Latest / BREAK/FIX the Motorsports & Vehicle Enthusiast Variety Show / Explore HyperFest: The Ultimate Automotive Lifestyle Event (Chris Cobetto)

Transcript

Explore HyperFest: The Ultimate Automotive Lifestyle Event (Chris Cobetto) · BREAK/FIX the Motorsports & Vehicle Enthusiast Variety Show

0:00
Break Fix podcast is all about capturing the living history of people from all
0:05
over the autos sphere, from wrench, turners, and racers to artists, authors,
0:09
designers, and everything in between.
0:11
Our goal is to inspire a new generation of Petrolhead that wonder.
0:16
How did they get that job or become that person?
0:19
The road to success is paved by all of us because everyone has a story.
0:27
Hey everybody, crew Chief Eric here.
0:30
I wanted to give you a heads up before we head into this episode that we did have
0:34
some technical issues with the audio.
0:36
We've done our best to make corrections so that it's easier to listen to.
0:40
But unfortunately, you know, there's always challenges
0:43
with internet connection, the different systems that people are
0:46
using, the audio quality itself.
0:49
So please by all means, sit back and enjoy this episode.
0:52
The content in it is amazing, but our apologies for the quality right up front
0:57
with activities taking place on asphalt, dirt, mud, grass, and even in the air.
1:03
From camping with your friends and family, riding with world-class
1:06
professional drifters, or enjoying music from a variety of artists.
1:10
Hyper Fest is the destination for those who want to be immersed in one
1:15
of the premier automotive lifestyle events and offers numerous activities
1:20
to enjoy both on and off the track over the course of an entire weekend.
1:25
With us tonight on Break Fixx to talk about the 20 year evolution of Hyper Fest
1:30
is founder Chris Coto, who you might also recognize as a lead from the National
1:35
Autosport Association, also known as nasa.
1:39
And joining us in the conversation tonight along with Chris is
1:42
Matt Rockel, social media and marketing director for Hyper Fest.
1:47
So welcome to Break Fix, Chris and Matt.
1:49
Hey, how are you doing, man?
1:50
Good to be here.
1:52
Just celebrated its 20th anniversary here at the end of the 2021 season.
1:57
But before we get into that, why don't we talk about how it all got started.
2:01
Why, where did the idea come from and where was the very first hyper fest?
2:05
I was scared is really what it came down to.
2:09
I had started the NASA Mid-Atlantic region.
2:12
It was actually called NASA Virginia at the time.
2:14
At that time, the National Autosport Association pretty
2:17
much existed just in Northern California and Southern California.
2:20
When we started the East Coast, we were the only region.
2:23
There are now 13 regions.
2:24
We technically made NASA national and for what it cost to run a track out, I was
2:30
really just trying to figure out a way to get a lot of the tuner guys on the track.
2:33
At the time I had, I had another job.
2:35
I was, I was working in the medical industry when we started nasa.
2:38
In my travels, I would find these guys, you know, in the Hondas and in the, the
2:41
two 40 sxs and that sort of thing, and.
2:43
They revealed his road racing types of cars.
2:45
I would talk to 'em and say, Hey, you know, you guys know that you can take
2:48
your car to the racetrack and put that thing on a real racetrack, right?
2:50
And they'd be like, really?
2:51
At the time I was, I'd be in Northern Virginia.
2:53
And some points about hour, hour, 20 minutes from.
2:57
Depending how you are, they had no idea that you go and take your own
3:00
car in the track, and certainly one of those guys to come out and put
3:04
butts in seats basically on the track.
3:06
It got me thinking about how I could do a car show or something
3:09
along with the regular NAS event.
3:11
Oddly enough, I get a phone call outta the blue from a guy named Mike De Ford
3:16
who was working with Carlisle at the time, and Carlisle car shows in Pennsylvania.
3:20
He was a NASA guy.
3:21
From California to Carle, Pennsylvania to take over the Al
3:26
Sport Compact Show at the time.
3:28
Made it a pretty big success.
3:29
Called me.
3:30
'cause he was just trying to get people to, uh, he had some extra
3:33
slots for vendors and like nasa and said, Hey, you're the local guy.
3:36
I wanna come up.
3:37
So I went up there and I displayed and, you know, talked to people and he and I
3:40
just became friends and, I don't know, one night, probably after a glass of
3:44
vino and a and played a pasta, we were talking about, Hey, wouldn't it be cool
3:48
to do a Carlisle type of event, like the car show and everything else, but
3:52
do it at a red course and introduced.
3:54
More people.
3:54
And really that's how the idea of Hyper Fest got born.
3:57
And the main idea really was just, Hey, let's do a car show.
3:59
And then he sent me a video and he said, do some drifting.
4:02
I'm like, what the heck is drifting?
4:03
And he sent me a videotape.
4:05
This is 2001.
4:07
So he sent me a video tape.
4:09
I couldn't understand a word because all the Japanese, but
4:12
it was smoky and it was cool.
4:13
I said, we have to have this set hyper fist, and that sort
4:15
of started the whole circus.
4:17
Let's do everything that we would think would be cool as kind of dorky
4:21
car guys and put it all in one spot.
4:23
That's really how it started.
4:24
But you know, like I said, I was scared and the reason I was scared
4:27
is because I have a lot of money that I had to pay the tracks if I didn't
4:31
get participating in NASA events.
4:34
I was just trying to fill the top of the funnel with new people and
4:36
get them involved, what we were doing and, and I loved the sport.
4:39
I mean, I loved road racing.
4:41
Yeah.
4:41
It took me a long time to find club racing.
4:44
You know, I always wanted to race, but my exposure was always MSA stuff,
4:47
and that was just very expensive.
4:49
And I didn't realize there was this whole club level type of thing out
4:52
there till a good friend of mine took me and his dad was racing at
4:54
Summit Point, and I went, oh my gosh.
4:56
It opened my eyes and realized that it's actually within most people's
5:00
grasp is to go take a car on track.
5:02
As Matt will tell you, when I get ahold of something that I like, I'm
5:06
hard to get to be quiet about it.
5:08
Shut up.
5:09
The high is really sort of an extension of my own voice.
5:12
Here we are at Circa 2001 Summit Point Raceway High Fest is born at about the
5:17
same time as the E 46 was debuted, right?
5:20
So we're gonna put it in perspective for our petrolhead of a certain age.
5:24
But what did the first hyper fest look like?
5:26
How many cars showed up?
5:27
How did it go?
5:28
Did you feel that you had succeeded in achieving what you wanted and And you
5:32
went to Hyper Fest too, or was it Yes.
5:34
Yeah, we could have done better.
5:35
Let's try again.
5:36
I think if I would've had no expectations, it would've
5:38
probably been a wonderful thing.
5:40
But you know, our expectation really was to have 10,000 people out there,
5:45
and I think the first year we had 800.
5:47
And so I went into it really with the expectation that.
5:50
We would have the crowds like we do now, you know, back then.
5:53
So that was a little disappointing.
