Episode 47: 2023 Season 2 and Tony Kanaan - podcast episode cover

Episode 47: 2023 Season 2 and Tony Kanaan

Mar 15, 202352 min
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Episode description

The iRacing Downshift makes its triumphant return after a month off with a look at 2023 Season 2, the three—excuse us, four—new cars and one new track that have joined the service, and a look at our world of esports and special events. Plus, racing legend Tony Kanaan joins the show to talk about his embrace of sim racing, becoming a team owner in both eNASCAR and the Porsche TAG Heuer Esports Supercup, and his unlikely journey from adversaries to best friends with Greg.

Transcript

This week on the Eye, Racing down Shift, key editing decisions are made on air. We'll fix it and post it will be. We won't. We're gonna end up believing it. We know it. We're not good at our jobs. The boys talk about going in Box zero. I'm twenty two, just since we started recording it, and I was freaking me out. And Tony Kanaan tells us about the time he first met Rank. I this guy. Think, dude, it's the season two Build shows to strap in.

Welcome to that. I Racing down Shift, down her hoist, Greg West, I'm back with the boys, Kevin, Bob and Chris Leonie. We have a great show for you today. It's Build Week plus one. Some energy. It's very energetic. I like it fired up because we've been two months since we've done one, right, so pent up it was. It was. It was like a damn bursting. I hope we have a good show after that intro. That's all I'm saying. More energy than I

thought anybody would have. And Build week plus one and built well, it was it was like it was really today is Monday is like release uh you know one point one of the build. Because as we'll get into it. You know, we released a new car today, this time on purpose, and we'll get into that a little bit, the Gin four stock car. I'm and I racing as of three hours ago. But anyway, what have we been up to for the last month? As Kevin's wife pointed out,

we didn't do one of these in February. Laura listen. Laura fan of the show listens to our podcast. She was very upset or or just confused. I don't know why she even noticed. I was pleased that we have one listener, so that this mini Yeah, but what do you guys been up to last month? Living the dream? No, it's been busy here at I racing for sure. Um, we're gonna put a snow tomorrow. No, that's not what I was doing, but that's what we're doing tomorrow.

We're I fixed my snowblower this week, so that's that's good, so we won't get snow now. Well, you know, well, thank you, thank you for doing that, because I don't feel like, what about you, Chris, what have you been doing? Uh? Well, Um, because I am very smart and get lots and lots of sleep. I worked my fifth minute four hundred over the past weekend as well. That was that is always a great time. Lots of fun off road things. We had a we had a guy race a limo. We had an off road

limo. It broke, but he's try not coming to I racing. I need, I feel the need. Yes, yes, yes, yes. They lifted a limo and they put it on off road truck tires. It's when you know you have too much money, like you just run out of things to do. It's it's one of Pastrana's buddies. It's you know, that's the car was all wrapped in flannel. It was. It was a good time. I was gonna say that sounds like something fan Atech might do. Yeah, the fantasy thanks that the g T two motor in the Volkswagen

Van. Yeah, that's a good time. You know, we didn't get the invitation to write in that we missed out. We did hear it, Yeah, we did hear it. I don't know if I would have gotten nothing. It's a little bit scary, but Tom. The one thing I forgot to mention, what's that Kevin? And the last podcast I forgot to mention I was in Daytona and that I met one of our fans, So we have two fans of the pod, two fans. David Lawrence walked up

to me and said, hey, are you Kevin from the podcast? I was like, I am as a matter of fact, and he's just want to give him little shout out. He loves our podcast and hopefully he'll be a member soon. But he loves listen to us, which is awesome, right, why is it, David, David, Kevin dot Bobby and I Racing dot com. Make sure you get a membership from him. I hooked him up when we were in Daytona, so I expect to see him online very soon, very soon, hashtag soon. All right, we'll lets bleep

that out our night. No, no, I think you'll leave that one. Kevin's Kevin's name and email addresses on the website. It's everywhere. Yeah, I don't know. We just data security meeting last week. I'm trying to be careful. Well, let's get into it. Season two on IRA seeing big release for US three cars, so you added the check Oh wait, four cars and then we also added the check the track in Jerez pretty excited about that. Let's just go down the list here. As Chris has

nicely bulleted force. Although Chris, just a piece of feedback. There are no bullets, they're just listed. I like bullets, you know. Yeah, yeah, you get slipping a demerit on this outline that you've done this month. So there's no taving. There's some bold. Now I'm you know, I'm going back to my old outlines right now. And uh didn't do that last the last time we recorded, and you didn't complain either, So well, I just thought that you were off your game last time. And

now we've established a pattern. It's a pattern. So it's a real problem not to have talk. We're actually having a talk right now. This is an intervention. Yes, we're having We're having a bulleting intervention. Yes, the next time we'll talk about your the what do you call it? Overemployment? Oh no, I was just going to talk about your citations. But but now I'm worried because the intro was overselling. This is really, really

is bad. All right, let's get into it. So, first car that came to I Racing last week, late model stock car, one of Dale Junior's pet projects, showed up in the Sundrop Livery Wi. Yeah, go figure, I wonder how that happened. But Chris tell us about it. Yep, late model Stock car, very popular in the Carolina's part of the Car's Tour and their Late Model Stock series. This car came in replaced the former Chevrolet Monty Carloss at the D class. So if you had that

