B/F: The Drive Thru #32

• BILL INTRODUCED IN U.S. HOUSE OF REPS. TO PREVENT ICE BANS
• Scratched EV battery? Your insurer may have to junk the whole car

• OAKBERRY Becomes the Official Açaí Partner to MoneyGram Haas F1 Team
• The tale of F1's most tragic rivalry which makes for compelling viewing

• Toyota CEO Says “Silent Majority” Of Auto Industry Is Doubting EV-Only Future
• 2024 Hyundai Ioniq 5 N Is No Mere Carbon-Copy Kia

• The 2023 Cardboard Classic

We don’t think this made CCG’s list of events…

• 16 Hypercars Highlight Official 2023 Le Mans Field

KIMI is back with the TrackHouse team… and then there’s Jensen Button

CHAOS ensues at the end of 2023 Sebring 12hrs!

• PRO-MOTORSPORTS LEGISLATION ONE STEP CLOSER TO WV LAW

• Woman goes viral for buying a 1998 Ford Escort for $289 a month for the next 84 months

• NHTSA Is Investigating Tesla Over Model Y Steering Wheels Falling Off
• Tesla expects to lose full $7,500 tax credit on its cheapest electric car

Tesla hatchback teased before Investors Day

Executive Producer Tania: [00:00:00] The Drive Thru is GTM’s monthly news episode and is sponsored in part by organizations like HPTEjunkie. com, Hooked on Driving, AmericanMuscle. com, CollectorCarGuide. net, Project Motoring, Garage Style Magazine, and many others. If you are interested in becoming a sponsor of the Drive Thru, look no further than www.

gtmotorsports. org. Click about, and then advertising. Thank you again to everyone that supports Grand Touring Motorsports, our podcast, Brake Fix, and all the other services we provide.

Crew Chief Brad: That’s your cue. Welcome to drive thru episode number 32. This is our monthly recap where we put together a menu of automotive motorsport and random car adjacent news. Now, let’s pull up to window number one. For some news, just news. Oh shoot,

Crew Chief Eric: that’s left over from season 3. We’re in season 4 now, can you believe that?

Season 40? Yeah, it feels like season. Feels like season 40 for sure. You know what [00:01:00] else it feels like? Like I’m having one of these macho man, Randy Savage kind of. Season

four. So I’m like, yeah, brother, Ric Flair in this thing. Like, we really got to come into season four with a bang. Like, right. I mean, God, you feel, you get the energy.

I feel it. It’s welling up inside me. We’ve got to get this news out to people in an exciting way.

Crew Chief Brad: You know, I feel some energy to the energy. I feel is more like NPR. Welcome to drive through episode 32.

Crew Chief Eric: Tanya’s over there. Like, there’s just a disturbance in the force.

Executive Producer Tania: No, these are always like. As my bedtime approaches, so my energy level is not high.

You asked way too much for the hour of the day.

Crew Chief Brad: She’s used to being an hour behind in Texas, so she had an extra hour.

Executive Producer Tania: I know, so nice. That was life changing.

Crew Chief Brad: Well, let’s

snap into a drive thru, brother! Jesus Christ.

Crew Chief Brad: Let’s tap into our inner WWE, shall we? Back in my

Crew Chief Eric: day, it was an F, not an E. But that being said, this month’s [00:02:00] showcase, we’re gonna talk about one of our favorite brands.

Probably for the first time as an actual showcase, rather than The next in line, BMW, Volkswagen, Audi, and Porsche.

Crew Chief Brad: Is it Porsche or Porsche?

Crew Chief Eric: There’s different schools of thought on that. I’ve heard the cars of Porsche and the family is Porsche, but I could be wrong.

Executive Producer Tania: Is

Crew Chief Brad: that one of those things where you have to own one to know how to pronounce it?

Crew Chief Eric: Yeah. There’s a secret handshake too,

Crew Chief Brad: because in that case you should know.

Crew Chief Eric: It’s like the in and out menu, right? There’s all these secret things about being a Porsche owner. But you know what? Isn’t a secret. We talked about this before scout as in international scout, international harvester, which we all thought belonged to Ford forever was bought by Volkswagen.

They own all that. And they’re coming out with the scout again, but as an EV.

Crew Chief Brad: So apparently scouts backed by Volkswagen is 2 billion factory. In South Carolina,

Crew Chief Eric: where did they come up with all this money? Didn’t they lose more than that? Like 15 billion during [00:03:00] diesel gate? How did they make it all back?

Crew Chief Brad: How many billions did you get from diesel gate?

Cause you had a few of those.

Crew Chief Eric: Uh, I don’t believe it was billions. How

Crew Chief Brad: many hundreds did you get?

Crew Chief Eric: I mean, if we counted it in kilobytes, then maybe it was billions, you know what I mean? You count it in yuan or whatever, in Chinese, dirty yin. Two billion pesos. There’s a follow on article to this article from TechCrunch from Hagerty.

Volkswagen is obviously talking about the Scout plant and what they’re investing in it and they’re really bullish on bringing this vehicle back and, you know, how it’s going to sell in the States because of nostalgia and everything else. But they also talked about how there’s this, let’s call it gold rush in America right now to build factories, especially for EBS in the United States.

And so I’m like, really, where are we building all these factories? Exactly.

Crew Chief Brad: South Carolina and North Carolina.

Executive Producer Tania: Not densely populated cities,

Crew Chief Eric: the whole Eastern seaboard compared to like the Midwest, obviously the big three were building all their factories, like in Ohio [00:04:00] and Illinois and places like that.

Why not move back to those areas where they almost need it more? Like, I feel like building another plant alongside of BMW and Mercedes and everybody else that’s in the Carolinas to include NASCAR. Does that make sense?

Crew Chief Brad: I mean, it depends on how attractive the local establishment is making it for these companies to come and build these facilities.

I mean, in the article here, it says that South Carolina Governor Henry McMaster, classic name, by the way, he’s making it a priority to make his state an EV epicenter. And I guarantee you having worked for quasi government agency and being in the business of providing business loans and commercial loans to businesses using state and public funding, there’s a ton of incentives to be had out there.

It all depends on what the agenda is. Of the local municipality and what they want to do. He’s making it an EV epicenter, making that a priority. Then he’s going to prioritize state funding, incentivizing companies to come to his state.

Crew Chief Eric: I’m just curious, the [00:05:00] drawbacks to, you know, building a factory, what’s the green initiative look like there?

How clean is the factory, right? Because it takes certain machinery and tooling and things that already exist today to create these, let’s call them quote unquote, clean vehicles. So there’s sort of a give and take there. I’m very curious. To see how this pans out. They’re claiming 200, 000 EVs a year coming out of the new scout plant.

That’s exciting because I think it’s a cool idea. I love to see these on the road. They’re also talking about potentially competing with the Rivians of the world and the Broncos and the Wranglers and things like that. So the price point of this scout is. TBD at this point, I’m hoping they don’t price the enthusiasts out of the vehicle.

If it’s

Crew Chief Brad: competing in those markets, it’s going to be in the 40, 50, 60 range.

Crew Chief Eric: Yeah. The Rivian, I think is on the higher end of that. So that’s the scary part. Like, hopefully they don’t reach for that level and they keep it somewhere in between.

Crew Chief Brad: Yeah. They’ll have different levels. I’m sure. And they’ll have different sized versions.

I’m sure too. They’ll probably have like an equivalent to the Bronco sport as well as the actual [00:06:00] Bronco. I’m excited. I, I’m all for more off road capable vehicles.

Executive Producer Tania: You think this is going to be off road capable?

Crew Chief Brad: That’s what it’s supposed to be. It’s supposed to be rugged. US market with a rugged, oh, electric view.

Executive Producer Tania: Don’t they all say they’re rugged?

Crew Chief Brad: Until you actually take them off the mall parking lot. Yes. So it depends. The Broncos are capable. Wranglers have been proven for decades to be capable. Yes. I believe that if that’s the market that they’re going for it, Dan will better be rugged. Absolutely.

Crew Chief Eric: Well, switching gears, maybe they’re paying for all this with the new Porsche 911 GT3 RS tribute package.

Supposedly honoring the iconic 1973 Carrera RS. What do you guys think? I hate the frunk. Thank you.

Crew Chief Brad: The frunk lid. Even just the regular base 911. I hate The little grill or whatever. I mean, I’m sure they’re functional, the hood vents or the frunk vents. It

Executive Producer Tania: looks like a Bajoran nose.

Crew Chief Eric: Oh! There is something really wrong with that hood.

I agree with you that scaffolding across the bridge of its nose does [00:07:00] remind me now of a Bajoran now that you say that. The bottom half of the bumper. Is reminiscent of the Taycan. It’s kind of odd from the front. The rest of the car, I like the livery. I love the green, white, and black. It looks really cool.

I do like the green and

Crew Chief Brad: white, yeah. I don’t know how I feel about the spoilers around the wheels.

Crew Chief Eric: Oh, the canards? Yeah, front and back. Those are interesting. I mean, obviously they’re there for a reason. They don’t take away and they don’t add, because of the other black accents, I don’t even notice them right away, and then you pointed them out and obviously they’re there.

I mean, what’s more ostentatious is that rear wing. I mean, good lord, if you couldn’t feed a family of twelve on that thing. It is huge! And the weird

Crew Chief Brad: fender arch, too. The weird cutout. Fender arch thing or whatever. I don’t know. It’s okay.

Crew Chief Eric: What I think they’re doing is they’re borrowing from the IMSA 9 11 in that respect, where it has that sort of cut rear fender and the way the bumpers come off on those cars.

So it reminds me of the legitimate GT three cars. So I don’t hate it. Right. Does that mean it’s mid engine? [00:08:00] Uh, you know, but you know what it is manual. It comes with a manual transmission.

Crew Chief Brad: Oh, so you won’t see it on any racetracks then because they don’t use manual cars and races.

Crew Chief Eric: Yeah, I know. Tanya discovered that much to her chagrin.

You know what else is disappointing? You might be able to get two of these bargain at 314, 000 after delivery and destination charges. It comes with a watch. So you can tell how quickly you’re wasting your money. So the

Crew Chief Brad: watch is 300, 000 and then the car is 15, 000. The

Executive Producer Tania: magnesium watch. So yeah,

Crew Chief Eric: that stuff is all super cool.

If you’re in the market for that, God bless you. I’m going to be jealous from afar and live vicariously through every lap. You turn at Watkins Glen with one of these things is coming to an HOD event near you. It is cool. Except for that hood in the further down pictures. The car that has the color matched hood, it still looks like a Bajoran, but it’s not as hateful.

It

Executive Producer Tania: looks better though. If they would make, just make it all white. Yeah,

Crew Chief Eric: a hundred percent. It would look nicer. In order to [00:09:00] drive your 911 GT3 RS on track, you need to put petrol in it because it’s not an EV. And Porsche’s got a plan for that, too.

Executive Producer Tania: Well, what you would put it, it eventually is Porsche’s plan to make their own e fuels, whatever that means in terms of it being their own.

I mean, hopefully, obviously, if they’re partnering with major oil and gas companies to fund, I guess, the process to make the e fuels, I mean, hopefully it’s not just a Porsche exclusive or something like that. Right. But there’s also other. News that the European Union is looking to legalize e fuels as an alternative to electric.

I don’t even know what that means because e fuel is still gasoline. So gasoline’s legal. Why wouldn’t

Crew Chief Eric: Yeah, it’s an oxymoron, right?

Executive Producer Tania: E fuel be legal. I mean, it becomes an e fuel in the way it’s manufactured is far allegedly greener than Um, regular conventional gasoline,

Crew Chief Brad: the point Eric was making about the EV plants and manufacturing these factories, building EVs isn’t necessarily [00:10:00] environmentally safe to begin with.

I think the point is to be carbon neutral from start to finish, I guess. So whatever they damage, they do, they make up for it on the back end or something like that. I think it’s, well, part

Executive Producer Tania: of it with the plants too is. You need power to run them, the power that you run your plants could also be from sustainable means.

So whether that’s wind, solar, nuclear,

Crew Chief Eric: they said that the plant itself is being run by like a single wind turbine or something like that right now, because the E fuel plant is still sort of in the building stages versus, you know, where they claim it’s going to be in the future.

Executive Producer Tania: Yeah, I mean, if they’re doing a pilot scale.

Plant. They’re not making huge quantities of it. I’m sure they could probably have enough power generated from a single wind turbine. And I think part of the real Porsche announcement about them being successful and I think their pilot plant, they’re doing it down in South America in an area that’s very, very windy.

And they chose that on purpose, which is interesting because that area is very, very. Touristy, let’s [00:11:00] say can be, cause it’s like the hub point to some really big major hikes and beautiful landscape and area. So part of me is like, yes, this is very cool. We need to do this. And the other part of me is like, why are you doing it in such a beautiful place?

Nobody wants that in their backyard. Right. Which is a classic thing with. You know, all oil refineries and things like that to everybody wants their oil, but they don’t want it in their backyard.

Crew Chief Eric: But I did find it funny as you scroll through this article and they show some of the shots of the beginnings of the plant and one in particular, there’s one of the tankers there, but if you pay close attention to the background of the building, you see the Porsche logo, you see Siemens.

ExxonMobil, Enel, and a couple other companies on there. And I’m like, there’s some big names, obviously putting their logos on the side of this building that are involved in this entire process of creating this quote unquote e fuel.

Executive Producer Tania: ExxonMobil and Porsche partnered with this already several years ago.

They’ve been in the process of working together to develop this. That’s not news. The process that they’re using to do it isn’t [00:12:00] new. I mean, it might be new to the general masses, but it’s old tech technically. So good on them if they’re able to scale it in a more affordable way now than versus, you know, decades ago, you know, the question is how much will this fuel end up costing you at the end of the day as the consumer, because talked about this in other places, gasoline and diesel are at this point by products of the refining process.

It’s not. That refineries are just solely making gasoline. You make a ton of different chemicals, if you will, from the process, two of which go into our cars every day or in our planes or the lubricants that go into your engine oils and all that stuff. The asphalt that you drive on the road to the pen that you may or may not use, if you still use paper, all these plastics and stuff in our daily lives are all.

Byproducts out of the refining process, you can destroy gasoline molecules down further and use them to do something else, but that’s expensive. And most of the equipment on the ground today isn’t designed to do that. To go in and retrofit or redesign [00:13:00] is very costly. So you get to a certain point where you can only do so much and then suddenly you’re spending tons of money.

to solve a problem, you know, and that’s going to just translate into the cost of things. So what they’re doing here as well, they’re going about it a different route, but is it cost effective? And we won’t know until they start scaling it up. It’s great. And we should be looking for alternative means and more.

