Ep 1 16-2-2023

Two podcast hosts, Dave and Rowan, are starting a podcast called Chat with the Hats, where they discuss motorsport. They plan to interview people involved in the sport and talk about their own opinions. They also tease a big announcement for their first interview after the Newcastle round. They then discuss the results and controversies of the recent 12-hour race at Mount Panorama. They talk about the winners and the controversies surrounding the third-place finishers. They also mention a spectacular crash where a car did a 100-meter wheelie and landed 15 meters away from the wall it hit. Finally, they talk about a funny moment at the 12-hour race involving a "Bogan spy tent." Welcome listeners to a brand new podcast, Chat with the Hats. I'm Dave, this is Rowan. Hey guys, how's it going? Good to be here and excited to see where this thing takes us. Just a couple of fans here talking motorsport and having a bit of fun. Thanks, mate. So this is a party by the fans for the fans. We're going to be talking about motorsport from our perspective. We're going to be talking all year with interviews with the people that make the sport possible. So that's volunteers primarily, flaggies, medical, recovery, fireys, race control. We're going to talk to some teams, some drivers, some sponsors, team managers if they want to talk to us, we don't know, and some journos because we're not journalists by any stretch of the imagination. Oh, God, no. We're here to have some fun and just talk about the way that you guys say it, the way we say it. You don't have to agree with us. You can tell us how bad a job we're doing too. It's fine. We'll wear it as a badge of honor. So stick around with us because we've got a massive announcement at the end of this season, end of this year, massive announcement for our very first interview, which will be after the Newcastle round. And yeah, we'll just leave that with you. So massive boost for the ratings, I reckon. Exactly. So we're going to leave that with you. So we're going to move on. It seems like we should talk about some motorsport. 12 hours seems like forever ago. Well, it is forever ago, mate. It's what, two weeks ago. That's forever in anybody's terms, especially myself as a millennial. Two weeks is far too long. But let's get into it anyway. So the winners, Kenny Harbaugh, Jules Guénon and Stowells winning the Sun Energy one. Mercedes-Benz, pretty controversially. Matt Campbell, not their second place, but the first place with a little bit controversial. Matt Campbell, Prining and Jaminet, Porsche got second and the controversy came to the third place, guys. Einar Engelbreiter and Marchiello in the Group M Mercedes that came third, probably should have won the race, but we'll have a little bit of a chat about that one soon. Pro-Am, Chassis Mostert got there in the Mercedes, and the our boy Richie Cummins third in Pro-Am, which was pretty cool. So enough about that. You all know the results. You all watched the race. We're here to talk about the controversies and the fun parts about that race. So we'll kick into that with the controversies of the last hour and why the podium was a little bit controversial. So all kicked off in the last hour after the Group M guys got themselves a nice 30-second lead, but then thought it would be a fun idea to deep fry their modem and cause a bit of dramas for them. Exactly. And the problem for them wasn't the fact that the modem was intermittently reporting. They were more upset about the fact it was a race control compliant modem that they were given. So they were complaining about having to come in and change it over when it started to kick back in. The problem itself was it was their hot oil that was spraying all over the thing, turned it into a potato cake in the footwell. So they can't really complain too hard when you're actually deep frying your own modem to come in and get it changed over for the telemetry. Oh, that's it. They've done a pretty good job with race control. They managed to work around to get them to change it in the pit lane rather than actually pull the car into the garage to work on it, which is the rules for GT racing. So it only cost them 20 seconds in the pit stop. And the controversy started there, but the race and the action started when the Sun Energy guys decided not to pit for tyres, which was a pretty big move, and got them out in front. And that's when the action kicked off. That was a pretty uneventful race up until that point. But when you've got three cars within 10 seconds or so at the end of 12 hours with 40 minutes left in the racing, that's when the fun kicks off. And Mauro Engel probably pulled off one of the greatest pit manoeuvres you've ever seen in the history of pit manoeuvres to send Green on for a bit of a spinning to the beach, a bit of a trip to the beach. And that's when the real fun began. But I'll tell you what, I think you said it earlier, Dave. The California Highway Patrol are using that as a training video. That was the most perfectly executed pit manoeuvre I've seen. It was fantastic. As far as tap and go goes, my credit card doesn't tap and go as well as that. Sorry. No, not at all. That was spectacular. It was what he was going for. It was absolutely nailed it. Unfortunately, he was actually trying to pass someone, but a little bit overzealous with that move, I reckon. Give it another lap and he probably got there. But that cost them a pit lane penalty and they ended up having to make that pit lane penalty. And I'm not sure whether everyone knows it. Most of us do as motorsport fans, but when you're given a pit lane penalty, you've got three laps to take that and they didn't take it straight away. They took it on the third lap and ended up losing the race by one and a half seconds when they probably should have won the race by one and a half seconds if you take that pit lane penalty at the first instance. So extra two laps when you're a second and a half, two seconds a lap quicker and that wins you the race, I reckon. So they were pretty sad about it. They were pretty upset when that race ended on the podium. Another bit of controversy there, them walking off the podium before the champagne sprayed, they're still fresh in their mind. They're still upset. They're not too happy about things and they cracked the sads with a third place in one of the biggest races in the world and walked off the podium because of everything that happened. But at the end of the day, my opinion is they cost themselves a race by not taking that penalty at the first instance they should have and they got third. Yep. Welcome to racing, mate. Strategy in racing. That's it. We've all seen instances earlier where someone hasn't actually come in at the end of a race early enough to