car, you now have the new late model Stock. If you didn't have that car, then this new one's available to purchase. But if you already have the old one, it's already been granted to you. Nice fun, little short track beaten and banging. It's got plenty of horsepower under the hood, but it's also got those fiberglass body panels save a little way. A lot of different drivers driving this car, you know, real world pros. Obviously, Dale Junior runs some races. Some of our nas car guys even

go beating and banging in this. I think both Ryan Losa and Caden Honeycut this year have already run races in the Late Model Stock because the car store season just opened up as a matter of fact. So cool little car, very relevant to a lot of our oval track racers. And yeah, it's definitely a blast. It's one of the only ones that I haven't actually had a chance to get behind the wheel of yet, but it's it's high on my priority list for this week. I can't tell you how many laps and

we've turned at places like like Southern or Hickory just driving this car. It comes out. It has new damage model as of today. A little hiccup last week, but we have new damage model on it today. It's got AI and it is. It's a really good time. It's already a bunch of YouTube videos out. I think the short track folks are pretty excited to have a shining new piece of content and I think this fits the bill. So pretty excited about that. We haven't had a short track car in a

while. So that's uh, that was cool all right. Next on the list the ray FF sixteen hundred, very popular in Europe, specifically in the UK. If you made you know it from the uh you know the Formula

Ford Festival in Brand's Hat at Brands Hatch runs this chassis every year. We had help from a long time eracer, Max Esterson, who races it in real life and is moving up the ranks of the open wheel ladder as we speak of, which a little teaser around that we've got another piece of content coming out with featuring some some thoughts on the car from Max coming out later

this week. So pretty cool, nice now. It was super popular during week thirteen, saw a bunch of real world drivers racing and racing around it. We won't do any name dropping, but there's once again plenty of clips on twitch or YouTube. I think it's just an absolute ball of fun. It's not a Formula V, it's not a skippy, it's not enough four or an I Ro four. It is just uh, it's its own beast and liftoff overseer is a thing. And you can get it sideways and get

the back to hang out. And let me ask you this. I like the Formula V. I race a bit and I really like It's what's the difference for me if I step into this car? Is that faster? Slower, is easier, harder? Just different? Like, what's the thing I should focus? It's got about fifty more horsepower, so it should it does get at a small car. Yeah, no down force, you know,

no wings. Well, Formula V doesn't have any either, right, Exactly what we're doing with this car that's interesting is is that the rookie ladder or in the Rookie series along with the Formula V. They're gonna run the same tracks every single week and you can bounce back and forth between the two of them. Is they're thirty minutes offset from each other's and you can come back

in the next podcast and you can tell me what the difference is. Kevin, all right, you have, but it should I should be able to do both of them them right without too much trouble, right exactly. A loves both are h patterns. But we'll work with my paddles, but it will work with your paddles. But if you have an age pattern, you can you can drive both of them in there in their natural environment. We also have a D Class series. It's a set off thirty minutes from the

Skippies as well. That's open set ups. Although there's not a lot to change. It'll take it to some bigger tracks. But yeah, it's a lot of fun. I got wrecked out of a bunch of Week thirteen races in this perfect I raced yesterday. I did. I did two races yesterday and I made it a combined three quarters of a lap. So that was fun. Sounds like a U problem, but what do I know? He is I ran out of talent most likely, so yeah, a lot of fun. Best part about the car it is free. If you have an

Irish membership, you can jump in the car. So get out there, get driving, hop on trading paints, find a cool livery. But yeah, you'll recognize Max Esterson's as one of the defaults, so the Iracer's already there. Next up on the list we have the NAU Cleo R s V. Kevin. Yeah, a new addition to D class running the Cleo Cup and the PCC of front wheel drive. Not a ton of horsepower, but

a fun car to throw around. It's got fenders on us, so if you have a little contact, it's probably not too much trouble, right Greg, Yeah, run into you once or twice, but you know it wasn't wasn't an ad or it wasn't a perpectless accident. That's the truth. Do you know in the hands of a capable driver it will technically go faster than the Max five? Well I am clearly not that capable driver. So if you know how to wheel a front wheel drive tin top car, you in

theory can go faster than iron cars. They're fun. Yeah, No, this one's a ton of fun. I usually am not a front wheel drive fan, but during testing, I found myself just kind of grinning and goofing off and you just you point it where you want it to go and lift off a little bit of rotate on you and yeah, good time. Get into the grass a little bit. Just keep your foot down right, keep going right. I stay on the racetrack, Kevin, I was testing ours

is very important to me. Well, I was testing the dirt model and I loved it on that Chris Likest, I imagine how as a rally cross car, because we know you've tried that personally one of my favorite non rally cross rally cross cars is it very goes it break. I'm gonna be honest with you. We didn't do new damage testing on the rally cross tracks.

