[CAR ENGINE]
LEO PARENTE: Welcome to a new version of SHAKEDOWN.
This is called TrackDown.
We're at the American Le Mans race here in Laguna Seca.
And I managed to track down two good racing friends, Doug
Fehan, Corvette Racing Program manager, and Tommy Kendall,
SRT Viper driver, sports car racing legend, and a guy you
know from our Race of Champions broadcast.
Unlike listening to me rant every week, every time we come
to an ALMS race, we're going to take turns meeting with
these guys and talking about racing.
But for the first show, I thought we'd
bring everyone together.
Guys, thank you, thank you.
Thank you for taking the time.
DOUG FEHAN: Well, Leo, I wouldn't have missed it.
Only reason is because I get to get back with TK.
I mean, I can see you any time.
LEO PARENTE: Yeah.
You guys have a history together.
Isn't there a connect the dots with Danny Binks?
TOMMY KENDALL: There's a fair amount of history.
And I was going to say, if you can track him down with
regularity, you can put Dog the Bounty
Hunter out of business.
Because this guy is like a bar of soap.
LEO PARENTE: I don't want to take a lot of your time.
I know you just came from a seat fitting, and you've got
your thing to run the program here.
I want to start, though, not making an infomercial, but
since we're here with American Le Mans sports car, you're the
reigning champion.
Viper's looking better.
You're both heading to Le Mans.
Give me the short version.
Doug, you go first as the reigning champion.
What's going on with the program, the short version?
And what's headed for Le Mans with Corvette?
DOUG FEHAN: Well, Leo, the beauty of this sport is that
when you're the reigning champion, there's only one
place for you to go, and that's down.
And that seems to be the primary objective of all the
teams we race against.
And when you line up guys like Viper and Ferrari and BMW and
Porsche, those are formidable teams.
They are staffed with great personnel, great engineering,
terrific drivers.
It makes every race an adventure, because you know
that when you show up there, you've got to bring your best
game or you're not going to do well.
LEO PARENTE: Now, last year looked like
a development year.
But this year's looking a lot better for SRT Viper, and
first time back to Le Mans in a long time.
So what's in store?
TOMMY KENDALL: Well, give credit to Doug.
They set a really high bar.
A lot of those guys I spent most my career with.
And they make it look easy, and it's not.
We've made a lot of ground up over the winter.
We were kind of trying to keep our expectations down because
we know everybody else was making progress.
And you think you're there.
And all of a sudden the bar gets moved.
But we found out at Sebring that the car had at some
speed, and we backed it up at Long Beach.
You still need to dot the I's and cross the T's, which the
other guys are really good at.
But we're in the conversation.
LEO PARENTE: Have we got to the point where
we're talking smack?
Because there's a rivalry here from you guys.
DOUG FEHAN: Well, when you look at that, people have to
understand that in this business,
yes, there's a rivalry.
And that rivalry is on the racetrack.
At the end of the day, once that checkered flag drops, we
are all in the same boat.
We're here heading in the same ship, heading
in the right direction.
We need each other to succeed and survive.
And we have a very, very tight knit family here.
Tommy and I go way back because we worked together in
prior lifetimes, as I have just been around a long time
with many, many others.
Tommy as well.
So like I said, once the race is over,
the family time starts.
Once the green flag drops, all bets are off, and it's a dog
eat dog world.
LEO PARENTE: You were going to say something.
TOMMY KENDALL: Well, I'm one of four boys.
And so it's a little bit like that, where you're allowed to
wail on each other.
But only you are allowed to wail on each other.
And sometimes you don't talk for weeks.
And you get some heated stuff going on
because it's pretty intense.
But a lot of us, this is literally our neighborhood.
We spend so much time doing this.
These are the people that we're the best friends with,
and you move teams and so forth.
And so you're dead serious.
But there really is.
You see it in other
communities when stuff happens.
And you hear if someone gets banged up, or if someone just
is out of parts, the charitable aspect of it.
