AI Coaching in Racing?

Ever wonder how a solo racer completes the grueling 24 Hours of Daytona event, or what it's like to receive racing gear delivered with a cheeky Max Verstappen nod? Prepare for a thrilling ride as we bring you the latest from the Chicane Podcast! From Eric's epic battle with iRacing network issues and his excitement over new equipment, to Jeff's humorous delivery tales and the challenges of sim racing patches, we leave no stone unturned. You'll also hear about my own trials with streaming and racing, as we highlight the significance of button boxes and stream decks in enhancing the virtual racing experience.

Discover the revolutionary impact of AI on sim racing with our exploration of Trophy AI, a tool that's transforming the way racers hone their skills. We share firsthand accounts of how Manzil AI acts like a personal coach, guiding us through telemetry overlays and expert ghost laps. Whether you're a seasoned racer or just finding your footing, this platform offers invaluable insights without the hefty price tag of traditional coaching. It's an exciting time for sim racers as technology paves the way for more efficient and effective training.

As the episode races to a conclusion, we delve into the heart-pounding stories from the iRacing Daytona 24-hour event, including the incredible feat by solo racer John Happie. We reflect on the endurance required for such races, comparing the dynamics between slower GT4 cars and faster prototypes. With a look ahead at the upcoming F1 season and a nostalgic journey through the history of the Imola track, this episode is packed with stories, insights, and camaraderie that truly capture the spirit of motorsport. Tune in for an episode that celebrates the passion and persistence of the racing community.

Trophy AI: https://www.trophi.ai/

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

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Intro/Outro Rights below:
Song: Low Mileage - Hold You [NCS Release]
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Chapters

• 0:00 Introduction
• 1:15 Discussion on Racing Game Updates
• 11:19 Main Discussion
• 59:01 Track of the Week
• 1:15:15 Sim Racing Stories and Updates
• 1:28:00 Preview of Future Merchandise Launch and Closing

Transcript

Jason: 0:19

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 Mr Eric Kelly and Jeff Smart. How's everybody doing today?

Erick: 0:43

Doing good man.

Jeff: 0:45

Doing well, doing well, yes, sir, doing today, doing good man, doing well, doing well.

Jason: 0:48

Okay, that was difficult, man. I mean I had to. This is like take three. I mean we are straight, no chaser, but the first five seconds is a mulligan you know like golf.

Jeff: 1:03

Well, good word choice.

Jason: 1:04

Yeah, basically, but I took three of them, which is you're not supposed, you're supposed to only have one. But anyways, here we are, here we are. So just a quick update from me. It'll be very quick.

Jason: 1:17

Ac evo has had, I want to say, about four patches now and they haven't really fixed a lot of issues. They fixed the black screen issue that we were having with the graphics and they also, if you go on their Discord and look at announcements, there's a code in there for you to enable the beta which is kind of weird, right, an early release that has a beta on top of it. I that that was kind of weird and then I was like okay, so they give you a beta code and you put that in and you have to make sure that you go into settings and switch it to online. Then you can use the academy which, um, which is kind of great, the academy which we'll we'll talk, we'll touch on in a little bit, and I think that's it for me for announcements.

Jason: 2:10

Oh, if you were watching the stream today, any of you, the three of you, I had a sound issue and I cut the stream because there was no sound. There was no point. So did really well on track with the Porsche. In the end it was a lot of fun. So, anyways, that's about it for me. What's going on with you this week, eric? What's up?

Erick: 2:38

So it's been an exciting week. I had some ups and downs, one of them trying to race in the iRacing league, had some issues I talked to you about. I was just kind of let down. Had some issues with Right now I'm thinking it's network connectivity spectrum. Get it together, man. But on the upside, shout out to Jeff, jeff verstappen, and shout out to you, jason um, just being a recipient of you guys kind of upgrading your equipment and finding things that work better for you, I get some of the kind of hand-me-down stuff. So Jeff sent me out a button box that he originally got from Jason. It's the Racebox GTE V2. And it has a built-in 5-inch vocore display. Awesome box, great buttons. I've been tinkering with that, getting it set up, among other things. But yeah, it's been a great week. Got a new toy and some new cool stuff that I'll show you guys a little bit later. But yeah, doing good.

Jeff: 3:55

Glad you got it, buddy. I was writing, you know Max Verstappen sent it to you, like you said, and I was like I wonder if they're going to give me a hard time at the post office. But that dude never even knew what f1 was the guy that I dropped it off with. So all's good that ends good. Buddy, hope you have a lot of fun with it and, uh, you gotta be a nice little addition to the rig. But now I don't have too much going on. No announcements here. Uh, maybe I've been. I had a super busy week. Um, this week, just with life, I think I've only got like maybe one or two just simple open races in our racing. So nothing real super serious to report for announcements. But yeah, I think I'm ready. We can dig into this, jason, if you're ready.

Jason: 4:34

All right, man. So that's what's up, that you guys had a good week and you got a racing box, which is nice. It's a nice addition, man, Because at first, when you first build the rig, you're like, why do I need all these buttons? And then you slowly kind of see why there's a lot of buttons and switches that you need to have. Sim racers need to have that real life drivers can do with their hands and it's already there for them. But you know what I'm saying?

Erick: 5:06

we it's it's a lot bro they can look right, they can look up, they can look back exactly you know they don't.

Jason: 5:15

They have a button to reset, which is just open the door and get out. We need to have a button.

Jason: 5:21

We need to have a button to virtually do that. And vr, specifically vr, you have to have a button for recenter. If you don't have a recenter button, oh my god, like it's gonna drive you nuts. You're gonna have to take off the headset. There's a lot. There's a lot to why we need this many buttons. It's not because we're trying to be cool and have a wheel that has a thousand buttons is on it. It's just the situation calls for a simple button press instead of fiddling with a keyboard which kind of breaks immersion, in my opinion. I do my best to make the keyboard not part of the computer as much as possible, as much as possible.

Jeff: 6:02

But yeah, I remember, I remember you telling me about that, um, about, hey, try not to use the keyboard, try to build buttons for things, and that's something that I think goes a long way into to what you said. The immersion like a stream deck helps a lot. Uh, button boxes help a lot to not use the keyboard. I mean even moving seat adjustments, it's. It sucks going over there and grabbing the keyboard right. But a couple built-in buttons and stuff, uh, you know, funky switches help and stuff like. But to your point, jason, I couldn't concur more that button boxes and stuff help keep the immersion without having to touch that, uh, that keyboard well, yeah, and it would be different if it was the same button for every game or sim.

Jason: 6:44

But that's the thing you jump into another sim and it's like completely different, or some games allow you to do this and some don't. Yeah, I found that ac evo has a crap ton of settings in there, like it's probably the deepest one. You know that I've seen. You know the going to sound crazy, but the biggest control scheme that I've seen. It's actually American Truck Simulator. The thing is hundreds of buttons and you can't even map them all. You have to find a way to get them all dialed in. You have your trailer buttons. You have your trailer buttons. You have your dash buttons. You have the open environment when you step out of the truck. Now you have a whole set of different trucks when you look at the truck and if you want to get out, whatever you got to be able to pick your radio station that you want, Make sure you got your jam and stuff.

Jeff: 7:42

Dude watching you do that is like you need to try it.

Jason: 7:45

I do you need to try it.

Jeff: 7:46

I know, but it's so funny, dude, the biggest thing I was telling my brother about you driving the trucks. He thinks it's so funny. I think it's funny now that he brings it up that you stop at red lights. Yeah, I stop at the red lights and then you go when it goes green. Rob Markman.

Jason: 8:00

So you know what I do when I'm in the truck. Right, I stop at a red light, I put the truck in neutral and I grab my physical phone, like my real life phone.

Erick: 8:09

I'm on my and I'm looking up and it goes green.

Jason: 8:12

I'm like, oh shit, I put it in gear. Rob Markman.

Jeff: 8:14

Somebody's beeping at you.

Jason: 8:16

Hey, get off your phone, rob Markman, I'm trying to text somebody and I'm literally driving the truck just breaking the law in the virtual space. Rob Markman, that's amazing.

Jason: 8:24

That's wicked funny, rob Markman, it's Truck Sim. I mean, this show is racing right, it's about racing. But Truck Sim has a special place in my heart. It really does. It seems like it's so simple. It's just a truck and people don't understand it. I'm telling you, you get in there and you'll see why. It's a relaxing thing. Sometimes I wake up in the morning, I go for a run. I come back and I'm like man, everybody's still sleeping around here. It's kind of like 7 o'clock in the morning. I'm like I'm just going to jump in the truck real quick for an hour until someone wakes up and then put it down. You know, I don't have to worry about losing a place on track or somebody cutting me off. I'm just driving the truck, you know.

Erick: 9:10

Just chillin' Just chillin'. Yeah, they wake up.

Jason: 9:13

You know they start waking up. Here I find a freaking parking lot so I can park the truck in and turn it off and roll the windows up and as soon as you quit it saves right there. Anyway, yeah, you know what I need to cover truck sim in detail. Somehow, I think truck sim is Because we have rigs and there's nothing different than a clutch, gas and brake. You need at least a six-speed so that way you can emulate.

