Latest / Apex Insiders Podcast / Indycar Arlington GP 2026 | Recap Preview, Early Barber Leans

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Indycar Arlington GP 2026 | Recap Preview, Early Barber Leans · Apex Insiders Podcast

• @f1capper: And we're back, Apex Insiders here. We got the Push to Cast show. This is the recap of the Arlington GP. I know last week we went, it's been great, man. We've just gone three straight weeks of IndyCar, so we haven't really had a true recap show. So this is our first one because we do have a week off. I got, I-Nate Rogers here with me, my man, the big money man, I'll say, because he's been hitting well for the season to start. How are you doing? How are you doing? @iN8Rodgers: Yeah. Yeah. mean, anytime, you know, the units are coming in like that, it's hard to complain. So, ⁓ great, great start to the year. think everyone in the discord had a pretty good weekend, whether they just had a couple of plays or they were loading up. So, ⁓ we we were all kind of like saying that we were going to take it easy on this race because it's a new race. And then a lot of us. @f1capper: Yeah. And then it's a little scroll through. was like, it was hard for me to keep up because obviously I was just there and it was hard. yeah, I was one of those that just had a few. You know, I did make a mistake. We'll go back. We'll talk about that. But yeah, man, you've been doing you've been hitting hot though. You hit on Kirkwood. I think you had him on top three as well. You had you initially got him at 10 to one. @iN8Rodgers: Yeah. @f1capper: which was just there for a hot minute, good for you. I'm glad some people got on that when they did because it dropped to five to one. And even then I'm still pissed off about it. I was like, I kinda wanna do it. I wanna do it at five to one. But you know, when you saw the number already at 10 to one and drops half, you're like, oh, I can't do it. @iN8Rodgers: Yeah, that probably would have got me too if I would missed out on it. hate grabbing a number later when everyone else has. Yeah, so even though Kirkwood was the man and he showed he was, I probably would have done the same thing. @f1capper: Don't you? Yeah, it's just like, ⁓ my God. Yeah. Totally, But ⁓ yeah, no, it was fun, man. I know we were just briefly chatting about it, Arlington GP, and I gotta say, man, my impressions, it's probably no different than a lot of the people that were talking about it on any social media for that matter. Even the drivers, like, you know, I know that it's Jerry Jones tied to this thing, and I know a lot of people hate him, especially if you're a Cowboys fan. but he does know how to put on a fucking show. I'm trying not to curse as much, so I apologize, but I was pretty excited about it. ⁓ No, I think my impressions were, first off, I didn't know what to expect. I've been to Cowboys, Rangers games, and sometimes it could be a pain to get there just because of the amount of people and whatnot. So I wasn't sure how that was gonna be. So I did go on Friday, and that was perfect. @iN8Rodgers: Yeah. @f1capper: One, the weather was absolutely phenomenal Friday and Saturday. And I would say Sunday, it was a little bit hot. Yes, it was windy to start, but the wind just all of a sudden died down right about like nine or 10 a.m., which was good because it wasn't like, it didn't interact or anything. literally that was probably the perfect move for Indy to say we're gonna move it an hour, because not even an hour later, that 60 mile an hour gust winds were just hitting us for like, a solid like four five hours. It was pretty ridiculous. ⁓ @iN8Rodgers: Yeah, I was bummed for the, you I heard they canceled the concerts and stuff. So I just, yeah. @f1capper: I was a little upset too. was like, man, I wanted to kind of wanted to see T-Pain, you know, I wanted to see that they had a nice little stage set up and everything. But just overall, like Friday, very light crowd. Obviously, it's workday, you know, I'm sure there wasn't going to be a lot of people. And ⁓ I did buy the paddock passes. So I did walk around. It was just cool, right? Like I've, you know, if you've been to an IMSA race, it's the same thing. IMSA, you don't have to pay for a paddock. You just have the access. @iN8Rodgers: Yeah. @f1capper: It's same thing. You walk around or engineers, know, team drivers, Chip Ganassi was right there. I didn't realize it. And he was just like around the corner from me. Right. I did get a picture with Hinch. ⁓ I'm not the type of guy that's like likes to bug people for it. But I was like, you know, it's my birthday and he's right there. I think he's he could just snap a picture with me. So I asked him, I was like, hey, can I just get a picture with you? He's like, yeah, sure. Nice guy. Took a picture. And I was like, cool. @iN8Rodgers: to. @f1capper: I'm done with that. all I did