
Matt Farah and Zack Klapman went racing and lived to tell the tale! It's a race recap with our teammates, Tommy Kendall (multi-time Trans-Am champ and overall legend) and Mateo Siderman (Super Trofeo pro with many podiums. Watch this space). We recap the ups and downs of our weekend; talk about our speed vs the competition; the importance of seats; Mateo's hospital visit; what it's like joining a team of this caliber; our "oh sh*t" moments; learn WHAT caused our mysterious engine problem; and more. Patreon questions include: Proudest racing moment You can take ANY road legal car on the track... Which series would you want to race, of any time period? Favorite corner? Why did we go faster when our car broke? Race cars that caught your childhood eye Is the new Porsche 911 race car mid-engine? What's happening with F1 drivers and taxes Recorded May 7, 2026 Aura Frames Exclusive $25-off Carver Mat at https://on.auraframes.com/TIRE. Promo Code TIRE HimsFor simple, onl...
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A
What up, everybody? Welcome to the Smoking Tire Podcast. Today's episode is brought to you as always, by off the Record. We love off the Record here at the Smoking Tire because they're looking out for us just like they're looking out for all of you. And how do I know they're looking out for all you? Because not a week goes by that I don't hear from two or three of you folks that off the record, saved your bums. What does that mean? It means you didn't plead guilty. You got off the record@offtherecord.com TST. They fought the ticket for you and they won. And everyone else out there, you can do it too. If you get a moving violation. Don't plead guilty. Get off the record. That's offtherecord.com TST they will fight that ticket for you in the vast majority of times, they will win. And then you'll be emailing me that screenshot of the dismissal that we are all looking for one more time offtherecord.com TST all right, on this episode, it's the race recap show. Two weeks ago, Zach and I went racing with our friends at Road America in the WRL series. And today those friends, Matteo Seiderman and the legend himself, Tommy Kendall, are in studio to recap the good, the bad, the stories, everything in between. The boys are in town. It's the Smokentyre podcast. Let's go. And then all of a sudden, every one of Tommy Kendall's stories, he's like. And then he found this other option that nobody saw. And that's why you're the best. That's why your career has peaked with racing with a kid and a loser.
B
So good.
A
Yeah. 10 or 11 days removed from racecar, we find ourselves in the studio doing the racing wrap up show.
C
Yeah.
A
Which we didn't do last time. It's been just long enough to forget everything important and interesting that happened over the weekend.
C
Exactly. Exact.
B
I was doing a little mental inventory before.
A
Yeah. What happened There were.
B
I mean, the highlights were.
D
Mostly I'm just preparing.
A
Preparing.
C
Are we started?
B
Well, sometimes he rolls right in.
A
It's my strategy.
C
I love that. That's fantastic.
A
But, but usually Zach gives me the fucking what have yous and he hasn't yet. Why is that?
D
It's just taking longer than usual. But it's. That's very weird. It's going, it's unsettling. But then. But now we're live. Okay.
A
Are you sure?
D
Yes.
B
Speeding.
D
Exactly.
B
All right. We're Good.
A
Yeah. When you're hanging out, like, I have to film all my own stuff on these press launches, so I'm, like, standing around a bunch of other people just going, slate what? You know, like, everyone's looking. Fuck is this guy doing? But it makes Zach's life a lot easier.
C
That's great.
A
Hello, everybody. Welcome to the show. Not Nevermind. We got Tommy Kendall in studio. We got Tato Seiderman in studio, and along with now Fast Zach over here,
D
the fastest out of five drivers, would
C
we say there is, like, 10 people that weekend, so. Exactly. Top five.
A
You didn't stuff the car into the inside wall of the kink on lap two of practice, so you were definitely not. Not the worst driver.
C
He listens to the podcast.
B
He did a great job.
A
Sorry, man. No, Zach was awesome. Tough luck for the guy who was unfortunate teammate.
C
Mm.
A
I broke the news of that because it was our other. Our team's other car. To come back and be like, hey, you guys notice someone's missing?
C
There was a.
D
Two men enter, one man.
A
There's a yard sale on the back straight. But, yeah, first, you know, Tato, you know, you and your Sergio, your old man. I mean, it's a real treat for us to get to go racing with you, and in exchange, we. We come back and tell everybody how fast you are. Which we don't have to lie about.
B
Exactly.
A
Go look at the timesheets, bro. Like, they're legit. But thank you for taking us racing with you.
C
Thank you guys for coming, man. It's always. It's always such a treat having you guys at the track and, you know, trying to share a little bit of speed and trying to learn a little bit from Tommy every weekend is. It's awesome.
A
We. We're only there because WRL limits drivers to 3 hours max per race. Otherwise. Otherwise, he would come in for a sip of water and fucking like, all right, see you guys in two more vortex of gas.
C
Yeah, it's a real treat to have you guys. And I think that the team really loves it, the series really loves it, and bringing everybody together and having fun on a racetrack. It's the best thing you could do, right?
B
Well, and for me being out of it for a long time, this is a really nice way to come back, not just with you, but also, I've been really impressed with wrl, the way RJ and his group operates things. There's a lot of elegance to some of the simplicity. They treat you like adults, but they're also firm, which is preferable to Them barking at you and then never pulling the trigger with the penalties. And that just leads to chaos. So what they're doing works pretty well. You don't always maybe agree with the rulings and so forth, but were we penalty free this year?
C
We were penalty free, no penalties.
A
We were penalized by BMW.
C
Yeah, we were a little unlucky.
A
Not by the racing series. Yeah.
C
We didn't even have a warning. Oh, we did for the car being in limp mode. And the Mustang, remember when I went out and I had to talk to race control?
A
That was the dumbest shit.
C
Yeah, I was really.
A
You were broken car.
C
Yeah, I was. Maximum speed of 35. The Mustang was like, he's off the pace. Yeah, I know.
D
Yes, thank you. Slash.
C
Helpful.
A
Helpful.
D
You know, I'm just missing my turn in. That's why I'm off the pace. It has nothing to do with the car being broken.
A
Yeah. You know, Road America is so long that like there are like actually sometimes needed like exit roads in the middle of the track. So we became very familiar with the turn five. It was so long.
D
When I looked at our lap times, and we can talk about later because I found the whole export CSV file, but I was like, what happened here? I'm like, oh, limp mode. The lap would go from 2:38 to like four minutes. Four mile track.
A
Yeah, man, it's. That's a. It's that. What a. What a crazy place to. To race a car in general. It's one of those. It's like, it's narrow, it's long, it's hilly, it's very fast. How, how far back do you go there, tk?
B
Well, the first time I went there was as a spectator with my camera. I was I think 14 or 15 years old watching my dad race there. And then my first time driving would have been age 18 in a showroom stock, which is kind of what WRL is. But these cars can drive hard on the brakes. These the cars back then, it was a 300zx non turbo. And there was about a lap and a half of hard braking.
A
Z31s. The squared off pointy nose ones. Yeah, Z31s.
B
That was the first car I drove there. And then the turbo car in Firehawk and so forth. So that goes back to mid. So 40 years. I've been going there as a driver for 40 years. What's cool about Elkhart Road America, I always call it Elkhart because that's the town is. It's one of the few tracks that continues to race in Its original configuration.
A
I was just going to ask how if the configuration has changed unchanged.
B
So Limerock, you can still run its original configuration. They don't because they run that chicane. But Laguna Seca is different. The Glenn's different.
A
So you have to reset the leaderboard when they change the configuration.
B
That's right. Or if you have a record, it lasts forever. At least on that one.
A
And remind me because you told us at dinner and I was shocked. What was your fastest lap there ever at Lime Rock?
B
It was the. The fastest lap at lime rock was
A
a 44, which is a look up any lap at Lime Rock. A44 is faster than that.
B
And now it's faster than you should go.
A
What was your fastest lap at Road America, if you remember?
B
I don't. It was in the GTP car. Same car. It had to have been in the 40aminute 40 something.
A
Which is like, you know, almost a minute faster than we were going. Yeah.
D
Was your first big win in 1990. You won with a Chevy Beretta.
B
That was my first Trans Am win.
A
Wow. But the Beretta was like a NASCAR underneath a Beretta.
B
But yeah, Bob Riley, he was the second gen Bob Riley Trans Am car. We ran a V6. The Elkhart Lake race was an interesting one because we had a splayed valve cylinder head, V6, four and a half liter. The Oldsmobiles also ran the same 4.5 liter V6. But as we. They started adding weight to us before we even won a race. Because the car had shown its potential but we hadn't won yet. And they started adding weight. By the time we got to Road America we weighed exactly the same as the V8 Roush cars. And they just kept stacking on tied to that cylinder head. And we had brought in R.K. smith who was a Formula Ford guy that founded SW Engineering for a third car. And he was running the 18 degree with a carburetor and he wasn't familiar to the heavy cars. And I got in the car in practice. He said, just get in this thing. Make sure it feels right. And I got in and it was 175lbs lighter and ran the carburetor and it showed up. That was when weight in braking. Really the light went on for me. And I came in and I told my crew chief, I said I'm racing this car. And so they put RK in the other one. And it was one of the easier wins I had. Going down into turn five. It had about the same straightaway speed. And then at the brake at the other end. It just wasn't even funny. I just look at the guy next to me and say, I don't even need to check the brake marker. Wherever you brake, I'll just go a little further. And so that was. And I actually own that exact chassis. I have that Beretta.
A
Seriously?
D
Yes.
C
That's awesome.
B
I got it in my next Chevrolet deal and I've had it ever since. I've never driven it while I've owned it, so it's in mothballs and needs to get going again. Yeah, there it is.
A
That is definitely like every other Beretta I have seen. Looks just like the road.
C
That is so cool.
A
That doesn't even. They don't even try to make that shit look like a Beretta. That looks like a fucking nascar.
B
We ourselves fully. We ourselves fully convinced that looked just like a Beretta from the front. One of the cool things was the rally cars. You sat just off the center line of the car. So you weren't quite in the middle like a McLaren, but you were closer to the center of the car.
A
So just for comparison, can we have a photo of a 1990 Chevrolet Beretta road car? Because it's. I mean, it's really uncanny. The resemblance between especially the dish in the rear wheels, deck, stretch ribs. This thing is like a NASCAR in the front and a dragster in the back.
B
Yeah.
A
Wild looking.
B
And the exact same, virtually the exact same livery as the Williams of the year. ICI was sponsor on the Williams back then. And also Olivetti. Yeah.
A
I mean, look, that's the race car.
B
Right.
A
They just painted a different color for that.
B
If I squint, it's the same thing. You can't even tell the difference.
C
Usually new suspension, you're there.
A
White seat belts.
B
That's actually the Zoomie one. What model is that?
A
There was a. I think they did a GTZ gt.
B
There was a gtu. Oh my gosh.
C
You get that for four grand, which
B
was tied to the prior program.
A
They gotta say the wheels look like.
B
We debuted it in IMSA GTU. So 88, I drove the Beretta GTU. The team was owned by Cars and Concepts, which was the company that was like a Roush or a ASC that did the retrofitting or the after fitting of the package, you know, the graphics, body kit, wheels.
A
I didn't realize that was like a full on like after package. That's funny.
B
It was a significant program once in a while.
A
Killing it.
B
Yes, Yes. I want to bring a trailer Because I always. Because I have two of those Berettas as well. And I kept thinking it would be cool to have the road, but one sold on. Bring a trailer for some ungodly. It was a 12 to $14,000 car and one sold recently for 3,30,000 bucks.
