Latest / BREAK/FIX the Motorsports & Vehicle Enthusiast Variety Show / Drive Thru News #8 - Welcome to Season 2!
Transcript
- 0:00The Drive Thru is GTM's monthly news episode and is sponsored in part
- 0:03by organizations like HPTEjunkie.
- 0:06com, Hooked on Driving, AmericanMuscle.
- 0:09com, CollectorCarGuide.
- 0:10net, Project Motoring, Garage Style Magazine, and many others.
- 0:15If you are interested in becoming a sponsor of the Drive
- 0:17Thru, look no further than www.
- 0:20gtmotorsports.
- 0:21org.
- 0:22Click about and then advertising.
- 0:24Thank you again to everyone that supports Grand Touring Motorsports,
- 0:27our podcast, Brake Fix, and all the other services we provide.
- 0:34Hello and welcome to The Drive Thru, March edition.
- 0:37As you all know, The Drive Thru is our monthly recap episode where we
- 0:40put together a menu of automotive, motorsport, and random car adjacent news.
- 0:45For this particular episode to kick off season two, we've got a new segment where
- 0:49we're going to bring on a couple new guests that are going to rotate through.
- 0:53With us tonight is special guest host Thomas Wendy.
- 0:56He's the region chief for region one.
- 0:59Region one.
- 1:00Welcome Thomas.
- 1:00How's it going?
- 1:01Pull up to window number one for some industry.
- 1:04This, the first article that came up is, you know, it's a very big one
- 1:08with all the, the different movements and everything that are going on in
- 1:11political correctness and all this stuff.
- 1:12This is very poignant right now.
- 1:15The chief of the Cherokee Nation has asked that Jeep stop using the name
- 1:20Cherokee when they name their vehicles.
- 1:22This is a big thing because Jeep has been naming the Cherokees vehicle,
- 1:26SUV since 1974, I believe it was.
- 1:29It's not the first time they've made this request.
- 1:32Is that right?
- 1:33I believe that's correct.
- 1:34Tanya.
- 1:34They've petitioned for Jeep to remove the Cherokee name from
- 1:38the Jeeps several times already.
- 1:40And now it's come up yet again.
- 1:42I thought it was kind of interesting when I first read this.
- 1:45I had to dig into this a little bit more because I was unaware that
- 1:47they had asked for this before.
- 1:48And I can understand why I kind of thought it came at an interesting
- 1:52time, you Stellantis merger.
- 1:55Now, you know, being the 4th largest auto manufacturer in the world.
- 1:58It's like.
- 1:59Mhm.
- 1:59Do they suddenly have a target on their back?
- 2:01So I didn't want to go down that rabbit hole, but I do agree with their sentiment.
- 2:05I just am now left with, especially being a grand Cherokee owner.
- 2:09What are they going to call it?
- 2:10What's it going to become?
- 2:11Because the Cherokee has been a staple in the Jeep lineup for 40 plus years now.
- 2:17The Commander, I think, seems to be the most relevant name
- 2:21that they could go back to.
- 2:22Jumping over into a different realm as well, military helicopters, like, are
- 2:26those gonna be next in line as well?
- 2:28All the helicopters are after the different tribe names as well,
- 2:32so you've got the Blackhawks, the Apaches, the, uh, Comanches.
- 2:36It goes on and on, like, that's just the list that they used.
- 2:40For naming all that, but just another thing
- 2:43I could see that.
- 2:44I mean, I also thought to myself, you know, if they work out something
- 2:47where maybe they have to pay some sort of licensing fee to the
- 2:51charities or something, exactly to keep the name, then I'm okay with it.
- 2:55If they decide they're going to abandon the name, I almost said
- 2:58to myself, I'm busting out the dental floss and I'm taking the
- 3:01Cherokee off the side of my Jeep.
- 3:03Other than on the sides, there is no other label on the Jeeps as of 2013.
- 3:08forward.
- 3:09So it's very easy to just remove it from the vehicle.
- 3:11But by saying that you're making it seem like this request is kind of
- 3:16a money grab and not really about the pride of the Cherokee Nation.
- 3:21Cause if you could just stroke a check for a certain dollar amount
- 3:25and then, Oh yeah, now it's okay.
- 3:27Now it's okay.
- 3:27Now it doesn't hurt our pride because you gave us like 10.
- 3:2915 million.
- 3:31That doesn't sit well with me.
- 3:32I am more understanding of it being about the Cherokee nation's pride.
- 3:37Same with the Redskins and the Florida state Seminoles and the Cleveland Indians
- 3:41and like all these other organizations that are being asked these same requests.
- 3:46I don't think it's about the money.
- 3:47At least I hope it's not about like money.
- 3:49It's not a, they're not looking for a settlement.
- 3:51Yeah.
- 3:52The statement
- 3:52that was made earlier, I don't think this has anything to
- 3:54do with any merger or with.
- 3:56Fiat and all that in Stellantis.
- 3:58It's coincidentally occurring, but it has something to do with that.
- 4:02That's not what's driving it.
- 4:03There's no target on Stellantis back.
- 4:05It does definitely open the door and set a precedent.
- 4:08I couldn't think of any other vehicles that were named after
- 4:12Indian tribes of any kind.
- 4:13I mean, it definitely resonates with me being an owner of a.
- 4:16Vehicle with this name on it.
- 4:17So I don't, I'm still kind of mixed about how I feel about it, but I'm
- 4:20really interested to see where the dust settles on this whole conversation.
- 4:24So it's definitely politically charged depending on how you feel about it,
- 4:27but I'm still very curious to see where this goes, but there's a lot
- 4:30more news with respect to Stellantis.
- 4:34Let's call it that rather than Fiat Chrysler and all that.
- 4:36This whole first segment should just be the Stellantis segment.
- 4:40Shouldn't it though?
- 4:41That's what it's looking like to me, the Stellantis segment, at least
- 4:44for the first, like four articles that we're going to talk about here,
- 4:48the next one up on the list got me really excited, which was the talks about the
- 4:52return of Peugeot and Peugeot setting up their dealer networks and all that kind
- 4:56of stuff, obviously riding on top of the Chrysler network that's already here.
- 5:00And I'm like, yes, finally some hot hatchbacks, some French cars, right.
- 5:05Something interesting for a change.
- 5:06And that got canned.
- 5:09Stellantis has decided that they are going to double down on Alfa Romeo.
- 5:12So I am still holding out hope for the rear wheel drive GTA hatchback
- 5:17that they teased two years ago at Salins that's in the TCR series.
- 5:22You know, if I can't get my Peugeot 205 or whatever, at least maybe I can
- 5:26get an Alfa Romeo hatchback instead.
- 5:28So crossing my fingers, we'll see where that goes.
- 5:30You know, going back to Jeep, there's the Jeep Magneto electric Wrangler concept
- 5:35that was just teased earlier this week.
- 5:38Isn't that an X Men character?
- 5:40Uh, it is, it is, it is actually.
- 5:42They, they, they pay homage to the X Men character.
- 5:44Actually they don't.
- 5:45It's just, it's just a weird name, I guess.
- 5:47But it's got an electric motor with a 273 foot pounds of torque, 285 horsepower,
- 5:52which I believe the current Pentastar also has 285 horsepower or thereabouts.
- 5:58So not too much different there.
- 6:00The big thing is it's this concept vehicle, which is electric came out with
- 6:04a manual transmission, and some of you might be scratching your heads as to why
- 6:09would it have a manual transmission is isn't the first time this has happened.
- 6:13This also came out when Ford did a concept vehicle.
- 6:16I think last year or 2 years ago.
- 6:18They had a Mustang with a manual transmission as well.
- 6:20So it's not unheard of.
- 6:22It doesn't make any sense to me.
- 6:23I haven't studied the science or the engineering behind how it would work.
- 6:27It's interesting.
- 6:28Nonetheless, it's based on the newest Jeep Wrangler Rubicon that came out.
- 6:33It's kind of cool.
- 6:34I'm all for the EV revolution, at least in concept form.
- 6:38I'm not ready for it to take over.
- 6:40You know, our daily drivers or anything like that, especially not our track
- 6:43cars, but I think it's interesting.
- 6:45I think it's kind of cool.
- 6:46It looks cool.
- 6:47So a couple of things I had an issue with this particular article, other
- 6:51than you're right, it does look cool.
- 6:53Even the specs still are written like a gas motor, maybe to just.
- 6:58I guess adapt people or ingratiate people to the whole concept, especially
- 7:02the jeeping community, horsepower and torque out of an electric motor.
- 7:06Shouldn't we be talking about power output and torque?
- 7:08Basically what horsepower, like what are we talking about here?
- 7:11I've had a theory for a while now, and we talked about this a few times
- 7:14about the physical layout of some of these hybrids and electric cars.
- 7:18I still think.
- 7:19That they're having issues packing a hybrid platform or even an electric
- 7:25platform into a traditional front mount rear drive configuration, right?
- 7:30A lot of hybrids.
- 7:31A lot of electrics are either positioned rear rear front front.
- 7:36Or even in the case of hybrids, the front wheel drive transverse, I think
- 7:40there's an issue somewhere in there with the transmissions and the transfer
- 7:43cases and all that stuff that they want to do where I think it makes sense.
- 7:46In this case, they had to go to manual because it was the only way to give
- 7:50the Wrangler this off road capability with an electric motor attached to it.
- 7:53Now, I'm theorizing here.
- 7:55I'm speculating, but I have a strong suspicion.
- 7:58There's some sort of mechanical engineering.
- 8:01Challenge that they haven't been able to overcome yet with a proper, you
- 8:04know, electric drive train, like we're, like, we're used to talking about.
- 8:08That very well could be, I know the higher end, more exotic manufacturers
- 8:11are putting the motors at the wheels, the smaller electric motor units at the
- 8:16wheels, but you can't really do that with a Wrangler, especially if people
- 8:19are going to be forwarding water and stuff like that, a Creek, let's, let's
- 8:22be honest, 40, a Creek, not a river.
- 8:24And all of a sudden, you know, the insulation or something, water starts
- 8:28getting into the battery or the motor or something, and then you're.
- 8:32But let's take it from the perspective.
- 8:33You know, we talked to drew on the off roading episode this previous month
- 8:37about the other electric offering that was coming out in partnership with GM
- 8:41the Rivian.
- 8:42Yes.
- 8:42The Rivian.
- 8:43If you think about it, that was 1 of those, you know, electric motors,
- 8:46almost at every corner of the vehicle and all that kind of stuff.
- 8:49But.
- 8:49What we didn't talk about in that episode was how's it going to hold up?
- 8:53It's a really cool idea.
- 8:55But if you look at, you know, I got a Dana 44, I got a Dana 60, and I want to go
- 8:58off road and I want to put, you know, 44 inch tires and all the stuff that Jeepers
- 9:02do to Jeeps, that typical EV layout.
- 9:06I don't think it's going to hold up.
- 9:08It's not going to work.
- 9:08It really.
- 9:09Is it strong enough?
- 9:10It can make the power, but I don't think it can hold up in
- 9:14those rugged off road conditions.
- 9:15So this is really cool in the sense that they're trying to figure
- 9:19out the formula for that classic front mount rear drive config.
- 9:23But I think the reason is they need to stick with that tried and true
- 9:28layout because there's no other way to go off roading properly.
- 9:31Let's, let's put it that way.
- 9:33And I don't
- 9:33know that they, Rivian, has been advertising that they're
- 9:38trying to be off roaders.
- 9:39They're trying to be like a Land Rover, bougie, pretending like you're gonna
- 9:45go overlanding, but really you're just driving down to the grocery store.
- 9:50They call that mall crawling.
- 9:53Yeah.
- 9:53I mean, fine.
- 9:54You might go on a dirt path somewhere on some snow, but they're not
- 9:57actually trying to go rock crawl.
- 9:58I don't think they've advertised that way.
- 10:01No, I doubt that they would have built for that.
- 10:03Yeah.
- 10:03So this might be the first proper EV off roader if we really kind of boil it down.
- 10:08Right.
- 10:09I mean, I'm sure there's some other more boutique entries, but from a
- 10:12mainline producer like Chrysler, this is Probably the first of its
- 10:16kind out of anybody at this point.
- 10:18I'm pretty sure it's confirmed the Jeep is going to be coming out
- 10:21with at least a hybrid wrangler.
- 10:23Uh, I thought I heard, I heard there was a
- 10:24hybrid Cherokee coming too, or whatever it's gonna be called next.
- 10:27The
- 10:27high Yes.
- 10:28Is the hybrid smaller mid-size.
- 10:30SUV, that to be named later,
- 10:33. Well, what is the Hummer supposed to be capable of doing?
- 10:37Because based on some of its.
- 10:38Little videos and photos.
- 10:39It's
- 10:40doing
- 10:40a little bit more extreme things then.
- 10:43Yeah.
- 10:43I mean, that's really
- 10:44kind of supposed to be doing a lot of the generic off road stuff.
- 10:47I mean, I know just from times that I've heard, like people sometimes
- 10:51make fun of the guys that roll up in the homers thing and they'll get
- 10:53through everything and then they can't.
- 10:55But when you think of Homer, you're thinking of pretty heavy duty.
- 11:00I haven't heard how they've been faring, but I believe they allegedly have
- 11:04designed for a bit more rugged use.
- 11:08Maybe to Eric's point earlier that, you know, they're, they're sticking
- 11:11with the Jeep layout of the, I guess, the, the rear, the solid axles and the.
- 11:16The suspension setup and everything, the front engine rear wheel drive or
- 11:19four by four, maybe because that is the best setup that's of it that has
- 11:25come out thus far, but maybe it's not necessarily the best setup ever.
- 11:30It's been that setup for so long that it's been perfected much like the Porsche 911.
- 11:35They've been developing that rear wheel drive.
- 11:38You know, rear engine set up for what, 60 years.
- 11:42How's the 60 years 1964.
- 11:45Yeah,
- 11:45it's a terrible design.
- 11:47And if you think about physics, it should not work as well as it does,
- 11:50but it does because they've figured out how to make it work and it
- 11:53could be the same thing with this.
- 11:54Maybe just, this is the best setup for now, but it's not
- 11:57the best setup moving forward.
- 12:00And like to Tanya's point, the Hummer, yeah, it is designed
- 12:03to be very off road capable.
- 12:05Well, the problem is the article says that it's based off the 2020 Rubicon.
- 12:09So if you're basing it off a gasoline powered vehicle, most of the
- 12:14manufacturers, all their EVs are being, you know, they started out trying to,
- 12:18you know, just take the platform they already had and retrofit and all that.
- 12:21More and more of them are all realizing that they just have to
- 12:24start from the ground up with a whole new chassis design to support EVs.
- 12:28It's not gonna be the same.
- 12:29So this is a concept.
- 12:31So who knows if they keep going down the path of a, of a Wrangler ev,
- 12:36they might decide that they scrap it and start from a whole new platform.
- 12:41But if that's the case, I think that's the death knell of the Wrangler at
- 12:45that point, because what you will have after that is no longer a Wrangler.
- 12:49To Brad's point, I think there's a formula that says this is what it is.
- 12:52This is what you expect to get.
- 12:54The performance you expect to get out of it, especially as an off road vehicle.
- 12:57So I applaud them for trying.
- 12:59I want to say Where this goes, I'm really, really curious because I think if this
- 13:03works, and especially with the manual and all that, that they're suggesting here,
- 13:07then that means there's hope for the grand Cherokee and the Cherokee as well,
- 13:10whatever it's going to be called in the future as well, because that's a similar
- 13:14layout and they can then translate this formula to that and then have an EV based,
- 13:19you know, mid sized SUV to be named later.
