Speaker 1: This is, is off track.
Man, that countdown is really dramatic on, on this
Speaker 2: Program.
I know. I was just thinking
Speaker 1: That it's like, why is five se it starts at five,
who needs five seconds?
Three is, is like, what's the TV
Speaker 2: Industry standard?
What's the, you know, the five four?
Speaker 1: No. Wow. Wow. No, no. Tim, you screwed that up.
You're not a good, that's a Wayne Waynes world reference.
Yes. Except they go down to three
and then two and one are silent.
He stopped a second Too early. .
Speaker 2: Oh, well I was waiting for you guys to mouth along
and do the nod No from Waynes World.
Speaker 1: No, we're not gonna, we're not gonna help you
when you're failing in a joke.
Hi everybody, uh, welcome to Offtrack with Hinch
or Rossi today Tuesday episode.
And I'm so excited for our guest today.
James Coker joins us on the show
and well, hello. Welcome to the show.
Speaker 3: Howdy. Thanks so much for having me.
Uh, super excited to be coming
to you live from a basement in Aurora,
Illinois. Speaker 2: ,
Speaker 1: Where is your counterpart?
We were wondering if he was gonna make the show .
Um, so, so James, I don't know how many people that listen
to the show know your work.
Um, I hope that probably very few.
No, I think you'd be surprised.
Our fan base is very hardcore in Decar fans
and you have become like kind of a staple for the, uh,
the online community
and the in-person community now of,
uh, of the IndyCar world.
So I guess let's open with, explain a little bit about
what it is you do in terms of the ecosystem of, of IndyCar
and, and why we have all heard of you.
Speaker 3: Sure. So in the last two years,
I accidentally became a me work content creator.
This was not, not a part of the plan at all. I
Speaker 2: Know the feeling.
Yeah. Speaker 3: , Tim's like I was supposed
to be a screenwriter set up producing this podcast.
Um, you are a screenwriter, I will say that. Sure. Um, .
But, um, in the last two years, uh, I
have built a following making
Formula One and IndyCar content.
I sometimes cover other series like World Endurance
Championship, ams, a, this, that, or the third.
But I am originally an actor and a comedian.
And about two years ago, my wife
and I made one video that I put on my Instagram as a joke
where we were doing Team Talk
and she was pretending to be my race engineer
and I was pretending to be the driver.
And, uh, it went super viral and ESPN
and Sports Illustrated and motorsport.com picked it up.
And that sort of started everything.
And I started posting more Motorsport videos,
whether it be IndyCar and Formula One.
So now a lot of people follow me for funny takes on things
that are happening in IndyCar. And F1
Speaker 2: Is the, is the wife into racing at all
or has the She started to with this.
Speaker 3: She watches it. Speaker 2: Yeah.
Okay. Speaker 1: , that's a, that's a like that's a soft Yeah.
Soft maybe like
Speaker 3: No, she follows it.
She follows a lot of, she follows a lot of the counts.
She, she'll watch if a race is not at, like,
she was not gonna wake up at 4:00 AM to watch back who
with me, but Right.
She, she, I, I'd say she watches about half
of the F1 races
and a handful of the IndyCar
races over the course of the season.
Speaker 1: But she knows that Lando winning in
Silverstone is a big deal.
Speaker 3: Sure. Yeah. She was more excited for Nico Holgenburg
to get us first podium who was podium, but yeah. Who
Speaker 1: Wasn't Speaker 2: Everybody else on that podium? No. Even they,
Speaker 1: I don't know if you watched this, Tim
All pry talked about was Holberg's
Podium and he completely, I was
Speaker 2: Just talking about they're spraying.
Yeah. They, they didn't really spray
'em. I don't know. There was something on
Speaker 1: Twitter.
Right. So you're not a comedic writer,
you're just like a more of a dramatic writer.
Uh, when you do your screenplays
Speaker 2: go, Speaker 1: I'm saying you're o for two on the funny stuff.
Let's just step it up a notch. We're in presence. I
Speaker 2: Creative wasn't be funny.
There, there is stuff going on online about that.
