Business of Speed Podcast - Shami Kalra: From $10 in the Bank to the Indy 500 Podium — The Omologato Story

Episode Date: March 7, 2026

Shami Kalra had $10 left in his bank account, no food in the house, and a wife who told him she'd had enough. That Friday night, he designed two watches in Photoshop. By Thursday, he'd taken his first $1,000. Within 30 days, $50,000. He didn't even have a product yet.That was the birth of Omologato — the motorsport watch brand built by a fan who couldn't afford a hamburger at Silverstone, let alone the $7,000 watches roped off behind VIP barriers.In this episode, Shami tells us the full story: 20 years working for people he hated, the moment his wife forced a change, launching on Shopify with no money, and how a cold introduction to Chip Ganassi at Le Mans turned into a phone call, a partnership, and a spot on the podium when Alex Palou won the Indianapolis 500.We get into:Why he flew to the south of France for a 2.5-hour meeting instead of doing a Zoom callThe swimming pool watch dial born from COVID isolation and what it taught him about hope and belongingSupporting drivers from age 9 who are now knocking on the door of Formula 1The FIA blocking him on social media for advocating for a disabled marshal at Le MansMeeting Mario Andretti behind the bins at a race and Tony Kanaan at ThermalHis dream of owning an IndyCar team — and how close it came to being a 2025 realityWhy kindness is not a weakness, toxic people are insecure, and karma always collectsShami also shares stories about Juan Pablo Montoya, Roger Penske, Scott Dixon (who lives a mile away), Tom Kristensen, Luke Browning, and why the greatest people in racing are the ones who stand up when you walk over to say hello.

So, yeah, I just wanted to say that really resonated, that origin story of taking a risk on yourself. Also, when you're not super young, right, at a certain point in life, when you've established a career, you are known in your circles what you are doing. And to be like, no, I'm going to do this. I'm going to go after a passion. Wow, that's so admirable. So my wife and I, who are still together, we met when we were 17 years old. We had our first child after we got married. I was 23.

I literally had no money, literally meaning that we had a house. OK, so that was that was but there was nothing else beyond, you know, a can of tomatoes, a bit of spaghetti and some nappies. Or you guys call it diapers. Diapers. Yeah. The nappies. We're familiar with the UK. The nappies. Wordy.

So it was, you know, and I spent probably 20 years of my life working for other people and doing stuff with them and making them watches and doing other various things as well. hustling i think the americanism is right hustling i was hustling and i hustled with people i absolutely detested hated them for 20 years i had to tolerate it because i needed the money and then towards the end of that sort of span of 20 odd years 18 60 whatever it was it was a long time i got to a point where the business that i was in was declining and i didn't admit it Because men are stupid, right? We have this pride. Hey, look at me, man.

I'm fine. And actually, we don't talk about not being fine. And I'm pleased that actually, especially in the last few years, we talk about not being fine. We talk about having issues and dramas and, you know, what do we need to nurture it? And I love my community of good people. My watch customers are one of the best. And my motor support partners are fantastic people when you're having a really low Tuesday morning. and nothing's going right and it's raining and stuff like that and we talk and you know everyone

bleeds so um it was a really bad time for me where i didn't admit that my business was failing and then one afternoon in the fifth this was in my head 2015 five o'clock friday night we had no food in the house my wife's been with me a long time right we've been through a hell of a lot together illnesses etc etc uh she goes i've had enough and the first time ever she said i've had enough you got to do something different we cannot live like this so she went and borrowed money to get some groceries from the store um and i sat in my office for a couple of hours thinking what am i gonna do i designed two watches just sat there with and i'm not very good with photoshop so they were really crass but I looked to them and I thought bloody hell I'd buy that and at the price

point that we could offer it there was nobody else in the market because motorsport has become even more so now not an all series actually I've got some really really fantastic stories about good people in high profile places but a lot of motorsport back then was definitely not inclusive it was exclusive and I hate the word exclusive it's like being invited to a party but you have to stay outside and look through the window. You're not allowed in. And so one of my first feelings of that is that I took my son to the British Grand Prix when he was younger. I think it was 99 or 2000, one of those years. We spent three months saving up money to buy the tickets for my son and I. So the equivalent of roughly around four or $500. Yeah, it was about $500

back then. So I thought I'm going to meet Micah Hackett and I'm going to go and shake hands with schumacher i'm gonna walk down the grid because it was a huge amount of money right so we get to we get to silverstone and sorry you can't come in sorry you pass is only there sorry you can't do this hamburger so a hamburger in america now an expensive one's about 25 now it was 20 and that was 26 27 years ago yeah so i couldn't afford a hamburger i couldn't afford a diet coke so my son had the diet coke and the hamburger because we took about 50 with us and he had all the food i was looking for water fountains all day parking cost us 80 and i walked around i didn't see anything you know there's a car flashing by every two seconds and i'm thinking is that it is this

what and i went away and then i saw another watch brand who's involved with motorsport and they had a lovely display with a lovely rope to say vip only which i don't know what is who's a vip what what does that mean i'll tell you what a vip is it's someone who has an agenda with somebody and they want something from them so you're my vips today right because i really appreciate you asking me to come along to this but what what happens with these with the they're not inclusive you know you're roped off anyway i saw this watch there seven thousand dollars and i thought i can't even afford a hamburger how the hell am i ever gonna get a motorsport watch i'm not this sport is excluding the guy who was sitting on the banks with the hamburger watching the cars go by

and i felt totally excluded that feeling stayed in me actually it really has stayed in me so fast forward a few years watch motorsport a lot i've watched every race since 1994 every formula one race doesn't matter where i am in the world i've always watched the race whether it be at four o'clock in the no 6 30 in the morning in miami or or three o'clock in the morning in new delhi i've watched every single race i've never missed a single one so deep down i'm a fan we i was only talking to somebody to this morning actually about did you know that jack villeneuve and michael schumacher in 1998 never shared a podium stuff like that blows my mind they never shared a podium stats of the weird that's what i don't know whether it's verified or not but those kind of

things make me wake up in the morning and sort of think wow do you know what i mean so i'm a real fan and um so fast forward to when i started the business you know money was obviously very tight so friday night we had this argument saturday sunday i'm sitting there thinking god i've got to do something what if i had an offer where you got 30 days free because i had no money to open the um to open a store so i i did all the coding not the coding but it's very easy to set up a Shopify store. You can just put pictures in and whatever. Tuesday night, it went live. Nothing. Wednesday, nothing. Thursday night, I took $1,000. Bearing in mind, I had $10 left. I took just under a week later. Within, I'd say 10 days, $10,000. Within 30 days, it went up to $50,000.

