(upbeat music) - Welcome to the Week in Sports Cars on the Marshall Prout podcast, brought to you by FAFT Technologies, the Justice Brothers, Toronto Motorsports.com, and dailysportscard.com's editor, sexy man, former dancer on polls, lover and groomer of Huskies. What else should we call you, man who speaks into microphones on a regular basis? - You call that the blue. I recognize the voice from somewhere. - Who are you again? - Oh, you want my credit card. Oh, I thought you gave up that live frame good win, but apparently not. Hey. - Marshall Prue. - It's a delight to have you back. - Well, I love that you lie to me like that, but Graham Goodwin, we have not done a Twisk, the Week in Sports Cars listener Q&A show together for far too long. My professional racing season just came to an end, last weekend, Motou Petit Lamont at Michelin Raceway, rode Atlanta, been a interesting week, had hoped for us to get this done a little bit sooner, but between Mrs. Prue, battling pneumonia, and me coming home with a couple of bugs. Yeah, just now feeling energetic enough to not snore into the microphones. So you are in port to Mal, getting ready to fare out the European Lamont series season. Time to say a big thank you to our show partners on the Marshall Prue at podcast, starting with FAFT Technologies. Build to print composites manufacturing company. They're specializing in medium to large scale automotive, motor sports, and military applications. Visit FAFTechologies.com. It's P-F-A-F-F, technologies.com to learn more about their services and how they can benefit your business. Next, it's the Justice Brothers. Makers of premium additives, lubricants, and cleaners, and servicing the automotive and motorsports industries for more than 85 years. The victories in all the biggest North American motor races, including the Indianapolis 500, the 24 hours a day tona, the Justice Brothers products are truly race proven. Learn about their vast history and range of offerings at justicebrothers.com. If you're fond of awesome motor racing collectibles, including FAFT motorsports McLaren, gear, and goodies, pay a visit to torontomotorsports.com. And finally, you have a new online merchandise home for the podcast, theprue@store.com. All the show stickers, models, a racing member of Bieliam trying to sell and put towards our fun to buy a house is now live and rocking. Theprue@store.com. With the time that we have Graham, why don't we dive in to listener Q&A and after you are done and back from ELMS, we can maybe do a flappy gums episode or if we don't get to all the questions. But we can get to some of the questions we didn't pick up this week. So why don't we, why don't we be smart monkeys, say a huge thank you as always to Daniel Summersgill for putting the questions together. And we open with Michael Perrin inquiring Graham about Petite Lamont. He says with the Wayne Taylor racing with Andritti that 10 car crash, I'd be interested in your thoughts on, why did it take so long for the full course yellow to happen, says if there were yellow flags, local not full course yellow. As appeared to be the case at corner entry, why was everyone still at full speed? Says before Ricky Taylor hit that proton Ford, there was a BMW pulling out to overtake a GT car before pulling back in. Says I get that every second counts Graham, but shouldn't drivers be taking more responsibility for adhering to the requirements of warning flags? So seems to be wave yellows don't mean slow down and prepare to stop anymore. This was certainly the most contentious element, I think, of the event. What thoughts do you have on this? Well, the incident itself, you're a better place to talk about you with there. I wasn't a Petite Lamont this year with other commitments, but what I can say is, I think it's fair, coming to say there seems to have been a bit of a change in outlook and attitude, whether or not that's just general personal behavior. Maybe people just becoming a little bit more less risk averse because frankly, the cars are so safe. What we are seeing in most of the racing that I'm covering in the world of ACO is far fewer local yellows and far more full course something, whether or not that is full course yellow, whether or not that is a safety car, or obviously this year for the first time, virtual safety car being used for the first time in both the WC and in the LMS. That is a far more prevalent tactic now being used by race control and whether or not that is linked in or otherwise, to a perceived lack of respect for a more localised caution zone is up for speculation. It's certainly something the next time I have an opportunity to talk to any of the major senior racer for sure has asked them directly. It wouldn't surprise me if actually some of this is a bit more risk averse-ness and it's not a matter of if they've only got themselves to blame. We're talking about one of the most professional sports car races on the planet. You and I have both thought in those drivers briefings. Drivers of all teams at whatever level, pro-am, or any point in between can be under no doubt what the rules are governing an