Episode 61: Special Events and Special Guest Steve Luvender

This week and the I Racing Downship, we recapped some of the most fun special events and simmers look at the start of the season for two of our biggest d sports series and welcome special guest Steve Luvender to talk about fifteen years of trading bos all this and more, Strappy.

What Mores and down Shift. I'm your host, Greg West, I'm back of the boys, Kevin, Bobba and Chris Leoni. We've got a great.

Show, a great day. Oh, I'm so excited.

Episode sixty something.

That's awesome that we're going to have a great show.

I'm going to have a great show because Kevin's had a whole pot of coffee and a red bull.

Yeah, most of a red bull. There's a little left.

Yeah, you and your We're not going to get into your red bull.

I'm just enjoying our red bull. How about that. We'll leave it at that.

Kevin has a lot a red Bull. There's more red bull than you can buy. Even that it's weird anyway.

Anyway, I'm highly caffeinated today and I'm ready to go spunky.

Would you say spunky, Chris?

I would not use that word in any context. Greg, what have we been up to Chris Well. We boycotted the Super Bowl. Emily and I had a nice steakhouse. So uh had a great meal. Had a great meal Sunday night at uh gibb It Hill, a few downs down.

I've been there. It's a that's a great place.

Yeah, taking her back for the anniversary and a couple of week you.

Yeah, did you get a raise or something?

Yeah, I'm gonna. I could only go there once a year. You're going twice.

Hey, it's a second mortgage, Yeah, exactly, it's the it's the whole second mortgage sold the rats. Yeah, yeah, of course would I give for those ten dollars?

I don't know what the rats? Yeah, usually people pay to get for somebody to get there.

Yeah, everything else is more expensive nowadays. I'm sure rats are you.

Know it's not more expensive these days? Hi racing?

That is well said.

You know what, in a world where inflation is exploded and we get a lot of crap about our pricing, we have not raised prices one cent. I'm pretty proud of that.

It's pretty good.

I was not in the outline.

That was not in the out.

But yeah, that's something that I want to wait. We have not raised prices one cent?

Wait, do you mean to tell me that we've missed Turned one of the show? When does that happen? When have we ever hit Turned one of the shows? I told you where the spect me out of podcasts?

The thing I saw?

There's one exits an off track? Is that? What this is?

This is a four x Yeah? Have you listened to the show before? Was I watched that? I got it? I saw just perusing Twitter a little while ago, and it was a DTM and they ran the tight turn one, not not the finger quotes easy turned one, but the full like twenty mile an hour ninety left.

Yeah, I wouldn't even send people there? And yes too with that.

Yeah, it was really good because the reason we changed the layoup Anyway, Kevin, what have you been out?

Gosh? Well, what I've enjoying the winter? When skiing, getting out there, some snowshoeing, you know. Wow, I'm you know, trying to enjoy make the best of winter, you know.

Okay, but how much do you enjoy it? Do you still snow blow or are you a shovel person?

I have a snowblower?

Okay, yeah, okay, Kevin's full memory, He's he's got a snowblower, and then he got a new lawnmower.

Got a riding tractor.

I mean, yeah, he still mows as long as though we got like what a foot of snow on there.

It does have a cup holder in it, you know that was there? You go for water for water, of course, of course, of course.

It's well, there's water in it.

No, it's a cup holder for red Bull.

Now, yeah, there you go.

Red Bull Mowing a lawn does not super appealing.

How about you? What have you been up to?

Oh, I've been doing some I racing. I've been doing a little Ira sing race in the M two series. Nice sick fan.

Nice.

IM gonna do another series, and we're gonna talk about here in a little while. I was down in Florida a few weeks ago. I went to the PJ show. Nice. That was fun, except it was cold in Florida, which was defeating the purpose wear a heavy coat.

I was in Taytona a few weeks ago as well. Yeah, there was this big race that I went to and long, it was long, but everybody said it was cold and it was like sixty and I was like, that wasn't sixty When I was. It was minus two when I left New Hampshire, so sixty. I was like, this is pretty nice, but locals thought I was pretty cold.

