This week on the Eye Racing down Shift, we resolve our Thanksgiving Toby,
it was not good. It was bad and you admitted it. Talk about
the content in the twenty twenty three season one build, Well, the damage
models fantastic on the car. I can tell you that. And Cisco tells
us how to say his last name Scarf. All this and more, it's
a strap in. Welcome to that racing damn shift up here. He's Greg
West. I'thing back of the boys, Kevin Boba and Chris Leone. We
have a great show for you. Have bet you didn't know that was coming.
We're gonna talk about the twenty twenty three season one build. Lots of
stuff to go through and that. We have a great interview with one of
our broadcasters, Cisco s Let leave it exactly. So we're gonna talk about
the world of World of Outlaws, Sprint Car Series and NASCAR International and Contender
series that are going on right now. How are you doing boys? Excellent?
You have a hat on it? Are you cold? It's cold in
my house And Laura gets home from work and she's like, why is the
heat up so high? So now I've decided to be cheap and just wear
a hat so no hair head gets cold. Whatever. You know, it's
a nice hat though. Is that from Iceland? It's from Iceland. I
recognize the sixty six degrees north I have. I have a sweatshirt. A
lovely place to visit if you've never been. I know this is not a
travel podcast, but I really enjoy going through Iceland a couple of days there
months. It's lovely. Oh missus Leonie, now that I've correct you have,
how are you doing hanging in there? Um? Got the beard?
We got to talk about the beard. Kevin's got the hat on because his
head's cold. You've got you're growing out really like jealous almost. I mean
it's not long, but it's it's not nasty sort of beard. You know,
it's like a beer three c's thick. This is the longest I've had
it since about twenty thirteen, one of those Red Sox World Series wins.
I just had it and it just it looked like a neck afro. Like
I just bothered grooming it at all, because you know, the whole team
was doing the whole beard thing, and I'm like, what the hell?
And I just walk into bars and get free drinks because they're like, that
guy's beard is huge, give him a beer. This is before you met
Emily. It wasn't it. This was not before I met Emily, and
somehow she's stuck with me. Wow ah, well you know, you know,
all right, Well let's uh, let's get into it. Twenty twenty
three Season one build. We had a lot of stuff that came out last
week. A ton of fun during week thirteen, trying out all the content,
watching all of the streams, watching Kevin Bobba get put into the pen
insinuator. We'll talk about that later in the show. Yep, that's coming
up again. But Kevin, let's talk about it's one of the big pieces
of content. A great relationship led to a great opportunity. BMW M Hybrid
V eight. Yeah. What a great car, right, our first GTP
car. It's a new class of cars, you know, going to be
running all around the world and it's I mean, the car is amazing.
You know. We we we've talked about it before. We have this great
relationship with BMW Motorsports. We built them or GT three while they were developing
the car. We kind of built it alongside that. A similar process with
this car so we've had early access to it, right, and they've been
testing the car for months. We've been attending tests, we've been capturing sound,
all kinds of stuff, and it's been great. I've driven it a
few times. Actually, the first time I drove it, because I didn't
do any testing on it, was at BMWM Motorsports headquarters a week and a
half ago when we were over in Germany. Greg, how cool is that?
And I mean they have they have three sims set up right in their
main lobby of the facility and I racings running on it. That's pretty awesome.
Yeah, that was It's pretty cool. They also showed us some other
stuff behind the scenes that we're not going to talk about, but just suffice
it to say it was cool. So it's a it's a cool place.
It's a cool place. But yeah, great partnership with BMW. They seem
to be super excited about it. Um and you know, like Greg said,
we a few staff members got together last night, which was the first
official IMSA race with seven five Eastern times something like that. And uh,
I wasn't in the same split as most of the guys because their eye ratings
a little higher. But my race lasted exactly U nine tenths of a laugh
where I got put into the what whatever happened? Kevin? Please tell us
about it? Well? Well, the damage models fantastic on the car.
I can tell you that part everywhere. Um, but no, it was
still super fun. I'll get that EE rating back someday. You know,
it happens. What are you gonna do? Yeah, a really great opportunity
to debut the car. We actually got to debut the car at the SIM
Racing Expo. We partnered up with BMW and Fantotech allowed us to use their
booth. Thank you to fan Attech and Saturday of the expo we debuted the
BMW M A Hybrid or M Hybrid V eight at Daytona and we also debuted
something we'll talk about in just a moment, the Toyota GR eighty six at
Magny Corps. So that was a really cool one day only. Uh,
it was a highlight. A lot of people loved it. It was pretty
neat to get members and prospective members uh an early look at it, you
know it was. It was funny to watch the crowd that was in the
Fantotech booth when when we were debuting it and I mean it was a huge
crowd. Then all of a sudden, one of these pedal manufacturers on the
other side of the expo hall, they had a LMP three there that they
fought would fire up. And I'm sure this broke so many rule laws,
city ordinances, whatever, And that thing was loud, and you could just
watch everybody in the entire expo leave and head Overton and watch this race car
get fired up. So the only thing that could pull people away from trying
the UH the the BMW in person was you know, real race car firing
up. That was kind of cool. Yeah, absolutely, So another new
piece of content we have the UH Mercedes Mercedes Amge Performance W thirteen. Chris
did not write the whole name out in the outline, and I hold you
personally accountable for that, but I think it got the name right anyway.
