Bringing Goodwood to the U.S.A.

At the second annual Willow Springs Reimagined we sit down with Marino Franchitti (pro driver and Singer's head development driver) to talk about what makes for a good (and bad) test driver, and racing the oddly-shaped Delta Wing (look it up). Then, the Duke of Richmond Charles Gordon-Lennox. He literally created two of the best events in the world of cars: Goodwood Festival of Speed and the Goodwood Revival. The Duke is joining the forces of Willow Springs to bring the Goodwood magic to the USA. We cover a lot of ground, from the surprising story of how the original GW came to be, the plans for Willow and a larger vintage series in America. All that and more. Recorded October 17, 2026 https://www.instagram.com/mfranchitti https://www.goodwood.com/motorsport/festival-of-speed/ https://www.willowspringsreimagined.com/ Show Notes DeleteMe Get 20% off your DeleteMe plan when you go to https://joindeleteme.com/tire and use promo code TIRE at checkout. Fitbod Get 25% off your Fitbod subscription or try the app FREE for seven days at https://Fitbod.me/TIRE AG1 Go to https://DrinkAG1.com/TIRE and for a limited time, get a free Immune Support Bundle, including a bottle of Omega-3 fish oil and a bottle of Vitamin D3K2, with your first subscription order of AG1 Next Gen or AG1 Pro. Quince Find your next fall favorites at Quince. Download the Quince app for app-exclusive offers, or go to https://Quince.com. Get free shipping on your order and 365-day returns. Now available in Canada and the UK, too. Use Off The Record! and ALWAYS fight your tickets! For a 10% discount on your first case go to https://www.offtherecord.com/TST Want your question answered? Want to watch the live stream, get ad-free podcasts, or exclusive podcasts? Join our Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/thesmokingtirepodcast Instagram: https://www. Instagram.com/thesmokingtire https://www. Instagram.com/therealzackklapman

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

• 0:00Matt Farah?

  What up everybody? Welcome to the Smoking Tire Podcast. Today's episode is brought to you by Avance. We love Avance here. They are saving you money and adding to the culture at the same time. Avance is a membership club that helps you save money on things that you buy already, like tires. You can get a big discount off not just anything bought at Discount Tire, but also an extra discount off Michelin and BF Goodrich. Avance also has a beautiful quarterly magazine and events around the country. And we are offering an even further discount with TST because if you go to avance.com/tst,

• 0:41Matt Farah?

  that's A-V-A-N-T-S dot com slash TST, we can give you an extra 10% off with code TST. Avance slash TST and then code TST. Get your membership today and start saving right away. All right, folks, this is a good one. Zach and I are up at Willow Springs Raceway for the big reimagined event. Uh, this is a really cool event with like five, 7,000 people. There was vintage racing. There were all kinds of activations from Dirtfish and Rivian. There was a celebrity race and a whole lot more.

• 1:19Matt Farah?

  But we got some special guests because we opened our show with a singer test driver and racing legend Marino Francidi. One half of those famous Scottish Francidi's. And then a very special visit from a legend himself, the Duke of Richmond. That's right. The founder of the Goodwood Festival of Speed Revival and Members Meeting is uh, coming to talk to us in a very old school broadcasting booth above Willow Springs Raceway. It's uh, reimagined the podcast. Let's go. So we're up in the booth with Marino Franchitti. Uh, you need to get that?

• 1:59Speaker 01

  No, that's important. No, no, no, it's from, it's actually Singer Test Team in Spain telling me how today's going.

• 2:05Matt Farah?

  How is today? Well, now you just, you now you have to.

• 2:07Speaker 01

  I think it's good. It's just some Bosch.

• 2:09Matt Farah?

  Let's just drop in with the, with the news of how testing.

• 2:11Speaker 01

  Well, it's Bosch calibration on some cars. So those guys are doing the broad strokes. And then I'm heading straight from here to Spain to get into the detail of, yeah.

• 2:21Matt Farah?

  Circuit driving?

• 2:22Speaker 01

  How well, a little bit of circuit, little bit of uh, like a, you know, a vehicle dynamics pad.

• 2:27Matt Farah?

  Yeah.

• 2:27Speaker 01

  Uh, wet handling tracks, all, all different stuff and just working on all the different modes that we have.

• 2:34Matt Farah?

  So it's more like OEM level mode, mode testing than it is like you just going out and lapping really fast?

• 2:41Speaker 01

  Yeah, exactly. It's, it's making the car do the work for me. I think with the, with the stability control, Maz and I, at the beginning, when we started doing this, we have, I think, talking to other guys that work with OEMs. We have a much broader range from key up mode. We have weather, key up mode. Then we have sport track with some traction control and then track everything off apart from ABS. And the steps are pretty big.

• 3:06Matt Farah?

  Yeah.

• 3:07Speaker 01

  Um, the main thing for me is the, the human nature is when you get to a point, it just kicks in and you, you start saving the car yourself. If a stability comes in too late and you're already doing the job and it just holds you back, that's a really bad thing. I want it like when you're a kid with a bike where you're, it's like the hand behind the back and you're, it just, you don't even know it's there until you turn it off.

• 3:31Matt Farah?

  That's like the really, some really good systems, like the McLaren seven series system is really good. Like the Porsche RS cars are pretty good. Um, Ferrari's multi-stage is pretty good. And then there's some other like kind of bad ones where it either starts, like you just said, you start to have a, a save, like you're in it, you're doing it and then the power dies.

• 3:55Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 3:55Matt Farah?

  And it makes you look like a loser.

• 3:57Speaker 01

  It makes me look like a loser, but you can get you in more trouble as well. I mean, it's, so anyway, so that's what's going on.

• 4:02Speaker 02

  I have a question about that actually. So uh, when, when you guys get like these Bosch systems, can you share this, are the settings shared through Bosch with like Porsche, Ferrari? Like can you buy a package or do you have to do your own development, your own settings for your car? So it specifically knows how much to rein in.

• 4:19Matt Farah?

  Is there a baseline?

• 4:20Speaker 02

  Yeah, is there a base map of any kind?

• 4:21Speaker 01

  I'm sure they have just a base setting that they know they start from, but, because you can't unlearn what you've learned, but everything is completely, completely bespoke. And also underneath it's all these cars are, is a nine, six, four. So it's a trailing arm, nine, 11, some with a lot of weight out the back, some of the bit less, normally aspirated turbo. So we really are going through a huge cycle of development to get the final system that we want and the broad range of, of capability. So if a guy wants to take his DLST out on an ice field, it will move on cup two tires. It's, it's pretty insane.

• 5:04Matt Farah?

  Dude, is that an, is that a use case for someone besides yourself?

• 5:07Speaker 01

  We like to, we just like to make sure if you want to do it, it'll do it. I honestly, Bosch are such an incredible partner for Singer and they are just like part of the team. We've been doing it together for 10 years and it's now the same guys I've worked with the whole way along. And when we get in the car, we don't even need to say much. He's like, yeah, you don't like that. You like this and.

• 5:27Matt Farah?

  So what, is it, is it a challenge to sort of make, put yourself in the shoes of a less good driver? Like, like when people, people take what, you know, like Chris Harris says about a car, extremely literally, like extremely literally, right? And Chris is doing something with a car that 99.9% of people cannot do.

• 5:54Speaker 01

  No.

• 5:55Matt Farah?

  And will not do and will not try. And yet what Chris says that car can do under that circumstance is gospel. Even though the use case for the customer vehicle is like 20% of here.

• 6:08Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 6:08Matt Farah?

  So how do you put yourself and you, you know, you and you, you're a long time racing driver. You have a million trophies. I mean, you've driven a million cool race cars. You're there, you're there too. How do you make yourself go, I need average rich guy to really like this?

• 6:25Speaker 01

  So I've always been a car fan. I'm not one of those guys that's all about performance and I don't care about cars. I, I have a, it's like an encyclopedic knowledge of all these cars I've driven and what I liked and what I didn't and why I liked it. And if I want to go out and be on the limit, I'm generally in a race car. With road cars, I want something very different. I want an engagement at speeds and use cases, as you say, that are nothing to do with racing. And I hate when I get in a car that some racing driver's done and it's like, well, I can drive it. And no one cares. No one can get to that. Even I'm terrified because you've set it up just for you.

• 7:01Speaker 02

  The Max Verstappen setting.

• 7:03Speaker 01

  Yeah, maybe. I mean, but he's, he's very special.

• 7:06Matt Farah?

  I've been given cars that I thought were absolutely horrible to drive and their in-house pro goes, I don't know what you're talking about. It's just fine.

• 7:13Speaker 01

  Yeah, exactly. No, I, I have always been about the car doing the work. I like to race hard. That's right. Um, test hard and race easy. And that's really where we come from. It's, it has to be, whether you're a very experienced driver, just learning how to drive stick, whatever it is, the car gets more out of you than you're expecting because it leads you on. It goes, oh, this is nice. It gives you confidence. The car shouldn't, the car shouldn't scare you. It shouldn't intimidate you. I don't like cars that do that. I like cars that make you go, ooh, can I go a little bit more? But even if I'm not going to do that, it's still lovely and engaging and.

• 7:56Matt Farah?

  Yeah. Well, that's especially in today's world. I talk about it a lot relating to the Aston Martin Valhalla specifically, because it's the new car we've been driving a bunch of. When you have a car that's a thousand horsepower, how often are you deploying a thousand horsepower? I mean, extremely rarely.

• 8:12Speaker 01

  Exactly.

• 8:12Matt Farah?

  There's, there's almost nowhere that you can actually deploy a thousand horsepower on a public road with any kind of regularity. So the question then becomes at five tenths in this car, when you're still going monstrously fast, are you then having fun?

• 8:26Speaker 01

  Exactly.

• 8:26Matt Farah?

  Because if you have to go 10 tenths to have fun, then it is, there's no point.

• 8:30Speaker 01

  I describe it as those cars where all you're doing is looking for a gap or a moment just to get into it. And the rest of the time is just waiting. It's not enjoyment.

• 8:42Matt Farah?

  That's almost all EV sports cars and sporty EVs. Yeah.

• 8:46Speaker 01

  And, but I want a car where, Dario and I were discussing this recently. We were in Scotland and he's got his 355 Spider, which he's had since new.

• 8:56Matt Farah?

  Yeah. Uh, great car.

• 8:59Speaker 01

  A great car. Left-hand drive. So we're on the roads in the UK. He can't see.

• 9:03Matt Farah?

  Left-hand drive one?

• 9:04Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah. Bought it in Germany. Oh, loves left-hand drive cars. Doesn't like right-hand drive, which I get because they were always the older ones in after stock. But so we are in traffic and we like, I say, yep, we're clear and we go and we're in this windy road. And we get through this and it was lovely and exciting. And I'm like, how fast do you think we were going? He's like, oh man, I don't know, like 100, 110. And I'm like 75.

• 9:25Matt Farah?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 9:26Speaker 01

  Wow. And that for me is, is as important as, where does it stop? The performance side? There's, there's so few modern cars that excite me.

• 9:36Matt Farah?

  Yeah. On a road car, that's crucial.

• 9:38Speaker 02

  We talk about that a lot. It's like, if the car is a little slower these days, you can have that enjoyable moment for longer or more frequently in traffic or on a back road, because you're not in danger of flying off the mountain. But if you have a thousand horsepower Valhalla or whatever, 600 horsepower AMG M car, you have to just wait, wait, wait for the perfect moment. It's like you're duck hunting and you're just sitting for four hours and you're like, now I get to hit the gas. But then the rest of the time you're 50%.

• 10:02Matt Farah?

  I think if a car, if you, if you're like cruising at 80 and you like downshift and bring the revs up to match and then let it, let it decelerate using the, and that is exciting? A deceleration moment is exciting? Then you've got a really good car.