Speaker 1: Anyway, Speaker 2: Do you wake up on Alex's
side of the bed today? What the hell
Speaker 1: Happened?
I'm trying to bring, I'm trying to bring a little bit
of Alex Energy into this episode since he couldn't do it.
Speaker 2: You can leave it. It's fine. We don't need it.
Speaker 3: I will say you guys have a very funny dynamic,
and I've already told Tim this before,
but you guys have like a motor sports smart list thing going
on where you are like, hence you were like the,
the like happy go lucky, like very friendly personality.
Rossi is the grump, very much like the Will Anette
coded guy.
And Tim, I'm here.
Tim is clearly Sean Hayes who gets on by both of you guys. ,
Speaker 1: Right, because, because I'm gayman in this. I'll take it.
Even though t's Canadian, I see you.
I see how you got there with Alex.
Speaker 3: It's more of a personality thing, not
so much nationality thing. Yeah, true. I usually
Speaker 2: Just get, uh, Peggy from the Skyler sisters from
Hamilton just there.
Yes. Right. I bring a real
and Peggy energy to this whole thing.
Speaker 1: Peggy, you got a real and Peggy vibe to you.
That is a hundred percent
Speaker 3: Accurate. ,
Speaker 1: Man, that's such an inside joke.
I, James, I love that you laughed at that
and that you clearly also, uh,
I love Hamilton, Mike Hamilton as much as we do.
Speaker 3: I saw it with the original cast. Yeah.
I cried seven times watching that musical. Jealous.
Speaker 1: Jealous. Yeah. Okay. That was amazing.
So I wanna, I wanna backtrack a half cup.
Um, James, you said you've been in LA for five years,
Burbank for the last two.
Where are you from originally?
Speaker 3: I grew up in Texas, uh, was there till I was 17.
Went to a boarding school in New Jersey
for my last two years of high school, college in Florida.
Then I moved to New York after college
and I worked in production for 10 years
as a production assistant on TV shows and movies.
And during that time I was also studying
and performing improv and sketch comedy at UCB in New York.
So Oh, nice. I was, I was, it's huge.
I, yeah, I sort of had, uh, you know, one foot in
sort of the production route for a long time.
I thought I wanted to be be an assistant director in TV
and film, and I was also taking improv classes
and sketch comedy classes on the weekends.
And then I, I fell more in love with performing
and writing than working on the production side.
So I started slowly pivoting away from that career track
and trying to pursue, uh, writing and performing more.
And, uh, started like booking like small bits on commercials
and whatnot and few small parts on TV shows.
And then in like 2018, I was cast as a spokesperson
for Spectrum and Spectrum Mobile.
It's like a cable company
or you know, wireless provider depending on where you're
Speaker 1: In the country.
They were sponsors were on my team at one
point, Speaker 3: .
Oh yeah, exactly. Yeah.
Uh, so I, for three years, that's all I did.
I, I shot 20 commercials a year for three years
and made like six figures
and I got to quick job and it was, was best.
It's bad. It's like hitting the lottery
Speaker 1: And Yeah.
Like a national TV commercial campaign is like one
of the greatest gigs in acting.
Speaker 3: A hundred percent. And as you would know,
because your wife is an actor making
that sweet Hallmark money, but .
Speaker 1: Uh, Speaker 3: But it was, it was amazing.
I worked eight days a year and made six figures.
It was like, it was, it was incredible. And then
Speaker 1: I've got half of that down working eight days a year,
working eight days a year thing down.
Yeah. Yeah. Your paycheck's got six figures in it.
The decimal was just in a different place.
Speaker 3: And so then, then that, that went from like 18 to 21
and my wife was working at Meta at the time,
and so we, we both had like two pretty good incomes.
And then she got laid off my,
my campaign ended around the same time.
During that time we had also just bought a house,
so we were like, oh God, I gotta,
we gotta figure something out.
So I started really making an effort
to make videos online thinking like, oh, it wasn't so much
that I wanted to be like an influencer or a content creator.
I was trying to go viral to get hired
by like a company Right.
To work for their social team. And that did work.
So I was able
to find a job at SoFi, which is where I work right now.
I work for SoFi the Bank as a content creator
and copywriter on their, uh, social team. But Okay.