5:55
However, in terms of proof of concept, and honestly the smiles that got generated
5:59
by everybody that was out there, it was enough to say, Hey, let's try this again.
6:03
And actually we did two of them.
6:04
The first year we did one at Summit Point, we did the other
6:07
one on the R down at Charlotte.
6:09
One was in, I think, July, which was very hot.
6:12
The other one was September at Charlotte, which is also hot.
6:15
And, um, you know, it just sort of went from there.
6:18
I don't, I don't know that I would say that it was exactly how I'd en
6:22
envisioned it, because to a certain extent, you know, you're trying to
6:25
find content that is going to appeal to car guys and still be able to manage
6:31
that in a new event for the most part.
6:34
Yeah, I mean, we got the first one done, so from an operational side, it was great.
6:38
We had the bands there, we had.
6:40
Bikini contest has turned into the Daisy Dukes contest later on, which
6:44
we don't do that anymore at at BIR.
6:46
You know, we had the drifting that took place.
6:48
If you gotta to Summit Point and you run the main track through the
6:50
carousel, basically down five the whole way through nine, you talk to
6:54
any of the Drifters, it's one of the best tracks that they can run on.
6:57
It's great for spectators too.
6:59
Y Vaughn Gitten Jr. Was the winner of the very first US Drift nationals,
7:03
which had this genesis that I professed.
7:05
We claim and, and believe this is correct, that we were the very first
7:09
pro drifting ev in the country.
7:11
And they were terrible.
7:11
All of 'em were there.
7:12
Yeah.
7:13
I mean, they were entertaining, but from a completely different, Vaughn was actually
7:16
the least terrible out of them all.
7:18
That's generally how you win, right?
7:20
That's right.
7:21
That's right.
7:21
It's the least worst.
7:23
The least worst.
7:24
Uh, he obviously has gotten much better.
7:25
He's just a great guys.
7:27
And then we had think the next year, the year after that we had Forsberg win
7:31
it and uh, we've had a lot of guys come through that are out pro kind of stuff.
7:36
But anyway, to the original concept, yeah, it was exactly what we had sort
7:39
of thought about and it was nothing like what we had sort of thought about.
7:44
It was definitely in the end, I saw a lot of guys like me or just goofy
7:47
car guys, petrol heads, gearhead, and they had never seen anything like it.
7:53
And when you see that on somebody's face that you feel a brotherhood with,
7:57
you know you want to keep doing it.
7:58
So like any project right at the beginning, everybody's bright-eyed
8:02
and bushy tailed and excited to get things off the ground.
8:05
And then there's a bunch of lessons learned.
8:06
The more you do it, obviously you did it twice in the first.
8:09
Season and then I profess, let's say, I guess three and then four,
8:13
and then so on, on the line.
8:14
If you count them in in sequential order, right?
8:17
What did you learn in those first couple of years?
8:19
How did you get to year five, right?
8:21
Because that's always a big milestone for a lot of projects.
8:23
And then you get to like the seven year itch.
8:25
Like, do we continue?
8:27
What do we do?
8:28
How do we change?
8:28
We can't keep repeating the same thing and over, over again.
8:31
And once you cross that hurdle.
8:33
The next 13.
8:34
It's like, how did you get there?
8:35
Right?
8:35
So walk us through the evolution process of Hyper Fest.
8:39
We just really wanted to put a good show on, you know, I mean we did a tour in
8:43
2003, uh, in which we did Pittsburgh, Charlotte, summit Point and Cal Speedway.
8:48
And then the following year we.
8:50
Let's see.
8:51
We did Charlotte Summit Point and Sonoma.
8:53
We only did three that year.
8:55
You know what I learned really from that was that the market
8:57
wasn't ready for the event.
8:58
We were too far ahead, really, of the market.
9:00
That sound bad to say that I don't, I don't mean it to sound
9:03
like I'm some master sooth there.
9:06
Reality is the vision we had was not yet understood.
9:09
It was way too subtle for the market at the time, which was, you
9:12
know, a bunch of clear taillights and bad, really large exhausts.
9:16
On Honda Civics, the higher performance side of kind of
9:20
what this event represented was just loss on the aftermarket.
9:23
You know, you get to seem, uh, it seemed like 90% of the, and this is
9:27
not right, but it seemed like 90% of the, the people that were just
9:30
filet were like the clear taillights and stickers and things like that.
9:34
It's okay, Chris.
9:35
27% of all statistics are made up anyway, so it's all good.
9:39
What we learned really was, I think on the operational side,
9:42
what people liked, what got people.
9:45
Interested.
9:46
Certainly I learned a lot about marketing to that group of individuals, but I
9:50
would say really the biggest thing was sort of the operational side and
9:53
what pieces and how to place them.
9:55
I learned that there are a lot of people who will say
10:00
they'll do something but don't.
10:02
I've learned that when you find somebody who really, you know, knows what they're
10:06
doing and does a good job for you, that you do whatever you possibly can.
10:11
Make sure that they stick around.
10:12
It's just critical because this thing is such a detailed monster.
10:16
You have got to have some really excellent people in each one of the categories.
10:21
Yeah.
10:21
Don't, and learning how to manage my own expectations.
10:23
Absolutely.
10:23
I mean, a, a lot of what you're talking about is like managing any large
10:27
business or, you know, group of people.
10:28
I mean, there's all that, you know, HR. Side of things, but also
10:32
don't take this the wrong way.
10:33
It sounds like a logistical nightmare because there's so
10:35
many events going on within the larger umbrella of high professor.
10:39
We'll dig into that a little bit more as we go on.
10:42
Let me ask you this two goals here, because the original goal was bring, as
10:46
we call them, the stance bros, right?
10:48
And tutor crowd into the de world to help foster nasa.
10:52
So A, was that successful?
10:55
B. What was the biggest flop in maybe those first five years where you're like,
10:59
man, we should have never done that?
11:02
There are two NASA national champions that got their start Hyperdrive Hyper Fest.
11:07
A typical Dasa HPD is a two day event.
11:09
At the time it was about $250 a weekend.
11:11
It's now doubled that inflation, but.
11:14
We were trying to get people on the track.
11:16
I'm like, man, if I can get somebody on the track, I gotcha.
11:18
And so that particular car that you see behind me, the
11:21
license plate says Track dealer.
11:23
I just need to get 'em on the track.
11:24
So we did these things called Hyperdrive, which is a 20 minute session on a track.
11:27
With an As instructor, you start to go through all the classroom.
11:30
So after to go through all the tech, it basically, it becomes a taste test.
11:33
That was the way that I wanted to introduce them to the road racing side.
11:37
And sure enough, you know, we have two national champions.
11:39
A lot of people podium actually at NASA Nationals, their first
11:42
event ever was a hyper driver.
11:44
We have a guy in Honda Challenge right now.
11:46
He was in the car show and he had spent oodles of money on the
11:49
show car, said, Hey, I'm gonna go do this cyber drive thing.
11:52
I went home from Hyper Fest, started ripping the car apart
11:56
and turning it into a race car.
11:57
So I would say I would consider that a success.
