Pody with aston

The hosts of the podcast, Jeff and Ross, are joined by Ashton, who is a racing enthusiast. Ashton participates in hill climb championships, where drivers race from point A to point B on old highway roads. Ashton has been successful in his racing, setting records and winning awards. He races a VE SV6 Commodore and plans to race in a club sport in the future. Ashton also recently purchased a CBR1000N motorbike. Jeff and Ross discuss the pros and cons of motorbikes and cars, including fuel efficiency and safety concerns. They also mention their own experiences with racing and driving. G'day guys, I'm Jeff. And I'm Ross. Welcome back to the potty. Yeah, we've got Ashton with us today. Yes, we do indeed. Yeah, unfortunately, he's the side of the tag along. Yeah, unfortunate for him really. Yeah. Yeah, we've got we've got a few things to unpack and a lot of car stuff today. Mmm. Probably petrol heads out there. Petrol heads, is that what they're called? Is that what they're called? I don't know. Have you ever heard anyone call someone a petrol head? Do you get called a petrol head? Yeah, I think I've been called it a couple of times. I feel like it's probably not something you get associated with. It's more like metal head. Metal head. Metal head's more of the... Yeah, isn't that like Ross music? Yeah, but it's... Petrol head, I don't think... We'll run with it. No, I wouldn't go with petrol head. We'll run with that. We'll start off by getting you to open, Ross. Yeah, sure. We'll do that and then I'll get into it. Yep. Heavenly Father, thanks for another potty. Yeah, just be with us, Lord, as we unpack a few different ideas today. And thanks to Ashton for being on. We pray that he enjoys his time on the air and people will enjoy listening to what we have to talk about. Amen. Yeah, so you do a bit of racing, Ashton. I do, yes. So what is that like? Tell us a bit about that. Someone that doesn't know anything about it. So the racing that I do, it's a hill climb championship. So with hill climbs, it's kind of like you've got your course, it's point A to point B. It's kind of like old highway kind of roads is what you're racing on. One of them, like one of the bullet dealer ones, is actually on the old highway. They close the road off and whoever can get from one place to the other the quickest. And hill climb, I'm assuming it means you're going up an incline? You'd think that. So most of the tracks are pretty good with that. You're meant to have an incline of some sort, a hill climb. But Tamworth especially, it's a go-kart track. So there's about a one metre incline supposedly at some point of the track, it's all just flat. But yeah, it's good fun. So you race your car, hey? Yeah, so for this year, so it was my first year doing it competitively. So this year I was in my car, which is a VE SV6 Commodore. For Nationals, which is coming up in a couple of months, and then next year and so forth, I'll be in a club sport for the whole season. So it should be good for me. Can you drive a real man's car? Oh, I can drive a real man's car. What's a real man's car to you, Justin? A real man's car. A 2004 man's car? 2004, exactly. Not the Evo, just the... Not the Evo. Why would you want an Evo? Yeah, why do you need an Evo? Exactly. But you got a few records or something this year, didn't you? Down in Newcastle? Yeah, so it was actually at Tamworth. I got a class record and also got the juniors record for that track. So it was pretty cool. So you're racing in under 10? Under 19. Thank you very much. We've got a celebrity among us, don't we? Yeah, we do. Are you in the 2023 juniors world records pool? Yeah, definitely. For basically everything. So at the moment in the championship, so we finished up at Newcastle, so that was our final round. And I ended up second in my vehicle class. So the vehicle class is all road registered vehicles that are over 2.5 litres. So that includes, like, there's a guy, so the guy who won the class is in a Lotus Evora. Which is like, this guy races that. He owns a McLaren, which he drives around on the weekends. He's a rich man. So that class has everything from SS Commodores to Ford Mustangs, all those kinds of things. So they're the kind of cars that I've been up against. But I was second in that class, and then fastest junior for the year as well. Yeah, that's awesome. I've always been interested in racing, honestly. But I don't know, like, how do you approach that? Well, I started off, so my grandfather's been racing since he was, like, a child. So he started racing bikes, and then moved into cars. But just having, like, a family background and people who have already started, like, the racing tradition. Like, we used to go watch him on weekends and that kind of thing, and then it was really intriguing for me. Like, I had a car there that would go all right, so I got a set of tyres for it. And then, yeah, started off that way. Yeah, you've been through a few cars, haven't you? In fact, you just got yourself a new motorbike. I did, yes. So I just got a CBR1000N. So it's a one-litre bike. It's a very big and heavy bike. Oh, I've seen. And it's scary as well. Motorbike