• 10:19Speaker 01

  Exactly. But that moment, just when you just, you don't even need to go full throttle. You're just rolling and then you maybe get to that point and come out again. And it's, that's what.

• 10:30Speaker 01

  As I say, there's so many cars where it'll do different things or they change the throttle. As you come out of the throttle, that's a different story. You want different throttle calibrations for weather mode, for comfort, but you want to sharpen it up in sport mode. But any of these cars that they change how they sharpen the throttle up as you go through the modes, I have no interest in that because I want to learn the car and I want every time I go on the throttle, I know what's going to happen. And that takes so much work and focus to get that repetition and predictability with modern systems.

• 11:06Matt Farah?

  Yeah.

• 11:06Speaker 01

  And that's something I'm really proud with the work that we do at Singer to, even though, of course, the classic has a cable.

• 11:16Matt Farah?

  Well, the classic's an old school one, but the turbo, the turbo one, the, not even the DLS turbo, the quote, regular turbo, that is like, that's aces.

• 11:26Speaker 01

  Well, that's my, thank you. Cause that was, that's our focus is every time you roll into the throttle, you get that lovely theater of the boost building. It's not too much turbo lag, but you know, if I go to this point, this is what I'm going to get. And that's, anyway, sorry.

• 11:41Matt Farah?

  I like, I like when there is a linear improvement in the throttle. Like there's a lot of cars where we drive where the difference between 80 to 100 is enormous.

• 11:52Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 11:52Matt Farah?

  And it feels really, really sluggish. Like we just drove, I mean, right? You're going to relate to this, the Hyundai Elantra N, which is a lovely car for $40,000.

• 12:01Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 12:01Matt Farah?

  But when you're driving on the street, it feels kind of sluggish. And then when you go up the mountain or take it on a track and you're on the floorboard, you're like, oh, wait, hang on a minute. And you realize that the difference between floorboard and just off floorboard is actually a much larger delta than the pedal travel would have you believe.

• 12:19Speaker 01

  But who wants that? Who's going to live there?

• 12:21Matt Farah?

  I know.

• 12:21Speaker 01

  Well, that's the problem.

• 12:22Speaker 02

  And some of those, let's say simpler tunes that are out there, they'll just bring that 100% throttle earlier in the pedal. So the car feels faster, but it's not actually faster.

• 12:32Speaker 01

  Exactly.

• 12:33Matt Farah?

  Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So, yeah. So we didn't even, I mean, I'll, I'll remember to remind people in the intro that the reason we're talking about this is because you're, you're the head development driver for Singer. And so you have all the seat time in all of the cars. But you didn't just get that way by accident. I mean, you, you come from a legendary racing family and you've raced actually some incredible stuff as well. The Porsche RS Spider, one of the coolest Porsche race cars of all time. And speaking of cars that are accidentally scary, the Delta Wing, you raised the, which I, which I.

• 13:04Speaker 01

  That worked really well.

• 13:05Matt Farah?

  I've actually kind of, I've actually more interested in what are, can you give me a quick review of what it is like to drive the Delta Wing?

• 13:15Speaker 01

  It was very interesting. I'd signed to drive for Peugeot at Le Mans in the 908. And then the French got very French and canceled the entire program because like some union, we're going to go out on strike.

• 13:26Matt Farah?

  They went on strike. Yeah. They went on strike and they lit the car on fire. They burned it to the ground. They drove off a cliff.

• 13:33Speaker 01

  So I was like out of a job and Highcroft Racing, Don Pino's, Chip Ganassi, they were all putting this program together and they're like, oh, do you want to do this? Sure.

• 13:44Matt Farah?

  This is like a movie. You're out of a job because the French got French.

• 13:47Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 13:48Matt Farah?

  And they're like, we'd like you to drive the weirdest race car ever made.

• 13:52Speaker 02

  But the team owner, Chip Ganassi, one of the legends of American motorsport, Pano's, no slash, like, so these guys show up like the, you know, Voltron and they're like, we're combining our forces to, you know, build this crazy car.

• 14:04Speaker 01

  Yeah. I'd raced for, I'd done some stuff with Chip and knew him from my brother driving with him. I, Duncan Dayton from Highcroft, just the best team owner of all time as well. He.

• 14:16Matt Farah?

  If you're going to have a sponsor, it should be Patron Tequila.

• 14:19Speaker 01

  That was good.

• 14:19Matt Farah?

  Shout out to them. That's our, that's a good strategery there.

• 14:23Speaker 01

  That was, that was great. They used to send me so much tequila. But the, the car was then built at All American Racers. So I, it was one of the best delays of all time. I flew out to Newport. We were going to shake the car down. What's the other track called? Not here at Willow. There's the other one.

• 14:39Matt Farah?

  Button Willow.

• 14:40Speaker 01

  Button Willow. There you go. So we're shaking it down Button Willow. I arrived in Newport Beach and there was a delay and it was the best thing ever because every day I got to be in AAR with the amazing family and people there getting to, Phil Remington was still working.

• 14:56Matt Farah?

  Oh, wow.

• 14:57Speaker 01

  He made the dead pedal for the car for me. I got to watch him take a sheet of aluminum, as you would say over here and not measure a thing and make it. And what a man. And I had lunch every day with Dan, got to know him really well. He gave me a champagne shaking school with the bottle from Le Mans. It was surreal. And then we took it up to, to Button Willow, went out and they're like, I was like, we're going to have to put cameras on it because I'm not sure where I'm going to place the rear wheel. It's going to be this. And all these thoughts and they're like, this corner might be flat at the end of the test. The simulation says it might be like, third lap, I was flat through this corner. The thing instantly was so well balanced. But where they got it wrong was the.

• 15:39Matt Farah?

  Guys, we're supported today by Align Footwear. Align Footwear is a men's brand that blends refined style, expert craftsmanship and next level comfort. Premium leather, it's like Italian suede and American hides pair with the signature Align Dual Density Footbed for lasting support and effortless comfort. Built for wherever the day takes you. I mean, we're talking about premium materials, slip resistant outsole constructions and the signature Pediatrix Design Align Dual Density Footbed. That's high density foam which form a deep heel cup and a prominent arch support for stability and optimal foot alignment. And

• 16:21Matt Farah?

  then the open cell form absorbs impacts and provides all day comfort, eliminating the need for aftermarket insoles. It's like getting an expensive set of those without the added cost. You've got weatherproof construction and a whole range of sizing. I got the Wrangley, which is a weatherproof Chelsea boot. This is my first ever Chelsea boot. Those are the, the closed toed boots that have the sort of elastic side bits up your ankle bone, allowing you to step in and out easily without laces. There's a slip resistant rubber lug outsole and of course that crucial heel pull tab and stretch goring for the easy on and

• 17:01Matt Farah?

  off. I got it in the Italian oiled cow suede, but you can also get full grain American leather or a distressed full grain American leather. These shoes are awesome. Super comfortable, very wearable. In fact, I brought a pair on this road trip with me to wear to dinners and you can get them now. Get 20% off your first pair with code TIRE at checkout at AlignShoe.com. That's A-L-I-G-N-S-H-O-E.com. The promotion is valid for 20% off one pair of full price footwear with code TIRE. Offer not valid for other items on sale. And we're also supported today by Fitbod. This is a perfect time for me to be reading this ad

• 17:46Matt Farah?

  for Fitbod because I am on the road for two whole weeks and I don't have my trainer Sean with me. I need him. I need my trainer because I don't know what to do when I go to the gym. My brain just turns off. I want to go to the gym, but without him telling me what to do. It's tough. And you've got new fitness equipment in these hotel rooms and hotel gyms. So what do I do? I download the Fitbod app and then I've got step by step instructions, video demos of machines. It's like having Sean, my trainer, right in my pocket. So when I go to these hotels, I can keep up my personal routine that I do at home when

• 18:30Matt Farah?

  I'm on the road. And since then I've started doing, using Fitbod on the road. I find that I get home from these long road trips, much more energized. I have less, less degradation of my fitness and my routine because you know, I'm sitting in cars and stuff because I've got a personal trainer in my pocket with Fitbod. I'm not doing just cardio in those hotels anymore. I'm doing a weight routine because I know what to do. Fitbod creates a personalized workout routine based on your goals, fitness level and available equipment. The workouts adapt to your growth. So each session is challenging enough to push you to make progress. And then Fitbod tracks your muscle recovery. So you can avoid

• 19:15Matt Farah?

  burnout and keep up your momentum. Fitbod builds the plan. You build the strength. Get 25% off your Fitbod subscription or try the app for free for seven days at fitbod.me/tire. That's F-I-T-B-O-D.me/tire.

• 19:35Speaker 01

  But where they got it wrong was the, it was so lightweight that they were trying to with the gearbox, the torque vectoring they wanted to do. It was all too light and small, very unreliable. And that held us back a lot. And it got to a point where we didn't have a diff. So that limits you in braking because it locks.

• 19:52Matt Farah?

  So it just was like locked open?

• 19:54Speaker 01

  Yeah. Well, it was just open. So then on the exit, if you put any more lock on it, just spin, you know, single wheel peel.

• 20:00Matt Farah?

  Yeah. And really skinny tires too.

• 20:02Speaker 01

  On the front, on the front. But, and also we only did one tire. And if you'd have got a better slip angle from the front tire, it would have been better again. But we were testing in, at Lotus's place at Hethel. And I've been, I was testing that thing like three days a week. It was so intense. And they were like, we've got, we've built a mechanical diff. Try it. And Hethel's not a big track. And we went, it worked for three laps and it was five seconds faster.

• 20:28Matt Farah?

  Whoa.

• 20:28Speaker 01

  It pulled five and a half Gs under braking.

• 20:32Matt Farah?

  Whoa. Oh my gosh.

• 20:33Speaker 01

  And then three laps later, the diff turned into a spool and I went straight off and missed the wall by about an inch. But it was a, it was a fascinating program.

• 20:40Matt Farah?

  Time is active.

• 20:41Speaker 01

  Yeah. But it was a, it was a fascinating program. And while it looked weird and everything else, all the numbers came together in a very nice way. And it was comfortable and it was pretty awesome.

• 20:53Matt Farah?

  Was it hard? Was it difficult to place a vehicle where based on a rear, a rear tire versus rear front tire? Or did it not really work like that?

• 21:00Speaker 01

  So if I wanted to ride the curb, I would just place the, the edge of the front against the curb and then the rear wheel would go over it. But honestly, the only time I had to think about it was coming into pit lanes, maybe where they have like a chicane, like to drive it into a wall.

• 21:14Matt Farah?

  Monaco might be different.

• 21:16Speaker 01

  For sure. But it was, it was a fascinating thing. And I, like we were saying earlier, you have this encyclopedia that you're building up your database and all these cars, you take something from all of it. You learn, you learn, you learn. And I wish I could switch off that thing where you're just feeling everything and you're like, I think it's this or that. But that's what.

• 21:41Speaker 01

  I think lets me do what I do is that I can't just ruin cars constantly for myself. Ooh, I don't like that. Why is he doing this?

• 21:49Matt Farah?

  Yeah, if you're too, if you're too picky.

• 21:51Speaker 01

  Yeah, I'm terrible.

• 21:52Speaker 02

  I mean, your, your palate is why you have the jobs you have.

• 21:54Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 21:55Speaker 02

  And why you're a good racing driver.

• 21:56Matt Farah?

  But it also means you have to like hate everything.

• 21:57Speaker 01

  But the modern stuff is interesting. With racing cars now, BOP and everything else, you don't develop like you used to. We used to be in, with the RS Spider, with the Acura, we were in, we were at war. So you would have engine updates, aero updates, mechanical updates. Every weekend you're bringing something else. So I, I got the opportunity to take cars from the rollout to winning races and develop, being part of that development. And that is a big part of what allows me to do what I do today.

