The Chicane Podcast

A Unique F1 Singaporean Experience

• Track Ghost Sim Racing • Episode 23

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What if you could experience the thrill of Formula 1 racing firsthand, complete with jet lag, gourmet meals, and even a chat with someone who lost millions in the FTX collapse? Join us on this exhilarating episode of the Chicane Podcast as we welcome back Jeff Smart, who shares his high-octane adventure at the Singapore Grand Prix. Jeff's vivid storytelling transports us to the heart of the event, from the high-speed shifter karts to the luxurious Skyview Pavilion suite, offering a unique glimpse into the world of motorsport and the vibrant city of Singapore.

Ever wondered what it's like to navigate the bustling streets of Singapore while battling jet lag and seeking out the best late-night snacks? Jeff recounts his unforgettable culinary surprises, unconventional accommodations by a hotel pool, and explorations of both Chinatown's affordable food spots and high-end supercar dealerships. His tales paint a colorful picture of Singapore's urban landscape, touching on the nuances of car ownership in the city-state and the stark contrast between its bustling markets and luxurious showrooms.

Feel the rush of witnessing an F1 car tear down the track just feet away from you, and learn how sim racing skills surprisingly translate to real-life karting. Jeff's narrative is packed with humorous anecdotes, including a chat with a fellow spectator who lost $4 million in the FTX collapse. The episode wraps up with a behind-the-scenes look at the F1 Academy and the meticulous work on these incredible machines, making this a must-listen for any motorsport enthusiast or travel aficionado. Tune in for a thrilling ride through Jeff's Singapore GP experience, full of passion, excitement, and unforgettable moments.

Please e-mail the show for any questions, comments or stories/experiences at thechicanepodcast@gmail.com

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Jason:

The Hello and welcome to the Chicane Podcast, where we discuss all things in the sim racing world. I'm your host, Jason Rivera, and I'm joined here by Eric Kelly and Jeff Smart. How's everybody doing today?

Erick:

Doing good man.

Jeff:

I'm good to be back.

Erick:

I'm tired as hell.

Jeff:

Tired as hell from traveling, but I'm pumped to be here. I got, you know, hopefully some cool stuff to share with the crew today, but I'm beat man. Jet lag is a real thing.

Jason:

I just want to say you know you were definitely missed on the show, man, it's good to have you back.

Erick:

Good to be back.

Jason:

And I'm glad that you're here in one piece too.

Jeff:

Yeah, yeah, it was good, it was a great trip, awesome trip.

Jason:

Man, that's good to hear, man, because I know you're probably jet lagged like crazy, you know.

Jeff:

Earlier, you told me that you were on an hour of sleep or something. Yeah, I slept like an hour and a half last night and then went into work. Um was super productive, let me tell you, super productive but you know, like nobody feels bad for you.

Erick:

Nobody feels yeah, what's the time difference between uh, hawaii and singapore?

Jeff:

oh, it's 18 hours ahead. So, yeah, I took off on monday at lunchtime and landed wednesday at like 12 30 in the morning. Yeah, yeah, so like wednesday was tuesday was just disappeared, didn't exist, yeah to the future yeah, yeah, which added to some of the uh, it started off flawlessly. Let me tell you which I'll get into it. When I said, when I start talking, to walking through it here and some of the adventures that we had all right.

Erick:

Great to see you guys yeah, man, it's great.

Jason:

It's great to have you back. It's great to have you both back because we had an episode. It was kind of like a bouncing back and forth. But again, everybody has their own personal stuff going on and sometimes we have to take care of these things, especially as singapore gp, that is, priorities in life, you know. So I, I'm super jealous and we're all excited to hear the words out of your mouth and some and some content that you have for us. Um, but you know just, I don't have any announcements this week. I mean just a welcome, jeff back, and I'll hand this over to eric for any announcement that he may have for the show nothing major, just been playing doctor this past week, so drivers being's been kind of on the back foot.

Erick:

But outside of that I'm waiting to hear what Jeff has going on. Man.

Jason:

Okay, all right. So today is a special. It's about the experience and you know what you get if you ever purchase an F1 ticket. We want to know because I'm excited to do this one day. It's my dream, because I'm excited to do this one day. It's my dream and I have someone that's living and breathing, that's been there very recently, in 2024. So stay tuned, it's going to be a good one. And I'll open up with the first question to Jeff. Just tell us about the GP, the Singaporean GP. What does the schedule look like? Because you know you come over the house and we hang out and have a few cocktails and we watch and I've covered this in a previous episode, but we'll watch the qualifying and then it's done, but we don't know what else is entailed in the actual event. So can you just go over a brief explanation on what the schedule entails For this particular GP? I know they're all different too, so yeah, um, absolutely I'll dig into it.

Jeff:

Um, and then I'll kind of circle into like how my schedule interacted. It meshed with what they were doing. Um, so the the first thing of the day, uh of the week is friday is uh. So when the singapore gp consisted of, obviously, f1 um, but they also had um the porsche carrera cup asia um race and they had two races um, as well as the f1 academy, um, uh, it's the new, I think maybe the second season of um, all female drivers, so that was cool to see.

Jeff:

Um. You know the difference between. I think they drive something very similar to an f4, um f4 car class, so that was cool to see. Um, you know the difference between. I think they drive something very similar to an f4, um f4 car class, so it was cool to see the difference between. Uh, cool fact was that the those f4 cars are like 160 horsepower, um, and the porsche carrera, they were driving like 400 and some 450 oh my god horsepower. But here's the rub they were running like within a second lap times oh, you know so it was cool to see.

Jeff:

you know, obviously the f4s were go or the the f1 academy was cornering much faster, uh, but just, it was interesting to see a car with like three times its horsepower running the same times, but boy, they were making a hell of a lot more noise than the uh, the f4 car, the f1 academy. So, anyway, so, yeah, so they're doing on friday um, the f1 has fp1 and fp2 free practice, one and two, and the uh, the f1 academy had a practice and qualifying um on Friday as well as the Carrera cup Um. So they're doing a practice and a qualifying. So interesting that those guys get on the track for one hour and then they're out running hot laps for qualifying Um, yeah, so those guys, there's no warmup for those guys and they were the first on the track was the career, the Porsche career, and I'll. I got some pictures of video to share with the crew, but yeah, so the nice part is a night race.

