EP12: Fighting the System in New England; Goodwood in Old England, “High 4” and Panteras Jumping off Trains

Jon Summers is the Motoring Historian. He was a company car thrashing technology sales rep that turned into a fairly inept sports bike rider. On his show he gets together with various co-hosts to talk about new and old cars, driving, motorbikes, motor racing, motoring travel.

• M’s Goodwood Festival of Speed report
• The Allure of the Metro 6R4
• M on The Value of Being a Goodwood Member
• McLaren P1, Marlboro livery
• Hyundai Ioniq 5 N, a EV with gears, and the comedy touch in performance EVs
• Not racing, but burnouts and crashes on the hillclimb up Lord March’s drive
• J’s interest in Leyton House
• Cathedral – Hopkins, Witchfinder General
• A Nissan Altima rental
• J forgives the CVT, if indeed it has one
• The aggressive nose of the innocuous Altima
• J wants to Fight The System in New England, don’t judge me by my flip-flops!!!
• An E-plate Aston Martin V8 Vantage at home in New England
• A cheap MG EV – is this a milestone affordable-and-practical EV, as J thinks?
• J worries about the longevity of today’s EV cars
• Le Mans: the TV experience – J is impressed
• M moans about UK Formula 1 coverage, and the new Murray Walker, David Croft
• James Hunt and Martin Brundle Commentators Above Reproach
• J’s five minutes of Formula 1 in the last five years – Max Verstappen and Lewis Hamilton crash at Copse
• J doesn’t like Max
• M doesn’t like Red Bull
• M respects Adrian Newey
• Spa deaths at Eau Rouge / Radillon
• Door hits are always bad – Keith Odor, Mike Hawthorn
• The Halo on F1 Cars
• NASCAR Chicago street race; Shane van Gisbergen wins his first NASCAR race
• Type o Negative – These Three Things
• Automotive Storytelling – Fast Five. Panteras jumping off trains, Hokosuka Skylines in a Rio favella
• Celtic Frost – Dance Sleazy
• Mission Impossible bike stunt and movie review, including plot spoilers
• M recommends John Wick 4 for its Epic Imagery
• 3d botmaker 1:64 scale Hot Wheels diecast car racing updater
• The A-Team roll
• Fastest Hot Wheels castings; Sierra Cosworths, Nissan Maxima Wagons
• Practical Sportsbikes, the son of Performance Bikes magazine is dead. The End of Days for print media.
• M considers the tablet as a shareable alternative to magazines
• US road trip – $ no object what do you drive? Broadly T70
• The rental F250XL used for the Route 66 road trip discussed in Ep11
• “High Four” is J’s new happy place
• An Epic Drift
• Best driving music?
• Metallica: short hair or long?

[00:00:00] John Summers is the motoring historian. He was a company car thrashing, technology sales rep that turned into a fairly inept sports bike rider. Hailing from California, he collects cars and bikes built with plenty of cheap and fast, and not much reliable. On his show, he gets together with various co hosts to talk about new and old cars, driving, motorbikes, motor racing and motoring travel.

Good day. Good morning. Good afternoon. It is John Summers, the history vendor. That’s a bit silly, that doesn’t it? But anyway, um, look, um, I have split, um, I did one long recording, didn’t I? And, and episode 11 was the first half of it. And now this one, episode 12 is the second half of this one long recording.

Um, Yeah, so that’s what the [00:01:00] backstory and, and I’m just gonna drop you straight in. The next item on my agenda, the Goodwood Festival of Speed. Yeah, I mean it was good. We got a bit lucky with the weather, given Saturday was cancelled. Um Why we went on the high winds, wind and rain. Yeah. Friday was a bit of a washout.

It was bucketing it down quite heavily. And I think with the wind getting up for the Saturday, they were like, no, it’s going to be easier to just scratch it. Um, and then have the Sunday. So yeah, I mean, look, the Thursdays, it was a little bit quieter. I mean, you wouldn’t know it from the crowds now. I mean, I’ve only been going for like the last three years running and.

Each year is noticeably busy. Um, but it was lovely. I mean, it’s, it’s, um, some quality stuff. I mean, again, you can’t see, you can technically see everything in a day, but I mean, it’s, I can’t be bothered to charge around and be quite that diligent with checking in on everything. So, [00:02:00] um, yeah, I went with my brother and a friend, a friend from work.

Um, well, a friend, uh, Jabra that I, that I, um, we sold to at his concert subsequently. And now, now mate, yeah. Um, and, uh, yeah, no, we, and he took his lad, it was his son’s 16th birthday the day before, so he still counted as a junior in, um, uh, Goodwood’s eyes. And, uh, it was quite interesting. They both, they both said to me in the drive, he came to my place and we drove down in one car and, um, they both said to me that they, the, the car that they’re most passionate about is the Metro 6R4.

They only wanted to see a 6R4. Could I guarantee there wasn’t gonna be a 6R4? I was like, well, no, I mean, if you ask me to guess, will there be one? I would say, yeah, there probably will be. There was last year. If I recollect certainly in the paddock, there was one kicking around. I think it was the computer vision blue one.

If I recollect, um, is the ironic livery. Yeah, well, long story [00:03:00] short, we got for about half nine. Um, and in the second bunch of cars that went up, there were two Metro six off. So they, they, they, uh, the, including the computer vision one and a red one, I think a red and white one. Um. But yeah, so they thoroughly enjoyed that.

Um, and then they went off and did their thing. They went up to the rally stage. I hung around with my bra for the day, which was great. Um, it, it, it, it’s, it’s, I mean, slightly, uh, you’re slightly coddled as a member on the basis that it, when everyone looking at you, getting to lunchtime, you think, oh, yeah, it’s a bit peckish.

