Apex Adjacent

Episode 124-Ford STs and soap for men.

People far smarter than us often exclaim that history is doomed to repeat itself unless we learn from it. What can we learn from our cars? Perhaps that like socks, they're best changed often. Sticking to the same pair for years could only end in disappointment and shattered emotions?

Let's pick up the pieces and duct tape them back together. Remember in life that it's most important to understand and empathize instead of criticize.

We make a bit of a hasty departure in this episode because we're on our way to Unser for our first ever TeamClearCoat Karting Meetup! Hopefully people on the internet don't try to murder us when we meet them in ahem…meatspace. Spoiler Alert: No one murdered us. Yet.

Episode 123-Stickers and self-loathing

What can we be doing as automotive enthusiasts to make our community more accessible? Unfortunately, there is no shortage of answers and on this episode we talk about things we'd like to hear less of and things we'd like to hear more of.

On the lighter side, if you're in Denver on January 14th, you should meet us at Unser Karting to see if you're faster than a podcast. Maybe you are, maybe you aren't, but either way, we'll have a blast and have stickers to give away.

The most important thing is that we as an automotive enthusiast community and as people in general, that we strive to do better. Whether it be our karting lap times, being #SmarterThanIan, or by being more inclusive and welcoming in our community, the absolute most important thing is that we keep making the effort to improve.

Episode 122-Turns out Dave isn't the worst...

Ian stared into the abyss, and you know what looked back? A critical and certainly missed rest stop in his rear view mirror. Dave stepped to the precipice as well, and a peak plastic-era Chrysler stared RIGHT back at him through its dull headlight lenses and straight into the space where his soul should normally go.

Despite the Herzogian observations, the overall spirit in the blanket fort is high. Dave discusses offering his life as a service while Ian has reveals his discovery of the right time and place to have a truly behemoth vehicle at your disposal.

We also stumble upon a conundrum; how do you present yourself to a fellow automotive enthusiast when you're at the helm of a vehicle that does not communicate said fellowship? Once again, we may not have answers, but we certainly have fun talking about it.

Episode 121-Proof

Math shows up more than you'd think on our TeamClearCoat automotive podcast. Whether it's Dave's "Tetanus Math" or our "Sticker Proximity Index", equations work their way into our lives and thus our cars. We constantly seek structure to justify the world we see with reason and logic, and on this week's show we pull out all the stops.

Here's your homework, and be sure to show your proofs: Add one VW and one battery on the store shelf, full of potential (energy), and see what is to the right of the equals sign. Remember to carry the despair. Let's add a ginger and a Dodge Power wagon and witness the resultant bliss.

While we deploy logic at a moment's notice, there's some things that still defy it. Why ramen? Why that sticker with that sticker? Why stickers to begin with? Why are you enjoying that beverage at this very moment in this very (mobile) place? You can't solve them all folks.

Episode 120-The cookie the cookie...the beast

We kick this episode off by Ian giving himself to Dave - in cookie form. In addition to Dave eating that cookie, Ian gives us insight into how that cookie reacts to suspicious reactions to said cookie's jokes. Wait…who's the cookie again? Anyway, we digress.

In an interesting turn of events, Ian did detective work!!! While we now have answers, we're still not sure where we land on the results. Also, we move from being on the just side of the law to a scenario that would FOR SURE put us on the wrong side, despite it being noble car enthusiast work.

Speaking of noble car enthusiast work, aka hot takes, we look at the new Lamborghini Urus, Lamborghinis that look a million times better than the Urus, and shame scars on cars.

Episode 119-That's a lot of scowling....

Did you know that you can tell how unreliable a person's car is from looking at their refrigerator? Yep! Dusty Rusty is personally responsible for about 3 square feet of real estate on Dave's fridge.

So let's talk about other stuff we know. We know that nostalgia can be bad news when it's in the wrong hands. Weaponized reminiscence impedes progress and we need to be aware of that.

We also know that we're late. We're late delivering news in regard to magic electric and potentially flying cars and we're late in coming to the realization that Ian and 5 other Ians is um.....bad. Yeah.

Episode 118-Pssst...

Hey there. Yes, you. Why not step into our man van, and we'll show you our YouTube comments?

We'll teach you our superpowers: identifying cars by smell, and businesses by the cars in the parking lot. Also, we'll rationalize the games we play to you, obsess over Cadillac tail lights, and also it's Dave's birthday.

And it's not so much a van as this week's podcast episode.

Episode 117-Because that's why everyone listens...for math.

We live in the era of the Hot Take. Since one of the hallmarks of this era is how wrong everyone is on their first draft, we're all about bad first Hot Takes this week.

Everyone will probably change their mind one way or another about the new Aston Martin Vantage, Ian thought Dave got arrested, and we both encounter a karting bro who was very wrong about his driving abilities.

Also, Dave continues to see the weirdest stuff in traffic, the Veloster lover affair continues, and we define the Sticker Proximity Index.

Episode 116-Thankfully.

We waddle right out of the gate by catching the proverbial drippings of Fiats in an instantaneous round of FMKCars. Given that food and cars are inseparable, at least on our show, a Thanksgiving discussion fits in as well as any of our other goofy topics, so come along as we discuss the worst way to eat potatoes (regular and sweet swirl), the best leftovers (pocket sandwiches), and the best way to enjoy the holiday or really any other day of the week (copious amounts of wine).

Dave learned that he needs to be thankful for his self-inflicted repair wounds, which by their nature cut much deeper than anything anyone else could ever do to your car. Given the wooziness from bleeding out, Dave comes to accept the fact that sometimes in order to go one block west you need to go east until you circle the globe. Also, it turns out that hammers DO solve everything, so we guess Clarkson was right about something. Not alone in having gratitude, Ian received a gift this week as well, which means that we all get the gift of a hungry angel sent from above to pilot an old RAV4, causing our lives to never be the same. The gift folds in on itself and gifts us a gift in another way, an added silent, unspoken kicker to all future FMKCars.

On a more serious note, at least as serious as we could get, we talk about the medias social, the platforms for which we send our bits to one another. Given that these platforms are now offering to look at our gross bodies for us, we try and figure out how to map that shame into automotive purposes. Happy Thanksgiving everybody, we love you, and not in a gross way.

Episode 115-Whooooooo!

Ian, the longshot, defeats all odds and wins at parenting but…but he ends up putting a ring on Clippy, so yeah, there's some ups and downs this week.

In our continuing segment that shall be known as "Dave Gets Mad About Stuff", Dave gets mad that people don't share a basic understanding of Newtonian physics when it comes to wooden-mist ghost-plants. Ian doubles down on his declaration that turkey is a garbage meat, which kicks off a holiday-inspired round of FMKCars in which your humble idiotic host duo fall in love with the boxy corners of an Uno.

Along the way through our tumbleweed-filled fields, we traverse the treacherous landscape of an IT nightmare. The Trojan horse to this dystopian scenario? A humble Acura RLX; pleated khakis standard. As we click past a tab that reads "Ginger error code: 404 soul not found", Clippy lies in wait, ready to integrate with all of your automotive technical desires.