Jeff:

For those that have been to Singapore or have it, it is hotter than hell. It's humid, right, it's like 90 degrees, but it's like ridiculously humid and there's zero wind. So it was lucky it was a night race Cause, you know, the gate opened at like three or at one 30. And then, as the sun went down, it got it relatively cooler. So that's Friday. Saturday is a race for the F4s or the F1 Academy race for the Carrera Cup. Fp3 for F1, and then qualifying is the last thing that happens.

Jason:

That's a busy day on the track, man. Yeah, it's like nonstop. When do they start? Yeah?

Jeff:

So they start at like two o'clock but all of this is sprinkled in with there's like concerts going on during the racing in the downtime, like One Republic was Saturday night.

Jason:

Nice bro and it happened right.

Jeff:

It's awesome, which is cool, right, but it's happening like immediately after qualifying and there's people like they buy tickets to the F1 just to go to the damn concerts, so like you need to leave the actual race to go, get in any position to see the concert. Because I'm like, luckily and I'll show some pictures in the you know the suite we were in like you had a great video, great picture, or you know they had a broadcast of this, of the concert, but there's like thousands of people I mean it's one republic, right sunday night was lenny kravitz. You know like these aren't small you know performers lenny kravitz, yeah yeah, so um, and then obviously sunday was another f?

Jeff:

uh, f uh, f1 academy and carrera cup and then obviously the race um. So I traveled um, I started trying. Like I said, I left hawaii on monday at noon with a buddy, um, and I'll start. I'll just kind of share some pictures and talk through uh my journey here.

Jason:

let's see it, man, I'm ready.

Jeff:

So I know this. Maybe there's some aviation buffs that listen to this as well so I got to fly in the Airbus A380, which is like this double-decker, ridiculously big aircraft.

Jason:

That's a big bird, bro.

Jeff:

I was shocked that you would actually fly. You can see, we were like with the peasants, we were like in row 67, dude why are you peasants?

Jeff:

man dude, because, let me tell you, the whole upper deck is like an open, a bar and people just walk around like it's a nightclub. It's crazy, uh, but anyways. So like we were row 67 and there was like another 30 rows behind us, like it's huge, but it's cool, like it has this camera that you could watch on at real time. So this is my, my headrest, um, and you can see as we're coming into land into tokyo.

Jeff:

I love this bro that's awesome, that was super cool. Uh land in tokyo. Uh, eight hours from here to there to tokyo, tokyo to singapore eight hours over tokyo, though.

Jeff:

Right well, we're looking at here over japan, yeah, and then we flew just a boeing I forget 737, I forget what it was, 787 or something, um, but anyways, yeah, that one was on. Event, I slept on the way to singapore, which was great, um, but that's where it got interesting. So, dude, singapore airport is ridiculously nice. Um, oh, I had your shoulders. Uh, here's some of the. You know, as we landed, you're like we're not, you know, we're not in kansas anymore.

Jeff:

Toto, um, check out this. Like this is like a I don't know led screen that's like three stories tall, then it's got a waterfall and like a door that's built into the actual screen. Um, oh, dang, yeah, I mean, it's like just unbelievably clean. This is on the way out. There's a little, there's more people there now and it's obviously daylight, but super clean city.

Jeff:

Our airport was incredible. Here's some more pictures. Like they got like like koi ponds in the airport. No, yeah, like you just walk around and it's like, you know, a huge koi pond with a bridge over it and, um, yeah, so anyway. So, uh, we landed at, uh, just after midnight on wednesday and we couldn't check. We couldn't check into the airport or our hotel till 3 pm that day. So obviously you can see, the problem there is. We just traveled a whole bunch of time and had nowhere to go. Um, so we found a you know some little place that was still open at 2 am, um you know, and got a little, I guess a makeshift bento box, if that's what you want to call it.

Jeff:

That looked good to me, man, it does. And my buddy was like, hey, did you try the greens on the lower right? And I was like no, and I just quickly grabbed my chopsticks and grabbed them and he was like, as I'm chewing them, he's like, hey, bro, look at them. Bro, look at them, they're like small little whole fish with the eyeballs and everything. And I'm like, oh, but uh, I mean other than that everything it was, it was, it was fine, um, had no problems with it, um, but then it's like so, um, this is where we slept, this was where our accommodations for uh, the rest of.

Jeff:

Wednesday night yeah, I did. We just for, uh, look at you the rest of wednesday. Wednesday night, yeah, dude, we just, yeah, we like found a hotel that had a small pool and some loungers and just grab loungers and like tuck them around the corner, um, and just crash there for a couple hours because, uh, I mean, it's not like we're just walking around burning time before we could check into the hotel. So, um, so, honestly, wednesday and thursday uh, yeah, wednesday and thursday were just consisted of walking around the city. Um, we stayed in a, uh, you know, marriott autograph club. Uh, I used I had a ton of marriott points that I dumped, so the hotel was free, uh, which made it, you know, a reasonable trip, because the tickets were pretty brutal.

Jeff:

Um, but yeah, just a super beautiful, clean, safe city. Um, not once, you know, coming back from the race at two, you know, almost midnight, one 132, um, not once. And we walk we'd walk sometimes the whole way back um, which was like five miles. Um, not once did we feel nervous or scared. Um, you know, incredibly safe, clean, friendly. Um, you know the people there in the city?

Jason:

yeah, they speak english.

Jeff:

Yep, absolutely. Um, it was a little bit like when we went into, like, I guess, singapore proper, like the business district where the, where the track is. Um, yeah, english is a lot easier and understood. Um, in chinatown it's a little more difficult, but for the most part, never at all really had a hard time communicating which is chinatown.

Jason:

Right, we're looking at this is chinatown.

Jeff:

Um, some more Chinatown. Uh, most of these things. So these are like what they called Hawks. Uh, quick little video here you can see, and they have like hundreds of these all over. Um, this is more or less Chinatown, but they have them everywhere and, like, you get a plate full of food and it's like four or five bucks, um, so super reasonably food. If you went to a restaurant, a lot more money. So here's some of the more built-up parts. But as you're walking around you're like you see, dude, there are air conditioning units everywhere, jesus.

Jason:

I mean you got to think Look at this, it's brutally hot dude.

