Racing

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when those maniacs in the '60s would do Formula 1 and whatever, 13% of the grid wouldn't make it to the end of the year because they'd just die in a fiery flaming fireball. But there's still some of it there. And I think that since that there's something on the line really contributes to it. But it's more than that. There's just a physical sensation. There's activation of all your forces. There's the flow. And I think that really cements like why I got addicted, 'cause I always, I love that flow I got out of programming, but getting flow out of programming is a very inconsistent process. I can't just sit down in front of a keyboard and go like, all right, let's get the flow going. It doesn't happen like that. The problem has to be just right. It has to meet my skills in just a right moment. It's a bit of a lottery. In a race car is not a lottery at all. You sit down in that car, you turn the ignition, you go out on track, and I get flow virtually guaranteed.

`4:38:28`

Because you need, or I need at least 100% of my brain processing power to be able to go at the speed I go without crashing. So there's no time to think about the other night or the meeting next week or product launch. It's completely zen in actually the literal sense of the word. I think of someone who's really good at meditation, that's probably kind of state they get into where it's just clear you're in the now, there's nothing but you and the next corner. That's a really addictive experience. So after I've had that, I couldn't get enough. I kept going to the track every opportunity I got. Every single weekend for about four years, I would go to the track. And by the end of that time, I'd finally worked up enough skill and enough success with the company that I could afford to go, quote, unquote, "real racing." So I started doing that. I started driving these Porsches, and then as soon as I got into that, as soon as I got into, quote, unquote, "real competition," I was like, I wonder how far you can take this. And it didn't take that long

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before I decided, you know what? I can take this all the way. My great hero in racing is Tom Kristensen, fellow Dane. The Mr. Le Mans, as they call him. The greatest endurance race in the world. The 24 hours of Le Mans has been won more times than any other by Tom Kristensen. He won the race nine times. So Tom just really turned me onto Le Mans. I've been watching Le Mans since I think the '80s. I have my earliest memories of watching that on TV. The race has been going since I think 20s. But in the '80s I got kind of into it. And then in the late '90s, early 2000s when Tom started winning, I like pretty much every other Dane started watching the race almost religiously. So I thought, you know what? I wanna get to Le Mans. And this is the magic thing about racing, that if I get into basketball, like I can't set a realistic expectation that I'm gonna play in the NBA, then I'm gonna go to the finals. Or I get into tennis and I'm gonna play at Wimbledon, that just doesn't happen.

`4:40:32`

But racing thing is special in this way because it requires a fair amount of money to keep these cars running. It's really expensive. It's like having a small startup. You need to fly a bunch of people around the world and buy expensive equipment and so forth. So you need a bunch of capital. And I had some through the success of the company. So I could do it, which meant that I could get to Le Mans. So I set that as my goal. I wanna get to Le Mans. And I started racing in real competition 2009. And three years later in 2012, I was at the grid of Le Mans for the first time. — We should say, so Le Mans, 24-hour race endurance. I mean, this is insane. — There are three drivers, mind you. So it's not like one guy just drive for 20 hours, 24 hours straight. But still, it's a pretty tough race both physically and mentally, especially mentally. When you've been up for 24 plus hours, you're not quite as sharp as when you first wake up. And this is funny about Le Mans too. It starts at around four o'clock in the afternoon. So you've already been up for half a day

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by the time the race starts. And then there's 24 hours to go before you're done. And you'll be in the car for anywhere from usually an hour and a half to a maximum of four hours. The regulations say four out of six is the max you can do. I've spent perhaps two and a half hours in a single stint at Le Mans. It's pretty taxing. You're going 200 miles an hour into some of these turns, and there's another 60 cars on track. Whenever I'm in my normal category, which is the LMP2 category, I have GT cars, which are more like a Ferrari and a Porsche that I have to overtake. And then I have these hypercar, which is the top class that are overtaking me. So you got a lot going on and you gotta stay sharp for two and a half hours straight to do that. That is just a guaranteed way to get incredible flow for long, long stretches of time. That's why you get addicted to it. That was why I got addicted. — You gotta talk me through this video. This video of you in these LMP2s. — Oh, yes. — This is such a cool. This is so cool.