Cold Start

In our Multiclass Racing discussion , we hinted that there are some wild and utterly wacky one-off or unique races around the world -- some of which are also multiclass! So now it's time to survey the landscape of odd, interesting, weird, and downright bizarre forms of road racing. Todd and Sylas share their favorite Wacky Races, learning from each other about this unusal corner of motorsports; an...

What's better than one race happening on track? Well, two, or maybe three, or even four! This is the main appeal of Multiclass Racing, having multiple races happening simultaneously on track. This not only increases the entertainment level for the fans as they are able to watch more battles but it also increases the complexity for drivers as they need to manage their own race, while managing the o...

What started out as an internet meme quickly turned into a sought after, must-have option to be able to properly flex your new BMW M3 to all your haters. "Tartufo Buckets" may not mean anything to the average person but to the BMW fan boys, it's the holy grail interior spec that once was thought to be impossible. The guys dive into the story of Tartufo Buckets and how rare and sought after options...

Who do you love? Who do you really despise? Who are our heroes and villains in motorsports -- and why? Is it completely irrational and arbitrary, or are these opinions rooted in something more substantial and fact-based? What happens when lots of fans start having similar opinions about a driver or team -- and then the prevailing sentiment becomes something else to root for, or against. Sylas and...

They're coming, there are more of them than you thought, and they might surprise you with what they can already do: Chinese cars. And they're not just EVs, despite what it seems on first impression. There are serious performance-oriented hypercars coming from China, breaking records at the Nurburgring -- perhaps even coming soon to a motorsports series near you. The rest of the world (outside the...

With what seems like everyone having a new Porsche GT3RS at your local Cars & Coffee, and influencers over your Instagram feed, its hard to believe that Porsche as a company is in a terrible financial situation at the moment. The first sign was them cutting their motorsport program this season in WEC, the World Endurance Championship racing series -- and then, not participating at the GTP cate...

The age old question of whether the better enthusiast engine is boosted or naturally aspirated may be coming to an end, as the NA engine is being phased out of sports cars and normal commuters. In an age of advanced engine technologies and endless pursuit for fuel efficiency, it's easy to see why big naturally aspirated engines are no longer the choice of manufacturers in creating their new cars....

For modern endurance race fans, Balance of Performance (BoP) is a common topic of discussion -- usually how it's annoying, and ruining motorsports. But what really is BoP? and can it actually be attributed to the growing success of current endurance racing? With growing field numbers and entertaining battles this season in IMSA and WEC, the guys talk about how BoP may be a necessary evil in modern...

Mercedes-Benz is no stranger to motorsports with their renowned success in DTM and Formula 1, creating some of the most iconic and dominant race cars of the modern era. However, there is one form of motorsport that the manufacturer seems to be cursed at: endurance racing – specifically the 24 Hours of Le Mans. The largest endurance race in the world has proven to be a place that the Silver Arrows...

The Canadian-American Challenge Cup, or more commonly known as Can-Am, is a racing series that has firmly placed itself in the history books, being an era known for no rules – and cars faster than Formula 1 at the time. What's not to love about unlimited innovation and high horsepower/ light weight racecars? Todd and Sylas dive into the Can-Am era, breaking down the crazy cars, great racing, and u...

Diving into the passion of your average car enthusiast, the guys invited Chucho Shoots onto the show to share his journey of becoming a car enthusiast, an automotive photographer, and to defend his love for Mini Coopers. From building his following by shooting photos of some of the premier cars and collections in the Bay Area to cultivating a community around a forgotten enthusiast car, Chucho has...

Could you imagine if the most expensive, exclusive, powerful, and raw hypercars in the world raced together in a single series? Back in the 1990s, this happened -- one of the golden ages of sports car racing: GT1 Class Racing. The GT1 class was diverse, well-funded, and birthed "homologation special" cars -- racecars effectively disguised as production street vehicles. Sylas and Todd review all ti...

