It's Not the Car

Ten years ago, INTC's Jeff Braun helped a Japanese carmaker go IMSA racing with a 180-mph diesel prototype. The car was cool. More than 700 lb-ft of torque at 2800 rpm. Gobs of potential.

Also: It blew up every five minutes.

(An exaggeration, of course. No race car blows up every five minutes, even an underfunded, production-based coal-roller cranking around Daytona. That would be silly.)

(It was probably more like ten minutes.)

Ma...

The short answer? Use, abuse, and every way but loose. (But sometimes also loose.)

This podshow has three hosts. One of them, Jeff Braun, has won Sebring, Daytona, and multiple sports-car championships.

From Indy to Le Mans and beyond, Jeff has seen race cars fail in strange and funny ways. And when you ask Jeff to dish the goods, he dishes goods.

(For the record, we love asking.)

This show changes format weekly, because squirrel. We ...

Jeff's Daytona 2026 Pit-Wall RECAP: With special guest—and Jeff Braun co-worker—Andrew Wojteczko, of AWA Racing and IMSA Corvette team 13 Autosport!

January 2025: Against towering odds, Andrew, INTC's Jeff, and the rest of the AWA gang win the 24 Hours of Daytona.

January ’26: The same team hits Daytona again. They do everything right, they feel great about all of it, and then everything goes wrong. Parts break that shouldn’t...

If you do nothing else, listen to the beginning of this episode. The first few minutes. Maybe with a large drink in your hand.

A tiny town in upstate New York. A dapper man with glasses, a dream, and a Duesenberg he didn’t need. One of the greatest—and nuttiest—moments in the history of American racing. And that’s how stateside sports-car racing went big time.

This show’s format rotates weekly, because squirrel. This episode is our m...

We’re back! INTC’s third season starts… now! 

Are we celebrating by going full nerd with this one? Does Alex Palou wear Labubu pajamas? Did Sam have a dream last week where Ross and Jeff heckled him from the audience like Statler and Waldorf from The Muppets?

(The answers, respectively: yes; definitely yes; and dear lord, it was deeply weird but also oddly delightful, yes.)

You asked for it: This is an episode about books! Racing book...

And that’s the end of Season Two! INTC will return on February 3rd, 2026, to kick off our third season!

We're gonna close out 2025 with one of the greatest stories in racing: The time two British legends went on an all-night drinking bender, then jumped into a 150-mph Jaguar and won the 24 Hours of Le Mans.

The summer of 1953. A night of brandy, cognac, pink gins.

When Tony Rolt started the race, his co-driver, Duncan Hamilton, w...

You asked for it! This is the first episode of a new series where we unpack just what it takes to get a job in pro racing.

Charlie Ping is a pro engineer. Over the last 20 years, his career has spanned IndyCar, sports cars, and the Australian Supercars Championship. He helped develop Acura's LMP1 and LMP2 prototypes, and he developed and led the manufacturer track-testing program for Chevrolet's IndyCar aero kits.

These days, Charlie...

Full episode on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/posts/november-bonus-144929992

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NDQ is our listener Q&A series! Have questions about performance driving, race engineering, setup, or anything else? Hit us up: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠INTCPod@gmail.com⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠

There are no dumb questions in racing… but there might be some dumb answers.

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ANSWERED THIS MONTH:

//2:30 – How do pro drivers in long endurance races get by without sleeping?  

// 19:50 – How...

Off-topic show! Back by popular demand. No intro or announcements on this one—we dive straight in.

***TOPICS:

What Ross found when he tore down the engine from his Lotus Elan — Jeff's tale of French sports-car drivers meeting North Carolina NASCAR spotters — The summer coaching adventures of Ross and Sam — How the phrase “hot foam around your butt” relates to Jeff’s IMSA-champion son Colin — Ross going thunderstorm rogue at S...

Thirty years ago, one of the world's greatest drivers was forced to run most of an F1 race with only fifth gear.

Somehow, he finished second.

