Nashville Recap

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Alexander RossiHost0:45

This is

James HinchcliffeHost0:46

OffTrack.

Alexander RossiHost0:47

It'd be pretty funny, James.

Alexander RossiHost0:50

You and I have Tim's Italy-Rome trip travel itinerary, which includes his record locator.

Alexander RossiHost0:56

We could really make his life hell.

Tim DurhamPanelist0:58

It did occur to me as soon as I sent it to you guys that you had the ability to do that.

James HinchcliffeHost1:03

That occurred to you? Well, that kind of hurts.

James HinchcliffeHost1:06

I don't love that that just occurred to you.

Tim DurhamPanelist1:07

I didn't think you would do it, but it occurred to me that you could do it.

Tim DurhamPanelist1:11

And then I was like, nah, they wouldn't do that.

Tim DurhamPanelist1:13

But

James HinchcliffeHost1:14

I'm so offended now that you thought that we could, that I might.

James HinchcliffeHost1:18

And the only way to change your record locator is to, in fact, cancel and rebook your own trip, which we all know you're not going to do.

Alexander RossiHost1:25

It's super not very cost effective doing it that way either.

James HinchcliffeHost1:29

we're not going to do it until like the last thing.

James HinchcliffeHost1:31

So you'd be like, oh no, it's totally fine.

James HinchcliffeHost1:33

They didn't do anything.

James HinchcliffeHost1:34

And then you'll go to check in your last thing.

James HinchcliffeHost1:36

And they'll be like, oh, sorry, sir.

James HinchcliffeHost1:38

These tickets don't exist anymore.

Alexander RossiHost1:40

What I was thinking.

Alexander RossiHost1:41

is he he has a layover so let's let him get to detroit and then he realizes he doesn't have a trip

Tim DurhamPanelist1:49

you know what you guys you know what else you could do you could like call in and and get me some upgrades on some things i don't know like as a as a token of appreciation for the years of friendship the lack of helmets like there are options there are options that you can do

James HinchcliffeHost2:04

I do appreciate the lack of helmets that you have.

James HinchcliffeHost2:06

That is true.

James HinchcliffeHost2:07

I do appreciate that because that means that we have more helmets of our own, which is great for us.

James HinchcliffeHost2:14

Well, look, as someone that's just gone through a bit of a travel day from not great place.

James HinchcliffeHost2:20

Well, you know what? It wasn't actually that bad, but I just have a bit of a travel thing that I wouldn't I wouldn't wish that on Tim.

James HinchcliffeHost2:27

More importantly, I wouldn't wish that on Hazel.

James HinchcliffeHost2:28

If this was a solo trip for Tim, maybe we'd mess with him a little bit.

James HinchcliffeHost2:32

But like Hazel's involved and I want her to have a good trip.

James HinchcliffeHost2:35

So we're not going to do anything, Tim.

James HinchcliffeHost2:38

Just know that it's nothing to do with you.

James HinchcliffeHost2:40

No appreciation for anything or whatever it was, other stuff that you said.

James HinchcliffeHost2:44

That's fair, I get that.

James HinchcliffeHost2:45

It's purely because we like your daughter a lot.

Tim DurhamPanelist2:47

Look, man, you know how many times I've used my daughter to get out of things? Like this is par for the course for me.

James HinchcliffeHost2:53

Yeah, that's fair.

James HinchcliffeHost2:54

That's fair.

James HinchcliffeHost2:55

So yeah, so we're traveling, f***.

James HinchcliffeHost2:59

Recording.

James HinchcliffeHost3:03

What day is it? It's Thursday, right? Thursday.

James HinchcliffeHost3:06

Very late.

James HinchcliffeHost3:06

Yes.

James HinchcliffeHost3:07

Recording very late.

James HinchcliffeHost3:08

Recording very late because my travel situation was a little complex trying to get to old Hungary.

James HinchcliffeHost3:15

You know, what's weird is it was the exact same storm that boned us in Nashville that has led to me having a rough trip out to Whatchamathinger because I went to the... airport to catch my flight on tuesday so by nashville getting pushed to monday it meant i was going to have 12 hours at home before i had to be back at the airport to fly to hungary and uh so i got to the airport no i didn't even get to the airport my flight got canceled while i was still at home so i had a 1 30 flight flight gets canceled to new no philadelphia So I was like, shoot.

James HinchcliffeHost3:56

And they said, well, there was actually a 1030 a.m. flight to Philadelphia that had a four and a half, five hour delay.

James HinchcliffeHost4:03

And if you left right now, you could still make that one.

James HinchcliffeHost4:06

And I was like.

James HinchcliffeHost4:07

Didn't know you could do that.

James HinchcliffeHost4:08

OK, so I was like, I couldn't check in online because the flight closed two hours before or whatever.

James HinchcliffeHost4:14

So get to the airport, check in.

James HinchcliffeHost4:17

All good.

James HinchcliffeHost4:18

Cool.

James HinchcliffeHost4:19

get on the plane or delays, delays, delays, get on the plane.

James HinchcliffeHost4:23

And then, um, Oh, there's more delays.

James HinchcliffeHost4:27

We're going to sit here.

James HinchcliffeHost4:28

Now you're on here.

James HinchcliffeHost4:28

We're going to sit here for an hour and 45 minutes until our, uh, window for departure.

James HinchcliffeHost4:34

Okay, cool.

James HinchcliffeHost4:37

Then like 45 minutes later, it's like, oh, no, I think we got a chance to go.

James HinchcliffeHost4:40

We're going to go.

James HinchcliffeHost4:41

So we start getting ready to push back.

James HinchcliffeHost4:43

Jet bridge is gone.

James HinchcliffeHost4:44

Door closed.

James HinchcliffeHost4:45

Getting ready.

James HinchcliffeHost4:46

Then you hear like the engines power down and captain comes out.

James HinchcliffeHost4:49

He's like, so there's now a ground hold in Philly because of weather.

James HinchcliffeHost4:54

And so this flight can't take off.

James HinchcliffeHost4:56

No flights are taken off for landing.

James HinchcliffeHost4:58

But our new time is in an hour and 45 minutes from now.

James HinchcliffeHost5:02

Only problem with that is by that point, this crew will have timed out.

James HinchcliffeHost5:05

So you can get off the plane and figure it out because this is no longer an option.

James HinchcliffeHost5:10

And it's like and by this point, I already missed my connection.

James HinchcliffeHost5:13

So like it was kind of whatever.

James HinchcliffeHost5:16

So I get out, get to the counter.

James HinchcliffeHost5:18

And well, actually, I'm going to throw in a little bit of an American Airlines fail here.

James HinchcliffeHost5:23

So it was a small plane.

James HinchcliffeHost5:25

They made us gate check all of our carry-on bags.

James HinchcliffeHost5:28

So we get off the plane and nobody decided it was time to to get the gate check bags off the plane.

James HinchcliffeHost5:36

So we stood in the jetway for like a half an hour before somebody finally came down and said, leave the jetway.

James HinchcliffeHost5:40

We're going to figure this out.

James HinchcliffeHost5:42

Left the jetway, stood outside the gate for another 25 minutes.

James HinchcliffeHost5:44

And they finally like, hey, we got somebody to come get the bags.

James HinchcliffeHost5:47

So we just burned an hour not having bags for no reason.