And you look around at the food stalls and there’s queues sort of 30 or 40 length. You think, oh, and then I’m a bit on set. I’m a member here. So we wandered around to the, we’ve, and as it happened, I looked around and said, where’s the members? Just a bit. And it was about 50 yards away. So Jamie, I can sign one person in.

So Jamie and I went and ate there where the queue was too deep. And we had, uh, so we’re able to sit at a nice table and, uh, [00:04:00] it was, it was much more relaxed. As we pointed out, my brother said to me, now this is more what I, this is more what I’m talking about. Um, so we had a thoroughly nice afternoon. I mean, look, my highlights in terms of cars getting back on track, the McLaren livery on that P1.

You have to. Well, no, but the McLaren, the, sorry, the, the, um, the Marlborough aping livery on that McLaren P1 was fabulous. Um, looked amazing. Um, I like the RS that, and that, that Targa turbo 911 as well. Um, the car that I was most excited to see, I don’t think I actually saw the, uh, the, um, what is it? The Ioniq N, which for, uh, Anyone who hasn’t, I mean, I’m not that bothered about electric cars, but I like electric cars when they do electric, if you know what I mean, when they do their own thing and don’t try and be a different, so what I like about what Hyundai have done is, uh, they’ve aped gears, so they’ve set the torque up in order to give you [00:05:00] a gearing feel, so that you can, you know, rattle through the gears and have fun with it, and because it’s an electric car, uh, and it’s a prototype, And because they have a sense of humor, evidently, you can change the sound that you have in the car, so you can have a V8 roar if you want, but also you can have a jet engine sound from an F from an F 18, like from Maverick’s movie, and then when you shift gear, you get a sonic boom effect through the, through the, I mean, cool, you know, if you’re going to do, if you’re going to be electric, do your own thing, like the GTR, you know, do something different and do it your way.

So, Yeah. Um, I, I tried to make it light and I do think the, the, the ability to be an all rounder and there’s like some kind of humor and, and, um, it’s not my thing, but it is seemingly going to form part of the culture of performance. He beeps. Yeah. I mean, it’s, it’s, I think it’s, it’s not a sort of [00:06:00] there from what I saw from the spec sheet and I read the article and I’ve seen, looked at the car and stuff.

It’s like 300 and something horsepower. So not the usual electric. Oh, we’ve given it 4 gazillion horsepower. It’s 300 and something. So plenty, you know, but sort of reflective of where you, where current hot hatchbacks are, the golf current golf, ours, three, dirty three 40, something like that, I think. So in that sort of bracket, you know, um, so yeah, I mean, it’s, uh, it, it looked quite fun.

I was interested to see it properly. It didn’t really get a proper chance to have a look at it. But um, no, it was cool. Um, and it’s it’s good wood. So the fact that you can go and look at the sort of The Elf Reno Formula One cars, and there isn’t just one, there’s like three parked next to each other and you can go and stand and take photos inside and look at the gear shift and look at, you know, there’s a little tag on the steering wheel that says good battery in this one, okay, um, so these are being coddled in a way that you would hope they would be, um, yeah, it’s a cracking [00:07:00] day, I recommend it to everyone, it’s different from the members meeting, I still prefer the members meeting because I like to see it.

them out there racing. But, you know, anyone who watched Jenson Button’s four billion, you know, he had the NASCAR that he took to Le Mans. And, uh, I mean, if you haven’t seen his rolling burnout that takes about 10 minutes for him to get up level with the house. It’s virtually a burnout all the way from the start finish.

He’s just rolling and there’s just clouds and clouds of smoke. Um, uh, you know, there, there’s fun. Had, um, Hyundai, uh, notably smashed one of their concept cars into the, into the, into the hay bales wrecking it. Um, someone smashed, uh, I think the wing off a, of the CLK gtr, one that got dinked into the hay bales.

Someone lost the arse of it in the wet and smacked that. There was a couple of other significant casualties in terms of body damage as well. Yeah, they do because I don’t have much of a presence on Twitter, but [00:08:00] I did see a clip of film of somebody binning the, um, that the Leighton house, remember the early Adrian Newey design marches that were March and then Leighton house.

And I guess I. At the time, I didn’t know who Leighton House were, but it was basically some kind of house of cards, Japanese property company. So they were super like, they were almost like rich energy, you know, that kind of utter, you know, house of cards. Now I’m not, I probably slandered Leighton House there, but I drill into it that Leighton House were worth it.

Anyway, this was the car and on the approach to the little, like, left righty bit. Um, he lost the back and binned it into the, into the scenery. I am Matthew Hopkins, Witchfinder.[00:09:00]

So I spent some time in Connecticut, uh, and up and New York recently. Um, I was there because, you know, there’s a chance that we might move there. Um, I had this Nissan Altima, um, you know, in the past they’ve had a CVT. Um, I don’t know if it had a CVT, but it was a lot better than other ones I’ve, I’ve driven.

For uh, for what it’s worth, it was really quite uh, inoffensive, you know, nice, incredibly forgettable, but quite a nice piece of, of, of kit to use. The most memorable thing [00:10:00] is that big grill with the slitty eyes that everyone seems to be doing now that implies that everybody’s driving a Camaro or a hot rod Audi, but actually you’ve just got like, you know, uh, Altima, but you know, I, I got on all right with it, but uh, yeah, um, There’s something about that part of New England that brings out the rebel.

in me. I just want to fight the system. It’s, it’s, and it’s summed up by a conversation I had with Ollie, which is that there’s all this, there’s all these houses that are set in all this grassland, you know, and then there’s another one and another one, but they’re all like enormous houses, six bedroom, five bathrooms, nice design, you know, like, but that’s that.

