This week on the I Racing down Ship, Greg Speed runs the podcast I
Racing Good. Hey, thanks for listening to Gyras heaven gets swollen buns out
gunsounds. Next episode, we're all wearing thank cop and Chris cites his sources.
Just go put that note in there, but I'm vouching for us.
All that plus special guests Doug Hunt, it's a strap in. Welcome to
I Racing Downship, Tommy host, Greg West. I'm back with the boys,
Kevin, Bobba and Chris Leoni. We got a great show for you
today. We talked about what's new and exciting and I rasing got some special
events, some special series. We talked a little bit about rain. We
brought on Doug Hunt, social media admin master and really jack of all trades
at I Racing. He's our staff interview for the day. And of course
we'll wrap it up with the esports as usual with NASCAR co Cole I Racing
Series, Porsche Tagle Esports Supercup and the NASCAR College I Racing Series. I
got all those right, Dang, dang, that's right. How are we
doing, guys? Good? Good? Just uh came off a big weekend
last weekend. I was at jill Ed Stadium for Supercross, and uh,
let me tell you the view from the press box, immaculate, great view.
You can also feel the Pyro through the press box. When it goes
off, it gets like ten degrees warmer for half a second. Sound a
little out of breath though, yeah, just a little bit. We were
running around, uh I, poor Cisco got his cardio in because we had
some uh last second tech issues that we were trying to compensate for. I
think we're all a little out of breath right now. If she used a
PC, yeah, maybe you should stop using that mac. Yeah, maybe
come over to LA. But he was actually doing some repairs to my tower
as we speak, So yeah, but that's going to come back and bite
you. He's doing a fantastic fixing whatever I broke. But yeah, Supercross
was great. I do want to give a shout out to Lee Diffy and
Ricky Carmichael for hanging out a bit. Lee and I go back to the
GRC days and Ricky was a key member of LCQ league and so we were
just kind of telling stories back and forth with one another about the things we'd
work together on. And I also found out I don't know how many people
know this, Kevin, I know you do. But one of the first
videos that we ever did here at I Racing explaining what the product was Lee
Diffy was the MC I remember it well. It was a fun project,
probably in two thousand and eight or nine ish. Yeah, I don't remember
exactly. We might have done it before we actually launched. It's possible,
I don't know. Is this like the circle time? Is that when you
were walking around also with a sign in the back of the speed TV?
Yeah, same time frame? You got time frame? Yeah, we have
time. We have that clip available, we have that twootage somewhere. Yeah.
Yeah, all right, Kevin. What have you been up to?
Well, a lot. I've been busy at I Racing. Lots going on,
but you don't care about that. I went to the Boston Marathon.
I did not run it. I cheered on a good friend and had an
amazing time. Boston Marathon is a cool event to go to. If you
haven't been to, definitely check it out, especially if you live in the
Boston area. I've also been doing a ton of push ups because you got
me on this one hundred push ups a day challenge. In fact, I
just did fifty of them while Chris was trying to sort out his tech issues,
so I'm a little bit winded. So yeah, so I'm ahead of
the head of the schedule because it's only two o'clock here. Usually I'm not
done that early, but appreciate the little motivation to get it done while Chris
was doing something. I don't know how long have we been doing this now
got to be close to too much. I just looked it up. I
think I've done seven thousand push ups since we started, so that's pretty good,
and a lot of push ups. Feeling it got gun show. I
feel like I'm ripped. Yeah, yeah, uns out, guns out.
Next next episode, we're all wearing tank tops. No, we're not.
We're not going to do that, absolutely, are you? Eighteen rating for
the show eighteen. Birdie told me you play some golf yesterday. I did
play some golf first time out. I had an awesome time, even though
I didn't play all that great, but it was super fun to get out
there and hit the balls into the woods. How many did you lose?
I lost two balls. I lost four. I had a bad bad first
outing. Me and the driver did not I did okay for the first like
six holes and then I then something kicked apart. Yeah, just fell apart.
I had a snowman. It's like, oh my gods around that.
As soon as you have a snowman in your round, you're done. Like
that. It's it's like, all right now, I'm just practicing now that
this round will not be a good one. Couldn't hit the driver, so
that that's that's tough if you're hitting your drivers not straight. Yeah, but
still good to get out there. It's all about you. What have you
been doing? Well, I've done a lot of push ups, I've done
a lot of a lot of a little bit of golf, been racing in
the sem a little bit. I just got done playing some exocross nice,
a little little playing the demo a little bit, familiarizing myself. So that
was that was a lot of fun. Looking forward to play test tomorrow that
spring. Cleaning around the house, a lot a lot of that going on
the purge. It's really sad, Yes, multiple nice. I need to
build some golf clubs. So yeah, all right, well let's get going
because I have a hard stop. We got to get through this, uh
this agenda items or outline that Chris put together. All right, well,
we'll make it real easy. I racing good. Hey, thanks for listening
to I forget all right, let's work down the drink. Well, let's
cruise through it a little bit. Here. We've got a great interview once
again with Doug Hunt, who's our our we're never in the Senate's title marketing
associate and social media manager. So we got a great interview with him that
it took a good bit of time. But let's get into what's new.
