- I think my favorite moment was kind of coming up the side
of the mountain because we were like
we've never seen the track before
we weren't really sure what to expect.
We're like, holy crap
this is like kind of way up here,
and then like literally like cresting
over the little hill and just seeing the entirety
of the track there and cars running on it.
And like just hearing the sounds of everything
everything was just echoed off of everything.
And it was so loud, but yeah just kind of like coming over
that crest of the hill and just seeing everything
for the first time, it was like damn we're really here.
This is really a real thing.
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- So I'm Dakota Stone,
I'm the Creative Marketing Lead here at Fitment Industries,
and my role on this trip was to make some dang dope videos.
You know what I'm saying?
I had to make TikToks and YouTube videos like this.
Basically we went out there to learn more about Michelin
and just get a bunch of content out there.
I'm Gels from Fitment Industries,
I'm a Marketing Operations Leader at Fitment Industries
as well as a Wheel Designer for Anovia Wheels.
- So day one was we left Appleton flew to Chicago.
We barely made it like we were flying by the seat
of our pants it was so close like I'm waiting for Gels,
he had to check his luggage when he was on the plane
so they took it, me and Max are like bro,
we have like two minutes to get to our terminal
and it's a 20 minute walk is what they told us.
So Gels guy's bag we see him, me and Max start running.
We're hauling as through the airport,
I look back Gels is gone.
Didn't care, kept running.
- Dakota and Max kind of took off I was kind of left behind
'cause I had like a little rollie bag
that I didn't check even though I should have.
So that was kind of flying all
over the places we were booking it through O'Hare
barely made it just in time to board the plane
and it was kind of you know decent trip
the rest of the way to San Francisco.
- I had to get to the terminal,
I wasn't gonna miss California
and I wasn't gonna sit in the airport all day.
I've done that before and it's the worst thing possible
'cause the food's really expensive
and the bloody marries aren't any cheaper
- Got to San Francisco, we had to get our rent a car
and then drove two hours was in California times three hours
due to traffic down in Monterey, got to our hotel
and that was absolutely gorgeous.
First time being in California,
we have a pretty good impression, pretty nice area up there,
absolutely beautiful.
Our hotel was like a couple blocks
from this gorgeous beach down there, an awesome view,
so we walked down there right away.
And but right about that time we were about ready
to grab some food and kind of head to bed
'cause we had a really busy day
or busy couple days ahead of us.
- Day two, this was practice day.
So there was practice day qualifying day and race day
and day two was practice day.
So this was us getting to the track
and kind of learning where everything was.
So we had to run around and try and find the media building
and look for that once we found
that we kind of got our credentials
and things we needed to access the track.
After around lunchtime, we got to talk
with some drivers at Michelin set some time up for us.
So we got to talk with some really really big name people,
we got to talk to Wayne Taylor racing,
we talked to Ricky Taylor and Felipe Albuquerque,
we talked to Pipo Derani, Jack Hawksworth
a couple other drivers and stuff like that,
couple other team managers
and things which was absolutely incredible.
- But after our interviews, it was more exploring
'cause there's so much Laguna Seca is so big
and when you're doing the track itself
it takes like a minute and a half or a little under,
but when you're walking, it takes a lot longer
because this track is in the damn mountain
like in the mountain.
So like if you're going anywhere,
you got climb up mountains, go around,
but it was super fun to walk around and explore.
And then after that I think we went
and got some good grub called a night.
- We got really sunburnt, got some really good content
and then head back to the hotel, grabbed some food
and then explored the rest of the area in Monterey.
So Max was kind of like our tour guide
throughout the whole thing.
We went to the place like 17-Mile Drive that night
which even though it was a little late
so we kind of had to rush in and rush out
'cause we got there and they're like
that'll be $11 by the way, you have 20 minutes,
so be back and Max like it's a 15 minute drive
that's where we want to go.
So we were kind of moving through that area a little bit.
- Day three, this was qualifying day in
and they had the race at the end of the day.
So this day was a little bit different,
we had a tech immersion with Michelin where we went
to a different hotel that was like five minutes from ours,
sat down and we got to ask questions
and hear other people's questions
that they had about Michelin.
They were so cool and willing to hear any question we had
and they answered it.
We were actually talking to Michelin engineers.
- They're doing a ton of stuff
with EV vehicles coming up the near futures,
so there's a lot of different variables that come into play
when you're talking about electric vehicles
versus like your normal internal combustion cars.
You gotta deal with things like road noise
'cause there's not like an engine
to block out a lot of the tire noise.
You gotta worry about things like range
how different like tread patterns
and rolling resistant things affect like the range
on electric vehicles and some people are like,
well I don't care about range,
I just worry about them wearing out faster.
Or like I do care about range
but I'll replace 'em as often as I have to.
So they're coming out with a bunch of unique
and different technologies
to put into their tires moving forward,
we got to learn all about that.
- So that was super neat,
but not only after that, we got to go to the aquarium
and Monterey Aquarium is next level aquarium.
Those are the best fish
those fish are living their best life.
- We literally landed there like dude we gotta go,
we have to go. And like we're like, oh, well I don't know if
we're gonna be able to fit into the schedule
and just so happens that they fitted
into the schedule for us, so that was super cool.
- After the aquarium tour though,
we headed on over the track and like I said,
they were doing qualifying so like we went
to the Paddock Club which was insane.
