Latest / BREAK/FIX the Motorsports & Vehicle Enthusiast Variety Show / What is ... The Gentleman Driver?

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What is ... The Gentleman Driver? · BREAK/FIX the Motorsports & Vehicle Enthusiast Variety Show

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Grand Touring Motorsports started as a social group of car enthusiasts,
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but we've expanded into all sorts of motorsports disciplines, and we
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want to share our stories with you.
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Years of racing, wrenching, and motorsports experience brings
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together a top notch collection of knowledge and information
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through our podcast, Brake Fix.
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What's going on everybody.
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This is Brad, your host with me as always is Eric.
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In this week's episode, we discussed the gentleman driver, a documentary
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that follows four tycoons who moonlight as motorsport competitors
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and examines what fuels them to succeed both at work and on the track.
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Now, some of you might be thinking, this isn't new.
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This particular film, it debuted in 2018.
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That's true.
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And even then, the content was from the 2015 16 World Endurance
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Challenge, Le Mans, and IMSA season.
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But, it happens to be new to us, as a recommended to watch by Netflix.
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Right, Brad.
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But before we start, we need to define what is a Gentleman Driver?
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The film frames the answer during the opening credits with a subtitle
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screen that reads, At the highest levels of sports car racing, teams
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are required to include at least one amateur driver in their lineup.
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These men are often successful entrepreneurs who can afford
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to compete in this elite sport.
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They are known as gentlemen drivers.
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So with us tonight to discuss the film, outside of just me and Brad,
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your normal host, is a panel of GTM members from various regions.
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John, Tanya, Aaron, and Sam.
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Thank you all for joining us and being on tonight's episode of Break Fix.
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So let's get into it.
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As you guys know, this is basically an 88 minute documentary that
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follows these four tycoons.
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So we have Paul Dallolana, who is a medical real estate mogul out of Canada.
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You have Ricardo Gonzalez, who is part of uh, Ricardo Gonzalez Racing now.
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He used to be part of G Drive and he is part of the construction and
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architecture crew that built the University of Arkansas in Mexico City.
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Ed Brown, who's the Patron CEO at the time before it got purchased by Bacardi.
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And you had Michael Gauche, who is the head of MicroLabs, which
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is an e cig and vape company that makes the uh, Like what's the
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chemicals that go inside of that?
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So you've got basically four millionaires or maybe multi millionaires sitting
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around at multiple times of the table kind of trading stories at
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this almost like business dinner as you go out throughout the film.
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So I want to get your guys gut reaction on the film as a whole.
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We're not going to talk about its cinematography, the style.
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It's a documentary.
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It's a modern documentary.
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They've interleaved a bunch of different stories together.
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from everybody.
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So we'll start with John.
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What did you think?
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For me, it was interesting to see a part of the sport that I hadn't
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really like paid attention to before.
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Like I knew there were amateur drivers in with the pros in some of the categories,
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but never realized it was a Component of what makes it successful and also how
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much one seat actually costs pretty crazy.
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Yeah.
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It's just fascinating.
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Just learning, learning more about how that works.
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And especially with the, um, the one guy that ended up like starting his own team
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and then ended up winning the first race in Mexico for the WEC, that was cool.
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Just to saying like.
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Them tie their business experience into the, the racing world.
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Aaron, what did you think?
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Similar to John thought it was really interesting to learn about this aspect
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of racing that I hadn't known too much about before for me, uh, having
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just finished my business degree.
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I think the part that most entertained me was seeing all these.
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Business people talking about doing this as a side thing and how they had
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to manage their business life around this aspect of their personal life.
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And that, as John noted, some of them chose to combine those two things.
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And I liked how the movie took us into some of their business
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life, like the Patron guy.
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Touring his Patron farm in Mexico.
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So yeah, I thought it was a really interesting view into that.
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Sam, what about you?
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I thought it was a really good documentary.
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I I've been very familiar with the gentlemen drivers and various
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racing series for a while now.
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Ed Brown from the extreme speed motorsport.
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I've followed him for a while because I really liked the team and the drivers.
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And I met him a couple times at different IMSA races.
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Got his autograph on some ESM car posters up in the garage right now.
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Paul Bellilana, I've heard of.
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I didn't realize he was a gentleman driver until I watched the documentary.
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I've just heard the name.
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Other guys, I didn't really know who they were, but it was a cool look behind.
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They're really limited on time.
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So they couldn't really, you know, smoosh in that much stuff with their
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businesses and racing and their work life balance and all that stuff.
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But they give you a good quick look in at what it's like.
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So I liked it.
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Tanya.
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Thought it was interesting.
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I think within the first five minutes, they said something about how it's.
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Meritocracy.
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And that implies that your wealth and privilege doesn't get you a seat
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at the table, but that's exactly what it takes to do it, in a sense.
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So, I thought that was interesting to start it out that way, but, but try to
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be the contradiction of that, I guess.
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I saw a lot of that later in the film, and we'll get to that as we go through.
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There were definitely some contradictions in terms there.
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But Brad, what did you think?
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I thought it was good, documentary wise, but I don't know how I feel.
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About the concept of a gentleman driver or an amateur driver.
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Not just a gentleman driver.
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I mean someone who buys their way into the sport to compete.
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I mean, they even said it in the in the film.
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You look around other sports and other disciplines, especially physically
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demanding ones like baseball or soccer or football or whatever.
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You can't just buy your way onto the team.
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You can buy a team.
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But you can't buy your way onto and be able to compete and be successful.
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But in the driving world, it seems to be par for the course.
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It's normal.
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It's a way these teams fund themselves with these contributions
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from these gentlemen drivers.
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I find it interesting that if I wanted to and I had the funds I could buy
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myself into a professional racing series, but if I was a professional, I
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don't know how I would feel about that.
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And since we're talking about gut reaction to the film I think within,
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uh, like Tanya said, within those first five minutes, it really set the tone.
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And I don't know that it set the tone in the right way.
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One of the immediate reactions I had to it was, even though I've been a
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fan of Lamont's radio for a very long time, and we've all heard the voice
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of John Hindhoff for a long time, I've never actually seen his face.
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And so, I actually thought I was being punked.
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Because I thought it was Paco Tos, who played Moscow on Money Heist,
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which is another Netflix show, and somebody was dubbing John
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Hindhoff's voice over top of him.
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And I was like, this is, this is something I cannot unsee.
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Because right now, John is wearing a beard.
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And I'm like, this is not right.
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But then I started to put two and two together.
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And when you said that the announcer, we had heard him all
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the time, but had never seen him.
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And as soon as he came on screen and you said he looked like some guy that I'd
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never heard of, I think he looks like a dark haired version of Simon Pegg.
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And I couldn't figure out why Simon Pegg was narrating a movie about racing.
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And, and then He's very versatile.
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I recognized the voice from Amazon.
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I'm like, this is that guy?
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And John was like, this is that guy?
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Have you guys not 24?
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He narrates, well, okay, Jason Statham does it, but he is
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a big focus in Truth in 24.
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It shows him and shows his face.
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Is that movie better than this one?
