How To Race BTCC - SHAKEDOWN Interview

LEO PARENTE: Here on Shakedown, you love
production-based race cars.
We do too, as evidenced by our most recent visit to the
Pirelli World Challenge in Detroit.
Hope you saw that video.
And by extension, you seem to like Touring Cars like the
British Touring Car Championship, officially
called the Dunlop MSA British Touring Car Series.
British Touring Cars has a long history.
It started in 1958 as the British Saloon Car
Championship, which I assume was the country's first
designated driver program--
you know, with the large number of pubs, saloons, and
bars in Great Britain.
Ken Gregory, the manager of racing great Sterling Moss,
was the founder of the series, because I guess Sterling and
his friends were heavy drinkers.
When the designated drivers started to race their drunk
passengers home, the series decided it would be safer to
move the proceedings to the race tracks of England now.
Now I may have the BTCC history a bit wrong there, and
my apologies to Mr. Moss for calling him a fish-eyed sow.
Where was I?
British Touring Cars.
In the 1950s, saloon car racing was very popular in
England, but not organized.
This national series fixed that and gave the leading
British manufacturers, recovering from post-war
years, a display ground to projective
their automotive prowess.
Great cars into the '60s, the '70s.
the '80s.
the '90s.
And great drivers like Jimmy Clark, who's doing his
Chris-Harris-moment thing--
better than Chris Harris?
And Americans, too, came to race--
Richie Ginther, Dan Gurney and Steve McQueen.
As early as 1961, Dan Gurney raced a V8 Chevrolet Impala at
Silverstone, the big boats.
And by 1963, several Ford Galaxies were in the UK
championship.
And ultimately, Gurney's lead would be followed by teams
campaigning Ford Mustang, Ford Falcon, and Chevy Camaros.
In 1963, your Jack Sears from England was champion again,
this time at the wheel of the mighty Ford Galaxy.
'64 and '65 brought more American thunder to British
saloon racing.
So why am I talking all this British Touring Car and
American back story?
Because I read on Jalopnik that American Rob Holland will
be the first US racer back in that series since some guy
named Bill Gubelmann--
Gutenberg, whatever--
took a Ford Capri to the British
touring car grid in 1975.
Now Rob Hall is due in the next two races, Snetterton and
Knockhill in August, and testing his S2000 class spec
Honda Civic in a few days.
Rob came from the Pirelli World Challenge Series, so
he's a production car veteran.
Jalopnik ended their story with a snark.
We're rooting for him now--
Rob--
and we'll wish him a speedy recovery if he does put that
Honda in the wrong place.
Really?
I think we can do better than that and do more than just
cheerlead by talking with Rob via Skype and getting the
inside story into the British Touring Car Series from his
perspective and his first attempt to race from the
passenger seat.
Yeah, that was a right-hand-drive joke.
And I haven't even started on the jokes with a team called
HARD and tracks called not Knockhill.
You know what?
Just come back after the break.
We'll talk to Rob.

You all know that British Touring Car is home for a ton
of manufacturers.
Honda Civic, like Rob Holland is going to race, Ford Focus,
Toyota Avensis, Audi A4, MG6--
Jason Plato is running that this year--
and Vauxhall.
I'm assuming just a really bad Chevy Cruze, since they pulled
out of the series, as they're going to do with World Touring
Car Championship as well.
British Touring Car is 10 races over the year.
The next two are Snetterton, a complex course, and Knockhill,
all of them in August--
faster, higher speed.
Rob Holland is taking on those two tracks.
Enough about me doing the setup.
Let's go right to Rob Holland and listen to his story about
his first foray into British Touring Car racing.
So here we are with Rob Holland.
Rob, you're in England right now, yes?
ROB HOLLAND: I am in England right now, as we speak.
LEO PARENTE: Thank you for joining us.
Thank you for taking the time.