So no. I was in Charlotte for a couple of days and we got snowed a couple of days I was there. We're brought it with me. Yeah, bad luck. We're bad at warm weather. Sorry, but great show, Kevin, We have a great show.

We have a guest. We do have a we haven't had a guest in a while, but we have a guest.

Are we not going to tease him or he'll probably be in the title anyway.

Probably be in the title. But I'm going to say it right now, but you show my thunder.

Oh sorry, okay.

Steve Luvendernder not Lavender, No no, no, no no, Founder of Trading Paints. Fifteen years strong, over four hundred thousand members.

It's a pretty cool service, Steve.

They make the best T shirts.

They do, and we're going to talk about that. You will talk about Trading Paints, what they do, how they got started, how they've grown.

How Kevin hasn't given me the free code that Steve sent him for me to get my second Trading Paint T shirt because the best T shirt on the face of the planet.

We can talk about that.

They're like the softest T shirts.

Did I mention that I'm wearing one and it's super comfortable.

And I mentioned I don't like you very much.

You mentioned that twice already today, but.

I'm sure we'll get to three. But besides our special guests that we haven't had in a while, we're going to talk about special events. We had this really big one, the biggest one in the history of sim racing, uh not too long ago. We did some charity work with Dale Junior's Foundation and some really goofy penalties that kept me and Alexander's busy all.

Night hitting buttons and kept my team in pitt Lane.

Gosh, it wasn't just your nim. We'll get into that. We got some more special events coming up we're gonna talk about. We're gonna announce all of our year long series on this show. We got some really some.

New stuff, stuff popular. We like new stuff we do like we do, yeah, especially new T shirts from trading things.

Give me the code. We're gonna talk about es sports. Last night, Ean Ascar Coo Coo E Racing Series Ding kicked off at Daytona. We have the Porscha Tag, Horry Es Sports Super Cup, ding World of Outlaws Pro Series because Chris didn't write the whole name, and we're gonna talk about MC sports Global Championship where Kevin's going.

To Okay, sounds like a plan.

That's our outline, which is is I think an a p a well formatted.

But if we're going to talk about formats, it seems like every time we get one of these from Chris, which, by the way, thank you, but they are always in a different format.

Yeah.

The inconsistency is that we talk about now.

I almost kind of like it.

It's even Sean Shaker nod in his head. It was like, I'm going to Sean.

I don't think Sean has a hot mic today.

Oh I have, Oh Sean, Sean, I'm.

Here to defend it. And he's probably punchy because he was here late last night.

He was. But we have monitors in both ears for the first time. So I'm very happy about it.

So nice work today, Thank you.

Let's get into it. Special Events Daytona twenty four, biggest special event in I racing history, twenty three thousand over twenty three thousand total drivers super excited about that. What's what's Chris Other's debut for about five different cars in this event?

Yeah, this was the Yeah, this was the first Daytona twenty four for first of all, the Ferrari four ninety nine P first.

One for the hypercar.

Yep, yes, first one for that, but then the the Acura, the Corvette, the Mustang and the seven twenty s McLaren. It was the first Daytona twenty four.

For all he's been paying attention.

Yeah, well he didn't say the complete names of the cars as he was. Now that's what I say.

No, no, no, I said shorthand. But still, hey, I had to do something. Well, you guys were interviewing.

Thinks has a different outline because none of that, none of that.

I didn't even read. That was that's under Just to give me section two a I number two.

Just to give you all a little glimpse into how the sausages made. We do the interview first and hell them, that's when I do my notes five minutes beforehand.

So it makes him look smarter than us because he knows more about what we're about to talking.

Hard to look smarter. No, that's that's tea in that one. I mean, Sean's got the brands in the room, He's the one that has the pots.

Back to the Daytona twenty four, what did we have sixteen different.

Cars, sixteen different vehicles in him?

Now?

I remember when I got laughed out of the room and I asked for seven.

Yeah. Yeah, we've come a long way.

We've come a long way.

It's pretty cool.

So soup, Yeah, amazing, great race, some big names racing in it, and uh yeah went off without a hitch too, which is always super exciting. You knocked up with the race.