Jeff: 9:51

That Peterbilt shifter you have is oh, the Peterbilt bro.

Jason: 9:56

As the kids say here cherry. I'm going to tell you a little story about that and I won't mention names. But this about that, and I won't mention names, but this Peterbilt shifter was ordered from a Peterbilt dealer, from a truck dealer. It was sent over to a guy in Texas, of course, texas.

Jason: 10:17

Yeah, texas, and the guy was like he hit me up, he sent me the schematics and he's like yeah, so I'm going to leave all the original lines where the compressed air usually goes into. So the feel of that shifter is one-to-one and that just killed it for me. I was like I don't care how much it is, bro, just let me know it was a pretty penny, that thing.

Jeff: 10:46

It looks badass, though yeah, it's great.

Erick: 10:49

I'm telling you, man, between that and the wheel that he has.

Jason: 10:53

Oh, the wooden joint, the wooden joint with the.

Jeff: 10:56

With my girls on there, the ladies on there, yeah.

Jason: 11:00

I got the spinner too, to match it. Anyway, I'm going to you know what Next episode or something like that. I don't want to make them. I just no promises.

Jason: 11:10

But I will see about covering Truxim and what it is and what you get out of it. But discussion mode for me, like discussion, main discussion, ac Evo's out. It's great, it's growing on me, it's you know. I discovered a bug and this is good for everybody to know. If you're running triple screens you need to disable triple screens straight up. The moment you disable triple screens you'll get a stretched out image, but then DLSS starts working and I was getting 180 FPS.

Jeff: 11:44

I stretched out image, but then DLSS starts working and I was getting 180 FPS. I was reading that if you disabled it, you got a super increase in performance.

Jason: 11:51

Yes.

Jeff: 11:51

A bunch of people were posting about it Like really, I saw that too.

Jason: 11:57

So it sounds like the game was optimized for single screen first, and then later on they said, well, we need to add triple screens, we need to have it at launch. So I think they just released something to get us going, but it'll get optimized Eventually. We'll see that same, similar to those numbers soon, hopefully, and I have high hopes for lower end systems. It doesn't seem like the game's pulling the 16 gigs of RAM that it said it was going to pull, at least not right now On ultra settings. So the Academy's out, it's great. It feels like Gran Turismo. The licenses that's exactly what it is. You can get in. I bought an S2000.

Erick: 12:42

I did too. That's what I bought.

Jason: 12:44

Hey.

Erick: 12:44

The blue one.

Jason: 12:45

You bought the blue one, I got the gray. One man with the red interior, bro.

Erick: 12:49

I had to have it the blue on blue man.

Jason: 12:51

The blue on blue, the limited. Yeah, okay, so you jumped in there. That's what's up, yeah, and you get to drive different cars, man, based off the license, and I found like there's like a Ford in there or something in there. Super fun, super fun. You should check it out. And yeah, the plan here on the show is to keep us up to date every week if there's a change. That wasn't a really a big change, they just enabled the special events, which I haven't done yet, and the Driver Academy which is. I spent some time in there. So that's about it for me. And ac evo. And have you guys had any? Have you guys put? I know, eric, just by, by, uh, listening you just now, uh, sounds like you put a little more time into it. But, jeff, have you? Have you jumped in there a little bit more or haven't had a chance?

Jeff: 13:46

No man, I just did a couple of quick races this week. I didn't get a whole lot of time in the rig, unfortunately this week.

Jason: 13:54

All right, I mean whenever you can. So it's getting better. And it's getting better sooner than what we thought right than expected.

Jeff: 14:04

Yeah, better sooner than than what we thought, right Than expected. Yeah, and just from the last time we were talking, um, I, it kind of was turned, at least the settings that I was using. I wasn't, you know, I didn't get a lot of time, but now seeing some people posting about, hey, turn this off, turn this on getting a lot better, uh, performance and you know, you know graphics Um, that was what really turned me off. It was like why would I, you know, use this when I have way other, you know better Sims at this point? So, but if people are getting better stuff and I'll get, I'll jump back in and give it a go, see if I can get some, squeeze some performance out of it.

Jason: 14:37

Yeah, you should try the the Academy. The Academy is fun. It's like a little, a little corner or a little breaking point and then you do a lap and then those are quick, they're not like super long.

Jeff: 14:45

Is it like the WRX driving school or whatever it was? No, it's better than that. Is it really Okay?

Jason: 14:50

Yeah, because they grade you on time and they're three star. Have you gotten a three star, eric? Because I could not get a three star, no matter what I tried.

Erick: 15:05

No, I hopped in one for like a quick second, but outside of that I was just. I was still trying to dial in some of the settings. I feel like I'm pretty good with like the force feedback and all that stuff and I was going to mention that when Jeff was saying what he was hearing. I mean, right now it feels great. I don't know what they did. It runs better. I'm on a single screen. I'm running 4k um, not ultra um.

Erick: 15:25

I adjusted some of the settings, but dlss is definitely a go yeah, it's working, yeah yeah, and, and it's, and it took me a minute to figure out why I wasn't seeing the online features and I didn't see. I didn't figure that out until yesterday. So yeah, I mean especially vince saw the academy, but I ain't really done much with him yet but that's not your fault, dude, because they didn't say, they didn't mention that at all.

Jason: 15:51

They just said download the beta and it should work yeah, they could have said hey go into the settings.

Erick: 15:58

Yeah, it's, and click this button you go into the settings and click online like that's. That's a weird place for that. But also to your point, what was I going to say? Oh yeah, the fact that we were talking about what we were getting was an alpha, this kind of proves it that you have to actually put in the code to unlock the beta, Because we weren't playing the alpha initially.

Jason: 16:25

Oh, that makes sense. Huh, that does make sense now, when you say it like that. Okay, so one more thing, and then over to Eric, and this is not really sim racing. I can't really call it sim racing, it's more of a simcade. Tokyo Extreme Racer, 17 years back, that's what I was playing and completely hooked on that, and they had an early release just released yesterday, at the time of this recording, right based on the time of this recording yesterday, and 60 FPS 4k graphics out the box.

Jason: 17:10

But it's not something you're going to get full immersion out of. You know what I mean. They do have a force feedback button there. It doesn't work. But the wheel, my controls, everything works, even control mapper works, which I'm surprised. But if you're on the wheel, my controls, everything works, even control mapper works, which I'm surprised. Oh yeah, but if you're on the go or if you want to mess around with something on a console, if you're a console gamer, highly recommend, even though the early access is locked to PC for now. I don't know how long it's going to be, but yeah, tokyo Extreme racer Great game, um, nostalgic. You know, it's in Tokyo, it's on the highway, it's a great game, um, yeah, so over to.

Jason: 17:54

Eric on on his uh on his portion. Thanks, guys.

Erick: 17:58

All right, yeah, man. So I'm going to share a little bit with you guys. I've been trying to hold back what I've been kind of playing around with. I saw I was on YouTube and I saw a video and this guy was talking about, uh, using AI and sim racing to get faster and get better. And I was just thinking I was like that's, that's pretty cool. And he mentioned a product that he was using and testing out and he started naming the features and I'm like that sounds kind of crazy. So I signed up for a free trial and the name of it is Trophy AI.

Erick: 18:37

So you go to the website, you pick a membership you can do. They basically have like a base membership which is like a hundred bucks for a year, and they have a pro, which is astronomical. But with the base you get kind of the full features. They have a seven day free trial that you can try. That's what I'm on right now. These are some of the games that they are compatible with, obviously, iracing being a big one. And so you go in and the computer I'm on right now I actually don't have any of those games installed. This is syncing my data from my sim rig and just to kind of run you guys through the kind of the UI and the the features. It's actually kind of crazy, right. So they the big piece of it is this, uh, manzil ai, which I'll get to in a second, but some of the cool things you can do you can have telemetry overlays so it'll actually look at the sim, and you have the option to have like a little overlay here with your telemetry, your traces. You can choose what shows up. They got got brake, throttle, steering, speed, gears and they have a reference which is kind of their expert trace or whatever, and it knows which track you're on, it knows which car you have. It's pulling directly from iRacing, if this was.

Erick: 20:01

Let me go back here. Yeah, so they have like real-time skill analysis. Some of the features are still coming soon, but they just kind of give you different techniques you can. You can look at with the coaching feature, but this piece kind of is crazy. So they are synced up with our racing in the weekly series. They know what the cups are, what the track is, they have the conditions.

Erick: 20:27

You could download ghost laps. You can actually watch experts and see their traces. I'm gonna click on this for a second and make sure I mute it real quick. But you can watch the experts. It'll show you their traces. You can overlay your traces over theirs and see where yours lines up. You can play it through and it'll actually make sure this is muted. Like you can play it. You can see their traces real time, what they're doing in the corners and all that stuff for the lap which is dope.

Erick: 20:57

They got time trials. You know they have community challenges, which is which are posted on their website. Then you have the content right. So they have the Drive University and you can actually go through and learn about brake pedal control and you can actually calibrate your pedals and actually do exercises. They have skill development stuff that they'll actually do. It's it's crazy. They have like the mini games here where you can develop, uh, like different skills. Like it'll give you, um, specifically with brake control and throttle control. It'll give you like a percentage to hit and you just practice hitting that percentage and it'll actually like here it'll say pedal calibration required. So actually take the data and telemetry from your pedals and you can play these games and develop these skills and develop the muscle memory without having to be in the car on the track and get immediate feedback.

