Episode 48: Staff Racers, Console Games, and More

It’s a busy month in the world of iRacing, from enjoying the 2023 Season 2 content that dropped last month to announcements around our console games, World of Outlaws: Dirt Racing and ExoCross. This month’s interview panel features QA testers Mike Hinkle and Kevin Zhu, associate producer Kevin Iannarelli, and some guy you might have heard of named Tyler Hudson talking about their day jobs, real-world racing experiences, and how they all link together.

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Episode Transcript

(00:01):
This week on the EYE Racing DownShow, a frank discussion of company wide
priorities than COP three. At least, Greg and Chris count down the years.
I guess our anniversaries like in threeweeks. Well, if you put
it that way, I'm always gonnaget mad at you. In an interview
panel with staff members, you're racingthe real one, Like, no,
I'm sorry, I'm telling you yourstuff is broken by kids broken all This

(00:24):
is more staffing. Welcome to theI Racing Down Ship. I'm your host,
Greg West. I'm back with theboys, Kevin, Bob and Chris
Leoni. Another great show for youguys. Today we're gonna talk about this
month in Eye Racing, Season twois well under way. We got some

(00:44):
new cars that both Kevin and Ihave been racing, slash crashing on a
pretty regular basis and giving out Ilet you Win awards. That's a that's
a spoiler alert, spoiler alert,Hush Hill events. We got the Road
America five hundred coming up this weekend. If this goes out before that,
we'll see bmw M SIM Cup RoadeAmerica this weekend. Hey, we're gonna

(01:10):
talk about an esports coach series.In past, and we're gonna talk about
Steve's family liking our podcast, whichis kind of cool. Week. Yeah,
it's another spoiler alert for a partof the episode coming up later.
So we have we have a fan. We have one that's two, remember
one in Daytona. So we havewe've got two fans. Yeah, we

(01:30):
have two fans. So what's everybodybeen up to, Kevin? You know,
it's starting to get warm, lookingforward to playing some golf. Might
be playing some golf later this week. Um. But I've been racing the
Cleo the Clip Cup and and Iearned an award. I was very excited.
I got an I Let you Winaward from Greg West. It was
it was the most amazing race.Where we are we Manza? Is that

(01:52):
right? Yeah? And uh Gregjumped in the session. He said,
how do you start? I said, I'll just just rev it up and
go, And so he started.Greg's at the back of the pack because
he didn't have enough time to puta qualifying lap in. Um and then
he's I can hear him on discordsaying, oh, I didn't go.
I didn't go, And I reallythought that just many got a poor start

(02:13):
and all of a sudden, He'sabout twenty seconds behind me, which is
really slow. If anybody's raced againstme and it's your twenty seconds behind me,
you know there's a problem. Soanyway, I did beat him,
and then I went back to watchthe start, and sure enough, Greg
literally did not move on the start. He sat there for about fifteen seconds.
So can you tell us what happened? Greg? I listened to Kevin.
Kevin sabotage me. I'm gonna puta protest in with them. Unsportsmanlike

(02:37):
conduct on the offense. But theaward stands. It does it's problem with
our protest system. I have noI have no recourse. He can't revoke,
and I let you win award onceit's bring granted, it is there
for all eternity. I'm framing thatone. He's that going on your door
underneath your NIM. Yeah, it'salmost as exciting as having an award with

(02:59):
Nim's picture on it. It's prettygood. So thank you, Greg.
How about you? What are youbeen up to? You know, just
racing. I've been racing the formof the Ford. We'll talk about that
more here in a little bit.Uh and the staff race challenge and things
like that, and then we haveChris who's probably up to been up to
wacky things or you know nothing,I racing. I mean this was more
of the what are you up to? Outside? Did I jump ahead again?

(03:20):
I? Did? You don't followthe outline that Chris puts together?
And there's bullets this week? Yeah? Yeah, I just for you Greg,
after after last month, do wehave to start over or do we
know? Rolling? No? No, no, keep keep going. Okay,
yeah, when you mess up thepodcast, we're going to point it
out. And since we're testing thison video that we're not going video,
keep how did you not even mentionthat? Well, because we're not going

(03:40):
to show people that, oh okay, we're not showing test video. Is
there testing video? So I justhave to remember that Chris is on my
left and Kevin's on my right,even though they're on my right and the
backwards on screen it tomorrow we're newhere. We're taking our amateur hour podcast
and putting a little polish on it. It's still going to be amateur hour
though. Just so you guys now, how many times have I called it

(04:00):
the MX five Cup of Podcasting inthe past week? At least three times
at least three. Yeah, butyeah, no, no, but that's
what makes us relatable. That's whytwo people like us. Um this mini
fans, Yes we have we havethat MANI fans. Um. Yeah.
Now I've just been doing my usualwhat slow road cars can I make work

(04:24):
on dirt road because that's what Yestwo does and uh yeah. Other than
that, I don't know, tryingto get some things prepped for the off
Road Pro Series once that comes upin the summer, doing our usual previews,
and some background work on another gamethat we're going to talk about later
in the show. There's your teasethere. It is, all right,
well let's get let's get into it. We kind of teas it already since

(04:46):
Kevin went out of Warder. Buttwenty twenty three season two well underway.
We've got new contents on the roadside, We've got new content on the oval
side, and we'll kick it offwith you know, Kevin has been driving
the Clear Cup in case you haven'theard, Yeah, did I tell that
story already? I want and Ilet you from Big West in case you
hadn't heard. Some stories never getold. Kevin, I win so few

(05:09):
awards I have to bring it upas often as I can. I'm here
for you. It's super fun torace. Uh, you know, it's
nice and slow just like I am. So it's it's a perfect car for
me. So that car is surprisingbecause you know, it's a front will
drive car that typically not a wholelot of fun to race. But those
are the exception. I remember whenwe were developing the car, I was
like, this is gonna be elbowsout door to door like fun because it

(05:31):
just you just go and it doesn'ttake a lot of thought. But there's
definitely some nuance to go fast,as we found because to be honest,
even after I started off fifteen ortwenty seconds behind Kevin, he was still
pulling away. I have to haveto own up to that. I just
you can't show and go on Iracing and expect to be competitive or at
least in my lack of skill levels. So yeah, it was a lot

(05:54):
of fun though even though I drovearound my entire race by myself, I
think I picked up one or twospots by attrition. Other than that,
it was pretty clean and had apretty good time. Did you figure out
how to start the car? Now? Though I've not entered another race,
I'm afraid that somebody was going tocomplain about that, like to NIM that
I was scarred for rating. Yeah, I just I can't afford that my

(06:15):
I rating is not high enough totank that much. I can only focus
on one car at a time.You don't have a second account, well
I do and a third I do. The third ones for very professional looking
for when somebody needs to be removedfrom a race, and yeah, I
just gave up my secret identity.I, on the other hand, have

(06:39):
been racing the Formula Forward. Ohsorry, F sixteen hundred, not the
Formula Ford. It's definitely not theFormula Forward. In case supplies the Ray
F sixteen hundred car. I've gota couple of series of that based package
content for anybody that's not aware.So it doesn't cost anything more than your
membership to race, and it goeson free tracks, which is a lot

(07:00):
fun. There's a bunch of theI Racing staff that have been racing that
and Nim's challenge and keeping score anduh it's it's been pretty competitive and I
am not near the top, soI've got some work to do there.
But I've also been dabbling in theF sixteen hundred Trophy series, which runs
on bigger tracks, more premium tracks, has a really UK euro feel to

(07:20):
it this season, so I believethere there were Snedderton last week. I
forget where they're going this week.There as a couple of weeks ago.
A lot of fun. If youhaven't had a chance to try that car,
try it. It is not firstoff, once again, it's free,
so why not a second? It'sit's not point and shoot. This
thing is not a Formula V oran MX five. It definitely has its

(07:42):
own personality to it and the motorsin the back. So if if you
if you are not breaking in astraight line and you're trying to do too
much, the back does try topass the front. You do have to
be patient with it. But it'sa lot of fun to slide around and
it's gonna be ah, it's gonnabe a staple and I racing for a
long time I can feeling so.And then we also have the late Model.