Speaker 1: It, Speaker 3: In, during that journey, I also sort
of fell ass backwards into making Motorsport con content.
Speaker 1: So what did you study in Florida?
Speaker 3: Almost like a business major.
It was like, I, it had nothing to do with what
Speaker 1: I did.
Those generic, like, yeah, I don't know
what I wanna do in school, so I'll go into
the generic business course
Speaker 3: A hundred percent. And
Speaker 1: Yeah, I I did the same thing Speaker 3: .
Yeah. And it wasn't until two months
before I graduated that I realized I wanted to work in TV
and film in some capacity.
I think I always knew I wanted to do something creative,
but my parents were very bad with money, so I didn't want
to pursue a career that was like risky.
Right. So I thought taking the production
track was like a safer bet.
I was still like involved in something that I loved,
but I, it was more stable.
So it, it all happened because two months
before I graduated, there was a film festival that came to
our campus called Campus Movie Fest.
And this is before anybody had smartphones.
So this was 2006, 2007.
They gave everybody a camcorder and a laptop for a week,
and you got to go off and like, make a short film.
And I made a short film about a guy
who like gets in an accident
and he wakes up thinking
that he's a hockey player from the 1970s named Tom Young
Hands, who was a real, real guy of,
Tom was a one of that, those cliche things.
Yeah. Yeah. Tom, Tom Young Hands was a real guy
who spent like six seasons in the NHL mainly
with the Minnesota North Stars.
So this guy like wakes up
and thinks he's this guy named Tom Young Hands.
And he is like, I was like rollerblading around my campus,
like cross checking people in the bushes
had like a fake mustache and like a Joah helmet and,
and like, I loved like making like stupid this stupid video
and making people laugh.
And I, it aired at the, at the campus movie Fest
and out of like 50 entries at one best comedy
and like for the rest of the year, I was walking
around campus and people would be quoting the movie at
me or short film at me.
Like people would be like yelling at me from their car.
'cause the, this guy would be like, that's amazing.
This guy would, he would yell, slap Shot, you'd go,
Hey, my, I'm young.
He said, play Minnesota North Stars
and like his,
I don't know if you could say this on this podcast,
but his, one of his catchphrases was Suck My
<inaudible> Speaker 1: .
Speaker 3: And then he would yell, slap you,
or he'd yell, cross check.
And so there's all these videos of me,
like cross checking kids into pools
or cross checking kids in the bushes and people Can
Speaker 2: We, can we get a copy of this just not
for publishing? Man, I just wanna
Speaker 3: See it.
It's on online. I'll find it and I'll send it to you.
I, I think I put it on private please.
So I'll I'll put that unlisted so you can watch it.
But it's very stupid. But like,
people were quoting it at me, I'm like, oh, this is fun.
Like, maybe I wanna do something with this.
And I, I had friends that had, were working in TV
and film in New York, and so they hooked me up
with like my first few jobs doing like, uh,
day playing stuff, working like a day
here, day there on TV shows.
But while I was in New York, I went to UCB one night
and saw an improv show
and immediately fell in love with, uh,
performing live comedy.
And that's sort of
how I got hooked there and started taking classes.
Speaker 1: That's so cool, man. That's so cool. Yeah.
I know UCB is huge. I mean, that's a, that's a huge thing
for a lot of, a lot of actors and,
and comics and things like that.
Um, so you, you post this video
that goes viral mm-hmm .
Uh, were you, were you a big racing fan up to this point?
Speaker 3: No, I, and I get a lot of hate still online for this,
but I'm a very new fan.
Like, I'm, I'm part of that new generation of Drive
to Survive fans that are Yeah.
Super, super new to the series.
You know, during the pandemic, my wife
and I binged drive to survive in the matter of a few weeks,
got really hooked, like,
and started watching races immediately after that.
And so I, I'm, I was, when, when I posted that,
I still knew very little about Formula One.
I was like very into it. And I had seen a few races at
that time, but my knowledge really was,
was just what I'd seen on the Netflix show.
Right. And so I I, I posted that video thinking like,
all right, it's gonna get like 200, 300 likes,
like not thinking much of it.
