This is, is off track.
Being in a bad mood is my, that's my job. I don't know that, I don't know that you can take that away from me because I certainly can't be the happy go lucky guy.
I think we just all be angry today.
Okay. sleeping too much, which is weird.
It's been, it is been a weekend. James
Is angry 'cause he is in Daytona. I'm not angry because I'm in Hawaii, so
Dude, you have, if you even tried to be angry about anything right now, I'll throttle you. .
The only thing I'm angry about is like, it's 8:00 AM here, so I don't love doing this, but like, it's okay. But
Like, feel like even on vacation, you're the kind of guy that gets up at <inaudible> six and goes for a bike ride anyway.
Well, God forbid I do that and talk about that on
.
You know what's odd about that? Mark never responded. So either.
Is that odd or is that very predictive?
So either he got called out and embarrassed, or he held true to his threat to never listen again. And either way, I don't
, we, we win either way.
Yeah. , Um, well let's start with the good. Let's just start with the guy. I just need someone to tell me something. Good. Alex, how awesome is Hawaii right now?
It's pretty amazing. I mean, have you, have you been, have you been to here?
I have, but I was a kid and it was a very long time ago, so, yeah.
Yeah. So Hawaii is everything that you would expect it to be. It's, uh, it's like sunny and 75 degrees with a slight coastal breeze, uh, that rolls in. Um, the food's amazing. People are amazing. It's just you, you're immediately relaxed when you get here. Um, the views kind of anywhere you are on the island are 10 outta 10. Um, some of the resorts are also 10 outta 10 in terms of like the experience that you have when you're there. Um, the first day because you're, you're jet lagged.
We, we did like the 3:00 AM wake up call and drove an hour and a half to the top of Holly Akala, uh, which is, um, a, well it was a volcano. It is now a dormant volcano and you kind of watch the sunrise, uh, which is kind of the traditional tourist photo you see of like the sun coming up as you're above the cloud layer. Uh, which is cool. Very weird to, you know, have it be 25 degrees on the top of the mountain when it's 75 degrees everywhere else, but elevation's a hell of a thing.
Um, we, uh, went to a luau, which was cool. Um, we, we tried to go to one that wasn't like a fancy resort. One more kind of like picnic tables and stuff and more of the traditional feel. Um, potluck style. The local vibe style. The local vibe, which is great. Um, we've obviously done some cool days. We are, we're recording this on Monday, but we're gonna go snorkeling. Um, we're gonna play some golf. Um, what else have we done? There's another activity that we've done as a group.
Um, but no, it's been, it's been amazing. Very happy and grateful to be here. And that about sums it up. Don't wanna leave in a couple, couple days.
Have you been like resort hopping or are you just in one place, but like going for like lunches at other places or whatever? Correct.
Yeah, yeah, yeah. Um, okay. Yeah. One other thing, one other thing that I did was, uh, so I rented a bike, um, when I got here. Yeah. And there's two rides that I'm doing. One i I already did. Um, and it's called the West Maui Loop. So the island's split into, well everywhere, split into west and East, but there's a, there's a specific west loop that goes around an entire mountain. It's the whole coastline and it's rated as one of the top 10 like cycling routes in the world.
Just from like, not difficulty, but just beauty and like Yeah, yeah. Road quality and, and that sort of thing. Yeah. And so I did that, uh, on one of the first mornings we got here. And it was, it was unbelievable. Like it was so cool just for three and a half hours basically to be staring at coastline. Right. And, you know, you're, you're kind of on these winding roads as you would imagine, like single lane roads and stuff. Not very busy on that side of the island.
And you're just riding along these cliffs and watching the waves come in and you're watching whales 'cause it's whale season. Whales are breaching and it's just like, you don't even realize that're like working out. You just start your jaws on the floor the entire time. So that was, that was pretty cool. That was pretty
Cool. That was, the pictures from that almost made me want to go cycling. Mm-hmm . Like that's probably the, a bike ride that I would do. Right. Just because of like, the sheer beauty of it.
A little different than cycling Westfield.
Yeah. Yeah, yeah. Or like on a Peloton.
Right, Yeah. Looking at an iPad with Swift on it. Yeah. Dumb not cool. Yeah.