James HinchcliffeHost5:51

So that was dumb.

James HinchcliffeHost5:52

go to the counter to get it sorted.

James HinchcliffeHost5:55

And they're like, yeah, there's, can't get you to Philly.

James HinchcliffeHost5:58

And there's really no other options tonight to get out.

James HinchcliffeHost6:01

They're like, we can get you to Chicago and then you can fly out of Chicago at noon tomorrow sort of thing.

James HinchcliffeHost6:06

And I was like, can I just fly to Chicago in the morning so I can stay at home? Oh yeah, yeah, we can do that.

James HinchcliffeHost6:11

I was like, okay, cool.

James HinchcliffeHost6:13

So they're like, okay, actually, we found a flight path.

James HinchcliffeHost6:16

It's because I was originally on Indy, Philly, Budapest.

James HinchcliffeHost6:19

So now, like, we found you one that's Indy, Chicago, Budapest.

James HinchcliffeHost6:22

I said, perfect, let's book it.

James HinchcliffeHost6:24

And the time it took him to, like, go from searching it to trying to book it, it was gone.

James HinchcliffeHost6:30

Like, ew.

James HinchcliffeHost6:31

Okay, well, we're going to have to add in a second stop then.

James HinchcliffeHost6:34

Cool.

James HinchcliffeHost6:35

Neat.

James HinchcliffeHost6:35

That's fun.

James HinchcliffeHost6:36

He goes, all right, well, we found two options.

James HinchcliffeHost6:38

One is Indy Chicago London Budapest.

James HinchcliffeHost6:42

One is Indy Chicago Madrid Budapest.

James HinchcliffeHost6:45

And they're pretty similar.

James HinchcliffeHost6:47

The biggest difference is the London one gets you in an hour sooner.

James HinchcliffeHost6:50

And I was like, well, I'm on air on Thursday on this day, the sooner, the better.

James HinchcliffeHost6:54

So he goes, okay, goes to book the London one.

James HinchcliffeHost6:56

By the time he goes to book the London one, that one is also gone.

James HinchcliffeHost7:00

And I just looked at him.

James HinchcliffeHost7:01

I'm like, don't hesitate.

James HinchcliffeHost7:02

Just do it.

James HinchcliffeHost7:02

Get the, get the other one, get it.

James HinchcliffeHost7:05

So he booked the Indy Chicago Madrid Budapest that had me landing at 2.50 p.m. on Thursday.

James HinchcliffeHost7:15

I was supposed to land at 8.10 a.m. on Wednesday.

James HinchcliffeHost7:18

I'm landing now 2.50 p.m. Thursday.

James HinchcliffeHost7:20

I'm on air at 4.30 p.m.

James HinchcliffeHost7:23

So needless to say, it was a bit stressful, but Car was there waiting, beeline it to the track, made it there with 30 minutes to spare and was able to do my job.

James HinchcliffeHost7:34

So that was a win.

James HinchcliffeHost7:37

All things considered.

Alexander RossiHost7:38

Does this change how you will plan your travel in the future and cut out so much dead time? No.

James HinchcliffeHost7:45

no it was very stressful and had there been even the smallest delay at any point of that whole procedure it would have been bad so I'm gonna stick to coming in a day early for this very reason and I was just thankful that I wasn't like hosting this weekend I was thinking about how much worse that would have been but we made it I got a question for you on a plane center rows right so it's like Let's say it's a business class like two, two, two or whatever.

James HinchcliffeHost8:18

But it's it's row one.

James HinchcliffeHost8:19

So you got the bulkhead.

James HinchcliffeHost8:20

Is it cool to walk from one aisle across to the other aisle? Across the legs of the people in the bulkhead? No, that's not a thing, right? We're not.

James HinchcliffeHost8:31

That

Tim DurhamPanelist8:32

would be up for debate.

James HinchcliffeHost8:33

Yeah.

Alexander RossiHost8:33

If you're stepping over any human that isn't related to you.

James HinchcliffeHost8:39

That's a good rule.

James HinchcliffeHost8:40

If it's not your travel companion.

James HinchcliffeHost8:41

I

Alexander RossiHost8:42

mean, I don't want, I don't want my in anyone's face and I don't want my butt in anyone's face.

Alexander RossiHost8:46

So I would never do that.

Alexander RossiHost8:47

I also don't want anybody's

Tim DurhamPanelist8:48

in my face.

Tim DurhamPanelist8:50

Like while we're at it.

Alexander RossiHost8:51

I don't want anyone's.

Alexander RossiHost8:53

In my face or their butt in my face.

Alexander RossiHost8:56

I don't want my in anyone's face or butt.

Alexander RossiHost8:58

Yeah.

Tim DurhamPanelist8:59

Everybody in faces should have appropriate distance at all times.

Tim DurhamPanelist9:04

Right.

Alexander RossiHost9:04

Good separation.

Tim DurhamPanelist9:05

Yeah.

James HinchcliffeHost9:06

Yeah.

James HinchcliffeHost9:06

Good.

James HinchcliffeHost9:06

Okay.

James HinchcliffeHost9:07

I'm glad we're all on the same page on that one because I was very confused and I was surprised at the level of patience that the people who were getting just blatantly walked across had.

James HinchcliffeHost9:16

Yeah.

James HinchcliffeHost9:17

In it all.

James HinchcliffeHost9:18

That's not okay.

James HinchcliffeHost9:19

That's not okay.

James HinchcliffeHost9:19

Do you want to know another thing that's happened to me a couple times? Hang on.

James HinchcliffeHost9:22

We're still on travel.

James HinchcliffeHost9:23

This is a travel podcast.

James HinchcliffeHost9:24

I mean, we're going to get to Nashville next week, so take your time.

James HinchcliffeHost9:26

We're going to get to Nashville next week.

James HinchcliffeHost9:27

Yeah, we're not even doing Nashville.

James HinchcliffeHost9:28

I don't really want to

Alexander RossiHost9:29

talk about Nashville.

Alexander RossiHost9:29

I just want to talk about weather, but go ahead.

James HinchcliffeHost9:31

Okay, we'll talk about weather in a sec.

James HinchcliffeHost9:34

If you're in the bulkheads, because we're on bulkheads.

James HinchcliffeHost9:37

I feel like the bulkhead rows should be allowed to get on the plane.

James HinchcliffeHost9:41

First of all, like the, you know, non-military and people that don't need assistance or whatever, they should get to go on first so that they can get all their stuff up in the overheads

Tim DurhamPanelist9:50

because inevitably they don't get to put anything underneath.

Tim DurhamPanelist9:53

Yeah.

Tim DurhamPanelist9:53

A hundred percent.

Tim DurhamPanelist9:54

And so

James HinchcliffeHost9:54

you always end up having to put like one bag.

James HinchcliffeHost9:57

If you have a bag in a bag, like a carry on in a backpack, one goes up and then the other one's like four or five, six rows back.

James HinchcliffeHost10:03

And it's just a nightmare when you're getting off and it's so unnecessary.

James HinchcliffeHost10:06

I think all kids should get to go on first, like zone zero.

James HinchcliffeHost10:11

Those like eight people just get their stuff situated and then everyone else can file in and do their thing.

James HinchcliffeHost10:17

I'm, I'm canvassing for that for all the airlines sorted out.