incident site. There is no excuse to ignore a flag. There is no excuse to take that risk. We understand why, but the risk that comes with it as can often be seen when these things go wrong are just too great to ignore. Let me add a couple of quick things to this Graham because this isn't meant to be a cop out. I'm just being honest. I slept for something like 16 hours on Tuesday, maybe 12 plus on went just fighting stuff yet. So all the way to say that when I got home, I knew really in a place where I was able to dive into a lot of post-mortem, what happened, why did it happen? So I am lacking what I would normally have in terms of info to offer to give Michael a quality answer here. I can share this though, and these are questions that I have will pose to IMSA, most of them based on my ignorance compared to some great knowledge that I have, but in watching the replay, multiple times, watching, looking back at the crash, it appeared that the corner workers that would be exit a turn, what is it, five on drivers right. I'm not sure that I saw they were fully illuminated in order to allow oncoming cars coming up to the spun installed Mustang to see clearly from a long ways away in pitch black that there was a yellow or any color flag being waved. I have been to that corner many, many times to shoot day, night, you name it, I don't, this is just my failing, but I don't recall if there's any kind of special lighting. Once it turns tonight, that would be shining back at that corner station so that in a general absence of track lighting, in more or less complete darkness, is there something to allow this flagging station to be seen, knowing that if you're climbing up that hill gonna head towards turn six, it is a fully blind crest. If there is something bad on the other side, what mechanisms are in place to guarantee once the lights go out and it does get crazy dark there out here basically in the Georgia woods, is there something that would allow any driver at any point in time at night to see a flag being waved at that Marshall station, or is that something that needs to happen and needs to be added? Another quick point, and this is just pulling in something from your side, WEC, the LMS, et cetera, but also that we have an IndyCar, Graham, and that is the EM marshaling system, the illuminated panels that get mounted, track side, defenses and whatnot, which corner workers can turn on. If there's a yellow, big LED, bright yellow, illuminates out and can be seen, or red, or anything, is that something that should be implemented anywhere at any track where there is a blind crest? Something where we wanna make darn sure it maybe it's even a redundancy. Maybe we've added lighting so you can see the marshals waving flags by hand, but also have a large panel that can be activated so that nobody goes over a crest with any questions that there is danger on the other side or around a blind corner turn one severing comes to mind, just so I don't have the answers for him, but I wanna learn. - Sure, and let's add the answer here, which is you can't turn back time. What's happens happened, and when an incident happens with that nature and that violence, people will try to learn lessons from it, and let's hope lessons come in from it, because it's not a situation you wanna put anybody involved in, again, any of the drivers, any of the corner workers, any of the intervention workers and again. So one thing you can say is all the stuff you've just listed out there are perfectly valid responses to see whether or not you can prevent the same incident happening again. All too often in human history, whether it's in motorsport or anything else, that tends to be, it can't happen, it won't happen, and if it does happen, then you could do something about making sure it doesn't happen again. And we all feel really stupid for not imagining it could happen right up until the point where it does. The correct response is to look at that incident and determine what code it should have been done to prevent it happening. And what hopefully that means is it won't happen again. - Let's fire through a couple more quick ones from Petite, and then we'll move on to some other items. Our Pal Koryoko says, "Is Wayne Taylor obligated to repair the crash damage on that number 10 accurate GTP car before dropping the car off to myerschank racing? What is the repair protocol? If a factory car suffers either crash damage or mechanical gremlins at Petite before it goes on to its new home?" Great question, Cody. The cars belong to HRC on the racing corporation slash Acura motor sports. The vehicles belong to the manufacturer. So WTR, not responsible for any of the repair. They do not own the cars. Interesting point here is as Mike Schenk told me, or maybe it was Wayne, I forget when I spoke with him, but the cars were due to be handed off Sunday morning. So not knowing how if the tub was totaled, I wouldn't be surprised if it was, but it would not be uncommon, Cody, for WTR to try and make the car a roller as best as they could, assuming suspension attachment points on the left front where Ricky made the hardest