Hey everyone, welcome to Trackside, the podcast for marshals. My name is Jamey Osborne and Jessica Altoff here. And this is a podcast for racing fans, race marshals, wannabe race marshals, wannabe race officials and race control, whatever you want to do in racing.

This is a hopefully a good entry point for you. Welcome to the podcast. We have got a very interesting guest tonight.

He and I go way back, like literally to some of my first events, uh, working out. I met this gentleman when I was an F1 marshal for the first time at COTA. First time, second time, can't remember exactly when it was.

It was 2014, 2015. But one of the guys that my starting mentor introduced me to was a guy named Gordon Ensing. At the time, he was the F1 starter.

And, you know, you know me, you know my history. but, uh, that was sort of my, I want to be that guy moment. And, um, you know, a few years later, I became that guy, which is really kind of cool.

So it's a neat, neat thing, but he's a great guy worked with him many years in the Trans Am race control room when I was working with him in various different capacities, sitting in race control and a really good guy knows the stuff about racing and goes a long way back so should be a fun little interview and um yeah so how are you doing jess i've been doing all the talking what about you no you're i'm doing good yeah no this was i i had not met him before so this is my first time meeting he looks really familiar though like i had a feeling somewhere yeah yeah i couldn't put my finger on it um but uh hopefully we'll get to meet him in real life someday. It sounds like he's still active and still does some SCCA stuff and all that, which is good. He is a retired gentleman and he travels the world. He's got kind of the perfect life as far as I'm concerned.

In fact, I'll tell you, I took a trip last year to Egypt and Jordan with my wife. He had taken the same trip. So I will tell you, he documented his much better than I documented mine.

But anyway, so yeah, they travel the world and they're off to Italy next week. So I think that's a great way to be spending your days as you wind things down. So he's retired and enjoying life. That's awesome. Well, should we take a listen? Yeah, let's introduce you and everyone else to Gordon Ensing. We are sitting down, Jessica and I, with a really fascinating character from the racing scene. And Gordon Ensing is our guest on this episode of the podcast. Gordy, glad to have you along and welcome to the program. Well, thank you for asking me. I'll be honest and say I've only listened to one podcast in my life, so it's nice to be on one. Well, there you go. And now you'll have two to listen to. That's right. I'll have to look it up. So our podcast focuses on the racing, the backstage officiating side of things. And you are perfect for that. But we always begin our podcast by asking our guests to tell their origin story. How did you get started in racing and marshalling and into the world that we're going to be talking about for the next however long? Well, I guess I have a pretty good story of all that. If I go all the way back to the beginning of time, I can tell you that one of the things that's written in my birth book from my mother says, this guy is interested in cars and I don't know why. But I grew up in the military my first 16 years of life.

And one of the things that we could all do, ball sports weren't that easy for you to get into because they didn't know if you're going to be there six years or six weeks with the way the military moves people around. So dad and I would go to whatever local racing was going on, whether it was oval track cars or motorcycles. We didn't really get into road racing.

And I would say the other thing that got me excited about road racing going back in time was wide world of sports. To be able to see Indy cars and Formula One cars and say, boy, I'd like to get involved with that. Well, my dad retired in 1968.

We moved to Michigan. And luckily, Michigan International Speedway opened up. So we got to go to Can-Am races and NASCAR races and IndyCar races there.

And in 1972, we went down for a Formula 5000 race. And who are all these people with flags dressed in white? This looks like something I'd like to do.

Well, the program had a full page ad by the Sports Car Club of America. I got to remember what year this is. And there was no address or phone number or no way to contact them.

I got back to Grand Rapids and I just contacted, looked in the phone book, talked to a chamber of commerce people trying to get connected with the sports car club of America. Well, one year later, in July of 73, my dad, this is my favorite part of the story. My dad goes to the bank because he's going all the way to Michigan International Speedway, 90 miles away from home.

And so he has to get traveler's checks. You can't go that far from home with cash. So we go into the bank, he goes into the bank and the teller just says to him quickly, so where are you going on your trip?

He says, well, I'm going on a Michigan International Speedway for the IndyCar race. Oh, you're interested in racing, she says. And he goes, yeah.

She goes, have you ever worked a race? And my dad says, what are you talking about? The woman was Marge Carpenter.

She was a teller and she was the flag chief for Western Michigan region. Wow. So a month later, in August, we're standing at turn three at Grattan Raceway with flags in our hand. And that's the first time I did that. Would have been, you know, August of 1973.

So we got involved with the Michigan race. Then we had Grattan and we also had Waterford Hills north of Detroit. Got my wife involved.

The person we didn't get involved right away for about two years was my mother, who every time we went to a race track on Sunday, she didn't get it and thought we should be at church instead. But we took her out to a race and she went, oh, my gosh, you guys are actually doing something here. And so it became a family thing.

Connie and I and my mother and father were going to races. Well, my big, I hadn't done anything other than those tracks until I saw on Wide World of Sport, I saw a thing called a Terrell P-34, which was a six-wheel Terrell. And I said to my brain, I have got to see this car in real life.

Well, Watkins Glen, Formula One race. Well, my plan was to go in 76, but that fell through. Job change.

Got the new employer to approve me to go in 1977. I worked my butt off to get a national flagging license so that I could actually work the race. Got a letter of recommendation from the Michigan Turn Marshals.

And in 1977, I worked my worst first professional race and it was Formula One at Watkins Glen. And from there on it, I don't know how much deeper you want to go, but I can keep going. Oh, you keep going because you've got quite the story. I mean, that's the whole reason for you being here, Gordy. So to go to Watkins Glen in 1977 was just amazing. We got to camp at the track. My dad had a pop-up camper.

Of course, there were no water, no electricity, just portable toilets. But to get up and be able to stand next to those cars, you know, and it's kind of like I look one of the things I look back at is in my world of racing, it always seemed we had more than enough corner workers. But actually, I was there for Thursday and there were very few.

It was interesting to work two or three people at that time. The only ones a lot more than that. But so that got us going in that in that world into the professional racing world.

And we started expanding, going to mid Ohio and other things after that. I did Watkins Glen until 1980, and that was the last year at Watkins Glen. So if you go back to what happened next in professional, well, 1979 was the big CART-USAC split.

And so they needed flaggers. Well, they needed what they call course observers for the Michigan International Speedway. Well, the first two years, CART was actually sanctioned by SCCA.

So they came to SCCA for workers. So we actually got to go to MIS and be course observers. And if you look at oval tracks today with their big concrete walls, back then it was two-row guardrail.

And when you think this is going to be easy, all we got to do is stand on the corner and yell yellow into our headless sets whenever something goes wrong. Well, when a car's going by at 180 miles an hour and you're going between you, it's guardrail, it makes for an interesting day. But we got involved with that, and we did CART as volunteers, traveled a lot with them.

Connie and I and a couple friends just went all over the country, I mean, Ohio. And then we were sitting at, I've got to believe it was 1981. We're at MIS in the September race, and they make a PA announcement at lunchtime.

Anybody interested in becoming a CART technical official, please come to Garage 5. Now, can you imagine that in today's world? And so Connie and her friend go, well, we're tired of standing on corners.

Can we go do that? And we said, sure, knock yourself out. So they went and they were assigned to Patrick Racing for the race weekend.

And their job was to be in the pit lane, making notes on the pit stops, make sure the right number of people over the wall, timing the pit stops, and all this kind of stuff. They got invited to the after party because Gordon Johncock won the race. And we didn't see him till like eight o'clock at night.

I'm doing this from now on. And she wanted to do more of it. So we started traveling to even to Canada and other places.

And two years after that, they asked Connie if she wanted to be a full time official. And she luckily had a part time job that she could actually move it around so she could get the weekends off. So, again, back then they said, okay, you could be a full-time official, but your first year you have to pay your own expenses.

Now we're talking, you know, going across the country and we were in our 20s going, how can we afford this? I got the, you know, we got to do this. So we did that and I went along so I could go to Long Beach and other parts around the country.

And they picked her up the following year as a full-time official. Paying her expenses made it easier for me. And then in 1987, I got a phone call in January and they had, they were looking for a new chief, what they called chief observer for CART, asked me if I could do it.

