December 15, 2022 • 53 mins
It's the last iRacing Downshift of the year, and we've got plenty to talk about! We go through all the exciting developments in the 2023 Season 1 build and our active esports series, and Cisco Scaramuzza from our in-house broadcast team joins to talk about his role and share some favorite behind-the-scenes stories. Plus, Greg and Kevin resolve their pie debate from the last episode.
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Episode Transcript
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(00:00):
This week on the Eye Racing downShift, we resolve our Thanksgiving Toby,
it was not good. It wasbad and you admitted it. Talk about
the content in the twenty twenty threeseason one build, Well, the damage
models fantastic on the car. Ican tell you that. And Cisco tells
us how to say his last nameScarf. All this and more, it's
(00:21):
a strap in. Welcome to thatracing damn shift up here. He's Greg
West. I'thing back of the boys, Kevin Boba and Chris Leone. We
have a great show for you.Have bet you didn't know that was coming.
We're gonna talk about the twenty twentythree season one build. Lots of
(00:43):
stuff to go through and that.We have a great interview with one of
our broadcasters, Cisco s Let leaveit exactly. So we're gonna talk about
the world of World of Outlaws,Sprint Car Series and NASCAR International and Contender
series that are going on right now. How are you doing boys? Excellent?
(01:07):
You have a hat on it?Are you cold? It's cold in
my house And Laura gets home fromwork and she's like, why is the
heat up so high? So nowI've decided to be cheap and just wear
a hat so no hair head getscold. Whatever. You know, it's
a nice hat though. Is thatfrom Iceland? It's from Iceland. I
recognize the sixty six degrees north Ihave. I have a sweatshirt. A
(01:30):
lovely place to visit if you've neverbeen. I know this is not a
travel podcast, but I really enjoygoing through Iceland a couple of days there
months. It's lovely. Oh missusLeonie, now that I've correct you have,
how are you doing hanging in there? Um? Got the beard?
We got to talk about the beard. Kevin's got the hat on because his
head's cold. You've got you're growingout really like jealous almost. I mean
(01:53):
it's not long, but it's it'snot nasty sort of beard. You know,
it's like a beer three c's thick. This is the longest I've had
it since about twenty thirteen, oneof those Red Sox World Series wins.
I just had it and it justit looked like a neck afro. Like
I just bothered grooming it at all, because you know, the whole team
(02:15):
was doing the whole beard thing,and I'm like, what the hell?
And I just walk into bars andget free drinks because they're like, that
guy's beard is huge, give hima beer. This is before you met
Emily. It wasn't it. Thiswas not before I met Emily, and
somehow she's stuck with me. Wowah, well you know, you know,
(02:38):
all right, Well let's uh,let's get into it. Twenty twenty
three Season one build. We hada lot of stuff that came out last
week. A ton of fun duringweek thirteen, trying out all the content,
watching all of the streams, watchingKevin Bobba get put into the pen
insinuator. We'll talk about that laterin the show. Yep, that's coming
up again. But Kevin, let'stalk about it's one of the big pieces
(03:00):
of content. A great relationship ledto a great opportunity. BMW M Hybrid
V eight. Yeah. What agreat car, right, our first GTP
car. It's a new class ofcars, you know, going to be
running all around the world and it'sI mean, the car is amazing.
You know. We we we've talkedabout it before. We have this great
(03:21):
relationship with BMW Motorsports. We builtthem or GT three while they were developing
the car. We kind of builtit alongside that. A similar process with
this car so we've had early accessto it, right, and they've been
testing the car for months. We'vebeen attending tests, we've been capturing sound,
all kinds of stuff, and it'sbeen great. I've driven it a
(03:43):
few times. Actually, the firsttime I drove it, because I didn't
do any testing on it, wasat BMWM Motorsports headquarters a week and a
half ago when we were over inGermany. Greg, how cool is that?
And I mean they have they havethree sims set up right in their
main lobby of the facility and Iracings running on it. That's pretty awesome.
Yeah, that was It's pretty cool. They also showed us some other
stuff behind the scenes that we're notgoing to talk about, but just suffice
(04:03):
it to say it was cool.So it's a it's a cool place.
It's a cool place. But yeah, great partnership with BMW. They seem
to be super excited about it.Um and you know, like Greg said,
we a few staff members got togetherlast night, which was the first
official IMSA race with seven five Easterntimes something like that. And uh,
(04:28):
I wasn't in the same split asmost of the guys because their eye ratings
a little higher. But my racelasted exactly U nine tenths of a laugh
where I got put into the whatwhatever happened? Kevin? Please tell us
about it? Well? Well,the damage models fantastic on the car.
I can tell you that part everywhere. Um, but no, it was
(04:53):
still super fun. I'll get thatEE rating back someday. You know,
it happens. What are you gonnado? Yeah, a really great opportunity
to debut the car. We actuallygot to debut the car at the SIM
Racing Expo. We partnered up withBMW and Fantotech allowed us to use their
booth. Thank you to fan Attechand Saturday of the expo we debuted the
(05:15):
BMW M A Hybrid or M HybridV eight at Daytona and we also debuted
something we'll talk about in just amoment, the Toyota GR eighty six at
Magny Corps. So that was areally cool one day only. Uh,
it was a highlight. A lotof people loved it. It was pretty
neat to get members and prospective membersuh an early look at it, you
(05:39):
know it was. It was funnyto watch the crowd that was in the
Fantotech booth when when we were debutingit and I mean it was a huge
crowd. Then all of a sudden, one of these pedal manufacturers on the
other side of the expo hall,they had a LMP three there that they
fought would fire up. And I'msure this broke so many rule laws,
(06:00):
city ordinances, whatever, And thatthing was loud, and you could just
watch everybody in the entire expo leaveand head Overton and watch this race car
get fired up. So the onlything that could pull people away from trying
the UH the the BMW in personwas you know, real race car firing
up. That was kind of cool. Yeah, absolutely, So another new
(06:24):
piece of content we have the UHMercedes Mercedes Amge Performance W thirteen. Chris
did not write the whole name outin the outline, and I hold you
personally accountable for that, but Ithink it got the name right anyway.
Yet thirteen. That's out right racewinning car. Super cool. Because I
(06:46):
can't drive Formula One cars. Ihave not that they're too fast for me.
I mean the BMW is plenty fast, um, but I don't have
you raised the thirteen yet. Ihave raced it. I have done a
significant amount of lapse, not nearlyas much as the likes of some of
our vpa's Christian Brian who I rememberwhen they were doing the hard tire runs
on that car. A hard tirerun takes an hour and a half and
(07:11):
if they go off the track orthey put it in the wall, they
have to start over. And thosetake me six days. Oh well if
not wrong, and takes anybody alot of time because you just can't mess
up. But you have to beable to run the tires down to zero.
We have to know, I mean, that's the you know kind of
the happens, right yea. Andworking with the likes of Mercedes and their
(07:33):
their engineers and their test drivers AnthonyDavison was involved. Well, um,
the real question is, Chris,have you taken this car on a rally
cross track yet? Because I knowthat's the first thing you do. No,
Um, I no, not yeah, not yet. I'm not.
(07:53):
I do a lot of ridiculous bizarrethings in the sim is what I know.
As anyone talk to me out runningthe all wheel drive roof at night
recently can attest to um because it'sgot headlights. But no, have not
taken the Mercedes AMGW thirteen E Performanceyet on a rally cross. I flipped
(08:13):
the E Performance. I might haveflipped the performance, I don't know.
And we'll fix it in post probablyprobably, But no, um, you
want me to take it on arally cross track first, or or a
short course track? How do wehow do we do with the service changes?
I think it needs a this carclimb Mount Washington sticker on the on
(08:33):
the rear wing that goal. Itwill It will take me forty seven minutes
because they'll probably drive it three milesan hour. But I'll go do it.
We'll get there, get all right, Yeah, I'll go get the
free sticker link in the description below. Yes, now, but a really
cool car. Excited to uh tohave that back with the both the fixed
(08:54):
and the open set up series,Uh, just really nice participation. Last
year a lot of people were askingme at the Sin Racing Expo is the
Grand Prix Tour? Um gonna aregoing to be back? And and yes,
yes, yes it will be.That's the NIS styled series right,
so full three hundred five kilometer racelinks, Um we do. It's spaced
(09:18):
out over eight or nine or tenmonths or something. Ye, all of
us the real world schedule as closeas we can yeah, I believe we
run with the four time slots eachday. You got fixed racing on Friday
or Thursday, open racing on Friday, fixed racing on Saturday, open racing
on Sunday. So, uh,plenty of opportunities to go racing in that
car. Expecting a lot of splits, just like last year. And uh
(09:41):
yeah, I'm just excited to seethe racing that that that car brings along.
It's a it is a different animal. For those that don't know,
this was not a rees skin.Contrary to some some threads I saw in
the forums, this was a groundup rebuild of this car, completely new
rule sets, new aerodynamic concepts,this thing that relies a lot ground effect,
and I mean, I don't thinkthis wasn't a Look what you see
(10:05):
Formula Fun teams do in the middleof the season where they bring in a
new widget here or there. Therules completely changed between years. So this
car has a whole new setispects,whole new setispects. I mean, they
both have carbon fiber in them,and they both have wheels, and that's
about The tires are different. Thetires are different, but they have four
(10:26):
wheels. Yeah, you know,so no great car if you haven't got
it, get out there and tryit. A ton of fun, even
like solo hot lapping is a funin that car because it's just, you
know that way you feel like you'refast, you know, because if you
get in, you know the topsplit. Not that I could ever make
the tops, but you're not fast. But if you do it by yourself,
it's like, oh, I'm moving. Some of these guys can flat
(10:46):
out fly, that's for sure,speaking of things that don't flat out fly.
In fact, kind of slow,but it's good racing and a lot
of fun. Kevin Toyota GR eightysix the cup car spec racing out its
finest. I mean, we loveit. We've had some such great luck
(11:07):
with the Master for years, right, and it's so popular And obviously it's
popular partly because it's the rookie carand people drive it, but people keep
coming back to if you're going toa Master race for the last three years,
it's full of every license level eventhough it's a rookie car, and
I expect you're going to see thesame for the g R eighty six.
Similar series in terms of spec carumnot too complicated to set up. There's
(11:31):
not a whole lot of options,right, Greig, and what you can
do to it. Um, wedo have a guide coming by the way,
so that'll be out hopefully this week. Maybe shout out to Miguel you
actually listen to this. But yeah, well there will be a guide for
the basic set up things. ButI expect this is going to be heavily
raced and lots of splits and allthat, which is what that's I racing
(11:52):
out. It's best when you getin the right split, when you're in
with similarly skilled people. It makesthe experience so much better. Yeah,
So we basically took the format ofthe Skippy at the D level and we
just copied the format with fenders.So for the first season actually runs on
seven free tracks. We just wantpeople racing. This thing's a ton of
fun. The car is included inthe base package. It is free,
(12:15):
does not cost you anything side upfor I Racing, Go Racing gr eighty
six. You can also race itin the sim Lab Production Car Challenge.
You get a little multi class actionout of it, open setups in that
series, a little bit longer races, and just an absolute ball of fun.