In my intro, I had mentioned that Americans before you, way
before Bill Glickenhaus or whoever that guy is from 1975,
Richie Ginther, Dan Gurney, Steve
McQueen, and now yourself--
great Americans--
have raced over there to British Touring Car.
I have to ask you, why do you hate America that you have to
leave our country to race?
What's going on here?
ROB HOLLAND: No, no such thing at all.
I just fell in love with British Touring Car
Championship years ago.
In fact, it's actually why I got into racing
in the first place.
I love the racing.
I love the cars.
I love this historic tracks out here.
And it's why I became a Touring Car driver, and it's
also why I've stayed in Touring Car for so many years.
I love everything about it, and this was the culmination
of a lifelong dream, pretty much.
So to come over here and race with these guys is just going
to be phenomenal.
LEO PARENTE: Well, we're going to touch a little bit on some
of your previous experience in Pirelli World Challenge, where
I think you raced the Volvo C30 and a Honda, so that begs
the next question.
Is Honda helping you, in fact, expatriate more Americans away
from our country and take them overseas?
ROB HOLLAND: I wouldn't say that, but yeah, they're
definitely helping me out.
Lee Niffenegger over at HPD has been great and really
tried to do whatever he could to help facilitate this.
And it's great.
I've had a great relationship with them.
And through the Compass360 team over a number of years, I
raced with Compass360 and Grand Am, and then also in
World Challenge at the beginning of this year.
So I really appreciate all their support.
And without these guys, man, it couldn't happen.
LEO PARENTE: So, Rob, I don't want to infer to anyone that
you're running away from Pirelli World Challenge.
The experience has given you the grounding to get here
where you are.
Talk to me a little bit about World Challenge and
really how it works.
A lot of people maybe think it's just a stepping stone
series, or it's just for the big Cadillac factory
team and the Volvo.
There's a lot going on.
Talk to me a little bit about Challenge.
ROB HOLLAND: Yeah, World Challenge has been great.
It's a series that has been around for 30, 40
years almost now.
And it's got everything.
It's got the factory teams.
It's got some of the best drivers.
It's got, obviously, great TV coverage,
great fans, great exposure.
And from the beginning, it was a great opportunity for me,
not just as a driver looking to increase his exposure and
awareness, but also just the level of competition that you
get introduced to there.
LEO PARENTE: And both the Pirelli series and the Dunlop
series, they're on real race tires, so we're transferring
that knowledge.
ROB HOLLAND: Yeah, and that's a whole other level of the
things that you've got to think about now.
The tires are completely different now than the old
Toyota R888s that we used to run in World Challenge.
A true racing slick handles completely differently, and it
requires a completely different setup and a
completely different mindset going into it.
So working with the engineers here--
even though the Pirellis and the Dunlops here, they're race
slicks, they're two totally different tires.
So learning how those tires react to setups and what they
like and don't like, whether it's operating temperature or
slip angle or whatever, that's the things that you work with
with the engineer.
LEO PARENTE: I met you at Laguna.
And I'm certain proportions, and you look like some
footballer ready to replace Rooney on the English team.
How did you get into racing?
I mean, take us all the way back.
How'd you start this?
ROB HOLLAND: Well, it's actually funny.
I started in a completely other sport that my size is
actually a detriment to.
I was a professional cyclist a while ago.
So I did that for a number of years and then
just got burned out.
It was a lot of travel.
A season just lasted from February to October, so you're
always on the road, and it was too much more of a lifestyle.
So I retired from that, and I found myself missing being
competitive.
I'd always been a bit of a gearhead.
I'm not really sure why.
My parents aren't car guys.
No one in my family likes cars.
We're trying to track down the milkman and see if he's got
like an Alfa Romeo tucked away in the garage or something.
But I basically decided to go to Skip Barber to learn how to
race cars because I just missed being competitive.
And it turned out that I was better at racing cars than I
was at racing bikes.
And we are 10 years down the road, and I'm
making a living at it.