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It's got Statham in it.
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You haven't seen it?
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All over it.
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I've seen it.
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I have a copy of it.
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Oh my god, it's amazing.
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What are they about?
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So the very first one, it's about Audi's triumph during the Le Mans
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year where they had to replace the entire rear end of the car.
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And so it focuses all about that because that was actually a, a pinnacle turning
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point in Le Mans, because nobody had ever done anything like that before.
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Once you were screwed, you were out.
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You're, you know, if you screwed up the back of the car, it was over.
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And they devised a way to basically, the car was like an erector set and
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they went done and back out on track.
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Seven minutes.
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Yeah.
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And they figured out that it didn't break the rules.
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And so they were able to do it and they kept practicing it and they
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needed to be able to make sure that if something went wrong, they could
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fix the car and get it back out.
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And it was the first time that ever happened.
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And that was the same year that the Audi cars finished one, two, three.
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And so it follows that story.
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The second one, I didn't end up watching.
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I don't remember what it's about their battle with Peugeot.
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That's right.
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So basically if you like Lamar and you like Audi and you're
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like, Jason, say some sexy voice.
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This is the documentary for you.
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You've checked all the boxes.
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Hey John, I know what we're watching tonight.
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We've actually watched almost every State of the Moon.
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My brother and I quote it all the time.
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All the time, like Tom Christensen.
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All the time from it.
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Mr.
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Lamont.
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Obviously, that, that was all noise.
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I'll go back to one of the other subtitle screens, and it reads, By
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regulation, racing teams must create a driver lineup consisting of one
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gentleman driver and two professionals.
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However, they throw that up on the screen and they don't clarify it right away.
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In reality, it only applies to two types of racing.
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It doesn't exist in IndyCar.
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It doesn't exist in NASCAR.
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It doesn't exist in a lot of other sports.
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It only exists in WEC, which most of us know as Le Mans and then in IMSA.
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And then from there, it only applies to two classes, LMP2.
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And GTAM, which we know consists of amateur racers.
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So I wanted to get your guys opinion on that whole construct.
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Why does it still exist?
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Are we continuing to do this for the sake that we've always done it for tradition?
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Or is there really a reason to bring these guys in as gentleman drivers?
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Yeah, the reason we do it, and we've already touched on it, is they're
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necessary to the sport because of the money that they bring in.
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Without them There just wouldn't be enough cars and teams out there.
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So, that's why we do it, and, I mean, I think any one of us, if we had the
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means, we would do the same thing.
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It'd be tempting not to, wouldn't it?
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Like, if you have the money, like, spend it.
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Live your best life.
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Like, I think I would, but, if I was a professional driver that worked
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my way up through the ranks, I'd kind of feel like I got cheated.
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It's like somebody, somebody played like Pascoe don't like collect
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200 or whatever from Monopoly.
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I'm with you guys.
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I think they set the stage in such a way that it really showed
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racing as this extreme thing that only flamboyant, extremely
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rich playboys could be a part of.
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And that's a, I think a, an ideal that we've been trying to
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do away with for a long time.
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So let me phrase it this way.
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Do you feel that it might turn off the grassroots enthusiast to
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see racing portrayed in this way?
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No, straight up no.
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I think the enthusiasts like it because it's more cars
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and more teams on the track.
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I used to be a hater back in the day, like, oh, these rich guys get to do this.
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And I'm like, that's awesome.
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I would do that too.
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That's great.
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Good for them.
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So let's talk about these rich guys.
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So Sam, you mentioned two of them.
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I got a little confused partway through.
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Because I didn't know if this was a story about them or a story about racing.
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And I thought the film started to lose focus when we spent a ton of time
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talking about building the University of Arkansas campus and these kind of things.
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For me, it drew away from what we were really talking about.
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What does that have to do with The Gentleman Driver?
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Yeah, I, I 100 percent thought that it was a story about Those
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gentlemen drivers kind of bringing an eye to what a gentleman driver is
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through the eyes of those four men.
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And I still found that interesting, but I agree that it wasn't necessarily
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documentary about racing as a whole.
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It was about this one.
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Subtopic within racing from those four viewpoints.
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What I find interesting was that all of them, when you listen to
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their backstories, they all had, I mean, for the most part, except
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for, I think Paul Dalla Lana, who actually coincidentally got his start.
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At a track day like we do.
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Yeah, I thought that was really cool I thought all of them had racing in
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their past, but it seemed like the general I guess commonality between
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their origin stories was that none of them were good enough to go pro.
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So they found these I guess ways to make money as entrepreneurs,
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and then they bought their way back into a sport that they weren't good
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enough to do on their own talent.
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I wouldn't necessarily say they weren't good enough, but you get a
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point where if you don't have the right funding at that time and those
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resources, you can't go any farther.
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Yeah, that seems to be the theme for.
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Ricardo, I think I remember him saying that, you know, he stopped at
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a certain point because he had kids and just wasn't right in his life.
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And also like he ran out of funding is what it sounded like to me.
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A gentleman driver will spend anywhere from one to 5 million
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per race season to compete.
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There is no prize money.
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Now we do have minimum drive time requirements, which I thought were pretty.
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Pathetic for lack of a better term.
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These guys only have to drive for an hour and a half.
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So I'm looking at value for seat time.
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And we do that a lot.
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So let's say five to 10 million, as the subtitle said, part of the way
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through the film, and you're getting an hour and a half of driving.
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That's fair.
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But five to 10 million to them.
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Isn't the same as it is to us.
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And they're also there with some of the best teams and drivers in the world.
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They're not those guys.
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But they're still out there and they're still out at those events.
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I mean, small price to pay to drive at Le Mans with a chance to win.
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And they're not also just paying for track time at like a DE event like we are.
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They're not paying 5 million for an hour and a half at a DE.
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I mean, they're paying to win the race, uh, hopefully for them,
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which comes with prizes and it comes with marketing for them.
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I mean, the Ricardo Gonzalez was looking to win Silverstone to help
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drum up sponsorship and marketing and I guess, interest in hosting
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the, the WEC race in Mexico.
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So it's, it's, it's not just about, Oh, I need an, I'm going to get
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an hour and a half of track time.
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It's not just all about the track.
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It's about the things that they can do to take this and merge it into
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their professional lives as well.
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So Sam, and you have a lot more knowledge about this particular facet of racing.
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I don't know that the argument holds a lot of water when you look at the overall
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percentage of funding that gentlemen drivers bring to the sport, I would make
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the argument that the sponsorships from the sports companies, let's say it's
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under armor or Nike or something like that, or even the tobacco companies,
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whatever it might be, would bring in more than these gentlemen drivers
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would now on an individual team level.
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On an independent entry level like at LMP2, I could understand that, but
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on the overall funding of the sport itself, it's got to be less than 2%.
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I think it's probably more than you think.
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So especially for things like IMSA and WEC that aren't as big as Formula
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1 and IndyCar, they don't find a lot of big time sponsors and sponsorship
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deals because there's just not the return on investment there.
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So that's where they have to rely on the Gentleman Drivers to come in
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and bring that funding to a team.