So I honestly I've heard more peoplesay that it's the best car on
the service than anything we put outa long time. There's people are really
(12:37):
enjoying it. It's predictable, itdoes what you think it's going to do
when you turn the wheel, andthat's that's I mean, I think the
greatest compliment you can give to acar in sim racing. So we also
have some new track content that cameout Kevin Magney Core makes its debut on
Eye Racing. Yeah, another kindof Tier one track that uh helps us
(13:01):
uh kind of fill out that thatthat niche of tracks that that people are
looking for. Um, I actuallyneed to practice more because I'm still learning
it. It's been a while sinceI've been on that track. Um,
but I think do we have themZIMPSA go there. I don't know you
did the schedule zimps go there?This year? Our hims to schedule not
(13:22):
real him so obviously, yeah,something's going there. I'm still making that
announcement. Nim is going to eropeansprint series one of those two they'll be
there, will be multi classroom,be able to drive there. So that's
your car, now, isn't it? Is? That is a car for
now? Yeah, have you puta pain on it? I did,
but I didn't load it properly yesterday. Maybe that's why we uh, why
(13:43):
it ended in disaster. I didn'thave the right paint apparently. Yeah,
that's probably it. All Right,we're gonna throw o a Chris because we're
gonna talk about something that goes ondirt. Chris Lincoln coming to I raising
another great track. I love howeven though dirt oval isn't really my thing,
I've become the de facto guy.Yeah, Lincoln Speedway yet another of
(14:03):
the top tier Pennsylvania tracks that thesprint cars and the dirt late model that
they all visit where the action isthe attraction, and you know that with
a slogan like that, they're gonnalive up to it. Decades and decades
of racing history, even NASCAR wayback in the day. But a staple
of the World of Outlaws schedule andso crucial, so cool to be included
(14:26):
that. We'll get to the eyeracing World of Outlaws car Quest Sprint Car
Series a little later. But weactually made a midseason schedule change to throw
this track in show it off threeeighths of a mile, you know,
wheel to wheel banging. It's goingto be a lot of fun to watch
the pros go to go to workon that track. But certainly for all
of the dirt oval lifers that we'vegotten the service, I think they're gonna
(14:50):
have a ton of fun with ittoo. Hey, we'll talk more about
the world of Outlaw Sprint car serieshere in just a bit, but we're
not done with content. There's morestuff that came out so or some adjustments.
Now this is dirt road stuff.I'm gonna give this one back to
Chris. Something happened with wild WestFree. We finally have our first free
(15:13):
short course off road track. Forthose of you who have never tried the
full on off road tracks, youhave one. Now. It's not the
same thing as rally cross. Thereare different rule sets. There's no joker
lap in short course racing. Wedid this one of the things that I've
kind of pushed for internally. Whatkind of There was a meeting with Dave
(15:37):
Kimmer. Yes there was. Afteryears and years, I wore all of
you poorer colleagues of mine down longenough to get over an hour meeting where
you know, we talked through alot of things, but the biggest point
that I kept coming back to waswe need to try to start getting the
(15:58):
pro two light off rally cross tracksbecause it's just made the car and the
track are made to do something different. We need to get that vehicle back
in its natural habitat to get peoplelearning as quickly as they can, and
you start boosting participation and make iteasier time and as much fun as we
can for everybody. So, withwild West being one of the oldest tracks
(16:21):
that we've gotten the service and unfortunatelyno longer active in the real world,
you know, we decided we're goingto move this to free It's going to
be a staple of that rookie proto Light series. It's going to be
a great place to learn, agreat place to kind of get adjusted to
those if you haven't done the offroad truck racing in quite a while,
or you've never done it because youhaven't had the track. Now is the
(16:44):
perfect opportunity. Would love to seeas many people as we can see on
wild West. It sounded like someof the mixed class races that we're on
it during Week thirteen, we're justabsolutely bumping. So I'm hoping, I'm
hoping we can keep that up andhopefully gets more people to fall in love
with it. I might have toshow and go a race there actually after
this. I've forgot that's there thisweek, so yeah, that might happen.
(17:08):
Uh well, running Matt Washington withthe F one car. I'm not
doing that. Not doing that,nope. Uh But once again speaking of
content, but that's not all.Yes, the boat Wait, there's more
so another one of the things thatwas a lot of fun on this one.
Uh, Seabring got a complete artupdate. It's not the new scan
(17:32):
but one of the older tracks inthe service. As far as art assets
got completely revisited. There's even threedefensing on the front stretch. It is
a totally new experience. As faras driving the cars there. I did
some running there in the in thethe the BMW GCP just to kind of
get a get a feel for it, and it just really comes alive,
especially in VR. You really feellike you're there. So really excited about
(17:55):
that. Um, we'll obviously talkmore about that in March when the Seabring
specially event uh comes to EE Racingand then you're have an announced yet Actually,
just did I feel personally attacked?Hey, this is why they need
to listen to the show because wedropped news there. We go. Okay,
(18:15):
if if people were if there wasany question whether we're gonna have another
race at Sebring, they're not familiarwith the service, that's for sure,
everybody. Kevin Pitt intinuator, Bobbitt. That's PI over here, not KB,
that's PI. Another piece content thatgot an art up date to Ford
(18:37):
five s from the Similab Production CardChallenge. It got the treatment that we've
given to things like the Skippy orthe Lotus seventy nine got it recently,
but this time it's the Ford andit looks delightful, I think, and
I think Matt Malone is probably themost excited about this out of anybody.
He's the biggest Mustang driver that Iknow so well. It's a ton of
(19:00):
fun. It's an h pattern,not a lot of those left on the
service, but it's a good time. And the similar Production Car Challenge,
I think is the fifth most popularseries in all of my racing. If
you're wanting big fields and a tonof people to race with in variety,
go run that series. There's aIt's just it's just a lot of fun
and Obviously we have a formula therethat works, so stick with what works.
(19:23):
Then we got all kinds of otherstuff, lots of AI editions,
right, Chris, I mean Ishould probably know this better than I do,
but I don't. Yeah, wewere on that AI thread with Alexander's
over email, just unlocking as muchas we could, and a couple of
things we won't mention that we're justholding off to perfect. But god,
there was a lot, starting withthat newly revised Ford Mustang FR five hundred
(19:48):
s, the all new GR eightysix, the all new BMW LMDh,
the long owated nineteen eighty seven NASCARcop series, which thrilled a out personally.
I've been waiting for that one fora long time. The paint tacks
on trading paints for that. Therosters are awesome. If oh, I
know, I have had a ratingset that I did the longest time ago,
(20:14):
just waiting for this, And oneof the things I'm going to be
doing over the holidays is finally buildingout my own rating set and seeing how
it works with those. I ampumped, but also load of seventy nine,
which we also just mentioned as havinghad a recent art update. And
then finally the Legends car. Yesthat I've been waiting for those quarter mile
(20:36):
ovals and well and I was case. I think it's a third mile in
the infield, but a lot ofthose getting unlocked. Some new layouts at
Roade America, Nerburgring, Donnington,barber Brand, you know, Interlagos,
you name it, Nerburgering. Ithink it's one of the more understated things
in the build. We have allof the wayouts of the North Life are
(20:59):
now available for AI. It's notwe think we just had the the long
version or the was it the velIn we had one unlocked and now they're
all there, so you could goand race with the the AI cars to
your heart content on the Green Hell, and it is a lot of fun.
Speaking of the Green Hell, though, a new way to learn tracks
(21:19):
that are difficult like the Green Hell, Active Reset comes to I Racing.
This was a really cool feature thatallows you to repeat different sections of the
track that you decide on whether they'regoing to be Um, yeah, it's
it's perfect right, even I canlearn it. And so maybe if we
(21:40):
bring back Thrown Go challenge, I'llhave a chance. Maybe maybe you could
beat me. Finally, Yeah,is that why we act that segment from
this pot one I got my buttkicked. Oh but active reset a really
cool feature going to your controls options. Check it out. There is a
video on YouTube on how to useit. I believe our video that Cole
(22:00):
and Cisco worked on right, it'sfantastic, um, so check it out.
It explains it really well. Andthat's a really good segue to our
guest today, Cisco s As aswe were referring to him today because his
last name is uses almost all ofthe letters of the alphabet. It's very
close. But uh yeah, Ciscofrom our broadcasting team is joining us.
(22:25):
Set down with Kevin and I abouttwenty five minutes ago to talk about all
things broadcasting on I Racing a lotof fun. Cisco is hilarious. Also,
he did show up Kevin and Ithough he used the fancy microphone and
he did have a nice micro soyeah, so when he uses his radio
voice and sounds way better than Kevinand I, just remember it was the
microphone. It's always the equipment,just like some racing equipment yesterday was not
(22:51):
my skills. It was definitely theequipment. Yep. So without further ado
Cisco S. All right, Kevinand I are back. We're pretty excited
today. We're continuing this trend ofinterviewing staff members who you probably know or
you know their voice or something thatthey did that's notable within the iRacing service,
(23:15):
and Kevin today is no exception.That's true, it's no exception.
Was that that was the the handoff? Yeah? That was that was the
handoff. But I pointed at youand you're not ed. I shouldn't multitask
do email dan podcasts at the sametime. This is what happens all the
time. Can wait, Tony ifyou maybe answer him? So anyway,
(23:37):
we have Cisco, Cisco S,we have Cisco S. Nobody in this
company knows how to pronounce his lastname. Greg and I had a pre
meeting before recording this podcast to tryto decide on how to pronounce his name.
He's only worked for us for threeyears. Yeah, three years.
Yeah, So we have with ustoday Cisco S, HEI Cisco Hey,
(23:59):
Greg, how you doing. I'mwell, So would you like to tell
the viewers at home how to pronounceyour last name? A? Yeah,
So there's normally two popular versions.It's either scare a musa or Scaramuza.
But it is in fact Scaramuza.I don't know where the e comes from,
but yeah Scar move zo. Okay, gotcha? Yeah yeah, yeah
there, yeah, there you gohere. At least I'm not as bad
(24:22):
as Corey. Let's be fair.Good luck with that one. Yeah,
well he's bigger than you in behindyou, so I don't think he has
vows in his name. Right.That's the problem is why considered a vol
at this point? That depends inwordles sometimes sometimes I haven't done wordle today.
I mean, that's what I shoulddo it in the podcast. I
got it into today, just sowe know, very excited, humble brag
(24:45):
because he looked over with Laura.All right, this assisted Kevin was I
don't even know what to say.Was Laura involved in this or I like
this interviewing Kevin with sis. Ithought you were the guests. No,
no, no, quit deflecting.All right, let's talk about Cisco.
(25:07):
Yes, Cisco is a member ofour broadcast team. He's a long time
member of I Racing. He's beenbroadcasting races for for Eye Racing and on
I Racing for longer than I've knownhim, which is a while. Now
A long time. Yeah, along time. So let's get into it.
Let's get through your history here firstof all. Actually, let's talk
(25:30):
about what you do at I Racingright now, Um, and putting up
with Drew is not officially in partof your job title, right, No,
because that's part of my daily lifetoo. Now. Oh yeah,
because you guys are roommates, yes, and there ms glutton for punishment,
yeah, just begging for it.But all right, jokes aside, Sorry,
Drew, Um, talk to usabout what you do at I Racing.