Carbon neutral or greener, whatever you want to call it. Gasoline right now is, I don’t know, depending where you are, 3 to 4 a gallon. People are upset about that. Well, what if they come around? They’re like, we can have your e fuel. It’s 12 a gallon. I don’t think anybody’s going to go buy it. I mean, not saying that it’s going to cost that much.

But it’s not going to be 12 cents a gallon because it’s, Oh, it’s green. Right?

Crew Chief Eric: Well, not only that, if you read this article, the way it’s exactly written, it’s only designed for nine 11s for more than 700, 000 nine 11s alone. We just completely disenfranchised. Every other Porsche owner on the planet, they are not allowed to have this fuel specially formulated only for the 911, which made me [00:14:00] wonder when does Ferrari come out with their fuel and is it going to burn a little hotter?

It’s going to make the car a little faster, or is it just going to end in disappointment? Like every F1 race, they’re going to call it Porosangue.

Executive Producer Tania: You’re going to string along carbon molecules to make octane. It’s going to be the same.

Crew Chief Eric: SSDB, right? Same ship, different bottle. Is that what we’re talking about here?

Executive Producer Tania: Well, and that’s. What I’m wondering, Porsche slaps their name on it.

Crew Chief Eric: Kind of like the formula car they were building.

Executive Producer Tania: Are you going to get an upcharge for that? I don’t know. That’s why I’m like, they can’t be just for them. They’re linking carbon molecules together to make octane. Octane’s octane at the end of the day.

And beyond that, then everybody puts their additives in this, that, and the other. Shelby power. blah, blah, blah, all that stuff. Right. So are they going to make their own additives too that make it especially Porsche, especially racy? I don’t know. Cause I thought it said it will work. It doesn’t matter. You don’t need a different motor or anything.

It’s just going to work. Yes. Cause it’s octane. The motor doesn’t pair as long as it’s getting it.

Crew Chief Eric: If I pour it into my four [00:15:00] cylinder turbo and it suddenly sounds like a flat. That’s that Porsche ness additive that they add in there. I

Executive Producer Tania: mean, maybe. I mean, it’s great. I love new technology. I love them trying new things.

It’s just a matter of can it be as affordable as what they’re doing now.

Crew Chief Eric: Since you like new technology so much, I think you have something you’d like to share.

Executive Producer Tania: Since retro’s in still, I think it’s still in right? It’s still in retro? I

Crew Chief Eric: think so.

Executive Producer Tania: Yeah, I think so. I don’t think we’ve moved out of that phase yet.

So to continue riding that train, Volkswagen has said that their ID two all model, their names are a little confusing, but the ID two all, which I don’t think is coming to the United States. But that electric vehicle that they’re going to have in Europe is going to have retro gauge options in the instrument cluster.

So you could hearken back to a Mark 1 instrument cluster or a vintage Beetle instrument cluster digitally in your car.

Crew Chief Eric: There’s good and there’s bad here. The goods. I don’t know if they [00:16:00] necessarily outweigh the bads yet. So let’s go over the goods. I love the fact that you can have like classic rabbit, Chiraco dashboard.

And I’m hoping it has like the weird vacuum buzzer and the shift up light, even though this thing doesn’t even basically have a transmission, you know, stuff like that. I think it’s all super neat. I believe Ford was doing some of this too with the Mach E. Like you change the dashboard and all that kind of stuff.

I think it’s a really neat idea. But when you get to the radio, That’s where you start to lose me.

Executive Producer Tania: That was hilarious. The cassette drop in cassette. I’m like, I would have that.

Crew Chief Eric: Okay. That is cool. 1930s Beatle radio. Not a fan of that at all, but it all makes me wonder. How reliable it is, how good it’s going to be.

It’s completely touched. There are no buttons. And I’ve had some bad experiences with these sorts of things in the past.

Executive Producer Tania: Yeah, you don’t need the buttons. You don’t need to worry about that if it’s your instrument cluster, because you generally never touch that. Yeah, there’s like the pegs to reset mileage or to [00:17:00] time clock, but we can do that differently now.

But the radio and all that stuff being just a iPad. Yeah, I’m not a big fan of that. And I think neither are some other manufacturers that we’re going to get into later,

Crew Chief Brad: but it was Hyundai.

Executive Producer Tania: So they’re not a fan of it either. Cause they said they want to keep going with the tactile buttons and all that stuff, because it’s unsafe to be floundering around trying to figure out what your touchscreen is doing and doesn’t touch because it’s.

Not sensitive enough or oversensitive and you’re scrolling through 10 pages just to turn your radio station window.

Crew Chief Eric: But the Volkswagen has the drop in cassette and the sticky notes and stuff. How cool is that?

Executive Producer Tania: I would have the drop in cassette.

Crew Chief Eric: I actually really like the sticky note. I don’t know why, but I thought the little post it note and the added detail of the scotch tape was really cute.

I don’t know, but I agree with Hyundai. I am all for the buttons and it’s one of the things I enjoy the most about the center console on my Jeep. The Uconnect for years was rated as one of the best MFI touchscreen systems, but it has [00:18:00] complete button backups. So you don’t. Have to touch the screen if you don’t want to, to make everything work.

And so I love the idea of the customizability of these setups, but it just scares me when something breaks, then it’s 75,000 degrees outside and you can’t turn on the air conditioning.

Executive Producer Tania: So what if it goes obsolete and they’re not patching it anymore and there’s no update. Now you’re stuck. It got stuck on the VW Beetle 1967

Crew Chief Eric: Well, it better radio still. It’s like your iPad and it says. Apple no longer supports this operating system. We’re uninstalling all your apps. You’re left with nothing. Let’s talk about the ID two for a second. You said it might not be coming to the United States. Well, the ID to all either way. I like it.

It’s what the golf should be. It’s sort of bigger than the polo, but not as big as the limousine that we got that is the golf. Now it’s sort of reminds me of like a Mark four sized. Volkswagen, and it’s very well proportioned. It looks good. This interior is cool that they’re partnering with it, but bring us that [00:19:00] car.

I think that’s the neat thing to have.

Executive Producer Tania: And they probably won’t bring it to us.

Crew Chief Eric: Never

Crew Chief Brad: forget it. I feel like if they brought that it would sell better than the golf.

Crew Chief Eric: The golf’s too big.

Crew Chief Brad: Going the way the American market has gone with the crossovers and the Honda HRV and the Toyota thing that’s smaller than a RAV4, it’s basically a golf that’s lifted.

That’s perfect for what the U S market wants.

Crew Chief Eric: I mean, I’m going to put on my great car neck hat and you know, the whole Johnny Carson bit now, and I’m going to tell you that the ninth generation GTI is actually a Tiguan, but that’s where we’re going. I mean, to your point, Brad, right. They just keep getting bigger and taller.

And I feel like the days of the classic hatchback are numbered. Every time I see a Mark 8 on the road, I’m like, when did it get so big? Not on the inside though. How does that work? Ah, whatever.

Executive Producer Tania: It’s funny. Cause they say the performance of this is on par with a GTI.

Crew Chief Eric: Really?

Executive Producer Tania: Obviously not fuel economy. It only has like a two 80 mile range.

I imagine the GTI does a little bit better than that. Probably not much. It’s probably in the three hundreds, honestly. But if you’re getting the same, maybe horsepower zero [00:20:00] to 60 that people love, that’s pretty good for 25, 000.

Crew Chief Eric: Even though we’re not getting the ID two, there’s a current collaboration for another EV coming out and it’s a partnership between Volkswagen and Ford.

Executive Producer Tania: It’s the Explorer SUV that’s going to be built off the VW MEB platform.

Crew Chief Eric: It sort of looks like an ID four, which is obviously the platform that it’s built on top of, but I kind of like it better. It’s better proportion. It doesn’t look like a bad. Facelift, you know what I mean? Where they take your face and they try to stretch it back to your ears.

It’s just that the ID four has got a weird front end to it that I don’t understand, but the Explorer being a little bit more blocky, I like the way it looks, I’m wondering what Ford is bringing to the table on this particular build outside of the aesthetics and the brand, but it’s interesting to see two of the bigger players coming together.

And the question is why are they trying to take some market share away from Toyota? Are they worried about Tesla? What’s going on here? Why all of a sudden, is there a partnership between Volkswagen and Ford?

Executive Producer Tania: Well, [00:21:00] cause Ford in Europe, because this SUV is going to be in Europe. It’s not going to be the Explorer that eventually comes here.

Right.

Executive Producer Tania: So it has to be smaller because so far Europeans are still trending smaller, even though their cars are getting bigger too. Ford in Europe has always. sort of had a big presence and a different presence than Ford in America. And Ford in America has been very much focused on Merc, the Lightning, which is a non suitable platform.

Crew Chief Eric: Yeah, that makes sense.

Executive Producer Tania: For a small SUV. And so if they’re looking to be quick and get into the market fast, then it makes sense. I don’t know what the relationship is that makes it easy for them to partner, but it probably is a very. Easy way for them to quickly pump out a small SUV on a chassis that already exists versus them spending the time doing it.

Crew Chief Eric: Makes sense. Curious to see how that pans out. Unfortunately, that might be another vehicle we just never get here. Maybe on our next European vacation. Right. Well, you know, it can’t all be sunshine and roses for Volkswagen, Porsche, and Audi. There’s [00:22:00] some wah wah moments this month. Should we give our loyal audience a teaser into what to expect later, maybe in Florida Man and Lowered Expectations?

Crew Chief Brad: Sure. I love the one that’s going to piss everybody off.

Crew Chief Eric: Oh, well, which one’s that one?

Crew Chief Brad: Well, I think the title of the article is a little misleading, but it says Volkswagen wouldn’t help cops find car with abducted child until the GPS subscription was restored. Now it really wasn’t Volkswagen. It was a third party vendor that Volkswagen contracts with called Carnet.

Because they do the vehicle tracking service for the Volkswagen GPS system. So Carnet refused to give the information to the police until they renewed the subscription for the GPS.

Crew Chief Eric: And how much was that renewal by the way, for a GPS?

Crew Chief Brad: 50,

Executive Producer Tania: which when a child’s life is on the line, I would have whipped out my personal credit card and been like, let’s get this going.

Crew Chief Eric: It depends on the kid and then reported it as a fraudulent charge. No, I’m just exactly, you put it on the corporate [00:23:00] card and it’s really funny because there’s different ways to look at this. I mean. Nobody wants to get fired from their job. This person’s just doing what they’re supposed to. It’s what the script says, blah, blah, blah.

How can they verify that, you know, this is actually happening? I mean, unless the cop is there, you know, that kind of stuff. There’s a bunch of ways to look at this, justify this, et cetera. But then on the other side, it’s like, why is the GPS? Subscription’s so expensive. Again, why is it a subscription? Why is this even a thing?

I feel like if this was OnStar in an emergency like this, especially dealing with a child, we wouldn’t be having this conversation. They probably would have just done it. Obviously, they’re a nationally recognized brand. They don’t want this to be put out into the public like this. Any sort of backlash.

But then I’m kind of thinking to myself, you know, for 25 bucks, you could put an air tag in your car.

Executive Producer Tania: It’s not just Volkswagen and whoever Volkswagen is using to partner. I don’t know what OnStar would do or not do because they’re a whole other party entity, right? Because Toyota behaves the same way. So I know someone who had their [00:24:00] car stolen.

They had just recently within a month or two. The GPS subscription had lapsed or whatever. And they had called Toyota asking, can I get it reestablished so that I can find my car? And they said, no, they would not. They refused. I don’t know how hard the person tried because I would have been like trying really hard.

I mean, he offered to pay, they still refuse. So I don’t know how OnStar would react, but it’s something in the script for these companies. And to your point, how do they know someone’s not just. Bullshitting my car stolen. They’re standing outside some Rando’s car, hoping that they get the one person to unlock the doors remotely.

Crew Chief Eric: It needs to be like when Picard would put in the override code, Picard, alpha beta Oh three, seven, you know, whatever. And then they go, Oh, okay. That’s the unlock code. We’re good. Like the cops need to have that in a situation like that, get your law enforcement involved. And maybe they can override. These companies and script be damned.

The bigger concern here is a child was involved kidnapping. It’s like, come on guys, you’re slowing the process down.

Executive Producer Tania: I’ve had the solution. They need to FAA. So they needed to [00:25:00] like FAA, the police send them a special code that they typed in. So they knew it was the police. And then unlocked it and been like, just send me an invoice.

Crew Chief Eric: Exactly. You are a problem solver. Excellent work. Ah, 150 bucks for GPS. Why is it a subscription to begin with? I

Crew Chief Brad: don’t understand.

Executive Producer Tania: Why do you need a subscription for heated seats?

Crew Chief Brad: Exactly. Why do you need a subscription for any of this bullshit?

Crew Chief Eric: Volkswagen has not stooped to that level yet.

Executive Producer Tania: Yet.

Crew Chief Eric: That is a BMW.

But they

Crew Chief Brad: did

Crew Chief Eric: with the GPS right here.

Executive Producer Tania: Do you know what day is coming up?

Crew Chief Brad: 420? 4

Executive Producer Tania: 1. And what usually happens on 4 1? Oh, no,

Crew Chief Eric: no. We get an update on the Corvette SUV. No, they’re gonna change the name to Volt Wagon again or whatever. Oh, we’re just kidding. We’re just

Executive Producer Tania: kidding. We don’t know what it’ll be this year.

It’ll be exciting.

Crew Chief Eric: We should be on the lookout. We’ll post that in Discord. So if somebody finds out before we do.

Crew Chief Brad: It’ll be Volkscription.

Crew Chief Eric: Well, this next one I think is Borderline Florida, man. Because. I don’t get the lifestyle, guys.

Executive Producer Tania: VW Golf slammed so low it can’t refuel without taking a [00:26:00] wheel off. Come on.

I don’t understand the lifestyle either. I don’t understand how the car moves.

Crew Chief Brad: Well, it doesn’t. It doesn’t have any fuel. Ha ha ha ha

Executive Producer Tania: ha ha ha ha! Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha! That’s fair. That’s fair. But at least this one in this particular picture, I mean, it looks like it’s riding on the, the rim. I mean, they’re so stanced.

It’s like, are you even a millimeter of tread and you’re just scraping the rim the whole way? Like, how does the car even move?

Dude, that car is parked hard.

Executive Producer Tania: Hard. You hit a cigarette button, what? I don’t know, it’s the end of the world? You bust a tooth?

Crew Chief Eric: The folks that do it, I don’t want to say they do it right, but the way I’ve seen it done is the car is on bags and they can lift it back up so it drives normally.

It’ll still have some stance.