A
I mean, that's fucking.
B
Yeah.
A
Cocaine. I know that's very problematic. I can kind of see the like $45,000 Civic Si for the perfect one.
B
Right.
A
But I don't know about the Beretta. I don't know. But. Okay, let's go back to the. To the actual race at hand. We had success with the first place trophy the last time we got in this car. And it actually looked pretty good. First race, we were on a pace to P2 car brakes, P4. Yep.
B
Pretty good. We should talk about Matteo, though, a little bit because we qualified sixth. You know, that's where we stacked up pace wise. And Matteo did what Matteo does when the green flag drops. He went forward and passed the quicker cars and we were settled into second. And we're looking for. And then we started having a couple minor. We had two left limp mode situations.
D
Did you have one? I had one.
C
I didn't have one.
B
You had a limp mode. And then it was laying down on me at the end. It wasn't full limp mode, but it was. It was just pulling power.
A
Yeah.
D
Yeah. I had to pit for 10 minutes and they cleared the codes and all that.
C
That's how we got to third.
A
And then that was enough. Yeah, yeah.
B
So finish. Still finished fourth. Which we were thinking, okay, we get rid of those little problems. But that's not exactly how it worked.
A
I really wanted to beat that Corvette, though.
C
Oh, we were so close.
A
The car that ultimately passed us for the podium was that C8 Corvette, which I forget if we talked about Corvette. The TC Klein show. Did we talk about it here?
D
I don't think so. Maybe.
C
That car was so impressive.
A
Yeah. Like some of these guys, they're all sort of related to GM, somehow bought a shitty C8, like a beater, as shitty as any C8 would be, and turned it into a track car. And we talked about it because we saw the car at Coda where it had a round Cadillac steering wheel on it, and I was very excited. Cause it like a. I knew that would work and it was better. And by the way, they're racing with that steering wheel, which is hilarious because you'd think that even in racing where it's really just here to here, that the square wheel technically might be better. But like no round is still better. That's funny. But you know, this thing is really limited on power because of the balance of power rules for GP1. I was shocked when it was in our class. And then. So I guess they're running a 2/3 throttle limiter. So even if they floor it, it only ever gives 2/3 throttle so it can go to redline. It's just like, takes a long time. It's just caught perennially coasting is what it's doing.
C
Oh my goodness. That's why it was so fast to the kink. Because it already had the speed going through and it just went back to that three quarter throttle and then it's
A
like, yeah, you could probably not lift. Yeah, probably just take that shit.
C
Oh my goodness. I mean it had the giant ZR1 wing.
D
It had a huge wing shot.
A
It had lightweight wheels and huge brakes and good tires and It's a fucking C8, you know. So it's like it was gonna be good. It just didn't have the power. So we. I wanted to beat that car.
C
Yeah, me too. The shitty thing is, are we allowed to cuss on here? Yeah.
A
Yes.
C
Okay, cool. The, the shitty thing is that I think they won day two.
A
Did they?
C
They either got first or second.
A
Once they figure out how to win.
B
They were kind of relentless because it's hard, it's hard to bop that because it, it will show the performance but it's just, it's probably going to fall off less and so forth and so on because it's just a, you know, much more modern.
A
I mean imagine limiting a fucking LT1 motor to 2/3 throttle. You you hours just foot on the
D
floor and it's got traction systems and it's got an elsd. Like it's got all this really good technology that helps all those tiny things a little bit.
A
Yeah, it probably should be in the higher class, if I'm honest with you. Like, it's very, very fast.
B
Yeah, I'm not sure why they wouldn't want to be in there.
A
I don't know. Maybe they wanted to.
C
We raced against that same team in Coda and it was the exact same color, exact same BMW that we had. Yeah, just a real fancy looking one way back there in the field. And so I think that the, the idea with the Corvette was, hey, let's, let's get ourselves a real good car, start winning some of these races and then start thinking about other things. But they're in the process of winning the races right now, feeling good. And then once they kind of get in trouble for winning too many. Then they'll. Then I think they'll move up because that car is, it's so capable. Like it for sure can be breaking near that three marker at the at turn five and it can for sure be braking very minimally for turn one. But they didn't have the. It seemed like they didn't have the drivers in it that wanted to push the car. And at the start when I was kind of close to them going into turn three, they completely backed off of the corner. They really didn't want to scratch the car. So they're really in that kind of early phases of building this thing and they're already getting double podium weekends. On the first weekend of the thing being in action.
B
I'm a little more cynical than that.
A
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B
I know TC Klein is a serious operation, so I'm guessing they're finessing things and just building slowly, seeing what Breaks.
A
They did have some kind of issue
B
and trying not to get further restricted.
A
Yeah.
B
So work up to it.
A
Yeah, they have a small gas tank. They're running the regular tank for now. Did they run out of gas going into the pits and that's why they stopped in the pit road, or did it break down?
C
I think so.
A
Because when it ran out of gas, it then locked it into gear.
C
No, they couldn't get it out of
A
gear to like drag it back in. So I don't know. I don't. If you. Excuse me. If you need a tow during a WRL race, can you then get back in and get a podium? You can.
C
Yeah.
A
You're not DQ'd if you get a flatbed.
B
Okay.
A
But that car is fiberglass too. So I imagine they don't want to bend it because it's not bending it. It's like ripping the panel.
B
Although I have to say, back from my Sherman stock days, I guess it would be. The C4 Corvettes were absolute tanks. I mean, they would be in these hellacious crashes in these 24 hour races. And next thing you know, it's running. No back window. And the body still, I mean, they looked all right. Oh, didn't look great. But it was still in place and so forth. I mean, you know, you drag it down a tire while you literally, it seemed you could not kill one.
C
Okay.
A
Yeah, maybe I need to learn more about how fiberglass disintegrates on contact. Then I thought it would like sort of shred.
B
Yeah. I think those cars didn't.
A
Somebody hit my C5 Corvette when I was a youngster, and just like yours. And the front quarter panel.
B
Shredded, Shredded, shredded.
A
Absolutely shredded. But like, you know, maybe they make them better.
B
Maybe from C4 to C5, they're like, maybe this is overbuilt decontenting.
A
Things someone said about the Z4 Corvette. This car is too well built
B
for
A
perhaps the first and only time ever. Yeah. So speaking of well built, you know, I put on Instagram. It's no secret we had a rough day on day two. The car basically didn't run. I got, you know, I got a DM on Instagram from the technician who ultimately fixed it. Not on the race later. They sent the car and it's real. The guy sent me photos of the car. Like it's.
B
And what was it?
A
Here we go. And I. I printed out the fucking screenshot and I apologize. I forgot to print out the homies name. So if you. Landon. Huh?
C
Did Landon maybe.
A
I don't know.
C
Okay.
A
I'm sorry, did you recognize this icon from their Instagram profile?
C
No, I do not.
A
Okay, well, I'm sorry, I forgot your name. It's not written here, but you know who you are. And thank you for the email. The Wastegate coin on the Turbo was worn out. The linkage from the Wastegate actuator to the actual coin flapper had play in it. So the Wastegate actuator thought it was fully closed, but could get blown open by the boost. That's why it would only make £3 psi and go into limp mode. The Turbo looked relatively new, so it must have been something that happened pretty quickly and prematurely. It has a proper BMW motorsport turbo on it now. So I said that wasn't something that they were going to actually fix during the race. Right. And he said, oh, hell no. Definitely not during a race. There's no way they could have fixed it. So don't. They said, don't fault the team. They did their best. They wouldn't have been able to fix that.
B
That. That tracks with. When I was saying it felt like it was pulling power, so it just was. But it was intermittent, it wasn't consistent. Sometimes it was making booze, sometimes it was just a little bit off.
A
So.
B
Well, bummer. My takeaway was you need a BMW expert diagnostic person if you're going to race that era BMW road car. I think we learned.
A
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
D
Because they were also. I mean, they had a tablet, they were looking at the codes, but it wasn't showing that. Yeah, you know, there's no code.
B
I guess there were times it wouldn't even show a code.
D
Yeah. And it would limp and that's fun.
B
Yeah.
D
So.
A
Well. And even when it was working, like during Coda, when you'd pull every time we would change driver or fuel, you have to turn the car off to fuel it. That's a rule. So you fucking turn the car back on and you have to do the same. Like the same traction control bullshit dance you do in a road car, you have to do in this car, except you're wearing gloves, your fucking visor's fogged because it's been closed, very fogged, and you're trying to pull out and merge into a race quickly. And you would do it and then you'd floor it as soon as you pass the cone gate to go onto the track and the traction control would come back on and you have to now do it again while you were driving fast. So that was a little.
D
That's part of why my pit outs were so Slow. Were you about to say that?
B
I was just gonna ask Zach what was it like? There was a lot going that, like, for you that has so little experience doing all this?
D
Well, it was challenging because there was just added things, you know? I mean, in lemons, we do pit in, we do pit out, we do driver change, and still, like, you get in, and it's like, oh, my God, so much adrenaline, and you got to pay attention.
B
Tightening the belts, mirrors, all that stuff.
D
But then in this car, they're like, all right, when you get in, you got to hit the fuel reset button to reset the fuel counter, which I did, and it didn't work. It didn't reset it. And so I'm sitting there hitting this button, and Zach, our crew chief's on the radio. He's like, hey, man, hit the button. I'm like, I'm hitting the right button, and it's just not changing the numbers. And so finally, he goes, okay, that's fine. Just go out. We'll keep track of time. So I'm worried about that. And then I also, in my brain, fart of stress, forgot that you can just adjust traction control on the fly. So I thought I was trying to do it while they were fueling and I was stopped, but basically, I was just killing time in pits. And so after day one, Zach comes up to me. He's. He's like, the only thing I need you to do is leave Pitt. When I tell you it's okay to leave Pitt, he's like, your times are fine, but you're burning, like, 30, 40 seconds. And I totally was, because I was just trying to process all this new stuff. I regret, in hindsight, not sitting in the car longer and going through everything. I did do it once, but I thought I'd committed it. But just going through it over and over and over again until it's just muscle memory and asking those questions, like. Like, can I hit these buttons on the fly, or do I have to do it while sitting there?
C
I think that because we were so limited with our practice time on Friday, we didn't get to do those things. Like, we were supposed to do a bunch of driver change practice. We were supposed to do kind of the pit lane, you know, procedure a couple of times. We were supposed to switch drivers at the pit lane and, you know, practice like it's the real race, but it seems like the problem was happening to everybody. Did you have the limp mode in practice? No. You only had, like, two laps, right?
A
Well, I didn't need to do much I mean, you know, you know me, I can figure out the car pretty quickly, whatever the car is. And I had driven it before, so it was just a matter of, you know, how does it feel on this track? And I can register that pretty fast. And so I wanted to give the time to the people that it would benefit more. And I had a Hellcat Durango, which, by the way, shout out to the homie that used to work on the SRT experience, who told me they fill those with Dot 3 brake fluid, by the way. If, if. So if the brakes boiled after two stops, like, that's definitely why I was like, yep, yep.
C
Yeah, it was sketchy. There were some sketchy brakes.
A
So, yeah, I mean, it. The problem didn't happen to me, but I did experience it, you know, at the very end when I was asked to go test it, and I was like, oh, this is stupid.
C
Yeah, sorry again about that. That was just. I was getting in and out so many times.