LEO PARENTE: And without getting too sidetracked, but
tell our fans.
Obviously, the other part of the profession is finding the
money and finding the partners to get in a race
car and stay there.
And you've done a pretty good job of that.
You raced with K-Pax, a very successful World Challenge
team, in their C30 program, right?
ROB HOLLAND: I did.
And it was such a great opportunity with those guys.
I was with them way back when, when it was 3R Racing, racing
with Dodge in Pirelli World Challenge.
And we kind of went our own separate ways after a couple
of years after that Dodge program ended, and then I
ended up back last year with 3R Racing, which was K-Pax
Racing, and running the Volvo C30 in Touring Car.
And I had great, great experience with them.
The car was ridiculously competitive after midpoint of
last season.
My teammate and I took a bunch of wins, a
bunch of track records.
So it was a great opportunity there.
Unfortunately, that program ended.
Volvo, I think, is going to more the S60 as their racing
platform now.
So I was kind of left stranded at the beginning of the year
without a ride.
LEO PARENTE: So we segued from the C30 into the Compass
front-drive Honda.
And now you're going to be in a Honda Civic, the European
generation Honda Civic in the S2000 class of British Touring
Car, correct?
ROB HOLLAND: Yeah, now, there's multiple classes, and
there's a big difference.
The cars we race in Pirelli World Challenge are a lot
closer to the street cars.
There's limited modifications you can do to them.
So they're very close to being street cars.
Going over to here, in British Touring Car, they've got two
different specifications.
The first specification they've used is the
specification that the FIA has demoligated over the past
several years, which is the S2000, which was used in
Touring Car and at World Rally competition as well.
They're still based on street cars.
It's a street chassis, but a lot of modification to the
suspension.
What British Touring Car decided, though, was that even
that specification, even though they were trying to
limit the cost there, the costs were kind of creeping,
as they have a tendency to do in racing.
And it was getting very expensive.
So what British Touring Car wanted to do was go to a
specification that was going to be a lot easier to build, a
lot easier to maintain, and a lot easier
to repair in crashing.
So obviously, that's something that happens not infrequently.
LEO PARENTE: And that's the new generation Touring Car.
And like German Touring Car, where they cut maybe 30, 40%
of the budget and still had a competitive car, they're
trying to do that with the new-generation Touring Car.
You're running S2000 spec.
So this is your chance to cover your ass.
Is there a disadvantage in being the
older grandfather spec?
Or are you right there?
LEO PARENTE: Yes, absolutely.
I'm going to throw that out there right now.
It's going to be a struggle.
No.
There are some advantages and disadvantages, and I've talked
to a lot of the teams, so I have an idea of what's going
on, obviously.
I haven't been the car yet, so I'm not exactly sure what to
expect until I get out there.
But the S2000 spec runs a 17-inch tire along with--
I believe it's a 235 profile, where the next-generation cars
are running an 18-inch with a 245 profile.
So you get a little bit less rubber on the ground, a little
bit more sidewall flex.
There's an advantage and disadvantage to that.
The advantage is that the S2000 cars actually get heat
in their rear tires quicker.
It's a smaller tire, less volume to heat up.
So the first two or three laps of a race, the S2000 cars have
an advantage.
And then once the race goes on, tire wear, tire
degradation becomes an issue.
Towards the end of the race, that advantage starts shifting
to the next-generation cars.
LEO PARENTE: And not to put you on the spot, Honda Civic
won last year's championship.
Was that an S2000 car or new generation?
ROB HOLLAND: The car that I'm in right now is the car that
actually took second in the championships, Gordon
Sheddon's car.
So no real excuse there.
There are more next-generation cars out on track right now
than there were last year.
The Hondas have now all gone over, other than the car that
I'm running, to the next-generation specification.
And then Jason Plato and his teammate have come out with
the MG cars as well.
So you've got the top, I think, five cars in the series
right now are the new generation of cars.
But I still think this car's got some life left in it.