Yet thirteen. That's out right race winning car. Super cool. Because I
can't drive Formula One cars. I have not that they're too fast for me.
I mean the BMW is plenty fast, um, but I don't have
you raised the thirteen yet. I have raced it. I have done a
significant amount of lapse, not nearly as much as the likes of some of
our vpa's Christian Brian who I remember when they were doing the hard tire runs
on that car. A hard tire run takes an hour and a half and
if they go off the track or they put it in the wall, they
have to start over. And those take me six days. Oh well if
not wrong, and takes anybody a lot of time because you just can't mess
up. But you have to be able to run the tires down to zero.
We have to know, I mean, that's the you know kind of
the happens, right yea. And working with the likes of Mercedes and their
their engineers and their test drivers Anthony Davison was involved. Well, um,
the real question is, Chris, have you taken this car on a rally
cross track yet? Because I know that's the first thing you do. No,
Um, I no, not yeah, not yet. I'm not.
I do a lot of ridiculous bizarre things in the sim is what I know.
As anyone talk to me out running the all wheel drive roof at night
recently can attest to um because it's got headlights. But no, have not
taken the Mercedes AMGW thirteen E Performance yet on a rally cross. I flipped
the E Performance. I might have flipped the performance, I don't know.
And we'll fix it in post probably probably, But no, um, you
want me to take it on a rally cross track first, or or a
short course track? How do we how do we do with the service changes?
I think it needs a this car climb Mount Washington sticker on the on
the rear wing that goal. It will It will take me forty seven minutes
because they'll probably drive it three miles an hour. But I'll go do it.
We'll get there, get all right, Yeah, I'll go get the
free sticker link in the description below. Yes, now, but a really
cool car. Excited to uh to have that back with the both the fixed
and the open set up series, Uh, just really nice participation. Last
year a lot of people were asking me at the Sin Racing Expo is the
Grand Prix Tour? Um gonna are going to be back? And and yes,
yes, yes it will be. That's the NIS styled series right,
so full three hundred five kilometer race links, Um we do. It's spaced
out over eight or nine or ten months or something. Ye, all of
us the real world schedule as close as we can yeah, I believe we
run with the four time slots each day. You got fixed racing on Friday
or Thursday, open racing on Friday, fixed racing on Saturday, open racing
on Sunday. So, uh, plenty of opportunities to go racing in that
car. Expecting a lot of splits, just like last year. And uh
yeah, I'm just excited to see the racing that that that car brings along.
It's a it is a different animal. For those that don't know,
this was not a rees skin. Contrary to some some threads I saw in
the forums, this was a ground up rebuild of this car, completely new
rule sets, new aerodynamic concepts, this thing that relies a lot ground effect,
and I mean, I don't think this wasn't a Look what you see
Formula Fun teams do in the middle of the season where they bring in a
new widget here or there. The rules completely changed between years. So this
car has a whole new setispects, whole new setispects. I mean, they
both have carbon fiber in them, and they both have wheels, and that's
about The tires are different. The tires are different, but they have four
wheels. Yeah, you know, so no great car if you haven't got
it, get out there and try it. A ton of fun, even
like solo hot lapping is a fun in that car because it's just, you
know that way you feel like you're fast, you know, because if you
get in, you know the top split. Not that I could ever make
the tops, but you're not fast. But if you do it by yourself,
it's like, oh, I'm moving. Some of these guys can flat
out fly, that's for sure, speaking of things that don't flat out fly.
In fact, kind of slow, but it's good racing and a lot
of fun. Kevin Toyota GR eighty six the cup car spec racing out its
finest. I mean, we love it. We've had some such great luck
with the Master for years, right, and it's so popular And obviously it's
popular partly because it's the rookie car and people drive it, but people keep
coming back to if you're going to a Master race for the last three years,
it's full of every license level even though it's a rookie car, and
I expect you're going to see the same for the g R eighty six.
Similar series in terms of spec carum not too complicated to set up. There's
not a whole lot of options, right, Greig, and what you can
do to it. Um, we do have a guide coming by the way,
so that'll be out hopefully this week. Maybe shout out to Miguel you
actually listen to this. But yeah, well there will be a guide for
the basic set up things. But I expect this is going to be heavily
raced and lots of splits and all that, which is what that's I racing
out. It's best when you get in the right split, when you're in
with similarly skilled people. It makes the experience so much better. Yeah,
So we basically took the format of the Skippy at the D level and we
just copied the format with fenders. So for the first season actually runs on
seven free tracks. We just want people racing. This thing's a ton of
fun. The car is included in the base package. It is free,
does not cost you anything side up for I Racing, Go Racing gr eighty
six. You can also race it in the sim Lab Production Car Challenge.
You get a little multi class action out of it, open setups in that
series, a little bit longer races, and just an absolute ball of fun.