And I went, I went to work and talked to my boss and said, he said, I don't know, it's a lot of, a lot of time off. I said, well, the good news is it's only going to be maybe a Thursday afternoon, Friday. I'll be back for work on Monday.

And when you're in that age, young at age, you can fly at midnight and get to work at eight o'clock in the morning, you know. So I took that job on and I did that for six years, I think. And it became more harder to do with work because I started getting phone calls at work from over.

You got to remember back then we didn't have email. Everything was postcards and I had a card file system with everybody's name and all the little tags as to which races they were working. And I had to write letters to everybody and let them know, give them the information they needed.

So I sort of backed out and did a couple of races as a safety coordinator and race control for them. And I'd already done the race control for the flag team. And then we finally, a year later, I got a phone call from Jim Swenthal, who was the starter, and who had just been appointed starter and said, hey, you want to be my assistant starter?

And I went, sure, I'll do that. And I became the starter for Indie Lights, an assistant starter. And I did that until 2000, because in 19, and last year was 1999, because in 1998, I actually had to quit my real job, and we put on a race in downtown Grand Rapids, Michigan.

It was a Trans Am race with Skip Barber Dodge cars and the SCCA World Challenge at the time and VSCDA Vintage Racing. They had hired Alan Wilson to be the consultant for the event. And I'd been on the board for the thing since 85 or so.

I actually designed the original track. And Alan came in and redesigned it, making it shorter. He thought it was too long at two and a half miles.

for a downtown street race. I thought it was perfect, but that was fine. But he had hired a race director and race manager, but the guy, the day before he was supposed to show up for work in Grand Rapids, he quit.

And so he calls me on the phone and says, you got to do this. He says, you're the only person I know who knows what the result needs to be. And I can train you on setting up racetracks and how things you need to run.

So in 98 and 99, doing that was my full-time job and I still did the IndyCar stuff. But they canceled the race after the 1999 race. And so I no longer had a job.

And a friend of mine, I'd worked in the hydraulic pneumatics business. And when a friend of mine, who's a salesman at a local company, said, hey, we need your help in our office. Would you come interview for that?

And I did. I took that job in January of 2000. Well, in March of 2000, this is where, you know, Jamey, you'll understand.

And I got this phone call from Bob Pearson, who was in charge of the Indianapolis Formula One race. And Bob says, hey, I don't see your application for flagging. What's up?

And I said, well, I have a new job. They won't give me any vacation time for two years. So I really didn't fill anything out.

And he said to me, he says, well, you have to be here. I said, what do you mean I have to be here? He says, I want you to be the chief starter for F1.

And my brain's just like, what? But, you know, and I said, you got, you know, 500 people you could probably pick from. Why me?

And he says, well, he says, I know you'll do what I tell you to. Always an important job for a starter. Always an important requirement. And so I went to my boss. I went to the salesman that had hired me, and we worked it out that I would get unpaid to work the F1 race.

I did, you know, as Jamey knows, until 2016, I was literally the F1 starter for the United States Grand Prix. And what happened when I retired, and again, all this time, I'm still working other races. I'm putting in 25 weeks a year of racing.

It's like half the time. And when I retired, then I got the phone call from the Sports Car Club of America saying, hey, we need somebody in Trans Am race control. So I did the Trans Am Race Control for eight years.

And then that got to be, I'll be honest and say, I turned 70 when I left. I said, that's a little, somebody younger needs to do this job. And then I picked up working for the Vintage Sports Car Drivers Association out of Chicago.

And I'm now doing five races for them as their race director slash chief sewer. That's where I'm at right now. That's pretty cool. See, I remember the last time I saw you face to face, that was the line you used is I'm 70 and somebody younger needs to do this. And that was, you know, that last weekend that we, we, uh, worked together.

That was, I was like, okay, all right. That that's a pretty good, pretty good, uh, effort put in, but, uh, yeah, that's a wild story, Gordy. I mean, you've touched so many elements of motorsports in North America, you know, in these past 40, 50 years. Well, I'd say we got to do the WEC. In the starter job, I have literally, I think I have been a starter for pretty much everybody. I even got to do NASCAR at Road America, or excuse me, at Michigan International Speedway, because we had the IROC series back then.

That was sanctioned by NASCAR, and they didn't bring a starter for that. One year, Jim Swantel, T-shirt, and he says, I don't want to do it. Why don't you do it?

So I got to do a NASCAR race. So that's pretty good. You can do IMSA and Grand Am.

I did IMSA and Grand Am starter stand for the races at Indy, the first two races at Indy. Did WEC with you down at COTA, not to mention MotoGP. Wow. I think one of the things that's more important than anything when you do this kind of work it's just showing up and and people you know see that you're willing to pretty much you have to be willing to do anything they they throw at you true um one of the jobs i got when it comes to moto gp i worked as the safety coordinator one year and then we finally got to the point where we turned that over to the indianapolis motor speedway which makes more sense than me doing it and i came back is the timekeeper. That was my title. And I went, what is that?

And basically my job was to look at the fine, fine schedule and keep it on schedule for three days. That was, you know, it was interesting. I did a lot of other things.

As you know, Jamey, you're going to end up hauling stuff and, you know, taking care of this and that and the other thing. I think Walter Walker took that over. I think that he's the current timekeeper. Oh, yeah. Who has been for a few years. Yeah. It's like I said, the title just just blew my mind. I'm like, really? It's an important job. Every second counts. I mean, that's the other thing people don't understand about motorsports. I've done a couple, been to a couple since I retired. I've been to some retirement lunches and talked about motorsports.

And it's amazing to watch people's eyes when you tell them that not everybody's making millions of dollars and how hard it is to become a driver. And the opportunities that are there for workers. We're in a position where we're trying to get, nowadays, to get more and more young people involved, and there's places for them.

They just got to talk to them and say, hey, you can be in tech, you can be in timing and scoring, you can be in grid, you can have flaggers and scrutineers. There's all kinds of things. Yeah, I think that that's something that we've noticed is that a lot of the SAE students, a lot of engineering students has been a good place to pull from. I feel like there's a really big following with that now, which is awesome. It's like, what a perfect audience to get people involved if they want to work in this industry as engineers, whatever. It's a great step and the foot in the door, if you will, to be near cars like that. Well, one of the things I learned in my Trans Am travels is I got to work the Ridge Raceway up in Seattle. And I walked into the flag meeting and safety meeting on Friday morning. And I was shocked to see that other than me, there were only two other people with gray hair there. And your brain goes, where are you getting all these people? There were 25 flaggers there. Wow. This is like a 11-turn track. And they said, well, you have to understand that we realized that college and seniors in high school, nowadays, most of them required volunteer time. so they would go and set up a booth or a table or whatever they needed when the schools had volunteer dates for organizations to come in looking for volunteers and you know you show a kid a bunch of racing stuff and say you can come work for us or you can go over there and work at the hospital or you work at the you know the care center or you know there's a other things you can a food bank which which is all great volunteering but But when you're looking at engineering students and people like that, you've got to draw.

And the other thing in today's world, they had the hook that they're open seven days a week. So they have middle of the week where they need flaggers, but they could pay them. So you're given not only, you know, you're asking a volunteer for the SCCA and IMSA and all these other things.

But during the week, they would make money on it. So they had a pretty good hook there. And I've talked to a couple other.

Well, I just talked to one of the gentlemen with the Vinny Sports Car Drivers Association who has a group called the East-West Challenge for Formula Fords. And he went to Hope College in Holland and talked to their SAE people. And they were just excited and ecstatic.

They want to be part of that. They want to go to a race. They want to do things that make sense for their training. So I, of course, with what we have in common with all of this, want to know a lot more about this F1 starting experience, because as I recall, that was my first time meeting you face to face was at the 20. I don't know if I met you at the 2014 or 2015. No, I was there. Yeah, it was, it was one of those that Koda, cause my first one was 14, but it was one of those first two that I met you back. We were in lock K. Yeah. And I remember meeting you and Ray Orr introduced us as, you know, he introduced us and said, you were the starter. And I was thinking to myself, I want to be that guy. And, but that was really cool.