Cool. Uh, less cool. Um, was it like a lot of elevation or was it, yeah, so it's like you're on the side of a mountain, so it kind,
But I wasn't sure. Interesting. So it was 4,000 feet total, but they came in like 200 feet increments because it was a lot of like tickers. So it was almost like an, an interval workout, which is pretty cool. Right. The only, the only bummer was like, I couldn't, it was damp that morning, so like the downhills you had to leave like a pretty big margin. So that wasn't as fun as it could have been. Also like, it doesn't need to be that fun because I don't need to try and break something on a bike
because people like to do that. So
It's happened. Yeah. And also like with that view, the goal isn't actually to go as fast as possible. Right. It's actually kind of nice to take an extra couple minutes . Exactly.
Exactly. And enjoy. So, um, very, very, very good. Uh, alright James, you are, you're back in a race car man. So can we talk about that first? Or we should talk about IndyCar Content Day? Because I think people wanna hear about all of the above.
Let's talk about IndyCar Content Day and then we can end with Daytona because it's coming up.
Okay. Order of operations. Got it. So yeah, IndyCar Content Day. Um, it was, I think, I think everyone had this idea of what it was going to be based on what we all saw with, uh, Joseph's commercial and what we've all been seeing with Fox and, and everything first of all. Uh,
So that, so so you genuinely, you went into it thinking it was going to be different just based on that stuff.
I thought, yes. I thought it was going to be different than NBC. I thought it was gonna be better what I walked into. I could have never fathomed. Right. Yeah. So essentially, you know, you get your schedule and it's the normal, like social media rooms, it's the normal local newsrooms. It's NTT Firestone Partner series stuff, like all that
Sort of stuff. Photo shoot, screen, screen social. Yeah, exactly.
And then there was this block on everyone's schedule, depending on the time, right. There was like three hours of just Fox hits and you're like, well, what on earth could we be doing for Fox? Like yeah, you're gonna do like the step and repeats and you're gonna have a video board in the background. You're gonna be doing these things, but like, how is this gonna take that amount of time?
What is a step and repeat?
And then you get there a step and repeat is, it's like
Backgrounds with logos and stuff for photos and things like that.
So when I, what I walked into was essentially a movie set with the magnitude of equipment, with the amount of people I heard from one of the, the Fox ladies that there was 60 people there, sorry, 40 people there that were Fox employees and they had another 60, there were independent contractors. So they had a hundred people here for two days of content capturing across 27 drive. Well, 30 drivers if you count some of the 500 guys. Right.
And there was I think five different studio setups, stage setups that involved drones being flown indoors. That involved some of the most, like when I've done a couple things on tv. So have you James spent some time out in LA and you know, like when directors and producers are like the real deal 'cause they've got that, like they're dressed the part, they have that sort of, they carry themselves a certain way. Every single person was that guy. Right?
Or girl, they, they were professionals in what they did. They know exactly what they were looking for. This is the same team that is gonna be doing all of the player stuff for the Super Bowl in two weeks. This is the same group that has done all of their highest level production for sporting events. They brought that to IndyCar. So this is just another example of like what they're doing. Um, so I, I was blown away by it.
It made content day for me, like pretty cool because it's hard to complain too much when you're getting to do these things that as an athlete is like, that's, that's what the big boys are doing. Right. And you get to kind of play in that sandbox a little bit. And that was, that was pretty awesome. Oh,
That's really encouraging to hear.
Yeah. It's, it's, it's one of those things, right? Like a lot of the, a lot of like the stage shoots that they had all the drivers do. Um, and, and they, they even did some stuff with Will Townsend and I, which was kind of funny. But those are all the things that you see, like, you know, bumpers going to commercial or when a driver gets introed and it's like, you see it on football and you see it on other sports where, you know, it's the athlete.
There's some cool background, there's smoke, there's strobe lights, all that stuff at the end of the day, right? Like if you are watching that and it's a simple background or a super elaborate background with a cool drone shot, is that gonna affect your like, level of fandom of, of the sport?
Not necessarily, but what, what Fox did there and, and what it shows to everybody involved is just the unbelievable commitment level they have to making this successful and having it, as you say, Alex on par with their Super Bowl productions and their Daytona 500 productions and you know, like everything else that they do big. Um, it was incredible to see, like, I'm gonna be honest with you, I had no idea. And you like what was coming? We were not in the loop on what the plans were for me today.
And Town said, and I walked in and we were like, wow. Oh, all right. It's a, it's a lot of people here. Hmm. And I, he said I was floored at how many people they had and like the level of equipment and all that stuff. So, uh, the, the commitment to making it cool
Was, and So I, um, I got invited to a dinner, um, after content day with a, with a couple of other drivers and, and, um, two of the main Fox guys, right? I think the main guy of Fox Sports. Um, and he was, he was sharing his, his vision for IndyCar, um, you know, grew up in Indiana area, um, grew up a fan of the sport and all that stuff. And, and his big thing is something that was so refreshing to hear, 'cause it's something we've been talking about on the show and off the show for years.