You guys know what I do with Yes two we're a damage off league because none of us are good enough, so we don't can't speak to that, but I but I will say that I will turn damage off at some point and try it and if it's any good, then Greg, I will bother you about a week thirteen series. How do I block somebody on slack their way to do that. What aren't we talking just before this that Chris said

that all the emails I send to them go immediately. No, no, no, no, no, that's what I heard of the project management emails that you send me blend into the woodwork because of how much spam I get. That's not what I heard. Well, you chose to hear different. Well that happens. Yeah, that's any hoop. Moving on. Then we had the surprise edition of the Build the New and uh officially released today Gin four cup car throw back to the generation four NASCAR days of seven hundred and

thirty three horsepower plus or minus. So I don't even know how many of it's got a lot. It's got a lot, a whole lot of horsepowers underneath the hood of it. So true story. We accidentally updated the Archa car. There's no way around it. It was a complete accident. We are not that clever in our marketing department to do such a thing. Kevin's nodding right now, if you want to do true it's true. We could have done so much more with us if we had planned, but we did

not plan it. It was an accident. And uh, well, then what does Bob Ross call these things. Happy accidents, happy only, happy acts. There you go. So I posted in the forum saying, oh, that was an oopsie. We're gonna revert that with the first patch. And you got a lot of potatoes. I got a lot of potatoes. I think I said a new record for number. We're well over one hundred

potatoes. Also got screenshot of unread it and Facebook and Twitter, and I'm very unpopular in the the Oval community for about a day and a half and he said, oops, just kidding, gotcha, Never mind. We're gonna build the car in a week, all hands on deck. I've never seen that many people working on a car once, and uh, pretty proud of what we have. That went out today though, So we started the new series for it. We got fixed racing at the Class C level. Um,

they're longer races. They're like a like a C open race. So you got cautions that are on, you're gonna have to make a few will stop, you're gonna need tires, and you're gonna have to put an egg under the throttle because once again seven hundred plus horsepower, Um, it screams. So that's pretty cool. But yeah, happy accidents all all around. I love it in fairness to you though, Greg, I mean we did revert the original car. They serve different absolutely, so that's a good point.

I use Chris's absolute line. The arc car went back to being the arch At car today as well, so we have that series at the Class D level still fixed, no format change. That car is what it was. It's a win win, like everybody wins. Yeah, everybody went happy. Everybody had to work on it for the last week. Sarendipitous. There's your word of the day, sen Yes that No in the movie are and d I you're reading off the you're reading it off. No, you're no

counting letters. But we also got a new track, go Figure, Yeah, yeah, which is really good. It's in Spain, Haraz. This track is um It's a rare, rare cross between. Really good for high down force cars, so you can just put your foot to the floor and trust the down force through the big corners. But it also works really well for slow little cars like the renau Cleo, the F sixteen hundred Skippy, the Formula v GT Fours touring cars, etcetera, etcetera, etcetera. It

works works well with everything. I think this is going to be a no. I mean, if you don't threaten me with a good time, think of the drift videos. I'm just saying, yeah, that's all I do. I test all of content on things it shouldn't be used on souse a week thirteen tester, that's what he is. Yes, but yeah, Haraz is fantastic paid piece of content, premium piece of content on I Racing,

but an absolute ton of fun. I saw the emails coming in over the weekend from all of the communities asking to have it added to their schedules, and I don't think there's much more of a compliment. A bigger compliment you can put to a piece of track content when everybody's like, yeah, we need this now. Yeah, when all the members agree, right, Yes, that doesn't often happened. So pretty excited between Gen four and between Harez.

I think we definitely had our finger on the pulse of what the community really wanted. So that was pretty cool anyway. Yeah, that was a bunch of other stuff as well with the build. Uh. If you're looking for more details, you can check out the release notes on the I Racing four. You know what we didn't do, We haven't teased our guests yet. I'm about to tease our guests. Well, usually we tease it earlier. This is a new format for us. Oh, I don't know what

to say. We have a guest christ One this week. Chris is gonna tease him. I'm gonna tease him. Well, you know the guys who are friends with him. I don't. I've talked to him twice in my life. What we're gonna do is a we're not gonna edit this part out because we're just silly and that's funny. B we'll tease the guests now, and Chris will put it in the intro. No, that's no fun well,

or Crystal put in that. We were going to tease the guests and then leave that out of his name in the intro, like we have a guest, we'll do that. There you go, I just fix the we'll fix it and post it'll be we want. We're gonna end up leaving it. We know it. We're not good at our jobs, man. So with all that being said, we're a great guest. We sat down with them on Thursday, Wednesday, Thursday or Friday something day one of those days.

