The Texas Mile

Imagine a mile of open pavement in front of you, and no fear of a speeding ticket or jail time. Seems like a dream, but it’s a reality for drivers at The Texas Mile. Listen in as Scott and Kurt describe why the Texas Mile is such a unique test of speed

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:01):
Welcome to the Fast Track, a production of I Heart Radios,
How Stuff Works. Hello, and welcome to the fast Track.
I'm your co host, I guess Scott Benjamin, and I'm
joined by Kurk Garn who is the normally just a
producer on the show, and I shouldn't say just but

(00:23):
normally the producer on the show. And we've brought Kurt
Gotta behind the mic recently and uh and it's worked
out pretty well, So we're gonna We're gonna stick with
a Kurt if that's all right with you, That's fine
with me, Okay, good. Well, We've got one today that
I think is going to pique your interest and hopefully
the interest of a lot of our listeners as well.
We're going to talk about a very specific event, a
very um it's kind of I think it's one of
a kind. I don't I've never heard of an event

(00:44):
like this any other place in the world. Really, it's
it's different than a drag race, but it's called the
Texas Smile, and it has a lot of similarities to
a drag race. But there's there's variations to this whole thing.
I mean, this is a very this is a unique
competition of speed and and uh and it's worthwhile for
us to dig into this. And I do want to
tell you, Kurt Um just so that you're not not

(01:05):
taking off guard by this, but um we we have
done a previous episode of this on the Car Stuff program.
Uh So you know that that was the other podcast
that I worked on for many, many years. So you know,
this archive goes back all the way to two thousand
and eight and back in August of two thousand twelve.
Uh so this is seven years ago. We did a

(01:26):
full episode with with my co host at the time,
Ben Bowling, and myself. We did a an episode that
really was kind of the ins and outs of the
Texas Smile and kind of what it's all about and
where it was and everything and the record holders that were,
you know, the current record holders and how some strategies
I guess too to get the best time, and you
know whatever. We just had a whole bunch of topics

(01:46):
that were we covered in there. Of course, all of
that's changed now since since two thousand twelve, and I
mean it's seven years later. You can imagine that not
only is technology grown and leaps and bounds, you know,
since then, Uh, you know, the guys building the cars
are learning a lot more and they're and they're they're
going faster and faster every year. Uh, there's been some
notable events that are things I guess events, you can

(02:08):
call it events. I guess it happened. And uh, there's
even been a change of venue since then. I mean
there's a lot different And that's right, that's the reason
I guess that we are covering this one more time
on the fast track, and of course the fast track.
How could you not cover something like the Texas Smile. Yeah,
it's an actual fast track like the Nerburgring from last week. Yeah,
it's it's amazing. It's it's just just real quick and

(02:29):
I want I'll be honest with you. We're gonna jump
into the topic a little bit later. There's a little
bit of other stuff that I want to talk to
you about before we start here. But I want to
talk to you just just a second about what you
what's your gut feeling about the Texas Smile. I mean,
just just like a general when you first heard about this,
initially I compared it to a drag race. Um, but

(02:50):
as I looked into it a little bit more, I
drew vast differences between this particular type of racing and
a drag race. First of all, it's a time trial,
all types set up. It's not two cars aren't competing
against each other. It's more like a qualifying event, and
a drag race would be more than a head to
head race. But but what I mean getting we'll get
to the specifics I think, But but getting to like specifically,

(03:13):
what you thought when you first saw like maybe a
car going I'm gonna say I'm above two hundred miles
per hour. That's not the record, by the way. We'll
tell you what the record is later in the show.
But let's see the first time you saw a car
achieve two hundred miles per hour in one mile, you know,
from standing still? I mean, it's it's it's crazy, isn't. Yeah,
it is crazy. I'm used to seeing drag races in

(03:35):
a quarter mile, very different types of cars. Yeah, it's not.
It's not over in a few seconds. So there's a
lot of factors that come into play. Um, cooling is
one of them. Yeah. Um, we saw some interest in
cooling tactics, didn't we. Yeah. Normally they would cool the
car with air flowing through holes in the car. That's
not the way to go fast. You want to make
the car as slick as possible. So there's other techniques

(03:58):
that they used, the cool engines down. That's a good
way to put it. I like how you said that,
because like you can't have a ton of openings and
vents and I guess full face of a vehicle that
you normally would have. You're trying to minimize that because
these are modified cars we'll talk about, and there's there
are different tactics that these racers employ to go and
do what they do on these Uh. Well it's two

(04:19):
weekends a year. And again, all of this we're gonna
get too, I promise, because the Texas Smile is is
definitely an interesting and unique event in a lot of ways.
And I you can see my notes are crazy again
today I have a pile of notes in front of me,
and and for new listeners or listeners that aren't familiar
with with my note system, I I'm very analog. I've
got I've got printed notes in front of me. Of course,

(04:41):
Kurt just has his laptop. He's he's very high tech. Um.
I have just gone with you know, pen and paper
and I've got tabs, and you know, notes on the
tabs that you know, point me to different places, and
notes that lead me to other notes. And it's just
kind of a mess. And Kurt laughs at me, but
it works for me. And you'll you'll hear the kind
of paper shuffling through the whole thing. That's me. I'll

(05:02):
try to keep it to a minimum. But before we begin,
I want to ask you a couple of questions, and
one is just kind of you know, neighborly chit chat.
I guess, did you do anything at all automotive related
over the last week or so or last weekend? Just
curious because I know you're kind of a car guy yourself. Yeah,
not really. This past weekend I did take a road
trip to Augusta, Georgia for an arts festival. That's cool. Um,

(05:25):
so I was in my car straight, shot down and back. Yeah,
that's good. Is how long is it drive from here? Um?
About two hours and fifteen minutes. It's not bad, not bad,
So just a day trip really? Yeah, that's cool? Alright, cool,
I see what did I do? I did some uh
oh gosh, this sounds real boring right now, but I
mean I did some just polishing and you know, um,

(05:47):
scuff removal and that kind of stuff. And yeah, yeah,
I've got a kind of a bang upfront bumper in
my car and it's gotta crack in it right now.
So I'm looking to do something that's called this. This
is the term I've seen used for it, called the
drifters I think it's called the drifters stitch. And it's
something that people have done, is that with zip ties
okay before okay? Yeah, and you know what, It's surprisingly

(06:09):
easy to do and surprisingly holds well really well. Um,
I've done it already on this repair, just in a
minor way, but I did it in a very not
haphazard I mean, it looks good. You can't even see
them hardly that that's there. It makes the makes the
crack and the bumper disappear really and holds everything together.
It's it's just you drill a couple of holes on

(06:30):
each side of the crack and then run a zip
tie through and you do that a couple of times.
It looks like like stitches that you would put in
somebody's you know body, you know, head arms, wherever you
get to cut um. It's it's a lot like that.
Um ohm, I've always cracked it. It's kind of funny, yeah,
like anybody would go and get stitches at the doctor.
It's it's very similar for your bumper, and it's it's
a low cost, easy way to do repair. I mean,

(06:52):
you know, I guess it depends on the color of
the vehicle. I've got a dark, dark blue vehicle, so
I'm using black zip ties, and uh, you know, the
wound in the in the umper pretty much disappears. It's
it's really nice. And I think I need um maybe
at the most, like two more stitches to make this
whole thing working here and there at the moment right now,
I've got three, um three, and I mean I need
two more. I've I've just discovered that, you know, the