Season two twenty twenty four updates. We put out two new micro sprints.
Chris tell us about them. Oh yeah, so now we got four micro
sprints in total. We've got both winged and wingless versions of the one hundred
and twenty horsepower stock version and the one hundred and sixty horse power outlaw version.
They're all packaged together. If you already have the original models, you
got the new ones. They're these they're fun little cars to drive. They
work really well on these small quarter mile bull rings. You can race the
winged and the wingless stock versions at Rookie. They alternate every half hour,
and if you're looking for more of a challenge, you can go to Millbridge
and the Micro Showdown, which keeps the outlaw versions so you can race.
You can race micro sprints at least three times an hour if you really want
to. At the two different horsepower levels, they are a blast to drive.
I was looking at the stats. The one hundred and twenty horsepower version
that's at Rookie is exploding. Everybody is going in there and racing it.
It's so it is. It's a ton of fun. If you haven't had
an opportunity to get in there, it is. Uh, it's approachable.
I mean that's the thing. It's approachable. And it's I struggle with on
dirt ovals because I'm just trying to get the car around the track. I
really am. But this I feel like I can place it and I can
go racing versus go lapping. And so if you have a chance, go
go rip around and at that Rookie series, but also the one hundred and
sixty it's not bad either. It's not like going from the three oh five
to ten. It's just a little bit more pace. But both are all
four of them super approachable, and I once skin on. The outlaw is
at the Millbridge Micro Showdown that runs every forty five minutes and it's alternating between
the winged and the wingless every week. Oh see, what of the stuff
we got we added. We've added more rain tires we got, so we
added the GT three, their full lineup that races has, and we added
the Ford and the McLaren so you can see some rain happening in our GT
three races moving forward. And then we also launched AI for the SRX car,
just the pave tracks. Obviously we don't have it on dirt yet,
but that's a good time. And of course every clip I've seen is not
those cars racing at the tracks that they actually raced at, but going to
Daytona and Talladega, because that's what people do. So don't forget road courses.
They're fun on road courses. They are a fun road course car.
Yeah, just go put that note in there, but I'm vouching for his
note. Great road car. Moving on, we got special events. We
just had one of my favorites of the year, road America five hundred thrown
it back with the Nissan and the Audi ninety. These are not the biggest
hitter as far as you know participation, but the clips and the visuals of
these events are the ones that you will see played over and over and over
because they are so iconic. Still had, you know, over sixteen hundred
people racing, so it definitely was a good race, and we had a
good amount of staff. This is a fan favorite, staff favorite, Cisco,
You and Corey for the marketing team. You had a pretty good race.
Yeah, you can actually see us on screen there in our Audi that
we drove. But yeah, we had a good outing, finished second in
our class. After it was a long day for us because one of our
drivers ended up having a last minute going to have to start using paddles for
their throttle and brake pedal because their pedals broke. So that was fun.
So we had to go into sort of last minute oh no mode on that.
But that was me, Corey and one of our friends. And then
I think there's some more staff behind the wheel as well. Greg. Yeah,
justin Malilla, which Chris in his outline that's very well bulleted, by
the way, could job Chris props. This is one of the better formatting
jobs you've done. Although I don't I know Justin you didn't have to phonetically
spell out his last name. I like that hehonic spelling for us. Just
make sure, just making sure. But yeah, Justin finished fifth in the
Nissan, and then Nick Bailey they were racing, they finished third in the
OUTI. So yeah, we had a lot of staff participating, so that
was good. Next up, though, is a big one Nurburgering twenty four
coming up. I just made the post, but that's coming up May seventeenth
through nineteenth, depending on what time zone you're in. And this is the
biggest field of cars that we've ever had, and it's always difficult because so
many cars race around the ring to find we know, anything that I choose
or leave out, you know, it's gonna make somebody happy and make somebody
mad. But you know, having the opportunity to have twelve cars in there,
that's a huge improvement from even you know, a year or two ago.
Just made that post. You can find it in the forums. But
the the classes that are involved, of course, we got a wide variety
of GT threes, Porscha Cup cars, a staple GT four's, a couple
of TC this year, and of course Toyota grighty six, which is a
ball of fun around the ring. This is the question I made the post
four hours ago, and I bet I've got twenty five questions already will it
rain And the answer is no, because not all of the cars have re
entire yet, so this will be a dry event. It's hard enough to
get around the Nerve Ring, so you don't have to worry about that this
this season. But I'm sure looking into my crystal ball, I suspect it
will rain at the nrber Ring at some point in the future. I bet
it rained some points in twenty twenty four, just not for not for this
particular event, right, But yeah, it's super exciting. I'm getting the
notifications from the post already, so I'm curious who's mad about what? But
yeah, the most number of cars we've ever had, most manufacturer representation,
super excited about it. Let's go on. We also have not just special
events, our special series, Kevin, this one's near and dear to you,
BMW empowered to let's talk about it. Yeah, it's a great series,
fully supported by BMWM Motorsports, our friends and partners over there. We're
kind of rotating through all the BMW's that we have on the service, switching
up tracks where we this week. I think let's see if I can pronounce
it auser schlaban, Is that right? That's pretty good? Right in the
Z four, which is one of the most beloved BMW's we've ever built,
and if you talk to real world racers who have raced the various GT three
or g G E cars, many of them will say that was the coolest
one that the BMW built in recent times. So cool that that's back in
an official series and getting getting some love. You know again, BMW is
behind it, They're supporting it. They're going to have some cool prizes for
both the top drivers as well as some participants. I know we haven't announced
with those are, but they're going to be cool things, uh, things
that you can't get you know, normally. So they're gonna come up some
unique things like that. I can't get into exact details, but let your
mind go crazy with some ideas. It'll be something that you can't get any
anyplace else. So that's kind of neat. I got a sample of some
of those things you can't get anyplace else. I can't vouch it's cool,
excellent, So yeah, so more come on that. Yeah, yeah,
there we go. You thought I say about it. There's nothing to tease.