Jeff:

They're everywhere, like everywhere. If you want to move to Singapore, just become an AC guy, hvac guy and you'll be set oh you'll be banking bro Everywhere, especially in the summer.

Jeff:

You're going to be like come on, we saw the high-rise condos and it's just unbelievable how many air conditioning units per square foot, if you will, that there are. So they had a bunch of high-end supercar dealerships that we were like, hey, like it's probably going to be a good scene over there. No, this f everybody, all these f1 fans, they'll be walking around these dealerships um, so we're like, yeah, so they're all in the same place.

Jeff:

So we started and, uh, yeah, ended up being like we were the only people there walking around. The people in the orange there you see the back are the employees wearing the McLaren team shirts. But, dude, honestly, we walked into McLaren, ferrari, lamborghini, bentley, aston Martin and honestly, it was great Like there's my buddy Kev looking pretty gnarly there, but we don't look like we're looking there to buy right, we were just legitimately kicking the tires and everybody dropped what they were doing. Talk to us, you know about the cars, about just, you know, owning cars in Singapore.

Jeff:

There's the Ventador, but it's incredible, like one of the guys, the guy that worked at Lamborghini, was telling us that owning a car in Singapore is incredibly expensive, so it has a super high tax on the car, and then felt like to own a car, you have to buy a, not the title, so to speak, of the car, but like a title to own a car, and it's like in the like 20s and 30s of thousands of dollars potentially even more, I think on the value of the car. Um, and it's crazy, you drive around and there's no old cars Every 10 years you have, if you have a 10 year old car, you either need to buy a another title for the 10 year old car another 20, $30,000, or you get rid of it and buy a new one. There's no car in Singapore that is over 10 years old. It was amazing, it was unbelievable, wow.

Jason:

It's just like Japan. They get us. They get like five or six years old and you got to get it re-inspected and it has to pass inspection. That's why we get so many used imports that are like basically new.

Jeff:

It's interesting because I was looking at the prices and I was like dude. I was talking to the guy, I'm like, hey, I don't mean to be a jerk, but these prices are outrageous, I mean, even if they're in Singapore, you know Singapore dollars or whatever it's still. And he's like, well, what we do in Singapore is like the price is the price out the door.

Jason:

So when the price on there includes that title Everything okay.

Jeff:

The title and tax and like you stroke a check for that, you know, $1.3 billion for the Aventador or whatever it was. Like that's it. Like here's your keys, drive away and you know, you know, have at it. Um, but everybody we went into these dealerships and that wasn't a single one that um gave us a hard time, didn't want to give us the time of day. Um, you know, it was cool. Like these were like super high end dealerships where, like, people go into to customize their what-off cars. So here's ferrari with all the different wheels and options that you could have, um in your car that you, as you're speccing it out, you know calipers, um, there's the little table.

Jeff:

You can get a custom, yeah like there's all the seats that you can choose from and they have the cloths behind it. Like what an experience that would be to walk into a Ferrari dealership and be like, yeah, I'm going to spec out my car.

Jeff:

A one-off car. So that was cool. Aston Martin, I'm not an SUV. If you're going to buy a supercar like a Lamborghini, ferrari or whatever Aston Martin, don't buy an SUV. If you're going to buy an SUV, just buy a company that's makes suvs. But dude, this one spoke to me like I was like that's a sharp car, especially because it's like the pace car, it's got the lights on it and all that other stuff but uh, yes, super sharp car again.

Jeff:

Ask martin was super nice and um, you know, talk to us and um, right it, just, they weren't like shooing us out the door. Um, everybody was super nice. Um, the mercedes uh, this is in the mercedes dealership.

Jeff:

Um had a sim that I will and I was like, I was like hey, can I jump in there and they're like get out of here you must buy something from the cafe and then you get a token and I was like I'm not buying something from the cafe to jump in this with logitech thing, um, but anyways, yeah, I just took a picture of that they had a bunch of them out there for people to race. But uh, um, yeah, it was kind of cool.

Jason:

Like no offense to the logitech, hey, hey, come on I forgot that I'm live here. Sorry, uh, night right, like you said race, race what you brought.

Jeff:

If that's what you got, race it. Um, amen, that's cool. Um. So we went and, uh, on thursday we went and picked up our tickets, uh, and on the way back, like we just had to cross the track and I was like, oh, this is cool, you can just walk right on the track right now. So my buddy took a picture of me crossing one of the straightaways, so that was kind of cool.

Jason:

That's a dope shirt man. You got that there or you brought that over.

Jeff:

No, I got it previously. Yeah, you don't buy any merch when you're over there, because uh like just how expensive. Oh, bro, they were like 120 for a t-shirt, like a hat, like a simple hat was a hundred dollars. Uh, jesus, and that's like, uh, maybe like 88 us dollars. Uh, I'm like, nah, no thanks, I'll just wait a week and then buy it from you, know, uh the mercedes store or something right yeah?

Jeff:

so, uh, dude, there are some luxury brands I say that tongue-in-cheek because they're all over the place in singapore but, um, I know jason's a fan of the richard millie I I pronounce I butcher the the name but yeah again, uh, they didn't have any that you could buy. And my buddy kevin thought it was like the most ridiculous thing that, like, how do they have a store but they're not selling anything? And I was like, bro, don't ask questions. Okay, like, if you don't understand the watch game, you're never going to, I'm never going to convince you, rolex is the same thing.

Jeff:

You go to Rolex they have nothing. You just yeah, Like, they're like if you were't like the watch game, like it's, I'm not gonna win this argument. So, yeah, uh, but it was cool to walk around they had, uh and check out some of these places. Um, so this is the marina bay marina sands, um the marina bay, the surf, big surfboard in singapore there, and you can look down and see the uh, see the track, great view of the city. Wow, um, that's kind of right where we were.

Jeff:

At night, that's got to look freaking amazing bro, I can't imagine what they were charging for people. Also interesting point is like the sea just off Singapore is some of the most highly trafficked maritime lanes in the world. Yep, interesting point there.

Jason:

Everything is imported through there.

Jeff:

That's what you see, all the boats for. That's me like, hey, it's been a while since I've been that high up on a ledge, um, and took the elevator back down. But that's another discussion, uh, for another day. Uh, dude, you want to talk about baller? Check this out. Yeah, that's a pool on the edge of a hotel, on the edge of like something.