We had access that they had free beer, free food,
everything like that
and we watched the Lamborghini qualifying race there
which was awesome to see in person you're like right
on the track.
Then we watched the race that they had going on too,
and to see the like new super racing out there, I was giddy,
I got so many damn photos of the supers out there
'cause I thought it was the coolest thing in the world.
And then also they had the new BMWs,
which were low key super hot,
but watching those races pretty much summed up that day,
and then we headed back to the hotel.
- Saturday night, we packed it up
went and grabbed some really good food,
we added so many cool places around Monterey.
Absolutely fantastic.
And then Saturday I believe was the day that we wanted
to go out kind of down towards big sir
check out the Pacific Highway down there.
So Highway 1 went and saw the Bixby Bridge,
some really incredible like overlook sites down there
that was breathtaking.
I've never been to such an incredible place like that.
- All right, so day four was race day.
It was just races all day long and that was super sick,
but the best part of it was Michelin was like,
yo we're gonna hook you up with Paul.
- So Paul actually raced on that track quite a bit,
and the best part he had a freaking little golf cart
to carry us around because by that day
we were all just so freaking tired and burnt
and our legs were hurting, our feet were hurting,
Max's feet were bleeding
we had to go get bandaids at Walgreens
and patch up his feet.
So yeah, we had a little golf cart to take us around
which was super nice, so thank you, Paul,
we really appreciated that.
- Paul gave us so much insight
and so much knowledge about the track.
So that was super cool and probably my favorite day
at Laguna Seca 'cause he knew all the spots,
he was like, yo, if you go stand here,
you're gonna get the dopest picture you want,
if you stand over here, it's great for B-roll and video.
And then he was giving us little tidbits
and we were doing the grid walk and meeting the drivers
and like it was just so surreal and awesome.
So race day was probably my favorite day.
- So the walking was something
that I knew we were gonna be walking a lot
but I wasn't prepared for the elevation.
Like I played the track on like games
and like seen it in like games and stuff like that.
It does absolutely zero justice to how steep that place is
in some areas like walking up to the corkscrew
it's like a 30 degree incline
like the whole way you're going up,
you're going down the elevation
in that like you're in a mountain.
You're literally inside of a freaking mountain,
you're looking around you
there's other like hills and mountains around you,
and I was not prepared for that,
and my little Van's shoes here were not the shoe of choice
for something like that.
So yes, by Sunday it hurt to move
like we get out of bed and it's like, oh my God,
I can't believe we have to go walk around this track
another day but bringing different shoes next time,
a hundred percent.
- So all in all, it was one
of the best experiences of my life.
And I'm not saying like business life
or the best work trip or any of that.
It was like one of the best trips of my life.
So shout out to Michelin for hooking us up
and giving us a ton of knowledge,
believing us to get dope content
and shoot it and just having fantastic tires.
Seriously, I run 'em on my super right here,
I have Michelin pilot sport for us.
So getting to do that trip was amazing,
shout out to them they're the GOATS
and seeing all the drivers and taking time for us,
we got to interview them that was huge,
'cause like you have like these news broadcasters
and stuff interview 'em and then here's his little Gels
and I interviewing these big names in the racing community
and I just learned so much so I'm extremely grateful
for the opportunity and I can't wait
for us to do more of this.
- So by far Michelin has like the largest tire presence,
I think I've ever seen in any sort of like racing event
that I've ever been to.
Like we roll up there's Michelin banners
all along the fricking track
there's arches that say Michelin that they drive underneath
and then there's like 40 trucks that are all Michelin semis
and they unload and there's thousands of thousands of tires,
they have the tire changing station,
they have like a mounting station, balancing station,
it's like this whole assembly line
that they set up out of the side of these semi trucks.
And there's just thousands of tires being cycled through
like every day they're pushing racks around the place
they hook 'em up to little like golf carts
and they're towing 'em to the pits
to where they need to be, unmounted mountain new tires
or throwing tires around like crazy.
I've never seen that many tires in one place and I've been
to our warehouse and we have a ton of tires,
but like just seeing all Michelin branded
like race slicks was just incredible to see.
- I had so many favorite moments, it's really hard to say,
I mean having full access to Laguna Seca
and seeing all that and talking to the drivers
and seeing the cars and going up to the cork screw
was absolutely insane to see that drop in person
no matter how dope the shots Max got,
the video and the photos just didn't do it justice to show
that elevation change and everything like that,
so that was super cool.
But I mean just the amount I learned I think
was my favorite part in getting time to spend with the guys,
I mean even after the races we went out
and did some really cool things, tight seeing and whatnot,
so just a whole experience.
- So huge shoutout for Michelin sending us out
there to experience this event and you know being able
to learn more about them as a company
and their involvement in motor sports
and these like massive events that they are a part
of like IMSA and all this stuff like I said
was super eye opening, I'm beyond grateful
for the opportunity to go out there like I said,
I've never been to California before
and to be able to go to a part of California
that is absolutely beautiful such as Monterey
and the surrounding areas like Big Sur and stuff like that,
being able to go to Laguna Seca a very popular race track
being able to go out there with friends like Max
and Dakota and experience that stuff for the first time
and you know just being able to go out there
and make content like we do and being given the access
to go down like onto near the track and get the shots
that we were able to get.
I mean, it was a once in a lifetime trip
and I'll never forget.
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