allow the driver to get back on track position. So they had car pace, just ran out of time. That's it. I think Betty Clemenco said it famously. Anyway, the driver of the car doesn't choose who wins the mountain. The mountain chooses the winner of that race or of any race out there. So it's got its own mysticisms in that place and if they don't want you to win, if she doesn't want you to win that day, you don't win. And unfortunately, she didn't want the Group M guys to win. It was Jules Bunon taking three in a row as well. Let's mention that one. So nobody's ever done it before and I think Bunon's like 27, I think he is. So he's only a young lad to win three races in a row at Mount Panorama, one of the greatest tracks in the world and one of the biggest races in the world. That's impressive. So first guy to ever do it in GTs and the sixth or seventh person to ever win an endurance race at Bathurst three times in a row. So that's no mean feat for a kid that's not even 30 years old yet. No, he's done well. But let's get down to like the most spectacular step because there were a few retirements in practice and during the race as well. And yeah, that's fine. Your car breaks, you hit a wall. Welcome to Bathurst. It's the way it works. But Kosylki, my lord. Keith Kosylki is just being given an honorary position at NASA actually as an astronaut. He's got his Red Bull wings. He should be signed up by Red Bull. I reckon I've seen a few cars get a little bit of air at Mount Panorama before through the chase, but that was impressive. So and not just that, but I reckon he should be given a stunt position in one of those with the motorbike lads as well because I've never seen a car, proper wheelie, that good ever. That was a good 100 meter wheelie on the back two wheels. Just flying. It was a fair launch. Unfortunately, a gravel trap can't pull you up if you're not actually in it. Well, that's it. So and we all know the chase. You lose your brakes going into there. You're probably going to be doing about 250 kilometers an hour when you realize that you've got no brakes. So it's not fun. Keith definitely, I'm hoping that Keith had a spare pair of undies actually because he was going to need them after that one. So I think they said it was about 200 Ks an hour because we're having a bit of a laugh and a giggle about this, but it was pretty serious. Keith hit the wall at 200 plus Ks an hour head on. So that was a big accident. Tyre wall. Tyre wall. Tyre wall. So thank God for that. If that was concrete, I don't reckon we'd be talking as happily about this one. Tyre wall luckily. So Keith did walk away with pretty minor injuries, which is full credit to the Mark car builders. They've built a car that can withstand a massive crash. But that car landed 15 meters from the wall it hit. It bounced back that far, about 15 to 20 meters and landed on its roof with the front end completely gone. That's massive. So there was a couple of other stacks there over the weekend, but none of them were ever going to compare to that. So that's one of the biggest crash mountain scene, I reckon. Oh, it's close. In supercars, there's a big tumble at the bottom of the chase and we're all like talking about, thinking about fabs when it started to go for a cartwheel about 19,000 times. But yeah, you're right. You're right. In GT, it's like coming down the end there just to pull up and you don't pull up. You're pretty much a passenger and it's a hull Mary at that point. So we're not going to dwell too much on the 12-hour because we've all seen it. It's a couple of weeks late, but let's get into the real fun of the 12-hour. You're talking about the Bogan spy tent? I am talking about the Bogan spy tent. How good was that? That was phenomenal. After everything that went on in the US with them shooting down that Chinese spy balloon, you'd think the last person someone would want to do was let off a spy tent at Mount Panorama post-Bathurst 12-hour. But they did. So peg your tents, guys. Peg your tents. I heard they actually launched an F-35 from Williamstown to come over and actually check it out to make sure it wasn't actually a Group M spy balloon just trying to pick up on the radio transmissions of Sun Energy. I think they might have been successful because nobody's seen that tent since. I think you may be right there, but that was just ridiculous. So if you haven't seen it, guys, get onto Bathurst Campus Facebook page. If you're not a member already, join it. They're a fun group there and check out that post because that was pretty phenomenal. And I think that'll bring us into the next one. Scroll down a bit further on that page to see the mountain. Oh, the grassy. Yeah. So that was impressive as well. So Mount Panorama, there was not a lot of fire on the track that weekend. It was a pretty uneventful race, but there was a lot of fire off the track. Exactly. Exactly. So old mates cut some fireworks off, standard fare for the mountains, ends up landing in the middle of the mountainside itself near the Mount Panorama sign and start the grass fire. So it's a little bit of excitement. So the little white Bathurst kangaroos are going, I'm out of here. Good old Skippy and his mates are going, not my scene, not my circus, not my monkeys. But sure, there's fire on the track afterwards, but mate, the Bathurst I've been to in the previous years, that's not a fire. I'll show you a fire. Legit down on Hell Corner, everyone just used to roll all their chairs, tarps, wheelie bins, and just pile it into a massive pool of plastic, toxic smoke. The mountain was always on fire after every track, not to mention the bullring back in the day. It definitely wasn't a bullring. Oh, we're going there. We're going to the bullring. Okay. So yeah, the bullring days. Wow. Shooting fireworks sideways, flipping cars, doing doughies, dudes flying off the back of utes. We'll go more in depth in that one, I reckon. Yeah, yeah, another episode. We're going to have a lot of stories. We'll have had about a chance to talk to a few fans and stuff by then as well. Yeah. And you can tell us your bullring stories. We'll talk to you, talk to the fans and that's the deal. This is a fan podcast for fans. So we're keen to hear your stories and we'll lay them down and you can tell your experiences. That's the deal. So what do you reckon? That's enough of a 12-hour because we've got some other racing coming up. Well, 12 hours done and dusted now. So we've done enough talking about that, but let's talk about what's coming up, the Gen 3 cars. So that's what everybody should be talking about at this point. We're only three weeks out now, four weeks out from the first round of supercars, and we've actually had 15 cars on track now. Woo. So 15, and from what I understand, they are 