And he says he's spent more time than he cares to admit watching F1 races, watching NASCAR races, watching IndyCar races. And the biggest thing that he feels that IndyCar misses compared to everyone else is just the beauty of the show quality, right?
That's from graphics, that's from intros, outros, that's from, I mean, some of the track maintenance granted, but he himself as Fox, which is the TV partner, is putting pressure on Roger and IndyCar and promoters to be like, we need tracks to have a standard in, in terms of what they look like because it'll make the TV look better. And that's something that's important to us. So they, they're going down pass as a partner of this, that they have the same level of desire for this to succeed.
And they have the same level of belief that we all have, that the underlying product is the best in the world. It just hasn't been showcased properly for a multitude of reasons. Right? And so right. To have to have that like love for the sport, not just, this is a business transaction and we get the Indy 500 and whatever, right? The, the actual desire to create something and bring it back to the golden era of when this guy was watching IndyCar is, is really, really amazing. So yeah, man,
It's gonna be, it's gonna be good, man. It's, it's exciting. It's exciting. Like we've, we've been part of some, some big meetings talking about some of the ideas that they've got for the broadcast. And, and remember it's not just for the race broadcast either. Every session is on TV now, right? Like it's on either FS one or FS two. All the practices qualifying, obviously all the racers are gonna be on Fox Network.
We are, before you guys ask, 'cause I know there's a lot of people thinking this right now and have already reached out with this topic. If you don't have general cable and you don't just get Fox Network on your tv, how can you watch What's insane is I've, I've learned. 'cause I didn't really know either. There are so many ways there. Fox Sports is like tied into so many packages that you have no idea as part of, like, there's a very good chance you already have it and don't realize it.
So we're putting together a little like social campaign to kind of explain how to watch it. 'cause I guarantee you most people listening can already do it without having to spend a dollar more than you're already already spending.
Um, but that said, like I said, all of these things are gonna be on TV and we've got some really cool ideas cooking for how to make practice shows a little more engaging and entertaining for people at home because yeah, man, IndyCar practice is not always very exciting. That's, uh, that's cold hard facts, right? That's just the truth. So the group is really motivated. Uh, Will's come with some great ideas. Townson had some great ideas. Uh, we're, we're kind of putting them all together.
And I think what's so cool about the, the production team at Fox right now is they're willing to try anything. So we're gonna spend the first half of this season just kind of throwing stuff at the wall and seeing what sticks. And, um, if you guys have ideas, hey, hit up at Ask Off Track, let us know because it's literally like, it's a blank sheet of paper, man.
It's pretty exciting. Uh, we could kind of redefine Motorsport's broadcast in North America with, with some of the ideas that, uh, that are floating around. So it's cool, it's exciting to be a part of. And, uh, St. Pete on one hand can't come soon enough. On the other hand, I would like even more time to prepare and continue to develop these ideas and make it cool, but hey, look, have done. Stop.
So I have, I have a question. So you, you've been doing the TV broadcast thing for several years now, right? And I, and I think that, you know, in the beginning for you, it was just something that, it was, I don't wanna say easy, because your job, that job is very, very difficult.
But like, your understanding of the sport and the ins and outs of it is so deep that like, I feel like the research that you would have to do, or the preparation you have to do in the beginning was probably fairly limited until you realize like, okay, these are things I need to know and facts that I need to be able to get in and all this sort of thing.
Now that like everything is ramping up to like an extreme, do you feel like now there's probably a little bit more pressure on you as in your role to perform? Because like everyone needs to elevate their themselves a little bit?
Yeah. I mean, bigger audience, right? Yeah. So it's, it is the goal. And, and if you have a bigger audience, you know, you, uh, there's more people criticizing mm-hmm . So you do have to, you do have to do that. But also as the audience grows, and this is, this is one of the important things that's come up a lot in our meetings is as the audience gets bigger, a lot of that growth is gonna come from new fans. That's, that's the hope, right?
There's the million plus existing IndyCar fans that know the general, you know, abs and Cs of IndyCar. But we hope every week we're growing this fan base and getting new people to tune in, which means you're gonna have people, a lot of people hopefully this year watching in new car for the very first time, um, in some cases maybe motorsports for the very first time.