A
No, no, no. I, I, I didn't mind doing it, but, like, like, that's what it was, and it was dumb. But outside of that issue, Zach I thought did really well and learned at cota. I learned a similar thing. I got the psst. Don't fucking slow down until you're at the gate for the pit. Like, you're still racing even in the. And I was like, oh, yeah. Cause, like, on a regular track day or at fucking a slower series, they would slow you down much, much, much further out.
D
Totally.
A
Yeah.
D
I mean, I, and I did that during the race and, you know, I'm coming up that you coming out of the last turn, going up the hill to the pit, and then, I don't know, 82 miles per hour, like, slamming on the brakes, and I was like, oh, I'll have plenty of time to stop. And then I just watched the Speedo going down and, like, the gate getting closer. I was like, oh, fuckity fuckity. And it was like, I got to like 35 and a half miles per hour. And for people listening, the speed limit is 35. Like, as I crossed the gate, I went, oh, oh, all right. The uphill doesn't compress as much as I thought.
B
That's a breaking point you have to work out. And you see it in Formula one. You see it everywhere. The in laps and the out laps are often. And so someone either has a better one worked out in an Indy car, it's leaving on new cold tires in IMSA as well. Formula one has the tire blanket, so they're leaving on Hot stuff. But that's the riskiest, and that's often where the races are decided, when everyone's rehearsed and the cars are running so equally. But you probably didn't even think about it until the race. About where is the break point to get to 35 by that cone.
D
Yeah, very, very true.
A
Because during, you know, they don't put breaking boards there.
D
There's no breaking board there. And we didn't practice it. And during practice, I was coming in gentle, just trying to think of all the other things, and then I remembered what you guys had all said. So I just came in hot and, you know, got it down to speed. But then leaving, you know, leaving pit, I was, like, going 31, not 34.9. And just stuff like that, like trying to be careful and not get a penalty, but just a little too careful.
B
How, if we were studying it a little harder, they don't do like the big series do, where they have timelines embedded and they're. And they're doing average speed at everything. They've got guys with guns.
A
Yeah.
B
So I didn't look to see if there's a guy with a gun at the start. So the reality is, I mean, you're rolling the dice, but if there's no guy with a gun at the start, you don't have to be at 35 at the cone. You need to be at 35 when
A
the player hits you with the first gun. Tommy Kendall's there.
D
I. I saw two guys with radar guns.
A
Tommy Campbell's third door here is completely accurate, because I was gonna say it's not a laser beam there. It's a guy. And so if you're slowing and you cross the beam at 46, but you get to 35, by the time he turns around, you're golden.
D
That's a good point. Yeah.
A
The fact that our pit stall was the very first pit stall came in extremely handy in that regard as well. That's a pretty money pull in that case.
D
Yeah. I remember them saying, like, if you drive past our pit hit, I'm gonna yell at you. The first one, I was like, that's a great point.
A
Yeah.
B
Fair.
C
It was down to the far end.
A
Dakota. It was hard to find, actually.
C
Yeah.
B
What. What band radar gun is that? Do we know what brand? What band?
A
Oh, I don't know. We should put a V1 in the car next time.
C
We'll find out.
A
That's gotta be probably K. I think a handheld is probably gonna be K, but I don't know.
C
Huh. I don't know.
A
I don't know if they'll let you buy a ka.
D
Well, to MPH Industries Speed gun Pro KA band held handheld stationary radar gun.
A
Oh yeah, is that.
D
It's a brand one.
A
If I saw a photo of it for sure.
D
This is a different looking one. But you know, I bet they all just put it in a different package.
A
Yeah, we need to know. We need to know the response time, the accuracy percentage.
D
Yeah, Tommy's not like a scientist. He wants to know if we can put a radar detector in the race car.
B
A jammer that will send a signal is 34.9.
A
Putting jammers in the race car is the proest move, right?
D
Yeah, they'll never suspect us.
C
Yeah, they're not looking for that on tech. What the fuck is this?
A
Is there a rule? It says in the book, no jammers, guys. One more break from the show because support is coming in from true work. Working outside in the springtime means you're dealing with chilly mornings, hot afternoons, and everything in between. That was me today. I drove through a rainstorm this morning. It was about 20 miles an hour on the mountain in the middle, and then when I got home, it was hot. Plus, if you're in certain parts of the country, mud, rain and whatever else the weather decides to throw at you. That's why you need workwear that can keep up with the changing conditions. And TrueWerk has you covered because most workwear is made from cotton blends, which can restrict your movement and get soaked after just a few raindrops. TrueWerk uses advanced performance fabrics to build products designed specifically for work on the job site. Springtime is the perfect season for the T2 work pant, which keeps you comfortable over a wide range of conditions. And these pants have a four way stretch for bending, kneeling and climbing, a water resistant finish to shed rain, and nine intelligent pockets to keep tools just where you need them. They've been tested and validated for over 10 years by Real trade pros working in real trade job site conditions. With over 15,000 5 star reviews, experience the difference for yourself. Like I said this morning, cold first thing, then rain, then wind, then hot. And when I have the good gear, it is easy to get through the day because as I start, I need to be warm in the morning and then with pretty much the same gear I needed to breathe in the afternoon. These T2 work pants are different. They're for people like me who hold themselves to a higher standard with that four way stretch, water resistance and pockets everywhere where the trade pros said they needed Them now, the work doesn't stop just because the weather changes. Upgrade to the T2 work pant and stay comfortable no matter what the day brings. Get 15% off your first order at TrueWerk.com with Code Tire that's T R U E W E R K.com Code Tire TrueWerk built like it matters, because it does. Guys taking a break from the action because support is coming in fast. Like Jim Farley, the CEO of Ford, who's now got a podcast. And you're always asking me what I'm listening to when not recording this show. And right now it's this, the new season of Drive with Jim Farley. In it, the Ford CEO talks to some of his favorite people about what they're driving and what drives them to succeed. Like Formula one driver Daniel Ricardo. Listen, there's a well worn trope about racing drivers not being interesting to listen to, but if there is one that is interesting to listen to, it is Daniel Ricardo. I think this guy's takes on stuff and life are great. And look, look, Jim is a racing driver also. I personally raced against him like two months ago. And for me, a CEO that drives race cars on the weekends is about the pinnacle of CEO dom when it comes to car companies. So the two of them together obviously have a lot of things to discuss on Drive with Jim Farley, which you can get on your podcast app. Very easy to find. Drive with Jim Farley. Check it out.
B
Out.
C
I don't think so.
A
There will be now.
B
There will be.
A
There will be now.
B
At least it's just us talking.
A
The 2026 rigs are going to come out updated.
B
That.
A
See, this is why you race with Tommy Kendall. And oh, by the way, he's also fast, as it turns out.
C
Y. Yeah.
D
When I was looking at this, this the spreadsheet, I was like, oh, I got really consistent here. And then I looked back up and I saw the driver change like, oh, that's Tommy. I was like, wow. I started clicking. 36 is like. No, no,
C
the.
A
I mean, yeah. So what was your best lap?
C
Do you remember? 33 flat.
A
That's fucking crazy. Zach was like a middle 37.
D
My best time was a 37 7.
A
Okay. I was a 37.1. And then you were 30. Huh?
C
Were you?
A
What? That's what I thought I saw.
D
I thought it was 37. 4, but I could be wrong.
A
Oh, maybe I. I was looking at the screen in the car and Haven looked back since. So if there was, if it was four. Okay.
D
Tommy's was a 36, three point.
C
The preface though is. Yeah, Tommy's on the same tire after eight hours and I get the freshies.
D
Yeah.
A
Which by the way, pretty good on that tire.
C
Yeah, man.
A
That's like.
B
Yeah. Pretty impressive.
A
Pretty impressive. We should.
C
Yeah. Those Contis are so.
A
Are they Contis. Everyone runs them, right?
C
Everyone in the GP classes. Yes.
A
Yeah.
C
I don't know what the. The model they run in the GTO classes and gtu, but. But they use a lot of tires. They're using every pit stop. They use tire in those classes.
A
They're doing tire changes every pit stop.
C
So that's kind of the big budget joke.
A
I didn't realize that at all, I guess. Cause I'm not watching their pit stops. But I didn't think about that.
B
I saw some tire change. I didn't know they were doing them every stop.
C
The Mercedes was every stop. The BMW was every stop. So the cars that were in the front, it was every stop. The Mustangs that were not really in the front. Every other stop. Maybe. Maybe just front lefts, maybe.
A
Oh, my God, that poor team that had to do bump starts every pit stop for a whole day.
C
Yeah.
A
Every two hours are doing uphill push starts.
C
That's a bummer.
A
I felt like going out and helping, but like. Oh, that was. That's tough.
B
Look, all day the feeling went away, didn't it? Yes.
A
And then I didn't.
B
I should help.
A
They had a big race trailer, maybe a coffee.
B
I don't know.
C
Yeah, it's. That was a lot of. Yeah, it was. That weekend was a lot of showing of endurance with, you know, with the cars. And like at Cota, we got really lucky. Same exact same times of racing, but much, much. It was colder in Texas. Right.
A
In the morning, the very first. But then it got hot and then it got real hot.
C
So it was very similar conditions, but, you know, we had zero problems with the car. And then the car went to Barber with me and the team and three other pretty fast drivers. And we won the second race at Barber and it was real hot. And then we. We come to Wisconsin and we got pretty unlucky there with the, the, the wastegate release valve.
A
Yeah, whatever.
C
So, I mean, that's. That's endurance racing, right? Like things go wrong randomly. And this was our one, you know, off weekend and the team is, you know, they, they, they, they work their cheeks off. They. They put the car together. They had a rough weekend starting off and I really hoped that we were going to get that first race podium. But the idea was the first race is our practice race. We didn't even get enough practice for everybody. Right? And so fourth place is amazing for a practice race.
D
Okay. That was the idea at dinner. We're like, all right. We didn't get a lot of practice today because the car broke. Basically the whole day of practice. Then it rained. Da, da, da, da. So everyone's like, you did great in
C
the rain, by the way.
D
Just didn't crash in the rain.
C
No, it was fantastic.
D
I don't give a fuck what. I'm not looking at the clock. I'm just like, whoa, whoa.
B
How fun is that Road America rain line, though? It's so legit, right?
D
Thank God we had talked about that, like, on a whim, I was like, yeah, how does the rain line work? And you guys explained it, and that helped everything I did.
A
I ran the rain line in the Durango with fucking traction control fully off, and it was good. The rain line was sticky. It was fine.
C
That's awesome.
B
In general, you're kind of doing that everywhere you go. I do it on pace laps. I try to plot the graph grip with the brake pedal on the pace laps. And so you. You search around and you see how quickly it locks. And like, Road America, it's dramatic between rain line and not. And so the all. You know, you don't get a perfect plot, but you start seeing, okay, wow, offline braking, quite good. Online, really bad, and then some of these other things, and you have to crisscross over that.
A
So outside of the carousel, quite good.
B
Quite good. Until the line joins, and then you got. You got a tiptoe. You got a tiptoe. Slide of. Slide of death.
D
If you're dyslexic, rain line is perfect because it's just.
C
Do the opposite.
B
Yeah, yeah.
D
I want to say what was very funny is we all were like, all right, first race day is going to be practice. We're going to go for the win on Sunday. You go out, Tato starts cooking, and Matt walks up to me. He goes, I think we're racing. And I was like. He's like, yep, I think we're racing. And. Okay, that's what we're doing.
A
It's practice unless you're looking at a podium and you're racing. Yeah, yeah, yeah. You need to hedge your excitement, but also, you know, be ready to fucking go racing.
B
Can we talk about that seat and the hip?