15 fully race-prepared supercars that have actually hit the track now. So from my understanding, correct me if I'm wrong, I might be wrong, but as far as I'm aware, they're actually fully prepared. They've got all the parts they'll be racing with. So they've hit the track, they've done some laps, there's been some dramas. So probably the biggest drama to talk about was, and I can't believe Davey didn't know this until just about early, but another Davey lost a wheel. No, I missed this one. Oh, that guy. Yeah. That guy. Yeah, that guy in the corner there. For the ones that aren't seeing the YouTube clip, yeah, there's a good old Davey Reynolds cutout just sitting on my right shoulder. Yeah. So his first test didn't go quite to plan and one of the wheels decided to just have a little bit of an excursion, decided that it wanted to go to the beach after a few laps. So it made a trip to the beach and I saw an article just earlier, which actually, because they didn't know at the time what caused that, but apparently it's got something to do with a little bit of something they call the circling. They haven't talked too much about it. All they've said in the Speed Cafe article is it has a tendency to pop off, which isn't really what you keep holding your wheel in to do for a brand new car. Well, they used to have clips on the center hub, like the wheel nut. It used to be held in with a clip and then everybody went to the tangs because the tangs were a better system, allegedly. That's right. So allegedly, yeah, which didn't work too well for some, but that's all right. Keep getting stuck when you can't put the gun with the button in the square on the hub to release the tangs. And that'll do it, but that doesn't seem to be the problem this time. They're going on, from what I can gather, they're just coming off and they think they've found the problem. So hopefully, the Tickford guys said they seem to have come up with a solution for that. So hopefully, that'll get passed around to the rest of the teams in terms of safety. I think they're all pretty happy to share information when it comes to things like that. But that was probably the biggest drama of any of the tests. We get informed and we learn new information. So getting back to testing this weekend, this week, sorry, at Winton, we've got seven cars hitting track this week at Winton, currently in the middle of it. We're recording this on a Tuesday night, so we're day two in a three-day testing session. And it seems through all reports so far, the cars are reliable. Everyone's banging out 100 laps a day and the cars aren't failing. So we've got reliability on the shakedown. So basic componentry is working fine because we're not even doing 100-lap races for most of the sprints, you know what I mean? So for a shakedown, it's doing okay. The degradation on the tyres, Brodie Kostecki was saying that it's pretty high. So because of the movement and the lack of aero, it's very much like the stock car that he used to race when he was 19 years old a few years ago. It's got parallels to the Trans Am and the NASCAR. Actually, I think it was in the NASCAR light or something back in his early... What did they say? I think it's 60-something percent less aero than the Gen 3 car. So that's better than the Gen 2 car. I think it's 66, like two-thirds of the aero. Like they haven't taken two-thirds off. It's two-thirds of the previous. Of the aero, yeah. So it's about a 35% drop in the aero. Yeah. That's still a massive decrease. Especially for guys that are only used to driving those cars with those massive aero kits. Like some of those guys that have only been in the series for a few years and don't have any of that experience with the old cars, they're probably going to be the ones that might struggle a little bit. But as you said, you've got your Brodies who have done NASCAR, your SVGs, your Cam Waters who have done sprint cars and things like that. And then my personal opinion is the old blokes, your Frosties, your Cortneys, your Davos that have been there for 20 years in racing, that have been used to handling the cars back in the day before they brought all those aero changes in, they're probably going to come good as well. Because not only are they used to a car sliding, but they're used to a supercar sliding. Like they've been there and they've done that. So I reckon you're going to see some of them guys up the front and possibly win a race again. You never know. So that's one of my personal thoughts and we'll see how that turns out, whether I'm right or wrong. If I'm wrong, you can shit can me. If I'm right, well, I'll say I told you so. We'll find out in Newy. Like literally, it's only about 25 days or so-ish after this here. Not far. And for whatever you reckon, whatever I reckon, whatever everybody else reckons, it means naught on Friday when they hit the circuit. I mean, this is the exciting part, launching a brand new design of car in a street circuit where it's a fairly high load on the driver to, not just, that's fine. You can do your testing and they can zoom around and they can get slidy when it's just you on the circuit. Shut 24 cars next year in a concrete wall. What it is, is insanity. I'm not saying that in a bad way. It's insanity in the greatest possible way that a motorsport fan could possibly hope. So we're there for excitement. Any motorsport fan that says they don't want to see a car beaten is lying to you. We're all there to watch the excitement and watching cars steer off and hit the wall. As long as the drivers are safe, that's all that matters. We don't want to see anyone get hurt. When someone loses it, that's a real excitement. And putting 24 brand spanking new cars that nobody's driven in anger before on a street circuit like Newcastle is insanity in the greatest possible sense of the word. Which is brilliant. Yes, exactly. A hundred percent. I will certainly be up there for you. A hundred percent. I cannot wait and I will be up there parking my little tail down near the hairpin down. I think it's turn nine down the bottom there on the beach and as they're hooking back from the bottom of the hill that's caught scratchily. So that's one of my favorite spots there. I would have loved to have been up there with you but my partner really decided to have her birthday that weekend. So I'm out. Get a better partner for the different birthdays. That's all I can say, right? That's on you or her. I don't care who. She's lucky she's pretty awesome in every other aspect, that's for sure. Beforehand, it used to be the Australian Grand Prix. So that used to be on her birthday weekend every year. So I haven't been able to go to that for a while. But last year was the first time when they changed that. So I'm hoping they keep it in April now