4 Wheels, 2 Doors, & a Race Car Driver (feat. Samantha Tan)

Hello everybody and welcome to go my favorite sports team. I'm Tyler Shide your illustrious host that knows the sports joined by Mark. Hello. Who doesn't know the sports also known as Markiplier, the famous YouTuber. I'm just adding more to it. But we are joined by a special guest, a race car driver extraordinaire rising star amongst the ranks recent BMW M motor sport ambassador. Oh boy, I had to remember that. No, you were practicing it like 10,000 years before we started it. It's through me off. What did I do? I didn't do it. It's your fault. It's your fault. I've done anything. This is about our guest, okay? Who? Samantha Tan. Hello. Hello. Welcome. Actually, bring them like close to your face. Yeah. Don't you like talk really close to your face? No, you don't. I mean it. Maybe. I don't know. If you're going to, if you speak in normally like a really soft whisper, then be closer. But if you're like me and you scream a lot, distance is good. Okay. Actually, I have no idea. We've never recorded here before. We're at the Spotify studios and they have these rooms for us to use. And it sure beats our. By a lot. Our separate studio. We'll cut that out. Our separate studio. Yeah. A little shack of a studio that we usually record in. So. But we're not here to talk about that. We're here to talk about. Race cars. Race cars. I'm assuming unless you don't want to talk about race cars because I represent the side of the audience that doesn't know anything about sports or a whole objective is trying to like blend people that are not fans of sports or not support people in general and have like this animosity towards sports and then sports knowers who are just a bunch of big dumb jocks. Who then attack me if I make the smallest little mistake like talking about hockey not enough in depth. Well, everyone attacks you no matter what on the internet because it's the internet and everyone's going to be mean no matter what. I mean, we've experienced that. Have you experienced that at all? Yes. Lots of tons. Would you consider yourself an internet personality now? I don't know. People call me like an influencer, but I still like don't feel like I hate that. I hate the term influencer. I hate it. It's such a weird label to put on people. What made you cross into that threshold where people started thinking you were an influencer? I think it's just like the social media presence and stuff like this. Like a lot of interviews and I think the differentiation is that if you run your own social media, you are more of an influencer, which in in our field, the idea of not running your own social media, the idea of running your social media in general is just like, no, that's who I am. Yeah. It's me online. It's not an influencer. This is just literally my portal into the greater internet out there. But yeah, I'm assuming that's just how you got started. It's just like you had your social media and then people just wanted to follow you. Influenced. But I don't like the term either. Influenced. Yeah, strange. You prefer the term race car driver than? Yes, for sure. For sure. Absolutely. A little bit more about us. On your tuna stone, would it say race car driver? Goes around circles for a living, yeah. Is it just circles? Or do you have like more wine? We have. We have wine. Good. You do the real race. Yes. It's not the oval racing of just constantly left turn, left turn. Not to knock on a NASCAR, but knocking on NASCAR personally. So what type of literally I don't know anything and that's not an issue. I don't know anything at all about I sent him specifically in fairness and I didn't read it. Very busy. But at the same time, what type of racing do you do? So I've been sports car racing specifically. So there's obviously there's stuff one, there's NASCAR and then there's sports car racing. You say obviously. I do not know this. In all fairness, I know sport and I don't know all the classifications underneath race car driving. So even when I was like looking through your resume of racing, I was like, how do I classify this? What is this? I know it's like, a lot of it is endurance, but at the same time, what's the class of car? So. Yeah, I know I can get really confusing. There's a lot of different classes. Like you have all the different sports car classes from touring car all the way up to GT3. And then you even have like driver classifications. Like I don't know if you watched the racing, but if there's like pro amp, pro classes, amp classes, it's pretty overall. Yeah. Why? See, this is why I did just the Motorsports primer and not like each individual one because there's so many diverse categories. How many? So many. Oh, that's not enough. Oh, look at all the categories. Okay. So do you have to specialize in one or can you hop between the different ones? You can hop through all of them. That's how I started. I started like right at the bottom and touring car. Go. Oh, I thought go cars were the bottom. Well, that's how most people, most drivers get their start, but I didn't, I didn't get to go cars actually. Yeah, most drivers, they'll start when they're like four years old. They're like this tall. That's what he always talks about. We have this running bit where he puts baby version of me because we assume that if you want to go the Olympics, you have to start if you're when you're four. And it's like, when I was four, I was not in a go kart. I was banging sticks on rocks by the creek bed as far as I know. I don't really remember. Four downstairs. You were, you were just practicing for the, the Scottish games. What's the most? Yeah. Just banging on rocks, using sticks. Is that what they do? Is that a real thing? Do you know anything about the Scottish games? I have never heard of this. All right. Good. Yeah. We're on the same page here. Don't quiz me. Sometimes it makes me feel like an idiot. I don't think, I don't think I'm an idiot. I think he just knows way more niche things than I do. But my general base of knowledge is actually adequate and I shouldn't feel inferior. So we're on the same page here. There's a reason I'm the master of balls and hollas mark. They don't know what that term is. That makes you seem like a pervert. That was kind of the, anyway, that's a great, what is your category of racing? So I'm in GT3, which is the top class in sports car racing. I race in Pro Am, which is a driver categorization, to kind of go over it a little bit. There's this like racing sanctioning body called the FIA and they basically rank all the drivers based on your experience. So I'm a silver, but I've been derogated to bronze just for this series. I was going to be really complicated, but there's four driver categorizations. It's bronze to platinum. All F1 drivers are platinum. If you're hired by a manufacturer, like you're paid by