Jason:

That's you know it's a boat on top of like three buildings.

Jeff:

Yeah, I think you got a better view here of just like, how ridiculous, like if that doesn't scream luxury and like, uh, you know, status, I don't know what is.

Jason:

Um, that's crazy imagine watching the race in the pool bro just lit.

Jeff:

Yeah, I don't know it was hard to wrap my head around. That would be crazy. Yeah, cool. So we're just walking around. You just walk around. This is like a mall. I think this is like a mall that butts up into the hotel of the Marina Bay Sands Hotel with the surfboard, and they just had like an old Ferrari I think this is like the last Jira's car two years ago car because of the side pods, I think that's how I identified it but somebody that far more knowledgeable about F1. But it was cool, you could just walk around. I mean, you could touch it. They'd be like, hey, sir, please don't touch it. I'd be like, yeah, I already felt it. It's pretty cool, not going to lie.

Erick:

Mission accomplished.

Jeff:

Yeah, me checking it out. Yeah, there's our tickets. There's what two dump trucks of cash will get you. Yeah, I mean, I'll just be transparent with everybody, cause I, I mean, I didn't know how much, you know, this stuff costs my buddy and I. You know, like I said, my wife gave me the trip for my 40th birthday. She had a couple other ideas that kind of fell through for a whole variety of reasons. But yeah, so we bought. If we were like, if we're going to go, we might as well make it worth it. And so we got. These are suite tickets. So these are in the Skyview Pavilion. You can see there. I got video of what it is. But they were expensive. They were like $2,200 for a three-day pass Pretty expensive. But if you were going to go all the way out there and we didn't spend on the hotel, so it was kind of like justifiable. Um, and it comes with open bar. Um, for the three days. You know, the whole time you're there. Um, they feed you two big meals and there's always food out.

Jason:

So you, got to go big bro. Yeah, I mean, you flew that far away, come on.

Jeff:

Yeah, and another thing was was um was the fact that it gave you access. So I also learned that f1 going to an f1 race is like um going to f1 race is like going to disney. Like if you don't get the right package, like your whole trip can be kind of messed up. So, um, like, these tickets gave us access to the whole track. You could walk around all the different zones. There was like four zones. So if you're like, if you just buy a grandstand ticket, that's you could only get in one gate and you can't go to other parts of the track. So I was, you know, we both my buddy and I, were like hey, like if we're going to go I don't know if I'm going to go again Like I don't want to be like, oh, your ticket's not good here, you can't go.

Jeff:

So it just was like that's how we kind of like it made sense to do it. But, yeah, not bragging. I was very fortunate to go. I think I worked my tail off to be able to do these things, but it was kind of like I don't know if I'm ever going to just go again. So that's how we kind of justified it.

Jason:

Okay, so just you know, do this one day. I mean, do you think it's worth the cash? Because I know you can walk around the track and I think that's like the best part, because you don't get a repeated like the same experience every single day. You can kind of choose your experience and and see. But now you know, I just want to know if it's worth it. Or did you think, like man, we could have just bought tickets to this grandstand and we would have been good like what? Tell me your thoughts on that yeah.

Jeff:

So let's put it this way. I think this is probably a good, quick, easy way. Quick answer, and then I'll kind of go into it. Is it was so good that I got on the mailing list to when they soon as they offer their tickets again, that I can get a first scratch at it. Is it was so good that I got on the mailing list to when they soon as they offer the tickets again that I can get a first scratch at it um, it was to go again.

Jeff:

So you want to like, oh, wow. So put it this way if I was to ever go to a race again, I would make sure I had a sweet ticket, especially in singapore, because, like the best part would not say the best part, but another good part was I could get into air conditioning and cool off you, you know, if I needed it.

Jason:

And you got drinks too.

Jeff:

Right, you got drinks. Um, yeah, absolutely. Like we got to watch. I think we watched two, uh and dude, like I was no kidding and I'm not exaggerating it was, uh, we were probably like eight to 10 feet from the cars going past us at 200, almost 200 miles an hour. Like that itself is a violent, visceral experience. Having little 20 cars go past you at 170 miles an hour, like 10 feet away it's different right from watching it on tv bro it.

Jeff:

Honestly, like the first time I saw the car, an f1 car, go around, um, that final turn before it goes down the strip, the, the, you know, the home stretch, the, the front, the straightaway, um, I could not believe. I was like there's a frigging human in there that was driving that car. Um, it was. It was crazy to see. It was by far more impressive in person than any F1 I've ever watched on TV.

Jason:

So, hey, hold on. So Jeff calls me on a FaceTime I don't know what time it was late as hell and he's like, yo, I'm here. And then he's like talking to me, this is, this is uh fp1 or whatever, yeah, and I'm talking to him, I'm like cheering him on, I'm like, yeah, man, that's awesome. The cars sound great. You know, they sound better. They sound better, like you know, in person, obviously, and you're like I can't hear a freaking thing, take care, bro I was dying.

Jeff:

I can't hear any dude. Honestly, I can't hear that like your ears would be ringing for half the night after. Yeah, it was that loud and I you know people I probably should have wore your plugs, but you know what?

Jason:

nah, I wanted it straight.

Jeff:

No, chaser. Yeah, it was a good time so we got our tickets. Uh, I'll get back onto the kind of it here. Uh, singapore has a cool zoo. There's my buddy kev with one of the alligators they had there, um, and then the zoo was right next to one of these, uh, cart cart carting courses, um, but it's not like, it's not like an amusement park. Go go carts, like you can see in the picture, like these are shifter karts. These guys own karts that are moving. You can see the guys store their karts there and they have series on Saturdays and stuff.

Jason:

Dude, look at that, it's just real gas. That's a big gas tank, right in between your legs 80cc motor.

Jeff:

Some of them got paddle shifters. Uh, some, you know, dude, these cars were flying. Uh, it was cool to watch some of these guys going around, but it was so. They let you rent carts, um, just to general public. Uh, you can't rent these things, but they were renting cars that would go 50 kilometers an hour. Um, I don't know what the. I don't know how fast that is, but it was fast enough that you, you know you're like this isn't?

Jason:

this is you're glued to the ground, bro. You're gonna, yeah, it's gonna be fast, oh it was.