And they’re all like a long way apart with these rowing. So Ollie’s like, well, look at all this grass. Could I, yeah. ride my dirt bike and I’m like, uh, maybe if it was ours and my wife’s like, [00:11:00] no, you’re not allowed. So that’s what it’s summed up by, right? It’s summed up by the fact that there’s all this, there’s all this grass, but it’s not for riding on.

It’s for looking at.

So I mean, I said to Dana, I said to Dana, it would be all right. I’d be all right for like a month or so. And then one day you would get a phone call and it would be the police and they would say that there’s been an accident. That one of these houses that’s 300 yards from the road has my Mustang embedded in it.

And that turn, that isn’t really a turn at 90 miles an hour, but 120 is a turn. , you know, that’s, that’s how it would go. I would, I would like, it would come out like that. I would like, I, I, I’m like, I feel like I, yeah. I, it’s like, I, I dunno what to say. You can see, I can’t even find the words now to describe [00:12:00] how, um.

Yeah, it’s um, I love the fact that here in California you can wear flip flops and a t shirt. Um, I don’t like the fact that you can’t do that in other places. It’s, it almost begins and ends there. But this, this stupid class p rattling wasn’t really what I was, uh, was, was getting at with this. I was thinking that pulled over at the side of the road in a particularly picturesque spot thinking it’s so beautiful.

And, you know, I know like the weather in the winter’s terrible, but you know, like, you know, but I just can’t do this like sheer like. What Dana calls stick up the of uh of of the whole of of New England and then I’m looking in the rear view and there’s an Aston Martin V8 Vantage coming on this country road.

No other cars have passed me. It’s a twenty five mile an hour limit. It’s and dummy if it’s not an E plate. Here we are in New England [00:13:00] but this car is just wearing an English number plate and he comes on by and it is a proper like last of the line. The eight vantage on a E registration British play, um, didn’t catch the So when he goes on by, I just, I just follow it and over the plate at the back, it’s got a Connecticut number plate and I wouldn’t say that he was, you know, driving the car like it was on a racetrack, but I had to work the Altima fairly hard to keep up this in a 25 mile an hour.

Speed limit. And then he just pulled off out of the little like estate park onto like a main parkway and went off and, and did his business. And I was like, you know what? Maybe there is some room for it. But that was a super cool car in a kind of cool context and it’s, mm. [00:14:00] Um, did I, did you look at the link to that cheap MG ev?

No. Um, it’s a cheap. Mgv that’s like a normal sized car. Um, as part of our like milestones in the evolution of the EV, this seemed like a significant development. This feels like this is like something which is not a million miles away from the Ami in price. But as functional as now, I do want to say with all of these cheap EVs and with old EVs, the residuals on them are terrible because the batteries lose performance so much and so quickly.

So I do feel like in six or seven years, there’s going to be a ton of electric cars, which look fine. But [00:15:00] uh, worthless and need to be broken up because of the batteries that feel so grotesquely wasteful, but you know, it’s just our consumer society, isn’t it? Yeah, it’s uh, it’s uh, I can’t pretend it looks good.

I see. Now that I’m looking at the picture of it, I have seen one on the road, I think. I mean, I don’t particularly like it, but yeah, it’s I mean, whatever, but that’s not the point. I think I just think that this. I, I, I mean, uh, I’m not saying I don’t care what you think I’m saying that I, I, I, I do, um, but I’m just making the point that I feel like this is the, this is an important milestone that, you know, towards cheap, affordable.

electric cars.

So, uh, both of us watched Le Mans this year. I know it was ages ago, [00:16:00] but we, it takes me ages to percolate these topics through. Don’t, you know, I won’t be judged for being slow and disorganized. That’s who I am. Um, Le Mans, the TV experience, your thoughts. I’ll throw a few out there. I feel like it’s pretty enjoyable.

I feel like you can access the race in, in a really interesting way that you couldn’t do, you know, when I was going to Le Mans 20 years ago, you had to like, go there and deal with that like, intense carnival, gearhead, Mad Max kind of atmosphere. You don’t have to, you don’t have to deal with that. Um, if you know, I just subscribed to Eurosport for the month and then, you know, there you go.

It’s, uh, it’s all there. I like the fact that I mean, I listened to a bit of F1 the other day and I don’t want to ever go at anyone, especially somebody who can’t catch up, but Martin Brundle is [00:17:00] Martin Brundle. I’ve got no problem with Martin Brundle. David Croft just winds me the up. Like he won’t shut up.

Now, I know to be fair to him and to defend him because he can’t defend himself. He is paid to talk about the race, but um, and even though the cars don’t sound that great. Murray was saying, surely this new bloke is trying to like be what Murray was. Yeah, but I think they could all take a lesson from James Hunt who don’t, didn’t say all that much but had more, was more interesting when he did have something to say and shut up and let the, especially when he’s on board, let me hear the car, you know, let me hear the car and let me like pay attention to that.

There’s, there’s a quote, there’s a, um, a clip I was watching a while back of. Uh, one of them, I think it’s Anthony Davidson, when they’re chatting in the group stuff in a qualifying session or a Friday session kind of thing at Spa, and he was all, well, let’s listen to them go, go, go through a rouge. It gets about half a second into it and Crofty just talks over the whole thing.

Um, [00:18:00] I, like, it, it’s, uh, I, I, I, I just, hmm, I don’t know. It’s not even as if he was saying anything particularly valid, but then again, I’m, I’m sort of maligning a guy for something I don’t watch very religiously, so it’s probably not fair. Uh, I’ve got to say, I, I, uh, I must have watched about five minutes of Formula One in the last five years.