was just creep on the guys that were just on scooters. ⁓ It was funny. I saw Kirkwood just walking right by me and I was like, he's he looks primed. He looks ready. But the event overall and how they set it up is how I described it is like it felt like an F1 light, you know, type of event. ⁓ It obviously is not at the true full scale of it and whatnot. But even then, I would even argue like an event like that was even better than certain @iN8Rodgers: Yeah. @f1capper: I went to the Hungry GP last year and not that it was bad or anything, it was great, but it was almost like you had a little bit more that you could do at this event than at the Hungarian GP because they had after track closed. ⁓ they merchandise, ⁓ I went and I wanted to get an Arlington GP. I'm not that type that likes the, let's get the, know, NFL logo kind of thing, you know. @iN8Rodgers: Yeah. @f1capper: But these looked really sweet. And then I get to the official merchandise stand for IndyCar and they were just sold out. And I was like, why are you guys sold out? It's just Friday. And they're like, we only sold a thousand of them. And I was like, you gotta be kidding me. So I wasn't sure what to get. So I ended up getting the True Brand IndyCar hat. I do like True Brand. This was $40. I know that still seems like a lot for a hat, but compared to F1, F1 hats at an event will cost you over @iN8Rodgers: Wow. There you go. Yeah, sweet. Yeah. @f1capper: at least $70 for a hat. Pato had his own little just van where he was selling stuff and I was able to get this for $30 and it's signed by Pato too. ⁓ So from a merchandise perspective is very reasonable and they were packed. On Sunday I was so glad I did everything on Friday and Saturday because when we got there Sunday the lines were so long, so so long like you could @iN8Rodgers: Yep. Yeah, that's sweet. @f1capper: Penske, was McLaren, it didn't matter where the official merchandise, it was so packed. then the stands, they were just full. I was like, this is an Indie event. Everyone's here to see it, and obviously a lot of Pato fans. But there was a lot of Indie car fans in general. There was a lot of people that were enthused about it. They were clapping, they were just cheering. There were people that were actually involved in this race. @iN8Rodgers: for you. @f1capper: Texas Live, which is in between both stadiums, it's like they couldn't have thought of it any better. As soon as you exit, like from our grandstand to go to the other side, you have Texas Live there. It's a huge facility. Sat down, had a drink, the weather was great on Saturday, it was like, why leave? I'm gonna hang out here. And they have a pool, they have all sorts of things going on. They did a fantastic job. And the numbers showed, @iN8Rodgers: Yep. @f1capper: especially on the viewership, 1.3 million tuned in. The attendance was just phenomenal. I thought that they did like everything they said, the playbook that they did for this is exactly how they should do it for others. And I don't know what happens. One thing I would say like the reason why this also worked out so well is where it's located. Obviously DFW is huge. It's in between Fort Worth and Dallas. You can I called my buddy and I was like, what are you doing? Come out here and watch qualifying. He found a ticket for $50 for general admission. He Ubered, got there within 30 minutes. Can you even do that in another track if you were living somewhere like Kota, for example, you probably, if you live in the city, it's going to be a little bit harder for you to get to the track because it's outside. A lot of these tracks are not put in these like centralized areas like they do. So that's why this was so successful is. @iN8Rodgers: Sure. @f1capper: and why you're able to get people to get there. ⁓ So yeah, it's true. It's a playbook. You need to take notes, whoever. This is how you do it. @iN8Rodgers: Yeah, that's a good to hear. mean, they're already in talks for an extension, I think, ⁓ from the TV side of it. I think it looked good on TV. It looked pretty proper, professional. ⁓ They were able to show the speed really well, like that back straight and a couple other spots where like, I mean, you could just tell that, you know, that's just, that's racing there, you know, so it's, uh, there was no like gimmicky or just, it was just well done. Uh, it looked full, um, as crowd wise on TV too. It looked, just looked like a good day. So, um, I enjoyed, enjoyed the race too, watching it. So I think it races, it races all right. And that they'll only get better from here. You know, people had so much to learn. @f1capper: Mm-hmm. @iN8Rodgers: the teams did about the tires and just everything really all the bumps and how the best way to hit those apexes and everything like that and so it's only going to get better I would think. @f1capper: Yeah, I'll be interested to see if they