(07:13):
the supporting structure behind it was jostle just enough that
it's not quite holding up in the corner. So I
need to add some to the corners. I know this
is all very uh specific to to me and my
my car, but I wonder if anybody else out there
has has either done you know this this drifter stitch,
or has heard of it or anything like that. If
you haven't look at it online, you look at some
photos online and you'll see some good versions of it,

(07:36):
some bad versions of it, and it looks kind of neat.
It looks like like a Frankenstein kind of repair made
to a car. But um, it works in a pinch,
and it definitely is not going to cost you a
whole lot of money. Makes makes a huge improvement in
the way the car looks after you know, a minor
a minor incident. I've had a minor incident my car,
and they employed this technique a lot up north, I believe,

(07:58):
Is that right? Yeah, what what do you mean? Well,
that's where I've seen it, Okay, Well, like where last
time was in Boston. It snows a lot there, so
maybe there's they you hit things a little more often.
The one I saw last was I didn't count, but
it looked about like forties stitches in the corner of
a bumper. Yeah, no, dint. It was just a straight crack.

(08:20):
It's weird. It's about forties sometimes holding it it almost
looks like a decal that somebody's put in the car.
Doesn't close to appreciate it completely. Yeah, it's interesting, and
that's a great theory behind behind why maybe you would
see this more in the North. I guess that's true.
It goes a new bumper every time you know a
little something happened, Scott, what happened? Tellful, I will tell you,

(08:42):
you know what, And I'll have to do this and
I hate to do this. I've already promoted our other show,
car Stuff, but I'm gonna have to promote my other show,
which is Insomniac. And uh, the full story of that.
You know, that incident is there and exactly what happened,
but there's a there's a good long story behind and
I'll tell you off air, but I think I'll just

(09:02):
refer listeners to Insomnia. It comes later in the season.
But yeah, I had, um, yeah, I had a little
incident here in the office area in the parking structure.
Bumped the wall just to put was one of the columns.
And now you're gonna make me tell the whole story.
I'm not going to know. It wasn't it wasn't a
column now it was on one of the ramps. But um, anyways,

(09:24):
there's so much damage on those columns down there, and
I'm wondering who's doing it. All that was that was
a first for me and hopefully, hopefully now it's been
the last but okay, okay, I do I do know
that we have to get to our topic today. There's
one other thing that has been just bugging me, and
not bugging me, but but intriguing me. I suppose for
the last couple of weeks since you mentioned this, and uh,

(09:45):
you know we are going to get a Texas smile.
Don't worry. I see you're getting ready. You get anxious. Yea,
you're getting jump you over there. Um, I want to
talk just a slight bit about your brother's cars because
I'm intrigued by this. You said your brother is one
of these types of personalities that like to both upgrade
and downgrade. Um, you know, it doesn't matter. It seems
like it's not like he's like not focused on one

(10:06):
type of car because of the types of cars that
you've told me he's owned. And I'm just fascinated by
this because I often will find, as probably a lot
of other listeners do, You'll find a used car. Lots,
you know, relatively new cars, maybe even the same model
year that you're in right now. You know, somebody bought
them the previous year as that model year, low mileage,
Like they look pristine. They look brand new, very low mileage.

(10:28):
But you're wondering why the heck would somebody buy, you know,
this brand new car, this w R X S T
I or whatever and and dump it off in the
used car lot, you know, six or seven or eight
months later and then trade up to something else or
you know, what's the story behind that? And I think,
and maybe just tell me a little bit about like what,
like how many cars has he owned? And like what

(10:49):
are some of the crazy ones? What does he owned now?
That kind of thing. Yeah, I would just be speculating
the number. Um, I really I think that he really
enjoys a sports car. Well, what's the driving now? I
believe it's a Honda Accord. I don't know the year model, um,
and I haven't seen it that it was Toyota Prius. Yeah,

(11:11):
so it was a hybrid okay. And then um, before
that it was a Ford Focus. Yeah. But it wasn't
just any focus as I as I hear it now,
was it? I wasn't it a focus r S? You
said it was a topic, So I think Focus may
have been the st I'm not sure if it was,
but it was still it was still pretty decent even so,
even if it's the st still a wonderful car. But

(11:33):
going from the ST and I'm sticking to say down
to a Priest and someone's a completely different type. Well
it is, yeah, And I shouldn't say, you know, it's
downgrading or anything like that. I just mean it's it's
a strange switch. You know. It's like somebody going from
a Corvette to a station wagon or a minivan and
then going back again to a Camaro or you know whatever,
the sports car. Maybe it's like it's it's just intriguing

(11:54):
to me to find somebody who switches cars so often
because I I don't do that myself. I mean, I
hold onto him for a decent amount of time. But
people do have limits, you know, either it's a year
limit or just maybe a condition limit. Could be my ledge,
like I said, you know, a hundred thousand miles, two
hundred thousand miles, whatever, the limit for them is a
lot of people are comfortable with a car up to
a point and then they move on. But some people

(12:15):
change it like they change their shoes, you know, like
feeling is it's kind of like a hobby. Yeah, I've
got a I've got a younger brother who changes cars.
But they're not new cars. It's always used cars, and
they're always a little you know, on I don't know
their lower end vehicles, I guess, and um, you know,
he may end up with like a like I think
right now he's driving a bmw M three, but it's
fifteen years old or you know whatever the ages. I

(12:37):
don't remember right now. Um, it's a little rough around
the edges, but it's a great car and it's running
fantastically and everything, and so it's it's a good car
for him. But you know, he went from a Ford
Explorer to that, and then he'll go back to a
pickup truck and then he'll like, he'll move around, but
not new vehicles and top of the line vehicles like that,
or they were top of the line but ten fifteen

(12:57):
years ago. So it's just a it's a strange thing
that some people do. And I've just always been fascinated
by people switching cars so often, you know that can't
find myself doing. I would kind of want to be
that person, but I don't think I have the guts
to uh to continually trade. I feel like I'm getting
somebody else's problems. Maybe I drove my cars until they're
useless basically, so they're like the trade in value is

(13:20):
almost nothing and then pretty much Yeah, you get over
two fifty thousand miles and then maybe even more than that.
It's impressive, it's very good. Something about it that's good.
I try to hold on the mind as long as
I can. They stay in pretty good shape outside of
my banged up bumper on this one. That's that's upset
to me. This is like, this is really personally upsetting
because I try to keep them looking almost new inside

(13:44):
and outside as long as I can, and I've been
pretty successful with it my whole life. This little minor
incident with the front end is really really upsetting to me.
And you know, I know, you can take it to
the body shop and just be done with it, but
it's expensive. And I don't know, maybe it's too much
inside baseball about my own vehicle, but but I think
a lot of people find themselves in the same position

(14:06):
and look into that. Um you know that the drifters stitch.
If you want to for a for a simple answer,
an inexpensive answer, it's uh, maybe try it yourself. Yeah,
it's an option, it's an option. Maybe you could even
practice on you know, a Junkyard bumper or something if
you wanted to. But it's very easy to do, very
very simple to do. And uh and a lot less
money than taking into a body shop. A lot less