(08:03):
I'm not a huge oval racer,but I've seen all the paint schemes
on trading paints and I see Chrissmiling right now. But the the painters
have been very busy with that car. I've been running a lot of that
car actually, both on ovals androad courses. It is a really fun
road course car as well. Buton what it's developed for, just some

(08:26):
short tracks, some beaten and banging, it's been a blast. I mean,
you guys know that most of whatI do is deliberate misuse of content.
But we actually have started running alate model stock short track league.
We are using an eye racing caron the tracks that it's designed for and
one in a row, yeah,one in a row. That was my
question joke on my community. Didyou put it out on the rallycross stuff

(08:50):
yet? No? But I didthat with the Cleo and the F sixteen
hundred and the Jetta in a multiclass series and that was a blast.
Perfect. You've taken over the jumpat the figure eight track yet? Uh
no, But I know what I'mdoing on Thursday now, thank you.
I don't. I don't think it'llsurvive. I it's yes. We are

(09:13):
about to find out stream of bullingin the marketing slack channel. Please yeah,
no promise is Alex Horn asked mefor some replays of some other thing
that we did, and it tookme about six weeks to get them to
them. So um, it's it'sit's like getting your favorite driver's gear shipped
in from another country. It'll befour to six business weeks before I get

(09:33):
you that content. All right,Moving on, we've got special events.
It's coming up this week Road Americafive hundred. This is coming back to
the service. It's been gone fora few years, but there's been a
ton of messages in my inbox abouthey, can we do some more with
classic content and why not? Sowe've brought back the Road America five hundred

(09:54):
with the Nissan GTP z x Tand the out ninety gto. That's five
hundred miles that wrote America going offthis weekend and it can be run as
a solo event or with a team, doesn't matter. Pick your poison.
Whatever makes you happy driving old content, you can do it on I Racing.
Get your h pattern out. It'sa ton of fun. Turbo lag

(10:15):
is back. And just to beclear on it, it's the historic GTP
class car. Yes, that iscorrect, all right. One that is
beast. It is a big beast. Yes, I thought I made it
clear with the turbo lag comment.Well, then fairness, if you want

(10:35):
to race the current GTP at RoadAmerica in a team, you just have
to wait a week. No,Yeah, that's true. Yeah, that's
very true. So there's that becausethat's the next bullet point, isn't it?
Yes, it is nice. Nice. It's almost like I wrote the
outline or something. Did we planthis? I didn't. I'm reading that

(10:56):
on the first of us are allover the place. Oh well, that's
that's a dangerous Thank Kevin, thatis a dangerous thing. Speaking of being
on script, that reminds me beforeour interview, I've got to read our
sponsor read well, right now soundslike a great time for a sponsor read
because I do love sponsors. Sponsorsare great, especially people like Next Level
Racing. Attention I Racing fans.Upgrade your SIM racing experience with the Next

(11:20):
Level Racing f GT Elite and fGT Light Racing additions all in one cockbits
designed for Formula GT and more.Get a free twelve month new Member I
Racing subscription with every cockpit purchase.Head on over to Next Level Racing dot
com slash I Racing Now Next LevelRacing your ticket to racing glory. Yeah
I did it. One read onegetting more organic than that. I was

(11:46):
fantastic. But on a serious note, it is great to have sponsors.
That means maybe we have three fans, maybe we have more than just two.
Maybe, and and and no jokes. You know, it's a it's
a good chassis. We've got abunch of great peripheral manufactures, you know,
Next Level sent one over that's sittingin the h in the lobby right
now. It's a good piece ofkit. So absolutely interested in checking it

(12:07):
out. We love working with withpartners that make the e racing experience better
and and people like Next Level Racing. Dude, just that So I was
actually gonna I was gonna point toit, but it's in front of me
rather than behind me, unfortunately.But yes, it is a beautiful piece
of kit. Um. We arenot allowing people to sit in it in
the lobby because we we want toshow it off. We want it to

(12:30):
remain special. But it is abeautiful Okay, let's be honest. It's
also because we haven't bolted a seatdown yet. I think it's really a
safety thing. We forgot to builtthe seat down. So U m x
five cup of podcasting everybody. Ohyes, top three at least, so
I'm moving on. Hey, Kevin, you wanna talk about rain April?

(12:54):
Well, it's I'm looking up thewindows out. It's really it's not going
to rain here today. It isnot. But i've heard rain is coming
in and we may have put somepictures out. But yeah, it's like
an April Fool's tease or something.Yeah, but it wasn't really April fool.
It's just happened to go out onApril first, right, I mean,
so there was no planning involving Easteregg. You were so proud of

(13:16):
your Easter egg four oh one pm. Oh you caught onto that? Oh
huh? You told me three times? Hey, hey, Greg, I
an easter egg. Hey hey heycheck this out. This easter was pretty
clever. You gotta give me alittle credit. No, it was clever.
I'll give you that. You knowwhat, you know what. The
shots look good, though, butreally good. I know everybody wants to

(13:37):
know when, and all we're sayingit's hashtag soon, So do we work?
We would like to know when aswell? If so, the good
news is there's progress and Greg Hillwas real to give us a picture to
show and he doesn't do that.If we're not making progress on things,
so that's that's a positive sign forthe community. So it's coming. It

(13:58):
is not coming in though, andI realized I've said that for every build
for the last while. Oh,don't anticipate rain in June. Let's let's
just let's set realistic expectations. Rainis hard. There are so many things
going into it. It's not justdrop the grip level down and add water
textures. This is a complete reinventionof how the weather system works in conjunction

(14:20):
with many different aspects of the simyou know, graphically, physically, eat
all the above. H It isa it's a really big deal and it's
going to be uh, it's goingto be really well received. The goal
is to make it as realistic aspossible. You know, you're gonna be
driving offline, You're gonna be avoidingthe rubbered end spots who you're gonna have
to break offline. It's uh,breaking in a straight line, things like

(14:43):
that. It's going to take someunderstanding of the nuance of racing in the
rain. So I feel like it'sreally going to play into my skill set
and driving. So yeah, soyou'll have an excuse when you wreck somebody,
Oh was that two pointed? Somebody'sjealous about the eye late, I
am jealous. I'm gonna have tojoin Cleo Cup just to kick your butt,

(15:07):
right, just come run up Protwo race with me. You know
that I'm gonna. I can't.I can't do that, even you could
get Actually, um, I haveheard complaints that from people who have raced
with me my friends that they havenot gotten and I let you win award
from beating me so that you don't. No, no, no, no
no. We run public we dopublic raids. Sometimes we got to help