I mean, I've never forgotten that because, you know, you, you were in that role at a pivotal time in the FIA's development, because I guess at the time they had starters in every country, basically. I mean, how did you learn the FIAs, procedures, and all of that? There's something vaguely clicking around in my head about how you said you were trained, but tell our audience how you learned it all. I think, you know, like I said, I went from a flag marshal to the starter stand, and I'll make some starters mad, but this is my opinion. The starter stand is just another flag station. The biggest thing is you're visible to the world. So you have to be good at what you're doing. And when Bob called me originally to be the starter for F1, the first thing I'm doing is I'm digging out FIA rules and all that kind of stuff and learning that. Now, when I got to the start saying for the first time, you also have FIA in Formula One, especially it's all, it's all time computer time they walk in there on Thursday morning punch a button and you can't be off ever um and when I first when I first got to Formula One at Indy there was an FIA person in race control to helping us he was I don't remember the gentleman's name he was from France and uh and he worked with this the first three or four years and I'll tell you one of the highlights So that career was the year that Charlie Whiting walked up to the start stand for the start of the race, looked at me and said, you again, I don't have to tell you anything. He says, I'm leaving. You know, that's high praise. He says, as long as you know where the button is that cancels this thing, if something goes wrong, I'm good. And that was that was just pretty exciting. But I have to tell you the story of my everybody knows the story of the six car race at Indianapolis.

That was a pretty interesting thing. The one thing I wasn't able to do at Indianapolis was wave the checker fly. That was something that Tony George always did.

They had a special platform they brought out, and he did it like the old days, standing on a platform and waving them as they went by. And so we come to the race where everybody takes a pace lap, but only six cars go to the grid. And standing in that position and listening to the people in the crowds yelling and screaming and throwing things on the racetrack, it was an interesting experience and we got to start going in about two lap two or three the french guy leads over and says he says he says boy we're in trouble and i looked at him i said look at your grandstands he says what do you mean look at your grandstands he says what do you see he says 70 of the people there are wearing red they're having a wonderful time you got ferrari one two and it's going to end that way um but uh so that you know it's there's so many things we have so many stories.

I'll be honest to say, one of my things I tell a lot of people, if all of us who work as flag racing officials ever sat down and wrote books, nobody would believe most of them. I agree. And Jessica and I have talked about the books we could write. And I think you're right. Most people wouldn't believe it. They think we were making it up. You know, and a lot of people say to you, well, no, you know, this driver, you know, that driver, you know, and it's like, well, not really. But it's always amazing when one of them knows you. I was sitting in race control at MIS, setting up for the day, and the door opens and I hear this voice say, hey, Gordy, is the coffee ready yet? And I look over and it's Bobby Unser. Oh, wow. You know, I didn't know he knew who I was. Gave him a cup of coffee and we sat for 20 minutes and just, and I had a great time talking to him. You know, that's the way to meet these kind of people. You know, you don't go chasing autographs, they'll sooner or later come to you. Yeah, that's cool. So the other thing that you've done is one of the things I was reading about you in your history prior to our interview today was that you were something of a collector. I won't use the word hoarder, but you collected a whole bunch of materials historical around those Grand Prix's that you worked. And then I understand you donated them to a museum and you are involved in the preservation of motorsports history, I guess is probably the way to say it. I've been contributing a lot of things out to Watkins Glen, to the motorsports road racing research center out there. It's the International Motor Racing Research Center. um um i've taken them posters and maps i mean i have had a collection of uh track drawings from everything from the denver grand prix to detroit grand prix and things like that because they were all stuff in race control that at the end of the day everybody goes throw it away and i'm like why would i do that i'm the same way you know crazy uh i mean the biggest thing i did for them that that blew their mind i didn't know it would do that but i did anyway i the everything i had When I go back to the 1998-1999 West Michigan Grand Prix, I had collected everything from the first board meeting to the letter that says we're going away.

Newspaper articles, posters, press releases, all the contracts with all the people. And I called the local, I tried twice, three times to get it to the local museum. They didn't have any interest.

And so I called the folks out in Watkins Glen at the International Motor Research Center. And they said, sure, we'll bring it along. and so i went out there for a trans am race and i dumped off five boxes worth of stuff and posters and things like that and they actually called uh mr artzinger who's the the head of the organization who came from home to look at the stuff i brought he says we do not have the history of a race from beginning to end no you do that's cool you know and i was and then then they put a they have a monthly newsletter and they put an article in the newsletter about me donating that but But you talk about having things right now.

It's finding time. I can tell you, retirement's interesting. You either have nothing to do or you don't have enough time.

I'm in the don't have enough time world because every time I turn around, something's pulling me in a different direction. But last January, I decided for Grins to count how many posters, prints, drawings I have that are not just laying in a box somewhere, but are framed. And I have 95. Wow. Wow. And so I'm trying to find a home for all that stuff. You know, you get people say, well, you can put it on eBay or something like that. But I want to give these museums and collector organizations the chance first. Sure. There's a lot of things I'm not going to give up. I mean, I had a medical incident in 2005 and one of the get well cards came from Dan Gurney. Oh, wow. Yeah. That's something you'd never get rid of. Right. Exactly. So, yeah. Well, yeah, I mean, we have the pleasure to look at you on video, and you can see you've not given it all away because your wall is covered behind you. This is my little spot in the basement when we built the house. We had lots of plans for this basement, but it's basically just a basement except for this one room where I have all my motorsports stuff and my other hobby of plastic model building. I do all that here. That's awesome. That's the wall of – there's so many things up there. There's, you know, things that I've gotten from people that autographed. I mean, it's like when I retired from being chief observer for CART, they had the IndyCar driver signed a checkered flag that they framed for me. You know, these are the kind of things you'll never get rid of. Absolutely. There's other things. I did. Actually, we have a race at Grattan Raceway, which is actually 20 minutes from the house.

And for the flaggers, I dug out a bunch of old posters for Groton posters from Vinny's races that were framed. And I took them and we did a raffle for those. And that's the kind of things I'm trying to find homes for people that would appreciate those.

And again, younger people. Absolutely. I can tell you the tie in. We have the International Plastic Modeler Society that I'm a member of the local club. One of the guys there came up to me one day and said, hey, my son wants to be a Formula One driver.

I said, well, how old is your son? He's 11. I said, well, how long has he been driving go-karts?

And he kind of went, what? A little late. A little late. But a month or two later, he said, where can I get Formula One stuff? He says, he wants to decorate his whole room in Formula One.

And I said, well, when can you come over to my house? And so he brought his son over and he walked away with a couple models and three or four posters. One of the posters he actually grabbed, it's sometimes hard to get rid of these things, but if they're going to go somewhere, they're worthwhile.

It was an actual artist print that was done in 1977 for the Watkins Glen Formula One race. Wow. Oh, wow. It had the six-wheel Terrell in the center, and then all the other cars were around it. And he picked it, looked at that, and said, oh, I really want that. And my brain went, uh, but I went ahead and I said, fine.

Well, here's what happened. So everything else gets up in his room except for that picture. they have no place for it so his dad and him are trying where else we put it well he's on the second floor of the house and there's a there's a picture hanging in the hallway so they swap it without telling his wife and so she comes into the room says why did you swap that picture out and they explain and she goes well i'm glad you did because it's much better than the one that was up there so their hallway on the second floor so those are the again you know that's where you want to see this stuff go. I mean, you can spend time trying to sell it on eBay or other places, but you know, it has more value for somebody that's, that's even better yet. Well, with your lengthy perspective of F1 in the United States, far more than I think most of the people that we get a chance to talk to on a regular basis, what do you think about the state, the modern state of F1 with the drive to survive and the craziness like we just saw? And say it's good or bad i kind of you know and i guess i have to think more like a verstoppen that where you got to have more you they need to do more work driving the cars how's that that's fair you know that's kind of like i go to the i go to the vintage world like we just the vintage waste race we have at road america we actually get some two three-year-old gtp cars and things running with us and when they pull over and say well he's got to recycle the computer i'm going you don't do that with a 64 spitfire that's true very true um you know but as the overall make of the thing um yeah i i mean i could talk about some of the officiating i've seen but you know i could always fall on the on the fact that i wasn't in race control so i really don't know what was going on i can tell you i do still get emails and and facebook requests after races from people saying, what would you do? What went wrong there? It's hard when you don't know all the context. There's always context that the public never knows. I'll say one of the things in racing overall is to me, it's the whole... I know safety is important and it is really important, but some of these yellow flag extended yellow flag things that happen in racing, my brain kind of goes, you know you go two three four laps when you should have probably gone green um i could always tell you connie's favorite comment about motorsports today is when she worked for kart indy car racing there was no speed limit in the pit lane right you know and when she sees speed limits in the pit lanes and you know i mean i have i have a picture of her from toronto from the one of the kart photographers when bobby ray hall was sliding all four tires smoking going into the pit lane and jumping on the wall to get out of the way. Right. She's got one foot on the wall, one foot in the air. You know, you aren't going to get that in today's world. No. I mean, it's better, it's safer, you know, and I understand the pit lane speed. I think that's important. Sure. Yeah. Some of the extended yellows kind of make me wonder. I could, I could, and speaking of yellows, you want to, you want to talk about someone with one of the most interesting flagging system in the world, and that's the double yellow flag. Sure. I was in the meeting for that with another cart thing. And I've had other people tell me that's not the true story, but I was there. I got a radio call to meet with Wally Dahlenbeck, Rick Mears.

