Listener Q&A: Can the Data Lie?

It's Not the Car

It’s another “No Dumb Questions!” You email us to ask, we sit down to answer. There are no dumb questions, but there might be some dumb answers.

Today’s focus is . . . going faster with data and friends!

Many race teams use data feeds to help their drivers improve. (Examples: brake pressure; speed over time; the four-dimensional thermocouple plot that lets Toto Wolff know just how far down to unbutton his shirt.) Can those data systems lie? Can friends at the track help you get faster? And what does any of this have to do with Sam’s mom?

This show’s format rotates weekly, because squirrel. For this episode, we’re borrowing the NDQ framework from Ross’s old “Speed Secrets” podcast, from a popular Q&A show he and Jeff ran there for several years.

NEWS: This episode marks the last Q&A on the standard (i.e., free) INTC show feed. Going forward, new Q&A shows will appear as monthly bonus episodes for members of our Patreon. Link below!

Related Trivia: Ross and Jeff have known each other since the 1990s. They’ve traveled down the road and back again; their hearts are true, they are pals and confidants. Also—this is completely unrelated—if this podcast were a TV show, Sam would totally be played by the ghost of Estelle Getty.

This episode was produced by Mike Perlman, who was born after “The Golden Girls” went off the air and won’t get that reference but we love him anyway.

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speedsecrets.com/⁠⁠ ⁠⁠

facebook.com/Drivercoach/⁠⁠

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ABOUT THE SHOW:

It’s Not the Car is a podcast about people, motorsport, and how we all work under pressure. In other words, we tell racing stories and leave out the boring parts.

Ross Bentley is a former IndyCar driver and an internationally renowned performance coach and author. Jeff Braun is a championship-winning race engineer. Sam Smith is an award-winning journalist and a former executive editor of Road & Track magazine. Together, we explore the emotion at the heart of the machine.

We don’t love racing for the nuts and bolts—we love it for what it asks of the bag of meat at the wheel.

New episodes every Tuesday.