And it was almost like, it was like winning the lottery, right? And I had no product. They were just photoshop it was just and i had to go and make exactly now you're like you were only nfts before the nft craze yeah so i was certainly yeah virtual drawings and so i mean i've been dealing with my supplier in in japan since 1993 i think it was when i first made my first watch but for somebody else i phoned him up and i said listen i've got no money and i actually lost contact with him for a bit for about three years and he but he we we have a good relation even now we probably speak about three times a day whether it be about racing whether it be about watches and whether it be about you know how much money we owe them that kind of stuff it's all it's a

it's a very friendship my phone number said i think i'm need to buy 25 watches off you because i sold 25 watches he went that's amazing and then about three days later i said i think i might need 50 watches now because i think i sold 50 and so it went from sort of okay let's order 70 it went up to 400 watches in the space and roughly around 400 each so you do the maths on that and that's within the space of 21 days wow so i'm a fan that feeling in you know silverstone made me feel really quite excluded suddenly we're now including people because they can buy a watch that looks like the sort of motorsport thing that they wanted and that's how it grew and I still appeal we have a range called Tifosi which you know your podcast listeners will probably know

what Tifosi means right it's a fan of and it's 99 yeah they better do right it's 99 pounds which is roughly a hundred and it's a watch they're limited they're only I only ever make a hundred because I have fun with it because you know the company's a bit more serious now although I still have my fun with it and I still have the final say but we've grown you know we're in 200 stores worldwide we have uh yeah an office in Indianapolis now uh etc etc but I still want to have fun so I i mean there's a watch on the website called snake eyes and uh if you look at it it's basically the headlights of the ac cobra 427 from 1965 that ken miles had everyone in the office said this is the worst watch you ever designed the factory said we're not doing it this is going to fail

whatever accountants looking at me saying you've lost it this time they sold out in three days yeah well that's it so let's just piggyback off that but you said so many things i want to touch on i'm sure lolly's just doing it as well like testament to the fact that you built i don't even want to use the word cult but it's really it's like when you build that following of people that are so loyal because you're you're emboldening them around like you said inclusivity but also your watches are their stories behind like you you're a very good storyteller right you just went on for a few minutes telling your story you're a very good storyteller and i think that

is why people buy what like the watch that i had my eye on for the longest time and i don't know why i never bought it up until like about a week a couple days ago actually was the um the weber alonzo yeah watch and i was like oh that's such a cool it's so unique because it's you know a cartoon you had uh the cartoon uh bamber draw in bamber yeah you know alonzo and weber kind of like that whole taxi moment back from 2013 or whatever it was um i'm like oh this is just such a cool unique moment right you don't ever think of that because we're always taught that like watches are at some other level and like you said it's always a little more exclusive but yeah the storytelling lolly go ahead you jump in for a second but there's so much and vincenzo has said to me

you're gonna really like him and guess what i really like you thank you there's something there so many things that you say that you said resonated i'm sure will resonate with a lot of our listeners is i i myself have not missed a formula one race i can't i can't tell you when was the last time i missed a formula one race it really since and by i say missed if i even if i didn't watch it live i would have recorded it i've been in some very live lally it's gotta be live but i've been in some very dodgy british pubs in the middle of ibiza just trying to find a qualifying session so i i know that love and i think that that's what really has impacted me as as i did a little research to talk to you is you're not some guy who's trying to piggyback

off a trend that we currently are experiencing of motorsports which is you are really sincerely passionate what you're doing is so authentic so so real so it shows love for instance that one of the watches it gives me a little bit of anxiety to be honest the laguna seca watch because you unless you know why that watch is off kilter it makes me anxious but it's so authentic And I read somewhere that for you, another aspect of that authenticity is sort of that sponsorship brings more authenticity. So I wanted to maybe ask you a little bit about that, about this must be a dream for you to finally be able to connect with teams and drivers and have your logo. And I think you're more than partners. You're actually quite friends with a lot of these people that you've grown up admiring.

So talk to us a little bit. how did you then finally enter the team's network and become like a de facto face in the paddocks I tell you what it is I never go I never go to anybody with an agenda I'm a fan right so you get some guys and it happens a lot now more so than I than I want it to happen but you get a lot of people hey how are you let's do this you're thinking well hello where are you from what do you do do you like watches some people have even come to me and said i don't know i don't wear a watch but do you want to do a deal and i'm like really you know what i mean we don't have a marketing department i used to have a couple of guys who are really good at what they do and i

still refer to them quite a bit when we're doing boring stuff like contracts and agreements but the marketing department is here it's there and it's there actually it starts there and then it goes there and that's it sort of thing so i can't i mean there's so many stories let me let me tell the chip story because that's that's really that's that's the story we were building too let's go yeah the chip is it's one of the nicest stories and if chip watches this i'll make i'll make sure he gets the link okay make sure because he likes winners and we're winners he likes winners and him and i so we speak a lot i would say we probably speak virtually i don't know every other day and then once a month our conversations honestly if they were recorded i reckon both of us would

be both of us to be questioned we have such strong views on life on personalities on racing we have such strong views and it's really nice to sort of be on par with somebody and he says it as it is right and I say it as it is and if anything goes wrong our last conversation I was in hysterics when he put the phone down because the language was colorful and it was just brilliant and I love that relationship so i i walked past chip in 2021 at daytona and i thought we got this chip ganassi and he walked straight past me but i was talking to somebody and i couldn't be rude and say i'll come back to you in a second so and and then he disappeared he went and then i went to a dinner in 2022 the um old timers dinner i think it was in indianapolis where they have on the wednesday

before the 500 they have a dinner which I was invited to by the Vintage Indy Association who I also work with and they look after all the lovely vintage indie race cars etc and Mike Hull was there that evening because he'd just been awarded a lifetime award and I thought I've got to go over and say hello to Mike and right next to Mike was Chip Ganassi and again I missed the opportunity because there's so many people around them and then I got stopped and I had to speak to people And then by the time I looked up, they'd gone. So, Le Mans. I was there with the team.

It was hard work getting there. It was heartbreaking getting there, actually. I mean, I could write a chapter in a book on how difficult it was getting there. And with a racing driver who drove for Cadillac, and Chip Ganassi's running Cadillac. So, we're sitting at this table in the hospitality, just talking to the racing driver. So Chip Ganassi's behind me. And I thought, right, I'm going to do it now or I'm never going to do it. So, and my wife's like, don't, they look like they're in a meeting.