I think Michael Andretti was involved in a couple of other drivers. And we'd just come from Long Beach, the Long Beach Grand Prix. And again, no closed pit lines.

You know, when you go full Chris Yellow, And Rick Mears said the problem we had, they had a lot of races. The radio communications in the 80s and 90s wasn't great. This would have been in the late 80s. And so they were losing radio going down the back straightaway at Long Beach.

He said, if you go full course yellow, and I don't know it until I get to the start finish line, I could have gone in the pit lane. What can we do to improve that? And, you know, being the flag marshal brain that I had, I went, well, most racetracks have extra yellows.

What if we went to a double yellow? And Rick Muir said, let's give it a shot. And that's when we started doing double yellows.

CART was the first organization to use it for when a pace car was out. And again, in my mind, that's what it should be used for. I know it's been used in some places where, like during a practice session and things like that.

Well, if you don't put a pace car out, what's the point? So am I understanding that you invented the full course yellow? I wouldn't say I invented it. It was kind of like, what are you going to come up with that's going to work? Cart brought green flags after yellow back after Mario hit the cart in Toronto one year. It was parked on the side of the road. I like the trailing greens. I wish more people would do that. I'll go back to when I started flagging. What's the first thing I did? I went and looked at the international flagging rules. And if we all just did those, what a happy place it would be. Exactly. I don't know if any of you worked events that now have a purple flag. The Code 60? Code 60. Yeah, we've done Creventic, Jamie and I, a couple times when it used to come to Coda. We're big fans of that. Champ Card does it too on the amateur level. On the amateur level. The problem I have with it, unless you have something like flagtronics and race control where you can view the speeds of the cars, it's very hard. How do you enforce a rule that you can't enforce? Agreed. And it's a good idea. No, you're right. I mean, a virtual safety car for everybody would be great.

But I look at the world of vintage racing that I'm in now. These guys don't want to spend the money even on flagtronics. We've talked about it.

We've worked on it. I know SVRA, like SCCA now requires it. And we have guys that, you know, like most racers, they're all running on a shoestring budget and that extra $250, you got to sell it as a safety feature.

It's no different than, you know, upgrading your helmet or things like that. Should we explain to our listeners what Flagtronics is for those that don't know? Do you want to, does one of you want to take it? I can throw that out. Go for it. Again, in my history of working motorsports, Flagtronics came to us at SVRA and Trans Am when I was working Trans Am. Basically, it's a flags, you know, you see that if you watch professional races, you see the panels some of the corner stations have. And what they've done is they put a monitor in the race car that shows that same panel.

So they know instantly whether they're going to a yellow zone or a green zone or if you're full course yellow or if there's a hazard flag out or even sometimes they use it in passing. You don't see that much in anything but European races. I don't think you see a lot of blue flag panels in this country that I can recall.

But it's an early warning system to let them know what's coming up. And that's the important thing that needs to be explained to a lot of people, that it's an early warning system. And at least in the U.S., in the Sports Car Club America or IMSA or SVRA or Trans Am, the light is a warning system.

The flag is the action. Yes. Yeah. So you see the light come on. That doesn't mean you have to back off right now. Look, you know, your surroundings. Check your surroundings out. You're coming to that yellow flag. then you need to slow down yeah and and no i'm a i'm a big proponent you know um but it's it's getting everybody to get the finances to do that and that's true you know um it's like the 50 sports car driver association looked at and they were looking at 35 40 000 hours um just to get the equipment they needed before the drivers even had it and the system has become so much more sophisticated now than it originally was where you actually could have someone you could have someone sitting in race control with a computer turning those lights on and off you don't really need the controllers on the stations anymore but you have to have somebody who's listening to what's going on on the flag marshal uh network so when he hears corner four is waving yellow he could hit a button and make it go waving yellow but it's it's better to have someone with it in their hand at the corner but then we fall back to how many flag marshals do you have on a station yeah sure i know the flagtronics engineers said there's no way you can work this system without two people i love it uh let's say one doing the remote one doing the actual manual flag got it yes it is someone else has to be talking on the radio so right you know so to to have one person try to do that and i i have heard a complaint from a driver who was racing under where his light came on, but the flag marshal didn't have the flag out because he was on the radio trying to tell, you know. Sure. That's right. I'm sorry. He hadn't hit the button for the panel, so he didn't know if it was real or not. Sure. He had a flag out. And in the marshal's defense, if you're not used to using the flag tronic system, it's easily forgotten. Yes. Absolutely. So it's been around, what, five, six years now, And it's just getting, it's again, the number one problem is financial. Coming up with enough money for the organizations to have it. I love the tracks that actually spent the money to put the panels up are great. And, you know, but the problem is if you don't have everybody in those cars with them, or at least a majority, you're not really making the full purpose of the program. Well, it's a perfect bookend and a great way to close our interview by telling you that last weekend at Formula One in Austin, we had the Masters Historics. And one of those cars was that six-wheel Terrell. Absolutely wonderful. Yeah, and it made its way around just fine. There were a lot of people, even from the teams and the FIA folks, that were making a look at making sure they got a picture or a good look at that six-wheel Terrell. And then, of course, next week we've got Trans Am coming into town. So there you go. It's a bookend weekend for Gordon Nsing, who's been our guest on this episode of the podcast. Always a pleasure to see you, Gordy. Great to talk to you and have you share your wisdom of the ages with us here on the podcast. I appreciate Jessica and JB having asked me on. And, you know, if we want to talk again, we can do that too. Absolutely. Hear all the great stories. Just like Jim Swintal.

He's promised us an uncensored episode next time. Has he really? When he retires.

Once he's retired. He's going to come back and give us the uncensored version. so maybe we'll do the same with you one of these days one of my one of my favorite quotes and i'll give you this and maybe you he'll he'll mention on the cast maybe he won't was when he became the the chief starter for kart indycar racing they interviewed him and one of the questions was was this your goal he said no my goal was to get into races for free that sounds like something he would say that sounds exactly which is pretty much all of us i was gonna say i mean what is the main motivator to be a marshal is that you get to be trackside for free so well you know and you get a seat nobody else can have absolutely you know matter where you are whether you're on on a flag post or in grid or timing and scoring or you know yep nobody else gets to see that nobody gets else to get to see that you gotta you gotta wear all kinds of bands and tags but it gets you everywhere Well, I always tell my teams at the F1 start stand, you know, the people that paid all that money, they're still behind you. There you go. Remember that. And I'll tell you, and the other thing is, yeah, your starting times may suck. You have to get there at 7 o'clock or 6 a.m. But I'll tell you, to me, there's nothing more interesting than walking to a racetrack when there's nobody there. Absolutely. And then by noon, there's 150,000 people. Exactly. That's exactly right. And all the screaming noise. I love the quiet of a race track on race morning when you first float in. If there was a slope coming up. Oh, yeah. That's the best. Awesome. Well, Gordy, it's great to see you. Thanks for joining us.

And we'll see you one day. Enjoy your upcoming vacation to Italy. I know you're traveling the world.