Erick: 22:01

That's still light work, right? So let me pull up some of the. I try to do a screen recording, but it wasn't working on my pc for whatever reason, and so I'm going to pull up a picture and share it with you guys it's wild that this is seems like it's all like, like in the name, AI driven like there's no human behind it.

Jeff: 22:27

That's doing the coaching.

Erick: 22:29

Yeah, it's, it's kind of crazy and I don't know, like obviously, being like a beginner it's cool and it's like immediately, just like the jump to getting so much useful information that I can practice with.

Erick: 22:43

So this is a lap I was doing and they have this coach's log that you can pull up and, as you can see, it knows what track I'm on and it has you do a test lap and it replaces, like your coach Dave, instead of hearing coach Dave, you hear the AI coach and he'll tell you to do a lap and it'll analyze your lap and then when you hit the second lap and you start, he starts giving you feedback.

Erick: 23:07

He's like, hey, break 15 meters later and get on the throttle earlier. Like real time, while you're driving and you can just do laps and he'll update the feedback and it's like, next time hit the throttle harder, next time Get on the throttle quicker, turn 15 meters later. I mean it's like I don't, I don't, it blew you away. I was like I said, my brain fell out of my head and I, just when I couldn't do the screen recording, I just started taking screenshots. So these are some of my laps and initially, when you first set it up, it'll tell you to hop in your sim and do five laps.

Jason: 23:48

Bro, you've been at work. Look at you, you've been at work.

Erick: 23:52

I'm telling you, man, I've been.

Jason: 23:54

That was just today. Look at him.

Erick: 23:58

This is crazy man and so trying to make sure that's all. Oh yeah, so this is the manzo ai. Um, when you enable it. So the coach mode, you have different track option, different coach modes, right? So you have track coach where you're just going around he's giving you feedback, that's you have a mode where it'll help you learn the track and then also you have you can do auto track selection, where it'll basically pull in the track data.

Erick: 24:23

It knows all the turns or you can manually select certain turns for it to give you feedback on. You can select a certain track manually. You can select techniques, right, so automatically it'll tell you, like turn in points, speed analysis, gear at apex, brake points, trail brake technique, like all this stuff, and you can just start the session and, as you're driving any of these things that it sees that it needs to give you feedback on, you can even. You can even adjust how many points it gives you per section. So by default it's set at two. You can bump it up to three, you can just have it give you just one and you can just, if you just want to work on your trail braking, you can go in here and manually select and just turn on trail braking and so at every turn, if you're, you know, not trail braking enough, trail braking too much, it'll just give you trail braking feedback. This is crazy like when I first saw it I was like 100 dollars a year, I don't know. It's kind of crazy and I started using it.

Jason: 25:20

I, I'm like that's kind of cheap, though it's cheap.

Erick: 25:25

If you're trying to go from zero to competitive Well yeah, I mean. Not even professionally, but just.

Jason: 25:31

A hundred dollars is what you'll pay for a freaking session, yeah, with a person. Yeah, that's a good point.

Jeff: 25:39

Yeah, that's a great point.

Erick: 25:40

And just even having the references, like with the I wish I could show it in the recording but just having the overlay with the trace data and being able to see where the expert lap is and where you're now what you're doing, just being able to compare those two things and be able to see, oh, he's getting on the brake a lot earlier, or he's getting off the brake a lot earlier things to be able to see oh, he's getting on the brake a lot earlier, or he's getting off the brake a lot earlier, he's a lot smoother releasing the brake, I'm kind of just jamming, you know, just snatching off the brake or jamming the throttle.

Erick: 26:14

He's smoother, or he's applying. And the real information that I saw was just in between, like full throttle and no throttle, like the throttle control, just seeing like okay, like so he hit a hundred percent break and then pulled off and just kind of trail broke at about 20%. I don't know what 20% feels like. I can go into the Academy and practice hitting the 20% and hitting those different percentages, start building up that muscle memory and you're just doing that. You don't have to schedule an appointment with anybody, yeah on the fly out the gate like so wait a minute, so 100 it's.

Jason: 26:53

Is there a monthly option?

Erick: 26:56

um, so they broke it out monthly, but once I signed up for the trial it just gave me like the full year price. It was like once your trial is over, you'll be charged for the year, which was a hundred bucks. I can take a quick look it's called. Trophy AI. I don't know if I said that, if you guys saw that, rob Markman.

Jason: 27:16

Yeah, I've heard of it, I've just never really tried it. I didn't know there was a trial, which we'll definitely put a link down there so people could try this thing.

Jeff: 27:26

I think I've seen an ad for it over some YouTube video. I vaguely remember hearing the term. And it just seemed gimmicky. But getting to see behind the curtain dude, that's pretty cool In real time. You do a couple laps and then it gets baseline and then gives you feedback to go deeper into the corner.

Erick: 27:50

Just the data alone.

Jason: 27:52

When did you get this? When did you start this?

Erick: 27:54

I started this yesterday.

Jason: 27:58

Eric's going to be like a B-class driver by next episode.

Erick: 28:01

I know huh.

Jeff: 28:02

Hey man.

Erick: 28:04

I'm trying to surprise people when to you know he's coming after the trophy next time.

Jeff: 28:08

Yeah, dude is like I'm gonna dip my toe into this and do some ai races. I was like two weeks ago and now we're like in the deep end over our head. Like I'm into this, I'm in so wait a minute.

Erick: 28:19

So hopefully so. And here's the pricing. Um, I pulled it up and the way they kind of broke it out, so they're obviously running the sale to save 36% off a yearly premium. They got a countdown. I don't know how real this is.

Erick: 28:33

I hate when they do that Everything's always on sale, so you can do a bill, monthly option. It's $12.99 a month for the like I said I'm doing, the premium which gives you all the culture report and all this stuff and then a professional. They include like a one-on-one live coaching, which I assume, and then like a pro racing session. I'm not anywhere near that.

Jeff: 28:59

Yeah, I'd be sending 70 bucks a month on coaching.

Jason: 29:03

Oh, they give you three months of iRacing, look at that. Yeah, three months of iRacing, look at that.

Erick: 29:05

Yeah, three months of iRacing for new customers. Of course, I don't know how this works.

Jeff: 29:11

Yo, that's a smoking deal right there, if you know you're getting it right.

Jason: 29:15

Build $700 a year for that professional joint. Yeah, you got to be serious about it. That's why I said I saw the numbers just my, my brain just started blocking it out. I'm like, yeah, you're going left, you're going left.

Erick: 29:29

Yeah, but just for the premium, like I said, for this deal. Um, they, like I said, they mentioned the monthly price but 100 bucks for a year and you're getting just all that telemetry. If you are in iRacing I I don't know of any other options that are out there to just package and bundle up this information for you.

Jason: 29:52

Well, yeah, I'm, I'm new and you don't have to do this forever you know, once you, once you start getting down the basics and you, you start mastering, you kind of know what to do after a while and you could, you know you could put it away you know, and it's and it's not just the overlay, it's not just data, like the.

Erick: 30:13

the thing that really made it worth it for me was the, the um training that they have. So when I saw like they were like asking for my to calibrate my pedals so that they can actually like have me go through and do the mini games and the practices with, you know, it'll just basically give you different throttle positions to hit, different break position to hit, and you just like hit those and just practice hitting those different percentages and it gives you different points for hitting them smoothly, hitting them quickly, hitting them consistently.

Jason: 30:46

Yeah, you have a coach.

Erick: 30:46

basically, yeah, I'm like that's, that's cool man, that's I want I'm gonna give this a go, just yeah, I think so too.

Jeff: 30:54

I mean, I think just uh, just in my, for my opinion, like the other telemetry and stuff super interesting, but like in the actual car driving ripping laps yeah to get data is, I mean, especially for you guys who are racing, who knows the track that's going on, that you're going to be racing next week, so there's another.

Erick: 31:15

There's another piece too, it it can do audio cues, so it can look at your telemetry and you can compare it to the expert telemetry and it'll give you different tones for when you're supposed to start trail braking, when you're supposed to be full brake, when you're supposed to be applying throttle. It'll just oh dude oh so I can, I can feel the the comments from the peanut gallery here saying yeah, so we have a new.

Jason: 31:42

We have a new threat. Is that what that sounds like?

Erick: 31:46

so the time is going to be the difference maker, which, you know, that's kind of limited for me, but they might ban these in the future.

Jason: 31:53

You know, like that's the audio things, I think yeah during the race, I mean during a like actual oh yeah, like it's an overlay in um but still, it's what's different than having a spotter telling you what to do? It's the same thing yeah, like a spotter's human.

Erick: 32:13

Yeah, that's the reason why it's not going to be banned yeah, because really all it's telling you is the same thing they would tell you. It doesn't have any information that they wouldn't have. It has your telemetry. It's looking at your traces. It can tell you like hey, you're breaking, like shit around.