People are always willing to lend a hand.
LEO PARENTE: So Doug dropped the hint.
Fill in the dots.
Where did you guys work together?
TOMMY KENDALL: The Intrepid GTP car, and the Trans Am
program right before that.
LEO PARENTE: Cool.
All right.
We're going to talk beyond your two programs.
We're going to talk racing.
So I'm watching the races, I'm watching Sato at Brazil,
watching NASCAR.
Talk to me about blocking.
What's, first of all, your definition of blocking?
DOUG FEHAN: Well, that's if I'm sitting at the bar--
oh, you mean on the racetrack?
LEO PARENTE: Yeah.
You know, I think those same rules may apply.
DOUG FEHAN: Well, it's similar.
To me-- and this is my own personal perspective, and
people have tried to define it--
when you make an overt and deliberate move to impede the
progression of a faster car behind you,
that would be blocking.
Now, when we look at how this definition has been parsed
throughout time, it's if you make two moves.
There's a lot of ways to look at it.
When a slower car gets in the way a
faster car, that's blocking.
TOMMY KENDALL: And the definition has changed.
It used to be it was all on the overtaking guy, and you
could get away with a lot.
And then I think as the cars have come closer, they've had
to sort that out a little bit.
The rule in Indy car, is you have to move.
But it has to be before the guy behind you moves.
Someone that's crafty--
and I'm going to single out Scott Pruett,
because he's crafty.
His one move is an S. And so that's one move.
It was pretty clear that both on Newgarden and on
Hinchcliffe, it was a block by the rules.
Beau Barfield couldn't get it out of the holster.
The sheriff, little Barney Fife there.
I'm glad Hinchcliffe won, because if Hinchcliffe hadn't,
it would have been a big to-do.
And if you're Joseph Newgarden, and those are the
rules, in his mind he's already a second up the road
by the time Hinch gets around and he wins that race.
So it's not just-- it was a great race.
And so people say, well, don't mess it up.
But the rules need to be enforced the way they're
written, and if you don't like them, rewrite them.
LEO PARENTE: I'm going to ask you one more
as a driver, Tommy.
So like a pitcher keeps a book on hitters, do you keep a book
on blockers?
TOMMY KENDALL: Yeah.
It's one of these things where there's some that are-- yeah,
absolutely.
And everybody has there own code.
There's the rules, and then some people
have a personal code.
Like in Formula One, Schumacher
was just known for--
his only code was what he could get away with.
And he didn't care how dangerous it was,
this is how it is.
And so I always felt bad about really using someone
upblocking.
So even when it was more allowed, I would defend.
But some guys probably think that I was as bad as anyone.
I don't know.
I like to think that I defended.
I remember once at Toronto, seeing the big screen.
And I was on soft tires, and everybody was on a little
harder tires, so I had to keep the pace down.
And I was braking on the inside, and I was braking and
earlier and earlier.
But now there was a big line behind me, so no one could
pull out of line.
And I was laughing to myself like, is anyone actually going
to try to pass me on the outside?
And no one did .
LEO PARENTE: Let me jump up to what's happening.
This is going to run May 17, that weekend.
That weekends got a lot of racing action.
There's going to be V8 Supercars at COTA, and there's
going to be Nurburgring 24.
And if I get my notes right, there's going to be DTM, which
is eventually coming.
So I'm going to start with you.
Nurburgring 24, why doesn't Corvette go there in some
capacity to race the Nurburgring 24?
DOUG FEHAN: You know, we've developed early on a
philosophy regarding our European operation.
First and foremost, you have to understand, from a
corporate standpoint, there is GM North America and there is
a GM Europe.
They are two distinctly different companies with their
own infrastructure, with their own leadership.
So that serves as a foundation from which you can make some
pretty sound decisions.
As we move forward with the Corvette program, we had a
number of customers from Europe who bought our product
and raced it quite successfully.
When we look at all those things, for us to go over
there, bring our equipment, bring our teams, bring our
drivers, and go whip up on customers is just not really
good business.