try to resurface because in Texas, what you saw with the bumps is that just is what Texas is like. All the roads are like crappy like that. They're just, you just can't get, it's just gonna happen. So I wonder if they will try to resurface in some of those areas. I highly doubt it, but it would be interesting to see if they do that. I actually recorded the race because I have yet to see what it looks like on TV and I'm interested to see the entire race in its fullest like that. So I'm excited. I said I'll do that probably this weekend and try to catch the race and, ⁓ on its TV form. But yeah, the race itself though, I would say crazy full course caution didn't even happen until last three laps. Unexpected 100%. I thought there would be a lot more chaos and @iN8Rodgers: Pretty unexpected, yeah. @f1capper: you know, someone's gonna hit the wall at some point and go figure it was only Scott McLaughlin in qualifying. So I thought the one shot qualifying was, okay, listen, maybe if I was watching on TV, I would have a different perspective, but because I was there, it didn't feel as lively to me. Like I didn't care for it at that time, but I was attending. So I'm curious to know how did you feel as someone that was watching it on TV, this one shot qualifying? @iN8Rodgers: So it kind of seemed like Ericsson had an advantage they found going out first because everything was still a little warm as far as the brakes and his tires. And by the time they got to those last couple of guys, they waited so long because they threw in some commercials and things like that. So they probably should have launched guys as the other one is finishing up their lap or something to keep it moving. And it probably felt a little long for you too. mean, it just there's only six cars. Yeah, I mean, it's a long lap also. @f1capper: fairy. I and I was cooking in the stands and I was like oh god I forgot this is supposed to be one shot qualifying I was like yeah we're gonna I got I got burned on my arms and I'm wearing some on my chapstick because I'm still suffering a little bit from that but @iN8Rodgers: So they're going out and yeah. You Yeah. If Fox really needed to kind of step up on their like production wise, ⁓ I think it was cool. They were able to highlight that single driver. You know, they can highlight the sponsor, which is BigFistSpot. I don't really care about that, but you know, they were able to highlight, you know, the guys kind of stats or whatever, who, know, is he a young, a younger guy or is he established or, know, just kind of tell their story while they're doing it, you know, going out there. But they, they just had a red or a green time, you know, Like I think they needed to they are starting to talk about the sectors on the broadcast if you watch practice They'll be like but they don't show that you know, like you can see it online But you know, why aren't they throwing up sector times, especially in a single cars going? Show us how that that sector compares to you know, the guy that just went but it was just @f1capper: Finally. Yeah. I feel like they need to be doing that in all racing series because in F1, that is a big reason, you probably see it from our content with F1, we really strive on the data. The data is like half the fun now for us as betters, of course, but even casuals, casuals love to see that stuff. We want to see that stuff. But it's funny because the reason why I'm more upset is because @iN8Rodgers: Yeah. @f1capper: Now I'm gonna be working for the next week, even through the weekend. I wanna really try to see where can I find lap per lap data on these drivers because this is the perfect race for this. Because we didn't have any cautions. We only had pure race pace. We were able to see all the cars in its purest form from beginning to end, even though I know the last three laps. @iN8Rodgers: Yeah. @f1capper: But you can really extract what is the true pace for these cars because I'm very interested to see the primaries versus the alternates between the Ganassi versus the ⁓ Andretti, specifically Kirkwood, but even power. Like at one point, power was like spun out and he still made it back. Like I want to see these things. So I'm going to be interested to see how like IndyCar tries to continue to adapt. They just keep holding it to their chest. They have it. Now bring it out. Let us have that. So. @iN8Rodgers: Yeah. And they weren't even giving differential on it. They were just showing it was just the time and it would just be red. And so like, okay, he's down from Ericsson, but is he down a hundredth of a second? Is he already down four tenths? You know, that's, it was just kind of like. @f1capper: Yeah, let me put some cool graphic visual for you guys to show a comparison of Palo versus ⁓ Kirkwood in the last stint. So you guys can see like, wow, look at the pace that he was doing in sector