A
Oh, I was fucked up for a couple days.
B
Same.
A
Yeah, same. This seat was a little small for
B
TK and myself, and I also have a small Same one at Koda. Is it picking me up the same way, but something. The pad underneath the ramp that's supposed to support your legs underneath had. Had come undone. Velcroed. And it was. Slid all the way forward, was pushing against my calves. And so I was wrecked.
A
Well, you already. I mean, because of your injury. The way that you drive is fucking crazy.
C
Yeah, it's pretty nuts.
A
To hover your foot effectively in the air for an hour plus stint is a wild feat of athletic endurance, even in a comfortable seat.
B
Good isometric. Now, if I was. Was super fit, it'd be one. I mean, even if you are super fit, that's a fucking.
C
Yeah, it's a whole lot of work.
D
Try to do that.
A
Try to sit in a chair and hold your foot up for five minutes.
B
And to explain to people or listening, because I have no. My right ankle doesn't bend at all. And so the more you bend your knees, the more your toe is tipped forward. And so most people just plant their heel and then articulate at the ankle to work the throttle. I can't do that because for my foot to be on the floor, the toe is. Or the heel would be way far back. So I have to hold it in the air. I build a little ramp. Usually if I can get that in a car so I can slide it in this car, I didn't have it. And so I'm literally just hovering it in the air.
A
If you have your ramp, is it made of aluminum or something? Whatever. Okay. Do you then. Because driving shoes typically have a grippy ball on the bottom because people roll. Do you then put like a gaffer tape to like lube up the ball to move?
B
No, it's sloped. I've never had an issue with that.
A
Have I just innovated for you?
D
Yeah. Maybe if we polish the ramp, you might gain a couple.
B
Then the problem you have of it sliding, if it gets too.
A
What if you make a channel? Yeah, like a V type channel. But like, when you told me you did that, I was like, I'm sorry, what? Because, like, normal driving is exhausting in a race. That's crazy. But I think we could put the race. Because you. You have done it in cars you shared with standard drivers. And it's not a thing that comes into play if you have regular mobility in your right foot. Right?
B
True. Yeah.
A
Yeah. Let's put a ramp in this thing. Let's go.
D
Yep.
A
There's got to be one that like we basically take a BMW floor mat.
D
Right.
A
And that's your. Your Bottom shape.
B
Right.
A
And you build. You mold the ramp on that, and then you can just, like, plop it in and it'll just, like, stick.
B
Yeah, I've done it with. When it was just under my throttle foot, but there's no reason it couldn't be a false floor all the way across. It feels normal to you guys with your. I don't think you would even notice it.
A
And you left foot brake, then.
B
It depends if the seat supports me well enough. I left foot brake in this car because of the seat. I was right foot brake.
A
You're doing right foot braking. You must have been fucked up. And the seat. I don't know why it was worse for me this time than last time. Maybe just because of the arrangement of cushions, but, like, my hips were bruised for a couple days.
C
So.
D
Tommy, you've raced. You've done endurance races with a wide variety of people. So this is probably an ongoing challenge for any team. You know, you're a very tall person. You race with a short person or whatever. The size differences are. Is the secret to this stuff where you just. Everyone gets their seat mold done or, you know, how do you find that compromise?
B
The secret is to drive with people that are of similar size. The compromise is, is you work through all that stuff and there are still compromises. It's why I've always liked it, because of my size and the special needs of the feet in Trans Am. I love that so much because the seat was so perfectly tailored to me and I didn't have to make any compromises. I was super comfortable. But, yeah, that's what you do is you end up having inserts. This seat moved, which I didn't remember that it moved. So I think I drove too close also on my stint. So it was kind of a. A perfect storm. The wrong way. I'm so used to the seats not sliding.
A
I drove a little. I got in the car a little too close, and I moved it back during the race and then had to tighten everything up. Talk about it's terrifying.
B
Well, it's also hard if you do that. You go back too far, and then you can't go forward because the belts won't let you go far enough forward.
D
Hit the brakes and then hold that lever.
A
You don't want to have to with shit while you're racing.
C
Well, if the seat belt's on and the seat moves up, we could have a second injury like the one that. Right.
B
This would be a good time to talk about it.
A
Potatoes, Balls.
B
I want to get into that because That's a more interesting. We've sliced up a pretty uninteresting race a lot so far.
A
But speaking of injuries that might limit how you drive a car.
C
Speaking of sliced up for that, just
B
seating position is something I don't think a lot of drivers, as you're getting into it, you really should work on. And I learned it halfway through my career when I drove that GTP car, how much I was moving around, how much I was energy I was using to brace myself with a dead pedal and with my hand. And so if you get someone that knows seating and works with you, you can really reduce the amount of energy you spend. And it also makes you more consistent because you're not moving around in the seat.
D
Yeah. So that's one thing we, Matt and I complain about with road cars. If it's a sports car supercar and the seat bolstering is not there now I'm holding myself with my arms or my leg. The first time I drove this Ranchero in the Lemons, the seat, we have a wide variety of people on the team, and it was like an unpadded Kirky seat. It was very open. So I was holding myself with my arms and also my left leg against the door. But I did six hours of driving. My whole IT band. The whole next two weeks was, like, on fire. I was like, what did I do? Oh, I held my body weight with the hip extension, whatever. So it was terrible.
B
Well, which is a segue to Mateo. The thing we've kind of been tiptoeing around. Matteo had an injury. We talked. I talked about it on the. The race broadcast when I went up to the booth. But, you know, a week before. Was it two weeks before?
C
No, the Friday.
B
Right before Friday before we drove. He was right. Seating. Do you want to tell me?
C
Yeah, I can tell the story. Okay, so I'm driving at a. Or no, sorry. I'm coaching at a.
A
This is gruesome.
C
You're not going to see the video, though.
A
No, but, like, just even hearing about it, this is gnarly.
C
It wasn't crazy.
A
Farewell warning.
C
We're still reeling from the injury. No. So the. I was coaching at a driving club at Homestead Miami Speedway. Two Friday or one Friday, right before the qualifying. So get there like eight in the morning, and it's some guy's birthday, and it's like they rented out the whole track. And so it's me and like five other coaches, and we're just there to show them a good time. They rented out a Two race cars, one was a, a semi race ready Porsche GT3 RS. It had kind of everything you need except it was on the street tire and there was a license plate in the back. So it might have not been a race car, but it looked like a race car and it acted like a race car. And then the other one was the exact same car we use at open throttle is the M235IR. And they show up in the morning and the guy who's running the thing is like, hey, who is experiencing this thing? I was like, I just came back from Alabama, I won the race. And I did three hours of driving. I know. And it was only one seat. And I was like, this is great. I'm just gonna tell them how to drive it, they're gonna drive it, and then that'll be my whole day. And then the birthday group shows up and. Sorry, the birthday group shows up and the, the first thing they do is they put us into a big van. And I'm the one who's standing in the van kind of pointing out what's going on in the track. And that was. I thought that was gonna be the most of my adventures of the the day, other than doing the shakedown of the BMW to start with. But then the people, they go over and they see the car has only one seat. And the dad said, hey, this is unacceptable. We need a coach in the car. And I was like, I mean, you don't really need a coach in the car. Like, there's data. I can bring my computer. We can actually learn how to race. And he was like, no, it's not as fun. So they called in the mechanic shop or whatever, they brought a seat down, and then 30 minutes later, they're putting in the seat. Long story short, the seat doesn't fit me all too well, But I was just doing the first couple laps to show this random guy kind of how the track is supposed to go. I didn't go fast. I just kind of emphasized what we're supposed to do in the brake zones and how to exit the brake properly. And that was kind of the whole thing. Two laps. Show them what's right and left. Show them how to use the left pedal.
D
Does this person have race experience?
C
None of them had race experience. So that was it. Just drive very smoothly, very slowly. All we want to learn today is the brake, and we want to master the brake. We switch seats and I get into the seat and I'm like, man, this is not fitting right. Like the pedal. Sorry, the pedal box is too far away. My legs don't reach the, the seat belt. The actual clipping belt was pressed right on my family jewels. And the. It was a six point harness. So it was on both sides on the, on the lap and then. No, it was five point harness, I guess.
A
Yeah, five. One submarine.
C
Yeah, one.
D
One.
C
One little belt buckle guy straps on the, on the right and left side of the hips and those were real tight. So I was like, you know what, I'm super secure. If anything happens, it'll feel like a punch right in the, right in the gonads. But if, you know, I'm not sure that we're going to be able to get anything crazy happening here. First two laps, amazing. We go slow. The most that we feel is like, oh, traction control kicks in when he tried to get to the gas too early leaving turn six. Great. Then I'm giving him like a high five. Great job. Cool down lap. We're going to go around one more time. Not get into the brakes too much, not get into the gas. Just want to cool everything down and we'll talk again when we park up. He's like, okay, cool. And then second we cross start, finish line, slams on the gas, and I'm like, whoa, what's going on? And then we go into turn one. There's a very big change of the track from the banked NASCAR track to the infield. And so we take that full speed. Huge bump. And I'm like, oh, my gosh, we're going into this full speed. So I reach over to grab the wheel while screaming, break.
A
Break.
C
Brake. None of that worked. And we ended up getting a little bit of a yaw. And while I grabbed the wheel to try and countersteer, he slammed on the gas. It was a lot of new inputs that weren't expected. But long story short, we ended up in the inside wall at turn two. And the initial impact, I was like, man, that really felt like a punch right in the gonads. And the corner worker comes over and we see the red truck and he's like, what do I do? And I turn the car off. I'm like, it's all good. Like, everything's okay. Everybody's safe. You know, people make mistakes. But that was our cool down lap. So let's just. Right, let's, let's just relax and we'll talk to the corner workers when they get there.
B
Way too nice. Yeah, way too nice.
C
And so they're, they're the corner workers. Get out of the truck. And they're like, hey, guys, are you Guys, Okay? And I was like, yeah, I just got hit in the nuts really hard. And I'm like, still going, like the, ah. Like the stomach thing still hurts. And so they're like, okay, just jump out of the car. We'll check you out. And I was like, all right. So I reached down to unbutton the belt, and I unbuttoned it. I'm like, man, that was such a relief. And I looked down. It's like a little speck of blood on my khaki pants. I'm like, oh, man, that's weird. It's probably from, like, my belly button or something. Like something got caught with the seat belt. And then I stand up, I'm like, oh, my gosh. That is a fair amount all on, like, my pants. And so I said, hey, I got to make sure everything's still there, like, joking. And then I turn around and looking at the wall, and I'm like, I'm just gonna make sure everything's still good. Move my underwear over. And my right nut was hanging out of my sack, and it was like a hole the size of like, a big ping pong ball.
A
I've already heard this once before. It doesn't get better.
D
You can't eat shrimp cocktail right now, dude.
C
And so I'm looking at it, I'm like, oh, my gosh. And I still have my gloves on, still my helmet on. And I turn around with my pants off. And I'm now looking at the driver and the corner worker. Cause I'm like, guys, what do I do? And they're like, oh, my gosh.
D
You gotta put it back in.
C
Yeah. There is no flag for that. The meatball flag means something else.
A
Nicely done.
C
Yeah. So I look at em, like, I don't know what to do. And they're like, you gotta put it back in. I was like, I don't know how to do that. I have gloves on. I don't know what to do. I have my helmet on. And they were like, you just gotta put it back in and close it. And I was like, okay. So I threw my gloves off and I like, pushed it back in and then pinch the hole to get.