Jeff:

It was a blast. Um, it was an absolute blast. But uh, um, where's the picture here? I was happy to you know, I was like by far the oldest guy on the track, which is fine. Um, and probably you know, I'm not overweight but, dude, I held it down, man, these young kids I'm here to say that, oh yeah, sim racing absolutely translates to the actual track. There it is right there with the driving line um all that stuff did you trail brake?

Jeff:

you trail him, trail him to try to trail brake on the, on the, on the carts a little yeah, a lot of I mean a lot of people like just oh, I'm not, I'm not touching the brake. You, you can do that, but you're gonna go so wide. You know like you touch the brake and you know get the right speed. You know, like, the things that you actually do in this, in the rig um, actually translated to that is awesome actually driving. You know like, um, you know I weigh like 200 pounds, like six foot two, like I'm not a.

Jeff:

I'm a big dude by any stretch, but like everybody up there was like 20 years old, 18 years old, you know um, you know, yeah, but what I'm getting at is like my car was toting around, you know, probably a couple more pounds than uh, you know these look at jeff smart up there, bro.

Jason:

Yeah, I had to take a picture of the book making a name for himself.

Jeff:

It was a super cool track I mean, you're driving around and as you're driving and you're going past the car, the straightaway right there, you can look up and see your lap time where you are on the. You know that's everybody else. Yeah, dude, it was. It was a blast, it was super fun, uh, super fun. So we took the train back and they had red balloons. I was like, oh, check this out. I was just like, yeah, just cool, interesting stuff Took a picture of. So another thing is, if you're going to drink water or carry something with you, don't eat in public in Singapore, highly frowned upon. They will give you a nice fine or they can give you a fine. They're not going to, but they can. Um, and then after you, after I was drinking out these drinks, I had to like lug them with me for the next like 30 minutes because till I could find a trash can.

Jason:

Um, but yeah, that's how it should be, though, yep absolutely, I wouldn't have done that but, I just couldn't find a trash can because there's most people don't carry around. I'm saying, like countries, we, we could learn from that. You know to be a clean.

Jeff:

Yeah, it was incredibly clean. Yeah, it was incredibly clean. Uh, just a cool building um that. They just let this.

Erick:

I don't know grass weeds leads, or whatever it's like art dude

Jeff:

yeah, absolutely absolutely and honestly, like there was like trees and uh, it was my buddy. Kev was like, yeah, this is like the greenest city I've ever been in. You know the parks and trees. It's like they really thought about the city and developing it. Here's another picture of the hawks where you can get food and stuff.

Jason:

Oh, I've seen that's where you get the street food right, the local food there, yeah they call them hawks.

Jeff:

Each one of these little things.

Jason:

That's what's up, man, a family, each one of these little things like a family owns it. Um, look at that guy reading a newspaper yo, he's in his own world, bro.

Jeff:

Yeah, it's like every every thursday afternoon I come out here and read the paper. Yeah, I don't know, it was cool, it was hotter than hell in there. Look at these damn tourists man, yeah, uh, cool place, though super cool. Um, they have just a night cool little walkway, a a little I don't know part of the city, but um, yeah, so I just had to. I took a, I got the, got this mountain dew and because, just because I thought the bottle was so cool, uh, you don't see that type of stuff yeah, dude, I thought it did.

Jeff:

I don't know if it did or didn't, but uh, yeah, and it was like sicky sweet like, because it had like real sugar, not like the chemical stuff that we get here in the states.

Erick:

Um, no, I fructose you kept the, the tickets though.

Jeff:

Right, that's memorabilia yeah, so every day they'd give you a um uh, you know, hey, like your yeah band for your uh, for the day day that you were there, and then in our suite they gave us another one. So, uh, so that's walking around. Um, here I'll get into the uh, the actual race, which is probably everybody's really interested in.

Jeff:

So, uh, we, we get there every day and then we would walk into our suite. Uh, and here's a little access of kind of kind of how it happened. Um, we were way outside our class level going here, um, just with you'll see, you know, people meet you, greet you and all this other stuff.

Jason:

They got the track on the damn nameplate. That's dope.

Jeff:

You saw that yeah, um, you got, I'm starting to get the quite the collection there. Um, they meet, the meet and greet you there and this is where you walk in and, like, this is where kevin and I are like, there's my buddy, kev, slowly getting through, uh, singapore's finest there, and here's our little access to our little home away from home.

Jason:

These ladies here are awesome. What a terrible life.

Jeff:

Bro, they give you these little things right here and there's like a wet towel that's super cold in the air. Every time you come in they would give you one of these. You open it up, wipe your face, your arm, your neck, and it cools you off. You had an assigned table and you, you walk out to this patio and the tracks right there and just that little hut that you saw, right there was a uh, the open bar. Um, yeah, just absolute, uh, that's worth it.

Jason:

That's worth it right there. That's worth it, like the air condition is super nice, um.

Jeff:

And then here's, here's the bar. This is like thursday, as, watching the porsches do practice or something, um, yeah, like, um, yeah, they take care of you, they're you know they're not shorting you, um, so I'm saying this guy's ears are probably done, bro.

Erick:

He's standing there all day serving drinks.

Jeff:

Yeah, yeah dude, they are wicked loud um yeah yeah, there's.

Jason:

Uh, you know, as we just checked in um so that was included too, so when you go over there, your drinks are paid. You could sit there all day and just great dude, we uh so tipping.

Jeff:

You don't tip in singapore um but the first day we tipped the the um the bartender, uh, handsomely. And we crushed rum and cokes for like the rest of the week, double rum and cokes. Every time we walked up you pour us skip the line.

Jason:

Yeah, just crushing yeah, I think I think that's worth it, bro, because you imagine paying for drinks in a venue like that.

Jeff:

So put it this way a heineken that you, that a heineken you know in like dollars easy dude, it was 17 singapore dollars, so that's like 15 bucks a pop. Yeah, I can't imagine how much a double rubbing coke would it cost.

Jason:

And do that for three days all day. Yeah, yeah, you're gonna.

Jeff:

You're gonna blow five, six hundred dollars just on drinks yeah, and then like obviously you can see they, they did uh two. We had two buffets uh each day, and I'm talking like here I think I have a picture of the food.

Jason:

That is freaking fancy dude.

Jeff:

I like this, yeah, so here's a cool shot at the track of. I think this is the Porsche Cup. Just living the life, living the life I was supposed to live, that I don't get to all the time. That downshifting man.