And do it in safety. And enjoy the heck out of it. We'll watch you on Facebook to see all your pictures that you take when you're there. Okay. Sounds great. Thanks for asking. Thank you. We'll see you. Awesome. Awesome. It was nice to meet you, Gordy. Thank you for joining us. Really appreciate it. I hope to get to meet you in real life someday. I hope so. I mean, I'm trying to find places where I can travel to races and visit and see people. Like, I'll be honest, my goal for next year when I turn 75, it's also my 50th anniversary of working pro racing. Wow. So I want to go out to Watkins Glen. I don't care what race they have in October because that's when the Formula One race used to be. And we're in corners. There you go. Just to do that. That's awesome. And one of the places on my cruise that starts in Barcelona is actually Monaco. Oh, yeah. So, I mean, I know I'll never be there for the race. Right. Yeah, that's a lot of fun. Yeah. I'm a horrible spectator. I get bored very quickly. I'm the same way. Well, awesome. This was fun. I appreciate it. Glad you were able to join us and glad we were able to squeeze it in. And like I say, hopefully someday we'll see you somewhere down the road. Who knows? There you go. Yeah, definitely. You've always got a spot for us. You got it. All right. Awesome. Thank you. Enjoy Italy. I will. Bye-bye. All right. Bye. And that was our sit down with Gordon Ensing. We call him Gordy. Great guy.

He's a lot of fun. He's, uh, his history back in, uh, the world of motor racing back in the late 20th century and early 21st, I thought made him an ideal candidate for getting to know everyone. He's, he's met and worked with all the series, all the knows, all the drivers.

And, you know, he's just a really cool guy. Plus, you know, he knows a lot as an official, you know, he wasn't just somebody who was a fan of it. you know he was deeply involved with it i did not know that it was his wife was involved as deeply as he was i thought that was kind of cool the you know it's interesting when he's talking about his origin story and how it was like they were just the bank and happened to meet the flag chief like right it reminded me of swintel's thing it was the alarm right place right time you know like it's it's so so many i feel like so many people we know have it was a total total fluke yeah and look at look at where it led them to, you know, that's why it's always so cool to hear. So this is why it's like, you know, never, you know, always talk to people. You never know who you might meet in the world that might have some connection for you somewhere and all this. So that was very cool to hear. Yeah. Great guy. And, uh, yeah, I thought it was kind of cool that he was so fascinated with the six wheel Terrell because last weekend at the United States Grand Prix, that six wheel Terrell was there in the Masters Historic and it ran all weekend. And man, it's a funky looking car, but boy, does everybody look for it when it goes around. I thought that was really cool that he brought it up and it was like, yep, just saw that one last week. That's funny. Oh man. Yeah, it's been a minute since we've done one of these. We've all been so busy, I think, with racing. We haven't been as prolific with getting episodes. No, it hasn't. I mean, we don't do that much racing in the summer because it's really hot. And then in the fall when it's still hot, but, you know, we've got WEC all of a sudden, you know, and then on the heels of that, we've got F1 and, you know, all the stuff that goes in between. But the setup for F1 at Austin, which you and I are both very deeply involved in, I mean, it just takes away the time.

But let's start with WEC, World Endurance Challenge. Jessica, you had a new role there. And man, you knocked it out of the park.

You were the race chair. And I'll tell you what, watching you do that job, because I got a front row seat for you doing it, was one of those things that told me two things. One, don't underestimate this young lady.

And two, I don't want that job for any amount of money. Oh, you're very kind. maybe I'm a sucker I don't know I I really loved it it was a weird full circle moment for me because I um this is what I wanted to do when I got into all this which is which is what I used to do at the in the music biz which people give me hard time because I always make that reference but it's true I mean this is like almost identical role to what I used to do at the volunteer programs with these major music festivals used to work at so it was kind of funny that I I needed this detour through being a marshal and working in race control and doing all these things in order to be able to be good at it in the right in the race share thing because you're really it behooves you to know you're it's interesting because this role is kind of becoming rebranded with the name of chief marshal which i'm not gonna lie i think it's kind of a misnomer personally because it makes it sound like you're like a flag chief when you're really you're just responsible for the logistics of the marshals right you know making sure that the recruitment the staffing everything from the operations and so it's kind of funny but it's still you really do need to know what all of them do so that's kind of where it was the full circle okay i came in wanting to do this but i ended up detouring as a marshal and now now i can kind of do this and um you're very kind to say what you said i really really enjoyed it um it's you know it's funny the lead up to it there were some times I'm like, oh my God, why do I do this? Because it's a lot of admin work, you know, like emails and stuff like that.

But the payoff was so there, you know, just like seeing everyone show up and, you know, things were going and, you know, things were happening. And it's fun. People kind of ask me like, what do you, what is it? What do you do?

And, you know, it's a lot of planning in advance of recruitment and making sure things are, you know, people, the chiefs have what they need, you know for all this stuff and just yeah exactly but then during the event you're kind of just in standby mode of just probably a fixer like when things come up and that's kind of what it is come up on a regular and shotgun basis yeah so it was fun it was really we had a great team it seemed like people were very pleased with with how everything turned out so uh yeah great experience there. So, um, yeah, uh, WEC, you got to, you got to work in the room. I was the, that was the first time I was in race control and, uh, for, for an FIA event first time. And, uh, it was, it was an interesting experience. I got to work with Fallon Tucker, who is the IMSA safety dispatcher.

And she is brought in to do WEC and formula one and all these, these other events. My role was intervention dispatcher and boy, oh boy, was it a, uh, a lot to learn. It was, it was quite the event. I learned a ton. It was a fabulous experience overall.

Um, learned a lot and, you know, just a, just a neat way to see things. But I did have to mention to a few of the people that were in the room who were also there for F1 last weekend. And, uh, because you know, this, the, we were, we were last weekend at, uh, the F1 event, which we'll come to in a little moment in our discussion, but they had a MotoGP exhibition and MotoGP racers came out on their bikes, four of them, I think.

Um, and, you know, did laps around Coda, you know, in front of the F1 crowd. And I, I personally think that brilliant marketing move. I think because so many people were excited and surprised by what they saw that I think MotoGP is going to have a huge, well, I hope MotoGP has a huge influx of new fans next year that came to and saw MotoGP at F1.

Anyway, the whole point of telling you all that was that some of the race control staff that we regularly see, you know, and we know on a first name basis had gone out to the pit wall to watch and photograph these bikes because, um, one, we were allowed to and B, you know, most of them had never seen that kind of, of bike going by. Anyway, I took the opportunity to tell them that I really enjoyed the differences between the WEC race control room and the FIA style of control room and the MotoGP style of race control, which is WEC is very quiet. They want you to be very quiet.

And I have a problem with that because I have a racetrack voice. And I'm always loud and I'm, and I can't tell you how many times I was over the weekend just because I, I generally speak loud. And so, you know, and it's not a negative thing.

It's just one of those, Hey, keep your voice down. That's how we do things in here. And MotoGP is blah, blah, blah.

And they're yelling and there's three or four different languages and people are, you know, are, are, uh, Beth Miller, our clerk of course is yelling and you hear all the communicators and the back row is. it's bananas in the moto gp room and i kept i wanted to point that out to my friends in the f1 control room i was like you guys are not prepared for what a moto gp control anyway i just thought that was a lot of fun to know it's true it was really neat you're you know it's funny you know the one thing that always used to when i used to do cctv for moto gp i did that like two or three years in a row and you know when a bike goes down you need to find it like yesterday and put it up on that wall instantaneous and so you know typically if you hear someone gasp like something happened and so then i'm like where what happened no it's just them reacting they're watching the broadcast and all just all of the stewards are like oh they do that and it's like oh my god you guys are just throwing me off here because here i'm just thinking what happened what happened and it's just it's hilarious but yeah it's very very different you're absolutely right about that but um let's let's segue to usgp so it's funny you meant you bring a moto gp so i don't know if i think it's i think it's pretty well known that liberty media has purchased so that's now f1 they own f1 and moto gp so i think this was like a crossover kind of thing and why wouldn't they what a brilliant idea i do think it was a brilliant marketing move yes yes exactly um so they one of the so this weekend we'll and we'll talk about what each of us did this weekend this past weekend about at u.s grand prix i was just a helper no you weren't just whatever people needed you were a shadow race chair basically i was just an extra hand an extra problem but at f1 they're all hands are needed absolutely i was happy to play down what you did jess i was happy to do it but anyway one of the things that i i got to do was um shuttle those moto gp bikes to and from the support paddock and the grand plaza so they had there were five bikes total but there were only four that were being used on for these demo right you know whatever exhibition laps whatever you want to call them and then they had one so ktm red bull team brought two so they had one that they were kind of just showing off in the paddock and whatever and then the other ones were so they had all their bikes in the support paddock on display for went for these sessions but then when they weren't being used they wanted to put them in the grand plaza where all the fans were in the main fan zone for people to hey hey come look at this come buy tickets for MotoGP, all that kind of stuff. So Tom Sebring and myself most of the weekend at Cooper Cash also assisted in another guy. I'm so sorry. I don't know his name. He brought in from the outside to kind of help with this, but it was predominantly me and Tom for most of the weekend.