- 13:21What else is going on at Chrysler there, Brad, as we
- 13:24transition away from off roading?
- 13:26Well, Dodge has decided to take the law into their own hands.
- 13:31And they've come up with a solution to prevent people from stealing cars,
- 13:36protecting their car owners, mainly the charger and, uh, challenger
- 13:41owners of the higher models, the SRTs and Hellcats and stuff like that
- 13:45from the B having their car stolen.
- 13:48And basically they've created a software update.
- 13:50So here's where I'm a little fuzzy on the details from the article, but
- 13:53basically there's a four digit code that's either prevents or puts the car
- 13:57into a limp mode, essentially three horsepower, 22 something like that.
- 14:03Uh, basically it puts the car in limp mode, no high speed getaways.
- 14:06If you're trying to steal a Dodge charger or challenger, unless
- 14:08you have the four digit code.
- 14:10Okay.
- 14:10Two things.
- 14:11First of all, Chrysler, have you heard of Lojack?
- 14:15Second of all, have you seen the movie Mad Max?
- 14:18This
- 14:18is Slow Jack.
- 14:19Yeah, right?
- 14:20But do you remember, like, in Mad Max, he had the little keypad, like, hidden under
- 14:24the fender or wherever it was, and he had, like, he could start the car because
- 14:28he didn't want anybody to steal it, you know, and his gasoline and all that mess?
- 14:31Like, this is the same thing, but I really feel this is a
- 14:34day late and a dollar short.
- 14:36I feel it's a gimmick.
- 14:37I mean, Ford has the same keypad technology on their doors.
- 14:42Where I was confused like you was whether I needed to put the code in
- 14:46to put it into the mode or to keep it out of the mode.
- 14:48Correct.
- 14:49It's like it's exactly.
- 14:51No, you're absolutely correct.
- 14:52I didn't understand one way or the other.
- 14:54I was like, what are we doing here?
- 14:55Like, I can see this is a valet key, like, this is, this is
- 14:58their version of a valet key.
- 15:00Well, so they already do have the valet key though, because like when
- 15:03the Hellcats first came out, there were videos coming out on YouTube
- 15:08of these pissed off valet workers.
- 15:11They're like, Oh man, this is so awesome.
- 15:13I'm going to drive a Hellcat.
- 15:15I'm just going to go up and down the street here.
- 15:17And then they were all upset because they were given the valet key and they
- 15:20like, Could barely even drive the thing.
- 15:22That's awesome.
- 15:24As, as a person who hopes to someday own a Hellcat, I am thankful for that.
- 15:29Not that I valet park a car very often because I'm not that bougie, but I don't
- 15:34want some like 20 year old snot nose kid getting in my car and doing burnouts
- 15:38and stuff in the valet parking garage.
- 15:40Yeah.
- 15:40But just go off to his friends.
- 15:42But just think Brad, he could leave it on Liquid Metal or
- 15:44some other channel, you know.
- 15:46He's welcome to do that.
- 15:47This, this code does not prevent you from setting my SiriusXM stations.
- 15:52Is there really a rash of just challenger and charger thefts
- 15:57going on that we don't know about?
- 15:58Well, I, I think so.
- 16:00I mean, I know like
- 16:01not as many as the Honda Accord.
- 16:02I was going to say like, yeah,
- 16:05the Hondas and the Camry is like right behind him.
- 16:07Right.
- 16:07I don't get it.
- 16:08I just don't, I just don't see the appeal of stealing a Challenger
- 16:11or a Charger, but whatever.
- 16:12But
- 16:13the three horsepower limit on those Hondas wouldn't affect anything.
- 16:17VTEC yo.
- 16:19But if you limit the torque though,
- 16:23the most interesting tidbit from this is the.
- 16:26The fact that to get to the 22 foot pounds, they just limit the red line
- 16:32to 675 RPM, not 6, 750 RPM, 675 RPM.
- 16:39But you know, what's cool about that?
- 16:41The Hemi makes 22 foot pounds.
- 16:43At 600 RPM, think about that.
- 16:45That's actually kind of cool.
- 16:48So when you're looking at that torque graph and those numbers, I mean,
- 16:50that's, that's impressive actually.
- 16:52And still better than anything French from the 1960s.
- 16:56So there you go.
- 16:58So the way I'm looking at a different article, the way it says is you create a
- 17:02four digit code that you have to enter in order to have the car be in normal mode.
- 17:07Oh, that's terrible.
- 17:08Cause it says the way it works is that the owner sets a four digit
- 17:10code in the infotainment system.
- 17:12This code must be entered before driving away to access the car's
- 17:16normal horsepower settings.
- 17:18If it isn't because of thief spoofed the key or stole the key, the engine computer
- 17:23won't let the engine rev past 675 RPMs.
- 17:26So does this become like my iPhone where if I don't put my pass code
- 17:30in right three times, then my car is Bricked for 20 minutes.
- 17:34So they have a demon.
- 17:36Why didn't they set the RPM limit to 6, 6,
- 17:396?
- 17:40Because they had to get to that precious 2.
- 17:438 horsepower.
- 17:45This reminds me of the Seinfeld episode where they're all running around trying
- 17:48to get access to each other's ATM cards.
- 17:51And nobody wants to give out their pen numbers.
- 17:53Apparently it's a free installation.
- 17:55So what's the gimmick?
- 17:56They're not trying to make money.
- 17:57They're offering it to you for free.
- 17:58So what I understand from that though is, is if I put my, I have to put my
- 18:02pen in every time I drive the car.
- 18:05So it's in limp, it's in limp mode by default.
- 18:08When you first turn it on.
- 18:09Well, no, I guess you wouldn't necessarily, I don't know.
- 18:11You wouldn't necessarily have to quote crank it all the way for
- 18:14the accessory position to turn the infotainment system on, I guess.
- 18:18So like the Apple iPhones, are they going to next come out with the fingerprint key?
- 18:23So like, if it's not your fingerprint on the key, it stays in limp mode.
- 18:26It's a, it's in the swells of the steering wheel.
- 18:28You have to put your thoughts.
- 18:30You have to hold the
- 18:30steering wheel at all times.
- 18:32Yeah.
- 18:33Then you're going to have all these forensic thieves that are
- 18:35going around with, you know, powder with the powder fingerprints.
- 18:39Comes an episode of Dexter, challengers and chargers.
- 18:43Instead of stealing your challenger first, they steal your coffee mug.
- 18:46So I was going to say it also brings up another thing that's going to really suck
- 18:49for you if you Have actually put it in to use this and then your infotainment
- 18:54system breaks Yeah, because how are you gonna put it back into regular mode then
- 18:58because if we know anything about chrysler electronics
- 19:02And they said 2015 So i'm just like if it was me i'd skip this update
- 19:08and you're out of warranty at this point Just don't worry about it.
- 19:11All right So speaking of bright ideas
- 19:13So there was an article earlier about Porsche unveiling that they're working
- 19:17on a synthetic fuel that will basically have electric vehicle level emissions,
- 19:23obviously, and basically just trying to make cleaner fuel for the ice engines.
- 19:29Obviously, they're still under development with this.
- 19:32They're not too forthcoming with exactly how the process is going down and whatnot,
- 19:37but they do mention that the e fuels will be made out of CO2 and hydrogen and
- 19:41will be produced using renewable energy.
- 19:44So those are all good things.
- 19:45I mean, this is not new, the ability to make longer chain
- 19:50hydrocarbon molecules, such as.
- 19:52Gasoline from something like CO2, hydrogen, or even
- 19:55just starting with methane.
- 19:56Cause basically they're going to create methane from the CO2 and hydrogen.
- 20:00It's great.
- 20:00I mean, yes.
- 20:01Will it, in terms of running a car powered on this e fuel versus
- 20:05running a car powered by batteries, will it be cleaner than the EV?
- 20:12I'm not convinced.
- 20:14Will it be cleaner than traditional ice?
- 20:17That's a good question.
- 20:18Yes, because they will be able to get rid of sulfur and nitrogen that
- 20:22are naturally occurring when you're making gasoline from crude oil.
- 20:25So you won't get your SOx and your NOx.
- 20:27So you won't get all the smog.
- 20:29That part of pollution will be solved.
- 20:31But the piece that I'm not sold on is whenever you combust something.
- 20:36CO2 is a byproduct.
- 20:38Batteries aren't generating CO2, right?
- 20:41So I think it's great.
- 20:43I think it's positive.
- 20:44I don't know that the whole story is fully articulated yet.
- 20:47I mean, depending on the manufacturing process and how
- 20:50much energy intensive that is.
- 20:53They do say using renewable energy, you know, there's still going to possibly
- 20:56be a footprint, carbon footprint with that manufacturing process.
- 21:01So again, it goes back to what's the whole lifecycle analysis on this.
- 21:04I don't know yet without more information, how does it pan out versus, you
- 21:08know, the traditional way of making gasoline, it might still be better.
- 21:11And anything that's better is.
- 21:13It's good to help the environment one for one apples to apples versus battery.
- 21:19I mean, without seeing the full life cycle analysis, I'm not sure how they're
- 21:22saying that there is zero emissions, like an EV because combustion is combustion,
- 21:26which is still gonna have its byproducts.
- 21:29The thing that stuck out to me is there's a line in the article that
- 21:34says this will be the same level of CO2 produced in the manufacturer and use.
- 21:40Of an electric vehicle.
- 21:41Now, isn't that like the big debate, like the whole manufacturing process of EVs?
- 21:46is worse than the life cycle of an ICE motor?
- 21:51I mean, isn't that one of the debates or one of the arguments against EVs?
- 21:54So that's tricky because it really comes down to if you're a coal
- 22:00based in your life cycle, then yes, you are likely probably worse.
- 22:04Versus coal based, you know, making gasoline, but you're
- 22:08using cleaner energies to do the life cycle for the, for the EVs.
- 22:12You're actually probably better than in the gasoline.
- 22:15So it really comes down to what's your initial energy source, right?
- 22:19There's context that needs to be added to the conversation that's usually omitted.
- 22:22So you can't really make the blanket statements.
- 22:26And then they usually say that about like the whole mining for precious
- 22:29metals and stuff to, to make the batteries and things like that too.
- 22:32They, they try to throw all of those things into the argument against EVs to
- 22:36make EVs seem like they're the devil or where they're, they're worse than ice.
- 22:41You can justify anything if you explain it enough
- 22:44to your point, Brad, about the precious metals.
- 22:46That argument holds water on the ice side of the house, too, because
- 22:49you have to mind precious metals to develop catalytic converters, right?
- 22:53There's all sorts of materials inside of those.
- 22:55So I don't think that's a winning argument on either side because the number of.
- 22:59Catalytics, especially vehicles now where you've got two, sometimes four
- 23:04catalytic converters on vehicles, right.
- 23:06To suppress a lot of that kind of stuff.
- 23:08So I think it all kind of comes out in the wash at the end of the day
- 23:11with respect to that kind of stuff.
- 23:13Well, the problem with the way life cycle analysis often done
- 23:16is where your fence lines, i.
- 23:18e.
- 23:18your boundaries for how you're doing your analysis, how they're set can greatly
- 23:23change the answer that you're getting.
- 23:25Right.
- 23:25And so, I mean, I haven't really seen enough.
- 23:29Of the data to say one way or the other I have seen something saying
- 23:32it really it comes down to You know what you're saying your base energy
- 23:36sources and if you're trying to use coal to make the the ebs you're you're
- 23:40not winning I mean good on them.
- 23:43Um Hopefully they've maybe cracked the code to make it or because there
- 23:47is a shift the way using more natural gases You know initial power source
- 23:52into manufacturing and whatnot.
- 23:53That's a cheaper source You Cleaner also, you know, maybe that's
- 23:58making this more advantageous, more economical to do, right?
- 24:01Because this is not new technology.
- 24:03This technology, this process dates back to, you know, world war one or two.
- 24:08I don't remember which one right now.
- 24:10Um, so it's been around, but when things aren't economically favorable
- 24:14to do, you don't do them, right?
- 24:15So who's going to be first in line to put this new fuel, uh, into their
- 24:21race cars, into their track cars,
- 24:23The people that can afford it, they can go to the dealership and buy it at 1.
- 24:2775 liters at a time at, you know, some ridiculous markup, because where are you
- 24:32going to buy this Porsche special fuel?
- 24:35And can I put it in my car?
- 24:36Yeah.
- 24:36There's a lot of
- 24:38this Porsche, this Porsche special fuel or SRF.
- 24:40No, it'll go in any car.
- 24:42I don't, I don't see that being a problem.
- 24:43I don't see it.
- 24:44It's not going to be Porsche specific.
- 24:47It's gasoline.
- 24:48At the end of the day, they're creating the gasoline chain.
- 24:51So if your car runs on gasoline,
- 24:53the question is, is there going to be a special pump at sheets that says
- 24:57Porsche fuel, like with their logo on it?
- 24:59Like I, you know, Maybe it's in partnership with golf,
- 25:02like in the old days, right?
- 25:03Golf and Porsche.
- 25:04I mean, it's a good question.
- 25:05How are you bringing this to a fuel station?
- 25:08Where is it going to be available?
- 25:10You know, you could, it's Porsche, so one could argue that it'll
- 25:14be available in Germany first.
- 25:16And maybe only Germany, which oil refiner are they working with?
- 25:19And that brings up my next question.
- 25:22Are they using Bosch for the electronics?
- 25:24I think there's a better question than that, Brad, much like biofuel.
- 25:28When you burn this Porsche fuel, does it smell like sauerkraut?
- 25:31And when Ferrari comes up with their fuel, does it smell like marinara sauce?
- 25:35It smells like
- 25:36Axe body spray and desperation.
- 25:39Well, it won't have sulfur and nitrogen in it, so it'd smell better from that.
- 25:44So speaking of Porsche, we brought it up in previous episodes of the
- 25:49drive thru where they took a vested interest in Rimac, which if you
- 25:55guys remember, you've probably heard that name before because that's the
- 25:58EV that Richard Hammond wrecked.
- 26:00During an episode of the grand tour on a twisty road.
- 26:03So Porsche, back when we talked about this the first time, they had just
- 26:07invested 15 percent stock of Rimac, right?
- 26:12And now they have just upped that number to 25%.
- 26:15So they have a quarter control of Rimac right now.
- 26:17So I have a feeling that that's going to continue to climb.
- 26:20You're going to continue to see them using Rimac and working together to
- 26:23advance the technology that they're using.
- 26:25And we're probably going to end up seeing that in the
- 26:27Taycan and a lot of other cars.
- 26:29Speaking of the Taycan, I just recently watched a video on Garage Riot of the
- 26:33world's fastest C8 Corvette, and the hood managed to stay down during the
- 26:38whole thing, in a drag race against a Taycan Turbo S, or whatever they call it.
- 26:43It's
- 26:43Taycan also, sorry.
- 26:45Sure.
- 26:45Touareg, Touareg, it's all the same.
- 26:49So at any rate, I thought that was a little bit of fun by, you know, the
- 26:54Hoonigan guys or whatever, they were putting it on, but in reality, as you
- 26:57guys are going to hear in a future episode about drag racing, you know,
- 27:00they gave them kick at the start.
- 27:02They give them a bunch of other stuff.
- 27:03And I was like, is this really fair?
- 27:05You know, why are we talking about a hugely modified Corvette that makes
- 27:08like almost 2000 horsepower against a stock electric car, but that's
- 27:13not really what got my interest.