(25:52):
Starting off with your job title.Yeah, so I work in digital
content and then broadcasting is my mainfocus. So I'm basically number two in
the broadcasting department. Drew's the onewho has to interface, makes a lot
of the main decisions, and thenusually the execution guy that comes down to
me or one of the other membersof broadcasts. But basically it's Drew's vision
(26:12):
that I helped carry out, Soit means I'm a bit more on the
technical side versus him. I doa lot more, like I said,
of the execution of the ideas.Basically, you push buttons on that big
switchboard that we have. That's oneof the things I do That's one of
the things the other two do iswhile Sean and Corey, who we mentioned
before, they are also part ofour kind of group of four that does
(26:33):
all of the major broadcasts that comeout of I Racing itself. How many
broadcasts do we do last year?Do you remember off the top of your
head? Yes, well, wehad what in eighteen race Coke Series season,
ten race Porsche seasons. That's twentyeight right there. I mean just
we had another what six races forPorsche Contender. We're going to by the
(26:56):
time it's over have seven races fore NASCAR Contender International. Um, we've
been doing support for it, sothat's five. Yeah. Yeah, there's
a lot. There's in the commentsbelow. Please please count that. Add
that up inger somebody, Hey,there's a there's a list that I don't
have, but there is a listwhere we track everything, so I could
(27:17):
get you a number. Actually seca runoffs, Yeah, run off because
that count is one that counts likeeight. Okay, I was gonna say
there are eight races. That countis eight. Yeah, So now what
you're saying is you're busy. Yeah, And that is something that's come up
a couple of times because there arepeople I know in the I Racing community
(27:37):
go, wait, you just runbroadcasting for I Racing, and they're kind
of like underwhelmed by the I'm like, oh no, no, no,
no, no, you don't understand. This is not a show up,
turn obs on, turnobs off,walk away sort of thing. That's how
we do the podcast. Yeah,well, the production value of our answer.
I don't answer to eat NASCAR orto Porsha Greg. So that's true.
(28:00):
That that is true. Kevin's gonnalaugh. Um all right, But
I mean that's a good point though. I mean, maybe this is a
good time to talk about it's notjust the two hour show itself. No,
it's not hours and hours of prepwork from you and the team.
We've got you on the spot,but it is the whole team. It
is the whole team absolutely, andother people too. I mean during the
(28:22):
broadcast, the talent is always almostalways remote, and then we have camera
operators, we have replay, wehave all kinds of people that are involved,
not just the four full time staffpeople. Right. Yeah, absolutely,
And it's something to where at theend of the day you can't just
look at the broadcast itself as well. That's what the product is No,
it's it's part of our partnerships thatwe have with these different groups like NASCAR,
(28:45):
like Porsche. It's part of workingwith them to bring better and better
things to the sim So it's it'sall rolled into one thing. So just
the broadcast itself is very minor comparedto everything overall, and you know what
it actually means and what it's actuallyentailing. How long have you been involved
with the Eye Racing Service period?Um, I started, I know my
(29:11):
account. I think I opened myaccount if I remember correctly, the summer
after I graduated high school, sothat would have been what three years here
plus another four and a half atschool, so seven eight years probably somewhere
around there, all right. Andthen how long were you a member before
you started getting into broadcasting? Likefour months? So it's a funny story.
(29:36):
I started doing it just as agoof off thing with a league that
I was doing it was it wasfor ten people, nobody really cared about
it and I was. I wasdoing it on a twelve eighty by ten
twenty four screen, so it wasn'teven a normal sixteen by nine YouTube stream
that everyone's familiar with. So Ijust started doing it as a league and
the people who were calling the racesat the time, they are league members
(30:00):
who worked for a bigger organization aliceRTV at the time. So I ended
up having being interested in it andwere and ended up being brought into the
fold at LSRTV as another producer,and then I ended up having to take
over for LSRTV when the main producerended up stepping away. She had some
health issues that came up, andit was basically a well, Cisco's the
(30:22):
only one who knows how to pushthe buttons. So basically my sophomore year
of college, she shipped me hertwo computers, all this computer equipment,
so in my dorm at the bestof the rest of my roommates. I
started, you know, doing thatwhile I was in college and I was
studying motorsports engineering at the time atButler, and I got to the point
to where I kind of hit acrossroads where it's like, Okay, I
(30:45):
can continue doing this broadcasting thing andcontinue working at that, or I need
to focus more on my major becausethere's only so much time in the day
to be able to do either.And I'd known a couple of people from
doing it for LSRTV for a littlewhile. I was a little bit bigger
of a company, better contacts,So I went ended up going to Charlotte
over a summer just to see whatit was like, and it was kind
(31:06):
of at that point I made thedecision, I'm going to stop pursuing the
engineering side and go into more contentand journalism based side of motorsports. And
so from there I changed my wholemajor over, started taking broadcasting classes and
basically I had to fast track myway. It was a five year engineering
program, so I still made itout half a year. I had a
schedule, but from there ended upmeeting some contacts in real motorsports, working
(31:30):
in there for a while, andthen I got the call and a couple
months later ended up coming nigh Racing. Well, we think he made the
right decision there changing Yeah, Ih it did save me having to commute.
Was it eight hours? What's thecommute from Indianapolis to Charlotte that I
was doing for Real World for awhile there? Eight nine hours? That's
(31:51):
not short? No, No itwasn't, but it was. It was
the opportunity I had, and itwas just I want to work in this
field. I want to be involvedin this field, and that was the
opportunity open to me, so Itook it. Awesome. I did not
know that you were I did notknow you were an engineering student before you
you changed over, so that wasnews to me. It explains a lot.
(32:14):
Yeah, yeah, it's part ofthat still with me. Once we
got into the higher mathematics, Ibegan to struggle. That's kind of where
we started getting to a lot moreyou know, math based sciences and stuff
like that. That was always nevermy best strong suit, and it just
it the path. It would havebeen a ton of hard work, and
had I had the time to sitthere and study, study, study,
(32:37):
I would have been all right.But by then I was already doing the
broadcasting as a side thing, makinga little bit of money to get by
in college. At that point itwas just sort of I felt better doing
that. And then once I startedtaking the classes in college, I was
like, oh, this is thisis what I want to do. It
seems like you found your passion.So yeah, yes, part of what
college is about, right, Anda lot of most people go in with,
(32:58):
hey, this is what I'm gonnado because it seems like that's what
I want to do and then youfind your way in college and all that.
And you know, it was aunique strategy for sure, because trying
to explain to your three other roommates, yeah, I need to have two
computers on and five monitors going,and no, I swear this isn't where
there's a reason I'm doing this.It's not just to aggravate all of you.
I have to imagine if I hadgone to engineering school and decided to
(33:22):
switch part way through and I calledmy dad and said, I'm going to
switch majors because I'm going to broadcastesports, I can't imagine that call would
have gone, Well, that's why, Well you don't say esports, Kevin,
you don't say I have a sportsmedia degree. So what other stuff?
After? You know, you callyour parents, you let them know
(33:43):
that you're making this kind of change. What other real world stuff did you
also broadcast to kind of, youknow, smooth things out a little bit.
Um So I through LSRTV, Igot to know Tony Stevens, who,
for those of you who've been aroundeven longer than I have, you'll
remember he was one of the voicesoriginal voices for the e NASCAR series with
(34:05):
previous sponsors in previous broadcast companies,So he knew me through I Racing and
I end up going to him towork for him as a technical director for
about two three years or so whileI was still in college. So that's
where the commuting came in. Thatmeant I broadcasted the Cars Tour for a
couple of years. Also worked withLegends in us I x US Legend Car
(34:29):
International UM doing some of their eventsthe Summer Shootout Bojangle Summer Shootout which Bubba
used to race in. Raja racedin a lot of the names were starting
to see on the the uptick ofthe NASCAR Ladder, and it is a
it's kind of a joke. Ihave to myself that I'll I'll look at
who's in ARCA and who's in theTruck Series and go, I know this
guy. I know this guy.I know this guy. So a lot
(34:52):
of the people like Ty Gibbs,for example, I worked with him on
his way up the NASCAR Ladder.Raja, who I knew from Summer Shootout.
I've known Rag for a long timenow, from his first season in
Legends Cards all the way to wherehe is now. So it's really cool
to kind of see these drivers upon their way their path through, uh
to the big leagues. So let'snot like your careers followed. There's you
(35:15):
know, like you guys kind ofyeah, it kind of has. It
kind of has in a weird way. And same with the same with the
commentators I've worked with. Who've youknow, gone from you know, just
doing eye racing races to being ableto call real life events and work for
their local track Like Blake McCandless,for example, is the track announcer over
at eight Speedway, and I knewhim when he was just calling eye racing
(35:36):
races. And same with Evan.We've seen Evans, you know, big
into being part of Feld Entertainment whichdoes all of monster Jams things, and
he's worked his way up through that. I knew Evan before any of that
was even a twinkle, Yeah exactly. So let's excuse me, let's go
(35:57):
back a little bit. You uh, Brian I Racing, you got just
kind of found your footing and thenMarch of twenty twenty happened, yeah,
from and we've talked about that inMarch and April twenty twenty a number of
times on this podcast. We've neveractually looked at it from the perspective of
(36:19):
the broadcasters who were I mean,we didn't lock you in the broadcast room
during that time, but the doorwas open. But it was it was
a unique time, to say theleast. Um certainly. Now keep in
mind, of course, this wasbefore we brought Corey and Sean in,
so it was literally just Drew andI. Drew ended up I remember,
(36:43):
he ended up moving his whole setup, his whole desk in the here.
I didn't because I was on theother side and just wanted a little
bit of that space. But um, yeah, no, it was.
It was a crazy time, tosay the least. And you know,
I'd known what we could do withracing and the product and what it could
mean, and just in the spanof weeks, if not days, seeing
(37:07):
all of that happen all at once, and oh, oh this is whole
Okay, okay, hi Fox,Hello, okay, um um Andrew Junior.
Oh, so many phone calls,so many people, so many things
happening at once, And it's atime I'm never going to forget. But
it's also a time that, youknow, it was hard to really take
(37:27):
a stop and breathe and go,Holy cow, this is actually what's happening.
But um, looking back on itwas crazy. But and yeah,
like you said, it was,I mean, you guys have talked about
it on the podcast. But itwas very much a case where the office
everybody went remote except for broadcast becausethe equipment was here that we needed to
do the job. And so youguys, graciously, we're like, okay,
(37:51):
we want you to do this.We know what this can mean,
and basically left us the office andleft us to our own devices to work
with our partners at the broad castnetworks in the series to be able to
do all of these shows, allthese cool fun events during during the pandemic
era. Talk to me about aswe approached the first televised NASCAR race and
(38:15):
what it was like leading up tothat close. It was insane. To
say the least. We had hadthat replacements event, which I was also
involved in previously before as sort oflike a trial sort of thing, and
going, hey, is this isthis even humanly possible? Let alone can
we connect the dots? And atthat same time, Steve was making the
(38:36):
call to Fox and talking to JeffGordon and all the junior and all these
people to make this happen and kindof you know, that's once we started
getting the calls of, oh,all these paints are having in, Oh,
we have to do all this sortof stuff. It's it was a
blur, to say the least.And luckily for us, Fox was able
to work with us and we're ableto use a lot of the techniques we
(38:59):
had already developed for February and forJanuary for our beginning setups for the Eye
Racing broadcast, because a lot ofpeople kind of missed the fact that we
had only started broadcasting here from EyeRacing two months. Maybe if that before
we went on TV, that's areally good point. We built the new
office and opened it an end ofNovember twenty nineteen, right it was still
(39:22):
getting outfitted after Christmas, especially thebroadcast room. And Drew has a ton
of experience broadcasting. You know,his family grew he grew up in the
Turner Sports entire family basically, soit's in his blood. And I'd spent
a long time doing EE Racing broadcast, but we had only had about three
months to really figure out a workingsort of dynamic of how to make things
(39:45):
work and how we're going to ableto get done what we need to get
done, and you know, beable to include all you know Fox as
producer and you know, X,Y and Z things that we're putting into
the broadcast. So it was ablur. I don't remember a lot of
it, but I remember a lotof the cool moments that I got to
experience because of it. Um.The one that stands out to me was,
(40:07):
Um, I got to work onJimmy Johnson's car for the Watkins Glenn
Race. I believe that he ranin and I got to design that work
with Jimmy on his template. Forpeople that don't know. You don't know
that you are, yeah, superfan of Jimmy. Yes, yes,
Jimmy was my NASCAR driver. Yes, my mom was a Jeff Gordon fan.
