22 episodes
It's Not the Car Sam Smith, Ross Bentley, Jeff Braun
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- Leisure
It’s Not the Car is a podcast about people, speed, and how we all work under pressure.
Short version: We tell racing stories and leave out the boring parts.
Ross Bentley is a former IndyCar driver and an internationally renowned performance coach. 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 unpack the emotion at the heart of the machine.
We don’t love motorsport for the nuts and bolts—we love it for what it asks of the bag of meat at the wheel.
New episodes on Tuesdays!
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Top Fuel Drag Racing is Harder Than You Think — (GUEST: Clay Millican)
“You’re gonna get fired anyway, so you might as well start racing!”
Clay Millican was a forklift operator. He quit that job to chase a dream in drag racing, and now he's an NHRA Top Fuel legend. He's also our very first guest on It’s Not the Car!
This show’s format rotates weekly, because squirrel. We call this format “Guest Teaches Us a Thing"—in this case, what it feels like to have 11,000 hp under your right foot. If you like it, don’t worry—there are plenty more to come whether you like it or not.
Related Trivia: Top Fuel racing can be absurdly violent. Clay's car once vibrated so much that it shook his dental crowns from his mouth. Mike, INTC's producer, wrote this episode description late at night with approximately four functional brain cells, and he will probably suffer the same fate simply by continuing to miss his dentist appointments.
This episode was produced by Mike Perlman.
**
Support It’s Not the Car:
Contribute on Patreon https://www.patreon.com/notthecar
**
Topic suggestions, feedback, questions? Let us know what you think!
INTCPod@gmail.com
**
Where to find us:
https://www.instagram.com/intcpod
https://www.instagram.com/j.v.braun/
https://www.instagram.com/rossbentley/
https://www.instagram.com/thatsamsmith/
https://www.facebook.com/INTCpod
https://rossbentley.substack.com/
https://speedsecrets.com/
https://www.facebook.com/Drivercoach
**
ABOUT THE SHOW:
It’s Not the Car is a podcast about people and speed. 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. -
BONUS: Sam Reads From His New Book — “Mears and My Feet”
Another free bonus episode! Why? Sam has a new book out! To celebrate, we’re releasing four excerpts, each read aloud by him, every Monday for a month. This is the second installment.
Sam’s book is called, “Smithology: Thoughts, Travels, and Semi-Plausible Car Writings, 2003–2023.” It’s an anthology of his writing for car magazines over the last 20 years. Like the man himself, it’s thoughtful, funny, and deeply human.
Today’s story originally ran as a column at Hagerty, the classic-car insurance and media company, in 2021. It’s called “Mears and My Feet.” It’s about racing, pain, and the things we need to do.
“Smithology” is available on Amazon in print ($29.95) and as a Kindle e-book ($12.99).
Enjoy!
**
Support It’s Not the Car:
Contribute on Patreon www.patreon.com/notthecar/
**
Topic suggestions, feedback, questions? Let us know what you think!
INTCPod@gmail.com
**
Where to find us:
instagram.com/j.v.braun/
instagram.com/rossbentley/
instagram.com/thatsamsmith/
instagram.com/intcpod/
facebook.com/INTCPod/
rossbentley.substack.com/
speedsecrets.com/
facebook.com/Drivercoach/
**
ABOUT THE SHOW:
It’s Not the Car is a podcast about people and speed. 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. -
The Awful Joy of Bad Racing Movies — (Driven, 2001)
“Driving a race car,” Sylvester Stallone once said, “is terrifying.”
Aw, Sly, buddy—that just makes me sad, you know? A big ol’ dollop of Guy Fieri bummer sauce. You’re missing out! It’s only terrifying if you’re doing it wrong!
Speaking of: What if you made a horrendously expensive movie about IndyCar while knowing almost nothing about the sport? What if, a quarter-century later, that film was widely held up as one of the worst in history?
Here now, the story of Stallone’s 2001 cinematic assterpiece, “Driven.” Little-known trivia! Joyous dissections of inaccuracy! Awful behind-the-scenes insights! And at the end, Sam makes Ross and Jeff act out lines from the film, because he is clearly a broadcasting nightmare and should never be allowed to run anything.
This show’s format rotates weekly, because squirrel. We call this format “INTC Movie Club.” If you like it, don’t worry, we’ll do it again. Probably with “Sharknado.”
Related Trivia: Ross, a former IndyCar driver, seems to loathe this film with every fiber of his being. As far as I can tell, Jeff simply finds it an amusing trainwreck, like watching a dog try to bake a cake.
Unrelated Trivia: Sam’s wife no longer lets him bake anything in the house.
This episode was produced by Mike Perlman.
**
Support It’s Not the Car:
Contribute on Patreon www.patreon.com/notthecar/
**
Topic suggestions, feedback, questions? Let us know what you think!