contact, weren't torn or damaged in the tub, but they would do their best to make it a roller, but that's about it. Last item here from Petite, Graham for now comes from our Pal, Dave Love50, who asked, "You know how close, if at all, Imsa Race Control came to bringing our cycloptic driving ace, Rengar Vandizan, into the pits during the closing minutes, and Dave, Dave, you send us your address, and I'm gonna send you a heck of a bunch of the weekend sports car stickers, because as how many years we've been doing this, Graham, six, so I don't know how to do it. - 60 was in the 2019 for sports cars. - Yeah, for the first ever use of cycloptic in a question, you get all the stickers, so get me your address, Dave. We'll send you a thank you package here. Here's what I can tell you. Don't know whether you were listening to the broadcast on the radio side, or if you were catching the television broadcast/coms from the NBC side, but I can tell you this, there was, at least in one instance, an ongoing effort to say that race control was going to call them in, race was gonna be surrendered, and making this just sound like end of the world, and it rankled me enough, Graham, standing in the media center, cars streaking by with three minutes to go, five minutes to go, right? This happened just the last couple laps, and a lot of noise from there, comms turned up loudly in the media center, it rankled me enough because I could not understand how this amazing thing that was happening, the Ganesi team final race with Cadillac, final race in Imsa for now, going down early, at least last-- - Right in his final race for Cadillac. - Right, fighting back, all this amazing stuff, and just being ruined with this whole Judge-Jurian executioner routine going on, I'm yelling WTF, and couldn't really hear it over the sound of everything else, but it was just like, what are we doing? And in Imsa official, who I won't name, I think was of the same mind, because they walked up to me, had a radio on their hip, had an earbud in their ear, connected to the folks, indeed calling the race, and despite their being suggestions, heavy suggestions, Graham, that, oh, penalty gonna forfeit the race, you gotta stop, gotta fix all these things, the official walked up to me and said, "Just so you know, haven't heard a single peep about the '01 car being called into the place for anything." So-- - We're in there of extremely complex-- - So Dave-- - electronics systems. - Just to your point, according to our friends in Imsa, not close at all, so sold a bit of a fault in the area. - That one looks basic for a second, yeah. - It was frankly, looked dramatic, in the control of the driver, a problem occurred, manifested itself, got worse, was solved within what, lap, lap and a half, maybe? - Yeah. - There you go. - You know, I said this was the last one, pedantic squirrel, great name, by the way, says, "Should Imsa, in light of many long full course yellows, "go to a code 60 or VSC to keep the flow of the races going?" We've been talking about this for years, and we've been in agreement with this for years. - I do not necessarily love the wackety wack Le Mans style of code 60/VSCs that more or less bake in the running order, and do not offer great chances for restarts to shuffle the field. I know it's more of maybe an American-- - Or a key recovery, or a key recovery. - Yeah. - Recovery is the key thing. - Yeah, so in some instances, absolutely in others, the reality is restarts in motor races, no matter what kind, that tends to be where real excitement happens. So, yes, I just wouldn't want to see a full adoption of that practice from used elsewhere in the world. Our pal, Daniel Summers' Gill, as I managed to almost mangle his name, @LMDhusky2023. Should you update that to 2024, Daniel? We need to talk about that. Graham, he said-- - We should talk, yeah. - We should, seriously. It has to be said that 2024, has to be seen as a disappointing season for Corvette and Ford and GTD Pro. What are your thoughts in the hymns of seasons? He says, "Hashtag me personally, Graham." I don't think the full factory teams expected to lose the championship to a dinosaur at the start of the year. That's paying homage to AO racing's rexy, delightful Jurassic Porsche 911 GT3R. But what comes to mind here, may Corvette and Ford? - First things first, last year, all the conversations about problems with GTD, GTD Pro was about the quality of otherwise a Porsche's 990 GT3R and they've turned that ship around and created it to them for it. It's now a really convincing tool. These are brand new cars. The case of the Ford, a completely new platform. In the case of the Quest, a lot more new than people give it credit for. It is effectively a ground up, a completely new car for this season. And it's taking time in exactly the same way as if you watched the WEC and the hypercar glass. But in year one, there's brand new hypercars where not just feed with the well-established Toyota. We're dealing here with PrEP Miller, with General Motors, with Ford, with Multimatic. Have any doubt whatsoever with Marshall PrEP? - They're gonna get that