James HinchcliffeHost10:21

All right.

James HinchcliffeHost10:22

Weather.

James HinchcliffeHost10:22

Good

Alexander RossiHost10:22

luck with that.

James HinchcliffeHost10:24

What's got you weathering?

Alexander RossiHost10:25

Well, I just, I mean, people are aware that despite the word forecast, you can't predict the weather like months, borderline year in advance, right? Outcast said it best.

James HinchcliffeHost10:45

In what? What did they say? In Miss Jackson.

James HinchcliffeHost10:48

And you can't predict the weather, Miss Jackson.

Alexander RossiHost10:51

Anyway.

Alexander RossiHost10:53

Wow.

Alexander RossiHost10:54

Okay.

Alexander RossiHost10:56

Please, let's not do that again.

Alexander RossiHost10:58

Really? Nobody knows Miss Jackson by Outkast? We know it.

Tim DurhamPanelist11:03

I know the

James HinchcliffeHost11:04

song.

James HinchcliffeHost11:04

You're just upset that you missed a pop culture reference.

Tim DurhamPanelist11:09

I don't know that I

James HinchcliffeHost11:10

am.

James HinchcliffeHost11:11

I don't know that that's what's happening here.

James HinchcliffeHost11:13

I think you're more disturbed at how bad my singing is, which is fair.

James HinchcliffeHost11:16

Anyway, Alex.

James HinchcliffeHost11:17

Forecasts.

Alexander RossiHost11:19

Well, if that's like a commonly accepted thing in society that we all agree upon, right? Yes.

Alexander RossiHost11:27

Why then would you be angry and assign blame to a group of individuals for rain arriving?

James HinchcliffeHost11:37

Because you're not thinking it through, I think is probably the best.

James HinchcliffeHost11:43

Because I feel

Alexander RossiHost11:43

like this is good.

Alexander RossiHost11:44

Let's have this chat

James HinchcliffeHost11:45

because I think this is important.

James HinchcliffeHost11:47

So I feel like what you're getting at is our race in Nashville.

James HinchcliffeHost11:52

Yeah, guys, we're really doing it.

James HinchcliffeHost11:55

I mean, the wrong, natural, I mean, this one.

Alexander RossiHost11:59

2024.

Alexander RossiHost12:00

2025,

James HinchcliffeHost12:00

but

Alexander RossiHost12:01

yes.

Alexander RossiHost12:01

I thought we were

James HinchcliffeHost12:01

going to say one like 93.

James HinchcliffeHost12:03

No, no,

Tim DurhamPanelist12:03

let's do 2024.

James HinchcliffeHost12:04

Do a Nazareth 93.

James HinchcliffeHost12:06

Okay, so the rain came, the lightning came right as we got the race from the World Cup final.

James HinchcliffeHost12:13

And a couple things to note there.

James HinchcliffeHost12:15

The people that are mad at the weather and the people associated with this are like, well, it was dry up to that point.

James HinchcliffeHost12:21

Why didn't we race earlier? Yeah.

James HinchcliffeHost12:25

The World Cup lead-in is a real thing, guys.

James HinchcliffeHost12:27

Like, everyone is like, oh, we shouldn't have to wait for another sport to get our sport going.

James HinchcliffeHost12:32

Yes, we should.

James HinchcliffeHost12:33

It's the largest sporting tournament on the planet.

James HinchcliffeHost12:37

And leading in off the final, that's going to have tens of millions of people watching.

James HinchcliffeHost12:42

You would have to be, you would have to just have absolutely, you'd have to care zero about the business of racing and the sponsors and all of those things that keep us running.

James HinchcliffeHost12:55

if you think that it wasn't worth trying to wait for the World Cup final to be done.

Alexander RossiHost12:59

It's not even...

Alexander RossiHost13:01

It's the anger that people have displayed towards the series for even attempting to schedule our event around the World Cup.

Alexander RossiHost13:14

And yeah, I guess it's to your point of that's just such a crazy lack of awareness for... what is ultimately going to lead to the betterment of the sport.

Alexander RossiHost13:29

It was really disappointing for me to see a lot of the feedback, and trust me, I understand the frustration.

Alexander RossiHost13:36

We don't like sitting there all day either.

Alexander RossiHost13:38

We also understand the crazy, comical, just IndyCar bad luck that exists by having the World Cup go to extra time and then it missing a window to at least start the race.

Alexander RossiHost13:55

And then the rain coming to such an extent that you couldn't even get it in by...

Alexander RossiHost14:01

I'll share some information that the fans don't know.

Alexander RossiHost14:03

IndyCar was willing to go green at 11 p.m. on Sunday night and do the full 400-mile race as long as we went green by 11 p.m.

Alexander RossiHost14:13

I can't tell you the magnitude of rain that was coming down at like 9 p.m.

Alexander RossiHost14:18

It was unbelievable.

Alexander RossiHost14:21

Our trucks were basically becoming...

Alexander RossiHost14:24

The Titanic, like trucks were taking on water so much.

Alexander RossiHost14:28

So like we were concerned about servers and like electrical fires and that sort of thing.

Alexander RossiHost14:32

Like it was it was torrential rain to the point where it's like this isn't something that even if it blows over, we're not going to be able to get dry in time to to to build a race.

Alexander RossiHost14:42

So there was a huge amount of effort because we saw.

Alexander RossiHost14:47

the TV numbers come out for the amazing job that Fox and you guys did for the pre-event, right? That was on FS1 to start and then transition to Fox after the celebration ceremony and everything was done in New York.

Alexander RossiHost15:06

And they came to us.

Alexander RossiHost15:07

That was our second most watched TV event behind the Indianapolis 500.

Alexander RossiHost15:12

And there wasn't even race cars on the racetrack.

Alexander RossiHost15:14

There was drivers in street clothes.

Alexander RossiHost15:16

Yeah.

Alexander RossiHost15:16

Think about what that would have been if there was race cars on a racetrack.

Alexander RossiHost15:19

So like, if you just think about that, everything that IndyCar did was exactly the right thing.

Alexander RossiHost15:26

Because even if it had gone off delayed, we would have had the second biggest number that we would have had all season long.

Alexander RossiHost15:33

So I just, it's, we constantly bitch about, about the series not doing enough to promote our sport and to get us in front of new eyeballs and to be creative and to be aggressive.

Alexander RossiHost15:45

And this was such an awesome thing that they did.

Alexander RossiHost15:48

And it didn't work out through no fault of anyone's.

Alexander RossiHost15:50

And so let's not on the series for doing that because it was an amazing idea.

James HinchcliffeHost15:56

It was literally the one thing that we couldn't control was the weather.

James HinchcliffeHost16:01

But between IndyCar and Fox, they did everything else to try to create this opportunity And, you know, how lucky are we that that the same broadcaster that had the World Cup has IndyCar? We had a race on the same day that the final was going to be on in a time zone that made it even physically possible to even have this conversation.

James HinchcliffeHost16:22

It was a perfect storm.

James HinchcliffeHost16:24

Terrible, terrible analogy.

James HinchcliffeHost16:26

And it was the most imperfect storm ever.

James HinchcliffeHost16:30

Oh, but no.

James HinchcliffeHost16:32

And, and, and I can tell you from the, from the, like, obviously from the IndyCar side, also just from the Fox side, the amount of effort that went into this.

