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In Episode 118 of The InEVitable
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00:00:00The only places that like Formula One teams go and look is in the European Kart World Championships.
00:00:07So if you want to get there, the families have already spent like one to one and a half million dollars to get there.
00:00:12What sort of families can afford one to one and a half million dollars on their kids hobby on the slim chance that they're going to get picked up?
00:00:21Welcome to The Inevitable, a podcast by Motor Trend.
00:00:30Hi there, and welcome to this episode of The Inevitable.
00:00:37This is our podcast, our video podcast about the future of cars, the future of mobility.
00:00:43And on this episode, what are the kids going to be doing?
00:00:48Yes.
00:00:48I forgot to ring the bell.
00:00:50How are the kids going to get into racing?
00:00:52And we have two incredibly special guests.
00:00:54But before that, I'm going to let Ed Lowe here say a word or two.
00:00:58Yes, The Inevitable, Vodcast, is sponsored by nobody currently, and we're currently seeking sponsorship.
00:01:03So please, if you want to sponsor an episode the whole season, t-shirts for us, booze for Johnny, shoot me a note, edward.loh at hearst.com, H-E-A-R-S-T, or get into our DMs probably on Instagram.
00:01:17Hit us up.
00:01:18And let us know.
00:01:19And you missed the part of the intro.
00:01:21You're supposed to tell the normal haters on YouTube to actually watch and listen to this episode because it's not about EVs per se.
00:01:30It's not about that stuff that most of the YouTube audience tends not to like.
00:01:33This is a really cool...
00:01:34Just our YouTube audience.
00:01:35There's plenty of YouTube audience out there.
00:01:37Yes, this one is a very cool conversation with two really interesting guys, Ferdie Portia and Rob Smedley, who are starting the Fat Karting League.
00:01:50This is a new karting league that only recently came to the United States.
00:01:54The goal is to democratize karting, which can be horrifically expensive for anybody who wants to get into the sport.
00:02:01And we're talking about racing karts.
00:02:04This is the stuff that would eventually lead to the top tiers of racing.
00:02:09Yeah, so if your kid's dream involves your dream of them being in F1 because you didn't make it, this is a cheaper way to do it than the traditional karting series.
00:02:20For all of you fans of Formula One Drive to Survive and all those hot young drivers with cool accents that come from fancy European countries.
00:02:28Yeah, Monica.
00:02:29They came through karting leagues, probably in Europe, and learned how to drive very quickly in what eventually becomes Formula Cars via a program similar to FAT.
00:02:42Yes, FAT, not P-H-A-T, F-A-T, karting, which we'll get into.
00:02:47And our guests, again, you might know the name Porsche.
00:02:50You know, it's an unknown Swiss company famous for making refrigerators.
00:02:54Not that one.
00:02:56The German sports car manufacturer.
00:02:59Ferdi is the great-grandson of the founder of Porsche.
00:03:04And then...
00:03:05Dr. Porsche.
00:03:06If that's not enough, his partner on the technical side, the engineer that runs this, Rob Smedley.
00:03:12This guy is a race engineer for a very small unknown racing team called Scuderia Ferrari.
00:03:19Yeah.
00:03:19And he also supported a very unknown, never won very many races, race car driver by the name of Philippe Massa, among many other race car drivers.
00:03:30He's very smart.
00:03:31You can tell.
00:03:32Very experienced in the world of racing.
00:03:34Ferdi, also a huge racing fan.
00:03:37And can drive.
00:03:38I saw this dude flinging around at Taycan on the FAT ice race in Austria last year.
00:03:44And I was like, whoa, who knew?
00:03:45Well, he would have to.
00:03:46His name is...
00:03:46Can you imagine the pressure of a guy with the last name Porsche?
00:03:49And if he couldn't drive...
00:03:51I'm just saying, like, I was like, he was doing full derifto on the ice.
00:03:55His name is Porsche.
00:03:56You know what?
00:03:57Enough about us.
00:03:58Yes.
00:03:58Let's get Ferdi and Rob out here.
00:04:01Ferdi, Rob, thank you so much for coming onto the show.
00:04:05Special thanks to Ferdi for...
00:04:07You just got off a plane from Austria.
00:04:09Is that correct?
00:04:11In that case, Frankfurt today.
00:04:12Frankfurt.
00:04:13Okay.
00:04:13So that's lovely.
00:04:14Same, same.
00:04:15Body clock-wise, it's like midnight or 1 a.m. your time?
00:04:19I have no idea.
00:04:20Okay.
00:04:20But it's fine.
00:04:21It's nine hours from now.
00:04:22Great.
00:04:23Half 11, maybe.
00:04:26And Rob, also, for braving Hollywood traffic to get here and then having to go back in that traffic.
00:04:33So thank you so much.
00:04:34We're talking about karting.
00:04:37Fat karting.
00:04:37Yeah.
00:04:38Right?
00:04:38So first of all, this is great because we both have young sons.
00:04:46Neither of us have any kind of driving talent and we haven't passed it on to our children.
00:04:52At least I don't think.
00:04:53I mean, I'm bodicum.
00:04:54No, no.
00:04:54So I was actually researching the Fat Karting League because of a couple of folks I follow on Instagram.
00:05:00And then when this lovely opportunity came through via your PR guy, Jordan, I was like, oh, yeah, we definitely want to talk to these guys.
00:05:08So for our audience, who I'm sure is as ignorant as we are, what is the Fat...
00:05:13Ez loves our audience.
00:05:16There's ugly as we are.
00:05:17How many users do smell bad?
00:05:20But they can drive.
00:05:21Well, maybe.
00:05:22What is Fat Karting League?
00:05:24How do you explain?
00:05:26What's the pitch?
00:05:27What do you tell people?
00:05:27Okay, the very elevator pitch is we built a system.
00:05:33Rob actually started building a system and we came in a little later and then added the fat to Karting League.
00:05:38And basically the whole idea is to democratize motorsport because it's a sport that 1.6 billion people watch.
00:05:44And it's really hard to get in.
00:05:45And karting is a very sort of expensive sport to do.
00:05:48And it's not like the ball sports of any kind.
00:05:51Right.
00:05:51And maybe we're still not exactly there yet, but the whole idea is basically that now it becomes a question of do I bring my kids to piano lessons or do I actually bring them racing?
00:06:00Piano lessons is just an example here of something that is kind of easy.
00:06:03But you're paying a reasonable amount of money, whereas, you know, you always hear like everyone who's in F1 now, they started karting and they're, you know, they were rich.
00:06:12And there's not a lot of like poor kids who start karting.
00:06:14Because it's expensive.
00:06:15So if you want to, like, there's this like weird notion, which is none of it's true, right?
00:06:21There's so many myths to debunk here, right?
00:06:24If you want to get to like F1, there's these families that kind of start in karting.
00:06:30The only places that like Formula One teams go and look is in the European Kart World Championships, right?
00:06:36So if you want to get there, the families have already spent like one to one and a half million dollars to get there.
00:06:41And then maybe you're going to get picked up because you're in the mix.
00:06:45But like what sort of families can afford one to one and a half million dollars on their kids hobby?
00:06:50On the slim chance that they're going to get picked up.
00:06:53Right.
00:06:53So it's crazy, right?
00:06:54I'm sorry, one and a half million over what time period?
00:06:56From what age to what age would they be spending?
00:06:57I don't think like kids can start at six, seven, you know, like all Grand Prix drivers or even like, you know, the top Indy car drivers, they'll start at like six, seven.
00:07:04And then they will like elevate their ways up like through the categories of karting.
00:07:08Eventually they'll get to like European Kart World Championships, something like that.
00:07:12And then they're going to get picked up.
00:07:13You know, there's this myth that maybe they get picked up.
00:07:15Picked up at what?
00:07:16So between six and seven to what, like 15 or 16, you would spend like a million bucks?
00:07:20They're like 12 to 14 by the time they start to compete at the top level.
00:07:26And yeah, but, you know, the reality is, A, like who can afford it?
00:07:32Nobody, right?
00:07:34You know, 0.001% of the world can afford like one and a half million dollars on their kids hobby.
00:07:39And then B, even if you get there, right, like the chances of getting picked up and the chances of getting sponsored are just so remote and so slim.
00:07:4820 out of 8 billion.
00:07:50The crazy thing is the sport is such a sort of numbers based, the stopwatch doesn't lie kind of sport, right?
00:07:56Like it's only about timing.
00:07:57And then for the fact that it is like this, the whole system or the whole way for kids to get into the sport is completely different, right?
00:08:06It's based on money.
00:08:08And then like there's some old white guy sitting next to the track and looking at a kid who's potentially going fast.
00:08:13But it's not at all data driven.
00:08:15And that's also one sort of big angle of karting league is that we can normalize the data of all the kids that race in our house.
00:08:22Well, so tell us what you're doing differently.
00:08:24So how does fat change the paradigm of what, you know, the F1 feeder pipeline?
00:08:32Cost, cost and accessibility, right?
00:08:34So we collapse the price point by, if you say that you want to be, you know, a national level karting, it's like 100K, 150K, something like that.
00:08:43You can do our championship in terms of dollars for about 5K, right?
00:08:47We realize it's still 5K, but there's many, many more families can afford 5K per season than there is families that can afford like 150K per season, right?
00:08:58Yes.
00:08:58Many more.
00:08:59So where in those other, and I know a little bit about how the karting has developed, like Lewis Hamilton, that there's that, the tale of him being signed at whatever, I think four or five years old or whatever.
00:09:10And then, and then watching.
00:09:12More like 12, I think.
00:09:13Was it 12?
00:09:13Yeah, yeah, yeah.
00:09:14Well, early age.
00:09:15I guess it's the newer generation that's being signed much earlier and being watched because of what Lewis did.
00:09:20But when you talk about one and a half million to go from six to 12 years old or 100 to $150,000 for one of these championships, what's involved in that cost?
00:09:33Like what are people paying for the car, the kart?
00:09:36The problem is now, and that's also where our league is very different, right?
00:09:39Ours is arrive and drive.
00:09:40So you come, you get a ticket, you get into the kart and you drive.
00:09:43The way it works now is that there is a lot of people who make money off of these parents who are kind of like wanting to bring their kids into the sport.