And we've been very, very well represented, Corvette as a
brand, by many of the independents out there who do
a marvelous job.
It just really hasn't been a requirement for us to go.
LEO PARENTE: Toyota has their CEO driving.
You want to go--
forget it, I won't even ask the question.
V8 Supercars.
You raced.
TOMMY KENDALL: I did.
Raced at Bathurst in 1996.
And I, unfortunately, cannot be at COTA
when they're racing.
I really would like to be there.
I mean, we get a little bit of it here in the States.
We get our fill of it.
And as a formula, it's about as good as it gets.
Most of the great sports car racing is endurance format
now, so it's nice to see between DTM and that, some
short format, single driver, Hammer Tong stuff.
LEO PARENTE: And give me a little more context, or is
that just it?
It's close racing, sprint format.
They're going to run like three or four races.
TOMMY KENDALL: Yeah, people have talked about that.
And they're the first ones to actually pull the trigger, and
say, rather than have three days of practice, people want
to see a race.
And they're actually going to have four distinct races on
the weekend.
I think you'll see more people evolving into that as time
goes on, in terms of a race on Saturday, race on Sunday.
LEO PARENTE: Last question on the V8 Supercars, compare it
to what it's most like to drive or
race cars you've driven.
TOMMY KENDALL: I haven't driven one since then.
So it's been 15 years.
But at the time, it was kind of halfway between a Trans am
car and a Cup car.
They were narrow, so they were more like a Cup car.
They had a really narrow tire, which is more like a Cup car.
But in terms of the approach and the sophistication, it was
more like a Trans Am car.
They were a pretty cool package.
The hard part for me back then, it was H pattern.
So doing a left hand shift with the H pattern, I spent
about half of my brain was thinking, how can I get this
six speed through the gate right with my left hand.
LEO PARENTE: So let's end with a question.
Instructional--
and I'm not saying that either one of you do this, but
there's a lot of dialogue heading into Le Mans about
sandbagging.
How do you sandbag?
TOMMY KENDALL: That's a good question for Doug.
[LAUGHTER]
LEO PARENTE: I'm not saying you guys do it.
How does one sandbag?
DOUG FEHAN: Well, I think when we look at technology in
racing, sandbagging has had its own evolution.
I mean, the old days, you just went slower than you knew you
were capable of going in hopes you'd derive some
benefit from it.
Whether it be in qualifying, or an inverted start.
Sandbagging's been around forever.
As technology has advanced, it's obviously made it far
more difficult.
Now, when we come to most of these circuits, they have
three or four different timing loops that are
set inside of them.
At the end of the day, when you would sandbag,
you'd run your lap.
And you'd come down before you crossed the finish line.
You'd back out, pull out of it for a little bit.
Get your time down to where you need it,
for whatever purpose.
In today's world, I mean, you can still do that, but it's
going to be easily detected by the timing and scoring people.
They look at all this data.
And by the way, they're going to look at every practice
session, and then they're going to look at your
performance in the race.
And so if sector three, you've sandbagged for the three days
you've been practicing, and then suddenly in the race
there's a little different story to be told, that pretty
much makes it transparent what you've done.
And again, you have to weigh that out.
I mean, if you're willing to give up--
we've got six, seven, eight different calibrations on the
engine that can determine the overall
performance of the vehicle.
So you can dial how fast you want to go.
But at the end of the day, they're going to
catch it in the race.
And if you choose to run the race in the same form you
raced in practice, and you're willing to sacrifice the race,
for what purpose, I mean, I suppose you could do it.
I'll be honest with you, I don't think there's a lot of
it that goes on, because it is so easily detectable.
And at the end of the day, I'm not sure there's a huge
advantage to doing it.
TOMMY KENDALL: Not much I can add to that.
Not only are there the loops, on the timing now, there's
predictive lap time.
And so everybody sits there and they watch all the cars in
the predictive.