And so all of these things that are just like obvious, you know, part of our vernaculars, part of our daily, you know, conversations are brand new to these people. And so making sure that we explain certain things over and over and from a very basic level and not getting too inside baseball, you know, Townsend and I for sure can get lost in because we are both so into this, like, you know, involved in the sport and, and ingratiated in it.
We can sometimes go down pass where him and I are having a conversation that we would be having, you know, sitting at the bar, but Aunt Linda at home is not gonna have any idea what we're talking about, right? And so striking that balance has always been a, a tough part of the job. But again, as this audience grows and, and hopefully becomes newer and newer, it's gonna be an even more important part.
So that's just something we're stressing a lot, is focusing on the things that are, you know, really important kind of basics to cover and how do we cover them in a, in a, you know, way that is easily digestible for somebody new to the sport. Yep.
I mean, that makes a lot of sense and it's cool. I mean, obviously I'm sure you guys talked about it on last Tuesday's episode, but to have will come in, right? Like he's such a, a personality and, and is so passionate about all motorsports, but spec specifically IndyCar, um, it's really cool to see him kind of make that leap, right? Because this, it, I'm sure it wasn't an easy decision for him to, I mean, this is a job in a completely different country.
There's a lot of factors that go into that. He's leaving behind, you know, a pretty good gig, right? One that he has become like borderline famous for, right? And, and, and a very and important part of F1 TV and Formula and the Formula One paddock, right? So completely leave all that behind and kind of take a little bit of a chance. Also just goes to show like his understanding and vision for where the sport can go because of Fox. So, um, I'm excited man.
I think getting to sit down with you guys and, and, which was weird. I I will say of all the things Fox did correctly, the fact that we have all had our little sit down in a service hallway. Like what? Yeah. What happened there? Yeah.
Right. So the, the, the, the table. So yeah, we requested, look, traditionally, uh, on content day while we would attend, we would kind of just walk around. Like there was the rooms, you know, like when it was NBCN, BBC had their room and the drivers would come in for their interviews or there social clips or whatever, and you could kind of be there. We weren't really usually doing the interviews. We were just kind of there to observe to mm-hmm . Interact with people, kind of whatever, to
Judge Yeah.
To judge. But then you're sort of at the mercy of the flow of the day. And you might run into someone in the hallway, they might have 30 seconds, they might have 10 minutes, you never really know. And so it was requested that we had our own kind of station that drivers could be brought to, to have like a 10 minute window just to sit down and talk. Uh, the problem is really the very last minute ask. And as you saw, a lot of room was taken up with the lights and stages and small machines
And stuff. Yes. But were in a convention center. I feel like there would've been space for a table for four.
I don't disagree. I don't disagree. I was trying to, I was trying to cover whoever it was gave us that table Okay. And thought that was the place to do it. Mm. Okay. Um, but, you know, it wasn't, it was funny though 'cause like there were legitimately people I didn't even see because we just spent our whole time in that back hallway, and I thought people were kind of using that back hallway a little bit more than they evidently were. Mm-hmm. But, um, yeah, it was all right. Yeah, it was.
All right. Well, we can talk later.
I had, I had one thing I wanted to bring up because just to, not to jump back, but on the Will Buxton stuff, we got a lot of comments on, on YouTube, or not a lot, but a few comments on YouTube and a few on like Reddit and other places where it said, of course, will Buxton is saying that IndyCar's great. Now that's his job. And that's of course he's going to be towing the company line, which like, if you've listened to a while, we had Will on before it was his job.
The guy loves IndyCar and has Yeah. This isn't like a new thing that he's just like towing the company line, but also, also he's been a fan of in
Car he should Yeah. But upset.
Yeah. But the people who are just like, oh, it's not genuine, he doesn't really care about IndyCar, it's just a paycheck. It's like, well, you're wrong . Like you're, he's, he's been about this for a while.
Percent. All right. Mark simmer
.
I just wanted to I mean, yeah, yeah, yeah. No, I mean, he's, he's talked about it very openly for a long time. When you talked about On here years ago, , When, when NBC had the, uh, IndyCar and F1 rights at the same time he was working for NBC on the F1 stuff, he came to a couple IndyCar races and talked about how much he would've loved to work for the series and like work on the, on, on the broadcast. So, um, yeah, that's just blatantly not true. That's just somebody hating to hate.