And then I woke up the next morning, it was viral,
and I told myself,
I still have footage from when
I was in the car with my wife.
I'll cut three more versions of this video.
And all three of those videos went viral
and all, you know, all these different outlets wanted
to repost it and share it.
And so I was like, okay, like let me make one more video
that's F1 related.
And so I made like a Buzzfeed listicle type video
where I was comparing drivers on the F1 grid
to Mario Kart characters .
And, and that went super viral.
And so I was like, okay, I'll keep,
and so I started getting all these followers
who were following me for these, these F1 videos I made.
So I told myself, okay,
I'll keep making like Motorsport content
until it stops getting engagement.
And then it just never did. Right.
Never stopped getting engagement. So
Speaker 1: That, that's, I mean, so I was gonna,
that was gonna be my next question is like,
was the pressure then immediately on like, oh, <inaudible>,
this is working, I now need to dive into
and lean into the Motorsport side of things?
Speaker 3: I think it's one of those things where I, I,
when I get into something, I get really obsessive about it
and I start going down the rabbit hole
and trying to learn as much as I can.
Speaker 1: We have one of those on the show. Yeah. .
Speaker 3: Yeah, exactly. . Um, I, I was the same way with, uh,
with soccer, uh,
10 years ago when the Premier League first came
to America via NBC sports, I was very,
very into European football,
but also MLS, like, I was a season ticket holder
for New York City FC for five Seasons.
I was watching, you know, premier League Champions League.
I was also watching like all of the World Cup qualifyings.
My wife and I went to France
and we went to the Euro tournament in 2016 mm-hmm .
Um, so I get really obsessed about things
once I get really into 'em.
And so it, it wasn't so much a pressure, uh, I was already,
you know, getting pretty deep into it.
And I also was already making these jokes with my wife
and my friends, so I was like, I might
as well just put it out into the world.
And for me, even though, even now,
this is still like a side thing that I do for fun, right?
This is not, this is not something I am actively trying
to pursue as a career or a full-time thing.
And I think that sort of helps, uh,
keep things a little lighter
and takes the pressure off for me to like constantly like be
obsessed with the concept of like, going viral.
Speaker 1: You have these, these F1 videos
that are hitting F1 obviously is through the roof
and everybody's, you know, popular
or, you know, everybody loves it.
It's very popular. Yeah.
You start sort of, um, branching off into other forms
of motorsports, indie cars, sports cars, whatever.
Where does that come from?
Was this you thinking, well, hey, if, if racing is working,
let's try to hit some of the IndyCar audiences,
the sports car audiences and NASCAR audiences,
or were you getting requests from people they're like, Hey,
do that, but for IndyCar
Speaker 3: People definitely request it.
But it's more so my general curiosity.
I think it was the same thing that, you know,
when I started watching Premier League English,
premier League soccer made me want
to start watching other leagues, right?
Formula One was like the gateway drug for the rest
of the world of Motorsport for me.
So for me it was like F1.
And you know, there's only, I say only,
but there's 23 races on the calendar. Then two, it's too 20
Speaker 1: James, it's too many.
Speaker 3: I think it should be 18. Speaker 2: I just love the idea of,
of Motorsport like gateway drug.
'cause it's just figure, like you go down a bad path
and you're just watching NHRA at three
in the morning on the side of the road.
Speaker 3: 100, 100%. Yeah, . Exactly. .
But, but, you know, but,
but on weekends where there is enough one to watch,
I was like, how else can I get my fix?
What else can I watch? So for me,
the actual progression was IndyCar
open wheel racing in the us And then, you know, I was like,
okay, let me watch the 24 hours of Daytona,
let me watch World Endurance Championship.
Let me see what else there is.
And so it was, it was less requests from people
and more so just me wanting
to learn more about the different aspects of Motorsport
because I, I say this like, in, in my opinion, I,
I think there are, there is racing in other series
that's more exciting than Formula One.
Formula One, like the packaging is incredible,
the marketing is incredible,
but often I don't, this is not a definitive thing,
but often the on track action isn't there, the way Right.
You see it in a series like IndyCar.