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I mean, there's even paid drivers in Formula One.
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Nicholas Latifi for Williams, his dad's buying him that seat.
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Lance Stroll, his dad owns the team.
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That was the funny part about Ed Brown.
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Of the four Gentleman Drivers, He's the CEO of Patron.
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Patron's running the team, so it only made sense to put the boss in the car.
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So I kind of felt like he was the odd one out versus the other three that
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really did, let's say, buy their way in.
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And to Brad's point, Paul Dallolana, he started lower in
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the ranks and worked his way up.
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And obviously he could afford to buy his seat on a GTAM team.
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So for me, I really Disconnected from Ed Brown?
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I know, uh, Sam, you're a fan of him, but what did you guys
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think about that scenario?
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I thought it was interesting how he framed his first involvement as someone
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like told him to get in the car.
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Like they brought the car to him and said, Oh, try this out
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and we think you'll like it.
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And okay, now that, now that you got in the car, we're going to make you do this
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for the next few days and really like it.
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So I thought that was a little, it was much different than the other backstories,
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I guess, maybe most similar to.
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Paul Della Lana, who went to, you know, a track event and loved it, which I
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think, um, at least I got involved in the sport and could very much empathize
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with and, you know, see that path.
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So it was just different.
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So at the end of the day, they're taking home a trophy.
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You're correct, but they're not getting money back from this.
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It seems like a loss leader.
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So what I don't think the movie ever addressed.
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Which doesn't flow with preconceived opinions or biases against when you see
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these rich multi millionaire billionaire folks that are throwing their money
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into this is there's an ego there.
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You, you can because you can, because it doesn't you having all that money.
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Spending 5 million a race or per race season, what have you, you can still
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enter a competitive racing series.
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I mean, Sam's doing it, right?
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I mean, there's lower classes, but it's an ego thing.
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You want to suddenly be at the very top because in your daily
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life, that's what you are.
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That, that's what you've been training yourself for for decades.
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You, your type A personality, your go, go, go.
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They portrayed the gentleman in the movie as actually very.
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grounded and down to earth and not having an ego, which I felt confused
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as I was watching, because I went in with an expectation that these
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guys are just going to be total.
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The gentleman who was the CEO from L'Oreal, I thought he actually took away
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from the film because he contradicted what the other people were saying.
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And the biggest takeaway I took from him was.
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He said back when he was a gentleman driver, it really
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didn't matter if we messed up.
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We were just there for fun and spending our money.
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And so I thought that detracted from the overall message compared to these
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four gentlemen, because they were trying to be active parts of the team.
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You could actually see that they were struggling.
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They didn't want to let the team down, but there is an exception there that I caught.
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And I don't know if anybody else did when they were interviewing
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Ricardo Gonzalez early on.
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And he's telling his backstory on how he got his seat in LMP2.
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As Aaron highlighted, there was a gap there where he raced, then
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he gapped, and he came back.
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He said that when he raced on a lower scale, the competition
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was just not there for him.
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And I, I, I, I actually paused the film there, rewound it, and I'm
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like, did I just hear you right?
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Because there's, to your point, there's plenty of series out there, be it Spec
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Racing, be it Super Trofeo Lamborghinis, or Ferrari Challenge, all those crash
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fests that we're all well aware of, that plenty of people buy their way
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into, and they're plenty competitive.
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So, to your point, I actually thought there was ego there, and I felt it from
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Ricardo more than I did from anybody else.
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I mean that we all have egos.
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There's no question that you know That's that's just how they are.
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That's Unfortunately, it's kind of one of the side effects that comes with
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that level of success and moving up the chain Professionally, you know,
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it kind of happens and most race car drivers are going to have an ego too.
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So successful businessmen, now you get to be a sweet race car driver.
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It's going to happen.
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I just don't understand the point of the gentleman driver because,
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okay, it's great that you have all this money and you can go do it.
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I mean, more power to you.
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Like John said, live your best life the best way you
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know how, but it's like, okay.
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So this clearly started as something maybe decades ago where rich people
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wanted to go do rich people things.
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And racing really fast with, you know, the top people in a series was that thing
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and now it just feels like it's, you know, a heritage thing that's carrying
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on and which is fine, but it doesn't seem realistic or grounded and clearly
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not grounded in the everyday persons.
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I think that's really interesting and it's making me connect to something that Eric
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said earlier about the L'Oreal CEO and how maybe that's how it started and then
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these four gentlemen are trying to make it into something more serious than it either
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actually is or to move the gentleman driver into something that's more serious
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moving forward to show that people are taking it seriously and giving it weight.
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It has that weird dichotomy there.
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So I think the reason it feels disconnected, and they very briefly
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just brushed over it very quickly, they mentioned some other famous gentleman
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drivers that are probably closer to our age group that we would recognize.
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People like Steve McQueen, Paul Newman.
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Patrick Dempsey and our favorite British baker, Paul Hollywood, those
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are names we can identify with.
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And when you put a celebrity in a car, are they really doing it for ego?
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They're already a celebrity.
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Everybody knows who they are.
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So somebody like Paul Hollywood, who actually talked about it in.
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His big continental road trip.
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He says, I wanted to go drive for Aston and he did.
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And he actually drove the same car, same team that Paul Dallolana was driving.
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And I don't know if they overlapped, but it was basically, if you look
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at the pictures, it's the same car.
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That being said, I look at those guys and go, you know.
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They're celebrities and I already look up to them.
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I want to be like Paul Newman.
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I want to be like Steve McQueen.
21:56
But I don't necessarily know I want to be like these guys, right?
21:59
They didn't inspire me in that same way.
22:01
Why do you feel you want to be more like Paul Newman or Steve McQueen
22:06
than these other guys who are just as successful, if not more successful,
22:09
even though they're not as famous?
22:11
The image of those celebrities.
22:13
We know Paul Newman gave back, he did a lot of other things for
22:16
community and people and whatnot.
22:18
Paul Hollywood is supposed to be a really nice guy, despite the way he portrays
22:22
himself on TV, sometimes Patrick Dempsey, you know, he quit acting to pursue
22:27
racing and now he owns a team, all that kind of stuff, and even Steve McQueen,
22:31
he was rough around the edges, but he was also a racer, he was passionate.
22:34
They're, they're different people, maybe because they're more
22:38
grounded in the motorsport for me, that says something to me.
22:41
And I look up to them and go, man, I wish I could be rich and famous.
22:44
And go drive race cars, but it's not the same.
22:48
I look at these four guys and I single out, let's say Patron and the vaping
22:54
thing, and I'm like, well, you're capitalizing on people's habits and
22:58
vices, and then you get to go play.
23:01
Aren't you special and to me?
23:03
I don't know.
23:04
It was just weird.
23:05
Anybody else feel like that?
23:07
No Thanks, you're on an island eric, I guess I I really am I really am for me
23:14
I don't see any difference between these four gentlemen Or the guy from L'Oreal
23:19
or the, the four celebrities that you mentioned, they were all successful.
23:23
They all had a lot of money and then they all decided to start a hobby of racing.