- 27:14It was another video.
- 27:16On the same social network where I saw an EV retrofitted into a 935.
- 27:24And this was being developed out in California.
- 27:26There's a lot of companies out there right now that are retrofitting
- 27:29Tesla power plants and other types of EV power plants into old Porsches.
- 27:34The formula makes a lot of sense to your point, Brad.
- 27:36They've been perfecting that rear mounted rear wheel drive for a lot of years now.
- 27:41And a lot of those things Tesla two wheel drives are the same layout,
- 27:45so it makes sense to retrofit the EV pack into an old 9 11 or 3 56
- 27:49or a beetle or whatever have you.
- 27:51And this 9 35, when you guys check out this video and it's in the
- 27:54show notes, it is pretty wild.
- 27:57And they said the power to weight ratio is so much better than what the ice set up
- 28:02because the car was light to begin with.
- 28:03And now you're taking away all the weight of that flat six and
- 28:07giving it almost equivalent power.
- 28:09It is just.
- 28:11rocket ship.
- 28:12And so very cool to see, very cool to see that, you know, old cars
- 28:15like that will continue to live on with some of this new technology.
- 28:18And a little, uh, Easter egg from this video.
- 28:21I don't know if you know who BC Moto are, but they're the ones who developed
- 28:25the manual transmission, twin turbo Honda Odyssey with like 900 horsepower.
- 28:28They do a lot of unconventional things, but it always looks like high quality,
- 28:32well engineered and well done work.
- 28:35Yeah.
- 28:35That was the only disappointing part about the video was they
- 28:38didn't actually open the hood.
- 28:40Or I guess the trunk to show us what it looked like, you
- 28:44know, in the engine compartment.
- 28:45It was all pretty kept hush hush.
- 28:47A lot of the video was done from inside the car.
- 28:50The sound I will say is nothing like a flat six.
- 28:55That's one thing I would have a hard time getting over is driving an old 9
- 28:5911 that sounds like like a wind up toy.
- 29:01Kind of a tough pill to swallow, but overall I thought it was pretty cool.
- 29:05Yeah.
- 29:05So earlier this month, Tesla had their battery day, similar to Tesla Volkswagen
- 29:11had power day as they called it.
- 29:13So it was a bit of press release on all the great things they plan on doing,
- 29:17you know, in terms of, you know, their EV revolution, this, that, and the
- 29:20other, you know, they didn't have huge announcements, I guess, on the scale
- 29:24of what Tesla did, but it had a couple interesting things that came out of that.
- 29:29They did talk about.
- 29:30A plan for, you know, having six battery gigafactories, which the
- 29:36eventual production capacity would be equivalent to four million of their pro
- 29:41performance version of their ID threes.
- 29:44Not that I don't think we're getting the IDC on this side, but.
- 29:47Still, they also are announced something they're calling a unified cell
- 29:52technology planning to launch in 2023.
- 29:55By 2030, then they would be using this new cell that would allow them to reduce
- 30:00the battery cost on most other entry level cars anywhere, I think up to like 50%.
- 30:06So that's pretty significant since they're saying basically the cost of
- 30:09the batteries is, you know, like a third of the cost of the car itself.
- 30:12So if they're able to reduce that, that's pretty significant.
- 30:15And they had some other announcements, one of which there was also an article
- 30:19today, I think this morning highlighting this as well as they have a partnership
- 30:23with BP, so British petroleum, major oil refiners, they're partnering with them
- 30:28to basically create charging stations at BP stations, brilliant, because You're
- 30:34not, you know, creating some station somewhere where someone is not familiar.
- 30:38You're trying to bring the EV compatibility of charging to spots
- 30:42that people are familiar with.
- 30:43So I mean, I think that makes a lot of sense.
- 30:45So good on them to partner up with that instead of just building
- 30:49random stations in places.
- 30:51I don't know how well that'll work.
- 30:53It sounded like they would be tied in with existing petrol stations.
- 30:57So if that is the case, I don't know, you know, how well that'll work.
- 31:01Cause there's a lot of undergrounds that go in with.
- 31:03With the petrol stations for storing the fuel and whatnot.
- 31:06So it makes me wonder if the European fueling stations are operated differently
- 31:12than those in the United States.
- 31:14I'm not familiar, so if anybody's listening out there, you know, please
- 31:16comment, you know, here in the States, most gas stations, most power stations,
- 31:20Fueling stations are franchises, they're buying the fuel from the distributor, be
- 31:24it Exxon, be it BP, be it Shell, whoever.
- 31:26And they have to run the name on the side of the building, much like
- 31:29if you own a McDonald's, you're getting the supplies from them and
- 31:32then you're delivering the service.
- 31:34So here, I'm wondering how would that work to put in the electric and
- 31:38all that is the gas station owner.
- 31:40On the hook for that, for that cost, is it going to be provided by BP as an
- 31:44example, you know, things like that.
- 31:46So I just kind of wonder how all that's going to work unless,
- 31:48you know, maybe overseas the gas stations are maybe controlled by
- 31:52the state or or something like that.
- 31:54Right?
- 31:54So I'm speculating, but I'm just wondering, like, it seems like it's going
- 31:58to be easy, but on the same token, like, why is it so easy to do that sort of?
- 32:02You know, conversion.
- 32:03I mean, I don't, I don't know how done in, in Europe or in Asia or other
- 32:07places, the world here, the gas stations used to be owned by the oil refiner.
- 32:12So it said Exxon or mobile, it was, you know, controlled and
- 32:16managed by Exxon or mobile.
- 32:17That's not really the case anymore.
- 32:19Like you said, yes, there are independent owners that can set the prices.
- 32:23on the fuel station.
- 32:24So when people blame, oh, man, the price of the fuel, the guy
- 32:29that owns the place might have added a few extra cents on there.
- 32:32So let's make sure we know who we're getting upset with.
- 32:35Um, but yes, exactly.
- 32:36They basically pay whatever their branding There's no control from the,
- 32:42the major oil refiner of that station.
- 32:45I don't know in Europe, maybe it's different.
- 32:46Maybe they still, maybe BP still controls their stations.
- 32:50I don't know.
- 32:51We'll see.
- 32:51We'll see how it works here.
- 32:52I mean, maybe in the U S they changed their model a little bit.
- 32:56Maybe the control.
- 32:57Shifts again, maybe there's part ownership that goes back in or something.
- 33:02I don't know, or maybe here, we're just going to say, screw it.
- 33:04We're going to just build whole new stations alongside, or maybe they'll
- 33:07close some fuel stations and then just completely from the ground
- 33:11up, rebuild them to be just EV.
- 33:13If they're seeing demand go down, you don't need these stations.
- 33:16It's just kind of like the phase in of everything.
- 33:19And I know it's kind of been discussed previous episodes and everything as well.
- 33:22Yeah, we're obviously not going to see anything overnight.
- 33:25The initial rollout is most likely going to be horrendous in a lot of the, the
- 33:30situations, but it is something that is coming and it's, it's just going to
- 33:34be a matter of how that actually ends up rolling, even with the Porsche fuel.
- 33:38That's another one rolled in with it as well.
- 33:40It's all about the logistic side of it.
- 33:42Luckily, because we have done it before, like, a lot of things
- 33:46are going to get figured out.
- 33:47But, yes, you're going to have to tear down a lot of things in order to
- 33:50make room for the new infrastructure.
- 33:52I mean, just look at any major city or anything, too.
- 33:55You start tearing down the old stuff to build the new.
- 33:58And it comes along, it comes better.
- 34:01We're just going to have to see gradually go through as it comes, so.
- 34:05Now, what I thought was interesting from the power day discussion, and it's
- 34:09still something that's on the table.
- 34:10And I know they're doing this.
- 34:11We talked about it before they're doing this in formula E where they went
- 34:16to the hot swappable battery packs.
- 34:18I want to see it go in that direction, honestly, because the build quality
- 34:22on cars has gotten so much better.
- 34:24If you look at a 20 year old car today versus a 20 year old
- 34:28car, when we were first started driving, the build quality is.
- 34:31if not 10, 000 times better.
- 34:33So let's say I buy a car today in 2020, that's an EV.
- 34:37Wouldn't it be cool that 10 years from now, I have the ability to drop
- 34:40the batteries out of it, put new ones in and go another 10 years.
- 34:43You know, because in this case, I don't have all those moving parts,
- 34:46all those liquids, all that stuff that, that an ice motor would have.
- 34:50Yeah, maybe I need, you know, brakes, rotors, wheel bearings, all the common
- 34:53suspension parts, but if I kept my car in good shape and I, you know, and it
- 34:57wasn't abused, then it would, it would almost last, let's say forever, it's
- 35:01interesting to see where that's going to go, maybe 10 years down the road from now.
- 35:05Top gear episode to that point as well, where they were testing
- 35:10in a very small limited market.
- 35:12Driving and changing your battery, like going to the gas station.
- 35:16Yeah.
- 35:17So just swap of a battery is not every like 10 years or when the useful
- 35:20life of the battery is done, but like every time you needed a charge,
- 35:24go to the quote unquote, you know, power station, swap out the battery
- 35:29and along your, your, your back on your way in 15 minutes or whatever.
- 35:33I was kind of getting.
- 35:34Go along that line.
- 35:35Cause I know it had been talked about before, like having a spare
- 35:38battery and your, your vehicle for it.
- 35:40But I kind of see it more like what Brad saying, you know, kind of like when
- 35:44you're swapping out your propane tank for your grill, you just walk up, you
- 35:47give them the empty one, and then you grab the, uh, the full one, put it in.
- 35:51And you're on your way.
- 35:52And especially for these longer road trips with the EVs right now, you
- 35:57know, you're sitting there for, you know, however long, just at least,
- 36:00you know, get it charged back up.
- 36:02Now, they're not charging all the way up to 100%.
- 36:04They're doing that super charge up to about 80 because they're
- 36:08able to get that much quicker.
- 36:09But in this case, you might be able to swap out to that full 100 percent
- 36:14and be able to travel a little bit further and extend your road trip.
- 36:17My luck, it'll be like when I go to swap out my propane tank and I Put
- 36:21my empty one in and I get one back.
- 36:23That's half full.
- 36:24So, you know, Hey, whatever, that's my luck.
- 36:26But what I don't want to see happen though, because there is a trend
- 36:29growing right now about leasing your car from the manufacturer.
- 36:33People don't want to purchase their car.
- 36:35They're talking about not being able to purchase a car from the manufacturer
- 36:38anymore is that it turns into that.
- 36:40I forget which episode of black mirror it is, where you just pull
- 36:43up to the station and get out of the car and jump in another one.
- 36:46That's been sitting there and charge up and you just drive away.
- 36:48And you've paid this.
- 36:49Subscription plan for a type of car that you're able to drive.
- 36:53Cause all the cars are kind of cookie cutter in the same, right?
- 36:55You just go from one to the next.
- 36:57So to me, that would be like, that would be the end of just carness as we know it.
- 37:01Right.
- 37:02It's just completely soulless appliances that are out on the road, Tesla.
- 37:06But anyway,
- 37:08So speaking of that, the other thing that's going on with Volkswagen is
- 37:13this project as they call it, that is quote, supposed to lead Volkswagen to
- 37:19the financial promised land, taking the company out of the low margin
- 37:23business of manufacturing and into a new business model that offers the
- 37:27rich returns of software as a service.
- 37:30And so the article kind of goes on and talks about whatever this
- 37:33project is, which is all very vague and there's not a lot of details.
- 37:36It could allow drivers to choose all wheel drive or extra power
- 37:40on a quote fee for service basis.
- 37:43So basically they're talking about like how they even have now
- 37:46with their MQB, whatever that the single platform and they're just.
- 37:49You know, changing the body on the outside.
- 37:51Sounds like they kind of want to do something similar where it's like, all
- 37:53right, we got, we build one car and then you can decide if you want silver,
- 37:58gold, platinum, plutonium subscription, and we'll give you, you know, 20 year
- 38:04old GTI or golf performance or GTI performance or our 32 performance,
- 38:08which I'm very confused how this works.
- 38:10No, no, I know how
- 38:11this works.
- 38:12You're driving down the road at 60 and
- 38:15ads are popping up on the street going, Do you feel like your car is slow?
- 38:18Click here to upgrade now and get 50 more horsepower.
- 38:21So you could do 70 miles an hour for only 29.
- 38:2499.
- 38:25It's going to be just like all these
- 38:27freaking ads on your computer.
- 38:28Isn't this
- 38:29another black mirror episode with having to generate widgets or whatever,
- 38:33his room, and he's got to watch so many hours of whatever stupid videos.
- 38:39Dude, that show is foreshadowing.
- 38:41I'm
- 38:41telling
- 38:42you, EW says quote, they, the cars will have virtually everything on board
- 38:47and customers will be able to activate desired functions on demand at any time
- 38:51via the digital ecosystem in the car.
- 38:54I just don't understand though, because if you buy your, whatever car
- 38:58you want to buy and you decide, Oh, I want the R32 performance package.
- 39:02Well, the car has to have been built with, so whatever the, the highest performance
- 39:06package that you could subscribe to.
- 39:08You have to then build every single car would have to be
- 39:12an R32 performance package.
- 39:14And then you decide that, Oh, I'm going to run it in golf mode.
- 39:17And okay.
- 39:18Switches to front wheel drive, blah, blah, blah, disengages
- 39:22differential that you didn't need.
- 39:23If you just wanted a front wheel drive and like all this extra
- 39:26stuff that you didn't need.
- 39:28If you just wanted base model, I don't understand.
- 39:31I mean, minis and things like that.
- 39:32A lot of the cars have this.
- 39:35Race mode and all that.
- 39:36Yo, yo, yo, yo, yo.
- 39:37Three more paychecks and I'll be able to afford turning on the
- 39:39No, dude!
- 39:40No, dude!
- 39:41No, right?
- 39:41Dude, it's gonna be like an RPG.
- 39:44We're all gonna start off with like, tattered clothes.
- 39:46And the more we drive, we'll earn in game currency.
- 39:50So we can unlock the horsepower.
- 39:52And then I will become a druid night elf.
- 39:55The equivalent to like, you're
- 39:57making fun, but I guarantee there's a shit ton of people that
- 40:00would probably be down for that.
- 40:03I'm at level 20.
- 40:05What
- 40:05are you exactly?
- 40:06And then you can buy VIP for a month and unlock all the features.
- 40:12So, so what is the, uh, in car currency going to be called?
- 40:16Let's take a moment to try and identify what that is.
- 40:19What was that sausage called?
- 40:23Oh, that's awesome.
- 40:25Strudel.
- 40:26I've got 50, 000 strudel.
- 40:28I got schnitzel.
- 40:29Oh, that's old currency.
- 40:31Schnitzel's out.
- 40:32That's that's the old, that's the last mod.
- 40:36Oh my God.
- 40:36Sell all that at
- 40:37the trading house.
- 40:38You're
- 40:38never winter Volkswagen.
- 40:40Yeah,
- 40:40I don't know that.
- 40:41I mean, there's not a lot of.
- 40:42Good information yet on what exactly this means.
- 40:46It's a little frightening.
- 40:47That would be a good name to replace the mid sized Chrysler SUV yet to be named.
- 40:53I would call it the Paladin.
- 40:54I figured it out now that we've gone there.
- 40:56It's the Paladin.
- 40:57But there's
- 40:58already a Chrysler.
- 40:59Isn't there already a Paladin?
- 41:00There's a Palisade, the Hyundai.
- 41:01All right.