So I honestly I've heard more people say that it's the best car on
the service than anything we put out a long time. There's people are really
enjoying it. It's predictable, it does what you think it's going to do
when you turn the wheel, and that's that's I mean, I think the
greatest compliment you can give to a car in sim racing. So we also
have some new track content that came out Kevin Magney Core makes its debut on
Eye Racing. Yeah, another kind of Tier one track that uh helps us
uh kind of fill out that that that niche of tracks that that people are
looking for. Um, I actually need to practice more because I'm still learning
it. It's been a while since I've been on that track. Um,
but I think do we have them ZIMPSA go there. I don't know you
did the schedule zimps go there? This year? Our hims to schedule not
real him so obviously, yeah, something's going there. I'm still making that
announcement. Nim is going to eropean sprint series one of those two they'll be
there, will be multi classroom, be able to drive there. So that's
your car, now, isn't it? Is? That is a car for
now? Yeah, have you put a pain on it? I did,
but I didn't load it properly yesterday. Maybe that's why we uh, why
it ended in disaster. I didn't have the right paint apparently. Yeah,
that's probably it. All Right, we're gonna throw o a Chris because we're
gonna talk about something that goes on dirt. Chris Lincoln coming to I raising
another great track. I love how even though dirt oval isn't really my thing,
I've become the de facto guy. Yeah, Lincoln Speedway yet another of
the top tier Pennsylvania tracks that the sprint cars and the dirt late model that
they all visit where the action is the attraction, and you know that with
a slogan like that, they're gonna live up to it. Decades and decades
of racing history, even NASCAR way back in the day. But a staple
of the World of Outlaws schedule and so crucial, so cool to be included
that. We'll get to the eye racing World of Outlaws car Quest Sprint Car
Series a little later. But we actually made a midseason schedule change to throw
this track in show it off three eighths of a mile, you know,
wheel to wheel banging. It's going to be a lot of fun to watch
the pros go to go to work on that track. But certainly for all
of the dirt oval lifers that we've gotten the service, I think they're gonna
have a ton of fun with it too. Hey, we'll talk more about
the world of Outlaw Sprint car series here in just a bit, but we're
not done with content. There's more stuff that came out so or some adjustments.
Now this is dirt road stuff. I'm gonna give this one back to
Chris. Something happened with wild West Free. We finally have our first free
short course off road track. For those of you who have never tried the
full on off road tracks, you have one. Now. It's not the
same thing as rally cross. There are different rule sets. There's no joker
lap in short course racing. We did this one of the things that I've
kind of pushed for internally. What kind of There was a meeting with Dave
Kimmer. Yes there was. After years and years, I wore all of
you poorer colleagues of mine down long enough to get over an hour meeting where
you know, we talked through a lot of things, but the biggest point
that I kept coming back to was we need to try to start getting the
pro two light off rally cross tracks because it's just made the car and the
track are made to do something different. We need to get that vehicle back
in its natural habitat to get people learning as quickly as they can, and
you start boosting participation and make it easier time and as much fun as we
can for everybody. So, with wild West being one of the oldest tracks
that we've gotten the service and unfortunately no longer active in the real world,
you know, we decided we're going to move this to free It's going to
be a staple of that rookie pro to Light series. It's going to be
a great place to learn, a great place to kind of get adjusted to
those if you haven't done the off road truck racing in quite a while,
or you've never done it because you haven't had the track. Now is the
perfect opportunity. Would love to see as many people as we can see on
wild West. It sounded like some of the mixed class races that we're on
it during Week thirteen, we're just absolutely bumping. So I'm hoping, I'm
hoping we can keep that up and hopefully gets more people to fall in love
with it. I might have to show and go a race there actually after
this. I've forgot that's there this week, so yeah, that might happen.
Uh well, running Matt Washington with the F one car. I'm not
doing that. Not doing that, nope. Uh But once again speaking of
content, but that's not all. Yes, the boat Wait, there's more
so another one of the things that was a lot of fun on this one.
Uh, Seabring got a complete art update. It's not the new scan
but one of the older tracks in the service. As far as art assets
got completely revisited. There's even three defensing on the front stretch. It is
a totally new experience. As far as driving the cars there. I did
some running there in the in the the the BMW GCP just to kind of
get a get a feel for it, and it just really comes alive,
especially in VR. You really feel like you're there. So really excited about
that. Um, we'll obviously talk more about that in March when the Seabring
specially event uh comes to EE Racing and then you're have an announced yet Actually,
just did I feel personally attacked? Hey, this is why they need
to listen to the show because we dropped news there. We go. Okay,
if if people were if there was any question whether we're gonna have another
race at Sebring, they're not familiar with the service, that's for sure,
everybody. Kevin Pitt intinuator, Bobbitt. That's PI over here, not KB,
that's PI. Another piece content that got an art up date to Ford
five s from the Similab Production Card Challenge. It got the treatment that we've
given to things like the Skippy or the Lotus seventy nine got it recently,
but this time it's the Ford and it looks delightful, I think, and
I think Matt Malone is probably the most excited about this out of anybody.
He's the biggest Mustang driver that I know so well. It's a ton of
fun. It's an h pattern, not a lot of those left on the
service, but it's a good time. And the similar Production Car Challenge,
I think is the fifth most popular series in all of my racing. If
you're wanting big fields and a ton of people to race with in variety,
go run that series. There's a It's just it's just a lot of fun
and Obviously we have a formula there that works, so stick with what works.
Then we got all kinds of other stuff, lots of AI editions,
right, Chris, I mean I should probably know this better than I do,
but I don't. Yeah, we were on that AI thread with Alexander's
over email, just unlocking as much as we could, and a couple of
things we won't mention that we're just holding off to perfect. But god,
there was a lot, starting with that newly revised Ford Mustang FR five hundred
s, the all new GR eighty six, the all new BMW LMDh,
the long owated nineteen eighty seven NASCAR cop series, which thrilled a out personally.