and not as a season opener because then I can actually start going to the GP again. Don't even say a chance. It won't come back to being the season opener, just the way that... I mean, that's such a moving calendar over there. They're keen to have it as the opener because it's like the Australian Open tennis or the tennis open. Because it's the fun slam. It's a happy slam. They just like to kick off in Australia, even though it's ridiculously hot. Are the organisers going to want to swap back from April after getting 400,000 plus people there last year though? I know COVID and all that. There was years where people couldn't, but that was an impressive crowd to have there last year. And the atmosphere was as best as I've ever seen at the Grand Prix. So that was the best one I've seen in a long time. So I reckon keep it in April, not just so I can go, but I just think it's not quite as hot. As you said, everybody's not passing out on the side of the track because it's 45 degrees. Correct. Yeah. No, it's not flash. It's not fun. It's not fun. Oh, God, no. It's like Adelaide. Adelaide used to be a thing, right? Adelaide used to start the season. Pixel 500 used to kick off the season. You go to Adelaide, 42 degrees, you're launching, you're sweating your little butt off. You're walking out the back to try to find some food and everything is deep fried. It's like, dude, I just do not want any hot food. It's 42 degrees. Can I go and get something that's like a cold wrap that comes out of a fridge, not like a deep fried one? It's the one time in the world when us hardcore carnivores are begging for a salad, but there's never one around. Yeah. Can I have a cold Caesar salad, thanks? And give me a slushie with it. Exactly. That's not what we want. So keep it in April. That's what I reckon. I mean, our new castle is going to be phenomenal. So seeing those cars on the track for the first time and just while the rest are testing, I'm just interested to see how that goes as well. As I said, we've only had 15 cars on track at the moment. So we've still got- So far. Friesland had to pay a fine there because of the weather until the end of the week. Yeah. So we've got nine more cars are still to hit the track. So that's all the Queensland cars that have yet to come out. And I think some of the BGR cars are yet to hit the track as well. No, no. No, they were there today. Oh, they've all been out there now, have they? Right. Yeah, yeah. There might be, maybe not all of them, but Fry School was definitely testing today at Winton. And yeah, so they've got a couple out there. I think Heimgartner hasn't hit the circuit yet today. Might I just say Bryce Fullwood's car looks pretty mint. Those Midis liveries with the pink and the lightning through them, that's fire. I love that car. I've always loved the Midis liveries, but I reckon this one on the Camaro is looking pretty schmick. All right. Have you seen it yet? Yeah, I did. Yeah, I did. And you're right. But let's get into the liveries then. Let's get into the shiny stuff like the- All right. We all want to talk about pretty cars. Yeah, we are talking pretty cars. I mean, it's pretty hard to screw up a livery with the line, the rake of both the Mustang and the Camaro. The way that the cars are actually built and the actual rake on the line, it's pretty hard to hurt them because they just lend themselves to amazingly pretty liveries. And whether you're a diehard Rothstein, Holden fan or Ford fan, which I'll put it out there for you guys. I've been red from the day I can remember, Holden through and through. So I'll follow that under General Motors, but I can appreciate a sexy looking car when I see one and that Mustang is mint. So yeah, you get credit where credit's due. What do you think of Randall's car, the Castro car with that metallic red flashing through? When the sun hits that, it's going to glow. That is pretty. That is nice. And I'm a sucker for pearl paints. I love them. Anything that's got a little bit of change in there is just nice. Yeah. I hear you, mate. I hear you. I can't get past. I will say this. It's pretty hard to mess up a Coca-Cola livery because you don't have much to work with, right? So you can't make it special because everyone knows Coke so much. But my Lord, the way that they have taken the rake of that car and just fed the accent and the line and the Coke wave into that Coca-Cola Erebus car, that's one of the best looking cars on track. Legit. Well, if there's one thing that Erebus are good at, and let's be honest, they're good at a lot of things, but liveries is what they're good at. I don't think they've put a bad livery out for as long as I can remember. Not since they've been running Holdens anyway. So every time they've put a livery on one of those Holdens from the Penrite days right through to the WD-40 cars and everything like that, the little accentuations like that WD-40 car, when I first saw it, I thought, oh, it looks not the greatest. And then I saw the little tiny WD-40 signs just imprinted just underneath the paint and all those little details Erebus. And I haven't had a chance to properly look at this Coca-Cola car. It looks beautiful, but I reckon there's a few little hidden things in there that you're going to see as well that they just always make their cars look like fire. Well, look at the KISS car. The Penrite KISS car. That's JPS at Sandown, like the retro Ram JPS. That JPS players car was sex on wheels. That was just, oh, that was stunning. I've still got the T-shirt. I've got the Polo T-shirt from that and that's still, I wear that to this day. Not even just at supercars around. I just love that T-shirt. It looks great. The gold, the black, it's just nice. Have you seen the Red Bull? Have you seen the Red Bull livery? Has that been released? I haven't seen it myself. I don't know. I don't think the actual Red Bull livery is being released, but to be honest with you, if they keep that test livery, I'll be happy. That thing looks good. That silver on matte black is just stunning. So I've seen a few guys online say it looks pretty dull. I beg to differ. You can shove that opinion because I reckon it looks mint. So that's just a nice looking car. So if they want to run with that for the rest of the year, I don't think they will. No, they can't. No, the Red Bull logo contract, it's a full red, blue and yellow. It's going to be a red, blue, yellow car. So, but I'd love to see that one kept in. The WIU cars, we actually differed on this one. We do. We talked about it earlier because I reckon, especially Chassis' car, I reckon that is hot. So I think it looks really nice. It's clean. It's real neat. There's not a lot on it, but I think that looks bloody good. But you didn't seem to agree with