term. We're gonna see big improvements in taking into year two. - No doubt there. I also agree with Daniel's summary, should also mention we moved on categories to imps early into season thoughts, by the way, out of petite, my failure there. Agree would also say, it's been a bit of the norm, I believe, in recent years as newer GT models have come in, where, I'm sure I'm forgetting something, but for the most part, that first season has rarely been something that's been highly, highly impressive. So based on the names of the brands, of course we always expect excellence from them, but didn't surprise me so much. Would say Ford, I mean the two of them, honestly had a pretty impressive arc, the longer the season went on. Competitiveness rose, qualifying performances rose, race finishes, the quality of those rose as well. So to me, this is maybe following a little bit of the norm, Daniel, of, hey, cool, you're not going to rock up and destroy folks right away in time. - Let's add in one of the reminds very much, which is the Ferrari 296 GT3, if you're like the jewel in the crown, first Rolex 24, they couldn't take a hit, the floors fell off, all of them. - I did lose some of those, I can acknowledge that now. Yes, that was me. - The reality is, reality is you can't test for racing, you can't test for racing, and you don't test for racing, you test for performance, you test for reliability, you don't test for real world racing. That is why we go racing. - There we go. Sean Broderick at AV Week Sean says, "Fafs, "it's GTD pro effort struggled at times this season. "Overall, did you see them trending better?" As year went on, and do you expect better things in 2025? It more interesting one here, compared to the Ford and Corvette, from my perspective, Graham in so far, that this is not a works program. This is a privateer run, funded works involved, works adjacent, but this is Faf running this car, inception, racing obviously had been running the McLaren 720 STT3 prior, and Impsen had shown well with it, but this is not a model that has had a lot of volume. There weren't five different McLarens in the series, tons of information to be passed out from the factory, nor was the factory plugged in in the same way, multi-matic and Ford, Pratt and Miller motorsports in the Corvette, so would say that being a different routine than Faf with the Porsche program that they won back-to-back GT championships with, so that to me is the one separator here, Sean. So are they on a bit of an island next year, unless someone else shows up with a McLaren? Yes, with inception having changed brands, having changed models. Indeed, we have Faf as the lone runner right now that we know of, so would hope things would go better for them, very popular team, but yeah, hard to see how things go massively upward next year. There's also no guarantee that a second car would be added under their tent, but I know they're looking at other options as well to make themselves a little stronger in IMSA. And last item here to cover this off comes from a friend, Ed Joris. It says, "So one Penske Porsche and one Acura Graham got hit with penalties after Indy, this being the deep dive technical inspection." So why didn't the team cars get hit with penalties as well? Couldn't you assume the team cars violated the same rules? You could assume. Unfortunately, we're going to penalize you because we assume that is the kind of thing that makes manufacturers and teams say, "Hey, let's go talk to a judge." Because that sure doesn't seem like it's anywhere within your own sporting regulations. Now granted, it's a perfectly valid question from a shouldn't there have been heightened expectations because as IMSA did two car team, they selected one car for the deep technical inspection dive. I will admit that part of me had similar question of, well, again, if you assume that there was an issue on one, there should be on the other, but you'd have to prove the case before penalizing it and having not gone through that process, that's the formal process that leads you to the ability to apply a penalty. So I would say that's the reason why. Graham, we got a little bit of time left here. We have Chip Ganassi racing as a topic theme. We have looking ahead to 2025. Let me just keep scrolling here. We've got a lot of great questions. FIWC schedule. What else do we have? Driver parkers. I feel like we should move across to Wackity Wack to bounce out. Heck, a bunch of IMSA, our pal Stuart Hart at JAG Le Mans. Stuart, by the way, thank you for supporting this show, sending us questions and being always engaged pretty much from the outset, right Graham? I mean... - Absolutely, 100% do one of our earliest adopters. - Absolutely. So your poor long running taste is greatly appreciated. Stuart, he says, "The business case for Qatar and Bahrain on the wet calendar." It's understood Graham. "But isn't it time the ACO and their hosts put effort "into attracting race day crowds?" says the optics of a prestigious world championship opening closing their season in front of empty stands isn't great. He says, "When the WC visited China, "the huge start