• 22:24Matt Farah?

  So the development process of a road car must feel like luxury living by comparison.

• 22:30Speaker 01

  No, it is, it is. But it's very, it's, it's interesting because it's not, it's a diff, it's like a different operating system in your brain because it's not about ultimate speed. The, the numbers are right and you get it balanced well, it's going to be fast enough. It's about how it feels to me. And that, again, that theater, that, that you fire it up and you're driving it away, does it engage you instantly? Is it?

• 22:52Matt Farah?

  Sure.

• 22:53Speaker 01

  It's not.

• 22:53Matt Farah?

  So to that degree, when you're doing development driving, does the data that you're logging really matter as much as, ooh, that works good and that, that works less good?

• 23:05Speaker 01

  What feels right is what feels right. And I can, on all of the programs that we've done, I mean, Maz and I always agree on where we're going with it. And Raj coming on board, he's another great resource for that. He really understands every part of it and can drive to and he really gets it, which is great.

• 23:23Speaker 01

  It's always how it feels. It's not what the data says, it's how it feels. It's how, if we like it, that's what we're doing, that's what we're going with.

• 23:30Matt Farah?

  What do you think, you know, because you, you look, you live behind the scenes, you know, I, I've gotten to drive a good number of the cars, not all of them, but a, a good number. I still need to try the DLS Turbo.

• 23:42Speaker 01

  Yes, you do.

• 23:43Matt Farah?

  The DLS, I drove the gold one. Poof. That was,

• 23:47Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 23:47Matt Farah?

  That was, it was 10 minutes, but it was all I needed. That was, that's, that is a fine specimen.

• 23:52Speaker 01

  Yeah. And then DLST is actually slightly more refined if you're just cruising in it, but DLST in Maz and I's mind, it was like, okay, F40, that type of peel your hands off the steering wheel once you've, once you get to the end of a drive.

• 24:08Matt Farah?

  We drove, you know, sorry to bring it up, but we drove this Gunther Works F26 slant nosy thing.

• 24:14Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 24:14Matt Farah?

  Which we actually went back to Peter and I said, this is too much. You should actually, this is like, this is really actually quite gnarly.

• 24:21Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 24:21Matt Farah?

  Not to the point where it's undrivable, but I was so tired after like two hours, I like had the shit beat out of me.

• 24:27Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 24:28Matt Farah?

  And sleep the rest of the day. For, you know, for what? Just to be, just to be terrified. So what do you think from behind the scenes? You know, they say like, uh, the artist knows when to stop.

• 24:40Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 24:40Matt Farah?

  Right? So

• 24:42Speaker 01

  I'm never happy.

• 24:42Matt Farah?

  What do you think makes, you don't know when to stop?

• 24:44Speaker 01

  No, well, no, I know when to stop. I know when to stop because I've explored each end of, okay, I want this, I want that. I've explored each limit. And I know why I've made that decision. So if you go in it and you're like, well, why does it do this? Okay. So we tried this and it did that. And we tried this and it did that. And that's the best compromise for the entire package.

• 25:06Speaker 01

  But you can't,

• 25:10Speaker 01

  I can't unlearn what I felt or what I was really hoping for and what I couldn't quite get. But I think if you, if you don't have that sort of imposter syndrome that is not good enough, then if you think, oh, this is amazing, that we're great.

• 25:21Matt Farah?

  What do you think separates the product from other people who are doing other resto mods?

• 25:27Speaker 01

  I don't think that's for me to say. I think

• 25:29Speaker 02

  Well, I, I'll speak on it because I think, I think you guys do more development driving than probably anybody else out there. You know, we've driven a number of, of cars built by other shops, both Porsche resto mods and other companies. And some are small and they do beautiful work and they, and they can build the thing and put the right thing in. And, and some of them may be very good drivers, but I think the fact that you guys one, have like a Bosch program system that you program yourselves, but also you do almost an OEM light version of development driving and refinement.

• 25:58Speaker 01

  That's the approach.

• 25:58Speaker 02

  And I, and that takes, requires a lot of money, a lot of time. And you guys are putting the money into that. And I think other shops may not do that.

• 26:04Speaker 01

  Yeah. As I say, I don't, I haven't really driven many of the other ones, but I just know

• 26:10Speaker 01

  we're really focused on our own stuff and just progressing and making it better and better and better. And part of that is now with the Carrera Coupe and the Carrera Cab. Bosch are doing the, um, engine management as well. And that is just another level again. It's it's just incredible to have all of those things coming together.

• 26:33Matt Farah?

  That's crazy to have Bosch doing like your, you know,

• 26:37Speaker 01

  It's crazy.

• 26:38Matt Farah?

  sort of pot rod engine or whatever you want to call it.

• 26:41Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 26:41Matt Farah?

  Oh my gosh, look at this low drag Jaguar E-type going out on the track.

• 26:45Speaker 02

  So good.

• 26:46Matt Farah?

  Fucking crazy looking.

• 26:48Speaker 01

  Lovely.

• 26:48Matt Farah?

  That's a low drag, right?

• 26:50Speaker 01

  Yeah, it's got the Dunlop wheels on it as well. Look at that. Lovely.

• 26:53Matt Farah?

  We haven't even discussed where Willow Springs.

• 26:55Speaker 01

  Okay, we are Willow Springs. We are Willow Springs, you're right. I am a, I'm a, as a, as a, you know, as a senior drivers club member.

• 27:01Matt Farah?

  Shitty ambassadors.

• 27:02Speaker 01

  Yeah, we're not doing a good job. Honestly.

• 27:04Matt Farah?

  What member number are you?

• 27:06Speaker 01

  Oh, I have no idea.

• 27:06Matt Farah?

  You don't know?

• 27:07Speaker 01

  I don't know.

• 27:07Matt Farah?

  You haven't had to sign for it yet?

• 27:09Speaker 01

  I probably have, but I didn't look.

• 27:10Matt Farah?

  I think I'm 14.

• 27:11Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 27:11Matt Farah?

  But like to actually sign for stuff is a whole process.

• 27:14Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 27:14Matt Farah?

  Ask Brittany.

• 27:15Speaker 01

  I haven't, I haven't signed for anything. So because I'm Scottish.

• 27:18Matt Farah?

  Usually you don't have to.

• 27:18Speaker 01

  I'm Scottish. I'm not, you know, short arms and long pockets, deep pockets. Um, it's so cool to be here and we were, it's really interesting. Behind the scenes, there's almost like a committee of drivers that are, Maz sort of corrals us all, Jensen, Jamie, Dario,

• 27:39Speaker 01

  bunch of, of us just, they ask what we think and we're like, well, we like this and we don't like that. And just trying to help shape what this place is going to be.

• 27:49Matt Farah?

  And now we've got like Goodwood is here. And, and in fact, you know, in like five minutes, I think the Duke of Richmond is going to come interrupt us.

• 27:57Speaker 02

  Yeah, Corey, Corey says got him.

• 27:58Matt Farah?

  And kick you out of, uh, your seat possibly.

• 28:00Speaker 01

  He's a man, so he does, he is so into the detail. He does the seating plan at Goodwood. So I met my wife at the Revival Ball in 2005. So I have him to thank for my family.

• 28:11Matt Farah?

  He sat, he sat her next to you?

• 28:13Speaker 01

  Well, he sorted out. I don't think he knew what was going to happen, but he does all the seating plans. So I, I always thank him for my family.

• 28:19Matt Farah?

  True member of, a true member of society.

• 28:21Speaker 01

  My son, uh, won the pedal car race there. Goodwood is,

• 28:25Speaker 02

  Oh, cool.

• 28:26Speaker 01

  Goodwood is the most special place on earth. It is my absolute heaven. And what I love is that

• 28:34Speaker 01

  they are helping the guys here at Willow bring all of their knowledge and learning to make this as good as it can be without ta, without taking away the essence and what we love about being here.

• 28:49Matt Farah?

  Well, that's the question. As someone who's spent so much time at Goodwood.

• 28:53Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 28:53Matt Farah?

  What, and, and you've obviously been here a bunch as well. What will it take to create that vibe here in a lasting way?

• 29:05Speaker 01

  I think obviously we have to put more proper runoff in, but just making sure that it's not track limits that you can abuse. Goodwood, they've got, they've put some tarmac behind little grass strips. If you get on the grass strip, it doesn't matter, y, you're done. The lap's done. You can't abuse it. We need to make sure that we maintain that. But otherwise, I think that the Alex Verces guys have done a great job on the designs. We're still tweaking some of it. But I think it's going to be able to, like, if you're driving like a 250 F Maserati, you'll have a lovely flowing track for that. If you're driving something modern, you'll have a good track for that. It's they're really thinking about the, again, the different use cases.

• 29:47Matt Farah?

  Yeah. Do you want the lovely flowing track that's a little easier on the brakes, a little easier on the car?

• 29:52Speaker 01

  Exactly. And I think if you talk about Goodwood, it is a place that has allowed me to drive cars I only ever saw in pictures.

• 30:00Matt Farah?

  Yeah.

• 30:00Speaker 01

  So he's coming in now. So.

• 30:02Matt Farah?

  We have to kick out Marino.

• 30:03Speaker 01

  I gotta go guys. Thank you so much.

• 30:04Speaker 02

  Thanks, man.

• 30:05Matt Farah?

  The Duke has arrived. Thanks, Marino. Good to see you. Guys, we're supported today by Delete Me. Look, it's October and that means it's everyone's favorite time of year talking about Cyber Security Awareness Month. Oh, never heard of it? Don't blame you. You're probably thinking cybersecurity is for big tech companies, not for you. But did you know that over three and a half billion with a B was lost to scams last year in the US alone? A lot of that could have been avoided with better cybersecurity practices on a personal level. Of course, I'm talking about Delete Me. And here are a few tips from Delete Me to up your game. Number one, if you get an unexpected email that looks legitimate, check that email domain.

• 30:48Matt Farah?

  Make sure it's spelled right. A lot of times scammers will use fake domains that look very close like legitimate businesses to trick you into clicking malicious links or downloading malware. Number two, if you get a lot of spam calls, don't answer them. It's, it's tempting to fight with these people on the phone, to tell them to kick rocks, to tell them how you feel about them calling. But all that does is tell them that you have a real number. There are machines making these calls. And if you just don't pick it up or ignore it, that's the best way. Block the number if you can. Change your phone settings, but don't pick up. Lastly, make a habit of Googling yourself so you're aware of what information is out there about you and how it could be used against you. And Delete Me can help with that last part.

• 31:33Matt Farah?

  They monitor your presence across data broker sites that sell your personal information to whoever wants to buy it. They get it removed and make sure it's. Stays removed throughout the year. Get 20% off your Delete Me plan when you go to joindelete.me.com/tire and use promo code tire at checkout. The only way to get 20% off is to go to joindelete.me.com/tire and enter code tire at checkout. That's joindelete.me.com/tire code tire. And we're supported today by Quince. Man, you know those pieces in your closet that you find yourself wearing on repeat? The sweater that goes with everything, the perfect pair of pants, the T-shirt you always reach for first? Those are the pieces that make getting dressed easy.

• 32:17Matt Farah?

  Your anchor pieces, and that's what Quince does best. Quince focuses on high-quality wardrobe staples made with premium materials like 100% Mongolian cashmere, organic cotton, and merino wool. The styles are timeless, versatile, and designed to become the dependable pieces you reach for day after day. The 100% Mongolian cashmere sweaters start at just 60 bucks, giving you the softness and quality you'd expect from a luxury brand without the luxury price tag. When the temperatures start to drop, Quince makes it easy to build on those everyday staples with premium down jackets and classic wool outerwear. Versatile layers designed to keep you warm and comfortable all season long.