11:59
I mean, I think that, you know, to introduce people to NASA and
12:02
keep sort of filling the top of the funnel with enthusiasts.
12:05
I think that that was a very good.
12:07
In terms of something, being a, a flop, really, I don't know that we've
12:11
had anything that's really major as a flop because you know, we've just
12:15
always been just so methodical about the things that we added and every time
12:19
we added it, being sure that there was some sort of demand for it, and then
12:23
also coming up with the logistics to make sure that it happened correctly.
12:27
I'll tell you a funny story regards to music.
12:29
We have an excellent partner who's been with us forever.
12:32
Paul Reed Smith Guitars.
12:33
They're based outta Stevensville, Maryland, and they provide.
12:35
Guitars for a lot of people.
12:37
I mean, know for Santana and for Navarro, and you know, mayor, the list goes on.
12:43
They had a relationship with Theory of a Deadman.
12:45
It was a bro deal, basically.
12:47
It's been long enough now.
12:48
I'll tell you what it was.
12:49
It was $10,000 that, you know, we were gonna pay those guys to play.
12:52
Had a great stage, all the rest of that kind of stuff.
12:54
And it was in July.
12:55
It was in July, and it's tend to be thunderstorms in the Mid-Atlantic area.
12:59
Well, there were a lot of storm that were coming through and we're getting
13:02
phone calls from the airplane 'cause the air of a dead man was still in
13:05
an airplane doing loops around BWI.
13:08
If I could call anything of fail, they couldn't get out there in time
13:12
for us to hit the sound curfew that Summit Point had with their neighbor.
13:17
So I had to stroke a check for $10,000 for fear of a dead man in play.
13:22
Oh man.
13:24
I guess maybe that was a flop.
13:25
If it's you win some, you lose some, right?
13:27
They're all lessons learned.
13:28
The program continues to evolve as a result of it, right?
13:31
You take other precautions, you change measures, et cetera.
13:34
But as I look over the 20 year history of Hyper Fest, I wonder
13:39
though if it gave way to programs like Grid Life, which started in 2013.
13:44
I wonder if they found their inspiration through Hyper Fest.
13:47
Of course they did.
13:48
Chris is a good guy.
13:50
You're great to show up there.
13:51
I think they're very fortunate in the fact that they had their idea at the
13:54
time the market was ready to accept it, because that was about the time we
13:58
started seeing interest, you know, in Hyper Fest from the marketplace that
14:01
was out there, and that when I say that, I'm talking about the manufacturer's
14:04
sponsorship and things like that.
14:05
People that you would typically see it seem, and now it's gangbusters.
14:08
I mean, this type of lifestyle event is really the way to
14:11
go because it's multifaceted.
14:14
It used to be, if you go back in the sixties, seventies, eighties,
14:16
really into the nineties, you know, the race itself was the show.
14:19
You know, with the advent.
14:21
Of internet and phones and and everything else that's gonna
14:23
take your attention away.
14:25
You really have to come up with something that's going to be multifaceted
14:28
in order to keep people going.
14:29
But I know that there was an event called GT Live, like Grand T Live.
14:34
Those guys were outta California and I knew the guys that ran that.
14:37
They came out to Cal Speedway when we were out there, Cal Speedway, and they
14:40
saw that and they decided to put a, a Los Angeles spin on it and do some traveling.
14:44
They didn't end up lasting.
14:46
I don't exactly know why they folded.
14:48
That was one that was definitely a copycat.
14:50
There's some others that have sort of come around, takes a lot of work.
14:53
I don't think people realize exactly the dedication that goes into
14:56
putting one of these things on.
14:57
So it sounds like a real sexy idea until you deal with a logistical
15:01
monster that it really is.
15:02
You know, we've been talking a lot about the origin and the history of Hyper
15:06
Fest, but for those that are tuning in and listening to the story for the
15:09
first time, we haven't gotten around to explaining what Hyper Fest really is.
15:15
Let's talk about that.
15:16
Is it a festival?
15:17
Is it a track event?
15:19
What kinds of events go on during the course of the weekend and
15:22
let's expand upon some of those.
15:23
Oh man.
15:24
I mean that's the greatest thing about Hyper Fest is all of this stuff is going
15:27
on and most difficult thing about Iker Fest is all this stuff that's going.
15:32
The idea is that really, I've had Jeeps, I've had go-karts, I've had
15:35
four wheelers, side Byside, race cars, motorcycles, everything that is on wheels.
15:40
My kids bought power Wheels when, you know, when they were young.
15:43
They play with power wheels.
15:45
And so I'm a card dork, you know?
15:47
And so we just, I'm like, all right, well we have some space over there.
15:50
How can we fill that up?
15:51
There's some space over over there, so how can we fill that up?
15:54
And so the idea is that if you're a petrolhead, you may
15:58
have your particular discipline.
16:00
You may like road racing, or you may love drifting, or you may be an
16:03
off-road guy, whatever it happens to be.
16:06
You can appreciate all the other things.
16:08
Even though your main goal, you may be a road racer, I'm still kind of looking
16:11
over there going, that's pretty cool.
16:13
30 fives on that Jeep.
16:15
Or Hey, you know, that's, how do you get the angle on that drift cart?
16:19
Whatever it happens to be.
16:20
There's a natural tendency to sort of blend, you know, and fold into, into
16:25
all the different types of disciplines.
16:27
But anyway, it's centered around road racing, so really it's
16:29
centered around road racing and drifting for the most part.
16:32
And we started this at Summit.
16:33
VIR has got a phenomenal off-road set of trails, a couple off-road optical courses.
16:38
And so if you want here side by side or you have your four by four truck,
16:42
Jeep, whatever it happens to be, and you wanna come out and you wanna
16:44
play in the dirt, you can do that.
16:46
NASA sanctions rally as a, as a showcase for everything NASA does.
16:50
Rallies part of those things.
16:51
And you know what?
16:52
There's a rally course.
16:53
There's a rally course at Summit Point.
16:55
There's a rally course at BIR.
16:56
I gotta ask for everybody that's listening.
16:58
That's been to BIR, myself included.
17:00
I've been there like a hundred times.
17:02
Where is all this offroad stuff at the I Rx?
17:05
I've never seen it.
17:06
Well, it's hidden and that's one of the challenge honestly, that we've run into.
17:10
When you come in, before you make the left to go down the hill, go across the bridge.
17:14
If you just keep going straight and go over to the where the go-kart
17:17
track is, if you know where that is.
17:18
Yep.
17:19
If you're standing in the go-kart track parking lot and the go-kart
17:23
track is actually behind you.
17:25
Directly to your left is the rally course straight ahead.
17:28
It's actually a, um, geet shooting range, but we turn that into a rally
17:33
slash off-road course, and if you kind of go up on top of the hill and
17:37
it's back in the woods, there's a really, really good optical course.
17:40
The trails are the whole way along the Dan River.
17:43
And so basically the, if you're going down the front, straight of the main
17:46
track of the full chorus, BIR, over onto the left hand side is the river.