finished grandstand was packed, "provided a great pre-race atmosphere clearly," says most visitors were guests, or maybe they're on freebies, but the host of the event saw the value in projecting a major event to the teams, media and watching TV audience. Speak to that, and we can't get you in too much trouble 'cause you also speak in a microphone for them, but you wanna open and close looking strong and empty stands go against that notion. - I get it, I get it, but equally if you're trying to attract investment into a world championship and expand that world championship, you've gotta make those races pay. If what you've got are tracks facilities that are prepared to effectively pick up that bill, it does allow you at limited risk to expand your calendar. And where you're looking to limit the risk is to yourselves as organizers and to the manufacturers and teams that are part of that. And that is the basic business proposition behind both guitar and long term now, of course, with Bahrain. I would say in particular, as far as the Bahrain is concerned, there's been no shortage of them attempting to get audiences in as the races we've been going to in the leaner years of the F.I. World Insurance Championship. I would say to you with the exception of them on, which stands alone, and Fuji, the other location that has put the most effort into putting on the biggest show outside of the race track itself by a distance is Bahrain. In fact, they've not managed to get a local crowd along and they stuck with the plan here is a credit to them. They make the paddock feel extremely welcome. It is a popular race for those of us that travel to go to. It looks attractive on TV. They are prepared and open to listen to suggestions about improving things year on year. That's not necessarily the case with everyone established, but you can go to. I get it, I understand the point. I think we are entering into a different era where we are getting record crowds pretty much everywhere. The LMS calendar announced just a couple of weeks ago and we've got Silveston back. Do we see Silveston coming back to WC immediately? No, and for some very good reasons. We've all got to try harder to do better. And with Qatar and Bahrain, I think what we've seen at the moment is the beginning of that plan, beginning of that ambition. If you think about places like Dubai, where their plan for their future survival beyond being, you know, I said, I remember it's an all rich state, is around tourism travel hub. There's some very different opinions about the reasoning behind some of these events. But right now, these are people that are prepared to invest in our sport. Got a couple more here and then we will say farewell for this episode and come back and pick up some of these on any post-EelMS items for next week, Graham. Our friend Esteban at E. Garcia Press says, Hi, can we see a double header in the future for the WC in South America? Considering the costs for the championship to come all this way for only one event, he says the Cole Pinto effect in Formula One could help Argentina to come back to endurance racing and maybe create some interest. What do you think? I mean, it's a great point. Hey, if you're trucking that far, I mean, double up, have some fun, but granted, if we applied that to other stops on the WC, Graham, it would be a 14 or 16 round championship in cost trillions of dollars. - Yeah, it comes down to sustainability of the budgets. The moment budgets are a massive talking point in particular for MGT3 and for that matter for teams that are aspirants, privative entrants in the future and will currently in the future in hypercar. Let alone the manufacturers who pick up most of these bills. When you look at the kind of budgets that we're talking about now for an LNGT3 car, to give you an idea, it's of the order, the order about five, 5.2 million euros per season for a GT3 car. When you're getting to that kind of stage, the slotting in of additional races, whether they're back to back or whatever, tends to be a pretty short conversation with the teams that would end up paying those bills because one of the very biggest parts of that bill is the transportation and logistics. And whether or not you're doing two in the same general area, you're having to employ resource and people and time and people in country, if you're doing back to back, it probably means the people that you've not retained full time, you're paying for more days because you're not flying them home with a cap to fly them back somewhere else. You're keeping them in region. As we do, for instance, with the Asian long series in the United Arab Emirates, it's a quite expensive way of doing it. It's a nice idea. Don't see that happening in the very near future. - Two more here, James Counter. James as well. Thank you for being a longstanding participant in our little monkey business show here. Says thoughts on Andreas Ruse's statement on Nick Yellowy leaving the BMW team heading to Meyershank Racing. Says I thought it was heartfelt and dignified. Says I wish more statements reflected the effort, skill and talent of the other