• 32:58Matt Farah?

  Everything at Quince is priced 50 to 80% less than similar brands. They work directly with ethical factories and cut out the middleman, so you're paying for high-quality, not brand markup. You know, being fall, I'm going for my sweaters, my long sleeves, my, uh, my cardigans, and Quince has all that stuff. Whether it's cashmere or wool, Mongolian, uh, or American or alpaca, Quince has got it. They bring that same approach to everything they make, not just clothes, hotel-quality bedding and bath and kitchen essentials, plus thoughtfully-designed furniture, pieces for everyday living. Get your next fall favorites at Quince. Download the Quince app for exclusive offers or go to quince.com.

• 33:43Matt Farah?

  Get free shipping on your order and 365-day returns, now available in Canada and the UK. And when Quince asks where you heard about them, let them know it was the Smoke and Tire Podcast. It's the easiest way to support the show. For you? Thank you. Has Grace the Duke of Richmond, welcome. We're just rolling right in.

• 34:01Speaker 03

  Okay, cool.

• 34:02Matt Farah?

  Welcome, sir. What a pleasure.

• 34:03Speaker 03

  Very happy to be here, thanks.

• 34:05Matt Farah?

  The legend on, on our, on our, on our obviously, uh, very well-equipped program.

• 34:10Speaker 03

  Yeah, I'm in a very, very technical studio here, man.

• 34:12Matt Farah?

  Welcome to Willow Springs. Welcome to Los Angeles.

• 34:14Speaker 03

  We're very happy to be here. We're very excited about it.

• 34:16Matt Farah?

  I am so excited. Uh, I'm a member of the, the club here, and, uh, I've been working with, uh, Sam and his boys for a couple of years. And when he told me what was going on with yourself and your team, uh, super excited. And then when I heard your speech last night at the Peterson, even more excited. So what's the plan, sir? What are we doing? How are we gonna bring Goodwood to America?

• 34:39Speaker 03

  Well, it's a, it's a big plan.

• 34:41Matt Farah?

  Yes, it is.

• 34:42Speaker 03

  And obviously, we're starting with the, the, uh, the road racing, all this is all about the Road Racing Club coming to America. So it'll be the Goodwood Road Racing Club of America. It's been, uh, you know, a great success in Europe, bringing all the various car cultures together into one club.

• 34:56Matt Farah?

  And also the best Instagram feed of all time.

• 34:59Speaker 03

  Oh, thanks.

• 34:59Matt Farah?

  The Goodwood, the Goodwood Instagram feed is so good. Your, whoever's doing it, fabulous. Points for them.

• 35:06Speaker 03

  No, so the idea is to bring all those car cultures together, which is always done, really, how the festival's been started was to bring, you know, all the marks together, all the genres together, all the aspects of motorsport and car culture broadly together.

• 35:18Matt Farah?

  Yeah.

• 35:19Speaker 03

  And, um, that's what we're hoping to do when, when we come here. But, you know, so really bow to America, but bring the spirit of Goodwood.

• 35:25Matt Farah?

  When you see our, when you see our amazingly gorgeous desert, uh, laid out here, you know, it's not, when, when, part of me from, from looking at Goodwood from here, the lush greenery, the grounds, all that stuff does contribute a lot to the vibe. And, and we have our desert here, and we have a, a very expertly art-directed, uh, setup with Sam and their team. But what is your aesthetic vision for how to make this look like a Goodwood event?

• 35:57Speaker 03

  Well, we're not trying to make it look like a Goodwood event. We'd like it to feel.

• 36:01Matt Farah?

  Okay.

• 36:01Speaker 03

  Uh, that, that, that, that Goodwood's come to town, so to speak. Um, but we love this landscape. I mean, the whole thing is it's so different. It's, it's completely authentic. The track hasn't been wrecked. The place is still untouched, very much like Goodwood was 30 years ago.

• 36:16Matt Farah?

  Yeah, they shot a period piece five years ago.

• 36:18Speaker 03

  Yeah, I know. And, uh, and we try, you know, so we kind of put Goodwood back together again, and I hope what's gonna happen here is we're gonna play a part in putting this back together. So it feels fabulous and this beautiful landscape, it feels like what it is, which is a proper old racetrack.

• 36:31Matt Farah?

  Looking at the history of the Festival of Speed, the revival from today's eyes, these are enormously successful events. They're known the world over, they're aped in various ways. But to go back to the beginning, in the first couple of years of doing motorsport at your house estate, how risky was that? Did it, did it feel like you were being naughty and doing something maybe you shouldn't and, and it wasn't gonna work? Or was there a level of confidence about it in the long term that you saw?

• 37:03Speaker 03

  No, no, no confidence.

• 37:05Matt Farah?

  Perfect, I like that. I like hearing that.

• 37:07Speaker 03

  No, because we started it in, you know, we tried to get the racetrack going, um, in the early 90s, very early 90s, uh, when I went back to live there. And my grandfather shut the track in 66, you know, very, I was a very disappointed small boy then, saying, one day we're gonna get this thing going again. We then started down that, down that road and quickly realized there was a lot of resistance. So there's a, you know, huge amount of local resistance, government resistance, noise, all this stuff. And, um, it looked very challenging. So that's when we thought, well, could we do something else, which would just see if people still remembered Goodwood and cars and racing and stuff? So I had the, they couldn't stop me doing it in front of the house. So I thought, well, let's try something here. And the FIA Track Inspector, amazingly, called Derek Ungaro, who is, you know, without him, none of this would have happened, said, yeah, he thought we could perhaps do it and

• 37:52Speaker 03

  treat it like a rally stage, which is why that first year, there was nothing there except a very small string between everybody and the cars.

• 37:59Matt Farah?

  Oh, this'll stop them.

• 38:00Speaker 03

  And then we did it.

• 38:01Matt Farah?

  That's amazing. Any bureaucratic system, big or small, comes down to the attitude of one individual that you have to deal with. Succeeds or fails by that one metric, that one person.

• 38:14Speaker 03

  Exactly. Without his enthusiasm for the idea.

• 38:16Matt Farah?

  Yeah.

• 38:16Speaker 03

  And it was a miracle it happened, really. And, and that first year, we were expecting a couple of thousand people and 25,000 people rocked up. It was like they just broke the fence down, they came in. And it took us a long time to actually, each year, you know, after the event, to, to, to be, to recognize the fact we were gonna do it again.

• 38:34Matt Farah?

  Yeah.

• 38:34Speaker 03

  Because every year we'd say, never, ever, ever gonna do this again.

• 38:37Matt Farah?

  Yeah.

• 38:38Speaker 03

  It's like.

• 38:38Matt Farah?

  And then how long until eventually they were like, look, you can have your racetrack now?

• 38:42Speaker 03

  98, so seven years.

• 38:43Matt Farah?

  Okay, seven years of driveway racing and they said.

• 38:45Speaker 03

  No, not quite. We, yeah, no, about, about five years and then, and then we eventually, but we started the process in 91, we got it in 98. And then we thought, well, how are we gonna bring this back to life? And actually, what was good was we learned a lot from the Festival of Speed in that we realized that, you know, rather like Willow, is the most important thing about the whole place was that racetrack was the same as it was when it was built in 1948.

• 39:05Matt Farah?

  Sure.

• 39:06Speaker 03

  You know, to try and keep that as intact as we could. And then we decided that we'd rebuild all the wartime buildings, so it felt like it did, and we improved quite a lot of them in the process.

• 39:16Matt Farah?

  I'm curious, during the 30 years in which nothing was happening on the track, what did it physically deteriorate to? Was there still tarmac there?

• 39:25Speaker 03

  Yeah, the tarmac, you could still drive on it.

• 39:26Matt Farah?

  You would go out and have a little play once in a while?

• 39:28Speaker 03

  Yeah, yeah, okay.

• 39:29Matt Farah?

  Last time, guys, October hits different. The season shifts, the light changes, your whole rhythm changes too. Your alarm goes off in the morning and it's pitch black outside, and then you're making dinner and it's pitch black again. Talking about navigating that darkness, that transition in your body, adjusting to that shift, what you gotta do to stay ahead of it. That's where your AG1 routine earns the spot. It's not fixing your sleep or your alarm time, it's giving your body what it needs so the dark mornings don't tank you before you even start. Just one scoop in cold water every morning before anything else. That's it. You just toss it in the water, shake it around, you could put it in your smoothie, right? Uh, I like to water it down a little more.

• 40:13Matt Farah?

  I do like, like 20, two, three extra ounces of water, uh, because I chug water real fast anyway, so it just thins it out a little bit. But yeah, your nutritional foundation matters, and the last thing you want is a nutrient gap on top of everything else your body's adjusting to. So AG1 Next Gen has 75-plus ingredients, vitamins, minerals, pre- and probiotics, superfoods, backed by four separate gold standard clinical trials. Not we did a study, four independent studies. And key nutrients, nutrient levels improve within three months of consistent use. It's not a one-day fix, it's what happens when you stay consistent. And October is when immune support really earns its place in your routine. I know, I am sick right now.

• 40:55Matt Farah?

  I should have drank some more AG1 before I left for New England. Um, that probably would have helped my voice not sound like this. So go to drinkag1.com/tire and for a limited time, get a free immune support bundle, including a bottle of omega-3 fish oil and a bottle of vitamin D3K2 with your first subscription order of AG1 Next Gen or AG1 Pro. That's drinkag1.com/tire.

• 41:25Speaker 02

  Can I ask, was the turnout, so you said you expected like a thousand people and, and five or 20 times show up. Did you, did that prove the concept that the people around are hungry for this kind of event? Like what made that event so special in the UK landscape? Because you have a lot of racing, you have a lot of history, but what was it?

• 41:43Speaker 03

  Well, I don't think we'd thought it through particularly, but, but what exactly, I'll tell you exactly what happened and what, what, where we, where, the bit we did get right in a way was that up to that point, and still to a certain extent, all that sort of historic classic car activity was all done by clubs. And those clubs were only interested in their members and their members' cars and the members wanted to race. So, you know, you'd go to an Aston Martin owners' club race meeting and they'd be having a great time, but no one would know about it and no public would ever get in to see it because they just didn't know about it. So it was really the first time, well, we recognized there was a huge fan base there of people who just wanted to get close to cars and see them and enjoy them and feel part of it and nothing to do with the cars or the drivers. So that's when we came up really

• 42:26Speaker 03

  with the idea, we'd invite the cars, no entry fees or anything, we'd invite the owners and cars to come as guests, we'd give them a great weekend and then people would come and see them and get super close and there'd be no, you know, there'd be no access restrictions, no cars ever allowed to be roped off. Even we had six Bugatti Royales there, they weren't any of them roped off.

• 42:44Matt Farah?

  I would have loved to see that.

• 42:45Speaker 03

  You could walk up to them and kick them and...

• 42:47Speaker 02

  But I think that's a brilliant thing. I went to, we went to Festival of Speed a few years ago and just that access is so different from what we have a lot of races here. Here they want to sell the VIP or sell the pit pass and you just say, no, no, no, everyone gets to come in, everyone gets to walk, you can walk around the back of any of these cars, people are underneath working on stuff. I think it's fantastic.

• 43:05Matt Farah?

  I shoved my head into the beast of Turin's engine bay while someone's injuring me.

• 43:08Speaker 03

  The owners love that. Remember when Dan Guerny used to come and things, Dan would just love sitting there all day talking to everybody. And he said to me one time, he said, "Yeah, these people know more about me than I do." Because they're great fans, you know, they really know their subject.

• 43:21Matt Farah?

  They, you know, we know a lot of Brits as people who write about cars for a living. You know, a lot of our contemporaries and Chris Harris and Henry Catchpole and those folks are from the UK, Jethro, et cetera. And I think that car enthusiasm in the UK and car enthusiasm in California are equally strong. It's disproportionate in the UK to many other countries as well as in California.

