This week on the EYE Racing Down Show, a frank discussion of company wide
priorities than COP three. At least, Greg and Chris count down the years.
I guess our anniversaries like in three weeks. Well, if you put
it that way, I'm always gonna get mad at you. In an interview
panel with staff members, you're racing the real one, Like, no,
I'm sorry, I'm telling you your stuff is broken by kids broken all This
is more staffing. Welcome to the I Racing Down Ship. I'm your host,
Greg West. I'm back with the boys, Kevin, Bob and Chris
Leoni. Another great show for you guys. Today we're gonna talk about this
month in Eye Racing, Season two is well under way. We got some
new cars that both Kevin and I have been racing, slash crashing on a
pretty regular basis and giving out I let you Win awards. That's a that's
a spoiler alert, spoiler alert, Hush Hill events. We got the Road
America five hundred coming up this weekend. If this goes out before that,
we'll see bmw M SIM Cup Roade America this weekend. Hey, we're gonna
talk about an esports coach series. In past, and we're gonna talk about
Steve's family liking our podcast, which is kind of cool. Week. Yeah,
it's another spoiler alert for a part of the episode coming up later.
So we have we have a fan. We have one that's two, remember
one in Daytona. So we have we've got two fans. Yeah, we
have two fans. So what's everybody been up to, Kevin? You know,
it's starting to get warm, looking forward to playing some golf. Might
be playing some golf later this week. Um. But I've been racing the
Cleo the Clip Cup and and I earned an award. I was very excited.
I got an I Let you Win award from Greg West. It was
it was the most amazing race. Where we are we Manza? Is that
right? Yeah? And uh Greg jumped in the session. He said,
how do you start? I said, I'll just just rev it up and
go, And so he started. Greg's at the back of the pack because
he didn't have enough time to put a qualifying lap in. Um and then
he's I can hear him on discord saying, oh, I didn't go.
I didn't go, And I really thought that just many got a poor start
and all of a sudden, He's about twenty seconds behind me, which is
really slow. If anybody's raced against me and it's your twenty seconds behind me,
you know there's a problem. So anyway, I did beat him,
and then I went back to watch the start, and sure enough, Greg
literally did not move on the start. He sat there for about fifteen seconds.
So can you tell us what happened? Greg? I listened to Kevin.
Kevin sabotage me. I'm gonna put a protest in with them. Unsportsmanlike
conduct on the offense. But the award stands. It does it's problem with
our protest system. I have no I have no recourse. He can't revoke,
and I let you win award once it's bring granted, it is there
for all eternity. I'm framing that one. He's that going on your door
underneath your NIM. Yeah, it's almost as exciting as having an award with
Nim's picture on it. It's pretty good. So thank you, Greg.
How about you? What are you been up to? You know, just
racing. I've been racing the form of the Ford. We'll talk about that
more here in a little bit. Uh and the staff race challenge and things
like that, and then we have Chris who's probably up to been up to
wacky things or you know nothing, I racing. I mean this was more
of the what are you up to? Outside? Did I jump ahead again?
I? Did? You don't follow the outline that Chris puts together?
And there's bullets this week? Yeah? Yeah, I just for you Greg,
after after last month, do we have to start over or do we
know? Rolling? No? No, no, keep keep going. Okay,
yeah, when you mess up the podcast, we're going to point it
out. And since we're testing this on video that we're not going video,
keep how did you not even mention that? Well, because we're not going
to show people that, oh okay, we're not showing test video. Is
there testing video? So I just have to remember that Chris is on my
left and Kevin's on my right, even though they're on my right and the
backwards on screen it tomorrow we're new here. We're taking our amateur hour podcast
and putting a little polish on it. It's still going to be amateur hour
though. Just so you guys now, how many times have I called it
the MX five Cup of Podcasting in the past week? At least three times
at least three. Yeah, but yeah, no, no, but that's
what makes us relatable. That's why two people like us. Um this mini
fans, Yes we have we have that MANI fans. Um. Yeah.
Now I've just been doing my usual what slow road cars can I make work
on dirt road because that's what Yes two does and uh yeah. Other than
that, I don't know, trying to get some things prepped for the off
Road Pro Series once that comes up in the summer, doing our usual previews,
and some background work on another game that we're going to talk about later
in the show. There's your tease there. It is, all right,
well let's get let's get into it. We kind of teas it already since
Kevin went out of Warder. But twenty twenty three season two well underway.
We've got new contents on the roadside, We've got new content on the oval
side, and we'll kick it off with you know, Kevin has been driving
the Clear Cup in case you haven't heard, Yeah, did I tell that
story already? I want and I let you from Big West in case you
hadn't heard. Some stories never get old. Kevin, I win so few
awards I have to bring it up as often as I can. I'm here
for you. It's super fun to race. Uh, you know, it's
nice and slow just like I am. So it's it's a perfect car for
me. So that car is surprising because you know, it's a front will
drive car that typically not a whole lot of fun to race. But those
are the exception. I remember when we were developing the car, I was
like, this is gonna be elbows out door to door like fun because it
just you just go and it doesn't take a lot of thought. But there's
definitely some nuance to go fast, as we found because to be honest,
even after I started off fifteen or twenty seconds behind Kevin, he was still
pulling away. I have to have to own up to that. I just
you can't show and go on I racing and expect to be competitive or at
least in my lack of skill levels. So yeah, it was a lot
of fun though even though I drove around my entire race by myself, I
think I picked up one or two spots by attrition. Other than that,
it was pretty clean and had a pretty good time. Did you figure out
how to start the car? Now? Though I've not entered another race,
I'm afraid that somebody was going to complain about that, like to NIM that
I was scarred for rating. Yeah, I just I can't afford that my
I rating is not high enough to tank that much. I can only focus
on one car at a time. You don't have a second account, well
I do and a third I do. The third ones for very professional looking
for when somebody needs to be removed from a race, and yeah, I
just gave up my secret identity. I, on the other hand, have
been racing the Formula Forward. Oh sorry, F sixteen hundred, not the
Formula Ford. It's definitely not the Formula Forward. In case supplies the Ray
F sixteen hundred car. I've got a couple of series of that based package
content for anybody that's not aware. So it doesn't cost anything more than your
membership to race, and it goes on free tracks, which is a lot
fun. There's a bunch of the I Racing staff that have been racing that
and Nim's challenge and keeping score and uh it's it's been pretty competitive and I
am not near the top, so I've got some work to do there.
But I've also been dabbling in the F sixteen hundred Trophy series, which runs
on bigger tracks, more premium tracks, has a really UK euro feel to
it this season, so I believe there there were Snedderton last week. I
forget where they're going this week. There as a couple of weeks ago.