- 41:03Anyway.
- 41:04Meanwhile, so the postal service has just signed a contract with Oshkosh B'gach.
- 41:10Are
- 41:10you
- 41:11serious?
- 41:13Oshkosh Defense is going to be doing the new postal truck, the
- 41:16next generation delivery vehicle.
- 41:18Dude, I looked at this thing and I mean, I'm going to miss the old Grumman Jeeps
- 41:22and stuff that had been around for like a billion years, but this thing is ugly.
- 41:27Right.
- 41:28I mean, who, who put it in a trash compactor and decided it was a good,
- 41:32a, it's like a bus got squished.
- 41:35I mean, I don't understand what it is.
- 41:37It's, it is ugly though.
- 41:38I will say so.
- 41:40So some of them are going to be low emission, uh, ice, and some
- 41:44of them are going to be Evie.
- 41:45One thing that I'm actually looking pretty forward to with the, the postal trucks.
- 41:50So anybody that's had any experience with any of the Oshkosh trucks, they
- 41:54have some really cool technology in them.
- 41:57Their tires and suspension and everything.
- 41:59So like in the military vehicles, you've got this display unit where you just
- 42:03basically touch what type of terrain you're going into, and it dynamically
- 42:07changes your tire pressures, your suspension profile, all of that happens
- 42:13in real time so that you're able to go through different terrain types.
- 42:17If they were to actually carry this over.
- 42:19With the postal service, especially since even during all these bad weather
- 42:23conditions, they're still supposed to be out there, you know, delivering
- 42:27mail and packages and everything.
- 42:28This is something that can give those drivers a leg up on Mother Nature.
- 42:33And getting through some of these tougher situations.
- 42:36So they're able to get through some of the snow, possibly if they're in an
- 42:40area where they have to do a little bit muddy drive in or anything like that.
- 42:43Like that's something that, uh, I think would be really beneficial.
- 42:47So what you're saying is my mailman won't do a one wheel peel from my house
- 42:51to the next house to the next house anymore, is that what I'm understanding?
- 42:54Who knows, maybe this is making me actually want to sign up and
- 42:58apply to be a mail carrier now, just so I can play with the truck.
- 43:00They're going
- 43:01to, they're going to have to do something to, uh, secure the packages or do
- 43:07something so that it's the torque.
- 43:08Is it so insane that they gun it like they do in the, that's In the
- 43:12vans right now and all the stuff just flies in the back of the
- 43:18van.
- 43:18So I'm going to,
- 43:19yes, it'll be fine.
- 43:20They're, they're used to dropping packages.
- 43:23If leaving them in the middle of my driveway, cause they won't walk down it.
- 43:26We're saying all this though, but I think the postal service could
- 43:28have saved themselves 470 some odd million dollars because they
- 43:32don't deliver packages anyway.
- 43:34It's the last time you got something from your USPS that you were supposed to.
- 43:37Personally, I think small around town.
- 43:41Delivery vehicles is the perfect platform for EVs, buses, uh, small, you know,
- 43:48mail trucks, delivery vehicles, people.
- 43:50It's perfect.
- 43:51I think it's the perfect platform for it.
- 43:53And that would do so much to help us with our emissions issues.
- 43:57If everybody was just, if.
- 43:58These delivery people and everything, these small
- 44:02commercial vehicles were all EVs.
- 44:04Absolutely.
- 44:04I mean, in Europe, or well, especially in Italy, they went to natural gas
- 44:08transit, you know, tight vans and little small transporters and stuff years and
- 44:13years and years ago, the problem with natural gas or CNG was that it defines.
- 44:19Torqueless wonder.
- 44:20And I mean, if, if, if you think like a Honda off VTEC is slow, I
- 44:25mean, then drive a natural gas car.
- 44:26You'll think it's a, it's a freaking race car in comparison.
- 44:29But if I'm delivering snail mail to little Susie grandma down the street, I'm not
- 44:36sitting there thinking about my Torquems.
- 44:38I'm thinking about how I'm going to get this mail delivered before lunch.
- 44:41So I can blow off the rest of the day.
- 44:42A
- 44:42hundred percent.
- 44:43And if, you know, with mail trucks being big and flat, if they could finally figure
- 44:46out how to do those solar roofs, so they could charge as they're kind of start up
- 44:49and go driving, that would be perfect.
- 44:51And in addition to the USPS trucks, UPS is also, uh, switching to, or looking to
- 44:58switch to, uh, You know, an electric van.
- 45:01Yeah.
- 45:01There's a UK startup that they've, I guess, signed a contract with.
- 45:05They're going to get this UK startups called Arrival and they've designed
- 45:09electric van, um, and they're going to deliver 10, 000 of the Brown vans for UPS.
- 45:15They're going to be exactly for what we're talking about.
- 45:17It's for last mile delivery, meaning they're at the facility and
- 45:22they're just going out to your door.
- 45:23They have 150 mile range.
- 45:25It's not the interstate UPS truck, tractor trailers going back and
- 45:28forth, but it's those short bursts.
- 45:30daily travel, which this is perfect for, and it'd be great not to hear
- 45:34the UPS guy slamming down the road.
- 45:36So here's
- 45:37my suggestion.
- 45:39We go back to the railway system.
- 45:41We find a way to run rail railways, you know, cleaner,
- 45:45and then they go into a station.
- 45:48You know, inside these little towns and then these EVs go out and deliver,
- 45:52you know, to the various little commercial places and residential
- 45:56and everything that they need to.
- 45:57We get all the stupid effing trucks off the damn road.
- 46:00Well, a couple things on that.
- 46:02Trains have been diesel electric hybrids for as long as I can remember.
- 46:07So the technologies aren't there.
- 46:08Why we haven't borrowed from that.
- 46:11Advancement engineering is beyond me.
- 46:13Meanwhile, Amazon continues to buy RAM vans from Stellantis.
- 46:18So I don't know what's going on.
- 46:20But you're starting to see more and more of the blue vans
- 46:23popping up on the streets.
- 46:25You know what I will also say?
- 46:26Is that this will be the weirdest one lap at the Berg ring in Forza with
- 46:30all these new, you know, delivery vehicles that are gonna be coming out.
- 46:33So, Forza eight, I'm excited.
- 46:35Let's see what, you know, Oshkosh and the, the arrival and the,
- 46:38the, the Ram vans and whatever.
- 46:40So we'll see where that goes.
- 46:41Not only is the delivery industry changing, but so is law enforcement.
- 46:46I heard that.
- 46:48Ford is going to start supplying pickup trucks as a replacement for
- 46:53the veteran Crown Victoria and some of the other vehicles that are no longer
- 46:57available as police interceptors.
- 46:59I'm not sure if the Exploder is going away or if this is in conjunction with,
- 47:03but the one thing that got me excited is these trucks are going to be set
- 47:08up to do at least 120 mile an hour.
- 47:11I don't know if they're meant to replace the, the Crownvix.
- 47:15What are, what are the other ones that they use the charger to, or they used to?
- 47:18The sedans, I don't know if they're meant to entirely replace the sedans.
- 47:21Ford side, they were using the Taurus.
- 47:23The Taurus was replacing some of the aging Crownvix.
- 47:27I think it's more of a supplemental thing for like special cases and Right.
- 47:31Because they already have pickup
- 47:32truck police responder vehicles.
- 47:34Today they're gas.
- 47:36So this is just kind of the next evolution for those.
- 47:39Right.
- 47:40And yeah, they did up the, the horsepower, the total top speed from 105 to 120.
- 47:46Apparently it's, it's, they're basically the FX4 off road package.
- 47:50So it's got enhanced off roading capability, which is, I guess, good
- 47:54depending on which kind of pursuit they're undergoing, or if they're using
- 47:57these kind of in more rural areas.
- 48:00Or to
- 48:00arrest Jeep owners that go on bike trails in California.
- 48:03Yeah, I mean, you could be giving these to, um, park ranger, police, uh, those
- 48:08kind of people and they're going off.
- 48:10The park rangers and
- 48:11police, the park rangers all drive square body Chevys.
- 48:15Not on Jurassic Park, but every
- 48:17single park ranger truck I've ever seen has been an early In 80s or early 90s GM.
- 48:24I
- 48:24think I've seen I've seen some pretty sure I've seen some Ford pickups
- 48:28Those are personal vehicles.
- 48:30Okay But
- 48:32since we're talking about Ford the Mach E which is barely out Is
- 48:37having a recall because they have loose bolts on the control arms.
- 48:40So apparently they did not enlist me to tighten these bolts for
- 48:45them because had they, the bolts would never come apart ever again.
- 48:49Yeah.
- 48:49If you have a Mach E get it to a dealership just to get it checked out.
- 48:53Yeah.
- 48:53Get it checked out.
- 48:54I don't think any of them are actually even in service yet.
- 48:57I think, I don't
- 48:58think, I think they caught it before any of them were released to anyone.
- 49:02So,
- 49:03but, uh, Ford, if you're looking for somebody to tighten your
- 49:06control arm bolts, give me a shout.
- 49:09Meanwhile,
- 49:10we
- 49:11would be remiss.
- 49:13We haven't quite talked about Tesla yet.
- 49:14So we would be remiss not to talk about them.
- 49:19I hate to knock on Tesla all the time.
- 49:22We can knock on them for this one because of their exuberance about
- 49:27touting how they have full self driving capability and all this stuff.
- 49:31And we talked about this before about how that's bullcrap and that doesn't exist yet
- 49:36and they really should stop saying that.
- 49:38And apparently, they wrote a letter to California admitting that their
- 49:45autonomous, whatever the hell they call it, is not autonomous.
- 49:48Full self driving.
- 49:50So
- 49:53finally admitting it.
- 49:54I feel like the damage is already done to people that are, are a little
- 49:58bit too, uh, ignorant about how these things work, but hopefully, you know,
- 50:03people will be a little more attentive when they're driving and not like, And
- 50:06some of the stories you've heard, like
- 50:09what?
- 50:10He's
- 50:10flat out.
- 50:11He's like, they won't.
- 50:12Oh, no, you're absolutely right.
- 50:13They won't.
- 50:14But one would hope that the stories that we've reported on where people
- 50:18rolled the seat back and took a nap, their, their autopilot takeover,
- 50:23you know, hopefully people would stop doing that, but probably not.
- 50:27So yes, of course, they're still working on, you know, their
- 50:29technology and, and moving it forward.
- 50:32And the goal is.
- 50:33You know, one day that it is completely autonomous.
- 50:37Um, we'll see if how far in the future that happens.
- 50:40I'm just happy that they finally admit to what we already knew.
- 50:44And speaking of their autonomous driving autopilot, they had two incidents within
- 50:52like, I think a week of each other this month in Michigan, both were in Michigan.
- 50:56For whatever reason.
- 50:57The two Teslas that were on autopilot crashed.
- 51:00The first ended up crashing into, under, into, I guess, under is the
- 51:05more appropriate, under a tractor trailer, so that always ends well.
- 51:09I don't remember if the person died or not.
- 51:13You're practically trying to decapitate yourself when you
- 51:16go under your tractor trailer.
- 51:17But basically, like, That's not, that's not how it worked
- 51:19in the Fast and the Furious.
- 51:22They didn't go under the back.
- 51:24No, they, they, they basically T boned the, the tractor trailer.
- 51:29So I looked at the pictures and that thing is sandwiched underneath there.
- 51:34So basically think like the bottom of the window line crushed underneath there.
- 51:38It says both people that were in the vehicle survived.
- 51:41However,
- 51:42they were sleeping fully reclined
- 51:44most likely.
- 51:45So I think this is pretty funny.
- 51:47So the driver was a 21 year old female or wait, no, that was the passenger.
- 51:53So the driver.
- 51:54Was driving on a suspended license.
- 51:56So is her excuse that she wasn't really driving so she can't
- 52:00be charged with the felony?
- 52:01Oh, shit.
- 52:04Oh, my God.
- 52:04It just gets worse.
- 52:08She's being charged with reckless driving without a license.
- 52:12I don't know.
- 52:13With
- 52:13reckless driving.
- 52:15I don't know how they survived, quite honestly, because.
- 52:18It's under, okay, the roof to the back doors is caved down.
- 52:24Like I, I mean, it's a miracle that those two people lived.
- 52:27It's a good thing they were sleeping.
- 52:29I mean, it's not funny, but I mean, I, you know what, I hope they were
- 52:35reclined and sleeping because that's the only thing that saved their lives.
- 52:39Well, if
- 52:39they weren't sleeping, they probably wouldn't have hit the truck.
- 52:43Oh, there's that too.
- 52:45I mean, they weren't paying attention to the car, failed to do its job
- 52:48and to see the tractor trailer.
- 52:49And there's been reports of that for the last several years of the
- 52:54cars, not appropriately seeing tractor trailers on highways.
- 52:57And especially if they're not moving.
- 52:59Or they're stalled out or something like that.
- 53:01The second incident was also someone driving with their autopilot on, and
- 53:06there was a police cruiser pulled over on the side of the roadway for whatever
- 53:10reason, and it hit the police car.
- 53:12So, I mean, I, I know it's not funny, but I have to laugh.
- 53:15So are these things turning into like.
- 53:17Heat seeking missiles.
- 53:19Every time they go into autopilot mode, if there's some stationary
- 53:22object, they're going to hit it.
- 53:23That's called kamikaze mode.
- 53:27It's ludicrous mode and then whatever this is.
- 53:31And then the, the, the one who ran into the truck, maybe they didn't see it.
- 53:36I'm sorry, officer.
- 53:38I didn't see that 60 foot, 30, 000 pound vehicle in front of me.
- 53:43Well, I mean, it was based on the photos for the police incident.
- 53:46It was at night.
- 53:48So you could argue it was night, the cops pulled over, the lights were on, the blue
- 53:54and reds were flashing on the cop car.
- 53:56The
- 53:56cherries and berries.
- 53:57But then one could argue maybe that created some sort of interference
- 54:01with the sensors that are being used.
- 54:04Are you saying the Tesla
- 54:05was blinded by the light?
- 54:06No,
- 54:07but as we know from the story we reported about the Canadian guys in
- 54:11the Tesla that were being followed by the police officer, they accelerate
- 54:15when they see the reds and blues.
- 54:17So what's up,
- 54:20? Yeah, I don't know.
- 54:21I mean, also it, it's on the full investigation.
- 54:24I don't think it's done.
- 54:24The, the driver is claiming they're on autopilot, so they could also have
- 54:29been not on autopilot, not paying attention and veered, coincidentally,
- 54:34at the same time, they're near the police officer blaming autopilot
- 54:37on Tesla.
- 54:38But I would think that's pretty easy for them to figure out because
- 54:40they can go back into the little computer and read all that stuff.
- 54:44Well, to wrap up our segment on new cars,
- 54:48General Motors has decided to halt production on the Camaro because they
- 54:53can't find these little semiconductors
- 54:57that we talked about last month
- 54:58that we talked about last month.
- 54:59Yeah.
- 54:59The semiconductor shortage has gotten Chevy all up in arms and they can't
- 55:04build the Camaro anymore because of these stupid little things.
- 55:07I'm a call flag on the play.
- 55:09Let's let's be real here.
- 55:10The Camaro isn't selling well, neither is the Corvette.
- 55:14This feels like 1999 all over again.
- 55:17Early two thousands.
- 55:18We got to scrap the Camaro to force people to buy the Corvette.
- 55:23Reality, the Camaro is a better performer than the Corvette right now.
- 55:27And if you think about it politically, it just doesn't make sense to keep it around
- 55:31and the price point and everything else.