I've been waiting for that one for a long time. The paint tacks
on trading paints for that. The rosters are awesome. If oh, I
know, I have had a rating set that I did the longest time ago,
just waiting for this, And one of the things I'm going to be
doing over the holidays is finally building out my own rating set and seeing how
it works with those. I am pumped, but also load of seventy nine,
which we also just mentioned as having had a recent art update. And
then finally the Legends car. Yes that I've been waiting for those quarter mile
ovals and well and I was case. I think it's a third mile in
the infield, but a lot of those getting unlocked. Some new layouts at
Roade America, Nerburgring, Donnington, barber Brand, you know, Interlagos,
you name it, Nerburgering. I think it's one of the more understated things
in the build. We have all of the wayouts of the North Life are
now available for AI. It's not we think we just had the the long
version or the was it the vel In we had one unlocked and now they're
all there, so you could go and race with the the AI cars to
your heart content on the Green Hell, and it is a lot of fun.
Speaking of the Green Hell, though, a new way to learn tracks
that are difficult like the Green Hell, Active Reset comes to I Racing.
This was a really cool feature that allows you to repeat different sections of the
track that you decide on whether they're going to be Um, yeah, it's
it's perfect right, even I can learn it. And so maybe if we
bring back Thrown Go challenge, I'll have a chance. Maybe maybe you could
beat me. Finally, Yeah, is that why we act that segment from
this pot one I got my butt kicked. Oh but active reset a really
cool feature going to your controls options. Check it out. There is a
video on YouTube on how to use it. I believe our video that Cole
and Cisco worked on right, it's fantastic, um, so check it out.
It explains it really well. And that's a really good segue to our
guest today, Cisco s As as we were referring to him today because his
last name is uses almost all of the letters of the alphabet. It's very
close. But uh yeah, Cisco from our broadcasting team is joining us.
Set down with Kevin and I about twenty five minutes ago to talk about all
things broadcasting on I Racing a lot of fun. Cisco is hilarious. Also,
he did show up Kevin and I though he used the fancy microphone and
he did have a nice micro so yeah, so when he uses his radio
voice and sounds way better than Kevin and I, just remember it was the
microphone. It's always the equipment, just like some racing equipment yesterday was not
my skills. It was definitely the equipment. Yep. So without further ado
Cisco S. All right, Kevin and I are back. We're pretty excited
today. We're continuing this trend of interviewing staff members who you probably know or
you know their voice or something that they did that's notable within the iRacing service,
and Kevin today is no exception. That's true, it's no exception.
Was that that was the the handoff? Yeah? That was that was the
handoff. But I pointed at you and you're not ed. I shouldn't multitask
do email dan podcasts at the same time. This is what happens all the
time. Can wait, Tony if you maybe answer him? So anyway,
we have Cisco, Cisco S, we have Cisco S. Nobody in this
company knows how to pronounce his last name. Greg and I had a pre
meeting before recording this podcast to try to decide on how to pronounce his name.
He's only worked for us for three years. Yeah, three years.
Yeah, So we have with us today Cisco S, HEI Cisco Hey,
Greg, how you doing. I'm well, So would you like to tell
the viewers at home how to pronounce your last name? A? Yeah,
So there's normally two popular versions. It's either scare a musa or Scaramuza.
But it is in fact Scaramuza. I don't know where the e comes from,
but yeah Scar move zo. Okay, gotcha? Yeah yeah, yeah
there, yeah, there you go here. At least I'm not as bad
as Corey. Let's be fair. Good luck with that one. Yeah,
well he's bigger than you in behind you, so I don't think he has
vows in his name. Right. That's the problem is why considered a vol
at this point? That depends in wordles sometimes sometimes I haven't done wordle today.
I mean, that's what I should do it in the podcast. I
got it into today, just so we know, very excited, humble brag
because he looked over with Laura. All right, this assisted Kevin was I
don't even know what to say. Was Laura involved in this or I like
this interviewing Kevin with sis. I thought you were the guests. No,
no, no, quit deflecting. All right, let's talk about Cisco.
Yes, Cisco is a member of our broadcast team. He's a long time
member of I Racing. He's been broadcasting races for for Eye Racing and on
I Racing for longer than I've known him, which is a while. Now
A long time. Yeah, a long time. So let's get into it.
Let's get through your history here first of all. Actually, let's talk
about what you do at I Racing right now, Um, and putting up
with Drew is not officially in part of your job title, right, No,
because that's part of my daily life too. Now. Oh yeah,
because you guys are roommates, yes, and there ms glutton for punishment,
yeah, just begging for it. But all right, jokes aside, Sorry,
Drew, Um, talk to us about what you do at I Racing.