Speaker 1: Yeah, a hundred percent. Um,
and that's something that we've leaned into
heavily for the last Sure, yeah.
20 years. Uh,
it's funny, your, your progression, just so you know,
I'm not sure if you saw Brad Pitt's interview on armchair
expert with Dak Shepherd,
but your progression is exactly the same as Brad Pitt.
So you're basically Brad Pitt
Speaker 2: I thought of you.
Yeah. Which I thought of you in that context. , I thought we
Speaker 1: Had Brad today.
I do see some similarities. Yeah, I think he's next week.
Um, he got robbed recently. I heard.
So he is a little occupied with,
with some, some of that stuff.
Okay. So you, you start doing more videos just
because of your idol curiosity.
At what point does it go from, Hey,
I'm doing these cool videos, people are liking them,
they're, they're blowing up online to, Hey James,
we'd like you to come out to a race.
Hey, here's some money to post a video about X.
Like, what was the first Motorsport related sort of like,
like good job you got in that
Speaker 3: Sense?
That's a great question. I'd have to go back
and look at my post. I'm not exactly
Speaker 1: Dms.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I'm not exactly sure.
I, I, I think the first big job
that I was given was from Formula E and Okay.
They, hi, they hired me last season
to be a content creator over the
course of the entire season.
And so I went to round one of Season 10
in Mexico City at the Auto Drer Mar or Monte Rodriguez.
And I was,
before then, I had, was not very familiar with Formula E,
but I made a point to like watch Formula E Unplugged,
which is like their version of Dry
to Survive, which is on YouTube.
I watched a lot of old races, I read up as much as I could
to be as, uh, well versed in the series as I could, given
that I had never watched a race before.
Uh, and you know, they,
and you know, they paid me like 10 grand over the course
of the season to make, uh, videos for them.
But I, I ended up delivering like 50 pieces of content
for them over the course of the season
and one of them that, um, it's a good deal.
Yeah. And, um, o one of the videos that I made for them,
which is just one I made in my garage,
which was me explaining Formula E
to myself was the most viral piece of content
that they've ever had an outside creator make.
Uh, and so they got their money back in my, in my opinion.
And so I think that was, that was the first real sort
of job I got out of this
because I, not only did I get to attend Mexico City,
I also got to attend rounds 13 and 14 in Portland.
And it was so interesting to see, see the dynamic shift
because I showed up at the beginning
of the season in Mexico City.
Nobody knows who I am.
They think I'm just like this idiot, which I am,
but , uh, making stupid content.
And some of the drivers were on board, some maybe weren't
because they weren't sure exactly what I was doing.
And like, I also know, as you probably are familiar
with this, uh, hinge, sometimes you have like a creator
approach you to make a piece of content with you
and you're not exactly sure what their intentions are.
Like, are they gonna be, are they gonna be having fun
with me or are they gonna
try to make me the butt of the joke?
Right? So there, there was like a lack
of trust there the first round when I showed up.
But by the time I got to Portland, this one video
had just gone viral like the week before.
And I had drivers coming up to me saying
how much they liked my video
and how they had like watched it in the debriefs.
I had like James Barclay, who was the team principal
of TCS Jaguar racing, like coming up to me saying
how much he liked my stuff.
And it was very weird that all of a sudden I showed up
and like everybody knew who I was.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that is, that is an interesting, it,
it's an interesting shift, right?
But it's, it's true. You're, you're a hundred percent right
when you say that when you know your PR person comes to you
and they're like, Hey, you're doing this video
with this person, and you're like, okay, what?
And it's, it's got that sort of jokey tone to it. Yeah.
You never know, you know,
you are kinda opening yourself up a little bit.
Um, I, I remember the first one of yours that I saw,
I think was you explaining IndyCar to yourself.
I think that was the first one that made it to my feed Yeah.
And died laughing
and then obviously had to binge
everything else that you'd done up to that point.
Speaker 3: Oh, thanks. Speaker 1: So that's,
but yeah, I mean, it's, it's gotta be cool kind
of breaking into these worlds, right?
Because I imagine you've seen the same sort of thing from F1
and from IndyCar as well.