- 55:33So to me, I'm saying this semiconductor thing is a great excuse.
- 55:38What about all the rest of the cars that they're building?
- 55:40I don't know what's going on.
- 55:41Why is GM the only one affected by this?
- 55:42It doesn't make any sense at all.
- 55:45I think GM is the only one that's most vocal.
- 55:50About it regarding like the changes that they have to make and they
- 55:54have to blame it on something.
- 55:55So let's blame it on the semiconductors.
- 55:57I mean, it's not blaming on the blame on the fact that we make shitty vehicles.
- 56:00I mean, they're not the only ones though that are impacted by it.
- 56:04But I still think everybody else is making headlines.
- 56:08Yeah, but to scrap the Camaro.
- 56:10And not, Oh, I don't know the traverse or something else of higher volume and
- 56:15say, we're going to put that on pause.
- 56:16No, we're just, we're going to kill the Camaro and that's going to
- 56:18solve our semiconductor problem, but
- 56:20from a business perspective, you got to scrap the vehicles that aren't selling
- 56:24well to keep the vehicles that are.
- 56:27Yes, traverse might be selling.
- 56:28They might sell more traverses than Camaro's.
- 56:31They sell more
- 56:32traverses than Camaro's.
- 56:33They don't sell more traverses than any other manufacturer sells
- 56:36any other vehicle, but they sell more traverses than Camaro's.
- 56:39I thought it was interesting that later on in the article, they mentioned how Toyota.
- 56:44Hyundai and Kia, they're affected by this, but they're just
- 56:47dipping into their stockpile.
- 56:49So they apparently planned on this.
- 56:51They knew about the COVID and they knew this was going to happen.
- 56:54I'm sensing a conspiracy.
- 56:56Because you know what, guys?
- 56:57I also found something else very interesting on the heels of
- 57:00the Camaros being put on pause.
- 57:02You see here in Boomer Town, where apparently somebody Wanted me to get a
- 57:07actual physical magazine, which I probably won't read And you'll probably won't
- 57:10find this article online cadillac on the cover of car and driver is introducing
- 57:16the 668 horsepower six speed manual cadillac Ct5v blackwing Excuse me.
- 57:25What what is this?
- 57:28I'm sorry, I don't understand.
- 57:29So we're getting rid of the Camaro.
- 57:31We got the Corvette.
- 57:32You're telling me we have a semi conductor problem and now you're
- 57:34introducing yet another sports saloon?
- 57:37I will say, in the article it did say production for the Blackwing
- 57:41was also affected by this.
- 57:43Either way, I don't get it.
- 57:45If you're going to make the excuse to introduce something like that,
- 57:48which the market for a sports Cadillac, I think is very limited.
- 57:52Gordon already owns one,
- 57:54but it's very limited compared to somebody that may be in the market
- 57:58to buy a Camaro or a Corvette.
- 58:00It, to me, it just doesn't make sense.
- 58:02Do they realize they can't fight the muscle car fight against.
- 58:05Chrysler, like we've talked about before, and they just got to stick with, you know,
- 58:09certain flagship vehicles and move on.
- 58:12Or I just don't understand what's going on at GM.
- 58:14Again, I, like I've said it before, I'm very hopeful.
- 58:17I feel like they've been sitting back watching everybody else maybe make
- 58:20mistakes, but there's certain moves going on right now that I just don't get it.
- 58:24I want to say that
- 58:25that Cadillac looks a lot better than the
- 58:27Camaro.
- 58:28I agree.
- 58:29I'm not, I'm not, I'm not throwing any shade against this Cadillac other
- 58:32than the fact that the first time I heard about it was on the fact that
- 58:35it was on actually on a magazine.
- 58:37I mean, you got to want that Cadillac just because it's called the Blackwing.
- 58:40It's pretty cool.
- 58:41Got to give it that.
- 58:42All right.
- 58:43Enough of that.
- 58:43Enough of that.
- 58:44We got to get into our new newly combined section called.
- 58:51Surf and turf, shrimp and grits,
- 58:53the extra value.
- 58:54I don't know, but what we've done is we've combined all of those
- 58:58other segments that we had before.
- 59:00Like, would you like fries with that and golden nuggets and all
- 59:03this kind of stuff into a brand new section of random car adjacent news
- 59:07dollar menu hit the dollar menu.
- 59:09I like that.
- 59:10So 1st article.
- 59:13Um, it's just reporting on another unfortunate incident.
- 59:16There was, you know, a car meet and, uh, tomfoolery ensued that ended up
- 59:21taking the lives of some people as a Camaro driver was trying to show
- 59:25off, kind of doing a hot pull down a feeder road actually here in Texas.
- 59:30And I ended up killing some folks as they lost control of this vehicle.
- 59:34So it's a very sad, sad article and incident.
- 59:38And it's just a reminder to people to not be stupid and don't do dumb things.
- 59:43Save this stuff for the track.
- 59:46Or the drag strip or, and
- 59:49I, I a hundred percent agree.
- 59:50Right.
- 59:51And it's just one of those things.
- 59:52I mean, safety is paramount in motorsport.
- 59:55We talk about it a lot, but it's more important on the street.
- 59:57Honestly, I'm not impressed if you can do 80 down the highway, let's go to
- 1:00:02the track and see what your car can do.
- 1:00:04And, and in reality, I actually kind of point my finger at the organizers, but.
- 1:00:10I do tip my hat to folks like grid life and stuff like that, where
- 1:00:13they're trying to do some of these meets at locations like drag strips
- 1:00:16and road courses and things like that, take it to the drag strip, do your
- 1:00:20cars and coffee at the track strip.
- 1:00:21And if you want to go burn your tires to the ground, Do a couple
- 1:00:25passes because in reality, drag racing is not that expensive.
- 1:00:29It's actually probably one of the cheapest motor sports and
- 1:00:32you can do it with anything.
- 1:00:33Yes.
- 1:00:34It's convenient to go behind the Krispy Kreme or the Dairy Queen and go talk about
- 1:00:38your car and show off to your buddies.
- 1:00:40But I don't know, man, there's so many avenues to go have a good
- 1:00:43time and do it in a safe way.
- 1:00:45And you can show off and people can go, Ooh, I'll look at how
- 1:00:47fast that guy's Camaro is.
- 1:00:49And the only.
- 1:00:50Person that is in jeopardy is you and your car.
- 1:00:53And Oh, by the way, if you're worried about bending it,
- 1:00:56take out track insurance.
- 1:00:57And that way, if something does happen, so be it, you know, but on the street,
- 1:01:02there's so many other variables involved.
- 1:01:04It's just, it really isn't worth it.
- 1:01:06Yeah.
- 1:01:06Cause to, to clarify, I guess, um, for whatever reason,
- 1:01:09the driver hit another car.
- 1:01:11It had a baby inside and basically catapulted that other car into the crowd
- 1:01:16that then killed two people and injured.
- 1:01:18I don't remember how many.
- 1:01:19Yeah,
- 1:01:20it's, it's just a disgrace.
- 1:01:21I mean,
- 1:01:21I mean, so a hundred miles an hour on a feeder road, it's been a while, but
- 1:01:26I've actually, based on where they said the location is, I spent many, many,
- 1:01:30many a year since I've been to that area, but it doesn't matter because
- 1:01:33any of the feeder roads down here, I mean, you're, I mean, they're straight.
- 1:01:37Yes.
- 1:01:37It's straight and flat, but I mean, it's Like the speed
- 1:01:41limit is like 40 miles an hour.
- 1:01:42I mean, you shouldn't be doing a hundred miles an hour down a feeder rate.
- 1:01:45I mean, every, however, not even like a mile, there's usually a stoplight,
- 1:01:49like it's short distances for you to access shopping plazas and this,
- 1:01:52that, and the other, I mean, this is beyond stupid and it wouldn't
- 1:01:55have been any better to be getting on the highway and doing it either.
- 1:01:58So people need to use their brain.
- 1:02:00So speaking of Texas,
- 1:02:02just an interesting piece of news.
- 1:02:04Um, as, We're still in the midst of COVID, at least down here in the state of Texas.
- 1:02:08They're, they're really focusing on, on creating hubs where
- 1:02:12they can do mass vaccination.
- 1:02:13But now a lot of other states are doing similar to that as well.
- 1:02:16So over in Austin, they're using the circuit of the Americas.
- 1:02:20I believe it opened earlier or at the end of February as a vaccination hub.
- 1:02:26So they're getting not a huge supply of the vaccine, but
- 1:02:29they're hoping to get more.
- 1:02:30And they're all set up to do as they called it Chick fil
- 1:02:32A lines, very well organized.
- 1:02:34And you can just drive up, get your shot, pull over, do the
- 1:02:37waiting thing and then leave.
- 1:02:39Kudos to circuit of America's track for supporting the vaccination efforts.
- 1:02:44And if you're in the Austin area, maybe you can sign up and be able
- 1:02:49to go to CODA to get your shot.
- 1:02:51Can I get a 20 minute session on track while I'm waiting for the
- 1:02:56vaccine to take effect or whatever?
- 1:02:57At least one lap.
- 1:02:58You got
- 1:02:58to get one lap of CODA in there, man.
- 1:03:00Probably some liability issues in there because they want you to kind
- 1:03:04of hang around to make sure you don't have adverse side effects.
- 1:03:07That's right.
- 1:03:08You,
- 1:03:08that's what you drive around the track while you're waiting.
- 1:03:10It's perfect.
- 1:03:11Yeah.
- 1:03:11Last thing you need is to have an adverse side effect as
- 1:03:14you're driving around the track.
- 1:03:17Meanwhile, in lighter news, we've brought it up before on our holiday shopping
- 1:03:21guide and a couple other episodes leading up to that talking about the
- 1:03:25ridiculous world of car collecting, but I'm talking about collecting Hot Wheels.
- 1:03:30There is now the world's most valuable Hot Wheels out there on the market.
- 1:03:35And it happens to be a Volkswagen, it's a type two bus, it's known as the beach
- 1:03:41bomb, and it has been valued as the most expensive collector Hot Wheels in history.
- 1:03:47It is valued at a whopping 150, 000.
- 1:03:51Can you imagine something you bought back in the 60s or 70s?
- 1:03:56For a dollar is now worth 150 grand.
- 1:03:59So if you happen to have one of those, hold on to it even longer.
- 1:04:02If you're out at Walmart or Target this weekend, grab yourself some Hot Wheels.
- 1:04:05They might be worth something someday.
- 1:04:07In an interesting little tidbit, this guy is in Maryland.
- 1:04:10So I'm thinking a, uh, road trip to go see this thing.
- 1:04:14It wouldn't be a drive thru episode if we didn't have some fries with that.
- 1:04:19So this first Serving comes out of Toronto, unfortunately.
- 1:04:24And I,
- 1:04:28thankfully the person wasn't hurt.
- 1:04:31Uh, the same can't be said for what is very likely they're completely
- 1:04:35totaled mini, but apparently it's young woman, 26 year old nurse.
- 1:04:40Was, uh, waiting at a light to turn up on an on ramp, I guess, to
- 1:04:45get onto the highway in her Mini.
- 1:04:47And she turned onto the on ramp.
- 1:04:51But the gigantic dump truck, or whatever it was, who was behind
- 1:04:55her, at the light, rear ends her.
- 1:04:57Causes the Mini to do a 90 degree spin.
- 1:05:02So now it's perpendicular with the Low that it should be going in
- 1:05:07and the dump truck keeps driving.
- 1:05:09So the dump truck now is T boning this young woman and pushing her up the
- 1:05:14ramp onto the highway and keeps going.
- 1:05:17And there's CCTV camera that catches unfolding smoke billowing, because
- 1:05:23it's like scraping against the cement wall and all this shit, and there's
- 1:05:27like dust coming up, apparently, you know, uh, someone else noticed all
- 1:05:33the cement smoke and stuff coming up and pulled up alongside and saw
- 1:05:37that there's this car being t boned.
- 1:05:39And thankfully what they did, and honestly I probably would have done the
- 1:05:42same thing had I seen this, is they out accelerated, pulled out in front and,
- 1:05:48you know, basically created a roadblock and forced the dump truck driver to stop.
- 1:05:52And then he got out and was like, I didn't see you.
- 1:06:00I didn't see you.
- 1:06:01And then asked that the cops not be called.
- 1:06:05And if he could just pay for the damages,
- 1:06:07Pay for a whole new car.
- 1:06:11I mean, minis are small, but still, The cost of a
- 1:06:14mini is the cost of a mini.
- 1:06:15I mean, that doesn't matter how big it is, but okay.
- 1:06:19And then you, and then, Uh, you know, you read some of the comments and there's,
- 1:06:22you know, the trolls are like, well, you know, drivers really need to respect
- 1:06:27big trucks because, you know, they can't see you and, you know, blah, blah, blah.
- 1:06:31And I'm like, she was in front of this dumb truck, allegedly,
- 1:06:36and also at a stoplight.
- 1:06:38He had to have come up to her and they both turned on the same on ramp.
- 1:06:42And so that whole, oh, you can't see what he forgot she was there.
- 1:06:47I'm sorry.
- 1:06:47This dude's at fault.
- 1:06:49I mean, I guess we don't know the full story exactly what happened,
- 1:06:52but as presented I get out of here.
- 1:06:58It's befuddling much like our next story.
- 1:07:01Oh, the next story brings us back into warmer climates down south.
- 1:07:05Where would we be if we weren't in Florida?
- 1:07:08Oh man.
- 1:07:09So, you know, you just read the title alone, Florida Man Strikes
- 1:07:13Again, as Hellbird Fusion dangerously transports ladder, and someone video
- 1:07:22recorded this as they observed it.
- 1:07:24And you might be asking, well, you know, what was he doing?
- 1:07:27He like strapped it.
- 1:07:28He's like, put it on the roof.
- 1:07:29He's holding it.
- 1:07:30It's one hand kind of thing.
- 1:07:32It's like that,
- 1:07:32like that dude with the camera and the light pole.
- 1:07:38Like the dude who was going to take very nicely.
- 1:07:40Take that fall and light pole to the recycling center
- 1:07:43after he hit it.
- 1:07:44Yeah.
- 1:07:46He may or may not have hit it.
- 1:07:47We don't know.
- 1:07:48Yeah.
- 1:07:49So no, no, no, no, no.
- 1:07:50That might've been better.
- 1:07:53Yes, it's difficult to transport long items like a ladder in a
- 1:07:58sedan, or a not SUV or pickup truck.
- 1:08:01But he solved this problem by rolling down the rear windows and just sliding
- 1:08:06the ladder across the back seats.
- 1:08:08Uh, across Letting this like probably 10 foot ladder, just
- 1:08:13hang out the sides of the car and then drive down the interstate.
- 1:08:17I'm
- 1:08:19okay with this.
- 1:08:20It's within the lines.
- 1:08:21It's no wider than a Hummer H one.
- 1:08:28Looking at the video to me, it is to me, it looks like it's within the lines.
- 1:08:33What he should have done is he should have put it through the rear driver's
- 1:08:36side window and caddy corner through the front passenger side window.
- 1:08:41To give himself a little extra, extra space
- 1:08:44wedged in there
- 1:08:46in there.
- 1:08:47I don't know much about a Ford Fusion because I never owned one.
- 1:08:51However, people have said that the back seats do fall down in the Ford Fusion.
- 1:08:58So.
- 1:08:59Probably would have been better to have it sticking out the rear,
- 1:09:03at least in a parallel direction with the car, than sticking out the
- 1:09:07sides to accidentally hit somebody.