(40:28):
And when I started to really comprehendthe sport, there was this new
upstart kid who Jeff owned part ofhis car, named Jimmy Johnson. And
you know, everyone said he wasgonna you know what, was this crazy
dirt racing guy gonna show up anddo something in NASCAR? Yeah, it
turns out he did one or twothings possibly, and he did all right.
I don't know, he's some washedup road racing driver. Now I
(40:49):
don't know, so what else standsout from that? Is it? I
want to know the question? Sorry, Greg, but how many nights did
you spend in the office. Therewere a few, There were legitimately a
few. I My sleeping bag stayedhere, I think until the beginning of
twenty two, just under tucked undermy cube. Remember the first time I
came back to the office, whichI don't know when that was, I
(41:12):
think I stopped in for some somethingthat had to be done in person,
you know, and you andrew sleepingbags in your cubes. I was like,
oh, wow, this is real. Yeah, yeah, yeah,
And it's it's a job that wasit was daunting and that's not even a
word to describe how much had tohappen. But at the same time,
(41:36):
and I can speak for the restof the broadcast team, where it's just
when you're in this industry and you'rein this kind of entertainment, it's all
encompassing. It's it's a part ofyou. There are things that that I
know about how broadcast working that Icould sit there and talk about for hours
and hours and hours, and everybodyelse would just leave the room because they're
like what's he talking about? Butum, it's it's really become such a
(42:00):
love of mine, such a passionof mine, and seeing you know,
being able to see what we continueto create, how we can continue to
grow, what we can do onbroadcast, and what the next steps look
like. I mean even coming tothis year with the NASCAR Finale and Charlotte
for example, you know, beingable to do a live event like that.
Previously we did one with Porsche atHockenheim as well. So having those
(42:23):
live events and just continuing to growand being able to take our product and
be able to tell stories with itand be able to make those stories better
and better and bigger, and youknow, just have fun. Well that's
the big thing and something that I'malways trying to push on my guys as
well. It's like, at theend of the day, this needs to
be fun, you know, workinghere, using the product, the whole
(42:45):
thing. We make a racing simulation. Some people would say video game,
but I don't want to fit inanybody, but no, but seriously,
it should be fun. I watchI watched K Bob get Stuck in the
Pit and anuat or Interlagos last night. The first big wreck last night.
Oh oh, talk me into godoing the first inter race of the season.
(43:07):
You said you were doing it already. He didn't. Didn't take much
to talk me into it. ButI almost completed one lap almost. Hey,
it's I I remember one of thetwitch clip videos I did way back
in the day where it was itwas a skip barber race and it was
at Interlagos and the guy leading pulledout at the last second. The other
(43:28):
guy didn't know the attenuator was there. And that was at speed Greg so
uh and that was with due damagemodel too, so boom. But it's
gotta be fun. I gotta giveits Kevin. It was a kind of
a bad waiting in your race andhe was still had a good time last
night though. It is what itis, right, you know, little
lost a little SR and I rbut whatever. You know, something in
the world. It back maybe sixor seven guys in there racing together and
(43:52):
discord. It was. Yeah,it was a lot of fun. And
that's that's something like, whether you'reworking on it or whether you're using it,
it's gotta be fun. If it'sfun, we're doing something right.
And uh, you know your storyright here. You know exemplifies that point.
So thanks for taking the time todaybetween all of your many duties in
that broadcast room, which I wishwe were showing off right now because it's
(44:12):
such a cool room. But uhyeah, thanks for taking the time and
I'm sure we'll have you back onyou a lot of fun. Okay,
thanks guys, Thanks all right,we are back. Great to sit down
with Cisco. I really wish thatyou guys could hear all of the outtakes
from that because we just sat andgoofed off and had a good time.
Cisco is great. I'm sure we'llhave him back on the show as well
(44:32):
as other broadcasters and other staff membersas well. That seems to be what
you guys like listening to, andthat's the content that we're gonna give you
here on the I Racing Downshift.Kevin's giving me a funny look. I'm
tired and I took ni quill todaybecause I have a cold. Please leave
me alone, all right, Let'slet's move on the East Sports World of
(44:55):
Outlaws Sprint Cars Series. Chris takeit away, yep, I Racing World
of Outlaws car Quest Sprint Car Seriesrunning throughout the winter. As we have
done for the past couple of years. Now with the World of Outlaws,
they wrap up the real world sprintcar season, they jump right in with
us and they run with us untilthey go start a new real world season.
(45:19):
So for those of you who justcannot live without sprint car racing fifty
two weeks a year, we gotyou covered. As always, season starts
in Valusia, ends in Charlotte.I believe at the end of January we're
only through a few rounds, butwe've already got our first repeat winner,
Hayden Cardwell, and he's needed todo it as he missed the feature in
(45:40):
Valusia. But as always, frontrunner Alex Bersier on multiple championships, won
a bunch of them in a row, didn't win the last one, so
he's trying to start a new streak, but takes the opener consistent finishes in
the two after and now for Cardwell, he's on the back foot, just
trying to catch up. Exciting tosee to see how that plays out.
(46:02):
I saw a note and chat ourmarketing chat last night during the race,
and our race director Tyler Hudson waslike, Wow, these boys have their
elbows out or something to that effect. There was some good racing last night,
so excited to see how that seasonplays out. We have a couple
other things going on as well rightnow, E NASCAR International and Consenter Series,
(46:24):
right Chris yet both using the NASCARExfinity Series cars. The Contender races
taking place on Tuesday night in thatsame E NASCAR Coca Cola I Racing Series
slot. You've got all these driversbattling for, you know, the twenty
or so spots that they're going tomove up to Coke next year. Big
interesting mix of returning favorites, ahandful of new faces, even some names
(46:50):
that have been out of the seriesfor I don't know half a decade that
I think have just kind of gottenthat renewed passion and that renewed fire for
trying to run at the top level. Certainly, obviously, I'm sure they've
seen all of the ways that Cokehas evolved over the past few years.
You know, bigger purses, biggerteams coming in, and you know that's
definitely enticing to get some guys tohang up the retirement gloves, I guess,
(47:15):
and put the driving gloves back on. Meanwhile, the DBox E NASCAR
International IE racing series powered by DigitalMotorsports. Don't give me credit for that.
I read it also running mostly onTuesday nights. However, we did
have and you guys were certainly therefor it. In Nuremberg at some racing
(47:35):
expo. We had one race thatgot moved to Sunday Sunday morning so drivers
could compete from the event. Alot of interesting stuff. That one was
fun that had. That was thefirst superspeedway race in the history of that
series, I think at Daytona.Correct me if I'm wrong, guys,
I think that's right. And itwas pretty cool to have a competitor there
(47:57):
on stage with this break set up. Always fun to add the live human
element to it, right. Wasn'tquite as big of a production as what
we did for the Coke Finale withfour drivers, but along those lines,
so super fun. Hopefully we cando more of those things. Yeah,
and anytime, Ryan Vargas, Sorry, Greg, Oh, you're fine.
I was just gonna say the thestage there at the expo was huge,
(48:21):
and the method of which they putthis rig up on a forklift and drove
it over and sat it down withoutdisassembling it. That was super cool.
I'm not gonna say that. Iwasn't nervous when they were like, yeah,
we got twenty minutes to move thisover there. I was like,
oh, okay, this will befine, and it was so. But
the driver was forklift certified. Itake it apparently. I will also say
(48:45):
it's always a popular night when RyanVargas is able to take a victory one
of the good guys in the sport, somebody who are a lot of people
love and for very good reason.And that was that was a hack of
a finish. Good times excited onceagain. Got a lot of good series
going on right now. We havesome of our bigger series kick it off
very soon with the e NASCAR CoCool Iracix Series U with Daytona coming in
(49:09):
January and February February. Sorry I'mwrong, It's all right. I think
it's February, so the last podcastof the year will give us some wiggle
room. Anyway, February something likethat, southing like that, Chris,
can you edited make it sound better? I can? But should I?
(49:30):
No? No, that's your prerogative. That is your prerogative. If people
are still listening, you know,forty four minutes into it, we're doing
pretty good? Right, yeah,exactly? I mean, oh no,
note all right, Well, thelast podcast of twenty twenty two, I
almost said twenty twenty three, butI didn't. Uh, what are your
(49:52):
guys plans for the holidays? Well? I got family coming home. Both
my boys will be home for Christmas, which is great. Connors home from
Kyle in the week and a half. Ryan's on leap from the army,
so we'll get to see him,which is awesome. But the most important
thing that I'm probably doing is noteating one of Greg West's chocolate pies.
Who brought this up on the lastpodcast, and we didn't really revisit it
(50:15):
whether it was good or not,and fantastic. I'll have to say that,
you know, Greg, dear friend, work colleague. It was not
good. It was bad, andyou admitted it. It was. It
was not good. Oh I madea bad pie. It was bad.
I did take diet pie. Thatwas the problem. It was keto.
(50:35):
It's keto whatever. It didn't haveany of the good stuff. It didn't
have real chocolate sugar. I don'teven know why. What did it happen?
San Basically, yeah, hi isnot a word that should come after
diet exactly. I'm gonna make anotherpie. I'm gonna bring it over on
Christmas Eve. Oh boy, isit going to be a whipped cream one?
(50:57):
Is it just gonna go straight intohis face? It might? Yes,
I'm sorry, did I blow thesurprise? What about you, Chris?
What are you up to? Um? Well, I will say that
the reason that we got this showrecorded as technically early as we did is
because I have a bunch of vacationdays that we're expiring, and I just
(51:19):
piled all of them in at oncein hopes of avoiding that. So I'm
sorry everybody in the marketing department.Uh, but I don't know a lot.
We'll bother you on your days off, so don't worry. Yeah,
yeah, yeah, that's that's true. What I don't know a lot of
hands around. Well, we'll seesome family too. Um. Got a
(51:39):
whole room of guitars and amps andstuff that I never really get to play
with anymore, So thinking about tryingto make some time for that, um,
I have. I have cut cablefor the time being, and I
am now running an antenna all theway across my basement from the one window
that gets really really good reception andIt is now running into my computer so
(52:04):
I can stream it through all ofmy different devices. I got really bored
one day and decided that I wasjust going to become one of those people.
So I think the first thing thatI'm gonna do when I take time
off is run to lows and getabout twenty feet of cable race ways,
which I didn't know that they werecalled that, and I got irrationally excited
(52:25):
when I found out. So incase you need a look into my psyche
and how badly I might need sometime off. There you go, Well,
enjoy the time offense to each theirown. Yes, and Greg,
you're sticking around? What are youdoing? Yeah, I'll be around,
I said, I gotta bring apie over to you. I guess great.
(52:46):
Yeah, I can't wait. Yeah, No, we're gonna be around
Christmas. Take a few days hereand there. I try to get out
and go ski in a little bit. But yeah, just looking forward to
a little bit of a downtime withthe fans. It should be a good
time anyway. Thank you for listeningto this episode of The Eye Racing Downshift.
(53:06):
Don't forget to rate, review,and subscribe anywhere Chris has put this
or I screwed that up too.Man. I'm really struggling on Apple,
podcast, Spotify, and anywhere else. Chris put this for Kevin Bobbitt.