like for our BMW or something. BMW. I hear they make great cars. Yes. German engineering. Sponsored. Well, we don't know. Wait, yeah, we're not, we're not sponsored. In less than a less than a less than a W would like to, you know, sponsor. I am in the market for a car, so you could buy a car at any time for three years. You've been saying, oh, I don't have a car because it's cheaper because you were using the car that I was lending you. And then when I was like, no, I want to give that car to my mom, you then didn't have a car for three years. Which was fine. I worked from home the majority of the time, the only time I go anywhere is to the studio or anything else. BMW has any free cars lying around. I'm just looking for deals, you know? All right. So back to the topic. So it's like, it's like, I hate to make this comparison because I don't play this game, but it's like legal legends where there's like, you play league. Okay. I do not. I don't know. I play Valor. I can't do competitive PVP games because I get too into it and I don't get toxic, but I just get this rage explodes out of me and I've tried very hard in my life to not be angry all the time. That's why you kind of stop playing sports, if I remember right? Because you're competitive fury that can come into. Oh, there's many reasons why I'm lazy. I was hired. My knees hurt. My back hurt. So that's mostly why. But back to the topic at hand, racing. So there's this bronze silver gold, I'm some golden platinum and pro in. Was that stand for? Pro is basically like, so in prom, you can run basically a bronze only. That's your am. Okay. And then your pro guy can be silver or higher. What's an am? Am is just bronze basically amateur. Oh. Oh. Oh. Pro amateur. You have professional in amateur. Isn't that strange? Yeah. Again, it's really complicated. This is how I feel when I talk to him about literally anything because there's so many nuances to it that I could never run my head around. Are you okay? You said the word. Sorry. I got excited. New ones. We haven't said it in like three episodes. They don't know the context of that joke. The audience is doing inside jokes. They're just going to make them feel like we're idiots. We run a professional operation out of it. No. No. Out of it. Out of it. Out of the studio. Out of the studio. Hey. How are you? I'm fine. I've been walking again. Oh, no. How long? Two weeks. Come on. Come on. That's going fast. You think. Yeah. Of course. You're also going to get a job that you love. Then you come to the Lufthansa group. Over 50 education groups. From IT, you're going to the cockpit. Fly big. So you're in bronze right now, pro-am bronze or as pro-am equivalent, that's what bronze means. Pro-am. No. Bronze is basically like a job. And then you can run a specific lineup of like classifications in each class. Okay. So what? That made it any easier. It did not. It's all my brain. So smooth right now. Just the wrinkles are just deforming. But what? Okay. I'm assuming your car has four wheels. Yes. Let's go back to the base. Let's go. We've got a door. We've got a steering wheel. One door. Two doors. Two doors. Steering wheel. I'm assuming an engine. Yeah. It's like a body around it. It's like a trunk. It does. Actually. So I know stock car racing. Like NASCAR. So NASCAR is. It's categorized as stock car. But it originated as actually being a car that came off the line as a stock model. Yeah. But then they started stripping it down. And so it's not like it's called stock car racing. But it's not really a stock car anymore because they strip so much out of it. Like it doesn't have a trunk. It doesn't have lights. All of these different parts are removed from it. Like it's stock car. But it's not. Which is weird, which is. You lost a mark. Yeah. Which is why I was thinking your racing is more like stock car because a lot of the models of cars that are driven can be purchased street legal. They're modified after the fact. Right. But when it comes to the actual like ability to buy the car, which is why the stock name was attached to racing. Yours is more in line with that than NASCAR. So I was right. All of what he was saying was that I was on the right track. Yes. Right. Okay. Yeah. Because I was the trunk. So you're trying to make me look dumb, but I was on the right track. No. I knew it wasn't. I knew it wasn't NASCAR. I knew it wasn't because we made fun of them earlier. And if we're making fun of them, then that's obviously not what you do. So you said windy tracks. Now I'm not completely ignorant. I've seen races and I've seen games. I've played Gran Turismo way back when I think Gran Turismo three. Whatever was on the PlayStation 3. Did you growl playing those types of games? I did not actually. I did the real thing. Oh. Oh, fine. Yeah, but you didn't start until what? You were 16. 16, which is like pretty late for a driver. I just like, I didn't know that this career path was necessarily available. I started driving at 15 and a half. I got my license. Which I was going to ask. Did you just get your license and your racing license at the same time? Pretty much. Pretty much. Yeah, I got my driver's license when I was 15. Is there a different line at the DMV? How did this happen? Yes, Mark. Yes. We'll just say yes. Okay, cool. I got the wrong line then. No, literally. How do you even get started? Because where do you go? That's my biggest question to him is like, for all these new sports, every single one of them. No matter how big the fan base is, no matter how big the player base is, there's a place in a city for people to go. And I'm just completely ignorant to like, where even is this? Like, where do you grow up? Toronto. Toronto? Okay, so there's a racing building in Toronto? No, there's like, there's a few tracks in the area, but they're all like an hour away. They're always super far. Or like, go-cart tracks, for example. Oh. Yeah. But again, like, most people started go-carts when they're like four or five. I did not. What got me into racing was really like, my dad put me in these like, performance driving schools because like Canadian winters are terrible. And he wanted me to learn car control. And he was like, I want you to be safe on the road, right? And then at the end of one program, I got to sit in a race car. And I got taken on a hot lap with a pro driver. And just like all the G-forces and the braking, like, had the biggest smile on my face. And like, as soon as I got all the car, I was like, I want to be a race car driver too. That's crazy. I was 14 at the time. But yeah, my first race car was a 91 Civic. Basically, like, the way that you start in sports car racing is you need to get your regional racing license. And to do that, you go to a racing school. You compete at like six races, and you have to like finish in good standing. And then they give you a regional