#ICYMI - A Conversation with Mario Andretti and Neil deGrasse Tyson

In case you missed this episode on the Playing with Science channel…. “If everything seems under control then you’re just not going fast enough.” Hosts Gary O’Reilly and Chuck Nice hit the fast lane with legendary driver Mario Andretti and our resident astrophysicist Neil deGrasse Tyson to explore Mario’s extraordinary career. Photo Credit: StarTalk©

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:00Chuck Nice?

  Watch and listen to commercial free episodes of StarTalk on StarTalk Plus. Sign up at patreon.com/starTalkRadio. Hey, did you know that StarTalk has a YouTube channel? Subscribe now for video versions of your favorite StarTalk episodes. Along with video shorts on all sorts of topics. We've got videos on flat earth, nuclear power, aerogels, supermoons, asteroids, hurricanes, and so much more. Go to youtube.com/starTalk. And while you're at it, hit the subscribe button and hit the bell so you can be notified every time we publish a new video. Again, that's youtube.com/starTalk.

• 0:43Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  This is StarTalk. I'm your host, Neil deGrasse Tyson, your personal friend, Chris, and this is a special sports edition. We have with us, as my co-host, the dynamic duo from Playing with Science, Mario Riley. Hey. Chuck Nice.

• 1:00Chuck Nice?

  Hey.

• 1:01Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  The two co-hosts of that esteemed show.

• 1:03Gary O'Reilly?

  Thank you.

• 1:04Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And who did you bring into my office today?

• 1:07Gary O'Reilly?

  Well, it's quite simple, really. Today, our guest joins us from Mount Olympus. Yep, he is a god. Some say that he refused the lead in the Fast and the Furious movie franchise because they were just too damn slow. And when posing for his portrait in the National Portrait Gallery, all they got was a blur.

• 1:28Chuck Nice?

  Nice. I see what you did there.

• 1:31Gary O'Reilly?

  Thank you.

• 1:32Chuck Nice?

  Exactly. He's actually the only man in history to win a Formula One championship, an Indy championship, NASCAR at Daytona championship, and he is voted driver of the 20th century. Okay, so there you go, man. I don't think it gets much better than that.

• 1:55Gary O'Reilly?

  I don't think it does. He is a national treasure, both here in the US and in Italy. He is the man, the living legend. He is Mario Andretti.

• 2:06Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  He is. I give him the applause.

• 2:08Speaker 03

  Yeah. Wow, how do we live up to that?

• 2:12Gary O'Reilly?

  You already have.

• 2:13Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  We're done.

• 2:15Speaker 03

  Okay, thank you very much.

• 2:19Gary O'Reilly?

  You're welcome. All right, let's step back and explore some of your early life. If I'm not mistaken, as an eight-year-old... You find yourself in a refugee camp in Italy?

• 2:32Gary O'Reilly?

  Unbelievable.

• 2:33Speaker 03

  Well, yes, indeed, unbelievable to some degree because we were refugees in our own country.

• 2:40Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Wow.

• 2:41Speaker 03

  Because actually, the territory where I was born, which is the peninsula of Eustria, on the eastern side and the northern side of the Adriatic, was occupied by Yugoslavia after the war.

• 2:55Gary O'Reilly?

  Ah.

• 2:55Speaker 03

  Italy, obviously, lost the war. And so that became a communist occupied country under hardline communism. And there was a choice for all the inhabitants of the area to remain and succumb to communism or leave to maintain the Italian citizenship and leave everything behind. Everything that you own, you just, you were allowed, given a lorry, a truck, you know, to put whatever belongings you could just transport with that and then, and leave. And then, so we were transported to what they call a displacement camp in Udine, which is on the other side of the...

• 3:39Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Displacement camp, that's all it is. It wasn't a concentration camp, it was a displacement camp.

• 3:44Speaker 03

  Which after there, you were displaced to another area in Italy, wherever, a city where they would absorb, say, 1,200, 1,500, because there were, I think it was estimated somewhere around close to 190,000 inhabitants of that area that wanted to leave, that left, actually.

• 4:06Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  This is part of the fallout of the Second World War that I don't think they teach us in our schoolroom.

• 4:10Chuck Nice?

  No.

• 4:11Speaker 03

  No.

• 4:11Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  All the edge, the edge work, what's going on from the Soviet Union, what did they get, what did the winners and losers get?

• 4:18Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 4:19Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah.

• 4:19Chuck Nice?

  Yeah, the only thing you learn in American schools about World War II is it ended with USA, USA. Yeah, that's basically...

• 4:27Speaker 03

  Well, not only talk about teaching, actually, the government was not really learning or, you know, exactly telling anyone that we are refugees, we're Italians.

• 4:40Speaker 03

  You know, from a land that was lost, they were actually ashamed of the fact that they lost their territory. So we arrived in the city. We spent, where I, where we wound up was in Lucca in Tuscany, beautiful city. And, and so basically, we were like, there was somewhere like 1,200 people in one building that used to be an old monastery and all of that. And, and again, you know, under basic, fairly primitive conditions. But nevertheless, you know, we, no one knew in the area what we were. What are we, gypsies? What are we, what? You know, so it took a long time for people, you know, to realize, you know.

• 5:21Gary O'Reilly?

  What age are you at this point?

• 5:22Speaker 03

  Eight.

• 5:23Gary O'Reilly?

  Eight. Where did you know you had a passion for racing, for driving, for motorsport?

• 5:30Speaker 03

  About eight and a half.

• 5:31Gary O'Reilly?

  There's a story that used to run around the kitchen with a frying pan acting as a steering wheel. Is that true?

• 5:38Speaker 03

  Indeed, exactly. And in fact, I have, I have a twin brother, Aldo. Yeah, and he and I obviously had the same passion. And, and one day, one would be the driver and the other would be the car. The car, the guy that was the car was holding the lid, you know, on a knob. And the other guy was steering. So you're, and you're backing up, so the way you're steering, you know, you're just actually learning how to drive, right? You know? And you hope you don't run into furniture, you know? But, you know, there was something, I don't know why, still to this day, what really drew me into that, you know, to motor racing and to be fascinated with something like that,

• 6:23Speaker 03

  that was the furthest thing from the makeup of our family, quite honestly.

• 6:28Gary O'Reilly?

  You find yourself in the USA in 1955?

• 6:34Gary O'Reilly?

  Your twin brother Aldo and you sneak out. We will be rebuild cars and go dirt racing.

• 6:43Speaker 03

  Yes.

• 6:43Gary O'Reilly?

  What did your mother and father think?

• 6:46Speaker 03

  That's the point. I, you know, we, we obviously, when we arrived to America, we found out there's a a racetrack right in the town where I still live today.