I said, what's the worst that's going to happen? Right. He's going to tell me to go away or come back in and out, whatever. So I thought, right, I'm going to go over. So I walked over to Chip Ganassi and Mike Hull. And I forget the third person who was there. Anyway, Mike Hull and Chip Ganassi sitting there. You know, the first thing he did when I said hello to him,

they both stood up they both stood up proper gentlemen you know those kind of manners they i come across a lot of people who i have classed in the past as heroes those that level of manners almost doesn't exist anymore you know it's so important he stood up he held my hand and i said to him i told him what i said i saw you daytona saw you at this dinner etc etc and he said come come sit down with us we spent an hour talking now this guy's running Le Mans right he's running and he's I'd say an hour it was probably less it felt like a we we spoke about so many good things and then he goes to me Sham I need to do a deal with you I said what I've known you half half an hour 20 minutes whatever it was it was enough time for me and I

thought maybe he's being polite because you know you're in the corner this guy's come over to say hello and we get on well and I was only talking about racing and I told him what I did and so we got home from Le Mans on the Tuesday morning so it's a Sunday finishes Sunday afternoon Monday we were traveling back and we so we got back Tuesday morning because we spent an extra day in France came back Tuesday morning I emailed him at five o'clock in the evening and uh dear chip thank you for your time lovely to meet you within three minutes he'd replied back and said call me on my mobile and i was thinking the guy really did mean it and um we were on the phone for about two hours that evening the baseline of our deal right let's have some fun and honestly

we have had so much fun in the years that we've been working together and he does he's such a charitable bloke quietly he's such a giving guy as well and very much like me i i don't wait to be asked i you give out you help we're in a privileged position right where we can and if you look at the portfolio of people that i now look after they're from nine-year-olds upwards there are five nine-year-olds that i looked after when we first started who are now 20 three of them in formula one and it's it and they all call me one of them in particular calls me every month to say just just to say him what he's doing he's now the test well i'll tell you it's luke browning yeah so luke i've got pictures of him and i when he's that high now he's about that high

but he wears one of our watches he's now a reserve driver now for formula one yeah but i remember when i first met him i just thought again manners that was the first thing that got me about this kid he was the manners was amazing like i said he calls me every month and he's on my insta and he's often sending me messages because vincenzo you know i do like cars and he likes cars and you know and and all the stuff that i get up to and he's always sending me i probably get a message from him every day if not every other day and it's just really nice to work with these young they're still kids when they're still kids but they're now at the elite level they're once he's one step away from potentially becoming a full-time driver in 27 you know so give it out and it comes back

just give it or get put it out there i believe and it's it's really well documented i believe in karma a lot of people have religion i'm a christian i'm a hindu i'm a sikh no sorry if you've got bad karma it doesn't matter what you stick on top of it it'll always sink okay karma judges me if i know i've done something wrong i'm feeling it i'm on the phone resolving it without the person who's on the receiving end of their bad karma knowing i've already sorted it before they even got to them and i think that that's the way the brand has worked that's the way i work and if and if it's not right but seriously if you take advantage of that karma I always sit back and wait for karma to take its own route to sort out other people I don't get

angry I just say please don't do anything wrong because it's not about what I do it's not about what you do it's what karma is going to do and that that's that's about as spiritual as I get but I can I can bore you with about 10 stories about bad karma and how people have done it and what people have done and what I've done I threw up bad karma and honestly it came back to bite me And it's not a pleasant experience. And it doesn't matter what you do, whether you underpay somebody or, you know, you don't pay for, I don't know, a tube ticket or something or something like that. It's coming.

So that's how I live and that's how the brand is. And I'll tell you what, this is how Chip Ganassi lives. He throws it out there and the stuff that just keeps coming back, you know, it's just, it's so, when you're working with someone who has the same sort of values as you, life is so much easier. it's so and it's fun you know like when we were at the indy 500 last year and alex paloo so he's 10 10 laps to go the team manager comes into the hospitality area and he goes sham do you want to go to the podium like dude he's third there's 10 laps to go he ain't gonna make it he looked at me and he went do you want to go on the podium i said what do you know and

He said, come with me. And so I was like, oh, my God. And so, you know, you've been to Indianapolis, right? Been to Indy, not the 500, though. Okay, okay. So the IMS is about, it's like saying, do you want to run five miles? It's like from one area to the other. You can fit all seven wonders of the world in IMS, right?

So it's a big place. And we're on one end, and the podium's in the middle of where the pagoda is. and i'm thinking i'm 54 years old man 55 i don't go to the gym anyway so we're running and you know the you know the the pole uh what is it called the the timing the timing thing yeah so i'm running and you can see it from nearly everywhere and it said one two three as in positions four five six car number one at the time i think it was marcus erickson at the time car 22 or whatever it was and then the third one technically was whoever car number three was 10 sorry it's car number 10 was third so i saw 3 10 i was looking up running thinking what am i running for we're not he's not

he's not gonna win and then i saw 2 10 i thought oh my god started running a bit more and then i saw 1 10 and i thought no way and literally so we ran off the podium and i've got this wonderful photograph got there chip is there i'm right underneath there the car's about to go up onto the thing and chip said to me this is why we won and he's pointing at my logo on the nose cone of alex pollux car and i sat and i thought you know what if i died today that's it my life what a cool moment i mean i've been watching the indy 500 since i was 10 years old wherever we could get it in england because it was never a big deal you used to read about it in auto sport magazine probably on the monday or the tuesday or you used to go online and try and search it via

we had a tv tech service i don't know whether you had that in america or not called cfax so you could put in a page number and it would come up with news stories so i'd read about it but visually we only ever saw it probably about i don't know it was it was very difficult but now it's it's all over sky they're doing a great job with it little old me the broke guy who had nothing is now on the podium with alex paloo at the indianapolis 500 i mean uh you know that is how does that happen but i'll tell you how it happened it comes from integrity it comes from honesty and it's always come from authenticity i'm not a corporate guy i mean i need to sell watches right we have overheads and he you know we do have to sell watches but but it was

it's one of those moments i'll never forget and then the funny thing is rolling on from that so i'm of indian origin my parents came to england in 1965 i was born and bred here i have an english wife so i've integrated i love england and it is my home i have a friend who's an indian um a journalist he's a motorsport journalist in india the times of india biggest newspaper in india 1.2 billion people i think they probably sell half a billion issues a day he phoned up and said um sam congratulations i've just seen this on your instagram you've been up there i was like yeah do you know you're the first person of indian origin that's ever been up on that podium and i thought well you know what that's a bit scraping it a little bit but i'll take it he said

I'm going to do, I'm going to do some homework on this because he said, I want to write an article. I said, Oh, I felt such a fraud. I thought, come on, man. I didn't actually do anything. I just happened to be invited up there. Anyway, Chip phones me up the Sunday afterwards. Sorry, the Tuesday after the Indy 500.

He goes, congratulations. You're an Indy 500 winner. I said, Chip, I'm really not. I said, because your logo's on the car. Yeah. You're an effing winner. So when Chip says you're a winner, that's an... You don't argue.

You don't argue. You stop right there. No, because he's the author. Like, I think it's documented somewhere in some encyclopedia. He's the authority on winners. Chip Ganassi is the goat. Yeah. And you should get your chicken dinner because you're a winner winner.