00:09:50And who have no idea how to do it.
00:09:51So there is a mechanic.
00:09:53There is somebody who sells you the tires.
00:09:54There is somebody who bought you by the kart.
00:09:56You have to buy it.
00:09:57The current model is like Ferrari Challenge, where it's like you have to buy your own mechanic.
00:10:04You got to pay Ferrari to service the things.
00:10:06You're buying the tires.
00:10:07And you guys, it's like more arrive and drive.
00:10:09Well, actually, it's even less regulated than Ferrari Challenge.
00:10:11Sure.
00:10:11You've got a whole like base of different chassis.
00:10:14He's the Ferrari guy.
00:10:15Yeah, a little bit of history with Ferrari.
00:10:18We'll talk about it.
00:10:18We're going to talk about that.
00:10:19Just a bit.
00:10:21You know, there's a whole range of chassis that are open.
00:10:24There's a whole range of like different engines.
00:10:28And then, you know, you're going to, the top teams will be buying like multiple engines, you know, like 10, 20 engines for a season, something like that.
00:10:36They will be constantly getting tuned because these are two stroke like high performance engines.
00:10:40So the costs are like really high, like just your capital costs, right, of the equipment that you're going to buy.
00:10:45Then you've got multiple sets of tires.
00:10:47But then it's even deregulated about how much time you can have on the track.
00:10:51So like you can get kids that, you know, there's actually kids, there's a whole swathe of kids that aren't going to school anymore.
00:10:57They're sat on a go-kart track for like five days a week testing, like throwing like thousands of dollars a day at it.
00:11:03And this is the perceived path to Formula One.
00:11:07So what we're doing, it completely changes the paradigm.
00:11:10It's arrive and drive.
00:11:11It's fixed cost.
00:11:12You know, there's no, like a family can plan, right?
00:11:15You can't really plan in an unregulated sport.
00:11:19How are you planning for what your budget is?
00:11:20You can go into it and say, I'm going to be really squeaky.
00:11:23But then a new park comes out, a new component that you've got to have unless it's not, you know, or maybe your engine isn't performing.
00:11:28So you've got to spend more on that.
00:11:30And what you find is the families kind of get to a limit where they can't spend anymore, right?
00:11:34And then because they can't spend anymore, they're not keeping up with the guys at the front.
00:11:40And then it becomes a miserable experience for the kids.
00:11:43So we just want it to change the whole game and collapse the price point and make it much more simpler.
00:11:47Could you walk us through like what a season of fat carting looks like?
00:11:52Like from, you know, the family's involvement.
00:11:55Like I'm going to, because my kid, he's eight.
00:11:57He just started carting and he loves it.
00:11:59He's just like totally into it, which is like another, you know, everything he likes is a fortune these days.
00:12:04But I'm interested in fat carting because Willow's right here, you know.
00:12:09So what does the season look like?
00:12:10So normally in the beginning we have tryouts.
00:12:12So the idea of that is to get as many kids into the cards as possible.
00:12:17So that's a few weekends that we just host tryouts basically for the kids in the new GEO.
00:12:23You just mentioned Willow.
00:12:24So Southern California is our third hub that we've opened.
00:12:27And basically we want to get as many kids to try the cards and see what it's like.
00:12:31And then ideally they commit to buy a season pass.
00:12:34And the season pass is 10 races.
00:12:36And you go through these races, you collect points, you basically do the full season and you try to qualify for the world finals,
00:12:43which are happening for the first time this year.
00:12:45Also in Willow Springs in December.
00:12:47Oh, nice.
00:12:48Yes.
00:12:48We like Willow Springs.
00:12:49I saw that cart track.
00:12:51That is like, that looks nice.
00:12:52So Willow is the third hub, the latest hub.
00:12:55What are the other two places?
00:12:56So it's not just one racetrack, right?
00:12:59It's almost always a geography.
00:13:01Oh, got it.
00:13:01So the first hub was in the UK where Rob is based.
00:13:05Basically where all the F1 teams are based.
00:13:07So I think that's kind of, we have a good crowd, right?
00:13:10They're all really skeptical, you know, like they come from the old system.
00:13:13I think it's a cool proof point that we're at, what, 96% occupancy rate there now?
00:13:19Yeah, we're nearly sold out every year there in the UK now.
00:13:23Second hub was in Chicago and sort of Midwest era area.
00:13:26And now we're in Southern California.
00:13:28Chicago?
00:13:29What?
00:13:29Chicago has a lot of cars.
00:13:32There's a lot of cars.
00:13:33Huge car culture, Chicago, Indianapolis, like all around that area.
00:13:37Lots of tracks.
00:13:38Lots of tracks.
00:13:39That's right.
00:13:39Close to India.
00:13:40Yeah.
00:13:40So we're like kind of, we go between India and Chicago.
00:13:44Okay.
00:13:44So that was the first year.
00:13:46So the first year was this year, as Ferdy said.
00:13:47Oh, dear.
00:13:51For the podcast listeners, that was a mobile phone.
00:13:54Papa?
00:13:55Okay.
00:13:56Sorry, guys.
00:13:57No, go ahead.
00:13:57Go ahead.
00:13:59Do you want me to start again?
00:14:00No, no, no.
00:14:00That's fine.
00:14:01Are we running?
00:14:01Yeah.
00:14:02Keep it going.
00:14:03For real.
00:14:04This is relaxed.
00:14:05Yeah, yeah, yeah.
00:14:06So three hubs, UK, and then in the UK, what would have been, if you're at 96% occupancy,
00:14:13who are you taking from?
00:14:14Like what's the, is there a league that you're competing against?
00:14:18No, no, no.
00:14:18This is the beauty of it, right?
00:14:19Everybody, like when we first started this, everybody like in the incumbent system, you
00:14:25know, oh, you know, like Rob and Ferdy are moving in.
00:14:28They're going to take all of our customers.
00:14:29I'm like, dude, like we don't need your customers, right?
00:14:32If your customers want to come, they want to come.
00:14:34Right.
00:14:34Like because we've collapsed the price point, right?
00:14:36Here's a stat for you.
00:14:37Because we've collapsed the price point as far as we have, we open up the market by 1,000
00:14:41X, yeah?
00:14:42So this is like blue ocean stuff, right?
00:14:44This is new market stuff.
00:14:46We're bringing like lots of new families into it.
00:14:48In fact, the vast majority of the guys that we brought in from both Midwest, in the UK,
00:14:55what we're seeing in California, are new families who wanted to do it and haven't had the opportunity.
00:15:00And that's always the resounding message that we get.
00:15:03It's always the recurring message that, you know, we couldn't have done this without,
00:15:06you know, like, you know, little Jimmy or little Jane.
00:15:09They wanted to do carting forever.
00:15:10They just couldn't have done it.
00:15:11So we're not taking from anybody.
00:15:13In fact, we're creating the market.
00:15:15Because very few people are like, well, I was going to spend $150,000, but now I was
00:15:19going to spend five.
00:15:20You're right.
00:15:20They're still going to spend the $150,000, right?
00:15:23Yeah.
00:15:23I think you can, yeah, sorry.
00:15:24Sorry.
00:15:25Like, it's coming from Formula One, right?
00:15:28You see like this, the pathway of these guys that get the Formula One and there's this
00:15:32well-trodden pathway.
00:15:33And what you've got to imagine in our series is you arrive, you're given your cart.
00:15:39It's a full service, so everything's taken care of, right?
00:15:43But you can't buy an advantage, right?
00:15:46So there's lots of people in the world, well, not lots of people, but there are people in
00:15:49the world who have the means that don't want to be in that system, right?
00:15:53I don't want to be in a completely meritocratic, democratized system.
00:15:56Right.
00:15:56I want to cheat.
00:15:56I would rather give myself an advantage.
00:15:59And hey, that's the nature of capitalism.
00:16:02That's racing.
00:16:02Well, it's racing.
00:16:03Yeah, it is racing.
00:16:03I think that bit's wrong.
00:16:05But it is the nature of capitalism, right?
00:16:06There's nothing wrong with that.
00:16:07But here's an alternative for you.
00:16:09Here's an alternative that works, that is meritocratic, that is democratized, that is
00:16:13much more affordable, much more accessible for all the families.
00:16:16So if you want to be here, you can.
00:16:17And we do even get families from this super expensive income.
00:16:21Yeah, for sure.
00:16:22Yes, because they're getting priced out.
00:16:24It's becoming more and more difficult.
00:16:26And they see this as something that actually I don't have to bankrupt myself and my kids
00:16:30can have fun.
00:16:30And even in the F1 paddock now, right?
00:16:33It's not like every F1 driver has spent a fortune.
00:16:35Some of them were lucky also, in a sense.
00:16:36I don't know, Schumacher grew up on a car track and therefore had the possibility to
00:16:41drive a lot, even without big money behind it.
00:16:44So there is obviously already some drivers in the system who made it anyways, right?
00:16:51So how did you get involved?
00:16:52Because this originally was a program you, Rob, had started.
00:16:56And then FAT.
00:16:58First of all, okay, so what is FAT?
00:16:59And how did FAT, how did this become the FAT Carding League?
00:17:02Yeah.
00:17:03So FAT used to stand for Francais Allemands Transit.
00:17:05So it was a transit company, like a trucker company, basically, that transported fashion from
00:17:11Paris to Germany.
00:17:12And they sponsored all the coolest race cars of the 80s, 90s, early 2000s, Porsches, Ferraris,
00:17:19Sauber's, everything.
00:17:21Up to now, we found like 60 or something race cars that had like either a small FAT sticker
00:17:26or like a full FAT livery.
00:17:28And they won Le Mans twice.
00:17:29And basically, it kind of derived from what I started in Austria, which is ice race.
00:17:35So we did ice race pre-COVID twice.
00:17:37And the whole idea of that was change, change how motorsport or open up motorsport to a
00:17:44younger crowd, a younger group of people, right?
00:17:47So I obviously grew up on a ton of car events.
00:17:49And I always thought, this is so cool.
00:17:51I love the things.
00:17:52I love the car as like the conversation starter, but everything around it is kind of boring.
00:17:56And I wanted to create something more fun, more open, add some music, culture, something
00:18:01that like young people would feel that it's okay to come into the sport.