(15:28):
our own cause I didn't know that. Yeah, maybe Chris isn't actually flagged
as an employee. Have we decidedwe're gonna keep him around after five years?
I don't know. I mean it'sfour years because Chris started one week
before me. Oh all right,well I guess our anniversaries like in three
weeks. Well, if you putit that way, I'm at least gonna

(15:48):
get mad at me. Okay,that's a really good point. Sorry,
Leslie. She's upstairs on a meeting, so I'm not gonna yell up.
The stairs are bad prettyway. Ohwhatever, Moving on, Chris talking about
dirt Racing is getting a twenty twentythree season update. It sure is getting
a twenty twenty three season update.And not only that, it's also getting

(16:11):
a Nintendo switchport, and that switchport gonna have everything in it, all
the tracks that were released, allof the different extra cars that were released,
everything is going to come together.So if you're a Nintendo Switch person
and you've been holding out, you'vebeen waiting, waiting, waiting. Wait,
it's not that much longer. You'regonna get World of Outlaws Dirt Racing
on the Nintendo Switch soon enough.We'll have a twenty twenty three season update

(16:34):
coming with some new paint schemes,cars, tracks, you name it.
It's going to be a really excitingfall if you're a if you're a World
of Outlaws fan, that game hasstill been going. If you're checking out
World of Outlaws game dot com,you're seeing that we've still got the weekly
challenges, the online tournaments, allsorts of different posts going up trying to
encourage some of that community participation aswell. All of the weeks that acts

(17:00):
that are in the game or beingvisited by cars and series in the game.
So if you're looking for something todo. If you're looking for a
new challenge in that, send ussome screenshots, send us some replays,
have some fun with it. It'sthat game is still going strong. I
know that I have gotten quite abit out of my career mode up to
this point, and I still gota little waste to go. I'm still

(17:21):
not that four ten national champion yet, but we'll get there. And that
little segue here, we'll be talkingto one of the people that was heavily
involved in the development of that,who also happens to drive the an Eye
racing liveried car on dirt coming upin just a little while. Oh and
then last thing before the interview,Chris Exocross coming to console. But what

(17:42):
the heck is Exocross? I don'teven know what that is, except I'm
in some of the meetings where theytalk about what it is. Yes,
another another console product for us,as well as a PC product for those
who were paying attention to. Acouple of years ago, shortly after we
completed that Monster Games acquisition, wealso acquired another company, a European company

(18:04):
named Aroantis Games, and their producthad been called Drag Outer Worlds. And
what this was is a futuristic scifi off road game. You can imagine
why this one was handed to meon the outline, or rather why I
made a note that I wanted tokeep it to myself. Anyway, we
have done a ton of work,had a lot of people come in to

(18:26):
help refine this game, take itto the next level, and the result
is Exocross. And what this gameis is again, it's a futuristic,
it's a sci fi type game.You are racing unmanned vehicles on worlds in
different galaxies. There's going to bea whole championship system. There's going to
be all sorts of cool different thingswithin this product. Again, if you

(18:52):
have it, if you have DragOuter Worlds on Steam Early Access, you'll
be granted that Exocross product when it'sfinished him released later this year. But
it's so cool. I love thegraphics, modeling, I love the kind
of open world nature of it.And obviously I'm an off road person,
so driving these I know, Ibreaking news, So I love driving these

(19:15):
things. In a lot of ways. They kind of remind me of a
rear wheel drive trophy truck. Notthat I'm at all biased, but no,
it's it's really cool. I've beeninvolved in some of the backstory and
some of the different things on this. I cannot wait for this to get
unleashed. It is very different fromanything we've ever done. Though, don't
come into it if you're an eyeracing person thinking, oh, this is

(19:37):
a super simulation type thing. Thisis, like I keep saying, futuristic
and sci fi and if there's apodcast drinking game then you're probably you know
one on one hand, one andthe other every time I've said that,
But regardless, fantastic, a lotof fun. Like I said, Steam
Early Access has drag out of worldsright now, but Exocross is coming soon

(20:00):
and really thrilled to show off thefinished product on that in a few time.
I've been watching the screenshots come inand it's been great to see,
you know, not only the developmentthat but some of the crossover technology that
has made its way over at IRacing. And there's a reason that we
have that we're involved with the titlesthat we were involved with, and everything

(20:21):
works together more in the on theback side than you can possibly imagine.
And that's all working to make allof the titles we're now in charge of
even better. So it's pretty fantastic, all right. Moving on, so
we have something a little bit differenttoday, and by today, we're probably
going to be doing this interview tomorrowif I'm completely honest, or maybe even

(20:41):
Wednesday, since it's Monday. We'dlike to show you how the sausage is
made it on iRacing, we weresat down with a couple of folks that
are employees of I Racing who takethat passion into the real world and are
racing iRacing liveried race cars in avariety of different ways, on road courses,

(21:02):
on dirt, um on ovals,etc. Et cetera, et cetera.
Not exactly sure who's going to besitting down on this interview, so
I'm not going to say names inthe intro. I'm here for you,
buddy. Once again, we're notgood at our jobs. It send complaints
to Kevin Dotbob and I Racing dotcom ouch if you would like his phone

(21:22):
number see the description below. Butyeah, we're go side down. It's
really cool to see the passion thatgoes into making the iRacing product as good
as it is. Uh. Alsoit comes from people that are racing in
the real world. So without furtherado, um, the iRacing racer guys.
All right, Kevin and I areback with the as promised panel of

(21:45):
guests. We have not one,not two, not three, but four
iRacing employees who spend a lot oftheir time outside of the office racing in
the real world, and they arecombining their their hobbies and passion with their
work, which is a pretty coolconcept. So we've got quality assurance tester
Mike Kinkle, Quality Assurance tester Kevin'sZoo. You guys maybe have heard of

(22:06):
Tyler Hudson, our senior Competition Esportsmanager, friend of the show, Kevin,
He's been one. He's a frequentflyer here on the shoff, I
mean, welcome back to Tyler.And then I Racing Associate producer Kevin iron
Elly. So we've got dirt Oval, we've got pavement Oval, and we've
got road racing all on one call, which and Kevin iron Elly probably has

(22:26):
the most passport stamps out of anyemployee. So I think, no,
I don't actually, oh you don't. No, I don't do a lot
of international child all right, Wellsure, yeah, I got the frequent
flyer miles there. That's what Imeant to say. Well, on that
note. We'll start with Kevin.He's the Iron Nelly because we have two
Kevin, which one. You're thelongest tenured iRacing employee. So you've been

(22:48):
around I Racing since before it wasI Racing, since Papyrus, you've been
Yeah, you're an og so yeah, talk to us a little bit about
your you've been here longer than me. Yeah, I was HAP Papyrus.
I was a junior in high school. I was QA testing there of all

(23:10):
things. They were based out ofConquered Massachusetts, So I grew up in
Manard, Massachusetts, which was,I don't know, roughly ten minutes away
from where I lived, So Ijust kind of I was always racing online
and just kind of reached out aboutgoing there to check the place out,
and ended up meeting Eric Bush therewho now works with I Racing, and