Executive Producer Tania: No, I’ve read that like, bag life is something different. You don’t cross the two, I think.

Crew Chief Eric: Bag life is posing. Parking hard, baby. My question is, how do you get negative 40 degrees of camber like this guy has? I mean, where’s the shock tower in this car? That’s what I want to know.

What’s spring perch and shock tower?

Crew Chief Brad: [00:27:00] What are these like foreign car parts that you’re talking about? They don’t exist. It’s

Crew Chief Eric: just welded to the inside of the fender. Basically. Yeah, it’s just a

Crew Chief Brad: straight axle. Well,

Crew Chief Eric: I do love the subtitle for this stance can be good until it compromises basic safety.

Executive Producer Tania: Yeah.

Basic safety. Any of that. Over camber, any of that is compromising safety when you’re on a street road. Like, I’m sorry, you’re not at the track that you need to have the camber through the turns.

Crew Chief Eric: But even there, nobody runs this kind of camber.

Executive Producer Tania: No, because you would skid off the track! No tractions! No grip!

Crew Chief Brad: Them skidder cars.

Crew Chief Eric: Could you imagine the amount of sus Flexion, you would have if you had to have this amount of

Executive Producer Tania: camber. Imagine going into the carousel. You’d probably obliterate into pieces.

Crew Chief Eric: You would just stop right on it. Like it was like a sandbar or something. Like it just would beach itself there.

There’s no way [00:28:00] you wouldn’t make it out of the pit with that kind of stance. There’s just

Executive Producer Tania: the funny part is though. On this article, I read through some of the commentary.

Crew Chief Eric: That’s always the best.

Executive Producer Tania: Oh, it’s wonderful. So one thing I learned is that the rest of us who don’t stance are known as static. So it’s static struggles that we have.

What?

Executive Producer Tania: Do you want to like go for it? Because my static struggles are going to win.

Crew Chief Eric: Every time. The first off ramp and this guy’s done.

Executive Producer Tania: I don’t have struggles. I don’t know what that means. The other great comment was this guy defending, apparently he’s got a shop and so he does a lot of stance work and fixing people’s cars and all that stuff.

Because I assume these cars break down all the time, but nonetheless, like, seeing someone admit to this, and I quote, Hell, I have one myself that I literally replace my subframe every three months.

Crew Chief Eric: What?

Executive Producer Tania: Can you imagine?

Crew Chief Eric: No.

Executive Producer Tania: You’re effing up your subframe and having to replace it? Every [00:29:00] three months. I want more information.

Like is this you drove it three times? You drove it every day? You drove it once?

Crew Chief Eric: That is beyond comprehension.

Executive Producer Tania: Let me continue because this guy it’s all about the love and doing what you have to get the look you want. It’s funny. Some people think they only do this for show then raise their car back up.

That’s what airbags are for. See? See? The whole reason of being static is quote, driving it like you park it. Oh yeah, I have a slam Chevy Aveo with negative 14 front and negative 20 rear camber. So us static people just want to drive it like we’re parking it. No, I want to drive it like I can drive it. So if that’s the static life, I am 150, 000 percent hashtag static.

We need some t shirts. Hashtag static.

Crew Chief Eric: That’s a good idea. Static

Executive Producer Tania: struggles aren’t

Crew Chief Eric: real. I’d love somebody to educate me on stance life. I’d love to see one of these cars up close, how they’re built. I can only speculate on the type of [00:30:00] engineering involved to make this successful. You mean buffoonery?

Executive Producer Tania: Well, duct tape was used on this car as the fuel cap.

Because we know duct tape is not impacted by something like gasoline splashing on it.

Crew Chief Eric: But you know, hey, we spent money to have our rear calipers powder coated pink. But not The money to have our gas tank filler relocated. All jokes aside, I’ve seen plenty of show cars where things like the filler neck are hidden or relocated, but a lot of thought is put into those hot rods to make that happen.

I know one in particular open the trunk and the filler neck is on the inside. Yeah, maybe not the best thing with fumes or whatever, but it’s a show car. It gets trailered to most places, you know. It’s also parked hard. It’s super low. It’s not stanced out like this, but the extra thought was put into, Wait, I gotta put gas in it.

Cause I do have to move it every once in a while. I think I know the car you’re talking about.

Executive Producer Tania: So say like, this wasn’t just a stance show car. How would you even pull this on a trailer? [00:31:00]

Crew Chief Eric: That’s what the bags are for. Oh, wait, nevermind.

Executive Producer Tania: But apparently not. Hey, you know who doesn’t have these struggles?

Static.

Crew Chief Brad: Static life. 99 problems and static life ain’t one.

Crew Chief Eric: We’re living the good life over here, static town. High life. We need some racing stickers made. Who’s your sponsor? Static. Is that stasis? No, static. Static

Crew Chief Brad: Motorsports.

Crew Chief Eric: We’re renaming the team now. Well, folks, we have to move on from Volkswagen, Audi, Porsche news on to our domestic segment sponsored by AmericanMuscle.

com, your source for OEM and performance, Chevy, Ford, and Mopar parts. So we kick off with van life. Did you see how much camber this van has? This

Executive Producer Tania: thing’s wild. Maybe

Crew Chief Eric: three degrees.

Executive Producer Tania: Wait, they didn’t put negative 20 on the rear?

Crew Chief Eric: How’s it go so fast then? I would love to see that GTI go up Pike’s Peak like this.

1973 horsepower Ford super van did [00:32:00] is now the record holding fastest van on the planet.

Executive Producer Tania: Fastest van. Yes. Yes.

Crew Chief Eric: As Clarkson Hammond and May used to say on Top Gear, what’s the fastest car in Europe? A Ford Transit van. Well, you know what? Alice is the fastest van at Pike’s Peak.

Executive Producer Tania: You know what’s a shame? And the first thing I thought of was that we will never see this on the Nurburgring driven by

Crew Chief Eric: Sabine Schmidt.

She would have had a field day with almost 2000 horsepower. Can you imagine this thing coming up in your rearview mirror? Yeah. The hell. Out of the way,

Crew Chief Brad: you wouldn’t see it by the time you saw it behind you. It would already be in front of you

Crew Chief Eric: Dude, this thing is incredible. I mean, I love stuff like this.

This is awesome

Crew Chief Brad: It’s a little skittish looking though It looks like a ford gt the back end the with the cutouts for aerodynamics and stuff. It’s awesome I’m in the market for a van. This looks pretty awesome.

Crew Chief Eric: The video is fantastic.

Executive Producer Tania: No, it looks cool But like watching the goodwood video i’m like Man, it felt like it was, like, on the cusp of being wildly unstable.

Crew Chief Eric: That’s how Eric [00:33:00] likes to drive. Well, here’s the best part. This is a legitimate run up the peak. It set the record for, obviously, its class. It was driven by a three time Le Mans winner who also currently holds the Pikes Peak record. From 2018 in the Volkswagen IDR. It’s not like this was just like, Oh, publicity stunt.

Like this is legit.

Crew Chief Brad: So basically if you want a world record at Pike’s peak, you just hire this driver to do it for you.

Crew Chief Eric: And do it in a van sliding doors,

sliding doors.

Crew Chief Eric: I haven’t seen an SUV run up Pike’s Peak.

Crew Chief Brad: I want to see the Tesla Semi do it.

Crew Chief Eric: Well, you’re going to be waiting a while. Okay. So it’s going to cost you your down payment on your cyber truck.

Crew Chief Brad: I agree with Tanya though. It looks very on the cusp of going into the wall.

Crew Chief Eric: Let me put it in perspective for you. I know it’s not the same company. Paint it black and then put a red stripe all the way up to the tail. Tell me this isn’t the new 18 van. It’s awesome. It’s awesome.

Crew Chief Brad: All I request from turn 10 [00:34:00] is that this van be put in forza next forza game.

Turn 10. If you’re listening, I know you’re listening. Please, please put this in there.

Crew Chief Eric: Well, you know what else they need to add to the next four is a game. And I don’t say this often about trucks, but this 2023 GMC cyclone that they’re proposing. Come on, Tanya. You don’t like trucks. This is hot. Super cool.

I don’t like the hood.

Executive Producer Tania: What?! There’s a lot happening on the front.

Crew Chief Brad: Very, very gaudy. I hate the hood. I

feel like y’all just farted in church. Like, what are you talking about? This thing is incredible! This

Executive Producer Tania: is one of those, like, if I do this I’m like, yeah, I love the rear, the tailgate, and the fender flaring there.

Solid, very boxy, so it’s very like old school. And then the front, if I did this, and I’m holding up my hand covering the front half and now I’m covering up the back half, the front I’m like it’s any other GMC and there’s just a lot of grill there and a lot of hood scooping for no reason. [00:35:00] Presumably

Crew Chief Eric: look at that front on shot.

It’s like the fourth or fifth picture down the one just before they have the picture of like the autumn leaves and all that kind of stuff. Look at that front end. It looks just like a happy little Rottweiler. It wants to see you. It wants to nuzzle you like this truck is. Just aggressive, but sort of docile at the same time.

Like I would drive this truck. I would drive the hell out of this truck. How can you not say that this is cool?

Executive Producer Tania: I like it from every angle, but the first

Crew Chief Brad: Brad, come on, Brad. You know, in my long term plan is to build a sport truck like this, but. It’s going to be a lot more understated. I do dig the fender flares.

I like the wide body ness. I just don’t like that hood. I’ve never been a fan of like the hood scoops on that from the GTO to this, to the Trans Am. I just, I’m not a fan. That’s

Crew Chief Eric: Ram Air, dude. Ram Air. I

Crew Chief Brad: understand. I understand. Personally, I just don’t like it aesthetically.

Crew Chief Eric: If it’s any consolation, the front of the original Cyclone is nothing to write home about either.

It’s pretty boring.

Crew Chief Brad: It’s an S10, [00:36:00] basically, whatever it is, GMC Sonoma.

Crew Chief Eric: We can’t have this truck. You know why? It’s way too static.

Crew Chief Brad: I love it. It looks like a 400 higher in the back of that thing.

Executive Producer Tania: Do we know how much it’s going to be? 75, 000. That’s

Crew Chief Brad: a bargain. It’s not actually for sale.

Executive Producer Tania: I don’t think that’s the price.

Crew Chief Eric: They’re

Crew Chief Brad: not actually building it, are they?

Crew Chief Eric: It’s proposed. It’s a teaser, whatever. They’re saying zero to 60 in three seconds. What’s up twin turbos, all sorts of fantasy things that will probably never come to fruition. But again, make this. Take my money! Take it now! Wow. Awesome. You can keep all your Zs and all that other stuff.

This is cool. You heard it here first, folks. I am voting for a truck. All right. On that note, you know, we talked about the lap record at Pike’s Peak with the Ford Supervan. Well, Chevy’s setting some records too. They did a new lightning lap in the Z06. It currently holds the LL3 class record.

Yay.

Crew Chief Eric: What? Okay, cool.

This is the whole thing [00:37:00] with car and driver, right? They have their test track. It’s sort of the equivalent to the top gear. You know, lightning lap that they would do. So car drivers kind of trying to pick up the torch and do the same thing. Like, Oh, where does this next car end up on the list? You know, that kind of thing.

Do we go by old lady’s house and you know, all that stuff that they were doing. I mean, the new Z06 is a phenomenal car. It makes a jillion horsepower. It’s, you know, a watered down version of the race car. Okay. I didn’t expect it to not beat pretty much everything else. That’s out. But you look at some of the things that are on the list and I’m like, okay, the Nissan GTR, they stopped making that how long ago the Dodge Viper SRT 10 ACR.

Well, we know those are still for sale new at every Chrysler dealership that Brad looks into, but that’s in the same class. They stopped making that car seven years ago. Oh my God. A Mosler. Like how old is that? This class is sort of weird in the sense that it’s like, great. The Corvette now has the record against a bunch of cars that are like 10 years.

It’s senior. In order to get power into that proposed GMC [00:38:00] Cyclone, which we know is never coming, GM confirms that a new small block V8 is coming. And again, here we go. We’re talking about electrification, electrification, electrification, and GM’s working on a sixth generation small block. I don’t even know what to say.

I guess maybe I’m like a proud papa. Yeah, GM, you go. Because we know that Stellantis has bowed out. We’re not building any more muscle cars. Although the electric charger is coming. So now GM steps into their role and says, move out of the way, guys, we’re going to bring you another three 50. Well,

Executive Producer Tania: somebody needs to make internal combustion engines to run those e fuels.

Crew Chief Eric: Will this run on the Porsche fuel? Will it be compatible?

Executive Producer Tania: I don’t see why not.

Crew Chief Eric: Well, if that wasn’t enough, Chevy also unleashed a 1, 004 horsepower Copo Camaro listed as a 136, 000 drag racing. Weapon.

Executive Producer Tania: I keep seeing that as COPD Camaro.

Crew Chief Eric: You know, what bugs me about this is the same thing we’ve talked about before.

632 cubic inches. If anybody wants to do the mental gymnastics on that and convert it to the [00:39:00] metric system, it’s 10. 4 liters out of a naturally aspirated V8. I think to myself, 10. 4 liter V8, and it. Only makes a thousand horsepower.

Crew Chief Brad: Well, in the case, when it comes to like trucks and stuff like that, and they’ve got these big motors and they’re not producing as much power as a BMW or Mercedes with a motor, half the size, I think it’s due to, I guess, the longevity of the motor and they’re tuned in the compression is as such to make it.

So the vehicles last. A long time. They’re not wind out completely, but this is a drag car. The whole point of this thing is to go as fast as possible on a short amount of time. Why can’t they get more power out of it? It doesn’t make any sense. There’s

Crew Chief Eric: that too. And is it just a numbers game to say that they have what three more horsepower than the demon and they did it without a blower?

Crew Chief Brad: What are you talking about without a blower? There’s a blower on this thing? It says naturally aspirated. That’s not a Roots type blower on the top. It’s a Magnuson blower, isn’t it? No,

Crew Chief Eric: it says no blow.

Executive Producer Tania: There’s something on the top of that motor. Is that just air intake?

Crew Chief Eric: Well, then they lied in this article, because it [00:40:00] says naturally aspirated.

Crew Chief Brad: So that makes it worse. We got to get down to the bottom of this. We got to put our sleuthing hats on, because my eyes are telling me that that is a fucking supercharger

Crew Chief Eric: on the top. If that’s the case That’s even worse. Yes, you’re right. The picture does say Magnuson and that probably is a supercharger on top there.

Although I don’t see a way to actuate that. I just see a throttle body and an, and a Ram intake. So that might just be a Magnuson intake.

Yeah, maybe.