23:28
Yeah.
23:28
That's all it boils down to, right?
23:29
You get to a point in life where you have the resources to do
23:33
this thing that you want to do.
23:34
And now you can do it.
23:36
So, that's awesome.
23:37
That's great.
23:38
I'm happy for them.
23:39
I can do the same thing myself at a much, much smaller scale.
23:43
And it's great and it's fun.
23:44
If I had more resources, I would do that too.
23:46
I'd be like, alright, I guess I'll just go get an F3 car and see what that's like.
23:51
I'll just go start a race team.
23:52
Let's do it.
23:52
Yeah, exactly.
23:54
I mean, why not?
23:54
If you can afford it, go for it.
23:56
Send it.
23:57
So when I asked about whether or not they detracted from the sport.
24:01
There was that, there's always that fear there.
24:02
They talked about letting the team down.
24:04
They really painted that picture of, I'm part of the team, but I don't
24:07
want to be, you know, a boat anchor.
24:09
I want us all to be successful.
24:10
Great.
24:11
That's very altruistic.
24:13
However, I don't know if you guys noticed or not, and this goes back to
24:16
Ricardo, and I'm not trying to single him out, but they spent a lot of time
24:19
with him because he is the centerpiece of the film when you kind of peel back
24:22
everybody else because of bringing WEC to Mexico City and all that kind of stuff.
24:27
I don't know if you guys noticed or not, but they threw up some other
24:30
subtitle cards in there where it's like, Gentleman Driver will travel the world
24:33
to compete in 8 to 10 races per year, spending up to 70 days out of the office.
24:38
Like, okay, like that's supposed to say something to me, right?
24:42
But they showed that scene where they're walking the course at Coda.
24:45
I kind of sat back, and I'm like, Okay.
24:48
And there was this whole other thing where they threw up another slide and
24:52
it said a gentleman driver must learn and be mentored by his younger and more
24:56
experienced professional teammates.
24:57
And I'm like, what?
24:58
I'm like, how come this guy doesn't have a coach?
25:01
How come he's not getting right seat time?
25:03
How come we're talking about a track walk?
25:05
And I understand the importance of a track walk, but shouldn't we talk?
25:09
About this guy's training and how he is contributing to the team.
25:13
He is going out of his way to spend extra cycles to, to be part of the team.
25:17
Or is it just, look, I can fly in and drive my LMP two car, and then I
25:21
can fly out and go about my business.
25:23
And they showed that with Paul Dalla Lana, where they had to coax him.
25:27
Into staying after the race was over to get his trophy and I was like, ah,
25:32
you know, I don't think the movie did a very good job of actually explaining
25:36
all the details, if you will, around the gentleman driver, like I still,
25:41
because I honestly hadn't really.
25:43
known about it till seeing this movie.
25:46
I didn't know it was a thing.
25:47
And then I was curious, like, oh, how many gentlemen drivers per team are there?
25:51
And you know, are there levels and rankings?
25:53
Like, is this guy competing against himself?
25:55
How many people is he competing against?
25:57
Because they just highlighted all the highlights these guys were having.
26:01
Oh, they won or Oh, I guess they showed low lights.
26:04
So they crashed, but it was, there was nothing about, Oh, but he's competing
26:08
him out against this other gentleman driver who is so and so and it works
26:12
this way and it works that way.
26:13
And they do get training or they don't get training.
26:15
They showed the one guy doing his thing on his simulator.
26:19
And I said, okay, good on him.
26:21
He's practicing, but I just still don't have an understanding of how the whole
26:25
thing works other than you write a really big check and you get to sit in the seat.
26:29
Yeah, I agree with Tanya.
26:31
The track walk was really confusing for me because it read exactly as Eric said.
26:35
I was like, he just flew in his, in his, Never, like, looked at this track before
26:39
and doesn't understand how to drive it?
26:41
Is that what's happening here?
26:43
It was very confusing.
26:44
They obviously don't spend hours watching YouTube videos of other
26:48
people on track like we do.
26:51
Clearly.
26:52
Because I would like to hear how competitive are these guys really versus
26:56
You know, the, the more pro amateurs, if you will, the, the people really working
27:01
through their ranks that have been doing this since, you know, they were go karting
27:04
at five years old or something like that.
27:06
I didn't get any sense of how this all really works other than you got money.
27:11
So you go and okay, great.
27:13
I mean, that's essentially what it is.
27:15
It's.
27:16
Almost like a straight up arrive and drive and obviously a gentleman driver
27:20
is going to be nowhere near as quick or competitive as a professional because
27:25
a professional that's their job.
27:27
It's what they do and they're really good at it.
27:29
Which is why people pay them to do it.
27:31
I, I agree they didn't do a good job kind of showing the behind the scenes
27:34
and what kind of training goes in.
27:37
They just quickly, you know, he shows up to CODA and is like, okay, track
27:40
walk with Tipo Durrani, professional driver, you know, just showing him lines.
27:45
I think that was just kind of, they threw it in there for fluff.
27:48
There's, you know, there's a lot more going on behind that with the
27:51
engineers and the data sessions, which they glossed over real quick.
27:55
I mean, there's more to it than that.
27:56
They're not just showing up and getting in and it could be a track
28:00
they've never been to, which is fine.
28:03
Everybody's going to go to a new track at some point, right?
28:06
So I just think they didn't do a good job there.
28:09
But to your, to your point with the setup and the race engineer, they're
28:12
not going to listen to these guys.
28:15
They're going to listen to Felipe.
28:16
They're going to listen to Bruno.
28:17
They're going to listen to all these other guys because they're the
28:19
professionals at the end of the day.
28:20
They're going to say, Hey, the car's loose.
28:22
The car's doing this and they did touch on that a little bit where the pro
28:25
would pull them aside like, uh, yeah, where overbeck would pull them aside
28:29
and say, Hey, the car's doing this.
28:31
You're just going to have to drive through it.
28:33
You're just going to have to deal with it.
28:34
This is the way we set it up.
28:36
And so to your point, I don't even know that it's in a drive, arrive and drive.
28:39
It's a pay to play.
28:41
So do they really have any input?
28:43
Are they really helping the team or are they just dragging those teams down?
28:46
And so that was what left me sitting there going, I don't know.
28:51
And this is where I draw the difference between the other gentlemen drivers.
28:54
We talked about where Paul Newman is an example.
28:57
He raced a lot and so did Steve McQueen.
29:00
They were racers, although they were celebrities.
29:03
So it's a little bit different.
29:04
They weren't just, Oh, you know, I'm Bruce Wayne by day.
29:07
And by night I'm Batman.
29:09
it, you know, and fly in, do their thing and fly out.
29:11
They were dedicated to the craft.
29:13
They were dedicated to the sport and they knew how to drive and they
29:16
knew about the mechanics of it.
29:17
Now, I'm not saying that that's for everybody, but I just felt
29:21
that it still painted this in the completely wrong light.
29:24
And I don't think they gave enough credit to the teammates.
29:28
We spent more time with the publicist.
29:31
And the marketing guy than we did with Bruno Senna and the other teammate.