(23:33):
he got me a like a QAposition in turning. After school. I'd
go there a couple hours every dayafter class, and it's kind of how
my foot in the door from there, and then um transitions over to iRacing
once that got going in two thousandand five. So what all have you
done? From QA tester to associateproducer. I feel like there's a big

(23:56):
leap in there. Oh yeah,it weren't all, but it was pretty
much filling the blank everything when wewere startup back in, Oh, whatever
need to be done, you know, everybody jumped in and did it,
whether it was traveling to scan tracksor sound recording stuff, UM put back
then, putting d D DVDs inthe mail for our QA testers, whatever

(24:22):
it took, because everything was youknow, dongles and and DVDs back then,
so we'd send those out to ourdark beta testers or alpha testers back
then to uh, let's get testingon and give us feedback. And now
moving into your role now as aproducer, you you're spending a lot of
your time doing the back end stuffon getting cars and tracks created on I

(24:45):
Racing, right, Yeah, yeah, so that's a majority of my time
now, is UM. I wentfrom pretty much being Greg Hill and I
were pretty much the only ones buildingtracks for the longest time. So now
we've kind of increased our our productionspeed on track cars and tracks. So

(25:06):
now I kind of um, I'llstart planning ahead UM executing our contracts once
we signed someone um in getting ourour teams in place to go out there
and scan and photograph. All thesetracks were being cars that we do now.
So it's exciting. You know,any given day I can be talking
to three different countries or people inthree different countries. That always goes perfectly

(25:30):
smoothly too, right, Yeah,yeah, you're not kidding, like right
now, I got two teams rightnow. Don't say it all over the
place. We're gonna have to bleepsomething out when you start mentioning cars and
tracks. No, no, Iwas. I already gut told what I
can talk about and whatnot. SoI reached out to Greg Hill beforehand.

(25:55):
So, Kevin, you're supposed toask forgiveness, not permission. That's kind
of yeah, try to stand onGreg's good side. Greg and I have
worked together since yeah back Papyrus,So he was a QA tester at the
time too, was going to school. Yeah it was Greg was there before
I was. Um, so Gregwas going to college and he was QA

(26:18):
testing there back then. He hadthis huge beard and every saying. He
totally different for some than he isnow. Um, but yeah, that's
We used to sit in this littleback room. Um no lights, I
mean there was lights, but therewas no windows there, and we just

(26:40):
sit there and and test on allthese you know, different machines, whether
the low one. Usually I gotstuck on the low one machine, so
it was he was miserable and thenthings would crash all the time. So
yeah, Brian Simpson was back donetoo. He was doing schemes back then

(27:00):
for IRUs. So yeah, andthen um, a little bit after that.
I'd say I was in college whenSteve came on board as a qua
tester at I at Papyrus, Soyou are really I was the first person
to say hello to Steve at atPapyrus. Yeah, I would you say

(27:21):
your fault? Steve is still here, is what you're saying. Probably,
yeah, all right, we blameI don't think you're gonna last. You
know his mom. His mom islike likes this podcast. Who's our number
one fan of the podcast? Yeah, yeah, watch too. I'm probably
not, probably not, probably not. We'll come back to you a bit

(27:44):
and talk about race and let's swingover to Tea Hunt Tylert Hudson. Let's
getting senior competition and esports manager comingoff a late night coke race last night.
Right, Yeah, we we justfinished up last night at Monza UM
first time at that road course.So it was it was interesting, but
um, yeah, Bobby Zilinski stolethe show. I think he got the

(28:06):
pole and let every lap, sohe dominated course. Show me a headline
I've not read before. Right.He's also in our Porsche super Cup Esports
series, so he knows his wayaround Manza and a road course. Oh,
Kevin, all right, sorry,Tyler. Let's uh, you've been
on the show a few times andwe've talked about this a few times,
but let's go over and again.You know kind of how you got started

(28:27):
in I Racing period and how thattransitioned into a career at I Racing.
Yeah. So, um, assome people may know, I won the
twenty thirteen e NASCAR Coca Cola everybodyknows because you tell her. I'm getting
to a point here. So uh, through that, I built some connections

(28:48):
with Otto and Steve and uh,you know, in twenty fifteen life just
you know how it is, itthrows you down a few times, and
so I would spend probably I woulddo. I would send an email to
these guys once a month, beggingfor a job at I Racing, and
eventually, uh, they replied backand I got an interview. So um,

(29:08):
that's how that works out. Butyeah, so I love my job
here. I started out in support, working in the protests department and with
Susan Flint on support, and theneventually transitioned over to the esports side,
and uh now I managed all ofour our pro series as well as the

(29:30):
um just any kind of special oneoff esports events we do, and then
I do a lot here lately inproduction, you know, with um MGI
with the Word of Outlaws console game, and um just I Racing as well.
Just a little bit here and there. You can talk about that dirt
refresh thing. I think that one'sout there. Yeah, yeah, so

(29:51):
we're thick in it right now,trying to do a lot of um uh
updates for the dirt refresh. We'retrying to make just things better for our
members, make the tracks race better, and make the cars race better.
All that's going really nice. I'mvery very happy with how that's going,
and hopefully we have something for memberscomes June. It's pretty comprehensive from the

(30:15):
checkens that I see of the workbeing done. It's not just a little
update that they're doing. It's quitea bit of physics changes going on.
They flipped it on its head.But I'm excited. Yeah, it's gonna
be It should be pretty impressive.I think it's funny. One of the
other vpas who does not like dirtracing is having a blast with the trucks
right now, which is a lotof fun. So good things coming,

(30:37):
Tyler. Good thing, Yeah,I hope so ye. All right,
we'll come back to racing here ina little bit. We'll talk about your
exploits on dirt. Let's swing overto Mike Kinkel, fresh off a race
weekend at VR prepping for this year'sSEC runoffs, right, Yeah, plan
on going to the runoffs this yearfor the first time. Able to make

(30:59):
that happy because of the support ofEye Racing. So super super happy about
that. And we're going to seehow we do down there. Yeah,
looking forward to watching it. Iwould offer to help in the garage,
and we'll have an opportunity for Miketo make fun of me here in a
little while. I don't think hewants my assistance at the track. But
Mike, let's talk about you know, how you got involved in IE racing
and how that led to you workingat Eye Racing. I've always been interested

(31:25):
in racing in general, in Formulaone. So when I was this was
about ten or eleven years ago,I started as an eye racing member.
I couldn't go racing in real life. It was too expensive, just all
the options were just much too muchfor me at the time, so I
started doing eye racing. I boughta used Momo wheel off a Craigslist at

(31:47):
the time and started playing around ateye racing. And at the first few
races went very poorly, but Ireally stuck with it and figured out where
to get faster, and I gotbetter and I had some success early early
on, and that actually because ofall the success I was having an eye
racing, it really really propelled meto pursue real life motorsports. And even

(32:12):
though I was on a very limitedbudget, I put together some money,
sold some things and bought my firstrace car, Formula V because it was
the lowest class, the most affordableclass to race. And I got out
there and I started open wheel racingand the first few years were tough,
but we got through it and welearned a lot, and now we're we

(32:35):
had a lot of success over thelast I've been with the SECA for eight
years now and we've won a lotof races when multiple championships. So doing
pretty good, and I want totake that next step to go to the
next level. And with the SECAthat would be the Hoosier Super Tour right
now and the sec A runoffs.So I don't think I'm gonna be a
major contender at the top level.Yet different my toes on the water because

(33:00):
this is another level. These guysare very serious and they're spending a lot
of money out there and having havinga good time in very competitive class.
So but we're gonna we're gonna seehow we do great. Yeah, all
right, let's flip over to yourcounterpart, quality shurtance tester Kevin Zoo,
who I think is the newest ofthe iRacing employees on this call. At

(33:21):
least, Kevin, you your raceon the ours. Let's let's go back.
You know how you got started inI Racing and how you got came
about working for I Racing. Uhyeah, So I guess the story of
how I got started I Racing startswith I got started with racing um Back
in freshman year of college, Idrove my Honda Civic into a ditch and

(33:43):
realized I maybe wasn't as good thiswhole driving thing as I thought I was.
Um, So I started doing someother cross to get better, and
then through there ended up meeting GrantReeve um. And at some point and
all that, I decided to pickup EYE racing and when they get better
there, um, you know,as it was with Michael, it was
you know a lot of crashing outand not finishing races to start with.