Starting off with your job title. Yeah, so I work in digital
content and then broadcasting is my main focus. So I'm basically number two in
the broadcasting department. Drew's the one who has to interface, makes a lot
of the main decisions, and then usually the execution guy that comes down to
me or one of the other members of broadcasts. But basically it's Drew's vision
that I helped carry out, So it means I'm a bit more on the
technical side versus him. I do a lot more, like I said,
of the execution of the ideas. Basically, you push buttons on that big
switchboard that we have. That's one of the things I do That's one of
the things the other two do is while Sean and Corey, who we mentioned
before, they are also part of our kind of group of four that does
all of the major broadcasts that come out of I Racing itself. How many
broadcasts do we do last year? Do you remember off the top of your
head? Yes, well, we had what in eighteen race Coke Series season,
ten race Porsche seasons. That's twenty eight right there. I mean just
we had another what six races for Porsche Contender. We're going to by the
time it's over have seven races for e NASCAR Contender International. Um, we've
been doing support for it, so that's five. Yeah. Yeah, there's
a lot. There's in the comments below. Please please count that. Add
that up inger somebody, Hey, there's a there's a list that I don't
have, but there is a list where we track everything, so I could
get you a number. Actually sec a runoffs, Yeah, run off because
that count is one that counts like eight. Okay, I was gonna say
there are eight races. That count is eight. Yeah, So now what
you're saying is you're busy. Yeah, And that is something that's come up
a couple of times because there are people I know in the I Racing community
go, wait, you just run broadcasting for I Racing, and they're kind
of like underwhelmed by the I'm like, oh no, no, no,
no, no, you don't understand. This is not a show up,
turn obs on, turnobs off, walk away sort of thing. That's how
we do the podcast. Yeah, well, the production value of our answer.
I don't answer to eat NASCAR or to Porsha Greg. So that's true.
That that is true. Kevin's gonna laugh. Um all right, But
I mean that's a good point though. I mean, maybe this is a
good time to talk about it's not just the two hour show itself. No,
it's not hours and hours of prep work from you and the team.
We've got you on the spot, but it is the whole team. It
is the whole team absolutely, and other people too. I mean during the
broadcast, the talent is always almost always remote, and then we have camera
operators, we have replay, we have all kinds of people that are involved,
not just the four full time staff people. Right. Yeah, absolutely,
And it's something to where at the end of the day you can't just
look at the broadcast itself as well. That's what the product is No,
it's it's part of our partnerships that we have with these different groups like NASCAR,
like Porsche. It's part of working with them to bring better and better
things to the sim So it's it's all rolled into one thing. So just
the broadcast itself is very minor compared to everything overall, and you know what
it actually means and what it's actually entailing. How long have you been involved
with the Eye Racing Service period? Um, I started, I know my
account. I think I opened my account if I remember correctly, the summer
after I graduated high school, so that would have been what three years here
plus another four and a half at school, so seven eight years probably somewhere
around there, all right. And then how long were you a member before
you started getting into broadcasting? Like four months? So it's a funny story.
I started doing it just as a goof off thing with a league that
I was doing it was it was for ten people, nobody really cared about
it and I was. I was doing it on a twelve eighty by ten
twenty four screen, so it wasn't even a normal sixteen by nine YouTube stream
that everyone's familiar with. So I just started doing it as a league and
the people who were calling the races at the time, they are league members
who worked for a bigger organization alice RTV at the time. So I ended
up having being interested in it and were and ended up being brought into the
fold at LSRTV as another producer, and then I ended up having to take
over for LSRTV when the main producer ended up stepping away. She had some
health issues that came up, and it was basically a well, Cisco's the
only one who knows how to push the buttons. So basically my sophomore year
of college, she shipped me her two computers, all this computer equipment,
so in my dorm at the best of the rest of my roommates. I
started, you know, doing that while I was in college and I was
studying motorsports engineering at the time at Butler, and I got to the point
to where I kind of hit a crossroads where it's like, Okay, I
can continue doing this broadcasting thing and continue working at that, or I need
to focus more on my major because there's only so much time in the day
to be able to do either. And I'd known a couple of people from
doing it for LSRTV for a little while. I was a little bit bigger
of a company, better contacts, So I went ended up going to Charlotte
over a summer just to see what it was like, and it was kind
of at that point I made the decision, I'm going to stop pursuing the
engineering side and go into more content and journalism based side of motorsports. And
so from there I changed my whole major over, started taking broadcasting classes and
basically I had to fast track my way. It was a five year engineering
program, so I still made it out half a year. I had a
schedule, but from there ended up meeting some contacts in real motorsports, working
in there for a while, and then I got the call and a couple
months later ended up coming nigh Racing. Well, we think he made the
right decision there changing Yeah, I h it did save me having to commute.
Was it eight hours? What's the commute from Indianapolis to Charlotte that I
was doing for Real World for a while there? Eight nine hours? That's
not short? No, No it wasn't, but it was. It was
the opportunity I had, and it was just I want to work in this
field. I want to be involved in this field, and that was the
opportunity open to me, so I took it. Awesome. I did not
know that you were I did not know you were an engineering student before you
you changed over, so that was news to me. It explains a lot.
Yeah, yeah, it's part of that still with me. Once we
got into the higher mathematics, I began to struggle. That's kind of where
we started getting to a lot more you know, math based sciences and stuff
like that. That was always never my best strong suit, and it just
it the path. It would have been a ton of hard work, and
had I had the time to sit there and study, study, study,
I would have been all right. But by then I was already doing the
broadcasting as a side thing, making a little bit of money to get by
in college. At that point it was just sort of I felt better doing
that. And then once I started taking the classes in college, I was
like, oh, this is this is what I want to do. It
seems like you found your passion. So yeah, yes, part of what
college is about, right, And a lot of most people go in with,
hey, this is what I'm gonna do because it seems like that's what
I want to do and then you find your way in college and all that.
And you know, it was a unique strategy for sure, because trying
to explain to your three other roommates, yeah, I need to have two
computers on and five monitors going, and no, I swear this isn't where
there's a reason I'm doing this. It's not just to aggravate all of you.