license. And by the way, you can get your racing license pretty much like at any age. FIA specifically though, I think you need to be 18. But you could get it. You could get it. I'm not. I don't drive. I never speed. That's like my driving style is I don't speed. I always like am very, very cautious driver. So I feel like I would be the slowest person if I went to driving school. You like accelerating though. What kind of weird statement is that? It's true. You're describing my, like, if I had a Tinder bio still, I wouldn't say likes to accelerate. That's not a problem. No, but like, when you drive, you occasionally like to push the pedal down to get really good acceleration, especially in your cars that you've driven. I don't, you don't do it as much now, but when I first moved out to L.A. Oh, I see what you're talking about. Because yeah, I have a Tesla. So when I first got it, it was like, oh, look, it can go fast. And then I never do it again. It's like I get people in the car once. I do the trick where I turn on the autopilot and I turn it on. Look at everyone, which now I realize it was an incredibly stupid thing to do. Because the software back then was way worse than it is now. And even now it's not 100% good. Long story short, I'm still a very cautious driver. But occasionally I go fast. I mean, I'm terrified of people in the roads with the public roads. Yeah, I was going to ask you because you drive professionally. Being on the track with people that do it professionally is safer to you. Yes. Much, much, much. And like, obviously there's medical teams like station all around the track. You've got your corner work isn't everything. Like it's such a safe environment like for you to just send it. But public roads like I feel like nobody knows what they're doing out here. Wow. Yeah. How judgemental are you on the road? Being a professional. You're just driving through and everybody's like, Oh, that's not how you pass somebody. I'll show you how to pass somebody. Literally on the way here being like, what are you doing? Like why? Oh, yeah. I recently got back from Austin. I feel like Austin drivers are intentionally trying to cause accidents. Because there's also the problem with people on scooters going all the way around the city. Because I don't like scooters at all. But I also communicationally on my e-bike. And it's like I like the idea of bike lanes. But people when they hop on these scooters that can go 40 miles an hour, they just like will fly through an inch. There was one guy at 10 p.m. who was doing donuts just in an normal intersection. And then a bunch of other scooter guys were like, that looks like fun. And then they hopped on there. And some people got their phone out, got one of the scooters rented it, and then started doing donuts just like spinning in circles in the middle of this intersection. I'm sitting there like, what? They started a scooter gang. They're going to get their Pokemon cards with them. They're Pokeballs and just scooty-doo over to a gym. Throw Pokeballs at people working. You know, Pokemons are not real, man. Yeah, yeah, but some people believe it. I just thought. I'm just thinking. I don't know. I mean. That came out like, what, 60? You still play Pokemon Go? Yeah. No, I didn't think so. I don't need to. Yeah. I don't know. Our friend Pam, she has like on her phone and another phone and then three like wearables that she's actually going to have five separate Pokemon Go accounts, just so she can get better chances of getting things. No. It's kind of an obsession. I don't mean to call Pam out like this. Like on the show, but it is a bit of an obsession. There is one thing, and I promise we'll get back to you. I like talking about me. There's one thing that I did try that was my first foray into more of an extreme motorized, not a sport. Have you ever ridden an electric unicycle? I can't say how. So an electric unicycle is exactly as it sounds. It's an electric motor unicycle. It is incredibly difficult to ride. But there are some units that can go up to 70 miles an hour. Literally. And they've got like full suspension in them. They're one of the most efficient like from a perspective of energy consumption. They're one of the most efficient electrical vehicles to travel on, but they are unbelievably dangerous. They're like so horrendously dangerous. You have to wear your full body armor, full like helmet. You might as well just wear a motorcycle helmet when you're doing that. It's just like, and I'm not good at it, but I'm slowly learning. How hard is it to balance? I believe I've never ridden a unicycle before, but I hear it's nothing like that. It's just like, it's these, this, just bizarre thing, because I have a bunch of friends over a quarter of digital, and they all have the one wheel. Have you heard of the one wheel? I'm a four wheel girl. Fine. But the one wheel is like a, it's like a, it's not an electric unicycle, but it has one wheel. And it's more like a, I've heard it equate to snowboarding on land. And they really like that. It's a lot easier to balance. And I looked at them and I was like, oh, that looks really fun. Hey, there's this harder thing to do. I'll try that and all of them were like, you're fucking nuts for trying this. Like none of them have done it. I still haven't done it. But I do get an appreciation for once you get something like that. And it's exciting and it's fun. And then you just want to do it more. And I imagine sometimes down the road there's going to be electric unicycle racing leagues or something like that. And it's horribly dangerous because I know motocross is a thing. And it already exists. Oh, it does. Well, I was about to say, you heard it here first. Anyway, so pretty much if you think of it, I bet you would already exist. Oh, that's so harsh, man. No, I'm not saying it directly to you. I mean, like, I have original thoughts. I'm not trying to say, I'm saying that if you, if somebody thinks of it, if somebody else has probably thought of it and already started it, especially when it comes to sport because sport gets jumped on so quick when an idea comes out, because like pickleball pickleball just came out like a few years ago and all of a sudden it's blown up to be a massive national thing and international thing. And that originated from two people being up in Seattle going on a vacation and literally using their dogs ball with paddles. Their dog's name was pickle. And so it's called pickleball. Oh, see that's what I do in this podcast all the time. I'm like, wow, that's interesting. And then I forget about it. It just goes away. And it's gone. Yeah. But you're mentioning like in the classification or driving with the Pro Am, you were talking about the two different classifications of drivers. Is that like when you have two drivers running in the same like 12 hour or one