(34:07):
Um, that's still how I raceon I Racing, by the way,
YE can confirm it hasn't changed thatmuch for me either. I guess that's
a good thing that you're in QAthough. So you get paid to wreck
the cars, Yeah, exactly.Um, and I lost my trail fop.

(34:30):
That's all right. It happens allthe time. And now you're here,
you're working for I Racing, andyou and Mike sit right next to
each other. Yes, we do. Every Thursday. We get to uh
stay high in the morning and thengo to our work. All right,
let's start. We're in a QAlab where we get to sit and play
with all the equipment. I thinkme and Kevin have the best jobs that
I racing. Honestly, sorry toyou other guys, but I get to

(34:52):
play the sim and break all yourstuff every day, play play around.
Yeah. Yeah, my job islike break all the f you work really
hard on. Then complain. Yeah. I think you have your responsibility to
fix it right now. Point itout broken, go fix it. Guys
want to get when I see abug report, but I'm like, yeah,
yeah, we gotta fix it.Some some people take that better than

(35:14):
the other. It's true. It'slike, no, I'm sorry, I'm
telling you your stuff is broken,but it's broken, yeah, or your
fix really didn't fix anything. Yeah. Yeah. But then you're like,
no, I did it. Becausethis has happened with Kevin specifically, He's
like no, no, no Idid that. I'm like, no,
you didn't know you didn't. He'sno, we checked in the wrong file.

(35:37):
Yeah, it happens. That happens. Yeah, I always look forward
to though. At the seven am, you know, email testing report,
Michael follows it up with the allthe highlighted commented portions of it. Yeah,

(35:58):
yeah, the things are extra bade. The email says, iron Elly,
your thing is broken. Then Kevin, then Mike comes in fifty minutes
later, I have confirmed iron Elly, your thing is broken. So as
you're wondering, yes, it reallyis. Yeah, this is, especially
when it's marked in red. That'snever good. I'd like the teacher that
i'd corrected all your things in red. Choose a more soothing Keller. Next

(36:22):
time, let's talk about racing.Let's talk about things that go room on
real world race tracks. Iron EllieKevin, you are racing this week In
fact, you're off today. Thankyeah, thanks for joining us, No
problem, you are. You're goingracing this weekend. Right, let's talk
about what you're racing, where you'reracing, and how long you've been doing
it all right? Yeah, we'reracing at New Hampshire Motor Speedway up on

(36:45):
the Oval this weekend. Um,doing a tour modified race up there.
So we've been trash and the lastmonth or two. Get in the car
ready for that. So yeah,it should be exciting basically a super speedway
for you guys. Right. Yeah, they put a restrictor played on us
up there, um, so youget quite a bit of draft. It's

(37:07):
it's pretty wild. How many cars, Harry, how many cars you guys
expecting this weekend? Probably twenty fivemight have to twenty five for that.
Then they'll have past super late modelsthere, which the I racing number nine
Alan Tardif car will be there,oh nice, Maybe Cody and Gardener will

(37:28):
be up there then yeah maybe.Yeah. It's supposed to be great weather
this weekend, so yes, it'sfinally so yeah, free passes for all
of us. Are you on thepodcast? Oh? Um, no,
you'll probably not. Your guys.They they're charging me to go there,
so yeah, quite a bit ofmoney too. That's nice of them,
I know. So yeah, yeah, we're excited to go there. Um,

(37:51):
it's always fun going up there.How long you've been oh, fum,
probably about ten years or so.Yeah, and you raced other stuff
too, didn't you have a Yeah, I've raced winged midgets yea pro for
modified and whatnot too, so mostlythe NASCAR wheel stuff. Yeah, but

(38:15):
so about how long have you beenracing in total? I mean basically same?
Yeah, about the same time Istarted at Papyrus. Yeah, how
I afforded to go racing was workingbecause my parents wanted nothing to do it.
It's like it's just a fad,No, just a fad, and
they are going to support it atall. So yeah, yeah. A

(38:36):
few weeks in the phone call,Dad's like, so, what are you
gonna do, you know after this, when you're gonna get a real job
instead of working for a video gamecompany and racing cars. Right, I
know because when I started Papyrus,I didn't even have my driver's license,
so my mother had to drive methere a couple of hours later. Well,
your parents lost money on that dealbecause the gas money and time and

(38:57):
oh back then it was what adollar gallon or so right, Wow,
you're old. I graduated high schooland two yeah, oh you're not that
old. No boys help, Yeahhe is swinger to Tyler. Tyler,
you're kicking your season off right nowon dirt as well, right, yep,

(39:17):
we're running the uh Sportsman equivalent toa Sportsman late model in I Racing.
It's a great car with a sixo two engine dirt late model.
But yeah, we we've run tworaces this year for second, both of
them, so not you know,not totally disappointing that, but uh definitely
don't want to be second all thetime. So um, what is it?

(39:39):
Seconds? The first loser and that'show it feels. So uh yeah,
but our season is just now kickingoff and we're getting under way here
and now we've have we have afew races coming up this weekend and during
the week actually next week. Butthe weather does not look great, so
you're not sure down there? HuhYeah, some severe weather and just lots

(40:00):
of rain. So are you runningfor points this year? Uh? The
goal is probably to run for thetrack points like we did last year.
Um, but that's you know,that's still up in the air as well.
We've been talking about venturing off andrunning some other tracks just to get
more experienced on some other tracks,and if we do that, then we're
probably just not gonna point trace um. But so we're not totally decided yet.