And we were just loading these bikes up on a, in a trailer and pulling it in a Gator, like a UTV kind of vehicle and driving them between the two places. And so that was one of the things that I did most of the weekend and it was it was fun but it was also like oh my god trying to drive a gator with a trailer behind it through a fans a pedestrian fence at the height of the fan like there was one time that they had us do it and it was not during any kind of session so of course the fan zone was just mobbed with people and I'm going like half a mile an hour I'm like honking the horn and like no one cares like no one's getting out of the way and I'm like mortified i'm gonna hit someone like inadvertently because they just wander in front of you and i didn't luckily but it was just kind of funny and so so at first you're honking your horn on the gator and like hey out of the way we got to get these bikes through in a nice way of course and everyone's kind of looking at you like you know like god this is an inconvenience and then they look to see what i'm hauling and they're like oh wow and here's these moto gp bikes in the back with their crew hanging on to them and it was just it was pretty funny how it's like their tune changed of like right like uh how rude you're making me get out of the way oh nope okay i get it now go go please pass you know and so then we go drop so i can take a picture yes oh and that was the really really cool thing is like whenever we go back to pick them up later it was mobbed like people were really into that people were really into taking photos of that so i really like you said i think it was a great idea and i i'm hoping that yes well they'll have a new audience at moto gp for these f1 fans that was that was one of the things that i did but let's what what did you do well i was chief of start again but as i told my team it'll be probably be my last chief of start at least of at least on a sort of a regular basis it it um as the year has gone by, I have just started to think that it's time to pass the torch and I've had a great run. I really have enjoyed it and I, I'm still going to be around. It's not like I'm going away, but you know, others have been doing it and it's their turn.

So I'm passing the torch. I spent the whole weekend watching my son, Eric, be the chief starter and he led his team perfectly and did the, did all the work. Uh, as I told you before we started recording, I didn't wave a flag. I didn't make a radio call all weekend long.

And that's in, for what I was trying to do, that's the perfect weekend. So I have every confidence he'll be an excellent chief going forward. And, um, you know, if Vegas and Miami need a chief or need a deputy, we've got plenty of those that we've been training up.

And, um, so yeah, it was a good weekend. It was beautiful weather, great crowd, a lot of, uh, interesting things going on with all the new construction and, um, all the differences between this USGP and previous ones. I mean, it was almost a night and day difference, you know, but you know, the one thing I keep coming back to is Austin does know how to put on a Grand Prix.

People will complain about this or that, but, you know, as far as the operation, the, the race, the racing, the, um, you know, the, the smoothness of the event from the marshals and operations standpoint, it was flawless. Yeah. And, you know, it, it, there was some adventures to be had. Believe me, if people weren't there on Saturday, we had during the Carrera Cup race. The first race for the Carrera Cup was an adventure.

If you care to look it up on YouTube, fast forward to the 42 minute mark and you will see what we mean. There was a coming together of vehicles on the restart just before the end of the race. And I was in the start stand with myself, my son, and Perry Muncy, who was doing the communicating.

My son Eric was waving the flags. And I was just standing there mostly to be out of the way. I look up on this restart and I see a car sideways.

And I realize my brain, you know, we've seen this before. And it's like, uh-oh, here we go. And then the next thing I process is that these cars that are now tangled up together, turns out there were three of them are coming right at us.

And oh my goodness, it was, it was, it was a pretty violent hit. And the cars ended up hitting the gate that opens up to allow the fans and cars to be transited from pit lane to the, uh, door, uh, to the track. And then they came sliding right below, below the start stand spewing debris.

Uh, the way I was putting it was at the time was debris going up and fluids going down. I have never seen vehicles involved in an, in an accident leave so much fluid on a track and oh my goodness it was it was wild everybody was fine I had to run down and make sure that everybody on the pit stand was was fine too when I realized it hit the gate that was my first thought is I need to check the the team on the grid so I ran down to make sure everybody and the teams that were there on the wall too it was a big hit there was debris on pit lane There was debris everywhere. Some of the, uh, pit marshals as I was walking down were kind of brushing themselves off.

It was, you know, we don't see that very often on, on the front straight and I'm glad of it. But when it happens, I always tell everybody it can, it's big because those cars are gaining speed. And so, yeah, that was our, our big moment of the weekend, you know, from a, from a big standpoint, but I was really glad that, uh, my son waved the checker flag up above.

We did get to meet an astronaut, which I'm always very cool with. Luca Parmitano is the ESA astronaut. He's an Italian astronaut.

He's been to the station several times. He will be an astronaut aboard Artemis 3. And he was the one that waved the checkered flag on the second of the three Formula One Academy races.

Yeah, there we go. This is the one on Saturday. Anyway, so it was cool to meet him.

That's always fun. I have a huge affinity for astronauts since I'm a space nerd. So what can we say?

I'll wear that with pride. But anyway, so yeah, it was a good weekend. Yeah, those Porsches, I feel like it's always, always. You always know something's going to happen with the Porsches. The question is where, and it just happened to be ours. Yeah. Well, I'm glad everyone was okay. Yeah. Yeah, that's got to be crazy to have to see.

I didn't make it out. I made it out to the pit lane one time. I borrowed an orange tavern.

I did have credentials, but not for pit lane technically. And so there was an orange tavern available for me to borrow. And I walked, I did one lap on Sunday just from pit in to pit out.

And then I got pulled into something else. And then I was there for the driver's parade, kind of helping with the human shield wall of people with that, which was fun. yeah, it was interesting.

Yeah, a little of everything. I got to drive the podium drivers to the support paddock from the historic. Yes, that was fun. That's cool. Of course, one of our alums of the show, a friend of ours, Nadia Pollard, of course, sees me driving this race control vehicle and is like yelling, oh my god, you don't want her driving. That kind of stuff. It was funny. but yeah so yeah that and i don't know what else i'm trying to think of you went to the run-offs i was going oh that's right make it but you made it to the run-offs tell us yeah that was fun it was my first run-offs you know the running joke is that you know if you win the the award you gotta you gotta and you're not there you gotta go next year so you had won it what two years ago and then You went the following year, and then I want to... I tried to go this year, but it just didn't work out. It wasn't in the cards. No, I get it. So, well, let's just announce this. Our good friend Mike Vandermitt of Texas Region 1 F&C Worker of the Year, which was so cool. That is so fantastic. And actually, I did not know that until you just now said that. You did not? I did not. He won it.

And I didn't find out until five minutes before. when bob neff our executive steward was that what is his title for south for the southwest division said that he uh he was accepting it that he was asked to accept it on his behalf because they're from the same region and i was like what why didn't you tell me and so it was so excited so i had my camera ready i recorded the little speech that sydney made and sent it to him and uh of course it you know i sent the video and it wasn't going through because the cell service was so bad and i was like congrats and he's like what what are you talking about because the video hadn't sent yet so it was a whole thing but anyway um so well deserved on his absolutely of just absolutely everything he's done for you know the region the division i mean look at all the lone star members which is our region that have gone up to work races in his his hens region because he finds a spot for them to sign off on their captain you know in training or their race control like you know whatever it is like so accommodating to everyone in the division not just his own people he's the da now really supportive of people with their license upgrades and their if you want to work in on their specialty and and of course as we talked about earlier in this year the grand prix of arlington which was a massive yes undertaking and success and and he was instrumental in that So anyway, congrats, Mike, if you're listening, we're so thrilled that you got that. And the joke is that you got to go next year.