And I watched the beginning of the British Grand Prix and I watched Verstappen turn in on Hamilton at 160 miles an hour and watched him bin off into the scenery and then listen to them talk about whether or not that was Hamilton’s fault.

The, the, the level of, I mean, what, the biggest thing that turns me off about the sport is the level of, like, I just, I just can’t get past that. So, so that means that, and I know that sort of Verstappen is what Senna was [00:19:00] for my generation, but I’m the old guard now, and I can’t respect the guy. I won’t watch the sport because of him.

I have less of an issue with him. I find him grumpy and a bit brusque, but then that’s his right. Um, what I find irritating is the whole butthurt, thou shalt not criticize us of Red Bull. Um, I mean, that can just profoundly fuck off. Um, their whole attitude was encapsulated for me by Ted Kravitz, Ted Kravitz saying one in one of his sort of post rap wrap up sort of.

When he wanders around, I think it was this, I might be misquoting the guy, but it was something along the lines of he was wandering around, he said like, you know, he referred to the incident at the end of the previous season or the season before last, whatever it was. And when, uh, and he said rather blithely when Lewis was robbed, um, which difficult to argue if you sit down and impassioned dispassionate about the facts, you know, the guy got fired for making the decision he made, um, altered the rules of the race in [00:20:00] order to make it more exciting for the fans.

Okay, I can see why you want to do that. It’s a commercial sport, but that’s not what the rules said. And therefore, it enabled Max Verstappen to win the race when perhaps he wouldn’t have, almost certainly he wouldn’t have done otherwise. And Red Bull then refused to speak to Ted Kravitz, wouldn’t, and wouldn’t give interviews to Sky for the following week or so.

And we’re like, it’s, you know, we won’t have that, no criticism, and it’s like, we have to live in this mystical world where that didn’t happen, and, you know, there’s no, you can’t malign that, and they were the same, if I recollect, when I was watching it more, when Vettel was their man, and there was no, there was no criticizing Vettel, there was no favoritism in the team, that you weren’t allowed to call Weber the, you know, the number two driver, and it’s like, well, look, You are the one that behaves like he’s a number two driver and gives him second shrift.

And when there’s an incident between the two of them and it’s clearly vet’s fault, you don’t defend Weber, you defend ve it’s like, you know, it’s the German guy with in that team. Okay, I [00:21:00] understand why it’s that way, but I, I refuse to play in this charade around that. We’re not allowed to call that out.

So, I mean, and look Mike, I was perfectly happy when Michael was winning all the timers Ferrari and now vet’s winning all the timers Red Bull. And it’s boring. And it was boring for Ferrari as well, so. Yeah, the sport in recent years has been, it feels like the era, it feels like the domination is more complete and lasts for longer in this century than it did in the last century.

In the last century, the last 20 years of the last century, there was, you know, you didn’t really know what was going to happen at the beginning of every season. Whereas now, you know, we’re in like the Verstappen era, and he will set all these records, and then when his motivation, or Horner’s motivation falters, then somebody else will get a look in kind of thing.

Um, I think at some point, Ray Duane Neary retires, [00:22:00] um, and that will balance things up again, probably. Yeah, I, I know too little about, um, about modern Formula 1, 2, 1. I mean, it’s difficult to argue he’s the most successful F1 designer of all time. It’s just sort of almost impossible to argue anyone else. Um, if you look at his sort of career of success.

Um, So on the subject of, uh, of things motorsport, Um, these, uh, these folk getting killed at, at Spa, Um, Youngins. Where you know, my understanding is it’s it’s you get it wrong already on the problem is that you bounce back onto the track and then then a hit by by by oncoming cars. Um, I want to say it’s a naughty problem and I’m glad I’m not a steward of the circuit because, um.

Obviously to [00:23:00] do anything, you know, to be, to, to listen to these young pups, be like, change your circuit. This seems not remotely a good path of action. Um, you know, we can turn any sport into till Tilly wings if we want to, or we really gonna emasculate one of the only bits of, you know, epic bits of motor sport left kind of thing.

Um, you know, obviously some people would advocate that we should do that. At the same time, um, you do feel like, you know, were I the stewards, I would not want people out on track in, in the wet because literally you’re just waiting for. For something like that to happen. It’s, it’s clear that the cars are in a place now where they’re going, uh, speed where, you know, the same accident has happened [00:24:00] twice, right?

That’s I think what people are upset about quite rightly. Um, I don’t know if you can do something about the runoff. I mean, that’s the obvious thing when you visit Tamburello now. You look and you say, well, you could have done something about the runoff. You could have, could you not have thought about runoff?

And it would have been difficult because of the river, but you could have, you know, there was at least a thought in that direction. With Radion, you feel like if we purists are so keen on preserving it, can’t we do something about runoff? that means that you don’t bounce back off? I mean, they have done. It is wider on the outside of Orouz, and on the left hand side of the hill there, there’s a whole load of tarmac out there that there didn’t used to be.

Um, so there’s more space. Um, but I mean, you know, the speeds there are so high. I mean, that, that, that’s, that’s the issue. Um, those little single seater cars don’t have a lot [00:25:00] of side protection, you know, if, if you get t boned, it’s gonna, I mean, that said, I mean, if you look at the 24 hours of spa, GT, I mean, let me, um, give, uh, the boss the car keys here.

Oh, they’re right here. Yeah. Yeah. Sorry. No, that’s no problem. Oh, where are you going? Sorry. I, I have an appointment. Oh, all right. Is the boy going with you? Yeah. Okay. Bring it on. What time are we going to the party? Or what? I have to double check. I think it starts, I think you have to leave it at like 11.

15 or 11. 30. Alright, 11. 15 or 11. 30, great.

