It's Not the Car Crashing Four Times at Your First Indy 500 — w/ Jimmy Kite
Jimmy Kite crashed four times—four!—trying to qualify for the 1998 Indy 500. The story of how he finally made the show holds bad luck and trashed cars but also a hidden concussion, a giant fireball, an airborne gearbox, and a fat dose of can-do spirit.
Plus: INTC co-host Jeff Braun! Jeff was Kite’s chief engineer that year. So we brought Jimmy onto the show and asked him and Jeff to tell the whole tale.
Kite was a 22-year-old sprint-car kid from Missouri who came up on dirt and had just been crowned 1997 USAC Silver Crown Rookie of the Year. A year before the Speedway, he had never driven a downforce car. And Jeff… well, Jeff was impressed!
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IN THIS EP: That big, sexy fireball — A nervous mother — Jeff explaining suspension heave re: downforce — Dallara’s IRL monoshock — A red-hot differential aiming for low-Earth orbit — Jeff running somebody out of gas — TV announcers joking, on-air, that a 22-year-old driver looks 15 — Jeff looking happy on TV — and more!
This show’s format rotates weekly, because squirrel. We call this format “JEFF PHONES A FRIEND.”
This episode was produced by Sam Smith.
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Smithology: Thoughts, Travels, and Semi-Plausible Car Writing, 2003–2023
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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, a bestselling author, and a world-renowned performance coach. Jeff Braun is a champion race engineer. Sam Smith is an award-winning writer and a former executive editor of Road & Track magazine.
We don’t love racing for the nuts and bolts—we love it for what it asks of the meatbag at the wheel.
New episodes every Tuesday.