• 6:57Gary O'Reilly?

  What town was that?

• 6:58Speaker 03

  In Nazareth, Pennsylvania.

• 7:00Gary O'Reilly?

  Pennsylvania.

• 7:00Speaker 03

  Yes. And, um, and anyway, um, and so two years after we arrived, we started building a car that we planned to race there by the time we were 21. So we had plenty of time, but the car was finished when we were 19, two years later. And so we're ready to race, but there's no way we could ask or even talk about it to my dad because my dad, all he knew about racing at the time was what was, you know, pretty much publicized such as, you know, fatalities.

• 7:35Gary O'Reilly?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 7:36Speaker 03

  And then they were too often, you know, and too popular. And so basically he thought it was something crazy. Basically he did not understand or care about the sport, but we already had the burning passion, you know, that was inside of us. And, um, and we were gonna do this regardless. So the bottom line is, uh, we did the whole first season without my dad knowing. Now my mother, who was a kicking, I mean, she was really, she, she was much different. She was, uh, basically, but she was caught in the middle. So she didn't know directly, but you know, mothers, they sense things. They knew something was going on.

• 8:18Speaker 03

  So, so she could sort of stay quiet behind, but we were winning, winning some races. Actually, my brother won the very first race and so did I, that we competed in on a local level. And so my dad at work, you know, the boss go, hey, Gigi, man, you did a great job. You know, so my dad had no idea, language barrier, you know, that was a salvation.

• 8:43Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Thank God.

• 8:43Speaker 03

  And he, yeah, thank God. So he thought that they were just praising him for his work. And he go, yeah, yeah, yeah, good, good. So the bottom line is, you know, we escaped all that until the very last race of the season where it was an invitational. You had to be 30 points within tracks of 150 mile radius to be invited to Hatfield, Pennsylvania for the last races. So we both actually were eligible for that. And so I got a ride with somebody else and Aldo drove our car, which was, that was a modified race. Our car was a sports, so it was not as powerful, but it was still

• 9:25Speaker 03

  a fast one. And he was during a qualifying heat, he was trying to beat the track champion at that place, which was Freddie Adams. And somehow he got into the garrail and he had a, you know, terrible end over end accident. And they gave him his last rites that night. And he had a skull fracture, the base of his skull fracture. He was in a coma for weeks. But anyway, and so obviously I had to call my mom.

• 10:00Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I would think.

• 10:01Speaker 03

  My mom, so I said, Mom.

• 10:03Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Only a race car driver could speak like that. We got his fractured skull, he's in a coma. But anyway, let me get to the real story.

• 10:13Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Like another day at the track, okay?

• 10:14Speaker 03

  I'm just telling you how my dad.

• 10:16Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  He's just telling how it goes.

• 10:17Gary O'Reilly?

  Occupational hazard.

• 10:18Speaker 03

  I'm telling you how my dad found out.

• 10:20Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Skull fracture, in a coma. But let me continue with the story. Okay, go on.

• 10:23Speaker 03

  No, no, I want to be brief because I can go on and on, you know. But I said, that's how my dad found out. And obviously he felt vindicated, you know, I figure, see, I told you, you know, they're going to bring you home with in a body bag and all that. But the bottom line is that a whole hell let loose when he found out that even while Aldo was recovering, I was building a new car.

• 10:48Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  You were still racing.

• 10:48Speaker 03

  I was building a new car for the following season. And when we started racing the following season, it was very, very, very, uh.

• 10:58Gary O'Reilly?

  So you're your own engineer, mechanic and driver?

• 11:03Speaker 03

  Well, uh.

• 11:04Chuck Nice?

  That means yes.

• 11:04Speaker 03

  I, I don't think I would.

• 11:05Chuck Nice?

  That well means yes.

• 11:06Gary O'Reilly?

  So actually, you're getting science education on the job?

• 11:10Speaker 03

  That, that was more like it and, uh, but, uh, you know, we, we assembled four other buddies and, and there's always the geek in the crowd, right? One guy that actually steered us in the right direction is, his name was Charlie Mitch, he's no longer with us, uh, you know, but he sort of, he knew what we needed to do and, uh, and we, you know, as driver, I, you know, I, I learned how to weld and all that sort of thing, you know, but, uh, as far as mechanics, uh, we just, uh, improvised, you know, the best possible way, but somehow we did a pretty good job because, uh, here's the, the idea, um, we built something that was different from what they were running, uh, at, at the local racetrack and, and the idea was if you build something,

• 11:56Speaker 03

  it has to qualify within rules, you know, but, uh, it said, uh, uh, we have to do something like NASCAR. NASCAR had the, the, at the time where the, um, the Hudson cars were very popular on the short tracks. So that's what we built. So when we showed up, we showed up with something very different. And, uh, and then we had, uh, oh yeah, you know, in those days, you know, the race drivers didn't have proper, you know, driving suits or anything, you know, we showed up, we, uh, we bought two, uh, uh, driving suits from Italy, Salasport, you know, with all the zippers and everything.

• 12:33Gary O'Reilly?

  Italians.

• 12:34Speaker 03

  Yeah, we showed up and then.

• 12:35Gary O'Reilly?

  Gotta do it in style.

• 12:35Speaker 03

  And then we, yeah, yeah. And also we, we, uh, we said that, uh, we used to race in Italy in a Formula Junior, you know, which didn't exist. You know, but, uh, and so to be accepted, you know, because it said, you know, why should we let you race, you know, that sort of thing?

• 12:52Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 12:53Speaker 03

  So we said, oh, here are the Italian kids and so forth. So we played the part, if you will.

• 12:57Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 12:57Speaker 03

  And, um, and that's how it all got started.

• 13:00Chuck Nice?

  That's pretty great though. It's just like, why should we let you race? You don't know these guys? They're the Formula Junior champions. Oh, oh, oh, oh.

• 13:07Gary O'Reilly?

  Oh, yeah, yeah. Then it must be good.

• 13:09Chuck Nice?

  We're so sorry. We didn't know.

• 13:10Speaker 03

  By the way, that one haunted us for a while.

• 13:14Gary O'Reilly?

  So let's, let's jump forward a little bit. You've, you've got your. You've got your smarts in engineering now, you're learning how to handle a car. You end up moving into a bigger deal and Holman Moody, which is NASCAR. That must have been a whole new ballgame for you.

• 13:35Speaker 03

  Well, indeed. I mean, at the top level of our sport, obviously, we have several disciplines. And my objective was always to be in single-seaters, open-wheel cars. Which is, you know, usually, to me, that's the thoroughbred of the racing cars. But as you go on, you know, by the time I pretty much was able to express my desire to do some NASCAR, something else, I was already established in the circuit, you know, in national.