Oh, let's see what else we got Creventic. This is a really
cool series of partnership of the twenty four hour series. It's nice to you
know, kind of like work with BMW, working with people that just want
to do cool stuff. And we have these four races a year with just
kind of a mismash of cars. They are all twelve hour races and it
kicks off this weekend at Migello, so that one's exciting, but we also
the next four rounds. We're going to Massano November, We're going to Portamayo,
and then finishing off in December, fan favorite Spa. But it's great
to be able to put on these events for them, and we get a
lot from them as well. You can see our signage at all their races,
real world and lots of eye racing stickers on cars, and it's just
really cool partnership that's turned into I didn't realize how big of community events these
would be, so we're pretty excited about that. And then of course the
I Racing nerber Ring and Durance Championship Round two. It's going to kick off
the week before the twenty four hour of twenty four Hours, and you'll notice
the cars are identical, So what track are they What track are they using?
Masano? Sorry, oh I was ready for your dad joke fu Yeah,
I was ready for tried to get to Yeah, didn't make you stumble
low. Well, I'm here for it. Then. Last thing as far
as series go, this kick kicked off last week the I Racing rain Master.
It's kind of like the ring Master draft Master, a weekly challenge,
but instead the hook on this one. It's gonna rain. It's gonna rain
always, uh in the light, rain all the time. So if you
want to go in there, it follows the Ferrari Chi rain all the time.
It's not like getting wet or dryer. It's just rain, right,
It's just gonna be raining, like it's not torrential. You do not need
to, you know, get ready for a long fifteen minutes, just like
the Ferrari Challenge. It's just like the Ferrari Challenge, like the challenge,
except that's wet. Got it all right? You couldn't be more clear on
that. Six setups. You know, we've rain tires are default. That
is on. You just got to get in and try to keep it on
track. And it's been a lot of fun. I like, I like
going in and just watching those races. They're they're highly entertaining. All right,
well, let's get into our interview today once again, our pulls up
Notes. Marketing associate and social media manager Doug Hunt sat down with Kevin and
I. Oh about forty five minutes ago. We talked all things that is
social media on I Racing. So without further ado, let's talk to Doug
Hunt. All right, Kevin and I are back with a long awaited guest,
mister social media admin himself, mister Doug Doogie Hunt. Doug, welcome
to the show. Glad to have you. Welcome Doug, thanks for coming.
And it's not like you were voluntold that you would be on the show
or anything, but we appreciate you making time in your busy day between tweets
and posts and whatnot. So absolutely, you guys told me about it,
I think a week and a half ago, and I've been sweating from then
till now. So that's because you live in Orlando. That's why I'm sweating.
But let's let's jump right into this because there's there's a little bit of
rivalry, uh and some some some numbers rivalry. What did you tell us
about the the Alex Horn episode, which did really well for us. Yes,
I've I've heard that's the best episode so far, but I do have
the keys to the kingdom here, and uh my episode will go farther purely
based on how many times I'm going to retweet it. So I love it,
don't hate the player, hate the game. Yep. All right,
well let's get into it. So I'm following Chris, who's muted at the
moment while he's drinking his allegedly unsweet tea. But you know whatever, he
sent me an outline to go from on this and it starts with the usual
who are you and how did you end up here? Introduction? Thanks Chris,
you got my name. I'm Doug. I've been here for six and
a half years now, I think twenty seventeen October. I got here from
my mom finding the position on Indeed and sending it to me to apply too,
and I got across the finish line thanks to Kevin accepting me. So
did your mom drive you to the interview or she did not know, but
she did the legwork to get me to that, Like without her I would
not have the position. So who did your resume? Be honest. I
did. Okay, yeah, good, mom, edit it. There's nothing
wrong with that. You gotta have somebody at at your resume when it comes
to presentation stuff like words and all that. That's my specialty, not there.
So, like they've been, they've applied to jobs within the last seven
years. A few times I'm the one proof reading for them on everyone.
All right, yeah, very good on this. What's it like interviewing with
Kevin Bobbitt? It's already off the rails, by the way in case.