00:18:06And I think now like a lot has changed in the last six, seven, eight years since we started
00:18:11this.
00:18:11So I think like the whole sort of car culture thing has opened up in a sense, right?
00:18:16And I think Instagram did a big job, et cetera.
00:18:19So I was just going to say, I went just before you get to how you get in the car, I went to
00:18:23the ice race in Austria last year.
00:18:26And it was A, awesome.
00:18:28And B, though, I was, you know, I noticed like the price point, because, you know, I've
00:18:32gone to Pebble Beach like, you know, 15 years in a row or whatever.
00:18:35And it's great.
00:18:36But like a quail ticket is $1,200.
00:18:40It's $400 to get on the lawn.
00:18:42It's $1,200 to stay at the Hyatt, which is basically a motel, you know, per night.
00:18:47It, you know, just the money is impossible for most people.
00:18:51But like, you know, you guys were charging whatever, whatever it was, 100 euros or something
00:18:54like that.
00:18:54And it was packed and it was youthful and everybody was partying and fun.
00:18:58And it was just like a, it was a really good time.
00:19:01I was totally impressed.
00:19:02Yeah.
00:19:02I mean, the motto is even fun over speed, right?
00:19:04Because the ice track, you can obviously never make sure that the guy who starts first
00:19:08and the guy who starts at the very end of the day have the same condition.
00:19:12So it's not like your typical sort of proper race where like everybody takes it super serious.
00:19:18And like that automatically kind of transforms it into fun over speed and sort of like bringing
00:19:23people together and just enjoying, like using the car as a conversation starter, but basically
00:19:27the people bring the party.
00:19:29And so then COVID hit.
00:19:30And I thought, okay, I started something that is really cool.
00:19:33People like it.
00:19:34I met some cool people through it.
00:19:36There's some sponsor activity, like people want to get involved.
00:19:40Maybe there is something there.
00:19:41And that's when I kind of like looked at all old race cars from Porsche and the logos on
00:19:47there because I was looking for something that could kind of encapture what we started with
00:19:51ice race and kind of open, open it up for us to, to, to do different stuff than just a
00:19:57winter event, basically.
00:19:58So you acquired FAT, the brand or did you have?
00:20:01Yeah, it was, it was, it was dormant basically.
00:20:03Really?
00:20:04Yeah.
00:20:04It was not there anymore.
00:20:05And I like, I literally stumbled, like it was very, it was a very fast process, right?
00:20:09I looked at the Le Mans winners of Porsche and there was FAT International.
00:20:12I was like, what the fuck is FAT International?
00:20:14Yeah, exactly.
00:20:14How cool is that?
00:20:15That is super cool.
00:20:16Because I mean, it kind of already has this like, kind of like has everything that we did
00:20:21with ice race anyways in the name already.
00:20:23And it has heritage.
00:20:24It has a cool logo, et cetera.
00:20:25It was a, what, a delisted company in France or something?
00:20:29And you could just buy the...
00:20:30It was a German guy.
00:20:32And I don't know if the company was based in Germany or France, but it was going between
00:20:35the two countries.
00:20:36I wrote him a letter also.
00:20:38I've been in touch with him in a sense.
00:20:39He never really replies, but I heard, I heard from a friend, I think he's, he's, he's, he's
00:20:44rather old now, but I heard from a friend of his that he really likes what we're doing
00:20:47and it's great.
00:20:48He's excited.
00:20:49I did send him some T-shirts.
00:20:52FAT joining Rob.
00:20:53How did he get involved with the cards?
00:20:54So, I mean, from the ethos of what we're trying to achieve, it was kind of a perfect
00:21:00match, right?
00:21:00So we tried to do, or we already kind of tried to change motorsport from the spectator's
00:21:06perspective.
00:21:06And he had a, like he had created a tool basically to change it from the ground up.
00:21:11And so we met through a friend and Rob was in the middle of raising money and I figured
00:21:18this would be a perfect match for FAT to get involved.
00:21:22And then also kind of like in the beginning, I didn't even thought that there was a potential
00:21:26to do a full joint venture, but that's kind of what happened.
00:21:29We clicked and decided to do this together.
00:21:32And I think, like, so like when I started it, I wanted to see whether it worked.
00:21:38That was the point, right?
00:21:39So we can build it.
00:21:40I put some money behind it.
00:21:41We built carts.
00:21:42Like we designed all the electric drivetrain.
00:21:45We run the championship.
00:21:47We kind of got the model and proof of concept and we run it for a couple of years in the
00:21:50UK.
00:21:51But what I was always cognizant of, because like I'm an engineer by profession, so I
00:21:56wanted to like do it under the radar.
00:21:58You know, I didn't want to start a business which was all about like marketing with no
00:22:02substance underneath.
00:22:03I've done it like in probably the exact opposite of a way to build a successful company.
00:22:08But I got the product like somewhere near right, but I always had in the back of my
00:22:12mind that what I can't do, what I don't bring is brand, right?
00:22:19Is brand is, you know, making this actually like a community driven, action orientated
00:22:26like entity.
00:22:28And I always knew that I wanted to like, I wanted to make it cool, right?
00:22:32The fun thing, sorry to interrupt, but the fun thing is he says that, but he built exactly
00:22:35that.
00:22:36I mean, that's basically what Karting League is, right?
00:22:38People already kind of like go there and gather and like, like it already kind of
00:22:43the whole sort of community thing.
00:22:44I noticed at the ice race, like the branding is so spot on.
00:22:49Like, I'm like, ooh, I need to get like a scarf that says fat, even though I don't at
00:22:53all.
00:22:53I live in LA.
00:22:54I don't need a scarf ever.
00:22:55I bought a scarf.
00:22:56I got a, you know, a togue.
00:22:57I bought like a flask.
00:22:59I was like, this is so cool.
00:23:00Yeah.
00:23:00From my point of view, like that's what I wanted.
00:23:03I wanted it to be like cool.
00:23:05It's got to be like for the kids by the kids, right?
00:23:08Right.
00:23:08It's, it's, it can't be about like, you know, some middle-aged guy starting a carding league.
00:23:13And that's when like Ferdy and I started talking.
00:23:14That's when we're the second middle-aged man.
00:23:17You're not middle-aged, you're not great.
00:23:18Yeah, you're a young kid.
00:23:21So, so it had to be like, you know, like something very differentiated in terms of the
00:23:26brand and the community and the feel and the, and the look of it.
00:23:29And that's where like Ferdy and I started doing.
00:23:31I was like, this is like great.
00:23:32Like you, why don't you guys just take care of all that stuff?
00:23:35Nice.
00:23:35And I'll carry on doing the Noughts and Ones.
00:23:38So for the listeners, if you're totally new to this, the look, just Google fat for the
00:23:43ice race, the carding league.
00:23:45The merch is really cool.
00:23:46The logo is cool.
00:23:47It's got the vibe.
00:23:48It's got the seventies, eighties racing vibe, uh, white and blue, cool colorway.
00:23:53It, you'll get it.
00:23:54Once you see it, the website's actually very slick too.
00:23:56The way, the way you, you kind of engage with it.
00:23:59I was doing a little research.
00:24:00Uh, but let's talk about the cars because this is where you came in, Rob.
00:24:03Like, so they're electric carts fully designed from the ground up by you and your team.
00:24:13Like what's, what specs, what do we, what are we, what, what was the mission here for the,
00:24:17for the, for the kids?
00:24:19So, so number one mission is this, that they have to be racing carts, right?
00:24:24People like, you know, the, the, it's not always, if, if you're completely new to this
00:24:29and you think of carting, maybe you think of like the indoor thing, like the, the, the
00:24:33leisure, the, the fun end of it.
00:24:35Right.
00:24:35But there's lots of that, that already exists, right?
00:24:38That's already a, like a democratized and a saturated market.
00:24:41Like, you know, there's big, like businesses over here.
00:24:44There's big businesses.
00:24:44K1's the big one out here.
00:24:45I want to talk about, I want to talk about that.
00:24:46K1, K1 is across here.
00:24:48There's, there's a business called Team Sport in Europe.
00:24:51You know, I think those guys are like starting to like go into each other's market, whatever.
00:24:54Right.
00:24:55It's, it's kind of democratized.
00:24:56You can go and do that.
00:24:57It's a bit of leisure.
00:24:57Yeah.
00:24:58But if you want to go and do the, the, the outdoor stuff, like where is a standardized,
00:25:05undemocratized league, right?
00:25:06Which is like affordable or more affordable.
00:25:09So, um, that didn't exist, which is what we're doing.
00:25:12So these are outdoor racing carts, right?
00:25:14You can start at five.
00:25:15You can, there's three categories for the, for the, for the five, six year olds.
00:25:18Then you go up to like the, the 10 year olds kind of thing.
00:25:21And then you go up to the bigger kids, like, which go all the way up to 16.
00:25:24These things will do like 65 mile an hour.
00:25:27Um, they're proper racing carts.
00:25:29They handle like racing carts.
00:25:30They teach the kids how to drive.
00:25:32Um, it's no surprise that in, you know, where in, in,
00:25:34in the market where we've got a bit of maturity in the UK, always the same kids that win.
00:25:38Right.
00:25:39Right.
00:25:39Which, which means that they are the best kids.
00:25:42Um, they're going to be coming across here to compete with the best like us kids.
00:25:45And because the, the carts are like a single fleet of a single standardized fleet of, um,
00:25:53you know, more or less similar performance.
00:25:55And, and, and you kind of dodge about the carts all season.
00:25:58You're never given the same cart.
00:25:59So you're in and out of different carts.
00:26:00So, so your, your, your performance is like kind of standardized across the season,
00:26:05you know, it's average balanced.
00:26:08So, so it had to be racing carts and they had to have like a, a given level of parity.
00:26:15Um, and the best way to do that really was through the electric drive train.
00:26:18So we designed the electric drive train from the ground up.
00:26:21Um, basically like I just took the knowledge that I had from like an MG UK,
00:26:25which is like the electric part of a, of a Formula One car.
00:26:28So we took that, um, pretty simple, like three basic components.
00:26:32Um, we've then started to design like all, uh, and, and integrate our own electronics
00:26:37behind it, um, which is really cool.