Jeff: 32:32

No, that's gonna dude, that's gonna you know that's gonna put you up there, man right, but in the race, but like, if you're gonna rip, like for your guys league race, to stay on that track and use those you know those, uh, you know aids to you while you're practicing to build in that muscle memory and those breaking points, dude, that's, that's huge, yeah yeah well, I guess I know, yeah, you're right for me hitting a new track and trying to figure out.

Erick: 32:59

You know, obviously you can kind of see the lines a little bit, but to do a lap and then have it start telling you like, hey, you know break later here on these times.

Jason: 33:12

This will save you hours of time, hours.

Erick: 33:15

For real. Yeah, you're getting pure data. Yeah, it's like, put it to each lap.

Jason: 33:20

That's kind of cool, man. It's like you're talking to somebody the entire time and they're watching you the entire time and telling you what to do where, instead of going out on YouTube and watching a lap and trying to memorize this whole lap and go back. This is a big time save. That's what I'm looking at. That's why I'm saying the price, I think, to me if you're trying to get better, yeah, I mean, give it a go. I'm going to give it a go, we're going to give it a go. What do we always say?

Jeff: 33:49

It's seven eight bucks. It's a coffee at Starbucks.

Erick: 33:51

It's a coffee, I mean you got the option for the monthly 13 bucks, but the seven-day trial, I mean that's perfect man.

Jason: 34:02

Oh, seven days.

Erick: 34:02

Whenever you know you're going to have some time, some downtime.

Jason: 34:05

They want that money bro.

Erick: 34:07

We ain't even giving you a month, bro.

Jason: 34:09

We giving you seven days, hey look.

Erick: 34:12

If it takes more than seven days to figure out whether this is-.

Jason: 34:15

Then it's not worth it, that's fair.

Erick: 34:17

Yeah, it's not worth it. Like I said, for me, I'm on day two and today's my first day really trying it, and immediately I was like this is a lot of useful information.

Jason: 34:26

So you're staying with it.

Erick: 34:31

I think I might be staying with it.

Jeff: 34:34

At least a month or two, yeah.

Erick: 34:36

Well, I mean the $100 for a whole year. I mean that's.

Jason: 34:42

That's hard bro.

Erick: 34:43

It's not cheap, but that's a 30-year budget Whenever. I get into the rig before and think about it just before you do the race. You could turn this on while you're doing practice laps. Rob Markman Jr. Yeah, rob Markman Jr, and have it give you.

Jason: 35:07

If you take the time to practice, bro I mean, it doesn't matter what you're using If you take the time to practice and learn the car behavior, you're going to be way better off than just jumping in. And that's a big problem for all of us, right? Because a lot of us are busy. Some of them are busier than others, or me. I had a busy week this week when I jumped in the car.

Jeff: 35:34

I'm like I'm on the car in the track the first time, five minutes to race like, yeah, scary, yeah, I start getting better and faster in the race, in the race, in the race start.

Jason: 35:44

Oh okay, yeah, yeah, I can go this deep, I can break there, but yeah. So I mean I'm gonna try it, try it and give a full report next week.

Erick: 35:55

I can't wait to hear the feedback. Man.

Jeff: 35:57

Jeff, what you had bro.

Erick: 35:59

Yeah Me, I'm blown away.

Jeff: 36:00

Just kind of a question. I see it on your face bro. How easy is it to sync the two programs?

Erick: 36:09

Oh, it's automatic. You install it and it asks you what your goals are like if you're trying to be you know max for staff.

Jason: 36:18

Oh my god, why do you?

Erick: 36:20

why do you need the help? Is it like, how like is it? I don't really have time to practice that much? Or I have time to practice but I have certain goals, I'm trying to hit certain techniques, trying work on. It'll kind of do like a little quick survey and I can say, as far as the games go, it knows the iRacing schedule.

Jeff: 36:39

Well, it's the telemetry. It's grabbing the telemetry somehow. Yeah, okay.

Erick: 36:45

It'll scan the game and once it finds the game installed, it'll say okay, start the sim. And you start the sim and the options light up and it just starts talking to you. Once you come out the pits Instead of literally where crew chief will start talking to you, it starts talking to you.

Jason: 37:03

Yeah, this is a crew chief on steroids is what it is. So, you might want to turn off crew chief. You don't want the crew chief guy cursing at you and then the other guys.

Erick: 37:13

So I say this crew chief wouldn't? He was silent. I guess he bowed down to the AI, I don't know, but he didn't even start up this guy.

Jason: 37:21

He didn't even start up, yeah.

Erick: 37:23

But there's also like a little overlay.

Jason: 37:25

You get offended, Jim bro, what are you doing?

Erick: 37:33

You heard, jim, seeing this, you heard jim.

Jason: 37:35

Yeah well, I don't know, maybe you'd be proud of me, if I know he was like spinning out on track eric.

Jeff: 37:38

What I do, what? I brought the car back in one piece, way to go.

Erick: 37:40

Yeah, exactly like oh my god, good job trophy ai guys.

Jason: 37:45

Very good, very good topic there. Eric, I mean, we had a cover at some point. I'm really happy that you tried it, because that's going to get me to try it. And, jeff, I mean a free trial. It's like, come on, at least try it, you know, at least try it.

Erick: 38:01

Yeah, and then the setup is super straightforward, not a lot of tinkering and all that stuff.

Jeff: 38:07

I, like you know, coming from a guy that, just like I, don't have a lot of time, so when I step in the rig I feel like I need to use my time best I can to get faster and race. So I like this that I can tell it. Hey, I just need you to help me. I think driving the laps and having it tell them, give me feedback, would help me get faster with the time I have.

Jason: 38:31

I'll give you a better one, Jeff. Let's say you're feeding your son, right, and you want to do a brake drill. You just feed your son and just you're on there with your foot pedal.

Erick: 38:41

Yeah, that's really what kind of sold me, because obviously trail braking, you know, make or break fundamental technique.

Jason: 38:49

Yes, If you ain't trail braking, you're never going to. You're never going to come out on top. Yeah.

Erick: 38:55

And without something like this, the only way to trail brake is in a car turning laps.

Jason: 38:59

Yes, full attention. That's the only way to do it. It's got the telemetry.

Jeff: 39:04

Hey, get your brake pedal to do this.

Erick: 39:06

Yeah, like 20%, 50%, 20 percent, 50 percent, 70 percent, yeah, so you could be, you could be, you could be.

Jason: 39:13

And if you're not a father, whatever, you could be typing up a report. If you're a student, you could be studying and have that damn foot on that brake pedal. I'm telling you and when you come in, you're like oh yes, I know, I know where 20, I know what 30 is I'm good.

Jason: 39:29

So I mean that that's kind of how I'm. I'm, I'm surveying. This is that it sounds like there's something there for everybody and it's kind of like a coach, right, when you go to the gym and they ask you, well, what are your goals? And they build you out a plan, you know, the only thing is the gym. I mean, you got to follow through. I'm pretty sure the same thing applies here is that if you don't follow through or follow up, then yeah, it could be a waste. If you don't keep it right, If you don't maintain. So, yeah, seven days, I'm going to give that a go.

Erick: 40:10

Yeah.

Jason: 40:11

All right. So yeah, let us know If you have any questions about Trophy AI. We have firsthand experience, eric Kelly, send us an email at thechicanepodcasts at gmailcom or leave a comment below and let us know if you have any specifics. Oh, I do. You know what? Before we move on real quick, did you try it with GT7? Does it work with GT7?

Erick: 40:36

I had to go there. Oh man, the jokes, they keep coming.

Jeff: 40:57

Okay, well, that answers that. So, jeff, week, my topic was kind of like just announcing, hey, acknowledging that the 24 hours of Daytona was, I guess, as it came out of it. There's always some interesting stories that come out of the 24 hour uh races, because you have so many people uh a racing but then be relying on each other to be there, show up, not miss their times, uh, and you just have such a so many people on the track at one time, uh, for so long. So it just it's like a perfect recipe for like conflict, like you know, chaos. So I got a couple of stories that I kind of want to throw out there and just pass to everybody.

Jeff: 41:42

The Facebook and Reddit posts were gold this week with stories, rants, you know, gripes, complaints, like calling people out by name and publicly humiliation of these people. So I will pull people out, but I'll read a couple of the more interesting posts about them. So, first things first. I told you guys before we broke but to the listeners I'll give you a second how many people do you think took part in iRacing's Daytona 24-hour this past weekend? Here's a tip If you're listening, at least this is what I told myself probably double or triple what you think. It is 23,397 racers Wow.

Jeff: 42:32

That is bonkers. How many people? I wouldn't have guessed a third of that. Maybe a third.

Jason: 42:39

And the servers took it bro. That should tell you.

Erick: 42:42

That's a big point right there.

Jason: 42:44

Servers took it like a champ.

Jeff: 42:48

So I do want to read kind of probably the only good story. It's not a good story, it's a kind of a heartwarming story, which you know is weird in this world, but anyways, so here's the post. Um, anyone on here? No, john H, not going to say his name. He was solo in the Daytona 24 hour due to family and teammates being evacuated from their homes. Uh, in LA, due to the wildfires. He's a Twitch streamer and I'm looking for a link to his channel to follow and make a donation to help his family. And for completing the 24 hours alone. It was a hell of a feat and accomplishment, but so sad.