A lot of fun. If you haven't had a chance to try that car,
try it. It is not first off, once again, it's free,
so why not a second? It's it's not point and shoot. This
thing is not a Formula V or an MX five. It definitely has its
own personality to it and the motors in the back. So if if you
if you are not breaking in a straight line and you're trying to do too
much, the back does try to pass the front. You do have to
be patient with it. But it's a lot of fun to slide around and
it's gonna be ah, it's gonna be a staple and I racing for a
long time I can feeling so. And then we also have the late Model.
I'm not a huge oval racer, but I've seen all the paint schemes
on trading paints and I see Chris smiling right now. But the the painters
have been very busy with that car. I've been running a lot of that
car actually, both on ovals and road courses. It is a really fun
road course car as well. But on what it's developed for, just some
short tracks, some beaten and banging, it's been a blast. I mean,
you guys know that most of what I do is deliberate misuse of content.
But we actually have started running a late model stock short track league.
We are using an eye racing car on the tracks that it's designed for and
one in a row, yeah, one in a row. That was my
question joke on my community. Did you put it out on the rallycross stuff
yet? No? But I did that with the Cleo and the F sixteen
hundred and the Jetta in a multi class series and that was a blast.
Perfect. You've taken over the jump at the figure eight track yet? Uh
no, But I know what I'm doing on Thursday now, thank you.
I don't. I don't think it'll survive. I it's yes. We are
about to find out stream of bulling in the marketing slack channel. Please yeah,
no promise is Alex Horn asked me for some replays of some other thing
that we did, and it took me about six weeks to get them to
them. So um, it's it's it's like getting your favorite driver's gear shipped
in from another country. It'll be four to six business weeks before I get
you that content. All right, Moving on, we've got special events.
It's coming up this week Road America five hundred. This is coming back to
the service. It's been gone for a few years, but there's been a
ton of messages in my inbox about hey, can we do some more with
classic content and why not? So we've brought back the Road America five hundred
with the Nissan GTP z x T and the out ninety gto. That's five
hundred miles that wrote America going off this weekend and it can be run as
a solo event or with a team, doesn't matter. Pick your poison.
Whatever makes you happy driving old content, you can do it on I Racing.
Get your h pattern out. It's a ton of fun. Turbo lag
is back. And just to be clear on it, it's the historic GTP
class car. Yes, that is correct, all right. One that is
beast. It is a big beast. Yes, I thought I made it
clear with the turbo lag comment. Well, then fairness, if you want
to race the current GTP at Road America in a team, you just have
to wait a week. No, Yeah, that's true. Yeah, that's
very true. So there's that because that's the next bullet point, isn't it?
Yes, it is nice. Nice. It's almost like I wrote the
outline or something. Did we plan this? I didn't. I'm reading that
on the first of us are all over the place. Oh well, that's
that's a dangerous Thank Kevin, that is a dangerous thing. Speaking of being
on script, that reminds me before our interview, I've got to read our
sponsor read well, right now sounds like a great time for a sponsor read
because I do love sponsors. Sponsors are great, especially people like Next Level
Racing. Attention I Racing fans. Upgrade your SIM racing experience with the Next
Level Racing f GT Elite and f GT Light Racing additions all in one cockbits
designed for Formula GT and more. Get a free twelve month new Member I
Racing subscription with every cockpit purchase. Head on over to Next Level Racing dot
com slash I Racing Now Next Level Racing your ticket to racing glory. Yeah
I did it. One read one getting more organic than that. I was
fantastic. But on a serious note, it is great to have sponsors.
That means maybe we have three fans, maybe we have more than just two.
Maybe, and and and no jokes. You know, it's a it's
a good chassis. We've got a bunch of great peripheral manufactures, you know,
Next Level sent one over that's sitting in the h in the lobby right
now. It's a good piece of kit. So absolutely interested in checking it
out. We love working with with partners that make the e racing experience better
and and people like Next Level Racing. Dude, just that So I was
actually gonna I was gonna point to it, but it's in front of me
rather than behind me, unfortunately. But yes, it is a beautiful piece
of kit. Um. We are not allowing people to sit in it in
the lobby because we we want to show it off. We want it to
remain special. But it is a beautiful Okay, let's be honest. It's
also because we haven't bolted a seat down yet. I think it's really a
safety thing. We forgot to built the seat down. So U m x
five cup of podcasting everybody. Oh yes, top three at least, so
I'm moving on. Hey, Kevin, you wanna talk about rain April?
Well, it's I'm looking up the windows out. It's really it's not going
to rain here today. It is not. But i've heard rain is coming
in and we may have put some pictures out. But yeah, it's like
an April Fool's tease or something. Yeah, but it wasn't really April fool.
It's just happened to go out on April first, right, I mean,
so there was no planning involving Easter egg. You were so proud of
your Easter egg four oh one pm. Oh you caught onto that? Oh
huh? You told me three times? Hey, hey, Greg, I
an easter egg. Hey hey hey check this out. This easter was pretty
clever. You gotta give me a little credit. No, it was clever.
I'll give you that. You know what, you know what. The
shots look good, though, but really good. I know everybody wants to
know when, and all we're saying it's hashtag soon, So do we work?
We would like to know when as well? If so, the good
news is there's progress and Greg Hill was real to give us a picture to
show and he doesn't do that. If we're not making progress on things,
so that's that's a positive sign for the community. So it's coming. It
is not coming in though, and I realized I've said that for every build
for the last while. Oh, don't anticipate rain in June. Let's let's
just let's set realistic expectations. Rain is hard. There are so many things
going into it. It's not just drop the grip level down and add water
textures. This is a complete reinvention of how the weather system works in conjunction
with many different aspects of the sim you know, graphically, physically, eat
all the above. H It is a it's a really big deal and it's
going to be uh, it's going to be really well received. The goal
is to make it as realistic as possible. You know, you're gonna be
driving offline, You're gonna be avoiding the rubbered end spots who you're gonna have
to break offline. It's uh, breaking in a straight line, things like
that. It's going to take some understanding of the nuance of racing in the
rain. So I feel like it's really going to play into my skill set
and driving. So yeah, so you'll have an excuse when you wreck somebody,
Oh was that two pointed? Somebody's jealous about the eye late, I
am jealous. I'm gonna have to join Cleo Cup just to kick your butt,
right, just come run up Pro two race with me. You know
that I'm gonna. I can't. I can't do that, even you could
get Actually, um, I have heard complaints that from people who have raced
with me my friends that they have not gotten and I let you win award
from beating me so that you don't. No, no, no, no
no. We run public we do public raids. Sometimes we got to help
our own cause I didn't know that. Yeah, maybe Chris isn't actually flagged
as an employee. Have we decided we're gonna keep him around after five years?