00:26:39That's going to blow it up.
00:26:41Um, and yeah, we're on the third generation of the drive train.
00:26:44Now we'll continue to, to, to, to iterate.
00:26:46Um, gen generation four will be coming out in, uh, at the back end of next year.
00:26:51Um, and we'll just continue, like we just want to keep pace with, with technology.
00:26:55Chassis themselves are fairly simple and tubular steam, tubular steel frame.
00:27:00Are they like off the shelf?
00:27:02Yeah, we, we, we have a, we have a partner that, that we do that with, you know,
00:27:06there's no, there's, there was no, I don't want to, you know, as an engineering,
00:27:09we didn't want to build an engineering business that did like tubular steel chassis
00:27:13because it's so simple to, to, to kind of just go out and get a partner to do that.
00:27:17So we do that and we build a lot of components.
00:27:19They're bespoke built for, for our specification.
00:27:21And the MGU-K is, that's the hybrid assist motor from a F1 car or like in...
00:27:26Motor generator unit, kinetic.
00:27:28Yeah, W, C, uh, yeah, yeah.
00:27:31The whole idea basically is electric makes it, uh, easier to maintain.
00:27:34It makes it cheaper and make sure that the, that the plane field is leveled.
00:27:39Right.
00:27:39So everybody has the same power.
00:27:40And if the parents complain afterwards, we can show them that they have the same power.
00:27:43Yeah.
00:27:44Or just throw them in another, you know, another car.
00:27:45Well, okay.
00:27:46And I mean, and one, one more thing, maybe the, the cars or the, the, the car still behaves
00:27:51like a combustion car.
00:27:52So we, the power curve is basically similar to, to a combustion car because otherwise you
00:27:56could kind of like say that if you go from an electric car, um, to like combustion car
00:28:02racing after what, what's kind of the idea of the whole thing, right?
00:28:06Is to end up in Formula One at some point, then maybe you haven't really learned driving
00:28:09properly.
00:28:09If you can cheat your way out of corners by just having...
00:28:12Are these single speed?
00:28:12No, no, no.
00:28:13They're just direct drive, single speed.
00:28:15Yeah.
00:28:15Okay.
00:28:16Well, then there's that, right?
00:28:17Cause you're not, you're not teaching kids to...
00:28:20No, but, but, but even, even like the, the incumbent system doesn't do that.
00:28:25There are shifter carts, but like you don't, you don't do that until you get in a car,
00:28:28but nobody's shifting anymore these days.
00:28:30Right.
00:28:30People are shifting lately.
00:28:31Yes.
00:28:33So, so...
00:28:33Two pedals.
00:28:34Right.
00:28:34Um, and then, and then, um, and not that I would know anything about this.
00:28:39What, what, what's the power that, what do you, what do you tell people the output or,
00:28:43and then it's a bad, the batteries on board, how long can they go?
00:28:46Like what is it, what's the race distance?
00:28:48So, so the biggest one is, um, around about, um, 12, 13 kilowatts.
00:28:54Okay.
00:28:55Um, of power, like all up the cart will be like with the kid in it will be like 160, um,
00:29:01kilograms.
00:29:02So that's like 20 horsepower and 340 pounds.
00:29:07Yeah.
00:29:07I wouldn't have been able to do that.
00:29:08We would have wasted the rest of the hour.
00:29:10I spent so much of my life doing imperial to metric inversion.
00:29:14Anyway, power to weight ratio is really high.
00:29:16Like, you know, you can't just like, you know, you're not, you're not flat everywhere with
00:29:20that type of power and that type of weight.
00:29:21Oh, they're fast.
00:29:22Um, they're fast.
00:29:2320 horsepower.
00:29:23And, and then last like 25 minutes, something like that.
00:29:27Okay.
00:29:27Okay.
00:29:27Um, we built a battery to last like 25 hours, uh, 25 minutes.
00:29:31Sorry.
00:29:31Um, but, but we never really get anywhere near like depleting the battery all the way anyway,
00:29:36because of the way that we run the, the event, like the three categories are constantly out
00:29:41on track at different times.
00:29:42So when, when one category is out, the other one's in charging and the kids are away in quick
00:29:46charging.
00:29:47I was going to say, how do you charge them at the track?
00:29:49We, we built our own charging system.
00:29:51Oh, so we built that from the ground up and we just plug it in.
00:29:54It just, and we set all that up.
00:29:55So each, each, each circuit that we go to, it's like a roaming championship, right?
00:29:59Yeah.
00:29:59We go there, we set up, we set up like the pit lane.
00:30:02We set up the, like all of the, like a baby formula one, like a baby formula one.
00:30:05And we put all the charging out and the, the carts roll in and roll out.
00:30:08How, how just how quick to charge?
00:30:10How, how, how long does it take?
00:30:12Well, I mean, you can, uh, like for, for your more nerdy, um, nerds.
00:30:17Yeah.
00:30:17Yeah.
00:30:17For your, we have a couple of nerds that listen.
00:30:19So, so, so, so we, we charge, charge, charge that around about, um, we can charge it around
00:30:24about like three, four C, something like that.
00:30:27So we can charge, um, we, we, we could charge if we wanted to in about 20 minutes.
00:30:33We're currently developing a battery that we can charge in two minutes.
00:30:36Yeah.
00:30:36We wouldn't do that because you don't need to, right?
00:30:38What's the point?
00:30:38Yeah.
00:30:39The car's expensive.
00:30:40Yeah.
00:30:40Well, well, the carts are out on track and like the other, other categories are out on
00:30:44track running.
00:30:44So you just charge to that, to that window, but we can really do what we want.
00:30:48Like we're not limited.
00:30:49So you don't pull the, it's not like a, pull the battery out.
00:30:52No, no, no.
00:30:52I'll throw up another one in.
00:30:53No, no, no, no.
00:30:54I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm a bit of a, like when it comes to that type of stuff, I'm, I'm, I'm a
00:30:58purist because I'm like, okay, if you can have removable batteries, you can have sliding
00:31:02seats, you can have like pedals that like are all like movable by the drivers, you know,
00:31:07like in a, in a, in a, in a leisure cart, but that's not a racing car.
00:31:09That's you're adding mass and you're adding compliance to the vehicle.
00:31:12Okay.
00:31:13And if you add compliance, like the one thing that you need out of a racing car is stiffness
00:31:16and, and, and like a complete lack of compliance so that the driver can feel the tires through
00:31:21his, the buttocks.
00:31:24So you've said this a few times that like, it have to be a racing car.
00:31:27What's, what's the big difference between like what, like a typical indoor track would
00:31:31have and what the K an electric car from K one and one of yours, what would be the big,
00:31:36what would be the big differences?
00:31:37Um, mass.
00:31:39So ours would be much lighter.
00:31:41Um, the chassis would be much more flexible.
00:31:43So like you start to drive it like, don't forget that like a cart is like a single,
00:31:46single axle.
00:31:47Yeah.
00:31:48It's like, so it's kind of like having a spool diff in the, in the car.
00:31:51So it's a fixed solid axle at the rear.
00:31:53So the only way you can get it to go around the corner at high speed is that you're going
00:31:57to lift one of the wheels up at the back.
00:31:59So you've got to have a very flexible chassis.
00:32:01So we kind of like, we, we design all of the chassis and all of like the vehicle dynamics.
00:32:05We've got like full simulation tools where that's all been designed in so that the cart
00:32:09will go around the corner really, really quick.
00:32:10So that, so the difference is that these are much lighter.
00:32:14They handle like, like almost like a racing car, they handle the same in a racing car
00:32:18where you break on top of the corner, you turn very, very late.
00:32:21Um, and acceleration and power is, is, is a completely different ballgame.
00:32:25You couldn't put our carts in an indoor track.
00:32:27It would just be too dangerous, you know, you'd end up with, you'd end up with broken
00:32:31carts and broken kids in like the first hour, which is fun, but it's a neighbor's kids.
00:32:38I've seen the pictures on the site, but now that we're talking technical, where does like,
00:32:43where's the MG UK and the battery relative to the driver?
00:32:47Is it the side and back or?
00:32:49So like, if you take the biggest and heaviest one, which is like the 20 horsepower one,
00:32:53we put like the motor and the, we, we put the motor and a single battery, a single like
00:33:01one kilowatt hour, um, pack on the, on the right hand side.
00:33:04And then we put two, two other single kilowatt hour packs.
00:33:08So it's like modular on the left hand side.
00:33:10And then that kind of like balances it.
00:33:12We, we, we, we played about with it in simulation and did lots of calculations to get like the
00:33:16balance, like really, really nice so that the things like, you know, it doesn't go
00:33:20around the court, like a right hand corner, different to what it goes around the left
00:33:22hand corner.
00:33:24Um, we did a lot of NASCAR.
00:33:26No, no, no, no, no, no.
00:33:27It's no, in Europe, we like to go around both directions.
00:33:32Okay.
00:33:32Now I'm going to put, I'm going to put my word.
00:33:34What do you know about Europe?
00:33:38Not a lot anymore.
00:33:39A Brexit joke.
00:33:40Brexit joke.
00:33:40I'm going to put my concerned parent hat on and say, well, I've heard all these things
00:33:45about Tesla's catching fire or the cell phones and the batteries in the cell phones exploding.
00:33:51You expect me to put my kid in between two of these big batteries?
00:33:54How dare you?
00:33:55Like, well, they're small batteries.
00:33:57Yeah.
00:33:57They're fairly small.
00:33:58They're bigger than the battery in this.
00:34:00They're bigger than that one.
00:34:01Yes.
00:34:01Um, yeah.
00:34:03So, I mean, what we, what we've been very like, you know, even in formula one, when you
00:34:08think about what, what is the principal parameter that you are designing for your, in, in racing,
00:34:13you're always designing for safety, right?
00:34:16If you, and this may sound weird to people like kind of a watch formula one, but I've
00:34:20never been on the inside, but you're, you're the, the number one thing that you're always
00:34:24designing for is safety.
00:34:25You do safety, you do legality, you do reliability, and then you do performance.
00:34:30And if you always have that hat on, like from a design point of view or an operational point
00:34:34of view, you're going to make sure that you're never in a situation that you regret.