James HinchcliffeHost16:38

I mean, having that whole pre-race show, we had Chris Myers there.

James HinchcliffeHost16:41

We had the whole thing on the front of the grid.

James HinchcliffeHost16:42

Like we, we put so much into this and yet the one thing that we couldn't do, uh, kind of bit us, but the pre-race show was still great.

James HinchcliffeHost16:51

The, the, the hour and a half that we filled, you know, was, was good and it was entertaining and we did what we could, what we got.

James HinchcliffeHost16:56

And thanks to all the drivers that played along and came on and interviewed and, and, uh, to Jack, Kevin and Georgia, they did a lot of the lifting down in pit lane, trying to find people or down in the garages.

James HinchcliffeHost17:06

But, uh, it's a bummer, man.

James HinchcliffeHost17:07

And, and everyone's bummed about it, but, uh, it is what it is.

James HinchcliffeHost17:11

We did the best we could.

James HinchcliffeHost17:12

And like you say, Alex, I mean, there was still the second biggest amount of people watching, uh, seeing some of those interviews, seeing some clips, you know, replays of the 500 finish, things like that.

James HinchcliffeHost17:22

So there's still a lot of positive that came out of it.

James HinchcliffeHost17:24

Then we go race on Monday to the biggest Monday rating since the merger.

James HinchcliffeHost17:30

So people are still watching.

James HinchcliffeHost17:32

Like, it's still good to know that the race had...

James HinchcliffeHost17:35

The number for Monday was much better than I thought it was going to

Alexander RossiHost17:38

be.

Alexander RossiHost17:39

Oh, 100%.

Alexander RossiHost17:40

And I want to...

Alexander RossiHost17:42

This is a good segue because...

Alexander RossiHost17:44

We're going to talk about the race.

Alexander RossiHost17:45

We're going to talk about the people want to hear about.

Alexander RossiHost17:48

But I...

Alexander RossiHost17:52

it dawned on me today.

Alexander RossiHost17:53

And as much as it's a little bit annoying, it's also so cool.

Alexander RossiHost17:58

All right.

Alexander RossiHost17:59

So check this out.

Alexander RossiHost18:00

Indy 500, everyone knows that everyone watches it, right? It's whether you're a fan of IndyCar or not, it's people are turning on the TV to watch Indy 500 on Memorial Day weekend.

James HinchcliffeHost18:08

And there's always

Alexander RossiHost18:10

been this, like, how do we, how do we capture that audience? Right.

Alexander RossiHost18:14

And keep them with us through the races that people don't know about.

Alexander RossiHost18:17

Right.

Alexander RossiHost18:19

And I, It hit me today that we have done that this year, way better than we have ever done before.

Alexander RossiHost18:26

And the reason for it is there has been a lot of discourse and conversation surrounding the incident with Scott and I.

Alexander RossiHost18:36

And one of the underlying themes that keeps coming up is, well, Alex never signaled that he was going to pit.

Alexander RossiHost18:44

And where's the one track that you make a, a, a huge effort

James HinchcliffeHost18:50

concerted effort to, yeah,

Alexander RossiHost18:51

to make it clear that out of turn two, you're going to be coming in at some point, right? You even do it in the short shoot between three and four when you're putting off a four and race conditions, you there's, there's certain things that you do that you're on the lookout for because Alex, As much as there's a lot of communication between spotters communicating when a car is going to pit or not and all this sort of stuff, like things happen fast.

Alexander RossiHost19:12

Right.

Alexander RossiHost19:12

And people are busy and there's delays and there's human beings involved.

Alexander RossiHost19:17

Right.

Alexander RossiHost19:18

But.

Alexander RossiHost19:18

it was like, wow, people are retaining not only that information from nine weeks ago, but they are also watching a race, seven events, eight events passed when we were at the Indy 500.

Alexander RossiHost19:33

So I think that that was a pretty cool realization and example of like, we are retaining an audience.

Alexander RossiHost19:41

post-500 that maybe we didn't used to do.

James HinchcliffeHost19:44

That's an interesting point.

James HinchcliffeHost19:45

Because, yeah, you're right.

James HinchcliffeHost19:46

I mean, Indy is kind of the exaggerated case of that, right? Of the signaling to pit sort of thing.

James HinchcliffeHost19:52

Yeah.

James HinchcliffeHost19:53

That's an interesting observation.

James HinchcliffeHost19:55

I want to go back to the weather thing real quick.

James HinchcliffeHost19:57

We'll come back to that.

James HinchcliffeHost19:58

But...

James HinchcliffeHost20:00

One thing I think a lot of people don't realize, because a lot of people were also saying that we shouldn't have waited past official time on the World Cup.

James HinchcliffeHost20:08

Obviously, you can't cut away from the World Cup.

James HinchcliffeHost20:10

Why? You're not going to do that.

James HinchcliffeHost20:12

You don't want to start our race on FS1 if you don't have to.

James HinchcliffeHost20:19

But an important thing for people to know is that even though it hadn't started raining yet, when regular time, regulation time, whatever it's called in soccer, was up before they went to, you know, the overtime, we were already in a lightning hold.

James HinchcliffeHost20:34

So even if the game had ended on time, they did the ceremony, which we had budgeted for in the original start time, we would have seen the trophy and then it would have come to us and we would have been sitting there with no cars on track.

James HinchcliffeHost20:44

Exactly the same.

James HinchcliffeHost20:45

So going any earlier wouldn't have mattered.

James HinchcliffeHost20:48

But I have a question for you.

James HinchcliffeHost20:49

Let's say there wasn't a lighting hold.

James HinchcliffeHost20:51

and we got it at the end of regulation time, and we started, but then the rain came at the exact same time.

James HinchcliffeHost20:57

Would that have been better? Because I'm not sure that starting the race and getting 46 laps in and then having to red flag it for rain and come back the next day, I'm not sure that that's better.

James HinchcliffeHost21:06

I don't know what you think.

James HinchcliffeHost21:07

I

Alexander RossiHost21:07

think it is, because at least...

Alexander RossiHost21:10

At least then people might be like, oh, that that was pretty sick.

Alexander RossiHost21:14

I might try and find that again one day.

Alexander RossiHost21:16

Right.

Alexander RossiHost21:16

At least they saw something.

James HinchcliffeHost21:18

Yeah, I guess.

James HinchcliffeHost21:19

I just I feel like an interrupted competition is

Alexander RossiHost21:24

because like, I mean, I think back to that Bill's.

Alexander RossiHost21:31

Bengals, Bills, Ravens playoff game where that guy, you know, got seriously hurt, had a concussion, didn't know like what was going on.

Alexander RossiHost21:39

And there was kind of the medical timeout for like 30, 45 minutes.

Alexander RossiHost21:43

And then they just canceled the game.

Alexander RossiHost21:45

Like, I don't think people look at that and they're like, oh, I'm not going to, I'm not going to watch that anymore because that was bull.

Alexander RossiHost21:51

Right.

Alexander RossiHost21:52

I think people understand that things happen in live sports and events that it has to be delayed or postponed or rescheduled.