car? So for example, like an endurance racing, ranges from like four hours all the way up to 24 hours. And 24 hour race you'll probably have like four, well, three to five drivers in the car. And then yeah, so you basically based on your driver classification that's what class you run in during the race. So that makes sense. Well, yeah, it does. But also it doesn't. How big is the car? How big is the car? Five people in the car? No. It's a two door. You got two people in the front with two steering wheels and you just press up on it. That's what I'm imagining. Like is that not what it is? How do you do that? Someone's holding on to the wing. That's what I was thinking. Like how many people is a clown car of race car drivers? That would be fun though. Because then you have to carry everything. Everyone. They're not things. The people. To carry everyone to the next place. And then you can only change out the next thing. But how does it actually work? So basically we're in the car one person at a time. How you said it sounded. There's one steering wheel. Okay. We went over that. Yeah. We have two doors. One trunk. One steering wheel. We went over it. Yeah. I'm alone with my thoughts in the car. It's time. Okay. But basically, for example, in a 24 hour race, let's say, I'm in the car for two hours at a time. You can only be in the car for two hours at a time. Maximum. But then I'll hop out during a pit stop. We'll do a driver change. My co-driver could be in for like, an hour. And then like, I could hop back in for two hours. And it's just based on strategy. But we're basically hopping in and out. The car runs the full 24 hours. Cool. The drivers don't. I think we would be delirious. Yeah. I'll imagine is layman on your circuit. I'm planning to do that hopefully next year. That's exciting. I'm going to watch this year. It's 100th year anniversary. So I'm just going to go check it out. But it's basically the most prestigious endurance race in the world. And that's basically like my ultimate. I don't know if you've watched Ford versus Ferrari. I have not. I told him about it on the Motorsports framer. But he probably forgot. And it's gone. So layman. Layman. Layman. Layman. What is that like the bicycle one? What's it? No, it is not the Tour de France. Yeah. But for cars. No. It's a 24 hour endurance race. It's a 24 hour endurance race. Isn't that what the Tour de France is? No. The Tour de France is multiple days. Oh, okay. And multiple different tracks. Layman is one track 24 hours. This is actually a serious question. How do you consider yourself when it comes to an athlete, right? Because we recently had a big debate about professional wrestling. And he was saying that they weren't athletes. No, no, no, I said they are athletes. I said it's not a sport. He was being very, very selective about his definitions here. So when it comes down to a race car driver, I know that it takes a lot more than people think. I've seen videos of people doing like neck training to try to resist the G-forces. And I understand that being in a car, and I watched that Mythbusters episode about NASCAR, or the stock car racing. And like, there's no, is there, do you have... Power steering? So are we talking about power steering? Yeah, power steering. And then like hydraulic brakes, like we're ripped out for weight considerations. Do you, is that the same for your cars that you drive? It's similar. Well, my car, we do have power steering and there is a brake assist, a little bit, a little bit. But in a brake zone, I'm basically pushing like 90 pounds of pressure into the brake pedal. And it can reach up to temperatures of like 130 degrees in the cockpit if it's like hot outside, if it was. So you do lose, like for example, if I'm in the car for two hours, like I could lose two pounds of water weight. So I am training. I'm training five times a week in the gym during the car to a bachelor and during stuff. But I'm like, here is like what your definition of what qualifies as a sport? So, I mean, we talked about it on our very first episode of the podcast. But it's, it's governing body with governing rules. Usually for me, it's like skill or athleticism, clear competition. Define competition so you have defined winning in terms of winning. And then it's repeatable so that it can be something that you can have one game. And then the next game is so similar that the results are not varied so dynamically because they suddenly have different rules versus another or somebody judges it distinctly different than another thing. And so those are the key parts for me in defining a sport that makes sense. But with professional wrestling, they're insanely athletic. But it's scripted. A lot of the stuff that they're doing is more theater based. And so there's like, you know, the punches aren't like full punches like in boxing. They're doing stunts and stuff, but they're purposely trying to land on their elbows and not put their full body weight on the other person, which is why I said it's not a sport. But I know about the amount that race car drivers have to go through, especially I watched a bunch of formula stuff, one stuff, and their neck muscles. Insaying the amount of G's they go through. And so do you do like neck strength in the exercise when you do your cardio stuff as well? I do. So I used to race in a classical GT4 and there wasn't as much G-forces. But now moving into GT3, now I am having to do these kinds of neck exercises because we are pulling maybe like two or three G's during a race, depending on the track, obviously. But yeah, getting that tree trunk neck. I got it right here, sort of wrestling. Yeah, when I was growing up, I did wrestling. And one of my best strength was doing neck bridges. Like just a little neck bridge and wrestling is when they've got you, you're losing. So it's not a great position to be in. But if you use all your neck muscles, you can lift your whole body up with just your neck. Terrible idea because it could lead to horrendous injuries. And I still have kind of a tweak in my neck for some of those days. But I could have been a race car driver. Yeah. Oh, but to wrap up the question is like, so you would consider yourself fully an athlete? I would consider myself an athlete. Yeah. Do you find that you have to defend that online? Yes, for sure. I mean, like there's tons of people who are like, oh, you know, racing isn't a sport because they don't see, you know, the training that goes into it. All they see is like, oh, you're just sitting driving a car around a track. They don't understand like the amount of G-forces or the amount of like pressures where you're like pushing on the brake pedal, for example. Yeah, reaction time. Even like the temperatures and like, yeah. Mental aspect alone because there's a lot of debate whether like chess is a sport or something like