Crew Chief Eric: Let’s say it was supercharged, which the article, I don’t think it is. That’s not great either. And you’re only making three more horsepower out of this V8.

And the Hemi is so much smaller in the Demon. And even there it’s like, okay, great. But GM, here you go again, five years too late. Dodge already did this. Why do we even care?

Crew Chief Brad: Yeah. I don’t know much about car scoops, but pretty sure that they should not have used, unless that’s a picture from the old Copo Camaro, they might’ve

Crew Chief Eric: just taken a picture and thrown it up there.

You never know. Okay.

Crew Chief Brad: Well then if they’re going to be in the car industry and they’re going to write [00:41:00] articles about cars. So, okay. I’m looking at the pictures. There’s one without a supercharger and then there’s one with a supercharger and then there’s one with a carburetor. So

Crew Chief Eric: what is this? What are you doing?

None of it really matters because as Tanya is going to tell us. GM’s doing the hokey pokey with the Camaro anyway. So all of this is moot.

Executive Producer Tania: We’ve all heard that the sales aren’t great. And so they’re going to discontinue it. And so that sounds like it’s official that it will be gone after 2024. But a successor is already in the works.

This is quote, not the end of Camaro’s story. Is the Camaro going away or not? How can it be axed, but still have a story? What’s the sequel here? Is it the Camaro blazer? Are we going to badge an SUV with the Camaro name like Mustang? Is that going to be the next Camaro?

Crew Chief Eric: Yes. I think I just threw up in the back of my throat.

Why? No, this is just like the Corvette SUV thing. I’m like, no. Badge engineering. I mean,

Executive Producer Tania: why don’t we just say we’re not going to have 2025. [00:42:00] model your Camaro, let it be like, we’re not making a new one. And then eventually in five, 10 years, we’ll bring it back because what’s old is new again, right? And the Camaro will be hot as again,

Crew Chief Eric: what it is, is the pony wars are over usher in the donkey trials.

Cause that’s where we’re going to end up with a bunch of mules. Horrible.

Executive Producer Tania: Well, look for your Camaro SUV starting in 2025.

Crew Chief Eric: Bye bye Camaro in 2025, but the 2024 model year technically starts in August, September timeframe. So does the Camaro disappear this summer at the turn of the new year? Or do we get a whole nother year, a whole nother summer out of the sixth gen Camaro before it finally goes away?

Executive Producer Tania: Honestly, I couldn’t tell you the last time I saw a Camaro on the road.

Crew Chief Eric: That’s true. You don’t see them that often. Maybe everybody’s holding onto them. They’ve all turned into garage Queens. Who knows? Maybe if they are hiding in garages, Ford has an answer to that, especially if you don’t make your payments,

Executive Producer Tania: they have patented a [00:43:00] self repossessing car technology to have their cars drive themselves away, taking another job away from hardworking people.

Alternatively, also the car could drive itself to a junkyard. If it costs too much to be repossessed.

No, are you serious?

Executive Producer Tania: I mean, I guess they could drive it anywhere they want off a cliff. I mean, they’re not saying that they’re going to do this or install this software, but apparently they’ve come up with the technology.

And so of course they’ve thrown their patents on it to block other people from this. I mean, it’s inevitable, right? Like everything’s remotely controlled.

Crew Chief Eric: Well, I know Tesla did this where you could call the car to come to you kind of thing, which was reminiscent of 1988 Batman, where he summons the Batmobile and it just drives to him wherever he was.

Executive Producer Tania: Well, the Ram does something similar. It’s got stalker mode and the truck will follow behind you like a puppy.

Crew Chief Eric: Are you serious?

Executive Producer Tania: No, I’m serious. Yeah.

Crew Chief Eric: Yeah. I learned something new every time we get together.

Executive Producer Tania: I forget what it’s called. I’m making fun that it’s called stalker mode. It’s something akin to that.

And it’s literally because they expect us to [00:44:00] be a construction site vehicle, the new Ram EV. And so while you’re out walking across the site, you can set the truck to follow you at a slow speed and hope it doesn’t run you over. I

Crew Chief Eric: was going to say, what happens if you trip and fall? Does it just plow over top of you?

Crew Chief Brad: If you’re going across the construction site and you want your truck to go with you, why don’t you just.

Crew Chief Eric: We’re too good for that now Brad. Nobody drives anymore. We’re like dinosaurs. We actually touch our steering wheels I’m gonna spend 80, 000 for a truck

Crew Chief Brad: to have it follow behind me. What sense does that make

Executive Producer Tania: in fairness?

They could be doing a walk down of something where they need to be closer to the equipment But the car could be following down the path and meet them the other end.

Crew Chief Eric: You know, what else would work? If you park your 85, 000 truck in a safe location where it might not get damaged and use the golf cart that’s on the construction site to go wherever you’re going,

Crew Chief Brad: can you train the truck to roll over and sit and stay too?[00:45:00]

Executive Producer Tania: If you’re that Hummer driver from last month, you could roll it right off on a

Crew Chief Brad: bankment. Yeah, you can teach it to roll over.

Executive Producer Tania: Sorry. I digress on Ford’s patent to repossess your car remotely.

Crew Chief Eric: Because none of that matters. What boggles my mind is that we’re wasting the thought energy on this kind of shenanigans versus putting it towards.

It’s something else that would be more beneficial to the automotive industry. How to protect

Crew Chief Brad: ourselves from AI. That’s what we need to do. Robot revolution is coming.

Executive Producer Tania: What if you’re in the car while it’s being repossessed? Yeah,

Crew Chief Eric: I didn’t think about that. I guess you’re going on a joy ride.

Executive Producer Tania: Are you like locked in there?

Babe, let me out. It’s

Crew Chief Eric: like. Kid when it would lock the doors and go into pursuit mode, right? It’s like, boom, done. You better pay your bills,

Crew Chief Brad: people. That’s all I got to say.

Crew Chief Eric: You can see that follow behind option being good for the cops. You know, when they’re chasing the guys in Florida on foot on their lawnmowers, then the police car could just follow behind the officer until they’re ready to detain them.

And then they don’t have to walk them all the way back in a drunken stupor to the [00:46:00] backseat of their Explorer.

Executive Producer Tania: See the trickle effect of this technology?

Crew Chief Eric: It’s a lot better to have the

Crew Chief Brad: car follow them than to just drive it.

Crew Chief Eric: Well, we’re going to switch to Asian domestic news, as we like to call it, that encompasses our Japanese brands, Koreans, and others.

I thought this next bit was pretty shocking, if I do say so myself.

Executive Producer Tania: It’s a bit of a turn. So it says Toyota CEO says that quote, silent majority of auto industry is doubting EV only future. Which is interesting because Porsche said it’s not abandoning its ice engines. Right. And they’re sticking their money where their mouth is because they’re developing e fuels and partnering with left, right, and center to do that.

But I also thought I read something recently that BMW has turned about face and said that they are going to also keep investing in internal combustion engines. So the pendulum is swinging back to some degree

Crew Chief Eric: because it’s not the panacea we all thought it was going to be. Maybe just

Crew Chief Brad: maybe if only the [00:47:00] governments would get on board with reality.

Yeah, no, they’re

Crew Chief Eric: too busy trying to ban state by state, the sale of new petrol cars and craziness like that.

Executive Producer Tania: And coming from Toyota, this could be a misleading headline because we’re taking it. We’re assuming, Oh, EV only future. You don’t believe that. So that means. Ice engine. Well, Toyota has hybrids.

Toyota has hydrogen engines, right? Those are all non EV only. So what are they really talking about here? Are they just talking about a future where you have multiple options and a mixed bag and you have proper use cases for For the different technology,

Crew Chief Brad: which I think is appropriate. There’s no one size fits all, and there’s no one solution for everybody.

Think you need different types for different markets. I

Crew Chief Eric: agree. If you look at Toyota’s lineup right now, do they actually have a. Full EV or is it mostly hybrids?

Crew Chief Brad: They’re all hybrid. I don’t think they have a full EV at all. It doesn’t sound like they even plan on producing one.

Executive Producer Tania: No, because the BZ4X I believe is [00:48:00] all electric and that’s kind of like RAV4 ish.

So another one of these compact crossover mini SUV thingies.

Crew Chief Eric: I guess we’ll see how it all plays out. Maybe that about face that you’re talking about, Tanya, which we’ve all sort of suspected at the end of the day was probably going to happen anyway, when they can’t harvest any more lithium or whatever else, maybe it is a stall tactic to develop a synthetic fuel to come up with an alternative hybrid to come up with hydrogen that’s stable at room temperature and, you know, non volatile and God knows what else, you know, all these things that are being developed out there and somebody has got to be first to market right now.

I think the easy button is EV. And I’ve been thinking that for a while, right? It’s like, Oh, well, it’s like a remote control car. Throw some batteries in it, runs till they run out, puts new batteries in it. Keep running it.

Executive Producer Tania: If it was that simple.

Crew Chief Eric: Yes, but these other technologies are still being developed.

There are a lot longer term, more positive solution, especially some of the hydrogen solutions that are out there. I think I’m with the silent majority on this one. I don’t think EV only is the future. I [00:49:00] think. Like you’ve said many times before, there is room for all different types of drivetrains and power plants in this ecosystem.

It’s just a matter of which one you’re more comfortable with at the end of the day.

Executive Producer Tania: I think you’ll like this one since you were so excited about the The N75?

Crew Chief Eric: N74. Vision!

Executive Producer Tania: No, but even the other end, the EV6 end or whatever. Oh, the Saab? The car shows, like the Encona, were super cool. Well, everyone liked the Ioniq 5.

Oh,

Crew Chief Eric: no, don’t tell me.

Executive Producer Tania: Won’t you like an Ioniq 5N even better?

Crew Chief Eric: Yes,

Executive Producer Tania: I would. That’s

Crew Chief Eric: Awesome.

Executive Producer Tania: So it’s still in camo mode, so they haven’t fully released kind of how they’ll tweak the body and all that stuff, but apparently it’s going to have like drift mode. That’s

Crew Chief Eric: awesome. Now the question becomes, when is Terry Neuville going to drive one of these and complain about it on the WRC stage?

Executive Producer Tania: They don’t have a lot of information on it though, because it’s still kind of in development. They are saying it should be around 600 horsepower. What? [00:50:00]

That’s awesome.

Executive Producer Tania: That’ll be really interesting to see how that all lines out.

Crew Chief Eric: Now since we’re talking about the Ioniq 5, I shared a photo with you guys in our JDM channel on Discord.

Is that actually the way the rear hatch of the Ioniq opens. Please tell me that’s actually a broken car.

Executive Producer Tania: I’ve never seen the trunk open on one of those. I was not aware that it slides up over the roof.

Crew Chief Eric: That is bizarre. This is a question I have, like, why reinvent the wheel? I mean, what was wrong with two little air shocks and a hinge?

Now you’re making the rear hatch slide up over a glass roof?

Executive Producer Tania: I mean, it could still be a hinge mechanism that lifts and unfolds. The arms back down on itself and then come to a stopping point on the roof. I guess it’s hard to tell what the mechanism is from the photo, but yes, at the end of the day, we don’t need laser beams for windshield wipers case in point.

Crew Chief Eric: Okay. But let’s just say I’m the [00:51:00] type of person that likes to have like a tool roof rack. And I want to put some extra camping gear in there because not everything fits in my Ioniq 5 because I have two extra passengers with me. How exactly does one get to the beer cooler in the trunk with the tool roof rack on?

Executive Producer Tania: You don’t.

Crew Chief Eric: Oh, okay.

Executive Producer Tania: But I also believe that there’s something bizarre about that photo because I think in a quick search of Ioniq 5 trunk.

Crew Chief Brad: They all live normally.

Executive Producer Tania: So I do not know what the heck that person maybe modified it.

Crew Chief Eric: Oh, I see. We get the static version. That’s the trunk that opens normally. That’s a stance trunk right there.

When you, when you put 27 degrees of camber on that thing, you need the trunk to go up over the roof. So

Executive Producer Tania: that’s special.

Crew Chief Eric: Well, speaking of. Not understanding. I feel like the EV market is constantly changing. Every time we turn around, they’re talking about shifting the dates as to when petrol cars be banned.

States are talking about banning [00:52:00] on a local level, whether or not petrol cars can even be sold. How does this affect the used car market? We know the prices on bring a trailer are already astronomical. It’s absolutely insane. But there might be a little bit of hope for all of us. There was a new bill introduced in the U.

S. House of Representatives to prevent The ban of ICE powered vehicles. It’s headed up by Pennsylvania Republican John Joyce. He introduced House of Representatives Bill 1435, and it’s titled Preserving the Choice in Vehicle Purchases Act. And the bill is designed to protect Americans rights to choose the technology that powers their motor vehicles.

It was introduced in response to the CARB, or the California Air Resources Board’s plan to ban the sale of new internal combustion engines by 2035. And there’s a lot of other states that are following suit. I say right on! I don’t see why the government should be dictating what kind of cars we buy. You vote with your wallet.

As people say, if you want to buy EV, buy an EV. If you want to buy a carbureted car, buy a carbureted car. I don’t have a problem [00:53:00] with it, but I’m glad that somebody’s doing something about it and you can learn more about it. On the performance racing industry’s website in conjunction with SEMA. So you can get a performance racing.

com to check it out or check the link in our show notes to learn more about this new bill that hit the house floor on March the 14th. What did you learn about the insurance companies and electric vehicles there, Tanya?

Executive Producer Tania: Well, it sounds kind of scary because they’re basically saying some pretty minor vendor vendors.

Can basically just total your car. Meaning what would have been minor and repairable on a traditional powered vehicle is suddenly a big issue because you do not fully understand whether or not the batteries have been compromised in any way. Which is obviously very dangerous because you don’t want a situation where suddenly they burst into flames or another small impact creates an issue.

So that’s a problem. These cars getting into fender benders and then just basically being written off and ending up in scrap yards. And now this toll was [00:54:00] supposed to be super good and helpful to the environment. And you got all this waste. Not to say that ice engines don’t end up as waste in junkyards too, but there’s far less precious metals that were harvested and put into them.

The more disturbing thing reading through this was around the, in general, insurance and premiums and things like that, because it sounded like, well, here’s another reason why the rest of us have higher insurance premiums is because there’s people driving around in EVs that nobody knows what to do with them.

Nobody knows really how the insurance breakdowns work. And are they really being scrapped when they shouldn’t be? And it. That’s just higher cost and this, that, and the other. I’m like, you know what? Then I’m glad Tesla has its own insurance. Y’all go figure that out yourselves and don’t make me pay more just because you have an EV.