Yeah, it's really this was not on the outline. I feel like in
all the marketing calls we have, I'm kind of like the I would have
left field kind of person with my comments. So it fits the my script
at least, maybe not you guys a script. But so did he ask
you like how many tennis balls were in a seven forty seven or anything or
no? So that was very It was kind of boring actually. I mean
when I applied, it was a marketing associate position, very generic, don't
know what I'm going to do kind of thing, and it was a smaller
company so it was kind of going to do everything. So I think I
was running my My mom had an an Etsy shop, and I was running
her Instagram account and that was my proof of social media experience. What's that?
And Kevin was like, okay, that's good enough, so he took
a gamble. Uh yeah, I mean when you started, you were doing
a little bit of everything marketing. We were a marketing team of just a
couple of people at that point. So yeah, exactly, Hey we need
to figure this out, uh, doug can you help? And then we
went from there. I think Larry is still cleaning up some of my graphics
across the website. That's that's really really funny. I remember back prior to
uh US having a proper graphic design team to uh, Dougie's Dougie's graphics.
But now you've done it. You've done a bunch of stuff though you've been
over You've done a couple of trips over to Europe for UH the trade shows
and whatnot. You I've been in been at a BMW going around the northch
Life with you in the front seat, not driving. Thank god, we
made it so when all of us got scared to death, who's that?
Who's driving the jag Dale Dale? Yeah, one hundred and sixty two miles
an hour with no helmets on. Guys, easily the most irresponsible thing I've
ever done in my life, and Doug was there. I appreciate you letting
me have the front seat. It was also one of the most fun things
you could do. Yeah, that was pretty cool. It was. It
was fun. But you know, looking back on it, you know,
if you were to have a blow out, that would have been bad.
But the best part was trying to eat lunch right afterwards. Oh that was
bad and we were like, that's yeah, it's going to look at that.
No, thank you, no, thank you. All right, well
let's uh, let's keep on going down Chris's list here. So, Doug,
who are you when you're not being incredibly sarcastic and witty on on Twitter
and Facebook and everywhere else? You know, what's what's life outside of of
the I racing sphere? You have some interesting hobbies? Yeah, like you
said, I am down here in Florida now, So I punch out at
five and I'm in Magic Kingdom by five thirty. So how many days a
week? Every day, not every day, but pretty frequently. What do
you want to do all day in Magic Kingdom? Tell I've never been gone
I've gone almost every year since I was born. We've gone since we were
kids. But now that we live down here, A lot of the trips
back then we called the four park blitz. You've got a four day vacation
and you've got to get everything done one park a day. Now it's a
lot more casual. You kind of just go sit over there and people watch,
grab food and come back. You don't even go on rides or anything.
It's just the atmosphere hanging out. All right, Well, I guess
yeah, I've always done the blitz package. Yeah, go go, go,
go go and try to time up rides when everyth was at lunch or
when babies start crying at two pm, which is hilarious. Yeah, all
right, well let's keep on rolling through here. So this you have.
You have quite the reputation in the industry of being incredibly good at your job.
Now I hope you can fit to the door layer as we blow your
ego up here. But how did you develop this this persona, this voice
of I racing and social because you will engage with anything and and you're always
it seems like, at the cutting edge of trends before they actually happen.
So let's talk through your process and how you developed that that brand on on
social Well. I mean, the most important part of it, I would
say, to the detriment of my own health, is to consume an absurd
amount of social media to be on top of everything that's happening. So it
doesn't doesn't sleep at any point. So there's always something to be seeing and
always something to be doing. So even if I'm not posting, I'm still
making, yeah, lurking, finding memes, following trends, all that stuff,
putting it away for you said another time, So that that's probably the
most important piece, is always being on top of it. Other than that,
I don't know. I've always found that some of the motorsports industry is
kind of just scheduled posts, uh, put it up there, walk away
kind of thing. Uh. I feel like that doesn't get as much done
as you can if you're just there tuned into it constantly, uh, engaging
and commenting and and whatnot. So uh, I just lost my spot.
Sorry about that. You know, we're this is a really professional podcast.
We're really good at So how is how has it changed? You know since
we started? You kind of you're trying to touched on it there, but
let's expand a little bit. Uh, you know from the scheduled post and
now being like super on top of it and engaging. But how have you
how have you seen maybe your your style and your approach to social from day
one six years ago to now. Uh? You know what do you think
the biggest change has been? What is there's the growth been? You know
walking through that. I mean I would say there's nothing thing that has that
I was doing a year one that's stuck. Even if something's good and sticks,
I feel like you shouldn't do it too frequently, like you should just
constantly be changing. So I mean one thing that we kind of we I
say, like the video guys, because I don't make the videos, I
just you know, get them out there. We came up with the member
highlights and all that, which I always refer to as the go pro strategy,
which I mean, you guys know GoPro all of their marketing is videos
from their users using the product. They didn't go out and film anything.
So people send stuff in and then they show it off. So it's a
win win. It's we have like eyes everywhere because we people submitting stuff,
so we can post endless amounts of content and they get to be featured out
there, and I know a lot of them are very very excited to submit
stuff to Alex and Cole. So oh yeah, top top ten videos and
not top ten are are huge. Yep. Yeah, those are wildly popular.