Speaker 3: I would say I get a lot more love from the world
of IndyCar than I do from Formula One,
because I think Formula One still has like this old guard
of fandom there.
There's, there's still a lot of gatekeepers. Yeah. Fan.
Speaker 2: The last appropriate time, the last appropriate time
to get into F1 is whenever you personally got into it,
anybody who got in after you correct?
Yes. Doesn't, isn't isn't a real fan.
Speaker 1: You're not, like, you're not allowed to love, uh,
if you're involved in Formula One.
So that's probably why you're not feeling as much.
It's not really, it's not a personal thing.
They're, they're physically incapable in that world.
Speaker 3: Yeah. So I, I get a lot of, uh,
negative feedback from my Formula One content a bit
because people, a lot
of the older fans just don't like the way the sport is
consumed today.
And that that's not just with content creators,
it's also like how we consume sports in general
and social media and and whatnot.
But I get a lot more love from IndyCar people than
I do from F1.
Like going to the Indy 500 was very surreal
because, and,
and I'm not, I'm not exaggerating when I say like,
over the course of those three, and I'm sure you get this
all the time at Hitch, but like, I have like a hundred
people ask for photos with me
and like, stop me and talk, talk to me.
Which like was very weird.
I'm like, I'm just sitting in my garage
making these dumb videos.
Like I don't think I realized, uh,
how many people were into it, you know?
Speaker 1: Yeah. I, I, I,
I'm like secretly hoping one of them stopped you.
Like, Hey, are you the spectrum guy? I .
Speaker 3: The funniest moment that happened is the first day I
showed up, it was like Thursday, so it was like media day,
the day before Carb Day, I'm walking into the media center
and I had like five people stop me
and asked for photos, which I
thought, I was like, oh, this is cool.
Like, people know who I am here.
And then another guy came up to me, he goes,
Hey, I love your IndyCar videos.
Thanks so much for everything you're doing for the sport.
Really love him. I'm like, great, you want a picture?
He goes, nah man, I'm
good. Speaker 1: .
Speaker 3: I was like, thank you. I needed that.
I needed someone to humble me
and bring me back down there you
Speaker 1: Just for a little bit.
Speaker 2: Oh, that's fantastic. .
So let's talk a bit about your, you're coming to the 500
'cause you were a guest of McLaren, right?
Speaker 3: Yes. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 2: Yeah.
I mean, you did the Super eight content
where you were filming that stuff.
And I mean, was did it,
was the Canons that reached out to you right?
And like, did they have a,
a specific thing they wanted to do?
Or was it just like, Hey, come on out.
Speaker 3: So essentially what happened is I was at Long Beach
and I was, I,
I brought a video videographer there
and I, I was there with Indy Carr
and I was just getting some driver interviews.
I interviewed, you know, Scott McLaughlin, Felix Rosenquist,
Marcus Armstrong, uh, David Lucas.
And I was doing, um, a my videographer was following me
around during practice one when I was just walking up
and down the pits and I was just sort of, you know,
getting B roll and also just sort of doing some commentary.
And as we were leaving the pits
after the first practice session, uh,
someone from Aaron McLaren came up to me who I'd never met
before, and it's like, Hey, when are you gonna come
take a garage tour?
And I had no idea who this person was.
I was like, uh, I don't know, do you want
to, how about after this session?
He is like, sure. Turns out it was, uh, Benito Santos
or Bonni Dos Santos, who is the head
of brand marketing from Aaron McLaren.
Yeah. And he ended up giving me a
tour of, of the garage.
And we filmed it and it was great.
And I, I, I got to meet, uh, Lauren got in.
And then also when I left Benito then texted me that Tony
had watched my videos before
and was pissed that he didn't bring him out to meet me.
'cause at First Benita, 'cause at first Bonita was like,
oh, Tony's really busy.
Like, sorry, you're not gonna get a chance to meet him.
But then he texted me later saying Tony was pissed
that he didn't get to get to meet me .
So, so Tony, uh, decided he wanted to bring me out, uh, to,
for the 500 and make some content.
And I made like four videos with Tony, uh, made,
I interviewed Nolan and and Christian
and then the super eight thing was just like an
extra thing that I had.