James HinchcliffeHost22:00

fair i guess if at least those first 40 laps were excited maybe people would well i can tell you what new to the sport would be like

Alexander RossiHost22:06

if if if it was at 7 p.m on sunday night it would have been a pretty exciting 45 laps because it was a pretty pretty good race i wouldn't say it was a great race but it was an above average race in um pretty disgusting conditions so had i mean as as much as the delay was unfortunate it would have been so sick if we had gone green i was yeah

James HinchcliffeHost22:29

Dude, I was so amped up for a night race there.

James HinchcliffeHost22:32

I was like, before we had that first little bit of rain and then it was drying out.

James HinchcliffeHost22:35

And I genuinely thought, like, I think I even put out a tweet being like, I think we're under an hour away, just based on my experience of sitting, looking at racetracks dry over the years.

James HinchcliffeHost22:43

And then like 15 minutes later, like, you know, the heavens absolutely open, but we were so close.

James HinchcliffeHost22:48

And I was like, dude, nighttime, Nashville's cooler, track's clean.

James HinchcliffeHost22:52

Like, let's go.

James HinchcliffeHost22:53

This race is going to be awesome.

James HinchcliffeHost22:55

Um, and uh yeah and then obviously not to be

Tim DurhamPanelist22:59

before we review the race next week there's one other thing i wanted to talk about just in terms of fan reaction

James HinchcliffeHost23:04

yeah

Tim DurhamPanelist23:05

and this is to indycar selling uh tickets and stuff for deep discounts on monday and people who bought stuff for sunday felt like it devalued what they bought for sunday and like i can kind of understand where you're coming from if you're like i spent this amount of money and now you're letting it in for that but like we have to assume that people who came out for a Sunday night or evening race aren't going to be able to make it to Monday.

Tim DurhamPanelist23:31

And we'd rather have people in the stands than not.

Tim DurhamPanelist23:34

So like, to me, it just seems like it made sense to do the deep discount for sales on Monday, but I don't know.

Tim DurhamPanelist23:39

I was curious what you guys thought on that.

James HinchcliffeHost23:41

I don't know enough about the economics of holding a race like that and what the implications are to a rainout or a delay to really comment intelligently on it.

James HinchcliffeHost23:53

That has literally

Tim DurhamPanelist23:55

never stopped anybody on a podcast before.

James HinchcliffeHost23:57

That's why I was continuing.

James HinchcliffeHost23:58

I mean, I think you got to be careful in saying you're assuming that people who bought a ticket Sunday can't come Monday.

James HinchcliffeHost24:07

I don't think that's fair.

James HinchcliffeHost24:08

But I would say that if you bought a ticket for Sunday, you probably bought a ticket for Saturday and Sunday.

James HinchcliffeHost24:14

And there was a lot more going on.

James HinchcliffeHost24:16

You know, like on Sunday, there was concerts.

James HinchcliffeHost24:18

There was an Indy Lights race.

James HinchcliffeHost24:19

There was, you know, I don't know if the autograph session, I assume, was on Sunday because no one was there.

James HinchcliffeHost24:24

Like Saturday was too busy, right? Correct.

James HinchcliffeHost24:26

Yes.

James HinchcliffeHost24:27

Right.

James HinchcliffeHost24:27

So you're, there's a lot more value where like on Monday, literally all you got was the race, which obviously is the main show, but there's a lot else that happens on, on a day.

James HinchcliffeHost24:37

And, and it's a contingency plan, right? Like, I don't know.

James HinchcliffeHost24:40

I, I, I, I'm, I'm not somebody who bought a ticket and then had it have to go sideways like that.

James HinchcliffeHost24:47

And I, I don't know.

James HinchcliffeHost24:48

I heard some other stories about like fans that had access to certain things on Sunday, that same ticket, not having access to that, those things on Monday, which again, Oh,

Tim DurhamPanelist24:56

that that's, that's

James HinchcliffeHost24:57

hearsay.

James HinchcliffeHost24:58

I didn't, I didn't, I didn't follow up on that, but I'm sure there's some, I'm sure there's some gripes.

James HinchcliffeHost25:03

I'm sure some of them are, you know, somewhat valid, but ultimately again, it's, it's a weather situation.

James HinchcliffeHost25:07

It creates a difficult situation for everybody at the track to, to deal with.

James HinchcliffeHost25:10

And, um, Yeah, it's, you know, I'm sure there's always things that we can learn from and do better.

Alexander RossiHost25:16

I mean, I think it's the complaint.

Alexander RossiHost25:21

I don't want to say complaint.

Alexander RossiHost25:22

The issue is valid, right? Because if you think about a store, right? Let's use Target, for example.

Alexander RossiHost25:32

If you go purchase an item on a Sunday and... and the next day it's marked down 20%, you can go back to the store and ask for a price adjustment.

Alexander RossiHost25:41

You can even go back to the store if some other retailer adjusts the price.

Alexander RossiHost25:47

Now, there's price match guarantees in there, and I'm not saying that this is apples to apples, but considering the situation that happened, and let's be honest, it's not like Sunday was a sellout.

Alexander RossiHost26:02

I don't think it's outside the realm of possibility to potentially refund people some money or offer them a pretty significant discount to next year's race.

Alexander RossiHost26:14

And again, we don't know if this happened or not, but I can understand the initial concern.

Alexander RossiHost26:20

displeasure with the same ticket that they purchased weeks, months, a year in advance, then going on sale for 95% off.

Alexander RossiHost26:32

Like I get it.

Alexander RossiHost26:33

I get why that would

be

Alexander RossiHost26:34

frustrating.

Alexander RossiHost26:34

For sure.

Alexander RossiHost26:35

But there is time to rectify that situation if they deem it necessary.

Alexander RossiHost26:42

So who knows what will happen in the future.

Alexander RossiHost26:44

But again, guys, When you buy these tickets, I think it's pretty clear in the little fine print that weather and there's a lot of variables that you agree to that is you kind of sign up for.

Alexander RossiHost26:57

So that's also live sports.

Alexander RossiHost26:59

It sure is.

Alexander RossiHost27:01

It sure is.

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James HinchcliffeHost28:45

All right.

James HinchcliffeHost28:47

Formula One in Belgium.

James HinchcliffeHost28:49

Man, George.

James HinchcliffeHost28:50

How about that? Wow.

James HinchcliffeHost28:52

What a rough guy.

James HinchcliffeHost28:53

What a guy.

James HinchcliffeHost28:56

But now they're saying it's not just him.

James HinchcliffeHost28:57

It's not his driving style.

James HinchcliffeHost28:58

Now they're saying there's actually something wrong with the car.

Alexander RossiHost29:00

Well, are they? Because Toto said half of it's the engine.

Alexander RossiHost29:06

And then half of it's George.

James HinchcliffeHost29:08

Okay, I didn't see that part, but I know that Mercedes admitted that there's something they previously hadn't really understood happening on George's car.

James HinchcliffeHost29:17

And Piastri's kind of actually reporting the same thing at McLaren.

James HinchcliffeHost29:21

And like, when you read more about it, I don't know if you've read about how the self-learning is working on these things and how it's like, it's just totally out of the driver's hands and that sucks.

James HinchcliffeHost29:29

Like if...

James HinchcliffeHost29:30

If the deployment and regen was all controlled by drivers hitting buttons, it would suck because it's complicated and not just like pure flat out racing, but like at least it's in the driver's hands when it's all just pre-programmed and it's algorithms.