Late last week sat down with Tony k I Racing aficionado, multiple drivers, world Championship team owner yep with both the NASCAR Cocoli Racing Series and the Taghaier Esports super Cup. Bing got that one wrong? What Sports Supercup, Porsche tag Horror Esports super Cup. So Tony Kna sat down with us to talk all things esports, stream meaning a little bit of stock car Brazil and also him and I just made fun of a jether pretty much the whole time,

and Kevin referee. So without further ado, this sir Tony Canna. All right, Kevin and I are back with our guest this week, Anthony Canaan. I believe that is that correct? No, miss, did I mispronounce that? Antoine? Great? Okay, I think we have the run guest. How did this guy get in here? Security? Tony Cannin world famous race car driver, e sports racer Streamers. Yeah, well thanks for making the time, Thank you. Um all right, well let's just get

into it. You've been involved, uh with I racing now for a few years really since COVID and you and I met when I kicked you out of a race in a stream right such a you know, like like I tell people this story that actually you know Kevin, there is still hope in the world when two people don't get along and they become friends. And that is actually your co host. There, you guys are inspiration Hayde's guts. I said, who this guy think he is? And we have the best,

greatest relationship three years later. So yes, you did kick me out. Yes, I told you that I would never drive a race longer than twenty minutes in my entire life on a simulator, and here I am, so yeah, what else do you want to talk about? How many sims do

you have in your man cave my main cave fully assembled? I have two in my garage I have sticked and one in my closet, which is the original one that I felt heartbroken because I started it driving on a SAM You remember that, right inside my closet because it was the kids couldn't get to it. I had no inspiration to I hated simulators. I said I would never do this. I only do this during COVID because we have to.

So yes, six seven, eight, nine sims. Actually, so that's impressive as busy times and now you are, you're streaming on Twitch how many nights a week? If if if I'm not racing seven nights a week. If I'm racing, I would say five at least five. And do you do a pretty original way of handling it because you obviously have your you know, English speaking fans, but you also have the resilience the Portuguese speaking fans, and you're alternating your your streams at this point, right, Yeah,

it's tough. I mean I've been doing that through my social media forever, and on stream is even worse because you're live. So basically, if you guys watch my stream, I'll welcome everyone in Portuguese once I go live, and right after that in English, and we opened chat chats bilingual. Basically,

shoot me a question, you were there the other night. We're talk in English for forty minutes, and the Brazilians don't complain, and when I talk in Portuguese, the Americans or English speaking don't complain, and they know. That's the dynamic. I thought, actually at the beginning was going to

hurt us because it was gonna divide the two demographics. But really, now that people got the handle of it, obviously they're there for the content, but also they know eventually, if something that really matters, I'll translate either or if it's something that we're just talking, then I don't that that day you walked in, I said, hey, guys, Gregs here and Portuguese a Gregs from I Racing. Everybody knew you, but then we're doing some

races and then I would translate every once in a while. Some people we can't assume. But I mean a lot of people nowadays and in this day and age are actually thanking me because some of the Brazilians saying, I'm been learning more English watching our guys streams than anything else, so which is uh, but it's hard, you know, you gotta keep switching and in the pronunciation it's it's different the verbs, so it's but I mean it's being three

years and I think I've got a pretty good handle of it. Yeah, it's funny you mentioned switching. It's an interesting segue. So you got really have been involved with our our Porsche attack Howior Porsche Sports Supercup on I Racing.

You've been racing in the Porsche All Stars race for a couple of years now, but now you've recently ventured you have not only a Porsche team, but you have an e NASCAR team, right, And you and I were doing some pickup cup races the other night to get you up to speed on the NASCAR. Tell me about that. So obviously I've I've since I've got extremely evolved and and and you know, into some racing. I've felt that

actually it's it was a pretty good segue to give it back. I mean to own a real race team to try to put kids through the ladder. It's so expensive that I don't think I could help as many people. So I built this esports team. Members here. We have nineteen kids that we helped and they raced all across. But our top kid, I would call its Gustavo. He's twenty one, Gustavo Ario, he's almost eleven k I rady and he qualified for past and um he wanted to be a real race

car driver. Obviously, I'm still helping him throughout his career. But and then six months ago I got me I'm not going to name names because you know, but I will add AC in Europe at the Simum Expo. And I got a corner by some people that said, hey, I have this opportunity. You can own an an E NASCAR team on the Coca Cola Series on I Racing you you want it, right? So I said, wow, yes, So I took that. Obviously we all know, I mean how NASCAR is popular, how this series, How how good of a job

I Racing is doing with that. I mean with the involvement of all parties and Dio Junior and you know, all the sponsors that you have. So I went in and I remember talking to Otto. I said, al too, Look, I know nothing about your series. Obviously I understand about Nascar. I watched races and stuff. But and we created a team. I picked two kids from the qualifiers. I made sure that, you know, when I went higher, I didn't want anybody. No offense to the guys

they were already there, but I wanted two rookies. I want two kids that busterre you know, behind to make it on the qualification here, and I haven't. I have Tyler and I have Parker. Um. We got great partners. I talked to seven eleven and Micro Center. They jumped on board. I mean, they're sponsoring the car and I can help the kids with equipment simulators. Uh and and you know, it's been great. It's

a first year. So I mean it's funny because everybody expects everybody to win and you know, but the kids, I mean the first race and they told them we did pretty well. I mean last race we we struggled a bit. But it's their first year and I have no uh. I told them, guys, I have no expectations. My expectations. You guys have fun learned and we're gonna build this over the years. Same with Gustavo first year past. I mean, you know, people are looking at us and

think, who are these people? Who's this Brazilian team? You know, I mean all the you guys know that all the the Porsche Cup teams or the DT three, they're all from Europe. They're all huge, they have their own headquarters, they have there like you. That's none. That's not us. I mean my kids, I barely. I mean I'm the one that actually fund everything out of my own pocket. In the beginning, they