• 43:44Speaker 03

  For sure.

• 43:45Matt Farah?

  When you come to visit us over here, what kind of cars do you like seeing that you don't get to see at home?

• 43:51Speaker 03

  Well, I was going to say earlier on, you know, American cars, well, we love America.

• 43:55Matt Farah?

  Yeah.

• 43:56Speaker 03

  We love American music, cars, all that, that, that, that culture around that. And it played a huge part in the success of the Festival of Speed at the beginning because we decided we were going to bring cars over, which no one ever, no one in Europe had ever seen. And we had a fantastic arrangement with Lufthansa actually, so we were able to get all these cars over. And what's weird now is there have been more great cars at Festival of Speed, no doubt, on that little bit of ground than anywhere else in the world. And I remember a great moment, I came out of our dining room, it was, goes straight out onto the lawn in front of the house. It was about eight o'clock in the morning and I got knocked, completely knocked over by, this guy was running, he just didn't, he just didn't see me, he banged straight into me. He said, "Oh man, I'm so sorry man." I said, "Oh God, where are you from?" He said, "I come all the way from Chicago. I've

• 44:39Speaker 03

  come to see the Chaparrals." And he'd never seen them, you know, because I don't think Jim then had them even, you couldn't see them.

• 44:45Matt Farah?

  Oh yeah, I guess.

• 44:46Speaker 03

  It wasn't even open. So, and yet we managed to persuade Jim to come, we loved that. And I drove one, oh my God, that was a big moment, having them here, but having them at Goodwood. But to bring all those American cars together was a, was a, was a great thing. And so it's fabulous seeing them here and seeing Bruce's cars and the Pearson Brothers coupe, we've had that, all these cars, you know, walking around the Peterson last night, so many of those great cars.

• 45:07Matt Farah?

  Good stuff there, huh?

• 45:08Speaker 03

  We've had there.

• 45:09Matt Farah?

  Oh, so we have, someone is doing a full drift lap through turn eight and nine.

• 45:13Speaker 02

  Oh, this is Odie Bach's.

• 45:14Matt Farah?

  That's like a 140 mile an hour slide. Pretty good.

• 45:18Speaker 02

  F1 driver, Odie Bach's.

• 45:20Matt Farah?

  Have you driven Willow Springs? Have you driven the track before?

• 45:22Speaker 03

  No, no. We just drove around it last time I was here, but I haven't, oh my God.

• 45:27Matt Farah?

  A little stress inducing. Yeah, if you send it wide right there on the exit to nine, that's like one of the most dangerous corners in motorsport. They're going to fix that.

• 45:36Speaker 03

  Yeah, I think we're having a look at that before we bring anything here.

• 45:39Matt Farah?

  No, the renderings are great, the model and all that. And then, and the track over there, on the other side is very good. We've been testing on it, it's lovely.

• 45:46Speaker 03

  No, it's really exciting. We've just got to keep the place, you know, feeling like it's always felt.

• 45:50Matt Farah?

  Yeah. Is, do you have a moment that stands out to you in Festival of Speed history as a moment that was just like, oh my God, I can't believe that just happened at, at my home?

• 46:02Speaker 03

  Well, there have been a few.

• 46:04Matt Farah?

  I'm sure there's been more than one, but is there a real standout?

• 46:07Speaker 03

  There have been a few of those. I mean, we were very, very excited about launching Goodwood Racing Club of America this year with Jimmy and everybody there. And, you know, that was pretty cool. No, we've, we've had some fantastic memories. We used to have jump jets popping in just for, you know, in the early days, they'd just, we'd just put a little bit of sort of honeycomb down on the, you know, steel on the ground and they'd just, they'd just pop in. You know, those days are over. Two of them landing, they set fire to a few tents, blew a few things away.

• 46:34Matt Farah?

  That's wild, yeah.

• 46:35Speaker 03

  We had some wild moments like that. But we've, we've had some wonderful, you know, obviously we had Lando and Valentino there this year, having them together was pretty special because...

• 46:43Matt Farah?

  When Zach and I went, I think it was 23, I think it was, was the first year the McMurtry Spearling went out. And, I mean, we saw something that we didn't think was real. I mean, to watch that car in real, in real life, go up such a small track at such speed, we were, I, I, I can't believe I got to see that in person. It was insane.

• 47:05Speaker 03

  And when you look at the YouTube video, it just looks like someone speeded it up.

• 47:09Matt Farah?

  It's so, so wild.

• 47:10Speaker 03

  So that was a big moment, yeah.

• 47:11Matt Farah?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 47:12Speaker 02

  And I think it was damp a little bit, but we had seen fast cars go by.

• 47:15Matt Farah?

  Yes.

• 47:16Speaker 02

  And we thought, okay, we'll go by and we'll notice it, but it won't stand out as much. And then it went past us at three times the speed.

• 47:20Matt Farah?

  With a rooster tail like a cigarette boat.

• 47:22Speaker 03

  Max hadn't slept much. He was quite, he was, you know, he was a bit nervous about it all, I think. Where it was on his, you know, and he hadn't slept much the night before. And he was in the car and he doesn't blink the whole way up, you notice, but he's like, absolutely, he just, I mean, that was a big moment for him.

• 47:35Matt Farah?

  In the beginning, when you started, when you started to do, to do racing on, on your estate, how important was seat time to you? That you wanted to get out and go race yourself versus have it as a business and a cultural event?

• 47:50Speaker 03

  Look, I'm a great, you know, I'm, I'm, you know, I'm mad about cars. I've always loved cars. That's why we did it. You know, we didn't do it for any other reason. We've been very lucky with it and people have responded so, so brilliantly to it. And we're very keen on that shared experience, you know, we all, having everyone together. I mean, cars are a great leveler. And that's the big thing about, I think what goes on at Goodwood, we just want everyone to be involved and whoever you are, whatever you are, whatever, you know, it doesn't, it just, it doesn't matter. And it's a very much a shared, a shared experience. So that's what we're, that's what we're trying to do.

• 48:20Matt Farah?

  In, in, in the UK, the Goodwood Road Racing Club focuses mainly on vintage stuff, yes? Is that going to be the same in America or is there going to be a modern focus as well?

• 48:30Speaker 03

  I think, well, we welcome all people. We have events where, you know, people bring all, bring their cars and all their, you know, any cars welcome.

• 48:36Matt Farah?

  Okay, cool.

• 48:37Speaker 03

  And any cars, well, the really big thing for the club for us here is to celebrate, this isn't a single mark club, this is celebrating anyone who loves their cars and trying to bring all the various, you know, all the various clans together, all the various tribes together so that they, they all mix and...

• 48:51Matt Farah?

  This is like American wrestling in the seventies, right? In American wrestling used to be very regional and then the WWF brought them all together under one.

• 48:59Speaker 03

  So all those cultures, we'd, we'd, we'd love to...

• 49:02Matt Farah?

  And do you see, expect, think you're going to have events all over America or mainly just based out of here at Willow Springs?

• 49:08Speaker 03

  Absolutely, in time, absolutely. If you look at the interest we've had since we've launched it, it's all, it's all, it's all over. Mostly California and, and, well, mostly California, then New York, Miami. But in time, we would love to think we could have hubs all over. And then people traveling between and having epic events in some places more, you know, just so we'd, we'd sort of play the various scale of event depending on the place.

• 49:30Matt Farah?

  We're going to have to figure out where to buy the appropriate outfits. Will I have to wear the appropriate period correct outfits?

• 49:35Speaker 02

  We should, absolutely.

• 49:36Matt Farah?

  I think we should, oh my gosh, Herbie the Love Bug with our buddy Justin Bell driving in the hill climb. My gosh.

• 49:43Speaker 03

  We will, fashion and music will play an important part to it, but it won't be so, it won't be, it may be rigid like, well, revival's not rigid, but it won't be set to a, to a, you know, we want to celebrate, you know, maybe, you know, celebrate California 1970s.

• 49:57Matt Farah?

  Oh, okay. Yeah, dress, you know, dress like the Beach Boys, basically. That'll be a little easier.

• 50:01Speaker 02

  How, I wanted to ask, you know, the Goodwood Instagram is so famous and I love it because it shows how aggressive the drivers are in these very rare old cars. Here in California, when they do the Heritage Race during Monterey Car Week, the drivers tend to space out a little bit more. What is it either about the culture or the event? Like, what, what was the genesis of these drivers just going as hard now in these old expensive machines as they did in period?

• 50:28Speaker 03

  Well, they're very competitive.

• 50:30Matt Farah?

  I think they have, they have ringer drivers at Goodwood.

• 50:33Speaker 02

  I know, I know.

• 50:34Matt Farah?

  They're driving their own cars in, at Laguna Seca. At Goodwood, it's like Jimmy Johnson's over there driving the car. You're not going to tell him to slow down, right?

• 50:43Speaker 03

  Yeah, yeah, exactly. Tom Christiansen, pop in, you know, guy does.

• 50:46Matt Farah?

  Hey Tom, take, take it easy on the clutch, would you?

• 50:49Speaker 03

  He's quite quick. But they also make, with a lot of two-driver races where you've got the pro and the amateur together, they've been a really great success. But what's terrific for us is, you know, all these pros just want to be there. I mean, look at the patrons we've got for the Good Race Love America, you know, we've got Jimmy and Jensen and, and...

• 51:08Matt Farah?

  I think these guys are looking to really

• 51:11Speaker 03

  Frankeiti, yeah.

• 51:13Matt Farah?

  Yeah, remain involved in the culture once they're, you know, professionally retired.

• 51:18Speaker 03

  Well, it's a great thing. It's a great, it's a fantastic sort of, if you like, asset for our sport in that old drivers, I mean, look at Mario and things, you know, older drivers are still quick. They can still do it. And people love, it's, it's part of people's memories. They want to see the guys in the cars, in their, in their helmets. It's like the music of the period and, and drivers can still drive mostly. So unlike, you know, you know, old tennis players aren't quite so entertaining.

• 51:43Matt Farah?

  Yeah. You know what? Jensen, who I saw, he's out here, I think. Is he feeling alright? Have you seen him? He, he, apparently, I heard he was maybe not feeling well, but he is out driving, I think.

• 51:51Speaker 02

  I think he said he was sick last week after Singapore.

• 51:53Matt Farah?

  Alright, well, he's, you know, he's the loveliest guy, he's the best. And he said to me, you know, because he bought this Alfa Romeo to race in the, this B sedan group. And he goes, do you know what it takes for me to spend money on racing? Like, how fun it has to be? For me to go spend money on this race car and getting it all over the place? He's like, that's how much fun I'm having doing this vintage racing, is that a guy who's supposed to get paid is actually paying, you know, to do it.

• 52:22Speaker 03

  He's got a lovely E-type, he races, a proper E-type at Goodwood, he races and he's, you know, it's so interesting, isn't it, how good they are? You know, I mean, he gets in there and he's a winner.

• 52:29Matt Farah?

  The, the onboard video of these, of these guys duking it out in the, you know, in the wet?

• 52:34Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 52:34Matt Farah?

  Or the guys in the cars from like the twenties? You know, on the little skinny bicycles?

• 52:39Speaker 03

  The pre-war, the pre-war. The pre-war stuff is incredible, isn't it? The skill, the drive, the, you know, the car control is, is extraordinary.

• 52:46Matt Farah?

  Yeah. You know what I don't get a sense of from your Instagram, because I've never been to the Revival, is about how many spectators do you get per day at something?

• 52:52Speaker 03

  We get about a hundred and sixty-five thousand over the weekend. Let's be, we're doing about fifty, fifty, uh, fifty-five thousand a day.