• 14:11Speaker 03

  I was already national champion in 1965, my very first year, actually, at the top level of Indy cars. And I had a great relationship with Ford. We were, you know, Ford engines and so forth, and I was winning some races. And then, and of course, Ford, you know, was very involved in NASCAR, you know, as one of the manufacturers, which still are today. And so I expressed a desire to do some NASCAR races, go to the, actually to the race, which is the Daytona 500. And they accommodated me and they put me with the top team, with the official team,

• 14:52Speaker 03

  the Holman and Moody, which feel that, actually, my teammate was what they called, it was Freddie Lorenzen, he was called at the time the golden boy of NASCAR, you know. So I was with, you know, with the right team at the right time, I suppose.

• 15:07Gary O'Reilly?

  What do you think he was learning from a point of view, physics, to be able to succeed in NASCAR? Maybe not realize?

• 15:14Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Well, of course, they're different. I mean, they're different shaped vehicles, right? I mean, everything is different. So did you feel that, obviously, they are different. What does it feel like as a driver to drive such a different vehicle? Between NASCAR and Indy.

• 15:28Speaker 03

  Well, that's the trick.

• 15:30Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Or open wheel and NASCAR.

• 15:31Speaker 03

  Yeah, that actually, that's the trick and that's the challenge. You know, because it's like an animal trainer. You know, you got a tiger, you got a, you know, something, a cheetah here.

• 15:43Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And they're both what they are.

• 15:44Speaker 03

  And they're both what they are, but you know, there's some similarity how you approach it, but they're different, different characters. So a racing car is something like that. Each racing car has its own personality. And if you're curious, like I always was, you know, even early on in my career, I was specializing, my specialty was and still is, you know, open wheel, single seaters. But I loved to see what was going on at the top level on the other side, you know, which is the stock cars. But here's the other thing that I, I think I realized early on too, that in order to be able to migrate to the other side.

• 16:23Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I liked it the other side.

• 16:25Speaker 03

  Yeah, the other side.

• 16:26Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  He crossed over.

• 16:27Speaker 03

  Yeah. I am your father. You better, you better be looking for, you know, to be with a top team. Because, you know, I don't, you can be the best shoe in the world, the best driver in the world, unless you have a car that's capable with a team that's got a car that's obviously, equipment that's capable of bringing results, you're not gonna get results.

• 16:49Gary O'Reilly?

  So one little trick did you learn in NASCAR? That were able, enabled you to be so successful in other areas of racing?

• 16:57Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I wouldn't expect that necessarily.

• 16:59Speaker 03

  Well, that's a good question, actually, because as I said.

• 17:02Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  He's capable of a good question every now and again.

• 17:04Gary O'Reilly?

  Every now and again.

• 17:05Speaker 03

  Yeah, yeah, well, actually, what makes sense is the fact that, as I said, each side has a different characteristic.

• 17:13Gary O'Reilly?

  Yeah.

• 17:14Speaker 03

  But there's similarities as well. You know, so you always learn. I, I learned something in one area that applies. And it's, oh, you know, and I always felt that I learned something, you know, to just expand my knowledge, you know, as far as. Understanding the dynamics of the car such as whether it's aerodynamics or mechanical, or the mechanical side of the car. So.

• 17:41Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Card carrying geek from way back.

• 17:44Speaker 03

  Well.

• 17:44Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  You had to take him in the geek club. If he's thinking about that, he thinking about that and applying and corresponding what's the same and what's different.

• 17:52Chuck Nice?

  The difference is, you know, geeks who are just like science for the sake of liking science, the worst that can happen to them is they might miss a fact.

• 18:03Chuck Nice?

  The difference for Mario is if he.

• 18:07Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  He could be jettisoned into earth orbit.

• 18:09Gary O'Reilly?

  He misses a bend, yeah.

• 18:10Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, you miss a bend.

• 18:11Chuck Nice?

  Right, and so I think his love of science is a little more intense and necessary.

• 18:17Gary O'Reilly?

  See, there's stories about drivers who can sit in a car, take it a lap around the track and they'll come back and tell you exactly where is and isn't. Tire pressure, some things are missed at the back, there's something not quite. How soon, I'm guessing you had it at quite an early age, how soon were you able to apply that to cars?

• 18:38Speaker 03

  Well, it's about experience though, you know, so you have to have, I mean, it doesn't just come out of the air, you know, you just have to have that practical experience to be able to identify what's going on. And then, as you make the changes, ah, this works, this doesn't work, and so on and so. But it's a work.

• 18:59Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  It becomes one with the car.

• 19:00Speaker 03

  But it's a work, yes, indeed.

• 19:01Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Very zen.

• 19:03Speaker 03

  And it's a work in progress, but, you know, a race car, the other thing is an animal that has so many, thousand adjustments, if you will. And, and the closer, the more you understand about what really works and the dynamics, what suits your style even, the better off you are. I always said that the, it's the same thing as a patient going to a doctor.

• 19:30Gary O'Reilly?

  Uh huh.

• 19:30Speaker 03

  You know, you go to a doctor and you say, doc, I'm really sick, you know, and okay, what's wrong? I don't know, I just don't. So what's the doctor gonna take him forever to do tests or whatever? If you go in there, explain to the doctor, this, this and that, you know what, something here, you know, in my head, then they go right to the thing. So it's the same thing with the driver and the engineer, to have that relationship, because you can't do it alone. You have to have a relationship with your engineer, the one that actually can fix the car.

• 20:02Gary O'Reilly?

  Yes.

• 20:02Speaker 03

  And the more, the closest he understands your way you're expressing yourself, the better off you're going to be.

• 20:11Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  You are the engineer's access to the performance of the car.

• 20:14Speaker 03

  Exactly.

• 20:16Chuck Nice?

  And now I know why my, my medical care is lousy. Because I keep calling to my mechanic and asking him what's wrong with me.

• 20:25Gary O'Reilly?

  It just gives you, just sends you for an oil change.

• 20:30Gary O'Reilly?

  All right, on that note, let us take a break. We'll be coming back with the fabulous Mario Andretti. Don't forget, this is racing legend that we've got an opportunity to talk to. A unique heritage. We're gonna take that break, more from the driver of the century. Yes, he will be with us still when we get back.

• 21:00Chuck Nice?

  Over 300 people have been guests on StarTalk. Find your faves or discover new comedians and experts at StarTalkRadio.net. Search for a person and find every episode they've ever been on. Again, that's every comic co-host, science expert and celebrity guest. Search them all at StarTalkRadio.net.