But he's, I tell you what, he's the goat of though. He's the goat of, like I've used the word before, integrity. He's the goat of principles. we all know goats we all know people who elevate themselves into an industry become very successful and then they become nauseating because they start believing that they're better and bigger and i think that's such a human trait and it happens to a lot of people shiny metal things don't make you better than anybody else right it's how you treat others that you judge other people and i think he's become the goat because how i mean scott dixon has been there how many

years right how many people have i know he's still younger than me but he's been there a long time he lives a mile away from me here 25th year no almost he's he's like alonso um maybe 22 like he's really up there and yeah i mean talk about goats right talk about a man who can win and everything and and chip well that partnership has been yeah no very fruitful god dixon lives a mile away from here in england you know we were talking about it in toronto about three years ago because he got an english accent i said yeah he goes where do you live and i went london he said whereabouts in london i said well actually it's not london it's windsor but i always say london because everyone knows london and people don't tend to know windsor but we have a castle here

where the queen used to live now yeah so he said you're joking we're in windsor and i went do you know it he goes i live on this road and literally it's a mile away and we eat in the same indian restaurant but because i eat earlier i eat at six he took a bit later we've never come across each other in the same indian restaurant so that's so so you talk listen so a lot of the things you talked about here was was values right the whole thread everything you've talked about since since we started this recording it was just about values and heart and leading with heart leading with integrity leading with you know patience too because you have to have a little bit of patience when you have i actually let me take that back you don't have to have patience right or you don't

think you have to especially when you have no money in the bank and you're like i need to make money now but you still found a way to be patient and have integrity lead with your heart instead of you know maybe the wallet or or you know the bank account how how many people and you've come across folk what i think is fascinating is that you've created a magnet for yourself right you've you've drawn the same similar people into your orbit instead of you know maybe working with people that don't feel that way like how do you do you think that they just come to you or do you think it's because like you said you put it out there so much that those people find you i mean how do you because you hear so many stories of these folks that have all this success and they're not

you know they're not very nice to be around but i hear nothing but positive things you know in this recording but even the way you talk you know online about the folks in your circle you're very gracious but you also talk very highly of them and that they're they're very good people what is the testament to that and how do you find them i want to work with good people i only want to work with good people i don't want to work with jerks so how do i do how do you do that and i tell you what a lot of people who are coming up think that you have to be a jerk to actually be successful and that's not you know kindness is not a weakness it's probably the best thing you could ever have is manners and kindness it's not a weakness and i tell you what it takes

a lot it takes a lot of um what's the right word it takes a lot of uh confidence to be kind right you get a lot of insecure people who are absolute dicks to be around because they're totally insecure about their lives the amount of money that they put out there they're constantly worried about stuff i'm just a fan who had this idea who's going on this journey and can every day is a bonus it's almost like i can't believe what's going on i can't believe that you know i had drinks with dick bennett's the other day who's a who's a he's a kiwi but he's an institution right in racing he found bennett he found barrick keller he helped tom christensen nearly every single big name in in the world of racing went through dick bennett's racing team and he invited me out on wednesday

night and said right look we're gonna have a drink because we need to do something i've been friends with him for a number of years but we've never done anything and it's like i'm standing they're split seconds like what am I doing here but then we start talking and the values are exactly the same and he wants to come to an IndyCar race this year he's found two weekends and I said dude when you're ready call me please and I'll get I'll get you set up with whoever you want to be set up with so he wants he wants to come and experience IndyCar which is great but finding these people I don't have an agenda I have no agenda at all if I get to meet somebody that I really really enjoy talking to that's a positive i don't sometimes i will focus on somebody and

think right i need to have a conversation with this guy because i really want to do something with them but the thing will never be hey i'm this i got this shall we do this because i don't want to work with toxic people right and i've met some of my heroes in racing and i've walked away thinking what a dick why were you like that and i never want to work with them and i tell you what some of them are pretty high profile names and I'll never want to work with them. I've had a couple of them come back to me and say, Hey, we got off on the wrong foot. And I thought, no, that's your foot. This is my foot. We're on different feet, you know? So, and I just don't want it. Money is important, but it's not everything. And the minute you start making

money more important than, than integrity and everything else. So I always, so one thing I tell my kids as well this is how i get to meet a lot of people just turn up so i will fly like i said we were talking offline earlier i don't know whether you recorded it or not but i hate these zone calls i hate all this stuff if we're gonna meet and sit down i'd rather sit down and have a conversation with somebody for 10 minutes and i've flown to california for a 20 minute conversation with somebody but we did some good stuff out of it i've flown to india for 18 hours to go and have instead of doing a zoom call this we're going to le mans this year we're doing elms uh do you know nicholas minassian yes nick yeah from back in the day actually in the day yeah so

nicola and i were introduced by um should i name drop yeah please go for it so i'm in the background working with tom christensen and his son so mr le mans mr le mans himself i met him about five years ago should i name drop hold on i just have to call this out before you tell the story should i name drop anybody else given the opportunity would drop names non-stop not pointing at anybody should i name drop anyway the humility is beyond go ahead i thought he was sorry i thought he was gonna call me out so i started no no no no no i mean i may name drop once in a while but it's but not it's because she's colombian and she's like no because it's true not not to just drop names because i happen to have a connection oh it listen sometimes i do it because there is relevance to it

yes exactly but but there was a dinner in london where you had to buy tickets to go meet tom christensen and um so i queued up i actually got his book here yeah there it is mr lamar and he signed it for me so i queued up an hour to get this book um and then i got talking to him and he said uh what do you do and i said oh i run off there you go he signed it for me there we go nice so he said what do you do i said i'm on a watch company and he said which one i said amoligato he goes i know about you and i went what he goes yeah we've seen you around and we've seen you i've done them all seven times with race teams and i and i've done a lot of online stuff um he watches it which is great fast forward five years i'm now working with his son oliver fp management

and i'm working with tom in the background steering things he's a rolex ambassador so I'm very careful not to mix the two up. Never heard of them. No. Rojo? They heard of me. They heard of me. Yeah.