that. Because it fits a lot of your criteria. Correct. But at the same time, people are like, well, if there's an athleticism behind it, it doesn't qualify. And even me being like outside of the sporting world, I know that those kinds of, you know, pressures that you have on yourself and the mental reaction speed and the kind of like elevated level of presence of mind, you need to have when you're racing for that long. And when you're this close to wiping out completely, I'm scared to drive just on the highway. I can't admit, what's the top speeds that you go on when you're driving? I'd say it's based on the track, but I'd say my top speed 185 miles per hour, around Daytona, for example. Is that the fastest you've ever gone? In a race car, yes. Okay. But in a car now. What's the fastest you've ever gone? Over 200. Yes. I'm not there. You're saying it's so shady. I hit 210. You hit 270. I'm not talking about it. When did you hit weight? No, what in the hell would you do? I was on 275. It was late at night and I was going downhill and I was flooring it. Hit 210? Hit 210. On 275? Yep. How many years ago are you in the statute of limitations? I mean, they have to have witnessed that, I believe. I also don't live in Ohio anymore. I don't think that saves you. It's all lies. It's not a real deal. Professional driver. It would be a joke. Yeah. It was definitely a close course. It was nothing there. Yeah, absolutely. In Mexico. Yes. 275 loop of Mexico. Actually, it was in Germany. It was on the Autobahn. Yeah. Where there's no, in the sections where there's no speed limit. Yeah. I've gone 600 miles an hour in a plane, but that's about the fastest I've ever. All right. All right. I was like, we're all hurtling around the sun at tens of thousands of miles an hour. And the sun is moving around the galactic rim at hundreds of thousands of miles an hour. So we're all creatures of speed. I mean, so if you time it right, if you're in the car when it's going the same direction or which the earth is spinning and also at the exact point in which it's rotating, you're going significantly faster. Big grand. Yeah. Don't, you don't have to give them anything. You're like, you can literally shoot down all of it. It's crazy. I do this. So I recently watched a video. There's a Formula One driver who was running the same track over and over. And he's going into the final turn before where the, the starting and finish line was. And he was hitting, he was millimeters from the wall every time because everything is fractions of inches, especially when you're trying to get the perfect line. And he noticed the wall moved because somebody wrecked behind him. And the wall ended up jutting out like 80 millimeters. And it ended up making him wreck. And when he went into the pit stop, he's everybody's like, so what happened? What happened? He's like, I think the wall moved because he knew his line so well. Are there any tracks in particular where you feel like you know the line so well that you would notice if something moved like the wall? That's actually so crazy. And they're like the amount of precision they need to do that. It's like mind blowing. But for me personally, I feel like probably a track I've run on many, many times is Coda, a circuit of the Americas, which I am going to next weekend or this weekend. So F1 track, there's, I would probably notice if they like they did replace the sausage curvy. So notice the little things like that wall wise, maybe I was just at Nola in New Orleans. And there's like a wall like right as you're coming on the front straight. And I feel like I would probably probably notice there. Yeah, for sure. Is there a favorite track of yours that you know really well and have like think you have the best line? Ooh. Um, I'm going to say VR, which is here in the US as well. I was where I had my very first race. So I've been there like multiple times, countless times. And it's just a lot of it's so much fun. And I pretty much know it down. But I think my favorite track of all time would be spa. I don't know if you've heard of that. I haven't heard of that one. But it's like, it's an F1 track. And it's infamous for this corner called Oruj, which is basically like we're flat out. We're probably going like 200 kilometers per hour. Like straight up this hill, this twisty hill. And it's basically like a point and shoot. Like if you screw up the first part, you're not making it at the top. Is it like one of those you have to really know the track? Yeah, it's like full commitment kind of thing. Well, that's my question is how do you even get to new tracks? How do you even get the preparation? What preparation goes in at all to these? Is it Gran Turismo? Well, a lot of drivers do sim racing to prep for a track that they've never been before, because it's like really good for visual training. But for me personally, I don't have a zoom yet. But I will watch like a YouTube video just to get a sense of like where the track's going. For example, I don't know if you know of Nürburgring, but it's a 20 kilometer track. There is, I don't know, like over 100 corners. And I learned it through a YouTube video, basically. You know, that's so funny because like it makes sense. You're not feeling it. I mean, I guess in a sim, you're not really feeling the Gs. But I mean, sometimes watch this video where it's just someone driving from Seoul to Busan in Korea. And it's such a relaxing drive. But I've watched it so many times now. I feel like I know that drive really well. And I feel, and I've also, my family has taken me on that drive before. It's like kind of a weird, familiar thing of using YouTube as a learning resource in ways that people never could imagine. Because there's like car repair tutorials. I didn't know that there would be race car track tutorials on these websites. Also, to correct you, proper Sims nowadays can simulate the Gs. Yeah, there's like motion, but I literally don't, I don't think it can compare. Not to the same. I just used a motion control rig on my latest project. I think I know a little bit more about motion Sims than you do, pal. And they can do some Gs, but this one capped out at half the Gs. You do. I really did. It was this crazy thing called the NACMO. And I imagine it's something that's similar to, that goes into a lot of these motion rigs. Because the principles are all the same. You have a big pump pumping oil into big pistons and then it goes. So I have a definitely an appreciation for those types of things because my background is in engineering. I didn't graduate. As many people remind me on the internet, but it was a choice. I didn't, I didn't flunk out or anything. But I love, I love mechanics and I love that. Does that play into your love of racing at all, the love of the mechanics side of it, the engineering behind the car? I can appreciate it. I don't