It was good, It was good, it was fantastic. You knocked on wood. That's just a habit.

Oh okay, I mean yeah, that's fair enough.

Isn't wood?

Is it?

That's like that's like particle board, It's like would anyway, moving on to the show is nominally about iRacing.

Phenomenal.

Oh.

We also had a kind of spur of the moment laid edition special event the Dale Junior Driven to give four hundred, which was goofy to say.

The lead's super fun, super honored to be a part of it. To raise a lot of money for a lot of.

Money over seventy thousand dollars d foundation.

That was really cool.

And Kevin, you participated with the now so mini stocks at Iowa four hundred laps. For those of you that maybe not are familiar with the oval stuff mini stock, little car, slow car, Yes, Iowa typically little track, but since little car are on it like a super speed it was a super speedway. It was. It was. It was a fairly approachable combination. Sure it was not stressful other than the you know, massive amount of crashes. But

And that's where the stress came in for you.

Just hitting buttons. But for a hundred bucks you could black flag somebody, make him come and do a drive was a drive through stopping go for you?

Drive to drive through?

Yeah you were, You did more than a few of them, Yes.

Drive through. Yeah, I got familiar with Pitt Lane. It was not as bad as Nim was my teammates.

Yeah, yeah, like my I still think the funniest thing Max for staff and penalizing Nim talking about flipping the script there.

Yeah, that was.

That was more than mildly entertaining.

But we had a great team, so it was me. Yeah, you had entertaining. It was Nim Uh and Casey Crowen.

So it was a case.

We nominated as team captain because we said you can drive, so you figure this out. And he was helping with strategy and strategy they're talking about like how long we should run each ten and then it was like, well, how many times is Nim going to go through? This is going to screw up your fuel calculations. So we just kind of went with it. But it was so much fun. Uh, Steve and I raced here in the office. You were here, both you guys were here.

Yeah, I popped him.

You were hanging out half Chris and and Greg. You were given penalties and coordinating with the Dale Junior Foundation and doing all that. But it was super fun to do it all in the office. Uh, it was just a fun experience.

It was fun.

We had pizza, which I needed.

Something to do, so I was your Coca Cola runner.

Yeah, Chris got me a coke and even got me pizza.

The broadcast guys were working that night too.

Yeah.

Yeah, sound guy Sean was here doing I was on the board, was on the board. I was a lot of fun. So it was fun.

It was.

It was.

You know, for me, one of the really fun things was seeing some members we have that haven't been on the service for a while. They came back from the past just for this event. Came several ogs in the field.

Taylor Junior obviously racing TJ was was in there racing CJ Majors, a bunch of Cup drivers I can't even count. I mean there was there was a bunch of those.

Yeah.

At some point Kelly Earnhardt got my number and started instead of using a middle person to to uh to hand out penalty, she just started texting me directly. She's like, I'm good for it.

Okay.

I was like, man, my life has changed so much. It was a good time. But yeah, great, great event. That one will be back in some capacity. Yeah, that was. That was a ton of fun fan favorite. We got a lot coming up this week in Daytona five hundred, which actually I think first race for Daytona five hundred and the n I S Series is tonight.

Nice are you racing in it?

No? Okay, now that's five hundred a lot I'm gonna race in a series. Were gonna talk about a little bit though, okay. So and then we had Bathroost twelve hour coming up here in a couple of weeks GT three's at Panorama. What could possibly go wrong? This is the event that everybody, you know, the bop balance and performances, talked about all the time in GT three's and I just think it's hilarious. For this event. Every car is going to be dinged up, every car is going to

Of the year.

Yep, just keep it on the track.

Easier said than done. Did you watch the real one? There are some big hits. Yeah, some big hits. The Mercedes. Yeah, I forget the driver's name.

It was a big Wreckord Wow, big wreck.

Yep, no fun there. They were trying out the damage model, that's for sure. But yeah, So lots going on in special events land pivoting over now. This is a section two bulletpoint B Kevin, Oh, that's me, that's you.