James HinchcliffeHost29:42

Like if I hear the term algorithm tied to a race car, again, like it's just, it's soul destroying.

James HinchcliffeHost29:48

It's not what race cars are supposed to be.

James HinchcliffeHost29:50

They're not supposed to be algorithms.

James HinchcliffeHost29:51

They're not supposed to be AI driven computers.

James HinchcliffeHost29:54

They're supposed to be machine, man, go.

James HinchcliffeHost29:56

Boom.

James HinchcliffeHost29:57

I don't know, you can really sense the frustration after a weekend like Spa, but Hungary this weekend is the complete opposite, right? So you're going to go back to what it was like in Montreal and Monaco and places where you weren't, you know, Austria, where you really weren't worried about clipping and it was more just like where and how you deployed, not like if you had enough or whatever.

James HinchcliffeHost30:18

Yeah,

Alexander RossiHost30:18

Spa, worst case scenario, Monza's going to be worst case scenario.

Alexander RossiHost30:22

Uh...

Alexander RossiHost30:26

Baku Silverstone Baku will be yeah Baku Vegas to be bad Vegas yeah just with some of those long straights.

Alexander RossiHost30:34

But so, yeah, there's

James HinchcliffeHost30:34

going to be some rough ones mixed in with some good ones, but this weekend should be good.

James HinchcliffeHost30:38

But props to Kimmy.

James HinchcliffeHost30:42

Props to Red Bull.

James HinchcliffeHost30:43

Did not think they were going to be fast enough for a podium, and Hadjar driving up from the back like that was pretty impressive as well.

Alexander RossiHost30:49

Also, like, Hadjar's doing the job, man.

Alexander RossiHost30:53

Like, what he did in qualifying, considering he already had a penalty, right? And...

Alexander RossiHost30:58

executing a teammate toe to a level that is like pretty perfect going even against the team because like they tried it they tried it one time and like the timing wasn't right and the second time i saw some onboard clips and they were like telling isaac like all right now is when you need to go set the gap and he was like no like i'll i'll take care of this i know what to do and he did it perfectly and it's it it put uh max on the front row which was which is cool so like he's um he is by far fulfilling the role of Red Bull number two driver better than I think we've seen anyone at this point.

Alexander RossiHost31:33

So finally, like that conversation can end.

James HinchcliffeHost31:36

Yeah.

James HinchcliffeHost31:37

Yeah.

James HinchcliffeHost31:37

Who else had a good, obviously, uh, what was it for charles p2 yeah i think charles p2 yeah ortoletto up in the points for audi which is impressive at a horsepower track and the racing bulls having another great weekend but hungary is going to be completely different and short lap and qualifying is everything so is

Alexander RossiHost31:59

is this weekend when the aston martin upgrade comes

James HinchcliffeHost32:02

Or is it after the summer break? This week.

James HinchcliffeHost32:04

So this week, Aston Martin comes with the chassis, and then Honda comes, I think, after the break with the

Alexander RossiHost32:12

new engine.

Alexander RossiHost32:12

But still, we better see a second and a half step, right, from them this weekend? That would still put them last, but

James HinchcliffeHost32:19

yeah.

James HinchcliffeHost32:19

I know.

James HinchcliffeHost32:20

But this is the point.

James HinchcliffeHost32:21

Yes.

James HinchcliffeHost32:22

And this is this is what we were talking about a week in warm up is like when you get a brand new car, it's not optimized.

James HinchcliffeHost32:29

Right.

James HinchcliffeHost32:29

Like when you look at what these teams did at the Barcelona shakedown, that's the car they started with.

James HinchcliffeHost32:34

They've had all this time to develop it.

James HinchcliffeHost32:36

Yes, with upgrades, but also just understand it from a setup standpoint and all these things.

James HinchcliffeHost32:40

So whatever they bring, whatever they have this weekend, that's not the end result of what they've brought, right? Like you're not going to get the max potential out of the package this weekend because there's so much that's changing.

James HinchcliffeHost32:50

So I think it's important for everybody to understand that like this weekend will be better, almost guaranteed.

James HinchcliffeHost32:56

I mean, it'd be hard for it to be worse, but it's not going to be the ceiling.

James HinchcliffeHost32:59

So like, I don't think we, you know, freak out if they're still on the last row of the grid.

James HinchcliffeHost33:04

Um, cause these things are complex machines and there's a lot to learn about them and they still have to go through all that, that process, that learning, and then they get the new engine next time out.

James HinchcliffeHost33:13

So, um, yeah, it's gonna be fun to watch.

James HinchcliffeHost33:16

It's, it's, uh, again, it's always such a tight race in qualifying here.

James HinchcliffeHost33:20

And when you look at cars that we didn't think were going to be fast in Spa, we're actually pretty quick.

James HinchcliffeHost33:25

So yeah, Mercedes will be quick, but I think with not a lot of straights and being good in the corners, Ferrari is going to be quick.

James HinchcliffeHost33:30

Red Bull was quick in Spa when nobody thought they should be.

James HinchcliffeHost33:33

They keep upgrading that thing.

James HinchcliffeHost33:34

So maybe, you know, and Max is Max.

James HinchcliffeHost33:36

So in a qualifying session where it's going to be, you know, that extra half a tenth can make a difference.

James HinchcliffeHost33:42

He's the guy, right? So yeah, it could be interesting, man.

James HinchcliffeHost33:45

It could be very interesting.

Alexander RossiHost33:46

Some big IndyCar news

James HinchcliffeHost33:48

dropping this week.

James HinchcliffeHost33:50

RLL and DRR have agreed to a deal for Rahal to sell one of their charters and DRR to go full-time in 2027.

James HinchcliffeHost33:59

Alex, how do we feel about this?

Alexander RossiHost34:02

How do I feel about it? I feel...

Alexander RossiHost34:05

excited about it not because I have obviously any connection to either of those parties but because this is the first case study of the the point and the idea behind the charter system and giving all of the teams that have put in so many years of sacrifice and effort to keep cars on the grid and to keep the series going through even the toughest times are, if they want, out in some capacity, can be rewarded for it for more than 10 cents on the dollar for the equipment that they have.

Alexander RossiHost34:43

So I think that we don't know what the sale number is.

Alexander RossiHost34:47

There's this range that is being reported, so it's somewhere in that range.

Alexander RossiHost34:50

But it's, well... a thousand percent more than it would have been had there not been charters.

Alexander RossiHost34:58

So like, that's pretty cool.

Alexander RossiHost35:00

And that shows that there is value in our sport.

Alexander RossiHost35:03

Um, and that value is obviously hopefully going to increase, but a pretty amazing thing to have happened already.

Alexander RossiHost35:10

What we're two years in to three years into the charger.

Alexander RossiHost35:14

So, um, two years.

Alexander RossiHost35:15

Yeah.

Alexander RossiHost35:16

Yeah.

James HinchcliffeHost35:18

But it's huge.

James HinchcliffeHost35:18

I mean, that first one was always going to be super crucial, right? Because that's going to set the market.

James HinchcliffeHost35:23

And so now there's at least a rough value for all these other charters that are out there.

James HinchcliffeHost35:29

Couldn't have gone to a better group.

James HinchcliffeHost35:30

Obviously, DR has been super committed to the IndyCar series and a part of this world for generations and a very long time.