17:51
Between the trees and the river, there's a trail, and so that trail
17:55
goes the whole way, wraps around.
17:56
Turn 17 goes the whole way down the back street and all through the
18:00
hills and everything back there.
18:02
It's an amazing facility that's 1300 acres.
18:05
We do our best to try to use up every inch of it.
18:08
I'm having one of those eighties NBC moments.
18:11
Now it's like do like the more you know, right.
18:14
Like I would've never known that.
18:16
Now that I know I'm gonna be looking for it though.
18:18
Hey, don't feel bad, man.
18:19
I didn't know it was there either.
18:20
For the longest time.
18:21
That's really cool.
18:22
But you know, and jokingly, we played around with Za messing
18:26
around with the infield of VIR and created a rally cross track.
18:29
Yeah.
18:29
That's as close as we ever got, uh, to doing that.
18:32
And now I'm like, next time I go down to VIRI gotta check this out.
18:35
This is pretty cool.
18:35
It's.
18:37
The greatest thing about Hyper Fest is you can walk around, you can see
18:41
something for 15 seconds and decide you wanna go see something else.
18:44
There's never nothing going.
18:46
So like with every other event, there's typically only one thing to do and
18:50
that's, you could have multiple stages and you have different acts, but
18:54
that's the only variation of experience that it with Hyper Fest, it's so.
18:59
So broad and all encompassing that you can see three, four things at a time.
19:05
Chris has said this a lot in conversations that I've had with the average road
19:09
course driver was like 40 to 60.
19:11
One of the main reasons that I was brought in first place was to try
19:15
to bridge that gap and really make them realize that it's not as.
19:20
Much out of reach as you make the fact that there is so much going on with my
19:25
generation and below, everything is soin.
19:27
Even to show someone a post is difficult challenge, having so much to do and look
19:33
at is great as you can get those people to pay attention, if that makes sense.
19:38
I mean, that's just something that I've noticed that's very unique, the
19:41
powerful asset for us to have so many things going on for the whole team.
19:45
It can be very stressful when you see it all come together and you're just either.
19:50
Riding your pit bike around or your golf cart or whatever it is, which
19:54
is the fact that you're not only immersed in motor sports, but most
19:58
of the people that are riding around are riding around and that's not
20:02
something you see at any other festival.
20:03
You try to drive a moped through the middle of a crowd at a electric daisy
20:08
carnival or some kind of music festival, you know, you probably get tack.
20:11
It's welcome.
20:12
It's like, bring your toys and literally have as much fun as you want.
20:16
You know, as long as you're being safe.
20:18
And that's another thing, it's like constantly seeing like negative
20:22
publicity about festivals and injury.
20:26
Stuff like that.
20:27
And here we are with one of the highest potentials for injury,
20:31
but we don't have, because it's like Chris has done an amazing job
20:35
curating some very positive vibe.
20:36
You see it most in the NASA pad.
20:38
Whenever I'm around nasa, Mid-Atlantic.
20:40
It feels like your family, you know, as cliche as that might
20:44
sound like Chris doesn't market.
20:45
It just does it.
20:46
He makes you feel polluted.
20:48
I think that's why at the core of it so strong.
20:52
I'm the last of six kids.
20:53
I love Thanksgiving and Christmas because it was bonkers.
20:58
You know, we had tons of people, you know, it's just even more fun when
21:00
you have 15,000 people out there.
21:02
I mean, I'm not trying to date you, Chris, but it feels like
21:05
Woodstock for car guys, right?
21:07
I mean, it's kind of like one of those deals we actually thought
21:09
about using that as, as a tagline.
21:12
Oddly enough, I don't know if you know the history of BIR, but basically
21:15
it started in 1956, I think, or 57.
21:18
It got shut down in 1974 by the farmer that they had the land in.
21:21
Then they reopened again in 2000, whatever.
21:24
They're getting the permits and stuff from the county.
21:26
They were talking about the use of the facility for things that were other
21:30
than basically road racing stuff.
21:31
They said, no Woodstocks.
21:33
We figured Automotive Park could probably a better tagline.
21:37
It's, it's a close second, that's for sure.
21:39
It would be kind of cool to use that tagline if you did
21:41
historics though, right?
21:42
Some cars from the period.
21:44
It'd be kind of neat.
21:44
A themed hyper fest.
21:46
I guess I'm full of ideas of here all week.
21:48
Try the veal.
21:50
On this list, if you go on the website, hyper fest.com, tons of events on
21:54
there from drifting to the track events, time trials, you've got the car
21:59
shows, road race offered experiences.
22:01
You talk about you got the exhaust burnout, all this kind of stuff, and
22:03
then there's one that sticks out.
22:05
We've actually talked about this event on several of our drive through news episodes
22:10
because they are just so common gold every time they surfaced, which is the.
22:15
Coordinate Power wheels attack by Redline oil.
22:19
Let's unpack.
22:21
Going down a racetrack in a power wheels.
22:23
I want talk about the wrinkles.
22:25
I wanna talk about the limpets.
22:26
I want to know all about where this came from 'cause it's awesome.
22:29
I'll give you the history.
22:31
Chief Operating Officer of VIR, Dave's Kerrigan Smith.
22:34
He was just an awesome, awesome guy.
22:36
Lot of fun.
22:37
Brian Egger, who is sort of a compadre in this, who is a,
22:41
he's actually a Formula D judge.
22:42
We're doing a. We're thinking about, Hey, let's take these Barbie cars, call
22:46
'em Barbie cars, Barbie Jeeps, and let's do one of these crazy things down on
22:50
the backside down through the woods.
22:52
And we looked at the hill that was there.
22:55
Let's.
22:56
Would be awesome, but we're probably gonna hurt somebody.
22:58
So we sort of tabled the idea.
23:00
Well, it never really left Kegan's mind.
23:02
And one day he's out there with his 6-year-old daughter and had talked
23:05
about doing it on the rollercoaster, which is from turn 14 down through 17.
23:09
His daughter who has a ton of guns, man, I, I wanna do that, I wanna do that.
23:13
And so Kegan apparently convinced his wife, this would be just fine.
23:17
Got her at the top of the rollercoaster in the pickup truck behind her,
23:20
with his wife in the passenger seat, and she started going down.
23:24
He is following her in the pickup truck, and he started 20 miles an hour, 25
23:28
miles an hour, 30 miles an hour, 35 miles an hour as Carrigan puts five miles.
23:33
His daughter, she got started getting the depth wall in the steering,
23:37
and my wife's going, wh what?
23:40
I can't believe you let her do this.
23:42
To her credit, she bailed out, driver's ready to hit the grass,
23:44
and it was, it was all done.
23:45
That's where we got the idea.
23:46
You know, I'd love to say that I came up with it.
23:48
I just propped.
23:50
Kerrigan was the genesis of it.
23:52
The first year we did it, I think we had about 20, like 28
23:55
people that participated in it.
23:57
The rules are simple.
23:58
You got a power wheels car, can't modify the wheels, so you
24:01
can't put rubber anything on the wheel through the plastic wheels.