NASCAR twenty five. NASCAR twenty five. So that's the console game we're working on. We've talked about it before. Not the only one, not the only one, but it's the NASCAR console game we're working on. Right. So latest update is we've announced that there will be four series in it ARCA all the way up to Cup. So it's a first time in a game that you can really do that full NASCAR career, just like many of the heroes that we watch on Sundays have started in ARCA and work their way up.

So to Cletas yep cles getting started in ARCA, he's got to make it all the way. He's starting his career exactly.

So that's exciting. We're starting to put some more information out because people have been asking, and I would expect that in the very near future there'll be more information coming. So I would stay tuned to our social channels to see what we talk about.

You're walking that line really because I'm like, I know the things that you're.

Like almost, so just pay attention.

This is like a huge edition of Ina something.

So anyway, lots of cool stuff. We also have a team of people going down to the Daytona five hundred, not just to watch the race, but to meet with teams drivers, get more people involved in the game.

So get out of the cold.

Get out of the cold. Although I heard it's going to rain on Sunday at Daytona.

Let's hope not. Yeah, that would suck.

Suck. Yeah, But anyway, So, lots going on with NASCAR twenty five. More to come in terms of announcements very soon, and excited to continue to develop that game for a fall launch. That's what.

More info hashtag soon, hashtag soon, hashtags soon. All right, Moving on now. Section two C I'm gonna, I'm gonna. I'm gonna bring you in Chris, We're gonna talk about it is a year long series announcement time mid I Racing. For those of you that might be new to the service. Not only do we have twelve week series, but we have some series that progress throughout the year, some of

Yes, I could do that.

That would be great. But yeah. Nurber Ringing Durance Championship are the I Racing kind of parallel to yell in nine races at the Nurburgring, mostly four hour races, one six hour race. Uh, sixteen different cars this year.

Awesome.

Yeah, if you're if you're that, that's a that's a whole thing happened in there is a thing. Yeah, so very excited about that. That has become a massively popular series. Over one thousand entries per race.

That's pretty solid.

And yeah, with sixteen different bakes, it's a it's a lot of diversity of car selection on the track, a lot of fun M two BMWM two coming to that series.

That'll be the the.

Token free car. Yeah, the Craventic. The twelve hour series, the series that started kind of as nothing is just that, hey let's try this, and now it's a fan favorite. I think you're four of that, so it'll be it expands from four twelve hour races last year, so we're adding a fifth race and the last race of the year will be a twenty four hour race. I did Barcelona because they run a twenty four hour race at Barcelona.

So what are we running in I Racing.

We're gonna go GT threes Porsche Cup, Okay, in GT fours.

I like it.

It's a cool like it. We don't do that anywhere else.

It's a good mix.

Yeah, it'll be a good time. So pretty excited about that. That kicks off. I think in April. Uh, the I Racing Indy Car Series is back. That's when it starts in like three weeks. I probably should put a form post up about that. Probably format as last year kicks off at Seabring.

Probably should build the schedule too.

That's done, Okay, Larry's already done the artwork. Travis has done the heavy lifting. The perfect They've done it. They're very well organized. I am the weak link in the chain on this. I think I'm gonna run that one. I've been actually practicing a little bit.

That's just didn't you weren't you an eedy car guy before you started on I Racing?

Yeah? I like single seaters. It's kind of my thing. I think anything that looks like a hot wheel or matchbox car, that's that's what a race car should be like in my mind. So yeah, pretty excited about that. I g B T the I Rasing Grand Prix Tour, which loosely mimics the real world Formula One schedule that is back this year as well. And then we have some new ones. Chris, I'll go first, because I only have one.

Yeah, yeah, did you mentioned and I s did we mention that?

I mean that, Well we have you know, I asked we talked about that or exist start.

Talking about Yeah, we said, by the Daytona five. But that's part of a big but it's part of a bigger series.

Yeah, n I s the NASCAR I Racing Series, which kicks off tonight. We alluded to heavily. That follows the real world schedule. That that that that starts tonight this.

Week and runs until October whenever. The yeah, real series November November.

Yeah, NASCAR series got longer, gotcha. So yeah, very very exciting.