Um, you had had a thought which was completed there, so Oh, yeah, well the only other thing I was going to say was the um, that if you watch the, I watched the 24 Hours of GT racing there, um, you know, the 911s and all that sort of stuff, the stuff that, you know, the, the, [00:26:00] the GTE stuff from, um, Le Mans series.

Um, and this regularly accidents, you know, it’s 24 hours. There’s regularly accidents that have yellow flags here and there, you know, full course yellows and stuff, but I don’t remember anyone actually getting really hurt, but then they’re more substantial cars. Um, and I’m not suggesting that they didn’t.

I’m just saying I didn’t see here any, but I mean, so, you know, there are, it’s, but, you know, it’s dangerous. The, the door here is always Jesus. That’s bad. Um I I was thinking about this before I came in before we came into the call here and I realized that um do you remember that touring car driver Keith Odor um was was killed in a in a door hit and that’s with a modern roll cage and a modern car that was that was in the 90s.

Um if you think of it even there’s a good chance Mike Hawthorne by a[00:27:00]

behind the front wheel at the bottom of the A pillar, right? You know, so that’s, that’s two completely different accidents, completely different time periods, but it, I, the door hits bad! The door hits bad! It always, it always will be, yeah, yeah, there’s no, um, yeah, they, they, and they do their best, I mean, I know they do, to make these things as safe as they can, but, um, it’s um, You know, I applaud them, you know, the, do I like the aesthetics of the hoop in Formula One?

No. Is it a good idea? Yeah. I mean, I, the following season after they were introduced, a car went over the top of Alonso’s bonnet. Um, and if it had been six inches further back, the tyre would have taken his head off. Um, and the, the barrier thing pushed the car up over the top, whether or not it saved his life.

It has, I’ve seen other accidents reported where they were like. That [00:28:00] driver would be dead if it wasn’t for it. So I’d definitely want one if Roja was in the, in the race . If Roja was in the race, I would definitely want that thing. Yeah. Yeah. , yeah, that would probably be wise. Um, uh, the, uh, the NASCAR race in Chicago, it rained.

Mm. Are you aware of what happened? Yeah, I watched the, I watched the highlights of it. Um. Did you know Shane Van Ginsburg before I’d heard the name? Yeah. Yeah. Cause I, I remembered him from VA supercars when I used to watch that years, years ago, and I’ve not watched that for a long time. So I, I, my first thought when he won was, oh, I bet it was a mixed up race because the, my, my thoughts about it was that if you’re used to racing on ovals where it doesn’t rain, [00:29:00] Racing on a street circuit.

You just you’re completely out. So it’s a NASCAR guys, both in the pits and out of it just would not have had the experience to cope with the situation, whereas you have a supercar guy who is used to acting, you know, it was. Yeah, it seemed it seemed less as if. It seemed like, although it was a NASCAR race, it suited the skills of the seasoned V8 supercar guy far more than the skills of a chaser.

It was his debut race though, wasn’t it? I, I don’t know whether it was his debut. I think it was his first NASCAR race, to be fair to him. I mean, uh, well, uh, absolutely right. And you don’t luck into that, do you? I’ve just, I’ve just, you know, the, the table was tipped in his favor, but, but he For sure, yeah, yeah.

He took that race by the scruff of the neck and won it. And I know that without having watched it. [00:30:00] I just know he must have done because Oh, he did. Yeah, I watched, I watched the sort of, I think Mark sent out the thing and I looked at it because I subscribed to NASCAR because like two days later there was the whole thing.

You could just watch the whole race on YouTube. So I was like, Oh, well, therefore, if I want to watch NASCAR, have I just, I’m not bothered about watching it live and I’m happy to watch it a few days later. Then I can watch it on YouTube. So I watched the 15 minute highlights package of it. And it was a lot going on.

Um, there was a lot of people locking up on the inside, smashing into the tire barriers and quite, and to be fair to them, quite a lot of people reversing back out of the tire barriers and carrying on about their day. So, you know, the tire barriers did a pretty good job, but yeah. Yeah, no, if you can like, if you can have a mistake and keep going, I think that adds to the drama of the sport, you know, everyone loves a comeback story, don’t they?

Mm. But no, it was, it was, it was, it was, it was good fun and a fair play to him. I mean, it’s a, they were talking about him as a sort of tarmac specialist or a street circuit specialist [00:31:00] and stuff, but, uh, run one, won one. I mean, it’s pretty good, isn’t it? That’s, as records go, it’s tough to touch.

My next little section here is storytelling. I’ve called it loosely and it’s, it’s three or four different, um, you know, storytelling organs if if you like. Um, so I’m going to begin with, [00:32:00] uh, as you know, I never watch movies. So, as ever, we’re going to talk about things that we’re not experts in, which is what we do all time.

Um, I watched Fast Five, Fast and the Furious number five on a plane recently. I watched it with the sound down, listening to EDM. It was there. There were cars. I mean, I mean, wow. I mean, jumping Panteras off train, driving them. I’ve seen any of them. I’ve seen bits of them, if you like, but I’ve never sat and watched any of them.

They must be coming to the mother if you don’t get the Fast and Furious 10 or whatever it is, so, you know. I, there’s, I mean, the eye, the visuals of it is, uh, are, it’s just awesome. It, it’s, you know, Paul Walker and, uh, and driving through the streets of Rio. In this Harkoska skyline [00:33:00] and you’re like, not real, but somehow, but, but, you know, real in a light in a Dean’s more gripe role play kind of, you know, in a, in a like ridiculous overstated role play kind of, uh, kind of kind of way, um, the,

the whole, um, here’s why I thought it was interesting. It’s, it’s a combination of like the most beautiful women. And the most amazing car shot in the most awesome way. Linked together in this very complicated, Utterly implausible comic book kind of, of, of storyline. Um, two Dodge Chargers dragging a giant safe through the streets of a city.[00:34:00]

And now a touch of beauty is added to our program. Hello boy.