Racing has always been the proving ground to help develop new technologies in the automotive industry – like tires, fuel, and hybrid engines. So it would make sense for manufacturers put their autonomous vehicles to the ultimate test at the limit... on the racetrack. Could motorsports be a feasible testing ground for autonomous technology, and would people actually care to watch it? Todd and Sylas...

The robots are here – and they have come for our love of driving. 🤖 Well, that may not be the complete picture.... Todd and Sylas dive into their first hand experiences with autonomous vehicles, offering a survey of where the technology currently is. They also discuss what the future might be in regards to personal transport and how this growing technology will reshape our current infrastructure....

Sim racing has become a huge part of the motorsports industry in the last 10 years, as sim setups and racing titles have become more realistic. This leads to the question as to how sim racing fits into the development of real racing drivers. Is it just a game that makes it convenient to race in your living room or is there some validity in it being used as a real tool to develop the next generatio...

As car enthusiasts, there are those of us that are mechanically inclined and quite enjoy getting our hands dirty working on cars. Then there are the others that prefer to just be behind the wheel rather than under the hood. Regardless of which category you fit in, it's important to at least have a bare minimum understanding to keep your car working properly. However, there are times when there may...

The 2026 race season is fully underway! Formula 1, IndyCar, and NASCAR are all back on track, having completed their first couple of races. If you haven't been keeping up-to-date with the action, Todd and Sylas tell you why you what you've been missing -- the lead up to and a recap of the biggest story lines in each series so far. IndyCar and NASCAR have also been doing some collab events with the...

Shedding a little light on the cars that are a part of the race but never get to participate, Todd and Sylas talk about pace cars and safety cars in F1, NASCAR, and IndyCar. The guys dive into the history of how these cars become a part of each series with F1 waiting until 1993 to formally require a safety car. They also get into the differences between pace cars, safety cars, and medical cars, gi...

Folllwing our prior episode about the demise of racing schools , Sylas and Todd take a deep dive into a novel racing school which lived and thrived at Sonoma Raceway in the early 2000s into the 2010s, but has sadly passed on: "Simraceway".  A successor to the storied Jim Russell Racing School, Simraceway simultaneously offered a brand new simulation racing platform online, as well as a real life r...

It seems like with more options to get on track through track day providers, fewer people have been going to proper racing schools, killing that industry. Back in the day, it used to be mandatory to have a racing license to get on a racetrack. But with laxer requirements, people are taking the path of least resistance and reshaping the ladder into racing as schools are struggling to stay open. The...

What seemed like a simple afternoon for a professional driver to go to a track day to hang with friends, turned into a deep dive into the mental side of motorsport -- and what it means for a competitive individual to actually have fun at an activity they've spent years training to master. After chasing the high of racing wheel-to-wheel, Sylas shares his insights of what it's like to take a step ba...

As car enthusiasts, leaving our cars stock is simply not an option. We always need to be tweaking and making changes to make our cars our own. Anyone can modify their cars but there is an art to modifying them well. Todd and Sylas talk about what they have learned from their own journeys of modifying cars and what they think is the proper order of operations to make a well modified automobile.  Co...

There has been an interesting phenomenon that has been sweeping the nation in the motorsport industry. More and more "country club" racetracks have been popping upper to cater to the uber wealthy car/racing enthusiast. This business model has become so popular that even some public tracks have started to make the transition to go private and more exclusive. The guys explore this topic and discuss...

The guys are back with more difficult decisions of Automotive "Would You Rather?" In this episode, they get a little more... eclectic in their comparisons. Decisions get harder and arguments get fiercer as they try to come to an agreement of which car would be the better choice. Listen to hear how Sylas and Todd made their decisions, and see how your opinions stack up. And remember, if you choose...

The BMW M1 is an iconic car within the BMW lineage because it represented the beginning of ///M and was the first time that BMW created a car specifically for racing and then turned it into a street car. The guys talk about the story of the M1 Procar, the racecar version, and its rise to fame in the late 1970's and how a rule change in homologation almost terminated the project but actually result...