rider. See, I've got to stop you there and say I don't like you anymore. Motorbike riders are the most annoying people ever. The other day I was driving, and this motorbike comes up behind me and overtakes four cars. Yeah, that's because you're a sport. No! No. There are some. And weaseling between cars and traffic. It's only when you do it legally that I'll allow it. Yeah, okay. I know it's legal, but it's still annoying. What's annoying about you? It's not me. You're just jealous. Get a bike and get a licence. Would you get a motorbike on? I contemplated it at one point, because I do ride motorbikes at home. I feel like kangaroos in potholes. No, but kangaroos in potholes might be easier to avoid. Potholes? Easier to avoid. But what do you do if you hit one? Lean back. If you hit a pothole, lean back? And what? So you do a wheelie off into the distance? No, it just won't hurt you as bad. You'll land on your backside and your bike will fly off into the distance? Yeah. Kangaroos, I can give you that. Like, kangaroos, they're scary. Yeah. I have a family member who fell off his motorbike and it just ripped all his skin off. Like, you basically just got skin. I could not ever imagine that. Wear your protection. I was wearing a full night set of armour. I'll tell you what, protection definitely helps, but it obviously doesn't stop everything from happening to you. Like, I know a guy who was actually sitting at a set of lights, this is in Sydney, and a guy came from behind him. He was actually off his face on something, but absolutely took him out from behind. And this guy came around in hospital like three days later. He was in a full coma and a lot of tips of skin here, but he's only just been able to walk again in the last couple of weeks. And doesn't have any memory of the incident or like three days beforehand, or the three days he lost afterwards. Yeah. So it's like six days ago, he's just missing in his memory. I feel like a car is a bit safer. Oh, a car is definitely safer. That's my final take on it. I can drive a car like I drive my own bike. You can drive a car. They're pretty fuel efficient. Yeah, they're very fuel efficient. So the 1000 that I've got, supposedly, back in old Google records, it does like three litres per 100km. Yeah, okay, that's pretty good. But like a newer bike, so I'm looking at a couple of newer bikes to buy, but anything like 2015 Oswoods are all like two litres per 100km. Like, they're really good on fuel. Yeah. But they're also just really fun to ride. Yeah, that is true. You can have fun with them. It's an adrenaline junkie kind of thing. I've always been put off by the idea that I have to drive half an hour into town, so what if I got into town and it starts bucketing rain? Yeah, I hear that. Well, they'll often have heaps of motorbikes going around in the rain. Yeah. It can suck though. You can ride in the rain. Surely get some windscreen wipers for your bike. Windscreen wipers. And like, what about like, oh, I suppose in the hot, like in the heat, it's fine, because you're getting that cool breeze. But in the cold, when it's like really cold. Oh, but you can get things like heated hand grips. Yeah, you get heated hand grips. I absolutely love the heated hand grips. I feel like you'd be pretty good as well. Heated hand grips on a motorbike. It'd be pretty warm anyway with all the gear that you'd wear, wouldn't you? Yeah. Also, all you have to do, like if you're really cold, you just put your hands beside the engine. Yeah, that's true. You put your heat source right there. And wash your teeth. Yeah. That's a good point actually. Put eight hands. You kind of need to use your hands to ride the motorbike. So you just hold the engine and you just hope that it's in. Just rub it like a genie lamp and just pray that it'll make it from point A to point B safely. But yeah, motorbikes, they're alright. I like riding them. I love strapping them around the property. But I don't know about on a road. I feel like I'd way rather a car. Yeah. Well, are most motorbikes faster than cars like 0-60? Yeah. Or is it pretty... It depends what bike you get. Dirt bikes and stuff. So it's pretty general, hey? Dirt bikes wouldn't be as good as your street bikes. Street bikes in general are definitely a lot quicker, like acceleration wise. But like your smaller street bikes, they're not very good top speed. Yeah, okay. I feel like I'm always in a situation where I'm at a light with someone else and we're trying to race. And I was just wondering whether a motorbike would beat me or not. But nothing beats a Lancer, I'm saying. I don't know. I'm pretty sure my 1,000. Yeah, go for it. Well, that's a tactic. Because one time I pulled up to the lights and there's been a couple of times where I've got in front. And then there's this one time, this old lady in this little Corolla. Steam trained past me. She lizzards up. I was like, damn. I drag raced another Toyota Hiace the other day. Just for a laugh. I literally guzzled it. So we're talking about like a snail race. Mate, I remember as long as I was racing. You're not wrong. But for a long while it was pretty much a rocket. I'll tell you what. Yeah, it