Jason:

Oh yeah.

Jeff:

I mean the sound of these things are just awesome, you can just get the sound roughing it man. Yeah, I mean, it was hot. It was hot, I couldn't believe nobody was there it was incredible. This is like thursday or so. I got progressively busier and busier, um so the cool part, uh, is that they opened the pits to the Porsche Cup so you can go in there, and they're like no kidding, like you can touch and check out the cars yeah, like check this out, like they're working on them.

Jeff:

You're just talking with them, chatting with them, as they're like breaking down. This guy was doing a radiator change and this isn't because we had a fancy ticket like anybody can get to go and do this. Um, yeah, it was super cool. I had to take a picture of the uh, the paddock club. Um, like I can't imagine how much those tickets cost for a weekend to get into the paddock club I mean like 20k different tier bro.

Jeff:

Yeah, I mean like 10. Yeah, okay, yeah, I mean it would. Yeah, I can't even imagine. But you get to do some cool stuff there. But yeah, I mean, I just was like this is the closest I'm ever going to get to this.

Jason:

So okay, so you got everything except for the the pit lane. Obviously right the pit lane during the race. Yeah, so you can't go.

Jeff:

So here's the thing when I was talking about that, F1 is kind of like Disney world, where, like on third or on Friday, excuse me, when everybody's driving, there's not. There wasn't a lot of people there, especially like the Porsche cup and even for FP one and two. But we couldn't go sit in bleachers that weren't ours, Like they'd be totally empty and they wouldn't even let you up the stairs Like oh sir, like you're, these are not your seats and I'm like huh.

Erick:

But there's no one here. There's nobody sitting in them.

Jeff:

So that caught us a little bit off by surprise. But there are grandstands that are scattered, that are open seating, so we learned that we wouldn't have kind of explored, unknowing that next time, next time we would have been like looking on the map and be like, oh, these are the ones that we can get to, and just went directly to those, cause it's it's hard to walk and I imagine this is cause it's a street courses it's hard to move around because you have to go over the track, you know, and so you have to walk down, go over the track on a walkway and then go back to the you know if you're going that way. So it's just it's not easy and fast to move around the track, um, at a, I assume, just because that's a difficulty, because it's a street course. But that's kind of what I was alluding to where you would have to leave, like fp1, to go to the concert because you couldn't do both. It was just the logistics of it just wouldn't, wouldn't let you do it. Uh, honestly, we were so tanked from being in the sun from one o'clock to midnight that we were like, I mean, I would like to go see the concert, but I'm so tanked. Yeah, I'm just ready to like go back to the hotel, have a cocktail and then call it a day and do it all over again, you know another time. So, but nonetheless, I never thought I'd be this close to the paddock club anyway, so that's just a cool picture.

Jeff:

Yeah, so same with the F1 Academy. You could just walk around and they're just working on the cars. So it was just kind of cool. They're small little guys. They're like half the size of a Formula 1 car, but yeah, these little cars would do the same lap times that the Porsche GT3 cars would do. Yeah, I know, yeah, and, dude, the girls drive them. I mean, we watched the races, it was cool, but yeah, so I'll just play this quick video. This car was just sitting in front so I was like, oh, I'll drive it around, and that's cool. I see a bunch of sim racers that put tape around their wheels to kind of fit them. And sure as shit, the actual Formula 4 car. You've got tape on it. You'd think they'd have something more high-tech than that, but yeah, they're using tape. Hey, whatever works, I guess.

Jason:

Whatever works, that's right.

Jeff:

So I don't know what this one is, but we'll just guess. For FP1, I think that's one of the Haas cars coming down the pit lane, so we were right before they turned into the. It's like a 45 and a 45, and then down the home straightaway. So one of the Ferraris, and then I think these are some high speed passes.

Jason:

Um another pass by some of the cars here, oh damn it's beautiful this is them just warming up here.

Jeff:

But I never thought in a million years I would be this close um to the cars on an f1 track and I think it's, I don't know. Like I said, I've never been to any of the other tracks like a, you know, a spa or silverstone, where I assume the bleachers just aren't that close to the cars like they would go by and we would get hit by the rubber, uh, and you could feel the wind as they would go by. Damn, I never thought I'd be that close so wait a minute.

Jason:

You went to all practices, right? Yeah, absolutely yep so did you see the winner of fp3? Did you, did you get to see him?

Jeff:

um, I don't, I don't remember that was on track, the lizard dude that. So that was that was right in front of us hilarious um on the other side of the track and then he just bolted down the track and it was so funny. Some of the videos that are out there on Instagram are like well, that's definitely the fastest sector three we've seen all day today, dude, he was doing purples on all three sectors.

Jeff:

Man the internet always wins, always wins. So I took this video here because this was kind of like the one that would open my eyes to the speed, how fast, yeah, these guys can corner, like they didn't slow down around this at all, and I hope I have some fast passes here, because sometimes they're doing warm-ups and shakedowns and, um, this is probably so, it's during the day, it's fp1, so they're just trying to get a feel for the track um, and this is probably my favorite video of the whole trip because this gives you a feel for how fast these guys are going. So this is lando doing a. You know, this is at the end of a straightaway, so I think he's probably doing every bit of 160, 170 and I'm no kidding like six feet from.

Jeff:

So I'm going to be quiet and let this just play out and let everybody just and damn, bro, it's like if, if that doesn't put a smile on your face, nothing is nothing's ever going to um, and especially the standard as they're passing. You know 20 cars like that are going. They're gone.

Jason:

He did that 62 laps man and I teases dude, the man.

Jeff:

The man put on a you know a clinic for everybody.

Jason:

Oh, yeah, he did, he was.

Jeff:

He was pushing hard in that race really hard, so even while he was in the lead too yeah, almost pushed too hard and went into the wall yeah. Yeah, he was a bit out of control yeah, so uh, here's some more of the coronary speed. I mean, that's just unbelievable, damn. I'll do it real quick again there. Yeah, it's impressive man.

Jason:

So this is FP do you remember?

Jeff:

I think this is still FP1. No, this is FP2, I think so the beginning of FP2, because we moved for FP2.

Jason:

Yeah, let's roll over to the beginning fp2, because we went, we moved for fp2. Yeah, let's, let's move. Let's roll over to the to the night race.