And so they basically put this deal together, introduced me to Nikola Naminassian over at IDEC. I had a 10-minute, no, it was, sorry, an hour phone call, actually. I was driving up north and I pulled over at the side of the road and we were on the phone. And Nikola said, let's get onto a Zoom call. and said a phone i went no i'm coming to see you next wednesday i flew to the south of france it landed at 11 30 meeting at one because it was an hour away at paul ricard the flight back was

at five o'clock so i left him at 3 30 between 1 and 3 30 we'd done the deal and he said i can't believe you didn't do zoom i said that's because i hate it and if you and if you're going to meet somebody and do something you look at them in in the eye and you get a good feeling and him and i we announced our partnership two weeks ago in paris the car gets launched today i think the livery is going to be launched today and we're doing some bloody cool things over this year and it's really really nice to be involved in you know i know you have the daytona 24 but le mans 24 is arguably depending on which side of the pond you're on right le mans bigger i think i think it's by pond isn't i think regardless of the side of the pond you're on there is a magic a mystique

an og status to the 24 hours of le mans i don't think they need to compete against each other they're both beautiful events vincenzo and i are very big fans of le mans and i actually wanted to talk to you a little bit about that because something the three of us have in common is that we are diehards of various disciplines of racing yeah it was like indycar all three of us like uh formula one and vincenzo and i are also into sports cars we just came back from the 24 And then there's another six degrees of separation because you're friends with Chip. Chip has won the Indianapolis 500 with a gentleman called Juan Pablo Montoya, who is from my hometown. But you have a Montoya-Lemont connection. yeah wow he drove for dragon speed in 2020 and um a couple of years before that i met him at uh silverstone formula one he was with williams he came into the williams hospitality and i

i happened to be there and he was talking about his son's is it sebastian and then a couple of about 18 months later this deal came up and one pablo was there and i thought But actually, this is a cool bit of sort of like connection. And I love Juan Pablo. I actually had a goldfish called Juan Pablo Montoya. Because we used to call him Juan Pablo because he was the biggest goldfish in the tank. And he would go around just barging into everyone

and making like it was his tank. And you go back to, what year was it, Vincenzo? So you probably know, Lali, you probably know. Lali probably knows more than I do. Excuse me? I said Lali probably knows better than I do. His heyday with Williams was, I'll tell you what, 99, 2000.

2000, yeah. 2001, those were the heydays for sure. How much manners did he put on Schumacher that season? You know, Schumacher's coming up behind me. He's like, who cares, right? We had Tony Kanaan on the show and Lali asks a question to drivers, you know, who's the most naturally talented driver

you've ever been around? And he said, Juan Pablo Montoya. Yeah. And I think a few drivers have said that on our show now. Because the question, Shami, isn't so much who's the most successful, it's naturally gifted. And sometimes, as you know, because what's my famous saying, Vincenzo, racing is a fickle mistress. It's a fickle mistress. The most talented doesn't always have the most trophies.

No. It's a matter of opportunity and timing and funding. Yeah. But even with that distinction, when I ask drivers who's the most naturally gifted you've ever raced again, Juan Pablo Montoya's name certainly comes up regularly. And when I met him, he was wonderful. And I thought, thank you for being one. That's good to hear. That's the worst when you meet someone and you're like.

You know, I really hope he gets his Le Mans because then he'll have the triple crown. You think he's going to do it again, though? I think he's at the age where he still could do it. I don't see why he wouldn't. Yeah, yeah. I just think that he's so, he's very much like a Max Verstappen

in the sense that he's very nonchalant. Like, he doesn't care very much. Like, Alonso is driven. Alonso wants it. You'll see Alonso win or try to win that Indy 500 for sure. Juan Pablo's more like no I don't know maybe so that's my only fear that he just doesn't care but if he cared enough I tell you what get it get him an LMP2 I think that guy would really nail it because I mean they're different I couldn't drive an LMP2 car but someone with

that kind of experience and and whatever put him in an LMP2 be amazing MDH I don't know what's happening with that i think you know um i have my own private opinions about lmdh i think it's great to look at there's a lot of politics involved with it which i you know i know guys who've been doing lamar 24 years 23 years and this year they didn't get a place because they don't have an lmdh car you know that kind of stuff upsets me because there are people in the background who put a lot of energy into making sure that race survives right because 15 years ago that that that series was dwindling luckily they've got a few manufacturers behind they've got a few lmdh cars they've opened up a few whatever it is hyper whatever i don't know what they're doing but don't

forget who brought you here right don't forget who supported you when you weren't really doing that well and unfortunately you talk about sports car sorry motorsport being fickle people forget yesterday then you know and that's what upsets me you've got to remember what people did for you and how you got here and I remember everyone my day ones I look after them right even my day yesterday I look after them you know Vincenzo you're a customer now so you now are like literally there's a halo in our office with you when if Vincenzo calls we've got to look after it we're going to look at you're a customer you know what I mean and here you are a few years after we started but that that means nothing motorsport i tell you what the minute you become inconvenient the

minute you say something actually which you see which is correct by the way and i'm going to show you something while i'm talking but the minute you say something wrong the minute you try and give positive uh feedback to to people and to help them out and you by the way you've you've helped them financially and all the rest of it this you might have to block this out i don't know actually thing but i'm gonna show it because i was in a meeting with these guys right and we're making money for these guys and we're doing stuff with these guys oh i need you to read it i can't see it says fia blocked him so do you know why they blocked me i would love to hear this yeah and i'll tell you what i'd love it if you kept this in the podcast because it's a really important

thing i'm never abusive on social media i don't have any political views because who cares what I think, right? And we all have private thoughts. I mean, who cares? Everyone has a view, but who cares? I don't know. I agree. Nobody needs to know your political views. I don't care. We're talking racing. No, and it doesn't mean I don't care about things. It doesn't mean I don't care about Israel, Gaza, and all the rest. I have a lot of human things that I care about, but no one needs to know because either you're a good person or you're a bad person. So a friend on social I mean, he's a customer. I've met him a couple of times.

He is also a marshal as, you know, he marshals races. And he was in a caravan, his accommodation at Le Mans, and he couldn't wheel. He's in a wheelchair. He lost his legs at a race where a car smashed into him and they had to take his legs off. So they had to amputate his legs. So he has literally lived and nearly died for motorsport.

So he's in this field in his caravan. He's in a wheelchair, and he couldn't get his wheelchair out of the caravan because the FIA and ACO hadn't put plastic tracks down on the grass so he could get his wheelchair out so he could go and do his work. So I picked up on that because I was there that year in 2023. Steve sent me a message saying, this is really bad. I can't go to my job.

There's no tracks here for the disabled and I can't push my wheelchair over the grass. So I, you know, did a tweet and said, come on, guys. motorsport is inclusive right you can't exclude disabled people like this i got blocked for that that really upset me and there i was in geneva about a year later having a meeting with them are you allowed to swear on this podcast probably yeah go for it yeah yeah yeah yeah i picked up on phone i said which one of you fuckers blocked me on twitter and they said well you must have been abusive it must have been because we have ai technology and

i was like dudes there was no abuse i'm never abusive right but you you know the fact that you're blocking somebody who supports the sport loves it lives for it has friends in it what are you doing to the actual fans what are you doing to the actual people who are abusive great point but what are you doing to to everyone else if if somebody sounds a bit douchey but if i have a little bit of a presence in motorsport yes if someone like me your presence and you're blocking me with a valid point and it was that kind of stuff really pisses me off it really pisses me i'm pissed off for you because at the end of the day this man also he's not just some not that it wouldn't matter not but this man lost his legs doing his job being a marshal for the sport and