(40:24):
For our listeners. Tyler is notbased in the Boston area, in
case you're wondering why he gets differentweather than us. So Tyler down in
Mississippi. That's right, that's right, all right, let's uh. It
was briefly up here for a littlebit though, before he went back home.
Yeah. I loved it up there. I mean, you know,

(40:45):
it was it was fun. Alot of braces. Oh yeah, it's
different snow than down here. It'slike I'm explaining, Yeah, but it's
like powder down here. It's justwet. It's just different. But yeah,

(41:05):
not as many dirt tracks up herethough, No, no, definitely
not. Yeah, I just Ijust love racing, Like I liked the
racing they had up there. Ithink the event Kevin's Racing in this weekend.
I went to it when I wasup there. It was really fun,
Like it's just racing all the timeup there. It's awesome. Ye
were a bunch of good short tracksup here for sure. All right,
let's swing it over to Hankle,Mike Cankle, and let's talk about your

(41:29):
racing career and you can feel freeto talk about how easy it is to
get into Formula Vie and how Ibroke that. Yeah. Actually, so
I didn't touch on this when wetalked earlier. But the reason I work
at Eye Racing more or less isbecause Greg West had approached me. I'm
I help out with the NYMV dotorg. We have our own organization in

(41:51):
New England and I'm listed as acontact on the website for people who are
interested in starting in Formula vi.So Egg contacted me and said, hey,
I want to start racing Formula Vie. So we met, We went
over the cars, we went overthe maintenance and and things that I thought.
He should know before getting in.He dived right in, bought a

(42:14):
car, and I helped him outwith going to school, and through that
relationship, I think I Racing decidedthey wanted to scan a Formula VI and
I helped put together a lot ofinformation for that. So yeah, so
my my Formula VIE is the onethat was scanned. Yesh, Yeah,
those are the oil stains. Yeah. Oh yeah, leaks oil it yeah,

(42:40):
smokes, that's normal Volkswagen stuff.Don't worry about that. Perfect Yeah.
So yeah, we run the ringsso loose in the engines that we
actually build up oil and then whenyou step back on the gas, it
just shoots all that out the exhaust. So when you're following somebody, you
can tell when they pick up athrottle again going out into they to model
that. Yeah, you guys dida good job. Yeah, they did

(43:01):
a great job on the car.I mean the scratches, some of the
scratches and paint chips that were inthe car, which I'm I'm kind of
ticked off about. You guys leftin there race tracks that when we sign
them, Bill, that's one ofthe first questions they asked, do we
need to paint the walls and thelines before you guys show up, because
we wanted to look pristine in thegame. Well they should, I would,

(43:23):
Yeah, if I could go back. We're going to bu the lawn
too, the first time in tenyears. They move the grass. That's
a safety feature, actually fill inthe holes. So getting started in form
of be super easy. Greg Westwas able to do it. So anybody
who is interested to live in theNew England area. That's fired. I

(43:45):
like it. I own it.Mike told me, oh yeah, anybody
can do this. Anybody, Yeah, anybody, yeah, and Greg corrected
me after. So I had aconversation with Greg not too long ago,
and I said, you know what, looking back on it, actually I
have to start being more careful abouthow i'd say anybody can do this,
no offense, Greg, But allright, it's if you're interested in Formula

(44:06):
V, you're interested in racing,you think that the person has a certain
amount of car knowledge, and Gregdoes. He's not. He's not totally
inapt with I've never done drum brakes. Yeah, so definitely not, mister
Carr. Yeah. When I showedhim drum brakes, I showed him how
to adjust drum breaks. He justhis eyes glossed over. I think he
started playing on his phone and thenme blow up. It's like I break

(44:27):
quickly. I blow up. Ibreak race cars more than anybody at I
Racing, including you, Kevin.I think the percentage of you having issues
on track is really highly in termsof how many times you got to issue
and how many races you did.So. Yeah, let's see. I
blew up the Formula V the veryfirst time I drove it. Mike told
me that it doesn't have a revlimitar, but you'll you'll hear the valves

(44:47):
float and that's kind of the thatthat lets you got built. Yeah,
and then I it blew up,and then Mike thought, I it didn't
blow up. He thought I justwhimped out and pulled the fire bottle.
It turns out there was like atwo inch HO pulled the fire bottle.
I didn't pull the file. Ithought he did. So he stopped and
turned one uh, and he pulledover and there was a big cloud of
smoke, and I thought for surehe just pulled the bottle. I was

(45:10):
like, what is he doing?Because you know now we had to replace
the bottle. Fun facts We foundout afterwards that we never pulled the pin
safety pin out of the bottle,so I couldn't have pulled the bottle.
So yeah, there was a therewas a hole on the side of the
engine, so that you know thatwas Did you have to rewire that whole
car too? Uh No, wedidn't require that. We did a little
bit. We did a little bit, but I broke the Oh there's an

(45:35):
ignition coil. Yeah, there's arain light, Yeah, rain light.
But I blew the Formula V andthen we went. I went up to
any car race. It wrote Americaand was supposed to go on the two
seater ride and it broke the transmissionand turned one, which mean I got
another ride, which was cool,and the guy that was driving it felt

(45:57):
bad and so he really ringed itout. I was not mad about that.
That thing breaking in a straight linefor turn five road America was wild.
Then Kevin and I go down toLime Rock and Max and Imsa arranges
a pace car ride for me aroundthe track because I've never been there,
and going in to turn one there, the right front break explodes on the

(46:19):
pace car and we went around aLime Rock at ten miles an hour maybe
less, and it sounded like nailson a chalkboard. You just saw people
covering their ears like we just hadto limp it back around. It's spitting
pizza the pieces of the disk.So yeah, if you want your race
car to break, put me init. I can. I can make
that happen. Have you con stilledbecoming a QA tester? Right? Exactly?

(46:43):
You know? I sorry to interrupt, Mic, I just like making
fun of myself. No problem.I don't even know where we were going
after that because it's making fun ofyou. True. We'll keep the roll
it over to Kevin Zoo. Then, so Kevin, you you're racing on
the Grid Life Touring Cup in aHonda Civic. Tell us a little bit
about that. Yeah, so,um, Good Life Touring Cup is I
guess a newer race series. Um. It's a power of the weight class

(47:07):
um, and it will try toallow for you know, very unique builds.
So he got you know, meand my Honda Civic. There's other
Honda Civics. There's Monster Miyada's ChevyCorvettes, BMW M Freeze, um,
all brought to the same power levelsso they can race with each other.
Um. I'm pretty you know,new to wheel wheel racing. Um.

(47:27):
I've only just started last year.UM, and it's been you know,
a big change from my previous autocrossand time attack. Um. I I
say, I Racing has prepared mevery well. The first time I took
a green flag, you know,get for all the turn one carnage,
you know, tiptoe for return twoand then you all, I saw,

(47:50):
It's just like I'm in my livingroom on the sim Yeah that that I
would say that my limited experience.I think I did what four Formula V
races and whatnot, and yeah,turn lap one carnage dodging. I Racing
really prepared me well, especially inVR you fully expect. But well,
I think the big trend here isthere's a lot of passion that goes into

(48:15):
what we do here at I Racing, and I think sometimes people forget that
it's not just a bunch of peoplesitting in office that are just trying to
make it happen. These are peoplethat's been their free time outside Grant on
this. You can get Grant tocome on our show for the rest of
my career at EYE Racing. Ya, there's other Eye Racing employees that all

(48:35):
the race that haven't shown up yeteither, Kevin just saying he's saving it
for the next episode, like theyou know successful racers of eye Racing.
So I started back at eye racing. Grant and I used to a carding
all the time after work. Andhe would not race anybody. He just
go out there, ride in theback just to turn quick lapped. He
would not. He did not wantto be side by side or nothing with

(48:59):
anybody's And that's why he races.Yeah, and now he's a national,
multiple national champion and solo racer.This's Grant. The reason we have time
attacks on I racing. Probably probablyGreg, you haven't talked about yourself.
You've done some racing, You've donesome well you did Formula V, but
you've done some cart racing too.Yeah. Yeah, I grew up did

(49:21):
some car racing growing up in therace Formula VI, and then Mike and
I decided to take a sabbatical fromFormula VI after I sold my car.
Uh yeah, alexanders is still upsetabout that. But yeah, we went
went cart racing for a couple ofyears, won some races. I have,
I have some trophies. Yeah,we should certainly did. We got
torn down because people thought we werecheating and we weren't, which is fun.