- 1:09:10So this Florida man is actually a firefighter, and he's testing out a new
- 1:09:14delivery service for the ladder, and he needed to be able to quick release.
- 1:09:18Alright, I'm going to assume that this was not strapped down, and so the first
- 1:09:24off ramp he took, this thing was going flying out the window anyway, right?
- 1:09:27He probably had the windows up to hold it into place.
- 1:09:31Actually, based on this photo, you are right, Brad.
- 1:09:33It does look like the windows are up.
- 1:09:37And otherwise, the article says it doesn't appear that it's
- 1:09:39secured by any hoops or anything.
- 1:09:42So you're absolutely right.
- 1:09:43You take a, you forget and you take a sharp turn or swerve
- 1:09:47and like that sucker slides
- 1:09:48straight out the side into.
- 1:09:51The backseat of somebody else's car as they're driving by.
- 1:09:55Can you imagine?
- 1:09:56Next thing you know, you got
- 1:09:56this ladder coming at you.
- 1:09:58The banana is replaced in Mario Kart by 10 foot ladder.
- 1:10:02Oh
- 1:10:02man.
- 1:10:02Oh my god.
- 1:10:04In his defense, he's at least being courteous and
- 1:10:07staying on the far right lane.
- 1:10:09So that he doesn't hit anybody else.
- 1:10:12He decapitated,
- 1:10:13he decapitated every cyclist on the shoulder though.
- 1:10:17Well, it's a, it's a highway, so there shouldn't be any cyclists.
- 1:10:20That's their own fault in this case.
- 1:10:22And that's his defense.
- 1:10:24You dumbass shouldn't be on the highway.
- 1:10:27What happens when there's that pulled over police cruiser on the shoulder?
- 1:10:31He'll get hit by a Tesla.
- 1:10:34How does the Tesla handle this ladder that's sticking out?
- 1:10:37Laughs.
- 1:10:38That is a very good question.
- 1:10:40What, I, what happens in Florida, people?
- 1:10:42I mean, somebody explain it to me.
- 1:10:44They're all bored.
- 1:10:46Oh God.
- 1:10:48I hope I never get old.
- 1:10:50Anyway.
- 1:10:50Thanks.
- 1:10:54I need that Cadillac.
- 1:10:56All right.
- 1:10:56I think it's time for us to go behind the pit wall and talk about
- 1:11:00some actual motor sports news.
- 1:11:02We are a car and motor sports podcast after all.
- 1:11:06All right, so if you, if you've been living under a rock for a while, we
- 1:11:09are finally returning to dirt racing in NASCAR for the first time since the 1970s.
- 1:11:15Wait, is this the thing where they're gonna like bring dump
- 1:11:17truck loads of dirt onto the Yes.
- 1:11:20I think we talked about that.
- 1:11:21You know what, I would watch it for like three laps.
- 1:11:24Yes.
- 1:11:24It's going to be amazing.
- 1:11:25We talked
- 1:11:25about this in a previous drive through as well.
- 1:11:27We did.
- 1:11:28And it's going to happen at Bristol.
- 1:11:30It's the, I think the first of three that they're going to do again,
- 1:11:32guys, this has been done before.
- 1:11:34This is not new.
- 1:11:35Everybody makes it sound like it's something that is new to NASCAR.
- 1:11:38This was a real thing back in the seventies.
- 1:11:40If you watch Lost Speedways.
- 1:11:43On the Peacock Dale Earnhardt Jr.
- 1:11:45Covers all this.
- 1:11:46He talks about the old days of NASCAR and things like that.
- 1:11:48Even, you know, the, even the earlier days in that, but racing
- 1:11:51on dirt was not a big deal.
- 1:11:52A lot of these guys got their start racing on dirt.
- 1:11:54However, the transformation of Bristol to dirt has been a massive.
- 1:12:00Undertaking it used to have a dirt configuration a long time
- 1:12:03ago, but it's, it's so far gone.
- 1:12:06People that did that are no longer around stuff like that.
- 1:12:09So it's been a massive undertaking for them to convert the track back over.
- 1:12:12And then they're going to have to convert it back to pavement again.
- 1:12:15So it's not going to stay as dirt.
- 1:12:16So a lot of money involved, a lot of logistics just for this one race.
- 1:12:20So it's going to be really interesting to see what happens here.
- 1:12:23There's a lot of articles out there by auto week and a bunch of others.
- 1:12:25Following their progress and they're kind of unsure at this point.
- 1:12:29They're even going to get done in time.
- 1:12:31Crews are working tirelessly to get this going.
- 1:12:34So we'll see where that goes, but let's shift to open wheel racing instead.
- 1:12:39So there's any car driver Jr.
- 1:12:41Hildebrand and he races in any car and he's got 2021 Dallara And he's going to
- 1:12:47be racing in the IndyCar series this year.
- 1:12:49That was a lot of alphabet soup, basically the 2021 IndyCar.
- 1:12:53All right.
- 1:12:53He's going to be taking it.
- 1:12:55To Pike's Peak Hill Climb.
- 1:12:57So the registrant list, the participant list came out not too long ago.
- 1:13:02And if you look through the list, you'll see J.
- 1:13:04R.
- 1:13:04Hildebrand in a IR 18.
- 1:13:08Personally, I think this is kind of cool.
- 1:13:10I'm all in on the Pike's Peak Hill Climb.
- 1:13:11I don't really get to watch it or anything, but I love the idea of it.
- 1:13:15And it's an amazing event that's been going on for forever.
- 1:13:19How long has it been going on?
- 1:13:21Decades.
- 1:13:22Is an IndyCar too low for Pikes Peak?
- 1:13:25I mean, there's, I mean, we saw Randy props in, in the Tesla go airborne on
- 1:13:31just a dip and lose traction, right?
- 1:13:34Yeah.
- 1:13:35But then the,
- 1:13:35that Tesla,
- 1:13:36the, the world record lap time there is held by Roman Al
- 1:13:41and the, the Volkswagen IDR.
- 1:13:43The IDR is an LMP car though,
- 1:13:45but I mean, it's still still low.
- 1:13:48It's still a race car.
- 1:13:49It's a full blown race car.
- 1:13:50The important thing for me here is why don't we commission a car for Pikes Peak?
- 1:13:55Because a Miata at Pikes Peak would be super boring.
- 1:13:58That's why we wouldn't do it.
- 1:14:00But then
- 1:14:00you can say you did Pikes Peak.
- 1:14:02That's true.
- 1:14:02But here's the problem I have for you.
- 1:14:04With all of this is that Pike's Peak today is not the Pike's Peak of let's
- 1:14:08say 30 years ago, it much like, you know, Bristol going back to dirt,
- 1:14:13Pike's Peak was mostly off road.
- 1:14:15It was mostly dirt and gravel.
- 1:14:17There were some tarmac spots in there, but now it's a fully paved
- 1:14:21road all the way up to the summit.
- 1:14:22So you are starting to see more cars like this taking on the race
- 1:14:27to the sky, formula cars, Indy cars, the IDR, stuff like that.
- 1:14:31But.
- 1:14:31I think Pike's Peak has kind of lost its luster because now it's
- 1:14:35like a public road, just like Tale of the Dragon or anything else.
- 1:14:38The thing I took away from this though, my first question, much like to Tanya's point
- 1:14:43about it being bumpy and hilly and whatnot is, does the IndyCar really have to turn?
- 1:14:48Proper turning radius to get through some of those hairpins.
- 1:14:52I mean, it's going to be like watching the hotel corner at Monaco where
- 1:14:56the formula one cars need like a granny gear to get around, you know,
- 1:15:00that turn, because it's so slow.
- 1:15:02Some of the corners on Pike's peak are just.
- 1:15:04Just ridiculously slow.
- 1:15:06And they were really designed for a rally car to be sliding around the corner, not
- 1:15:11approaching it like on a road course.
- 1:15:13So I just, I wonder how he's going to fare.
- 1:15:15I'm sure he's going to be faster than most everybody that's there
- 1:15:18based on sheer acceleration alone and downforce and things like that.
- 1:15:22I'm curious to see what he does, but on the same token, it's like.
- 1:15:26Well, the article suggests that this could become a contender for the all
- 1:15:30time record and it could challenge Dumas and the Volkswagen IDR.
- 1:15:34Well, we'll see.
- 1:15:35I'm happy that Volkswagen holds the record, but, you know, if
- 1:15:39it gets broken, it gets broken.
- 1:15:40But I guess we'll have to tune in and find out.
- 1:15:43If it dies, it dies.
- 1:15:44100%.
- 1:15:45Speaking of formula cars, Jaguar!
- 1:15:49A name we haven't heard in Formula cars in quite a long while, because most of
- 1:15:53us don't pay attention to Formula E, where they have been spending most of
- 1:15:56their time since about 2017, focusing their attention on their Formula program.
- 1:16:00So Jaguar still relevant.
- 1:16:02You know, the last time I saw Jag was like, you know, the
- 1:16:04Eddie Irvine days of Formula 1.
- 1:16:05Formula one, you know, that kind of thing they have now launched their
- 1:16:09own racing channel on motorsports.
- 1:16:13tv dedicated to formula E.
- 1:16:15So if you really need something to put yourself to sleep, that
- 1:16:17is the channel to tune into.
- 1:16:19So check it out on motorsports.
- 1:16:21tv.
- 1:16:21You put it on and you hear the white noise of the tires.
- 1:16:24Cause all you hear is the tires.
- 1:16:25Oh God.
- 1:16:26It's brutal.
- 1:16:27And speaking of formula one, if you haven't seen on Netflix and you're
- 1:16:31interested, the drive to survive series.
- 1:16:34Season three released this month.
- 1:16:37I have to say watching the episode about BOTUS, I had, I was so sad
- 1:16:44for him when he won that race and all his people like dipped out.
- 1:16:48They're like, fuck you, man.
- 1:16:50We're not, we're not, we're not celebrating with you.
- 1:16:52You, you took that victory from Hamilton.
- 1:16:53We're not, we're not your friend.
- 1:16:55Formula one.
- 1:16:56I think it's a good series actually.
- 1:16:58So.
- 1:16:59Yeah, I don't have to watch the seat and watch the actual racing.
- 1:17:03I can just watch the series.
- 1:17:04It's riveting.
- 1:17:04I think the, the way they put the show together is actually very good.
- 1:17:08Maybe I'll give it a try.
- 1:17:09I haven't even bothered.
- 1:17:10I figured it was a bunch of guys goofing around in the paddock package,
- 1:17:14checking each other and just like,
- 1:17:17it's a documentary basically this season.
- 1:17:20They actually interviewed a lot more of the drivers.
- 1:17:22Like I think in season one, they didn't.
- 1:17:24Even talk to Hamilton at all.
- 1:17:26Like you would see footage.
- 1:17:27They talk about him, but like, they never interviewed him.
- 1:17:29It might have been season two,
- 1:17:30a little bit.
- 1:17:31Season one Ferrari wasn't even like, didn't even get permission to be in it.
- 1:17:35Yeah,
- 1:17:36but now it's, this season was
- 1:17:38actually pretty well balanced.
- 1:17:40They kept going back to the same races, but like every episode was
- 1:17:43basically like focused on a different team or a different set of drivers.
- 1:17:46And then it just kept kind of like recapping what happened to
- 1:17:48them in like the series of races.
- 1:17:51Really good job of pulling out the different storylines that you don't really
- 1:17:54think of when you're watching the race.
- 1:17:55And
- 1:17:55it's not just about the drivers.
- 1:17:56Cause they go and talk about like a lot of the interviews are with,
- 1:17:59you know, total wolf and you know, the Red Bull chief, yes.
- 1:18:05And you know, the guys from Ferrari and you know, the, the racing point.
- 1:18:09Scroll.
- 1:18:10And now they're not racing point anymore.
- 1:18:12And they're asking Martin blah, blah, blah.
- 1:18:13And they cover like all that stuff that went down and, you know,
- 1:18:16So does this series have to exist because the coverage of formula one is so myopic.
- 1:18:22They're only focused on Hamilton and the cars that are in the first,
- 1:18:25second and third position, and you never get to hear about the 20
- 1:18:28other drivers that are out there.
- 1:18:29Is that why?
- 1:18:30Probably, but I, I'm glad it does exist.
- 1:18:33And for Toto Wolf, I have a man crush on Toto Wolf.
- 1:18:36I'm just going to say.
- 1:18:38Oh my God.
- 1:18:39I think the guy, the Haas guy kills me.
- 1:18:42He's, oh
- 1:18:43yes.
- 1:18:43Gunther Steiner.
- 1:18:44Oh man.
- 1:18:45He would
- 1:18:47love him.
- 1:18:47It's the F word.
- 1:18:48Every other word.
- 1:18:49I'm like, dude,
- 1:18:49you need like communication skill, but Hey, you're good.
- 1:18:54You're getting it done.
- 1:18:55No matter what.
- 1:18:56Sorry.
- 1:18:56That like.
- 1:18:57You guys have the worst luck ever, but
- 1:19:00so, so Gunther, what happened in the race?
- 1:19:02Oh, we fucking socked.
- 1:19:03We fucking saw Jean.
- 1:19:05It's okay.
- 1:19:05You know, all these fuckers Jean
- 1:19:09after every race, immediately it cuts to him calling Jean house on the phone.
- 1:19:14It's like, Oh, did you see a Jean?
- 1:19:15These fuckers
- 1:19:19Roman Grosjean did it again.
- 1:19:21Oh, my goodness.
- 1:19:22Eric, you gotta go back and watch.
- 1:19:24Start in season one.
- 1:19:25It's really good.
- 1:19:25I'll have to check it out.
- 1:19:26Tom, do you have anything for,
- 1:19:28uh I haven't seen it, so I gotta check it out as well, so
- 1:19:31All right, you and me both.
- 1:19:32Viewing party, all right?
- 1:19:35Meanwhile, my favorite discipline in motorsport had some shocking
- 1:19:41news in the last month or two.
- 1:19:43Oh
- 1:19:43yeah.
- 1:19:43So the four rings are possibly making a return to rally.
- 1:19:51There's only like two people in this.
- 1:19:53They're excited.
- 1:19:54It's me and it's you and that's it.
- 1:19:58But it's not, but it's not Audi sponsored.
- 1:20:01So basically the two Swedish guys on behalf
- 1:20:04of EKS JC racing team, and they took an A1 and they basically ralified
- 1:20:11it and they want to enter it in WRC.
- 1:20:13So, I mean, I know I'm probably the only person that understands any of
- 1:20:17this, or hopefully there's some other rally listeners out there, Pete Klein,
- 1:20:20if you're listening, uh, So they're going to enter this privateer Audi,
- 1:20:25which is liveried, just like the famed S1 rally car that won Pikes Peak in
- 1:20:31back in 87, 86 driven by Bobby Unser, by the way, and Michelle Mouton.
- 1:20:35So they, they did it up in the same livery.
- 1:20:37It's an A1 Quattro.
- 1:20:39It's a 1.
- 1:20:406 liter, 263 horsepower.
- 1:20:42Quattro all wheel drive, and they're going to enter in the WRC two class.
- 1:20:46So I hate to say coverage of WRC three.
- 1:20:49So WRC two and WRC three, I hate to say have probably the worst coverage
- 1:20:54out of all, because everybody wants to watch WRC one, the front runners,
- 1:20:57the, you know, the Oittanix, the Terry Neuville's of the world running the
- 1:21:01Hyundais and the Fords and all of that.