there he is back again still doing his job despite the tragedy that occurred and all you're saying is can we get him a ramp it's not like you're saying can we helicopter him in and drop him into the middle of the infield and no abuser no never no but you know what but who's the admin on that that account even some 23 year old that thinks they have the audacity to do that like do we really think it's ai i want to get to the bottom of this that's what they said there's some ai bot in luxembourg apparently well then have the ai bots unblock you yeah exactly they haven't done it yet still free shami we're gonna start hashtag free shami free shami hashtag free shami that's gonna be the title of this podcast hashtag free shami free shock but what you you know even that

story is testament to there's a lot of changes that still have to be made there are a lot of the world and we started this conversation with you saying you didn't like zoom and all this stuff and now we're kind of back to it because blocking you on social media like what action does that actually make other than making you feel kind of excluded excluded um because it doesn't do anything in the grant it's not like you now suddenly can't keep doing your business in motorsport right like it doesn't do anything for you other than just optically it's a bad look but it's also the world we're in right where like actions like that people take you know you're behind your keyboard you can say something or do something or as a as an account like that i'm just

going to block all these people who say things that i don't like or may not like cool what is that actually doing for you because it doesn't doesn't help you understand other opinions and viewpoints i tell you what it colored the deal that they wanted me to do with them and i've got a whole lot of designs where i designed four watches for the fia and they were meant to be given out stewards they were meant to be a commercial thing where people could buy it um actually i pulled the whole agreement i've actually disengaged with them completely and that's because they blocked that's because i'm ai bot in luxembourg blocked you blocked me Yeah. And I'll tell you what, because it sends us, do you want to work? Do you want to mold a toxic organization? And again, quote me on that, because I've seen a lot of toxicity within the organization, which I'm not happy about. And sometimes being a fan and actually going back to Chip Ganassi and his team, their social media guy said, Sham, you said something on Twitter the other day.

He said, you know, remember, you're a partner of an IndyCar team. And I went, yeah, yeah, I got to remember that. So, but being a fan and a commercial guy is so tough sometimes, you know? Of course. No, but there are many of us who have very strong opinions about the FIA, supremely strong opinions. We had an episode, the first interview we ever did was with Laura Villers, who was running for, pretend running, because you can't really run for FIA presidency.

so trust me trust me shammy we got some opinions over here about the fia i wanted to ask you how much do you know about uh you probably your customer do you have a lot of women customers you know what the percentage is yeah i do and it's really nice because they tag me on socials and all the rest of it um predominantly it's a male customer base which is great um but we do have so many wonderful ladies who who buy and you know go on about wanting smaller watches different watches that kind of stuff but you know we've made smaller watches for ladies before and they haven't sold as well ladies still want to buy you want the bigger watches i want a man watch i don't want to watch don't call it a man watch that's the other thing i

don't like that just a watch well i mean man's size i want yeah not even man's size what's a man's size you know i mean i know some big men who've got small brains you know what i mean so i guess it's the watch you're right some of those other brands like the row one and others have trained us but there's a certain face that is for a man and you're 100 right i never saw it as a man that's the size just watch yeah so yeah it's so we yeah i prefer to go in size actually but no you're right and and the thing is the females i support some female racing drivers which is really cool a couple of one of them actually was my first ever sponsorship uh she's now the i don't know if she still is actually but she became the head of the fia disability

because she's in a wheelchair he's a tetraplegic a lady called natalie mcgloin the first lady i ever sponsored she was racing porsches paralyzed from the chest downwards but she was racing cars um and i thought her story resonated with mine because if somebody tells you you can't do it you're gonna fucking do it do you know what i mean now you've told me that i can swear on here you're gonna get a proper promotion right oh go for it i was i said oh man he's a little too proper this morning well for it's early and it's early morning for us so i didn't even have you know the the brain power to say go ahead but you know go for it yeah i mean but she had that she had that mentality of yeah i'm gonna do it i don't care you know so so far so what if i'm in a

wheelchair so what if i'm a female i'm gonna race porsches and she did that and then she became the head of the FIA disability program and she's also helped my friend Robbie Wickens I worked with Robbie back in 2018 he's Canadian I live in Toronto he was another friend of mine so I worked with I see it was his dad I became friends with all because Hinch was always driving and I was sitting with Jeremy a lot and he was originally from Leeds back at the he's from Leeds and him and I we would talk again it was the language was hilarious and the views extreme it was brilliant but I've been sitting there thinking god I feel normal I feel normal sitting next to him so Hinch every and he's he's doing the NASCAR race actually at the end of this month with Dario yeah which is

really cool news and so Hinch every time I see him he always comes and says hello because in 2017 i sponsored um schmidt peterson oh okay yeah so i worked with sam schmidt and rick peterson and that was a really good time pierce phillips was there and it was a really cool sort of that's how i got involved with uh no 2016 this was yeah 2016 uh it was just such a nice small team let's just see what happens yeah amazing there was none of this sort of corporate structure none of this I thought they were going to do a press release six weeks on a Tuesday at 10 a.m. It's like, yeah, shove it out there. And I could just shove out stuff without having to.

Do you know anything what's going on with Sam Smith today? Because I don't see him so much anymore at the track. Yeah. You know, is he just watching from home? Has he completely disassociated from the team? I think he's concentrating on his charity that he set up. Okay. He's got a place over in Las Vegas.

I forget what it's called. He gave me a chopping board. I've got a chopping board here with it on there, with the name on it. But, yeah, I think he's concentrating on that. I saw Sam last year two or three times at the 500. What a legend. Yeah, he's a lovely guy. And it was all great fun until they announced in August

that they were going to be McLaren. And then it became tough. I'm sure that would have been tough for him, yeah, for sure. Yeah, no, it was tough for everyone. Tough for the sponsors, tough for everyone, because suddenly this railroad came through town where we were all having fun and it was like a herd of bulls just came in

and trashed the bar and they were in charge and it was, yeah, it was tough. I like Tony Kanaan, by the way. Thank you. I had dinner with him. Lovely guy. Lovely. You like a lot of our guests, apparently.

That's good. Yeah. We're doing something right. Trying to get good people, I mean. I mean, I was sitting there with Tony Kanaan at Thermal last year and he's sitting next to me and we're just talking chit chat

weather's good isn't this nice and I said Tony stop I said I can't fucking believe I'm sitting right next to you

and I said I've watched you for years Barrichello the story there the five I said let me just get

this out of the way I can't believe I'm sitting next to you and then his his lady who was either his PA or his assistant

she goes please he's already got a big enough head don't make it even bigger that was like when we had mario andretti on rivington so i had to tell him listen i just have to get the goat thing out of the way yeah yeah i just need to say it and then we can move on we started that recording that was funny so we started that recording and i think we bumbled through like

the first 10 minutes we could barely get words out yeah because it was like this is mario andretti city i mean now again it's i it's not a perfect world i would love to do these in person that would be i think it's easier now to get people to say yes because it's less of a commitment but either way he's still sitting there and he's gave us his attention in time he's addressing us by name and you know which is really cool mario andretti is saying vincenzo and lali and he's and he i mean sharp his attack at 85 years old and we're we're bumbling through like 10 minutes finally lali was just like i have to i just gotta say like you're you're the greatest like this is And that happened and then we were fine.

