars like twist up more and or maybe there's binder or something like like the the behavioral characteristics of a car are a very dynamic thing and it can change as the loads and what is being asked of the car change now that being said a well-driving car is predictable where when you make little ask when it's not 10 tens you have an idea of what it's going to be at 10 tens and then as as you work up to that 10 tens you don't have surprises I think we're talking in the edge case scenarios where oh it does do something weird when you're like at 10 tens but most cars don't do that but some do yeah I agree it's pretty linear in most cars yes most cars very linear but some cars they do like weird stuff could you think of a car that does weird stuff yeah you see me when you my wheels start to turn

1:05:06yeah yeah cuz I'm like well I'm thinking of what the listener would want and they're like okay well what cars do weird stuff like at 10 tense well the first simple one is Ford Fiesta's flip over when you corner too hard when you do too many transitions or who was Pax Roll posted a picture of a Saturn on two wheels in the in the chat here in discord so yeah that I can't think of actually I can't think of a car that I've driven I guess the fifth gen Dodge Vipers without the without any arrow on them like the just the more not the ACR but the base level I used to work with those a lot and they were the kind of car that you could feel like the best description for driving those cars is if if you were driving a truck that could do what a supercar does because it is so many like parts been parts and it does it does feel like a truck like things are longer throw and more it doesn't feel like a Porsche for example is like really and a new Corvette is really nice and crisp and like

1:06:09nice around the edges even to be in but also to drive and the Viper was like you drove it with like maybe an extra tire with the margin at least on my jobs because I we weren't supposed to crash or like go flat out basically but they would do things just a little differently than you would expect sometimes that was pretty tough to get a lock in on and then the other example I can think of is those frickin tires those continental yes yeah I think those make those are like a roulette of what they're gonna do yeah a lot of cars they feel perfectly fine when you're actually like trying to extract a lap out of them man it is a dice roll and Taylor says NPC tire yeah basically so and well and the good news is for everyone who heard that most of you probably can't afford a Dodge Viper so don't buy the Continental's and you won't have to deal with this for me a sea street Miata so it's like a stock Miata with like a big front sway bar you don't

1:07:11think it's gonna push as much as it does from like the driving it like five six seven tenths like driving around on the street or whatever then you get to the auto cross and you're like holy crap this thing doesn't turn you have to change all the corner shapes to match the lack of front end in that car yeah that's interesting that's probably a good example but think about what creates cars that don't feel like like that don't have that linear progression to 10 tenths it's cars that have something like really out of characteristic for the car like like these sway bars yeah like these sway bars on the on the front like for sea street are like I don't know like five six seven times stiffer than what is stock so it's just like this huge you know spring that's that is not norm it's like completely out of whack with like the marshmallow springs and bump stops that are like normally on the car so it drives a little funky

1:08:14that being said that's why time attack cars are always so funky yeah because we get to touch everything yeah yeah yeah so sometimes the more modified a car is the the funcure it is enter Anthony's G 35 so that was gonna be the next thing because you drive you drive it like uh like you know seven tenths eight tenths you're like okay okay and then you get the ten tenths and you're like the rears on casters now I have heard that he accidentally had a bunch of toe out in the car and that makes sense after driving the car yeah that's like um uh last year I think no two years ago maybe on Matt Waldbaum's GLTC car he was the only one that drove it for quite a while which is like that's how you're having a race car works right you're probably the only one driving it yeah and it was getting to the point where I think he might have had a couple of spins that he didn't really understand and he was having a hard time verbalizing to us how strange it was so we had this test day at Autobahn finally and I drove it and it was like

1:09:17two attempted laps with like these massive mistakes that I didn't see coming from like they like slapped me in the face without me seeing it coming and you're like what the hell was that and I came back off the track and they ended up finding that the shock the shock was bent one of the rear shocks was bent so when it was traveling it would do weird things that it wasn't supposed to do but it took us driving the car to even be able to relate to what Matt was dealing with to then start to figure out like something's just wrong and now we have to figure out what it is yeah because at first everyone's just like yeah yeah yeah Matt get good try better and yeah yeah and then and then they're like all right all right throw the pro in there and then so Tom gets gets in the car and Tom comes back and he goes hey guys turns out Matt's not crazy something's wrong with the car and then and then yeah now it's like okay I guess we'll take a wrench to the car and like figure it out uh-huh how frustrating which took literally taking it apart to I mean that sucks that's the kind of like yeah almost electrical level problem to find how frustrating must that be for for Matt yeah honestly I can't believe he I kind of gave I made it