They do very well on our channel, So we just stick to that
usually. Other than that, I try not to. For for for the
World of out Laws game, it was a little different, but for EE
Racing being a product, I feel like I don't push it as a product.
It's it's more about the community and the day to day happenings and how
we relate to the larger motorsports space more so than just hey, buy this
or whatever. It's like, I don't like that marketing strategy as much.
Uh, for the for the larger motorsports space, I find that we get
a lot of eyeballs just engaging with whether it's F one or NASCAR, any
of those series. Just as Coco Cocoa and Cam. She's on the ground,
she walked into frame whatever work. Yeah, she'll she'll probably start distracting
me at some point, which actually she already she already distracted. Here we
are all right, son, go off the rails again here, And I
know the answer to this, but I've always find it really interesting and it's
one of those like kind of things that people don't really understand. As I
mentioned earlier, you're very ahead of the game and you're not afraid to interact
with anything. How often do you have to like type it out, like
oh, and I have to walk it back yourself, or how often do
you feel like that you have to be rained back in by say Kevin or
Tony, like like where where how do you developed the line? Because you're
pretty progressive, like you will get in there and and shirp a little bit,
and I can add into this. I mean generally, I mean ninety
nine point nine percent of the time, it's just he just goes right.
And on the rare occasion, he'll send something to me and be like,
yeah, I don't know about this, and I'll usually we agree, or
on occasion I'll send something to him like dude, don't touch this, and
he's like, I know, I know, but I feel like I have
to just say it, you know, just yeah, to be right.
But I mean we're generally on the same page. I think Doug does I
mean he spends obviously he's more time with the community, more time on social
picking up all those trends like you talked about. But you have managed to
find that line and been pretty successful at that, and I don't think we've
crossed it too many times. Probably something didn't land right with somebody, but
nothing that was like a major crisis or anything like that. Right have you
met Internet people? Of course something didn't land right, But that's it,
you know, marketing one on one and listen an emotional response. Yeah,
but there is a line, right, Like it's one thing that like all
that I didn't think that was funny saying oh that was offensive, right,
and that's yeah, that's what. I don't know if I've ever ever gone
into a fence, it's a it's a it's like chess, like you got
to think five moods that moves ahead. I'm going to say this, what
are they going to say? Like? What? What's what are the next
four to be? Exactly? So even if we're like, say we have
a particular issue in the sim I I know that whatever I say is going
to be twisted into that or or another example. Facebook specifically loves dirt content,
so I post anything that's not dirt related, and they're going to twist
it into where is this dirt piece of content? So it's for a long
time it was like where's rain, Right, You'd post something about, you
know, the Nord's life, and then where's rain? You post something about
and there's always there's always been raining. So what you get one right now?
It's you don't want to say out loud, let's let's let's pull a
pin of the grnade. Come on. Well, so dirt, the dirt
community wants east Bay. Uh and that will not stop. That is just
non stop east Bay, East Bay, East Bay, east Bay. So
Tyler Hudson himself, he's bugging me, uh oh yeah, because you make
those decisions. Yeah, exactly. He seems every every time that. That's
another thing that's kind of funny. So on Facebook, I make the post,
Tyler will share the comments with me like I'm not seeing them in real
time. He's like, did you see this? Yes, Tyler, that's
my job. So that's actually my jobe that I wish somebody could see Chris's
face right now because he's dying. Oh my gosh, Cisco hit the button
there it is, Yes, but anyways to get back to the to get
back to the walking the line comment, I find that, first of all,
you can't really find the limit until you push it. So like I
have probably stepped over a few times. Yeah, it's exactly like racing,
uh, you know, minus the It's one thing to drop two wheels,
it's another thing to crash headfirst into a wall. Right, So it's okay,
you're looking for a one x, but not a four x to bring
it by I racing terms exactly. And so I found that you can push
some things pretty easily. I mean, again, I'm not doing anything that's
that's terrible, but you can get edgy with it sometimes. I would say
probably one of the one of the mistakes I've made that came back and hit
me in the face was there was a NASCAR race and it was might have
been Bowman, but Suarez took a bottle of water and threw it in Bowman's
face. And I think in that same race, but Suarez's car had caught
on fire. I remember this, So I was like, I basically said,
you should have saved that water for your car to put out the whatever,
and he snapped back with something I don't remember what it was. But
when he snapped back, the rest of the community snapped back because again it's
it's it's driver versus brand in that case, and and that like the brand,
I mean, the driver wins over brand. So I had to walk
it back, and I think I had found an image of Bart Simpson writing
on the chalkboard, you know, when they get punished. I said,
I will not antagonize Daniel Suarez over and over and over again. I managed
to walk out of that one. Yeah, but I bet if you're going
back now and look at the impressions, it was worth it. Yeah.
And that's the thing. I don't think we burned any bridges with Daniel.