Um, but no, it's, um, it's, it, it is huge, man. As, as, as you said, Alex, I mean, it's, he, he made his career in F1, largely geographically, right? It's, it's what made sense. But he's always had a passion for IndyCar. And I will say he's doing a tremendous amount of work and a tremendous amount of research to make sure that he is, you know, up to date and, uh, and knowledgeable about the history of the sport and, you know, what's going on in the recent future.
And the, sorry, the recent past, the distant past. He's, he's definitely, he's a student of the sport anyway. I mean, he writes books about motorsport, right? This is, this is kind of his jam. So, uh, he's super excited. I think he's gonna bring a, a very different kind of tone and vibe to the whole thing.
Which again, I think is maybe something that we need because we're up trying to appeal to a different audience now, a younger audience and not like old school, motor sports broadcast way of doing things might not be the best way to do it for the, the future generations. We will find out. But it is huge and we're very excited and he's very excited. So everybody should be very excited.
Speaking of exciting, Daytona. Daytona. Daytona. Yeah. Rain t it came true again.
Ringtone. Start from the beginning. Um, alright. How is it driving a race car again? What's the Italian like horse, that's what it is, right? Or bull. What's the Italian bull? Both like, does it sound as cool inside the car as it sounds outside the car? What's BOP? Like what's, what's going on? Yeah, yeah. Alright, Here's the skinny on Daytona. Um, so as you guys know, the faf thing came together late.
Uh, the car arrived at the shop brand new from the factory, I think December like 15th or 16th. Um, so we had less time to get it together than we did last year with the McLaren, which as you know,
Was, it seems, it seems impossible, but that's possible. It seems impossible
To have less time and still make it. But again, mad credit to, uh, to all the crew at faf. I mean, there were some days they were leaving the shop at 5:00 AM
Back at eight. Is it, is it all the same dudes? Like mostly a lot,
A lot of the same mechanics? Yeah, a lot of the same mechanics. Okay. Um, we definitely had a couple people that we lost in the shuffle. Yeah. But, um, a lot of the same guys you remember from last year, and again, marathon, like three hours of sleep back at the shop, just thrashing to get this thing together. And then an equal amount of credit has to go to Lamborghini and the support that the, uh, their, uh, customer racing program gives to the team because that thing showed up.
It fit together, it runs, it's easier to work on the guys really enjoy it. And, you know, we, we threw that thing together. Got it in time for a quick shakedown at a straight line on Monday, I think, and then, uh,
Like Monday before it was on track.
Yeah. And, and then, or maybe it was Tuesday and, uh, it's first, it's first on track session rain flawlessly and was P one. So I mean, credit to Lambo, they, they put together a hell of a product and they've got a great, a great support system that comes along with it. Okay. And
So, like, are you guys good? I I have not paid any attention.
No, you're in m You should not be paying any attention to the roar. Um, I, dude, it's the roar, you know. I know,
I know. But like, are you,
I think we're okay. Yeah. Okay. I think we're okay. The, so I, you know, my three teammates, uh, Cal Durelli, Elli, Jordan Pepper, um, all factory Lambo drivers, so these guys have tons of time in the car. They're like, yeah, balancing pretty good. They're working on little things, but we're in the ballpark. Okay. Our engineer's a guy that's been working on Lambos for a while. He knows the car, the drivers all know the car. Like I'm the most outsider of discovery, more
of an outsider the last year. And, uh,
Is, Is it easier to get in and out of asking for a friend?
You know what? I don't know if it's just, I got so used to getting in and out of the McLaren, but it's, I'll, I'll say this. It took me a lot less time to get to like a reasonable Right. Ingress and egress than McLaren. You didn't Say correct . It did not start when you, me, at a minute and a half from trying to get that driver change done. Got it. Yeah. So no, we're, we're, we're, we're by the four changes we were within, you know, we were at 20 seconds.
Okay. So like, we're there, um, it's, it's, it's different to drive. It does some things better, some things worse, but, um, but overall it's a, it's a very good car. It's a very, you know, it's, it doesn't do anything weird. It doesn't try to kill you. It's just a pretty good car. What's so wild though about IMSA 2025 is this whole torque sensor thing. And guys, I'm, I'm gonna get a little bit inside baseball here.
If you're not a big sports car fan, this might sound boring to you, but if you wanna just hear a ridiculous story then stick around. Okay. So we've talked a lot about BOP balance of performance. It's what happens in sports cars. It's how you can have Lambos racing, Mercedes racing, Lexuses racing, BMW, racing Fords, racing Ferraris, whatever. Right? You have to work on this formula that kind of keeps all the cars within a range of lap time, right? And of course, always looking for an advantage.