I don't know. I mean it's four years because Chris started one week
before me. Oh all right, well I guess our anniversaries like in three
weeks. Well, if you put it that way, I'm at least gonna
get mad at me. Okay, that's a really good point. Sorry,
Leslie. She's upstairs on a meeting, so I'm not gonna yell up.
The stairs are bad prettyway. Oh whatever, Moving on, Chris talking about
dirt Racing is getting a twenty twenty three season update. It sure is getting
a twenty twenty three season update. And not only that, it's also getting
a Nintendo switchport, and that switch port gonna have everything in it, all
the tracks that were released, all of the different extra cars that were released,
everything is going to come together. So if you're a Nintendo Switch person
and you've been holding out, you've been waiting, waiting, waiting. Wait,
it's not that much longer. You're gonna get World of Outlaws Dirt Racing
on the Nintendo Switch soon enough. We'll have a twenty twenty three season update
coming with some new paint schemes, cars, tracks, you name it.
It's going to be a really exciting fall if you're a if you're a World
of Outlaws fan, that game has still been going. If you're checking out
World of Outlaws game dot com, you're seeing that we've still got the weekly
challenges, the online tournaments, all sorts of different posts going up trying to
encourage some of that community participation as well. All of the weeks that acts
that are in the game or being visited by cars and series in the game.
So if you're looking for something to do. If you're looking for a
new challenge in that, send us some screenshots, send us some replays,
have some fun with it. It's that game is still going strong. I
know that I have gotten quite a bit out of my career mode up to
this point, and I still got a little waste to go. I'm still
not that four ten national champion yet, but we'll get there. And that
little segue here, we'll be talking to one of the people that was heavily
involved in the development of that, who also happens to drive the an Eye
racing liveried car on dirt coming up in just a little while. Oh and
then last thing before the interview, Chris Exocross coming to console. But what
the heck is Exocross? I don't even know what that is, except I'm
in some of the meetings where they talk about what it is. Yes,
another another console product for us, as well as a PC product for those
who were paying attention to. A couple of years ago, shortly after we
completed that Monster Games acquisition, we also acquired another company, a European company
named Aroantis Games, and their product had been called Drag Outer Worlds. And
what this was is a futuristic sci fi off road game. You can imagine
why this one was handed to me on the outline, or rather why I
made a note that I wanted to keep it to myself. Anyway, we
have done a ton of work, had a lot of people come in to
help refine this game, take it to the next level, and the result
is Exocross. And what this game is is again, it's a futuristic,
it's a sci fi type game. You are racing unmanned vehicles on worlds in
different galaxies. There's going to be a whole championship system. There's going to
be all sorts of cool different things within this product. Again, if you
have it, if you have Drag Outer Worlds on Steam Early Access, you'll
be granted that Exocross product when it's finished him released later this year. But
it's so cool. I love the graphics, modeling, I love the kind
of open world nature of it. And obviously I'm an off road person,
so driving these I know, I breaking news, So I love driving these
things. In a lot of ways. They kind of remind me of a
rear wheel drive trophy truck. Not that I'm at all biased, but no,
it's it's really cool. I've been involved in some of the backstory and
some of the different things on this. I cannot wait for this to get
unleashed. It is very different from anything we've ever done. Though, don't
come into it if you're an eye racing person thinking, oh, this is
a super simulation type thing. This is, like I keep saying, futuristic
and sci fi and if there's a podcast drinking game then you're probably you know
one on one hand, one and the other every time I've said that,
But regardless, fantastic, a lot of fun. Like I said, Steam
Early Access has drag out of worlds right now, but Exocross is coming soon
and really thrilled to show off the finished product on that in a few time.
I've been watching the screenshots come in and it's been great to see,
you know, not only the development that but some of the crossover technology that
has made its way over at I Racing. And there's a reason that we
have that we're involved with the titles that we were involved with, and everything
works together more in the on the back side than you can possibly imagine.
And that's all working to make all of the titles we're now in charge of
even better. So it's pretty fantastic, all right. Moving on, so
we have something a little bit different today, and by today, we're probably
going to be doing this interview tomorrow if I'm completely honest, or maybe even
Wednesday, since it's Monday. We'd like to show you how the sausage is
made it on iRacing, we were sat down with a couple of folks that
are employees of I Racing who take that passion into the real world and are
racing iRacing liveried race cars in a variety of different ways, on road courses,
on dirt, um on ovals, etc. Et cetera, et cetera.
Not exactly sure who's going to be sitting down on this interview, so
I'm not going to say names in the intro. I'm here for you,
buddy. Once again, we're not good at our jobs. It send complaints
to Kevin Dotbob and I Racing dot com ouch if you would like his phone
number see the description below. But yeah, we're go side down. It's
really cool to see the passion that goes into making the iRacing product as good
as it is. Uh. Also it comes from people that are racing in
the real world. So without further ado, um, the iRacing racer guys.
All right, Kevin and I are back with the as promised panel of
guests. We have not one, not two, not three, but four
iRacing employees who spend a lot of their time outside of the office racing in
the real world, and they are combining their their hobbies and passion with their
work, which is a pretty cool concept. So we've got quality assurance tester
Mike Kinkle, Quality Assurance tester Kevin's Zoo. You guys maybe have heard of
Tyler Hudson, our senior Competition Esports manager, friend of the show, Kevin,
He's been one. He's a frequent flyer here on the shoff, I
mean, welcome back to Tyler. And then I Racing Associate producer Kevin iron
Elly. So we've got dirt Oval, we've got pavement Oval, and we've
got road racing all on one call, which and Kevin iron Elly probably has
the most passport stamps out of any employee. So I think, no,
I don't actually, oh you don't. No, I don't do a lot
of international child all right, Well sure, yeah, I got the frequent
flyer miles there. That's what I meant to say. Well, on that
note. We'll start with Kevin. He's the Iron Nelly because we have two
Kevin, which one. You're the longest tenured iRacing employee. So you've been
around I Racing since before it was I Racing, since Papyrus, you've been
Yeah, you're an og so yeah, talk to us a little bit about
your you've been here longer than me. Yeah, I was HAP Papyrus.