It was just the heat of the moment kind of thing, and it got
some traction. So again, I don't mind being the butt of a joke
or pushing stuff like that. So did you hear right, Kevin? Kevin
uh consoled me pretty much. He saw he's not and he was like,
don't worry about it, don't worry about It's okay. So, so,
Doug, what what was what's been the most interesting day at at I Racing
taxi ride besides the neurburgering taxi ride. I think it's still related to neurburgering
that day. Yeah, so you want me to tell the whole story,
and like just yeah, we were at the SIM Racing Expo and it was
the last day and we were leaving. I don't know what time it was,
but and I don't know what time our flight was at. But we
had a rental car and no not this, and and Kevin was Kevin was
loading up the car with whatever we had, suitcases and just stuff, and
as he bent over to put something into the car, he heard a hissing
sound. So he looked down and the rental car is I think it was
right rear maybe was going down. Like no, so we don't, we
don't have to, you know, stick on whose fault it was for too
long. It was Greg's fault, but we kind of we can move on
past that and the rest of it. So uh. Anyways, we got
into a back and forth with the rental company and trying to get someone out
to you know, get us another tire, and for some reason, how
many hours later, I don't know, it was multiple, multiple hours,
they never showed up. They couldn't for some reason, they couldn't figure out
where the Nurburgring was in Germany. They were like, where are you guys.
We're at the Nurburgring, one of the most iconic places in Germany.
Uh So they never showed up. So we ended up having to go to
Plan B, which was called Will Vincent a race spot, to see if
he could bring us over to the airport in time. And he couldn't because
they were celebrating. They were celebrating. Yeah, they were celebrating the end
of the event. You know, they're over twenty one. They were having
a good time and definitely having a good time. But so Will asked around
the party to see if somebody could save us, and Mitchell de Young's father
happened to be there with Mitchell, and Mitchell's a rally cost driver, I
racer big just you know, sim racer. His dad volunteered. I don't
think we'll volunteer him, but he might. He might have also only been
the only sober one at the party. Who knows the three of us were
sober. Phone, Yes, we were sober. We were. We were
there on a work trip, so we were. That's not anyways, he
can this up drove us, however long it takes from the neurbour Green wo
hours each way. Yeah, at this point it was what time was it
we were at we were at the airport. It was very late. So
we took a nap in our hotel room. Yep. Yeah, So we
got to got to the airport, caught the flight and made it out.
Thank you to uh Mitchell de Young's father, which I think we did something
for him, right, thank you, thank you. I think we sent
him something something nice, so credit something like that. Yeah, yeah,
yeah, I can. I can add to this story a little bit.
The rental car company because the hole was in the sidewalk because I scuffed a
curb, so I parked and uh the we ended up having to leave the
rental car there because they wouldn't come and get us. They said they drove
by. There was nobody on this road. Nobody drove by. They said
they drove by twice. Actually, So we left the rental car, locked
the keys in it and my sunglasses, my brand new Oakleys, as we
discovered, and I took a picture and dropped the pin and sent it to
the rental car company. So I was like, we have to go catch
a flight. And they were convinced that we had taken the car around the
nurbur Ring. Yeah, and forgot a lot of really mean letter which we
did not, which we did not did not. It was, it was,
but it wasn't in that car. Yeah, it probably would have been
less embarrassing to explain that you you know, actually took it out on track
instead of just yeah, I nicked the curb on the way to put some
suitcases in the trunk or whatever. But well, they found every every scratch
on that car and everything, and we should have taken around for as much
as it ended up costing, because yeah, that was a fun phone call
it Tony Gardner. Hey, Tony, if you're listening, appreciate it.
Yeah that was a five figure tire. Oh good times. I forgot.
I didn't forget about that. But of all the things I thought we were
going to talk about on this episode, that was not on my BEINGO a
good one. It's come up a couple of times on this podcast. I
enjoy it. I'm gonna tell a hazelut water story someday. Okay, well
maybe we should have them on as guests. Yeah, now that's a good
idea. There you goick, But all right, we're gonna gip ahead a
little bit, but uh, I guess you know, let's let's circle around
the whole thing. You know, you've been here what almost like six years.
You know, how would you say your role has developed? I mean
we've kind of touched on a little bit, but you know, you do
you do much more than just the social media. You're involved. You got
your hands on a lot of things. You know, kind of talk about
how how you've grown within I raising you know, the opportunity set that that
has been you know, laid in front of it. Yes, I mean,
obviously Irish social media is the most forward facing stuff that I do.
But I mean when I when I started, I was doing graphics. I
was doing we were going to the trade shows. I think within two weeks
of being hired, we were over at Vegas for Seema. Uh we did
we did packs one year. I designed the booths for that. We had
a Twitch Rivals event a couple of weeks ago. I organized and set up
that. Getting out creators, Yeah, that was pretty fun in the rain,
but just working with the content creators there, there's lots of lots of
calls with partners and manufacturers and making sure they get what they need and it's
a lot of you know, right hand man stuff for Kevin pretty much.
So making sure on social too isn't just making posts, right, I mean
you're pulling reports and we're looking at data, what posts work? What?