B
And then right after, drove himself to the hospital.
C
Well, the EMS guy showed up and he was like, hey, is everything okay? And looked down, he's like, oh, no. And then we. We get into the EMS truck. And I'm like, man, see, are you guys gonna fix it? What's going on here? Like, oh, we can't do anything. We could drive you to the hospital, though. And I was like, okay, let's go. And then he says, oh, we gotta drop this guy off and we need your wallet. We gotta find out who you are. I was like, okay, so we park up right at the garage. He's like, okay, go grab your wallet. And I was like, really? Like, I'm holding my nuts together and, like, I'm bleeding everywhere. He was like, yeah, you're right. I could probably go get it. I was like, no, it's fine. Let me see. So I stand up, and I had so much, I guess, shock and adrenaline that I didn't even feel any pain. It was like, oh, the hole is closed. All good. So I went over, grabbed my wallet, and while I'm walking back to him, I was like, you know what? You guys can look at it, but I'm just gonna drive myself. It's five minutes away. I got my car here. I got a flight tonight at 7. So drove myself and I show up to the hospital and never had faster service in my life. I'm writing my name down, and then immediately the nurse that comes out is like, hey, are you okay? And then, oh, my gosh, Runs away, gets three nurses with, like, a wheelchair. And then sitting down before Mateo was written. And then I get into this room.
A
There's a lesson in this. If you want good service at a
C
hospital, you rip your nuts in half. That's what you do. Yeah. And then I went into this hospital
A
room with 12 doctors, 16 nurses, an entire grad school program.
C
40 people. It was wall to wal. Couldn't see a single wall. It was just facing.
A
Guys, is the stadium room open?
B
The call went out over the radio. You gotta see this. We got a code. You won't believe this.
D
We got a code. You won't believe this.
A
Code House.
B
Long story short, they stitch you up, all is well. Other than you tested two days later.
C
Yeah. So I ended up not going on the flight that night. They said I wasn't gonna make it. So I get 11 stitches that hurt a lot. That was the most painful part of the whole. Whole thing. Because they didn't. They didn't put me asleep. They gave me oxy something, but apparently not the good oxy. And. I said, when can I ask for morphine? After, like, stitch five? And he's like, oh, you could have asked at the start. I was like, my gosh, what horrible
D
medical care you had. I mean, they got you in there quick, but, like, the EMS people are like, yeah, hold your arm in place. Go grab your own wallet.
C
Harbor no, this was Homestead. Miami.
A
Yeah. Oh, man. That's like, it's not Miami.
C
It's not Miami.
A
It's Miami in Miami.
B
So he was driving when he was talking about getting in and out of the car. I mean, pretty extensive care.
C
That was seven days earlier. And so the seat for practice was amazing. Zach and I used the same little cushion seat, but then for the race, I get there a little bit earlier than they do since I start the race, and we're looking for the seat, and it's not there. And so Zach had put it behind his helmet because, like, of course, it's his thing.
D
Well, there's. There's like, four cars, right.
C
And, like, we don't want someone else to take them.
D
Exactly. There's lots of fun inserts. I was like, let's keep these for. Exactly. But I didn't tell you.
C
Yeah, it's all my bad, though. And so I'm at the car, and I'm like, man, where's the.
B
Like, it's.
C
It's empty down there. I'm not going to be able to see. And they're like, okay, let's grab a thing. Cushion. And so we had Dylan, I think it was, grab two cushions, and they were rather small cushions. And the other one was the exact same thickness, and it was big. It was filled out, the whole seat. These two were, like, back pads that we put on the bottom of the seat. So the seat belt was, like, going through the hole in the seat. And then the butt pads had, like, 2 inches of where they're actually lifting my butt up. And then it was just like, a flat hole. And that flat hole had, like, a lot of leeway. And so whenever I hit the brakes, I'd slap onto the front, and whenever I hit a bump, I'd slap onto both. It was a painful. Dude. The kink was not easy.
A
And so.
C
So.
A
Well, it was. It could be a kink at this point with these fucking. Getting your fucking nuts slapped in the back of a seat.
C
So that's why I ended up not using a whole lot of the kink. And we were looking at video that night. I was like, so we want to use this much? And Zach was like, why aren't you using it? I was like, it hurt a lot. I didn't want to, but he was
B
altering his line for the rumble for comfort.
C
Yeah.
A
He's all, stay off the rumble. Really? They're fine. I don't know. Depends.
D
I was just impressed you were so unbothered. Like, the text thread is like, hey, guys, you know, here's a video, by the way, of what the balls look like. But no, we're going to test. We'll be at the race. Yeah, it's like. Yeah, it's all good.
A
It's all good. Yeah.
C
I mean, we were fast. Like, everybody drove amazing that weekend. Like, if we didn't have very unlucky situations with the car, I think we're walking away with, you know, second place. Maybe. Maybe we fight for first in day two. Cause the Grace Ginger racing car, they had some big problems. They were out. They were out of the racing one
A
on day one, not finish day two.
C
They finished on the podium.
A
Oh, they did.
C
But not. I don't think they won. That's why I think TC Klein win.
A
The car was very, very f. Fast.
C
Very fast.
A
Yeah.
C
According to them, they had less horsepower than us. But then I saw them on straightaway and with more arrow. They were still pulling.
A
That car was pulling on the straightaway.
D
Yeah.
A
I mean, maybe they. I don't know, maybe the car was way lighter than ours or something. But like, according to this is a very fast E46 with like full arrow.
C
Yep. It was a fasty.
D
Yeah.
C
And they were.
B
And they. They drove well, too.
C
They drove really well. Qualified grade.
A
I don't believe that because we're making
B
it up all in the corners.
C
Make it up a bit in the straights, too.
A
The world's most suspiciously quiet Corvette.
B
Yes.
A
Was making it up in the corners.
C
Yes. But still sounded really good, that Corvette.
B
It sounds.
A
It sounded okay. I thought they.
C
Compared to everything else there could have been louder.
A
True. They told me that they took the cats off it, but then they have this like this like center exit exhaust thing. And I was like, you probably just like leave the cats. I mean, you're running 2/3 throttle. Like, why even bother taking the cats off? And it seems like that could, like cause more problems than it. Than it would solve because you don't need more power.
D
Well, I think they also said they were limiting the timing. So I wonder if that would send a bunch of fuel to the cat and eventually foul it up or something and then maybe explode.
A
They probably know what they're doing.
C
Yeah.
A
It was a very quiet race.
D
It was.
C
It was weird.
D
It was probably like a diesel. Yeah.
A
Wasn't there a diesel? I think There was a BMW 335D.
D
I talked to that guy. He had the D badge. But I was like, is this a diesel? And he started laughing. He's like, everybody. And he had an accent. But I forget what it Was. He's like, everybody asked that. It's definitely not a diesel, but I just put it on there. Cause it fucks with everybody. It was like. It was a fast 335 and it
A
had a really loud and unique kind of sounding exhaust. And I was like, doesn't quite sound like a diesel, but it also doesn't quite sound like a normal BMW. So I was like, yeah, maybe.
D
I don't know.
A
I wasn't really paying that close of attention. I just thought it was interesting.
D
Yeah, it was fast on the straight, but it didn't have the big wing. That was an interesting choice being out there and there. Teams that had big power take the wing Versa.
C
Oh, my gosh. Passed me like I was standing still.
A
All the power.
C
He reached 100. He got 160 on the straight.
A
Dude.
B
Yeah, I believe it.
A
That.
C
That's faster than some of the GTO cars.
A
Yeah, yeah, yeah. I drove that E92 at Cota for the practice day. Oh, I went like 15 miles an hour quicker on the straight than we went in our car. But it was also a real handful in the corner.
C
Yeah, it was heavy and slighty with no arrow. That thing is not easy to handle. And it's really hard to keep that thing in contention in the start of the race. I mean, they qualified super well. I don't know what was going on in qualifying. And then in race two, they ended up getting down to a 32 also.
A
Did they really?
C
Well, they figured something out. But the thing I was really hoping for was coming out of turn three. I really wish they would have caught Ginger racing and been able to hold them up a little bit, because then we would have been fighting for the lead end at the start. But they. They went for the smart choice on the brakes in turn five. And then right after that, it was not easy for them.
A
We got hosed a couple times in that first race by yellow. Full course yellows that bunched up the field after we had made a pretty solid gap on everyone behind us.
D
I did a lot of. When I was looking at my stuff, I was like, you know, the number of laps I did versus the time. But I realized I had a lot of full course yellow.
A
Zach also had a real pants moment where he was the car behind the pace car in the third in the line. The entire field had bunched up behind him.
C
Amazing.
A
Oh, he's gonna have fun with this.
D
The rear view mirror gets. The rear view camera gets very busy. And then, you know, a lot of cars just pass.
C
How was that yellow Flag restart.
D
What?
C
How's the yellow flag restart.
D
I mean, I'm sitting there going, I should have read the rule book four times. And then the two cars in front of me go. But the radio, you know, they're still saying, hold on for a second. But then there's like the. You know, you're allowed to drive 80% pace, you know, in the. In the full yellow, it's like, well, which car is 80%? Are we judging this on. Cars are faster than the other. And everyone just takes off down the straight, and I'm full. And then I. But I knew where. Where I was and what was coming, so I just stayed left and I watched, you know, amg GT go by on the right. Three supras go by on the right. All the gto class cars just haul ass and just carry through turn one, and they're gone. And just try not to touch anybody because everything. That was a big thing. Everything around me is expensive.
A
Yeah.
D
You know, I was just really aware where my edges were. Yeah, it was fun. I love the traffic. It's exciting.
C
It's so much fun.
B
Intimidating, but it's also.
C
It's the best.
A
It keeps you right on your toes, you know, especially not being. You know, it's. It's fun to be in a fast car and weave through slow cars, but it's also. Also interesting to be trying to go fast in a slow car and have people, like, just humming by you.
D
People passing in the kink after the driver's meeting is like, don't pass in the kink.
A
I also saw everybody cutting across the front, straight into the pit lane, exiting.
C
Oh, yeah.
A
Don't cut across and cut back. Like, 95% of people did that exact thing. And track limits. Tommy found a new way through 14. Very nice.
B
Unlike kota, they were. There was no mention of track limits,
C
and so we didn't even get a warning.
B
I used more curb than I've ever used in turn 14. And this car really didn't like to go in too deep and turn, so you had to turn. It was kind of predetermined where the car wanted to turn. And so you either needed to wait a long time or balance throttle to get around it or turn it and go back to throttle and then left sides barely on the pavement. Everything else through the grass. And. And I just kept doing a little bit more. I kept waiting for the call on the radio. Nothing.
A
Here we go. Yeah, I did the same thing. I mean, God, you know, Sunday, when we're not racing, the only thing that saved My mental state was, God bless the Honda Grom. Honda Grom is the most wonderful invention in the history of trackside inventions, especially at a place like Road America. That's huge. And so I rode that goddamn thing around all day long. And I watched the race from a variety of different angles and stuff. And I realized that my line through turn seven is a big old cut compared to what everybody else. You know, there's like the curb and then that concrete. My right tires are like, to the right of that concrete, of that light concrete. And everybody else isn't even getting on the curb. And I didn't realize that until I got out of the car. I thought that was just the way. But no, apparently it's not. Apparently that's a big cut that no one really, really cared about doing. But hey, fun times.
B
Whatever works. Whatever works.
A
It didn't make me as fast as you, but we were. We're. We're. We're working there. We're trying.