me. Bored. Bored. Bored. Bored. Yeah? Bored. Absolutely bored. Yes, it's clean and it's neat because it's not got like a thousand little sponsors all over it and it's not busy. But it's, okay, I don't even like white cars. White cars to me are legitimately fleet cars. I do not like a white livery. Never have. I just find them plain and boring. And so- I'm not normally a fan either. Well, Nick's cars and Chassis' cars, livery are identical. It's just a different door sponsor and a colour scheme. So Nick's going the silver and black and Chassis' going the teal with Optus down the door. So I just find it boring. I just choose. Should we start referring to them as the tailgate who shall not be named? Why? I don't give a shit. I'm sorry. Yeah, we're about to kick this PG. Sorry for the swearing, kid. Yeah. Nah, no, I'm the smartest. Absolutely not. Nah, bring it out. The best telco ever. Nah, we won't go that far. Nah. We'll save that drive for later. Yeah, sure. That's it. The other liveries that have come out, like you said, the Mini's car was um, the- See, you want to talk about a boring white livery, the Pizza Hut, BJR's Pizza Hut car, that's just boring. Yeah, but then again, also the same for Jack Smith's car. And Jack Smith's. Well, at least, see, Jack Smith's car's got a few lines in it, which I like the lines, you know, a few racing stripes down the middle, but the Pizza Hut car's just white. Yeah. You know, it's just, at least the SCT car's got a couple of racing stripes on it, which gives it a little bit of- Yeah, tokenism. A bit of tokenism there. Ah, it's tokenism, but it still gives it something. But the Pizza Hut car's just, yeah, that's my least favourite, probably the most dull one that I've seen so far. But, uh, you know, that's, uh, that's just what they are. I think BJR were probably a little bit too busy keeping us all up to date with their Gen 3 builds to worry about. Oh, have you? They went- Oh, that was fantastic, so. They went on to do some Gen 3 building. If they don't have a thousand more followers a week, just on the back end of them doing vids, keeping us all, as fans, involved in the subsections of the, sub, uh, sub-assemblies and the builds on these cars. A hundred percent. Like, I'll bag, I'll bag you out on your liveries, but they're not really that much size. But credit where credit's due, those videos were absolute fire, and they were, they, they were something that kept all us fans entertained during the off season. Like, that was just, we, we, we were all, I don't know, well, I know you were, but we were both hanging, like Dave and I were both just hanging for another video to come out, so we could, we could watch it and just learn something new about the cars. Yeah, a hundred percent. And yeah, so- They were the only ones doing it. And they were, so kudos, Brad, all the guys at BJR, massive thumbs up and thank you for that. That was, uh, that was awesome. Keep doing it, keep doing it. You've won, you've won a few fans there, that's for sure, as Dave said. So, you know, we might not be super fans, we might not follow you religiously, but we're, we'll definitely be on, on all your socials and, and following everything you do now. So, and that's, that's what the sponsors want to say. They want to, they want to know that people are paying attention to them. So you've done good, Brad, keep it up. All right, so got a couple more liveries to go through, not many more left. There's, uh, here we've got, got the BJR's last car, so Andre Heimgartener's R and J batteries. But a pretty nice looking red, white, and black livery. It's got the lightning pin stripes or the lightning stripes down it, which, you know, I kind of like those jagged edges, looks quite mean. Second best of the BJR liveries next to the, uh, the pink midi's car. Uh, MSR always, you know, well, I'm, I'm a big fan of orange and black, my two favorite colors. So the truck assist orange and black cars, pretty similar to last year, but, you know, I just like the colors, nothing too fancy, but just pretty colors. Uh, and then Team 18. One more, Team 18, Team 18. I keep forgetting Team 18, sorry guys. Uh, so Team 18, I've got the DeWalt yellow and black for all you Tiger fans, with the DeWalt livery, which looks pretty nice. And I cannot for the life of me, this is why I'm not a journalist and I'm just a fan, is because I cannot for the life of me remember who Scottie Pye's, uh, sponsor is, but I know the car is red and black or like a dark red, almost burgundy kind of thing and black, which looks pretty nice as well. So that, that's pretty sweet, but they're, they're, they're the last of the liveries we've got out there. The last of the liveries to start the season. Anyway, we've got one more to talk about, um, that that's actually been released and that's the orange and black of the, uh, once again, two favorite colors. So, you know, I love this one, the Boost Mobile Camaro, that thing is sex on wheels. That's just absolutely mint. So shame we won't get to see it on track at the start of the season, but, uh, it's, when it does hit the track, it's going to, it's going to be the best looking livery for the season. That's for sure. Yeah. So they're the ones that have come out and, uh, I don't know what, what livery you're looking forward to, Dave, because there's still a few more to go. Well, well, not a white car. You can, you can jam your white car livery at the back end. You say that and I'm, I'm normally like that, but I really, I really like those walkers for everyone. So we'll throw that to the fans and we'll say, we'll put up a poll on the, on the Facey chat on the Facey chat with the hat page. What do you think about white livery? So there you go. You tell us your thoughts guys. Dave hates them. I don't mind them. Other than that, other than the, uh, the pizza one, that's crap, but you know, otherwise I don't mind the, uh, the WAU cars, but, uh, the one I'm looking forward to got to be the monster, got to be the monster car. So you know, it's going to be the same as it was before. It's going to be matte black with big lime green, which looks mint. Like it does. Well, of course it always looks exactly. And that's why I'm looking forward to it, but there hasn't been a single one delivery that's come out. It hasn't looked good and it's going to look absolutely sexy on that Mustang. So that livery on that car, it's going to be the same livery, let's be honest, but that livery on that car is just going to look mint. Yeah. Well, they do, they do make it, they do make it simple, like a nice clean contrast. I mean, like I like it. Yeah. And also it's not white. It's not white. It's the opposite of white. It's not white. All right. So that's liveries. That's liveries covered off. Well, the cars look sexy. You can't hurt them