(14:28):
for sure. Yeah. Okay, well listen, I I probably have
wasted more than enough time. I think maybe it would
be a good time to take a break and we
can come back and then finally begin our talk about
the Texas Smile. And we're back and you were listening
to the fast track, and I'm your host, Scott Benjamin,

(14:51):
and across from me is Kurt Garren. Now you're doing Kurt,
I'm doing well, Scott, still hanging in there. I'm okay, okay,
I'm gonna keep checking in with you, just make until finally,
you know, one day I'm gonna say, you know, I'm
your host, Scott Benjamin. Then one day you're gonna I'm
just gonna jump. You're gonna be like, and I'm Kirkcaren
and today's a beautiful day or whatever out or now
something like that. It's a really beautiful is it's a

(15:12):
really nice day, you know, And you know what, now
that we're talking about beautiful days, I guess we probably
should mention that it will probably be a beautiful day
in late October in Texas, just guessing when they are
running the next edition of the Texas Smile. This is
an event that runs twice a year. They running in March,
which is no problem for them. There's gonna be no snow.
Of course, you might have some rain issues. I don't

(15:35):
know if they ever have or not. Between March and
then there's another one in October. So it's a It's
run twice a year every year, and this year they
are running it at a new place. Actually they have
for a couple of years now called the Victoria Regional
Airports in Victoria, Texas. And they've completed this race since.
And I keep calling a race. I don't mean to
do that. It's we should just say event maybe and

(15:56):
just call it an event or yeah, and it's weird
they call it as. The funny thing is they put
it in the in the genre of auto show, and
it's not an auto show by any means, I don't
I don't know why they did that, but I see
it more as like a contest or even a test
of your vehicle, or an exhibition, an exhibition of speed
maybe um approving ground. Yeah, I think a lot of

(16:17):
people do look at it as a test event. Yeah, sure,
I think that's how they view it. I mean it's
a chance for them to go out and just show
what they can do, show what they can put together.
It's not a show in the traditional sense where you
walk around the car and peek in and look at
the interior, but you can see it run down the track,
which is nice. Yeah, I mean, it's it's nice to
be able to do that because a lot of times
you don't see cars in motion. You go to a
car show and you see all these fantastic vehicles, but

(16:39):
they're all parked. You know, you might get to hear
them start off or watch them pull onto a trailer
or something like that, but this is one where you
get to go and see them actually run. It's it's
like you know, going to the drag races, like where
it's amateur and pro and you know, it's kind of
a big mix. And yeah, I guess any day at
the track really, but you don't get quite as up
close and personal when you're at the typical racetrack unless
you spring for the optional pit pass and you know,
get go and walk around the vehicles and get a

(17:01):
little more hands on or not not hands on, but
just you know, closer to them and talk to people.
Let's just kind of go through some real simple basics
of this whole thing, and then we'll move on to
some specifics, because there's some interesting specifics. I guess. The
most notable change, I guess is the change in venue.
I mean, this is its third home since two thousand three.
It's been run since two thousand three. It began in

(17:22):
a place called Goliad, Texas, Goliad, and I looked at
how to pronounce Goldiead. That's that's correct, uh goal Yead.
It was ran there until about I think March of
two thousand eleven, so it ran there for a good
long time, around eight years. The funny thing about this
is that it started with only about thirty five people.
It was began by a couple out of the Houston,

(17:43):
Texas area, a guy named Jay Maddis and his wife
Sharon Madis, and they had a company I think that
they called J and S. Maddis Motorsports Incorporated. And I'm
sure that that's still around. I think I think it
is in some way of course, a couple still still
around there. They're still running this thing. It started again
third five participants and almost no spectators because no one

(18:03):
really knew about the event. It wasn't, how you know,
heavily promoted. I guess the people that participated probably told
friends maybe and that was about it, but very few
people showed up to that. It's a lot different today,
is I mean, we've they've changed venues three times. The
second move after they went from Goliad, they went to
up the town's name is Beville, Texas, and the forum

(18:24):
or the actual venue because Chase Field Industrial Complex. Then
they finally relocated just in sen to the new place
that they're running, which is the Victoria Regional Airport, which
is in Victoria, Texas. Now these are all kind of
around the Houston area, which makes sense, you know, from
where the couple began, and they don't want to move
it too far, I guess because it's you know, it's

(18:44):
a it's a regional specialty event. But the number of
spectators has gone up immensely from this. The number of
participants has gone up incredibly from from the first days.
Just it's become a huge, huge thing. It's one of
the only places you can go and and or your
car and test it out in an event like this.
Of course, there's regional drag strips that you can go

(19:05):
to every Thursday night or whatever and see what you
can do. But to get on a mile in a
straight line, have professional timing equipment and medical staff and
just everything there for you to do this. It's it's
rare that you find out how much is it to
to sign? You know, I was looking at number I
might have an average person can't do it? Do it anymore? Well,
I don't know. I mean I wouldn't be so sure

(19:26):
for an event like this because once like they try
to keep it somewhat open. Let me just I'm just
gonna just let it out here. Why not? I why
hold back on this? But here's the here's a just
an idea of what you're paying for these. You know,
it's not it's not a high dollar event like you
would think. I'm looking right now. It's information that came
from the Texas Mile website, which is um Texas Mile

(19:48):
dot net. So if you want to go there and
look up all this information, you can, but just so
you get an idea of how low dollar this whole
thing is tickets for it's a three day event, it's
a whole weekend. If you're just a spectator, twenty five
dollars per person for all three days. You just get
a risk band for twenty five dollars. It gets in
for three days of activities. And not only that, you

(20:10):
can even if you if you wanted to, you could
stay on site. You can camp there, I guess on
the on the on the property, which is really cool
for a very low price. I mean, I know it
sounds well. Just compare this to to renting a hotel room.
But one night is only sixty bucks. If you want
to want to stay two nights is hundred and twenty
three nights is a hundred and sixty dollars. And that's
if you want to set up you know, a motor
home or a camper on site and stay there. I

(20:32):
don't know if they allow tents. Uh. You know, the
information wasn't specific about that. You can contact them and
find out. And I'm not trying to sell tickets for
them or anything like that, I promise, But it says
they do not sell out of tickets, but I guess
they never run out. But the number of spectators here
and you know, oh, I should say this, kids under
twelve are free, so that's a bonus too. I think
that there. Yeah, so twenty five dollars or free is

(20:55):
really the price point for something like this. I don't
know what the registration is for the driver. It can't
be a whole lot of money. There's there's shaded seeing,
there's bleachers, but they say you probably should bring a
folding chair if you want to just kind of hang
out and you know, one of the grassy areas and
watch and catch everything because it is a long day.
I mean they start in the morning early, goes all
the way until dusk. I would guess, you know, it's

(21:16):
not sunset but dusk, so it's um. It seems like
a good mix of cars, to a good mix of
shops that are really into the speed, and then just
average folks with nice cars. I'm just want to go
out there and run the mile. There's a healthy mix
of both amateur and I would call him professional. There
are these people that do the high speed runs are
professional race shops, professional engineers. Absolutely, yeah, they're they're in

(21:40):
shops building cars to specifically run in this event. And
we're going to talk about one car and specific that's
what was built the record holder. Of course we'll get
to that later in the podcast. To promise. Gosh, I'm
all over the place. I apologize Kurtin and listeners because, um,
I'm just skipping all over the place. But I feel
like there's just that there actually is a lot of
new information. You know that the spectators and the number