Erick: 43:24

That didn't stop him.

Jeff: 43:26

Yeah. So I read I heard that last year somebody did solo and people were like. So I read, I heard that last year somebody did solo and people were like I'm almost equally impressed that you made it through the race it didn't crash but then also like there's bodily functions that happen over 24 hours that you somehow avoided. All right, we'll talk about that in a second. Let me finish up here.

Jeff: 43:50

Um, it was a hell of a feat to accomplish and so sad. Uh, he didn't have his team there to help him along the way, but he held his own and made it happen. It was also awesome to hear the alternate chat checking up on him and rooting on him from time to time. My prayers go out to him and his family. Please consider doing the same. If you can make any donations, please make sure to get his cash app or PayPal. It says do that because twitch takes like 50.

Jeff: 44:16

I'll say his name so you guys can probably figure it out, uh, and help the dude out. If you're in a position to um, it's john happy. H-a-p-p-i-e seems like a really solid dude. Um, just kind of got put in a position uh. Uh, that was not ideal with his uh. You know, obviously, friends and family, uh, in the California fire. So, uh, super cool story that just dude just kind of put this little together and reached out and there was a whole bunch of people that were, you know, saying, hey, I'm, you know, searching for the dude too. So, um, just a super interesting. Um, how do you sit?

Jason: 44:47

in a seat.

Jeff: 44:53

Oh, 24 hours. Rob Markman Jr. Well, wait a minute. He had to pit at some point, right, Rob Markman Jr? So you pit, right. So you get how long A minute at best, I don't know. I've never sat in it and done one of these handoffs, Rob Markman.

Jason: 45:02

Jr. He must've had one of those plastic tubes that collect the. Or, like many racers, he just went, Just like Dumb and Dumber. He's like Dumb and Dumber, just go man.

Jeff: 45:17

Yeah, I don't know, I mean it's cold nowadays. High in fiber buddy is all I can say. But just the attention span for 24 hours that must do it At that corner, on that track.

Jason: 45:32

I've done three hours, oh God.

Erick: 45:37

Did anybody say how many laps? No, it doesn't say on here.

Jeff: 45:41

I think it went on to say he knew he was going to get DQ'd but felt it was kind of, you know, he owed it to his friends to go do it anyways Because you have to have two people. It's part of the rules, right? And somebody did it last year and they got DQ'd. But people were like I'm incredibly impressed More impressed with that than the people that won and the times that they were pulling.

Jason: 46:01

They shouldn't DQ him, they should commend him for that. That's dedication.

Erick: 46:06

Yeah, I don't know why that's a requirement.

Jason: 46:09

Well, because of safety, you know, I mean it can't be good for the body for you to be staring at a monitor. Well, also, I guess I'll bring it up.

Jeff: 46:19

Is it fair to everybody else on the track to have somebody that tired, that's committed, you know hours to sit in the seat too? So, and I guess in the spirit of the 24, I guess I could see both ways. The spirit is a team event, yeah, but in the spirit of 24 hours, like hey, if you think you can do it, go for it. Like the Baja, they have the solo category in the Baja 500, you know, down in- Well, I can't even work for 24 hours I can't even work for 12.

Erick: 46:46

I can't do anything for 24 hours.

Jeff: 46:49

Like even just staying awake 24 hours nowadays getting a little bit older.

Jason: 46:54

I would crash heavily, body crash, just knock out in mid-race Rob.

Jeff: 47:00

Markman, how many energy drinks do you think this dude went?

Jason: 47:02

through oh shit, All of them. Rob Markman, All of them. He went through an 18 pack. I would love to know. If somebody knows, please let us know.

Jeff: 47:13

Anyway. So this is-. Impressive. This is. I got one more that I'm going to read. This one is what most of them were during the weekend. Check this out 20 minutes from the finish of the Daytona 24, I have this clown come into pit lane and smash into me. Um, I wasn't, or uh, I I wasn't the most frustrated as we were only P 14 as some other drivers in the race. Uh, he sent me into P one of the GT three class which he was leading for the last 12 hours. Felt really bad for that team. He says the name, which I'm not going to publicly humiliate. If you're on here, get off the platform or learn how to drive damn bro get off the platform, not just the race.

Erick: 48:07

Get off the damn get off the whole sim.

Jeff: 48:11

So there were some other. So you know I had some videos but it just it just wasn't working well with screen drabs from my phone and sharing them. But there was a video that somebody posted that this dude gets basically with four minutes to go car comes in behind him, pits him more or less, spins around, goes backwards, brings the back end front around and keeps going, saves the whole race, wow. And then somebody posts below it I was behind you when it happened and posted the video and he goes three laps later.

Jeff: 48:50

This happened to me and somebody took him out, spud around, flip back around and saved it I was like bro, I can't imagine you know the pucker factor I'd be pulling through my rear if somebody did that to me.

Jason: 49:04

Yeah, how do you calm down, man? Oh bro, yeah, I'd be so heated so you know shit who's saving it.

Erick: 49:10

Yeah, you need some new bass shakers.

Jeff: 49:11

So he did, so he did. Oh shit, oh shit, oh shit.

Erick: 49:12

Yeah, you need some new base shakers after that, yeah.

Jeff: 49:16

Yeah, absolutely Um. But my favorite video of the whole time was, uh, after the race is over. I guess it's after the time goes, because in, uh, in iRacing, uh, your incidents count for what? Two minutes after, um, a race in open racing. So I don't know if it's the same in the 24 hours, but I swear it was. Every car on the track was doing donuts. It was like 45 cars in the infield, the daytona just, and there's smoke coming up. It was like individual little smokestacks from each of the car and I was like, yeah, if I was a dude that finished the 24 hours, you damn right I'd have been taking the incident points. I don't care anymore, I'll be damned.

Jason: 50:03

I'm going to burn some rubber on this sucker. 23,000 plates how many damn splits is that? That's insane yeah. I mean, you could, yeah, split up, that's 2300 splits like yeah I mean, if I'm dialing, I mean how many per race? I don't know, dude, if it's 100 per race yeah, probably not.

Jeff: 50:22

I mean daytona is a. Obviously, what the infield track is is a is a big track, so it's got enough to fit. I don't know 100, but uh, maybe 50 yeah, and it's a three, 60 cars, yeah, and it's a three-class race, so there's just action all over for 24 hours.

Jason: 50:38

Don't make the mistake I did and go in a slower car. That is the most stressful thing ever is every three or four, maybe three laps, you're getting lapped by a faster gt3 car flying by. You was in a gt4. That was only three hours, man, that yo my arms were in pain after like yeah, that's a good point too. Yeah, my arms just, uh, that was my fault. I didn't map a button to just the forces and I could have turned it down. But but I don't know, I was having too much fun.

Jeff: 51:14

And then I feel like that later at least I feel like I owe it to you know if I'm going to do some of this. You know the sim racing thing. Like 23,000 people did it, I feel like I probably should do it. Maybe we should think about that doing an endurance race together. We should man, we plan it, we'll plan it. Yeah, plan it far enough so families we can figure it out. Yeah, that'd be super dope.

Erick: 51:37

Yeah, that'd be cool, yeah, or if it was a five-seater maybe.

Jason: 51:40

Yeah, If we can get a five-seater.

Erick: 51:43

And that would work out great with the time differences too.

Jason: 51:46

All right, I already got two man Vlad, you're it, bro. Got two man Vlad, you're it bro. That's it, vlad you coming with us, and Mike from the Sim Race. You took the words out of my mouth. There you go. We got them in different parts of the world man, oh shit, that's right, that would be sick, bro. Imagine checking in, putting your bag down, getting everything ready in the house. Yeah, it's my turn. I got to jump in the car. That's kind of dope, man Come on Rob Markman.

Erick: 52:14

That is really dope. Rob Markman, that's dope.

Jason: 52:17

And when your time's up it's like, hey man, listen the car, I hit the wall here, so just be careful with the left tire.

Jeff: 52:26

You know something like that, rob Markman. It's almost half the tension is because you've committed so much, but half of the pressure is I don't want to let the boys down.

Erick: 52:35

Yeah, I don't want to ruin the car.

Jeff: 52:36

I don't want to ruin the car for the boy. You know the next guy and I have everybody behind me. Yeah, yeah.

Jason: 52:42

Yeah, imagine you honestly. I don't care about P1 or P2 or P3.

Jeff: 52:48

Right, I care about make it.

Jason: 52:53

You make a p3, right, I care about make it, you make it and you make it through and that's. That's. That's a special, that's kind of dope. That's kind of dope, I ain't gonna lie.

Jeff: 52:57

So but there were comments about like people being like yeah, my idiot friend, you know, forgot to set an alarm and didn't show up so I had to go six hours without I'm calling and texting him as I'm driving, you know trying to wake his ass up.

Erick: 53:12

Yeah, kissing him out the whole time, I mean so while we were talking.

Jason: 53:20

I looked up it's the same as pulling a double shifter. Man, you know. That's worse, somebody didn't show up to the shift, and you're it, bro, because you ain't got no relief as long as you don't have something to go do after it.