I have to imagine if I had gone to engineering school and decided to
switch part way through and I called my dad and said, I'm going to
switch majors because I'm going to broadcast esports, I can't imagine that call would
have gone, Well, that's why, Well you don't say esports, Kevin,
you don't say I have a sports media degree. So what other stuff?
After? You know, you call your parents, you let them know
that you're making this kind of change. What other real world stuff did you
also broadcast to kind of, you know, smooth things out a little bit.
Um So I through LSRTV, I got to know Tony Stevens, who,
for those of you who've been around even longer than I have, you'll
remember he was one of the voices original voices for the e NASCAR series with
previous sponsors in previous broadcast companies, So he knew me through I Racing and
I end up going to him to work for him as a technical director for
about two three years or so while I was still in college. So that's
where the commuting came in. That meant I broadcasted the Cars Tour for a
couple of years. Also worked with Legends in us I x US Legend Car
International UM doing some of their events the Summer Shootout Bojangle Summer Shootout which Bubba
used to race in. Raja raced in a lot of the names were starting
to see on the the uptick of the NASCAR Ladder, and it is a
it's kind of a joke. I have to myself that I'll I'll look at
who's in ARCA and who's in the Truck Series and go, I know this
guy. I know this guy. I know this guy. So a lot
of the people like Ty Gibbs, for example, I worked with him on
his way up the NASCAR Ladder. Raja, who I knew from Summer Shootout.
I've known Rag for a long time now, from his first season in
Legends Cards all the way to where he is now. So it's really cool
to kind of see these drivers up on their way their path through, uh
to the big leagues. So let's not like your careers followed. There's you
know, like you guys kind of yeah, it kind of has. It
kind of has in a weird way. And same with the same with the
commentators I've worked with. Who've you know, gone from you know, just
doing eye racing races to being able to call real life events and work for
their local track Like Blake McCandless, for example, is the track announcer over
at eight Speedway, and I knew him when he was just calling eye racing
races. And same with Evan. We've seen Evans, you know, big
into being part of Feld Entertainment which does all of monster Jams things, and
he's worked his way up through that. I knew Evan before any of that
was even a twinkle, Yeah exactly. So let's excuse me, let's go
back a little bit. You uh, Brian I Racing, you got just
kind of found your footing and then March of twenty twenty happened, yeah,
from and we've talked about that in March and April twenty twenty a number of
times on this podcast. We've never actually looked at it from the perspective of
the broadcasters who were I mean, we didn't lock you in the broadcast room
during that time, but the door was open. But it was it was
a unique time, to say the least. Um certainly. Now keep in
mind, of course, this was before we brought Corey and Sean in,
so it was literally just Drew and I. Drew ended up I remember,
he ended up moving his whole set up, his whole desk in the here.
I didn't because I was on the other side and just wanted a little
bit of that space. But um, yeah, no, it was.
It was a crazy time, to say the least. And you know,
I'd known what we could do with racing and the product and what it could
mean, and just in the span of weeks, if not days, seeing
all of that happen all at once, and oh, oh this is whole
Okay, okay, hi Fox, Hello, okay, um um Andrew Junior.
Oh, so many phone calls, so many people, so many things
happening at once, And it's a time I'm never going to forget. But
it's also a time that, you know, it was hard to really take
a stop and breathe and go, Holy cow, this is actually what's happening.
But um, looking back on it was crazy. But and yeah,
like you said, it was, I mean, you guys have talked about
it on the podcast. But it was very much a case where the office
everybody went remote except for broadcast because the equipment was here that we needed to
do the job. And so you guys, graciously, we're like, okay,
we want you to do this. We know what this can mean,
and basically left us the office and left us to our own devices to work
with our partners at the broad cast networks in the series to be able to
do all of these shows, all these cool fun events during during the pandemic
era. Talk to me about as we approached the first televised NASCAR race and
what it was like leading up to that close. It was insane. To
say the least. We had had that replacements event, which I was also
involved in previously before as sort of like a trial sort of thing, and
going, hey, is this is this even humanly possible? Let alone can
we connect the dots? And at that same time, Steve was making the
call to Fox and talking to Jeff Gordon and all the junior and all these
people to make this happen and kind of you know, that's once we started
getting the calls of, oh, all these paints are having in, Oh,
we have to do all this sort of stuff. It's it was a
blur, to say the least. And luckily for us, Fox was able
to work with us and we're able to use a lot of the techniques we
had already developed for February and for January for our beginning setups for the Eye
Racing broadcast, because a lot of people kind of missed the fact that we
had only started broadcasting here from Eye Racing two months. Maybe if that before
we went on TV, that's a really good point. We built the new
office and opened it an end of November twenty nineteen, right it was still
getting outfitted after Christmas, especially the broadcast room. And Drew has a ton
of experience broadcasting. You know, his family grew he grew up in the
Turner Sports entire family basically, so it's in his blood. And I'd spent
a long time doing EE Racing broadcast, but we had only had about three
months to really figure out a working sort of dynamic of how to make things
work and how we're going to able to get done what we need to get
done, and you know, be able to include all you know Fox as
producer and you know, X, Y and Z things that we're putting into
the broadcast. So it was a blur. I don't remember a lot of
it, but I remember a lot of the cool moments that I got to
experience because of it. Um. The one that stands out to me was,
Um, I got to work on Jimmy Johnson's car for the Watkins Glenn
Race. I believe that he ran in and I got to design that work
with Jimmy on his template. For people that don't know. You don't know
that you are, yeah, super fan of Jimmy. Yes, yes,
Jimmy was my NASCAR driver. Yes, my mom was a Jeff Gordon fan.