one, two, and three. And you can compare it side by side. Let me see telemetry. That would be awesome. Like I could show you, like we can get a little, and honestly, that's just. @iN8Rodgers: Yeah. @f1capper: better for the betters because now we can really get to highlight like the advantages, disadvantages some of these teams have. So, ⁓ yeah, no, I think that, I think some of the surprises for me was number one, there was not a full course caution until the end. ⁓ I think it was obviously, you know, known that Kirkwood was gonna do well, but I did not expect him to really have that much pace over the Ganassi car, which has me thinking like, whoa, what? @iN8Rodgers: Yep. @f1capper: What you know, what was it like? What was it was it just a primary that they were just struggling with and the heat? Because it wasn't Polo wasn't driving his car out of like out of control and wasn't sliding or anything. He it just was purely Kirkwood in that car was that much better. So @iN8Rodgers: Yep. Yeah, if you watch the race back, you'll see it was pretty cool from Brian Herda. At one point, he said to Kirkwood on the radio when Kirkwood was kind of in that big chase, the second half of the race and Herda tells him what Palo's wing angle is basically saying that Palo has more downforce and that he's going to be slower on the straights. And so that kind of just gave gave Kirkwood, was was like a cool moment. It gave Kirkwood the confidence to be like, ⁓ I like I've got him like so. ⁓ And yeah. @f1capper: I got this. Yeah. @iN8Rodgers: I mean his car was just like Palo said even on that the caution at the end. He was like I Mean, yeah, I would have gone for the past but I was more worried about power passing me than I was being able to get by Kirkwood He was like I didn't have anything for him today @f1capper: Yeah, no, makes sense. I think that, you know, I obviously wasn't able to see that or hear that. So I mean, that makes a lot more sense because he was losing a lot of time as soon as he got on that last stint. And obviously, I was like, I would love to see the data on this. I will try to track it down. And I'm interested to see. So ⁓ disappointments, Penske, go figure. We're going to bring them back up. It sounds like Penske is just If they can't qualify well, maybe they can make themselves back up. But I don't, I think at this point there is a problem with Joseph New Garden when it comes to race pace at street courses. I don't know what it is, but he just, and maybe it was just this course. Maybe I'm overreacting, but I'm going back to last season too. And then this season he hasn't qualified well on street courses and he has, he's been struggling in the race because look at Scott McLaughlin. He was starting at the back. ended up what P12 or something he's had a phenomenal race and then you had Maluchis quiet you know he did his thing he did he didn't wreck the car he got he did what he could I will give him that I'm starting to think that Scott McLaughlin is has taken definitely the number one reigns as as the number one driver for Penske at this point because Joseph New Garden has just not been the same except at ovals we'll say we'll say @iN8Rodgers: Yep. Yeah, that's I mean you just the stats show just ⁓ a decline there. it was kind of just, Malukis hit new garden on the blend from the pits and new gun got spun around and then McLaughlin's coming behind and he runs over new gardens wing. And so new garden got just walloped by both of his teammates there in about five seconds. And that kind of ruined his race, but he, I mean, he probably would have been stuck there in 10th, kind of like he was in just, ⁓ that he doesn't really have much. @f1capper: Yeah. @iN8Rodgers: Forwarding which is weird cuz I mean if you look at his if you look at Long Beach st. P's got multiple wins at both of those tracks ⁓ So it's not like he was always just an oval guy. ⁓ He's a two-time champion. So, know, he's @f1capper: No, he's it's there's something with this hybrid car ever since he got into this hybrid car And we know it's penskies had their their issues since hybrid but there's just there's something he's not Clicking the way he should be and maybe i'm just being harsh because you know, the expectations are very high like right he's He was the top driver pretty much always competing, you know for for wins and and it doesn't matter what track to the point where it's like Well, now you're just a one trick pony. What has happened? Right. So it's very interesting to see how he's kind of just not been, not been the same at these street courses. @iN8Rodgers: Yeah, when they introduced the arrow screen, we kind of saw the fall of Rossi, who was kind of that young future champion that was blowing people out. And New Garden had a couple of championships under his belt before the hybrid comes in with the extra weight. And so that might be kind of