Jeff:

Real quick, okay yeah, so there's some of the food they served.

Jason:

I'll jump ahead here oh, yeah, yeah, if you got more to show, yeah, of course yeah, so I think this is them warming up.

Jeff:

I didn't know that they do a. Uh, they don't show it on tv. They get like a couple laps before you see them in the grid, which was super surprising.

Erick:

I was like they're on the track holy shit.

Jeff:

Um, and then, like I was like, but they're not, they're going slow. I didn't know that they because, before you go to when they, when they start the broadcast, right, they're on the grid, everybody's out there on the you know, around them. Yeah, before that happens, like they get. I don't know if it's like this at every track, but they gave them like two laps. I guess it's to like make sure the car works and all that. I don't know. You know, for whatever reason so before you see that parade lap.

Jeff:

They've already got two laps. Um, but it's not fast. They're just, you know, just cruising around doing a shakedown to the car, I guess. But um, I didn't, that caught me by surprise. Um, yeah, just the picture of the classy place that we were in. I mean, these napkins were embroidered with the Singapore GP. So here's the end of honestly. I didn't take much video of the race because I just wanted to watch it and just kind of take it in.

Erick:

No, no, you were focused bro.

Jason:

Yeah for sure.

Jeff:

It was cool to so where I was watching the race, right here you can see, there's a screen, a big screen, where we would watch the start of the race, and then you'd be watching the race or qualifying and be going around and then you'd be like, oh, that's our turn, and then you'd stick your head down and watch them come around the corner and down around the corner and you're back looking at the screen. So it was super convenient that you could actually watch the race. It wasn't the F1 TV feed, I. So it was super convenient that you could actually watch the race. It wasn't the f1 uh tv feed. I wish it was, um, it was their local broadcast of it, which is fine, um, but I just want to watch the race and just take it in, not be on my phone and at least it was in english, man, because you know if you were anywhere else?

Jason:

that's true I mean, we got us, we got us-based races, but still, you know, if you were in Italy, good luck. Yeah, that's true.

Jeff:

Yeah, so I'll just kind of bring to a point. Here is my wife was like how was it? What was it like? And I guess the way I explained it is I've never been to a soccer or football match in Europe where, you have know, you have two teams, that are two fan bases that are incredibly passionate, it's like that at a race, but there's 10 teams they're yelling for their team, you know so it would be a qualifying and max would come around and they'd be yelling, you know, like, come on, max, or you know whatever.

Jeff:

And then we'd all go quiet, look at the board, the, the, the screen, and you'd see max jump to the top and they or you know whatever. And then we'd all go quiet, look at the board, the, the, the screen, and you'd see max jump to the top and they'd be like, yeah. And then the mercedes had come by and all mercedes fans would yell you know, it was just it was a super cool atmosphere that you don't get on tv.

Jason:

You know like yeah, I could see that you know, sometimes they come through, but. But. But. Nothing like being there, nothing like being there.

Jeff:

This is the last video I think I took and it was just like I kind of got lost in the moment of just like holy cow. So the fireworks after the race, like this is their Nice shot, bro. Yeah, this is a video here. It's kind of long so I'll skip through it. I'll talk through it. So Lando just crossed the finish line of all the fireworks. These fireworks go on for like three or four minutes as they're doing their cool down lap. Um, and we're just kind of like in between two of these shows.

Jeff:

Um, you can't really see, but to the right in the video here you can see that big surfboard hotel. Um, what a place to watch the fireworks. That would have been. Um, I can't imagine the ticket they were sold to watch it there. Um, but yeah, I think I moved to the right here. Um, you know you're like you can hear the tracks. The car is going around. Um, let me see if I can skip through because it is a bit. Yeah, you can see the other fireworks. You know they have the singapore flyer, that the big ferris wheel. Um, it was pretty cool scene to just be there. I'm gonna jump ahead because it looks like a damn theme park almost it does look a little disney-esque.

Jeff:

Yeah, so all this is happening and then the whole field just start drives past like right in front of us and the fireworks and dude after the race, and you're like this is unbelievable. Like I am here, like this close to the action, like you know, I could stick my arm through there and high-five the drivers. We were that close. Yeah, it just kind of got it. You know, you're in the moment there. You're like, wow, this is pretty cool yeah like you could see the actual.

Jeff:

Their visors were open, you could see their eyes. You're like they're actually people you know, like they're just incredibly talented and they just keep coming around. All 20 cars I think at this point it was 19, because here's my Mercedes coming through.

Erick:

George held off the Ferrari for fourth place, which is big, in the Constructors' Championship. He did well too.

Jeff:

Yeah, which is cool because everybody there is so knowledgeable I don't say everybody, the majority of people are knowledgeable about the race like they knew that that battle for fourth and fifth was big in the constructors championship.

Jeff:

So they're like cheering for the leader and these small, you know, kind of like the race in the race um but yeah, I mean, I'm not gonna keep playing this, but, um, there's some other cars and stuff, but uh, yeah, it was, you know, um, and there's the pace car, the safety car, the medical car doing there. I don't know what they're up there for. Nobody's gonna. Nobody got hurt on the 62 laps going 200 miles an hour. I think that they can handle the cool down lap, um, but yeah, um, dude, it was.

Jeff:

So. I mean, we were way outside our class level here, me and my friend kevin, like um, just to give you an example of the people that we were surrounded with. So I was wearing this hat, right, and it's got the. It's an old hat, it's got the you know, the ftx on it. And kid came up to me and he's like, oh, that's the, you know, you're wearing the hat with the ftx. And I was like, yeah, when I bought it I probably should have blacked it out or ripped off the stitching but I was like whatever it is what it is right.

Jeff:

It happened. You invested the money, you took the risk, um, and he was like, yeah, I lost four with them. And I was like, oh, you lost four thousand. And he's like, no, I'm like, oh, it's just 40 400. He's like no, I'm like you lost it's just 40, 400. He's like, no, I'm like you lost $4 million through FTX. I'm like what am I doing here? Yeah, I was like dude, if you're, if you lost with one investment like how much? What's your? How much money are you playing?

Jason:

around with. That's not a lie.

Jeff:

Like he came over it and, like you, you could talk to people long enough and you know that they're. Oh yeah, they live in a different world than I do. I know, yes, but anyways, dude, it was I.