(22:01):
of of entrance is something we should talk about, because
I just kind of breezed over that a moment ago,
and I said, you know, back in two thousand three
in Goliad, they had thirty five participants and almost no spectators,
So there are very few people there outside of the
timing individuals and you know, the staff that operates it
and the participants. There were very few people there outside
of that. Well, now as of two thousand eighteen, or

(22:23):
at the two thousand eighteen event, I think it was
the March event, they had something like twenty hundred spectators
at this thing. So it's really grown in popularity. I
can only assume that it will go up. You know,
with social media, you know, reach and all that, you
know that they're kind of able to garner more attention
from this community and from you know, people that are
interested in this sort of thing, and not just from

(22:44):
the United States, but everywhere. People come from, you know,
from Mexico, from Canada, from Saudi Arabia, from France. They're
from all over the world now participating in this thing,
which is really cool. And the number of participants they
went from thirty five again in two thousand three, it's
climbed steadily. Now they allow something like two hundred and
fifty or more participants in one. Thing about this particular

(23:07):
event that peaks people's interests when you throw it back
to the beginning of spectator type racing, which I guess
goes back to the beginning of the car um the
fact that you can watch these cars do this thing
and maybe it's something that you can go and watch
with that hope of maybe one day you can get
your car out there and do it. Unlike going to
a professional sports car racer INDIECR NASCAR, you can't really

(23:30):
dream of doing that if you're just the spectator the fan. Yeah. Well,
like you you said earlier that this is a nice
healthy mix of people that have built a car in
their garage and want to bring it out and try it.
It could be a really like kind of a hot
street car that they have just never been able to
really push to the maximum, to the limit. And it
also could be like these shops that specifically build cars

(23:51):
for this event with the one mile run in mind,
and that's the main goal, and that's all they do.
They just do that with that one car, and you know,
they might have a customer that comes in and says,
I want to be in this. Here's my budget, here's
the car I want to start with, here's you know whatever.
You know, they have lots of sponsors and all that is.
It's a lot like professional racing would be for some people.
But you don't What you don't see is you don't

(24:13):
see like a Formula one team pull up with their
F one car and run this mile. You don't see
and and honestly, they would probably be beaten by some
of the guys that build cars in their own garage,
which is unbelievable to me. And it's it's such a
strange contest and maybe maybe we should talk about just
like I hope him saying this right way, the right way,

(24:34):
but some of the uniqueness of this event, because there's
so many things about it that are different. So, first
of all, it's a full mile run. It's not a
quarter mile like you would find in a dragstrip. It's
not a long distance run either. It's it's a full
I guess a mile is a long distance. But you
start a standing start, standing start, not a rolling start
as a speed record would be, for example, land speed record. Generally,

(24:57):
they want to get up to a certain speed before
they start the Yeah, so okay, so when we start
talking about times and they're not times rather because that's
another thing I want to talking about. But when we
started talking about start talking about like top speeds in
this one mile, you gotta remember it's a car that's
going zero miles per hour. The clock starts as it
crosses that one mile mark. That's the all their measuring

(25:17):
is just the speed, not the time. And that's unique
in that if you're going for a top speed run
typically like if you're out in Utah and the Salt
Flats or you know, any desert run or anything like that.
You know, we've talked about the thrust SSC and you
know the land speed record attempts, and we'll probably talk
many more times about stuff like that. But they have
the advantage of having this kind of a ramp up.

(25:39):
I guess a long long run. It could be miles
long to ramp up to the speed. Then there's like
a timed mile, and then they have a long way
to to shut down. Well, this one is just that mile.
So you don't get to start at a hundred and
eighty miles an hour and then try to get to
you know, two fifty miles an hour. You have to
start at zero and try to get to two fifty
miles an hour in that short amount of space. The

(26:00):
speeds are measured um along the way and displayed to
the spectators. So there's great big boards that have led
readouts that you know, show the speeds at I believe
it's a quarter mile, and then another at a half
a mile, and then they give them the final mile speed.
I don't think they bother with three quarter mile speed.
If they do, I haven't seen it in any of

(26:20):
these videos. Um. But one of the things that strikes
me is like even the quarter mile speeds are about
what you would expect from a dragster. Like you watch
you watch like the you know, the private teams at
drag strips, and you get about what you would think
out of that, the half mile speed goes up considerably.
I mean, they're going really really fast, A lot of
them are at this point. Then you have the mile speed.

(26:43):
And what's what's shocking to me a lot of times
is the difference in speed. As you you said this
to me off air, the difference in speed. You would
not expect it to jump up so much between the
half mile and the full mile, but it does well
even between the quarter mile and the half mile. I
look at it as the first quarter mile they try

(27:04):
to get the car to hook up as as opposed
to drag race, you wanted to to hook up right away.
So the first quarter miles kind of getting everything stable
because they're gonna start going much faster, and in cars
that aren't necessarily designed to go that fast, or at
least from the factory. So and I guess one of

(27:25):
the point I'm getting at is from the half mile
to the end, that's when they're really applying the power
and trying to keep everything stable. And just interesting how
how how much you could trying to hook up all
that power to the pavement in a half a mile.
Is interesting to watch that increase in So I agree,
and and what we're accustomed to seeing from the production

(27:47):
car speeds when we watch these record attempts from whether
it be Bugatti or Lamborghini or whoever is running the
Earth Ferrari or any of those that running these top
end speed records or KNA SAG or any of those.
Once you get to a certain pointing at in those cars,
they relatively slowly increased speed after about I think it's
like after right around two hundred miles an hour. Um,

(28:07):
you know, like that's when things starting to get get
a little dicey. I think, yeah, well, especially between like
two fifty and three hundred, I mean, super incredible. Again,
watching one of the one of the production cars do
it attempted in a very professionally made YouTube video you
know that is done in Germany. And again I'm gonna
get to it, but we kind of have already talked
about it. The guy says, and this is the way

(28:29):
he put it out paraphrase. He says, you know a
lot of people, or most people will at some point
be able to achieve a hundred and fifty miles per
hour in their life in a car. And I don't
know about most, but a lot. And again this is
the guy from he's a German race car driver, so
he probably has a skewed view of what people can do.
And let's say a few people are gonna go a
hundred fifty. But then he says, you push it a

(28:51):
little bit more and you go a hundred and eighty
miles an hour. And that's a lot different than going
a hundred and fifty miles an hour. There's a big difference.
You wouldn't expect it. He said, if you go from
hundred and eighty to two hundred miles an hour, that's
like a whole different world, they said, Like it's it's
something that you only can get through experience, Like you
don't know what that feels like until you've done it.
And then he said, once you go from two hundred

(29:12):
miles an hour to three hundred miles an hour, it
becomes like this ridiculous, just I don't know, just a mess,
Like it really messes with your head, is what I mean.
Like it's it's not things that aren't aren't happening when
you would normally perceive them to happen. It's it's it's
much much faster, and it just doesn't make sense to
your brain. You can't even comprehend to what's happening because

(29:35):
you know, everything is flying past. It's such a great
rate of speed. And you know, we're not talking about
being in a desert area where these runs are made,
these production car runs are made. They're made on a
track in Germany that has trees near it and guard
rails and you know, cameras and everything all over the place.
It's and lines on the road. It's a lot different.
You get that real sensation of speed getting back to
the Texas Mile. It's not just cars, because we're just