So under the new one sorry new ones, Yes.

All right, this will this one will appeal to tens of I Racers'll be there'll be probably few hundred people in each. We're gonna do the Vintage Grand Prix Tour. Vintage Vintage Grand Prix Tour using the Lotus seventy nine, a very similar schedule to the seventy eight F one series. All right, seventy eight F one calendar, a couple of editions in there, and it loosely follows. So pretty excited about that, and then the rest Chris has to talk about. Yep.

These are all four short oval series. There are two dirt ones and two paved ones. So the paved ones feature the super Late Model and the Tour Modified, and those are running about twenty races each. They both started at New Smyrna within the past couple of weeks and they'll wrap up around Thanksgiving Myrtle Beach for the modified, five flags for the super Late Model.

Gee, you I wonder why no idea? In fact, this the Winter Derby, not the Snowball. The Winter Derby is actually housed within that series.

For this season, which is a very cool development.

Yeah, very cool, fun fact. Yeah, I think I'm right. I could be wrong.

Something new everything.

Well, now that you've said it, I mean you got you have ten months to figure it out.

Graik Tyler, Travis, Hey, if we're not doing it, we are now. We're doing it now.

And as for the dirt folks, they started a little earlier, both at Vlusia. The super Late model and the four ten sprint car each with their own nearly forty races in each of those. So if you're a if you're a big dirt guy, you got plenty of racing to do over the course of this year until you wrap up in early November the dirt Track at Charlotte, just like the real World of out Laws World Finals.

Fancy. Yeah, this is the cool stuff I really like that we do here in I Racing. We've been I Racing over the last couple of years has find ways to get more people involved in these shorter format races and maybe a little bit more casual experience. I've been accused us on several occasions of ruining I Racing with these shorter sprint race format races. But this is the kind of stuff that I actually think is really cool. Yeah, because this is the stuff that we can do that

Those are great additions. So I think that, like you said, members will be excited because it really hits all the different markets, different groups of races that we have.

I can tell how excited you are right now, very h take a red bull, do it all right?

Moving on?

All right, we got a great interview, as we alluded to earlier, Steve Luvinder from Trading Paints celebrating their fifteenth anniversary. They're running in parallel with I Racing. If you see pretty paints on your service, you're probably running in the background and may not even know it. So, without further ado, mister Steve livin here. He's been on here exactly one time as of today. The most famous person that you probably don't know their name in I Racing because pretty

Welcome probably, oh thanks everybody.

To be here. It's quite an introduction. Yeah, I like to build you up and then we just all crumble off.

So don't disappoint this better be a good interview because you know, people are expecting well, I'm sure you will disappoint perfect.

Oh so trading paints you started, but fifteen years ago, big anniversary for you guys, right.

Yeah, we just celebrated our fifteenth anniversary. We launched in January twenty ten. So it's a different time online, different time on I racing back then. So excited to be here fifteen years later, with much different kind of direction than we set out with the media initially, where it was just kind of you know, you upload your paint

Nice. Back then you only had to support about a dozen cars, I think or something, and now it's more, well more than that.

So yeah, it's funny because during special events, Steve and I actually exchange a text message that just says good luck or something to the to the to that effect, because you know, servers and whatnot. But Steve, you text me during the days on the twenty four was it nineteen thousand Trading Paints members out of twenty three thousand or twenty three thousand drivers? You had nineteen thousand accounts online at once.

That's when we texted. We ended up getting up to twenty three thousand. So definitely shout out to you guys on the I Racing side. We're putting on such a successful event. We're just glad our servers didn't go down to.

Right exactly.

But no, it was a great event and it's really cool to see this that they ton of twenty four and become what it is in I Racing, just this premiere feature event, the biggest event in some in racing, it really is. So it's nice to exchange those texts to good luck and good luck and godspeed.

We've had some good ones, we've had some that were more like, hey, we're with you at.

Different times too. I'll have to say though, but your service Trading Paints really helps enhance that event, right, So it wouldn't be as big as it is without what you guys do. So it's super cool that you guys are involved. You know, you're involved in the background, like people don't necessarily think about it like they set up their Trading Paints account and then just do stuff right, and then they get into a race, and everybody's card looks cool.