the comparison is like maybe he's that Rossi type, even though he at least still can hang his hat in the ovals and that keeps him competitive. But I mean, there's still @f1capper: Yeah. @iN8Rodgers: 12 other races other than the Oval so it's gotta be better. @f1capper: Yeah, she would you would think so, ⁓ rossi he looked he was looking okay. He was very racy But I don't remember where he ended up at that point. I was already three beers down four beers @iN8Rodgers: So I think that's fair. I think we did learn something there, which was the ECRs were the only two cars that used ⁓ three new sets of alternates in qualifying. And then so they were the only two cars that had one new set left. And they both had a stint where they struggled. And I would guarantee it was on the set where they used their used alternates. Rossi was able to hang his position a little better than Rasmussen, but. ⁓ No one even in the Fast 6 went for new reds. So I think everyone else thought they saw the importance of keeping the new tires. ⁓ So that was kind of an interesting call by ECR and something to look out for in the future. We'll try to track the tires of maybe after that performance. I doubt we see anyone. ⁓ @f1capper: Yeah, it makes me think that they took a risk. They wanted to try it, especially at a new track. And it just didn't work out to their favor for Rossi, at least. We knew Rasmussen would be kind of on the struggle bus. yeah, Nolan Siegel, and he sucked. So I'm not going to bring up much more. But I want to talk about McLaren's because they kind of dropped back a little bit. Lungard, he did. @iN8Rodgers: Yeah. @f1capper: he he pushed hard like i know he would he spun out in the first lap right i think it was the first lap yeah but he still came back and had a solid solid race pato just couldn't do it it's kind of like i makes me wonder now you're bringing up like on the broadcast they were talking about pillow with this the downforce setup was pato doing the same thing was he on a higher downforce setup because he just couldn't keep up with the top four he just couldn't like that was @iN8Rodgers: She mocked her, hit him, yep, and spun him. Yeah, he said he had, kept Kirkwood in front of him for the first two stints. And then he said, once Kirkwood got by me and I saw him like blow, like just blow away. was like, I knew he's winning the race because he's like, you know they felt pretty fast but once he saw Kirkwood go by and the Andretti's that the Andretti's were just like a class above everyone. With Pado I have taken his worst 4.5 on at St. Pete and here in Arlington and he finished fifth both times so I am kind of playing with fire there taking that worse because he is still getting top five's every week so he'll probably bite me one of these times but yeah so far this year even on the oval he has not been quite like @f1capper: Yeah Yeah. @iN8Rodgers: He had his opportunity to take the win a couple times, but he just didn't have the car. So I think he's doing what he can with kind of where they're at right now. Lungards, you know, he, I think he came up from 18th, 20th or whatever and finished maybe seventh, I think. So ⁓ yeah, we still haven't seen that pop from McLaren yet, but. ⁓ I do feel kind of bad for Nolan when Zach Brown puts out the tweet at the end of the race and he's like, yeah, Pato top five and Lungard seventh every week or something like that. He doesn't even mention Nolan, ⁓ which I don't know how he can. @f1capper: No, no. Well, maybe next week, Nolan, or yeah, not this weekend, the next week, ⁓ Nolan can try to showcase because he didn't do too bad at Barber. So in McLaren's in general, this could be a better track for them. So especially Lundgaard, especially Lundy. But Ericsson, very shocking. I played with fire on that one. said I would take, I was gonna, I took his worst five and a half just expecting like, @iN8Rodgers: Yeah. @f1capper: it you know we would see Lundgaard we see Scott we see these guys New Garden someone overtake him and I think he ended up fourth I think it was so he actually had a pretty solid race and you know how critical I am of Ericsson so @iN8Rodgers: Yeah, same here. I've kind of lost faith in him, he's been strong at these street courses so far, and Andretti tried their best to lose this race on pit lane. I think it was their first six pit stops or five pit stops with Power, Kirkwood and Erickson. They fumbled it ⁓ every time Kirkwood came in. They messed up. so the fact that he won the race like that with all the mistakes on pit lane and he just beat Polo on pace, @f1capper: Yeah. @iN8Rodgers: which is just like something we have not really seen. Just so impressive what Kirkwood did. @f1capper: Really was, man. I was sitting there watching the live timing on my phone as they would come by, and I'm like, oh man, I think Kirkwood's gonna do this. It has just kept just