have any knowledge. Really? Yeah, people are always asking me about specific stuff about the engine. I'm like, I just drive the car. Which honestly was something I was actually really curious about. A lot of athletes, when you're an athlete, especially getting into professional ranks, you really know your body. And is that the same when you can kind of tell when something is just off with the car? Like you're just driving it. It's like something's a little tight, something's a little loose. And even if you don't know the technicalities, how do you communicate that? Yeah, for sure. So I'm pretty in tune with how the car feels. Even though I won't be able to say specifically what part it is necessarily. I'll talk to my engineer after the race and be like, oh, the car's under steering a little bit here. Or it feels like a bit like the wheel in the back is shaking or something like that. Or maybe the wheel isn't straight. I can pretty much talk about everything set up and suspension wise. But if you start talking to me about like very specific like engine parts and stuff, I'm like, I don't know. I do not know. Honestly, I wouldn't be able to say either because I don't know anything about. I'm not a car guy in general. I just like again, I bought a car because it seems nice and that goes fast. But it's like down to that like intuitive knowledge. It's a lot of athletes that we talk about in sports. They trained at such a level that they do have this like unconscious understanding of what is going on with the sport. And it's like when you learn your first language is you don't know why you say words the way you do. It's just unconscious like your talk grammar later. So it's like you don't know the grammar of the car, but you know the car and how to use it perfectly. And I think like honestly, I think that might be a bit of an advantage because you would. And again, I'm not a racer. So I'm just speaking wild conjecture. But it allows you to like bypass the overthinking of things like you know when something's wrong. You can feel it. And that's how like I like to make content. It's like it's based on a feeling. I didn't go to film school. I didn't take writing classes. But I know when it feels right and when it feels wrong and sometimes something feeling wrong could be a much deeper understanding. Something that someone went to school for. Then again, there's always someone who went to school for it that's going to lecture me about what I know. And that's fine. They can have their opinions. I don't really care. It's funny that you bring out the overthinking part because like literally at the end of a 24 hour race and you feel like a little vibration somewhere and you start like overthinking about it. Oh my god. Is the car can break or maybe the parts like not good. But yeah, definitely. I feel like it could be an advantage for sure. I have that one on my bike and I'm going. I recently wiped out on my bike, but it was because it was raining. And this lady was walking her dog and I was like trying to avoid it. The road was inclined and I slipped. But I always think and I know the principles behind it. I know the metal is strong enough. But I think any time I go up over 20 miles an hour is on my bicycle. I think it's just going to break in half and I'm just going to like fly apart. Like everything that was going to go on the road. And there's no logic behind it. But that's just what I feel. That's actually really funny that you say that because that's me with rock climbing. I feel more comfortable without safety gear than with it. Because I trust myself. That's not the point I was making. I know, but I'm getting to it. I fear the stuff breaking and falling apart. Oh. So that to me, it's like move it out of my way and have it not be there instead. And it's just me as opposed to having it there because they don't trust it. The equivalent here is you're worried. You would be worried about the wall falling apart as opposed to the safety equipment. I mean, that does happen. Does it? Don't tell me that. I mean, nature is unpredictable. But also the fact that sometimes the handholds aren't secured properly. They get loose as people climb. But most places check them all the time. I've definitely had holds spin on me when I was using them. But we won't get into that anyway. That's terrifying. That's terrifying. It's fine. You usually have other holds if you're smart. Anyway, back to racing, I think. So I was just throwing off so hard. No idea what we were even talking about. Have you had any close calls? Have you ever crashed? Oh, yes. I feel like crashing is part of part of the sport. It's part about like if you don't crash, you're not going fast enough. Are you sure? I have a crash. Go faster. There's a balance for sure. One of my biggest crashes was in 2017. I was at a track called Road America. And there's this very infamous corner called the Kink. It basically leads on to the back straight. But everybody tells you that you can go flat through there. So I tried it. And I understood off the into the grass a little bit. And then like tried to bring it back onto the track. And my front right wheel basically got more grip. And then it just like swung me into the wall at 100 miles per hour. Walked out. I was fine. Sprained my ankle, but totally my own fault. Because I kept my foot on the brake pedal, you know, firefighter flight response. But you're supposed to pull your arms and your legs in before you have impact. But anyway, walked out. It was completely fine. Like took into a bowl. Basically like this. Yeah. It's almost like tucking and rolling. Because you don't pull your knees up. That's fascinating. You don't want your feet to get caught in the pedals. You don't want your hands to get caught in the wheel. Like it's easy to break your wrist. Yeah. And your classification of racing. Are you required the full visor face guard? So I were like three layers of fireproof clothing. And then I have like my helmet. And I have this device called the Hans. It's like full carbon fiber. Basically like protects my neck and my spine. It'll break my collar bones. If an impact if it's going to danger this area. But it's all very safe now. Save your life. But your collar bones will suffer. Yeah. Well, collar bones can be repaired I think. I don't know. Can they? Yeah. I have this. All right. Yes. Many, many, many people, many athletes across many different sections of sport. I've broken collar bones and come back. So. Great. That's what that never happens. All right. But if it does, you're covered. I think there's a little bit of confusion here. I was actually curious when you're getting ready for race. I usually don't have races back to back to back to back. Like some sports do like baseball when they have double headers, right? Well, I do. They do. So well, in America, I'm in a sprint series. So