It

Crew Chief Eric: goes back to sort of the legislation part of the conversation. What I’d like to see happen is maybe some legislation passed to force the insurance companies to separate the rates between the ICE [00:55:00] folks and the EV folks, because I don’t want to pay for their issues. Because I’m still driving an ice car and I get it.

If you get a small scratch on these batteries and you got to total the car, it’s like the clamshell on a Lotus Elise. You get the slightest ding in it and they total the whole car because of the way it’s made. And we shouldn’t be beholden to that. I get it. The bills are high. You know, you’ve got to write off an 85, 000 EV.

Well, something’s got to give here.

Executive Producer Tania: That’s not my fault. I didn’t make you go buy that 85, 000 car. Exactly.

Crew Chief Eric: But then again, why are these? Things 85, 000. Like you’ve created this whole weird ecosystem, but then it’s all disproportionate now because what happens when the Tesla hits me and weighs five, 6, 000 pounds and comes at my less than 3000 pound Volkswagen, like a torpedo and crushes it.

I’m not going to get Jack. They’re going to end up totaling the Tesla because of unforeseen damage to the batteries and all that kind of thing. But I walk away with what my premiums are not [00:56:00] commiserate. To the type of payout that they’re going to receive. So in my mind, it’s like you total my car. You’re going to give me 50 bucks.

It’s always been that way. I don’t ever see it as fair. We pay all this money into these insurance systems. You’re actually need the money, which is supposed to help you either fix or buy a new car. They’re like, You can’t have your money. What are you talking? We’re not going to give you anything. You’re going to give me 50 bucks.

You know, I don’t know. It’s like legal thievery.

Executive Producer Tania: The other part of the article, I found there’s just a snippet in there that was like, well, you know, but really, this is really a small percentage of the ZBs that are ending up in this manner because ZBs are generally. Safer than ice, they are involved in fewer accidents because of all this technology.

I’m like, really? Because as far as I know, the technology is forward facing. So if some person comes barreling at you from behind or side swipes, you don’t think the nannies do a damn thing for you. They’re equally able to be in an accident as anybody else.

Crew Chief Eric: Yeah, they’re vulnerable just like anything else.

Yeah.

Executive Producer Tania: Yeah. And people can [00:57:00] turn those nannies off. So if they’re driving it like anything else, then they’re as vulnerable as anything else. So don’t give me that excuse. Oh, well, this is really not brr, like, okay, sure.

Crew Chief Eric: And that’s the other thing I wonder about all these sensors and LIDAR and radar and all this stuff that they’re using on these cars, especially in traffic, to your point, all those sensors on the front of the car.

So when does it switch over? To the point where now you’re liable as the ice driver, because maybe you changed lanes too closely to the autonomous self driving level 15 torpedo that just hit you. And now it’s your fault because it used to be like in the old days, if you got rear ended nine times out of 10, the other driver was at.

Just because of, you know, you needed to be paying attention, stopping distances, all like some things can’t be overcome. But in this case, they can be like, well, the data from the sensor shows that you were six inches closer than is recommended when you change lanes in front of that vehicle. I wonder how all that’s going to play out, how the technology is [00:58:00] going to be manipulated by the insurance companies.

The further we go along with all this stuff.

Executive Producer Tania: What a hot mess. Like I don’t envy the actuaries or whoever it is that is in charge of figuring out these insurance tables. all this stuff because I’m sure it can’t be fun, but please don’t pass the price down to us. But fun fact, since you mentioned LIDAR.

Oh,

Executive Producer Tania: so I had an interesting revelation last night, actually, as I was driving home in the evening hour.

So it was dark outside. I was on three lane divided highway, cruise control, minimum business, very light traffic, handful of us on the road. I had a radar detector in the car. It was on and all of a sudden it started going off laser and it’s a very shrill noise when that happens. And so it was going off like bells and whistles I like to say because that’s what it sounds like.

I didn’t really need to slow down because I wasn’t doing anything offensive, right? I wasn’t worried but obviously I was looking around and okay I don’t see anybody. Laser works, it has to be targeted at you. So normally the [00:59:00] guy’s got the gun and he’s pointing it at you and that’s when the laser registers.

So I’m looking around, it goes off again. It goes off again. And I’m like, what in the world? There’s nobody around by now I should have passed somebody or should have seen taillights up ahead, you know, blah, blah, blah, you know, one car in front of me, there’s a car behind me, and I recognize it right away because of the shape of the headlights.

It was a lucid air.

Oh,

Executive Producer Tania: and I was like, Oh, interesting. There’s a lucid behind me, you know, oh, cool. And as I’m freaking lasers going off over and over again, and he’s slowly creeping thing. Transcribed Closer and closer behind me, and then he gets over, changes lanes, goes around me. It all stops. He goes in front of me, it’s all gone, and I went, oh my goodness, he was self driving or something.

It’s using some sort of nanny, and the laser was beaming at me, and the radar detector was incessantly picking it up because he was shooting lidar at me. And then I realized all the times that it’s going off on K band, which it does in the most random places when you’re on the highway, which makes no sense because there’s absolutely no [01:00:00] one around and no reason for it to be going off, a lot of the other nannies of the self driving and the automatic cruise control and all that stuff and all these EVs are operating off of K bands and things like that.

It’s all being picked up by a radar detector.

Crew Chief Eric: So what you’re saying is now the radar detector has a dual purpose, a picking up B for T justice hiding in the bushes, but also the Tesla that’s stalking you in traffic, that’s not actually driving their car.

Executive Producer Tania: Exactly. So now that torpedo coming at you, you have an early warning.

Oh, it’s like

a submarine. It’s like

Crew Chief Eric: torpedoing.

Executive Producer Tania: Oh God, get out of the way. Let me translate it for you.

Crew Chief Eric: That’s okay. Cause the steering wheels are falling off the model wise. They wouldn’t be able to hit you anyway.

Executive Producer Tania: When I realized what happened at Lucid Air, I wanted to get back in front of him and see if it was to confirm and be like, yes, it’s going off again.

It’s definitely his LIDAR, but I wasn’t going to accelerate in case there was a real threat out there.

Crew Chief Eric: Well, you did some textbook research to verify it. So it’s all good. [01:01:00] Well, before we get into Tesla gate, let’s hit up Brad’s favorite section, lost and found, where he scours the internet looking for the newest old car available on dealership lots.

Please tell me that Cadillac is still out there.

Crew Chief Brad: Yes, the Cadillac. Gray Chevrolet.

Crew Chief Eric: We need to get them as a sponsor. I mean, how much free airtime have we given gray Chevrolet at this point?

Crew Chief Brad: Apparently none, because no one’s buying that car. They’re not getting any business from us.

Crew Chief Eric: Don Wieberg, if you’re listening, there is 88 to fill with your name on it.

Crew Chief Brad: It’s not an allante. He’s not interested. That’s

Crew Chief Eric: true. He’s not interested. That

Crew Chief Brad: Ford GT is still out there at the low, low, low price of 450, 000.

Crew Chief Eric: I swear it’s come down. Every time we talk about that car, the price has come down.

Crew Chief Brad: Nope. 415. That’s it. The only thing new on here, new, new to the list is a 2004 Nissan Xterra XE V6 at Beck and Mastin Kia.

Crew Chief Eric: None of

Crew Chief Brad: that was exciting.

Crew Chief Eric: Not at all. There’s a couple of Dodge Avengers, a Fiat 500. No Dodge darts. [01:02:00] All right. Well, whatever. Maybe in April, as we get all our showers in preparation for our May flowers, something will blossom in the used car market. I wonder where you were going with that. Maybe somebody will buy that Cadillac after all.

But it’s time, you know what time it is? Teslagate time!

Executive Producer Tania: Oh,

we would be remiss. That’s what time it is. Teslagate. Wait, what? How dare you? They’ve never had to recall a single vehicle ever. I think this finally counts as a recall. This has to. I

mean, come on.

Executive Producer Tania: I’m sorry. They don’t want to count any of the software because it’s software. They don’t want to count any of the other stuff as recalls.

But I think this is definitely. A recall. When you forget to put the steering wheel lock pin bolt in, and so your steering wheel comes off. I don’t think a software over the air patch fixes this one.

Crew Chief Brad: Nope. Is it a recall if the owners all die?

Executive Producer Tania: Well, I don’t think anyone was severely injured.

Crew Chief Eric: Witch Isle. and bin at Home Depot, do I [01:03:00] get the lock pin for the steering wheel?

Crew Chief Brad: Their local Home Depot was sold out. aisle 12.

Crew Chief Eric: It’s somewhere between the cabinet knobs and the schlage locks. You’ll find the lock pin for the steering wheel.

Executive Producer Tania: But yes, in fact, Model Ys have a reported defect of over 120, 000 models. That have been sold?

Crew Chief Eric: Wait, they sold that many,

Executive Producer Tania: apparently. Wow. But yes, there is a defect because the steering wheel is basically held on via friction.

So a hard enough pull force will disengage it from where it should be

Crew Chief Eric: To Tesla’s credit, we know somebody that went on track in a Miata that had a similar setup and survived Watkins Glen. So I’m just gonna leave it. Right

Executive Producer Tania: where it is. It’s

Crew Chief Eric: doable.

Executive Producer Tania: Flip the car really quickly into autopilot or, you know, whatever self driving.

I mean, the

Crew Chief Eric: steering wheel doesn’t need to be attached. If you’re not, doesn’t

Executive Producer Tania: need to be attached for it to drive itself. I would imagine. Exactly. Exactly.

Crew Chief Eric: Well, last time we talked about Tesla gate. We were on the precipice of Investor’s Day.

Executive Producer Tania: Yes, we [01:04:00] were.

Crew Chief Eric: So what came of Investor’s Day? What is Brad going to buy?

How much more dogecoin is he going to

Executive Producer Tania: spend? Apparently they’re saying that they’re going to release a 20, 000 Tesla.

Crew Chief Eric: I’ve heard this before.

Executive Producer Tania: Yes, it’s the 30, 000 one, but now they can do it for 20, 000, I think because they made it smaller.

Crew Chief Eric: Oh, they cut the rear end off of it.

Executive Producer Tania: It actually looks like they cut it where the rear door should be and then just push the front and the rear together.

Tell me you don’t think that what I just described is not that photo.

Crew Chief Eric: Oh, that’s different than the other one that they showed.

Executive Producer Tania: Who knows? They’re all like weird spy photos. Yes. The original one was like this weird golf ish thing with four door. This next photo is like missing the rear doors and it looks like chopped together.

I mean, this one would make more sense for the 20, 000 mark.

Crew Chief Eric: All in. They’re all ugly. The red one that they showed from autocar. co. uk is much better looking than the one that you’re showing us. But either way, I’m not a fan of any of this. And again, I don’t believe any of [01:05:00] it because here we go. 20, 000 Tesla.

I just, we haven’t seen that yet. Wow. Tesla owners are in for a big shock.

Executive Producer Tania: Well, um, maybe, I guess it was weird the way the article was written. It was like, Hey, no big thing. It’s all good. Okay, but you’re losing a 7, 500 tax credit to make your car cheaper, but somehow it’s like, no big thing. It’s fine. It’s all good.

Like, okay, apparently that’s happening because the legislation or the rules or the tax credits are available if everything is made in the country and the batteries are coming out of China manufacturing. And so at least the Model 3 and I guess the Y can no longer fly for this 7, 500 credit.

Crew Chief Eric: So what you’re saying is Anybody looking at a Tesla, it just got 7, 500 more expensive.

Executive Producer Tania: I would think so. But then they keep saying that they’ve been lowering their prices too at the same time. Like another thousand here, a thousand there. I’m like, okay, hokey pokey. Didn’t they just raise their prices though?

Crew Chief Eric: It’s like the Christmas time specials where they raise the prices in October by like 10 percent and then they give you 5 percent off.

So they’re [01:06:00] still 5 percent ahead.

Executive Producer Tania: You gotta wonder sometimes. It’s like it’s on

Crew Chief Eric: sale for the regular price. Yay! Many times it’s been said that Musk is following the Apple model and we joke about it, but it’s true. Think about it. The iPhone blah, blah, blah just came out and it’s 93 million. And then next week on Verizon, it’s like trade in your old phone for a 360 credit.

We’ll give you a new iPhone 14 for the low, low price of 499. Well, how much does it really cost? Is it 1, 200 or is it 499 plus my trade in? If they’re following that kind of chicanery, none of this surprises me. This whole month is just sort of disappointing. Maybe it’s because it’s the end of winter, spring has just arrived, it’s still cold, it’s still whatever, I’m just like blah.

All the news is blah. We’re kind of in the mid year slump if you think about it. If all new cars in the U. S. come out August, September, we’re at the mid year mark. We’re cresting it and now we get to ride the rollercoaster through the rest of the summer. So I feel like my expectations are pretty low right now.

Lower

Crew Chief Brad: [01:07:00] expectation,

Crew Chief Eric: oh, this means it gets worse.

Executive Producer Tania: Depends on your point of view. Some people might think this event is good,

Crew Chief Eric: this one didn’t make collector car guides. List of events that Brad talks about every month.

Crew Chief Brad: It really should have. I swear I would go to this event.

Crew Chief Eric: Would you really go to this event?

The thought of this scares me.

Crew Chief Brad: Think about the people that go to car shows. Right. Think about them like this.

Crew Chief Eric: Stereotypes aside, this isn’t even static problems. This isn’t even stance problems. Okay. The annual, meaning it happens more than once, but only once a year. The annual nude, as in naked, nude.

Executive Producer Tania: We’re not talking about the cars being nude.

Crew Chief Eric: Nope.

Executive Producer Tania: Talking about the people. The best part is this is Wisconsin. Would you have said if someone just told you there’s an annual nude car show going on in August, somewhere in the United States, would you have been like, yeah, it must be Wisconsin? No,

Crew Chief Eric: no,

Executive Producer Tania: Florida, man. It

Crew Chief Eric: gets [01:08:00] better. You got to read into the event.

Not that I want to see pictures from previous events or anything like that. The Valley View Recreation Club hosts the annual nude car show. We’re not one beautiful summer afternoon where you can gaze upon the Mustangs and the Ferraris and everything else that accompanies them. No, not one, not two, four days of fabulous buns, guns, and TARS.

in the sun. Can you imagine?

Executive Producer Tania: There must be other activities, because what could you possibly do for four days? Stop,

stop, because this is going to go off the rails. Other activities? We playing cornhole?

Crew Chief Brad: Hide the salami.

Executive Producer Tania: Wisconsin’s known for cheese.

The

Crew Chief Brad: naked car wash. This cheese stands alone, let me tell you.