because the rates, the shape of the cars, the yeah, it's hard work to make it look nice. Yeah. The cars look nice. All right. And the low, the low roofs on them, I just, you know, that those nice low sleek roofs, they're just, they're going to look mint. They're all going to look mint. So, you know, other than the white ones, apparently. Correct. All right. Well, push on. So we've had a couple of drivers shift teams and shift spots and new drivers in and current drivers out. So not many, but we'll just cover that off because why not? Well, that's it. We're not journalists, but we are fans and we like to talk about driver movements as fans. So, you know, there hasn't been many in the off season. They did get a bit juicy. So we'll cut through the boring stuff first, which was the straight driver swap between BRT and MSR. So Tim Slade's gone to MSR and Todd Hazelwood's gone through to BRT. So that was the only major driver swap between two current drivers that have been in there. But that's that out of the way. Let's talk about the juicy one, which was Jake Gostecki losing his seat at Tickford and the shock of Declan Fraser being given the seat over Zach Best. So that's probably where the juicy part is and the talking point. So one, Gostecki losing his seat and how that happened. And two, how does Declan Fraser get the driver over Zach Best, the poster boy for, you know, the rookie for Tickford? Yeah. Yeah. I was surprised. I was surprised. I thought Zach was anointed. He was the anointed one. The team's been developing him and he's just beat... Declan just beat him last year in the Super 2s, not by much for the championship. So Declan was already over at Triple Eight and did the wild card with them at Bathurst and accomplished himself quite well. Current Super 2s champion. And they didn't have a slot for him, obviously. And that's how the conversation's obviously gone between the two teams, where Tim's decided that he needed to make an offer to Declan to come across and take the full-time seat that was vacated by Jake. What was it? It was a mutual agreement between young Jake and Tickford that he won't continue on his ride this year after they already sent him over to the UK to do some driver training. And I thought they were planning on trying to develop him even further and get him through. But last year, his results weren't spectacular. Like he did struggle through the season. Struggled to keep the car on track, often. Struggled to keep his car out of somebody else's car. He kind of hit a lot of things. On and off the track, allegedly. Allegedly. Okay. We're throwing allegedly in here. All right. We're going allegedly. So allegedly and reportedly, so I can cover my butt both ways there. So at the gala after Adelaide, young Blake got on it, which is fine. I'm sure everybody got on it. Look, it's mad Monday for supercars. Everyone loves a gala and the gala story, but supercars are well known for locking that stuff down. So it never really gets out, but this time it did. And yeah, there was an odd occasion between him and Scotty Pye on the floor. Ended up on the floor. Some crosswords were said, crosswords were spoken, and then some hands were thrown. Basically, it just got on. It was a blue. Can't call it for what it wasn't. It was a fight. It was a dead set blue between Jake and Scotty. And I think that might've been the straw that broke the young Castecchi's back. Well, hitting walls is one thing, but hitting people is something that's probably a little bit more frowned upon in supercars than it is in NASCAR, I'd say. So they're not as big on it over here in Australia as they are in the US. And rightly so, we don't condone violence. No, not in any stretch of the imagination. And look, it happened. It's a thing. And if that was the edge of the cliff that drove him over it, then he's a young bloke. He's got plenty of time. He'll learn from that, I'm sure. Sorry, he'll bounce back. I'm sure it's not the last time we're seeing him in supercars. That's for sure. He's got talent. Well, I don't know, mate. There's only 25 slots out there. So you get the brass ring, you hang onto it, do everything to protect it. We'll have a chat with supercars about that one later. We'll talk about the Charter and written in blood, there's only ever going to be 26 TRCs ever. And we'll talk about that another episode because that's a worthy talking point for the expansion of sport, but not today. I'd say we might talk about it a little bit in the next episode actually, but we'll tell you a bit more about that one later too. Yeah. It's probably more relevant for the next one up that we've got coming for you guys. So after that, so that's the drivers done. Everyone's stabilized now. The new teams are set. Drivers are in, cars are in. Newcastle track is coming along beautifully. The building infrastructure, I think the pit buildings are already in place. Grandstands are going up. So we're all getting ready for a couple of weeks time where we're going to hit sunny Newcastle, get down to Nobby's Beach, have a swim because it's going to be bloody hot anyway. And then we're going to end up seeing how these weapons turn up. See how they go. But we've got a little bit more racing before then as well, so may as well talk about that now. Yep, yep, we do. Enough of the supercars. Let's turn our head to TCR racing because that's coming up, not this weekend, but next weekend in the Sprint Tasmania round one. Race Tasmania. Race Tasmania, is it? There you go. Race Tasmania with the Speed Series. So down there we've got some S5000s, TCR, Trans Am, down at Simmons Plains on the 24th of Feb. So I'm getting on the plane, on the Big Bird, fly down there for the weekend, catch up with what's happening with the Speed Series round one, kicking off. So that's quite exciting. So we've had a few drivers move around out of TCR and take up residency with the Trans Ams. So James Moffat, he's gone off to the Trans Am Series. Yep, TCR, Trans Am. As well as, as well as. He's going in the Trans Am. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Jay Robotham. Yeah, Jay Robotham. No. How can you forget Jay, mate? It is. Yeah, he was, but he wasn't TCR. He was ex-Super 2s last year. He was, he was ex-Super 2s. That's image racing. So Robotham is trading one V8 for another. And Moffat's shooting off from TCR. Jay Hansen, who was racing the Audi for TCR last year, has got a full-time ride at Super 2 with image racing with the Aerobics Academy. So he's focused really purely on Super 2s. That's a good gig. That's a step up. So that's always nice. With Jack Perkins as a teammate, actually, in the Super 2s. Jack Perkins doing a full season this year as well, to be mentioned. That's impressive. That's an impressive teammate to have. A lot of experience they learned there. Yeah. Yeah, good as a mentor role, as well as good seat time ready up for these two Enduros we have because they're now 500s back. So Aerobics are serious about getting the Bathurst win, I think. They're committing to Jack getting back in the seat. And tightening Will Brown. Well, speaking of Will Brown, he's yet to be confirmed to come back for Audi yet. We're less than two weeks out now from the first round of the season. And really, from what we can gather, has not been confirmed at Audi yet. But fingers crossed we can see him back in there because he's got skills and you just love to see race whether it's a supercar or a TCR. Oh, he was so close to taking the championship last year. He came down to the last round of the Bathurst International. It was just for the weather, the fog and the rain. And then the GTs apparently needed a three-hour mini Enduro that they couldn't actually race the Sunday morning with the TCRs. And Tony Dalberto won the championship last year and he's back. So Tony's back. He is back. He was lured in by the World Tour coming to Australia. So that's another big talking point for TCR. The World Tour is coming down under for the Bathurst International and won it as to be confirmed race. So that's going to be exciting as a race fan. For all of us, Aussie race fans, it's not very often we get to see international drivers come over here and compete, especially in a series, a sedan series. So that's going to be... Well, not a sedan series. They're a hatchback series pretty much. Well, yeah. Two-litre turbo. Two-litre turbo. That's it. So that's going to be awesome to watch. So having all those internationals here. And that's what lured Tony D back in. So he probably would have given it up if it wasn't for that. But he said that that lured him in to come back and defend his title. So see how that goes. Well, look at Benny Barguana. He's shooting off to do two rounds of the World TCR Challenge over in Spa and Portimao. You're so close, mate. It's Portimao. Oh, Portimao. Okay, Potimao. All right, so he's off to Potimao. He's off to Potimao. So good old Benny Barguana is having a crack because Aaron Cameron flew our flag last year with the... What was it called? The World... Like the Olympics, basically. Whatever it was. Yeah, yeah. So he flew the Australian... He was the Australian representative over there. So Benny Barguana is having two rounds over there. So with all the point structure and stuff, he's going to get some world points. And as all the drivers finish their season round by round, they accrue points. And there's a grand final. There's a final race, which is kind of the grand final for TCRs, for World TCRs. And they invite I don't know, is it top 30? Top 30 cars that are eligible to race in that final? 20 or 30, yeah. 20 or 30. Something like that. Close. I'm not sure. I should have done research. This is why I'm not a journalist. So Benny Barguana is going to pretty much close to guarantee himself a good spot because he'll get double points for the rounds he's doing over there. And plus he's domestic racing next year, or this year with the TCR. So good luck to Benny over there flying the flag. I'm sure he's now worked out he's got 16 blokes that need to hold his bags and do tyre pressures and want to get on the whip, get on the trip over there to run support for him over in Europe for a couple of weeks. Should be good. Looking forward to that. In terms of Tasmania anyway, as you said, you're going down there. So for any of the fans that are going to Tasmania as well, as Dave said earlier, stop and have a chat with him. Say hello. That's it. Tell a story. If it's good enough and we like you enough, you might even get your head and your voice on the potty and see how we go. Even if I don't like it, he can bribe me with potato cakes and beer. It's easy. Oh, that's it. Just don't give him a potato scallop. You'll never hear the end of it. I don't eat potato scallops. Well, there's no such thing as a potato scallop anyway, mate. It's a potato cake. Correct. So yeah, I'll be down in Tassie in a couple of weeks. Say hello. I love Tassie, actually. I've only been there twice. I left it for a very, very long time before I went down to Simmers Plains. My Lord, what a simple, perfect little track for fans. It's great. I love it. I've never been there, but it's such a good track to watch on TV as well. Yeah. When you're sitting on the hill, just around, I think it's one, two, three, like 10, before you come down the straight to the hairpin, then everyone loses their mind. And Shane Van Geersbergen is the expert on leaning somebody on the inside and just leaning him enough not to get penalized. Whereas the other guys try, they always end up maneuvering someone and just spinning them out. Just a little nudge, yeah. Just a little nudge. And everyone runs wide, outbreaks themselves, goes to the wide line, goes to the high line. Sometimes you cut on the inside, lever, just get the levers out and give a little push. Well, that's going to be fun. I'm looking forward to Tassie and more motorsports. Well, it's a start after Bathurst. It's the start of the proper series anyway for Australian racing, so that's going to be good. It is. Looking forward to that. Oh, there is a round this weekend at Sandown, the state racing. Oh, the Victorian, yeah, the Victorian state racing. Victorian state racing kicks off at Sandown this weekend. Reef McCarthy will be zooming around in his Formula V, three-time champion, three-time Phillip Island Classic champion, first time that's been done too. I think he's a four-time Phillip Island Classic champion actually. Okay, I might just urge you for that because it's the first time anyone's won three in a row. I'll give you... Oh, not the first time. No, it has been done before, I think, in like 1970 or something. No, three have been done. I think Reef has four. Not consecutively. Reef was the one that did it consecutively. Like, yes, the other three-time Phillip Island Classic champions there have won legends in that category, but I think Reef's the first one to do it consecutively. And I was there for that final one. It was amazing, that finishes. That was split by a thousand. Won 10,000th of a second. Oh, it was so close. That race was phenomenal at Phillip Island there. That was one of the best finishes to a race I've ever seen. That was insane. And he's an aquaman. He loves the wet. He's like our boys, like Brady and Will. You want to throw some water on the track, that'll excel. Reef's a brilliant young driver. Oh, he's a gun. So if you're doing nothing this weekend, Saturday and Sunday, get yourself down to San Diego. Yeah, come down. $30 for a ticket on Saturday. No, $20 for a ticket on Saturday. I think $30 for a