And when I started to really comprehend the sport, there was this new
upstart kid who Jeff owned part of his car, named Jimmy Johnson. And
you know, everyone said he was gonna you know what, was this crazy
dirt racing guy gonna show up and do something in NASCAR? Yeah, it
turns out he did one or two things possibly, and he did all right.
I don't know, he's some washed up road racing driver. Now I
don't know, so what else stands out from that? Is it? I
want to know the question? Sorry, Greg, but how many nights did
you spend in the office. There were a few, There were legitimately a
few. I My sleeping bag stayed here, I think until the beginning of
twenty two, just under tucked under my cube. Remember the first time I
came back to the office, which I don't know when that was, I
think I stopped in for some something that had to be done in person,
you know, and you andrew sleeping bags in your cubes. I was like,
oh, wow, this is real. Yeah, yeah, yeah,
And it's it's a job that was it was daunting and that's not even a
word to describe how much had to happen. But at the same time,
and I can speak for the rest of the broadcast team, where it's just
when you're in this industry and you're in this kind of entertainment, it's all
encompassing. It's it's a part of you. There are things that that I
know about how broadcast working that I could sit there and talk about for hours
and hours and hours, and everybody else would just leave the room because they're
like what's he talking about? But um, it's it's really become such a
love of mine, such a passion of mine, and seeing you know,
being able to see what we continue to create, how we can continue to
grow, what we can do on broadcast, and what the next steps look
like. I mean even coming to this year with the NASCAR Finale and Charlotte
for example, you know, being able to do a live event like that.
Previously we did one with Porsche at Hockenheim as well. So having those
live events and just continuing to grow and being able to take our product and
be able to tell stories with it and be able to make those stories better
and better and bigger, and you know, just have fun. Well that's
the big thing and something that I'm always trying to push on my guys as
well. It's like, at the end of the day, this needs to
be fun, you know, working here, using the product, the whole
thing. We make a racing simulation. Some people would say video game,
but I don't want to fit in anybody, but no, but seriously,
it should be fun. I watch I watched K Bob get Stuck in the
Pit and anuat or Interlagos last night. The first big wreck last night.
Oh oh, talk me into go doing the first inter race of the season.
You said you were doing it already. He didn't. Didn't take much
to talk me into it. But I almost completed one lap almost. Hey,
it's I I remember one of the twitch clip videos I did way back
in the day where it was it was a skip barber race and it was
at Interlagos and the guy leading pulled out at the last second. The other
guy didn't know the attenuator was there. And that was at speed Greg so
uh and that was with due damage model too, so boom. But it's
gotta be fun. I gotta give its Kevin. It was a kind of
a bad waiting in your race and he was still had a good time last
night though. It is what it is, right, you know, little
lost a little SR and I r but whatever. You know, something in
the world. It back maybe six or seven guys in there racing together and
discord. It was. Yeah, it was a lot of fun. And
that's that's something like, whether you're working on it or whether you're using it,
it's gotta be fun. If it's fun, we're doing something right.
And uh, you know your story right here. You know exemplifies that point.
So thanks for taking the time today between all of your many duties in
that broadcast room, which I wish we were showing off right now because it's
such a cool room. But uh yeah, thanks for taking the time and
I'm sure we'll have you back on you a lot of fun. Okay,
thanks guys, Thanks all right, we are back. Great to sit down
with Cisco. I really wish that you guys could hear all of the outtakes
from that because we just sat and goofed off and had a good time.
Cisco is great. I'm sure we'll have him back on the show as well
as other broadcasters and other staff members as well. That seems to be what
you guys like listening to, and that's the content that we're gonna give you
here on the I Racing Downshift. Kevin's giving me a funny look. I'm
tired and I took ni quill today because I have a cold. Please leave
me alone, all right, Let's let's move on the East Sports World of
Outlaws Sprint Cars Series. Chris take it away, yep, I Racing World
of Outlaws car Quest Sprint Car Series running throughout the winter. As we have
done for the past couple of years. Now with the World of Outlaws,
they wrap up the real world sprint car season, they jump right in with
us and they run with us until they go start a new real world season.
So for those of you who just cannot live without sprint car racing fifty
two weeks a year, we got you covered. As always, season starts
in Valusia, ends in Charlotte. I believe at the end of January we're
only through a few rounds, but we've already got our first repeat winner,
Hayden Cardwell, and he's needed to do it as he missed the feature in
Valusia. But as always, front runner Alex Bersier on multiple championships, won
a bunch of them in a row, didn't win the last one, so
he's trying to start a new streak, but takes the opener consistent finishes in
the two after and now for Cardwell, he's on the back foot, just
trying to catch up. Exciting to see to see how that plays out.
I saw a note and chat our marketing chat last night during the race,
and our race director Tyler Hudson was like, Wow, these boys have their
elbows out or something to that effect. There was some good racing last night,
so excited to see how that season plays out. We have a couple
other things going on as well right now, E NASCAR International and Consenter Series,
right Chris yet both using the NASCAR Exfinity Series cars. The Contender races
taking place on Tuesday night in that same E NASCAR Coca Cola I Racing Series
slot. You've got all these drivers battling for, you know, the twenty
or so spots that they're going to move up to Coke next year. Big
interesting mix of returning favorites, a handful of new faces, even some names
that have been out of the series for I don't know half a decade that
I think have just kind of gotten that renewed passion and that renewed fire for
trying to run at the top level. Certainly, obviously, I'm sure they've
seen all of the ways that Coke has evolved over the past few years.