B
I mean, close, you know, so.
A
And not embarrassing.
B
Road America, it's four miles. Generally the gap is close to double. Like, so if you cut that in half on a two mile. Yeah. A normal track, it's. Right.
A
It's such a long place. And like every little thing has so. Such a exaggerated consequence as a result of it.
B
Yeah.
C
Yep.
B
That's what's. I haven't been to Road America since I think it was 12 was the last time I was there. But it drives. It drives the same, you know, and so. And it's amazing the difference that makes just with muscle memory and the rhythm and so forth.
C
But now there's so much more on the exit curves.
B
Yeah.
A
Well, with the planner block. Blocks.
C
Oh, yeah. Everything. Turn one is now like a parking lot out there. It's awesome.
A
Yeah.
C
Sorry.
B
No, and that actually. That. I don't know what the stuff is that the grass grows through. That's on the outside of the curve.
A
Yeah.
C
They call.
A
What do they. They called it something. And I like grass crete. They called it grass crete.
B
Okay.
A
Which is not. It's not catchy. I like long crete because it sounds more like concrete.
C
Nice.
B
And it does have long growth.
A
Ultimately settled on calling it the planter box. It's essentially.
C
What's that right there? Yeah, that's that.
A
The grass crete. It is called fucking grass crete. That's the. Oh, it's a brand. Oh, shit. It really is. It's like imagine you turn cinder blocks on their side so the holes are facing up and then plant grass in them. And so you've got a surface that's like 50% concrete and 50% grass. And the idea is it's got half the grip. So it's. You have the vibraty curb and then on the outside of that, like. Yeah, you can use it. And it. You're not gonna, you know, get caught in the grass and get sucked into the wall, but you also don't have full grip there. Interesting stuff. Yeah, use it.
B
You can use it. I've, like, at the kink is where it came into play. And I've been in the grass in the kink at speed and not crashed. And so that is a serious pucker moment.
A
That's the scariest.
B
You don't want to do that. You're so close to the wall. But so this. It took me a while to have confidence. I only did it a few times, but, you know, to pick up the throttle earlier, carry more speed, knowing that you had that extra margin on the outside. Now, because it's only half grip, you use it. You use the ground up twice as fast. So if you think I'm only going six inches over, you know, you're going foot over, you're going foot over, you're going two feet. And. And so that took some. Some confidence, you know, because again, at this point, there's, you know, there's no. There's no one scouting for a pro ride. And so the risk reward. Yeah, just don't. Don't crash the car.
A
I didn't have the balls to use it there. I used it on the exit of 14 onto the front straight a lot.
B
Yeah.
A
Deep into it every time.
B
Super wide.
A
Oh, my gosh. That was like luxury. Luxury corner, exit. But like, without, you know, Tato to say, this car is capable of doing this and this and this, there's no way I would have not used brakes at all before the kink.
B
Right?
A
No way. I would have just come up with that.
B
Right.
A
There's no way I would go flat up over. What are you fucking Billy Mitchell? No way. And there's no way I would have done at least one other thing without him going, oh, no.
B
You could do this using all that, using all the extra road.
A
Yeah, yeah, yeah. So thanks, buddy.
C
Yeah, man. Well, it helps, kind of. That's the idea with, like all the Pro AM series, like in Super Trofeo, too. The whole point of even if you're like a younger pro in a pro pro pairing, you want to get that experienced pro driver to show you, hey, this is what you're capable of, and this is what this car is capable of. And that's. It's really nice to be kind of on a bigger team that you have so many different pro drivers. Like we have three right now on team. We have Dennis Lind, who is a super experienced DXD driver from the wec. Elias De la Torre, who is I think third year in super Trofeo. Also single make Carrera Cup. I think he did a year and a half. So he's really experienced than me. So we all get to see like, hey, this is what's possible here, this is what's possible here. And then if someone has like an incident, this is what's not possible here. You find out without doing it yourself.
A
Someone as an incident.
B
Yeah, it's human nature whether you're snow skiing. You see it in extreme sports. Until Travis Petrana did the backflip, it was not possible.
A
Yep. Someone ran an under two hour marathon last weekend.
B
Really?
A
Yeah, guy did a 159 something marathon.
C
Oh man, isn't that crazy?
A
You just fall over and die right after 159, 30.
B
What is the average, what does that work out to? Mile average? It's, it's astonishing.
A
24 miles, 26 miles.
D
26 miles.
A
26.2.
D
I think seven minutes a mile, 13 miles an hour. Yeah, that's a fast clip.
A
Yeah. Yeah, that's amazing. And then I just saw a video of like a nine year old kid landing three nine hundreds in a row on a skateboard. And it took, you know, Tony Hawk.
B
Yeah.
A
20 years to figure out how to do that.
B
Right. Crazy.
D
I was running 4 minute 35 second miles.
A
Wow.
C
For 25, 26 miles.
D
And there, you know, and there was a time years ago like the four minute mile was thought to be impossible to sprint and do it once. But like all the sports progressed because especially like the younger people see what the older people do, especially with extreme sports and they're like, oh, I want to try that. And now you've got. I saw a great video of Tony Hawk skating with like a 15 year old. And Tony Hawk says, how long did it take you to learn the 900? And the 15 year old's like two hours. And Tony's like, it took me like 10 years to learn. But he had to figure it out and show that it was possible. And then, you know, you get a kid who has no fear it of, of dying and is super fast and mobile and they just go for it. What are you gonna say before?
B
No, I mean that's kind of how human nature works, you know. But like on the physical and the mental, like that's a pure physical, it's not pure physical. I mean that's a huge physical barrier. I was gonna say for those race fans, if you remember Bob Varsha, who's an announcer. Bob Varsha was a collegiate marathoner. I wanna say Bob Varsha has run a, like a 220 marathon.
A
Seriously?
C
Yeah.
B
Bob Varsha back in the day.
C
No way.
A
Wow.
B
With all that little random trivia.
A
Probably put it up, you know.
B
Yes.
D
I was really grateful to have you guys, you know, I mean Tato, we did two sessions of sim which was essential. Like I, you know, I would have been far more lost than Matt because I haven't been to road America in 10 years. So that, that was like the theory of where I could break and stuff and just trying to get it right was enough. But then I feel like I learned a lot here, kind of having the faith to have let the car do what you said it could do. You all guys, you all said do this speed through here and this speed through here. And like I was letting the car move and kind of bounce over stuff more than I ever have, but knowing that it's just going to keep the trajectory it's on. And that was a huge educational experience.
B
If you'd been turned loose on your own without sims or anything, you could have spent probably a couple days driving and you would have figured some of it out. But some of it you wouldn't have figured out even in a couple days.
D
Definitely.
C
Yeah, very true.
A
Yeah, there's, there's stuff I wouldn't figure out ever. Yeah, I was at Sonoma yesterday on the Nismo Z launch. The manual, and I can't talk about how it drives yet, but honestly you can fucking guess. But they had some, you know, some, some instructors there and they were mainly doing lead, flight, follow. And Nissan was kind enough to not force me into the lead follow. But I did, on the warm up lap I did do a lead follow and the guy over four up over the hill into the carousel, he went way to the left whereas I traditionally had brought it back to the right to turn it downhill. And I had him explain to me and after that I was like, oh shit, this guy is fucking bright. And so now I'm, now I'm changed. Now I'm doing tighter from the left instead of going moving back to the right at the top of the hill and coming down right, you get a better exit up the hill. I think, I think this guy was right.
B
Yeah, I mean it's you definitely don't want to arc it in. Yeah, you want to be in tight relatively soon. If you can get, if you can get back to the right and straighten it up, you could theoretically carry a little more speed over that on weight. But you want to be heading for the inside, I think. So shortly after it's like left middle. It's like the left third.
A
It's not all the way left side.
B
If you're carrying enough speed through the right, you're not going to be able to get that's all the way back.
A
That's what he was saying. And I was like, I think I put too much emphasis on getting back right to the detriment of the pace.
B
If that was a 90 degree corner, you would want to do that because it's a 180. No matter what you do on the end entry, it gets canceled out by
A
halfway around the corner.
B
Totally.
A
Yeah, yeah, yeah. Neat stuff. Should we go to the people? Do we have some things we can talk to the people? Of course. Patreon.com the Smoking Tire podcast. It's where you ask questions for the live show. Watch the live show, get the show the same day it was recorded. Get the show without ads. Get access to collabs and things that we make here over along with partners and you get the satisfaction of supporting your favorite car podcast. Let's keep it mainly to things that are racing related and bullshit car advice stuff can stay for the next show. Ted Theologan says favorite corner at Road America. Do you have a favorite corner?
B
You know, I mean the Carousel kink is a great combo but the challenge of being quicker than everybody getting into turn five. I love psyching yourself up and figuring because there's the road, bends a little bit as you approach, there's a crown to the road. There's a bunch of little nuance to that corner that I think is, it's a lot more complicated than just going to this point. So I love turn five like Road
A
Atlanta also has a downhill breaking into a 90 degree left hand corner. But it's not nearly as interesting as the one at Road America.
B
I like, I like the really hard brake zones, you know, if you. So that's something that Road America has several of. You know, Canada corner is also that way and also not, you know, it's, it's just, it's a flow track. It's got really hard braking but you know if you're not careful and you're so focused on braking, you can over slow in a lot of places. So there's just so much flow to it. I mean, the whole place is awesome. But if I had to pick my favorite. I love racing people into turn five.
A
Tatum, do you have a favorite corner?
C
For sure. Canada corner. Like, it's just all about float and speed, and the more you can keep it smooth and the faster you can get back to the throttle, the happier the car's gonna be. And it's interesting because there was a baby wreck turn, Canada corner, on lap one, and so it kind of made that whole left side of the the exit curb just unusable because there was debris on it the whole time.
A
There was a bunch of trash over there.
C
Yeah, yeah. That was some guy's car. Yes, I know. So, yeah, it kind of limited us to not using all of it, but with this car, the BMW, it was happy to not use all of it. You just want to use a little bit of it. The more you use, the worse the exit is. But with the Lambo, it's completely opposite. If you don't use all of it, you are just completely overslow to the entire corner. And then Billy Mitchell bend becomes an interesting lifting and turning because in the Lambo, you really have to use the brake there, otherwise you're just going to fly away. Yeah, it's a scary one.
A
In the BMW, you can send the exit of that corner extremely wide. And it's quite luxurious, even.
C
Oh, yeah.
A
Yeah. Queer shift in gears at the Mid Ohio Lemons race. My teammate blew our transmission at the start of day two and got us stuck in in fourth gear. Ended up running faster for all drivers. Any similar experiences where you improved in a weird situation?
B
Well, it's funny, like, sometimes if you. Exactly that. Or if you have to save fuel or if you have to save brakes, you find out again, they were probably over slowing in a lot of places. And we dealt with this in practice, where if you're between gears, the lower gear always feels faster, but oftentimes you're over slowing and it's holding you back on your exit. And so it's worth playing around. I told Matt explicitly, I said, it will feel slower in some of these places.
A
You were right. Both you and Tato were like, no gear higher in Canada corner. Gear higher in turn eight was a scary one. Gear higher in eight.
C
It worked in the beginning of the race with the fresh tire, but then with the older tires, it would start to get looser on entry. And so for Tommy's, it was almost impossible to run in fourth gear. But you were in kind of the mid stages of where it started to feel. Exactly.
A
Sometimes it worked and sometimes it didn't
C
and I was just tired of grading,
A
but it did feel slower.