decreasing. was like 3.9, 3.6, 3.2, 2.8. I was like, oh God, what is happening right now? And that should have been the point in my mind, get on calcium. But I was vibing, I was just having a good time. @iN8Rodgers: Yeah, that's fair. @f1capper: didn't care. So, ⁓ no, but, ⁓ let that's, that's, that's great. I think it was good. I'm hoping I can go back and try to find some data points on this because I think there's a lot of learnings we can take from this street course. may not carry over to the next race, but it could, it will carry over probably to long beach because, well, you know, again, we are ⁓ interested to see like, how these cars are, you know, in terms of degradation, like the pace, and just wanna be able to get grounded on what, where are the team strengths, true strengths and weaknesses when it comes to corners or straights and specific areas of the track. So that's what I'm very interested to see. But we got Barber. I know next week, ⁓ well, actually before we get to Barber, let's recap. or the units and grid rival and everything that you got. mean... @iN8Rodgers: Sure, yeah. So, I mean, it was, yeah, just a great week. mean... Kirkwood win was the the meat and potatoes of all that but I mean my race ROI came out to 95 % so winning seven point five five units on the day we hit power and Kirkwood podium Which I kind of had a chance this I took a ton of flyers on really cheap podium plays like Rosenquist Armstrong Erickson I mean I just had a ton of dart throws on podium that didn't cost me very much. So I had a lot of options @f1capper: There it is. @iN8Rodgers: to come out of that successful. Another good week on the matchups. I'm 10 for 14 on matchups now, so that's been going pretty well. And then grid rival, I was very close. Kevin Simpson kind of let me down this week. @f1capper: Yeah, he did. He did. @iN8Rodgers: He had a tough and so now I'm kind of thinking maybe the results that I saw last year with him were a little maybe due to the, when the races got a little strategy messy and he just kind of benefited from that. I do think he's improved. I don't think he's as bad as like maybe the, he finished, you know, like 22nd or whatever he was, but ⁓ @f1capper: I think it's also something we need to think about with this year specifically, like the talent level is a little bit deeper in that midfield now, right? He has, he's being challenged, you know, I know I'm a Grosjean hater, but he's got Grosjean behind him. He's got Hauger. He's got, you know, it's a little bit more of a challenge in that space than what it was before. Like we used to always just see like a top 12 and then that was it. But now we have like, @iN8Rodgers: Yep. @f1capper: You could probably argue 15 solid drivers in total like that are just solid that can do it. @iN8Rodgers: Yeah, just like we said on our season previews that like Pinsky is not going to have all the DNFs like they had before. Like even though Pinsky isn't necessarily at Pinsky level right now, they're still finishing the races and they're still going to be above those guys. So we just got to keep that in mind as we try to, you know, that some of these guys are going to fall back a little bit. @f1capper: Yeah. For sure, for sure. @iN8Rodgers: But I almost had the, I had a seven play card and grid rival and it missed by Kiffin Simpson, which he wasn't even close to his line. But then I missed Armstrong didn't hit his number by one, which he was actually about to pass Rossi to get ninth when the caution came. Cause Armstrong was on a tear. He had passed three or four cars. He was the last person to pit. So he had the freshest tires. ⁓ So I still wouldn't have hit it. Kiffin Simpson wasn't close, but Yeah, 17 and eight so far my individual plays like, you if you separate all the grid rival picks out one by one. So everything's just going, going solidly on that end. I just, you know, it's, I'm getting the right odds and stuff that I'm looking to bet on people and it's working out. @f1capper: Yeah, man, it really is. mean, you deserved it too, because I know last season was a little... a little up and down, I would say. you know, I know it was like technically the first full season of this hybrid we were going into. weren't sure who would have thought Penske was going to be as bad as they were. Right. Like there was a lot of things we were were were realizing. Now we've settled in. @iN8Rodgers: Yeah. Yeah. @f1capper: coming into the season, things are confirming the way that we expected. Maybe there's a little outlier here and there, where like Dale Coyne and the way they've kind of outperformed at certain points. ⁓ We didn't expect maybe Hauger to be that good to start the year, right? We knew he would be good, but top 10, right? Like, what are we doing here? Grosjean too, like, right? So there's some things we're still learning. It's three races. We've had two street