James HinchcliffeHost35:38

They've been full time before and have wanted to come back for quite some time.

James HinchcliffeHost35:42

And I, you know, it's, it's, it's, uh, it's unfortunate and, and, you know, maybe tragic is the wrong word, but, uh, a bit heartbreaking that, that Dennis obviously passed earlier this year.

James HinchcliffeHost35:52

And, uh, these conversations have been ongoing.

James HinchcliffeHost35:55

I think he knew this was, was happening and that this was on the road to, to getting DR back full time in the field.

James HinchcliffeHost36:01

Um, and I, I'm just so happy for him and the family and everybody that works with the team.

James HinchcliffeHost36:05

I know a lot of those guys, um, and for them to, to now be back full time and 27 is going to be awesome to see.

James HinchcliffeHost36:11

Well, what better way to continue a legacy,

Alexander RossiHost36:14

right? Like someone who's passionate about IndyCar and the Indy 500 and had aspirations to be full time, but financially and business wise, it never made sense.

Alexander RossiHost36:25

And now for him, rest in peace, he's going to be a part of the series and people are going to remember his name and, and what he had done to build this team and get it to where it is.

Alexander RossiHost36:35

And, the immediate success they're obviously going to have in May.

Alexander RossiHost36:40

And who knows? Like this, the sport is full of surprises.

Alexander RossiHost36:43

They may be really good everywhere else too.

James HinchcliffeHost36:45

And that's, that's one of the funny things, right? Is normally if a new team was starting, you would say that the biggest struggle that they've got, the biggest hurdle that God overcome is like getting through May and being successful and competitive in May.

James HinchcliffeHost36:56

Yeah.

maybe indy's actually the

Alexander RossiHost36:59

easiest maybe we just all over engineered this sucker so much that like it's actually really simple

James HinchcliffeHost37:05

just give me a base car out of the box put it together let's go racing yeah yeah Touche.

James HinchcliffeHost37:12

Touche.

James HinchcliffeHost37:12

Good example.

James HinchcliffeHost37:13

But no, I mean, that's obviously that's their bread and butter.

James HinchcliffeHost37:16

So that's great.

James HinchcliffeHost37:16

And, you know, some of that will will translate to to some of the other ovals.

James HinchcliffeHost37:20

But no, exciting, you know, plans on sponsors and driver are TBD.

James HinchcliffeHost37:26

They are going to be announced hopefully sometime soon here.

James HinchcliffeHost37:31

You know, lots of rumors floating around, but we'll wait until we know what we know.

James HinchcliffeHost37:35

And hopefully DRR

Alexander RossiHost37:36

doesn't take a page out of the, uh, DCR book and they announced drivers, you know, in, in the, in the, like in

James HinchcliffeHost37:45

this calendar

Alexander RossiHost37:46

year

James HinchcliffeHost37:46

and not

Alexander RossiHost37:47

calendar year.

Alexander RossiHost37:48

Exactly.

James HinchcliffeHost37:48

Yeah.

James HinchcliffeHost37:48

The other, so the other side of this though is, is Ray Hall.

James HinchcliffeHost37:52

And I gotta be honest, man, I, I really liked this move.

James HinchcliffeHost37:55

Like on one hand, you're like, man, these things are only going to go up in value as a series is getting better.

James HinchcliffeHost38:00

Why sell now? Um, I think in my opinion, again, I've not spoken to anybody in the team about this, but like, if you think about it, the team's had their struggles.

James HinchcliffeHost38:08

We know that, right.

James HinchcliffeHost38:09

Graham's had a couple of pop results this year, but in general, it's still behind where they want to be.

James HinchcliffeHost38:14

And there's a lot to be said for consolidating, right.

James HinchcliffeHost38:17

And taking the focus down from three cars to two, you can have all your best people now focusing on those two entries and really kind of attack it that way.

James HinchcliffeHost38:25

So I think for a team that's looking to return to the front on a more regular basis, um, consolidating those efforts, focusing on your two full-time entries rather than three, not having to spread yourself thin.

James HinchcliffeHost38:38

Because we talk about it all the time, Alex, we have a people shortage in this sport, right? There is a shortage of good people in every position.

James HinchcliffeHost38:46

And so if you can not have to man as many positions, then you're going to, by default, put yourself in a great spot to improve.

James HinchcliffeHost38:54

So...

James HinchcliffeHost38:56

The rumor is, you know, Foster's there on a contract and obviously Graham's got his.

James HinchcliffeHost39:01

So it'd be Mick that would be no longer part of the deal.

James HinchcliffeHost39:05

But, you know, the stories around the paddock are that he is, you know, actively out there talking to other teams, trying to find a way to stay on the grid in 27.

James HinchcliffeHost39:14

So new look Ray all coming for next year and a brand new full season DR coming up, which is very cool.

James HinchcliffeHost39:22

All right.

James HinchcliffeHost39:23

The Borchetta Bourbon Music City Grand Prix 399-300 at Nashville Super Speedway, which I don't think is a super speedway.

James HinchcliffeHost39:34

What do we call in super speedways? It's got to be a mile and a half or over.

Alexander RossiHost39:38

I mean, it...

Alexander RossiHost39:39

Do they call it Nashville Super Speedway or just...

Alexander RossiHost39:41

Yeah, because Nashville Speedway...

Alexander RossiHost39:43

I mean, Iowa raced like

James HinchcliffeHost39:44

a super speedway.

Alexander RossiHost39:45

Well, Nashville Speedway is downtown.

Alexander RossiHost39:47

Right,

James HinchcliffeHost39:48

right.

James HinchcliffeHost39:49

That's the Ferry Rounds one.

James HinchcliffeHost39:50

Yeah.

Alexander RossiHost39:51

Which shouldn't be called Speedway.

Alexander RossiHost39:53

It should be called the Nashville Fairgrounds.

Alexander RossiHost39:57

But here we are.

Alexander RossiHost39:59

Super Speedway or not.

Alexander RossiHost40:01

As we said going into it, it races and feels kind of Texas-esque.

Alexander RossiHost40:07

And the lap times support it.

Alexander RossiHost40:08

I mean...

Alexander RossiHost40:10

You're only 10 to 12 miles an hour average off of what we used to do at Texas.

James HinchcliffeHost40:15

Right, so it's only 10 miles an hour slower than Texas.

James HinchcliffeHost40:17

Right, right.

James HinchcliffeHost40:18

So, I mean, I'm fine with it, even though it's technically not a super speedway.

Alexander RossiHost40:23

So, anyways, IndyCar came with a new tire for the event.

Alexander RossiHost40:30

McLaren and Ganassi did the tire test for it.

Alexander RossiHost40:33

It was a wider... wider right front and a taller right front.

Alexander RossiHost40:40

I believe, I don't think the right rear was changed at all from a construction standpoint.

Alexander RossiHost40:45

And the purpose of that was not really for performance, but more so for durability because there was some fairly high profile tire failures that had happened there in the past.

Alexander RossiHost40:56

And they nailed it with that because let's just say I'm not going to give exact values, but the limit temperature-wise of the right front tire was like 15 degrees higher.

Alexander RossiHost41:10

So it was a pretty substantial change that they made.

Alexander RossiHost41:13

Obviously, we saw no tire failures.