If all of a sudden, it's going for a 118, 118, 118, and then,
like you said, they bag it in the last sector, you don't
even have to dig into the data to see that.
The predictive will just go, and then it'll just fall off.
So the map is the way to do that, but you would have to be
totally committed to doing it for the whole race.
There's a little bit that goes on, but the other side of it
is, if you have multiple cars multiple, teams, multiple
drivers, everybody needs to be on board.
So it'd be nice if they could eliminate it completely, but
as long as you have balance of performance, there's probably
going to be people thinking about it.
LEO PARENTE: Well, and I'm going to be stubborn and ask
it one more time.
Because to your point, if you're committed to it, and it
seems like Le Mans matters to a lot of these teams- the new
911 coming forward.
Again, I'm not saying you sandbag, but Corvette around
the Le Mans destiny.
If you're committed to that, there's still a way to make
the investment.
I mean, there was even talk about how Toyota was
suspicious how their car at Spa was suddenly competitive
with the long tail Audi.
But the long tail Audi raced two or three seconds slower
than it ran in practice, to your point.
So if you're committed to it, there's still room in racing
to sandbag, yes or no?
DOUG FEHAN: Oh, totally.
I mean, look at our series right here.
If you ran from one to six on your calibration, and you
decide, you know what, for the first three races of the year,
I'm only going to run on four.
Because I don't want them to do anything to me before I get
to Le Mans.
And then at Le Mans, I'll run it up at six and I'll run away
from everybody.
I mean, sure, you could do that.
But I don't know anybody who wants to throw away the first
three races of the year, when the importance of the program
is North American based, the largest auto
market in the world.
Yes, certainly you could do it.
I just don't know that it makes a lot of sense.
It certainly doesn't make sense for us.
TOMMY KENDALL: I'll add two pieces to that.
If you did that, and you were dramatically more competitive,
or actually, embarrassed everybody else at Le Mans, you
better hope you're not coming back, because the same people
that do it-- and so that's one.
And the other is, the way you learn about these cars,
running them at 98%, you don't learn much.
And so to learn about all the stuff that matters, the half a
percent between winning and finishing second, third, or
fourth, you can out-trick yourself.
And I've seen it in the past where people, when we had a
big advantage, and people were saying what they thought the
advantage was, they were wrong.
And that--
you're thinking off.
You're worried too much about what other people are doing
and you take your eye off the ball, and you deprive yourself
of the opportunity to learn what you could learn.
So you might go through this whole sandbag thing and be
super clever about it, but by the way, you didn't expose a
weakness that you needed to learn about, and so forth.
So everyone gets to choose.
That's the beauty of this.
You can decide, is it worth it to try that?
Will it work out like we planned, or are you
out-thinking yourself?
DOUG FEHAN: You know, Leo, last year was a good example
when you looked at the championship we won.
We didn't win a majority of races.
I mean, we won a few races.
Everybody else won a few races.
It was your consistency of finish, learning about your
vehicle, making progress.
Domination pays no real benefit.
Now, you would think that would lead you to sandbagging.
At the end of the day, you can't afford to sandbag, to
Tommy's point.
If you're not out there working as hard as you can
every single day, you're not going to get it done.
LEO PARENTE: So I'm going to try to put a cap on it, saying
yes, it's important not to out-think yourself.
And that's what I'm guilty of, so we're going to stop right
now while we're ahead.
And number two, stop reading all the media.
Stop reading all that stuff.
Just watch the racing and you'll see what's
authentically going on.
We're going to do this every time I come ALMS.
I think, Tommy, you're up next.
And then we'll catch you probably
around Le Mans and after.
So thank you for taking the time and making the
investment.
Appreciate it.
DOUG FEHAN: Enjoyed every minute of it.
LEO PARENTE: Oh, my god.
TOMMY KENDALL: Thanks for having us.
All right,
LEO PARENTE: Guys.
Go back to work.
Thanks.
[CAR ENGINES]
[MUSIC PLAYING]