Don't you know? Things like that. I mean it sounds probably more fun
than I mean, I think you enjoy what you do, but there is
some other stuff to it as well, right, I mean, just just
like people say to me, oh, you just work for a video game
company, well sort of, but it still work. You know, there's
a lot of work, and there's still stuff that goes on. You know,
still have goals and objectives and projects and trials and tribulations and all that.
So there's lots of numbers and analytics and reports and all that. But
I mean they've only gone up in the seven years, so's they're always fun
to look at. They're always higher. Not to brag or anything, but
I got I got one last one for you here, because you know,
getting into working in the subject matter, you know, working in video games
and whatnot, or you know, becoming a content creator an influencer, you
know, working in social for any company, let alone something like that.
We do. Uh, there's a lot of interest in that. What advice
would you give to somebody, say, maybe in high school or maybe in
college, if this is something that they wanted to pursue, you know of
the you know, the school of hard knocks that you've gone through. What
advice would you give to those those people that are considering this type of role
our career. I mean, the most important thing, I guess is just
following it, like the if you've got a particular game that you like,
or I mean again, it applies to sports in the real world too.
Everybody wants to grow up to be a baseball player or whatever, but there's
so many positions beyond that, like behind the company, Like you're not gonna
you might not be an esports superstar, but you could be the person creating
the esports or whatever. It's it's I mean what I did. I got
my business degree with the concentration in marketing and a little bit of photoshop skills
on the side one of the classes that I took, and then other than
that it was just applied to Kevin hired me. I don't know, I'm
not sy, but you weren't. I mean, to be fair, you
were doing esports stuff weren't you working for Yeah, so Draft Kings or something
you were doing? My what was that job? My final year of college,
I actually found a position at Draft Kings doing data coordination for the League
of Legends component of it or whatever, which was literally just staying up at
three am watching the Chinese League of Legends series and coordinating the data and collecting
on all that. But there's so many positions out there that like like that
that are I mean, so that was essentially an entry level position, but
I was able to you know, snowball that, and snowball that and snowball
that. Before that, I was writing for Team Dignitas, which was an
esports team. I was just writing articles for them that wasn't even paid.
But again, part of that snowball, just getting it rolling, just getting
your foot in the door. Again. Networking is a big thing, obviously,
going to these conventions and expos and all that, and meeting people that
are in the industry already, whether it's someone like me or someone like way
more important than me. But I remember that there's nobody more important than you,
Doug, come on, thank you, thank you. But yeah,
I remember talking to people and trying to like get my foot in the door.
Again, that's the biggest thing, is just getting your foot in the
door. But you got to start small, and not that I'm not big
in any sense of it, but I've managed to stick. I've got both
feet in the door now. So yeah, you've made a career of it,
right, Yeah, exactly for seven years or whatever. So yep,
hopefully you'll stick around for seven more. You've got me for life probably,
Kevin probably probably in there just in case. But it's a very, very
very fun company to work for. I think Steve had a tweet the other
day about who's someone's retiring, and he was just talking about the one person's
retired, first person ever retired from just the longevity of it, Like I
I can't think that. I don't think I could count on it, uh
more than one hand, the amount of people that have left, Like you're
here and then you stay because it's just such an awesome company. So yeah,
yeah, hopefully Tony hears that one too. We'll give him the time
stamp to listen to that. Yeah for sure. Actually, Tony's an avid
listener to the podcast. He always comments and sends me notes afterwards. He's
like, oh, I don't know what he has time for. It must
be in his commute or something. Yeah, he absolutely listens. He's one
of our four fans or five. He's number five, I think number five.
All Right, I have not mom, Sorry, I was gonna say,
I was gonna say I have not listened through an episode all the way
through. Well, now you're going to have to. Now you have to
just to hear myself talk again. Yes, absolutely, that's the worst part
of it. I hate listening to myself. That's not that you guys do
a bad job. I just listened to you guys enough, like throughout the
throughout the week and all the meetings there. Yeah. Yeah, you're in
the marketing call. Yeah, that's like the length. Pretty not much know
what we're going to talk about other than yeah. Yeah, Well, Doug,
thanks for taking the time. We appreciate it. Now go make this
episode bigger than Alex's Alex if you're listening, sorry, and uh. On
that note, let's get back to the show. Always good to sit down
with staff. I think Doug has made it his personal mission if if you
didn't notice during the interview, to make this the biggest episode ever. Chris
is cracking up again. Yeah, Well, can I just say I'm glad
that the Vince de Young story got in there because I worked with Vince for
the decade and he's one of my favorite people on the planet. And I'm
so glad that he bailed you guys out to get you guys to the airport.
Well, he definitely we were in we're in a little bit of a
pickle, and yeah, and that things like I get reminded of that story
a couple times a year in opportune times, like on a broadcast. Moving
on though, more news at I Racing. I know this because it says
more news and Chris as well bulleted outline here I Racing one oh one,
very similar to what we just did with Doug. Chris, let's talk about
it. What what is I Racing one on one? And what's kind of
the goals of it. Yeah. So we've actually got two sort of more
evergreen news pieces going on. I Racing one on one is the one that
I'm leading, and we're doing staff interviews that Justin Millillo was handling for one
on one. We're trying to delve in a little more on some of the
things that you or I are probably most of the people listening to the show
probably just know innately because they've been on IRA Racing for quite some time.