And then we went for, you know, an hour and he gave us, he laughed. He was like, I don't even know. Shammi, what happened when we stopped recording? Because he had to stay on so it can upload to the cloud. I think there was so much pent up excitement. Like I really couldn't believe I started bawling. You're right. After the interview.

After we stopped recording, we were talking to his assistant was talking to us. Shammi, a lot of what you're saying resonates with me because it was like one of those like, Oh my God, my life not too long ago was pretty dire. And now I'm talking to Mario Andretti on my own podcast. It was like a lot. Amazing. I read something when you got the last Porsche, you sat in the Porsche and you sat and cried for 15 minutes. Like almost you were in such, like you couldn't believe that you had, you know, that I was me with Mario Andretti.

I was just crying. I couldn't believe that the life had brought me to this moment that, you know, maybe I've done something right. But Lali, all you got to do is, you know, a lot of people try and fast forward their lives. They want the good things now. They see other people having good stuff. Wait, it'll come. And I tell you what, when it comes, it will come in a massive way. It never comes.

If it comes quick, then it's going to go quick. All right. Just, you know, the sunflower effect. The sunflowers look amazing. How long do they last? 20 minutes, 20 days, whatever it is. just wait for that little oak tree to keep growing and watch it grow and nurture it feed it every day and then one day it's like gonna be wow look at that thing and i see it with a lot of younger

people especially on socials where they have to get the next car and like within three months their their interactions start dipping they're gonna buy another car then they start i've got to go on holiday and i've got to go to a better holiday and it's going to be bluer than the last the sea's gonna be bluer than last time they're actually not enjoying the journey they're just just trying to live this artificial stuff and it's not cool it's like with my watches people say when i first started i get trolled on twitter a lot and most days i love it you know like you get um you get a cat playing with a mouse and the mouse is alive and you start and you watch the cat playing with it and say i'm gonna have fun with this thing before you stamp on it i do that on

Twitter a lot and I get I used to get trolled a lot on Twitter especially from social media influencers a couple of them shit watches they're only 300 pounds four or five hundred dollars I've got a Rolex I've got an Amiga I've got this I've got that I've got I've got I've got and it's like you know it was really quite disheartening because all you want to do is pay your mortgage that's the only reason I started the company I was in debt and I had to pay my mortgage there was no other agenda i didn't want to be famous and i don't want to be famous i don't want to be applauded i just want to do the right thing yeah you know i now have a granddaughter which is wonderful it's a wonderful feeling i i you know you you're constantly chasing the wrong thing a lot of

people are you know and i think you know just nurturing things and watching them grow and all the rest of it that that's the way life should be just chill we've got a lot it is life is short right because you do wake up and you're 55 and you're thinking how did that happen but on the other hand look what's happened it's been great do you know what i mean yeah going back to mario i've got a mario andretti story go i'm in i'm in the hotel in indianapolis checking out after the 500 i can't remember what year it was and he's standing right next to me and i thought oh my god i looked at him and i said hello i said i've got to say hello to you i said there's no way i can't I can't leave without saying he's all good morning.

I said from London and I said, the race is amazing. Chit chat. I went on to Twitter and I said, I can't believe I was standing next to Mario Andretti. I tagged him. I said, my day's made. He replied within minutes and said, me too. I thought, you know what? Me too.

It was wonderful. And then I met him again behind the bins at one of the races. He was putting stuff in the bin and I was too. And it was like, oh my God, it's you. and then we met at a couple of dinners and it's really nice you know follows me on twitter which is wonderful you know so um roger penske's another guy he's a friend you know every time he comes every time i say how's the watch business sham and i'm thinking firstly how do you know my name secondly you know how do you know what i do but he you know those kind of people and even greg his

son he looked after us like rock stars last year at the indie 500 made sure like text messaging and make sure that everything was all right and everything we wanted was happening and all that kind of stuff. These people are wonderfully secure in what they do and they're wonderfully charitable. And charity is not just about money, right? Time is the most important thing.

Time is the most important thing that we have. And if you're charitable with your time, you're the richest man in the world. You're the richest guy in the world. That's the clip. That's the clip right there. Okay. That's the clip.

All right. Listen, we are, we are, we've taken an hour of your time and you've been so generous. I would love to keep talking about this genuinely. Um, but I do want to ask you about a couple like watch car questions. If you, if that's cool. first of all what's the favorite piece you've made because i will say this you have the palo watch which uses actual carbon from his winning car very cool i'm not sure how many people just get access to carbon from an indie car and you also have the watch with jimmy johnson that you did that's very cool from the coca 600 yeah so that was the 700th 700th uh race yeah so i mean you've done really really cool things like that what i was going to ask you originally how do you do that but clearly this entire story shows how you're building you know these relationships that allow you to what is your favorite watch that you've made then that's what that's what i'm

gonna ask you do you have children vincenza i do can you hear my daughter one of my daughters downstairs yeah so how many do you have two daughters i have a four-year-old and a two-year-old which is your favorite neither they both i love them both equally it's like my watches it's so difficult sometimes i walked right into that didn't i you did yeah you did so i have some of them really evoke a lot of memories and struggles some of them you know we've had court cases over which i fought and honestly if we don't have a cease and desist or a or a court proceed their court uh whatever they called every month it's almost an unusual month because the largest swiss brands really don't like what we've done with especially with motorsport

because a lot of people are in feel entitled like it's their domain how the hell does this young british watch man come along with a guy behind it we're not a massive company but we we're building one day we'll be you know i don't really want to be big either because i want to have fun so some of them when you look at a watch you feel quite upset with the story behind it but the design you're very happy with it some of them you look at and think actually you know what that means a lot to me because i remember the day that we had this eureka moment if you want to home in on one watch one watch then the one that makes you feel really happy is the swimming pool oh beautiful there's a beautiful beautiful watch love this and i tell you the story behind that right so here we

were may 2020 we're all sitting around lockdown covid life's a bit sort of like what the hell's going on? We don't know. It's all a bit scary because the TV every day, there's headlines. We're going to lock you in. We're going to do this. You can't see your mom. You can't see your kids. So what do we have? Everything is stripped, right? Humans only need two things to survive, okay? Two things. We all need to belong to something, whether it be a golf club, whether it be the motorsport community, whether it be going to the Italian restaurant around the corner where the lovely waiter comes along and says hello vincenzo hello lali how are you here's a lovely shot of limoncello after that pizza you can buy pizza from anywhere right but you go to