I'd like, I got really drunk one night
and bought a Super eight film camera.
And, uh, as one does, We've all been there
and I never like used it before.
And it, it, some of it was pretty out of focus,
but some of it also came out pretty well.
And that was fun. So, yeah. So
Speaker 1: What was, what for you, you know, that was your first time
with the 500, I'm assuming?
Yeah. So what was the highlight of the weekend for you
and why was it the weenie 500 ? The
Speaker 3: Weenie 500 was amazing.
Oh my God. I think also on top of the, the,
the weenie 500 y'all's commentary
on the weenie 500 was so good.
I was just thinking you guys must have spent like a week
coming up with as many hot dog puns as you could. No less
Speaker 1: Was like an hour.
We, we got told very late that this was even happening
and like, what we were supposed to be doing during it,
and we were making most of this up on the fly.
We had had like a short list of some like, oh, this one,
you know, we gotta catch up to the car in front,
like the really corny ones.
And then it just snowballed
until like increasingly in inappropriate innuendo esque,
but like got totally into jokes straight real quick.
Yeah, yeah. And the best, as Buxton tells a story,
he's like, I didn't realize till like halfway
through Lap two that you guys were doing jokes.
I thought we were still doing hotdog jokes. .
And I was like, I was like,
you dropped Slippery Wiener in there. .
That's a legit hotdog joke for you.
Like, what kind of world,
what are they eating over there in England? Jesus,
Speaker 3: Man, it was, it was so good.
I was, because I was listening to the, uh,
commentary on my radio when I was at the track
and I was just cracking up at all
the jokes you guys were making. It was so fun.
Speaker 2: We knew, I'm still mad that I had to interview Creed
during that and like interviewing Creed is
pretty cool, right?
Yeah. Like, that's not something to be mad about,
but I was like, but I wanted to watch the Weenie 500.
Speaker 1: Yeah. It, it is, it is unfortunate
that you were in a situation where interviewing,
like an interview with Creed was the second coolest thing
happening in that space at that time.
Speaker 2: My daughter left, yes.
My daughter left watching me interview Creed
to go watch the weenie 500.
Speaker 1: Her defense. Yeah, I heard of,
but it heard of it's like a, like a 10 ish year
old, you know, girl
Speaker 2: Probably.
Oh, I would've done the, the exact same thing though.
Speaker 1: Not a huge Creed fan
and the, you know, novelty
of six giant hotdog racing each other.
The Speedway probably was a little more captivating.
Uh, James, what do you have on the
calendar coming up any more IndyCar races this year?
Any more F1 races this year? What's the, what's the plan?
Speaker 3: I think I might be going to Coda, uh,
for the USGP with a brand that has not solidified yet.
But other than that, no other plans.
I have exhausted all of my PTO this year
Speaker 1: From .
Speaker 3: So like I can't really travel to that many other races at
Speaker 1: This point.
That's a fair point. That's a fair point.
Is there, like, is there a point at which you cross
that threshold where you're like, day jobs are cool,
but like this is something that could be more beneficial
for me and my family?
Speaker 3: Possibly. I, you know,
at this point it's still very much like a,
a a lucrative side hustle,
but not enough for me to make enough money to,
to support, to support my family.
And I really do enjoy my day job
and I like the people that I work with, so I'm going to try
to balance both as long as I possibly can. So we'll see.
Speaker 1: Do, do people at work get super jealous
that your weekends are like at the Indy 500 and F1 races
and you're meeting all these people
and doing all this cool shit?
Speaker 3: It some, some are Motorsport fans, but then, then also
because especially in the United States, motorsport is,
is still relatively niche.
Some people have no idea what I'm doing and they don't
care. Speaker 1: .
And that's probably for the
best. That's probably for best. Like,
Speaker 3: Oh, that's nice you make little car content, good for
you. Speaker 1: , something like that
Speaker 2: Can also relate living in La .
Speaker 1: That's a great point. Yeah, that's a great point, Tim.
Uh, I never thought about it in the context of you
'cause I don't think about you that
Speaker 2: Often.