The 1994 Spanish Grand Prix is widely thought of as Michael Schumacher’s greatest race. His gearbox was stuck in fifth. His team assumed his engine was minutes from blowing. And yet, because he was Michael Schumacher—one of the most successful and complex individuals to ever take a flag—he ...

**Want more listener Q&As like this? Patreon members get bonus episodes! Link below!**

It’s another “No Dumb Questions!” You email to ask, we sit down to answer. There are no dumb questions in racing … but there might be some dumb answers!

Ross Bentley is a former IndyCar driver, a bestselling author, and a world-renowned performance coach. Jeff Braun is a champion race engineer. Ask about racing, performance driving, engineering...

“I just want to see motorsport be as awesome as it can possibly be… can we make this more meaningful? So there’s more to care about?”

When J.R. Hildebrand says racing is broken, people listen. A few weeks ago, Hildebrand unveiled a discussion project called Blackbird 66. Maybe, he says, the future of motorsport lies in a hella-sexy 1000-horse Indy car with zero downforce. 

Twist my arm.

Hildebrand: 2011 Indy 500 Rookie of the Year, dr...

How did Ross and a young Kimi Räikkönen end up sharing a fancy London apartment? After 20 years of testing fast cars for a living, which one still makes Sam misty? What really went wrong with Ross’s IndyCar career?

Answers to these questions—and more!—in this episode. Probably! Yes!

Every so often, INTC does a listener Q+A show. We call that format “NO DUMB QUESTIONS.” This isn’t that. This is Ross and Sam running a weird almost-game...

Jimmy Kite crashed four times—four!—trying to qualify for the 1998 Indy 500. The story of how he finally made the show holds bad luck and trashed cars but also a hidden concussion, a giant fireball, an airborne gearbox, and a fat dose of can-do spirit. 

Plus: INTC co-host Jeff Braun! Jeff was Kite’s chief engineer that year. So we brought Jimmy onto the show and asked him and Jeff to tell the whole tale.

Kite was a 22-year-old sprint...

We’ve driven nearly all of ’em. Nearly every road model, plus some great race cars and extended family—a 934 and 935, a Daytona-winning Sixties 2.0-liter, a Rothmans 962, some 959s and RSRs, even Jerry Seinfeld’s 1964 “Butzi” shorty.

Why do people love (and hate) the Porsche 911? Are the good ones worth the money? Can a reasonable person grow to love a great 911 if they don't like the things to begin with?

Cliché questions. We hi...

IndyCar is a gnarly old series, and 2025 was one of the sport’s gnarliest seasons. So we asked the one and only Marshall Pruett to break it all down—own the mic, spit Palou truth, don’t hold back.

(That’s Pruett's secret—he never holds back.)

Select Pruett bona fides: decades of paddock reporting for RACER, ESPN, and Road & Track. Hosts the Marshall Pruett Podcast, which you should totally check out. Also, he’s on a first-name ba...

Picture it: Your scrappy little pro race team has a rough 2024. The next year, out of nowhere, you win Daytona. Then the whole gang takes its first trip to Le Mans and lands a killer finish.

The rest of Jeff Braun's 2025 IMSA season was, to quote Jeff, “not that.”

This one’s a doozy: First, we’ve got INTC co-host Jeff sharing what he learned in IMSA this year. (Jeff helps run a Corvette in the GTD class, remember.) Second, we’ve got ...

More than 150 corners. Twelve point nine miles. History out the wazoo, big fun, big challenge to drive quickly. The Nürburgring Nordschleife is basically the world’s greatest race track.

Wanna go? Of course you do! How convenient—Ross just got back from there! In this episode, he and Sam discuss that trip, why Ross takes a small group of clients and friends to the Ring every year, and why Sam has had many opportunities to visit the ...

Little ditty... 'bout a race and a Speedway! Two Indy names, growin’ up in the heartland. Race gonna make the front page of the Indy Star? Speedway gonna something something… uh... museum... race... car!

Yeah, sure, that makes sense! Don't tell me if it doesn't?

The story of the first Indy 500 holds a lot of things—death, sand, smoke, around a million blown tires—but it does not hold John Mellencamp lyrics. Still, I hear Mellencamp i...