You know, if I say the initialism inis, you probably know exactly what
I'm talking about. But if you just signed up in the past year,
you might have no idea how the NASCAR I Racing series works. So we're
trying to talk about things like that. We're talking about ranked versus un Ranked
racing, will profile some of the special events, etc. Etc. And
so those will go up on every Thursday. By the time the show is
coming out, I've just got another one on one out and then alternating weeks
with staff interviews. Justin just profiled Jake Puhlan, who is one of his
co admins in his league FtF. So that was a nice and easy one
to kick it off with. And Jake has a really interesting background. You
know, he's one of those people who really came into I racing just from
developing a skill set in previous SIM racing titles and was a big eye racer,
and you know, just one of those people who we kind of hired
based on their experience working with and SIM racing titles, just kind of having
fun. Excellent. Oh it's a I think it's a really good a really
good series. I know what kind of your lineup, and I'm excited for
people to read more about it. But you're right, you're one hundred percent
right that sometimes we have normalized the nomenclature and what is I racing? And
well, with a you know, over two hundred and sixty thousand active members,
there are probably a few new faces that may not know what we're talking.
So good to get that information out there. Now. Kevin has a
meeting in seven and a half minutes, so we are gonna we're gonna breeze
through here a little bit. Let's go to E Sports. Sorry Cisco skipping
ahead on the outline on you again, But NASCAR Coca Cola EE Racing Series,
h it says, now into this second segment of the season with Chris
so. Yeah. So the regular season in the E NASCAR Coca Cola I
Racing Series is now broken up into three segments. They're all four to five
races. There's a special bonus if you're the top point scorer in any of
those given segments, you get a nice little cash bonus. You get some
playoff points. Casey kerwin the former series champion. He won the first segment
of the season, so he's got a nice little cushion if he makes it
into the playoffs. I Racing dot Com slash e NASCAR has all your coverage,
including this week's race at Dover. Justin's got those previews and those recaps
on points, so if you need the latest standings, points, et cetera,
check it out. Check it out. Also Porscha tag here E Sports
Super Cup Kevin Sebastian Joe winning his second championship at Monza and clearing up pretty
big check in the process. Yeah, fifty thousand dollars to him. He
had a pretty dominant season. I mean, there were some other good performances,
but he deserved that championship. Also won the pole award, so he's
going to get a nice watch from the sponsor, tag Hoyer, which is
awesome. Also had a great, great participation in the All Star Race,
which has a bunch of streamers, influencers, and the top finishers in there
also get a cool prize from Tag Hoyer, which I assume is a watch,
but we'll see. But yeah, great season. It was a little
shorter, a little bit more condensed, but we added mixed things up.
We put a tournament in the middle. We had double points on the on
the finale or extra points anyway, so it spiced things up. It was
fun. I think it was the most exciting season to date. So congrats
to everybody that competed in it. You know, there it's a I know
those guys put a ton of time and effort and practice, and you know
there can only be one champion. But but hats off to everybody that made
the series and participated all season long. So awesome job there. And that's
not the only only ones we have going on. We also have the e
NASCAR College I Racing Series, right Chris yep, And so this is also
about to wrap up the first eight rounds of the season. And this was
the first season where we combined the fall in the spring semesters like a full
year of college, rather than splitting them up. Logan Klampett took the victory
at nash Bill and didn't have time to review the stat before the show,
but I think Logan may be the first driver to win for multiple colleges in
the series. Cisco, I might have to have you fact check me on
that after the fact. Did he enter the portal. Yea, yeah,
he entered, he entered the portal. Oh Man, portals everywhere, Yeah,
portals everywhere. But now works is the top twenty five drivers who did
those first eight races in the points championship, they're the only ones who get
invited to the finale. So the finale's going to take us to Homestead,
which my favorite oval on the sim for what it's worth, Friday, May
third, eight pm Eastern, those twenty five drivers are going to go for
a championship, sixty thousand dollars in total in collegiate scholarships on the line.
So not a bad little extracurricular activity when you're in a school. Huh.
I can think of worst ways to spend my time. Yeah, I'm just
watching the highlights of Cisco put on screen there and that's driving through that mess
on the super Speedway. That is uh is a wild increased my anxiety just
watching. Well, thanks for listening to this episode of the I Racing down
Shift. Don't forget to rate, review, and subscribe on Apple Podcasts,
Spotify and anywhere else. Chris has put this thing. Kevin Bobbit, Chris
Leoni, I am Greg West oh and Cisco and Sean and Drew and everybody
else in the in the truck also known as the studio or whatever, it's
virtual truck, the virtual truck. Kevin's Mike sounds like poop all of a
sudden, but anyway, Yeah, don't forget to rate, review, and
subscribe, Apple Podcasts, Spotify, anywhere else. Chris puts this thing.
I think I already said that wants me. Who cares? We're not good
at this? Thanks for listening to the podcast. Let's get out of here.