the italian because he makes you feel like you belong there okay so that's the first thing humans need we all need to belong the second thing humans need is hope if you unfortunately are ill or whatever and you've got a billion in the count but you've only got six weeks to live where's the hope there's nothing right so we all want the hope that we're going to meet mario one day that i'm gonna that i'm gonna be on the podium with the indy 500 that i'm we're gonna win lamar we want that hope because that's what drives me forward may 2020 all that sense of belonging was taken away because we couldn't see our families right the only thing we were doing we were sitting there looking at our phone scrolling maybe reading a book maybe doing the we were allowed to go out every day for 20

minutes worth of exercise and that was it so we couldn't even go and be social all our friends were online and all we were doing were doing this right which is not really it's real it's nice to talk to you but it's not it's not real real it's not real real so we had the sense of belonging taken away from us the sense of being together was taken away from us motorsport stopped that year right the other thing is we all had no hope everyone was saying oh we'll be out of this in six weeks six weeks later nothing we could still couldn't see people the hope was taken away from us so may 2020 a friend of mine phoned me up and i just we just wanted to go on holiday because actually the weather this year that year in england was really nice so it was a lovely summer

and my friend phoned me out and i he said to me what are you doing i said well we're sitting at home watching our phones you know what else are you going to do when he said to me oh i'm at the um the swimming pool at monaco at the monaco cornice because he lives he lives nearby and he was at the swimming pool and i thought you know what how wonderful is the thought of being next to a swimming pool and when you go on holiday right the first thing you see when you go on holiday that lifts you and feel makes you feel great and gives you is the color of the swimming pool right so so that's why i did the swimming pool dial because every time i look at it it reminds me of that lonely time back in may 2020 it reminds me where we had no sense of belonging

we had no hope because we didn't know what the governments were doing and what this dreaded disease was doing but actually also it lifted me because even now when i see the swimming pool dial all i do is feel excited about you know going somewhere and being somewhere and being part of some things that that dial means a lot to me more than a color that's really important and then tiffany bought it out two years later and now people say oh it's a tiffany dial it's like dude it's not no i know that that became the and that became so popular and then you made the pan americana uh swimming pool as well so you stuck to the swimming pool but i i like the fact that the watch you picked it was not even it's motorsport related because everyone associates

it with monaco but the story behind it is not even necessarily motorsport sorry which is cool i'm sorry so the idea of the watch and and and the the blue and the beauty and that there's hope resonated with me yeah yeah and i tell you what we never want to go back to that place and we never will our generation and the generation below us will never go back but you know yeah and then so that that swimming pool dial is so important because it is about belonging it is about hope and like i said those the only two things we need you know if i gave you 10 million dollars today you might enjoy it for a week maybe two weeks you might buy some material you might help a couple of people out right but then if i give you another 10 million the week

after and then suddenly it's like it doesn't mean anything at some point it becomes a number yeah yeah you know if you said to me 10 years ago that you're gonna have whatever i've got in the bank today i literally would have thought oh my god i've got everything well but actually what does it bring nothing you know i want to ask you about big dreams because obviously you live you breathe motorsport like independent of the watch company that's that's something you've done your entire life would a blue sky big dream for you be to own an indycar team or an imsa car team is that in your pipeline yeah i don't know whether i can talk about this yes world exclusive on the business give us something give us something here breaking news give us give us something come on sham

chammy it's it's a dream yeah it is a mess it's not a dream it's not a dream is it it's it's a reality i have a feeling it's a reality the planning stages is this dream well the thing Chip Ganassi homologato racing. That's the dream. There it is. That's the dream? How real is it? But is it a 2027 dream?

It was very nearly, very, very nearly a 2025 reality. What? Yeah. And I still haven't given up. Yeah. I mean, offline, I'll tell you. Okay. Yeah, there's some really big conversation.

conversation and it's another like how the fuck is this happening it's just bringing good people together all with the same vision all with one thing about bringing good people together and i just happen to know some really big players who just want to do things it's yeah if i can get this over the line i'm buying everyone who listens a coffee if it if you get it over the line we'll have a podcast episode dedicated just to talking about i'm coming to columbia for a drink yeah well i'm in toronto but we can all i'm coming to toronto although columbia is better the scenery is better and let's just go to columbia just that i mean thank you so much for joining us we need a part two and i think we need to do it in person we that's now what we've realized

we're coming to london so either we're coming to london or we're going to do it at a race this season um but we have to do a part two i sincerely appreciate everything you've said the stories that you told there there's many more and i want to get those out but think i think what everyone should take from this is just how dedication how being a good person but we even heard from connor daily like don't be a dick is one thing he said that was one of his big you know his big lines in our podcast was, you know, don't be a dick. That's how you make, you know, that's how people will like you, especially in this, in this world of motorsport and everything you've talked about has just led to be a good person, lead with your heart, be a good person. And, and that will

come back to you. And I think people need to hear that because motorsport is no different, right? It's not some, like, we're still dealing with people. You said we bleed, everyone bleeds. We're all the same. Everyone bleeds. I mean, even, even the pinnacle, let's say even someone like Toto wolf even he comes over and says hello and how are you i was like how do you know you know i mean you've got people like that coming over and engaging and obviously we don't have any deal or anything i'm just a fan and i've made a nuisance of myself with him the thing is it shouldn't be contrived we shouldn't have to say right i've got to be a good person today yeah you just got to be you and if you are are nauseating and toxic then that's something to

do with your life and your insecurities sort out your securities because if you're a toxic person and you have to say i'm going to be good today then no you can't do that that's not reality that's not real people are insecure and and that that's the bottom line they're insecure and and they've got something to hide etc there's demons eating them up when you're a good person and you know your heart's clear and you know you're trying your hardest we all make mistakes I made mistakes. I've got a lot of pressure on something at the moment, at the moment that I know that I'm not performing well, but I've admitted that I've owned it. Now I've got to make it work, right? Toxic people are insecure. They can't be good until they get rid of that insecurity.

Thank you, Shami, so much. And I actually want to thank Vincenzo for introducing me to you and your watches. I've quite fallen in love with the watches and a little bit with you today, I have to be honest. You're a lovely, lovely man. Wonderful, wonderful stories. You seem so genuine, so authentic. I cannot wait for the three of us to be united someplace in person and we can have a proper chat. Let's do the Indy 500 this year. We'd love to. You've not been.

You've got to come. We are working on it, yeah. We're going to do our best to be there, Shami, so that we can meet in person and have a proper chat. If I can help facilitate it, let me know, okay? Thank you so much, Shami. Alright, good. Lovely to speak to you. Thank you. I'm humbled that

you asked me as well, especially with Mario and Tony Knapp, all these wonderful people. We're honored to have you on the show. Trust me, it is an honor for us. Thank you. I appreciate it. Thank you. Right.