B
A thing like that is whenever you do a 24 hour race, I've always found that you learn certain bits about the track running in the dark. And then when it gets light, it's so easy to go fast without pushing the car as hard. It's almost like your eyes are just confirming. The seat tells you, if I clip this, there's a bump here and I know I'm going to have six inches on the exit. And then your eyes are like, yep, six inches on the. You really learn.
A
It turns up all the other senses.
C
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
A
Neat. Just j. What would you point to as your proudest, most exhilarating on track, single moment?
B
A ballsy, successful pass?
A
Yes.
B
You know, there's a pass that's been brought up recently in the 95 Road Atlanta Trans am race. It was, it was wet, it was drying out. I was quicker than the two fellows and Jamie Gallas. And I had to talk myself into it because the place that was going to happen was on the outside of the kink before turns 10a and 10b were in offline in the wetter part of the track. And I just said, I don't want to do that, I don't want to do that. As the race went on, I'm like, if it's going to happen, it's going to have to happen exactly there. And so I talked myself up to it and then I passed both of them on the outside in the. The wet, through the dip. And so that one was just massive pucker and in hindsight, massively satisfying.
A
Tato.
C
I think the descend at the start of race two for Texas was pretty awesome. That was from seventh to third and that was right behind the ginger racing guy. But I think the most exciting, exhilarating, proudest moment was winning the third race in a row and Italy. That was the first time I'd actually like by just pure pace, beat this. The championship leader, he's been ahead of us all year and they had the pace on us all year. And then we go into Indy and they get pretty unlucky in race one. Car shuts off in race two, and then we go into world finals and they're like, oh, you know, the car's finally going to work. Let's see how you do with them. And then I pass the first driver and then we do the pit stop and then I have a single driver lineup. So I have a 3 second longer pit stop. Then they get right behind or right back in front of me and then I come back out and I pass the second driver. And then I won by like, I think 15 seconds.
D
And that was really true in Italy.
C
Yep.
D
And you won three races in a row.
C
That was the third win in a row.
B
Double Indy chasing them down.
D
That's amazing.
B
That's a pivotal moment in a career as a young driver because there's the thinking I can win and knowing I can win and the confidence boost that comes from knowing head to head, listen, I can handle this guy. And you're going to deal with that at each step along the way when you move up.
C
Now I've found a new guy to be chasing.
B
Yes, you've got some new guys.
C
Danny is. It's the same number in the exact same car, but it's now a new pro in the car. And he has won, I think six pro pro championships, three world finals titles. He is one of the best Super Trofeo drivers to everybody ever do it. And you know, it's. I think the bar is perfectly set because right now we're sitting fourth in the championship. But if we can find out how to beat this guy, all the eyes are, they're looking that way. You know, it's the exact competition we need.
B
Yeah. Danny. Danny from all. For those of you guys following along so you're going to school every time you're behind him and saying, oh, wow, okay. And so.
C
Exactly.
B
He's doing this a little bit here. So good for you. That's exciting. That's fun.
C
Thank you.
A
My most exciting moment is not that exciting. But using your line at coda to pass like multiple people on multiple occasions when nobody else seemed to know to put their car there was an incredibly helpful bit of racecraft that resulted in like multiple planned passes.
C
That's awesome.
A
Like when someone like me like sets up planned passes that work out through the way that I envision them, like that's like, oh, shit. That actually worked. Like, wow.
C
Real life chess.
A
Yeah, that was. That could have been it. Yeah. Don't break for the kink. Says if you have the opportunity to take any road legal car around Road America for the afternoon, what would it be?
D
T50.
A
Ooh, T50.
C
Yeah.
A
Good choice.
B
Hard to beat that. Hard to beat that.
A
I mean a ZR1 would be pretty, you know, pretty extraordinary in, in that regard.
C
I think I'd shit my pants in a 01 at Road America. Me too. I think so fast you'd be going
A
like 160 every straightaway.
C
I think, if not more. Yeah, I think I'd want to do probably the Z06, the new one. The one. The Z51 track package. Oh, yeah, I heard that. It's just like the Super Trofeo. And if it's anywhere close, I'm down.
D
That's a good call too. Ferrari sounds, but more of that dynamic sound.
C
Exactly.
A
Johnnyev. Giberman says Tato and Tommy, Is it ever faster to go throttle, brake, throttle, brake through bus stops or chicanes rather than doing the coast on the sim? I feel like the more I master coasting, the faster I get. But it seems counterintuitive.
B
I think what you're dealing with here, this is. I work. This is, you know, his eyes aren't moving. And so if your eyes aren't moving ahead and looking through it, you're going to want to break until you move your eyes. And so if you get your eyes going through there, I mean, there's no absolutes depending. You could theoretically have a bus stop that was designed where it was fast enough through the middle that you would have to dab the brakes for the second part. But the ones that I know of, generally you're rolling so much through, it's basically like one long corner. It's not a chicane and a straight and a chicane.
C
Usually. Yeah. With the sim especially, I think that the brake, throttle, brake, throttle, brake. And the kind of coasting happens both ways. You know, like for Watkins Glen at the bus stop, you do need a big brake, then you lift and then sometimes I even do a second little break just to tuck that nose after that first jump and then it's straight back to throttle. But then for tracks like Cota, I was barely touching, you know, any type of brake or any type of gas going through, through the S's. But the thing is, it's just trying to keep that minimum speed up. Like it's all about carrying the momentum through those corners and not trying to make any. Make any momentum. It's just carrying. It's surviving with that speed you brought in and surviving with it all the way out.
B
Sounds like he answered his own question.
C
Exactly.
B
The more he gets comfortable with it, the faster he gets.
A
Matt Farah's Million Mile Lagonda if you could try every race car from, from a certain series of any era, which would you choose and which would you be the most excited to try? Well, I mean, those are probably the same thing.
B
With guaranteed safety, I would drive, you know, the Sunoco 917 30, maybe. Can am cars.
A
Can AM cars. I would try all the group B cars if I could have an open. An open area to not get any
D
trees and docks, open stage, rally, open desert type stuff blocking that camera.
A
It would been shuffling, right?
C
What was that? DTM Mercedes.
A
It was like the 190s.
C
Yes. Yeah, that car.
D
Yeah.
B
It's funny, I rode in the most extreme, the later generation DTM Mercedes. And they're awesome, but they have. They don't have a lot of power.
A
So the 190 Evo 2s are like slow. Yeah, like, they're actually. They're great chassis and stuff, but like, they're like 225 horsepower, which is why
B
they attack the curbs. The way you see those old videos of Klaus Ludwig and Burnt Ship Snyder, just, you know, just eating as much curve as they can, sparks flying. So, you know, Group B gtp, the era I drove, I'm really stoked that I got to drive that era car. I mean, F1 stuff also. Safety, though, with any of the old stuff is just. It's so sketchy, dude.
A
Pat Long talks to me about the vintage F1 races he drives and he says they are so dangerous. Like, he can't believe how shady the cars are.
B
Yeah, I mean, they just had the historic Monaco and Adrian Fernandez is driving and the Euros, when they've vintage race. You see it at Goodwood, they go. They go hard. Lacy had a huge crash at Monaco. Historic. So, yeah, that's that. I mean, yeah, you're rolling the dice. So. But I mean, hey, if. If you're scared, get a dog, as they say, right?
A
I don't know if we have an answer to this one, but Tommy commentates on F1. So recently, Italy has launched a tax evasion investigation against the entire 2020-2024 F1 series for tax evasion as people who have raced internationally. Is this a case of F1 teams dodging taxes intentionally or Italy having tax laws to apply to foreign workers? Do you have any idea about this?
B
I haven't seen any of it. I mean, it. I'm guessing the argument is similar. Oh, see, okay, this is what they do in the major leagues now, where states all the athletes live in, you know, Florida in the off season in Nevada. And so I think Pennsylvania was the first one that says, we want, if you play two out of, you know, whatever, we want 5% of your salary withheld for our tax. So the pro ballplayers have to file tax returns in almost every state. And yet some guy saying, I Gonna have a sore hammy that game. And you know, so I'm guessing this is.
A
There's a great documentary that I think is called Broke. It's about athletes who make a huge amount of money and go broke very fast. And one of the stars of the documentary is an athlete who earned tons of money and went broke. And now he's a financial advisor for athletes. And, and he was talking about, yeah, you gotta be filing tax returns in every state you play in. Otherwise like a lot of these guys will get some crazy tax bill later in racing.
B
There's a way around this. If they go after these guys, what'll happen is they'll break it into two contracts and you'll have the contract for driving the race car, which will be significantly lower. And then the contract for doing personal appearances or testing or commercial shooting shoots will be through the roof. So they'll adjust if, if they get too aggressive on that.
A
Breaking Benjamin's lap record says, growing up, what were the race cars that really caught your eye?
C
Oh, what a great shout. The C32. That is such a pretty car.
A
The IMSA Z32 300X. Very.
B
That was a very pretty car that the Clayton Cunningham. The twin Turbo.
C
Yeah.
B
Those were huge. I raced against those cars. Those were big, big cars. Those cars carried a lot of weight, had huge power. Clayton Cunningham designed water cooled brake calipers.
A
Oh, wow.
B
They were water cooling. The brake caliper in that car was
A
there actually like a water pump and a radiator. Holy.
B
That's nuts.
C
Yeah.
A
It seems like more trouble than it's worth, but cool idea. Yep. That is a pretty car.
C
Look at the front.
A
Steve Mill and Johnny o'. Connell.
B
Yeah.
A
Shout out to Steve Millen. We love him.
B
Steve Millen and Johnny. I started racing in the Jim Russell series with Johnny o'. Connell. We both went on to do stuff. So in 93, I ran the Mustang, Roush Mustang against those cars and came out on top. Nice gts. So. But yeah, I mean, and I drove for Clayton Cunningham. The RX7 that I drove at the very start of my IMSA career was what Clayton got his start in before he took over the fight factory. I mean, that's that. That whole era of car, you had the Roush Cougars, you had the Audis, the Mustangs. What else was there was. There was an F40 that John Alesi drove during that era.
A
The F40 race car was sick.
D
Gotta say that not only does the Beretta not look like a Beretta, this does not look like a Mustang. This Mustang race car of yours from the 93, the 80s Fox wheels you were racing.
B
Yeah, so. And then partway through this season, we developed a car that actually had a transaxle. It had a. It had a hybrid tube frame, but it had bonded carbon panels to the tube frame to stiffen it up. And they even had a stiffener because of my legs were so bent. They actually ran a carbon kind of rib under my legs that tied the bottom together to make it extra stiff. Yes. So that car, I don't know of anyone that knows where the whereabouts of that exact chassis is. That's on my list to try to run down.
A
That's fine. Edoleon needs a challenge. That's where you.
C
The C5R.
D
Yeah, C5R.
C
The Dylan Horn car.
D
I want a yellow Corvette just because
A
there was a guy back in the day in. In my neighborhood in New York that had a yellow C5Z06 and did delivery the full livery.
C
Amazing.
A
Bless his heart. It wasn't as bad as it really as it could have been. American Hero Two in the Ruby, one in the Star says, I heard that the 911 cup cars are actually mid engine for better performance, but they wanted to keep the 911 body versus using a Cayman body. Is it true they actually move the engine position forward or they use GT4 architecture for the 911 race cars? No, they move the engine position. It's a different thing.
B
Well, but not in the cup cars.
A
The cup car is the same as the GT3 engine, but position, I believe.