29:34
And I looked up Bruno Senna because I was a little bit confused,
29:38
you know, knowing the last name, it's a famous last name, right?
29:40
Being related to Ayrton.
29:42
He was born in 83.
29:43
He's a professional racing driver.
29:45
He currently races for rebellion.
29:48
He's the nephew of Ayrton Senna.
29:50
His mother is Ayrton's older sister, Vivianne.
29:52
And he's also the first driver.
29:55
To win every WEC class.
29:59
So that guy has a lot to say.
30:02
I don't think he spoke a single word in the whole movie.
30:05
And in that respect, I felt like it took away from the, the, the bigness.
30:09
You know, they, as they set up the film, how, how amazing, you know, WEC is.
30:14
And then we never really got to hear anything about it.
30:17
Oh, gentleman driver, not professional driver.
30:19
Yeah, Senna, Senna's not a gentleman driver.
30:22
So do you guys separate?
30:25
Gentlemen, drivers from drivers who bring sponsorship backing with
30:29
them who otherwise wouldn't have a seat, wouldn't have a ride, but
30:33
they bring sponsorship to the team that allows them to get that seat.
30:39
They're not being picked because of their skills and their merit on the track.
30:42
They're being picked because they're bringing sponsorship.
30:44
They're not writing their own check from their own personal bank account.
30:48
This Venezuelan oil company or whatever is their backing is writing that check.
30:54
I mean, feel about that because there are a lot of female drivers
30:57
that do bring their own sponsorship.
30:59
And as soon as that sponsorship runs out, same thing, they're gone, too.
31:02
They're just not writing their own checks.
31:03
So if they don't bring their own sponsorship, they're gone.
31:06
So I think the clarifying question there, Sam, is what is
31:09
the aspiration of that person?
31:11
Are they attempting to become a professional driver?
31:14
And so therefore they've harvested this sponsorship in order
31:17
to reach that ultimate goal.
31:19
And maybe they never get there and maybe they do.
31:21
Or are you saying they're on the same level as these gentlemen drivers
31:24
where it's just, I've yielded enough cash that I can come in, buy my seat.
31:29
Win Le Mans and go home.
31:31
Which is it?
31:32
I would argue that the people that are bringing sponsorship are
31:35
probably the more talented drivers.
31:38
They're usually, technically, professionals because their
31:42
sponsorship is paying them.
31:44
Without that sponsorship, it's not like they're just getting picked
31:47
up off the street to get a ride.
31:49
Like, you gotta bring money to the table, whether you're writing the check.
31:53
Or you've got backing to do it.
31:55
So the case in point, right.
31:57
If you watched uppity, that was exactly the scenario that Willie T ribs went
32:02
through, he got backing from Cosby, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera,
32:05
to, to get his seat and all that stuff, to get a car, to get going.
32:09
And I understand that, but his goal.
32:11
Was to, you know, and he already was a professional racer in
32:15
Trans Am, et cetera, et cetera.
32:16
And he wanted to work his way up.
32:17
He wanted to win the Indy 500.
32:19
He is someone you can look up to as a mentor, but these guys are not them.
32:24
I want to fly in.
32:25
I want to win Le Mans and I want to take my trophy and go home to your
32:28
point of very earlier on in this podcast where you said professional drivers and
32:32
gentlemen, drivers are not the same thing.
32:34
If we classify these sponsored drivers, as you're saying into
32:38
the professional category.
32:40
Then it pretty much answers itself.
32:42
The Gentleman Drivers, it's their hobby.
32:44
They have a lot of money and they want to go do this cool thing.
32:46
I mean, that's how I am perceiving it.
32:50
Until convinced otherwise.
32:51
Because they're, they're already years into their life.
32:57
The reality, they're not going to suddenly be the next Ayrton Senna or
33:03
Lewis Hamilton in their particular series.
33:07
They're doing this for fun because probably partially they're bored and
33:11
it's something that they've always wanted to do and they've got some talent.
33:14
They're not completely talentless because I mean, there's a lot of people in the
33:18
world that they have tremendous talents and they never actually get to pursue
33:23
them or use them and no one sees them.
33:25
It doesn't mean they're not talented, but I mean, honestly, you don't.
33:29
It's a hobby for them.
33:30
I don't think it's on the same level as somebody who's, who's, who's end
33:34
goal, who's aspiration, as you said, is to actually go be the top in their
33:39
sport because this is their job.
33:42
This is what's bringing them money.
33:44
They're not, it's not a side thing.
33:46
The point is we lost something in translation here.
33:48
We lost the difficulty in the driving itself.
33:52
These guys can't communicate it.
33:54
They just show up.
33:55
They do their thing for an hour and a half and they go home or
33:57
whatever, you know, their stint is.
33:59
So again, does it take away from the sport?
34:02
Does it really paint the sport in the right light?
34:04
Yeah.
34:05
And based on the conversation about money earlier, I would ask,
34:08
would the money still come in from rich fans through things like team
34:14
ownership and sponsorships and, and other ways to be involved?
34:17
If actually being able to drive the car didn't exist, I would dare say that yes,
34:23
that not maybe in the same quantities, but enough to keep the sport going.
34:29
Maybe if the sport was more profitable to the teams, but it's, it's a money pit.
34:34
I mean, you listen to any professional, like any team owner or anybody,
34:39
the gentleman drivers just joking.
34:41
They mean, they even said it.
34:42
How do you make a small fortune at a racing?
34:45
You start with a large fortune.
34:46
You start with a billion, you end up with a million.
34:48
I don't, I don't think this it's not like the NFL where teams are making
34:52
money, hand over fist on merchandise and in paraphernalia and all, and all
34:56
that stuff and fans are rabid for it.
34:58
Then the motor sports community, I think it's a very small niche group of fans.
35:03
It's not.
35:04
It's not a moneymaker.
35:05
If I've got 10 million dollars sitting around, I'm not just gonna
35:08
give it to a race team out of the goodness of my heart and be like, here
35:10
guys, have some sponsorship money.
35:13
I'm gonna be like, here guys, make room.
35:15
I'm hopping in.
35:16
Yeah, but how much did Ed Brown make off of Patron cars running
35:20
around and sponsoring the, the lounges and the, and the happy
35:24
hours and all that kind of stuff?
35:25
So the return on investment was probably pretty good.
35:28
So I don't know that the argument really holds water.
35:31
I'm feeling what Aaron's saying here.
35:33
I don't know because once Bacardi took over, they pulled the plug
35:37
on that pretty instantaneously.
35:39
Their accountants probably went over the books and were like, Hmm,
35:42
we're spending how much on racing?
35:44
That drives right to the point.
35:46
If you weren't making money, why do it?
35:49
So if racing is a loss leader, why does racing continue?
35:53
And I'm not advocating for racing to go away, but at the end of the day,
35:57
somewhere along the line, and you can make this argument about Bernie
36:00
Ecclestone, somebody's making money.
36:02
If not, it wouldn't happen.
36:04
So I don't think WEC is a loss leader or they would have shut it down.