24:03
You have to pull the motor, pull the battery out, the red deck,
24:05
soapbox derby, you know, I mean, you have free wheel down this.
24:08
We've had Andy Laley, pro road racer came in second.
24:11
He was in a firetruck.
24:12
James Clay has run the thing.
24:14
He's been our show twice now.
24:15
Just wanted to point that out.
24:17
James is great.
24:18
Like, oh, that's so much fun.
24:19
The cameras went down.
24:20
He is like, woo.
24:21
Those things are a handful.
24:23
Noah said, uh, fielding shredder ran it this year.
24:27
That's right.
24:27
Fielding shredder ran it.
24:28
But I mean, the main thing is, is that it's a goof.
24:30
I mean, you win a hundred bucks, we don't wanna make it worth cheating or
24:33
spending a lot of money on, although I'm apparently certain it might be a
24:37
little something that's not exactly stock on some of these vehicles.
24:40
So border balancing, maybe just to get a other stick.
24:43
That's right.
24:44
It's, it's about fun.
24:45
You know, this year we decided to introduce some elements from Mario
24:48
Kart, and we built some jumps that have the, the lit arrows on them.
24:53
You'll see that some of the videos that, that are coming out and people dress up,
24:56
what it's turning into is it, do you ever see the, uh, I think it's the Fluen Toin
25:01
Fluen to Flu talks from Red Bulls, right?
25:02
Yeah, the, exactly the.
25:04
It's a lot like that, you know, in that people are showing up and
25:06
dressing as Batman and they're running their Batman power wheels.
25:09
You know, we have somebody dressed up as Luke Skywalker.
25:11
They had the, a speeder car, had one guy dressed up as, oh, what's her name from
25:16
Frozen beard and everything, and like a frilly dressed in a frozen sleigh.
25:21
That's a power wheels thing.
25:22
It's great.
25:24
So what, so what you're saying is miniature lemons
25:26
race is what it really is.
25:29
Kind of Anybody Mel upside down yet?
25:32
I haven't seen that yet, but.
25:34
If somebody watches this video, I'm sure it's coming next year.
25:36
There's a lot going on, you know, between the vendors and cart racing.
25:39
Obviously VIR has available.
25:41
You've got kid zones, you've got contests, you've got concerts.
25:44
I mean, that sounds like a lot of stuff going on.
25:47
In what, two and a half days?
25:48
Does anybody actually sleep at Hydrox?
25:50
Not there near the patriot circuit.
25:54
Depends on who you ask.
25:55
That's exactly right.
25:57
There are people who do get a chance to sleep, and there's some people
26:00
that basically between the gallery and patriot circuit, that's where
26:04
the stump championships happen.
26:06
It's not official types of DJing happens, but it's thumping pretty good up there.
26:11
I might maybe once or twice have visited that group on a Saturday night.
26:16
I do enjoy.
26:17
I do enjoy me some stump.
26:19
Do you have any idea what, do you know what stump is?
26:21
I can only imagine.
26:23
Now please enlighten me.
26:24
This is a Gabe.
26:25
So basically what it is, is you get a huge stump and literally a wooden stump.
26:29
Oh, and this is not what I was thinking.
26:30
Okay?
26:32
Oh no.
26:32
This is the Gabe.
26:33
You know, you stand around, everybody gets a nail.
26:35
You tap your nail in a circle right around the ridge of the ridge of the stu.
26:40
You tap your, your nail in, and you have to have it in there enough that it'll
26:43
stand up and then you get a hammer.
26:45
Everybody has a hammer.
26:46
Everybody stands in a circle.
26:47
Everybody has a goal, is.
26:49
Hammer everybody else's nail in.
26:52
So you're the one that has your nails still sticking out,
26:55
even if it's just a little bit.
26:56
So the rules are if you take the hammer and you flip it up in front of
27:00
you and you grab it, you get one hit.
27:02
Now, the thing is, is that once you grab the hammer, you can't adjust it.
27:05
So however you grab it, that's how you have to hit it.
27:09
Let's see.
27:09
If you throw it under one leg, you lift a leg, you throw it up under
27:12
one leg and grab it, that's two hits.
27:14
Okay?
27:15
Again, you can't adjust it.
27:16
If you adjust the hammer, you lose.
27:18
You gotta pass it along.
27:19
If you toss it behind your back and you catch it like this, you get three hits
27:23
only in the way that you caught it.
27:25
It just kind of goes around the circle and you try to nail everybody else's nail.
27:29
And if you're the last one standing, you win.
27:31
And I gotta tell you, Brian Edgar from us Drift, and the guy who runs
27:35
with stuff, and also Formula Judge, he is just like stupid good at this,
27:39
again, hidden talents of people, right?
27:42
But then again, I don't know.
27:44
How to even react to this, but my mind is still processing what you just explained.
27:48
I, I guess that leads me to, I gotta come to the next Hyper Fest.
27:51
Come check this out, because it's one of those believable, when you
27:55
see it type of moments, talking about expectations for somebody who's going
27:58
to Hyper Fest for the first time.
28:00
Obviously hyper profess moved around a lot over the years.
28:03
It was at Summit Point.
28:05
Quite a bit.
28:05
Now it's at VIR, it's found a new hall.
28:08
So if I'm going to BIR for hyper for the first time, what should I expect?
28:12
Like how does it work?
28:13
Am I presented a schedule?
28:14
Like if I'm going to the INSA race of VIR, I mean, how do you figure
28:18
out what to do and where to go and, and where does it cost and.
28:22
What are some of the rules for all these different events, especially the events
28:25
where people can bring their cars?
28:27
Depends upon what you're doing, right?
28:28
You know, if you're doing a hyperdrive, it's basically nasa, HPDE rules
28:32
is really what it comes down to.
28:33
You need to have a helmet.
28:34
We do have some loaners for the Hyperdrive people.
28:37
If you're HPDE during the entire weekend, you'll bring your own helmet with.
28:40
What I would say is that, you know, you take a look at the schedule and
28:42
take a look at the map 'cause it's a really big facility and really take a
28:45
look at what you wanna see, take a look at what time those things take place.
28:48
We do our best to try to not put things on top of each other.
28:52
Sometimes they over they, they will overlap just because
28:54
that's, there's so much going on.
28:56
We do our best really to, to buy them.
28:58
My suggestion would be if I were coming, if you don't have a golf cart
29:01
or some sort of a paddock vehicle.
29:03
You plan on renting one there, or you plan on bringing something
29:07
along with you, because once you're parked, that's pretty much it.
29:09
There is so much going on that if you like to camp, there's a lot of space.
29:13
It's a beautiful facility.
29:15
It's just gorgeous.
29:16
So I would say if you can get on.
29:18
And find a camping.
29:19
People really like the track side camping.
29:21
That gets sold out very quickly, but they really like that a lot.
29:25
Really pick what it is that you want them to do because in terms of the cost,
29:29
we try to keep it as reasonable as we possibly can, but there's a lot going on.
29:33
We are less than some of the other events out there.