ticket on Sunday or $40 for the whole weekend. And there's 10 categories there. So for that price and two days worth of motorsport, get your $40 out of your pocket and go down and see them. It's a no-brainer. It's a no-brainer. And you can just wander down and talk to the guys in the pits. It's pretty casual. It is so casual, nothing like a supercars round, which is so restricted and so restrictive at the back of the garages and stuff. And you need to pay for your access and you don't even get that. That's it. We'll have a little chat about that later on as well though. Other than that, I don't know if we've got too much more in terms of the racing coming up or what we've done. I think we've covered it all off there. I think so. Should we get to the big news? Get to the big news. Yes. Well, forward announcing. So basically, this is the part of the podcast that you've had to suffer through all the way to find out what we're talking about. I did drop a little hint at the start there. A little one, which would be deadpan. We flat batted, which is perfect. But now's the time to release the beast. So this podcast is by a couple of fans, as you've guessed. We will be talking to you guys and everybody else, follies and everything else. So one of the very, very, very first interviews that we'll be cutting in after Newcastle round is with none other than Mr. Peter Adderton. So we're very excited to have Pete, unfiltered, talk as long as he likes, not just about cars. Uncensored, unfiltered. Uncensored, unfiltered. I don't even think those two words even apply to Adderton, to be perfectly honest. They never have and they never will. I don't think uncensored and unfiltered is actually a... Well, that's just him. Censored and filtered is not really two words. I don't think he even knows what those two words mean. No, no. And I love him for that. I love him for that. I love him for that. And it's refreshing. And we all saw, watched, followed the campaign he had last year to get a team, a race team, to come into supercars. We're going to have a chat with him after Newcastle, and that interview will be part of our second podcast, but our very first interview. But yeah, sure. We're all going to listen to Pete talk about his business life, his boost business and car racing and all of that. But there's going to be a lot more you might learn about Pete that you didn't know. So there's more to the man than the social media. All I can do is invite you to listen because it's going to be fun. It's going to be fun. And it's going to be a blast. I'm looking forward to it. Legit, for a startup potty with a couple of mates just talking about car racing, getting the opportunity to talk to Adidon, to talk to Pete as a flat out interview, I'm keen. I'm keen. I'm pretty stoked. I'm so stoked that I wore my Boost Mobile jumper tonight and my t-shirt. So that's how ready I am for this. Your little banner waver. That's it. So okay, guys. So we've got socials. Check us out on Facebook. Come and like the page. Chat with the hat is the Facebook page. We're on Instagram, TikTok, Twitter. Same again, chat with the hat, chat with the hat. Come and follow our socials. Keep updated with us. Give us some feedback. Tell us how bad we are at this and we'll get better. Maybe. Maybe. Maybe not. Maybe we might get worse. You never know. Maybe this is as good as it gets. I hope not. I hope not. So yeah, come and follow us on the socials. Tune in. We've got more. You've got some questions. We're going to do some fan Q&As during the year. You want some questions asked, get your name on the potty. We'll give you a shout out for sure. So get in contact with us, Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, TikTok. Chat with a hat. It's all good. So I look forward to talking with you guys next week, next month. Where am I going? Next week. Yeah. Well, no, you're getting way ahead of yourself there, Dave. Yeah, totally. Sorry. That's on me. So now it's going to be fun. So yeah, if you've got anything you want to say to us, just pop them on the socials. Any questions, any feedback, anything like that, any stories that you've got you might think are a bit of fun to put out there, have a chat with us. That's what we're here for. As we said at the start of the show, we're a couple of fans that want to talk to the fans and hear from all you guys. So hit us up, tell us what you think, tell us what your thoughts are, give us your opinions. We want to know all of it. Well said. All right. Cheers, guys. We will catch you after Newcastle. Tune in. See you then. I think before you finish there, Dave, you might- I just said to be finished. We might want to do an encore here just to give a big thank you to a certain sponsor that might be on your hat there. You're 100%. That's 100% on me. GameLife. Jason Sweeney with GameLife. He's the guy that is sponsoring us. He's given us all the equipment to make this possible. He's believed in me last year. If you need anything for your online gaming, peripherals, console, streaming, that's the guy. You need to get around him. He's supporting us. We will be supporting him a million percent. So yeah, you see the hat. It's got GameLife on it. There's a reason for that. Jason Sweeney is one of the true champions of a man and I'm proud to know him as a friend now after we met in Darwin. There's another outtake. Darwin. That's a whole different potty all on its own. Yeah, we'll get into that another day. So thanks, Sweeney. GameLife. Get a hold of that. Yeah, we'll put some links up to his online business. GameLife.com.au is the website. So give them a check up. If you need anything for your video games, your consoles, your podcast, your online streaming, jump on, check them out. Yep. Support another young battler. So we're all in the same boat. All right. That's it. Sorry, Sweeney. How did I do the rap without giving you the rap? What would you do without me, Dave? Geez, I don't know, mate. Do another edit. Do another take. Yeah. All right. After 16 takes tonight with the most invisible internet connection that's been defeating us for hours. I'll tell you now, guys, we started this filming at about 7 o'clock tonight. It's now 10 past 11 on Tuesday evening and we got there. We got there. We got there. All right. So we're done. We're out. It's 11 o'clock. I've got to go to bed. I've got four hours of editing to do. It's all sweet. This will drop on Thursday. Every Thursday after the after a round is when we're planning on dropping the next episode. And there will be other ad hoc and bonus episodes along the way with different interviews with different different crews. So that's it. I hope you liked it, guys. Thanks very much. Have a pleasant evening. See you, right? Forward to seeing you next time. See you, Dave.