INTCPod@gmail.com
**
Where to find us:
instagram.com/j.v.braun/
instagram.com/rossbentley/
instagram.com/thatsamsmith/
instagram.com/intcpod/
facebook.com/INTCPod/
rossbentley.substack.com/
speedsecrets.com/
facebook.com/Drivercoach/
**
ABOUT THE SHOW:
It’s Not the Car is a podcast about people and speed. 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. -
BONUS: Sam Reads From His New Book — “Wall Drug”
Free bonus episode! Why? Sam has a new book out! To celebrate, we’re releasing four excerpts read aloud by him—one each Monday for the next four weeks.
Sam’s book is called “Smithology: Thoughts, Travels, and Semi-Plausible Car Writings, 2003–2023.” It’s an anthology of his writing for car magazines over the last 20 years. Like the man himself, it's thoughtful, funny, and deeply human.
Today’s story first ran as a column in Road & Track magazine in 2015. It’s called “Wall Drug”—it’s about visiting Indianapolis during qualifying for the Indy 500.
“Smithology” is available on Amazon in print ($29.95) and as a Kindle e-book ($12.99).
Enjoy!
**
Support It’s Not the Car:
Contribute on Patreon www.patreon.com/notthecar/
**
Topic suggestions, feedback, questions? Let us know what you think!
INTCPod@gmail.com
**
Where to find us:
instagram.com/j.v.braun/
instagram.com/rossbentley/
instagram.com/thatsamsmith/
instagram.com/intcpod/
facebook.com/INTCPod/
rossbentley.substack.com/
speedsecrets.com/
facebook.com/Drivercoach/
**
ABOUT THE SHOW:
It’s Not the Car is a podcast about people and speed. 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. -
How Roger and Mario Broke the Indy 500 — (Penske “Beast” V-8, 1994)
To borrow a line from this episode, “this is a great story because it’s got Paul Tracy melting his feet off and a bunch of stuff blowing up and Mario Andretti sits on his porch giving the stink eye at one point.”
(The Mario in the headline is a different Mario. Headline Mario was Swiss.)
(Digression: Headline Mario sounds like the *worst* Nintendo game. “Hey, Timmy! Come by my house after school! We can play Headline Mario and eat Cheez-Its!”)
(Timmy: “Uh . . . I have to . . . wash my hair?”)
(What would that game even be, really? Like, Mario and Luigi save the world from a giant jerky turtle monster by doing… journalism? What would the spinoffs look like? “You guys! I got the red shell in Headline Mario Kart! Now I can murder another kart with a single split infinitive!”)
(I should probably be telling you what’s in this episode, right? Ah well, too late, we’ve used up too much space already. It’s a corker, though, I promise.)
This show’s format rotates weekly, because squirrel. This episode is our monthly deep dive into an epic moment from racing history—in this case, the top-secret, hyper-rad moonshot project that three very clever men built to absolutely destroy the 1994 Indianapolis 500.
The cool part: They actually got away with it!
Related Trivia: Did we mention that SAM HAS A NEW BOOK OUT? It’s called “Smithology.” Available now on Amazon in print and as a Kindle e-book. It is far better written than the episode descriptions for this show. Though that's admittedly not saying much.)
This episode was produced by Mike Perlman.
**
Support It’s Not the Car:
Contribute on Patreon www.patreon.com/notthecar/
**
Topic suggestions, feedback, questions? Let us know what you think!INTCPod@gmail.com
**
Where to find us:instagram.com/j.v.braun/instagram.com/rossbentley/instagram.com/thatsamsmith/instagram.com/intcpod/facebook.com/INTCPod/rossbentley.substack.com/speedsecrets.com/facebook.com/Drivercoach/
**
ABOUT THE SHOW:
It’s Not the Car is a podcast about people and speed. 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. -
Do Car Magazines Have Secrets?
They do! But first: SAM HAS A NEW BOOK OUT. It’s called “Smithology”—available now on Amazon in print and as a Kindle e-book. Check it out, if you have a sec?
This show’s format rotates weekly, because squirrel. We call this format “Sam Tells a Story.” And in this case, that story is another dive into all the stuff you wanted to know about car magazines but never had a chance to ask.
Jeff and Ross have questions on the topic. Sam hates talking about himself and is convinced that these questions are simply data collection in prep for the day where Jeff and Ross build a robot to replace him. If we are lucky, they will program that robot to be significantly less annoying and also capable of remembering to start the dishwasher at night.
Related Trivia: This episode description was written by Sam’s wife, Adrienne, who is nothing at all like Sam, which is to say, she is very nice and generally coherent.
This episode was produced by Mike Perlman.
**
Support It’s Not the Car:
Contribute on Patreon www.patreon.com/notthecar/
**
Topic suggestions, feedback, questions? Let us know what you think!
INTCPod@gmail.com
**
Where to find us:
instagram.com/j.v.braun/
instagram.com/rossbentley/
instagram.com/thatsamsmith/
instagram.com/intcpod/
facebook.com/INTCPod/
rossbentley.substack.com/
speedsecrets.com/
facebook.com/Drivercoach/
**
ABOUT THE SHOW:
It’s Not the Car is a podcast about people and speed. 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.