00:34:38So one of the things that we have designed is like a battery monitoring system, um, which,
00:34:44which connects via CAN, if there's any of the geeks out there.
00:34:47Closed area network, CAN-less, yes.
00:34:48Yeah, so we, we, we connect through CAN protocol into the battery management system, um, and
00:34:55also into, uh, the ECU so we can monitor all of these things.
00:34:59So if we start to see any kind of like temperature increase, which is outside of the norm, the,
00:35:05the system notifies the, the engineers, there's, there's smart alarms that tell us what, what's
00:35:09going on.
00:35:10Um, and then at that point, when we see that we're going to get thermal runaway, um, just
00:35:16to debunk another myth, it usually takes around, around about nine hours before it
00:35:19sets on fire.
00:35:20So you actually put it in the back of your car, drive up to Scotland, throw it in the
00:35:24sea, drive back down and it would just be about setting on fire.
00:35:27This is another clue, you know, Rob's a real engineer, he used thermal runaway instead
00:35:31of saying fire.
00:35:33So there you go.
00:35:34Okay.
00:35:34So you can tell he's English.
00:35:37So real quick, real quick.
00:35:39I looked it up.
00:35:39I did the math, I should say.
00:35:40So it's about 16, 17 horsepower and 352 pounds.
00:35:44Okay.
00:35:45Yeah.
00:35:45Still, still a hell of a power to weight ratio.
00:35:47Yeah.
00:35:48Um, okay.
00:35:50So, so the, let's, and okay.
00:35:52And all the vehicles, uh, have, I, I can tell pretty advanced telemetry.
00:35:56You can see what each kiddo in the car is doing around the track at any given time.
00:36:01So they can come back and look at their cornering speed or their racing line.
00:36:06And is that, is that part of the, the, the, the learning and the training?
00:36:09So, so this is, Ferdy mentioned it before.
00:36:13This is, this is a real differentiator for our league.
00:36:16Cause when we sat down and we thought about like, um, scaling this, right?
00:36:20The ambition is that we want to scale it into 50 different territories.
00:36:24Right.
00:36:24Now, so that means that, so, so 50 different places around the world in the next five years.
00:36:28Right.
00:36:30So that's going to, if, if we're going to have the traditional method of scouting, um, like
00:36:35I go in and standing on the side of the fence, um, that's going to keep me and Ferdy really
00:36:39busy at weekends.
00:36:40Now he has like a playboy lifestyle, right?
00:36:43Like, I don't want to interfere with you.
00:36:44You got to maintain that.
00:36:45It's good one.
00:36:46No, I'm joking.
00:36:47It goes away.
00:36:48I'm joking.
00:36:48We're not mean, right?
00:36:49We're all jealous.
00:36:50We're all jealous.
00:36:51It goes away, right?
00:36:54Says the man who spent like 25 years in Formula One.
00:36:58No, but like, like jokes aside.
00:37:01So we need to have a data driven like system where we're actually identifying the kids.
00:37:05So we've designed like an electronics box.
00:37:07It's still in early stage like development is, but like through like having an RFID like wristband
00:37:13on, uh, on the kid, they tap into the car.
00:37:16We know which kid in which car, in which session, in which country, on which track, we know all
00:37:21of that, right?
00:37:21Wow.
00:37:21Yeah.
00:37:22And then we start to drag the data off.
00:37:24We put that in the cloud.
00:37:25Um, we're using exactly the same type of analytics and simulation because we built all of that
00:37:30internally that we would have done in Formula One to make like the driver go faster, but
00:37:34we're using it now for a completely different purpose.
00:37:37So we're using all of that methodologies.
00:37:39We're already getting data on the kids that we understand what they're doing.
00:37:42We're going to make that much more granular next year as we go to the next generation
00:37:46of this like electronics box.
00:37:48And then the next output to that is we want to start outputting straight to the kids as
00:37:52well.
00:37:52So we want to put it on an app on their phone, which says to them, you know, in this particular
00:37:56corner, you break too early, you break too late, you turned in too late, whatever it
00:37:59is.
00:37:59And you start to give them that feedback.
00:38:01And you can also show them where they are in the world, right?
00:38:03Yeah.
00:38:04You are top 10% of all of the kids driving cars.
00:38:07And then they can like.
00:38:08So this sounds like you got the business of bringing, democratizing, carting to the
00:38:14masses, expanding into 50 countries.
00:38:16But then you also have this maybe future, perhaps bigger program, which is driver development,
00:38:21like identifying top talent.
00:38:22And then maybe you can be their entryway.
00:38:26Fat athletes.
00:38:27Yeah.
00:38:28Yeah.
00:38:28Unintended.
00:38:29No, the whole.
00:38:30Fat drivers.
00:38:31No, I mean, the whole.
00:38:32So basically now we've, we've developed a system for five to 17, right?
00:38:36And then what do you do?
00:38:37Right.
00:38:38Basically that's, then you hit another ceiling, right?
00:38:41Because F4 is usually what you would do next.
00:38:43Right.
00:38:43That's around a million dollars or euros even.
00:38:46Then F3, uh, 2 million per season, right?
00:38:50F2, which is right underneath formula one and F3 and F2, you already follow the F1 calendar,
00:38:55which already kind of makes it more expensive, et cetera.
00:38:57That's what F2 is five million a season, something like this.
00:39:00So it's, it just becomes crazy expensive again, right?
00:39:03So we decided.
00:39:04But you have sponsors at that point, I mean, right?
00:39:06I mean.
00:39:06Yeah, you might have sponsors at that point, but, but sometimes you, you as the kid are
00:39:10required to get your own sponsors.
00:39:12Sure.
00:39:12And I mean, think of football, for example, you're never required to get your own sponsors,
00:39:17right?
00:39:17Like a sponsor would just be additional money for you if you're, I don't know, uh, if
00:39:21you're a cool guy or whatever, if you're doing, if you're doing great, then you should
00:39:25get additional sponsorship.
00:39:26That's fine.
00:39:27But your talent still gets you in the, into the first league, for example, right?
00:39:31Which in motorsport, it doesn't at this point, right?
00:39:33Yeah, it's crazy.
00:39:34So what we're doing and what we're launching this weekend or showing the world for the first
00:39:38time is our own F4 car.
00:39:41So we're, we're closing the loop.
00:39:43So we're building a system that is F4, F3, F2 also over the next years.
00:39:47And then the winners of Karting League will, um, will, um, will feed, will feed this sort
00:39:52of fat.
00:39:53Is this your design, F4 cart?
00:39:55No, no, no.
00:39:56We're just going to, we're just going to like enter cars into the current system.
00:40:00Um, we will do like, you know, we, we will own like this, this massive team of like eight
00:40:05F4 cars, three F3 cars, two F2 cars.
00:40:08But the livery is our design.
00:40:10Yeah.
00:40:11And they're your drivers.
00:40:13It's basically, it's, it's drivers that theoretically come up through your, through the system.
00:40:16They can only come up through the system.
00:40:18They can't come up like, we've got like this, this system called like fat points as well.
00:40:23So if you come in at like five years old, you're collecting like your fat points.
00:40:27Right.
00:40:27All the way to like your age appropriate, like 15, 16, you get to the world final.
00:40:32If you're good enough, like we'll select you to go into a shootout.
00:40:34So like next year, but it will already mentioned the, the, the, the,
00:40:38the world final that we'll do in a Willow Springs on December the 14th.
00:40:42Come, it's an open event.
00:40:43Everybody can come and support the kids.
00:40:45Yeah, yeah, definitely.
00:40:46Um, and there from the, from the top junior category, we will choose the best four drivers
00:40:51and then we'll put them into a week long shootout in, uh, UK and the South of Spain on next February.
00:40:59Well, from there.
00:41:00January.
00:41:01Okay.
00:41:02January.
00:41:02Yeah.
00:41:03January.
00:41:03He's the, he's the date.
00:41:05Yeah.
00:41:05Yeah.
00:41:05Okay.
00:41:06So, uh, that's exciting though.
00:41:07That's.
00:41:07Yeah.
00:41:08That's super cool.
00:41:08I mean, that would have been my dream, honestly, as like a 16 year old to spend a week because
00:41:12we're putting them into simulators, the carts, the F4 car.
00:41:16Yeah.
00:41:17Um, we're doing press trainings with them.
00:41:19Like we're really like trying to figure out from the four kids that made it, made it to
00:41:22that, to that point, who will be the fastest.
00:41:25That's so many questions.
00:41:26Yeah.
00:41:27Okay.
00:41:28And how long have you guys been running this program?
00:41:30So fat carting in the U S this is the first year.
00:41:33So we opened, yeah, the, the second hub was Indy and like Chicago area.
00:41:38Uh, that was when, uh, Q two, no, April, April, April of this year.
00:41:42That's cute.
00:41:43Yes.
00:41:43Q two.
00:41:43That is Q two.
00:41:44It's like the half four thing.
00:41:45And then, and then the Southern California hub, we, we launched in, in August.
00:41:52So we're fairly new in the, in the U S what, what's the talent like in the U S and feel
00:41:58free to break our hearts.
00:41:59Like I know the UK has probably a lot more history and around carting, but so far, maybe
00:42:05one general thing.
00:42:06Um, uh, the cool thing about carting league also, which is very different to the, to the
00:42:10system that exists already is we have 40% girls or 37%, which is cool.
00:42:15Cause actually like, it's one of those few sports that boys and girls physiologically
00:42:19can both compete at and be good at.
00:42:21I mean, I was just, I was just reading, you know, like F one fans right now.
00:42:25The, the fastest growing segment is women aged like 14 to 32 or something.
00:42:29No, sorry.
00:42:3014 to 24.
00:42:31Yeah.
00:42:31It's like, it's really rapidly growing.
00:42:33Right.
00:42:34So that's great.
00:42:35Um, how are the kids in the U S fast, right?
00:42:38Yeah.
00:42:38Yeah.
00:42:38I mean, it will be like, we've got to put them on the, on the same track, which is why
00:42:42we come together in a world final.
00:42:44Like we kind of have a decent idea of where they all rank now, but we need to get them
00:42:48on the same track, um, which we'll do in Willow Springs and then, and then we'll see
00:42:52where that comes out.