It's easily a top 10 car.
LEO PARENTE: And the last question on the car right now.
You're off turbo.
This is normally aspirated?
ROB HOLLAND: No, no.
These are turbocharged cars.
There's a general specification that the series
has gone to, and it's that you have a turbocharged motor for
every car and class.
So it makes it a little bit easier to
performance-balance the cars.
LEO PARENTE: OK, so let's segue there, because you've
got experience running a turbo production car.
What do you expect to happen?
You have not been in the car yet.
You're going to test maybe tomorrow?
ROB HOLLAND: Yeah, Tomorrow morning.
LEO PARENTE: So what do you expect from this British
Touring Car?
ROB HOLLAND: I think it's going to be really similar to
the Pirelli World Challenge Touring Cars that we have five
or six years ago--
Heavily modified suspensions, suspension pickup points, all
things that are designed to eliminate some of the inherent
issues with a front-wheel drive race car.
I think that you're going to start seeing a car that is
going to be very precise.
It's a true race car.
It's more than just a heavily modified street car.
All the suspension pickup points are changed.
All the suspension is completely modified.
So I think it's going to be a much more
enjoyable car to drive.
I can really kind of grab it by the scruff of the neck and
make it do what I want it to do as opposed to trying to
figure out what it wants and go from there.
LEO PARENTE: OK.
Is there a lot of adjustability in the car?
ROB HOLLAND: Huge amounts of adjustability.
That's one of the things that's going to be one of the
learning curve issues that I'll have to deal with is that
there's even more adjustability in the car than
the old Touring Cars.
And some of the things I won't know what does until we
actually make the adjustment.
We're already be running, I think, four half-an-hour
sessions tomorrow.
Of course, in typical British summer fashion, it's supposed
to rain nonstop all day long.
So it's a track I've never been to, and a car I've never
driven before, and a high-profile series.
And of course, what is it going to do?
It's going to rain all day.
LEO PARENTE: Are you expecting sympathy from me on this or
are you going--
ROB HOLLAND: No, no.
Not at all.
LEO PARENTE: What track are you testing?
Is it going to be Snetterton or Knockhill or no?
ROB HOLLAND: It is Snetterton.
My big thing was that I wanted to test on the track that
we're going to go to try to minimize any
disadvantages I had.
One of the reasons I chose Snetterton as the first race
we were looking at doing is they just modified the
circuit last year.
So it went from the traditional circuit, and
they've added a whole infield section, which
looks kind of fun.
LEO PARENTE: Yeah, the track map tells me it's a really
technical combination of a lot of slow, back-and-forth
transition things.
And then you've got a few sweepers and straightaways.
But if you can drive the car and carry it, it looks like a
good place.
ROB HOLLAND: Yeah.
And that's the big thing.
You also have to look at the way this series is
performance-balanced in the cars is that they are looking
at overall lap time.
So they're not just saying, OK, here's your trap speed, so
we're going to modify your boost based on trap speed.
They're saying, here's what the overall lap time is.
The Hondas are actually much better on a very
tight, twisty circuit.
They don't have as much horsepower as
the MGs or the BMWs.
And this circuit is, now with this new infield
section, it's technical.
The balance changes back to the Honda.
And I think we're going to have, if not an advantage, at
least not a disadvantage.
The other big thing was that these guys don't have a lot of
experience on the circuit.
The circuit has only been in use for a year.
So my big concern is that you come out here, and until you
get here, you never realize this.
But almost everything is within 100 miles of London.
We're at Brands Hatch 50 miles away from London.
Silverstone, 100 miles away from London.
So these guys, when they come out here, and they say, oh,
it's our home track.
Well, their home track is every track in England.
Whereas in the US, if I go to Watkins Glen, I go to Watkins
Glen once, maybe twice a year.
Road America, I go to once a year.
So I've got experience at those tracks, but nowhere near
what these guys have at all their tracks.