I was a junior in high school. I was QA testing there of all
things. They were based out of Conquered Massachusetts, So I grew up in
Manard, Massachusetts, which was, I don't know, roughly ten minutes away
from where I lived, So I just kind of I was always racing online
and just kind of reached out about going there to check the place out,
and ended up meeting Eric Bush there who now works with I Racing, and
he got me a like a QA position in turning. After school. I'd
go there a couple hours every day after class, and it's kind of how
my foot in the door from there, and then um transitions over to iRacing
once that got going in two thousand and five. So what all have you
done? From QA tester to associate producer. I feel like there's a big
leap in there. Oh yeah, it weren't all, but it was pretty
much filling the blank everything when we were startup back in, Oh, whatever
need to be done, you know, everybody jumped in and did it,
whether it was traveling to scan tracks or sound recording stuff, UM put back
then, putting d D DVDs in the mail for our QA testers, whatever
it took, because everything was you know, dongles and and DVDs back then,
so we'd send those out to our dark beta testers or alpha testers back
then to uh, let's get testing on and give us feedback. And now
moving into your role now as a producer, you you're spending a lot of
your time doing the back end stuff on getting cars and tracks created on I
Racing, right, Yeah, yeah, so that's a majority of my time
now, is UM. I went from pretty much being Greg Hill and I
were pretty much the only ones building tracks for the longest time. So now
we've kind of increased our our production speed on track cars and tracks. So
now I kind of um, I'll start planning ahead UM executing our contracts once
we signed someone um in getting our our teams in place to go out there
and scan and photograph. All these tracks were being cars that we do now.
So it's exciting. You know, any given day I can be talking
to three different countries or people in three different countries. That always goes perfectly
smoothly too, right, Yeah, yeah, you're not kidding, like right
now, I got two teams right now. Don't say it all over the
place. We're gonna have to bleep something out when you start mentioning cars and
tracks. No, no, I was. I already gut told what I
can talk about and whatnot. So I reached out to Greg Hill beforehand.
So, Kevin, you're supposed to ask forgiveness, not permission. That's kind
of yeah, try to stand on Greg's good side. Greg and I have
worked together since yeah back Papyrus, So he was a QA tester at the
time too, was going to school. Yeah it was Greg was there before
I was. Um, so Greg was going to college and he was QA
testing there back then. He had this huge beard and every saying. He
totally different for some than he is now. Um, but yeah, that's
We used to sit in this little back room. Um no lights, I
mean there was lights, but there was no windows there, and we just
sit there and and test on all these you know, different machines, whether
the low one. Usually I got stuck on the low one machine, so
it was he was miserable and then things would crash all the time. So
yeah, Brian Simpson was back done too. He was doing schemes back then
for IRUs. So yeah, and then um, a little bit after that.
I'd say I was in college when Steve came on board as a qua
tester at I at Papyrus, So you are really I was the first person
to say hello to Steve at at Papyrus. Yeah, I would you say
your fault? Steve is still here, is what you're saying. Probably,
yeah, all right, we blame I don't think you're gonna last. You
know his mom. His mom is like likes this podcast. Who's our number
one fan of the podcast? Yeah, yeah, watch too. I'm probably
not, probably not, probably not. We'll come back to you a bit
and talk about race and let's swing over to Tea Hunt Tylert Hudson. Let's
getting senior competition and esports manager coming off a late night coke race last night.
Right, Yeah, we we just finished up last night at Monza UM
first time at that road course. So it was it was interesting, but
um, yeah, Bobby Zilinski stole the show. I think he got the
pole and let every lap, so he dominated course. Show me a headline
I've not read before. Right. He's also in our Porsche super Cup Esports
series, so he knows his way around Manza and a road course. Oh,
Kevin, all right, sorry, Tyler. Let's uh, you've been
on the show a few times and we've talked about this a few times,
but let's go over and again. You know kind of how you got started
in I Racing period and how that transitioned into a career at I Racing.
Yeah. So, um, as some people may know, I won the
twenty thirteen e NASCAR Coca Cola everybody knows because you tell her. I'm getting
to a point here. So uh, through that, I built some connections
with Otto and Steve and uh, you know, in twenty fifteen life just
you know how it is, it throws you down a few times, and
so I would spend probably I would do. I would send an email to
these guys once a month, begging for a job at I Racing, and
eventually, uh, they replied back and I got an interview. So um,
that's how that works out. But yeah, so I love my job
here. I started out in support, working in the protests department and with
Susan Flint on support, and then eventually transitioned over to the esports side,
and uh now I managed all of our our pro series as well as the
um just any kind of special one off esports events we do, and then
I do a lot here lately in production, you know, with um MGI
with the Word of Outlaws console game, and um just I Racing as well.
Just a little bit here and there. You can talk about that dirt
refresh thing. I think that one's out there. Yeah, yeah, so
we're thick in it right now, trying to do a lot of um uh
updates for the dirt refresh. We're trying to make just things better for our
members, make the tracks race better, and make the cars race better.
All that's going really nice. I'm very very happy with how that's going,
and hopefully we have something for members comes June. It's pretty comprehensive from the
checkens that I see of the work being done. It's not just a little
update that they're doing. It's quite a bit of physics changes going on.
They flipped it on its head. But I'm excited. Yeah, it's gonna
be It should be pretty impressive. I think it's funny. One of the
other vpas who does not like dirt racing is having a blast with the trucks
right now, which is a lot of fun. So good things coming,
Tyler. Good thing, Yeah, I hope so ye. All right,
we'll come back to racing here in a little bit. We'll talk about your
exploits on dirt. Let's swing over to Mike Kinkel, fresh off a race
weekend at VR prepping for this year's SEC runoffs, right, Yeah, plan
on going to the runoffs this year for the first time. Able to make
that happy because of the support of Eye Racing. So super super happy about
that. And we're going to see how we do down there. Yeah,
looking forward to watching it. I would offer to help in the garage,
and we'll have an opportunity for Mike to make fun of me here in a
little while. I don't think he wants my assistance at the track. But
Mike, let's talk about you know, how you got involved in IE racing
and how that led to you working at Eye Racing. I've always been interested
in racing in general, in Formula one. So when I was this was
about ten or eleven years ago, I started as an eye racing member.
I couldn't go racing in real life. It was too expensive, just all
the options were just much too much for me at the time, so I
started doing eye racing. I bought a used Momo wheel off a Craigslist at
the time and started playing around at eye racing. And at the first few
races went very poorly, but I really stuck with it and figured out where
to get faster, and I got better and I had some success early early
on, and that actually because of all the success I was having an eye
racing, it really really propelled me to pursue real life motorsports. And even
though I was on a very limited budget, I put together some money,
sold some things and bought my first race car, Formula V because it was
the lowest class, the most affordable class to race. And I got out
there and I started open wheel racing and the first few years were tough,
but we got through it and we learned a lot, and now we're we
had a lot of success over the last I've been with the SECA for eight
years now and we've won a lot of races when multiple championships. So doing
pretty good, and I want to take that next step to go to the
next level. And with the SECA that would be the Hoosier Super Tour right
now and the sec A runoffs. So I don't think I'm gonna be a
major contender at the top level. Yet different my toes on the water because
this is another level. These guys are very serious and they're spending a lot
of money out there and having having a good time in very competitive class.