Yeah, you don't really think about me. Um, yeah,
Speaker 1: No, no, no.
You make that very clear, caring context.
Uh, well James, look, I, I gotta just tell you from, I,
I was a huge fan from the very first piece
of content I ever saw of yours.
Oh, thank you. I continue to be,
and you know, for me, I just love the fact
that you are appealing to this new generation
of Motorsports fan.
You are educating them on not just one series, but all
and kind of helping bring more people, you know,
to the sport, to the track,
to the TV broadcast, whatever it is.
You, you are truly doing our sport a huge service.
And we all really appreciate you for that. Oh,
Speaker 3: Thank you. Yeah, it's,
it's Speaker 1: , Tim
Speaker 3: Frank.
You're fine. Listen, it's, it's, it's been a lot of fun
and I think when I first came along, I think
what the appeal was, the fact was the fact
that there wasn't a ton of like comedic content in this
space before I started doing this.
The only people I really saw doing it were, uh, Connor Moore
who does the impressions.
He is like, he's, he's amazing and super talented
and, uh, the, the red flags guys,
but their stuff is like in podcast form, right?
They don't really do like sketches
Speaker 2: Or, and nobody likes podcasts, hand
Speaker 3: Loads, Speaker 1: .
Speaker 3: And, uh, yeah, it, I'm, it's, it's been fun
to like take this skillset
that I've developed over like a decade
and apply it to something like niche
and specific like, like Motorsport.
And I love it. I want to continue to learn as much
as I can about it and, um, yeah,
just keep it going.
Speaker 1: Love it. Love it. Yeah.
Well again, thanks for what you do. Thanks for coming out,
uh, coming on the show and coming out.
You went in your basement. Thanks for coming
to your basement to be on the show. Thanks for the time.
Speaker 2: He's in his garage. He's in his
Speaker 1: Garage.
Oh, garage. Sorry, gr yeah. Yeah.
The basement was the, the Wayne's world. I
Speaker 2: See, I see some fire suits. Come on. You've
Speaker 3: Never seen Zodiac.
There are no basements in California.
Speaker 2: That's true. Speaker 1: Great point. That's a great point.
Nor should there be, um, I'm bummed
that you have no car races on the schedule coming up,
but I totally understand why I hope
that we get you out to one soon.
'cause I like what you do and it'd be fun to go grab a beer,
but in the meantime,
Speaker 2: I see a road trip to Monterey coming up for us.
Vince Speaker 1: . It's not, that's, I mean,
you could just come for the weekend, right?
I mean, it's, you're right. You don't have, it's, you know,
it's just saying, I've done
that drive Friday, it's not a big deal.
Portland's a short flight, you know?
Speaker 3: Are y'all bringing the N 64 to every race now?
Speaker 1: It is in the booth. It's part of the booth package.
Like, it travels to all races.
It is set up every week and it is hilarious.
Speaker 3: Is it? I'm the only guy Mario Kart?
Speaker 1: No. So we, we started with goldeneye, we opened
with goldeneye Classic.
We have, we've gotten, uh, we've got about six
or seven games now,
but I think we've only managed
to play Mario Carton Goldeneye, which
Speaker 2: That's all you need.
Speaker 1: The only two that really matter.
So like, it would have to be an extended rain delay for us
to branch outside of that. Sure. Um,
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, could play a
of time, but that's a single player
game. Speaker 1: .
Yeah, we're not, that's, I'm just
Speaker 3: About you guys sitting in the booth watching Townsend Bell
trying to learn how to play Merola's mask I
Speaker 2: With the water temple .
Whoa. That spike ball came outta nowhere.
Speaker 1: This is the BTS content the world did know they needed.
And, uh, and the water. I can't wait
Speaker 3: For it.
The water temple comes back with
anger. Speaker 2: ,
I think we can all agree the water temple can get,
Speaker 1: It's the worst.
Always has been, always will be.
Uh, , thanks again for coming out pal
and uh, we will chat to you soon
and eagerly look forward to whatever you, uh,
produce next. Awesome.
Speaker 4: Thanks y'all. Speaker 1: This has been off
track with Hinch and Rossi.
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