Chris Leoni, I'm remembered my name, It's Greg West and uh yeah,
let's see album track. Happy holidays, everybody,
This week on the Eye Racing downShift, we resolve our Thanksgiving Toby,
it was not good. It wasbad and you admitted it. Talk about
the content in the twenty twenty threeseason one build, Well, the damage
models fantastic on the car. Ican tell you that. And Cisco tells
us how to say his last nameScarf. All this and more, it's
(00:21):
a strap in. Welcome to thatracing damn shift up here. He's Greg
West. I'thing back of the boys, Kevin Boba and Chris Leone. We
have a great show for you.Have bet you didn't know that was coming.
We're gonna talk about the twenty twentythree season one build. Lots of
(00:43):
stuff to go through and that.We have a great interview with one of
our broadcasters, Cisco s Let leaveit exactly. So we're gonna talk about
the world of World of Outlaws,Sprint Car Series and NASCAR International and Contender
series that are going on right now. How are you doing boys? Excellent?
(01:07):
You have a hat on it?Are you cold? It's cold in
my house And Laura gets home fromwork and she's like, why is the
heat up so high? So nowI've decided to be cheap and just wear
a hat so no hair head getscold. Whatever. You know, it's
a nice hat though. Is thatfrom Iceland? It's from Iceland. I
recognize the sixty six degrees north Ihave. I have a sweatshirt. A
(01:30):
lovely place to visit if you've neverbeen. I know this is not a
travel podcast, but I really enjoygoing through Iceland a couple of days there
months. It's lovely. Oh missusLeonie, now that I've correct you have,
how are you doing hanging in there? Um? Got the beard?
We got to talk about the beard. Kevin's got the hat on because his
head's cold. You've got you're growingout really like jealous almost. I mean
(01:53):
it's not long, but it's it'snot nasty sort of beard. You know,
it's like a beer three c's thick. This is the longest I've had
it since about twenty thirteen, oneof those Red Sox World Series wins.
I just had it and it justit looked like a neck afro. Like
I just bothered grooming it at all, because you know, the whole team
(02:15):
was doing the whole beard thing,and I'm like, what the hell?
And I just walk into bars andget free drinks because they're like, that
guy's beard is huge, give hima beer. This is before you met
Emily. It wasn't it. Thiswas not before I met Emily, and
somehow she's stuck with me. Wowah, well you know, you know,
(02:38):
all right, Well let's uh,let's get into it. Twenty twenty
three Season one build. We hada lot of stuff that came out last
week. A ton of fun duringweek thirteen, trying out all the content,
watching all of the streams, watchingKevin Bobba get put into the pen
insinuator. We'll talk about that laterin the show. Yep, that's coming
up again. But Kevin, let'stalk about it's one of the big pieces
(03:00):
of content. A great relationship ledto a great opportunity. BMW M Hybrid
V eight. Yeah. What agreat car, right, our first GTP
car. It's a new class ofcars, you know, going to be
running all around the world and it'sI mean, the car is amazing.
You know. We we we've talkedabout it before. We have this great
(03:21):
relationship with BMW Motorsports. We builtthem or GT three while they were developing
the car. We kind of builtit alongside that. A similar process with
this car so we've had early accessto it, right, and they've been
testing the car for months. We'vebeen attending tests, we've been capturing sound,
all kinds of stuff, and it'sbeen great. I've driven it a
(03:43):
few times. Actually, the firsttime I drove it, because I didn't
do any testing on it, wasat BMWM Motorsports headquarters a week and a
half ago when we were over inGermany. Greg, how cool is that?
And I mean they have they havethree sims set up right in their
main lobby of the facility and Iracings running on it. That's pretty awesome.
Yeah, that was It's pretty cool. They also showed us some other
stuff behind the scenes that we're notgoing to talk about, but just suffice
(04:03):
it to say it was cool.So it's a it's a cool place.
It's a cool place. But yeah, great partnership with BMW. They seem
to be super excited about it.Um and you know, like Greg said,
we a few staff members got togetherlast night, which was the first
official IMSA race with seven five Easterntimes something like that. And uh,
(04:28):
I wasn't in the same split asmost of the guys because their eye ratings
a little higher. But my racelasted exactly U nine tenths of a laugh
where I got put into the whatwhatever happened? Kevin? Please tell us
about it? Well? Well,the damage models fantastic on the car.
I can tell you that part everywhere. Um, but no, it was
(04:53):
still super fun. I'll get thatEE rating back someday. You know,
it happens. What are you gonnado? Yeah, a really great opportunity
to debut the car. We actuallygot to debut the car at the SIM
Racing Expo. We partnered up withBMW and Fantotech allowed us to use their
booth. Thank you to fan Attechand Saturday of the expo we debuted the
(05:15):
BMW M A Hybrid or M HybridV eight at Daytona and we also debuted
something we'll talk about in just amoment, the Toyota GR eighty six at
Magny Corps. So that was areally cool one day only. Uh,
it was a highlight. A lotof people loved it. It was pretty
neat to get members and prospective membersuh an early look at it, you
(05:39):
know it was. It was funnyto watch the crowd that was in the
Fantotech booth when when we were debutingit and I mean it was a huge
crowd. Then all of a sudden, one of these pedal manufacturers on the
other side of the expo hall,they had a LMP three there that they
fought would fire up. And I'msure this broke so many rule laws,
(06:00):
city ordinances, whatever, And thatthing was loud, and you could just
watch everybody in the entire expo leaveand head Overton and watch this race car
get fired up. So the onlything that could pull people away from trying
the UH the the BMW in personwas you know, real race car firing
up. That was kind of cool. Yeah, absolutely, So another new
(06:24):
piece of content we have the UHMercedes Mercedes Amge Performance W thirteen. Chris
did not write the whole name outin the outline, and I hold you
personally accountable for that, but Ithink it got the name right anyway.
Yet thirteen. That's out right racewinning car. Super cool. Because I
(06:46):
can't drive Formula One cars. Ihave not that they're too fast for me.
I mean the BMW is plenty fast, um, but I don't have
you raised the thirteen yet. Ihave raced it. I have done a
significant amount of lapse, not nearlyas much as the likes of some of
our vpa's Christian Brian who I rememberwhen they were doing the hard tire runs
on that car. A hard tirerun takes an hour and a half and
(07:11):
if they go off the track orthey put it in the wall, they
have to start over. And thosetake me six days. Oh well if
not wrong, and takes anybody alot of time because you just can't mess
up. But you have to beable to run the tires down to zero.
We have to know, I mean, that's the you know kind of
the happens, right yea. Andworking with the likes of Mercedes and their
(07:33):
their engineers and their test drivers AnthonyDavison was involved. Well, um,
the real question is, Chris,have you taken this car on a rally
cross track yet? Because I knowthat's the first thing you do. No,
Um, I no, not yeah, not yet. I'm not.
(07:53):
I do a lot of ridiculous bizarrethings in the sim is what I know.
As anyone talk to me out runningthe all wheel drive roof at night
recently can attest to um because it'sgot headlights. But no, have not
taken the Mercedes AMGW thirteen E Performanceyet on a rally cross. I flipped
(08:13):
the E Performance. I might haveflipped the performance, I don't know.
And we'll fix it in post probablyprobably, But no, um, you
want me to take it on arally cross track first, or or a
short course track? How do wehow do we do with the service changes?
I think it needs a this carclimb Mount Washington sticker on the on
(08:33):
the rear wing that goal. Itwill It will take me forty seven minutes
because they'll probably drive it three milesan hour. But I'll go do it.
We'll get there, get all right, Yeah, I'll go get the
free sticker link in the description below. Yes, now, but a really
cool car. Excited to uh tohave that back with the both the fixed
(08:54):
and the open set up series,Uh, just really nice participation. Last
year a lot of people were askingme at the Sin Racing Expo is the
Grand Prix Tour? Um gonna aregoing to be back? And and yes,
yes, yes it will be.That's the NIS styled series right,
so full three hundred five kilometer racelinks, Um we do. It's spaced
(09:18):
out over eight or nine or tenmonths or something. Ye, all of
us the real world schedule as closeas we can yeah, I believe we
run with the four time slots eachday. You got fixed racing on Friday
or Thursday, open racing on Friday, fixed racing on Saturday, open racing
on Sunday. So, uh,plenty of opportunities to go racing in that
car. Expecting a lot of splits, just like last year. And uh
(09:41):
yeah, I'm just excited to seethe racing that that that car brings along.
It's a it is a different animal. For those that don't know,
this was not a rees skin.Contrary to some some threads I saw in
the forums, this was a groundup rebuild of this car, completely new
rule sets, new aerodynamic concepts,this thing that relies a lot ground effect,
and I mean, I don't thinkthis wasn't a Look what you see
(10:05):
Formula Fun teams do in the middleof the season where they bring in a
new widget here or there. Therules completely changed between years. So this
car has a whole new setispects,whole new setispects. I mean, they
both have carbon fiber in them,and they both have wheels, and that's
about The tires are different. Thetires are different, but they have four
(10:26):
wheels. Yeah, you know,so no great car if you haven't got
it, get out there and tryit. A ton of fun, even
like solo hot lapping is a funin that car because it's just, you
know that way you feel like you'refast, you know, because if you
get in, you know the topsplit. Not that I could ever make
the tops, but you're not fast. But if you do it by yourself,
it's like, oh, I'm moving. Some of these guys can flat
(10:46):
out fly, that's for sure,speaking of things that don't flat out fly.
In fact, kind of slow,but it's good racing and a lot
of fun. Kevin Toyota GR eightysix the cup car spec racing out its
finest. I mean, we loveit. We've had some such great luck
(11:07):
with the Master for years, right, and it's so popular And obviously it's
popular partly because it's the rookie carand people drive it, but people keep
coming back to if you're going toa Master race for the last three years,
it's full of every license level eventhough it's a rookie car, and
I expect you're going to see thesame for the g R eighty six.
Similar series in terms of spec carumnot too complicated to set up. There's
(11:31):
not a whole lot of options,right, Greig, and what you can
do to it. Um, wedo have a guide coming by the way,
so that'll be out hopefully this week. Maybe shout out to Miguel you
actually listen to this. But yeah, well there will be a guide for
the basic set up things. ButI expect this is going to be heavily
raced and lots of splits and allthat, which is what that's I racing
(11:52):
out. It's best when you getin the right split, when you're in
with similarly skilled people. It makesthe experience so much better. Yeah,
So we basically took the format ofthe Skippy at the D level and we
just copied the format with fenders.So for the first season actually runs on
seven free tracks. We just wantpeople racing. This thing's a ton of
fun. The car is included inthe base package. It is free,
(12:15):
does not cost you anything side upfor I Racing, Go Racing gr eighty
six. You can also race itin the sim Lab Production Car Challenge.
You get a little multi class actionout of it, open setups in that
series, a little bit longer races, and just an absolute ball of fun.