So for my first race, I wanted to try to balance that out a
little bit and this was a good place to start.
LEO PARENTE: That prompts a little racer question.
Is this is an open test or a private test?
ROB HOLLAND: It is an open test.
There will be, I believe, three or four other BTCC teams
there, along with, I believe, some Porsche Cup teams and
some Ginetta Cup teams as well.
So there will be a lot of British media out to see my
first tentative laps in the British Touring?
LEO PARENTE: Have you met some of your other competitor slash
friends slash screw it, I'm not your friend I'm a
competitor yet?
ROB HOLLAND: Not yet.
I'm looking forward to it.
I've met a couple of the teams.
I talked to a few teams before I'd settled on Tony Gliham
Racing for the program.
And they all seemed to be great, and they're really
excited to have me in the series-- and
an American as well.
I think there's this kind of, wow, no one had realized that
it's been that long since an American raced in BTCC.
So everyone's kind of the excited and
keeping an eye on it.
LEO PARENTE: Well, for what it's worth from my side,
racing's marketing it as well as the sport, and you've
gotten a lot of press already, being the
guy going over there.
ROB HOLLAND: Yeah.
It wasn't something that I expected.
I didn't go to British Touring Car because I was going to be
the first American in 37 years.
Yeah, I didn't even realize that until we were pretty much
done with getting the deal finalized.
Like I said, I just always loved British Touring Car from
the time it was back in the '90s when it was the Super
Touring Car era.
I just thought that was the best racing on the planet.
So down the road, we find out that I'm the first American in
37 years to run.
And then you look at the very limited list of Americans who
were running, and the Steve McQueens and the Dan Gurneys,
and it's a very, very Select list of
American race car drivers.
So, hopefully, this is great for me in getting out there
and getting exposure, obviously,
which helps with sponsors.
But the big thing is I'd like to see other
Americans come over here.
And I think there are a lot of American Touring Car drivers
that I think would do very, very well over here.
LEO PARENTE: Let's go back to driving the car.
Talk to me a little bit about how you actually do race a
front-drive car, and how that affects, whether it be your
line, your input, braking, whatever.
ROB HOLLAND: Yeah.
It's a huge difference between driving a front-wheel drive
car and a real-wheel drive car.
There are so many things you have to do to get a
front-wheel drive car through a corner.
The big issue you've got, especially in a turbocharged
car, is that all of the weight sits over the nose of the car.
And you end up having to fight to get the car to turn in.
In addition, you've got all of the steering forces going
through the front tires, and then you're trying to
accelerate as well.
So that creates a condition we call "power on push." So as
soon as you want to go to throttle, if you're using 90%
of the tires' grip to get through the corner, you can
only use the other 10% to go to throttle, which obviously
doesn't get you out of the corner very fast.
So you end up with this balancing game.
One of the things that we do a lot in running a front-wheel
drive car is trailbreaking the car into the corner, which is
basically getting on the brakes late, holding that
brake all the way to almost the apex of the corner before
we transition back on the throttle to
get out of the corner.
What that does is it weights the nose of the car and
unweights the tail of the car, which then allows
that tail to rotate.
In addition to that, we do a lot of adjustment with the
suspension.
So we like to try to do a little bit of toe-out in the
rear tires.
Maybe 1/8 or 1/16th-inch toe-out in the rear.
And what that does is that as you actually weight the
outside of that tire, that toe-out helps that tire to
steer the rear end of the car through the corner.
So you're basically just trying to trick the car into
behaving like a rear-wheel drive car.
If you can do it, it's actually a very effective way
of getting the car.
And we do what we call pitch and catch.
You basically pitch the car in there, get the car to rotate,
and then once it's pointed down the straightaway, you can
get to throttle.
And sometimes, depending on the corner, you can actually
get to throttle a little bit before a rear-wheel drive car.
So there's a lot of disadvantages to it, but if
you can get the setup just right, I think there's a lot
of advantages to it as well.