B
So they had. They ran. They ran that one RSR in GTS where it was actually true mid engine, where they flipped it. But I think all the ones now are back to.
A
Yeah, I think they just moved the rear axle further back to get it more mid engine. But it's not actually mid engine. It's rear engine.
B
Yes.
A
Yeah, yeah. No, it's not GT4 architecture. Although the next. I've been told the next 911, 11 GT4, you know, the GT4 car is a 911. Now the new one, it's not going to be a Cayman. It's gonna be a 911 GT4. Well, that's a narrower body and a smaller wing and stuff like that. Yeah. Because they don't have a. They've discontinued the gas Cayman for the time being.
C
Oh, wow.
A
I think we've. We've covered that one.
C
You.
A
You had me at home. Helotus. That's very good. What would everyone's pick be for the best spec racing series to pursue. You guys have both raced in spec races and I've not raced in any.
B
So you've raced in spec Boxster and
C
spec Miata and spec Miata and Super Trafal and Spec Super Trafal.
B
I'm a big fan of. You know of spec Miata as the entry level way to get as much seat time and as many reps for as cost effectively as possible. Spec me Boxster looks good, but there's something about the sheer numbers of spec Miatas where you have big, big fields and so forth. I mean, Super Trofeo is as sexy as it gets for a one make. I mean those things.
A
And if you're like a dude, that's our size or a gal or whatever, that's our size.
D
Tommy.
A
Like spec E46 is a much more comfortable race car for a larger driver and they're fun as to drive.
D
They're very fun.
A
They're a good, good time.
B
Basically you want even competition and cost per mile in terms of best. You know, if you're looking for thrill, then obviously Ferrari challenge or, or Ferrari challenge is great.
A
If you want to hang a photo on your office wall, that's you and your red suit with your.
B
Actually I'll, I'll throw out this will. This will make people mad. But IndyCar is a great spec series.
A
It is. We know it is. Yeah, yeah, they're the same.
C
Have you ever heard of the ARCA series?
A
Nascar? Yeah.
B
A little bit of a tangent, but it's getting a lot of talk with the new F1 rules being such a dud. IndyCar's working on a new package. There's a lot of people saying, listen, scrap what you were working on and steal F1's thunder and do a ripping V10 with no hybrid. And just all the people that missed that make it sound good. This is, is what we do.
D
It's a good idea.
A
I'm going to the 500 this year.
C
You're going to hell. Yeah.
A
First time.
C
That'll be super cool.
B
Incredible. Yeah, incredible.
A
And oh, by the way, I can't believe that I hadn't thought of this. Legends. Legends cars. Yeah. You buy a brand new Legends car, $25,000. It's some of the most competitive racing there is, as long as it's in your region.
B
Have you driven one on a road course? I drove one on a short oval
A
at 10:10. Oh, it ripped.
B
Yes, dude, it was.
A
It was wild. I was, I was wiped at the end of my hour.
B
Well, on the right scale track, which it sounds like you were on, you know, motorcycle engine fan in the gear. Sequential gearbox would be a thrill.
A
Road America would be the wrong place. But street, dude, streets of Willow 1010. You know, a lot of these club type tracks. Thermal are unbelievable in a car like that. It has like go kart one to one steering. That is mad twitchy.
C
Right.
B
For fun.
C
And NASA has a pretty good field with the E30 spec series.
A
Oh yeah. There's an. Isn't there a new spec E30 series as well?
C
I'm not sure.
A
New E30 series that just got started. That has kind of like a catchy name. It seemed. I just read about it somewhere. It seemed cool. Did anything come up very rap very
D
quickly when I NASA spec E 30s
B
there, it had a. Had a kid.
A
Catchy name, if you know what I'm talking about. Get in the comments. If not Specky30. Yeah, those are. Those are genuine general car advice. We'll save those for later. TK Tato. Thank you.
C
Thank you.
A
You podiumed last weekend atuna in super tro. So congratulations.
C
Thank you.
A
That is awesome.
C
We had a little bit of unlucky misfortune there at race two, but what is it?
A
What is a. What's a fast lap in a super trofeo at Laguna?
C
So the fastest lap I was able to get down to was a 24. 3.
A
Nice.
C
Our teammate Dennis Lind, who's just. First time ever at Laguna Seca. 22. Eight, I think.
B
Wow.
D
First time ever there.
C
First time ever there. Lap record for super Trafal.
D
What?
C
Yep.
D
He's a quick study.
A
Wow.
C
Yeah.
A
That's what Zinger did with the 21C. Full downforce.
C
That is unbelievable. Do they have fans attached to that car?
A
Not no fans, but tri motor hybrid.
C
Yeah. Unbelievable.
A
1300 horsepower and. And a lot of. A lot of wang. Big wang.
C
Yeah. We got minimal aero.
A
Yeah.
C
No, that's.
A
I mean, to be running that kind of number in a rear wheel drive Lamborghini, albeit on slicks is fucking.
B
Which is faster than what was the GTD.
C
So the GTDs are running 19s.
B
Oh, they are, yeah.
C
The real good ones are. I mean, in testing, Dennis was faster than all of the other GTD cars there.
A
That's.
C
And in testing, I actually bass the. What was the black and yellow? It's the. Not slapping the thing. It's the Corvette. It's the privateer Corvette.
B
Oh, dx.
C
Is it dxd? Not dxd. They were pink and green this weekend. But I passed that guy going into the corkscrew. Amazing. That was so Cool.
A
Sick.
B
Well, it was fun. I was up there as part of the rooting contingent for Super Trofeo. It's a fun. You know, Sergio ran into this big Airbnb. It's like six or seven bedrooms. And so the camaraderie, which was what was so fun about going to Road America, hanging out in the same house with everyone and the dinners and the stories and so forth and so on. And everyone from Mateo's grandmother, Myrta, who. And if you see the butterflies on his suit, she is, I think a four time, five time cancer survivor. So the butterflies are team Butterfly for Myrta. That's on Mateo's suit. And so you've got all these generations that are coming out to root on the boy.
A
Yeah. Amazing.
C
Yeah. It takes a village, man. And sponsorship is still open if anybody would like to jump on board. We were a family here. We'd love to welcome you, Tato.
A
Thank you very much for coming down.
C
Yep. Thank you.
A
And TK of course, thank you for joining us today. Let's. Let's do it again soon, huh?
C
Yeah.
B
Yeah.
C
And hey, go get a notice watch. They're real comfortable.
A
Notice driver sponsor. How about that? Which one is that?
C
This is the Deep, but.
A
Oh, the Sector Deep.
C
Exactly. But I'm gonna be getting a canyon pretty soon.
A
The pink canyon.
C
Exactly.
A
You need wearing that. You can't have someone else's nose. That's shameful. In these parts, there are shout out
C
to west out there.
A
We are going to be. They didn't get totally wiped out by the Patreon, which is totally fine. So I think we've got like 25 of them that are going to go to the public sale and I'll announce it when that's left. We're doing 100 of them.
C
Awesome. So awesome.
A
Limited edition.
C
All right.
A
That's our show. Thank you to our patrons for such good questions today. Thank you for Tato for braving traffic and. And TK for coming down as well. And of course, Sergio for hooking it up and inviting Zach and I down and being part of the family. And oh, charity car show.
C
Charity car show.
A
Charity car show. Yeah. The Riff Raff Garage in Agora. It's gonna be on June 7th.
C
Yes.
B
Barrett Automotive.
A
Oh, it's a Barrett.
B
Which share space with Rick Rolls podcast studio. So. And it's benefiting autism. Some interesting classes that if you want to enter, we've got best everyday driver.
C
I'm entered in that. I got my C5 in there. Oh, yeah, okay.
A
I will be there. You'll be there others. Other friends of ours will be there. I'll put the link in my Insta. They just sent me the invite this morning, so I'll put the. I'll put the. The link in the Instagram. So if you're in LA on June 7th, come out and hang for a good cause. Thank you, everybody. We'll see you next time. Goodbye.
Date: May 7, 2026
Hosts: Matt Farah, Zack Klapman
Guests: Tommy Kendall, Mateo (Tato) Siderman
In this vibrant, story-packed episode, Matt and Zack are joined by pro racer/TV host Tommy Kendall and up-and-coming endurance racer Mateo “Tato” Siderman for a debrief of their recent weekend racing at Road America in the World Racing League (WRL). The crew breaks down how their team fared, trading technical insights, battle stories from the track, and some harrowing (and hilarious) personal moments—including Tato’s wild crash and subsequent injury. From WRL’s team culture to mechanical woes, racecraft, track tactics, and infamous seat discomforts, this episode is a must-listen for endurance racing fans who want insight from both seasoned legends and young aces.
“Trying to share a little bit of speed and trying to learn a little bit from Tommy every weekend is...awesome.” —Tato, 04:04
“They treat you like adults, but they’re also firm, which is preferable to them barking at you and then never pulling the trigger on the penalties.” —Tommy, 04:36
“Shitty thing is, I think they won day two.” —Tato, 15:07
“That wasn’t something that they were gonna fix during the race. There’s no way.” —Matt, 24:25
“I regret, in hindsight, not sitting in the car longer and going through everything...over and over and over again...” —Zack, 27:28
“If there’s no guy with a gun at the start, you don’t have to be at 35 at the cone...” —Tommy, 31:19
“To hover your foot in the air for an hour plus stint is a wild feat of athletic endurance...” —Matt, 42:16
“This seat was a little small for TK and myself, and I also have a small...pad underneath...slid...and it was pushing against my calves. And so I was wrecked.” —Tommy, 41:49
“My right nut was hanging out of my sack, and it was like a hole the size of a big ping pong ball.” —Tato, 53:17
“If you want good service at a hospital, you rip your nuts in half.” —Matt, 55:11
“Outside of the carousel, quite good. Until the line joins, and then you got a tiptoe. Slide of death.” —Tommy, 40:58
“You use the ground up twice as fast...you’re going foot over, you’re going two feet.” —Tommy, 67:38
“I didn’t have the balls to use it there. I used it on the exit of 14 onto the front straight a lot.” —Matt, 68:13
“It takes a village, man. And sponsorship is still open...” —Tato, 98:13
TK’s racing history: “I've been going there as a driver for 40 years...what's cool about Elkhart...is it's one of the few tracks that continues to race in its original configuration.” —Tommy, 06:56
On the fake Corvette ‘BOP’ parity: “Imagine limiting a fucking LT1 motor to 2/3 throttle. You...hours just foot on the floor.” —Matt, 15:27
On learning through adversity:
“Sometimes, if you have to save fuel or save brakes, you find out...the lower gear always feels faster, but oftentimes you're over-slowing and it's holding you back.” —Tommy, 77:35
Endurance mindset: “That’s endurance racing, right? Like, things go wrong randomly...Fourth place is amazing for a practice race.” —Tato, 39:20
On racing with an injury: “The seat belt was going through the hole in the seat...whenever I hit the brakes, I’d slap onto the front, and whenever I hit a bump, I’d slap onto both. It was a painful...the kink was not easy.” —Tato, 57:44
This episode offers a richly detailed, first-person view of what it takes to race, support, and learn together—whether you’re a legend or a rookie. It blends practical advice, war stories, and racecraft, plenty of laughs, and a splash of real-life scar tissue. If you want to get a feel for modern grassroots endurance racing at a high level—the technical headaches, the camaraderie, the learning curves, the risks, and all the rewards—this is essential listening.
For more car reviews and behind-the-scenes action, follow The Smoking Tire on YouTube and social media.