So I honestly I've heard more peoplesay that it's the best car on
the service than anything we put outa long time. There's people are really
(12:37):
enjoying it. It's predictable, itdoes what you think it's going to do
when you turn the wheel, andthat's that's I mean, I think the
greatest compliment you can give to acar in sim racing. So we also
have some new track content that cameout Kevin Magney Core makes its debut on
Eye Racing. Yeah, another kindof Tier one track that uh helps us
(13:01):
uh kind of fill out that thatthat niche of tracks that that people are
looking for. Um, I actuallyneed to practice more because I'm still learning
it. It's been a while sinceI've been on that track. Um,
but I think do we have themZIMPSA go there. I don't know you
did the schedule zimps go there?This year? Our hims to schedule not
(13:22):
real him so obviously, yeah,something's going there. I'm still making that
announcement. Nim is going to eropeansprint series one of those two they'll be
there, will be multi classroom,be able to drive there. So that's
your car, now, isn't it? Is? That is a car for
now? Yeah, have you puta pain on it? I did,
but I didn't load it properly yesterday. Maybe that's why we uh, why
(13:43):
it ended in disaster. I didn'thave the right paint apparently. Yeah,
that's probably it. All Right,we're gonna throw o a Chris because we're
gonna talk about something that goes ondirt. Chris Lincoln coming to I raising
another great track. I love howeven though dirt oval isn't really my thing,
I've become the de facto guy.Yeah, Lincoln Speedway yet another of
(14:03):
the top tier Pennsylvania tracks that thesprint cars and the dirt late model that
they all visit where the action isthe attraction, and you know that with
a slogan like that, they're gonnalive up to it. Decades and decades
of racing history, even NASCAR wayback in the day. But a staple
of the World of Outlaws schedule andso crucial, so cool to be included
(14:26):
that. We'll get to the eyeracing World of Outlaws car Quest Sprint Car
Series a little later. But weactually made a midseason schedule change to throw
this track in show it off threeeighths of a mile, you know,
wheel to wheel banging. It's goingto be a lot of fun to watch
the pros go to go to workon that track. But certainly for all
of the dirt oval lifers that we'vegotten the service, I think they're gonna
(14:50):
have a ton of fun with ittoo. Hey, we'll talk more about
the world of Outlaw Sprint car serieshere in just a bit, but we're
not done with content. There's morestuff that came out so or some adjustments.
Now this is dirt road stuff.I'm gonna give this one back to
Chris. Something happened with wild WestFree. We finally have our first free
(15:13):
short course off road track. Forthose of you who have never tried the
full on off road tracks, youhave one. Now. It's not the
same thing as rally cross. Thereare different rule sets. There's no joker
lap in short course racing. Wedid this one of the things that I've
kind of pushed for internally. Whatkind of There was a meeting with Dave
(15:37):
Kimmer. Yes there was. Afteryears and years, I wore all of
you poorer colleagues of mine down longenough to get over an hour meeting where
you know, we talked through alot of things, but the biggest point
that I kept coming back to waswe need to try to start getting the
(15:58):
pro two light off rally cross tracksbecause it's just made the car and the
track are made to do something different. We need to get that vehicle back
in its natural habitat to get peoplelearning as quickly as they can, and
you start boosting participation and make iteasier time and as much fun as we
can for everybody. So, withwild West being one of the oldest tracks
(16:21):
that we've gotten the service and unfortunatelyno longer active in the real world,
you know, we decided we're goingto move this to free It's going to
be a staple of that rookie proto Light series. It's going to be
a great place to learn, agreat place to kind of get adjusted to
those if you haven't done the offroad truck racing in quite a while,
or you've never done it because youhaven't had the track. Now is the
(16:44):
perfect opportunity. Would love to seeas many people as we can see on
wild West. It sounded like someof the mixed class races that we're on
it during Week thirteen, we're justabsolutely bumping. So I'm hoping, I'm
hoping we can keep that up andhopefully gets more people to fall in love
with it. I might have toshow and go a race there actually after
this. I've forgot that's there thisweek, so yeah, that might happen.
(17:08):
Uh well, running Matt Washington withthe F one car. I'm not
doing that. Not doing that,nope. Uh But once again speaking of
content, but that's not all.Yes, the boat Wait, there's more
so another one of the things thatwas a lot of fun on this one.
Uh, Seabring got a complete artupdate. It's not the new scan
(17:32):
but one of the older tracks inthe service. As far as art assets
got completely revisited. There's even threedefensing on the front stretch. It is
a totally new experience. As faras driving the cars there. I did
some running there in the in thethe the BMW GCP just to kind of
get a get a feel for it, and it just really comes alive,
especially in VR. You really feellike you're there. So really excited about
(17:55):
that. Um, we'll obviously talkmore about that in March when the Seabring
specially event uh comes to EE Racingand then you're have an announced yet Actually,
just did I feel personally attacked?Hey, this is why they need
to listen to the show because wedropped news there. We go. Okay,
(18:15):
if if people were if there wasany question whether we're gonna have another
race at Sebring, they're not familiarwith the service, that's for sure,
everybody. Kevin Pitt intinuator, Bobbitt. That's PI over here, not KB,
that's PI. Another piece content thatgot an art up date to Ford
(18:37):
five s from the Similab Production CardChallenge. It got the treatment that we've
given to things like the Skippy orthe Lotus seventy nine got it recently,
but this time it's the Ford andit looks delightful, I think, and
I think Matt Malone is probably themost excited about this out of anybody.
He's the biggest Mustang driver that Iknow so well. It's a ton of
(19:00):
fun. It's an h pattern,not a lot of those left on the
service, but it's a good time. And the similar Production Car Challenge,
I think is the fifth most popularseries in all of my racing. If
you're wanting big fields and a tonof people to race with in variety,
go run that series. There's aIt's just it's just a lot of fun
and Obviously we have a formula therethat works, so stick with what works.
(19:23):
Then we got all kinds of otherstuff, lots of AI editions,
right, Chris, I mean Ishould probably know this better than I do,
but I don't. Yeah, wewere on that AI thread with Alexander's
over email, just unlocking as muchas we could, and a couple of
things we won't mention that we're justholding off to perfect. But god,
there was a lot, starting withthat newly revised Ford Mustang FR five hundred
(19:48):
s, the all new GR eightysix, the all new BMW LMDh,
the long owated nineteen eighty seven NASCARcop series, which thrilled a out personally.
I've been waiting for that one fora long time. The paint tacks
on trading paints for that. Therosters are awesome. If oh, I
know, I have had a ratingset that I did the longest time ago,
(20:14):
just waiting for this, And oneof the things I'm going to be
doing over the holidays is finally buildingout my own rating set and seeing how
it works with those. I ampumped, but also load of seventy nine,
which we also just mentioned as havinghad a recent art update. And
then finally the Legends car. Yesthat I've been waiting for those quarter mile
(20:36):
ovals and well and I was case. I think it's a third mile in
the infield, but a lot ofthose getting unlocked. Some new layouts at
Roade America, Nerburgring, Donnington,barber Brand, you know, Interlagos,
you name it, Nerburgering. Ithink it's one of the more understated things
in the build. We have allof the wayouts of the North Life are
(20:59):
now available for AI. It's notwe think we just had the the long
version or the was it the velIn we had one unlocked and now they're
all there, so you could goand race with the the AI cars to
your heart content on the Green Hell, and it is a lot of fun.
Speaking of the Green Hell, though, a new way to learn tracks
(21:19):
that are difficult like the Green Hell, Active Reset comes to I Racing.
This was a really cool feature thatallows you to repeat different sections of the
track that you decide on whether they'regoing to be Um, yeah, it's
it's perfect right, even I canlearn it. And so maybe if we
(21:40):
bring back Thrown Go challenge, I'llhave a chance. Maybe maybe you could
beat me. Finally, Yeah,is that why we act that segment from
this pot one I got my buttkicked. Oh but active reset a really
cool feature going to your controls options. Check it out. There is a
video on YouTube on how to useit. I believe our video that Cole
(22:00):
and Cisco worked on right, it'sfantastic, um, so check it out.
It explains it really well. Andthat's a really good segue to our
guest today, Cisco s As aswe were referring to him today because his
last name is uses almost all ofthe letters of the alphabet. It's very
close. But uh yeah, Ciscofrom our broadcasting team is joining us.
(22:25):
Set down with Kevin and I abouttwenty five minutes ago to talk about all
things broadcasting on I Racing a lotof fun. Cisco is hilarious. Also,
he did show up Kevin and Ithough he used the fancy microphone and
he did have a nice micro soyeah, so when he uses his radio
voice and sounds way better than Kevinand I, just remember it was the
microphone. It's always the equipment,just like some racing equipment yesterday was not
(22:51):
my skills. It was definitely theequipment. Yep. So without further ado
Cisco S. All right, Kevinand I are back. We're pretty excited
today. We're continuing this trend ofinterviewing staff members who you probably know or
you know their voice or something thatthey did that's notable within the iRacing service,
(23:15):
and Kevin today is no exception.That's true, it's no exception.
Was that that was the the handoff? Yeah? That was that was the
handoff. But I pointed at youand you're not ed. I shouldn't multitask
do email dan podcasts at the sametime. This is what happens all the
time. Can wait, Tony ifyou maybe answer him? So anyway,
(23:37):
we have Cisco, Cisco S,we have Cisco S. Nobody in this
company knows how to pronounce his lastname. Greg and I had a pre
meeting before recording this podcast to tryto decide on how to pronounce his name.
He's only worked for us for threeyears. Yeah, three years.
Yeah, So we have with ustoday Cisco S, HEI Cisco Hey,
(23:59):
Greg, how you doing. I'mwell, So would you like to tell
the viewers at home how to pronounceyour last name? A? Yeah,
So there's normally two popular versions.It's either scare a musa or Scaramuza.
But it is in fact Scaramuza.I don't know where the e comes from,
but yeah Scar move zo. Okay, gotcha? Yeah yeah, yeah
there, yeah, there you gohere. At least I'm not as bad
(24:22):
as Corey. Let's be fair.Good luck with that one. Yeah,
well he's bigger than you in behindyou, so I don't think he has
vows in his name. Right.That's the problem is why considered a vol
at this point? That depends inwordles sometimes sometimes I haven't done wordle today.
I mean, that's what I shoulddo it in the podcast. I
got it into today, just sowe know, very excited, humble brag
(24:45):
because he looked over with Laura.All right, this assisted Kevin was I
don't even know what to say.Was Laura involved in this or I like
this interviewing Kevin with sis. Ithought you were the guests. No,
no, no, quit deflecting.All right, let's talk about Cisco.
(25:07):
Yes, Cisco is a member ofour broadcast team. He's a long time
member of I Racing. He's beenbroadcasting races for for Eye Racing and on
I Racing for longer than I've knownhim, which is a while. Now
A long time. Yeah, along time. So let's get into it.
Let's get through your history here firstof all. Actually, let's talk
(25:30):
about what you do at I Racingright now, Um, and putting up
with Drew is not officially in partof your job title, right, No,
because that's part of my daily lifetoo. Now. Oh yeah,
because you guys are roommates, yes, and there ms glutton for punishment,
yeah, just begging for it.But all right, jokes aside, Sorry,
Drew, Um, talk to usabout what you do at I Racing.
