What is INTC?
Three people who have lived and breathed speed professionally for decades.
And we make a podcast about racing.
Wait, no, strike that.
I mean, it's true. But it also sounds big-time dull, because most stuff made about racing is a snooze. Too much focus on the machine, or the politics, or that thing Verstappen said about Lando's hamster's mother's hair in Dubai or whatever.
Maybe it's better to say this:
A show about winners. But also losers. How people make things, break things, triumph, screw up, change the world, change nothing, and—above all—end up loving every bit of this mad sport.
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The machines are great, and we talk about that. But racing is never about the car.
It's about who we are behind the wheel.
The Nitty-Gritty
Every week, we pull apart the human side of racing—thinking, tech, driving, and more. One show each month is a deep dive into an epic moment from motorsport history. Sometimes we have guests!
New episodes on Tuesdays.
Ross Bentley
Host
Performance coach / IndyCar veteran / sports-car champion.
Renowned expert in human behavior at the limit. Best-selling author of the landmark Speed Secrets book series. Won the 2003 Daytona 24-hour in a prototype. Won the 1998 USRRC GT3 title in a factory BMW. Has coached everyone from fighter pilots to Ken Block. His students have won Indy, Le Mans, and much else.
Ross lives in the Pacific Northwest, where he spends his free time ministering to an amusingly large dog and an amusingly small Lotus Elan. Because he is patient.
Photo: Whispering sweet nothings to a Lola Indy car, 1993.
Sam Smith
Host
Journalist / club racer / former mechanic.
Writer, incurable storyteller, romantic. Twenty years as an automotive and motorsport journalist. Former executive editor of Road & Track. Has hosted TV for NBC Sports, written for The New York Times, and tested more old race cars than he can remember. Once qualified on the front row at the Goodwood Revival and ate a medically disturbing number of bacon sandwiches in the same day.
Sam lives in East Tennessee, where he repairs scuzzy old machines for fun. His first book, Smithology, was an Amazon bestseller.
Jeff Braun
Host
Engineer / strategist / consultant.
Race engineer and problem-solver at the sport's highest level. Forty years of success in IMSA, IndyCar, Grand Am, NASCAR, ALMS, and more. Wins include eight Sebring 12-hours; two Daytona 24s; and a whopping ten IMSA / Grand-Am championships, including one with a factory-backed Ferrari.
Jeff lives in West Texas. He's currently competition director for Toronto's AWA Racing, where he oversees Corvette GT3.Rs in IMSA GTD. His hobbies include coffee roasting, trackside parenting, and—as he often jokes—driving a bus.
INTC Hosts Doing Things
Mike Perlman
Executive Producer
Man of many talents. By day, manages the San Francisco outpost of The Motoring Club. By night, helps steer INTC. Résumé holds producing stints at both Hagerty and Collecting Cars.
Mike is an enigma, facts elusive. What can be said for sure: He owns a stand-up bass. He has eaten food off a string of funky old German cars. Beyond that, for all we know, he's Gina Lollobrigida. (Talented, charming, a continental mystique. The resemblance is uncanny.)