• 21:23Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  We're back, StarTalk, Sports Edition. This one from a special part of the Sportiverse. Brought to you by my special co-hosts from Playing with Science. Gary O'Reilly, Chuck Nice.

• 21:37Chuck Nice?

  That's right, sir.

• 21:38Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And, and look what you found walking around outside in the street.

• 21:41Gary O'Reilly?

  I know. Aimlessly.

• 21:43Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Aimlessly.

• 21:44Gary O'Reilly?

  Aimlessly.

• 21:46Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  We snatched him from the, from the street.

• 21:49Gary O'Reilly?

  Yeah.

• 21:49Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Pulled him in. Mario Andretti.

• 21:51Speaker 03

  Only in New York.

• 21:52Gary O'Reilly?

  Only, exactly, only in New York. So before the break, we were speaking about...

• 21:56Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Driver of the century.

• 21:57Gary O'Reilly?

  Driver, driver of the century.

• 21:59Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I didn't know that was a thing. And now, of course, it's him. Who else would that be?

• 22:02Gary O'Reilly?

  But we've only got so far. You've emerged out of dirt track racing into Indy, into the NASCAR scene. You're beginning to establish yourself. But as you said already...

• 22:16Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  This is the 60s and 70s.

• 22:17Gary O'Reilly?

  No, we're always, we're still in the 60s.

• 22:19Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Still in 60s.

• 22:20Gary O'Reilly?

  Oh, yeah. And so, the open-wheeled racing, you said, your passion. And if you want to race open-wheeled, there's only one place to go. You come back to Europe. Not an easy place to come to, because there's only so many rides, there's only so many teams. You find yourself at Lotus. Colin Chapman is the guy in charge. We've had world champions before you and the likes of Jim Clark. But at this time in 1968, there's a special thing happening at Lotus. Would you please explain to us what that exactly is?

• 22:58Speaker 03

  Well, here's, 1968 is when, uh, I go back. In 1965, when Jim Clark won Indianapolis, I finished third and I was Rookie of the Year, which is actually something that, it's a title that you only achieve once, you know, the first time. But it's, it's, it's got some, you know, some importance to it, you know. And anyway, at the banquet, after everything, and we're saying our goodbyes, I said to Colin, I said, Colin, someday I would like to do Formula One. And Colin says, Mario, he says, whenever you think you're ready, you call me.

• 23:41Gary O'Reilly?

  Ooh, wow.

• 23:42Speaker 03

  And that's when the call came in 1968, three years later. And uh, and he said, right.

• 23:49Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  We all should have someone like that in our lives. When you're ready, call me.

• 23:53Chuck Nice?

  Yeah. Or even just call me.

• 23:56Speaker 03

  Anybody.

• 23:57Chuck Nice?

  Yeah, I'll take that. I'll just take somebody saying, hey, man, call me.

• 24:01Speaker 03

  But he took, he took the call. He accepted the call.

• 24:05Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Three years later, in 1968.

• 24:06Speaker 03

  Now, can you imagine actually, you know, as a kid dreaming, because uh, my ultimate dream was also, you know, to devote part of my career to Formula. I had a great career going here in the United States, you know, but uh. Get it made in the shade here. But, but I, I, you know, Formula One was always in back of my mind and all of that. So I says, at a certain time, uh, when I feel that I'm ready, uh, okay. And Colin was there, you know, and uh, and it was amazing because um, you know, obviously here again, one of the top teams, you know, you know, they would have equipment uh.

• 24:42Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So they can slot you and.

• 24:44Speaker 03

  Yeah, he said, I will.

• 24:45Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  What was it been possible?

• 24:46Speaker 03

  Yeah, he said, I will enter the third car, which he, which he did, of course. And then, you know, Graham Hill was one of the drivers at the time. Another world champion. Yeah, but anyway, uh, and uh, so my debut at the US Grand Prix at Watkins Glen, I was on pole. You took pole in your first race? My first race.

• 25:06Chuck Nice?

  Wow. So let me, I'm, I'm interested to know what made you know you were ready? Because that is something that people can benefit from, you know, you, you never want to go too early.

• 25:21Speaker 03

  Chuck, that, that's actually another good question here because uh, uh, the reason I s- I said I like to do it and when he said, when you're ready, because uh, in Indy cars at the time, the, the primary uh, action uh, was basically on oval tracks. So there wasn't a lot of road racing and um, so, and little by little, in that series, they started introducing some road races, but. Here again with the relationship I have with Ford. Ford was embarking in the new Le Mans programme. They, they, they, actually they're, they're doing a film about that. It's, it's, it's coming on, you know, I think right, right now. And Ford, Ford wants to beat Ferrari at Le Mans.

• 26:05Gary O'Reilly?

  Everybody wants to beat Ferrari.

• 26:06Speaker 03

  Yes, indeed. And, and there was a gigantic programme that offered a lot of seat time, you know. And I offered my services, I says, I wanna be at every test. And we, we did, we did, we should do some 24 hour test. You know, like actually straight 24 hours, you know, with the two drivers alternating back and forth.

• 26:29Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Le Mans is a 24 hour race.

• 26:31Speaker 03

  Yeah, exactly. You know, so, and that was golden for me. Because, and I befriended especially, you know, Bruce McLaren. And I became really very good friends.

• 26:41Gary O'Reilly?

  Who is part of McLaren race team right now?

• 26:44Speaker 03

  McLaren racing, the team, of course. And he was very...

• 26:47Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  McLaren, that expensive McLaren car. There's like six of them in the world or something. And a billionaire owns one. Is that the one?

• 26:53Gary O'Reilly?

  Yeah.

• 26:54Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay, to checking, to checking.

• 26:55Gary O'Reilly?

  That's the heritage.

• 26:57Speaker 03

  Just, just, just millionaire.

• 26:58Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Just, that's all.

• 27:00Gary O'Reilly?

  Mario, don't tell me you have one.

• 27:02Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I, I don't even know if Jay Leno has one of those. Does, does he? I'm pretty sure Jay Leno has a McLaren. We got a McLaren, okay.

• 27:08Gary O'Reilly?

  If he doesn't, he knows where to get one.

• 27:09Speaker 03

  I should have. I just drove a couple of them at the Autobahn in Chicago just last week. I drove a bunch of those, all those McLarens.

• 27:16Gary O'Reilly?

  So, when we, come back to Formula One, and because we probably touch on the endurance side of it. There's a thing that no one had really gotten to grips with, that Lotus had in this 78, 79 season called ground effect. Now, that's going to have a massive, massive impact on the championship.