00:42:53So, so the way it will work actually is that, um, there's two like junior categories,
00:42:58two weight categories.
00:42:59And so we will pick, so the, the, the, the person who wins, um, the whole event, it's
00:43:04not just a final, let's say, you know, they've got to win the whole event over the three days.
00:43:08Um, so we'll pick one from it.
00:43:10So they will self-select from, from, from each category.
00:43:13And then, and then Ferdi and I, and, uh, you know, another group of people get to pick
00:43:17two wild cards as well.
00:43:18Oh, cool.
00:43:18So we kind of see that, okay, maybe this guy didn't have like such a great world final.
00:43:22Sure.
00:43:23But we think that, you know, the, the, the, the data, we, over the, over the full season,
00:43:28we see that there's some talent.
00:43:30So you think, I mean, America, you guys have set up two regions now here.
00:43:33It's, we have a large population that likes a certain genre of motor sports, um, that
00:43:40karting doesn't normally align with, which is NASCAR.
00:43:43Well, I, well, I know, but you feel like this, this marketplace though, is, is, is, is hugely
00:43:49untapped.
00:43:50Yeah.
00:43:51I think for one, um, for one, karting is kind of the, can be the base to any sport, like
00:43:56to any motor sport, right?
00:43:57It can be rallying, can be Indy car, uh, can be NASCAR, whatever, right?
00:44:01The junior sport is always karting in a sense.
00:44:04Um, so that's, that's for one second.
00:44:05I think the U S is like a fast growing market in terms of formula one specifically.
00:44:09Um, but also motorsport in general, it's a huge country, as you said.
00:44:13Well, yeah, Indy viewership is also like best year ever so far as 2025.
00:44:19And then I know like, like this year, COTA, the F1 race or 24 was like 430,000 people showed
00:44:27up and the year before it was 440.
00:44:29So yeah, it was like, it's, it's the biggest rate F1 race by far.
00:44:33Yeah.
00:44:33Yeah.
00:44:33So yeah.
00:44:34Okay.
00:44:35So let me throw some stones at this though.
00:44:37Okay.
00:44:37So first of all, we'll throw it back though.
00:44:39Uh, Hey, look, I got, we got K1 speed here.
00:44:44It gets, we've got one in torrents.
00:44:45Like I can go there.
00:44:46It's pretty democratized.
00:44:47I can throw it.
00:44:48My kid can go in there.
00:44:49They're pretty fast.
00:44:49There's a leaderboard like nice.
00:44:52You, okay.
00:44:53So you guys just totally poo poo.
00:44:54That's that leisure stuff has no business.
00:44:56There's nothing.
00:44:57There's no, no, no kid who does well at K1 could ever hope to achieve.
00:45:04No, I wouldn't say that.
00:45:06No, I think like you can do all sorts of karting, right?
00:45:08You can also, you can also just drive around.
00:45:10Like, I mean, it's not, it's not like there's only us and then there's the 150 K solution
00:45:14to karting, right?
00:45:15There's many, but I think we're unique in a sense that we are a merit based system that
00:45:20will make it very easy for you to come to be a part of it, of it.
00:45:24And if you're fast, we'll find you, we'll spot you.
00:45:26And then we have the ladder also, right?
00:45:28We'll bring you into F4, F3, F2.
00:45:31And if you're good, it's not bringing you to F4, you know, I don't even know.
00:45:35Like they could, right?
00:45:36Then we would just compete.
00:45:37I don't think they are.
00:45:38I think they're just a business that is...
00:45:40And it's different.
00:45:41I think like what K1 are doing is great, right?
00:45:44You know, they're...
00:45:44So fun.
00:45:45But it's a different area of the market.
00:45:47They have pizza.
00:45:47Yeah.
00:45:48They have pizza.
00:45:49And it's the same, you know, like the guys in the UK who have a really big footprint there,
00:45:55you know, like we're good partners with them, right?
00:45:59Team Sport.
00:45:59We kind of help them.
00:46:01We want to see their kids come out.
00:46:03They're big fans of ours because, you know, they get kids that, you know, they come in
00:46:08and they will start on the indoor stuff, which is slower, heavier, all the stuff that we've
00:46:12just talked about.
00:46:13But that's fine because these carts have to last a lifetime, right?
00:46:15Right.
00:46:15You know, it's $40 per half an hour or something like that.
00:46:19The problem is then what do the kids do who get to the top of that?
00:46:22Where do they go?
00:46:23So for people like, you know, K1, for people like Team Sport, where do you guide someone
00:46:27when you're spending like, you know, $100, $150 a month and the next step is like, you
00:46:32know, $10,000 a month?
00:46:33It's like, okay, like there's something in the middle.
00:46:37Right.
00:46:37So they like us because we offer like a throughput to their better drivers, you know?
00:46:43Right.
00:46:43I think we're just, we're differentiated.
00:46:44We just, we filled a hole in the market that was there very well, I would say.
00:46:48And also, I mean, it's a sport that 1.6 billion people watch, right?
00:46:51And it's constantly growing.
00:46:53So I think there is, there is enough space for everybody, I think.
00:46:57And then at this point, it becomes a question if you want to drive a Porsche or something
00:47:01else.
00:47:01My second question then is when you talk about racing.
00:47:05It's a Ferrari.
00:47:08When you're talking about racing and kids, where do video games, where does sim racing come
00:47:12into this?
00:47:12Is it additive?
00:47:13Yeah.
00:47:14Like, can you, can the, I mean, my kid's great on, he's great in Gran Turismo.
00:47:18Does he have any hope?
00:47:19Does it translate to this?
00:47:21I think it does actually.
00:47:22I mean, one, it gives you like, yeah, I think it's a similar story to what Rob just said
00:47:26to leisure karting.
00:47:27Anything that you, that you do in this sport and that where you, like, if you're good at,
00:47:31I mean, it's, it's the same features in a sense, right?
00:47:33Also in, in, in, in, in sim racing.
00:47:35I don't think sim racing alone will get you, um, or necessarily will get you in like into
00:47:40a proper racing career.
00:47:41I think you do need some seat time in the, in the end also.
00:47:44Sure.
00:47:44But it's a great like way to enter also.
00:47:47And I think at some point, like when, when, when this really works, maybe sim racing becomes
00:47:52a sort of qualifier because we won't have enough seats in all the, in all the hubs.
00:47:55So that's how we think about sim racing, right?
00:47:57At some point, maybe it becomes a sort of qualifier.
00:48:00And I'm just curious.
00:48:01So you say within five years, you want to have 50 markets.
00:48:05Yeah.
00:48:05Hubs.
00:48:06Um, I mean, so you're going to be, this is a full-time job.
00:48:09You're just going to be opening market or hubs, like for five.
00:48:12I mean, sounds like a lot of work.
00:48:14It is a lot of work.
00:48:15One, it's fun.
00:48:16And, and two, I think that the whole system, like this really becomes proper, the more talent
00:48:21we have, right?
00:48:21And to the more, like the more places we bring this to, uh, the more diversity, the more
00:48:26fun, the more, uh, the more different people, like the more data we will collect about the
00:48:30kids and, and who's fast.
00:48:32Can you tell us your next, your next US hub?
00:48:35Um, can we, can we?
00:48:40Yes, we can.
00:48:42Um, yeah.
00:48:43So the next one is, uh, Texas.
00:48:45Ooh, yeah.
00:48:46That's smart.
00:48:46Okay.
00:48:46So like, uh, Austin, Houston, or like the whole state of Texas?
00:48:49So we'll be up in, uh, Fort Worth, Dallas, Fort Worth, as far down as, uh, as Austin.
00:48:54Yeah.
00:48:54Going to get down to Austin.
00:48:55Come on.
00:48:56Like, I love LA, but Austin's so cool.
00:48:58Yeah.
00:48:59And they got Coda right there.
00:49:00Yeah.
00:49:01Coda's, Coda's, Coda's a good facility.
00:49:03I think like over the next years, the US can, or we'll probably have something like 10 hubs.
00:49:08Wow.
00:49:09Um, holy moly.
00:49:10For us.
00:49:10I mean, it's a big country.
00:49:12What's your next international?
00:49:12It's a big country.
00:49:13And also we can maybe like have hubs that, that kind of travel, right?
00:49:16So they spend some time in the winter, they're further south in the summer, they're further up.
00:49:19So if you need a German one, you'd go to Portugal and Spain in the winter.
00:49:23No, not like this.
00:49:23But like, I think in the, in the Dach region, I think you can also like, even in wintertime,
00:49:28you can like, it's okay to, to kind of keep it there.
00:49:30Okay.
00:49:31Um, so Dach will for sure get a hub.
00:49:33Northern Italy, we want to get a hub to, um, Spain, Spain, France, Portugal.
00:49:38Yeah.
00:49:38So China.
00:49:40Yeah.
00:49:40Yeah.
00:49:40Of course.
00:49:40Yeah.
00:49:41Yeah.
00:49:41We've got to, like, if this is going to be global, we've got to be in China.
00:49:44We've got to be in Africa, um, and we're already in advanced talks about, about going
00:49:48to Africa.
00:49:49Kenya.
00:49:49And, and we've got to be, we've got to be in India, right?
00:49:52You've got to be in those three places.
00:49:54Wow.
00:49:54Big, yeah.
00:49:54Lots of population.
00:49:55Yeah.
00:49:55Yeah.
00:49:55You know, like talent is everywhere.
00:49:57Opportunity isn't.
00:49:58So we're creating the opportunity.
00:49:59Nice.
00:49:59Oh, good.
00:50:00That's great.
00:50:01That's super cool.
00:50:01Okay.
00:50:02Let's take it down to brass tacks.
00:50:03Okay.
00:50:04Um, we're in a cat.
00:50:05We're in your third hub.
00:50:07Uh, John, your son's eight.
00:50:09Um, he's eight and he's loves K1 and he wanted to sign up for the league.
00:50:14And I was like, there's this fat thing happening.
00:50:16Okay.
00:50:16My kid is, he's going to actually turn five next Friday.
00:50:20Nice.
00:50:20I looked at your, I looked at your minimum requirements.
00:50:23He is just over the, he's about 43 inches tall.
00:50:27That's 110 centimeters.
00:50:28And he, Ooh, he actually might not be 40, 21 kilos yet, but let's say he is.