So but we're gonna we're gonna see how we do great. Yeah, all
right, let's flip over to your counterpart, quality shurtance tester Kevin Zoo,
who I think is the newest of the iRacing employees on this call. At
least, Kevin, you your race on the ours. Let's let's go back.
You know how you got started in I Racing and how you got came
about working for I Racing. Uh yeah, So I guess the story of
how I got started I Racing starts with I got started with racing um Back
in freshman year of college, I drove my Honda Civic into a ditch and
realized I maybe wasn't as good this whole driving thing as I thought I was.
Um, So I started doing some other cross to get better, and
then through there ended up meeting Grant Reeve um. And at some point and
all that, I decided to pick up EYE racing and when they get better
there, um, you know, as it was with Michael, it was
you know a lot of crashing out and not finishing races to start with.
Um, that's still how I race on I Racing, by the way,
YE can confirm it hasn't changed that much for me either. I guess that's
a good thing that you're in QA though. So you get paid to wreck
the cars, Yeah, exactly. Um, and I lost my trail fop.
That's all right. It happens all the time. And now you're here,
you're working for I Racing, and you and Mike sit right next to
each other. Yes, we do. Every Thursday. We get to uh
stay high in the morning and then go to our work. All right,
let's start. We're in a QA lab where we get to sit and play
with all the equipment. I think me and Kevin have the best jobs that
I racing. Honestly, sorry to you other guys, but I get to
play the sim and break all your stuff every day, play play around.
Yeah. Yeah, my job is like break all the f you work really
hard on. Then complain. Yeah. I think you have your responsibility to
fix it right now. Point it out broken, go fix it. Guys
want to get when I see a bug report, but I'm like, yeah,
yeah, we gotta fix it. Some some people take that better than
the other. It's true. It's like, no, I'm sorry, I'm
telling you your stuff is broken, but it's broken, yeah, or your
fix really didn't fix anything. Yeah. Yeah. But then you're like,
no, I did it. Because this has happened with Kevin specifically, He's
like no, no, no I did that. I'm like, no,
you didn't know you didn't. He's no, we checked in the wrong file.
Yeah, it happens. That happens. Yeah, I always look forward
to though. At the seven am, you know, email testing report,
Michael follows it up with the all the highlighted commented portions of it. Yeah,
yeah, the things are extra bade. The email says, iron Elly,
your thing is broken. Then Kevin, then Mike comes in fifty minutes
later, I have confirmed iron Elly, your thing is broken. So as
you're wondering, yes, it really is. Yeah, this is, especially
when it's marked in red. That's never good. I'd like the teacher that
i'd corrected all your things in red. Choose a more soothing Keller. Next
time, let's talk about racing. Let's talk about things that go room on
real world race tracks. Iron Ellie Kevin, you are racing this week In
fact, you're off today. Thank yeah, thanks for joining us, No
problem, you are. You're going racing this weekend. Right, let's talk
about what you're racing, where you're racing, and how long you've been doing
it all right? Yeah, we're racing at New Hampshire Motor Speedway up on
the Oval this weekend. Um, doing a tour modified race up there.
So we've been trash and the last month or two. Get in the car
ready for that. So yeah, it should be exciting basically a super speedway
for you guys. Right. Yeah, they put a restrictor played on us
up there, um, so you get quite a bit of draft. It's
it's pretty wild. How many cars, Harry, how many cars you guys
expecting this weekend? Probably twenty five might have to twenty five for that.
Then they'll have past super late models there, which the I racing number nine
Alan Tardif car will be there, oh nice, Maybe Cody and Gardener will
be up there then yeah maybe. Yeah. It's supposed to be great weather
this weekend, so yes, it's finally so yeah, free passes for all
of us. Are you on the podcast? Oh? Um, no,
you'll probably not. Your guys. They they're charging me to go there,
so yeah, quite a bit of money too. That's nice of them,
I know. So yeah, yeah, we're excited to go there. Um,
it's always fun going up there. How long you've been oh, fum,
probably about ten years or so. Yeah, and you raced other stuff
too, didn't you have a Yeah, I've raced winged midgets yea pro for
modified and whatnot too, so mostly the NASCAR wheel stuff. Yeah, but
so about how long have you been racing in total? I mean basically same?
Yeah, about the same time I started at Papyrus. Yeah, how
I afforded to go racing was working because my parents wanted nothing to do it.
It's like it's just a fad, No, just a fad, and
they are going to support it at all. So yeah, yeah. A
few weeks in the phone call, Dad's like, so, what are you
gonna do, you know after this, when you're gonna get a real job
instead of working for a video game company and racing cars. Right, I
know because when I started Papyrus, I didn't even have my driver's license,
so my mother had to drive me there a couple of hours later. Well,
your parents lost money on that deal because the gas money and time and
oh back then it was what a dollar gallon or so right, Wow,
you're old. I graduated high school and two yeah, oh you're not that
old. No boys help, Yeah he is swinger to Tyler. Tyler,
you're kicking your season off right now on dirt as well, right, yep,
we're running the uh Sportsman equivalent to a Sportsman late model in I Racing.
It's a great car with a six o two engine dirt late model.
But yeah, we we've run two races this year for second, both of
them, so not you know, not totally disappointing that, but uh definitely
don't want to be second all the time. So um, what is it?
Seconds? The first loser and that's how it feels. So uh yeah,
but our season is just now kicking off and we're getting under way here
and now we've have we have a few races coming up this weekend and during
the week actually next week. But the weather does not look great, so
you're not sure down there? Huh Yeah, some severe weather and just lots
of rain. So are you running for points this year? Uh? The
goal is probably to run for the track points like we did last year.
Um, but that's you know, that's still up in the air as well.
We've been talking about venturing off and running some other tracks just to get
more experienced on some other tracks, and if we do that, then we're
probably just not gonna point trace um. But so we're not totally decided yet.
For our listeners. Tyler is not based in the Boston area, in
case you're wondering why he gets different weather than us. So Tyler down in
Mississippi. That's right, that's right, all right, let's uh. It
was briefly up here for a little bit though, before he went back home.
Yeah. I loved it up there. I mean, you know,
it was it was fun. A lot of braces. Oh yeah, it's
different snow than down here. It's like I'm explaining, Yeah, but it's
like powder down here. It's just wet. It's just different. But yeah,
not as many dirt tracks up here though, No, no, definitely
not. Yeah, I just I just love racing, Like I liked the
racing they had up there. I think the event Kevin's Racing in this weekend.