Right, But that's like, isn't it the biggest compliment you can give a service like Trading Paints. You turn it on, then you forget about it because it just works like that is the biggest compliment I think you can give to a piece of software.

That's our goal, at least we want to. We haven't historically been super loud and in your face about things, so I'm glad that our kind of role has been to quietly be there and let these people's let's let.

The rasearch do the speaking.

So it's kind of established our mission statement actually as part of our fifteenth anniversary, and it's to unleash the creativity and personality of SIM racers everywhere. So our job basically is to be that platform. We're not the ones being creative, We're the ones allowing everybody else, all the artists and designers and racers to express themselves. So I'm really proud that we have that role and just to be a part of the IRIS and community that way.

That's super cool. I noticed that this year you have kind of up your game on social and stuff. You've been putting more stuff out on Instagram and elsewhere, and that's fun because the stuff you guys deal with is perfect for social right. Awesome paints, awesome shots, so super cool to see that everybody should follow you guys if they're not. So it's kind of wild.

We launched the same year as Instagram launched in twenty ten, so it was kind of wild that we didn't have any sort of present so welcome to twenty Instagram until this past year.

So you're responsible for the growth of Instagram, is where I'm hearing.

That's exactly it.

Yeah, responsible for all good things.

Yes obviously, And I mean your guys is in house paint shop that you know you kind of alluded to earlier but really glossed over for those of that have not had the opportunity or to go in there and try it. You can really create some amazing paints without any external tools like Photoshop or anything like that. It's kind of a one stop shop. And there's some great sponsors in your garage. Steve. I have to admit I'm I'm a huge fan of some of the sponsors you can put on your car.

Yeah, we do have some fun ones in team Builder. Not everybody wants to put a a real company logo or go out and try to find sponsorship to put them their hiercing paint schemes. So we loaded up Paint Builder with some fictional brands. A lot of the things are either you know, made up terms you hear in the iras and community. Something like wall glue comes to mind, you know, the kind of phenomenon where you get stuck in the wall and stick in the wall glue. That's

Just some irony right there that you're not much of a paint builder, but you are the king of.

You are the king but let's go back. Let's throw back fifteen years a guest, since we're kind of celebrating your anniversary here. You know, what was the impetus?

What?

What was that moment They're like, hey, I what if we did this? I think we could do this, like talk us through the genesis of trading paints.

Yeah, so back in late two thousand and nine. We launched in twenty ten. So late two thousand and nine on the old old I Racing forums. Of all people, they learn our junior posted the fact that I Racing was going to be adding custom paint schemes support in the following build, which would have been January twenty ten. He kind of had this idea of, like, I Racing's not going to host these third party paints and try

It was like.

I want to do this.

I love paint schemes, I like websites.

You know.

It was just kind of a.

At the time I had a.

That's called racing two thousand and three seasons still had quite a big following. So I had a website in that community for exchanging setups. And I have always been more of a pain scheme person that I've been a going fast speaking setups kind of person, so feel that I mean, it was just kind of like, Okay, we need.

To make this happen.

So I went to.

Sean Brandt, who at the time was running a it's called it was called Race Points Manager, just like a league management software kind of thing, and I was like, hey, can you help me build this. Here's my design, here's my idea based on what Dale Junior said. So he agreed to it and kind of took a couple of weeks and we worked together and kind of rolled out V one in January twenty ten. It was super basic.

Now it's absolutely exploded. I mean, did you ever think that this was going to become you know what it has become to that, I mean, in your wildest dreams.

Definitely not. We didn't even have a showroom when we launched. The showroom's kind of like the central piece of Trading Paints now because people can show off their skills there. They can go, you know, if you're not a designer kind of like me, you can go browse it and see what people have created and with things in racing with one click. So definitely wasn't the goal at first, and actually the showroom specifically was kind of built from necessity.

It was we had this issue where, you know, the only thing you could.