all, I all bought them the direct drives wheels. I mean, we have to provide the tools and obviously think about in America, it's easy, I can just tell micro Center to ship it. But I had to ship it to Brazil pay double the taxes because that's that's the way it works down there. But yeah, it's being fun. It's been nice to give it back to the community a bit. It's a lot cheaper than real racing,

so for me, I'm able to help more people. I think it's it's really cool that you have teams in Both of those are kind of our top two series within eye Racing, and they're so different from each other, right, I mean, as you know, I mean you've driven all kinds of stuff, so I'm not telling anything you don't know. But is it challenging to kind of manage two teams with totally different schedules and styles or is it just come natural because you can drive anything you want anyway, Like v it's

challenging to manage people the team. It's about people, right, It's about to keep this kid's heads in the game. I mean our late latest which is Greg actually we found out yesterday I think. But my latest addition to the team, we're making an academy and Sebastian Weldon. It's the lead of that Sebastian Weldon. For people that don't know the story, his dad,

Dan Weldon, was my teammate, was my best friend. Unfortunately lost his life on a race that I was in with him in Las Vegas in twenty eleven, so very emotional as well, but managing the kid keeping them straight, saying hey, now you're representing a team, it's my name, it's our sponsors, it's your name. One hiccup. As we know, we're

not going to get into details. People can lose their jobs for things that they do and say because everybody's watching, and everybody's watching you because you're racing for Tony Cannon on one of the biggest series that they have on esports. So now challenging of managing the team itself. It's I have obviously a couple of guys that helped me out. Otherwise I could do it. I'm so busy with everything else that I do. But I think, to me,

it's mentoring these kids to do the right thing. That's awesome and that's something that you can bring that a lot of these other team managers can't because they've only done sim racing. They don't know they're learning it and they're all getting better at it. I've seen that over the ten twelve years that we've been doing these high level of esports. But your expertise, it's a welcome edition. It's awesome, um so so thanks for being part of both of those

series. Super fun to watch and it's cool to have you as part of it. Sure, And you know, Greg mentioned I obviously, now that I own a NASCAR a NASCAR team, I bought a NASCAR wheel and a shifter and I'm going, you know, and the aster the obviously, this is week thirteen. We we're having a lot of fun doing a lot of the Daytona races, you know, trying to survive. But yeah, I mean I'm getting more involved. I wanted, you know, to be part

of it as well, obviously. I mean every time I do Novo race, either on I Racing in any car, obviously I do well because that's what I've done the most. And people always ask me, why don't you do more ovals on I Racing. You're only concentrating on GT three and so I'm trying to open up my and and that's what That's something that I've been doing every Monday is nowadays when my stream is ovals only, and we alternate

between you know, the'll our dash pickup and you know Nascar. I mean, we try anything there's a Novo I'm driving awesome, Say yeah, you're doing NIS as well. This year a little bit here and there. Yeah, yes, yes, so I the other day, you remember you texted me. I was I joined the race with actually Tim Claus and Brian's dad, which I actually race his sprint car in India, and U got wreck in the first lap because I think I'm a rookie and people just wrecked me.

But yeah, I'm that's awesome. Well, speaking of rookies and wrecking, I've watched a few of the Porsche All Star races. Um, those can be a little elbows out and bumping. You guys had a little bit of fun so far, a couple of races this year. What's it been like getting to know those streamers, the influencers? And uh, I mean I think it's great. I mean, obviously we know each other from streaming,

right we became friends. I mean, one thing that I said that I was going to complain to Pasca is you can't put Casey or in or in and now we're streaming. He's, you know, a NASCAR champion. He's pretty good. I mean, but you know what, but he's obviously really cool and good and he makes us better. So Greg, it's been a lot of fun. I mean, one that car is one of my favorite cars on I Racing. I've driven. I've driven a lot. I mean, I'm used to it. I mean it's it's always fun to compare

yourself to other streamers. And it's been you know, hacked at times. I mean last race, I didn't finish. No, I didn't do Long Beach because I was busy. But the race before the first race, I did really well. And then the second race you go, thank you make a couple of mistakes and and you look terrible and then you know it is what it is. But it's been a lot of fun. I think it's great what they're doing. We obviously create a big hypeoo race right before the

big guys, and then we all raid the channel. I think that's just actually adding you know, that's really smart from between Porsche and I Racing. We get to do something fun and we'll give it back to you guys, and then we just raised the lavel of you know, people they're watching and then they get into it. So it's it's a great system. I think other people should try to other series of I Racing should try to do the same. I think maybe you should host even more people at your house.

The next time. Right you had one house, you said you have nine sims, right you? Yeah, this is the deal. So this is a new project. We're probably gonna run out of time talking about it. But I bought a warehouse that It's been my dream for a long time, nothing related to seam racing. It wasn't to keep my I have my twenty thirteen pace car that I want, the five hundred, and it's my Corvette. I have every single trophy since I was eight years old. Everything that

I want, my mom kept it. I put it in a box and I shipped it here in America. I have every single driver suit that I've ever driven. So anyway, I wanted to place out my man cave in a way I have a man cave at home. So as the sim racing evolved, I said, well, the place is actually big enough. So I actually put six sims there and it's not one hundred percent complete yet.