- 1:21:03If you log on to Red Bull, you can watch their progress.
- 1:21:07If you watch the individual driver progress, they may show it in the
- 1:21:11recaps because the car will be prolific.
- 1:21:14It's the first Audi to return to WRC since the 80s.
- 1:21:17But again, it's not a factory car.
- 1:21:19And obviously, Volkswagen Audi group returned to rally
- 1:21:22many years ago with the Polo.
- 1:21:25WRC with, you know, Sebastian and all those guys behind the wheel.
- 1:21:28So it's really cool to see this.
- 1:21:29However, I think the coolest part of this was the follow on video to the
- 1:21:33debut of this car, bringing out the real Stig, the original Stig, Stig
- 1:21:39Bloomfist, who is one of the world rally championship drivers from Audi
- 1:21:43to drive this new A1 Quattro rally car.
- 1:21:47And I tell you what.
- 1:21:48The Stig, he might not have the reflexes he had in the eighties.
- 1:21:52He might not be as fast, but watching him drive, you just sit back and
- 1:21:57he is so smooth and so composed, completely sideways, full open throttle,
- 1:22:04just having a blast in this car.
- 1:22:06And he looks like he's been doing it for a hundred years.
- 1:22:09And it's, it is just breathtaking.
- 1:22:11It's not a very long video, but it's definitely worth watching.
- 1:22:14And we linked to it in the show notes.
- 1:22:16Apparently, um, what he says at the end in his native tongue of
- 1:22:21Swedish translates to what a fucking fun car.
- 1:22:30I always liked Stig.
- 1:22:31He was the more, uh, he was the more playful of the Audi rally drivers.
- 1:22:35Everybody was very stiff.
- 1:22:36on that team for the most very talented folks.
- 1:22:40I me the rural stick Bloomfist et cetera.
- 1:22:45I mean, a bunch rally drivers came out of maybe audio return,
- 1:22:50you k out of IMSA basically.
- 1:22:53An gonna talk about that.
- 1:22:54We
- 1:22:57So speaking of pulling out and this speaks to Tom, I'm sure he's saddened
- 1:23:01by this, but Mazda has declared that they are done at the end of this season.
- 1:23:06They are pulling out of IMSA.
- 1:23:08A
- 1:23:08little disappointed.
- 1:23:09And, you know, kind of with, with that as well, you know, there was the talk
- 1:23:13of the rule changes of, Them actually allowing rotaries to be brought
- 1:23:20back into the competition as well.
- 1:23:22So I know at least for all those that don't know, I wouldn't say
- 1:23:26I'm the resident Rotard anymore because we now have Matt Wood, who
- 1:23:29has now purchased a FCRX7 as well.
- 1:23:33But you have more though.
- 1:23:34Well, it's debatable since the one we don't even know if it exists anymore.
- 1:23:40One's on a
- 1:23:41mechanics lien.
- 1:23:42Yeah.
- 1:23:43Unofficial mechanics lien.
- 1:23:45So, a lot of people in the Rotary community were very excited about this
- 1:23:49and, you know, it was the thought of, you know, are we going to get that 787
- 1:23:53Bravo again, you know, and actually have that competing at that level, you know,
- 1:23:57even within that as well, you know, was this the news that we needed to hear that
- 1:24:02they're going to be actually coming out with the RX Vision or, you know, What
- 1:24:05some people are calling the RX nine, you know, as we all know, Mazda is still
- 1:24:10looking at the Winkle rotary engine.
- 1:24:12All the patents that have been coming out have been just for range extenders.
- 1:24:16So this was kind of that glimmer of hope for us.
- 1:24:18So now with them pulling out, like it's kind of up at the top of that,
- 1:24:22uh, roller coaster, and now we're just crashing down to the bottom.
- 1:24:26You know, again, with that, try to remain hopeful with things,
- 1:24:29but we'll see where it goes.
- 1:24:31Yeah.
- 1:24:31And it seemed like Mazda just wasn't having it when it came to all these rule
- 1:24:36changes in the, in this alleged classing merge between Insa and WEC or WEC.
- 1:24:41They also didn't have anything to compete in the LMDH hybrid LMP class.
- 1:24:47That's basically going to be replacing LMP1.
- 1:24:49So I kind of felt like they were To your point, they were up against a wall
- 1:24:54and it was like, now what do we do?
- 1:24:55I guess we pull out a DPI.
- 1:24:56Isn't going to exist anymore.
- 1:24:58The class is going to change.
- 1:24:59It's almost like rebellion last year, going into P1 with a P2 car, let's
- 1:25:05face it, and then say, you know what, this isn't going to work anymore.
- 1:25:08I think we're going to see a little bit more of that until the
- 1:25:10manufacturers begin to turn over and bring in new cars, which speaks.
- 1:25:16to Ferrari.
- 1:25:17Most people probably are not aware that the 488's last race was the Rolex 24.
- 1:25:24So Ferrari has also temporarily pulled out of IMSA and has declared
- 1:25:29that they are coming back to compete in LMDH with a new hyper car.
- 1:25:34You know, if you read about it, there's really Zero details about
- 1:25:37what this LaFerrari LMP car is going to be, whatever you want to call it.
- 1:25:41There's a lot of nostalgia around the Ferrari 250s.
- 1:25:45And the reason being, if you're unaware, that was the last time Ferrari won
- 1:25:50Le Mans, which was actually in 1965.
- 1:25:53However, the last time they competed at Le Mans with an LMP car, not a
- 1:25:58production based vehicle like the 250 was in 1998 with the famed Momo
- 1:26:03liveried 3 33 sp So they're looking to recapture that and rekindle that.
- 1:26:081998 was also the beginning of the, the era of the Mercedes
- 1:26:13C-K-G-T-R, the the B-M-W-L-M-R-V 12.
- 1:26:16The, the original Audi R eight R.
- 1:26:18You guys remember that was an open cockpit prototype car.
- 1:26:21So Ferrari really couldn't compete with the new technology was coming.
- 1:26:24But this new hypercar, they're gonna.
- 1:26:26Borrow technology from the production cars that they're
- 1:26:30building that do have the hybrid technology from formula one as well.
- 1:26:34So I would expect this to be a very similar to a formula one car with a body
- 1:26:39on it, which isn't too much of a stretch for Ferrari to do, but I'm excited to
- 1:26:43see Ferrari come back to Le Mans and it'll be right on time for the hundredth.
- 1:26:49Anniversary, which we hope to be at for that race.
- 1:26:53So that would be really cool to see them and Portia and a lot of these
- 1:26:56other brands that are going to be coming back to Lamont's by 2023.
- 1:26:59So that it's super exciting.
- 1:27:01Meanwhile, did anybody watch Sebring this weekend?
- 1:27:04I did.
- 1:27:05Yeah.
- 1:27:05And
- 1:27:06it was exciting in the last hour or so when Corvette got booted
- 1:27:10and got hit by that giant BMW.
- 1:27:13The school bus.
- 1:27:14I
- 1:27:15just, I meant to watch it.
- 1:27:17And I'm sure a lot of people did too.
- 1:27:19The track season has opened back up.
- 1:27:20So people have gotten busy again.
- 1:27:22So I'm, I'm, I'm using that as, as my excuse, even though I was doing
- 1:27:25something else, it just didn't draw me in because Rolex was kind of
- 1:27:28disappointing in the fact that the field has gotten so much smaller.
- 1:27:31So as much as I'm excited for the next two years of IMSA and the
- 1:27:34rule changes and all of that, this year just feels kind of meh so far.
- 1:27:38So I'm hoping it gets better, but I know that nobody's going to be introducing
- 1:27:42anything new because they have to declare that early in the season.
- 1:27:45And so.
- 1:27:46It's Corvettes season to lose in terms of GTLM.
- 1:27:51I guess you don't care about the, the shuffling of dates then for the MC
- 1:27:55season, because as we all know, or maybe we don't know where I'm done.
- 1:27:59You heard it here first folks, or whatever.
- 1:28:01The running of Lamont has been moved from June, which it's
- 1:28:03traditionally Father's Day weekend.
- 1:28:05It's been moved to August 21st, 22nd.
- 1:28:07Because of this, that shifts a whole bunch of EMSA dates around, uh, namely
- 1:28:12the, the VIR date and, uh, the Petit Le Mans, which is at Road Atlanta.
- 1:28:18VIR, which is usually in August.
- 1:28:20Is now being moved to
- 1:28:23October the
- 1:28:248th, October 8th through 10, but see Lamar is being moved to a little bit later,
- 1:28:29November the 13th.
- 1:28:31Is
- 1:28:31that veterans day
- 1:28:31weekend thereabouts?
- 1:28:32Yes.
- 1:28:33And luckily in Atlanta, it'll still be warm enough to run the race.
- 1:28:38So moving it that far out is, is okay.
- 1:28:40But that means this NBC schedule has changed.
- 1:28:43I'm a little disappointed.
- 1:28:44I always look Forward to Lamont's being on father's day weekend.
- 1:28:48It's just kind of like my thing it's in August.
- 1:28:51I'm going to make a point to watch it anyway.
- 1:28:53I'm, I am excited to see who enters this year.
- 1:28:56I have a feeling Toyota is going to take the crown yet again.
- 1:28:59Hooray.
- 1:29:00We're going to be
- 1:29:01racing themselves.
- 1:29:02Who are they racing against?
- 1:29:03Yeah, exactly.
- 1:29:04I want to see Corvette.
- 1:29:05Run in GTLM, even if it's against privateer Porsches, I want to
- 1:29:10see something happen in GTLM.
- 1:29:12But
- 1:29:12the Astons as well.
- 1:29:13So they're going to be Astons.
- 1:29:15And I mean, we all saw what happened when they ran against
- 1:29:17the Astons a couple of years ago.
- 1:29:19Exactly.
- 1:29:20So that's going to be the race to watch the rest of it.
- 1:29:22Yeah, whatever.
- 1:29:23We'll wait till 2023 when the new cars come out.
- 1:29:26Now a little bit of other racing news, since we were talking about IMSA and
- 1:29:30dates and to the 12 hours of Sebring, if you guys didn't catch this video that was
- 1:29:35going viral in at least the motorsports community, we linked to it in the show
- 1:29:39notes and it's the opening weekend for the Southern version of SCCA club racing
- 1:29:47series up here in the mid Atlantic and the DMV, we call it Mars down there.
- 1:29:50They call it the Sark.
- 1:29:52And there is a video of a Miata driver that would rival Most of our Forza
- 1:29:57contestants, it is absolutely insane.
- 1:30:02It's like
- 1:30:02opening 10 seconds and you get the whole gist of the video.
- 1:30:06You're just like, that's all I need.
- 1:30:07My first
- 1:30:08thought was Andrew Bank.
- 1:30:10This is not going to go well.
- 1:30:13And I guess he forgot how to drive.
- 1:30:15It is crazy.
- 1:30:15It is entertaining.
- 1:30:16I do not condone this behavior in any way, completely reckless, but I just can't
- 1:30:22believe, you know, that somebody would, would drive the way he did at Sebring.
- 1:30:26So at first I was actually thinking of, it wasn't that one, it was the
- 1:30:30other Miata video that somebody posted.
- 1:30:32The Wreck at Summit
- 1:30:33Point?
- 1:30:33Yeah, that one was insane as well.
- 1:30:36That's the one where the hood flies up, right?
- 1:30:38That's the one where the
- 1:30:39car flips over.
- 1:30:40Oh, right, right, right.
- 1:30:41So where he did the pit maneuver on the guy, cause he was like riding
- 1:30:44right on him, and then he pitted him, so that guy went right into the
- 1:30:48barricade, flipped over, and then hit a couple other cars behind him, so.
- 1:30:52That's the one with the cool music in the background?
- 1:30:54Yeah.
- 1:30:54Oh man, what a mess.
- 1:30:56Meanwhile, speaking of wrecks and crashes and bumping and grinding and shake and
- 1:30:59bake, there is a video that was also going around from the Mount Panorama 500
- 1:31:04where you get some goosebumps watching Slade's wreck in a factory Mustang.
- 1:31:10It's kind of cool to watch this not because of the wreck and the
- 1:31:14wreck isn't really that spectacular.
- 1:31:17It's just the fact that It was grabbed from every camera angle possible and you
- 1:31:23see it for every which way imaginable.
- 1:31:26And it's actually kind of cool to see how it unfolds.
- 1:31:28And he was very smart to pull off when he did lost the
- 1:31:31wheel, a bunch of other stuff.
- 1:31:32I mean, sad that he was knocked out of the race, but kind of,
- 1:31:35kind of an interesting video.
- 1:31:37If you like crash videos.
- 1:31:38But meanwhile, I think we have some sad news to report and
- 1:31:41I'll kick it over to Tanya.
- 1:31:42Yes, unfortunately, Motorsports
- 1:31:45World lost one of the greats, I guess if you will.
- 1:31:49Sabine Schmidt lost her fight with cancer earlier this month.
- 1:31:55So the queen of the ring And is no longer with
- 1:31:59us.
- 1:31:59That is a very, very sad day.
- 1:32:01And if you don't know who she is, there have been tributes all over
- 1:32:04Instagram, the web, drive tribe.
- 1:32:06I mean, you name it.
- 1:32:07We're going to post a video from Top Gear.
- 1:32:10Do you remember the transit van episode where Jeremy Clarkson competes
- 1:32:14in a Jaguar against a transit van?
- 1:32:16That was Sabine driving that.
- 1:32:18She's a fan.
- 1:32:18Factory Porsche driver.
- 1:32:20She's driven for BMW, a lot of other, you know, German brands, but she
- 1:32:23grew up at the Nürburgring and she, she did earn the title, the queen
- 1:32:27of the ring, and it is unfortunate to see her go at such a young age.
- 1:32:31She had such a long life still ahead of her.
- 1:32:32So,
- 1:32:34and that transit van video inspired numerous races in
- 1:32:40our virtual racing league.
- 1:32:42I mean, we don't go a season without having at least something.
- 1:32:46That is kind of inspired by that at the ring.
- 1:32:48And as we close out this episode of the drive through, we're going to wrap up
- 1:32:53here with some more local news and spread since you brought it up virtual racing.
- 1:32:56That's a great segue to go to Tom, to talk about the VRL.
- 1:33:02Yep, as we've talked about before, you know, VRL, the Virtual Racing League,
- 1:33:06is one of the, uh, original competitive events we've had here in the club and one
- 1:33:11of the longest running events as well.
- 1:33:14Just so everybody knows, we are looking to kick off our newest
- 1:33:17season coming up here May the 4th.
- 1:33:20But taking some stuff that we've learned from previous seasons.
- 1:33:24So two seasons ago, we had a Mazda spec series where we ran spec Miatas,
- 1:33:31as well as the formula Mazdas.
- 1:33:34And something we really learned from that series was just how
- 1:33:38closely the competition became.
- 1:33:40Granted, we still have our front runners and the mid pack and
- 1:33:44some people in the back as well.
- 1:33:46And then there's more of those.
- 1:33:47And then Andrew just somewhere and usually going into each of those groups.
- 1:33:53What we really learned is like each of those groups are having very competitive
- 1:33:57racing throughout the entire time and with last seasons what we did is we
- 1:34:02opened up the field a lot more and we had probably our most participation that
- 1:34:08at least I've ever seen within the VRRL.
- 1:34:10I can't speak for some of the earlier seasons and all but it definitely made
- 1:34:15things a lot more interesting having.
- 1:34:17a lot of people there.
- 1:34:18Granted, you're always going to have that chaos at the start, but
- 1:34:21once everything works its way past turn one, it was a lot of fun.