1:10:22his fault a little bit because I'm like Matt this is so bad that you it was that bad I can't believe you let it was it was really bad and I was like I cannot believe that you haven't made a bigger deal about this well like you should have been making a bigger deal about this for sure if you think about it though this is Matt's first race car and like here's the thing when you're just like just driving the one car I'll yeah and that's the only car you're driving for the most part like Matt was doing some auto cross and stuff like that too but for the most part when you're just driving the one car like you're like this is the car this is my car this is how it works but I was telling Anthony I was telling Anthony at that AMP track day that like we like we just need to get we need to get you in like a good driving car so you know what it's like like when I drove Zach LaVois Andy Smith guard motor sports as 2000 I was like dang this is what a good feeling car drives like I was like I am so glad I got to experience a car that drives this good because

1:11:25I I haven't I didn't experience that up until that point and I was like this is what a well set up car feels like it's not it doesn't feel fast it doesn't feel like like I need to extract the the whatever out of it it was just easy it was easy to drive and I could see where the time was and it was up to me to go get it and it didn't feel like I had to put myself at risk to go get the time I just had to execute better to go get the time to me that was like wow what a what a great driving car and it was it wasn't until I got to drive that car where it was like dang okay this is what we should be aiming for when setting up a car is for it to drive like this I'm trying to think do you think it's a fair statement to say basically any symptom that shows up because of modifications that wasn't I don't know if that's done now I'm saying it out loud but basically you what am I trying to say for a driver who might be going down like the modifying and setting up path and they start to get things where anytime you

1:12:27question I don't know if that should be there like the behavior should be there the behavior yeah insert whatever symptom has come up that that like either the stock version of your car did or something you don't expect I think that you should almost automatically assume that something's wrong and at least go into like asking a lot of questions and and trying to figure out if something's wrong if that if that thought ever crosses your mind yeah the issue I the issue on the side of caution the big time with this so I go ahead yeah I think the issue for like 90% of people is they don't just make one change to the car like it's a whole package or whatever they put on the car and now the car drives differently so they're wrapping their head around that and then they're finding like bad behaviors and they're like well I just it's a new package I have to like dial it in like whether it's like adjustments on the knob or like ride heights or like sway bar settings or or whatever and yeah and maybe the whole time it was just like an end link binding and that behavior shouldn't have existed in the first place yeah that's what I'm trying to say is that maybe

1:13:30I think people don't react extremely enough when this kind of stuff starts to happen yeah and maybe that's just because my personal opinion and approach is like I'm almost not satisfied getting back in the car without finding something broken exactly yeah like but I put my I first of all I have I levels of mechanical sympathy I'm never driving my own car so I have to learn a lot of stuff quickly and if something sticks out to me is wrong like I I like have a pretty hard line of like I'm not just gonna deal with that you know and if you own that car and you've been dealing with it I think that can be maybe it'll help people understand like you should be looking for something wrong if it feels wrong it shouldn't be like I'm gonna find it or maybe I need to get used to it like people can be a little quicker with that yeah the problem is is I think decision I think I think a lot of people don't like they're not sure what wrong feels like so I remember when I first started autocrossing and Edo was new at autocrossing to Edo had this S2000 he had fancy shocks on it and it turns out those shocks were just like broken and but he didn't know and I

1:14:34didn't know when I drove the car that was like wow yeah S2000 this thing's like pretty hard to drive like wow what a handful man the fast guys certainly are fast and neither of us knew that like that it's just the car wasn't functioning properly yeah that is such a hard thing to figure out and I remember that's why I'm trying to be careful with being like you should because yeah you can't you can't know you can't make it that black and white yeah you can't know until like you know like that's why it's almost like I think it's a real benefit to throw known quantities in the car so they can go like yeah good like for example like when I drove Diego's car I was like Diego you got a great car right like there's nothing yeah there's nothing wrong with it it's doing like exactly what like it should do like has no bad behaviors like enjoy right yeah drive some other car and be like sometimes wrong with this thing like yeah I don't know what it could be like here's some ideas but like like and and a lot of times so I've taken I've taken cars out to like set like