Executive Producer Tania: Anyway, well, if you’re interested folks, August 12th, 2023, this year. Find it in a small village in Wisconsin, Valley View Recreational Club.

Crew Chief Eric: Just don’t forget that annual spelt with two N’s. When you Google that. [01:09:00] Two N’s and you. Every once in a while, we got to go there. And this month we got some rich people thangs.

Executive Producer Tania: This is like, not even rich people thangs. Like this is. Florida, man. I mean,

it’s also lower than expectations. It

Executive Producer Tania: checks

all

Executive Producer Tania: the boxes. I mean, I feel bad for this person.

She’s so proud.

Executive Producer Tania: That’s why I feel bad. Cause I’m like, I’m sorry that you’ve been failed in life.

Crew Chief Eric: I know the used car market is insane. I’m impressed that this car didn’t show up on Brad’s lost and found list.

Let me paint a picture for you. It is this. Beautiful, late 90s, sea green, you know, sort of metallic. You’re not really sure what color to call it. It’s a Ford product. You know, one of those quality Fords from the late 90s. But it’s not a Contour or like a Taurus SHO or even a Mustang. No, no, no. This new proud owner picked herself up a [01:10:00] 1998 Ford Escort for the low, low price of 289 a month.

And how long is this loan for, Brad? Seven years. Can you imagine? Did this car even make it

another seven years? 84 months

Executive Producer Tania: at 289 a month. To put that in real numbers, 24, 276 for a 1998 Ford Escort. This thing was worth like 500.

Crew Chief Eric: I would have rather gone on a long term loan agreement with Hertz. And just rented a car every month for this kind of money.

Crew Chief Brad: It’s sad is what it is. And it’s criminal. Exactly. It’s just predatory lending.

Executive Producer Tania: Sure. Yeah. Sign right here. You’re not a robot, right? You got to check that box.

Crew Chief Eric: Almost like payday level scam on this car.

Executive Producer Tania: This person got so taken advantage of. It’s. Disgusting.

Crew Chief Eric: Hey, but they went viral on the interwebs and all that kind of stuff.

So

Executive Producer Tania: you don’t want to go viral or infamous.

Crew Chief Eric: Look for 289 a month. They even put a big red bow on the [01:11:00] hood. You’re damn right. They did. And look at those hubcaps. Those look new. That has got to be worth something.

Executive Producer Tania: Those bows aren’t cheap.

Crew Chief Eric: 289 a month cheap.

Executive Producer Tania: It’s a good 300 for that bow, yes, but those people were laughing all the way to the bank.

Crew Chief Brad: It makes me angry how taken advantage of this woman was. I mean,

Executive Producer Tania: wherever she bought this from, like the piece of crap human being that was like, yeah, let’s do this.

Crew Chief Eric: Only in Florida, right? Because now it’s time we move south and talk about alligators and bear.

Executive Producer Tania: You know what? It’s kind of a disappointing month for Florida Man and I think it is the weather. There’s a lot of news about alligators right now. Alligators knocking on people’s doors.

People

Executive Producer Tania: standing in the water feeding a pork loin sandwich to an alligator. Why would you do that? [01:12:00] That sounds like you don’t want your arm or the rest of you.

I’m thinking like it’s getting warmer and the seasons are changing. I mean, it’s always the same temperature in Florida, but I guess the alligators also have seasons probably, you know, maybe they’re coming out. And so the Florida man is emerging also. So we don’t have as much out of Florida right now, unfortunately.

Crew Chief Eric: But there’s some good ones here though.

Executive Producer Tania: And I don’t recall if this one was Florida or not. Probably is.

Crew Chief Eric: This picture is unreal.

Executive Producer Tania: It’s one of those pictures, a thousand words, and it’s a pick em up truck. I don’t know what kind of pickup truck this is. That’s a Ford.

Crew Chief Brad: That’s a Ford. The Ford F 150.

Executive Producer Tania: Division, error, they’re all the same.

Ford pickup truck. I don’t even know what he’s got in the back, but it’s an SUV of some sort.

Crew Chief Brad: Mosaic Tesla.

Executive Producer Tania: And it’s sideways. And it’s in truck bed, roped around that truck bed. I’m impressed.

Crew Chief Eric: I am too, because the rear springs are taking all that weight, and the front end is still on the ground. He’s going somewhere.

Executive Producer Tania: He’s going somewhere. He’s on the move.

Crew Chief Eric: Yeah, he’s going places. As Brad always likes to [01:13:00] say, if it fits, he sits, right? In this case, if it fits, it ships. UPS ain’t got nothing on this guy. There’s so many questions here. How did they load it this way? Who thought this was a good idea? How long are those straps?

What’s the tensile strength of those straps? What happens the first time he goes on the highway and takes an off ramp?

Executive Producer Tania: What is the side of that vehicle that’s now resting on its side look like? Are there fluids still in the engine? Are they still in the engine?

Crew Chief Brad: I feel like this is a movie, and they’re filming Transport of Florida.

Crew Chief Eric: I want to understand, I really

Executive Producer Tania: Because this car, this vehicle, this SUV looks in good condition.

Crew Chief Brad: Was. From the

Executive Producer Tania: visible body panels. But I can’t imagine it sitting on its side, that that looks good anymore.

Crew Chief Brad: It’s a 1 1 scale Hot Wheels. It

Crew Chief Eric: could be

Executive Producer Tania: Photoshopped. Could be.

Crew Chief Eric: But I don’t think so.

Executive Producer Tania: Probably not.

Crew Chief Eric: This is insane.

Executive Producer Tania: This is like a candid camera shot too. So like someone was like running and be like, get my phone out.

Crew Chief Eric: He was on his lawnmower on the shoulder. So it was okay. Wow. Well, this [01:14:00] next one hits close to home.

Executive Producer Tania: We haven’t had a, had a Maryland person in a while. Maryland man, or ever. Maybe this is the first Maryland man.

I’m not sure. But I think

it might be. It

Executive Producer Tania: might be the first, and what a way. To come in with a bang because this Maryland man who ran out of gas on an interstate. I’d like to know which one.

Crew Chief Eric: 695 where all the shit happens.

Executive Producer Tania: Oh man, Jesus Christ.

Crew Chief Eric: Everything happens on 695. Okay.

Executive Producer Tania: So you ran out of gas, pulled over as you should.

And he’s on the shoulder. Obviously. I don’t know. He’s waiting for somebody. What do you, what do you do in that situation? Do you just merely wait in your car? I mean, no, you probably shouldn’t. You should exit your vehicle and safely get on the other side of hopefully a barrier or guardrail because you never know when an errant driver will just.

Rear end you and that would be catastrophic. So at least he did step one. He got out of his vehicle. However, he sat behind his vehicle, assembled his drum set, and just began banging on them drums.

Crew Chief Eric: I love the comment block on this. It’s so hashtag dad jokes. And it’s like. That’s what I call a traffic jam.

[01:15:00] What possesses people to do stuff like this? Did he want to be a meme? Is that what it is?

Executive Producer Tania: I mean, I would have loved to have passed that on 695. I don’t know what I would have been. It would have been one of those double take moments. Did I just see that? No one would have believed you too. I would have been like, guys, you know what I just saw?

I was on 695 and dude was drumming. He was on the shoulder with drums. Y’all been like, nah, you don’t know what you saw. Uh huh. Uh huh.

Crew Chief Eric: That right there? Right there?

Executive Producer Tania: So this last one, we actually haven’t gone across the ocean in a while.

Crew Chief Eric: Ooh.

Executive Producer Tania: So we’re hopping the pond and we’re going to Italy.

Crew Chief Eric: Oh, is this our first Italian man?

Executive Producer Tania: Well, no. So this isn’t an Italian man. This is an American man. In Italy.

Crew Chief Eric: What did they do to that poor fiat?

Executive Producer Tania: Because you can bring the man out of Florida, but you can’t bring the Florida. I’m not saying he was from Florida, but I’m not saying he wasn’t from Florida.

Oh, geez.

Executive Producer Tania: Do not know where he’s from.

However, he, I [01:16:00] guess, rented a Ferrari. Okay. As I’m sure you can do and decided in Florence, he was just going to like drive it out into a piazza. A piazza that cars don’t go into. They just like park it, because obviously he’s entitled. So

Crew Chief Eric: That’s a bold move, Cotton.

Executive Producer Tania: They only gave him a 500 ticket. I mean, that’s getting off pretty good.

Crew Chief Eric: If you’ve ever dealt with European parking and how much it costs, that was probably a bargain.

Executive Producer Tania: They made a big deal that it was a historic piazza. I’m like, everything in Italy is historic. So like, okay, next. Yeah, it’s all

Crew Chief Eric: ancient, right? I mean, come on.

Executive Producer Tania: Be on the lookout. Aaron’s Ferrari is driving into piazzas in Italy.

Crew Chief Eric: You know what? He listened to our show. He heard about that other fool that drove down the Spanish steps and he got lost trying to find them because he wanted to drive the Ferrari down the Spanish steps like the other idiot did. He said, you know what? Screw it. There’s a nice cafe bistro over here. I’m just going to grab lunch.

Forget this noise. But that isn’t it for Florida Man.

Executive Producer Tania: So, breaking news for those of you Netflix subscribers out there. A limited series is coming on April [01:17:00] 13th of this year. Yes, that’s just a mere, what, two, three weeks away. And that series is Florida Man. No!

Crew Chief Eric: It’s not Tiger King rebadged, is it?

Executive Producer Tania: No, so It looks like from the synopsis and from the preview, it actually has a plot line and the main character and it’s taking place in Florida.

And they’re somehow going to bring in a lot of Florida man elements into what’s going on. And how? You ask how? One of the shots in this trailer Was this woman that I think had like a cigarette lighter in her hairspray can and she turned it into a blowtorch and she was trying to scare this raccoon away.

And the raccoon like was just sitting there. It was like, what you doing? They’re bringing like crazy stuff in like that. I don’t know. There’s gotta be alligators. I don’t know. It could be interesting.

Crew Chief Eric: Too much like a reboot or continuation of that show. What was it called? My name is Earl. Do you remember that one?[01:18:00]

That’s, that’s what I’m feeling here.

Executive Producer Tania: This is like ex cop. Who’s now like in trouble with gambling. And so there’s some sort of like mob thing going on. He’s trying to get his life back on track and all this stuff. And he has got to go back to Florida and then the shit ensues.

Crew Chief Eric: It’s like the Florida man version of Magnum PI.

What is this?

Executive Producer Tania: I don’t know what this is.

Crew Chief Eric: But you know what? Our goal is to watch it before the next drive thru so we can talk about it. We

Executive Producer Tania: will report back on Florida Man.

Crew Chief Eric: The Netflix series. Maybe it has better luck than any of these Formula One shows they’ve been coming up with. Speaking of which, it’s time we go behind the pit wall and talk about Motorsports News.

As we noted the last time, Kimi is back with Trackhouse Racing to go drive a Chevy, which doesn’t exist next year, in NASCAR. And then there’s Jensen Button. And he’s signed up to race three NASCAR Cup Series races this year. And I just kept wondering myself, is he already that bored with retirement? Yes.

Executive Producer Tania: He’s done a lot, right? He hasn’t done [01:19:00] this.

Crew Chief Eric: Sure. Well, I mean, sports car, whatever. I have my biases. Good for him. I mean, there’s been plenty of other Formula One drivers, Juan Pablo Montoya and others that have gone to NASCAR. So let’s see what Button can do. He’s got to pay for those old Nigel Mansell era race cars at some point.

So, you know, whatever. They’re not cheap. Meanwhile, in the glorious drama filled world of Formula U, the season is officially underway, right?

Executive Producer Tania: We’re two races in and it’s not looking good.

Crew Chief Eric: Oh, geez. What now?

Executive Producer Tania: Not looking good if your name isn’t Red Bull.

Crew Chief Brad: Although I will say, Ashton Martin’s doing pretty well.

Executive Producer Tania: That’s for sure. Alonzo has podium twice now this season for Aston Martin he switched over teams he left Alpine last season got the ride in Aston Martin the first race it was hilarious because in Bahrain I was dying when it was like turn two and stroll nearly took him out And I was like, [01:20:00] here we go again.

He rear ended him a little bit. He didn’t even know they I, I think they probably purposely didn’t tell him who did it ’cause he had no idea. I think they like told him at the end of the race ’cause he probably would’ve blown a gasket. No damage. Something like that. They kept going. He finished third in that race.

He finished third in Juda, red Bull one two. The big shakeup was Perez beating out. Verstappen taking his, I think, fifth Formula One first place podium. A little drama there with the teams because Max had some issues during qualifying. Something broke or something or other. So he ended up like starting 15th, had to make his way back up through the crowd.

He made it into second. There wasn’t quite enough time to really challenge Perez and come in first. However, there were team orders to maintain pace and Verstappen was like, F that noise. I’m getting fastest lap so I can get that extra point. And be number one in the championship points, two races in. And that’s exactly what happened.

They actually gave orders to Perez. You’re fine. Just keep your pace. And [01:21:00] yeah, he was a little bit pissed about that. So some interesting team orders across all the teams too. There were lots of miscommunications. There was the penalty thing that happened with Alonso on this one. He. Started on the grid box slightly left.

And so that was kind of a false start infringement and he had a five second penalty to serve. Served it under the full course yellow, which the rule book is just all sorts of all over the place on if that was legal or not or not. And so he finished third and then they took it away and then they reread the rules and somebody probably got paid.

And so they put him back on the podium. So Mercedes didn’t get a podium. And so there you go. He got his hundredth. Podium. He’s in the century club on that one in his career. And there you go. Four or five Mercedes and Ferrari was somewhere right behind them in six, seven,

Crew Chief Eric: they finished and they didn’t catch fire.

That’s important. Those are two things

Executive Producer Tania: this time, unlike in Bahrain, where Leclerc did suffer a mechanical failure and was not able to finish the race. So this is progress. Both cars did [01:22:00] finish. They were once again in the top 10. So that is good news. No, for

Crew Chief Eric: last time, we really dove deep into formula one, the tail end of last year, we had good news to share about Haas.

You know, they picked up some new sponsors. Now they’re allegedly sponsored by money. Graham, you know, there’s a whole episode we devoted to that, but they picked up another sponsor and no, it’s not gray Chevrolet. And if you’re listening, we would like to be sponsored by you. Acai. Like, I didn’t know you could be sponsored by fruit pulp that you put in a smoothie at Smoothie King.

Executive Producer Tania: Acai is whatever. I don’t know. They offer money. Is that how you pronounce it, by the way?

Crew Chief Eric: Well, how did you want to pronounce it?

Crew Chief Brad: I don’t know. I’m just, I have no idea. I believe it’s acai.