(25:52):
Starting off with your job title.Yeah, so I work in digital
content and then broadcasting is my mainfocus. So I'm basically number two in
the broadcasting department. Drew's the onewho has to interface, makes a lot
of the main decisions, and thenusually the execution guy that comes down to
me or one of the other membersof broadcasts. But basically it's Drew's vision
(26:12):
that I helped carry out, Soit means I'm a bit more on the
technical side versus him. I doa lot more, like I said,
of the execution of the ideas.Basically, you push buttons on that big
switchboard that we have. That's oneof the things I do That's one of
the things the other two do iswhile Sean and Corey, who we mentioned
before, they are also part ofour kind of group of four that does
(26:33):
all of the major broadcasts that comeout of I Racing itself. How many
broadcasts do we do last year?Do you remember off the top of your
head? Yes, well, wehad what in eighteen race Coke Series season,
ten race Porsche seasons. That's twentyeight right there. I mean just
we had another what six races forPorsche Contender. We're going to by the
(26:56):
time it's over have seven races fore NASCAR Contender International. Um, we've
been doing support for it, sothat's five. Yeah. Yeah, there's
a lot. There's in the commentsbelow. Please please count that. Add
that up inger somebody, Hey,there's a there's a list that I don't
have, but there is a listwhere we track everything, so I could
(27:17):
get you a number. Actually seca runoffs, Yeah, run off because
that count is one that counts likeeight. Okay, I was gonna say
there are eight races. That countis eight. Yeah, So now what
you're saying is you're busy. Yeah, And that is something that's come up
a couple of times because there arepeople I know in the I Racing community
(27:37):
go, wait, you just runbroadcasting for I Racing, and they're kind
of like underwhelmed by the I'm like, oh no, no, no,
no, no, you don't understand. This is not a show up,
turn obs on, turnobs off,walk away sort of thing. That's how
we do the podcast. Yeah,well, the production value of our answer.
I don't answer to eat NASCAR orto Porsha Greg. So that's true.
(28:00):
That that is true. Kevin's gonnalaugh. Um all right, But
I mean that's a good point though. I mean, maybe this is a
good time to talk about it's notjust the two hour show itself. No,
it's not hours and hours of prepwork from you and the team.
We've got you on the spot,but it is the whole team. It
is the whole team absolutely, andother people too. I mean during the
(28:22):
broadcast, the talent is always almostalways remote, and then we have camera
operators, we have replay, wehave all kinds of people that are involved,
not just the four full time staffpeople. Right. Yeah, absolutely,
And it's something to where at theend of the day you can't just
look at the broadcast itself as well. That's what the product is No,
it's it's part of our partnerships thatwe have with these different groups like NASCAR,
(28:45):
like Porsche. It's part of workingwith them to bring better and better
things to the sim So it's it'sall rolled into one thing. So just
the broadcast itself is very minor comparedto everything overall, and you know what
it actually means and what it's actuallyentailing. How long have you been involved
with the Eye Racing Service period?Um, I started, I know my
(29:11):
account. I think I opened myaccount if I remember correctly, the summer
after I graduated high school, sothat would have been what three years here
plus another four and a half atschool, so seven eight years probably somewhere
around there, all right. Andthen how long were you a member before
you started getting into broadcasting? Likefour months? So it's a funny story.
(29:36):
I started doing it just as agoof off thing with a league that
I was doing it was it wasfor ten people, nobody really cared about
it and I was. I wasdoing it on a twelve eighty by ten
twenty four screen, so it wasn'teven a normal sixteen by nine YouTube stream
that everyone's familiar with. So Ijust started doing it as a league and
the people who were calling the racesat the time, they are league members
(30:00):
who worked for a bigger organization aliceRTV at the time. So I ended
up having being interested in it andwere and ended up being brought into the
fold at LSRTV as another producer,and then I ended up having to take
over for LSRTV when the main producerended up stepping away. She had some
health issues that came up, andit was basically a well, Cisco's the
(30:22):
only one who knows how to pushthe buttons. So basically my sophomore year
of college, she shipped me hertwo computers, all this computer equipment,
so in my dorm at the bestof the rest of my roommates. I
started, you know, doing thatwhile I was in college and I was
studying motorsports engineering at the time atButler, and I got to the point
to where I kind of hit acrossroads where it's like, Okay, I
(30:45):
can continue doing this broadcasting thing andcontinue working at that, or I need
to focus more on my major becausethere's only so much time in the day
to be able to do either.And I'd known a couple of people from
doing it for LSRTV for a littlewhile. I was a little bit bigger
of a company, better contacts,So I went ended up going to Charlotte
over a summer just to see whatit was like, and it was kind
(31:06):
of at that point I made thedecision, I'm going to stop pursuing the
engineering side and go into more contentand journalism based side of motorsports. And
so from there I changed my wholemajor over, started taking broadcasting classes and
basically I had to fast track myway. It was a five year engineering
program, so I still made itout half a year. I had a
schedule, but from there ended upmeeting some contacts in real motorsports, working
(31:30):
in there for a while, andthen I got the call and a couple
months later ended up coming nigh Racing. Well, we think he made the
right decision there changing Yeah, Ih it did save me having to commute.
Was it eight hours? What's thecommute from Indianapolis to Charlotte that I
was doing for Real World for awhile there? Eight nine hours? That's
(31:51):
not short? No, No itwasn't, but it was. It was
the opportunity I had, and itwas just I want to work in this
field. I want to be involvedin this field, and that was the
opportunity open to me, so Itook it. Awesome. I did not
know that you were I did notknow you were an engineering student before you
you changed over, so that wasnews to me. It explains a lot.
(32:14):
Yeah, yeah, it's part ofthat still with me. Once we
got into the higher mathematics, Ibegan to struggle. That's kind of where
we started getting to a lot moreyou know, math based sciences and stuff
like that. That was always nevermy best strong suit, and it just
it the path. It would havebeen a ton of hard work, and
had I had the time to sitthere and study, study, study,
(32:37):
I would have been all right.But by then I was already doing the
broadcasting as a side thing, makinga little bit of money to get by
in college. At that point itwas just sort of I felt better doing
that. And then once I startedtaking the classes in college, I was
like, oh, this is thisis what I want to do. It
seems like you found your passion.So yeah, yes, part of what
college is about, right, Anda lot of most people go in with,
(32:58):
hey, this is what I'm gonnado because it seems like that's what
I want to do and then youfind your way in college and all that.
And you know, it was aunique strategy for sure, because trying
to explain to your three other roommates, yeah, I need to have two
computers on and five monitors going,and no, I swear this isn't where
there's a reason I'm doing this.It's not just to aggravate all of you.
I have to imagine if I hadgone to engineering school and decided to
(33:22):
switch part way through and I calledmy dad and said, I'm going to
switch majors because I'm going to broadcastesports, I can't imagine that call would
have gone, Well, that's why, Well you don't say esports, Kevin,
you don't say I have a sportsmedia degree. So what other stuff?
After? You know, you callyour parents, you let them know
(33:43):
that you're making this kind of change. What other real world stuff did you
also broadcast to kind of, youknow, smooth things out a little bit.
Um So I through LSRTV, Igot to know Tony Stevens, who,
for those of you who've been aroundeven longer than I have, you'll
remember he was one of the voicesoriginal voices for the e NASCAR series with
(34:05):
previous sponsors in previous broadcast companies,So he knew me through I Racing and
I end up going to him towork for him as a technical director for
about two three years or so whileI was still in college. So that's
where the commuting came in. Thatmeant I broadcasted the Cars Tour for a
couple of years. Also worked withLegends in us I x US Legend Car
(34:29):
International UM doing some of their eventsthe Summer Shootout Bojangle Summer Shootout which Bubba
used to race in. Raja racedin a lot of the names were starting
to see on the the uptick ofthe NASCAR Ladder, and it is a
it's kind of a joke. Ihave to myself that I'll I'll look at
who's in ARCA and who's in theTruck Series and go, I know this
guy. I know this guy.I know this guy. So a lot
(34:52):
of the people like Ty Gibbs,for example, I worked with him on
his way up the NASCAR Ladder.Raja, who I knew from Summer Shootout.
I've known Rag for a long timenow, from his first season in
Legends Cards all the way to wherehe is now. So it's really cool
to kind of see these drivers upon their way their path through, uh
to the big leagues. So let'snot like your careers followed. There's you
(35:15):
know, like you guys kind ofyeah, it kind of has. It
kind of has in a weird way. And same with the same with the
commentators I've worked with. Who've youknow, gone from you know, just
doing eye racing races to being ableto call real life events and work for
their local track Like Blake McCandless,for example, is the track announcer over
at eight Speedway, and I knewhim when he was just calling eye racing
(35:36):
races. And same with Evan.We've seen Evans, you know, big
into being part of Feld Entertainment whichdoes all of monster Jams things, and
he's worked his way up through that. I knew Evan before any of that
was even a twinkle, Yeah exactly. So let's excuse me, let's go
(35:57):
back a little bit. You uh, Brian I Racing, you got just
kind of found your footing and thenMarch of twenty twenty happened, yeah,
from and we've talked about that inMarch and April twenty twenty a number of
times on this podcast. We've neveractually looked at it from the perspective of
(36:19):
the broadcasters who were I mean,we didn't lock you in the broadcast room
during that time, but the doorwas open. But it was it was
a unique time, to say theleast. Um certainly. Now keep in
mind, of course, this wasbefore we brought Corey and Sean in,
so it was literally just Drew andI. Drew ended up I remember,
(36:43):
he ended up moving his whole setup, his whole desk in the here.
I didn't because I was on theother side and just wanted a little
bit of that space. But um, yeah, no, it was.
It was a crazy time, tosay the least. And you know,
I'd known what we could do withracing and the product and what it could
mean, and just in the spanof weeks, if not days, seeing
(37:07):
all of that happen all at once, and oh, oh this is whole
Okay, okay, hi Fox,Hello, okay, um um Andrew Junior.
Oh, so many phone calls,so many people, so many things
happening at once, And it's atime I'm never going to forget. But
it's also a time that, youknow, it was hard to really take
(37:27):
a stop and breathe and go,Holy cow, this is actually what's happening.
But um, looking back on itwas crazy. But and yeah,
like you said, it was,I mean, you guys have talked about
it on the podcast. But itwas very much a case where the office
everybody went remote except for broadcast becausethe equipment was here that we needed to
do the job. And so youguys, graciously, we're like, okay,
(37:51):
we want you to do this.We know what this can mean,
and basically left us the office andleft us to our own devices to work
with our partners at the broad castnetworks in the series to be able to
do all of these shows, allthese cool fun events during during the pandemic
era. Talk to me about aswe approached the first televised NASCAR race and
(38:15):
what it was like leading up tothat close. It was insane. To
say the least. We had hadthat replacements event, which I was also
involved in previously before as sort oflike a trial sort of thing, and
going, hey, is this isthis even humanly possible? Let alone can
we connect the dots? And atthat same time, Steve was making the
(38:36):
call to Fox and talking to JeffGordon and all the junior and all these
people to make this happen and kindof you know, that's once we started
getting the calls of, oh,all these paints are having in, Oh,
we have to do all this sortof stuff. It's it was a
blur, to say the least.And luckily for us, Fox was able
to work with us and we're ableto use a lot of the techniques we
(38:59):
had already developed for February and forJanuary for our beginning setups for the Eye
Racing broadcast, because a lot ofpeople kind of missed the fact that we
had only started broadcasting here from EyeRacing two months. Maybe if that before
we went on TV, that's areally good point. We built the new
office and opened it an end ofNovember twenty nineteen, right it was still
(39:22):
getting outfitted after Christmas, especially thebroadcast room. And Drew has a ton
of experience broadcasting. You know,his family grew he grew up in the
Turner Sports entire family basically, soit's in his blood. And I'd spent
a long time doing EE Racing broadcast, but we had only had about three
months to really figure out a workingsort of dynamic of how to make things
(39:45):
work and how we're going to ableto get done what we need to get
done, and you know, beable to include all you know Fox as
producer and you know, X,Y and Z things that we're putting into
the broadcast. So it was ablur. I don't remember a lot of
it, but I remember a lotof the cool moments that I got to
experience because of it. Um.The one that stands out to me was,
(40:07):
Um, I got to work onJimmy Johnson's car for the Watkins Glenn
Race. I believe that he ranin and I got to design that work
with Jimmy on his template. Forpeople that don't know. You don't know
that you are, yeah, superfan of Jimmy. Yes, yes,
Jimmy was my NASCAR driver. Yes, my mom was a Jeff Gordon fan.