Any and every team would try to find ways around that BOP and try to like, find ways to have it bias them a little bit and have a bit of an advantage in sandbag it tests. And the series would try to look at your data and whatever. There's all sorts of tricks. Well, there's these things called torque sensors that came out for 2025. They were out last year in Europe and they essentially sit on the, the drive shaft of the car.
So the part that basically takes the power from the gearbox and puts it through the wheel to the, to the ground and you can't, you can't cheat it, right? Like it's, that's just a hard sensor. It's just telling you how much power is basically going to the wheels. And so nothing that you can do sort of turning your own power down can really circumvent it. And so this was supposed to be the kind of like magic cure for BOP.
The way the system works is a little bit more complex than I originally understood. So in, in the simplest terms, I can kind of come up with, there is an amount of power or torque that you are allowed to put through to the tires. Okay? If you start going over the amount, the sensor is tied to a electronics box that automatically in real time turns the engine down and essentially penalizes you for getting too close to or over the torque limit.
Where it gets challenging is, it's not as simple as, because it's just tied to house
Before you go on. Is that at all the same as like an over boost in an IndyCar?
In terms of how it feels
In like how it, in terms of what they're, in terms of what they're trying to do? So an IndyCar, you know, they're turbo engines, right? So engine manufacturers, engine techs are trying to push the boost limit as far as they can. But IndyCar has software in there that if you're over the boost target for too long or within too much of a consecutive frequency, it cuts the turbo off essentially. And you get this like penalty of like the engine, the car slows down.
Is it that, is that what they're trying to do to prevent
Same philosophy? Okay. Same philosophy. The difference is they do it very gradually. So like in an Indy car, when you get a boost penalty, it's like you feel like you hit the brakes, right? You feel like somebody hit the pit lane speed limit or your speed just kind of stops for a second and then the engine kind of goes back to normal. How it works in IMSA is it just sort of like tunes down the motor. So like you just feel the slight reduction in power.
Okay, so that seems, I don't see the problem yet.
Where, where it gets weird is you can't just like set your engine out of power that keeps the torque below the, you know, thing and off you go. Okay? Because the torque that goes to the wheel when the car is fully loaded and accelerating, the straight line is different than if the car has maybe loaded to one side and the inside wheel is maybe getting a little extra torque 'cause there's less resistance on it.
Or say you strike a curb and the wheel is momentarily up in the air or you get wheel spin and the, and the traction's not the same. All of those events negatively affect the torque output and push you up towards the limit. So that means that as a driver, you are now having to like avoid curb strikes, avoid sliding the back of the car, avoid any wheel spin on power down.
And while some of those things you don't ideally do for lap time anyway, curb strikes, you certainly do, but you can drive through them and drive around them and maybe the penalty you'll lose a little bit of acceleration. But now you lose that little bit of acceleration, let's say with wheelspin plus you then get the engine backed off a little bit. And so it's, it's forced you to have this very almost conservative driving style.
And there's a, there's a bar on the dash so you can see where you are in the range and you kind of have to try to drive in a way that keeps you below a certain threshold to make sure you're not losing power. Does it re, which is so important at Daytona,
Does it reset each lap or is it a rolling average? It's
A rolling average.
So you can't like, take it easy through all the way up into the bus stop and then just hammer the bus stop. Oh, that's,
You can, no. 'cause it doesn't reset it start, finish. That's
Horrifying.
Yeah. So sometimes you have to drive and like, look, there are certain things you can't avoid. There are bumps on the racetrack that you just can't avoid. And, and they, they spike it so and so you need to have like a margin. So just built in for the track. Where
Would you hearing all that, would you not just turn up all of the TC levels, the tracks control levels and the slip levels and everything, the thresholds to prevent that from happening? 'cause that sounds like it would be less of a penalty than a torque reduction. Or is it really the same to,
It's it when to get the TC to a point where it's like completely eliminating wheel spin is way
Slow.
It's just, it's actually way bigger penalty than the loss of power. Okay. So it's tricky now. Different manufacturers.
And how is, how is this managing BOP though?
Because everybody's kind of given the same amount of like power that they can use. You almost have to look at it like from an energy standpoint, it's almost like a formula. That's
Fine. But like a a still a Lamborghini is gonna be very different in its cornering capabilities than a Mustang. So like, yeah, great, you have this cork limit, but
Yeah, yeah, yeah. But they still have the weight limits and they still have all other
Things. This is just in addition to all of those other things,
This is to control the engine side, right? So like they used to have rev limits and Yeah. And restrictors and stuff like that. I think all that stuff's gone. Now, I don't actually know this, that I'm totally honest. I think all that stuff's kind of been now kind of deferred to this, huh. But like fuel capacity and all that, that stuff. Then that's the other thing. There's also now an energy tank like in the gtps that means nothing.