I went to it when I was up there. It was really fun,
Like it's just racing all the time up there. It's awesome. Ye
were a bunch of good short tracks up here for sure. All right,
let's swing it over to Hankle, Mike Cankle, and let's talk about your
racing career and you can feel free to talk about how easy it is to
get into Formula Vie and how I broke that. Yeah. Actually, so
I didn't touch on this when we talked earlier. But the reason I work
at Eye Racing more or less is because Greg West had approached me. I'm
I help out with the NYMV dot org. We have our own organization in
New England and I'm listed as a contact on the website for people who are
interested in starting in Formula vi. So Egg contacted me and said, hey,
I want to start racing Formula Vie. So we met, We went
over the cars, we went over the maintenance and and things that I thought.
He should know before getting in. He dived right in, bought a
car, and I helped him out with going to school, and through that
relationship, I think I Racing decided they wanted to scan a Formula VI and
I helped put together a lot of information for that. So yeah, so
my my Formula VIE is the one that was scanned. Yesh, Yeah,
those are the oil stains. Yeah. Oh yeah, leaks oil it yeah,
smokes, that's normal Volkswagen stuff. Don't worry about that. Perfect Yeah.
So yeah, we run the rings so loose in the engines that we
actually build up oil and then when you step back on the gas, it
just shoots all that out the exhaust. So when you're following somebody, you
can tell when they pick up a throttle again going out into they to model
that. Yeah, you guys did a good job. Yeah, they did
a great job on the car. I mean the scratches, some of the
scratches and paint chips that were in the car, which I'm I'm kind of
ticked off about. You guys left in there race tracks that when we sign
them, Bill, that's one of the first questions they asked, do we
need to paint the walls and the lines before you guys show up, because
we wanted to look pristine in the game. Well they should, I would,
Yeah, if I could go back. We're going to bu the lawn
too, the first time in ten years. They move the grass. That's
a safety feature, actually fill in the holes. So getting started in form
of be super easy. Greg West was able to do it. So anybody
who is interested to live in the New England area. That's fired. I
like it. I own it. Mike told me, oh yeah, anybody
can do this. Anybody, Yeah, anybody, yeah, and Greg corrected
me after. So I had a conversation with Greg not too long ago,
and I said, you know what, looking back on it, actually I
have to start being more careful about how i'd say anybody can do this,
no offense, Greg, But all right, it's if you're interested in Formula
V, you're interested in racing, you think that the person has a certain
amount of car knowledge, and Greg does. He's not. He's not totally
inapt with I've never done drum brakes. Yeah, so definitely not, mister
Carr. Yeah. When I showed him drum brakes, I showed him how
to adjust drum breaks. He just his eyes glossed over. I think he
started playing on his phone and then me blow up. It's like I break
quickly. I blow up. I break race cars more than anybody at I
Racing, including you, Kevin. I think the percentage of you having issues
on track is really highly in terms of how many times you got to issue
and how many races you did. So. Yeah, let's see. I
blew up the Formula V the very first time I drove it. Mike told
me that it doesn't have a rev limitar, but you'll you'll hear the valves
float and that's kind of the that that lets you got built. Yeah,
and then I it blew up, and then Mike thought, I it didn't
blow up. He thought I just whimped out and pulled the fire bottle.
It turns out there was like a two inch HO pulled the fire bottle.
I didn't pull the file. I thought he did. So he stopped and
turned one uh, and he pulled over and there was a big cloud of
smoke, and I thought for sure he just pulled the bottle. I was
like, what is he doing? Because you know now we had to replace
the bottle. Fun facts We found out afterwards that we never pulled the pin
safety pin out of the bottle, so I couldn't have pulled the bottle.
So yeah, there was a there was a hole on the side of the
engine, so that you know that was Did you have to rewire that whole
car too? Uh No, we didn't require that. We did a little
bit. We did a little bit, but I broke the Oh there's an
ignition coil. Yeah, there's a rain light, Yeah, rain light.
But I blew the Formula V and then we went. I went up to
any car race. It wrote America and was supposed to go on the two
seater ride and it broke the transmission and turned one, which mean I got
another ride, which was cool, and the guy that was driving it felt
bad and so he really ringed it out. I was not mad about that.
That thing breaking in a straight line for turn five road America was wild.
Then Kevin and I go down to Lime Rock and Max and Imsa arranges
a pace car ride for me around the track because I've never been there,
and going in to turn one there, the right front break explodes on the
pace car and we went around a Lime Rock at ten miles an hour maybe
less, and it sounded like nails on a chalkboard. You just saw people
covering their ears like we just had to limp it back around. It's spitting
pizza the pieces of the disk. So yeah, if you want your race
car to break, put me in it. I can. I can make
that happen. Have you con stilled becoming a QA tester? Right? Exactly?
You know? I sorry to interrupt, Mic, I just like making
fun of myself. No problem. I don't even know where we were going
after that because it's making fun of you. True. We'll keep the roll
it over to Kevin Zoo. Then, so Kevin, you you're racing on
the Grid Life Touring Cup in a Honda Civic. Tell us a little bit
about that. Yeah, so, um, Good Life Touring Cup is I
guess a newer race series. Um. It's a power of the weight class
um, and it will try to allow for you know, very unique builds.
So he got you know, me and my Honda Civic. There's other
Honda Civics. There's Monster Miyada's Chevy Corvettes, BMW M Freeze, um,
all brought to the same power levels so they can race with each other.
Um. I'm pretty you know, new to wheel wheel racing. Um.
I've only just started last year. UM, and it's been you know,
a big change from my previous autocross and time attack. Um. I I
say, I Racing has prepared me very well. The first time I took
a green flag, you know, get for all the turn one carnage,
you know, tiptoe for return two and then you all, I saw,
It's just like I'm in my living room on the sim Yeah that that I
would say that my limited experience. I think I did what four Formula V
races and whatnot, and yeah, turn lap one carnage dodging. I Racing
really prepared me well, especially in VR you fully expect. But well,
I think the big trend here is there's a lot of passion that goes into
what we do here at I Racing, and I think sometimes people forget that
it's not just a bunch of people sitting in office that are just trying to
make it happen. These are people that's been their free time outside Grant on
this. You can get Grant to come on our show for the rest of
my career at EYE Racing. Ya, there's other Eye Racing employees that all
the race that haven't shown up yet either, Kevin just saying he's saving it
for the next episode, like the you know successful racers of eye Racing.
So I started back at eye racing. Grant and I used to a carding
all the time after work. And he would not race anybody. He just
go out there, ride in the back just to turn quick lapped. He
would not. He did not want to be side by side or nothing with
anybody's And that's why he races. Yeah, and now he's a national,
multiple national champion and solo racer. This's Grant. The reason we have time
attacks on I racing. Probably probably Greg, you haven't talked about yourself.
You've done some racing, You've done some well you did Formula V, but
you've done some cart racing too. Yeah. Yeah, I grew up did
some car racing growing up in the race Formula VI, and then Mike and
I decided to take a sabbatical from Formula VI after I sold my car.