• 53:01Matt Farah?

  That is fabulous.

• 53:02Speaker 03

  It's a lot. It's the biggest, you know, it's historic, historic race meeting in the world by a mile, yeah.

• 53:07Matt Farah?

  Wow. How much of your personal time do these three major events take up throughout the year?

• 53:12Speaker 03

  Far too much.

• 53:14Matt Farah?

  Is it, is it effectively all of it?

• 53:16Speaker 03

  No, it's, well, we've got a lot of other things going on.

• 53:18Matt Farah?

  Yeah, you have a hotel and a question.

• 53:19Speaker 03

  We've got lots of other stuff, but it's, um, it's a very big part of what we do. And of course, it's not really work either. So, you know, it's...

• 53:25Matt Farah?

  I am, uh, listen, you don't have to explain to me that it is work. Event planning is hard, even, even if the backdrop is sports car.

• 53:32Speaker 03

  And we've got a fantastic, no, and we want to do it really well. I mean, the real thing, the, the driver is, you know, we want to do, we want to do it really well. We want to do it differently. We want to make it really good for people. And, um, you know, we hope we can bring, we hope we can do that here.

• 53:45Matt Farah?

  Are there people, are there people and or companies that try and get into your good, good graces, no pun intended, to have their vehicles hung on the sculpture in front of the house during Festival of Speed? Is there a lobbying process for that?

• 53:58Speaker 03

  Yeah, we have, you know, we have interesting conversations with some of the OEMs about who's going to be up there.

• 54:02Matt Farah?

  Yeah. That's one of the more interesting logistical challenges, right?

• 54:06Speaker 03

  Yeah, because we, we're, we, we design and build those. A great, great friend of mine, a very good artist, he designs them always. And then we've got a wonderful production company that builds them. It's a, it's a big deal, yeah.

• 54:16Speaker 02

  You could, you could reverse it where it's more of like a tree of shame. So there's a road in the United States called Tale of the Dragon, it's pretty famous, but there's a tree next to a motorcycle shop that's just covered in the parts of, from crashed, you know, problems and, and mistakes. And it's like, that's there to remind you, hey, take it a little bit easy. So you could flip it where whatever, whoever messes up this year and hits a hay bale.

• 54:36Speaker 03

  Gets hung up.

• 54:37Speaker 02

  Their car is hung up the next year.

• 54:38Matt Farah?

  There really should be a tree of shame at Goodwood Estate somewhere. We need to recommend that. Official Smoking Tire Podcast Tree of Shame.

• 54:45Speaker 03

  There have been a few shameful moments.

• 54:46Matt Farah?

  Oh, for sure. I'm amazed that more cars don't get cheese grated along the wall when they're cutting, cutting really close. I would, I would think there's some, some, a little more scrapies action happening there.

• 54:56Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 54:56Matt Farah?

  It's an amazing thing to see.

• 54:58Speaker 02

  It's a great event. Because I like the, the clash of, of eras, you know, the house castle, and then there's the hay bales, which is very like forties, fifties to me. And then you'll have like a brand new, the, the spearling running up. So it's just like, all of these different timelines are interacting at the same time. It's so special.

• 55:13Speaker 03

  One team's being there is exciting too for everybody. And seeing them go up on such a narrow track and giving it, giving it stick is, is really exciting. I hope we can do some of that, you know, demos. We have a lot of very, very, uh, exciting sort of demonstrations and a members meeting as well. So the idea of what we do here will be bringing together, you know, Revival, Festival of Speed, our members, sort of trying to bring the best out of each and do something particularly. It'll be, it'll be an event all of its own.

• 55:38Speaker 02

  Great. Yeah.

• 55:39Matt Farah?

  And, uh, I'm, I'm so interested in what's happening behind the Duke right now, because they're running the Time Attack. And let me just list off the cars in line. I'm going to do it real quick. Herbie the Love Bug, a cold-trickled NASCAR from Days of Thunder, looks like a 964 Cup, a Time Attack Toyota Supra, a Hennessy Venom GT, Porsche 918, uh, Gordon Murray T50, and Aston Valhalla, the Tesla Plaid Pikes Peak Car, a McLaren Senna, and then like three more McLaren, uh, McLarens behind him. That is a pretty good spread. Good quality, a spread of variety for the Time, or the hill climb. I love it.

• 56:20Speaker 02

  Well, we've got Justin Bell's in the bug, but then we've got Larry Chen is in the Time Attack Toyota. And then, uh, the Pikes Peak Car, I don't know if that's Randy Pope.

• 56:27Matt Farah?

  I don't know if Randy's driving it.

• 56:28Speaker 02

  But that car was built for him, uh, by Unplugged Performance.

• 56:31Matt Farah?

  Yeah. What a cool, cool lineup they've got for the Time Attack. Somebody should have remembered to enter that.

• 56:38Matt Farah?

  That's all I'm saying. Uh, well, Your Grace, it's been an absolute pleasure. Thank you for joining us on the show and, uh, and welcome to, uh, to Goodwood Road Racing Club of America.

• 56:47Speaker 03

  Thank you. And I hope very much you're going to come to Revival next year because we're going to have a big Americana moment.

• 56:52Speaker 02

  We would love to.

• 56:52Speaker 03

  We're going to have a Goodwood 500.

• 56:54Matt Farah?

  Yes.

• 56:55Speaker 03

  And the Petty family are all coming. And it's going to be a big, it's going to be a big thing.

• 56:58Speaker 02

  Count on us. It's been top of my list for like five.

• 57:00Matt Farah?

  Will that be the first recorded NASCAR race at the Goodwood Circuit?

• 57:04Speaker 03

  Absolutely, for sure.

• 57:05Matt Farah?

  That's a really good idea. I really am into that. Very, very nice, sir. Well done. Thank you very much. Such a pleasure.

• 57:12Speaker 03

  Pleasure.

• 57:15Speaker 02

  Uh, yeah, I can rotate, I can sit.

• 57:17Matt Farah?

  You can just sit where you're sitting. I'll just move this. Check, check. Okay. Slate again?

• 57:25Speaker 02

  Nicely done.

• 57:26Matt Farah?

  Well, how about that? The, the Duke of Richmond. That guy, that guy's alright, huh?

• 57:32Speaker 02

  That guy is so cool.

• 57:33Matt Farah?

  Everybody, everybody told me that he is a very good sport and is very cool and, uh, and is someone to really know. And, uh, while I don't necessarily understand the aristocratic system, as they say, there's layers to this shit, there's levels to this shit. I don't get it, but he's cool.

• 57:49Speaker 02

  Goes back a thousand years or more. But I love that he just wanted to have this party and he created this amazing motorsport thing and now it's an institution.

• 57:57Matt Farah?

  Yeah.

• 57:57Speaker 02

  That's so rad.

• 57:58Matt Farah?

  Yeah. And, uh, I mean, I'm, I'm pretty stoked at what they're doing. I mean, how lucky for us that they've decided to do that in the city we live in. But it's a city that people like to come visit, so, you know, why shouldn't it be here?

• 58:11Speaker 02

  I, I wondered, I didn't, we didn't get to ask him, but like, were car shows a thing in the UK, the way they, like, static car shows? Do they have that there? Or were people so hungry for a car event? Or just one, they were hungry for an event where cars are moving? Because we, I think because we have so much space here.

• 58:27Matt Farah?

  Yeah.

• 58:27Speaker 02

  We've got track days, we've got drifting, drifting. I mean, even in the nineties, like, you could go to the World Superbike Race. You could go to all these tracks and watch things happen. Was that not available there?

• 58:37Matt Farah?

  I don't know what the UK scene was like before, like, Top Gear.

• 58:41Speaker 02

  Right.

• 58:42Matt Farah?

  You know? Um, but out here, I mean, I don't know how long it took. You know, I'm sure it took a few years to build momentum, but what's happening out here? And I'm not just trying to like, you know, suck up to these guys because I, I like them and I'm a member of the club or whatever, but, but to reinvigorate this track and then build the facilities up, you know, over a period of years, and then have a bunch of stuff out here that's worth the drive, worth the ticket price. I mean, the ticket isn't very expensive to come to Willow Springs Reimagined, but like, dude, if you can, if you could buy a ticket to a Goodwood Road Race, you know, to the equivalent of Festival of Speed or the equivalent of the Revival

• 59:23Matt Farah?

  here, that's awesome. That's awesome. And see that kind of racing happen up close. You know, Monterey Historics are great, but like, that's a primo event that is not necessarily super public friendly.

• 59:36Speaker 02

  It's not very accessible. And part of it's the distance. And from, you know, SoCal has so many engineers and companies and car, the car culture here is denser, I think, than anywhere else in the United States. So to have an event of this scale is great. This is, SEMA had it for a bit, but I think its era is fading slightly and that is more of a trade show. But this is more of a, I'll, I'll use the term loosely, like, action-packed event. They can put more car action in it and, uh, with a bunch of OEMs and a bunch of eras all in one place doing stuff. I think that's what people are hungry for.

• 1:00:10Matt Farah?

  Yeah, and there are vintage, I mean, when you have the Time Attack, that allows people to enter something in their road car. Or that, I keep calling it a Time Attack. It's, it's, it is a hill climb.

• 1:00:21Speaker 02

  They call it a hill climb. It's a, it's a, I mean, a hill climb is a Time Attack with half a lap, really.

• 1:00:26Matt Farah?

  It's a half-lap standing start Time Attack is basically what it is. Uh, but you do technically go up a hill. I mean, the finish line is up there. Where's the finish line? Isn't, is the finish line after the left?

• 1:00:39Speaker 02

  After the Osiris?

• 1:00:39Matt Farah?

  I think, is it where those people are standing?

• 1:00:41Speaker 02

  Yeah, I see, I see things that might be timing and scoring.

• 1:00:44Matt Farah?

  Yeah. So, so it's, it's a half a lap and, uh, it is, it is uphill from where it starts. So, sure.

• 1:00:51Speaker 02

  Oh, Herbie just finished and now the NASCAR sets off.

• 1:00:55Matt Farah?

  But there's a but like there's a the Dirtfish Rally School has a crazy display of there's like a Lancia 037, there's an MG Metro R4.

• 1:01:07Speaker 02

  That is one of the weirdest looking cars I've ever seen in my entire life. Like the the fender flares that have been added double the width of the car.

• 1:01:13Matt Farah?

  It's very chody.

• 1:01:14Speaker 02

  It's yeah, it's very short and it's very Home Depot HVAC.

• 1:01:18Matt Farah?

  But they've got the the Sobi No Fear Colin McCray X-Game Subaru, which is sick.

• 1:01:24Speaker 02

  I would have bought both of those products back in the day.

• 1:01:26Matt Farah?

  And there's like, there's some good, like really good race car displays. Porsche themselves have a big motorsport display with the 911 Challenge and other stuff. Obviously Singer has all of their wares down there. There's a Manx display. I haven't even really been down that way, but but all the cars that are racing are in this paddock that just like Goodwood, anybody could just walk up. In fact, they're like the same tents they use at Goodwood.

• 1:01:51Speaker 02

  So we want to talk about what they changed because last year they had the static car shows kind of off by the cart track, right? So those are gone, but they've added more tents.

• 1:02:00Matt Farah?

  Yeah.

• 1:02:01Speaker 02

  They've made that element more like the Goodwood events because Goodwood doesn't have like a massive parking lot car show. Everything is laid out along the course.

• 1:02:11Matt Farah?

  Right. We don't actually know. We didn't, we've been here and went to the VIP area. We have absolutely no idea what's happening in GA parking.

• 1:02:17Speaker 02

  Okay.

• 1:02:18Matt Farah?

  We're very privileged. We have no idea. You can edit that out, but like, we don't know.