1:15:36a like a reference lap or whatever take the owner out or whatever and I can't I've come right back in I go sometimes wrong with it like there's no point in me setting the lap the value they're getting is me going something's broken you shouldn't drive this 100% it's also kind of funny on the other on the other side of that is whenever someone lets you drive their car like I got this a lot when I was doing just fun lap sacred life a lot for the first couple years that's kind of all I would do is people would let me drive their car and it was productive for them but it was fun for me but more often than not it was just a nice car like you said with Diego and they want like they want either something to be wrong or something to be be improvable yeah and anytime I drove something where I'm like it's nice I like I like this I like this I like this I like this I'm uh yeah it's you have a it's a really nice car yeah they're almost bummed there's there's there's not something it's not nothing like it's something not broken or what what about this and they start asking the questions like what do you think about the shocks and what do you think about the what what could I do to make it better and I'm like yeah I don't know it's like 95%

1:16:37there like and then going back to Devin's question like the characteristics or whatever and just like a for a couple laps like if it's 95% there there's not a lot of feedback that can be offered it's like I know it's pretty good you'd really have to start squeezing down into I am trying to create a lap and what are the things that are preventing me from like where I have to wait to get on throttle a little longer than I want to or I or I just can't quite get the nose in or maybe it's doing this one little behavior that's causing some inconsistency where I have to leave a little bit of margin here that might be causing lap time if I didn't have to leave margin otherwise and then you're getting into like the very final nuances of like the setup but if the car is 90 95% there the feedback is going to be hey good car yeah or probably spend more money yeah it's going to be either a parts modification or a better tire or something yeah yeah it's going to be our feedback that's funny that that that interaction was always fun yeah they're almost actually the what's crazy is there they're always the sorry Tom talking

1:17:44over you uh the the craziest thing is when you're like hey great car and they seem bummed yeah right good job you have a good car like you did a good job the last fun story about this actually he submitted a question that will probably get to next time but Buie Gray had a E production SCCA Club Racing Mazda RX 8 and Buie you have to remind me what was wrong with this car but this car was I drove it at road Atlanta I think twice maybe once it was the most diabolical thing I've ever driven it was so absolutely atrocious and he knew it was atrocious and he was just having people drive it with the warning like something's wrong and I don't know what it is and I think it was something extra stupid like the shocks were on it upside down or backwards or like the settings were backwards or something like that something like they were basically not functional at all yeah it was like a solid rod on all four corners or just a rear or something like that was the

1:18:47that's why it did this and it was so puzzling to all of us that drove it I think four or five people drove it at that grid life event uh it was the first grid life south but I need him to remind me what that was now because it was another one of these stories like just something was so wrong you need to just be like something's really wrong and I'm not happy about it until I find something broken yeah like maybe you just have to take stuff apart just kind of check the installation of it yeah it's it's tough it's tough and and it sucks when you get out of those cars and you're like I it's something in this area of the car I have no idea else what it could be right because a lot of times like Tom we've been in enough cars that break or are broken where like you're like I pretty sure I know what's broken on this thing like for instance I drove a GLTC Integra and immediately when I got a track I said something's up with the diff I like that that is not the normal operation of that and then the owner pulled it apart and he's like oh yeah that thing was like like disassembling itself inside the transmission it was like oh well good thing it was like

1:19:50found early because like it just it had it had the most lock on de acceleration I've ever felt like when you lifted Tom it would not turn and when you were on throttle then it would start to turn but like as much as a car would normally turn when on throttle it was like the weirdest driving me I was just like there's no way this car should be like this this is the weirdest shit ever that sounds exactly like when I drove the Renault Encore that I raced against in ITC with the well the diff yeah yeah it was like how did this guy beat me with this car what the hell you had to drive it with like the worst fundamentals ever like you break and then the moment you turn in you have to be on throttle yep yeah it's like completely backwards to like how you should be driving the car and if you want to actually go really fast you have to learn how to blend the throttle going on as the foot comes off the brazo so so weird yeah super weird people have shared some kind of funny things that have happened to them along these lines do we end on that