Is Mission Impossible out where you are? I’ve seen it. Dude, the bike stunt. I liked it because it wasn’t complicated. It was just jaw dropping because you know he really did it. About five times. They didn’t, they didn’t gussy it up. He just rode the motorcycle off the cliff and did it. That was really a moment in cinema for me.

The only [00:35:00] problem I have with it is they overused it. Not in the film, But in all of the shit beforehand. So even the bit before the film, after they say the guy comes over the studio mic in the, uh, in the darkness to go, Hey, guys, like, hey, surprised you. Like everyone turned the phones off, you know, like little sort of make it a jokey matey thing so that you might actually fucking turn your phone off and not be a bad end and eat like crisps, like with your mouth open and stuff, all the stuff that people do.

It’s like, you know, can you keep it quiet? No one wants to hear you talking to your buddy. Um. All of that stuff. After that, there was another bit where they showed Tom Cruise doing that stunt before they started the movie in the final trailer for the movie I’m sitting down to watch. So it, I mean, it’s difficult for it to lose impact given what an amazing thing it is.

And the fact that as you say, he did do it and he had to do it four or five or six times or something ridiculous. Um, And, you know, I like the way that they did it, and then they just don’t bother to show any of the bit where he gets on the [00:36:00] train. They just have him swinging through the window. Um, at a fortunate time, um, and then some comedy timing elsewhere afterwards.

So, um, yeah. I mean, it’s, yeah, it’s a stunning piece of work. Um, I, the movie itself, meh, it was okay. I quite enjoyed it. I thought he had too much paladin in him, for the roleplayers out there, for a chick he barely met, and who continuously tried to fuck him over. Like, I don’t understand why he didn’t just bond her a bit, if you know what I mean.

I, I actually liked her as a character. I felt she was actually, had more character than anybody else in the movie. Agreed, yeah, yeah. But I lost patience when, upon leaving the police station, she got in a police car and drove away. Stole a police car right from in front of a police station when she could have just walked into the streets of Rome and disappeared.

She makes some dumb decisions, yeah, and I mean, and his [00:37:00] patience with her when he had no reason to feel beholden to her at all. It’s like, you know, I’m beholden to you because you’re hot, was the plot. Yeah. If she was a minger, no way. No one’s buying that. So I’m beholden to you because you’re hot and because I need you for the rest of the plot because another one of my old exes is going to snuff it in a way that is totally right.

Yeah. You could, you could, you could, you could see it from the car park, how far away you could tell she was going to die. I mean, it was obvious, I mean, Jesus. So yeah, we need another chick cause I’m going to burn the last one. Obviously. So, you know, and you know, as well as I do, this is a two part movie.

She’s gonna be in exactly the same position with exactly the same guy, and this time he’s gonna save her in the second part of the film. I mean, I might be wrong, but I don’t think I am. I suspect that’s how it’s gonna go down. Now, you know, did I still enjoy it? Was I annoyed that I’d spent my money? No. I had a great time.

It was an entertaining evening [00:38:00] watching a big budget cheddar fest. Uh, and it’s an interesting decision to make it a five and a half hour movie and split it across two films, rather than, you know, do what Hollywood usually would do, which is edit it down. What I’m interested to see is whether or not I think it was worth it, if you know what I mean, to have that much plot in.

So far, I’m not convinced, um, but we’ll see, you know. Yeah, I mean, I, the plot of modern movies is just so like, Pachow, pachow, pachow! I just, you know, it’s, I, I, I just try and grasp on to the front end. Dude, you wanna watch John Wick 4, yeah? And if you haven’t seen John Wick 1, like, don’t worry. Um, but, if you’ve seen one of them, it would help.

Yeah, the first one, or the second one. I thought three was a bit shit, to be honest. I thought they overdid it. But what they’ve really done with four is just ignore all of that and recognize that what they’re doing is live actioning a comic. That’s what they’re doing. So [00:39:00] therefore it’s Every shot is like a graphic novel.

Every shot could be, if you think about it, every shot could be the album cover or could be the shot on the front of the graphic novel, though. You were like, oh, doesn’t that look amazing? You know, you know, there’s like, there’s a dawn scene on Sac Kerr, but there’s no one else sight. They’re standing there at dawn as the, and they have like a dual on, on, on.

I mean, it’s like, you what? So, um, they, he gets thrown down the steps and he’s climbing up the steps. It’s like a Tom and Jerry cartoon almost. He gets thrown down these steps so many times and fights his way back up the steps, but like, god damn. Um, some of the set pieces are fabulous and it’s beautifully lit and beautifully shot.

Um, and when you remember, it’s not a film, it’s a, it’s a graphic novel essentially. It’s, it’s awesome. Um, but again, three hours, 15, like, you know, my, uh, I actually didn’t feel like Mission Impossible drag too much. Usually with three hour films, I feel like they drag like [00:40:00] mission. Maybe that’s because I just went and took a leak rather than waiting for the movie to end.

I was like, I think I’ll be able to pick up what’s happening here. So I went and took a leak. Um, uh, Moving to another kind of storytelling. Have you been watching the new 3D Bot Maker? I’ve seen the King of the Mountain one. Yeah, what do you make of the new track? Um, it’s alright. It’s growing on me. I mean, the number of fatalities seems to have gone up.

Oli thinks it should be longer. But they’re all that, the last one wasn’t that long either. It was, they’re all about that sort of 13 to 17 seconds kind of, um. I suspect it’s more difficult to set up camera, and you would have thought they could maybe do it. Maybe they’ve only got big enough space to set up a certain amount of track, and you’ve got to set up a lot of GoPros and all that sort of stuff, haven’t you?