• 1:02:22Speaker 02

  That's true. I know that because someone told me.

• 1:02:25Matt Farah?

  Like after we're done with this, this bit, then we will go look at things and we could talk about them on the pro show later.

• 1:02:32Speaker 02

  True.

• 1:02:33Matt Farah?

  But no, I mean, look, we've said before, it's insane that Southern California doesn't have a world-class motorsport facility. And so they're building one and I'm super excited and they're doing a bunch of shit like this event that's, you know, open to the public, which is great.

• 1:02:50Speaker 02

  Yep.

• 1:02:50Matt Farah?

  Um, do we have Patreon stuff to do or is that not a?

• 1:02:53Speaker 02

  No, that's for pro.

• 1:02:54Matt Farah?

  That's for pro show? Okay.

• 1:02:55Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:02:56Matt Farah?

  Well, the, what else did I want? Hang on, what else did I want to say about today? I wrote a thing.

• 1:03:05Speaker 02

  Who's your money on for Time Attack? Let's do that real quick.

• 1:03:07Matt Farah?

  My money for Time Attack?

• 1:03:08Speaker 02

  Yeah, I mean, look, you've got, we've got hyper cars on hyper cars.

• 1:03:13Matt Farah?

  So, so in the 918 Spider is our friend Edwin Castro, the Powerball winner. And he has a specific car that he really wants to beat. He told me last night at dinner and that's the Aston Valhalla. And the Valhalla was on a Charger getting a charge before this. And the 918 was not, but he was checking his tire pressures very diligently.

• 1:03:41Speaker 02

  Is he quick? Has he been doing a lot of driving before and after his, uh, his come up?

• 1:03:46Matt Farah?

  Is that who? I don't know. Is that who I think it?

• 1:03:48Speaker 02

  Who?

• 1:03:48Matt Farah?

  Sorry, nevermind. Don't worry about it.

• 1:03:50Speaker 02

  All right.

• 1:03:51Matt Farah?

  It wasn't good. It wasn't good, but I don't think, I don't think it was that person.

• 1:03:55Speaker 02

  Okay.

• 1:03:55Matt Farah?

  It looks like the Hennessy Venom GT is just, you know, the Hennessy Venom GT has aged really nicely.

• 1:04:02Speaker 02

  It has.

• 1:04:03Matt Farah?

  I mean, what a delicious automobile that is. It looks great. It's insanely fast. And actually, you know, the lengthening of the Lotus Elise, uh, really has positive effects on high speed stability in general. And they add the sections they added were very rigid. So it had a really nice ride and it was a great car.

• 1:04:27Speaker 02

  I think it's also a very rare thing where you can change the proportions of a car and it looks better even.

• 1:04:33Matt Farah?

  Yeah, like if you stretched most other cars.

• 1:04:36Speaker 02

  Shaquille O'Neal.

• 1:04:36Matt Farah?

  Yeah, then it looks really weird.

• 1:04:37Speaker 02

  His stretched Ferrari looked terrible, but that thing looks awesome.

• 1:04:41Matt Farah?

  Well, I think I can, I think I'll tell you why. When they, when Shaq stretches a car, he stretches it by lengthening the doors. He, he, the Venom GT has a standard sized Lotus door and it's just lengthened from behind the door.

• 1:04:55Speaker 02

  Ah, that's true.

• 1:04:56Matt Farah?

  So that the proportions were done. I just went through this with my trainer, Sean, who is contemplating getting a larger van. Like shout out to, if you're in LA, if you want a trainer, fit like Sean on Instagram. My trainer, he's the best. He comes to you with a gym and a van and he wants to get a new van. He's got a Ford Transit and he, he's thinking about getting the electric Transit. He found a great deal on like a 1,000 mile electric Transit. But it's the, the longer and like, he doesn't really know cars. He was trying to figure out how they, where they made it longer. Like, was it a rear overhang or whatever? And, and they, they, they cut it behind the sliding, they added 18 inches behind, between the sliding door and the rear axle. That's where they added it.

• 1:05:41Matt Farah?

  But it took, it was like, I'm pulling up photos and being like, you see where the cut, where, you know? But anyway, if you make a car longer from behind the door, if it's a supercar like that, it could be okay.

• 1:05:53Speaker 02

  I mean, it's like the long tail, right? Like the McLarens, there's still a pretty short nose and then the back just grows, grows, grows.

• 1:05:59Matt Farah?

  Right. But if you made the door really long, it would look kind of strange.

• 1:06:01Speaker 02

  It would look weird. It'd be harder to get in and out.

• 1:06:03Matt Farah?

  The Konigsegg Gemara.

• 1:06:04Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:06:05Matt Farah?

  Is that a real car? It does. But it's a four seat car. So of course it like kind of is supposed to look like that. Is that, is that a real car yet?

• 1:06:13Speaker 02

  I don't know.

• 1:06:14Matt Farah?

  Weren't they building like a huge factory?

• 1:06:16Speaker 02

  Ooh, not sure.

• 1:06:17Matt Farah?

  I thought they were building a huge factory.

• 1:06:19Speaker 02

  Just for those?

• 1:06:20Matt Farah?

  Yeah.

• 1:06:20Speaker 02

  They're going to sell that many of them?

• 1:06:22Matt Farah?

  No, it was for that and like all their new, because like that car I think was on some new modular architecture of some kind or new, new architecture that was going to be multiple. Should we open the window so we can hear?

• 1:06:36Speaker 02

  Sure, we got times on the board too.

• 1:06:38Matt Farah?

  Oh, we do? Oh, I can't read that.

• 1:06:40Speaker 02

  So here we got Justin Bell ran a 71 and change. Larry Chen ran a 62 and change. I'm, I'm, I'm looking 200 feet away.

• 1:06:48Matt Farah?

  Racing commentary, but I do want to hear the difference between the 918, the Gordon Murray T50 and the Valhalla, uh, going off the line.

• 1:06:58Speaker 02

  Let me pull up my driver's list.

• 1:06:59Matt Farah?

  The 918 is a fabulous sounding automobile driven by Edwin Castro. We're not, this, this podcast is not really, we're not trying to do sports commentary, but, but you know, this is a, this, this is an interesting thing to see. Who is fastest in this?

• 1:07:14Speaker 02

  Right now fastest is the, uh, Hennessy.

• 1:07:17Matt Farah?

  Get out of here. Good for, good for them.

• 1:07:20Speaker 02

  Grayson Hanson.

• 1:07:21Matt Farah?

  Oh, that guy. Okay. That's like one of the young Turks, I think is that guy's name.

• 1:07:27Speaker 02

  But he's only fastest by tenths of a second.

• 1:07:30Matt Farah?

  Who's, is that Robert Dalrymple is second place?

• 1:07:33Speaker 02

  I think it says Robert Distance, but that's also because it's far away from my eyeballs.

• 1:07:38Matt Farah?

  I don't know.

• 1:07:40Matt Farah?

  Um, what?

• 1:07:41Speaker 02

  Oh, that's Robert Bostang in the NASCAR.

• 1:07:44Matt Farah?

  Oh.

• 1:07:45Speaker 02

  So if you want to go as fast as a Hennessy Venom GT.

• 1:07:48Matt Farah?

  For $40,000.

• 1:07:50Speaker 02

  By a used NASCAR from, what, what era is that? Is that late 80s?

• 1:07:53Matt Farah?

  That's a Days of Thunder era NASCAR.

• 1:07:55Speaker 02

  It's like 92 ish.

• 1:07:57Matt Farah?

  Uh, yeah.

• 1:07:58Speaker 02

  Right?

• 1:07:58Matt Farah?

  I mean, you technically Days of Thunder would be 89, but whatever. How about the fucking Ferrari 250, uh, race car and the Bizarrini down there? And I think that's the first ever Corvette race car, uh, behind the Bizarrini. And then Bruce Myers, uh, got the first ever Corvette, or excuse me, first ever Cobra. That's the first, that black one, that's Cobra number one.

• 1:08:23Speaker 02

  And you can just walk around it like it's not behind a velvet rope or anything.

• 1:08:26Matt Farah?

  Yeah. I, dude, you know what I'm really excited about? I mean, is when I've seen the renderings of like when they're actually going to kind of like landscape this place a little bit and like beautify it a little bit. It's going to look so cool.

• 1:08:39Speaker 02

  Yeah, it's going to look nice. They're filling in most of the infield with like, uh, the runoff stuff and more track.

• 1:08:44Matt Farah?

  Well, they're making a cut through.

• 1:08:46Speaker 02

  Yep.

• 1:08:46Matt Farah?

  So they can split the big track into two tracks for running school.

• 1:08:50Speaker 02

  Yep.

• 1:08:50Matt Farah?

  So they could do that and they're building a tunnel to get to the infield, which is awesome. And I can't motherfucker wait.

• 1:08:59Speaker 02

  I want to go to the balcony. They're doing drift demos up there and then we've got the rally demo way over there.

• 1:09:04Matt Farah?

  We got the whole rest of today.

• 1:09:05Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:09:06Matt Farah?

  To do pretty much nothing.

• 1:09:09Speaker 02

  So if you were going to drive in the revival race, which vehicle?

• 1:09:16Matt Farah?

  Looks awesome. Like they just, they had B sedan practice before and that's like Alpha GTVs, BMW 2002. There was like a, some sunbeam, something or other. There was a couple of Ford Cortinas, uh, a Nissan, uh, or Datsun, some kind of Datsun 510.

• 1:09:35Speaker 02

  Bunch of those, yeah.

• 1:09:35Matt Farah?

  Yeah. So, you know, those things are like, make a ton of noise, really, really working to have them go, but you're going so slow.

• 1:09:44Speaker 02

  Yeah. Good oversteer, but not too fast.

• 1:09:46Matt Farah?

  Right. Like I feel like, I feel like in a car with 100 horsepower, I could put up a good fight against a pro. In a car with 500 horsepower, you know, or something that was really, really hairy, you know, Marino's got me by 25 lengths a lap.

• 1:10:02Speaker 02

  Yeah, that's when experience and bravery really kick in.

• 1:10:05Matt Farah?

  No, you give me a slow car and I, and I'm, I'm a solid mid pack, you know, but, but not in something really fast.

• 1:10:11Speaker 02

  The, the Mini Cooper race looks really fun, but I'd still rather go rear wheel drive. But man, it looks like a riot.

• 1:10:17Matt Farah?

  I think the Mini Cooper, I think the strategy is you just put it and stick it in fourth, you stay flat and then just left foot brake as needed. Like that's pretty much it. Wow. Do you hear that?

• 1:10:30Speaker 02

  T50.

• 1:10:30Matt Farah?

  That T50 coming off the line sounded like a leader bike.

• 1:10:34Speaker 02

  Yeah, it did.

• 1:10:34Matt Farah?

  That was awesome.

• 1:10:36Speaker 02

  A little mini F1 car.

• 1:10:37Matt Farah?

  Uh, I do not see Edwin Castro. Oh, is that, did he just get the top time?

• 1:10:43Speaker 02

  No. Still, uh, Grayson Hanson.

• 1:10:46Matt Farah?

  Okay. That was Edwin went in the 918. The T50 is, uh, crossing the line.

• 1:10:53Speaker 02

  I actually don't see Edwin on the board at all, but that's, maybe his transponder was off.

• 1:10:56Matt Farah?

  Or maybe he's not that quick. I don't know.

• 1:10:59Speaker 02

  I just mean, there's more room on the screen.

• 1:11:01Matt Farah?

  Oh, oh, oh, maybe that's, maybe there's a delay of timing, timing game. Dude, this is a great event, man.

• 1:11:09Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:11:09Matt Farah?