Jeff: 53:29

You know, because, like, as long as you don't have something to go do after it, you know, cause, like you should, if you have a couple, if you have five guys, you should be able to have minimum five hours before you're up again. Yeah, yeah, you know you could knock out a couple errands, get some, you know, and get some sleep. Or, you know, use the bathroom to watch the football game, you know they had play balls this week.

Erick: 53:54

That's it, bro. Say hey to the wife. Yeah yeah, not even a hey, just yeah, y'all got any leftovers over there. You alive Okay.

Jason: 53:59

Microwave for the win. Back to it. Ha Meatloaf.

Erick: 54:05

So while we were talking, I managed to find how many laps the team did 738 laps.

Jason: 54:15

Oh my god, oh my god bro.

Erick: 54:18

That's crazy.

Jason: 54:19

Wait, wait, wait. 700 total or per team.

Erick: 54:24

The winning team did 738 laps total.

Jeff: 54:27

Okay, so they're. Everybody in that split Is probably fairly close, you know, within 20 or 30?, because they're all split up from like Damn bro, how many.

Erick: 54:38

I think it's on your eye, no, or some type of Pit stops. I'm sorry, 783 laps.

Jason: 54:45

Oh, excuse me.

Jeff: 54:46

Almost 800.

Jason: 54:46

800 laps. Oh my God. So I did. For context, I raced on daytona. No, it wasn't daytona, I don't know if it was daytona or not. It was similar, similar track, uh, and it was 150 laps in three hours. So that kind of makes sense a little, you know. And it was one, two, three, four, three, four pit stops. I don't know, I forget Four pit stops, but I was in a GT4, which is slower. So these guys are what were they racing?

Jeff: 55:21

This was NASCAR, I think they had some prototype.

Jason: 55:24

Oh they had prototypes. I would be in a prototype. Do not get in the slower car. It's stressful as hell.

Jeff: 55:31

Yeah, but is it equally as stressful in the hyper car or the prototype? Because it's so performance and you can drive it on the edge.

Jason: 55:41

Well, I preference. That's a preference thing, but I'd rather see the slower car. Than be the slower car and judging how to get away from them and how to get around them. Then you be in the slower car and you got one going and the other one and you, and you, and you and you're like shit. I agree, I definitely Alright I got another four laps before this shit happens. All over again.

Erick: 56:08

Yeah, I definitely don't want to be the guy and I'm having to worry about every. I'm having to trust everybody not to run me off the road.

Jason: 56:14

Yeah, let me have the control.

Jeff: 56:15

I want to be the guy who will have to avoid you guys.

Jason: 56:18

Yeah, I agree, it's like watching a motorcycle, right, you see a motorcycle, you're like, oh, that guy's crazy. But the guy riding the motorcycle is not seeing it. The way you're seeing him. You know what I mean. Yeah, 100% way you're seeing him. You know what I mean. He's got the control, the finesse, he can see things. It's a little different, but when you see him fly you're like, oh shit, that guy's dead bro.

Jeff: 56:41

But when he's riding he's like, oh yeah, we're good, Life's good.

Erick: 56:45

Yeah, life is all right yeah.

Jason: 56:49

That's what's up. Man Daytona, maybe next year. Who Daytona? Maybe next year? Who knows? Maybe next year. If God willing, we can I think they do want to spa. We don't have to do 24, we can do like it's gotta be like a 12 hour or something like that, or a 4 hour.

Jeff: 57:07

I don't know, man, if you're gonna do it oh really. I don't know episode 39 Jeff Smart.

Jason: 57:12

I don't know, man, if you're going, to do it.

Jeff: 57:13

Oh really, I don't know. Episode 39. No, no, no, no, no.

Jason: 57:17

Jeff Smart. You heard him. You heard him. We got to put this together.

Erick: 57:20

Go for the gusto you know I feel you man Go for the jugular.

Jason: 57:24

So that's what's up, and it's in conjunction with the real life. You know, Daytona.

Erick: 57:34

What life.

Jason: 57:35

Daytona is going on. Rob Markman. Yeah, that's cool. I saw some of the YouTube footage, the stream, whatever, Rob.

Jeff: 57:37

Markman, just the morad is up there, he is doing his thing, rob Markman, yeah, man, yeah, they're racing, yeah, they're racing, but when this comes out, it will be over, I believe, rob Markman, I think today is the first day, I believe that's hard to follow, man man, I can't sit and watch 24 hours of racing if I'm not racing myself yeah, I agree, but I'm gonna wipe my fingernails off.

Jeff: 57:55

Dude, that you could kind of just put it on in the background yes, true you know or occasionally you check on it like it's not like f1, where you need to watch basically every lap. You know like that, oh man, the 24, you could just kind of casually watch it and just watch motorsport I did, I'm telling you f1 I can't wait.

Jason: 58:16

We still got over a month to go, dude, but I a month that's like six more weekend I feel naked, bro. I'm like what the hell is wrong? What's saturday, sunday? I usually get up. I know jeff gets up early saying and puts it on, and then we go about our business. Right, we got our fix, rob.

Jeff: 58:35

Markman, it's funny, we don't text each other at all about F4.

Jason: 58:40

Yeah, yeah, yeah, straight up.

Jeff: 58:42

Rob Markman.

Jason: 58:43

Until like Tuesday or Wednesday, when we both know we're first, or the only text is did you watch it, rob Markman?

Jeff: 58:47

Yeah, Nothing. Nothing else All right, I say if one of us says no, you're like, okay, don't say nothing, so don't want to spoil it for each other.

Jason: 58:57

All right, gentlemen. Thank you so much for that, Jeff. It's time for track of the week. We've put this off long enough and mainly good things right Were happening, so yeah, All right. So this is track of the week. It's Imola. That's what we're going to be displaying here today. Let me share my screen.

Erick: 59:17

Yes, sir Aha.

Jeff: 59:21

So here we go. Can't wait to hear this one.

Erick: 59:24

Oh yeah, put some respect on it.

Jason: 59:26

Put some respect on it, bro. It's a beautiful track. It really is, it's it's a very high speed. A lot of stuff happened here. A lot of history happened here, so let me get into the overview. So Imola, officially known as the Autodromo Internationale Enzoedino Ferrari Killed it I think I'm not Italian, bro, I got the vocals down though Will forever be tainted by the tragedies of 1994, which you already know where that's going which prompted major revisions to its layout. Despite this, it remains one of the most atmospheric and challenging circuits in Europe, fast and flowing, and with a fair amount of gradient to boot.

Jason: 1:00:16

Imola grew from a course laid out on public roads before being transformed into one of Europe's classic courses. All right, so it was restored. But we'll get into the history here. The circuit is in an area with long associations with speed. As far back as get this guys 80 BC, that's before Christ that this track is associated with speed. What the Romans? 80 BC, the Romans created amphitheater for gladiatorial chariot racing, if I said that right? Wow, bro, they were racing horses on this thing. That's crazy.

Jeff: 1:01:01

With the basket racing yeah.

Jason: 1:01:03

Wow. Okay, in more recent times, the idea for a motor racing circuit was first promoted in the late 1940s was first promoted in the late 1940s. Four locals Alfredo Campagnoli sorry for butchering Graziano Golinelli, ugo Montavecchi and Gialtiero Vigui who were all keen on motorcycle racing, saw the opportunity presented by the creation of a new road. This linked the Via Emila where Rivazza Curve is now located. So if you see Rivazza here, I guess something got linked there. I mean, let me check, let's look into. Wow, look at the. That's a massive, massive difference. Still same shape yeah, yeah but this is 50.

Jason: 1:02:05

They don't even have schematics on the 40s. Anyway, back back to the um, back to the history, motor racing, um winning support for an autodrome. Under the guise of using the construction to help relieve unemployment, a series of connecting roads were created to an anti-clock loop. The first foundation stone was laid in March 1950, with Enzo Ferrari himself present. It was not until October 1952 that the first testing could take place, the Ferrari dispatching a 340 Sport for Ascari Mazzotto and Vigio Resi to try it out, laping an average of 149 kilometers per hour. Also present were the. So all the founders were here and they brought motorcycles and cars. So the original Cirque layout traveled the familiar route alongside the river Tulsa. So it's like there's a river back here somewhere. You see this Up the hillside to Piratela and Minerali, before backing down towards Rivazza.

Jason: 1:03:21

While the track layout itself is largely unchanged, little else would be recognizable to race goers today. Essentially, the circuit resembled the largest, the largely temporary facility. It was A simple connection of the roads and streets of a city suburb. Okay, so I'm going to skip a little here. Back in the first race. Events were held in 1953 with a GP motorcycle, a GP Kona motorcycle race, which was approved for 125 CC and 500 CC Italian championship. Okay, the following year, the first cars got there and it was called the Copa de Oro Golden Shell Race, translation which was open to only sports cars and would see Ferrari, of course, and Maserati compete for victory. So yeah, man, maserati hasn't won anything since.

Jason: 1:04:25

Absolutely not. No, the Maserati is kind of yeah, they're no longer racing, I don't think it's mostly Ferrari now. Those early years saw Imola establish itself mainly as a sports car, as a motorcycle venue. But in 1963, it organized its first international race to Formula One. It organized its first international race to formula one. Uh, jim clark proved a run, runaway winner and a lotus 25 through. Organizers were disappointed that there were. There was no entry for ferrari, so ferrari didn't have a formula back then. Um, of course they're.