party in their press releases. What do you think about Andreas's statement, Graham, and thoughts about Nick as well, getting an invitation to represent another manufacturer which admittedly, it's about the highest honor I think a driver can receive when you have another brand saying, we think so highly of you. We want you to represent us knowing that in theory, Nick probably could have stayed for as long as he wanted with BMW. - Well, first and foremost, Andreas is a classic artist, but around the sport for a long time. But a very senior role with Audi, he's hugely respected in the paddocks of the world. Secondly, Nick, quick guy, honest guy. He's here this weekend. He's racing an L&P2 car from Nielsen Racing this weekend. Super guy, super quick. Has basically been of a rebirth in his sports car racing career now. I see, I got to put this. I'm not a corporate man, and it does grieve me when sometimes the people that look after the value of a perceived value of a brand see the threat to that brand that someone for whatever reason makes a different choice. We're human beings. We're in a sport. It is a business sport for first and foremost. And if you feel you need to make a choice, that needs to be respected, it needs to be valued. And you also need to keep one eye on the fact it may not be the last time your paths cross. And sometimes manufacturers in this sport get that wrong. I can think of a number of occasions when it tends to be the same manufacturers repeatedly get it wrong when long-standing loyal members of a team or a development crew take a step away or force the take a step away that their contribution is not recognised and shown to have been valued. I just don't think that's the right way to run any sport. I just don't, it's whether not to stick in ball sport, whether not it's a sport that starts an internal combustion engine in the hybrid triage. The reality is we're all human beings. We all make our regioners beauty for pretty good reasons. And that needs to be respected. Remember, you'll be beating them again in the paddock. You would meet and they go on the track. Be nice. - Amen. - So well done, Andreas. - Yes. - All right, final question of the good old episode. Ghost Rapal, Tom Bacon, another outstanding participant in our Twiskity Twisk. So would you mind sharing your best Richard Westbrook and a dope one? - I can't, I can't. - I mean, such a terrible human being. It's really hard to come up with anything that involves a word or best and that guy. - One that I think speaks to Richard as it speaks to exactly what we've just been talking about. It goes back to the Fi GT1 World Championship. That's glorious two or three years with the big banger GT1 cars. There's a few that watch those races or may have looked at clips in the more recent past, may have seen an incident that took place at Silverstone. An incident with Richard in a Nissan, I seem to remember, and Steph and Mugger in Aston Martin. And there's a contraptomp at Beckett. The car's got going pretty clearly. Steph and felt aggrieved. They've been contact, felt aggrieved. Came alongside the Nissan, which is deculating, I believe with both hands, lost control and mightily took out both cars. It was a big, big, big accident. And I can recall, I think the following weekend was the scooter-learing weekend at the Mon, and Westie walked in. And he looked not himself. So I went across and we had the conversation along the lines of WTF was that all about? And it was from Westie. Who is, you know, Feisty on track? - That's a, that's a, you buried the lead on that one, but that's a great one. - Yeah, but Feisty, you know, and doesn't suffer fools to have to be on track. Genuinely shocked by the incident. Genuinely said, he said to me, Graham, we don't know each other about sick, Graham. He says, I genuinely don't know what to say. It was pure shock. 'Cause I think in the moment, it was felt that it was deliberate. It wasn't, when you actually look at it carefully, it was pretty clear that in probably a fit of temper, Stefan lost control of the car. It was a bit of a dumb-ass move from him, but he lost control of the car. But it was his human reaction was another human, another professional could have done that. And that says something about Richard. He's a very honest, down-to-earth, straightforward person. You know, I'm not, it doesn't care if he offends people, but if you ask the truth, you'll get the truth. - Oh, he doesn't care if he offends people. Let's just be clear on that. Yeah. So have appreciated Westie since the first serious exchange we had when he accosted me, belittled me in front of the entire Daytona press room. I think this was at the end of the 2010 Rolex 24 when he was driving with the highly virtuous Scott Tucker. He was on one of the many people on the, - Is he out yet? - He's not, on the take from, I'm sorry, paid driver, I should say, as part of level five's on-tray into Grand Am and Daytona prototypes. And as I seemed to recall, and I could be wrong, but this was Richard's first big prototype-ish break, at least in America, having forged his name in GTs and attempted to present