It's, it's a, it's a, it's an arbitrary thing that they've tossed in there. And that is kind of like an easier way for them, I guess to control. So one of the things that used to happen, right? Um, and you, and you saw this, you were a part of this when you were driving with, with Penske and Wayne Taylor. Fuel capacity is something they used to control BOP, right? Mm-hmm . And so at a, at a given race, you guys were on a strategy that required you to save a bunch of fuel mm-hmm .
And so you went longer. Mm-hmm. And then IMSA was like, oh, well you clearly have too much fuel 'cause you went four laps longer than these guys. It's like, no, no, no, no. Mm-hmm. We did that 'cause we drove that way. Right? Like don't, and you got penalized for it even though it was just you. Yeah. I I think in an effort to try to control that they now this virtual energy tank that like in theory can run out before you run outta fuel, but you have to pit when it's empty or you get a penalty.
I'm sorry. So there's just this phantom scale. Yeah,
Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's just like a little thing that means nothing but it, if it can totally ruin your day if you don't listen to it.
So if you, if your, if your phantom fuel is empty mm-hmm. And you don't pit because you're not actually outta fuel, what happens?
I think there's a penalty. Again, this is all, I'm learning all this stuff, but there is some sort of,
So can you, can you, can you short phantom fuel?
Yes. It Plug, it's like the GTP it plugs in with the fuel when you actually plug in. But you're filling up two different things.
Not this, you're filling, you're filling up one thing.
Yeah. You're filling up one thing and then you're like, like
You're another thing. What I love Not really charging 'cause there's no battery. Oh my God, I
Don't understand this at all. Like, I, I don't even understand the core concept of this. What I do understand is how annoyed Alex is by the concept of this
So thrilled. I'm not there. dude just reaffirms my decision. This is
Why, this is why, this is why I warned everybody. Like this was actually more just of a conversation for Alex and I to kind of get angry about what's happening over here. It's not like, and here's the thing, we're not gonna talk about it on the broadcast. Nobody's gonna really know about it 'cause nobody really cares. So it doesn't change anything. It is, I believe just another way to sort of help imsa control the field. I I think I really, IIII actually don't know all the details.
We're all still kind of figuring out as we go. Okay. Yes. And then like, sometimes you have to save energy, but the way energy is spent is different than fuel. So a traditional fuel saving is not gonna save energy at the same rate as it would fuel. Because if you think about, I, sorry guys, I know most people are tuned up by now. I'm sorry. No, that's, that's
Including me by the way. I'm, I'm just going, I'm designing 3D stuff.
Lift lifting coast to save fuel in real life. Yes. If you lifting coast to save fake fuel, it doesn't work. Right?
So think about energy, right? Uhhuh, , if you are accelerating Yeah. You use more energy than if you're already at Vmax.
Sure. you're not, you're not using as much energy when you're already up there. Sure. And so by lifting, you don't save as much for energy. You've gotta accelerate slowly to save energy Or short shift.
Like you still, you still lift, but you lift it doesn't have the same level of impact. Yeah. Yeah. It's, it's wild. The whole thing's wild. Okay. And the, and the truth is there. No, no one's got it figured out yet. So it, it is gonna be an interesting race because there's all these new elements that everybody's trying to wrap their head around. So
There's all these new elements that are kind of weird and confusing and, and certainly seemingly take a little bit of the enjoyment out of driving the race car and like pushing it to the limit and all that sort of thing. Correct. But at least Yes, they ruined the bus
. Correct. They absolutely did. I saw the curbs
Nice look interesting there. Yeah. And,
And here's the thing, they, they introduced these insane curbs that are way bigger and way harder on the cars and whatever at a time when torque sensors now also penalize you for taking big curbs. So like, you can hit 'em. It's not comfortable, but like, it can be fast. You're not gonna do it all day, but you, you can do it except now if you hit it too. Like if you hit it, you're also just taking away power. So like tell you that I,
I saw like some videos like of people at, at the bus, in the bus stop. Right. And that's an awesome place to watch the cars come through usually because like the cars are bouncing, it's a change direction. You see the compression of the tire and it's, it's awesome. Right? I literally thought that someone just posted a video of like, cars on out laps, like cold tires, like installs going around the curbs. And it was like, no, no, that's, that's like push laps.