• 27:36Speaker 03

  Yes, indeed. And actually, all of this came about just at the end of the 76 season, which obviously I was part of. And the best part is also we won the last race in Japan, you know, that season, which is... Nothing better than winning the last race of the season, you know, to give everybody vitality, you know, and just that. And can't wait to see what we're going to do in the following year. So, every year, obviously, there's a new car that's going to be born, you know, from what you learn, because you progress. And so we were all having a meeting in Hethel. And everybody had some input.

• 28:17Speaker 03

  And when it comes to the driver, you know, my input was, you know, as a driver, I said that you're dreaming about aerodynamic downforce, which obviously plants the car to the road and increases cornering speeds. But there's a penalty, the penalty is drag, straight line. So the more downforce you put on with the surface, the surface wings, the more, you know, the resistance you have against the wind. So I says, I, I'm dreaming of downforce without penalty. So here we go, how do you, how do you achieve that?

• 28:58Speaker 03

  And so you go underneath the car to create a low pressure. Low pressure, like speed up the air underneath the car, but, but it has to be directed, directed by body design, just like an airplane. An airplane is designed, both top and bottom surface, to fly. So you turn an airplane upside down. Because you want it to. You want it to go. To push down. Yeah. Instead of lift. So, so this was a concept that was, was started, was born, about a racing car. But the fact that the air comes free underneath the car, there's no drag penalty.

• 29:40Speaker 03

  And so that's, that was a breakthrough like no other, you know, in, in our sport. Were Lotus the only team to have this? Well, we were the first ones, yes. And we didn't come out and all of a sudden we had all the answers. It was a little by little, just hint here, hint there. I was, just like, I was testing in Germany at the Hockenheim and it was one real, at the end of both straight, a real long right-hander. And all of a sudden, I'm arriving in the middle of the corner and I'm feeling the car suck down. Why? Because we needed to close the sides to the road. So the air would not escape off the side. So, you know, we're just learning something. It was a little apron. Yeah, like an apron, yeah.

• 30:23Speaker 03

  So we, you know, we were learning things and then learning how to, you know, to, to change, change the diffuser angles in the back to change the center of pressure to give it balance. You can't have all the, all the pressure in the front or in the back. You know, so there were a lot of, you know, things, but we were on to something. And that's how the the ground effects started, you know, and um.

• 30:47Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I was all ready to add to this, but I have nothing to add because you said everything perfectly.

• 30:51Speaker 03

  So this is, I'm a scientist.

• 30:53Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  That's why we love to add that to the resume.

• 30:57Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Certified.

• 31:00Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So just to be clear, um, when we see cars that have spoilers in the back. Right.

• 31:05Speaker 03

  Um, if you pitch the spoiler to be a very high angle.

• 31:10Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Right. That can put a lot of down pressure on the car, giving it stability. But just like you were saying, that impedes your forward motion.

• 31:16Speaker 03

  Right.

• 31:17Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So you win in one place and lose in another.

• 31:19Speaker 03

  Exactly.

• 31:19Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And so.

• 31:20Speaker 03

  It's a compromise.

• 31:21Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  This is a complete uh act of brilliance. Right. To say airplanes get lift without disrupting their forward motion.

• 31:30Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 31:30Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Let's turn that lift into a downforce.

• 31:32Speaker 03

  Downforce.

• 31:33Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  That increases the friction between your car and the tire, gives you more grip. What you want. Especially what you need, what you know, you want, what you need. Right. On the turn, and it serves at every point in your, in your, in your race.

• 31:44Speaker 03

  It's amazing the cornering speed that the cars are capable of today. As a matter of fact, uh, a lot of the design is restricted to the point that you could make it so the car will just be right, you know, just, just like on, on a track, you know what I mean, without any slippage or anything else. So uh.

• 32:02Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  But they, but they restrict it?

• 32:04Speaker 03

  It's, it's by rule.

• 32:05Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Why? Why not go all out? Because it's Formula One and it's rules for rules.

• 32:11Speaker 03

  No, no, I mean, no, you have, you have to do that because number one, I think a lot of it has to be uh, the onus is on the driver also to do, you know, to understand if the car moves around. The other thing is, if the cornering speed is such, and if you have a suspension brake or something else, you're gonna have a, a uh, fatality immediately.

• 32:32Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay.

• 32:32Speaker 03

  You know, so, so there's, you know, there's a balance to everything, you know, so that's why you have, and the rules are actually uh very well studied and there's no magic wand, you know, to have it, everything perfect. But uh, uh, you know, as much as we know today, you're still chipping on it here and there and try to uh, to comp- find compromises of sort, you know.

• 32:56Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  How did you find two? Just, just one thing. Yeah, go ahead, sir. Give me a page that you haven't, that you're done with. All right. This one here? Yeah, yeah, go for it. You're done with that one? Yeah. Okay. Let me just show you something here.

• 33:07Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Take that.

• 33:08Gary O'Reilly?

  With pleasure.

• 33:09Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  For everyone's listening, Neil is just ripped a a strip of paper.

• 33:14Gary O'Reilly?

  He's just ripped everything up.

• 33:15Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I forgot, many will hear us only on audio. On audio. Yeah, I just ripped a sheet of paper and now I'm holding the paper up from one edge. Yes. And it's drooping over the side of my finger. So I'm gonna blow over the top of it. Okay. And I'm gonna have fast-moving air above. Over the top. And you would think it would keep the paper pressed down, but in fact. It lifts the paper up. It lifts the paper up.

• 33:36Gary O'Reilly?

  So the point where so much pressure.

• 33:37Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So that if I invert that. Right. And put it down, it'll put the pressure. Push the pressure, right. It adds the pressure. So this is just a little strip of paper way to demonstrate a Bernoulli principle. I just learned something.

• 33:48Chuck Nice?

  You didn't know about that?

• 33:50Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I just learned something.

• 33:52Gary O'Reilly?

  Good.

• 33:53Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Now you can do this with your grandkids and stuff.

• 33:55Gary O'Reilly?

  Now you're an even better scientist.

• 33:56Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Kids, this is what I've been doing my whole life. You just blow across the top of the page and it lifts itself up. That has lower pressure, higher pressure on the other side. There you go.

• 34:04Chuck Nice?

  That's it.

• 34:04Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  There you go.

• 34:05Gary O'Reilly?

  Yeah. So when you're racing.

• 34:07Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  That's the point, that's.

• 34:08Gary O'Reilly?

  That's exactly it.

• 34:09Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I wish I would have known that.

• 34:12Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Well, this is, this is, this is the value of sort of cross-pollination of of science, of engineering, of fields. Because you're, it's all aerodynamics, fluid dynamics, it's all the same thing. Exactly, it is.

• 34:23Gary O'Reilly?

  So your racing style obviously suited this ground effect development, because this is the season you go on to win the Formula One World Championship. Was it a case that?