LEO PARENTE: Can I translate that?
That there may be an advantage in terms of trying to pass a
rear-drive car?
Because you're braking all the way to the apex?
ROB HOLLAND: Well, absolutely, and the other thing is with
the BTCC is their motto is, "More rubbin' is more racin'."
LEO PARENTE: Do you expect the racing to be more aggressive?
ROB HOLLAND: Yeah, absolutely.
British Touring Car, especially, that's
just how they race.
It's what they've been know for over the years.
And in the racing that I've done over here in general,
yeah, you definitely see a lot more aggressiveness that you
don't see in the US.
In the US, everyone's kind of, oh, OK, excuse me,
pardon me, after you.
And over here, it's more like, I've coming through, get the
hell out of my way.
So it's going to take an adjustment in that, and I
think that's one of the bigger things.
I talked to Ian Harrison, who runs the AAA out here, both in
British Touring Car and then also in the NASA V8 Supercar.
And he said that's the thing you're going to
have to get used to.
He says, getting on pace with these guys is probably not
going to be an issue for someone who's got Touring Car
experience.
He goes, the issue is going to be racing with these guys.
It's a whole other level of aggression that you just have
to mentally prepare yourself for.
If you watch BTCC, these guys, they go at it hammer and tong.
And the thing with a front-wheel drive car is that
you've got an inherent stability
in front-wheel drive.
If the car kind of gets a little or a little twirly, you
basically point the front wheels where you want to go,
get on the throttle, and usually the car
will pull you through.
In a rear-wheel drive car, if you're unstabilize a
rear-wheel drive car, they're just kind of hanging on.
They can't go to throttle to help them.
So in a rear-wheel drive car in a race situation, you can
get a lot more aggressive with a front-wheel drive car than
you can with a rear-wheel drive car.
LEO PARENTE: I'm smiling because I wish you two would
let me show right here Jason Plato's huge save.
Remember?
Yeah.
Got it.
ROB HOLLAND: Yeah, Brands Hatch, going down the hill.
LEO PARENTE: That was it.
ROB HOLLAND: You couldn't get any more perpendicular to the
track that he was, and just nailed the throttle and just
basically rode it all the way down the hill and did an
amazing save.
LEO PARENTE: Give the people that are new to British
Touring Car a sense of how fast this car is,
acceleration, top speed, and cornering.
How many Gs will get out of that Honda Civic?
ROB HOLLAND: Yeah, mega fast.
These cars, I think they're probably 3 seconds a lap off
of the Porsche Cup Car time.
So they're basically small GT cars.

I think that as far as top speed, you're probably
looking, at Snetterton, I'm guessing 140 miles per hour on
the front stretch.
And that's into a fairly heavy braking zone.
So, I think these cars are very comparable to what we've
got in terms of GT cars.
The thing that's amazing to me is how they
compare to street cars.
They're equal to a degree.
Out here, they get Touring Cars, but in the
US sometimes, they're--
normally it's a hot hat.
They're just fun, little easy cars to drive.
But when you actually go out and compare them to, let's
say, a Porsche GT3 RS, you turn a 2-minute lap time with
the Porsche GT3 RS.
My Touring Car in World Challenge will probably do
that in a minute 55.
So five seconds faster.
One of the faster street cars on the planet.
So I think that's the main thing that most people
wouldn't recognize about the Touring Cars, how insanely
fast they are.
And British Touring Cars are going to be probably 5 or 6
seconds quicker than that.
LEO PARENTE: And I have to remind everyone--
confirm for me.
It may look smooth from the outside looking in, but you're
aggressively throwing this car around and doing some really
abrupt and very controlled, but very hard things to make
this car carry speed, yes?
ROB HOLLAND: Yeah, oh, absolutely.
We're like ducks on the water.
On top, it's all calm and everything's good.
Underneath, we're paddling away to save our lives.

Literally, it's like Mario Andretti said.