So, um, and, I mean, [00:41:00] clearly they run the races and then plan their commentary and do their commentary after the races and stuff, as you would. Um, and that makes it pretty good, and I’ve thoroughly enjoyed it. Um, yeah, I mean, I don’t think the track’s the greatest thing. Um, but it is still interesting to see, you know, which cars random their way in from the back, um, and are able to sort of make points on the rounds where they’re on the second row.

That is what you’re looking for is, is if they can make points on, on the, the, the, the other thing I, the thing that I find quite frustrating is if there’s a car that’s noticeably faster than the others, and he can’t like that car can’t like exert his advantage. Um, I always feel, uh, uh, frustrated by that.

I was going to say, I also feel on this particular course, you talk about the number of fatalities being high. I, I agree with you. It’s not least because the crowd are allowed to stand too close at the [00:42:00] finish line, um, which may have been a deliberate design feature. Um, but the, the other thing that I think is interesting is the bridge and the way that a number of cars coming out of that bridge do what I call like the 18.

Do you remember in the 18 cars would always crash the same way in that one side of the car would drive up like a park car or a ramp or a bush that concealed a ramp and and and then so rather than and that would induce because one of the side of the car went up and the other side didn’t and the front lifted up that would be enough to heave it up to fall spectacularly onto its roof.

Um, yeah, yeah, no, it’s, um. Yeah, the one that went into the drink in the semi finals that went, just disappeared off the edge into the water. That was quite an impressive crash. Um, there seems to be quite a lot of people doing the, uh, uh, crazy Jimmy [00:43:00] finish the race in reverse, um, as well. There seems to be a number of people, uh, managing that particular maneuver.

Um, but yeah, again, the fastest bloke, uh, I think it was a chap, um, nominally a chap in the, in the, uh, Uh, car made it through his is going to feature in the um, the end of season, whatever the best of the best champions thing is based upon his time alone. So they have kept whoever it was, Scotty or whoever it was that had the fastest track time so far.

It’s that gold DeLorean, that DeLorean, that DeLorean casting seems extremely fast. A lot of people have been using the Sierra Cosworth casting, um, which obviously I absolutely love. It’s like watching 80s motorsport with the number of Sierra Cosworths there, um, in it. Not a big fan of the Nissan Maxima wagon.

There were three in the final, so it was a bit, uh Yeah, well, I think they’re good because they’re low and you can put a [00:44:00] lot of weight in them. Yeah, potentially. I don’t know why the Sierra’s good. Um, so, uh, I was taking this magazine Practical sports bikes. Basically, it was for the kind of 90s, hippie kind of bikes that I love and ride.

And it was right up my alley. Like every time they did like a comparison feature, I’d have one of the bikes that they were like doing the comparison between it really was, uh, their defunct is the end of, um, practical sports bikes, whilst performance bikes back in the day, there was like a gap. It was the same.

Contributors, but just like years later talking about the same bikes, but years later, but that magazine is is now defunct and and that’s sad and it brings me on to, um, the demise of print media in the automotive [00:45:00] space and how I think we’re sort of losing something because I. consume print media in a different way from the way that I consume, you know, I, when I’m reading a magazine, I’m not looking at my phone when I’m looking at my phone, I tend not to read automotive content.

They’re like big articles. When I open a magazine, I’m ready to read a, a long article. So I’m saying that I’m missing the magazine because of the form that it takes. I’m not saying I’m going to struggle. For content or need to subscribe to another magazine or anything. I’m surrounded by reading material.

I’m still looking at my phone and screens all the time. Anyway, um, so I, I’m fine with the narrowing almost, but I’m sad that this particular medium is not able to be sustainable. Yeah, I know. It’s a shame. Um, but, um, I think it’s a way, the other thing you can do to sort of ape it a little bit is get yourself a tablet.[00:46:00]

Because it does feel a little bit more like you’ve got a sort of larger page, more sort of format, if you know what I mean, and you could hold it in the same way. And although it’s not page turning, it does feel a little bit more, phones, uh, long articles on the phone, you know, you’re constantly scrolling, even if you have the font pretty small, you’re constantly scrolling, whereas on a tablet it does feel more like, you know, um, yeah.

We bought a Samsung tablet years ago, and one of the things I would say about the Samsung tablets is don’t, Be cheap by the expensive one because the screens are like, wow, cool. And then you’re like, it never sort of feels crap. It always feels like, oh, it’s premium every time you’re on it and it feels slick.

Um, and that it has a sort of pass aroundness that a magazine also has in the same way in a way that your phone quite doesn’t because it’s your phone, you know, you can pass it to it. Whereas you can pass that around. It’s a shared way of, oh, quick, have a look at this kind of thing. So it does have a sort of value add.

Um, but no, I agree with you the, um, you know, I’ve got apart from like [00:47:00] about seven or eight I think I’ve got a complete run of evos in the other room. Um gathering dust mainly Um, I like the fact that i’ve got them Um, and at some point I would be very surprised if they don’t go digital only in the same way.

So Um quick fire us road trip money no object What do you drive?

Well, I would probably end up on that road in Idaho that I love that goes out up towards Is it Idaho City up into the mountains like god damn? What a road It’s about the 40 miles of like beautiful left right left right sort of up and down wrapped round mountains through the trees I’m a I meant what car?

Yeah, yeah, no, I know. I was just thinking what would I drive on that road. Well, given it’s super smooth, um, I don’t know. [00:48:00] I was watching a guy in a Lola T70 go around Spa on board today. And you can buy that broadly, T70, it’s like road legal. Um, I quite like one of those at the moment. Um, not much fun as a long road trip vehicle, I suspect.