36:08
That being said, there's another big weird part of this movie that I'm sure you all
36:12
caught on, which was the psychologist.
36:15
And I see you all smiling.
36:18
It was from Austin.
36:20
Yes, Dr.
36:21
Art Markman.
36:22
And he spent a lot of time talking about The, the risk and the
36:27
entrepreneurs and how difficult it is for them and the challenges and all.
36:31
And he implied a lot of different things.
36:33
There were two things I was really confused about.
36:35
The first one has to do with risk.
36:37
He made it seem like only entrepreneurs, only people that are
36:41
anointed with that gift are able to take and manage risk in life.
36:46
Well, he said it very, in an interesting way at some point,
36:49
something to the, I don't remember how exactly he worded it, but it was.
36:53
To the effect of because these guys had learned all that they needed to
36:56
learn, it's not that there's not risk is that they learned the risk away.
37:00
And I'm like, wow, that is completely inaccurate.
37:04
The risk is still inherently there.
37:06
And these guys have not been doing it as long as the professionals.
37:09
So they, so the real problem is they don't know what they don't
37:13
know, and they don't know the risk.
37:15
That they don't know, if you will.
37:17
So that it goes back to their ego that they're gods and
37:22
what they do on a daily basis.
37:24
And so therefore that's going to translate into anything that they.
37:28
I don't know that I agree with it.
37:30
I was amused by that, about how they, uh, you know, the psychologist said
37:35
that they essentially reframe how risky they see something, and do that
37:40
reframing by learning more about it.
37:43
And I think there is some semblance of truth to that.
37:47
I think situations can seem risky that once you actually You know, document
37:52
what's going on with the situation.
37:54
You can get to a point where it's like, okay, it's not as bad as
37:56
I thought it was going to be.
37:58
I'm more comfortable approaching that situation down.
38:01
I agree with Tanya that they weren't learning the risk weights.
38:04
How much did they learn?
38:05
They're not a professional driver.
38:07
They're essentially have enough money that the risk doesn't matter
38:10
or that they don't care about it.
38:12
Because they're doing it for different reasons that are not monetary with that.
38:15
I mean, they showed Paul Dalla Lana putting that Aston in the wall, how
38:19
many times it almost became comical.
38:21
And then they never talked about the repercussions afterwards.
38:23
Like, Oh, well, well, we, we bend it.
38:25
Well, we'll move on.
38:26
There was another part of that, that really got under my
38:30
skin that I didn't understand.
38:32
And to your point, we're talking about risk mitigation here.
38:34
And then if you notice, he switched gears.
38:37
And he went on this tangent about imposter syndrome.
38:41
And I, again, I had to pause and I've only heard one other person
38:45
in my life bring this up and I'm not going to call them out.
38:48
And I was like really confused because now they're trying to say that they
38:51
have a self esteem or confidence problem where they're putting on a face.
38:55
And if you really knew them, that they aren't the way they come
38:58
off as you see them in real life.
39:00
And I'm like, Excuse me?
39:02
I felt that they probably weren't being portrayed how they really
39:06
are in real life in this film.
39:08
Because it goes back to what I said in the beginning, as I entered this, and maybe
39:12
it's wrong of me to have entered with a bias, of most billionaires, millionaires,
39:18
are just egotistical tyrants, jerks is the nicest way to put it.
39:25
And they, they didn't quite exude that during the interviews
39:30
and during their conversations.
39:31
They felt more like, you know, the everyday guy, you know, walk down
39:36
and have a beer with or something.
39:37
And I'm not sure that that's, that's entirely accurate.
39:41
So there was a lot of what seemed like misportrayal and
39:43
maybe I'm just being unfair.
39:45
I thought the imposter syndrome was specifically speaking to them
39:50
as gentlemen drivers coming into a sport with professional drivers and
39:56
they're the imposters pretending to be professional drivers for the
40:00
weekend or whatever professional drivers think of them as imposters.
40:04
So they feel like they have to put in more work.
40:07
To overcome that imposter designation that that stereotype, because they're buying
40:14
their way in and they haven't earned it.
40:16
The imposter syndrome definition, psychology is exactly the that
40:21
person, so it would be the gentleman drivers because they're not truly
40:26
the person of that sport, right?
40:28
Fosters in it.
40:29
They feel inadequacy because they haven't been through everything.
40:33
Right, but isn't that a contradiction to everything we
40:37
know about these entrepreneurs?
40:38
Yeah, it feels contradictory to the previous discussion on risk.
40:42
They essentially bought down their risk because they learned their way
40:45
out of it and and then are convincing themselves that it's not risky.
40:48
That doesn't necessarily align with the fact that they feel as an imposter
40:54
to be able to perform in that realm.
40:57
So I think yeah, They like presented two psychological
41:00
pillars that don't necessarily, um, align with each other inside.
41:05
You know, the gentleman driver's head, I think you get a lot of their true
41:08
nature that they're really kind of shows you like pulls back the curtain
41:12
on everything at that like round table.
41:14
They do.
41:15
They kept going back to because there are times where they started
41:19
like, you know, talking like, would you have done all of this again?
41:21
Or would you become like a pro driver or something?
41:23
Or would you rather have the money you've made in your business?
41:25
And all of them just kind of like chuckled to themselves and like money, like.
41:29
I don't know.
41:29
I think that was like really revealing on who they were personally.
41:32
Imposter wise, like I could see like you come to something that's new and you
41:36
definitely bought yourself on the team.
41:39
You definitely feel inadequate, which you could just get rid
41:41
of by getting more experience.
41:43
But we're all told to be confident in ourselves.
41:46
We're all champions.
41:48
We're all winners.
41:48
We're supposed to have, you know, that gusto inside.
41:51
And these guys have that.
41:53
Entrepreneurs exemplify.
41:54
That particular characteristic to show them as vulnerable and whatever, to
41:59
me, didn't make a whole lot of sense.
42:01
And so with that boost of esteem, with that boost of just boldness
42:06
that these people are supposed to have as entrepreneurs,
42:09
wouldn't it be more appropriate to say, fake it till you make it?
42:13
Yeah, definitely.
42:14
I mean, that's how you do it as an entrepreneur to begin with anyway.
42:17
I mean, I guess it could be imposter if you think of it in the way I do.
42:21
It's like you have the same skills, you feel like you can't perform at the same
42:27
level for some actual psychological reason, like it's just like a block.
42:31
I have that professionally every once in a while, and I think it could apply here.
42:36
Yet another contradiction in the film.
42:38
They're trying to portray these fragile eggs, and it's
42:42
like, you know, you have to.
42:43
I don't know, coddle them or baby them.
42:45
I don't know what the term is right now, but it just, to me, it just, as, as we
42:49
progress through the film at first, I was like, Oh, this is going to be really neat.
42:52
I'm going to learn something.
42:53
And then I kind of got further and further disillusioned and
42:57
disenfranchised with the film.
43:00
And then the biggest problem arised as we got to the end and to your point
43:04
about them sitting around the table.
43:06
I also noticed how.
43:08
Like Ed would kind of bite at some of the other ones or he would
43:11
just cut them off and I'm like, oh, that's interesting, right?