00:50:32Give him a couple of protein shakes.
00:50:34I wish.
00:50:35He doesn't mean anything.
00:50:36Um, how does it work?
00:50:40So is there an event tomorrow?
00:50:41Is that correct?
00:50:43Uh, no.
00:50:43Yeah.
00:50:43Okay.
00:50:44So let's say, let's say.
00:50:45There's an event around the Willow reimagined opening thingy.
00:50:47There's a, our karting league is already in Willow.
00:50:49And if there was, I didn't check to see if it was, if I could sign him up for that,
00:50:52but let's say I did.
00:50:53I would show up with, I could show up with him if he was, if he was six years old and
00:50:59met your, the, the, the 43 inches tall and 46 pound limits.
00:51:03Yeah.
00:51:04And he has zero experience.
00:51:05Perfect.
00:51:06Okay.
00:51:06So, so we built a, um, program, which we call ready to race driver training essentially.
00:51:14Okay.
00:51:14And that over a series of, I mean, you can basically do everything in one weekend.
00:51:20Um, it's a series of like three to four half days.
00:51:24So if you wanted to, you could just do everything in, in, in one, one weekend.
00:51:27Um, will take you from never having sat in a kart before to be ready to race.
00:51:32So it's a fairly imaginative title, right?
00:51:34The program ready to race.
00:51:36So that was British irony.
00:51:39This is all the dead pan.
00:51:40And basically, so you start on like, you go through these three levels.
00:51:55So we'd start him on level one.
00:51:57Um, the beauty about the electric drive training is that we can turn it right down to almost
00:52:00walking pace.
00:52:01Right.
00:52:01Because the worst thing you can do with a six year old is put them in something that is
00:52:05doing like at full speed.
00:52:07The, the little karts will do like 25 mile an hour, right?
00:52:10That's really, really fast for a tiny kid that's never sat in anything before.
00:52:14So we try to turn it down to like walking speed.
00:52:17Um, we've got a whole coaching system, um, and like a 10 point plan for each of these
00:52:23different levels.
00:52:24And we just walk the kids through them and we bring them on in a really safe way that
00:52:27they're super confident by the end of it.
00:52:29Um, they'll then graduate to level two.
00:52:31They'll go and do level two for half a day.
00:52:33And then they'll graduate to level three and all the time we're increasing the power.
00:52:36We're asking more of them.
00:52:37We're teaching them more skills by the end of it.
00:52:39They're ready to race.
00:52:40And then you just buy a season pass and you enter into the championship.
00:52:43It is so simple.
00:52:45And all the safety equipment for that, even from the very beginning, the helmet, the suit
00:52:52and the neck protector is available, but I need to, we need to supply a rib protector
00:52:56or something or.
00:52:57So, so what happens is when you come to us, because, um, so when you come to us,
00:53:03for the first time, and I'm now assuming that you're going to be a new customer,
00:53:06he's going to come.
00:53:08Maybe not to, maybe not to.
00:53:09I've got the contract with me.
00:53:11We're going to talk to my wife about tomorrow.
00:53:13December.
00:53:13Are you doing it in December in the, at the finals?
00:53:16Yeah.
00:53:16Okay.
00:53:17Are we doing a ready to race?
00:53:18No, no, no, no.
00:53:19No, the finals is literally just the final.
00:53:21Okay.
00:53:21But the hub is here.
00:53:23So there's tons of opportunity to do.
00:53:24Great.
00:53:24We'll look at a calendar here and bring him down.
00:53:28Um, so when you first come to us in the ready to race program, we supply all the, the,
00:53:34the PPE, we, we supply the helmet and the suit because we've got a pool of this stuff.
00:53:37Yeah.
00:53:38When you're going to grow.
00:53:39So yeah.
00:53:39Yeah.
00:53:40And the other thing is like what we recognize, you know, we wanted to do it like that because
00:53:44maybe he comes down, he doesn't like it.
00:53:45Right.
00:53:46And then you've just dropped like, you know, maybe $500 on suit and helmet and all the rest
00:53:51of it.
00:53:51So, but once you get in, so we have a pool of stuff for like our, our driver training program.
00:53:56Once you're going to do the, the racing, um, then the parents would, would buy their, their
00:54:01own, um, equipment.
00:54:03So that's, that's the only capital outlay that, that we, we require.
00:54:07Okay.
00:54:07Very cool.
00:54:08And then I have a question.
00:54:10How do you know my, my kid, uh, early, early reader can't get him to ride a pedal bicycle.
00:54:18He's also pretty shit on the scooter.
00:54:21Like I don't have one day.
00:54:22He's going to see this and he's going to be like that.
00:54:24You know what, you know what, my, my kid was never great on any of that.
00:54:29Put him on a cart and like, he just loved it.
00:54:32And like, he, he was, uh, he was in some race with like, there was like eight kids and
00:54:37he was somehow leading.
00:54:38And then his cart ran out of battery and he like laid down on the couch at K1 and cried
00:54:44for, it was inconsolable for a half hour.
00:54:46And I'm like, the battery died.
00:54:47It's not your fault.
00:54:48Mechanical.
00:54:48It happens to the best drivers.
00:54:49And he just couldn't take it.
00:54:51Is there any, are there any clues when kids are so young about having the coordination
00:54:57or the skill to being a driver?
00:54:59Yeah, kind of.
00:55:00Any tip off?
00:55:00Kind of.
00:55:01Kind of.
00:55:01I mean, it's, it's all about hand-eye coordination, right?
00:55:04Okay.
00:55:04You know, it's all about what they can feel, like whether or not you see, you see the kids
00:55:08who will pick up, like they start getting the right lines.
00:55:10You know, we'll teach them the right lines, but at five, six, it's not so hard, not so
00:55:14easy to comprehend.
00:55:16Okay.
00:55:16But you start seeing it straight away.
00:55:17You start seeing the drivers who can drive.
00:55:20Okay.
00:55:20You know, I think, um, it's, there are signs, but then all kids, you know, it's like, it's
00:55:26like football.
00:55:27So when I was, um, soccer, soccer, sorry, soccer, half full, cheeky gin and tonic, we'll be
00:55:34getting a cheeky gin and tonic.
00:55:36It's called football.
00:55:37So it's like football, right?
00:55:39Footy.
00:55:40Say footy.
00:55:41Footy.
00:55:41It's like footy.
00:55:42Yeah.
00:55:42So when I was, uh, very young, I was actually, um, a very, very good football player.
00:55:49Very hard to believe.
00:55:50I'm, I'm, I'm, I may be exaggerating.
00:55:52No, but I was, I was a decent player and I used to play at a very high level.
00:55:55And then what happened was-
00:55:57Only penalties, he sucks.
00:55:58Yeah.
00:56:00We're not very good at penalties.
00:56:01Only Germans and British will get this joke.
00:56:05Um, but then obviously like, um, I, I, I stopped growing, especially in,
00:56:09in terms of like, you know, how, how bulky I was, other kids like develop skills, like
00:56:14better than me.
00:56:15And you end up like being fairly mediocre.
00:56:17Right.
00:56:17I think that happens in like, in all sports.
00:56:20Sure.
00:56:20And, and, and so, so I think if you take your kid and they're not very good at it, um, you
00:56:26know, maybe they're going to develop.
00:56:27Um, and we're trying to work all this out as well.
00:56:29Like we use like a lot of artificial intelligence to try to say like, you know, at, at very early
00:56:34stage, you know, the talent ID system that we talked about at very early stage, if a kid
00:56:38sat in the car for, you know, an hour, two hours, three hours, we can start to see trends
00:56:43and we can start to see like, are they like way above the median and are they going to track
00:56:46way above the median?
00:56:47And that like tells us like, okay, we've got a, there's a big alarm that goes off back
00:56:51in, uh, Oxfordshire and Vienna and says, right.
00:56:56Right, right, right.
00:56:57So let me just review a couple of things and this, this episode is going to come out
00:57:06after the October 11th, uh, sessions go on, but for those of you who listen, listen or
00:57:14in California or know about Willow Springs international raceway up in Rosamond, we should
00:57:19mention they've, I mean, that is, they went from like a real sketchy, uh, go-kart track
00:57:24to like, it looks like the best one in the world right now.
00:57:27I mean, I saw super, I saw, uh, James Pomfrey showed me like a drone shot cause he's filming
00:57:31a movie out there with Sun Kang.
00:57:33And I was like, that's, that's a karting track.
00:57:35Like that's, it's, it's got runoff and it's colorful.
00:57:39Willow got a glow up as a kid say, it looks beautiful.
00:57:42Um, the practice session that we talked about, uh, starts, tickets start from $384 per the
00:57:47website for tomorrow.
00:57:48And then if you do any of these, the, the regional round one practice is $420.
00:57:54And then if you go up and you're in the regional championship or the pro championship, uh, this
00:57:59is the season pass starts at $3,145 bucks.
00:58:05That's all sounds pretty reasonable.
00:58:07Doable.
00:58:07Yeah.
00:58:08Especially if like your kid plays, um, hockey or something crazy where you got to buy pads
00:58:12and helmets and gear every year.
00:58:14Oh, I bought a tennis racket.
00:58:15Like, yeah.
00:58:16Okay.
00:58:17Um, yeah.
00:58:18Yeah.
00:58:19Kids.
00:58:19Tremendous.
00:58:20They take all your money.
00:58:21Do the prices, uh, they don't, I'm just going to check, uh, the Midwest.
00:58:23Are they, do they vary by, by hub or no?
00:58:26They only vary because of the amount of races that, that, that you can do.
00:58:30So like in the Midwest this year, we were doing like, we were doing like more races.
00:58:35Um, we had to compress.
00:58:36We started early on.
00:58:36Yeah.
00:58:37Cause we started early.
00:58:37We started in April where we had to compress like a little bit.
00:58:40So there's fewer races.
00:58:41So it's kind of just pro-run over the amount of time.
00:58:43Weather dependent.
00:58:44And they vary in the UK to the US.
00:58:46They vary a little bit.
00:58:48Um, so speaking of weather, I was wondering if we could, uh, uh, change the topic here
00:58:52for a second.
00:58:53You're going to Montana.
00:58:54Yes.