I have two races per weekend. So one on Saturday and one Sunday. And just this year I'm in a bunch of series. So I basically have races every weekend. Are they the same track or different tracks? Different tracks. Okay. For the ones for the series in America, it's at the same track. Okay. But. So how do you like preparation wise? Obviously you're running through the turns. You're trying to remember everything on the track. Do you have any like superstitions or rituals that you do beforehand to just kind of get you in that zen, get you in that zone to keep your focus up? Yeah, for sure. Like everybody thinks that race car drivers are fearless. But like I get so nervous before I get in the car. A lot of anxiety. But for me personally, what I do is I'll just like throw in some headphones, listen like blast music and try to find like a little quiet corner. I'll like hide from the TV crew in my little pit box. I'm just kind of like vibe out. But basically once the helmet goes on and I get in the car, everything kind of just like fades away. Do you have required media time before and after races like some athletes? Or is it? Yeah. I mean, on some race weekends, I mean, it varies. There's like a live pit crew or pit media crew that walks around and like interviews people. And I always get super nervous. So I'm like, not this time guys, but I have a few questions. Do you have first off, I'm assuming this is a yes, but do you still like racing? Yes. Even if you're coming into the professional world, I always wonder when you start to get to a certain level. And then I imagine there's politics in racing. I imagine there's like favoritism. I imagine there's, there might be prejudice, you know, there might be sexism. There might be all these different factors that would detract from the original purpose of just like wanting to race. Do you still, with all that, the society still enjoy the process, the entire process? Or are there like parts of it that are really just a drain? Yeah, I mean, I feel like as with every sport, there's a lot of pressures, right? And there definitely have been some times where I'm just like, oh my god, like this is a bit much. Like what if I just give up, but obviously kept pushing and just like, there's a lot of self doubt, right? And there is a lot of like prejudice, like you said, but thankfully I've stuck to it. And it's all about finding or like remembering why you started. Like every time I kind of feel that way, I think about like the little version of me and like why she started getting into it. And like all the successes we've had over the past few years. And I mean, this month particularly was pretty rough for us. Like we had a lot of bad luck, like three race weekends, four races, and I only finished one because like there were just mechanical issues. I got taken out in my second race in Italy. And there's just these times where like it feels like everything's working against you. But I mean, that's just part of racing. It's like there's these super high highs and these low lows. And you just really have to learn to, you know, be resilient or find that resilience and find that confidence in yourself to just pick yourself back up. And keep going. Do you feel like as a professional athlete, there's an extra layer of spotlight on you to be somebody who's a positive role model or somebody that inspires future generations to take up the mantle and then also become race car drivers? Yeah, for sure. I mean like specifically even like as a woman in motor sport, there's so few of us. Like I was just telling somebody in Italy, there was like we were in our drivers meeting. There were 160 drivers and only five of us were women. So it's like a very big majority male dominated sport. And so like with that, there are these pressures to feel like you always have to perform because it's like you have so many people like looking up to you or like seeing you as a role model. And there is that pressure to like almost be perfect all the time. But you got to remember you're only human, you know, we all make mistakes. And you know, just being in the sport and like competing in it, I think like it just moves the needle for the rest of us or other women in motor sport for sure. Yeah, do you feel like the pressure is both crushing or more inspiring? Because thinking about all the people that you can inspire to also push their way into something that otherwise they'd be kicked out over looked as just ostracized. For sure, I mean, like that's what drives me is like being able to inspire and empower other girls. For example, like I've had people come up to me and say things like, oh my God, I didn't know like women could be race car drivers, right? And so or like somebody saying something like, oh, you're the reason why I got into motor sport like that. That was always like so heartwarming for me. But yeah. What why both look at you? I was like, if you posted mine, it was beautiful. No, it's fine. Inspired of it. So we have one more question because it's the title of the podcast. You have your own racing team that you're a co-owner of. So obviously that's going to be your favorite team. But outside of that, who is a team that you root for or look and enjoy watching? Somebody you cheer for, somebody you think paves the way or somebody who inspired you perhaps. Who is your favorite sports person or sports team? Oh, I have you. I have a few specifically in sports car racing. There is this team called the Iron Dames. It's an all-female team. They race both in Europe and the US. But they've just been, they've been absolutely killing it recently. And it's just been awesome to see their progress. And it's very inspiring for me especially as a woman in sports car racing. And then on the F1 side, I did get the opportunity to meet Max and Chekhov from Red Bull Racing last year. They were awesome. And they've been killing it to an F1 as well. So always doing for them and Charlotte Claire from Ferrari because I'm a big Ferrari fan. Nice. That was awesome. If there was something that you could say to people out there because I've learned so much today just in like the fact that there are racing schools that you can go to, I did not know that but it makes complete sense. If you could say something to people out there who not as an obviously already doing it and you're inspiring people. I'm talking about people that are not fans of sports. Why should people watch racing in general? Because I think there's a lot of people out there and it's unfair. It's like they only know racing as NASCAR and they turn left. It's like what could you say to people to kind of convince them to give it a shot? Like watch something where they can watch something, what they can watch, how they can watch and why they should appreciate it. Yeah, I feel like a lot of sports car racing specifically. We've been