• 34:35Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  But wait a minute, was it you that won it, or was it the ground effect? Both.

• 34:42Chuck Nice?

  Which, you know, that brings me to another question. Here's another question. Here's another question. What is the most important element for a win? Is it the machine? Is it the maintenance, meaning the team? Or is it the driver?

• 34:58Speaker 03

  Well, I think the percentage varies depending on the track, what the demands are. But number one, I mean, it's team effort, team, team with a capital T, number one.

• 35:11Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay.

• 35:11Speaker 03

  Number two is obviously the preparation because you have to finish the race to be able to win it.

• 35:17Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay.

• 35:18Speaker 03

  And then number three is the nature of the track. If the track, the layout, the course demands more of the car, the car, in other words, the car contributes seventy percent and the driver contributes thirty percent as far as the performance, that means that there's a lot of high speed, the car better be, be quick, give you all the legs that you need, you know, to be competitive, and then you get on the-

• 35:49Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  The car's just going all out.

• 35:50Speaker 03

  Yeah, you say, yeah, you get to a course where you have a lot of straightaways and there are, say, go to Monza, for instance, and then go to Monte Carlo. Monte Carlo, it's eighty percent driver, twenty percent car. Monza, it's seventy percent car, thirty percent driver.

• 36:10Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Wow.

• 36:11Speaker 03

  And those, and those percentages just vary everywhere you go, every track. But, you know, bottom line is, will it, at the end of the season, will it be fifty-fifty perhaps? You know, but, so, you know, everybody has to contribute. But I would say the best driver in the world cannot win unless the car is capable.

• 36:32Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Wow.

• 36:33Speaker 03

  You know, so it's-

• 36:34Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And these developments, I loved your metaphor where you said each year a new car is born, a new kind of advance. And I don't think most of us are aware that these advances, many of them trickle down into just regular old cars that make it safer or faster or more aerodynamic. So it's not just crazy people racing fast, it's a frontier of experimental research.

• 37:01Speaker 03

  No question, this is why you have the major manufacturers involved in the sport. Because there's a sense. It helps them. They're R and D. It does. You know why? Because there's a sense of urgency in the sport when you have direct competition like right now. Things have to happen today. Well, GM beat them today. I better up my game tomorrow. Not, okay, mañana, okay, we'll get things done, okay? You know, push the can on the road and all that. We'll be fine. No, no, you're not fine. You lose the race. It's now. It's now, you know, so. And, and actually many of the manufacturers, they bring in engineers that are proper, you know, production engineers, sometimes even to frequent some of the, you know, be some of the races,

• 37:44Speaker 03

  see how the urgency factor plays.

• 37:48Gary O'Reilly?

  Yeah.

• 37:49Speaker 03

  You know, and so I think the sport, when you look at the developments over the years, the safety aspect of it, how so many things, you know, are just drawn from that. I mean, features such as the disc brakes, disc brakes were first, you know, actually employed in a racing car. They were born there. Yeah. You know, so many other things. Disco brakes. Yeah. Chuck, no one was confusing them with the disco brakes. Maybe they have some disco brakes. I have to look at that. You gotta look up the disco brakes. I have to look underneath.

• 38:27Gary O'Reilly?

  All right, while you two hit the dance floor, we'll hit a break. Uh, we're gonna have more and if you didn't realize that what you're driving today and for maybe the last 20, 30 years owes a lot of its origins to great racers like Mario Andretti. Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah, I'm putting all the burden on you. Uh, we're gonna take that break. When we come back, more from the great man and of course, Neil and Chuck and myself. So stick around.

• 39:00Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  We're back, StarTalk, Sports Edition. We're talking about race car driving, Sportiverse, with my guest co-hosts, Gary, Chuck, Bart...

• 39:15Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  That's the Jetsons, come on now.

• 39:20Gary O'Reilly?

  Close enough, Ish?

• 39:21Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I've got you on loan temporarily from Playing with Science. Thanks for joining StarTalk flagship.

• 39:27Gary O'Reilly?

  And of course, we have one of the greatest of all time, if not the greatest driver of all time, Mario Andretti.

• 39:34Chuck Nice?

  Racing royalty.

• 39:35Gary O'Reilly?

  Absolutely.

• 39:35Chuck Nice?

  The viceroy of velocity.

• 39:37Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I have to ask him, when did you first learn? Because I was embarrassingly old when I first learned that race car spells race car in both directions.

• 39:48Speaker 03

  Oh, I just learned something today.

• 39:49Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  No, are you serious?

• 39:51Speaker 03

  I didn't know that.

• 39:51Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Race car is a palindrome? Yes, it is!

• 39:54Chuck Nice?

  Oh, yes, race car, race car.

• 39:56Speaker 03

  Amy, why didn't you tell me?

• 39:57Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Look at that. Nobody here knew that?

• 39:59Speaker 03

  I didn't know that.

• 40:00Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I was like 80 years old before I found that out.

• 40:02Speaker 03

  You know what?

• 40:04Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  You've got to come more often.

• 40:05Speaker 03

  Never too old to learn.

• 40:06Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  You've got to come more often.

• 40:07Speaker 03

  I got to come more often.

• 40:08Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  We can teach each other.

• 40:09Gary O'Reilly?

  So the great thing is, you return to the USA, you are racing for Newman Haas. And the Newman part of that is the Oscar-winning actor Paul Newman.

• 40:17Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Paul Newman.

• 40:18Gary O'Reilly?

  Now, that for me isn't the big deal.

• 40:19Chuck Nice?

  God, I love his spaghetti sauce.

• 40:20Gary O'Reilly?

  Isn't it great?

• 40:21Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I just had his lemonade.

• 40:22Chuck Nice?

  Did you really?

• 40:23Gary O'Reilly?

  We're back to food. It takes you a millisecond to get onto the subject of food.

• 40:27Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Sorry, but he also liked car racing?

• 40:30Gary O'Reilly?

  He did.

• 40:30Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yes.

• 40:31Gary O'Reilly?

  He did. But your son, Michael, joins you as a teammate. And this is the first time in history there's a father-and-son partnership in Indy car racing.

• 40:40Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Just for the 24-hour Le Mans? Because you'd switch off drivers, is that right?

• 40:44Gary O'Reilly?

  No, no, this is just in Indy.

• 40:45Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  It's a team, just a team.

• 40:46Chuck Nice?

  Two cars.

• 40:48Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Two cars, just a team.

• 40:49Gary O'Reilly?

  So not everyone likes their son to follow in their footsteps, but you obviously didn't have a problem.

• 40:55Speaker 03

  Well, no, because he was racing regardless, you know, with another team.

• 40:59Gary O'Reilly?

  Sounds like someone else we know.