Jeff: 1:05:00

They're, you know, it's their, their track they don't even put a car out there.

Jason: 1:05:04

Yeah, similar. The first world championship motorcycle event took place in 1969 without the most prestigious home manufacturer as MV Agusta those are dope bikes, by the way, the Agustas Anyway. So, going on to modern times, gradual improvements were made to the facilities In 1965, the first covered grandstand let's switch over to do I have, let me see, I guess this is the same layout through the 60s. The first covered grandstand was erected on the start and finish straight, which some sections were resurfaced and winded, including at Tulsa, where new runoff areas and a spectator bank was provided in 1970. Ok, so the first major layout happened in 72 with the construction of a lower chicane, 1972 with the construction of a lower chicane, and in 1974 a higher chicane was also added to slow speeds on the approach to Rivazza, so 74. I guess you can kind of see the differences here.

Jason: 1:06:17

Oh, yeah yeah, the slowing it down right here before Rivazza, because it was just too damn fast.

Erick: 1:06:24

I guess I was gonna say that was a fast track, that original one.

Jason: 1:06:28

Right, so I'm going to skip here a little bit. There's a lot of history on this track. Further circuit changes were made in 1981 season based on feedback from the first two F1 events. A lack of a runoff at Minerali was solved by the insertion of a somewhat clumsy chicane At Variante Alta. Meanwhile, for the return of Motorcycle Championship, a temporary second chicane was added for use during bike events. Only A further chicane at. So they keep adding chicanes right. In 1985, they added another one. And you know, in 1988, before the race switched permanently to Misano. Okay, so let's move over to 85. And yeah, you can see the added chicane there.

Jeff: 1:07:19

Jason. It's interesting, because we hear a lot of this throughout the years that due to safety and speed, they have to add turns and chicanes as the technology and the cars go faster.

Jason: 1:07:31

Right, yeah, I mean, they're trying to make it safe by slowing the car down with these chicanes, but it's still like this next portion right here. Like this next portion right here. Despite the addition of various chicanes, the circuit was subject to constant, constant safety concerns, mostly regarding the flat out tamburello corner. Where is that corner, this corner? Oh yeah this flat out this is top speed all the way down.

Jason: 1:08:04

You see this All the way down Right about here top speed which was very bumpy and had a dangerous little room between the track and the concrete wall which protects the river behind it. Uh, nelson pickett was injured during a crash here in his williams miss, uh, missing the race as a result. Worse was to come in 1989 okay, this is still the same version when uh, gerard burgers ferrari left the circuit after a front wing failure and caught fire. Wow, so rapid work by marshall's insurer. The flames were quickly, okay, so he escaped. He had burns on his hands and, yeah, I guess he missed the Grand Prix after that. Then here it comes, right here, 1994. Then came Formula One's blackest weekend, and it's still that way today. Then came Formula One's blackest weekend, and it's still that way today. During Friday practice for the 1994 San Marino Grand Prix, rubens Barrichello was lucky to emerge with relatively light injuries when he crashed his Jordan Hart at the Variante Bassa. Variante Bassa.

Jeff: 1:09:24

Up top the chicane area.

Jason: 1:09:26

Right before the start yeah, launching, wow, launching over the curb into debris fencing so that's probably this right here into a fence, wow, yeah. The following day, literally a day later, roland Ratzenberger was killed when he crashed at Villeneuve, and in the race itself spectators were injured when debris from start line collision went into the crowd. So the same-.

Erick: 1:09:58

Man.

Jason: 1:09:59

Damn.

Jason: 1:10:00

Hell of a weekend yeah, dude, the same. Then Formula One's biggest star and it's my favorite driver of all time, arten Senna, suffered fatal injuries when his car left the track at Tamburello Again, this right here before mechanics were injured in the restarted race when a wheel came loose from a minority. So you saw, on one weekend this is the same weekend Wow, yeah, and there's more to it. You know, because Senna was. He had the guy's flag that passed away literally the day prior with him in the car and then he passed away. That's crazy.

Erick: 1:10:45

And he passed away.

Jason: 1:10:46

That's crazy. And he passed away on spot. He passed away on the track.

Jeff: 1:10:53

I got to watch the Netflix on him.

Jason: 1:10:54

Yeah, we should, huh, yeah. So the events in Imola rocked the motor racing world and forced immediate changes in car and circuit design. Imola itself underwent a total reconstruction in the winter of 94, emerging in much modified form. Tamburello was no more Replaced by a chicane, as was the case with Villeneuve. Runoff was much improved on the circuit. So let's look at what happened. Yeah, aive change here.

Erick: 1:11:27

Oh yeah, slowed it down a lot.

Jason: 1:11:31

Yep, just clicking through so you can see Tamarello and there's no more. There's a little slowdown here to get used to get going again and then here, again.

Jason: 1:11:43

before. This used to be straight, flat out. So, yeah, we just covered that. It was repositioned at the corners, made it tighter and Formula One events would continue successfully for another decade. And between 96 and 99, the MotoGP also returned, so, meaning, for a brief period of time, imola was one more home to the top classes in two and four wheels. So I guess the revival let's skip ahead here. In 2011 version, the revived circuit has gone on to consolidate its position, continuing to host motorcycle superbike championships, but also reviving top class sports cars, with the six hours of Imola Run to Le Mans rules as part of. So they're doing endurance races on there, which we just talked about.

Jason: 1:12:50

A short and three-hour race has formed a round of European Le Mans series. A complete resurface was undertaken in 20. So, this track man, how many times are they going to resurface the ground? It's crazy. In 2011, after which, the FIA awarded the circuit grade one status once again, licensing it to Formula One competition. While a revival on the San Marino Grand Prix seemed a remote possibility at the time, the certification did at least mean that the venue was coming back to F1. Did at least mean that the venue was coming back to F1. So, in a nutshell, I mean, this is the track man. This is the track as it stands today.

Jason: 1:13:35

I don't see a particular shape for this one. You know I always try to play around with the shapes. To me, it's a very sentimental track man, because a lot of people died here. Um, and you know this is. These are things that could have been avoided, because it sounds like they they were having incidents in the same place and they never changed it, you know. So that's my take on track of the week. That's Imola. Um, it's a great track to race on. You can you can do gt3 there, you can do formula, you can do all kinds of racing on it motorcycles, you know. So yeah, it's one of my favorites and it's in the new ac evo game too. You can check it out there for its latest version. I don't know how do you guys feel about Imola? When someone mentions Imola, do you feel comfortable on it?

Jeff: 1:14:35

It's a track that you. It's funny I see you shaking your head, eric, I don't feel like I ever flow well through the track.

Erick: 1:14:43

Yeah, I don't.

Jason: 1:14:45

It's a struggle for me okay, well, I mean with trophy ai. You shouldn't have a problem learning this track.

Jeff: 1:14:54

You just got me super distracted with the crash behind you in your car.

Jason: 1:14:58

I know, yeah yeah, yeah, oh yeah. That's at the end of that's. That's the league races. So at the end of the league race, we all crashed into each other oh, okay, I was and I was getting wrecked.

Jason: 1:15:08

Look, I'm upside down, somebody's getting fucked. I'm sorry to distract you. It was just no, that's good over there. So that was track of the week I. There's way more information, but I just don't want to death by powerpoint, if you may. I don't want to do that to you. I want to hit to hit you with the points on how it started, which in 80 BC. This has to be the oldest Got to be. You know the track is not 80 BC, but it was based off you know that chariot racing. That's crazy. I've never heard that before. That's insane, you know.

Erick: 1:15:44

Talk about racing heritage. That's got to take the cake right there. The true horsepower.

Jason: 1:15:49

I don't know if we can top that one we got to see, but 80 BC, bro, before Christ Jesus, it's been a minute, it's been a hot minute, bro. So that's track of the week and any roundtables before we close this one. Actually, we have something to discuss later on, but I'll do our rounds now and I don't have anything to cover other than what I just covered Over to Eric.

Erick: 1:16:21

Yeah, I did want to just shout out to everybody who watches the YouTube videos. We appreciate your support and really appreciate your engagement with the video and the content. We love the comments, the questions, the stories. We saw who recently joined the uh the uh recently uh DRL. Um Rick Thomas 98, 94 and Stash Gordon uh were a couple of guys I noticed that mentioned that they just joined the league and uh kind of did their first races and kind of shared the same sentiments we shared with the league and the polish and just the fun and no clean racing. Um, glad you guys are enjoying it as much as we are as well. But that's my only roundtable. Did you want to go ahead and do the email as well?

Jason: 1:17:16

Yeah, or Jeff what you got.

Jeff: 1:17:22

I got one just kind of a save round From last week.

Jeff: 1:17:26

We told Paul who sent an email, paul from Texas about Google, dave Kramer and John Henry with iRacing and we did that and found a couple.