Crew Chief Eric: It is acai. All seriousness, the parent company, Oakberry, becomes the official acai partner. Alongside of MoneyGram to the Haas Formula One team.

And I’m like, good for them. You guys are picking up the weirdest sponsors you could possibly find. I mean, who’s next? Maybe Charmin Toilet Paper will [01:23:00] sponsor Haas. Not

Crew Chief Brad: Rich Energy.

Crew Chief Eric: Anybody but. I didn’t even know Oakberry was a. I don’t even know where their stores are. Maybe they just produce acai for, you know, Smoothie King or some of these other places.

I mean, I don’t know. There’s a whole list of their official sponsors at the bottom. I mean, the ones you expect, Pirelli because of the tires and Alpine Star because of the driving suits and all that kind of stuff. There’s some other weird Did you know that they’re sponsored by Chipotle?

Crew Chief Brad: No. The McDonald’s.

Crew Chief Eric: Right? I’m not really sure who the Palm Angels are or Open Seas or Hentik Markets. Like these are some really like random sponsors. I mean, I’m sure every team has like majors and minor sponsors, but I kind of just look at the size of the logos, especially on this press release. And like the MoneyGram one is just like.

Ah, it’s huge. But the rest of these, I don’t know.

Executive Producer Tania: I mean, if someone’s giving you money, you don’t turn your hand, right?

Crew Chief Eric: Never bite the hand that feeds you, except if you’re also trying to make money selling stuff to the Russians.

Executive Producer Tania: [01:24:00] Hmm.

Crew Chief Eric: Hasan, a little bit of trouble.

Crew Chief Brad: Granted, at the time they were selling stuff to the Russians.

But they also had Russian sponsorship and a Russian driver and it was all before the war. And they’re very adamant about delineating the timeline. As soon as the war happened, then they cut ties and got rid of the contract and got rid of the driver and everything and stopped selling equipment to the Russians.

Crew Chief Eric: Do you really believe it? I do. I feel, I feel like this

Crew Chief Brad: is, I feel like they’re just grasping at headlines.

Crew Chief Eric: To just get more notoriety and pick up some other obscure sponsor?

Executive Producer Tania: Yeah.

Crew Chief Brad: Speaking

Executive Producer Tania: of notoriety.

Crew Chief Eric: Yeah. Speaking of notoriety, yeah. There’s an untold rivalry in Formula One that people want to bring to light.

They wanna educate us on the battle between Gillsville, niv, and Peroni.

Executive Producer Tania: Did

Crew Chief Eric: you guys know this was a thing?

Executive Producer Tania: I, I mean, I was a little young at the time that they were racing each other, so no, I wouldn’t have appreciated it was a thing. I wasn’t born.

Crew Chief Eric: Yeah, but like, nobody even talks about this. It feels like the [01:25:00] quietest rivalry nobody ever heard of.

Are we just, again, to Brad’s point, are we sort of grasping for Formula One drama to paint a picture of two guys that aren’t even alive anymore?

Crew Chief Brad: Yeah, I believe this is what they call a slow news cycle.

Crew Chief Eric: Ah, that makes way more sense. Well, they’re going to make a documentary about it. And when it comes out, why don’t we take a look at it?

Executive Producer Tania: Well, it’s out already. The problem is it’s not out in this country. So the question would be is if they will put it on the service that we could watch. Cause right now it’s on a UK based service.

Crew Chief Eric: I bet motorsport. tv will carry it or something like that, but you got to pay a premium for it.

Executive Producer Tania: Popular in Formula One has always been very high everywhere outside of the United States, essentially, or at least in Europe, very high, right?

So there’s more. Like even then, maybe the popularity is even growing, right? So yes, there’s probably to some extent people are trying to take advantage of the F1 train and making more of these documentaries. But on the other hand, like, why not? I mean, this is interesting stuff. It’s a documentary, so a lot of it is real footage put together and that’s kind of neat to [01:26:00] see.

The history and how it was back then and all that

Crew Chief Eric: for sure. I mean, there’s always opportunities to learn more things. And that’s sort of the point of the show too, is it’s those untold stories, bringing them to the surface. Everybody has a story. I am curious to dive further into this. It’s sort of one of those, like.

Uh, didn’t really know that was a thing. So let’s regroup on this at a later date and share it with our audience and see what we thought about the Villeneuve Perroni rivalry. I mean, I can’t imagine it’s up there with Hunt and Lauda or Proust and Senna.

Executive Producer Tania: Fun facts. Apparently Didier Perroni’s son, who. I believe he died before he was born.

I don’t think they were married, but his partner, whatever, named him Gilles in honor of Villeneuve. And he works on Mercedes as an engineer on Mercedes F1 team. So full circle in that family. Speaking of Formula One, I came across, admittedly, not listened to F1 Beyond the Grid podcast, but apparently they’ve done an interview [01:27:00] with Alain Prost, which I don’t know how often he does these.

But pretty long podcast, cause it’s almost an hour and I was scrolling through some of the other podcasts, which are much shorter, I have it in my download list at some point I will listen to it cause I’m kind of interested to see what they’re going to talk about.

Crew Chief Eric: I mean, when you have the professor on your show, I think you just let them talk.

Your 30 minute format goes out the window when you have

a

Crew Chief Eric: celebrity of that caliber on the show. Yeah. I’m curious too. I hate to say morbid curiosity. I side on the SENA side of that rivalry. I don’t know. Maybe we’ll learn. thing or two. Brad, your charter this year has been to keep up with WRC news. So round three, Mexico just concluded.

What do you think?

Crew Chief Brad: I’m having a hard time staying interested if I’m going to be completely honest with you, as I’ve said numerous times, it’s the coverage. I can’t see enough of something to really bind somebody to like to root for or anything. [01:28:00] It’s, I don’t know. I did think it was funny on, you know, what happened to the Fords on Friday though.

Crew Chief Eric: Oh my god.

Crew Chief Brad: And the cars pulling into Mexico, driving through that little city tunnel and everything. That was super cool. But I think the only way I’m really gonna find a way to get invested in Rally is going to one.

Crew Chief Eric: That’s a good option. I like that. You know, we’ve been talking about going to Pikes Peak.

That’s on the docket for next year at this point. It’s not quite the same as the World Rally stages, but I’m telling you right now, if you were to actually watch the full coverage of a rally, you’d be so much more bored than just watching the recaps. And that’s not because it isn’t exciting. It’s just overwhelming.

And you would just be like, Oh my God, make this three days worth of content. Stop. That’s why I was surprised. Mexico was so action packed, especially since. It hasn’t been on the schedule in three years. And when they set the stage, they took us back to 2020 and they showed Oittanik’s crash where he literally put his Fiesta underwater.

And you [01:29:00] just watch it sinking from the onboard GoPros. I’m like, this is. Beautiful. Like it was so

Crew Chief Brad: awesome for me. And this is, again, this is just my personal opinion. I feel like it’s the equivalent of coming into Grey’s Anatomy now and missing the entire first 200 seasons of the show. That’s what it feels like to me.

I have no frame of reference. I have no historical knowledge or background on any of these drivers or anything or rally itself. I don’t know what’s going on. Completely lost. And I’m trying so hard. The coverage of the cars racing and stuff is cool. But as far as understanding what’s going on, I have no idea.

Crew Chief Eric: Just go with it. Just embrace

Crew Chief Brad: it. Right. And maybe it’s one of those things. If I just watch enough of it, it’ll eventually click.

Crew Chief Eric: And Mexico was interesting. It’s very difficult. As you saw, it was Sebogier’s. Race to lose, he’s like, what, six time WRC Mexico winner, whatever he was going for, like, one more to like, really, you know, set him over the top, [01:30:00] all this kind of thing.

And like we talked about, he skipped the last one altogether. He’s like, I don’t even need to bother with that. So Seb was back. To your point, the Fords were having a terrible Friday. I mean, I love the commentator. There’s a stage called El Choate and he goes, El Choate, the stage where the Pumas melted. And I was just like, it’s so true, because every one of them had a failure of some catastrophic sort or another, some they could fix, you know, whatever.

Yeah. The first one was that the,

Crew Chief Brad: one

Crew Chief Eric: of

Crew Chief Brad: the turbo pipes, right? Oh yeah. Oix car. Just, just that the turbo just stopped working. He picked a terrible place to stop, by the way. I mean, right there with, with the dust, he’s, he’s like basically two or three feet off the circuit and nobody can

Crew Chief Eric: see

Crew Chief Brad: him. Yeah, it was terrible.

Crew Chief Eric: I felt so bad for him. By the end of Friday, he was like seven and a half minutes behind. There is no coming back from that. There’s literally WRC two cars that are finishing in front of you. Like that’s how far back you are. And I felt bad for him, [01:31:00] but then. Here we go. Crash it again. Takamoto. Did you see the role?

He rolled the Yaris again. Again, this is like the second time in three races.

Crew Chief Brad: At least he stopped driving this time. A

Crew Chief Eric: hundred percent. Yeah. He didn’t try to go while he was upside down. I don’t know if it’s bad luck or that just, he’s more of like a rookie still or whatever, but I’m just like. Bro, I can’t wait to see him roll it again.

I mean, Yari Matalopoulos has got to be like pulling the, what’s left of his hair out of his head because these cars aren’t cheap. And for this guy to like destroy one, trying to remember his name now, he was like a Scotsman and he would do the same thing. Every time he came out, he would destroy a Citroen.

Finally, after like six rounds, they cut him loose. Because they couldn’t afford to keep replacing the cars and they brought in another driver and all this kind of stuff. And I’m like, here we go again. Takamoto, if he doesn’t get this car on four wheels consistently, it’s not going to end well for him this year, that’s for sure.

And then you got Esa Pekka Lappi. You’re telling me that you can’t get into it. A goddamn telephone pole landed on [01:32:00] him. That wreck was out of control. Like, it happened so fast. And it knocked out the power in the area too. They literally had to red flag the rally. I mean, that’s how bad it was because he’s in the middle of the road with a U shape in his roof.

Basically, the roll cage is holding this electrical telephone post from decapitating him in the navigator. But again, it happened so fast and it was so unexpected. He lost the back end of the car and he literally just backed into it at full speed. And that was all she wrote. It was just nuts. Absolutely nuts.

So on top of that, the SCOTAs are still kicking butt in WRC2 and whoopie doo, because there were so many retirements, you know, and breakdowns and failures in this race. Seb won overall in Tierneyville podium. It’s like, Whoa, okay, great. I felt like it was like y’all won by default and hopefully next time it gets better.

Crew Chief Brad: I mean, I can’t deny that the coverage is exciting, but as far as the championships and the drivers and stuff like that, I don’t care about any, there’s no Volkswagen.

Crew Chief Eric: Well, that’s the Skoda. That’s in WRC2. I’m rooting [01:33:00] for Hyundai right now. They are plagued with some issues because of the new hybrid system, but they were really strong last year.

And Ford’s got a new car. And M Sport has generally dominated. And I want to see them dethroned and Toyota is always the wild card. Like they’re super consistent. They’ve had the same car forever. They’re under new management, but the gazoo racing team knows how to put together a good race car. So it’s a good fight between them, but I am rooting for the underdog.

I am rooting for the Hyundai’s in this case. I just want to see Terry Neuville get out of his own head and stop blaming the car and get back to driving kind of thing. But as a pack of lappy, as long as he stays away from telephone poles, he might be okay. By the way, folks, he walked away from that wreck.

So amazing engineering in those cars to keep those drivers safe, that’s for sure. Moving on to IMSA and WEC, really quick, I just wanna highlight something really, really important. You know, LeMans is about two months away. There are abouts, there are 16 hypercar in the LeMans [01:34:00] field. Right now. That’s pretty awesome.

But you know, who’s not going to be there. Acura and BMW. No, I’m rather disappointed in that. And I wonder if it has to do with their performance at Rolex. And, you know, obviously throughout the season so far, BMW was definitely lagging behind as we talked about and things like that, but all the other major players are coming Peugeot.

Ferrari with the new four nine nine P Porsche with the nine 63. There’s going to be some fantastic cars running out there. And again, my whole thing about this is I want to see Toyota dethroned, but it’s anybody’s game, right? It’s anybody’s game. And we saw some real promise out of Ferrari at the Sebring 12 hours.

What did you guys think of that race?

Executive Producer Tania: So I didn’t watch the whole thing. I did tune in like right. After the lead Acura, one that was under all those penalties for alleged tire error,

deflate gate,

Executive Producer Tania: whatever you want to call it, issues at Daytona, that car lost a wheel. [01:35:00] Whoopsies. So unfortunately they were out.

But then what later happened in like the last basically 18 minutes of the race was left was just like carnage. Absolute carnage. And there’s a short YouTube video that captures the three minute moment, if you will, and

Crew Chief Eric: took out like six cars off the lead lap. It was insane. It was basically

Executive Producer Tania: like all the lead cars got wiped out in the last remaining few laps of the race.

Crew Chief Eric: It looked like one of our virtual racing leagues back in the day. Like it’s like such a Forza move to do what they did.

Executive Producer Tania: Was it a racing incident? The guy swerved from one side to the other thinking he was going to take the outside line, pass everybody on the outside. That inner car was moving over. One could argue to

Crew Chief Eric: set up his turn to

Executive Producer Tania: set up his turn, to be where he was.

One minute, the dudes on his right, two cars away, it’s nighttime. There’s headlights. There were a bunch of cars right there, and the next second, dude’s on his left, and the gap is closing to the grass, he goes [01:36:00] off. He was done. There was no way. Like, I don’t think he tried to be a torpedo. He wasn’t stopping.

Crew Chief Eric: But the best part, it looked like a video game, because it was like, all that stuff happened, and the double bump, and the guy’s in the grass, and suddenly he ends up hitting him anyway. So you thought you got away from him, and nope, here he comes and broadsides you.

Executive Producer Tania: Yeah, and you’re not expecting that either, so that guy was like, probably like, the F just happened to me.

Because he comes shooting through the grass, onto the track, over the track and just T bones him off the other side of the track.

Crew Chief Eric: It looked like a Forza round. I’m telling you, it was just, I couldn’t believe it. I watched it so many times. I was like, this is unreal. But the only camera angle that really showed What happened was luckily the helicopter view because all the other ones were super deceiving as to what it made

Executive Producer Tania: it look like some BS stuff was happening where it was intentional and all this, but like the helicopter view was like, pretty clear where it was like, this was an unfortunate racing incident.

I don’t think. That guy intended to cause an accident.