You know, bigger purses, bigger teams coming in, and you know that's
definitely enticing to get some guys to hang up the retirement gloves, I guess,
and put the driving gloves back on. Meanwhile, the DBox E NASCAR
International IE racing series powered by Digital Motorsports. Don't give me credit for that.
I read it also running mostly on Tuesday nights. However, we did
have and you guys were certainly there for it. In Nuremberg at some racing
expo. We had one race that got moved to Sunday Sunday morning so drivers
could compete from the event. A lot of interesting stuff. That one was
fun that had. That was the first superspeedway race in the history of that
series, I think at Daytona. Correct me if I'm wrong, guys,
I think that's right. And it was pretty cool to have a competitor there
on stage with this break set up. Always fun to add the live human
element to it, right. Wasn't quite as big of a production as what
we did for the Coke Finale with four drivers, but along those lines,
so super fun. Hopefully we can do more of those things. Yeah,
and anytime, Ryan Vargas, Sorry, Greg, Oh, you're fine.
I was just gonna say the the stage there at the expo was huge,
and the method of which they put this rig up on a forklift and drove
it over and sat it down without disassembling it. That was super cool.
I'm not gonna say that. I wasn't nervous when they were like, yeah,
we got twenty minutes to move this over there. I was like,
oh, okay, this will be fine, and it was so. But
the driver was forklift certified. I take it apparently. I will also say
it's always a popular night when Ryan Vargas is able to take a victory one
of the good guys in the sport, somebody who are a lot of people
love and for very good reason. And that was that was a hack of
a finish. Good times excited once again. Got a lot of good series
going on right now. We have some of our bigger series kick it off
very soon with the e NASCAR Co Cool Iracix Series U with Daytona coming in
January and February February. Sorry I'm wrong, It's all right. I think
it's February, so the last podcast of the year will give us some wiggle
room. Anyway, February something like that, southing like that, Chris,
can you edited make it sound better? I can? But should I?
No? No, that's your prerogative. That is your prerogative. If people
are still listening, you know, forty four minutes into it, we're doing
pretty good? Right, yeah, exactly? I mean, oh no,
note all right, Well, the last podcast of twenty twenty two, I
almost said twenty twenty three, but I didn't. Uh, what are your
guys plans for the holidays? Well? I got family coming home. Both
my boys will be home for Christmas, which is great. Connors home from
Kyle in the week and a half. Ryan's on leap from the army,
so we'll get to see him, which is awesome. But the most important
thing that I'm probably doing is not eating one of Greg West's chocolate pies.
Who brought this up on the last podcast, and we didn't really revisit it
whether it was good or not, and fantastic. I'll have to say that,
you know, Greg, dear friend, work colleague. It was not
good. It was bad, and you admitted it. It was. It
was not good. Oh I made a bad pie. It was bad.
I did take diet pie. That was the problem. It was keto.
It's keto whatever. It didn't have any of the good stuff. It didn't
have real chocolate sugar. I don't even know why. What did it happen?
San Basically, yeah, hi is not a word that should come after
diet exactly. I'm gonna make another pie. I'm gonna bring it over on
Christmas Eve. Oh boy, is it going to be a whipped cream one?
Is it just gonna go straight into his face? It might? Yes,
I'm sorry, did I blow the surprise? What about you, Chris?
What are you up to? Um? Well, I will say that
the reason that we got this show recorded as technically early as we did is
because I have a bunch of vacation days that we're expiring, and I just
piled all of them in at once in hopes of avoiding that. So I'm
sorry everybody in the marketing department. Uh, but I don't know a lot.
We'll bother you on your days off, so don't worry. Yeah,
yeah, yeah, that's that's true. What I don't know a lot of
hands around. Well, we'll see some family too. Um. Got a
whole room of guitars and amps and stuff that I never really get to play
with anymore, So thinking about trying to make some time for that, um,
I have. I have cut cable for the time being, and I
am now running an antenna all the way across my basement from the one window
that gets really really good reception and It is now running into my computer so
I can stream it through all of my different devices. I got really bored
one day and decided that I was just going to become one of those people.
So I think the first thing that I'm gonna do when I take time
off is run to lows and get about twenty feet of cable race ways,
which I didn't know that they were called that, and I got irrationally excited
when I found out. So in case you need a look into my psyche
and how badly I might need some time off. There you go, Well,
enjoy the time offense to each their own. Yes, and Greg,
you're sticking around? What are you doing? Yeah, I'll be around,
I said, I gotta bring a pie over to you. I guess great.
Yeah, I can't wait. Yeah, No, we're gonna be around
Christmas. Take a few days here and there. I try to get out
and go ski in a little bit. But yeah, just looking forward to
a little bit of a downtime with the fans. It should be a good
time anyway. Thank you for listening to this episode of The Eye Racing Downshift.
Don't forget to rate, review, and subscribe anywhere Chris has put this
or I screwed that up too. Man. I'm really struggling on Apple,
podcast, Spotify, and anywhere else. Chris put this for Kevin Bobbitt.
Chris Leoni, I'm remembered my name, It's Greg West and uh yeah,
let's see album track. Happy holidays, everybody,