You gotta like drive around them. Yeah. You gotta like drive around them. Mm. And then, and then inside of the, now curbs that are uncomfortably big are the massive yellow cones.
Yeah, I saw those. Yeah. So like if you hit one of those, you're ripping a floor off a Car. Yeah.
So like it's, they've made, they've made the bus up a very precarious, perilous part of the racetrack. Uh, it's, dude, it's, it's gonna be a
Survival and night time that's, that's gonna like, cause some problems for sure because like, you're still gonna have cars lunging people
For sure man. And like where before if that happened and the guy like turned in on you or something, you dropped two wheels in the dirt, not great. You're probably gonna scrape the floor a bit, you know, maybe lose a dive plane or something. But like you might rip the bottom off a cart, you might rip a gearbox out. Yeah. So it could be bad.
So, okay. Did you drive in the wet?
No, we did not go out in the wet.
So I'm, I'm really wondering how like all these torque sensors and stuff work in the wet when you're getting wheel spin to the moon.
Correct. So a huge part of it right now is all the manufacturers working on systems to help control torque internally so that way you're not offending the sensor. Right. So it's, it's a lot about, it's, it's torque management, right? It's just all about torque management and figuring out systems that can help with that. Um, so these things ran in Europe in the world Endurance championship last year. So some manufacturers have some experience with 'em, some don't.
Everybody's learning. Apparently Porsche's got some super trick system that helps no shock. So they're probably gonna be very good in the race as they often are. But look, all that aside, I am very happy to be back in a race car. I am, uh, very impressed and amazed and appreciative of the massive amount of work that fasted to get us here. I am pleasantly surprised with the amount of support from Lamborghini and the my co-drivers and everything on that side of things.
And at the end of the day, it's a, it's a new challenge. Is it, is it the way I enjoy going racing the most? It is not having to like, think about how to not spike the torque sensor is not my idea of balls to the wall flat out fundraising. However, all drivers love a challenge and it is a new challenge. So, you know, we're going into it with very open minds. We know there's a lot for us to learn still. But it's exciting man. Like it's, uh, I'm, I'm excited to see kind of how it plays out.
'cause as you know, in years where there are big changes, that's a great opportunity to try to find an advantage. 'cause at some point everybody figures it out. But until they do, someone's gonna have that advantage and you always think it's gonna be you. So you try to, uh, try to kind of outthink the other teams and, and be the first one to, to find some trick that helps it out. Well,
There you go. Um, well good luck. I, uh, I look forward to not watching. Um, good. But, uh, have fun. Be safe.
I'll text you at 3:00 AM
Text you for updates like I do when you're broadcasting?
Yeah, for sure. Yeah, for sure. Okay. um, yeah, go Fox. Go Indy car. We, uh, we don't have phantom fuel, um, or weird torque spike sensors.
I mean we also got go NBC this weekend.
I was just, you took the words that out. I was just gonna say, if you're not in Maui on vacation, make sure to watch the RX 24 on NBC. We do have a fun little thing going because Townsend Bell, Parker Kligerman and myself, all part of the NBC broadcast all in the race. And, uh, we got a little, little side, little side bets going on there about that. So that's kind of fun.
So basically it's just like a heartfelt UABC this weekend. Like we're, we're pro Fox, we're pro N-B-C-C-B-S eat a, you know, just like
What have we done for me lately? Yeah. You know, I mean, I don't know. I don't know what to say. Uh, Alex and Joyce snorkeling and golfing and the Hawaiian sun. And next week we'll talk all about the Daytona 24, uh, Alex's flight home and Tim's first
5K since high school.
Also in, in case anybody from ABC's listening, you can hire me for writing on anything. I didn't mean it. And CCBs, pbs. Yeah. Yeah. All of it. Yeah. Cspan, you know, , I'm not picky. I could use the work.
So a lot of, lot of writing on CSPAN
Lot, man. I'll take what I can get. Alright. All right.
This has been off track with Hinch and Rossi. Off Track is part of the SiriusXM Sports Podcast Network. If you enjoyed this episode and want to hear more, please give a five star rating and leave a review. Subscribe today wherever you stream your podcasts. We are at Ask Offtrack on Twitter and Instagram. And if you wanna follow us on Twitter, we're at Hinch Town and at Alexander Rossi. If you wanna follow them though, we have no idea why you would. He's at the Tim Durham on Twitter.
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