Crew Chief Eric: And what was [01:37:00] funny is the commentators climbing all over it. They finally were like, all right, we, we got to backpedal. We got to retract like everything we just said, because we just saw the helicopter view. Uh, so sorry. It looked really

Executive Producer Tania: bad from like in car, like track level footage, but from the helicopter footage, it was like, Oh damn, this was really just an unfortunate accident that created a.

Crew Chief Eric: That’s sort of the funny part about those commentators. It’s sort of like, look before you leap on that one. They were taken by surprise.

Executive Producer Tania: They’re going to have a delay and when they’re getting the footage too. Yeah.

Crew Chief Eric: Well, there’s one more bit of motor sports news to share with you. And that is the 2023.

Cardboard classic. If you’ve never seen this before, I cannot recommend these videos enough. I got to thank one of our Patreon supporters, Sean, for sending this to us every year, because I tend to forget about it, but then when it comes full circle, I just love it. And I got to say, there’s one part of this video I think is epic.

I want to see the build [01:38:00] out on this cardboard vehicle and it’s at the minute 21 mark. These guys built a full. back to the future DeLorean and send it down this ice luge, shoot, whatever you want to call it.

Executive Producer Tania: That DeLorean was epic. That guy spent a lot of time on that. It looked good. I’d hate to send it down and crash down the ski slope thingy.

Crew Chief Eric: And you didn’t even get to see it run. You only sort of got to see it. I did love the working Gullwing doors. That was so awesome. I’m like the amount of detail he put into that to run it down and basically. Hopefully not obliterate it before it got to the end.

Executive Producer Tania: You got to transport something like that in an enclosed trailer.

How are you going to put that back on an open closed trailer? Put it

Crew Chief Eric: sideways on the back of an F 150. That’s how you transport it. It’s cardboard. Don’t weigh that much.

Executive Producer Tania: Exactly. Don’t blow away at 60 miles an hour.

Crew Chief Eric: perpendicular out the back of a Malibu or something, you know, it’s all good. If you’ve never seen these before, I mean, they range from mundane to insane on the scale of these cardboard creations.

And they send all sorts of people down on these things. It’s just nuts.

Crew Chief Brad: Where does this [01:39:00] happen? Poconos. We should totally do this. Yeah, we should go there.

Crew Chief Eric: I don’t, I don’t think I want to participate. No, no, no,

Crew Chief Brad: no, no. We should compete. With what? You build a cardboard

Crew Chief Eric: 914. See how that only fits two people.

They got, some of these, they got like a school bus of people going down.

Crew Chief Brad: Yeah. And then on the other guy, it looks like he’s just going down on a sled. Those did the best. So

Executive Producer Tania: there was one where it was like 30 people, a flat sheet of cardboard. It’s like all that weight, real stable. So you guys are winning.

Crew Chief Brad: This reminds me of the Red Bull fluke talk. Yes,

Crew Chief Eric: yes, yes. And to Tanya’s point, there’s something to be said about simplicity and design. You know what I mean? That flat sheet of cardboard. But yes, the Flutog, I missed the Flutog. It’s another reason to watch Red Bull TV.

Crew Chief Brad: I think GTM needs to commission a vehicle for this.

I think we should do it.

Crew Chief Eric: I’m going to get project motoring on this.

Crew Chief Brad: I got it. I know exactly what we’re going to build. Pontiac Aztec. Oh yeah. Oh yeah. Cardboard Pontiac Aztec. It’s

Crew Chief Eric: even the right color. It’s like [01:40:00] middle aged beige. Greige. Just like Heisenberg.

Yes.

Crew Chief Eric: On that, we should probably wrap up with some local news and events.

Crew Chief Brad: Upcoming local news and events brought to us by CollectorCarGuide. net, the ultimate reference for car enthusiasts. So let’s see what’s coming up for April. The Cruising Car Show season is ramping up with events like Jimmy Cone, Chewy’s, the Damascus and Hagerstown Cars and Coffee, all starting on April 1st and 2nd weekend and repeating throughout the season.

The air cooled Volkswagen show will be held at the Zimmerman Auto Driving Museum on April 8th. There are a bunch of MECOM on time and road art auctions happening in April. The World Racing, the Big John Music Memorabilia Collection, the Jim and Brenda Hoffman Collection, and others closing by mid April.

So get your bids in now while you can. The IMRRC is hosting their 8th Annual Model Car Show on April 15th as part of Opening Weekend, right after the Green Grand Prix. And tons more events like [01:41:00] this and all their details are available over at CollectorCarGuide. net.

Crew Chief Eric: That’s right, and now it’s time for our HPDJunkie.

com Trackside Report. So what’s coming out here early spring? Well, the track season has begun. It started as early as the beginning of March here on the East Coast. The time trialers over at EMRA, the Eastern Motor Racing Association, kick off their time trial season at Lime Rock Park on the 1st of April.

They’ve switched up. Their season this year, they’re predominantly running at Lime Rock and Pocono kind of alternating between the two locations for an action packed time trial season. Meanwhile, the Washington DC region of SCCA kicks off their series of autocross schools on April the 1st with others peppered throughout the year.

So it’s not just a one time autocross school. If you want to get involved in that, not only that BMW car club of America is also kicking off their series of autocross schools on the 15th of April. So check out both of their websites. To see how you can get involved in that [01:42:00] discipline of motorsport. As Brad mentioned, the IMRRC is holding their eighth annual model car show after the green Grand Prix.

And the green Grand Prix is in its 18th year and will be held on April the 14th, which is a Friday at Watkins Glenn international. I will be personally participating in it with my alternative fuel vehicle, and I’ll be live streaming from the track and throughout the event. So tune into our Twitch channel, twitch.

tv forward slash grand touring motorsports for live coverage of the green Grand Prix. We talked about legislation earlier, the performance racing industry, PRI in conjunction with SEMA and others is working to pass legislation. That’s one step closer to law in West Virginia, especially at our home track of Summit Point.

Virginia lawmakers are working to support a PRI supported legislation that was established called the Motorsports Responsibility Act, which would define areas of responsibility and [01:43:00] assumed risks by participants for recreational and commercial motorsports facilities. What this really means is it’s going to reduce.

The liability insurance premiums allowing racing venues to invest the savings that they’re getting for promotional purposes, you know, tourism, other things like that. Hopefully this will translate into cheaper track day weekends, not only for the organizers of track day events, but then the trickle down effect is that because the tracks insurance is cheaper by proxy, the organizers insurance should also be commiserate to that.

Again, hopefully making track day weekends a little bit more affordable since the prices have gone up over the last couple of seasons due to COVID and other things. So to learn more about that, you can check out performance racing. com for all the details, or check out our show notes for the link. We talk a lot about EVs on this show and in the HPD and club racing world, we wonder all the time, are we going to [01:44:00] see more EVs at the track every once in a while?

There’s a guy with a Tesla, you know, they get about 20 minutes and then they got to find a charger and all this kinds of thing. And they have a hard time being out there with the rest of us. Ice powered folks. Well, there’s three tracks in this country right now that are taking a major push into making EVs.

More accepted at the racetracks, two of which we’ve run at many times at the past VIR, Virginia International Raceway and Lime Rock have made the list along with Button Willow being at the pointy end of the progress here to make sure that the tracks have more chargers available to folks that want to come and enjoy their EVs on the racetrack.

So look forward to more enhancements in the future coming from those locations and hopefully more as we move forward with EVs in racing in the future. The next HOD Southeast event is Thursday, April the 6th at Sebring. While Hooked on Driving Northeast will be at New Jersey Motorsports Park on Saturday, April the 8th.

And that’s a Saturday only event. And we bring up these HOD events [01:45:00] because we want to remind you. As a thank you to everyone that is a loyal supporter of GTM and a listener of Break Fix Podcast, Mike and Mona Arrigo from Hooked On Driving are offering a discount all season on HPD events on their schedule.

So be sure to use Code Break Fix 23 to receive a discount on your event registration at checkout. So thank you all again for being loyal supporters of all of our efforts. Tune out through the year. For more promotions and be sure to get up off the couch and get out on track

Executive Producer Tania: in case you missed out.

Check out the other podcast episodes that aired this month. We started celebrating international women’s month with Hannah Thompson’s episode on the history and evolution of the NASCAR hall of fame in Charlotte’s glory, the NASCAR hall of fame in the queen city. We continued with our first all women’s What Should I Buy panel, focusing on the new EV car buyer, with returning guests Kat DeLorean from DNG Motors, Sarah Lacey from A Girl’s Guide to Cars, Carolyn Ford from TechTransforms, and GTM members Emily Fox and Chrissy Crutchfield.

Lauren [01:46:00] Goodman took us back to the 1930s with her discovery of racer and team owner Lucy O’Reilly Schell and how she innovated motorsports in France. Dr. Chris Lizotte shared her study on autocross, life skills, and the woman driver in her piece Real Racers Turn in Both Directions. Samantha Zimmerman is a fine artist specializing in realism with the breadth of her work consisting of automotive and motorsports subjects.

She joins us from her home studio in San Antonio, Florida to tell us how she blended her passion for art and motorsports into a blossoming career. And we will round out International Women’s Month with an extra episode where we chat with a third generation SCCA club racer. Taylor Hyatt and her plans to get more ladies on track.

Thank you to all the guests that came to the show this month. We’re so excited to be in our fourth season. And if you’re tuning in for the first time, you’ve way too many episodes to catch up on. So just hang in there for more awesome new episodes dropping each week on Tuesdays. And don’t forget to sign up for our newsletter in the rear view or join us online to continue the conversation and share stories.

Crew Chief Eric: New Patreons for the month of March. We got to give a [01:47:00] big shout out to our newest Patreon supporter, because I think Brad made him feel a little guilty. So, you know, Brad, you might want to say thanks and apologize at the same time.

Crew Chief Brad: How did I make him feel guilty? Thank you. Thank you. And sorry to Mark Hewitt.

I guess

Crew Chief Eric: mark has been a loyal fan of the show and we really do appreciate as he is quoted as saying busting out the pry bar and opening his wallet to help continue to keep the lights on here at break fix. So we really do appreciate you doing that. Every little bit does add up. It really does count and it helps us continue to bring you great content month.

After month.

Crew Chief Brad: Yes. And in addition to Mark and the new patrons, we’ve got some other shout outs. Unfortunately, no anniversaries in the month of March, but we do want to welcome back Logan Ellsworth. You can ping him on our discord at Lolo and stop by and say hello. And if you’d like to become a member of GTM, be sure to check out the new clubhouse website at club.

gtmotorsports. org to learn more.

Crew Chief Eric: That’s right.

Crew Chief Brad: And we don’t have any special guests, [01:48:00] so no thanks. And of course we do want to thank Tanya though, for all her hard work on the show.

Crew Chief Eric: And remember folks for everything we talked about on this episode and more, be sure to check out the follow on article and show notes available at gtmotorsports.

org

Crew Chief Brad: and to all the members who support GTM without you. None of this would be possible.

Crew Chief Eric: The annual two ends

Crew Chief Brad: alphabet soup. I think there are too many letters in annual.

Executive Producer Tania: And

not Oh, oh

Crew Chief Brad: man. I’m just gonna leave that there. Uh, you all can use your imaginations.

Crew Chief Eric: That’s it, folks. Uh, that’s, that’s a wrap.

Crew Chief Brad: I

Executive Producer Tania: don’t even know how you follow that anymore.

Um Shweaty

Crew Chief Brad: balls.

Executive Producer Tania: Here

we are, bus

cars in back of us, all just waiting [01:49:00] to order. There’s some idiot in a lights on behind me. I lean out the window and scream. Hey, what you’re trying to do blind me? If

Crew Chief Brad: you like what you’ve heard and want to learn more about GTM, be sure to check us out on www. gtmotorsports. org. You can also find us on Instagram at GrandTouring Motorsports.

Also, if you want to get involved or have suggestions for future shows, You can call or text us at 202 630 1770, or send us an email at crewchief at gtmotorsports. org. We’d love to hear from you.

Crew Chief Eric: Hey everybody, Crew Chief Eric here. We really hope you enjoyed this episode of Break Fix. And we wanted to remind you that GTM remains a no annual fees organization.

And our goal is to continue to bring you quality episodes like this one at no charge. As a loyal listener, please consider subscribing [01:50:00] to our Patreon for bonus and behind the scenes content, extra goodies, and GTM swag. For as little as 2. 50 a month, you can keep our developers, writers, editors, casters, and other volunteers fed on their strict diet of fig newtons, gummy bears, and monster.

Consider signing up for Patreon today at www. patreon. com. patreon. com forward slash GT Motorsports and remember without fans, supporters, and members like you, none of this would be possible.

Skip ahead if you must… Here’s the highlights from this episode you might be most interested in and their corresponding time stamps.

• 00:00 Introduction and Sponsors
• 00:36 Welcome to Episode 32
• 00:53 Season 4 Excitement
• 01:55 Porsche and Scout News
• 03:25 Volkswagen’s EV Factory Plans
• 06:25 Porsche 911 GT3 RS Tribute
• 09:07 Porsche’s E-Fuel Initiative
• 15:25 Volkswagen ID.2 All Retro Gauges
• 20:12 Volkswagen and Ford Partnership
• 22:14 Controversial GPS Subscription
• 25:55 Stance Life and Static Struggles
• 31:56 Fastest Van at Pike’s Peak
• 34:10 GMC Cyclone 2023
• 35:38 Debating Car Aesthetics and Performance
• 36:42 Chevy’s Record-Breaking Z06
• 37:55 GMC Cyclone and GM’s New V8
• 38:37 Copo Camaro and Power Struggles
• 41:11 The Future of the Camaro
• 42:52 Ford’s Self-Repossessing Car Technology
• 46:07 Toyota’s Stance on EVs
• 53:18 Insurance Woes for EV Owners
• 58:17 Radar Detectors and Self-Driving Cars
• 01:01:00 Lost and Found: Rare Car Deals
• 01:02:15 Teslagate: Steering Wheel Fiasco
• 01:07:30 Nude Car Show in Wisconsin
• 01:09:56 Predatory Car Loans
• 01:11:24 Florida Man and Alligator Season
• 01:12:37 Unexpected Cargo: The Mosaic Tesla
• 01:13:59 Maryland Man’s Drum Set Traffic Jam
• 01:15:28 American Man’s Ferrari Adventure in Italy
• 01:16:52 Florida Man: The Netflix Series
• 01:18:32 Motorsports News: NASCAR and Formula One
• 01:27:34 Rally Drama: WRC Mexico Highlights
• 01:33:44 IMSA and WEC: LeMans and Sebring Recap
• 01:37:39 Cardboard Classic: Creative Racing
• 01:40:06 Upcoming Events and Local News
• 01:46:56 Thank You and Wrap Up