(29:57):
talking about cars right now. It's uh, it's car, sports cars,
it's motorcycles, it's truck's purpose built race cars that come
out and do it. And electric cars electric cars. Yeah,
there's all kinds of category. They have this electric car
that is the fastest. I need to make sure I
phrase this right because I'm sure there's nuances, don't one
the world's fastest accelerating modified road car zero to sixty

(30:20):
miles per hour and one point seven nine one point
seven nine seconds. It kind of makes sense for electric
I guess, to be the fastest because it has instant torque,
like every bit of the torque is available the second
you push that accelerator. However, I'm surprised that they're measuring
zero to sixty speeded. That must be just kind of
their own thing probably, But the top, I think I
know which one you're talking about. The this is a

(30:42):
this is an older car that they've retrofitted with model
Mustang sixty eight Mustang fast Back, and they call it
the Zombie too. And I wonder, you know, okay, because
they's called the two. I wonder if that's their goal,
if that's what they're shooting for. That one actually has
the electric vehicles need record in the in the Texas
mile at a hundred and seventy eight miles per hour,

(31:04):
and I did that back in March off and it
hasn't been beaten since. UM. Hundred and seventy eight miles
per hour is pretty darn impressive for as six. Think
about the aerodynamics of a sixty eight Mustang fast Back.
Imagine pushing that up to a hundred and seventy eight
in just one mile. I mean, that's that's impressive. That's
that's the impressive part. If you had ten miles, maybe

(31:24):
you could get it up to that speed. Maybe you know,
you have to have a safe area to do it,
and all the testing and everything you know to go
along with it. But I think the one mile thing
is probably the most important or the most I don't
know that the most maybe the most important number in
this whole thing. I ever run the Texas kilometer. I
don't think they know not in Texas. I think you

(31:46):
get shot if you even if you even mentioned the
kilometer in Texas. But you know what we should you
know we should say this though. And I know we've
been just doing miles per hour here because we're a
US based show. But I guess for anyone who's interested
the top speed, if you if you're talking about going
in three miles per hour, three miles per hour or
something like four hundred and eighty three kilometers per hour,

(32:07):
and the distance we're talking about here would be if
you're doing four and you're you're getting in a vehicle
to four hund an eighty three kilometers per hour in
just one point six kilometers of roadway, if you want
to look at it that way. So it's those are
the types of distances and speeds we're talking about. If
if you've been confused by the mile per hour thing
or you know, having to go to your your conversion
chart and rapidly, you know, punching numbers. Before we take

(32:29):
a break, I want to say one more thing, and
I only want to do this because I don't like
to end on a sad note, and I think we
should talk about something a little bit sad. Well it
was sad, but it's not breaking news sad. I guess
it didn't happen just now, something a lot of people
probably already know about. And we'll come back with some
happy news in just a moment. But one of the
guys that we talked about in the previous podcast, in

(32:50):
the car Stuff episode in two thousand twelve, we were
talking about him just breaking the record, you know, he
had he had just achieved a record of something like
two and seventy eight point six miles per hour at
the at the Texas Mile and he was the current
record holder. He's he was on a motorcycle. His name
was Bill Warner. Of course, we were talking about him
in the present tense. He was still around doing what
he was doing. But unfortunately Bill Warner died not much

(33:11):
later the very next year in a motorcycle accident. Um doing,
of course, doing what he does or what he did,
which is a you know, achieving land speed records. So
he broke the record again. He broke the three mile
per hour barrier in two thousand eleven at a different event,
I believe. And then that is when actually, you know what,
that's when we had our podcast right after the three

(33:33):
hundred eleven so we were you know, owing and nine
about the you know, getting past three d eleven miles
per hour on a motorcycle on pavement at that time
and against some specifics I can go into in just
a second, But just after that in July is when
when he died. Um. Again, not breaking news by any means,
but I think that we need to mention it because of,

(33:54):
you know, the the focus that we had on him
in the first podcast that we did. This bike at
the time that he was riding, it's up in like
six and fifty horsepower on a motorcycle. It's a Hya
busa and they call that a conventional motorcycle, you know,
where the rider's exposed. It's a traditional motorcycle. I supposed. However,
when you look at it, I mean it's modified because
it did have a turbo, did have panels put on it. Um,

(34:16):
so it's kind of like I guess the street modified
Hyabusa with with a turbo Streamliner record is a lot faster.
It's like another seventy eight miles an hour faster than this.
So you know, once you enclose, the rider becomes much
more aerodynamic. But this he was in an open bike
and again he passed away. UM. I believe it was
in July of two thirteen, and it was well he

(34:39):
was trying to break, um, break a record in I
think he was in Maine, only forty four years old.
But we've heard of land speed record people that's how
they die. Um. They kind of know the the risks
and the dangers involved in that and they accept that.
And uh, I'm sorry to hear that. You know he passed,
but I figured we should just mention it. Um, you
know that that that somebody who we've lost along the way.

(35:00):
I want to get into some happier news, so let's
let's let's finish up by talking about the current record
holder at the Texas Smile in just a minute. After
we take a break, and we're back and you're listening
to the fast Track, and I'm your host, Scott Benjamin,
and I am Kurt Garin, Oh you gotta Kurt. Yeah,

(35:21):
you called me off guard just a little quick. I
had to run over to the mic from the from
the computer. Y'all out there, couldn't see that. Fantastic. Well
you're quick, quick on your feet. Good work, good work,
And I didn't mean to catch you off guard than
the four GT we're about to talk about. Yeah, maybe right. Alright,
So so here's the deal. All right, the current record

(35:44):
was just broken recently. This now, this is um. We're
doing this podcast in twenty nineteen. We are in between
events in twenty nineteen, so there's already been the March
of nineteen event, and there's going to be the October event.
We're doing this in September, so right before this, and
it's always for the last weekend in March and the
last weekend in October. Yeah, So if you want to
plan for it and you're in your schedules or you

(36:05):
want to look up, you know, maybe a time when
you can travel down to the Houston area and maybe
catch this thing live. Definitely do that. I mean, it's
it's a worthwhile thing. And you can go to you know,
I'll give you the websites you can go and look
at it. What was it Texas Texas? Yeah, Texas mile
dot net was the site, So check that out if
you want to. Again, we're not selling tickets or anything,
so it's just an awesome event. Go see it if

(36:27):
you're in Texas, if you want to. I don't care
either way. I don't care either way. If you go, yeah,
I mean I don't mean to be flipping about it,
but I don't I don't care. Yeah, you'd like to go,
I'd like to go. I personally would love to be
there and witness one of these because I think it's
just it's just awesome. I would have loved to have
been there last March. Yes, okay, so last March something
incredible happened, right right, Okay, So what happened? Um, well,

(36:49):
a four GT broke the three mark through and the
Texas Smile three hundred miles per hour. Now it's three
I think the actual record. I mean, just it's just
barely above it. It's three hundred point four three point four.
And I know that's nitpicky, but when you get to
those speeds, that's going to be important because someone might

(37:10):
go three hundred point five next year and and that
will matter nine. It is not three hundred. That's just
that's that's how it is. This is a current record
that's held at the Texas Texas Mile, and it's by
a company that built this car specifically for a customer
that that wanted to do this or for themselves. I
don't know if them selves are customer, not sure, but yeah,