1:20:52yeah let's end on that chair go ahead I was a good attention he thought it was me but it was and I don't think that Josh Halka's camber bolts were loose and self-adjusting all around road Atlanta scary that happens um oh shoot I lost the next guys are talking about all sorts of stuff in here how dare you have community where is it I lost my negative camber driving to pack with national tour bummer Anthony my first G 35 had rear wheel steering it was completely out of control and now I think I'm addicted to that I remember I think it was my first time at nationals the car was trailered there get it off I don't take the first run my co-driver takes the first run and I just see this thing it's a meada with a big front sway bar it's lifting the inside rear tire on all the entries and I'm like what the and I'm like watching it and my co-driver comes back and I'm like what is the car feel like and he goes feels pretty good little loose and I'm like I don't think it has a front sway bar and we looked and the nut worked itself loosen and it was just

1:21:57the end link was like game disconnected so we had to go find like another nut to like hook up the end link and then everything was fine um nuts but but it was funny like from the driver's seat this person like couldn't figure out what was going on and maybe I wanted to be there but watching from the outside as like that rear tire was like a foot off the ground what they what is going on Andre said he figured out that his adjustable toe arms were loose and had dynamic toe all the time that happens all right we've all got our stories yeah what are you doing this weekend I'm going to coach at VIR on Saturday and then on Sunday I'll tell my still don't know what I'm going to drive I it's like it's like a three-way tie between TCR Sunday I'm doing the sim sim lizard club rate what is it called Tom tell me club and cup the clubman cup the sim lizard because clubman cup when you play Gran Turismo you start on Sunday cup and then the next race is the clubman cup and that's where we're at that's what we're doing that's what we're

1:22:59doing so between TCR what else and what else TCR M2 and the GR86 is kind of oh and maybe the Miata I don't know basically everything but the Clio's on the table Tom I think how can you have both accounts logged in in two different cars and get to experience both while still trying to win I wouldn't work I'd have to make the pit the pit timings different you need you need a you need a teammate for both I wouldn't need a teammate for both it could be done it could be done dang that would be pretty fun two different teams we'll start the bidding war right now at buying one sticker at one NAS truck drive for Tom yeah yeah yeah there you go one comment on I'm rock social media to keep driving them nuts depending on how many likes your comment gets that's who wins yep yep I am also that's kind of my only plan this weekend too is driving and I'm communicating with no I'm no to our our race on Sunday okay it'll be live streamed on

1:23:59YouTube Kyle higher and I are commentating it with a full live stream you'll have a bunch well honestly do it if you're listening to this you have I racing and if you don't then you can watch and hang out with us yes but you should do the race because Zanvor is a ridiculously fun track and the GR86 and the Miata are pretty easy to drive so even if you're like I don't know I'm not very good at the thing come on out it's basically going to be a track day maximum chaos with cleanliness is the goal uh it's gonna be it's gonna be fun even I was even joking with uh Austin Cobb who's like oh I might miss the beginning of the race it's like whatever just like give me your login info info and I will sign you into the race and then when you finally pull on track it'll be like the most hectic hpd hpde ever and you get the experience that for however long you'll make the race for yeah it'll be fun so come on out it'll be fun everyone uh that's basically the show is it not Tom I think so I actually paid attention how long we were going did you do you have like a timer going how did you do that I just I remember to look at the

1:25:03clock before we started you have a clock oh my goodness you're at a computer screen DJ it's right there now I'm bottom I look at it all the time I'm just me man all right well that will be the show for this week thanks to everyone who joined us live and thank you for everyone who's joining us uh elsewhere uh Tom take it away oh that is the wrong button hold on nice they're both green I don't know why they're both green but they're both green okay this is the right button you should cut it you should cut it to that noise and nothing else that's the end of the podcast but to everyone who took it and run with this NASCAR thing I love your hair and I hope you win