Jeff: 1:17:37

A quick story of Dave Kramer that I'll tell real quick is what we found on Instagram was, I guess a couple of guys from the iRacing office, a corporate office, went down to and did some Skip Barber Racing School at I think it was Lime Rock, I think it was like they said, maybe like four of them, and they're out there ripping it around and Dave is getting a little faster and a little faster, a little faster, and I guess the story goes he had a mechanical and some oil came onto his rear tire I think it's one of the right before the last turn to come through the straightaway, slipped off, went off through the grass and actually slammed into the wall story.

Jeff: 1:18:22

The part that makes it even more interesting is his brand new employee, who had been with iRacing for 10 days, was behind him, sees this all happen and sees him go into the wall and thinks he got killed. He's like well, I love the job, but it only lasted 10 days because boss died. He almost died, you know. So turns out didn't die, uh, but did have a serious crash in a skip Barber um open wheel. You know, car um at Lime Rock in a quick story of John Henry that we found out um not nearly as probably interesting, but he is co-owner of the Boston Red Sox and Uh of the Boston Red Sox and Cha-ching.

Jeff: 1:19:07

Yeah, I'm not going to say the dude's net worth, but it's a lot more than me, but wait a minute.

Jason: 1:19:15

Wait a minute Before you continue with Henry.

Jeff: 1:19:17

Okay.

Jason: 1:19:18

That crash, that you know that person, kramer? Yes, is that technically the very first?

Jeff: 1:19:29

Idiots the week yo if I was one of the dudes with him and found if he was okay I'd have been like 6x I would have been out there on the track, off the track into the wall.

Jason: 1:19:41

No, you lost control too try to recover.

Jeff: 1:19:44

Yeah, yeah and, and minus 2.5 or a 0.25 on your safety rating, that's it done, deal still rookie cutting everything.

Erick: 1:19:56

You know what?

Jeff: 1:19:57

downgraded so the john henry story real quick was uh, he um, dale earnhardt had brought John Henry as the co-owner of iRacing together with eNASCAR. I guess it was the simulator portion of NASCAR. This is in 2012,. I believe Dale Earnhardt said hey, we need to merge at this point together. It's good for everybody. So they're having a formal sit-down to talk about a partnership of some sort. Well, john's phone rings and he has to leave because it's the middle of the Manny Ramirez If you know Manny Ramirez, he's an outfielder famously for the Boston. Red Sox Won a World Series with him. Boston fan, anyways, I digress. So it was the trade for Manny Ramirez to the Dodgers. So this dude's trying to do a deal with NASCAR, has to jump out, talks to the owner, the GM of the LA Dodgers and the Pirates it was like a three-way trade Does that deal, multi-million dollar deal, walks back into the original meeting and makes the deal with NASCAR.

Jeff: 1:21:14

So I mean like, yeah, I mean this dude is hashtag caller yeah, If you want to be humbled, go Google John Henry and I guess thank God for him, right, because NASCAR, the game is trash.

Jason: 1:21:25

Want to be humbled? Go google john henry, and, and, and I guess thank god for him, right? Because yeah, nascar, the game is trash. It's just like f1, the game is trash, trash. So, you know, I racing is kind of bridging those gaps, you know, like yeah we spoke about doing open wheel and that's a whole like totally different oval. I mean not open wheel ovals.

Jeff: 1:21:50

Very different world, my brother was, my brother was over for dinner last night. After dinner disappears. He's in here ripping down the simulator. What is daytona?

Jason: 1:22:02

let's build them a sim, bro, that'll. That'll be something easy, something reasonable.

Jeff: 1:22:08

That's got to be really easy Because he doesn't know he's done for the night and he turns the computer off and I'm like, oh, I come down here the next morning. I'm like, did we lose power last night?

Jason: 1:22:19

Clicking on the mouse. What's going on?

Jeff: 1:22:22

Just get up and leave when you're done, don't touch nothing.

Jason: 1:22:27

All right, thanks, jeff. Thanks for the follow-up. It's a very interesting story. I mean hoping that's the right one. Right Because that's what we found. That's what we found Point us in the right direction if it's something different. But I think that was kind of hilarious though. Og stories 10 days and my boss almost dies.

Jeff: 1:22:52

Yeah, I thought my boss died.

Erick: 1:22:53

Look, that's definitely going to be the best story at whatever picnic or barbecue he's at.

Jason: 1:22:59

Definitely. They probably bullshit about this today. Oh, I bet they do. Yeah, you don't remember that?

Erick: 1:23:05

Oh look, if he's late to anywhere, they're going to hit a wall. That's funny.

Jason: 1:23:13

All right, so over to Eric. Eric, we got one question this week, a brand new one. I'll let you.

Erick: 1:23:22

If you could help me with the name.

Jason: 1:23:26

Oh yes.

Erick: 1:23:28

The guy. I'll read and if you find that let me know. But it starts out it says he's double dipping by pasting the reply I already added to your latest video so I didn't catch the email option until I had already posted. He says as a longtime simmer started with the original Papyrus, indy and NASCAR games in the mid-1990s. I was also a member and he gives his iRacing number 15XX of the iRacing Beta in 2006-2008. So he's an OG in the Sim racing, he says with Paul, and I remember those days fondly. He says I also took a 15-year break after that beta, but I've enjoyed my return since late last year.

Erick: 1:24:14

I've got a John Henry story too, among others that resulted in a couple of additions, aka rules, to the game from a misadventure. So interesting to see how this has evolved since that time and excited to see their next steps with much of the future they outlined in the November blog post, along with the oval suggestion, which can include indie open wheel ovals. If stock cars aren't of interest, I suggest hitting the off-road trucks and rally cross at some point. Those are fun in their own right and I find that some of the skills have a benefit on the tarmac side of life. Anyway, I really enjoy the podcast and have it in rotation every week. Keep up the great work and appreciate it, jason. That is a chatter nine.

Jason: 1:24:58

That is Chad McNesey.

Erick: 1:25:02

Okay, chadneesey. Appreciate the support.

Jason: 1:25:06

Thank you, Chad.

Erick: 1:25:08

Yeah and shout out to you know, he's definitely one of the SimRacing OGs. He's, you know.

Jason: 1:25:13

Oh, he's been doing this, bro, a long time.

Jeff: 1:25:15

Yeah, been about it for a minute you know, like I complain and Jason's like you didn't know how hard it was a couple of years ago.

Erick: 1:25:29

And these guys were like boy, you don't even have a clue.

Jason: 1:25:30

Rob Markman Jr. Oh man, he was racing on maybe a floppy. Rob Markman Jr Nah, bro, cds. Rob Markman Jr CDs back then yeah, rob Markman Jr 2008? That was still kind of modern CDs, rob Markman Jr.

Erick: 1:25:39

No, no, no. He said a long time similar. He started with the original Papyrus, indy and NASCAR games in the mid 1990s.

Jeff: 1:25:48

Definitely floppy.

Jason: 1:25:49

Mid 90s.

Erick: 1:25:51

Mid 90s is when he started.

Jeff: 1:25:53

Right or 2.5?

Jason: 1:25:57

We still had discs. I mean, we still had discs. I remember I had Starcraft on disc. That's dated me 1997 laser disc those were. But we still have floppies. But I dude I don't know that we need to look. Hey, chad, let us know, man, was this on a cd or we'll get you a drink, man or something or something that's a good question. I want to say disc man.

Erick: 1:26:32

I could see disc if it was later.

Jason: 1:26:33

If you look at Windows 95, that came on disc. It didn't come on floppy. That's telling me software was still coming.

Erick: 1:26:41

They had a floppy set. You could get a disc.

Jeff: 1:26:45

Like seven of them.

Erick: 1:26:46

Yeah, it was a crap load of floppies.

Jason: 1:26:50

You know, floppy is one megabyte bro, Like 1.44.

Erick: 1:26:53

Yeah, it's not much. It's crazy, Isn't that? I know right?

Jason: 1:26:57

Wild. Not even a picture is a megabyte now.

Erick: 1:27:00

Not even a picture, not even you couldn't put anything on there.

Jason: 1:27:07

You could a picture, not even you couldn't put anything on there you could have.

Jeff: 1:27:08

I had a text file. It's like a megabyte now. Yeah, I mean I take text photos that are like 36 megabytes, that's like yeah with all the rich text formatting and all this crap that we got.

Erick: 1:27:15

That's crazy wild, yeah man yeah, but that's it for me as far as uh, you know emails and once again, shout out to Chad Appreciate it, man.

Jason: 1:27:25

Chad. Thank you, thank you, gentlemen, for being here today. Again, when you see the time when we cut this recording, I'll let you know what the time was, but this needed to be done. So I just want to say we're approaching 50 episodes, which is insane. That's 50 weeks of our lives dedicated to sim racing.

Jason: 1:27:54

Yeah, that's crazy 600 subscribers on the YouTube channel. Thank you so much for supporting. This is a preview, early beta test merch. It's not for sale yet, just in case, but I am working the wickets around that and once I know something I'll let you know, and, of course, the guys you'll know first. We got to hook each other up and I think it's going to be good. I think it's going to be good. We got to hook each other up and I think it's going to be good. I think it's going to be good. So, yeah, that's about it for this week. Just thanks, everybody. If you have any questions on the plethora of topics that we covered today, please email the show at thechacanepodcast at gmailcom. Leave a comment or a like. Subscribe. Do all of the above, just do them all, and with that, have a great start of your week. Thank you.