Alexander RossiHost41:16

I think the racing... product was roughly the same, um, despite, uh, having less force in the race and pretty conditions.

Alexander RossiHost41:27

So series, once again, um, it seems that they

very much

Alexander RossiHost41:31

clued in or sorry, narrowed in and have the oval package dialed, um, pretty much everywhere we go, maybe except Indy, but, um, that's next year's problem.

James HinchcliffeHost41:44

So question on it though.

James HinchcliffeHost41:46

So obviously everybody knew these changes coming in, but you went to first practice and it seemed like between, you know, the wider and taller right front, which is going to give you more front grip and the downforce level and everything.

James HinchcliffeHost41:57

Everybody seemed like super free.

James HinchcliffeHost41:59

And I don't know if that was just conditions, the changes, combination of both, but we had some massive station.

James HinchcliffeHost42:05

It was a really...

Alexander RossiHost42:06

Yeah, it was a really weird weekend.

Alexander RossiHost42:08

Um, like I talked to paddle who obviously did the tire test and he was like, that was one of the loosest oval cars I've ever driven.

Alexander RossiHost42:17

So anything that they had learned at the tire test didn't apply.

Alexander RossiHost42:20

Um, both our cars were super loose.

Alexander RossiHost42:23

Um, Obviously, you had Malukas crash just kind of from spinning in turn one.

Alexander RossiHost42:31

Other big moments as well.

Alexander RossiHost42:33

So, yeah, it was really, really hard in practice one.

Alexander RossiHost42:37

It gripped up kind of by the end.

Alexander RossiHost42:38

So we thought, oh, it's kind of just rubber going down, which makes sense, right? It's not a track that's used very much.

Alexander RossiHost42:45

And that progression kind of continued through qualifying and practice too.

Alexander RossiHost42:50

And then for the race, you know, obviously we had massive rain showers.

Alexander RossiHost42:56

Most of the rubber would have been washed away.

Alexander RossiHost42:59

Very high track and ambient temperatures.

Alexander RossiHost43:03

So we were like, oh, this is gonna be a reset and it's kind of gonna go back to how it was at the beginning of practice one until rubber goes down and, you know, people get their cars dialed and more comfortable and whatever.

Alexander RossiHost43:14

And honestly, man, Christian and I had the opposite.

Alexander RossiHost43:16

Like we started super tight, um, and then got very loose pretty much from the second stint onwards.

Alexander RossiHost43:25

Um, and, and I don't

think we were alone in that.

Alexander RossiHost43:28

So I think, I think like anything, you know, you operate these cars on such a tight, in such a tight window that any sort of change, um, for the negative conditions wise whether that's a green track or whether that's really conditions can kind of move you outside of that window it's not one or the other it's you know all of the above can have a pretty detrimental impact on your balance and so what does that mean do you need to get better predicting what the causations are and like what those thresholds are maybe Or really in our case, I think we just have to have a bigger operating window, right? Like because there's sessions that we look unbeatable.

Alexander RossiHost44:11

Like in practice too, Christian was by far the best car and I would say I was third or fourth best.

Alexander RossiHost44:16

If you look at the laps that everyone ran and you took the average time and missile plots and all this sort of stuff, tire age and fuel corrected, whatever, like we were really strong cars.

Alexander RossiHost44:27

And then in the race, we were super average cars.

Alexander RossiHost44:30

And it's just like, well, we didn't, we didn't change anything.

Alexander RossiHost44:32

It got hotter and for everyone.

Alexander RossiHost44:35

So why did we lose? Yeah.

Alexander RossiHost44:37

The relative competitiveness.

James HinchcliffeHost44:39

Yeah.

James HinchcliffeHost44:39

Yeah.

James HinchcliffeHost44:39

That's tough.

James HinchcliffeHost44:40

That's tough.

James HinchcliffeHost44:41

And that's, that's what makes oval racing.

James HinchcliffeHost44:42

So, I mean, IndyCar racing is kind of like that anywhere.

James HinchcliffeHost44:44

There's some really condition sensitive tracks, like mid Ohio always comes to mind.

James HinchcliffeHost44:48

Barbara kind of comes to mind for that.

James HinchcliffeHost44:50

But on the ovals, it just seems to be so much more exaggerated.

James HinchcliffeHost44:53

And that's, In those practice conditions, you're like, yeah, we're one of the best cars, but maybe you were just on the edge of having an issue.

James HinchcliffeHost45:01

And then once that little bit of grip changes or conditions change, all of a sudden it exposes whatever you've got, right? It maybe just says that your guy's window might be a little bit more narrow and other people didn't say weren't affected as much by the condition change.

James HinchcliffeHost45:14

So, okay.

James HinchcliffeHost45:15

So, but you were running, I mean, you qualified well, you were running in the top 10.

James HinchcliffeHost45:19

Where were you running

Alexander RossiHost45:20

most

James HinchcliffeHost45:21

of the day? We

Alexander RossiHost45:22

qualified, we qualified, we qualified sixth and seventh.

Alexander RossiHost45:24

So this was the best non Indianapolis ECR team qualifying ever.

Alexander RossiHost45:31

So, I mean, you want more than sixth and seventh, but again, like this year has been so for the obvious reasons, but like the team is making really positive, like we are getting better.

Alexander RossiHost45:43

It's just, never at the right times or never all at the same time or whatever you want to call it.

Alexander RossiHost45:48

But qualifying was great.

Alexander RossiHost45:53

It was a big focus of ours last year because we qualified like 20th and 23rd.

Alexander RossiHost45:58

So we rectified that.

Alexander RossiHost46:00

Was running fifth in the first two stints.

Alexander RossiHost46:04

The third stint, we had quite a chunk of beg.

Alexander RossiHost46:07

You know, that was always going to be a conversation with having to run, you know, two different compounds.

Alexander RossiHost46:13

Um, with the alternate being a tire that begged, especially in the heat that we had.

Alexander RossiHost46:17

And, uh, because our balance wasn't quite where we needed to be, we, we were kind of falling back a little bit.

Alexander RossiHost46:25

So we were, um, ninth i think eighth ninth something like that at the time of the incident when uh we were coming in we were a little bit on the early side but not like super early um because i think at this point pillow was already in um kirkwood had pitted mclaughlin potentially had pitted as well so we were we weren't dumpster diving but we were still on the early window right um And then and then the storm happened.

Alexander RossiHost46:52

So I think, you know, from from my side, immediately after the race, you're like, wow, I just got rammed in the blindsided sort of thing.

Alexander RossiHost47:05

And while that's true, I don't think that there was any.

Alexander RossiHost47:11

And then I said this, there was no ill intent from Scott.

Alexander RossiHost47:16

This is an unfortunate racing incident that happened.

Alexander RossiHost47:21

And when you look at things in Monday morning quarterback, could you do things differently?

Yeah,

Alexander RossiHost47:26

you could.

Alexander RossiHost47:26

You could in every situation you present yourself in life.

James HinchcliffeHost47:30

But in that moment, I still stand

Alexander RossiHost47:32

by the fact that we didn't do anything wrong.

Alexander RossiHost47:35

And I think that the evidence for that is twofold.

Alexander RossiHost47:41

One Nash, as I kind of alluded to earlier in the episode, there's no like unwritten rule to signal at Nashville that you're coming in.