Jason:

I know I keep saying it was awesome environment um, but it was.

Jeff:

It was awesome. So much so that I today at work, I like jumped into marriott and was like, have they opened up rooms yet for 2025, the Singapore race, just to have it? That's kind of how I get deals on things is I just book them out so far in advance before I'm a Marriott guy because I travel a bunch for work before they realize we probably should block off these rooms and make them more expensive? They haven't opened them up because it's in October next year, which maybe it'd be a little cooler. Um, because watching those drivers get out of the cars, they were pretty beat up.

Jason:

They were pretty. Yeah, bro, yeah um yeah especially lando.

Jeff:

Yeah, lando was yeah um, but it was, uh, it was an awesome experience, um, just going to city talking to the people learned a lot about the culture there in Singapore.

Jason:

How was the food there? The local food, though not the F1 food.

Jeff:

Yeah, it was good, I didn't have any problems with it. A lot of noodles, rice, pork, some fish. Okay, yeah, it was good it was. It was delicious. You know we would eat, um, you know, breakfast and lunch on the economy, um, and then we go to the race and have you know another lunch and dinner, um, but it was an awesome experience. Um, we just were so beat up traveling back and stuff, but it was great, you'd do it again.

Jason:

I promise you would do it again.

Jeff:

I came back and I was like hey to my wife. I was like, hey, maybe we should use that excuse to do a get away with no kids or something and use it as an excuse to go to a place that we would never never go, because we would just go to Singapore. I never thought I'd go to Singapore, but nonetheless we would never go because we would just go to Singapore. I never thought I'd go to Singapore but nonetheless I'm so glad I did. Cool experience Living in Hawaii. It kind of handcuffs you because Europe's just too far for a race weekend.

Jason:

So we're kind of stuck with I don't want to say stuck we got Australia too.

Jeff:

We got Australia, Japan and the Singapore.

Jason:

Gp again, gp again vegas too, we can go back.

Jeff:

Yeah, I go to vegas um, yeah, unfortunately I cannot, I will not be going to the china gp, um, but no, I I think that one's not really in a major city too, and I think japan, uh, suzuka, is not. I think you were telling me, jason, that it's not in a it's remote. Yeah, it's kind of it's remote, which is kind of so, which is super nice about singapore races, like it's walkable and their public transportation.

Jason:

Singapore is tiny bro.

Jeff:

Yeah, it's, yeah, but so another shout out to their, to their public transportation, when we would leave the track and we walk into the subway, um, or the mtr, I think is what they call it. So you have like, legitimately, a hundred thousand plus people dumping into their subway system and we waited maybe three minutes for a subway, for a, for a car.

Jason:

Wow, yeah, it was incredibly impressive. They have one of the best uh metro like ever that was like two bucks, three bucks. Anywhere you want to go, yep, yeah wow, and it's a giant loop, so it's one loop will take you everywhere.

Jeff:

That's all it is yeah, well, they have a bunch of like arms and then they have one that goes all the way around you know, yeah, just a like. They thought some somebody sat there and thought, hey, how would we design a city? Let's build the subway the way we should do it, for like in 20 years they'll be like man, they really thought about it and then they did it. You know, um, they like, yeah, really thought of it, which is interesting usually, like people are like yeah, that's why I was telling you, jeff.

Jason:

Like you should, you should. If you liked singapore, then you'd love japan, you know what I mean. Or you'd love korea or something, because you know sometimes that's why I love to travel is like I love to go somewhere, get lost there and go into some random restaurant and try some food and find out, oh, this is actually amazing. And then it's the little things like that right, the walking around the city, the cleanliness, the nice people, the transportation. That's all being included with the reason that you're there is f1, but then you have that side of it, that's kind of cool man I'm happy for you, yeah.

Jeff:

So anybody out there that's debating or thinking about going to a race, I could not give you more of a just go, just go buy it. It doesn't have to be a good super, like a ticket that we bought. Just get in there, experience it. It's. It's way more of an event than anything that they show on tv. Now, I love watch and I watch the race on tv and I was like, hey, that's me right there, I'm sitting in that crowd, right there I was trying to find you and when I was watching the race I was.

Jason:

I was looking real hard to find you. It's just a lot of freaking.

Jeff:

yeah, I was looking at the the cars as they were coming into the pits because I was super close as they were pitting, but whatever.

Jason:

What can you do? Just go.

Jeff:

Pick a race, go to it and it is. I promise you won't be disappointed.

Jason:

All right, man, I just want to thank you for sharing the story with us and the experience.

Erick:

Yeah, that's awesome man.

Jason:

Yeah, man, I mean, as sim racers racers, 90 of us are f1 fans. You know this, so pretty sure that a lot of people wondering you know, and of course you, you weren't on the show for two episodes now, so, um, that's where he's been. Mr, mr, uh, mr, jeff smart I had aspirations of. I'm just dialing to the call from there, but it just wasn't going to happen.

Jason:

But you've earned it dude, you've earned it, honestly. You've earned it. You've been busting ass for a long time. You know what I mean, so you've earned that.

Jeff:

Thanks man. Yeah, it was great.

Jason:

Alright, so that's going to be about it for today's episode.

Erick:

I don't have any further questions for you and Eric. I'll pass it over to Eric to see what he got. Nothing man, just jealousy and over the hood man.

Jason:

That's it, Jealousy man.

Erick:

Yeah, man, that was dope.

Jason:

All right, man and Jeff, you just came back, so we'll give you a pass, but I need to hear the slogan, man, oh yeah, I messed up on that last episode. We were on, you didn't mention the slogan.

Jeff:

So where's the slogan at yeah, drive fast brake late Like F1, don't brake at all.

Jason:

All right, well, thank you so much. I'm so happy to have the team back here all together in the same virtual space. And, to those that listened to this episode, you may want to watch it on the YouTube channel, because we just showed off a bunch of pictures and videos. And if you have any questions about anything about the GPU, jeff Smart or Eric Kelly, email us at the chicane excuse me, thechicanepodcast at gmailmailcom. And yeah, thank you so much for coming back here, guys, and to everyone else out there. Yeah, cheers and have a great star view week. Thank you.

People on this episode

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Jason Rivera

Host
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Erick Kelly

Co-host
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Jeff Smart

Co-host