You drive it like you stole it.
You grab the thing by the scruff of the neck.
You throw it in the corner, and you just kind of figure
out what you've got once you get there.
LEO PARENTE: Well, Mario also said the guy that's faster is
the one that doesn't make less mistakes.
He just catches the mistakes sooner.
So good on ya.
Get that done, OK?
ROB HOLLAND: There you go.
LEO PARENTE: So what are your expectations?
I'm going to put you on the spot a little bit.
What are your expectations for these first two races?

ROB HOLLAND: My philosophy in racing has always been if
you're not there to win, then why bother to show up?
I don't want to come here and be pack filler.
I don't want to be the American, and OK, well, we can
just discard him.
My goal is to be competitive with these guys.
And I think we can be.
I think realistically a top 10 finish for the first race
weekend I think is a realistic goal to have, but I hope to be
far more competitive than that.
I'd like to shoot for podiums right away.
LEO PARENTE: And if this works, what's the plan?
I know you can give me the standard answer, but what is
the sense of--
do you want to turn this into a 2013 season or--
ROB HOLLAND: Yeah, the plan is definitely 2013.
This isn't just a, hey, let's go over and play around in
British Touring Car and then go off and do something else.
It is definitely looking for this as a permanent fixture in
the series.
I'm doing a lot more stuff in Europe, in general.
I've got a partner of mine, my buddy Roland and I, are buying
a garage out at the Nurburgring.
And we're going to be doing a lot of--
basically, almost arrive and drive for American Drivers in
the VLN Series and Nurburgring Race Series over there and 24
Hours of Nurburgring.
I see this as kind of a doorway to American drivers
coming over.
I always get questions because I'm over here a lot, and I
think there's a pent-up demand to come here, but drivers just
don't know how to go about it.
So hopefully, we can use this as a way to get
guys over here easy.
LEO PARENTE: So I'm going to kind of close this because I
want you to get some rest for tomorrow, but I've got to ask
you something on my agenda.
We have here something called "Shakedown University," which
has been our attempt to convey some of the racing knowledge.
And I know you're an instructor here in the States,
and you just told us what you're doing in Europe.
I need you to raise your right hand and repeat after me.
ROB HOLLAND: OK, you got to tell me what I'm repeating
first before I raise my right hand.
LEO PARENTE: Well, we're about to make you an adjunct
professor to Shakedown University.
ROB HOLLAND: All right.
LEO PARENTE: I, Rob Holland--
ROB HOLLAND: I, Rob Holland--
LEO PARENTE: --am now agreeing to become a member--
ROB HOLLAND: --am now agreeing to become a member--
LEO PARENTE: --of the Shakedown University as an
adjunct professor--
ROB HOLLAND: --of Shakedown University as an adjunct
professor--
LEO PARENTE: --so help me someone.
So help me Sterling Moss.
So here's what I'd like to do.
Somewhere in your experience, whether it's from your testing
or after one of the races, I'd love to do this again and have
you take us through the debrief experience, to share,
without sharing too many secrets, what a driver
normally does when they get out of the car from a given
session and confer knowledge and information from your
experience racing the car to the engineers to make those
changes we talked about and just give people here on
Shakedown kind of an inside look.
If you're up for that, and I'm putting you on the spot, I'd
love to do it.
ROB HOLLAND: I think it'd be great, because this is going
to be a learning experience for me as well-- new teams,
new cars, new engineers.
So I think this could be a lot of fun, absolutely.
LEO PARENTE: Well, I defer to you when you want to do it in
the three experiences.
The testing tomorrow.
We'll let you do your thing, and maybe after one
of the races, OK?
ROB HOLLAND: Absolutely.
LEO PARENTE: All kidding aside, we wish
you the best of luck.
It's mega cool, and I know you're going to do great.
ROB HOLLAND: Thank you very much, Leo.
I appreciate it.
LEO PARENTE: Thank you for your time.

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