Upload the Trading Paints was your personal paint, and then anyone can download them and be exposed to view them. So we have a problem where people would, you know, say hey, that's a cool paint scheme. I'm going to do this and put it on my account. So we had this issue of people stealing paint schemes and some people were fine with it. Some were like that's cool, Like I think it's really cool that someone is racing

We thought this would go.

So I'm really proud of what we build it in the community that has always had our backs all along.

So it's it's been really wonderful.

Well it's Kevin Alluded, you know, you really is such a cornerstone of what I Racing has become, and it let it it brings the racing to life in a way that you know, that's not something that we could we could manage ourselves. And what I think a lot of people don't understand is, you know, Training Paints and I raising we are we are completely separate instities. Obviously, we have interest that align and we do work very

Uh.

But you, you guys, you compliment us in such a way. We talk about in I rasing a lot, how many people, how many members have memberships that don't race because they actually just paint and and sharing that with the community. You know, It's like instead of painting minis, which is obviously a hobby of its own, there are so many members that we have that are just they just want to just paint cars. And that's that's just such a cool thing and really cool thing that you've you've fostered.

You're right, I've paused the candle making.

Greg.

You sent me a candle. It was wonderful, And after that I kind of wound down my candle making. I can't I just couldn't get the ratio of wax descent and everything right. So I also spent a couple of days just making like wordy candles at a time, and it's like, Okay, now my house is full of candles.

What am I going to do with all them? That's a lot of work. I make one at a time.

That's hand crafted with love. There you go, well, yeah, but thanks uh Steve for there is one other thing we have to talk about is that you have a store where you sell Trading Paint skin and if people don't know, you make the best T shirts. Oh my gosh so and I'm wearing one right now, so thank you very much. It is the best T shirt ever. So if people don't have one, they should go to your store and buy one.

And if Kevin will ever send me the code that you so magnanimously sent us for I Racing staff, I will have two Trading Paints T shirt.

There you go, all right, I'll see, I'll see if I can do that.

Yeah. I wore my Trading Paints T shirt yesterday. It was quite good and I was very happy about it.

Nice. So keep up the good work that's cloth on Trading Paints and your T shirts.

Thank you.

For whatever reason, I'm super particular when it comes to T shirts. I've had some shirts where they have like really cool designs and prints on them, but like it's like the itsiest, foxiest shirt you've ever seen. So for the trading paint shirts, I was like, if we're going to do this, we're going to do it right. So that's the highest compliment you could give.

No, there, I have multiple people that think have gone to Kevin for our company shirts like just get whoever an they're the past. So yeah, nice, nice job there. I'm picking a vend Thanks for taking the time with us today. I appreciate it, and uh yeah, looking forward to the next fifteen years because yeah, if you're around fifteen more years, it's it's probably good for my career as well.

Yeah, well we can probably have you on before fifteen, before the thirtieth anniversary, we can have you on again.

Yeah, yeah, absolutely, friend of the show.

I have to wait for fifteen more years.

I'd be delighted whether it's fifteen years or senior than that.

But thank you very much.

All Right, thanksty, have a great day, and we'll get back to the show. All right, let's talk e sports. Last night, we kicked off the NASCAR Coco Cola I Racing Series Ding at Daytona Ding ding yep, Oh.

God, what can we say about this series now more than a decade and a half. Incredible prize pool more than half a million dollars. We got through the Daytona clash that was Parker White. Parker White almost swept dayton A. King this close, but you can't see.

They can't see your fingers when you say no, no, they can't.

But they could hear. They could hear close. Yeah, they could hear how close it was.

We've got a lot of new teams that have come back, but it was Steven Wilson shifting over to the returning folks Spier Motorsports taking that victory at Daytona. A couple of cars reckoned behind him, but very dramatic, finished, very cool race. A lot of new teams this year, a couple of returning teams. I might or might not know a little bit about one of those returning teams.

Jim Beaver.

Yeah he's back, He's yeah, I knew that well. Well, Jim is also selling T shirts.

But are they soft?

I believe so.

Do you have a code?

I feel like we need some samples to compare.

Yeah, all right, well I'm here for how about this?

We'll do that on a different show. I don't want to steal Steve's thunder because I got my medium No, I got my medium shirt in and Steve's a not.