29:37
Do that on purpose, because I really do want to have people to come
29:40
and have fun, and once they come through the gate, that's a limited
29:43
number of drifting ridealongs.
29:44
It's a limited number of rally ridealongs, offroad, that sort of thing.
29:47
You know, we charge for those things.
29:49
So you have a ticket to get in.
29:50
I mean, literally if you get on right now, it's what?
29:52
$60? I think 60 bucks is an early bird.
29:55
We have a limited number of those.
29:56
Those are gonna run out here pretty soon.
29:57
25 left.
29:58
There are 25 left of those.
29:59
Okay.
30:00
$75 will be the next ticket.
30:02
That'll be the main ticket.
30:04
Price.
30:04
Once you get to the event, it'll go to 90.
30:07
So it behooves people to try to get their tickets early.
30:10
Camping's pretty inexpensive to camp for the the weekend and car camping.
30:14
60 bucks.
30:15
If you're there for three days, you buy it.
30:17
Right now you have three days of fun.
30:20
Plus you're camping for $120.
30:22
That's less expensive than just about any other type of
30:25
festival like this that I know.
30:27
Plus, you can divide your camping spot up.
30:29
Right.
30:30
What does that, let's say, general admission ticket get you
30:32
access to, you mentioned that the ride-alongs are a separate cost and
30:36
there's a limited number of those.
30:37
Camping is a separate cost, that's an add-on.
30:40
What else does that general admission get you access to?
30:42
Just kind of roaming around and seeing the other events.
30:44
If you wanna be in like, let's say the power wheels of that, do you
30:47
have to pay for that separately?
30:48
Obviously the de has its own cost, so what is included in general
30:52
admission and what is a rider?
30:54
So in general, admission, you know, you obviously get to spectate with everything.
30:57
If you wanna participate in games like the blind driver, golf cart, Alan, we
31:01
basically have a golf cart out there.
31:02
The driver has a blindfold on the passenger, is the one that
31:05
is telling him where to go.
31:06
Two carts that compete against each other through.
31:08
Of course, whoever makes it back to the start finish line, first wins
31:11
that doesn't cost anything and can win some, some significant prizes there.
31:15
PRS, if you like to play guitar and you play guitar, we have a shred contest,
31:19
which you can win a seven to $800 ball.
31:22
Reach guitar if you think you to know how to perform, but really don't play guitar.
31:27
There's the PRS Air guitar contest and so you can jump in there and if you're
31:31
really, really good at an air guitar contest, you get the prize of it real.
31:34
PRS Guitar, Paul Reid Smith guitar, you can participate in, uh, the
31:38
Power Wheels downhill simulators.
31:40
And, and that doesn't cost you anything.
31:42
It doesn't cost you anything for the burnout contest.
31:43
Doesn't cost you anything for the, the sound off.
31:46
And all these things have prizes associated with them.
31:48
Either, either chake kind of stuff or cash or gift cards, you
31:52
know, that, that sort of thing.
31:53
The kid zone doesn't cost anything.
31:55
You go in there, we have bouncy houses and things get a huge
31:57
soccer ball that they moved around.
31:59
And then there are a lot of the vendors have.
32:01
Activation as part of their marketing packages where you know, you might
32:05
be able to get a ride with Bon getting JR because you love Monster.
32:07
You might be able to get a ride with that MLZ, that sort of thing.
32:11
And all that stuff is free.
32:13
There's really a lot of stuff to do and see with your entry.
32:16
For the folks that want to come down to do the HBDE part, obviously
32:20
there's also gonna be coaches.
32:21
And if they're running a standard HPB weekend, maybe a club race mixed in there
32:25
in a time trial, as is the NASA formula.
32:28
Do those folks get to enjoy and experience other parts of hyper profess?
32:33
Is there enough time?
32:34
Is it more of a limited or not maybe as many run session de as we'd expect?
32:39
I mean, how does that time get divvied up?
32:41
Or is it just everything's so busy?
32:43
Everybody's hyperfocused on their different parts of hyper fast.
32:46
I think if you come out and you run the racing and the HPDE side,
32:49
you're probably both focused on what you are doing on track.
32:52
But the reality is that we don't shorten any sessions and
32:55
we don't skimp on any sessions.
32:56
For the HP, it is a regular NASA week and that we just overlay this circus
33:01
on top of those individuals that are participating in the HPDs, the racing.
33:06
They'll have time to get out and see some things.
33:08
We tend to wait.
33:10
The entertainment stuff on Saturday toward the afternoon and into the evening.
33:15
So, you know, we'll finish track operations at five 30 to six 30.
33:19
You know, we have a lot of racers that they take their racing suit off.
33:22
You know, they put their Batman suit on, grab their Power Wheels car, and
33:26
they can make the power wheels thing.
33:27
And then they've got somebody meet 'em up at the burnout contest
33:30
with their car and they go out there and do the burnout contest.
33:32
So there is time, and we do that on purpose because we want the people that
33:36
are our regular NASA people or anybody that's doing the HPDs to still be able
33:40
to enjoy the festival portion of this.
33:43
Obviously if you're participating in the different motor sports disciplines
33:47
that are going on, they're gonna follow the rules and regulations of
33:50
the different disciplines within nasa.
33:52
So if it's rallied, it'll follow that in HPDE club racing, et cetera.
33:55
So all the standard tech, everything that goes on with those events that
33:59
you're used to doing on a regular weekend still apply in the case of hyper fast.
34:05
Okay.
34:05
And that's the easy part.
34:06
Getting everybody organized in tech for the power wheels downhill.
34:09
That's a challenge.
34:11
One question that always comes to mind when you're talking about Des or any
34:14
motor sport events in general, does track insurance cover hyper fest?
34:19
You're talking about if you're a de person, is it considered because it's a
34:23
festival and part of something larger?
34:25
Is track insurance still available for an event like High Fest?
34:29
Oh, sure.
34:29
Oh yeah.
34:30
I mean, if you go to Haggerty.
34:31
Haggerty will write it because like I said, it's, it's a regular NASA event and
34:35
we tend to separate out the NASA paddock.
34:38
Not so much that we're trying to be exclusive, it's just that we have 525
34:42
registered drivers that are participating just in the regular NASA stuff.
34:47
The time trial, ultimate Track car challenge, you know, that we put
34:50
on for grassroots motor sports, the racing and the the HPD stuff.
34:54
If you take a look at the number of drivers that we actually have
34:57
participating, whether it's drifting or off-road, rally, whatever it is, you
35:01
start to creep into the 900 participants.
35:04
You start adding in riders and everything else, it goes well beyond a
35:07
thousand for somebody who is actually physically doing something in a car
35:12
or in, you know, something on wheel.
35:14
So what's attendance like in the last couple of years at Hyper Fund?
35:17
What are the numbers looking like in terms of people being there?
35:20
2019, we were just about 11,000.
35:23
For 2020 we didn't have it.
35:25
And for 2021, you know, it's interesting, we were just about the same as numbers.
35:30
Slightly lower by like I know 80 people or something like that for 2021.