Uh, but fun, I mean, in other ways. This F 250. I have for the road trip. I can’t believe I’ve not talked about it before. It was awesome. Um, you know, strong up to more than three way speeds. If you stomp the gas enough, it was a VA petrol, not, not a diesel. Um, we, uh, there was, uh, there’s some roads in, in Nevada that, um, They’re gravel, they’re, they’re, they’re marked roads, but they’re gravel, they’re not paved.

So on those roads, [00:49:00] you could have it in high four at like 70 miles an hour across this, this gravel, which I, I’ve got to say, I’m not a four wheel drive person, but high four is the most awesome, one of the most awesome things in motoring, I love high four. So Ollie was like, what’s the difference in your high four, like do it in two wheel drive?

Um, So I’ve, I’m at the side of the road and I’ve had it in high four, like off the side of the road on the gravel bit of the side of the road, this is like middle of nowhere in Nevada, um, and then, uh, uh, I put it in two wheel drive, stop, put it in two wheel drive, I wasn’t messing around trying to change it when I was driving along, not sure if I could, but I wasn’t doing that, then I stopped, put it back in two wheel drive, turned the traction control off and, and launched it, right?

And I kid you not, it, I pushed the tail out and the nose up onto the road and then [00:50:00] there was probably a 20 second period where I had the nose of the pickup truck on the road and the back of it on this gravel slope off the side of the road and we were looking out of the side window and it was sliding in this, it was without question one of the most beautiful slides I’ve ever done.

And I will forever love that F 250 pickup, and I now feel like I might need a four wheel drive pickup truck, not a two wheel drive one, just because I love the high four, like, waaaaaah! I think if you can have a pickup, it makes sense to have a four wheel drive one, because it gives you the off roadness that that image promises you.

Um, what’s the best music to drive to?

I mean, it depends. What sort of driving are you trying to accomplish? If [00:51:00] you’re going through the night on caffeine and holy gasoline, then Boston trance music, um, you will inevitably end up speeding. Um, if you want to just chill through Western America, like whatever the country music play station is playing, um, If you’re rolling through Europe, I don’t mind doing Europop, or otherwise I’ll play whatever’s on my iPod, um, or whatever, uh, YouTube music or whatever.

Um, it sort of depends, I’ll try and do like, if I’m road tripping, I’ll try and do a bit of local flavor, just to make sure that you, in the same way as, you know, it’s nice to have the windows down, it’s nice to smell the countryside as you’re passing through, part of the value of doing the road trip is seeing all the shit in between that you just fly over.

Um, so in the same way as like stopping at a diner to have some food, not going in the McDonald’s. Cause the McDonald’s are saying shit everywhere, fuck that. Um, you know, it’s nice to get a bit of local patina on you as well, you know? So eat at the place where Angie’s like, Do we [00:52:00] have to I feel a bit uncomfortable eating here in Montana.

Cause like, most of the stuff on the wall has got eyes and horns and is looking at me. Um, you know, ? Yeah. Yeah. I ate one of those places in Fontana as well. Yeah. I mean, and look, you know, you just gotta roll with the punches. On the other end, the pork steak that she had roll was like the big, the size of the plate, and it was a big fucking plate, you know, I mean, it was, so, the feed you got was huge.

Um, and lovely and the waitress was super nice and it was, it was a lovely place, but it’s just different strokes, but you don’t get that feeling if you roll through. So yeah. Come back to the question. Um, yeah, I, I, I tend to do digital or, um, local. Yeah. The fast, the fast digital for highway stuff, but for sure stuck in traffic, I need spoken word travel.

I, I too believe I love the local. And, and you’re right, you’re a pop, [00:53:00] you’re a pop of Europe, um, and, and, uh, uh, in America country, and, and we’ve done, um, a lot of country on, on, uh, on my road trip with the boy there. We did, uh, plenty of And the cheesy Rocky stuff is the best stuff, isn’t it? Like, it’s the most amusing.

The, you know. I want a boat and millions and like, blah, blah, blah, you know, that’s, that’s the entertainment stuff. The, I had to shoot the dog and the missus left me and woe is me, like, fuck off, no one cares. Like, I know people, they sell really well, but I’m not interested. It, like, needs to have a little bit of, sort of, tongue in cheek, laugh at itself ness for me, otherwise it doesn’t quite work, but then I’m not American.

Yeah, yeah, that’s that’s that’s interesting. Yeah, it can’t take itself too too seriously. Certainly, uh, the atmosphere on on our road trip was that we were not taking, um, the music very seriously. We were singing along and and laughing and generally really in in [00:54:00] in the best way. Yeah. Um, yeah, because otherwise you start getting into going to the grand old Opry and you know, um, I mean, I’m not really that into country.

I quite like to listen to it. The relaxed stuff, you know, the amusing, the rocky stuff. But like, you know, when it all gets a bit serious, it’s nice to be able to change the channel. Um, Metallica. Short hair or long hair? Um, I don’t really care. Like, do whatever they want, you know? No, no, just era. Oh, I see. New, old, old.

Metallica, yeah. Long hair. Yeah. Yeah, I thought you’d say that. But those more recent albums are just so, those 90s albums, so listenable. I find I listen to that material more now. than the long hair stuff of years ago. Yeah, I mean, it’s each their own. And the stuff off the most recent album, I listened to a couple of tracks.

I quite liked it. I thought it was pretty decent. I mean, it felt [00:55:00] like they were going back to early Metallica, sort of more than the sort of, um, period that I basically tuned out of them. Um, so yeah. Mark, thank you for your time. My pleasure, man.

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