But then from after May, which is my last my last five hundred as an official IndyCar driver, we're gonna I'm gonna host any twenty four hour race event that we do on I Racing, any twelve hour race we're gonna do. We're gonna do live from there, and every driver it's gonna drive there. We're gonna have camera total cameras you're gonna see. It's gonna be it's a cool project. I don't think i've seen a couple of the big teams

in you they have those those headquarters there. I haven't heard anybody that has this in America, so I might be claiming that I'm the first one, but you guys are welcome to come as well. That's amazing. That's really a level, raise a level. I mean, we had so much fun in the All Star Race with just two of you in the same room. So I can't wait for the dayton of twenty four next year when there's six of you in there. I'm looking at flights right now. I think there's

a direct Delta shuttle Tandy. That's just saying it from Boston. And you can stay in the house Drag you know you and Leslie, I mean you stay in the dog house, Lee, stay in the bedroom movie. I'm used to being in the dog house really perfectly. Okay, it's my natural habits at love you, honey. She can totally hear me upstairs, and

I'm I'm She's gonna ask about that for sure. Um, all right, well, let's let's talk about extreme last night you you were debuting all of our new content on the service's Week thirteen, A lot of new stuff coming out. What has stood out to you? Here is one of my favorite tracks, that's my first F one test. Was there a lot that we have that And then I even dragged Rubens Barry Kello to do a Cleo race with me and spot so fun car, you know, front wheel drive,

which is a completely different beast. But I have to say, if I have to pick my favorite one was the form Afford. That thing is a blast. We had a lot of fun. But I would say if I pick out of the content that you guys came out a great job. I mean I wasn't part of it. On the ABS breaks on the GT three, that's awesome. I mean now it's actually it makes a lot of a lot more sense. More to come on that. By the way, that's

just the stage one. More to her. But as far as content, let's talk about I don't want to get in tech to the technical of the formula. Ford is a blasting. I'll be We'll be finishing this and tonight I'm streaming, and that's probably I'm going to alternate between the pickup trucks and the and the Formala Fords. Awesome, that'll be good. I think Formula Ford is going to be my series. Did you race that car as you were working your lamp or was I not? I did, but not that

car, Kevin. In Brazil, we actually the Formula Fords. It was the same constant, but we had wings and actually so it was a little bit quicker. But um I I started it. I never raced. I my first ever test in the race car. It was that car, that exact car in Brazil, so I but then that series was smaller in Brazil and they had the older ones, so I jumped straight in. I never really did the festival or anything like that. Kevin TK has been racing so

long. When he started Formula vs were new. Wow, you guys used to be friends. We were just talking about how you know, enemies could be friends and now they can be enemies. Gonna ask me for a favor, Oh well you can say no, Just say no. Remember when you called me old no? Correct? Well, thanks for taking the time with us today, TK, We appreciate it. Uh looking forward to watching guys stream tonight. Maybe I'll jump in and let you return the favor and dump

me and pick up cup or something like that. But yeah, if you guys are are missing out, join a twitch dot tv check out tk stream. He's on all the time. It's always entertaining and uh he's also very very fast, very talented. Super happy to have involved in all of our our esports series. But yeah, good time, Thanks agin t k Thank you guys. All right, have a good moo. All right, that was a ton of fun, love sitting down with t k um. Yeah.

I ended up hanging out with him a little bit this weekend. I got to hang out in his stream and he wrecked me again, so that was nice. Yeah, good times, by all. I'm very excited about Kevin. You see some of his Twitter post on the warehouse that they're building. Oh my gosh, he's building a cool facility. But he can well he can do all kinds of stuff there, but esports is one of the things he's going to be doing there, so pretty cool. Yep. They

said, what do you say twenty rigs? I don't remember the number. There's a lot of rigs, a bunch of them, so yeah, a bunch of things to go drive. We'll have to go out to an excuse to go out there. Sounds like a legit business trip. Yeah we can, Tony. If you're listening, just just sign off on that. Yeah, Tony, we're talking about work expenses before you got here, Kevin, exactly. All right, let's move on here. We're going on to esports

E NASCAR, COO cool I Racing Series. This series where Tony Kanna is it now a team owners we just talked about Chris tell Us about it, yep. Coke series opened up a couple of races in February, headed back to Daytona as we always do for the season opener, and then headed to the Milwaukee Mile and really interesting start of the season. We had a first time winner at Daytona, Tucker Mentor. So, first of all, it's always fun when you have an unsponsored car slide across the finish line in first

no matter where it is. And then that car, Tucker Mentor, is he NASCAR's cold trickle now because you have a sponsor on the car. The week after wasn't It wasn't quite as bright and pink, but you know, I like it. Always a sponsor. Everybody likes a winner, right, Yeah, everybody likes a winner, but only a couple of drivers that have ever done that in series history, and the first one to ever do it was the first race in series history, obviously, and that was dale Er

and Hart Junior. And anytime you get to add your name to a list that has dale Er and Hart Junior on it, it's a good day. So Tucker Mentor gets the win in that first race, manages to outdue Casey Kerwin, the defending champion, go into the line a little bit. Then we get to Milwaukee, the first time we've ever done a race on a track that's not on the NASCAR Cup Series schedule for points, and it ends up being Michael Conti kicks off the retirement tour with win. In only the