growing a lot on like streaming platforms like YouTube for example. And why should you watch it? I feel like there's so many interesting personalities in the sports car of Hadoq. I mean, there's so many really cool stories of people who've like, you know, grown up through touring car for example like myself or people who, you know, came from nothing and have been just building their brand. I think it's like super inspiring to see like so many people in the paddock, like a lot of my friends. But overall, lost my train of thought a little bit there, but yeah, again, I think like racing is just super interesting. I mean, if you want to get into it, I think drive to survive on Netflix is like your entryway. It's like the gateway drug. Drive to survive. Oh, exactly. Interacing for example, but yeah. Drive to survive. All right. Well, last thing, if you want to shout out anything, maybe your sponsors or just tell people where they can find you, where they can follow you, how they can, if they're interested in this, we want to highlight you more than anything. So here's your chance to showcase and talk about what you do and what all places people can find you. Yeah. I mean, we talked a little bit about it at the beginning, but shout out to BMW for being such a big sponsor of mine and such a great support over the years. Motool, as well as my team, like everybody on my team. Thank you all for supporting me throughout the years. You can find us on Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, Snapchat, you name it. We're on literally everything. Samantha Tan Racing, as well as Samantha Tan. So. And then how about something completely non-racing related? What do you like to do when you're not racing, just like spare time, hobby, it could be nothing. I sit around and get angry at League of Legends. I feel like there's no other way to play League of Legends than angry. So why can't do it? That's so funny because it's like, how do you relax? And I'm like, I play League, which is like so toxic and not good for my mental sanity, but. Do you play any other games that are more relaxed? Genshin Impact. Okay. That's like my cozy game for sure, but I'm definitely on League and Valorant a lot. Fair. Do you stream? I used to, not so much anymore, but we do have our own Sim Racing and Esports team. So you can find us on Twitch at Samantha Tan Racing. We do stream like Sim Racing as well as we do have a camera in my car. So you can actually like sit past and dream with me during a race. Was that live stream? Yes, live stream. Oh my god. That's cool. Yeah. I'm like, wait, the whole thing will like get people into it. I'm like, I want to watch that. I want to watch that. Yeah, we have so much going on. I almost forgot about it. But yeah, you can sit passenger. How? Catch us on Twitch. On Twitch, okay. Twitch Samantha Tan Racing? Yes. That's awesome. I want to see that. I imagine it's the same category of people that drive like Euro Truck Simulator for like 10 hours, but I'm going to skip past them and then I'm going to find that. Yeah. That's awesome. So much for coming on the podcast. It has been great chatting with you. It's been eye-opening experience even for me as somebody who like looks at the race car driving like section of sport and just knows a little. It was phenomenal. I'm so excited. And I'm definitely going to check out your races from now on. I'm excited about it. Mark, anything you want to say? I learned that your car has two golds, four wheels, one steering wheel, and there's five people stuck in the trunk. So I learned all with different steering wheels that you press a switch to the other person's car. No, no, they got to hold the steering wheel while they're stuffed in the trunk and pull yours off. Hop in the trunk. Pop theirs on. It's really fun. Well, thank you guys for having me. Oh, cool. Absolutely. You can follow us on socials and stuff, but more than anything, check out everything that Samantha does. It's incredible. Thank you. And we'll see you next time. And Rose Nascar. Yeah, Rose Nascar. They're not really stock cars. Hey, BMW, listen. You should pay some more money. If you do, maybe we'll do another interview in a BMW. I tried that once, not to make this class a little longer than it was, not in a BMW, not in a BMW. So lately, this is something, I'll be able to just a little more, there's this other YouTuber in the name Captain Sparkles, right? So he's a big car guy. Oh, you know Captain Sparkles? It's a surprise. There's a secret person. Get in the whole time. So he spent, I won't say what car it is. If you will look at the video, you'll find out, but just in case BMW gets mad because it's in mind or may not be a BMW. But he got this car that was like a super fancy car. Well, kind of is a ****. I don't know if it matters. I have no idea. But the car that beat Ferrari. Yeah. Was it? Yeah. I'm not a BMW. I know that. But he did the series where it was like riding the car and then we'll do like this little interview talk podcast thing and then we drive up in Angela's crest. And so I don't do fast and he's like driving up and I'm sure you've driven up Angela's crest and I'm sure you've driven up fast. Imagine going half the speed you would, which is probably still fast and me just like this with the engine as loud as it is right here and him trying to talk to me there. I was like, yeah, I was like, oh, I guess just, so I will never do that again. Oh, you don't want to pass on to anything? Yeah. I'll take your other track. I'm good. Thanks. I'll go. I'm down. I'm all right. I don't ride motorcycles anymore because I had one close call and I'm like, no, I'm done. That's good. I was, I was laying splitting up the four or five, not faster anything like it was just like the carpool lane that was going by and there was this bus that was on the left in the carpool lane. And then there was a semi over on the right and the bus is mirror and the semi is like wheel cover made this perfect thing that if I didn't cram down and crank my head here, I would have hit either the bus mirror or been into the the semi's wheels. And after that, I was like, never again. And I never rode a motorcycle again after that. So I'm a little safety conscious. It's okay. You can be the pit crew. I'm stuck with another. If you hear some thumping back there, it means I'm having fun. Good to know. Good to know. When we hit bumps and stuff and you're hit him hard, all right, we can end this. All right. Well, thanks everybody for enjoying. Watch the video exclusively on Spotify and you can listen everywhere else. They already watched it. I don't know. They might not be watching it. Okay. Listen. It's the end of the episode. Well, then fine. We'll put it in the beginning that you can watch this on video only on Spotify. Yes. Cool. All right. Bye. Do you have to do the clap? Yeah, clap end.