that question to him. Did exceedingly well, et cetera. And I know that I asked the question in a nice, complimentary way. Being Westie, though, he decided to take it the opposite way and absolutely roast me, right? And again, I didn't know the guy embarrassed the living crap out of me in front of everybody. And I'm like, oh, it's on. And so from then on, no joke. Any time I would see him or vice versa. And this wasn't like Hush Tones Graham. Make sure no one's around. Like full-throated, see you next Tuesdays and right, I saw like, I hadn't, I forget where. I know I saw him like at Daytona in January and I think Sebring in March, but I just don't recall bumping into him or running into Westie much this season until Indianapolis. So just a big gap, despite being around for most of the races, I hadn't seen him and walking through the paddock. I think it was Friday morning-ish and there's fans around Graham. And he's walking towards me towards the JDC Miller Motorsports Garage. And it is full-voice, full-throat. Oh, look who it is. You see you next Tuesday. Jeez, prove it. Yeah, I think it's right. And like, I'm looking around going, dude, keep it down a little bit, at least, but no effort. So matching him and his energy, I've fired right back at him and said words that certainly our pastor would not like to know, but just appreciate the fact that he's always been the realest of drivers. And the fact that seeing him would lead to M and Fing one another with great delight just to start. Not, hey, how you doing, hi, how's just you bleepity bleep? Like, love that about the guy. And had heard he was calling time on his career, had texted him to say, hey, what's this I hear about you hanging up your helmet? I think this was like Wednesday night at Petite, maybe third, I forget when, Thursday, I don't remember, whatever, but he responds back, who told you? And I'm like, no, no, no, no, no. I asked you the question first. He's like, well, whatever he said. And he played it off, like, whoa, no, no, no, not sure. And I'm like, okay, I said, look, I'm not looking to reveal your news for you. I mean, I'm gonna keep this to myself, but like, I will miss seeing you. I'd hate to not have you here, but I understand that you wanna go off and make more of your terrible beer or whatever it is that you claim to be doing with the rest of your life. But anyway, so then saw him the next day and because it's Westy, despite trying to take care of him and sit on this news, which I think I was the only reporter who knew about it, he told me, yeah, I decided to tell one of your rivals. And that story should be going up soon. And I'm like, you, MNF, like really? I'm trying to take care of you here. Be a good guy, a friend or whatever. And your response is, oh, well, let me burn him and tell. I know what they're out. (laughing) - The biggest supply, I'll tell. - I can't wait to see him. And I'm not gonna say words. I'm just gonna punch him in the balls. So anyways, but yeah, love Westy. What a character. - The biggest surprise for me was that at the end of the career, that has been his attitude to life and that's been a joy. But I never saw him taking up all the orders. I don't know about you. That to me, having, we know that monks brew beer, but to think that we're gonna be seeing Richard Westbrook, not as a fresh race driver, but literally taking home the orders as a man of God. - Yes. - That to me was the most profound shock. And I think you'll suit the haircut. I'll be honest with you. I think that will go well with him. - The Friar Talk team. - Yes, I'm looking forward to that for sure. - The Sactoth and Ashes, look, I think you'll rock that. - Oh, Westy, glad you were here. Even happy, you're effing gone. You finally got the hint. (laughing) We'll slow on the uptake there, Westbrook, but kidding aside, yeah. Happy to have had our guy, you know, as we get a little older, you know, talk about someone who might be fun to have in a broadcasting booth. But we need to have like Frisbee-sized swear buttons to hit, yeah, seven second delay, because that is a- - Maybe a pre-recorded apology that you can just hit that button. - No, boy, anyways. So yeah, to our great delight, sports car racing just got a lot better. But with all that stuff said, Graham, why don't you take us home? - I'll take us home. It's great to have you back, Marshall Pruitt. And we will indeed pick up the button from this short version of the weekend sports cars with something mid-week to carry on with what's been going on here this weekend and what will happen tomorrow with the conclusion of action here. But for now, I've been Graham Godwin. He's been at Marshall Pruitt. This has been the weekend sports cars with thanks to all of you that submitted questions. So, Stan, your summer's golf proof to get once again. It's been part of the Marshall Pruitt podcast offering. And we will be back with you for sure next week. - And thanks again for listening to our half hour episode. That's almost 50 minutes into our show partners at technology, the Justice Brothers in Toronto Motorsports.com. (upbeat music) (music) (gentle music)