second race. Nick Ottinger led a lot of the laps, Malik Ray moved him out of the way and got the lead, and then Conte uh gave it right back a little later, but good consolation prizes for both those guys. Outinger ends up second, Malik is now the points leader heading into Atlanta, So good night for all those guys. And now we head to Atlanta, where We've never run the superspeedway that we configured for them in the in the Coke Series yet, so that's going to be a fun watch. Yeah,

big speeds. UH, definitely don't want to have a snap on you because it's big hits for sure. I think that we need to get some hats made for the winners that look like the hats that have been going on in NASCAR. William Byron's hat, William Byron, I want one of those. I want a Coca Cola series hat that big being. Where to every marketing meeting to get me one? Christ talk to Otto, I see the king of the coach. Are you asking me for them? Kevin, You're

my boss, not the other way around. Well, I'm assigning this to you. How's that that makes more sense? There we go. Okay, I'll send you an Assana project, So get me a hat, Chris. If you right click at the top of those I did find, you can delete them or reject them. You can decline no, I'm not doing this, not gonna do not not doing this. I know I'm I'm the only person in this uh, on this podcast who is not an inbox zero person.

Negative my hold out. What's on my phone. No, no, I'm going to get anxiety here the currently ten thousand, four hundred and ninety seven unready emails on Gmail. Um, I let's see eleven thousand, eight hundred and eighty eight. You win, you win. I have twenty two just since we start recording this, and I it's freaking me out. It's Kevin Dot Bobbitt. That's two bees and two ts and bobb It actually three bes friend technically. Yeah, I've had three text messages since we've been on

this call. Greg Dot West at I Racing Dot. That's not even nice, not even nice. Oh so what's next next? So we're going Porsche tag where E Sports super Cup. Mister Bobbitt, Oh, it's been quite the season. Uh. Last race was amazing. It was at Long Beach, and Long Beach featured everything you could imagine it featured. It was. It was pretty cool and you meant something at the hairpin? Was there something at the hairpin? It was a little bit of car contact. But that's

okay racing. I mean, if you ever watch a real world race there there, I mean, it happens. It's part of the deal. That was fan selected. So we had a vote and the fans picked that track, they were probably like, we want carnage right, and they got it. So it was good, good race. You mentioned Casey Kerwin in the Koke Series and he has been participating in the All Star Race, which happens right before the Pass race. And when it was Long Beach if you don't

know Casey, Long Beach is his favorite track of all. He was super excited and yeah, he can drive that track pretty well, so it was really exciting. So a third race of the season, so we're almost a third of the way. Next race is March eighteenth, I think so, depending on two saturdays from now, depending on when this comes out. Um at Coda, so that'll be another interesting one. A little bit more open space around Coda than the Long Beach, more room to mess up, but

plenty of places to get off tracks, so there's that. Also turn one this you know, as tight as the hairpin basically at Long Beach. That's true, that's true. Yeah, but we've raced there before, so you know it should be fine should we could go wrong. I used to hate Coda, and it's slowly grown on me because we use it the test all the time. So once once you understand it, you know what it's all

about. It's really not bad, but I find it challenging because so many like through the guesses, I get lost like like which not as many visual references as some tracks for me anyway, But yeah, no, it can be difficult. We have a little bit of a crossover too with the with the Porsche Sports Supercup Series and our Skip Barber series with mister Pinto. Correct

yep, Diogo Pinto wins the Skip Barber Formula EE Racing Series title. We had five races with a bunch of top young drivers battling it out for the chance to go drive in the real world Skip Barber Formula Race Series and uh, you know, Diogo one of the big names. We had some other crossovers from other pro series. I know Matt Boos ran a couple of them. But we also had a legendary open wheel racing name who's progeny I believe participated. It's a beast. Oh did I ruin it? No, that's

I was. I wanted somebody else to job. I didn't know if you're teeing that up or not. I couldn't tell if you were like drawing a blank or if you if that was a tea up. Sorry, i feel like I'm playing NBA jam again. I'm just throwing up Valley hoops wearing the balcony now. Sebastids was cool to see obviously, the Delgo is absolutely just wheeling it out there. Pretty excited between him and then last year's winner Elvis.

You know, did very well in the in the Real World series this year, but it's cool to see how easily that the talented folks on the service are being able to move those skills into the real world. UM. Obviously have things like G four's to deal with, UM and you know, the threat of actually crashing the car that you don't just have that reset button.

But it's been pretty cool to see that there's been talent that's crossed over and and and it's doing pretty well both on the roadside and the oval side obviously. So yeah, pretty excited about that. And that was a really cool partnership with Skip Barber. You know, that's the second year we've done that. I don't see them going anywhere, so pretty cool, Chris. We also had the Racing have I Racing off Road Pro qualifying starting YEP.

