AVERT YOUR EYES FROM OUR NEW MERCH STORE: ⁠⁠www.itsnotthecar.com/⁠⁠

***Don’t ever go there! It will rot your brain! (These annoying store mentions will stop soon, we promise.)***

Once, in college, Sam studied under a dignified old journalism professor.

“The thing about putting the word ‘sex’ in a headline,” this prof said, “is that it’s the easy way out. Like an exclamation point or a question mark—those are language cheats, to avoid thinking of something smarter. You can always do better.”

But enough of that! What did that prof know, anyway? Sam is very tired right now! Does he find shocks sexy? Who doesn’t? Have you ever considered how many damper-adjacent words are lightly titillating? Let’s share a few!

“Digressive!” “Frequency!” And even—gasp!—“knee!” (Cue the fainting grandmothers.)

This show’s format rotates weekly, because squirrel. We call this ep's format “My Life With.” It has nothing to do with sex and is instead a chance for an INTC host to tell the story of how they came to understand a complex racing topic over their working life.

In this case, that host is JEFF, our very own champion race engineer and IMSA-team competition director. The subject is DAMPERS!

Related Trivia: This ep description is light on substance because Sam is very tired—he’s worked too many late nights at his day job over the last few weeks.

Unrelated Trivia: In spare moments, to relax, Sam stares at the website for this podcast. There have been no ill effects to date. Probably.

This episode was produced by Mike Perlman.

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Support It’s Not the Car:

Contribute on Patreon ⁠⁠⁠⁠www.patreon.com/notthecar⁠⁠⁠⁠

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Topic suggestions, feedback, questions? Let us know what you think:

⁠⁠⁠⁠[email protected]⁠⁠⁠⁠

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Check out Sam's book:

⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Smithology: Thoughts, Travels, and Semi-Plausible Car Writing, 2003–2023⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠

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Where to find us:

⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://www.instagram.com/intcpod⁠⁠⁠⁠

⁠⁠⁠⁠https://www.instagram.com/j.v.braun/⁠⁠⁠⁠

⁠⁠⁠⁠https://www.instagram.com/rossbentley/⁠⁠⁠⁠

⁠⁠⁠⁠https://www.instagram.com/thatsamsmith/⁠⁠⁠⁠

⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://www.facebook.com/INTCpod⁠⁠⁠⁠

⁠⁠⁠⁠https://rossbentley.substack.com/⁠⁠⁠⁠

⁠⁠⁠⁠https://speedsecrets.com/⁠⁠⁠⁠

⁠⁠⁠⁠https://www.facebook.com/Drivercoach⁠⁠⁠⁠

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ABOUT THE SHOW:

It’s Not the Car is a podcast about people and speed. We tell racing stories and leave out the boring parts.

Ross Bentley is a former IndyCar driver and a world-renowned performance coach and author. Jeff Braun is a champion race engineer. Sam Smith is an award-winning journalist and a former executive editor of Road & Track magazine. Together, we explore the emotion at the heart of the machine.

We don’t love racing for the nuts and bolts—we love it for what it asks of the bag of meat at the wheel.

New episodes every Tuesday.