(40:28):
And when I started to really comprehendthe sport, there was this new
upstart kid who Jeff owned part ofhis car, named Jimmy Johnson. And
you know, everyone said he wasgonna you know what, was this crazy
dirt racing guy gonna show up anddo something in NASCAR? Yeah, it
turns out he did one or twothings possibly, and he did all right.
I don't know, he's some washedup road racing driver. Now I
(40:49):
don't know, so what else standsout from that? Is it? I
want to know the question? Sorry, Greg, but how many nights did
you spend in the office. Therewere a few, There were legitimately a
few. I My sleeping bag stayedhere, I think until the beginning of
twenty two, just under tucked undermy cube. Remember the first time I
came back to the office, whichI don't know when that was, I
(41:12):
think I stopped in for some somethingthat had to be done in person,
you know, and you andrew sleepingbags in your cubes. I was like,
oh, wow, this is real. Yeah, yeah, yeah,
And it's it's a job that wasit was daunting and that's not even a
word to describe how much had tohappen. But at the same time,
(41:36):
and I can speak for the restof the broadcast team, where it's just
when you're in this industry and you'rein this kind of entertainment, it's all
encompassing. It's it's a part ofyou. There are things that that I
know about how broadcast working that Icould sit there and talk about for hours
and hours and hours, and everybodyelse would just leave the room because they're
like what's he talking about? Butum, it's it's really become such a
(42:00):
love of mine, such a passionof mine, and seeing you know,
being able to see what we continueto create, how we can continue to
grow, what we can do onbroadcast, and what the next steps look
like. I mean even coming tothis year with the NASCAR Finale and Charlotte
for example, you know, beingable to do a live event like that.
Previously we did one with Porsche atHockenheim as well. So having those
(42:23):
live events and just continuing to growand being able to take our product and
be able to tell stories with itand be able to make those stories better
and better and bigger, and youknow, just have fun. Well that's
the big thing and something that I'malways trying to push on my guys as
well. It's like, at theend of the day, this needs to
be fun, you know, workinghere, using the product, the whole
(42:45):
thing. We make a racing simulation. Some people would say video game,
but I don't want to fit inanybody, but no, but seriously,
it should be fun. I watchI watched K Bob get Stuck in the
Pit and anuat or Interlagos last night. The first big wreck last night.
Oh oh, talk me into godoing the first inter race of the season.
(43:07):
You said you were doing it already. He didn't. Didn't take much
to talk me into it. ButI almost completed one lap almost. Hey,
it's I I remember one of thetwitch clip videos I did way back
in the day where it was itwas a skip barber race and it was
at Interlagos and the guy leading pulledout at the last second. The other
(43:28):
guy didn't know the attenuator was there. And that was at speed Greg so
uh and that was with due damagemodel too, so boom. But it's
gotta be fun. I gotta giveits Kevin. It was a kind of
a bad waiting in your race andhe was still had a good time last
night though. It is what itis, right, you know, little
lost a little SR and I rbut whatever. You know, something in
the world. It back maybe sixor seven guys in there racing together and
(43:52):
discord. It was. Yeah,it was a lot of fun. And
that's that's something like, whether you'reworking on it or whether you're using it,
it's gotta be fun. If it'sfun, we're doing something right.
And uh, you know your storyright here. You know exemplifies that point.
So thanks for taking the time todaybetween all of your many duties in
that broadcast room, which I wishwe were showing off right now because it's
(44:12):
such a cool room. But uhyeah, thanks for taking the time and
I'm sure we'll have you back onyou a lot of fun. Okay,
thanks guys, Thanks all right,we are back. Great to sit down
with Cisco. I really wish thatyou guys could hear all of the outtakes
from that because we just sat andgoofed off and had a good time.
Cisco is great. I'm sure we'llhave him back on the show as well
(44:32):
as other broadcasters and other staff membersas well. That seems to be what
you guys like listening to, andthat's the content that we're gonna give you
here on the I Racing Downshift.Kevin's giving me a funny look. I'm
tired and I took ni quill todaybecause I have a cold. Please leave
me alone, all right, Let'slet's move on the East Sports World of
(44:55):
Outlaws Sprint Cars Series. Chris takeit away, yep, I Racing World
of Outlaws car Quest Sprint Car Seriesrunning throughout the winter. As we have
done for the past couple of years. Now with the World of Outlaws,
they wrap up the real world sprintcar season, they jump right in with
us and they run with us untilthey go start a new real world season.
(45:19):
So for those of you who justcannot live without sprint car racing fifty
two weeks a year, we gotyou covered. As always, season starts
in Valusia, ends in Charlotte.I believe at the end of January we're
only through a few rounds, butwe've already got our first repeat winner,
Hayden Cardwell, and he's needed todo it as he missed the feature in
(45:40):
Valusia. But as always, frontrunner Alex Bersier on multiple championships, won
a bunch of them in a row, didn't win the last one, so
he's trying to start a new streak, but takes the opener consistent finishes in
the two after and now for Cardwell, he's on the back foot, just
trying to catch up. Exciting tosee to see how that plays out.
(46:02):
I saw a note and chat ourmarketing chat last night during the race,
and our race director Tyler Hudson waslike, Wow, these boys have their
elbows out or something to that effect. There was some good racing last night,
so excited to see how that seasonplays out. We have a couple
other things going on as well rightnow, E NASCAR International and Consenter Series,
(46:24):
right Chris yet both using the NASCARExfinity Series cars. The Contender races
taking place on Tuesday night in thatsame E NASCAR Coca Cola I Racing Series
slot. You've got all these driversbattling for, you know, the twenty
or so spots that they're going tomove up to Coke next year. Big
interesting mix of returning favorites, ahandful of new faces, even some names
(46:50):
that have been out of the seriesfor I don't know half a decade that
I think have just kind of gottenthat renewed passion and that renewed fire for
trying to run at the top level. Certainly, obviously, I'm sure they've
seen all of the ways that Cokehas evolved over the past few years.
You know, bigger purses, biggerteams coming in, and you know that's
definitely enticing to get some guys tohang up the retirement gloves, I guess,
(47:15):
and put the driving gloves back on. Meanwhile, the DBox E NASCAR
International IE racing series powered by DigitalMotorsports. Don't give me credit for that.
I read it also running mostly onTuesday nights. However, we did
have and you guys were certainly therefor it. In Nuremberg at some racing
(47:35):
expo. We had one race thatgot moved to Sunday Sunday morning so drivers
could compete from the event. Alot of interesting stuff. That one was
fun that had. That was thefirst superspeedway race in the history of that
series, I think at Daytona.Correct me if I'm wrong, guys,
I think that's right. And itwas pretty cool to have a competitor there
(47:57):
on stage with this break set up. Always fun to add the live human
element to it, right. Wasn'tquite as big of a production as what
we did for the Coke Finale withfour drivers, but along those lines,
so super fun. Hopefully we cando more of those things. Yeah,
and anytime, Ryan Vargas, Sorry, Greg, Oh, you're fine.
I was just gonna say the thestage there at the expo was huge,
(48:21):
and the method of which they putthis rig up on a forklift and drove
it over and sat it down withoutdisassembling it. That was super cool.
I'm not gonna say that. Iwasn't nervous when they were like, yeah,
we got twenty minutes to move thisover there. I was like,
oh, okay, this will befine, and it was so. But
the driver was forklift certified. Itake it apparently. I will also say
(48:45):
it's always a popular night when RyanVargas is able to take a victory one
of the good guys in the sport, somebody who are a lot of people
love and for very good reason.And that was that was a hack of
a finish. Good times excited onceagain. Got a lot of good series
going on right now. We havesome of our bigger series kick it off
very soon with the e NASCAR CoCool Iracix Series U with Daytona coming in
(49:09):
January and February February. Sorry I'mwrong, It's all right. I think
it's February, so the last podcastof the year will give us some wiggle
room. Anyway, February something likethat, southing like that, Chris,
can you edited make it sound better? I can? But should I?
(49:30):
No? No, that's your prerogative. That is your prerogative. If people
are still listening, you know,forty four minutes into it, we're doing
pretty good? Right, yeah,exactly? I mean, oh no,
note all right, Well, thelast podcast of twenty twenty two, I
almost said twenty twenty three, butI didn't. Uh, what are your
(49:52):
guys plans for the holidays? Well? I got family coming home. Both
my boys will be home for Christmas, which is great. Connors home from
Kyle in the week and a half. Ryan's on leap from the army,
so we'll get to see him,which is awesome. But the most important
thing that I'm probably doing is noteating one of Greg West's chocolate pies.
Who brought this up on the lastpodcast, and we didn't really revisit it
(50:15):
whether it was good or not,and fantastic. I'll have to say that,
you know, Greg, dear friend, work colleague. It was not
good. It was bad, andyou admitted it. It was. It
was not good. Oh I madea bad pie. It was bad.
I did take diet pie. Thatwas the problem. It was keto.
(50:35):
It's keto whatever. It didn't haveany of the good stuff. It didn't
have real chocolate sugar. I don'teven know why. What did it happen?
San Basically, yeah, hi isnot a word that should come after
diet exactly. I'm gonna make anotherpie. I'm gonna bring it over on
Christmas Eve. Oh boy, isit going to be a whipped cream one?
(50:57):
Is it just gonna go straight intohis face? It might? Yes,
I'm sorry, did I blow thesurprise? What about you, Chris?
What are you up to? Um? Well, I will say that
the reason that we got this showrecorded as technically early as we did is
because I have a bunch of vacationdays that we're expiring, and I just
(51:19):
piled all of them in at oncein hopes of avoiding that. So I'm
sorry everybody in the marketing department.Uh, but I don't know a lot.
We'll bother you on your days off, so don't worry. Yeah,
yeah, yeah, that's that's true. What I don't know a lot of
hands around. Well, we'll seesome family too. Um. Got a
(51:39):
whole room of guitars and amps andstuff that I never really get to play
with anymore, So thinking about tryingto make some time for that, um,
I have. I have cut cablefor the time being, and I
am now running an antenna all theway across my basement from the one window
that gets really really good reception andIt is now running into my computer so
(52:04):
I can stream it through all ofmy different devices. I got really bored
one day and decided that I wasjust going to become one of those people.
So I think the first thing thatI'm gonna do when I take time
off is run to lows and getabout twenty feet of cable race ways,
which I didn't know that they werecalled that, and I got irrationally excited
(52:25):
when I found out. So incase you need a look into my psyche
and how badly I might need sometime off. There you go, Well,
enjoy the time offense to each theirown. Yes, and Greg,
you're sticking around? What are youdoing? Yeah, I'll be around,
I said, I gotta bring apie over to you. I guess great.
(52:46):
Yeah, I can't wait. Yeah, No, we're gonna be around
Christmas. Take a few days hereand there. I try to get out
and go ski in a little bit. But yeah, just looking forward to
a little bit of a downtime withthe fans. It should be a good
time anyway. Thank you for listeningto this episode of The Eye Racing Downshift.
(53:06):
Don't forget to rate, review,and subscribe anywhere Chris has put this
or I screwed that up too.Man. I'm really struggling on Apple,
podcast, Spotify, and anywhere else. Chris put this for Kevin Bobbitt.
Chris Leoni, I'm remembered my name, It's Greg West and uh yeah,
let's see album track. Happy holidays, everybody,
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