goes 40 kilometres. On the highway. What's that lighter than a highway? There is a set of lights at the Newcastle. Oh, is it the highway though? You know when you branch off and you're going up to Central Coast and stuff? Yeah. There's like lights along there. That's not on the highway though. It's branching off. Do you know what I'm talking about? You come over the bridge and there's the old oak factory. And you go like around. That's still part of the highway. Yeah. I was driving this big Husqvarna. Like a rider mower. And this guy was in a little push mower. I'll tell you what. Did you just race mowers? I'm referring to the Benz, mate. This is literally your analogy. It's gone over your head. What's happening with this mower then? Or are you just making a joke out of it? Ah, anyway. So moving on. Another thing that I really like is drifting. Yeah. Except I can't because I'm in a front wheel skidder. What about you, Russell? We've had some encounters in the forest, haven't we? Yeah. I don't know if you'd call it intentional drifting. More like losing control. But yeah. There's been a few scary ones. A few trees and log trucks coming around the other corner. Yeah. You probably don't have any reason to go through the Yarrick Forest much, do you? Not really. We were driving the back streets of Yarrick Forest at the time. Yeah. We went down some big driveway and then we went out onto some trails. There were trails everywhere. And there's been people that have been murdered in there. You know that, right? Like actual murders. I didn't. We had a conversation about it. Pretty shortly, they found a guy up in a bit of a jar. Like, left out there. Yeah. We were joking as if we were driving down this trail and there were just trees everywhere and bush all the time. And we were like, what would we genuinely do if some dude came out of there? What would you do? Run him over? I reckon I'd try and hit him. Would you though? What if you then get framed? What if they find his body and then you somehow get framed? With an axe in his hand? What if you've got a flat tyre? That's more my type. So, imagine if... No, juicy. Imagine if... Imagine if... Imagine if your engine breaks down in the middle of the forest and there is someone there. What are you doing? Are you locking the door? Are you running? Your phone's dead. Like, car's completely out of the question. Car's out of the question. You could fix the car but you have to get out. Some dude's just walking around with an axe in his hand. In the distance you can see someone in the bush. What's your plan? Are you trying to attack them? Are we there alone or are we there with a mate? Do I have Big Mr Stanley beside me? If Big Mr Stanley's with you, I'd be changing the tyre or you'd be changing the tyre and the other person would be on watch. Who says I don't have a gun in the boot? Imagine if you have a gun in the boot. He brought an axe to a gunfighter. That's not very smart. What if you had to go and fight him? What would you grab? We have a gun. In your car, though, what's something you would grab? There aren't, like... I know, I was going to say the belt buckle. I'd pull the wing off the back of your Lancer and... No, I reckon the go-to would be the breaker bar You put a fire extinguisher in your car? No, the breaker bar. The breaker bar, yeah. Like they use to change your wheels. That's my boot. Heavy, sharp. Or just the jack and put it underneath them and jack them up really good. I'd strangle them with my seatbelt. No, I reckon. Do it with a car and headlock. Try and be some martial artist. Yeah, we'd actually surprise them. Hey, can you come and just help me with my car quickly? Hey buddy, can you come and be some help? If your car goes into a large body of water aren't you meant to use the buckle to hit into the window? Is that the point of it? I've heard it. I think I've seen a video on it before. I don't think it works. That sounds like a mess up. I reckon we should do a mess up. I don't think it works great every time though. Well, when you're underwater and all your windows are up, how are you getting out? You can't just break your window on a little chip. It needs to be one big snap. I'm pretty sure from what I've seen what you need to do is wait for the car to be fully submerged wait for all the water to come in You need to wait for all the water to come in because then when all the water is in the water pressure is equal inside and outside the car and you can open the door. Have you not seen that before? No! That would be a terrible idea. There's an episode on it. If you're fully submerged you've got air in the car if you're trying to open it, all that water that's outside is going to try and smash you in. So what are you going to do? I feel like I'd be too scared to wait for the water to fill up. That's like saying you're in a wooden house and the doors are locked and you've got to wait for the fires inside and outside to open the door. They're completely different. They're different laws of water. Have you ever heard of fire pressure? Justin, you've literally hyperventilated and died before you get to the point. I'm going to pass out on the way down