Although, of course, the news is out that next year, the runoff clashes with USGP, which is going to be, it's going to, ah, like, oh my God. I'm baffled by that decision. What are you going to do? Yeah. So I don't know. Maybe he'll have to take a rain check on that.

But yeah, so runoffs was awesome. I get it now. I understand why so many people feel that that's so special.

It's kind of like this little United Nations meeting or the Olympics or whatever you want to call it, where it's just people from all over the country coming in that are just as crazy as you are in some way that you'd fly somewhere to go volunteer in this capacity. but you know met so many cool people you know that do the exact same thing you're just from another state and it's like you know what a great way to network and you know hey let me come work your race and you come work mine you know it's like a lot of really cool people that were there so i had a good time doing that i was the um chief of pit lane uh for this one which was fun we had a good team uh i think about half of them were were there last year and then i brought in some people from well i should say nadia she she uh went to her mailing list and and picked up a couple people which was awesome some of our our locals which came out and did it which was very very cool that is neat and other ppg people we know so what a really great team i don't really feel like i did anything i think they did all the work i was just kind of there and i just really enjoyed it and uh road america of course i was gonna ask what what do you think about road i know you were there for the june spritz that was my second time and this was this erased the first time and i don't want to speak ill of the first time i was there but it was it was an unusual experience the first time i was there we did not really talk about it on the show i think you gotta mention that i was there i didn't elaborate on it and we won't get into that but um this was this this was great and it was nothing to do with road america it was just more of a personnel thing but um yeah no it was it was great it was a really good experience beautiful track i of course i didn't really see any more of it beyond pilling but um yeah very cool you know um i understand why people but i i can't tell you how many people i know of that say that road america is their favorite track and i get it you know it's it's beautiful it's in the trees and it's and it's not 105 degrees every week exactly and um yeah very cool area for sure um yeah i'm trying to think of other stuff with that but no i get it if the runoffs you know if you if it's something that's been on your list for a while try to do it if you can even if it's just for a couple of days i think they're grateful to have all the help they can get with that you know it is a big commitment like especially to do the full full amount of time which is which is pretty much required for anybody who's a chief or any kind of role or whatever yeah but if you just want to go see it you know just if you can't And, you know, especially to like, you know, their course, the racing is on the weekend. It's like a week long. So it starts Monday through the following Sunday.

So it's like seven days. So, of course, it's like test a few test days, a couple of qualifying days and then a couple of race. Right.

And really, you know, they always really need help on the the opening days. Like because it's like if people are on a test day, I don't I don't care. But you know what?

There's it's still you still get to do stuff. You know, it's to me, it's, it's really no different, you know, I don't know. But, um, yeah, of course the race day is a little different.

We, we got tapped to help with the victory circle, which is right there. Um, and you know, I think, you know, this about me, I, I avoid cameras like the plague. I do not like to be on TV and here I thought I was being so good staying out of the way. And I can't tell you how many people came up to me last weekend, a USGP saying that they saw me on the broadcast and i was like what is that it was your shoes that we saw that was jim andrew robertson it was like oh it was your shoes so for those that don't know i i have a pair of vans and i have one green and one checker because everyone if you know vans that's their trademark is the checker pattern and so a couple years ago on black friday i bought a pair of green shoes and a separate pair of checkers and i swapped them and tony berkey who was also an alum of the show her daughter has the reverse pair but i wear those so that's what tipped people off because they know i wear i look like a lunatic you know you look like a race face well it's funny because i always tell people like whenever someone comments on it i said you get it though right because like when i first started doing that so many people just thought i was nuts not that i'm saying that they're wrong it was more like that i'm nuts in many other ways but it was i said do you get it though right and they're like no and i said just think about it for a minute i only wear these at racetracks think about it racing and then they oh green check oh i get it so i just i i wonder how many people have seen this and never made that connection just thought i was just a total weirdo which like i said i'm i am but you know so that apparently my shoes tipped me off on the broadcast for runoff that's awesome dang it i hear so not my thing but um no it was really fun yeah definitely hope and it's gonna be at road atlanta yes next year and it's gonna be as we mentioned it's gonna be october so right um i don't know beyond that i think they usually try to get it there yeah it'll be there usually yeah a couple two or three and then they'll move on to another another spot so i don't know beyond that i've never been to road atlanta i don't know have you've been to that one i have not um eric went to uh with some of his friends uh from his job in denver to watch petite this year so um that's really been my biggest exposure to it is just watching him watch petite so no i haven't but it's neat track it looks really cool and yeah and that's their big flagship event there and that's why that was during the runoffs which is why year that date was not available exactly yeah i i had a feeling it had all had to do with dates so it always is i know but anyway yeah it was really fun um if you can do the runoffs try to do it it's a very cool event but um anyway so what what do we got let's see it's i think my next one is vegas i think is that also well i'll be doing svra you're right i'll be doing svra same what do What are you doing for that one? Chief of Start. Oh, sweet. Okay. Yeah. Very cool. It'll be a fun little team to work there.

And then we'll, I love SVRA. It's very sad to me that they're announcing that it'll be their last go at Coda for a lot of reasons. We, you know, Coda is undergoing some changes.

And I think SVRA is undergoing some changes. For whatever reason, amongst all of those things, it's been decided that this is their last one, which is kind of sad. I've been doing this event since I started marshalling at CODA.

So, you know, there you go. But in any case, it'll be fun to wave their greens and checkers again. It's a great weekend.

If you happen to be in Austin and I get this out before the event, definitely go. It is one of the most approachable events you can have. The ticket gets you paddock access.

You can walk right up to the cars. I've seen people take pictures in the cars. Just ask first.

You know, it's really, really a great fun event. It's loud. If you are going and you have never been, bring really solid year protection because it is the loudest event we have, Akoda.

The vintage cars always are. And the Trans Ams. Yep. Yep. Oh, and Trans Am.

Yeah, they're always coming out. And now if you like NASCAR, that's your event. TA2 will have, in the past, I don't know how many they're going to have this year.

Last year, it seemed to be down a little bit in terms of numbers. But we've had 48, 50 TA2 cars when they take the green. And the TA2 cars are what the NASCAR guys rent when they want to come practice at COTA.

Because for certain events that they go to, they can rent a TA2 car. That is the car most similar to a cup car. So the NASCAR guys will rent those.

In fact, many current and former NASCAR drivers can be found in those cars. I think Boris said is almost always in the TA2 category. So, you know, if you're into the NASCAR world, this is a good weekend for you too.

They only have one race. on sunday but it's sort of the the feature race of the whole weekend so it's always a good one to have so yeah that's the fun of it i have not worked svra in a couple years this is always like schedule clash with me but i'm free this year and i'm very thrilled to get to work it so i will i will be in the room for that one so uh yeah it's been it's been a few years but um yeah looking forward to that and i'm in vegas and then vegas and i can't believe it's like three weeks away which is like so crazy to me so yeah that should be fine i always love that one and we know we've talked about that we did that vegas episode last year of talking to everyone which was so cool i have to say um this past weekend at usgp i happened to see a couple of those marshals that we interviewed and i just saw them and i remembered them and i was like hey you were on our podcast and and they're like oh yeah and i said did you listen to like no and i was like you should minute and uh they didn't they probably had no idea who the hell i was but anyway it was it was funny so anyway they don't forget you people i don't know about that but uh it was kind of funny yeah so uh we'd love to get to do that again i don't know we'll see we'll see what happens we need to come up with something at vegas vegas is the most sort of um bubbleized event for us, you know, where we're kind of all in the same circles and bubbles and except if you're in race control, bumping into each other. Um, you know, so yeah, we'll have to come up with something cool. If you've got a good idea, hit us up at podcast at tracksidepodcast.com and let us know what you think. Yeah. Should be fun. Well, but I, I, are you are you going to be at the at the pyramid again you stand there uh yeah i'm staying at the pyramid shiny light that's right so maybe we'll uh maybe we'll have a chance to try to grab some people but oh yeah we'll figure something out yeah anyway but yeah now looking forward to that and i think 2027 i you know heard a little bit about some of the upcoming plans and yes we should You mentioned Formula E is coming to Austin. It is. And there's another event coming, not to Austin, but it is officially announced. You might have to fact check me on this.