00:58:55Yeah.
00:58:55Ice race.
00:58:55So the fat ice race in Montana.
00:58:58Yes.
00:58:59So I, um, I mean, ice race kind of originally comes from Austria, right?
00:59:03That's where we, it's an historic event that we revived.
00:59:06LMZ.
00:59:06In 2019 for the first time.
00:59:08Um, but that doesn't mean it can only be in Vienna, right?
00:59:11Right.
00:59:11And we always, over the last years also saw like a huge increase of, of Americans coming
00:59:16and like, this is such a cool, um, sort of motorsport, um, savvy or like car culture
00:59:23country, especially LA, especially car week.
00:59:26There's so many, like, I have a ton of friends here.
00:59:29Yeah.
00:59:29So I figured why not, why not, uh, try and bring it here.
00:59:33Um, so big sky Montana end of February.
00:59:35Yeah.
00:59:36Assuming there's snow.
00:59:37So yeah, but, but Montana usually has snow.
00:59:41I think it's probably more of a risk for snow because we're not super high up.
00:59:45Right.
00:59:45But I think Montana is a high up B it's rather cold and we don't need much snow, right?
00:59:50We need, we need like cold temperatures and then we can create the ice.
00:59:53It's all frozen.
00:59:54I mean, it's frozen lake racing.
00:59:55It's not on a lake.
00:59:56No, that's not allowed anymore.
00:59:58At least in Europe, it wouldn't be in, in Montana, we didn't find a lake.
01:00:01So it's, it's next to a golf course in a really nice setting.
01:00:05Um, uh, big sky.
01:00:06So that's what an hour from Bozeman, I guess, 45 minutes is, is it a one day or two days,
01:00:12two days, two days, different to Austria, two days.
01:00:14Okay.
01:00:14Lots of parties around it.
01:00:15Yeah.
01:00:15As I said, fun over speed, um, less cars just because we don't have that much space.
01:00:20Um, so 50 to 60 cars, something.
01:00:23So really trying to curate a crazy, uh, collection of cars, something that you usually wouldn't
01:00:29see.
01:00:29Okay.
01:00:30Are they all exotics, vintage exotics?
01:00:32It's everything.
01:00:32So in, in, in cell, for example, we had everything from like, uh, you know, this Eastern German
01:00:37trouble things, uh, all the way to like an F1 car and Max Verstappen driving it.
01:00:41So that's kind of the idea.
01:00:42Last time we, we had the event in, in the U S in Aspen, um, we had a GT one, the Lamar
01:00:48winning car drive on ice, but we also had like a BMW 2002.
01:00:51So it's literally like the whole idea is to, to display or like to show the car world
01:00:58basically.
01:00:58Like what's, what's happening?
01:00:59Yeah.
01:00:59And it's so, I mean, the one that blew me away when I was there were the little Audi S1s
01:01:03and they like, we're just like straight piped, they were spitting fire.
01:01:07They were just the coolest things.
01:01:09But then like, you know, there was like Beatles and you know, the, uh, the Grenadier pickup
01:01:13truck, like jacked up, whatever it's called.
01:01:15I was going to make a joke.
01:01:16Quartermaster.
01:01:17California.
01:01:17We have all these Montana plated.
01:01:19Yeah.
01:01:19That's all great.
01:01:20That weekend, all those cars will be.
01:01:22I'm trying to get, I'm trying to get, I'm trying to actually be in Montana.
01:01:25I'm trying to get two of, uh, I don't know.
01:01:27I think one might have a Montana plate, but I got, I got some cool cars.
01:01:30You'll meet them tomorrow.
01:01:31My buddies.
01:01:32Nice.
01:01:32Yeah.
01:01:32You should come guys.
01:01:33I think it's really going to be, it's going to be a mega event and also kind of first
01:01:37time at a new location, second time in the U S.
01:01:40Um, and yeah.
01:01:42So fat's got the carding league.
01:01:43You got the ice racing.
01:01:45You'd get this driver development F four racing.
01:01:49Fat racing.
01:01:50Yeah.
01:01:50We got a coffee place on gross Glockner, which is the highest mountain in Austria and one
01:01:54of the best driving roads ever.
01:01:56Such a good road.
01:01:56Yeah.
01:01:56We do like four or five big events a year.
01:01:58It's only open in summertime, but you can always like rock up and like it's usually open.
01:02:02You start a private jet program or something.
01:02:04We don't have a private jet program.
01:02:05Clothing.
01:02:06You do clothing.
01:02:06We do clothing.
01:02:07Yeah.
01:02:08We do some collabs.
01:02:09So we do clothing.
01:02:10Fat wanky.
01:02:11So basically the whole idea or what I always, I think everybody, right?
01:02:15Like if you look at what racing looked like in the eighties or nineties or seventies, everything
01:02:19was like better designed, more attention to detail.
01:02:25There was a graphic designer who once looked at this before it was printed.
01:02:28Like people just took more care of all that stuff.
01:02:30And like, we try to bring that like quality back to everything we do with fat.
01:02:37Because racing wasn't a billion dollars a season like F1 is now or whatever it actually
01:02:41costs.
01:02:42You had like one sponsor.
01:02:43And so the cars are beautiful, you know, like, and, and now there's like, you know,
01:02:4780,000 sponsors and everywhere there's a GoPro.
01:02:50There's like, you know, got to have five logos and it just looks a mess.
01:02:54Yeah.
01:02:54It looks shit.
01:02:55Okay.
01:02:55Yeah.
01:02:56Yeah.
01:02:56It does look shit.
01:02:57It's true.
01:02:58Yeah.
01:02:58Right.
01:02:58I mean, that's, that's, cause I remember.
01:03:00At, um, at, uh, a wrench port, you brought the, or you got prop, but you were driving,
01:03:05it was at a nine six two.
01:03:06Yeah.
01:03:07With the fat international on it.
01:03:09And it was like, it's the white car with one logo.
01:03:11And it was, it just stood out in like a sea of Porsches.
01:03:14Somehow this one was like, God, that's cool.
01:03:17Yeah.
01:03:17But I mean, like think about like the McLarens of the, like the center process McLarens,
01:03:22like the, I mean, they were so beautiful.
01:03:25Yes.
01:03:25Yeah.
01:03:25Porsche engine.
01:03:26They were, at least the early ones, the early ones.
01:03:29Yeah.
01:03:29Yeah.
01:03:29Yeah.
01:03:30Yeah.
01:03:30Then it switched to something.
01:03:31But then, but then like, even the, the ones with the Honda engine.
01:03:34Am I allowed to say that?
01:03:35Yes.
01:03:35You are allowed to say that.
01:03:37That's a competitive brand to the mothership.
01:03:39That's fine.
01:03:40Yeah.
01:03:40Um, gorgeous.
01:03:41It was beautiful, right?
01:03:42Gorgeous.
01:03:42Yes.
01:03:43Yeah.
01:03:43That's kind of like, we, we both love that, you know?
01:03:46You know, and like, even like when I like started in Formula One, like the, like the, things
01:03:51were just so simple.
01:03:52I don't want to look at it.
01:03:53When did you start?
01:03:54What year?
01:03:5597.
01:03:56Okay.
01:03:571897.
01:03:591897.
01:04:00Just to be clear.
01:04:02We got, we, I would, I would, I thought we would spend like 30 minutes just talking
01:04:06to Rob about his, his career, uh, as a race engineer, supporting drivers like Felipe Massa,
01:04:12including through the era where he had that, the spring hit him in the face, but we're out
01:04:17of time.
01:04:17So we're going to have to have you guys back on probably somewhere between the 40th and
01:04:2350th hub launch, or whenever it opens in India or China, just to get an update on how
01:04:29this is all going.
01:04:30Yeah, I like that.
01:04:31But this has been super awesome.
01:04:33The site, the best place for more information, right, is fat-cardingleague.com.
01:04:39That's F-A-T hyphen carding with a K league.com.
01:04:44Um, and you can see the California vans, the UK vans, everything in one place, buy tickets.
01:04:49Where's the merch?
01:04:50I want to get some merch.
01:04:50Is it on the site here?
01:04:51That's F-A-T hyphen international.com.
01:04:55Fat international for the cool swag.
01:04:58And, uh, it's been super awesome to have you on.
01:05:02We got you out of here at half five.
01:05:05Legends, thank you.
01:05:06I need a shower.
01:05:07This is half four.
01:05:08This is half four.
01:05:10So 4.30, please.
01:05:12To all of you American people.
01:05:14It's half five.
01:05:154.30.
01:05:16Yeah.
01:05:16It's half five.
01:05:17It's not half five.
01:05:18It's halfway to five o'clock.
01:05:19It's halfway.
01:05:20No, no, no, no.
01:05:22We would, like, in Germany, in Germany, it would also be half five.
01:05:26I know.
01:05:27Because that's logical.
01:05:30Not logical.
01:05:31They just say half four.
01:05:31They also drive on the wrong side of the road.
01:05:33I don't think they're like, I don't think so.
01:05:35I'm going to turn 50.
01:05:36I've never heard anybody say half five is anything.
01:05:39Half past four.
01:05:40So.
01:05:41Half past four.
01:05:41Yes.
01:05:42Half way to four.
01:05:43No, no, no.
01:05:44No, how can you now agree?
01:05:47You're just, like, sitting there or whatever.
01:05:49It's hopeless.
01:05:51It's hopeless.
01:05:51Whenever anyone says to me half whatever, I look at my watch, I go, do you mean 4.30?
01:05:56They go, yes.
01:05:57I go, great.
01:05:57Half four is 3.30.
01:05:58This is the first time in the 33 years I've been on the planet that I've ever heard this
01:06:07utter confusion and nonsense.
01:06:09I'm in agreement.
01:06:10I'm in complete agreement.
01:06:11Welcome to Los Angeles.
01:06:12Power language.
01:06:16We invented it.
01:06:16Two people, two great people separated by a common language.
01:06:21Kipling, I think.
01:06:22All right.
01:06:22Thanks for coming on.
01:06:24It was awesome chatting with you guys.
01:06:25And best of luck.
01:06:25This sounds amazing.
01:06:26And I'm definitely going to sign my kid up for this to help with what my wife thinks.
01:06:58You
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