The off Road Championship Series is coming back once again this summer. Really excited to be able to confirm that. So if you want to go out for it, we are. We are kind of doing qualifying an old school way, just like we did last year the Pro four Open Series at Class B. The top twelve drivers in points at the end of the season who aren't already qualified get invitations to go run the Pro Series and we'll be running that through from June through August. So it's a blast. It's always a fun

series. We had a lot of competitive races. Every event is that double feature format like it was last year, so you're essentially cramming a longer sports Championship schedule into a very tight space. You don't really have the opportunity to make too many mistakes. And the two guys who were coming down to the wire, Connor Berry and Keaton Swaying last year, both of them, I think both of them had fourteen top ten finishes minimum in sixteen scored races,

which is pretty unreal when you think about it. But it's always competitive, it's a blast, a lot of fun. More dirt road people get on get on in there, you'll have a fun time. Chris loves dirt road, Kevin, did you know that. I didn't. That's new, So maybe we should get them to work on some of those projects. Yeah, like I'd be up for that adjusting talk after this Yeah sure. Maybe new cars coming to the service. We'll talk about that at a later day and

time. What what moved on? Special events? We got a lot going on, you know, the first quarter of the year and I Racing. There's a ton of community events. It's the best part about I Racing, in my personal opinion, is because anybody can compete in almost all of our events. That's pretty that's pretty cool. So we've got curvintik Us back. They've kicked off this season. Those are twelve hour races. We do them four times a year. Uh, that are matched up with a twenty four

hour series over in Europe. So a lot of good GT racing multi class. First race was at Spa. We're gonna go to Manza in May. But yeah, get with your friends and go out and race. It is an absolute ball of fun. If you don't believe me, just look at our social media from the weekend. So many clips, all the the car painters doing one off liveries for the event. It's one of the best series that we have on the service, so plenty of time to prep for it.

Uh. Then also speaking of other great series with a great partner, BMW is Uh, that's Game sim Cup. I just doubled year allowed because we run the series three years now and every year that every year it's changed. It's don't have much. Yeah. Well, I was like, is that a typo and the bullets? But no, Chris, Chris is on it. That was miss nake n ears. I don't know why I didn't just trust you, Chris. I apologize. You can't get past the fact

that I didn't put actual bullets. There's not bullets. If there's not Mario, well super Mario bullets next time. Actually, that would be funny. What is the big bullet guy in Mario? Oh you know I'm talking talking about I know what you're talking about, but I don't I'll google it anyway. So BMW M SIM Cup back at Seabring this week. So those are two our team races, So go find a friend. You do have to have a driver change, so it's not really a test of endurance. It's

just a cool team event. We have an I Racing is featuring the BMW M Hybrid V eight also knows the the GTP car the races, and M so pretty excited about that. It also has the BMW uh IM four GT three as the other. Got them both, got them both. Good job And that wasn't even on the cheech. I was just off the top of my head. I nailed it. I'm the best bullet Bill by the way, bullet Bill, bullet I need. I need to find a guy in one of the leagues I race in named Bill so I can change his nickname

to that. I like a little alliteration. Yes, just saying. And then next week we've got to the Sebring twelve hour. Also obviously obviously at Seabring, the real world event is this weekend, and we followed up. This is the one we usually run beforehand, but we run after because build week was in the way. But yeah, and that will feature the GTP class of the aforementioned BMW in Hybrid V eight. We have the LMP two class with a Lara P two seventeen LMP two and then a myriad of GTP

slash GT three cars. There's six of those in there that I'm not gonna go list off. You know what, they are. We'll have bop out by the end of the week for the GTP or for the GTD class. So yeah, it should be a good time. Nice. This is the vocabulary word edition of the podcast. Kevin raised his hand. He did raise his hands. Oh ahead, Chris, you can finish the vocabulary thing. Huh progeny, serendipitous. Oh you're right, yeah, all words I can't

spell. This is educational podcast. Can we change one of our tags? I'll try it and see what happened. Okay, yes, put us under educational place. Thank you. I just wanted to give a final shout out to a great partner because I'm wearing a Trading Paint shirt, which is probably I think there's a crumb on there at cheeto from lunch. Anyway, that's not what I wanted to deal the shout out for. It's too good. I'm like crying. The shout out was. They make the nicest T shirts

ever. They're super soft. So thank you Trading Paints sending us a box of goodies. I may have kept almost all of them from myself. Yeah, Steve Lavender, not only does he make a cool piece of software. Oh yeah, that's cool too, but yeah, I forgot about that. The shirts are awesome. It makes great, great shirts, and he also makes good candles. My candle exchange partner. I didn't realize he was like your pen pal on the candle. Yeah, we exchanged. We did in

this year. I had no idea last year. A Christmas week ex change candles. M good times. I know what sense, I have nothing to add to that. Don he sent me something like Christmas tree. I think I did something that was like like autumn Ember, was like a bonfire kind of thing. Yeah, so you exchange pleasant candles with him and you give me Hito chocolate pies. I came to your Christmas party with a very nice gift to fire. Oh that's true. That was pretty nice. Yeah yeah,

all right, never mind, yeah exactly. And on that note, thanks for listening this edition of the IRA sing Dash. I don't forget it's a rate review and subscribe Apple Podcast, Spotify and anywhere else. Chris puts this thing for Kevin, Bobba and Chris Leierony. I'm Greg West and we'll just be sitting here making fun. Kevin, see you

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