If I'm not mistaken, it's not been here since 1988. And that's World Rally Championship. That's an FIA.

Yes, that will be. In fact, if you're on Instagram, they have been promoting the heck out of it. That will be in 2027. I think it's going to be in August. Yeah. Yes. And it's going to be in Knoxville, Tennessee and the, the place, the roads and places around that. There's not that many places to marshal. Um, I think they only need something like 25, but there will be plenty of ways to get involved.

Check out world rally championship. That's going to be huge. Eric is so excited about world rally championship.

Um, I think it'll be really cool. I would love to be involved with it if there's a way for me to do it. So yeah, there's going to be some neat things.

Arlington is going to come back again next year. They've already announced. So yeah, next year's already shaping up to be a really, really good year for motorsports.

I'm very excited that Formula E is going to be bringing the Gen 4 car to COTA. They'll be running the short course. It will be in February.

So who knows what the weather's going to be like. But Formula E is one of those very unique, I think it's like moto. People think it's one thing, but when you see it, it turns out to be something completely different.

And, you know, you and I have worked Formula E, Jess. We know, I think it's appeal for me anyway. It's so cool to me that an electric car does what that does at a race car level.

When a car goes past you, you're mostly listening to its air effect. You can sometimes hear the body work rubbing against each other, kind of clacking as it goes past you. And until they lift and hit the region, you hardly hear anything other than the wind noise.

To me, that's just fascinating. And these new Gen 4 cars are supposed to be super fast and powerful. these will include fast charging pit stops as well yes which is it just definitely more like a regular race that works you know i think so many people that i've talked to you know like oh it's not the same i can't i can't i can't it's not the same and it's just like have you ever been to one because give it a shot it is really cool yeah it is very cool and you don't have to wear hearing protection which is awesome which is strange but really good yeah surveillance radio on pit lane works i mean And all the pit lane marshals have to have a whistle in hand because when a car starts moving, we whistle to indicate that there's a moving car because you won't know they're coming if you're not paying attention. Yes. Fascinating. Yeah, it is wild.

And yeah, I've been wanting this to come to Dakota for years. And I never thought it would because when I remember years ago, I used to work for South by Southwest. I was a contractor with them.

and I was able to sneak away one year and go there. They were there doing a panel discussion about it, trying to kind of promote it. And I went and I just sat in the audience and they were talking about how they, they do street races because they want to be in the heart of the city.

And it was part of the whole kind of a symbolic thing or whatever. And so that's what I thought. Okay.

Well then that's it. Well, you know, maybe they'd come to downtown Austin, who knows, whatever it was, but I thought, okay, well, I guess code is out then. And then all of a sudden Portland gets it.

And Miami Homestead gets it. And so I think that's, I think it was maybe a nice idea at the time, but it is, and I don't want to speak for any of that. I'm just extrapolating here that, you know, here, Formula E, it's supposed to be sustainable, right?

It's electric. Yeah. It is not sustainable to put on a street race.

Let's just keep it real. I mean, there's so just hauling all that stuff in and all the forklifts, all that kind of stuff. I would, I would kind of wonder if maybe that's part of it.

I don't know. and I'm not saying that I know any of this. I just, so the fact that we got it, it was, that was so exciting and I'm thrilled to be a part of that one. So if, uh, it's something you're interested in, I think we will be launching the application very soon.

Uh, those will be coming to me. I'll be the chair for that one. So I'm really excited to get to be involved with that one. So there you go. So, you know, yeah, yes. Reach out. If you're a podcast listener, you know, people so there you go we're gonna be it'll be um yeah flag the fnc intervention it'll be the usual things now it you know just full disclosure it's gonna be kind of fewer than we're used to having because uh it's a short course and and i think i can reveal this because it's already was a thing earlier this year in miami that it's gonna be tsp's so it's gonna be the light panel so um which i know i wasn't there i wasn't there in miami but i understand you know that's it's and we kind of alluded to this earlier when we're talking with gordy it's like kind of a hot a controversial topic right amongst marshals because it's kind of gives this whole oh they're replacing us with light panels and it's like well no as i i can see why people would be freaked out by that you know but oh you know you still like kind of like what he was saying is like you know it's we've we have an e-flag system in coda and whenever we're just working a regular rental you know and we get a client that would like us to use it they you know they request to use it we it's it's full course conditions only you know for someone in race control to to operate a local yellow flag on that thing it's it takes several seconds to do that because you got to find it and then you got to look at the thing and see which which button you've got a mouse to it and you've got to click in the right place yes and that's the whole that defeats the whole point is that you know the the whole reason for a flagger and a panel is safety is like we need to let we need to display display that now right because it's for it's still alert these drivers so you definitely need people on the ground for that and so yes you know you are pushing a button rather than waving a stick with with some fabric on it but it you are still an integral part of it so like i i don't you know you want to come at me or whatever i'm not i i i think marshals will always be a thing and i'm not choosing one side or another on that but if anyone's freaked out that marshals are going away that is not true at all i agree so it's just more of a you know if this can work better you know i think it's kind of you know formula e is really the only one and i once again i don't have any insider information on this like they're the only ones that i know of that are kind of doing this so you know maybe they're the pilot i don't know i don't know anything about that but um so just know there's still going to be we're still in many many marshals for the event it's just going to be smaller amount i think we had at usgp this past week and it was close to 600 it was somewhere between five and six hundred this will not be that many so it'll still be a lot i think there's still going to be a space for a lot of people are our usual local regulars maybe people who are formerly the e-enthusiast, whatever, definitely apply. We definitely would love to have you. It is an inaugural event.

So, of course, we're going to look for, you know, high levels of experience with that kind of thing. But we definitely love to have you apply. And we'll make sure that anyone on any of our former mailing lists with Coda will get the invite to apply for that.

So, yes, it should be very fun. And, yeah, looking forward to see kind of the other directions that things are going in in 2027. I think there's a lot of exciting stuff. There will be a lot of changes and new things to talk about in 2027. That is for sure. We'll be back with an episode probably to recap Vegas and take us to the end of the year right after Vegas.

But like Jess mentioned, as we record this, it's just a couple of weeks away. So we'll see if we can come up with something cool to do in Vegas too to keep everybody interested. Because that's actually quite a fun marshalling event.

and being around and in close proximity and being able to hang you know with with each other which we don't always get you know in Austin or Miami and that's kind of you know going back to Formula E for a second that was like still one of my favorite ever was in New York yeah when it was in New York because they were very graciously like the hotel was free for the marshals in New York and I think that was an incentive to come do it and so everyone naturally why wouldn't you turn down a free hotel room right and so we all stayed there and then we all would go hang out together which is like that doesn't happen you know like you and i both live in the suburbs austin but we live in opposite suburb we live probably two hours apart even though we both live in the austin area two hours away you know like at these events we all we all go home and there's not you know and so that's why when you're all kind of in this captive audience whatever you want to call it like staying in the same place like yeah it's very easy oh let's go go walk over here or whatever yeah exactly so yeah just shows me the secrets the secret las vegas she knows i don't think it's secret at all but anyway yeah but yes uh yeah absolutely and i'm vegas of course i i love that town i know it's weird some people think i'm weird for that but i it's it's awesome and uh always love to visit there i'll be back of course a month after the grand prix for our annual christmas family trip which uh yeah so it's always interesting to see how much of the track is still there what have they taken down or whatever but yeah so anyway yeah it'll be fun so yes come see it come say hello in vegas we'd love to chat with you we'll see what we can do if we can get the microphones out again i don't know but we'll try yeah you sure will so yeah anything else you can think i think it's a Good place to wrap it up. We'll let you know that this podcast is copyright of its creators. And though Jessica and I are employed by Circuit of the Americas, nothing we say represents an official opinion of or endorsement from the circuit or any of their clients or series we might mention.

All opinions are our own. That'll wrap it up for this edition of Trackside, the podcast. Glad you were along.

And we will see you on the next one somewhere around the Las Vegas Grand Prix. All right. See ya.