Uh yeah, alexanders is still upset about that. But yeah, we went
went cart racing for a couple of years, won some races. I have,
I have some trophies. Yeah, we should certainly did. We got
torn down because people thought we were cheating and we weren't, which is fun.
This was after the V Yeah, yeah, this was after the V.
Yeah. I think Greg the first race, Greg one, if I
remember correctly, I was out front by a country mile and I actually the
chain fell off and and Greg goes by me, and I'm like, you're
in first place, and he's like, what what are you talking about?
Fun? I've gotten spun on last one. So I was like ten or
twelve seconds behind the pack. And then it started raining or it was it
was raining before. And we were on the right tires, me and you
are. We had our gearing and our tires set for the conditions that that
track was in, and me and you were just killing it. We were
just running away from everybody. And yeah, you passed a bunch of people
coming from the back half of you spun and you had no idea you were
in first place until I think it was all over. I didn't know it.
Yeah, I had no idea. I one, I thought it was
like tenth place. Yeah. Mike's like, Mike's sitting in the infield and
doing like dancing with his fingers up in the air, and I'm like,
is he happy? Is he doing? Why is he flipping me up?
I have no idea what's going on here? And I mean I knew I
was turning good lap times, but yeah it was didn't didn't know one racing's
fun. I need to get back out in some capacity. I miss it.
But but like I said, it's it's it's cool. I mean,
and this isn't everybody. This is just the people that agreed to come on
the podcast today. And some volunteered, some were volunte told, but whatever.
But like I said, it's it's about the people that are behind the
product are passionate about the product, and that's a that's just something you don't
really find everywhere. So guys really appreciate you taking the time out of your
day, whether you he said, whether you wanted to or what. It's
old too, but yeah, especially Kevin I for doing this on his day
off. So yeah, sureus points there. I'm actually working right now.
Yeah, standard operating procedure. I think a lot of people at I Racing
have a lot of racing experience and some of the members might not know that.
And when we develop cars, we have a lot of seat of pants
feel and expectations of how a car should feel and we're not afraid at least
QA at least you know, me and Kevin, I know that's for a
fact. We're not afraid to send it back and say, listen, guys,
you didn't get this right or something's a little off with this. And
played a big part in in the Formula V on the handling of that.
Yeah, that was a really cool. Well, you know, that was
my first interaction with eye racing, uh, you know, besides being a
customer, And I was really blown away how we took my real life data
at a racetrack that I've been at, and we lined it up with the
sim data and we made you know, the changes it took to make that
the same, and we throttle inputs and steering inputs and we got that thing
dialed in. And I was I was impressed because it's not just taking a
car, adding a horsepower number and adding a grip level number and making it
work. There's a there's so much more that goes into it. So um,
you know, I've seen it myself personally going through it with the Formula
V. But after that, the other cars that we developed, I know,
we always get real life drivers to come drive them in you know,
ninety nine percent of the cases we get somebody who can share data and really
get that feel correct, like we did with the V. So I you
know, even though the V and the SIM isn't exactly the same as the
one that I race in real life, I can tell you that driving around
New Hampshire Motor Speedway, which I have the most dad at, it's it
feels exactly the same. So and I think that a lot of cars.
I haven't get to drive a Formula One car, but we did a lot
of work on that, and you know, from the low end the Formula
V to the Formula One, I think we're getting it right most of the
times. No, I would agree, and I mean you've been huge,
and he said, Formula V, you helped a lot on the Formula Ford
just on the field, similar to the V. Kevin Zoo has been big
toyt G already six and the Cleo uh, you know, because you're touring
car experienced Tyler of course on the dirt stuff. And then Kevin Ironelli has
been involved in almost every car and track there is on I racing in some
capacity. So it's a lot of that seat of the pants feeling as well,
what do you think. There's a lot of a lot of times where
files are passed over, especially recently to Mike, it's like, well what
do you think drive this? I'm not going to tell you what we changed.
Yeah, that happens on a regular basis. And and like I said,
we're not afraid to say no, this is this is junk, guys,
we gotta gotta look at this again. So cool. Yeah, Greg
lost my long emails about how I think tires should behave. Yeah, yeah,
but it helps, It really does help. And I mean if you
look at the especially the g R eighty six and the Cleo what you helped
with there, you know, very very popular cars on the service. So
looking forward to seeing how those things continue. Looking forward to the dirt refreshed
tea hud that'll be exciting slated for June. We're just gonna say it now
more than just a dirt refresh that's you know Oval too, where we're you
know, our vehicle dynamics guys are going through and we're kind of reviewing a
lot of our short track stuff to get our lap times where grip setting is
more in line with three re rold data. That we have to correlate the
two. So it's it's a project that kind of morphed into the oval side
of things too. Yep, all right, Kevin, you have any Kevin
Bobbitt, do you have anything else? Three Kevin is on this show now?
Yeah, I think that's all the ones. I think it's pretty fantastic.
Yea here so special episode. So no, I appreciate you guys coming
in. Uh, it's cool to hear your backgrounds. I knew much of
your stories, but I always always fun to learn something new about it.
I mean, like Greg said, it really does show that the connection everything
this company has to real world motorsport and why why we do what we what
we do? We love it, you know, so Awestoly be part of
this team. All right, On that note, Kevin, let's get back
to the show. All right, We're back a lot of fun sitting down
with those guys. It's once again great to see the passion that goes in
to making eye racing as good as it is actually manifesting itself on real world
tracks all across the country. Because this group has been been all over the
place. I know, I think Hankle's actually driving back from vir right now
from racing the Super two race this weekend. So moving on, speaking of
racing back in the digital space, we have the e NASCAR Cocacola I Racing
Series in full force. Chris two of last year's Champion Championship four, Wilson
and Zelenski where March winners. That is true, I mean we had a
surprise winner to kick off the season in Daytona Tucker mentor and first ever race,
but fins of the drivers who you would expect to be winning races or
winning races again. Michael Conti obviously finished off February with that win at the
Milwaukee Mile, but then Stephen Wilson beck in the winner circle at Atlanta and
Bobby Zelenski dominating at Richmond Raceway. Wilson and Zelenski both in the Champion four
last year. Contie, I believe was the first driver out. So you
know a lot of familiar names punching those playoff tickets early or at least trying
to remember you have to stay in that top twenty come playoff time and have
that win to have you have your shot in and as we've seen in past
years, if there are more than ten winners for those ten playoff spots.