(49:44):
This was after the V Yeah,yeah, this was after the V.
Yeah. I think Greg the firstrace, Greg one, if I
remember correctly, I was out frontby a country mile and I actually the
chain fell off and and Greg goesby me, and I'm like, you're
in first place, and he's like, what what are you talking about?
Fun? I've gotten spun on lastone. So I was like ten or

(50:05):
twelve seconds behind the pack. Andthen it started raining or it was it
was raining before. And we wereon the right tires, me and you
are. We had our gearing andour tires set for the conditions that that
track was in, and me andyou were just killing it. We were
just running away from everybody. Andyeah, you passed a bunch of people
coming from the back half of youspun and you had no idea you were

(50:27):
in first place until I think itwas all over. I didn't know it.
Yeah, I had no idea.I one, I thought it was
like tenth place. Yeah. Mike'slike, Mike's sitting in the infield and
doing like dancing with his fingers upin the air, and I'm like,
is he happy? Is he doing? Why is he flipping me up?
I have no idea what's going onhere? And I mean I knew I
was turning good lap times, butyeah it was didn't didn't know one racing's

(50:51):
fun. I need to get backout in some capacity. I miss it.
But but like I said, it'sit's it's cool. I mean,
and this isn't everybody. This isjust the people that agreed to come on
the podcast today. And some volunteered, some were volunte told, but whatever.
But like I said, it's it'sabout the people that are behind the
product are passionate about the product,and that's a that's just something you don't

(51:12):
really find everywhere. So guys reallyappreciate you taking the time out of your
day, whether you he said,whether you wanted to or what. It's
old too, but yeah, especiallyKevin I for doing this on his day
off. So yeah, sureus pointsthere. I'm actually working right now.
Yeah, standard operating procedure. Ithink a lot of people at I Racing

(51:34):
have a lot of racing experience andsome of the members might not know that.
And when we develop cars, wehave a lot of seat of pants
feel and expectations of how a carshould feel and we're not afraid at least
QA at least you know, meand Kevin, I know that's for a
fact. We're not afraid to sendit back and say, listen, guys,
you didn't get this right or something'sa little off with this. And
played a big part in in theFormula V on the handling of that.

(51:58):
Yeah, that was a really cool. Well, you know, that was
my first interaction with eye racing,uh, you know, besides being a
customer, And I was really blownaway how we took my real life data
at a racetrack that I've been at, and we lined it up with the
sim data and we made you know, the changes it took to make that
the same, and we throttle inputsand steering inputs and we got that thing

(52:20):
dialed in. And I was Iwas impressed because it's not just taking a
car, adding a horsepower number andadding a grip level number and making it
work. There's a there's so muchmore that goes into it. So um,
you know, I've seen it myselfpersonally going through it with the Formula
V. But after that, theother cars that we developed, I know,

(52:40):
we always get real life drivers tocome drive them in you know,
ninety nine percent of the cases weget somebody who can share data and really
get that feel correct, like wedid with the V. So I you
know, even though the V andthe SIM isn't exactly the same as the
one that I race in real life, I can tell you that driving around
New Hampshire Motor Speedway, which Ihave the most dad at, it's it

(53:02):
feels exactly the same. So andI think that a lot of cars.
I haven't get to drive a FormulaOne car, but we did a lot
of work on that, and youknow, from the low end the Formula
V to the Formula One, Ithink we're getting it right most of the
times. No, I would agree, and I mean you've been huge,
and he said, Formula V,you helped a lot on the Formula Ford
just on the field, similar tothe V. Kevin Zoo has been big

(53:23):
toyt G already six and the Cleouh, you know, because you're touring
car experienced Tyler of course on thedirt stuff. And then Kevin Ironelli has
been involved in almost every car andtrack there is on I racing in some
capacity. So it's a lot ofthat seat of the pants feeling as well,
what do you think. There's alot of a lot of times where
files are passed over, especially recentlyto Mike, it's like, well what

(53:45):
do you think drive this? I'mnot going to tell you what we changed.
Yeah, that happens on a regularbasis. And and like I said,
we're not afraid to say no,this is this is junk, guys,
we gotta gotta look at this again. So cool. Yeah, Greg
lost my long emails about how Ithink tires should behave. Yeah, yeah,

(54:06):
but it helps, It really doeshelp. And I mean if you
look at the especially the g Reighty six and the Cleo what you helped
with there, you know, veryvery popular cars on the service. So
looking forward to seeing how those thingscontinue. Looking forward to the dirt refreshed
tea hud that'll be exciting slated forJune. We're just gonna say it now
more than just a dirt refresh that'syou know Oval too, where we're you

(54:28):
know, our vehicle dynamics guys aregoing through and we're kind of reviewing a
lot of our short track stuff toget our lap times where grip setting is
more in line with three re rolddata. That we have to correlate the
two. So it's it's a projectthat kind of morphed into the oval side
of things too. Yep, allright, Kevin, you have any Kevin

(54:53):
Bobbitt, do you have anything else? Three Kevin is on this show now?
Yeah, I think that's all theones. I think it's pretty fantastic.
Yea here so special episode. Sono, I appreciate you guys coming
in. Uh, it's cool tohear your backgrounds. I knew much of
your stories, but I always alwaysfun to learn something new about it.
I mean, like Greg said,it really does show that the connection everything

(55:15):
this company has to real world motorsportand why why we do what we what
we do? We love it,you know, so Awestoly be part of
this team. All right, Onthat note, Kevin, let's get back
to the show. All right,We're back a lot of fun sitting down
with those guys. It's once againgreat to see the passion that goes in

(55:36):
to making eye racing as good asit is actually manifesting itself on real world
tracks all across the country. Becausethis group has been been all over the
place. I know, I thinkHankle's actually driving back from vir right now
from racing the Super two race thisweekend. So moving on, speaking of
racing back in the digital space,we have the e NASCAR Cocacola I Racing

(55:59):
Series in full force. Chris twoof last year's Champion Championship four, Wilson
and Zelenski where March winners. Thatis true, I mean we had a
surprise winner to kick off the seasonin Daytona Tucker mentor and first ever race,
but fins of the drivers who youwould expect to be winning races or

(56:19):
winning races again. Michael Conti obviouslyfinished off February with that win at the
Milwaukee Mile, but then Stephen Wilsonbeck in the winner circle at Atlanta and
Bobby Zelenski dominating at Richmond Raceway.Wilson and Zelenski both in the Champion four
last year. Contie, I believewas the first driver out. So you
know a lot of familiar names punchingthose playoff tickets early or at least trying

(56:42):
to remember you have to stay inthat top twenty come playoff time and have
that win to have you have yourshot in and as we've seen in past
years, if there are more thanten winners for those ten playoff spots.
The one win might not even beenough. We don't have a repeat winner
yet, but we could get one. We don't know yet, but we
could get one sometime this month.And this is going to be a really