courses in an oval. @iN8Rodgers: Yeah. Right? @f1capper: I feel more settled in. ⁓ I just want to be able to back some of this stuff. For me, I only had one unit win. I did make the mistake of backing Palo, even though it looked well, it looked fine. It looked totally fine until the end. I should have backed out of that, but I saw Kalyshek offering odds at even money basically. So was like, why not? I'm going to be there. want to do something. So I'm going to do it. But I did that Armstrong over Rossi. Just like you said, I love. Armstrong, I'm always here for ECR Rossi fade, especially at a street course. And then just like everyone else, thank God mech called that out on Nevada Kirkwood plus 140 to Joseph New Garden. What are we doing? Like that's a no brainer. Thank you to my buddy who is able to place that for me. So that got me over the edge. I'm happy. ⁓ Yeah, because it's it's been, you know, @iN8Rodgers: Yeah. @f1capper: I don't think I wanted to get on that frickin Kirkwood, but I couldn't. As far as grid rival, I didn't really do a whole lot. I did a lot of the pre-race stuff. I did a lot of the stuff you did too. And then I had one new car, two new cards. I actually ended up just breaking even, which was kind of sad. Like I was like, come on, I couldn't win one at least, know, one over it. I did like five cards or four cards and I had one hit. So I'm like, well, now we're back to even. @iN8Rodgers: Yeah @f1capper: You know what? I can't complain. had a really good first two weeks. So, um, and this, the next race I should be around to be able to watch that and be able to pay attention. I am looking forward to Barber. So let's, let's talk a little bit about that. I know we don't have odds, but obviously we can kind of just try to think about who we're eyeing. I could tell you this. I'm going to be eyeing some lungard. If I, if I see him anywhere 10 to one or longer. I'm no doubt calling that in. want it, I want in. I may consider eight to one, but I want 10, 12, something like that. @iN8Rodgers: video. Yeah, he, I did a little film study, I guess, yesterday and watched the qualifying highlights and the race highlights and he benefited from starting seventh, just missing the fast six and it was an alternate tire race. So we have that extra set of alternates that he was able to use on everyone. And he was doing it on the track with his passes. ⁓ yeah. @f1capper: It was beautiful to watch too, really was. these were, he did one on Joseph New Garden that just, you're like, damn, he like, and it was clean. It was perfect. And then he did the see ya. @iN8Rodgers: Yep. yeah yeah that's he had to hit another moment like that in Arlington where that ⁓ his strategist was like get by stingray here and four turns late four corners later he does it he's like you mean like that and he's like yeah just like that so yeah I do I like Lundgaard's kind of confidence he has and ⁓ you know it shows on the racetrack so I'm with you on Lundgaard overall I just like Palo it was a really good race but Palo just led @f1capper: Yeah. What a man. Yeah. @iN8Rodgers: whole thing and no one could really touch him. ⁓ He's been good here for a while. has two wins. @f1capper: He probably will win, by the way. I'm just saying, if I can get odds that are longer, I will do it. @iN8Rodgers: ⁓ yeah, ⁓ I'm the first person to be tempted by someone else's odds before I've been on pull-out. yeah. So I'll probably be doing the same thing. ⁓ But yeah, this could be a pull-out race again. ⁓ But we'll see if some, mean, like people are starting to, know, Kirkwood had something for him on a street race, which I'd probably be fading in Dreadia Barber. So. @f1capper: Yeah. Yeah. ⁓ I know. I know. I am, I'm that guy. I'm sticking my neck out there and saying, yes, they did well, but this is definitely gonna be a little bit more competitive, more natural track for a lot of these drivers. There's no barriers. This is where we get to see some of these. Howger, for example, I'm gonna be very bullish on that guy this weekend or next weekend. Just because this is going to be more of a natural race track for him. This is the first time now he's not doing a street course, barriers around. This is the flow for him, right? Like Grosjean, I usually hate fading him, but I may not even touch him this weekend just because this might be better track for him. VK, VK is going to be another guy that he probably could do well here too. I don't know how the Unicos will do, but you know, we'll see. ⁓ But yeah, Seagull, I'm gonna keep an open mind on him. All right, like this is, he actually did pretty solid. I don't remember where he actually ended up, but he was getting pretty frisky with his own teammates. You know, they were at one point all bunched up. So you can tell that McLaren, yeah. this is a, I can tell you this, when grid rival comes out, I'm not gonna be