The one win might not even be enough. We don't have a repeat winner
yet, but we could get one. We don't know yet, but we
could get one sometime this month. And this is going to be a really
interesting month. First of all, it's back to back races. Second of
all, we're heading to Manza for the first of those races. E NASCAR
has never left the country. I mean, real world NASCAR obviously has never
competed at Monsa, but that is some of the beauty of the eye racing
space is that we're able to take cars into all sorts of different things.
I mean, we frequently joke about my league that does that. But gonna
be really cool. We're running the GP layout at Monza without chicanes, so
those drivers are just going to be barreling down into some of those corners.
In a lot of ways, it's going to be like a European Watkins Glen,
like a classic Watkins Glen race where it's a road course, but in
some ways it does kind of feel like an oval. The week after that,
we go to Talladega and for the first time this year. You know,
we've had a lot of drivers over the years people who have followed e
NASCAR over the years said, you know, oh, it'd be interesting to
see this series do fix set up. Now, that's not happening for most
of the races, but when we do back to backs this year, the
second half of the back to back is going to be a fixed set up
rate. It takes a little bit of pressure off the drivers and make sure
that they're going to be fresh for it. But it's also a great equalizer
and we'll see, you know, some of those drivers who might excel more
in a fix than a you know, that have made the Koke Series level
try to take advantage of those couple of opportunities, you know, not to
mention the fact that it's also Talladega where anybody can win. Again we saw
with a first time winner in his first race at Daytona and Tucker Mentor.
So this is really going to be one of the most interesting little pockets of
the schedule in the history of the Koke Series. So really looking forward to
that. Obviously, every Tuesday night at nine pm countdown to Green Date thirty.
So can't can't wait to see how those races play out. Now,
it's gonna be a lot of fun I'm excited the seat. Like I said,
there's just a little bit of verse. See going to Monza, that's
gonna be quite a wild race. I've been listening to some of the driver
feedback as they've been practicing for that, and it's, uh, it's definitely
something that's a little bit different for for them, but it should be a
great show. And then you know Talladega going to a fixed setup race.
I mean, if there's any race where setup is not nearly as important as
a draft track like like Talladega, So I'm I'm excited to see how that
plays out. Also, watching Talladega is just always a good time because you
know, you're always waiting for the big one, and then the second big
one, then then the third big one and then two two green white checkers
at least maybe three. So it'll be a lot of fun. Speaking of
a lot of fun, Taghire Porsche e Sports or wait is it Porsche Taghre
Esports Supercup or Taghwior Porsche Esports Supercup. Kevin's rolling his eyes. I'm so
disappointed. I'm not even gonna cover it. I mean, it's just I
can't believe you got that wrong. But I've been called worse by better.
Kevin. Let's talk about pass. Well, what a race we had at
Watington's Glen last week. You talk about how Monza is kind of mixing things
up for the Coke Series. We went to Watkins Glenn, the short course,
no bus stop. It was it was interesting, it was it was
a draft machine. Um. The All Star race was completely dominated by Casey
Kerwin from the Cooke Series, the reigning champion. UM like completely dominated by
him until he ended up in the wall on the second race. But anyway,
uh, he was the fastest guy. But the the the actual pass
race was fantastic. Um. Caruso's leading the points. Now. Actually we're
back to we had back to back, so now we're off for two weeks.
We come back at SPA for the tail end of the season. I
think we've got four races to go, is that right, Chris, yep?
Four to go, so we're almost almost there. But it's been a
good season, lots of different winners, fantastic show. The guys in the
studio I have been doing a great job with PASK as well as Coke and
all the other stuff they produce. They're actually behind the cameras today, so
we're so to speak anyway, shout out to Jerrancisco. That's right. But
yeah, been a great season, looking forward to uh, you know,
wrapping things up over I guess the next six or seven weeks or something like
that. So no, always a good time. And before we head out
today, Kevin, we have doubled our fan count. We got a nice
little Easter message from a mister Steve Myers. Steve Meyers sent us a video
recording from his mother talking about how much she loves this podcast and the highlight
of it is she loves it because it's both informative and we have very few
four letter words used, so it's like very few. I thought we cut
them all out. I thought we had zero, but at yeah, we
say slow a lot, you're a lot. Oh okay, gotcha. But
it was actually a sweet video that was sent. She does seem to enjoy
it, and I don't know that that's probably the nicest thing Steve's ever said
to the three of us, so that that he likes the work we're doing.
So absolutely, it was a nice easter that's my word. It was
a nice easter message. And I don't know's we've kind of been joking in
the office like this started office kind of just a something fun to do,
a different way to get the message out. And it's grown way bigger than
we thought it would be. I'm not exactly sure how. I maybe maybe
just because it's it's entertaining that we are making it up as we go,
Maybe that's it. But uh, this has been a As we're approaching fifty
episodes, this podcast has been such an adventure and hearing people come up to
us at expos and things like that and say they listen to it and that
they're fans of the show and asking Tony Kennan to take pictures of me and
Kevin. Uh, that's that's pretty wild. I was a highlight. Yeah,
yeah, that's a highlight. You know, things like that. Um,
but you know, it's we appreciate everybody that's come along the ride with
us. We're looking at ways to expand it. So for those of you
that they haven't picked up the hint, we are, well, this will
not go out. I don't think as a video podcast we are. We
are doing a test run today adding video to this and uh, I'm glad
it's a test run because God knows I'm not camera ready. This this is
why I keep actually going to the gym now I have no choice. This
is why I motivate you to go to the gym for you. Wow,
something had to whatever it takes, right, I'm glad to go to the
gym. It's good for you. Yes, get something from me while you're
there too. Yeah. Yeah, do three workouts today and then we all
get credit. Yeah. Crap up. Well, I gotta leave now then,
because I won't be done until it closes at ten. My goodness,
there's somebody that used to spend a lot of time in the gym. That's
a lot of time in the gym. I'm going back to that four letter
words slow ah, gotcha. Well, it's the effort that counts when you're
hitting the gym. So good for you, yep, and and and and
expanding podcasts. You know, once again, we're gonna look at ways to
make this uh more entertaining. I mean, well, now that I think
about it, the video part, there's Cisco and Drew. They probably have
filters that could take care of us going to the gym. Right, I
thought you were gonna say for the four letter words, Well they have that
I know that, but but I'm just saying we could. We don't have
to go to the gym. I'm sure we could. Yeah, we could
all just become a v tubers would be great. Yeah, there we go,
Cisco and just yeah, make Kevin look buff. I need a lot
of help on that one. Multiple filters. Oh. On that note,
thanks for listening to this edition of the I Racing Downship. Don't forget to
rate, review, and subscribe on Apple Podcasts, Spotify and anywhere else Chris
decides to put this thing probably YouTube and Twitched and feature as well, So
we'll be doing that for Kevin, Bob and Chris Leoni. I am Greg
West and we will see you on the track.