  I'm glad this is happening. I'm glad that, that people are out. I'm glad that so many drivers showed up here and this Goodwood thing is gonna be cool. I don't really know, like, you know, and, and, and the Duke is a little, is a little iffy on exactly what it means. What, you know, okay, you join the Goodwood Road. What does that mean? We're gonna have some, some anchor events and then some smaller events, probably, but I don't know exactly.

• 1:11:31Speaker 02

  Yeah, me neither.

• 1:11:32Matt Farah?

  The plan. Hopefully.

• 1:11:34Speaker 02

  It seems like they know how to put on a really good show and a good event that brings a lot of different types of cars together, types of people together, different eras together. And I think doing that is great because it's cool to see. I think younger people do get excited about older cars when they look crazy in their race cars and older people for new cars, like, just blend it all together. People get stoked about it.

• 1:11:54Matt Farah?

  But like, you know, in, at, at the Revival, it's sort of like the Milli Millia, right? Where it's, they're racing cars that they would have raced in the, the first original era of the race. So, forty-six to sixty-six, I think it is. Um, here, I would hope that we would see stuff from the eighties, nineties, oh, you know, a little more, cause we're not, we're not trying to keep it to a specific period necessarily. I hope. I mean, I, I, you know, vintage racing is great, but you know, a car from nineteen ninety-four is now thirty-two years old. So, you know.

• 1:12:29Speaker 02

  No, I think I, I misspoke. Like, the Festival of Speed is what brings all the different eras together. Revival is like,

• 1:12:34Matt Farah?

  An era.

• 1:12:35Speaker 02

  Is pretty old, is an era, but, uh...

• 1:12:37Matt Farah?

  But I'd like to see the California versions of those things with, you know, the year sliders just adjusted a little bit.

• 1:12:45Speaker 02

  Yeah, I agree with that.

• 1:12:46Matt Farah?

  You know? And they have, I mean, with all this land, you know, they could, they could have an off-road, you know, they could have an entire section, a race for trophy trucks, you know, in the infield or something.

• 1:12:58Speaker 02

  Or, yeah, that's very true.

• 1:13:00Matt Farah?

  A rally cross.

• 1:13:01Speaker 02

  Or they could do like an out and back King of Hammer style over this mountain, come back through the infield over a jump. You know, that's something like King of Hammers. They have two jumps right in the, right at the start-finish, basically. So the crowd sees that and then the trucks go off into the wilderness and do what they do.

• 1:13:16Matt Farah?

  I should have asked the Duke if he's seen a Cletus race. Imagine, imagine, that would be like, remember how like Scott O. and Ken Block were like the ultimate, oh, speaking of, look, there's Leah Block. Um, there's Josie Rimmer, who is the, uh, the general manager of Dirtface Rally School, and Leah Block, Ken Block's daughter.

• 1:13:38Speaker 02

  Just took second in the ARA championship, barely, almost championship, really heartbreaking. She got, you said?

• 1:13:44Matt Farah?

  No.

• 1:13:44Speaker 02

  Final stage, she was basically going to win championships. She got fourth or better and she got two punctures in one corner. And, and just, it, it ruined the whole season.

• 1:13:53Matt Farah?

  Oh, that sucks.

• 1:13:54Speaker 02

  But that, that young lady is a hundred percent gonna be a national champion, like, very soon, and she'll be the first, uh, first woman to do it.

• 1:14:02Matt Farah?

  She can wheel. She's very good.

• 1:14:04Speaker 02

  This was her first year in an all-wheel drive car, racing, and she's like, oh, how do you do this? Oh, I'm, I'm leading the championship.

• 1:14:09Matt Farah?

  If you're, if you're really good at front-wheel drive.

• 1:14:12Speaker 02

  Yep.

• 1:14:12Matt Farah?

  That, I mean, ask, go ask Chris DuPlessis, shout out to him. If you're really good at front-wheel drive, uh, uh, if you've never done it, you won't believe me, I can't begin to tell you how much harder front-wheel drive rally is than all-wheel drive rally. It is so difficult. And if you're really good at front-wheel drive, you will destroy everybody in all-wheel drive.

• 1:14:35Speaker 02

  I think she started there. I think last year she ran rear-wheel drive BRZ, and then this year she did all-wheel. But either way, she can drive her ass off.

• 1:14:42Matt Farah?

  Yep. Um, so, uh, oh, anyway, uh, like, when, when Brian and, and Ken Block shut down, you know, the, the seven-ten freeway to do donuts for that, that was like Brian's, you know, Mount Rushmore. My, my Mount Rushmore, Cletus's Mount Rushmore should be having a race at the Goodwood Circuit.

• 1:15:03Speaker 02

  Definitely.

• 1:15:03Matt Farah?

  A Cletus, a Cletus.

• 1:15:05Speaker 02

  A Crown Vic race at the Goodwood.

• 1:15:08Matt Farah?

  The Van Prey at Goodwood.

• 1:15:10Speaker 02

  Oh, that, that's too much mayhem. That would destroy everything.

• 1:15:13Matt Farah?

  It'd be all transits. It would be all like Criminals transits at the Goodwood Circuit. Oh, my lord.

• 1:15:19Speaker 02

  That would be great. They should do top criminal cars from a couple countries. Uh, you know what? So, real quick tangent, we were at the Peterson last night and we walked past the Eclipse.

• 1:15:30Matt Farah?

  From Fast and Furious, yeah.

• 1:15:31Speaker 02

  And Sarah looks at it.

• 1:15:32Matt Farah?

  The green one or the convertible?

• 1:15:33Speaker 02

  The green one. And she looks at it and she goes, "The first, my first experience dating a guy who I knew I shouldn't be dating, he was driving one of these, and like, every dirtbag I knew drove an Eclipse." I laughed so hard.

• 1:15:44Matt Farah?

  Dude, an Eclipse, my friend Brandon drove an Eclipse. You met, Brandon, who we met, who came to, who came to the concert with us?

• 1:15:51Speaker 02

  Oh, yeah.

• 1:15:51Matt Farah?

  In New York. He drove an Eclipse.

• 1:15:53Speaker 02

  That makes sense.

• 1:15:53Matt Farah?

  He drove the grimiest Eclipse. He, he drove an Eclipse that it got hit, it got hit in the passenger door, right?

• 1:16:02Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:16:02Matt Farah?

  And, you know, the, the Eclipse and the, the Plymouth Laser was the other one. So he went to the junkyard and got a Laser door. And the Laser door was the same on the outside, and it was the same color, they were both black, but the inner door card was totally different and the Eclipse and the Laser.

• 1:16:20Speaker 02

  It's two-tone. That's cool.

• 1:16:22Matt Farah?

  Not just a different color, it was a different shape. So he had two, like, completely different doors. Oh, my god. We used to smoke a lot of grits, a lot of heaters in that Eclipse, man. And it must have had bad motor mounts, cause that motherfucker vibrated like crazy at idle.

• 1:16:40Speaker 02

  Oof. They're such good-looking cars, but...

• 1:16:42Matt Farah?

  If you, if you, someone is driving an Eclipse, even today, I mean, unless it's like a...

• 1:16:47Speaker 02

  It's pretty awesome.

• 1:16:48Matt Farah?

  No, if you have a GSX, like, mint,

• 1:16:50Speaker 02

  Exactly.

• 1:16:50Matt Farah?

  That's a different story. Shout out to Tony. Remember Tony with the GSX on tuned?

• 1:16:55Speaker 02

  Oh, yes.

• 1:16:56Matt Farah?

  We filmed his car?

• 1:16:56Speaker 02

  Yep.

• 1:16:56Matt Farah?

  I still see him around. Shout out to Tony with the GSX. If you have a beautifully tuned GSX, you might not be a dirtbag. Anything south of perfection, you're an A-class dirtbag driving Eclipse.

• 1:17:09Speaker 02

  It just looks like you probably are employed, self-employed, and a lot of small plastic bags in your, uh, in your pockets.

• 1:17:15Matt Farah?

  Nothing says Blockbuster. That was back in the day. Back in the day, that was a I-work-at-Blockbuster car.

• 1:17:22Speaker 02

  Well, the G, the, the third gen, second gen GSX was kind of expensive. The only guy I knew who had one in college, uh, got a master's in, like, computer science. He had a great job in college and he could pay for it. Everyone else had the old one.

• 1:17:35Matt Farah?

  The only one I knew in period that had, like, Brandon's Eclipse was old and shitty when we were in college. He had like a nine-deuce when we were in, when we were in high school.

• 1:17:45Speaker 02

  Not the good-looking one.

• 1:17:46Matt Farah?

  No, he had a first-gen NA automatic, front-wheel drive, bad. The worst Eclipse. The oldest, shittiest, worst Eclipse. Barely ran. But then, at the same time, the super-rich kid from high school had a, had a brand-new GSX on like chrome momo wheels, fully tinted out, and he would, had like a blow-off valve on it, and it would just be, you know, that.

• 1:18:11Speaker 02

  My friend Avon had the front-wheel drive turbo. First turbo car I ever drove.

• 1:18:15Matt Farah?

  Torque steer city, baby.

• 1:18:16Speaker 02

  Torque steer city. Uh, that man had more cologne on his shelf than I had books.

• 1:18:20Matt Farah?

  Did you ever know somebody, now, I had a friend who did this in high school. Maybe, maybe someone out there knows somebody who's done this. I had a friend who had a Honda Civic, and he loved his Honda Civic. And he had all the JDM bits on it, had the right wheels. It looked really good. Hatch, two-door hatch. Uh, you know, EX hatch or whatever it was, DX maybe. And it had exhaust, but it was NA, whatever it was, a B-16 or something. A hundred and seven horsepower.

• 1:18:51Matt Farah?

  And, you know, it made all the right noises and it looked the part, but it was slow as dogshit. But when he would fucking rip it, he would drive, when he would get on it, he would wiggle the wheel himself as if the car was torque steering, but it wasn't. He was just doing it because he thought that that's what other people were doing when they were fighting torque steer, cause he'd never had a car that had enough power to actually torque it.

• 1:19:19Speaker 02

  It was a driving technique.

• 1:19:20Matt Farah?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Like hopping on the go-kart, like Max from Step.

• 1:19:24Speaker 02

  So he thought it was proactive, not reactive.

• 1:19:26Matt Farah?

  Correct.

• 1:19:27Speaker 02

  That is very funny. I did not ever see anybody do that.

• 1:19:30Matt Farah?

  Correct.

• 1:19:31Speaker 02

  Interesting.

• 1:19:31Matt Farah?

  And then when I, one day, I was like, "Let me try your car," and I went through the gears and I just kept the wheel straight. And he was like, "How come you're not doing it?" And I was like, "You don't do the thing. The thing does you."

• 1:19:45Speaker 02

  So, so this man would have gone horseback riding and started immediately jumping and bucking, cause all he'd ever watched are rodeos, like, that's... And he's like, "Huh, how come this horse doesn't do it?"

• 1:19:54Matt Farah?

  He still lives next to the pizza place in the town I grew up in, you know?

• 1:19:58Speaker 02

  The pizza's really good, though. Pizza's fantastic. That might keep me there for a while.

• 1:20:03Matt Farah?

  Oh, boy. Well, listen, folks, we should get out of here. Race Control needs our booth. And, uh, but yeah, shout out to, uh, his grace, the Duke of Richmond. I feel a little weird using the full title here in America, but you know what? He's cool, so I'll roll with it. No problem. Not gonna insult the man's title. Um, and of course, Mr. Marino Franchitti, who is a lovely, lovely chap. We actually thought his brother Dario was gonna be here today as well, but he's, uh, in England and not here at all. So, um, we love you guys. Willow Springs Reimagined is great. We're gonna talk about, uh, a little more on the Pro Show for you pro-drivers and champion-level Patreon tiers. And, uh, for the rest, y'all, see you next time. Bye.