• 41:02Speaker 03

  Yeah, yes, indeed. In fact, yeah, yeah, I mean, it's, uh, it was, to me, it was obviously a sense of pride to have Michael to be so competitive. We've had also the other son, Jeff, you know, that was also a racing driver, but he, you know, he was not as fortunate as we were. You know, he had a terrible accident in Indianapolis in ninety-two, and so that pretty much ended his career. But with Michael, you know, to be, for him to become my teammate, that was, he was at the very peak of his career, of course. And, um, and we had some really great success as teammates, because, I'll give you the statistics. We were on

• 41:46Speaker 03

  podium, top three, as long, you know, as long as he was racing, fifteen times.

• 41:52Gary O'Reilly?

  The two of you?

• 41:53Speaker 03

  In the top level. And we were, we started, you know, we started on the front row ten times together. And we finished first and second five times.

• 42:04Gary O'Reilly?

  So, did son let father win?

• 42:07Speaker 03

  You know what? He didn't once.

• 42:15Speaker 03

  No, he didn't. No, he didn't let me win, but he should have won, and he had a fuel pickup problem, and this was important in nineteen eighty-six. And, uh, and actually, I, uh, I nipped him at the, right at the start-finish line by like two inches, with like, yeah, seven one-hundredths of a second.

• 42:36Gary O'Reilly?

  But that was a great drive home.

• 42:38Speaker 03

  It was very quiet. But, but, I'll tell you what. You can't have road rage against your dad. It was Father's Day. It was Father's Day. And, and Michael, I mean, he was not happy on the podium, and then somebody said, "Michael, lighten up." I said, "It's Father's Day."

• 42:58Gary O'Reilly?

  Okay.

• 42:59Speaker 03

  Happy Father's Day. Happy Father's Day, Dad.

• 43:03Gary O'Reilly?

  All right, let's fast forward. Not to dismiss what you achieved, because Michael actually went to Formula One as well, didn't he?

• 43:10Speaker 03

  Yes.

• 43:11Gary O'Reilly?

  He did. But you now have a two-seated racing car?

• 43:16Speaker 03

  Well, uh, yeah.

• 43:17Gary O'Reilly?

  Right now, in the present day?

• 43:18Speaker 03

  I, I, I drive for a team that actually feels these, uh, these cars, which, uh, uh, it give rides to fans, uh, and, and journalists and, uh, you know, just, uh, uh, celebrities, if you will. Oh, so this is just one car? It's not like a circuit where there's two?

• 43:36Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  One car with two seats?

• 43:37Speaker 03

  Right, but I'm saying, is that a circuit?

• 43:39Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, but it's a racing car.

• 43:40Speaker 03

  No, no, no, it's, uh, we give, you give rides, you know, at, on a weekend when there's uh, activity, you know, you go on a race. Oh, okay. Uh, this past weekend, I was at Elka Lake, Wisconsin, called Road America, fabulous four mile road course and, uh, so I give you rides there, you know, I usually, like I said, a lot of press, they love to have, but, uh, you know, the, the, what's cool about this is really, I don't know, a better way to showcase our sport because, uh, it's a very non-participant sport. Right. If you will. It's not that you can pick up a tennis racket and then...

• 44:11Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, good point. You can't, I can't do it in my backyard.

• 44:13Speaker 03

  Right.

• 44:13Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  In the playground.

• 44:14Speaker 03

  You can only do it on Super Mario.

• 44:15Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Right.

• 44:16Speaker 03

  Well, not Super Mario car.

• 44:17Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Super Mario car. Super Mario car.

• 44:19Speaker 03

  And it's hard to explain.

• 44:20Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  That's the same thing, isn't it?

• 44:20Speaker 03

  It's hard to, it's the same thing.

• 44:21Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah.

• 44:23Gary O'Reilly?

  Okay, so, we, we, we have this racing car with an extra seat.

• 44:27Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And Donkey Kong somehow fits in the car like anybody else.

• 44:30Speaker 03

  So if you show up to the next race, I'll give you a ride.

• 44:32Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Oh, if I ever have a space capsule that I take along with it?

• 44:36Speaker 03

  Any of you, any of you.

• 44:36Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I'll give you a seat in the space capsule, okay.

• 44:38Gary O'Reilly?

  What speeds, Mario, what speeds are we talking about going here?

• 44:42Speaker 03

  Well, depends on the track. I mean, it's, uh, any road course, uh, like where I was this past weekend, you know, about maybe a hundred and seventy-five, a hundred and eighty on a straightaway, but at India, I could give laps, like lap times of, of, over two hundred, you know.

• 44:59Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So let me, let me, I gotta interject here.

• 45:01Gary O'Reilly?

  Go.

• 45:01Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Because we're, I don't know how much more time we have, but I have to ask, cars today are really different from yesterday, I mean, from decades ago, right? In terms of technology, in terms of the engineering.

• 45:14Speaker 03

  Everything.

• 45:15Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Is there, is there a point where you said, you know, this, I...

• 45:21Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  We're losing the driver here because the technology has taken everything over. Is there, is there, is there an old fogey moment? Where you say, you know, in the old day, in my day, it was all about what we could bring to the car. Now it's what the car is bringing to me.

• 45:35Speaker 03

  Well, that's a, that's another darn good question, actually, because the technology, the way, as much as we know, you could have a car that it'd be so easy, so much easier to drive. And many of the cynics today, you know, will say, oh, yeah, these boys, you know, man, you know, uh, the drivers of yesteryear, those were the champions.

• 45:55Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, that's what I'm saying.

• 45:56Speaker 03

  Those were the gladiators.

• 45:57Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  That's like get off my lawn, you know, and all that.

• 45:59Speaker 03

  Well, the only thing is that I think the drivers of yesteryear, uh, they didn't have the safety aspect, the safety features that the drivers are enjoying today. That's one thing for sure. Uh, but as far as, uh, what's the onus on the driver, that's why you have rules in place. Because, uh, you have, you drive your car, you know, your present pleasure car. You have all this, you know, traction control, you have all the power steering, you have all this thing. What in a race car that you're not, you don't have all those beauties. You know, you don't have a lot of that assist. So you still, that's what they want to, you know, the rules are to keep it still a sport. Make the driver, yes.

• 46:42Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Otherwise it runs away with itself and you're just, yeah, an occupant in a seat.

• 46:46Speaker 03

  Yeah, you know, just another quick example is, uh, you know, the, to balance the car, you have wings that, uh, you can change, uh.

• 46:55Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, they can, you can alternate the time, yeah.