(37:34):
the focus has always been on the company. Anyways. The
company's name is M two K Motorsports and the car
itself is a is a first generator, I should say first.
It's a version of the the g T, the four
GT that was put out back in the mid two thousands.
So it's a two thousand six four GT, not the
current one, not the not the you know, four thousand

(37:54):
dollar ones. It had a Gulf livery which I think
is really cool. You know, the blue and orange. The
number on the car is significant, you know, the number
in the car, just by the number on the car
that they ran this year is to was their previous
record that they had made back in I want to
say it was two thousand seventeen. So the two seventeen
is when they ran two miles per hour and they

(38:17):
were thinking, like, we are so close to this. We're
really really close to this. And I saw an interview
that was done by the owner of this company on
a local channel. It was it was done on k
pr C. They interviewed the owner of the shop and
he said, you know, back when we started this whole project,
the goal was something like two hundred and thirty five

(38:38):
miles an hour. That was like the record, and that's
what they wanted to beat. They wanted to go two
and three five, he said, three hundred miles per hour
is it was never even a dream at that point.
But as the years progressed, they decided that we've got
to keep up with you know, exactly what's going on,
and and keep up the speed with the current records,
and and if we tune this and tweak that, and
you know, re engineered this part and make this a

(38:58):
little bit more, are dynamic underneath the car or you
know whatever. They did a lot of work on the vehicle,
and I'm I know, I'm just paraphrasing this in in
a horrible way, simplifying what they did exactly. But they
brought the car back just two years later, and they
ended up topping three d miles per hour. And they
did it in a series of several runs, and I
kind of see it as as I think the Texas

(39:21):
Mile people that have confirmed, Uh, these were kind of
like shakedown runs for them. They knew that they could
get close to three hundred or three hundred. They were
hoping for it. Of course, big celebration when they did
hit it, but the early runs were nowhere near that speed.
The earlier runs were relatively low speed, and of course
they weren't sandbagging, because there's nothing, nothing to be gained
from that. But over the course of a three day weekend,

(39:42):
you know, they ran and I think I want to
say it was four runs. The first run was something
like a hundred and seventy five miles per hour somewhere
near there. The second run they really they amped it
up at this point two hundred and forty miles per
hour in the next run, and that puts them already
in an elite group, I guess, because the two hundred
mile per hour club is a big deal at the
Texas Mile. If you can get your car to go

(40:04):
two hundred miles per hour, that's that's pretty impressive by
any standard. Really, I mean, I think that's cool. So
they're already in that and they had been before with
their two ninety three or whatever. Um the next run
they say the third and final run, but I think
there was a fourth run. I think there was another
one and stuffed in there somewhere that you know, maybe
didn't go so well that they didn't even report the
third and final run. I which that they're claiming as

(40:26):
the third and final run was the one that they read.
They finally reached the three point four mile per hour mark.
And I'll tell you this. I I learned this along
the way, and this is so impressive to me. You know,
we talked about the difference between quarter mile, half mile,
and full mile. At the half mile mark on the
three per hour run, they were already going two hundred
and forty miles per hour and a half mile, so

(40:49):
that's incredibly fast. Already they're already topping you know, what
a lot of cars do in the full mile at
the half mile. And then not only that, they gained
sixty miles per hour in between the half mile and
the full mile. And to gain that, I'll tell you
in just a minute why that is so impressive to me.
But to gain sixty miles per hour in that in
that relatively short amount of space. And I know that

(41:11):
time doesn't come into this, but we're only talking about
a run that can you know, from beginning to end
is like maybe twenty two seconds, one seconds somewhere around there.
That's the full length of time it takes them to
go one full mile. So really really impressive. I mean,
it's just unbelievable that they were able to do that.
But but again, it took them two years of engineering

(41:32):
and refining and you know, changing things around to be
able to get that extra seven miles per hour out
of this vehicle. And you know, they were just working
at it all the time, you know, trying to really
amp this thing up to get it to uh, you
know that three per hour mark. Because that's a huge
milestone for them. They're always going to be in the
record books as breaking that and doing that. So that's
kind of infamy for them, I suppose. And uh, one

(41:55):
interesting thing to me is that it isn't necessary I mean,
it's a race car, but it's not necessarily a purpose
built dragster type car. No, it's a say standard two
thousand six four GT if you can call it standard, right,
What I mean, what you're saying, is the car's body
itself is not engineered like a dragster would know. It's example,

(42:15):
it's a road going car and and so therefore it
has these built in limitations that overcome, such as holes
for the production car would have for cooling and things
like that. I would even imagine tire width. I don't
know if they mess with anything like that. I think
that they had to the I want to tell you
just a little bit more about the car itself. You

(42:37):
know about the about the engine, and just a tiny
bit more because I don't know a whole lot about it.
Just a little bit. And then I want to like
make this comparison between the production vehicles that are trying
to achieve three and miles per hour and then what
this company has done. But it's important to remember that
the car that's hitting the air is basically the four
g T. It's not designed from the ground up to

(42:58):
go fast. It's it was built upon an already existing car.
Engine block is I think of stock engine block as well.
All that stuff, to me is cool because it's not
completely customed exactly that completely custom. It's modified, its modified.
I think it's in a tasteful way. I guess we're
not trying to get it, you know, it's the car
is a classic. Yeah, oh yeah, it's cool to see

(43:21):
this classic cargo three miles an hour. Yeah, yeah, it is.
I mean it's it's you've said a mouthful here. I
don't even know where to begin. It's fascinating to me
that they can take that design and push it to
that extreme. We were talking about the Bugatti, the just
the production car that three miles an hour, and it
was designed with this in mind. Yeah, the body reshapes

(43:43):
itself at certain speeds. Doesn't happen on this car. Yeah, No,
And and there's so many little nuances to what we're
talking about here, And I know we're not going to
do it justice by having this. Just maybe we can
have a different discussion. I think we should someday about
these modified versus auction car requirements standards, you know, whatever
the arguments against and four and all that. I think

(44:05):
that there's a lot there that we can talk about
a ton and I know we've already mentioned a few,
but yeah, when you start talking about like tires that
have to go three hundred miles per hour, you're not
going to go down to the General tire store and
pick those up. Now, it is a and it is
an extremely sleek looking car. You know, you look at
the two thousand six four g T and it's it
has the appearance of a race car. It really does.