- 1:34:24And we threw a couple little things in there, uh, with that.
- 1:34:28Once again, we're teaming up with Garage Riot and we are going to be
- 1:34:32doing a open wheel formula season.
- 1:34:36And throughout this season, we are going to be taking different
- 1:34:40types of formula cars and using that as the basis for the race.
- 1:34:44And we're doing everything between Different eras of races.
- 1:34:49We're going to do a Senna Prost, also the Hunt Lada rivalries, really trying to mix
- 1:34:55up things, make it not so that anybody gets bored with the cars throughout
- 1:34:59the season or anything like that.
- 1:35:01We're mixing around so that we get a feel for all the different formula
- 1:35:04cars throughout the years of racing.
- 1:35:07So we're, we're definitely looking forward to that.
- 1:35:09Definitely looking for.
- 1:35:10as much participation as possible.
- 1:35:13I don't know if we'll ever be able to max out the limit on Forza,
- 1:35:17but here's to trying at least.
- 1:35:19And Tom, for those of you listening, he's part of the VRL committee.
- 1:35:22So there's a group within GTN that gets together and does all the, the
- 1:35:27planning, the logistics, the funding.
- 1:35:29The fighting, the debating, the voting, the bureaucracy that's
- 1:35:32involved in putting on these series.
- 1:35:34And I can't thank Tom enough for being a part of that and actually reinvigorating
- 1:35:38the BRL, because we had gone on a hiatus there right around series 10, 11.
- 1:35:42We weren't sure if we were going to continue.
- 1:35:44And Tom stepped up and said, Hey, we really need to get this going again.
- 1:35:47And it's brought some really cool ideas to the table.
- 1:35:50And with that, we're making some rule changes going into series 15.
- 1:35:53One of the rule changes, I don't know if it's necessarily a change, But
- 1:35:57it's an opening up of a previous rule.
- 1:36:00If you've ever done any of our VRLs, you know that we have implemented
- 1:36:04the Forza race regulations.
- 1:36:06Now, say what you will about it.
- 1:36:08Yes, it, it has some horrible, horrible moments.
- 1:36:13Track limitations are definitely not what are realistic within a real race scenario,
- 1:36:19but it's being applied to everybody.
- 1:36:21So it's leveling the playing field on a lot of it, but we can now set it
- 1:36:25so that you do not get disqualified.
- 1:36:28So we're probably going to see some extremely high scores by
- 1:36:33Andrew this season, as far as, uh, how many, how much time he is
- 1:36:39getting able to rack up on this.
- 1:36:41But if anybody would like to.
- 1:36:42You know, compete with him.
- 1:36:43That's also an option as well.
- 1:36:45I mean, he might have a
- 1:36:46prize
- 1:36:46for it.
- 1:36:46I don't know.
- 1:36:47That's true.
- 1:36:47He carries almost five minutes of penalty time between two series.
- 1:36:53It's an achievement there.
- 1:36:55But in addition to that, I mean, Tom, you're right.
- 1:36:57We instituted that penalty system.
- 1:36:59Lots of rule changes.
- 1:37:00We found ways to really lock.
- 1:37:02Down the way we do scoring and, and what we realized, I think, in
- 1:37:05designing series 15 and a lot of the debate we had was how do we give
- 1:37:09something back to the racing community?
- 1:37:11How do we encourage the middle of the pack and maybe the back of the pack
- 1:37:16to, you know, maybe fight for that extra couple of tenths of a second
- 1:37:19or whatever they're looking for.
- 1:37:20So I think we're instituting some new bonuses.
- 1:37:23We have some, what we call on target, you know, earnings kind of carrying over from
- 1:37:27our bracket series where we're using.
- 1:37:30Target lap times.
- 1:37:31And if you can get within a certain range of that target time, there's
- 1:37:34a bonus for that, there's actually a clean racing bonus now get through
- 1:37:38a race without carrying a penalty.
- 1:37:39There's extra credit for that.
- 1:37:41So we're looking to give something back because we found
- 1:37:43many ways to take points away.
- 1:37:45But we figured we needed to do a balance of power amongst the rules
- 1:37:49to give something back to the driver.
- 1:37:51So again, you know, thank you guys again for hashing that out.
- 1:37:54And I think the new rule book, which is going to be coming out
- 1:37:56very soon for everybody to review is pretty comprehensive and I think
- 1:37:59everybody will enjoy the changes.
- 1:38:01And it, it isn't even just for getting the points to the
- 1:38:04people that are in the mid pack.
- 1:38:06Another, one of the reasons that we did it is those people
- 1:38:09that are the front runners.
- 1:38:11Now, if they know they can potentially get extra points, they may even
- 1:38:15start detuning their vehicles.
- 1:38:17So they start pulling back a little bit more towards the pack.
- 1:38:21Then we try to get everybody within the same group.
- 1:38:23So to make more competitive racing.
- 1:38:26Absolutely.
- 1:38:27Tom, before we close out talking about the VRL, I think we need to just quickly
- 1:38:30recap VRL 14, series 14 for the folks that probably weren't tuning into the
- 1:38:35live stream to all the scoring updates, the new scoreboard, a lot of stuff
- 1:38:40that came out as a result of that.
- 1:38:41And, and the bigger thing about that was that was our first co sponsored series.
- 1:38:46We did that with Garage Riot, but we also did it in the name of.
- 1:38:49One of our members and their family, and we were raising
- 1:38:52money and awareness for lupus.
- 1:38:55We actually met our goal.
- 1:38:57We had a, uh, what did they call it?
- 1:38:58A blue bird fly in at the last minute and shore us up so that we met our
- 1:39:03actual goal of 2, 000 raised for lupus.
- 1:39:06So this member knows who they are, a round of applause for them.
- 1:39:10I won't, I won't single them out, but thank you for doing that.
- 1:39:13I know you're a listener of the podcast, so thank you so much.
- 1:39:16Again, this goes.
- 1:39:18to our member family as well.
- 1:39:19You know, we, we really appreciated being able to do this for you, being able to
- 1:39:24campaign, raise awareness for lupus.
- 1:39:26But I also want to congratulate Dave Scherf from our Southern States
- 1:39:30region for winning the series.
- 1:39:32He
- 1:39:33campaigned an LMP car for the most part.
- 1:39:35He also ran mostly for BMW during our DTM inspired series.
- 1:39:40But he did not win the LMP class title.
- 1:39:44His brother, Ben did.
- 1:39:45So congratulations to Ben from our Northeast region for capturing the LMP
- 1:39:50one title and a double congrats win to Jordan Furman of the Northeast region
- 1:39:56as well for capturing the R spec or GTLM title as well as the B spec title.
- 1:40:02But we had some really great showings.
- 1:40:04From new members, uh, Sean Roberts, who is also now on the VRL committee.
- 1:40:09He came to us by way of HOD and Garage Riot, a bunch of new people
- 1:40:13coming on board, things like that.
- 1:40:14But also I want to give a big shout out to Disco Don from our, our middle and
- 1:40:20West region for participating remotely.
- 1:40:24He couldn't be with us live due to work and scheduling conflicts.
- 1:40:28He utilized our phone in system and he managed and.
- 1:40:33Unprecedented sixth place overall finish just by nailing it in.
- 1:40:39So congratulations to Don.
- 1:40:41It's never been done.
- 1:40:42That is awesome.
- 1:40:44Absolutely awesome.
- 1:40:45Goes to everybody else that's out there.
- 1:40:46If you can't make up a race, remember, you can always make
- 1:40:49it up with our phone in system.
- 1:40:51And those details are in the new rule book.
- 1:40:53That's coming out outside of that.
- 1:40:54Some quick news for everybody's out there in GTM land.
- 1:40:57We do have a date for summer bash.
- 1:41:00It is going to be the weekend of July 30th through August 2nd.
- 1:41:04And now you're probably scratching your head going four days.
- 1:41:08That's right.
- 1:41:08Four days at summit point.
- 1:41:11We are joining forces with auto interests who you're going to hear
- 1:41:14about next week on the podcast.
- 1:41:16We're going to join up for their summer camp at summit point.
- 1:41:19That's going to be.
- 1:41:20Four days on three tracks for a low, low price.
- 1:41:24You can check out on their website, auto interest.
- 1:41:26com.
- 1:41:27You almost
- 1:41:27fell for it.
- 1:41:28I almost fell for it.
- 1:41:30We will follow up with any promotional discounts, et cetera, for that
- 1:41:34specific event in the near future.
- 1:41:35However, if you're interested.
- 1:41:37and hooking up with them for their season opener.
- 1:41:39At some point, they're giving anybody listening to this podcast,
- 1:41:4210 percent off by entering the promo code GTM at checkout.
- 1:41:47So that's going to be two days on Shenandoah circuit, April 24th, 25th.
- 1:41:52You know, we want to always give a shout out to our friends at hpdejunkie.
- 1:41:56com for always keeping the most up to date information about all the
- 1:41:59events that That are going on in our area and across the country.
- 1:42:02And now Canada, I would sit here and rattle off events for April and May,
- 1:42:07but it's really not worth doing.
- 1:42:09Cause the list is long.
- 1:42:11Just go to the
- 1:42:11site.
- 1:42:12Exactly.
- 1:42:13But the track season is heating up.
- 1:42:15There are events.
- 1:42:16All over the place throughout this early spring season leading into summer.
- 1:42:21If you want to go to the track, now is the time to sign up, get out there.
- 1:42:25Um, the track season started early this year.
- 1:42:27A lot of people, even in our area, we're starting in February.
- 1:42:30So if you haven't registered yet, check it out.
- 1:42:33A lot of new names.
- 1:42:34Out there auto interest, just track it max speed.
- 1:42:38There's a lot of great groups out there.
- 1:42:40You can hook up with your area all over the East coast and all
- 1:42:43over the country for that matter.
- 1:42:45So check out HPD junkie.
- 1:42:46com for that information for the GTM members out there.
- 1:42:49If you haven't heard yet and you don't read any of the emails and you don't
- 1:42:52use the website or anything like that.
- 1:42:54We have a
- 1:42:54website.
- 1:42:55We now are sponsored by rock auto of all places.
- 1:42:59So we get a discount.
- 1:43:00It's a membership discount.
- 1:43:02It's a perk for being part of GTM.
- 1:43:04You can find that information out by going to our website, GT motorsports.
- 1:43:09org, logging in and going to the discount page.
- 1:43:12The information there does change every three months.
- 1:43:14So be sure to check.
- 1:43:16Back often before you check out so that you can get a discount
- 1:43:21on your orders from rock auto.
- 1:43:22Meanwhile, our friends, Kip and Rick for the international motorsport
- 1:43:27racing research center have kicked off yet another sweepstake.
- 1:43:31You know, every year they give away a car.
- 1:43:33It's a fundraising event to help the research center stay afloat.
- 1:43:38And they are doing another Corvette this year.
- 1:43:40It's a 2021 C8 Corvette.
- 1:43:44Convertible this time instead of the coop.
- 1:43:48You can go to www.winac8vet.com and you can, there's even a new promo code
- 1:43:57IG 25 IG as in Instagram 25 for a 25% increase in chances to win that Corvette.
- 1:44:05So you can do that and all the proceeds go.
- 1:44:08To the international buttersworth racing research center.
- 1:44:11And if you take a cash payout or take the Corvette, that's your choice.
- 1:44:14New Patreons for this month.
- 1:44:16We had one happens to also be our guest from last week.
- 1:44:21It's longtime returning member, David Drew Andrews, star of
- 1:44:25the, all the Torquem's episode.
- 1:44:27We got into a very technical episode about off roading and his Jeep commander and
- 1:44:33his Mercedes Benz G Wagon and whatnot.
- 1:44:35There is also a special full length bonus.
- 1:44:38Pit stop episode entitled Jesus.
- 1:44:40Take the wheel available on Patreon, where we follow up with Drew and talk
- 1:44:46about other things outside of off road.
- 1:44:48And we talk about motor sports and a lot of other stuff.
- 1:44:50It's a really funny episode.
- 1:44:52It goes right along with the, with the first one.
- 1:44:53If you heard that you can get that now on Patreon by going to www.
- 1:44:58patreon.
- 1:44:58com forward slash GT motor sports and subscribing, uh, at any level from 5
- 1:45:03on up, and that'll open up the door.
- 1:45:05All of the special content we have there.
- 1:45:07And that episode will probably air sometime months from now, if
- 1:45:12you're willing to be patient, but if you've got to have it now and
- 1:45:14you got to hear the second part, go ahead and check out Patreon.
- 1:45:17We also want to give a special shout out to longtime member, Rob Lors, who
- 1:45:23his episode came out this week as we're recording the drive thru entitled the man.
- 1:45:28The myth and the little blue Miata.
- 1:45:30So if you haven't heard that episode, it's a great way to check out the behind the
- 1:45:34scenes with one of our longtime members.
- 1:45:36And that is also a full length pit stop episode.
- 1:45:40Oh, so we'd also like to close out by giving a special thanks to our guest
- 1:45:44host for tonight, Tom Wendy for joining us this month, and we look forward to
- 1:45:48more guests hosts and later episodes.
- 1:45:50It was
- 1:45:51fun being here.
- 1:45:52And of course, we wouldn't be here today without.
- 1:45:57Is she our co host or our producer now?
- 1:45:59What, what is she?
- 1:46:00She's the executive producer slash co host slash
- 1:46:05consultant,
- 1:46:07consultant slash Evie person slash resident Kimmy.
- 1:46:14Well, everybody, it's been a blast.
- 1:46:16Tom, we enjoyed having you here.
- 1:46:18We look forward to what's coming in the rest of season two.
- 1:46:21Obviously we are four weeks underway.
- 1:46:23There's a lot of really cool stuff coming.
- 1:46:26So if this is your first time tuning in, I apologize.
- 1:46:29Please check back next week.
- 1:46:30They get better.
- 1:46:31I promise you.
- 1:46:34And on that note, I can't think all of you supporters, fans, friends,
- 1:46:38family, et cetera, everybody that's involved in the greater GTM grand
- 1:46:42touring motorsports without you guys, none of this would be possible.
- 1:46:46So we'll see you guys next month.
- 1:47:15If you like what you've heard and want to learn more about GT m, be sure to
- 1:47:19check us out on www.gt motorsports.org.
- 1:47:23You can also find us on Instagram at Grand Tour Motorsports.
- 1:47:26Also, if you want to get involved or have suggestions for future shows, you can call
- 1:47:30our text us at (202) 630-1770 or send us an email at Crew chief@gtmotorsports.org.
- 1:47:38We'd love to hear from you.
- 1:47:40Hey everybody, Crew Chief Eric here.
- 1:47:43We really hope you enjoyed this episode of BreakFix, and we wanted
- 1:47:46to remind you that GTM remains a no annual fees organization, and our goal
- 1:47:51is to continue to bring you quality episodes like this one at no charge.
- 1:47:56As a loyal listener, please consider subscribing to our Patreon for
- 1:48:00bonus and behind the scenes content, extra goodies, and GTM swag.
- 1:48:05For as little as 2 and 50 cents a month, you can keep our developers,
- 1:48:08writers, editors, casters, and other volunteers fed on their strict diet of
- 1:48:13fig Newtons, gummy bears, and monster.
- 1:48:16Consider signing up for Patreon today at www.
- 1:48:19patreon.
- 1:48:20com forward slash GT motorsports, and remember without fans,
- 1:48:25supporters, and members like you.
- 1:48:28None of this would be possible.