43:14
So there's a little power play there alphas, you know, four or
43:16
five alphas in the room together.
43:17
No big deal I don't know why it took 88 minutes to dawn on me There's not a
43:21
single female in the entire film other than Paul Della Lana's wife Mic drop.
43:27
To extend on that, I said at one point, they were talking amongst themselves, I
43:31
was just like, la la la, four powerful rich white men doing their own thing.
43:35
Oh, that came to my head at the very beginning.
43:37
And I was like, it was maybe Ricardo.
43:39
88 minutes to see that.
43:40
Ricardo is, I guess, is the one, the one man out, and he was kind of
43:44
definitely I felt overpowered by the rest of them in that little round table.
43:48
He's like, I'm actually like trying to do things.
43:50
You guys are just bitching about your eco.
43:53
Like, I don't know.
43:54
Yeah, I agree on that.
43:55
But also that's unfortunately the demographics of racing as well.
44:00
Is it though?
44:01
There's plenty of diversity out there with deep pockets.
44:04
I'm just going to phrase it that way.
44:06
There's plenty of very rich and powerful women out there.
44:10
Why aren't they signing up to be gentle lady drivers?
44:13
They have those.
44:14
They, they run another series, like Super Trofeo, Ferrari Challenge.
44:19
Why can't they run WEC?
44:21
They don't have enough money, maybe.
44:22
Oprah's got plenty of money, bro.
44:24
Maybe Super Trofeo and Ferrari Challenge.
44:27
So you gotta, you gotta have, you gotta tick all the boxes.
44:30
You gotta like racing.
44:31
You got to want to race and you got to have a lot of money.
44:35
I mean, that eliminates me from being a gentleman driver and be
44:38
able to deal with culture, right?
44:39
I think the thing missing from this conversation is that, yes, those might
44:42
be the demographics of racing more generally, but that inherently might
44:46
be one of the reasons you don't see it being the only person in the room
44:52
that is different in a specific way.
44:55
Can be challenging, and can be culturally shocking.
45:00
So, I mean, I think John pointed out that that was kind of evident
45:04
just amongst the, you know, four or five men at that round table.
45:08
One man stood out, and I noticed early on that he wasn't talking
45:12
very often at that table.
45:14
And that could have been for a variety of reasons, maybe he's more introverted.
45:17
They're, you know, they were all in this documentary together, they were
45:19
all, all their stories were being told.
45:21
Yeah.
45:22
You're talking about Michael Gauch from Molecule Labs.
45:24
They kind of wrapped him up at the end like, uh, yeah, here's this thing.
45:29
No, I was talking about Ricardo.
45:30
Oh, gotcha.
45:31
As soon as they told me that guy made vaping liquid, I wrote him off as the
45:35
killer of numerous innocent children.
45:38
He's probably broke now too.
45:39
I was also wondering, I was like, when is this date?
45:43
Definitely before 2019.
45:45
Yeah, and that's just it, right?
45:46
So we're catching this thing two years later, and even when it came out on
45:50
Netflix, the material that was provided was already two to three years old.
45:54
So it's really out of date.
45:56
I understand what they were trying to do, but again, diversity aside,
46:00
I thought it was unfair to women.
46:01
Yeah, and If I could bring up a point of like related to the diversity issue, I
46:06
mean, it's called gentleman driver, right?
46:10
Do they call a woman who's in that position, a lady driver, or do
46:14
they call her a gentleman driver?
46:15
And I think it also gets at a deeper point of language, right?
46:20
I go back and forth about, well, do the words we use really matter all that much?
46:23
Like, why should we care?
46:25
But if you think about the origin of the word gentlemen and how
46:28
gentlemen is like thought of in.
46:30
societal context, the way they're referring to it is like a rich
46:34
white person who owns land, right?
46:37
And that, that they're gonna come down and race in this, in this race
46:42
and, you know, get a seat in this car.
46:44
And so that has many more connotations than just that they're a, a man.
46:47
It has a connotation that they are white, rich, and also a man.
46:51
And so I think the name itself has many implications.
46:54
that the movie just hit home again and again and again.
46:57
Like every, every part of that movie confirmed what I thought A Gentleman's
47:02
Driver would be in terms of demographics throughout the entire 88 minutes.
47:07
If I'm a casual watcher and I see this, maybe I just got done watching
47:11
Formula One Drive to Survive, and this comes up on my recommendation
47:14
list, and I watch this, and I'm not a motorsport head, or it just comes
47:17
across my recommendations, I watch it.
47:19
Does it really paint motorsport in the, in a good light?
47:22
Uh, I think it shows the realities of motorsport, being that the resources that
47:27
are required to have the sport exist.
47:31
I think it brings that to the surface that a lot of people probably don't
47:35
realize how expensive this is and what it takes for a team to get funding and run.
47:41
I think that's really what it highlights.
47:43
I mean, I agree with that.
47:44
It just reconfirms what I think the majority of people already
47:48
know is that it's a very expensive.
47:50
Profession, sport, hobby, whatever you want to label it as, it takes
47:56
money to go do it, even whether you're the Lewis Hamilton level, or you're
48:01
a junior level, or you're even if you're just going out for a track
48:03
day on a weekend, it's expensive.
48:05
It's not it's not cheap.
48:07
There's less expensive sports to go do, you know, basketball doesn't cost
48:12
very much and you can get a group of friends and go on a court for free,
48:15
you know, it's expensive to go racing.
48:17
And I think it reconfirmed that in the movie.
48:19
And I think.
48:20
You know, in the first five minutes, they pushed me away my
48:24
interest when they said that it's, it's, it's a complete meritocracy.
48:28
Well, no, it's not.
48:29
Yes, once you're inside it and you're competing against your
48:33
peers, the better driver with more skill is going to be rewarded.
48:38
But it takes money to enter that meritocracy.
48:40
And they made it sound like, oh, no, you, you can be whoever and have the
48:45
talent and suddenly be number one.
48:47
I don't personally feel that that's how it works.
48:49
I mean, I agree with you, but I didn't get the aspect of you
48:53
can get in and be number one.
48:54
I saw it more as you can get in and you're in.
48:58
That was it.
48:59
It wasn't like, okay, well, I'm in now.
49:01
Now I'm going to compete and be the best.
49:03
Gentleman drivers get in and they're going to do their best.
49:06
But they're not going to be the best, right?
49:08
But he gets to go home with a trophy that says LeMans winner.
49:12
He won LeMans.
49:13
Did he?
49:14
I'm wrong.
49:14
I guarantee you, Bruno Senna did more work, more laps, and put more effort in
49:22
than Ricardo did at the end of the day.
49:24
And Bruno Senna wouldn't exist without Ricardo's checkbook.
49:29
But hey, that's not necessarily true because Ricardo, because
49:33
Ricardo's not racing anymore.
49:35
And Senna still is.
49:37
Yeah, but the other guy could race whenever he wants, too.
49:39
I mean, true.
49:41
I'm just saying it's a symbiotic relationship, right?
49:44
The professionals need the money for the team to operate.