As Chris through the size and the Yeah. For folks that don't know, Chris has absolutely transformed his body over like the last year, and he's in a medium T shirt. He walks in this morning. First thing, I was like, this shirt's a medium.

Hey, it's not tight.

I have to go absolute applause. It's really good. Done a good job of making some healthy choices.

I appreciate it. Yeah, and Greg, considering your athletic expertise, the fact that you've there, considering that you've been my hype guy over the past six months, I mean that makes me feel like I'm actually doing something, so I should probably should probably give my nutritionists a nice little bonus there. I didn't know it was your hype guy, but you're the one who comments on it the most. I mean, if you're recognizing it, I feel good. You've

I like it.

Yeah, it's gonna be it's gonna be a really cool schedule.

And seven thirty is countdown to green.

Seven thirty is countdown to green. Don't miss that countdown to green. Get a get prepared with all the storylines and everything going on, knee race, and then eight pm to tune in for the green flag.

Perfect.

But that's not all. But wait the more there's more. Kevin Portion, tag Hoyer, E Sports super Cup is back.

It's back. We're two races in already and some great racing. Next race is Saturday, so there's three in a row. It's been great racing already. This last week there was a segment I don't know a few laps to go the leaders side by side for an entire app. It's some of the best racing you can see in a broadcast.

Link in the description below, we can link to it.

But it's been fantastic. Uh. Sanchez is leading the points, so that's uh, that's pretty cool. There's some big names that came back.

That wasn't in the bullets. You knew that off the top of your head.

I sort of pay attention.

I'm proud of you. That's good.

But so Sanchez is leading the points, but he hasn't won any of the races yet.

Right.

Oh oh no, I'm not I'm not disagreeing. I'm just saying that that's a really tight series. You've got four different winners in the two sprints, in the.

Two features so far. Absolutely, it's the sort of thing that you know, you you you have a bad sprint race and you start in the back, and you might have a really bad weekend, you know. Uh, conversely, you know you can pick up a ton of points if you do well in both races. So I think you'll see a lot of flip flopping on who's leading or who's close to leading the championship throughout the seven week season.

Yeah, that's a new one for this series.

But wait, there's more World of out Laws Pro a series.

Chris yep Logan Rumsey takes the Championship ten thousand dollars prize went down to Vlusiah Speedway Park to get celebrated with the real world World of Outlaws season opener. Now, this was just a really interesting format this year because we switched between the four tens and the Super Late Models race after race. Yeah, yeah, exactly. So guys like

Okay, there's one more. There is one more, all right, more IMSA Esports Global Championship. Friends at good friends. We had a good call with him yesterday.

We did. Ems is a great partner. But their series wrapped up at the beginning of January. There was a four race season for them that started I think in November. Some really big name teams and drivers uh, two classes GTP and gt D. Williams z Sports took the championship in GTP and Redline in g t D. So no surprises there that the heavy hitters performed well. There are also some surprise guests in some of the races. Uh, really good competition. I'm sure that we're going to do

Curious curious what that's going to be.

I don't know, I don't know. I don't know. Maybe that's the next podcast we can talk about that, can we I don't know, it's our podcast. That is a really cryptic maybe a guest suggestion. Maybe we could get Max from guy Sean Max from I like that.

I bet he.

I bet he'd joined us. He's a personable guy. Yeah.

Oh man. He jumped on the call yesterday and Steve was not quite there yet. Steve jumps on the call and we're just talking. Steve was mortified for two seconds. It was great, fantastic. Really, remember I broke the pace car.

I do remember when he broke them pace car. We haven't been invited back, so no.

Oh, well, thanks for listening to this episode of The I Racing down Shift. Don't forget to rate, review, and subscribe on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and anywhere else. Chris is put this thing for Kevin Bobbitt, Chris Leoni, sound guys, Sean, and Cisco, who's out there. I think he was doing something helping out.

Yes, thank you.

Thanks, I'm Greg West and we'll see you on the tracks. Cisco gave me a thumbs up, so that's that's good.

Nice through the soundproof room.