into the water. That's why I'd rather like the wind-up window. I reckon we bring back wind-up windows. Dude, I honestly want wind-up windows in my van. I'm actually going to get them replaced. Replace your electric with wind-up. That's my actual problem. To be honest, my electric windows are too good. My electric windows don't work properly. It goes halfway up and then it takes a solid 20 seconds. Is this on the Civic? No, the HiAce. It takes forever for my window to go low. It's just the mechanism of what it is like. I reckon wind-up's the other way of the future. Where did we go wrong? I'm thinking cassette players. What else? Horses maybe? A pullet instead? That'd be so friendly. Sales on boats? Have you heard of that? We should put sales on boats. I was reading an article the other day and they're putting big sales on boats again. Yeah, right. Like we've never used to have that. It's a great idea. We should put sales on boats and get pullets for the wind. On cargo ships and stuff. Yeah, big cargo ships. They're obviously not just a bit of cloth hanging. Like a bed sheet or something. They're like these big metal frames that tilt. But they're pretty cool looking. Yeah, right. So they just want big pirate ships again. Yeah. And you just better hope it's always windy so you can get your stuff wherever you go. Don't they keep the motors and just try and rely off the wind? And if that's not good enough... I think that's a good call. Because I don't think that'd be completely wrong. Otherwise you'd be looking at your order that you've ordered from overseas and they'd be like, expected 10 days. No, no, no. First it would say 3 days. Yeah, that's pretty decent. And then you look back again the next day and it says an extra 10 days. It's actually blowing back up. We have to see each other in Hawaii first. What's the wind telling us? We're currently in Antarctica. We're a bit off route. But what do you as a car person think of the move on electric vehicles? Here we go. I don't like it. I don't like electric. Do you have a good reason? Well, other than you like things loud and smelly. Smelly? Oh, I guess petrol. Well, sometimes like general commuters, just your everyday car, it would be alright, but only if you're in places like Sydney or Newcastle. If you're in Taree, the only charging stations I've seen is a petrol station at the Servo. It's not convenient. At Taree South. Yeah. But you never see anyone there. Yeah, okay. I respect that. Where we are, we don't have the infrastructure. I just don't feel like we have the infrastructure in general, because they're pumping them out saying that in the next few years they want to get rid of petrol cars, but we just don't have that infrastructure yet. Yeah, well I just keep seeing ads coming up that basically say Volvo's first ever like Volvo's first ever electric car or whatever. And then we've got Lamborghini just recently. It's like the Huracan, but it's electric. Yeah, I saw it and it looks ridiculous. It looks like they're trying to design it off Tesla. I saw this meme and it was like a Hyundai mum car, right? And then it has a Lamborghini. And they're trying to compete with Hyundai. No, it was crazy, because it seems like with the electric cars, everyone's basing it off Tesla. Where these companies could build better cars than Tesla. They've got the previous knowledge of how to build a car. All they're changing is the motors. But for some reason they're trying to build better Teslas. Yeah, they're freaking out and they're like, we've got to copy what Tesla's doing. Elon Musk is doing all this great stuff. He's doing alright, but he's not building the best car that he could. Yeah, I don't see the hype around at all. I think that they're pretty generic cars. As in, they're like, they're electric I guess, but they don't look great or anything. Have you seen the wheels on them? Yeah, and the Cybertruck. That was ridiculous. It looks like what a kindergartener kid, if they've been asked to draw a car, that is what the Cybertruck looks like. It looks like those Hot Wheels cars, those special edition Hot Wheels cars that have built up events and stuff. It looks ridiculous. Yeah, I don't know. I'm not too big for them because I don't know, it goes both ways. We talked about it in Zucconi, didn't we, Rob? What's that? Like electric vehicles. But did we say that we don't think they're really plausible? Look, I think, it's like I said before, it's like infrastructure isn't there at this point. It's just not realistic at this point. I mean, I definitely think that they've got the right frame of mind for what they're trying to achieve with wanting to kind of go green and not cause so many emissions and whatnot. But in saying that, we just don't, we're not able to support that at this point. Even these lithium batteries, once the car dies, they've got to get rid of them somehow. They're not just being wasted. Yeah, being wasted. It just contributes to pollution. And it's really killing car culture. I feel like car culture as a whole is really disappearing. Because you look at cars these days and they look the exact same. They're like the same version but a different