• 46:56Speaker 03

  And, and, and they have it so, you know, the mechanics have to do it, like during a pit stop. And then we got, I get emails, I get something from engineers and this, this, to send you a, a a design, a schema that, oh, you could do it with a button inside. Of course you could, but you're not allowed, you know what I mean? There's so many things that, uh, are, have to be done manually to keep it a sport, keep it real. So again, it's still, you know, it's still a sport, you know, and.

• 47:26Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Because if it, if it runs away with itself, then you just have AI competing against AI.

• 47:30Speaker 03

  Right, exactly.

• 47:31Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  AI drivers, right?

• 47:32Chuck Nice?

  You just sit in the car and listen to the radio.

• 47:34Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Which brings me to this thought.

• 47:37Gary O'Reilly?

  What is your opinion on driverless cars and would you ever get in one? I knew you were going to bring that up.

• 47:43Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  The driver of the century.

• 47:44Chuck Nice?

  Driver of the century, how do you feel about driverless cars?

• 47:47Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  What kind of stupid question is that?

• 47:49Gary O'Reilly?

  What's that big grey, what's that big grey thing in the corner? No. It's an elephant, right? It's to be addressed.

• 47:56Speaker 03

  The elephant is here, yes, of course.

• 47:57Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Elephant in the room.

• 47:58Speaker 03

  But don't talk to me about it. No, no, I mean, it's, it's, it's, it's out there, you know, of course. And can you imagine, that's probably the end of our sport as we know it.

• 48:09Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  No, no, I don't agree.

• 48:10Chuck Nice?

  I think it's actually going to increase the popularity of your sport. Because people will be so curious about what it is to drive a car. That people who actually drive and drive on the level that you drive will be like gods among us.

• 48:26Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  My kids have no interest in ever driving cars.

• 48:29Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 48:29Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  They're eighteen and twenty-two, they can't wait for self-driving cars. And they don't want to drive a car, it is not in their, they don't care.

• 48:37Chuck Nice?

  But they grew up in New York.

• 48:38Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  That's true.

• 48:39Chuck Nice?

  That's a different story.

• 48:39Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  But here's my thing, here's my, here's, here's why I agree with you, sort of, okay? Nineteen oh five to nineteen twenty.

• 48:48Chuck Nice?

  Okay.

• 48:50Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  The civilized world transitioned from horses to cars very quickly. Quicker than anyone would have, we had horses for thousands of years. And by nineteen twenty, you couldn't give away a horse, okay?

• 49:01Chuck Nice?

  But we still love horses.

• 49:02Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Hang on, but to my point, so as cars replaced horses on the road, the people who still loved horses would go to horse stables.

• 49:10Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 49:10Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  To still ride their horses and go over the jumps. And so it became a place where you would take your hobby. So I'm suggesting that in the future that Chuck is commenting on, the roads will just be driverless cars, but there'll be these tracks that you go to.

• 49:28Gary O'Reilly?

  Car farms.

• 49:29Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  You park your car, you park your race car at that track and it lives there.

• 49:33Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 49:33Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And then you take a self-driving car to your race car.

• 49:36Chuck Nice?

  So you can drive, right.

• 49:38Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And then you can drive two hundred miles an hour. And then that's your out, that's your Saturday afternoon outing.

• 49:42Speaker 03

  You know what? Those country clubs of driving.

• 49:45Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  There you go.

• 49:46Speaker 03

  Already exist.

• 49:47Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Oh, really?

• 49:48Chuck Nice?

  I wouldn't know, I'm black.

• 49:51Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Not all country.

• 52:16Speaker 03

  Well, if you have a weak moment in your life, talk to me. Because that's how I got involved during a weak moment in my life. And that's why I brought in a chairman, because I didn't want to be the chairman. I didn't want to run. I just wanted to drink the stuff. But, you know, we're very proud. Indeed, actually, we were just, we have several varietals, all the major varietals.

• 52:42Gary O'Reilly?

  Red, white, and rosé?

• 52:43Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Both kinds, red and white.

• 52:45Speaker 03

  Yeah, we do, and we have, yeah, the usual varietals. We have Italian varietals and so on and so forth. But, and, and, and, and, just as recent as what, last week? This week, we were actually considered that one of the top, top five wineries in Upper Valley.

• 53:03Gary O'Reilly?

  Well, well done you.

• 53:04Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I'm gonna go look this up again, man.

• 53:06Speaker 03

  It's really, actually, I'm so proud.

• 53:09Gary O'Reilly?

  Your phone might ring shortly.

• 53:10Speaker 03

  It's a nice, it's quaint, you think, it's quaint, it's a modest little winery, but it's very quaint and, and very relaxing. You can, you don't need an appointment. You arrive there at the tasting room and so on.

• 53:23Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Called a boutique winery.

• 53:27Speaker 03

  I'm very proud of that, actually. They have a great winemaker and our wines have medaled. And again, I'm very proud of it. It's very important, actually.

• 53:38Gary O'Reilly?

  Are we surprised?

• 53:39Chuck Nice?

  Neil's gonna have to buy a case so that we can check it out.

• 53:43Gary O'Reilly?

  Are we surprised that Mario, former world champion in the NASCAR, his wines medaled?

• 53:50Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I heard that.

• 53:51Gary O'Reilly?

  Are we surprised?

• 53:52Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I did hear that.

• 53:54Gary O'Reilly?

  Well, look, that's it. We are up. We've reached the checkered flag.

• 53:58Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I have to ask one last question.

• 53:59Gary O'Reilly?

  Okay.

• 54:00Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  It is rumored, I want to confirm it since you're sitting next to me, that you once said, if you are in control of your car, you're not in the race.

• 54:11Speaker 03

  If everything seems under control, you're just not going fast enough.

• 54:15Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Wow. That, there is no greater wisdom in life than that.

• 54:21Gary O'Reilly?

  Take that to the bank.

• 54:22Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Our version of that in science is, the day you stop making errors...

• 54:29Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  is the day you are no longer on the frontier of discovery. That's our version of that quote. Mario, fist bump on.

• 54:37Gary O'Reilly?

  Man.

• 54:38Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Let the record show, I just fist bumped Mario Andretti.

• 54:40Gary O'Reilly?

  Right, which counts as a car crash. Nice one.

• 54:44Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  We gotta bring this to close.

• 54:46Gary O'Reilly?

  Do it.

• 54:47Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  All right, Mario, thank you. You've been a charming, wonderful host. My pleasure. And we should do this every week.

• 54:54Gary O'Reilly?

  We should.

• 54:54Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I'll be here, I'll be here. Chuck and Gary, thanks for coming on loan from Playing with Science.

• 55:00Gary O'Reilly?

  You're welcome. We've had the honour of being with Mario and your good self.

• 55:03Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And to start StarTalk's flagship. So, and I've been your host, Neil deGrasse Tyson, your personal astrophysicist. And as always, I bid you to keep looking up.