(44:25):
But it's not a custom built dragster. It's not a
car that was built to go three hundred miles per hour.
I don't know what I mean. I'm gonna spit ball here.
I'm not gonna even begin to know the actual number.
But let's say that the car was designed to go
a hundred ninety miles per hour. That was the top
speed and that's what they thought would be maximum on
this They didn't test the aerodynamics beyond that for this

(44:46):
thing to take off in the air at a certain speed,
because that's what happens. You know, when when you mess
around with the aerodynamics of a vehicle, you know, it
becomes a wing and it be you know, you become
airborne at a certain point. I mean small airplanes and
well large airplanes can fly at these speeds and do
fly at these speeds. So keeping the car on the
ground is a huge issue. There's so much that goes
into these cars and the modifications that they have to

(45:09):
make in order to do this. But a couple of
things that m K two Motor Sports did to the
four g T to keep it stock, if you want
to put it that way. And I I'm laughing when
I say this, because when I read this next paragraph,
I'm reading from an article that came from a site
called The Drive, and it was written just after the
record was broken on March nineteen. If you want to

(45:30):
go and look at this article, you can do that.
It's on the Drive. It's all about the three point
for mile prior run. And it says, and I'll just
read this one paragraph directly here, but it says, well,
the m two K Motorsports prepped for GT retains the
stock five point four leader V eight from the previous
generation for g T. So you're right. It is a
stock block and it's stock stock engine size. I guess

(45:51):
it's been well, they say, seriously amped up to deliver
stratospheric horsepower that not even a dine O can handle.
The guests on this car is five hundred horse power.
Five hundred horse power in that car that originally I
don't know what it had. Probably I'm gonna again, I'm
gonna guess. I don't have the stats in front of me.
Maybe five hundred, six hundred horse power at the most,

(46:13):
there's somewhere around their ballpark to put you know, to
put undred in there. And this is only a guess,
by the way, because when they said on a Dino,
it's hard to strap a car down in a way
in such a manner that you can test it beyond
somewhere roughly around two thousand horse power. So it does
exceed two thousand. They think it goes up to about undred,

(46:34):
but it's nearly impossible to keep it on the Dino
at that point. I mean with chains and everything. I
mean it's chain straps. We've all seen, you know, those
Dino videos of cars breaking the straps or breaking the chains,
and you know cataculus, big failures that happened, horrifically expensive
accidents that happened, you know, in shops, and you know,
you don't want to be those those people. You know

(46:55):
that that you own the car or hook the car up.
You don't want to be either one of those on
on either side of that. Horsepower is an estimate, and
of course, you know, reaching three hundred, and we've talked
about kind of them, you know that it's quite an achievement. Tight,
you know, I think we can all agree, right. The
question that was posed by the author of this article
is a good one, and he says that typically these

(47:16):
types of records that are set by private companies are privateers,
I think is what they call them. Typically the manufacturers
don't get too rattled by these. They don't say, like, well, chiefs,
we were building five hundred thousand dollars supercar. You know,
why can't we get ours to go three miles? They
don't say that to themselves. It's like a different sphere
that they're operating in because they know they're not going
to create horsepower car. You know that it is specifically

(47:38):
built for one event in order to break that one record,
and then that's it. And a car company, a big company,
just think about the money that they would have to
unload on a project like that, and the teams and
the testing, and it becomes a logistical nightmare for them
to do that. Bugatti has done that in a sense.
The question here at the end of this article is
kind of funny because they're saying it's it's an impressive
feat to reach three hundred miles per hour anyway, and

(48:00):
to do it in one mile is even more impressive.
And then just that it's a private company that was
able to do it out of some and I'm gonna
say a little shop, but it was a motorsports shop.
Will they take any notice of this? Will Bugatti take
notice of it? Will Kona Seg take notice of it?
Will they? Will they be kind of ruffled by this one?
And again this is written in March of nineteen, will
in August of en and August two, that's when Bugatti

(48:24):
made the three per hour run. And I know they
were working on it long before that. It doesn't just
happen in a couple of months like that. It doesn't
work that way. And it was a production car well,
and it wasn't in a mile? Yeah and yeah, okay.
The tires, so their tires are really specific and that
remember they were X rayed before they even put them
on the car in order to make sure they're free

(48:45):
of imperfections, and they're not. I don't think that they're
doing that with these, you know, these tires on this
this four GT. I just don't think that it's happening
that way. I know that they're they're extreme quality and
everything's well balanced and and you know, broken in and perfect.
It's absolutely perfect. But they didn't go as far as
to X ray the tires before they made the run.

(49:05):
And well, these are tires. They have to glue onto
the rims. Apparently tires don't hold up very well at
these speeds for very long. So we're talking you only
have a short amount of time on a set of
tires at these speeds until they just become obliterated. Yeah,
And that's just one element of this, right, I mean,
I mean there's so many things that we mentioned. You know,
they are dynamics, and we mentioned that how the shape

(49:28):
of the body of the Bugatti changed, you know, as
it went faster and faster it was on a track.
Here's the other thing. Okay, So Cash, I feel like
I'm I'm going crazy or something. I got so much
to get out and out and learning out or I am,
I really am. I I feel like, you know what,
here's what's gonna happen. Here's what's gonna happen. As soon
as we're done. And I say, you know, thanks for
listening and all that to our listeners, and you know,

(49:48):
I send them on their way and they're out, you know,
doing their own research and digging up all the stuff
and looking at the Texas Mile and buying tickets and
all that. I'm gonna remember about ten things I didn't
say in this podcast, even though I've been going mile
a minute, just mile a minute. It's funny that would
be really slow at this at this comfortition be sixty.
That's not good at all. Um Alright, anyway, So I

(50:13):
was thinking back and I was thinking, Okay, what's so,
is this a response to the Texas Mile record? I don't.
I don't think it is. I think the timing is
a little strange. I think it's a little suspicious that,
you know, they decided, all right, now is the time
we're just gonna go do it. I just feel like
the three mile per hour mark for a car, it's
that number nowadays, well nowadays it's like a two hundred

(50:34):
mile an hour number. Was I don't know when I
was gonna say, years ago maybe or more. Yeah, it's
just it's just a nice round number that takes a
lot of fine tuning to get there. And we should
talk about someday soon is four coming? But I don't know,
I'm not sure. I mean, well, technology the whole talk
about tires, that's a limiting factor and um in all

(50:57):
of this and as technology gets or I'm sure that
we'll be looking at four you know. I mean right
now you mentioned the electric car, the Mustang. It's interesting
they chose a Mustang from the sixties to do it
because the combustion Mustang in the sixties, it would be
interesting to know how fast they could run the Texas Smile. Yeah.
So it's almost like now electric cars they're where combustion

(51:19):
engines were in the sixties. Where are they going to
be sixty seventy years from now? Where the combustion engine
is going to be? Where where rubber compounds going to be?
And I'll tell you this, you know, boy again I'm
skipping all over the place. But going back to the
Mustang that you just mentioned, you know, the the sixty
eight Mustang, the the electric version that did this Texas
Smile run the record run. They give it an equivalent

(51:41):
horsepower rating, you know how they can kind of extrapolate
what it would be in horse power eight hundred horse power.
So that's far far above what the sixty eight Mustang
fastback had of course, um, so it would be interesting
to see what the you know, internal combustion engine version
of the sixty Mustang could could muster you in the
one mile run. And maybe maybe it's been run there.

(52:02):
I mean, you know, out of all the cars out
of two, probably twice a year for sixteen years, I
would guess that somebody has run a Mustang you know,
fast back at some point maybe maybe alright, so back finally,
maybe maybe we're gonna steer exactly. Yeah. So you know,
I was thinking about this, this Bugatti thing and how

(52:23):
they ran. They did a three four mile per hour
run in August of two thousand nineteen, so not long
after the Texas Smile. Uh, you know, it was achieved
at three hundred point four. I was watching these and
trying to draw comparisons and you know, contrasts, and you
don't figure out what's happening here. But now, I remember
I said the GT had horsepower, and that's an estimate.