(57:06):
interesting month. First of all,it's back to back races. Second of
all, we're heading to Manza forthe first of those races. E NASCAR
has never left the country. Imean, real world NASCAR obviously has never
competed at Monsa, but that issome of the beauty of the eye racing
space is that we're able to takecars into all sorts of different things.
I mean, we frequently joke aboutmy league that does that. But gonna

(57:30):
be really cool. We're running theGP layout at Monza without chicanes, so
those drivers are just going to bebarreling down into some of those corners.
In a lot of ways, it'sgoing to be like a European Watkins Glen,
like a classic Watkins Glen race whereit's a road course, but in
some ways it does kind of feellike an oval. The week after that,
we go to Talladega and for thefirst time this year. You know,

(57:52):
we've had a lot of drivers overthe years people who have followed e
NASCAR over the years said, youknow, oh, it'd be interesting to
see this series do fix set up. Now, that's not happening for most
of the races, but when wedo back to backs this year, the
second half of the back to backis going to be a fixed set up
rate. It takes a little bitof pressure off the drivers and make sure

(58:13):
that they're going to be fresh forit. But it's also a great equalizer
and we'll see, you know,some of those drivers who might excel more
in a fix than a you know, that have made the Koke Series level
try to take advantage of those coupleof opportunities, you know, not to
mention the fact that it's also Talladegawhere anybody can win. Again we saw

(58:34):
with a first time winner in hisfirst race at Daytona and Tucker Mentor.
So this is really going to beone of the most interesting little pockets of
the schedule in the history of theKoke Series. So really looking forward to
that. Obviously, every Tuesday nightat nine pm countdown to Green Date thirty.
So can't can't wait to see howthose races play out. Now,
it's gonna be a lot of funI'm excited the seat. Like I said,

(58:57):
there's just a little bit of verse. See going to Monza, that's
gonna be quite a wild race.I've been listening to some of the driver
feedback as they've been practicing for that, and it's, uh, it's definitely
something that's a little bit different forfor them, but it should be a
great show. And then you knowTalladega going to a fixed setup race.
I mean, if there's any racewhere setup is not nearly as important as
a draft track like like Talladega,So I'm I'm excited to see how that

(59:19):
plays out. Also, watching Talladegais just always a good time because you
know, you're always waiting for thebig one, and then the second big
one, then then the third bigone and then two two green white checkers
at least maybe three. So it'llbe a lot of fun. Speaking of
a lot of fun, Taghire Porschee Sports or wait is it Porsche Taghre
Esports Supercup or Taghwior Porsche Esports Supercup. Kevin's rolling his eyes. I'm so

(59:45):
disappointed. I'm not even gonna coverit. I mean, it's just I
can't believe you got that wrong.But I've been called worse by better.
Kevin. Let's talk about pass.Well, what a race we had at
Watington's Glen last week. You talkabout how Monza is kind of mixing things
up for the Coke Series. Wewent to Watkins Glenn, the short course,

(01:00:06):
no bus stop. It was itwas interesting, it was it was
a draft machine. Um. TheAll Star race was completely dominated by Casey
Kerwin from the Cooke Series, thereigning champion. UM like completely dominated by
him until he ended up in thewall on the second race. But anyway,

(01:00:27):
uh, he was the fastest guy. But the the the actual pass
race was fantastic. Um. Caruso'sleading the points. Now. Actually we're
back to we had back to back, so now we're off for two weeks.
We come back at SPA for thetail end of the season. I
think we've got four races to go, is that right, Chris, yep?

(01:00:47):
Four to go, so we're almostalmost there. But it's been a
good season, lots of different winners, fantastic show. The guys in the
studio I have been doing a greatjob with PASK as well as Coke and
all the other stuff they produce.They're actually behind the cameras today, so
we're so to speak anyway, shoutout to Jerrancisco. That's right. But

(01:01:07):
yeah, been a great season,looking forward to uh, you know,
wrapping things up over I guess thenext six or seven weeks or something like
that. So no, always agood time. And before we head out
today, Kevin, we have doubledour fan count. We got a nice
little Easter message from a mister SteveMyers. Steve Meyers sent us a video

(01:01:28):
recording from his mother talking about howmuch she loves this podcast and the highlight
of it is she loves it becauseit's both informative and we have very few
four letter words used, so it'slike very few. I thought we cut
them all out. I thought wehad zero, but at yeah, we
say slow a lot, you're alot. Oh okay, gotcha. But

(01:01:52):
it was actually a sweet video thatwas sent. She does seem to enjoy
it, and I don't know thatthat's probably the nicest thing Steve's ever said
to the three of us, sothat that he likes the work we're doing.
So absolutely, it was a niceeaster that's my word. It was
a nice easter message. And Idon't know's we've kind of been joking in

(01:02:12):
the office like this started office kindof just a something fun to do,
a different way to get the messageout. And it's grown way bigger than
we thought it would be. I'mnot exactly sure how. I maybe maybe
just because it's it's entertaining that weare making it up as we go,
Maybe that's it. But uh,this has been a As we're approaching fifty

(01:02:36):
episodes, this podcast has been suchan adventure and hearing people come up to
us at expos and things like thatand say they listen to it and that
they're fans of the show and askingTony Kennan to take pictures of me and
Kevin. Uh, that's that's prettywild. I was a highlight. Yeah,
yeah, that's a highlight. Youknow, things like that. Um,
but you know, it's we appreciateeverybody that's come along the ride with

(01:02:57):
us. We're looking at ways toexpand it. So for those of you
that they haven't picked up the hint, we are, well, this will
not go out. I don't thinkas a video podcast we are. We
are doing a test run today addingvideo to this and uh, I'm glad
it's a test run because God knowsI'm not camera ready. This this is
why I keep actually going to thegym now I have no choice. This

(01:03:20):
is why I motivate you to goto the gym for you. Wow,
something had to whatever it takes,right, I'm glad to go to the
gym. It's good for you.Yes, get something from me while you're
there too. Yeah. Yeah,do three workouts today and then we all
get credit. Yeah. Crap up. Well, I gotta leave now then,

(01:03:43):
because I won't be done until itcloses at ten. My goodness,
there's somebody that used to spend alot of time in the gym. That's
a lot of time in the gym. I'm going back to that four letter
words slow ah, gotcha. Well, it's the effort that counts when you're
hitting the gym. So good foryou, yep, and and and and
expanding podcasts. You know, onceagain, we're gonna look at ways to
make this uh more entertaining. Imean, well, now that I think

(01:04:06):
about it, the video part,there's Cisco and Drew. They probably have
filters that could take care of usgoing to the gym. Right, I
thought you were gonna say for thefour letter words, Well they have that
I know that, but but I'mjust saying we could. We don't have
to go to the gym. I'msure we could. Yeah, we could
all just become a v tubers wouldbe great. Yeah, there we go,
Cisco and just yeah, make Kevinlook buff. I need a lot

(01:04:29):
of help on that one. Multiplefilters. Oh. On that note,
thanks for listening to this edition ofthe I Racing Downship. Don't forget to
rate, review, and subscribe onApple Podcasts, Spotify and anywhere else Chris
decides to put this thing probably YouTubeand Twitched and feature as well, So
we'll be doing that for Kevin,Bob and Chris Leoni. I am Greg
West and we will see you onthe track.