49:48
These guys bring the money.
49:49
I mean, that's all it is.
49:50
It's a completely symbiotic relationship.
49:52
They need each other.
49:52
It would've been nice if the movie maybe explained that more, or kind of Dived into
49:58
that, which it didn't do at all because I still really don't have an understanding
50:02
of how this whole thing works.
50:03
Like, cause clearly they, these, these guys are, are on a team
50:08
within their, their car class.
50:10
It's not just them doing lap after lap and winning it, um, but you didn't get to hear
50:15
about how that works and the relationships and who really is contributing.
50:21
What are these guys really doing?
50:24
It was, I was waiting for it and it got glossed over.
50:27
I'm with you.
50:28
I was waiting for a team manager to step up and say, this is how we run the team.
50:32
This is why we do it this way.
50:34
Let me break it down for you.
50:35
Or something like that.
50:36
It just was never there.
50:37
Yeah, they didn't have the Howden like in Truth in 24, right?
50:41
They didn't have those people.
50:44
To step in and do this and I mean they were constrained by how long this was
50:48
and they were trying to follow four different people and four different
50:50
teams and they just kind of bounced around and glossed over a lot of things
50:54
that probably would have been really interesting that explained how this worked
50:57
and it came across kind of half assed.
51:01
I mean I'll make the argument that we didn't need to watch
51:03
Ed Brown sipping tequila.
51:06
We could have filled that time with an explanation of what
51:09
the heck we were watching.
51:10
I couldn't care to less.
51:12
Delicious.
51:13
It is.
51:13
It is.
51:14
Granted.
51:15
But I couldn't care to less.
51:16
I don't want to watch, again, a room full of white guys drinking liquor.
51:20
It had no point to the movie whatsoever.
51:23
To the message that they were trying to convey.
51:25
Did you scope out the watches they were wearing?
51:27
Man, pretty sweet.
51:29
Maybe that was part of the deal of the documentary.
51:32
They wanted coverage of their products, their companies, their life success.
51:37
Who was the executive producer for the documentary?
51:40
Which one of the, the billionaires was the executive producer?
51:43
I didn't watch that far enough to the credits.
51:45
Guaranteed there, one of them was.
51:48
I have to go look it up though.
51:49
Tony Calderon?
51:50
Wasn't that the uh, producer guy?
51:52
The guy sitting in the middle of the table?
51:54
The manager.
51:54
So he's their manager, so yeah.
51:56
So he's gotta fluff 'em up and all that stuff.
51:58
So yeah, you're mani manicure.
52:00
So I guess at the end of the day, we understand it takes money to go racing.
52:05
It's considered a rich man sport.
52:07
It always has been like a lot of other things, like if you wanna be good
52:09
at golf and you boats and airplanes and, and even shooting, right?
52:14
They're all expensive.
52:15
All hobbies are expensive at the end of the day.
52:17
But what I didn't understand, and what I'm gonna leave you guys
52:20
with is would you share this?
52:23
Movie.
52:23
Movie with someone else to say, this is what racing is like.
52:28
And the second part of that question is, did it leave you in any way
52:31
inspired both in the business world and in the racing world, or could
52:35
you have cared less altogether?
52:37
I think I cared more about it from a business and leadership perspective
52:40
than I did about the racing.
52:42
Side of it.
52:43
It was more fascinating to me how they ran their businesses and were successful
52:46
and then also handled racing at the same time Well, I wouldn't actually recommend
52:50
it as a view into racing to anyone because like especially at the end It
52:55
was just it was basically like a crazy dramatic Movie ending so they're just
53:00
going for the effect and not a message which I was kind of like pretty bummed
53:04
about But also entertained by, so it's kind of conflicting emotions there, but
53:09
now I'd say come out to a track day.
53:10
We'll show you how it's really done.
53:11
I mean, to be very honest, I lost interest in the movie very early and I only kept
53:18
watching it because of this podcast.
53:23
So no, I don't think I would recommend it to anybody.
53:26
I don't think it did a good enough job of explaining anything.
53:29
You could argue there was potential that had been done
53:31
differently, but as it stands.
53:35
I don't think it really explains much about racing and I wasn't inspired by it.
53:38
I mean, it must be nice to have that much money.
53:40
I think it would have been better if it was less about entering the mind of the
53:45
entrepreneur and more about, this is what it takes to keep WEC and IMSA running.
53:50
I wouldn't share this with anybody just because I was bored.
53:53
Yeah, I, I agree with.
53:55
Everything that's been said so far, I think, uh, you know, I wouldn't
53:58
recommend it as a view into racing.
53:59
I think it was a view into the lives of these four men with a slight,
54:03
strange, uh, contradictory commentary on what a gentleman driver actually is.
54:08
I found tidbits here and there of their discussion on leadership
54:12
and entrepreneurship interesting.
54:14
I almost felt like it was forced in some ways, like.
54:16
The one guy who was talking about, you know, I treat my employees
54:19
with respect and the people that I work with with respect.
54:22
And I'm like, yes, that's what a true leader actually does.
54:25
Great.
54:25
But I kind of feel like you're just saying that's, you know,
54:28
like you can asshole on TV.
54:29
Yeah.
54:30
So I thought it had some interesting leadership messages that felt very forced.
54:34
Yeah, I definitely would not recommend this to somebody who's new to
54:37
motorsport and wanted to learn more.
54:40
Far better ones out there that they can watch.
54:43
Uh, some that we've already touched on on this podcast, you know, I think
54:48
they did an okay job, but that's from my perspective of knowing about
54:52
gentlemen drivers and, you know, kind of how the sport operates.
54:56
And what these guys do and come in and write these checks and, you know,
55:01
I used to be a hater on that stuff, but now I'm like, you know, if I had
55:05
the resources, I would do it too.
55:07
I would be walking around like the Monopoly guy in the paddock or
55:10
like Ted DiBiase or dressed like Apollo Creed, just being obnoxious,
55:15
showing how much money I have and be like, Hey, I'm paying to be here.
55:18
So what?
55:19
I'm rich.
55:20
Then why not?
55:21
That's what they're doing.
55:21
I would do the same thing.
55:23
So I, I can't hate on them for it.
55:24
I thought there was just so many things wrong with it.
55:27
By the time I got to the end, I was really excited at the beginning, like,
55:30
Oh, this is going to be really cool.
55:32
I really appreciate and enjoy WEC, Le Mans, IMSA,
55:36
everything that goes with that.
55:38
I was like, man, this is going to be a great little filler because
55:40
we didn't do Le Mans this year.
55:42
I'm going to watch the film.
55:43
See where it goes.
55:44
And then by the end, I was just like, you know what, if I was not
55:47
a racer and was not invested in motorsport, I'd say the hell with this.
55:51
Just make them all go away.
55:52
And on that note, I think it's time to end.
55:55
All right, everybody, I thank you so much for joining us tonight.
55:58
It's been an interesting conversation.
56:01
And I look forward to doing this again soon.
56:07
If you like what you heard and want to learn more about GTM,
56:09
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56:12
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56:13
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56:29
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56:30
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56:32
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