(52:44):
It might be more, might be a little less. The Buggatti,
of course, had Sharon had so many MONI had lots
of modifications to it, and of course I'm sure that
the GT does as well. But the big difference here
is that this is a road going production car tech chnically.
I mean it can be sold to the public, it
can be driven on the roads, and that's one thing

(53:05):
that Buggatti has to deal with. The builders at M
two K Motorsport don't have to deal with They don't
have to worry about mass production of this not mass,
but limited production of this one vehicle. It's a one
of a kind, it always will be. But they're dealing
with just that one event, that one record, and it's
kind of like we run it, we're done with it,
and then maybe improve it for next time. But that's it.
The other thing that about this is that Bugatti had

(53:28):
a quad turbo W sixteen that was tuned up to
like sixteen hundred horse power, so it had almost a
thousand and had like nine hundred less horsepower to get
up to the speed. But one thing that is most
the most striking about this to me, and the most
maybe the most impressive about the Texas Mile and the
four gt s attempt or that the four GTS record run,

(53:48):
is that it did it from a standing start and
it only went you know those what it's a mile
five thousand two feet. I think it went that distance
and achieved three hundred point four miles per hour and
that short amount of time that I mean, just imagine
the force on the human body and the vehicle at
that at that time. When you look at the Bugatti
run and again all the specifics the altered body and

(54:10):
the tires and the engineers and the teams and everybody involved,
find maybe maybe there's some of that going on with
the GT. But here's the other thing. That they did
it at the special track, you know, under very controlled,
such a very controlled conditions that they were able to
enter the track at one hundred and eighty miles per hour.
That's where they start at when they enter the straight.
Then it takes them the entire five miles straight to

(54:31):
get to three hundred and four miles per hour. When
you watch the way that the speed grows, and I'll
be specific here because remember the half mile speed for
the four GT it was two forty miles an hour
and then it got up to three hundred. If you
watch the speed grow on the dials, the readings or
whatever they give you on the YouTube videos for the
Bugatti run, once they get to you know, if they

(54:52):
let's say, you could even started at two forty. The
way that the miles per hour count up is like
it's like this, it's like two forty one to forty
two to forty. The four g T didn't have that luxury.
It was like going leaps and bounds up to three
miles per hour. It was accelerating so fast after the
two forty mark that it's just unreal to think about,

(55:14):
I mean, considering when you look at the Bugatti and
what it's intended purposes. You know, it's intended to go fast.
That's what it was built for, go fast, and to
break this three in a mile per hour run. This,
this particular model, the run was built for this, this test,
and it will be sold, of course. But the way
that it grows from two forty to three D and
four is much much slower, still impressive. These are all impressive,

(55:38):
still impressive, but much much slower than the four GT.
This is a completely different race or test. The Texas
Mile seems like a strict power test. It's a brutal test.
It's a brutal brutal test, isn't it. I mean, and
the footage from it is incredible to be able to
see it now. You don't get a lot of um,
a lot of shots of like the car at the

(55:59):
finish line and go and buy a three miles an hour.
You don't see that because it's already in the distance.
It's gone in the spectator area where all the filming
and everything's happening. I wish they had more cameras on
the track watching the cars go buy at that speed,
but you kind of reliant on, you know, the GoPro
cameras that are in the vehicle, you know, by the
drivers themselves, and you know, of course that gets into
wait and aerodynamics and all that. Then you're also dealing

(56:20):
with the spectator views people that are there with them
on the team to film the event. You don't get
a whole lot of like sensation of the cars passing
you at the top speed. And I don't know why
that is. Maybe it's because they don't want anything on
the track that could damage or harm the driver or
you know, if there's something went terribly wrong, which sometimes does.
You know, anytime you're talking about these speeds, you don't
want any obstructions in the way. You want to be

(56:41):
able to have plenty of room. They've got a half
mile slowdown area that they know run off area with
sand at the end and everything. Um, But I just
I find this whole thing fascinating. But there are other
mile events. The Arkansas Mile, the Arkansas Mill. I didn't
know that. That's another one, you know what. I'm going
to immediately look up the Arkansas Mile as soon as
get out here, I really am. The Colorado Mile is

(57:02):
another One's color Arkansas Mile, the Colorado Mile. Alright, alright, well,
I'm finding out new things every moment here um. But
if you don't know anything about the Texas Mile, or
you know a little bit about it now, you you
don't know everything, of course, because we we're just kind
of scraping the surface on this thing. And it's fascinating
to watch. Really if you're into that type of racing,
it's it's really really cool. If you just like speed,

(57:23):
there's a lot of a lot of nuances that you
can kind of dig into and and find out about,
and you know specific drivers and types of vehicles that
are run there, and you know current records and all
that and what the people are up to in I
guess the off season for the Texas Mile, if you
want to call it that, they've only run two a year.
But you know, of course drivers that are competing in
this are sometimes competing in other events as well. You know,

(57:43):
might make a run to uh, you know the desert
and run uh you know another top speed run there
or something, or you know, go up to Maine and
run something. But it's always fascinating to see what the
drivers are doing elsewhere as you know as well, you
can look into their shops or whatever. The M two
K shop is is very interesting, very neat car coming
out of that, you know when and I won't I
won't say anything more about this, but in in that

(58:05):
interview that I saw, you know, the breaking news that
I was, I was talking about, you know, a new
car they're making. They are making a new car. Yeah,
And it was under wraps when they did the report
from the shop just after the record was broken. In
the corner of the shop, they zoomed into a shot
of a car that was under a tarp and completely covered.
You couldn't see what was going on there. If they
got something going that they call Project X. And Project

(58:28):
X will make an appearance they say in the October
Texas Mile. Yes, so they say it will be Project
X will appear from M two K Motorsports in the
October events. So if you're out in that area, or
if you just keep your eye on the news if
you can't make it there, keep your eye on M
two K Motorsports and see what they're up to with
Project X or maybe who knows, maybe maybe they'll bring back,

(58:51):
you know, the the two thousand six for GT. Yeah.
I saw somewhere that they may not be considering the
new car for the mile run. It maybe a longer
run or maybe a different type of run that they're
going to try. No, kid, they might be making us
sulf Light's run or something maybe just to be a
fantastic way for them to kind of, as we said before,
a shakedown or just test test this vehicle in a

(59:11):
mile and see what it does. And what a fantastic
place to do it too. I mean, they've got, you know,
this amazing facility. Um we want to you know, make
several runs there at the Victoria Regional Airport and and
have a chance to make what five or six runs.
I think it's just a great opportunity for them to
be able to do something with this Project ACT. So
so watch for that. Anything else, Kurt, that you want
to add before we wrap up today's show. Uh, I

(59:35):
think you got it all right. I think I've got
it too, But like I said, I've probably neglected to
give you all of the information. So if you want
to dig into the Texas Smile and find out what
it's all about again, uh, please do so. And if
you want to, you can check out our our new website.
You can find our podcasts there. Of course, we are
at the fast Track Show dot com if you want
to do that, and we're on other forms of social
media as well. We are on Facebook and Instagram as

(59:58):
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And if you like what you're hearing, if you like
what you're you're listening to, and I hope you do.
I hope you found this in you know, informative entertaining whatever.

(01:00:18):
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doing whatever you're doing. And if you did, tell your friends,
we're always trying to find some new listeners and uh
and we'll be excited about it. And of course we're
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listening and we'll see you next week. The Fast Track
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(01:00:39):
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