version. I feel like that's in a lot of senses. Even if you look at modern housing states, all the houses are identical. I would hate that. My cousin was in one of those places. Being in a state where you drive in and you can't just be like oh that's my house. You actually have to know this is how far down the road my house is. Yeah, that's a good point actually. Even in America, a big thing at the moment is they're getting rid of a lot of raceways in America. What's happening in Sydney as well is they've built a racetrack. This racetrack's been here for years and years. Then people have been looking for houses. Residential places. And they build houses around the racetrack because it's cheap. Then the same people who bought the houses next to the racetrack complain about there being a racetrack. Go figure. And put those complaints in. And then they put more houses there. I was reading a thing the other day and I think it was busted. I don't know. It was something about the Top Gear track. They're building houses all around the Top Gear track now. I think there was a possibility that they're going to close it. Which is a shame. I mean, Top Gear sucks now. Let's be real. The new Top Gear's not very good. I don't even think I've watched it since. There's been snippets. Big clips on YouTube as recommended. But it's just not the same. What's his name? Jeremy Claxton? He's funny. I love him. Didn't he punch the producer and that's what stopped it? He punched the producer and he got in a bunch. He said things that people got offended by. I'm pretty sure the producer was complaining about how much he was getting paid or something. Oh my goodness. And Jeremy pretty much just told him he was an idiot. And then they got in a fight. But the biggest fight which was produced was a chick. So I didn't know that detail. Yeah. This was two separate times. But I know one of the times he hit the chick. Okay. Jeremy Claxton's funny. I follow him on Instagram and he's funny. There's so many random videos. There's videos of him riding a bike. You can't even see him. You know how your mum takes videos? Or your dad. He's like, wait, what's this? Yeah, it's funny. It's a shame that car culture is dying. There really isn't many. They're thinning out. Everything's getting so expensive these days. If you're trying to restore... Say you've got an old car. My grandfather had a Tarana and we wanted to restore that. Just the body work and the paint cost over $12,000. Really? Wow. It was a good condition car already. It was minor rust repairs and a respray and it cost $12,000. My cousin actually partly owns and works in one of the biggest body shops in Sydney. In CBD, right near the Harbour Bridge. Yeah. Around that area. It's a two or three storey building. Really? All these expensive cars come in there and get all the paint work done and panel beading and that kind of stuff. Yeah. He said the same thing. I saw a detailing company that were advertising a detailing product and it was this really nice Lamborghini and it was shining after they finished with it. Then it's like, how much do you think this is worth? It was something ridiculous. It was like $6,000 or something just for detailing. I'm like, kidding. You do put a new engine in there. It's actually all like plates of gold. Yeah. Like a little duster. Toothpick. It's crazy. I don't know. I feel like it's only going to get more expensive. Things are only going to get more expensive if you don't get things coming back down. I suppose older cars get harder to fix as their parts become less available. My dad's got an old Porsche and he's trying to... It's a 944. He's trying to find parts for that all the time and it's just expensive. That's because it's a Porsche with a Holden motor in it. For the original Porsche, he's been trying to trim bits. It's like $150 for little bits of plastic and stuff. You need to get it from Europe and all those kind of places where that car's from. Just get yourself a Toyota HiAce. You can find parts for that anywhere. A HiAce. Let's just go drive past the school zones and... No. Mate, I go to school. What can I say? I kind of need to. I don't know any 18-year-old that drives a van. That's just such a... Me. I do. I can respect that. I have a house on wheels. I don't have to pay a rent. I don't have water bills. I don't have electricity bills. I'm sweet. I only got petrol bills. I think petrol costs a little bit more than water. Yeah, but if you put all that together it kind of lines up. But you still need to get water from somewhere. Yeah, true. Electricity I can see. I think you can work out cheaper. I reckon you put a big swimming pool on top of your car and it can double as a swimming pool and a water tap. You're going to drink the same water as you're swimming in. Not only is it going to urinate. That's going to add to your petrol costs because you've got something... Exactly. I reckon you should go to the beach and drink a little water there. I drink a bit of water. Anyway, we'll wrap this one up here. It's been a good chat. Thank you for joining us, Aston. No worries. Once again, I'm Jeff. I'm Ross. Thanks for joining us, guys. See you next time.