afraid to attack a Seagull line at 18 and a half and going better. So. @iN8Rodgers: Yeah, think he out-qualified all of them. I'll be with you on that, @f1capper: Yeah, so better on those better on the howgers ⁓ Stingray Maybe if it's 20, maybe I don't know @iN8Rodgers: Hmm Yeah, I mean this is typically a pretty low caution race and so we're you know, it's a little harder to get those DNFs but This does lean it I mean penske's been very strong here I think I think Chevy's are not Undermatched here because there's not a ton of low speed corners slow gear corners like Yeah @f1capper: I don't know. Yeah. mid speed that mid to mid to high speed more than anything. @iN8Rodgers: Just like you said, just with the drivers, it's a flowy track. you're just kind of rolling through the hit. There's elevation changes. There's fast corners. You're just kind of... ⁓ I think it was initially kind of made for us like a Moto GP track or something like that. yeah. @f1capper: Yeah, yeah, exactly. So it's a fun track. It's a fun track to drive, but it is a hard to pass track and and I'm with you like I will keep an open mind maybe not so I'm not sure where I would want to be with Joseph New Garden, but Scott McLaughlin man If the odds are there if it's like plus 250 I will do I will will tack on the top three for him But it's still going to be very competitive in that top three that I don't know if I want to do that until we get some kind of confirmation like Where is he actually placing? So yeah, I agree. I think this is going to be an interesting race. And I'm actually looking forward to it. Like finally we get something that's not a street course and more of a natural course. ⁓ It may not be pretty, but it's going to be fun to watch for me. @iN8Rodgers: Yeah, I Yeah, no, I have this track girls on me every year and like you said, it's hard to pass, but I think like Lungard showed and some other people the last couple of years that they're kind of figuring out where they can do it. ⁓ And so each year, I mean, these drivers, you know, there's up in their game. And so this, you know, the race was so entertaining last year, even though Polo had like a 10 second lead nearly the whole time, you know, it's just after him, it was a very, ⁓ very fun race. And so I'm excited for it too. @f1capper: Mm-hmm. Yeah. Yeah, for sure, man. I'm looking forward to it. Well, next week we'll have our betting preview. I'm sure we'll probably be Wednesday by the time we get stuff, lines and stuff like that. Hopefully it doesn't make us stretch to Thursday, but guarantee we'll have some grid rival picks. So get into the discord. Hey, I got Will Power as my pick for the ⁓ eliminator. So I hope I'm back in it. I haven't even seen the results. Don't know who I'm going to pick next week. ⁓ I'm trying something different this year, by the way. just, I don't know if it was a good idea to do what I did. I should have probably just picked Joseph New Garden for Phoenix, but I said, you know, I know everyone's gonna do it. So I'm trying to save a lot of these guys for a little bit later. So we'll see, we'll see how this goes. Didn't really work out when VK decided to go jihad onto Palo, so. @iN8Rodgers: Yeah, that'll happen but uh No, I I can Get in the discord for sure. Like he's like we we found that Kirkwood 10 to 1 line We found you know, mech found out plus 140 and then you know, I made some money off you guys in f1 with the albon situation so @f1capper: It's so good. Dude, you have no idea. That's why I didn't care what I was betting on for IndyCar. That's why I didn't care about the Plo-Bet because when both the McLarens were called out, I had about just a three minute window to get into a group play where they had Piastri and Norris with Max and Gasly. And Max was like plus, I don't know, 375, 400. and then Gastly at 18 to one. So I was like, no question, I'm a couple hundred on Max, I'm gonna put a hundred on Gastly, one of those is gonna hit, we're gonna profit, let's have fun. And it ended up being Gastly. So yeah, that was just 18 units right there. And then Underdog, we destroyed them. I had a massive, massive weekend with F1. Getting lucky with these reliability issues, so. That's why I didn't really care what I was doing with IndyCar to be honest with you because I was fat and happy. I was at an IndyCar race for crying out loud in my backyard, which is great. So, but yeah, I'm looking forward to next week. We will have also the Japan GP betting preview too. So if you're listening, we'll have all that stuff out. And then after that, it's really going to be IndyCar for pretty much the next eight weeks since we don't have, ⁓ we had two cancellations of, ⁓ @iN8Rodgers: Absolutely. @f1capper: F1, so we'll have more content, more indie content. All right, man, well was fun. We'll see you next week and yeah, get into the Discord. @iN8Rodgers: Be ready. right?