35:35
And I think this particular year, if you take a look at the way the ticket sales
35:38
were, you know, we opened up ticket sales.
35:41
I wanna say that it was in May.
35:43
We broke the internet.
35:44
I mean, that's how many people were trying to get on to buy the things.
35:46
I think we were expecting 200 to 250 people to hit the site at one time.
35:50
We were having 1200, 1500 people hitting the site at one time.
35:54
We, we weren't prepared honestly for that.
35:56
We are now, our tickets were 300% higher than same time prior to in 2019.
36:02
And then the Delta variant started creeping into things and you could
36:06
actually watch as the scare and concern, you know, with the Delta variant happened.
36:10
You could actually see the ticket sales sort of start to drop.
36:12
And we did.
36:13
We had people that were like, Hey, you know, we love this event.
36:16
We had people that saw some of the videos that we put out day of.
36:20
We got messages going, ah, that should have come from our perspective, given
36:24
COVID and all the goofy stuff that happened, it was still a good year.
36:26
We certainly expect that to grow pretty substantially from me.
36:30
So are tickets available through hyper fest.com or do you get 'em
36:35
through Motorsport Reg, where we, you know, sign up for all our other
36:38
Motorsport events in this area?
36:40
How does that process work?
36:42
We don't use Motorsport Ridge as ticketing.
36:44
We actually talked to them about doing the ticketing, but again, it goes
36:46
back to all the stuff that's going on.
36:48
Motorsport Ridge does, I think a great job for regular events,
36:51
but it's something like this.
36:52
They just couldn't handle it.
36:53
They couldn't handle the ticketing and, and all the different
36:56
nuances are there with Piper Fist.
36:58
So we're using a customized system, but either way, that's the backend side of it.
37:02
Yes, if you wanna get tickets, you go to Hyper Fest, do hit the Get
37:05
tickets button, and you get tickets.
37:07
Go from there.
37:08
I noticed as I was looking through that there's a bit of a kind of bundle package,
37:12
the grassroots experience package.
37:13
Do we wanna expand upon that a little bit?
37:15
Tell people what it's all about.
37:16
Is that a all in one?
37:18
All you can eat sort of a deal in a way.
37:20
We haven't confirmed what those s are going to be like this year.
37:25
It wasn't an all you can eat type of a thing.
37:27
It's very difficult to do an all you can eat type of thing because if you do,
37:31
that gets pretty costly pretty quickly.
37:33
Yeah, I don't know.
37:33
I still have to actually, the conversation with GRM in terms of what
37:37
packages that we're considering, likely what'll happen is it'll get in some
37:41
third parking, camping and some access sort of VIP type of access to places.
37:46
What we were just talking about is a great segue into the future of hyper fast.
37:51
So big question.
37:53
Is hyper profess gonna be a DIR next year, or is it moving?
37:56
Are there gonna be multiple ones beyond 22?
38:00
What do the next couple of years look like?
38:02
And let's put our thinking caps on.
38:04
Let's talk about the future, the distant future.
38:06
What's the next 20 years of hyper profess look like?
38:09
Good Lord.
38:09
I'm still alive.
38:11
If one just about killed me this past year, we're going back to VIR.
38:15
It's a wonderful facility.
38:16
Every time we do one of these things, I wonder if they're gonna want us back,
38:19
but, uh, but VIR is phenomenal, you know, you know, one of the owners there, you
38:23
know, Connie Ome is just, she's awesome.
38:25
You know, she gets it.
38:26
She loves everything from the emphasis stuff to the crazy lawnmower racing,
38:31
you know, and, and power wheels down.
38:32
She loves it all.
38:33
As a matter of fact, I was riding around in a golf cart with her a
38:35
couple years ago and we're sitting there and she brought it up.
38:38
We're trying to figure out where we're gonna put a, a demolition derby, her idea.
38:42
Just a second.
38:43
Yeah, no, we'll be back there in May and there's no plans to move at any place.
38:46
You know, number one, that facility is gorgeous.
38:48
Number two, as a multi-use facility, there really is not another facility
38:52
out there where we could duplicate this.
38:55
Completely on the same facility.
38:58
Are we thinking about some other venues?
39:00
Yeah.
39:00
Summit Point actually still is a good place maybe, but
39:02
that would be an augmentation.
39:04
It wouldn't be a substation, you know?
39:05
It would be an augmentation to the thing.
39:07
There's a pretty well known circle track where the raid course.
39:11
Conversation with today.
39:12
There's another track actually that's on the East Coast.
39:15
The facilities are, are pretty good.
39:17
So if we expanded, you know, we thought about going to California, you know,
39:21
we're, we're open to just about any place.
39:23
And the cool thing about Hyper Fest is that we can expand it to pretty much
39:27
any road course across the country.
39:29
I don't necessarily have to run the road racing of the HPDE side of it.
39:32
I have NASA regions all over the place, so I can call Northern California and say,
39:37
Hey, we wanna run a hyper fest in Sonoma.
39:39
Jerry Kunz wind's the guy who started all of NASA a million years ago and
39:43
he still runs the Northern California chapter, and he'd be like, yeah,
39:46
man, let's figure out how to do it.
39:47
His answer, just like mine, it's always yes, unless the logistics
39:50
say no or make you say no.
39:52
Yeah.
39:53
Where we go in the next couple of years, you know, we'd like to maybe
39:56
expand it out to one or two more events.
39:59
I think that we're probably gonna keep it somewhat close to home on the East Coast,
40:04
just because that's where our assets are, but we've done it in California before.
40:09
Know what it takes to put one on out there.
40:11
So we may do that too, as a matter of trying to find the facility.
40:14
It's in a good enough spot geographically that is willing to work with us.
40:18
Preferably, uh, an independently owned track.
40:20
'cause some of the ones that are owned by the corporations tend to
40:23
be little more strict guidelines with what you're allowed to do.
40:26
So it dawned on me the one event I didn't see on the list, and I'm
40:29
wondering if maybe this is in the future and I could see it happening at VIR.
40:33
Have you guys thought about bringing in the Auto Cross?
40:35
Guys?
40:36
We talked about it a lot actually.
40:37
There really isn't a spot.
40:39
It's very difficult to do it if the skid padd was extended and there
40:42
was some talk about may make the skid pad a little bigger, but that's
40:45
still a pretty small pass for.
40:48
A typical autocross.
40:49
There was actually an autocross.
40:51
They ran up in the south paddock and that was run by, and it was, it was an
40:54
employee, I can't remember exactly who it was at BIR, but they wanted to do it.
40:57
I'm like, yeah, sure man, whatever go have at it.
41:00
And that lot was just so small it, it really wasn't that much fun.
41:03
And I love autocross and I wish there was a big enough spot
41:06
out there to make one That's.
41:08
One of the challenges that we have, even if we did what do on the Skid
41:11
pad, is where do you stage the cars?
41:13
Because there just is no space right there.
41:15
Can't put 'em on the main road if you put 'em in the grass and it's wet.
41:18
I mean, it's just, it's a logistical problem, not a content.
41:22
Wish we had it kind of a problem.
41:24
The way that I would answer the Where do you see hyper?
41:27
What would be our focus rather, A lot of attention has
41:31
already started to go into it.
41:33
We'd like to see more so of developing it from just a festival or once a
41:39
year into a household lifestyle brain.
41:42
A lot of that happens when we do more events, so we definitely
41:47
see some kind traveling circuit.
41:49
Sort like they would still carry the core of Hyper Fest, but where I could
41:54
see it going is that each one would vary in its own way, depending on location,
41:59
bring in different cultural styles.
42:02
Stylistic element that might retain better to that area of the country.
42:06
Something to add.
42:07
We had our first international attendee, somebody flew from England.
42:12
Come to Hyper Fest International baby.
42:14
Yeah, we're getting the, we're getting the word out.
42:16
Um, I think a lot of hyper fest marketing for years was done
42:21
solely by word of mouth stuff.
42:23
We're moving into the digital age, getting word out there, and that's something that.
42:30
I would love to see grow year after year and it seems to be working.
42:35
Our demographic is shifting a little bit.
42:37
We're seeing a lot more younger crowd start to get interested in anticipating.
42:43
That's great to see as we know that the future of the festival is secure actually.
42:49
All very good points.
42:51
And leads me to a question I generally reserve for our fit teams.
42:56
Which is, how do you see that, what we call the E revolution or the evolution?
43:02
Impacting future of Hyper Fest and or how is your team embracing the change
43:09
in the automotive landscape as more and more EVs are coming on the scene?
43:13
Well, I mean, aside from wanting him to drop a Prius from a
43:16
helicopter at some point, it's just.
43:19
I like ev stuff, right?
43:20
I love new technology.
43:22
I sometimes don't really appreciate the optimism of EV vehicles being a panacea.
43:28
However, I think that, you know, Elon Musk did a great job of,
43:31
of making 'em sexy and fast.
43:33
And the styling can be, obviously, you know, beauty is a the beholder,
43:36
but a plaid is a fast, fast vehicle and you cannot deny that.
43:41
So if you're a performance guy.
43:42
I like anything fast.
43:44
I mean, I just like fast stuff.
43:46
You know, when you drive one of those things, you can't help it to be impressed.
43:49
They come with some limitations with regards to track time and, and racing.
43:52
A lot of the tracks are slow to embrace it because if you don't have chargers,
43:57
you do a 20 minute session and a pla that a 25 minute session and pla.
44:01
You're done.
44:02
You have to charge the thing up, which takes a while.
44:04
You have to have the chargers that are, that are available.
44:06
The only track that I know of, you know, I haven't traveled to them all,
44:08
certainly, but the ones that we're associated with is Summit Point.
44:11
I think they have three or four chargers at Summit Point.
44:14
That's it.
44:14
As it continues to grow, you're gonna see more and more of these cars.
44:17
But really the limiting factor is going to be how do they get charged.
44:20
Our schedule is such that we've got enough time in between races,
44:24
time in between HPD sessions.
44:27
Somebody could plug in.
44:28
And you know, on a supercharger and getting enough juice to continue,
44:33
you know, throughout the day.
44:34
From an EV perspective, and when I say ev, I don't mean an
44:36
electric vehicle, I'm talking about emergency services perspective.
44:39
You know, there are some logistical things you have to make sure that the fire guys
44:43
are aware of and most of the tracks.
44:45
Knowing that whether it's a hybrid car, high performance, hybrid cars that
44:49
have the electric side of it, register full electric, they already know the
44:51
safety crews from the tracks already really know how to handle that stuff.
44:54
It's four wheels and a motor man.
44:55
I mean, you know, four patches, rubber on the track.
44:58
You know, we're all efficiency experts, right?
45:00
We're trying to get around the track in the fastest amount possible.
45:03
It doesn't matter to me what power plant is.
45:06
Help it to love the rip of normally aspirated Ferrari V eight or V 12
45:11
an A line six from BMW an S 52 or an S 54 Uncorked is just beautiful.
45:17
That's the only thing I could, that that just bugs me, man.
45:19
About the sound, I mean, the electric things don't make any sound.
45:23
They're a performance, but I'm old school man.
45:26
That power is, is I want something loud, I want something to rip.
45:29
But either way, we're all brothers in speed, as far as I'm concerned.
45:33
Whatever weapon you bring to the table is what you think that you can wield.
45:38
Best way, and let's go have fun on some wheels.
45:41
Well, guys, this has been a lot of fun learning about the
45:45
circus that is hyper fast.
45:46
So, you know, I use that term lovingly because it really does feel like maybe
45:52
the American version of Goodwood, the festivals of speed and the revival
45:56
kind of combined into one event in that flare that we have here stateside.
46:01
So.
46:02
To Chris's point, we are all brothers and sisters in speed and in motorsport, and
46:06
this is a great way to pay homage to that, get us all together a few times a year and
46:11
celebrate our petrol inspired and petrol fueled enthusiasm at a festival like this.
46:18
With that being said, presented by Grassroots Motor Sports Hyper Fest is
46:22
the largest automotive event on the East Coast, touted as the automotive amusement
46:27
park and 2021 marked the 20th anniversary of Hyper Fest and we're looking forward
46:32
to Hyper Fest 2022 and we bet you are too.
46:35
So for more details on Hyper Fest, visit www.hyperfest.com and follow
46:42
them on Facebook at Hyper Fest One.
46:45
Or on Instagram at Hyper.
46:48
So congratulations to Chris and his team on 20 successful years of Hyper
46:52
Fest and many, many more to come.
47:00
That's right, listeners, if you enjoyed this episode, be
47:03
sure to check out our Patreon.
47:05
Follow on pitstop Mini, so check that out on www.patreon.com/gt motorsports
47:14
and get access to all sorts of behind the scenes content from this episode and more.
47:20
If you like what you've heard and want to learn more about GTM, be sure to
47:23
check us out on www.gt motorsports.org.
47:27
You can also find us on Instagram at Grand Tour Motorsports.
47:31
Also, if you want to get involved or have suggestions for future shows, you can call
47:35
or text us at (202) 630-1770 or send us an email at Crew chief@gtmotorsports.org.
47:43
We'd love to hear from you.
47:45
Hey everybody, crew Chief Eric here.
47:47
We really hope you enjoyed this episode of Break Fix, and we wanted
47:51
to remind you that GTM remains a no annual fees organization, and our goal
47:56
is to continue to bring you quality episodes like this one at no charge.
48:01
As a loyal listener, please consider subscribing to our Patreon
48:04
for bonus and behind the scenes content, extra goodies and GTM swag.
48:09
For as little as $2 and 50 cents a month, you can keep our developers,
48:13
writers, editors, casters, and other volunteers fed on their strict diet of
48:18
fig Newton's, gummy bears, and monster.
48:21
Consider signing up for Patreon today at www.patreon.com/gt motorsports.
48:28
And remember, without fans, supporters, and members like you,
48:33
none of this would be possible.