Continental Tire Launches Second Season Of Popular “Dinner With Racers” Podcast

For a road-trip aficionado, the thought of embarking on a road trip spanning 12,000 miles and 29 states is incredibly appealing and poetic. Accomplishing such a feat in just 40 days while conducting 28 quality interviews, however, begins to sound somewhat challenging. Yet, after pulling off a similarly complicated journey just one year ago, that’s just what Dinner with Racers hosts Sean Heckman and Ryan Eversley decided to do after the conclusion of the 2016 racing season.

On behalf of IMSA partner and global technology company Continental Tire, factory Honda/Acura driver Ryan Eversley once again partnered up with Heckman, who raced competitively before an injury led him into television production, to travel the country and interview motorsports industry insiders – the second season of a project that began several years ago.

“Sean and I knew we wanted to work together on some sort of project together, and about four years ago, we came up with the concept of Dinner with Racers, initially intending it to be a video series of some kind,” explained Eversley. “Pretty quickly, we realized that the cost associated with that, at least to do it the way we wanted to do it, would be astronomical.”

The duo realized fairly quickly that the costs associated with that kind of project would be astronomical, especially if they wanted to do it right. At the time, the concept of podcasts wasn’t as widespread as it is today, so they weren’t really sure where to go with it. 

“I wanted to bring (Spencer) Pumpelly and (Andy) Lally onboard, thinking we could maybe do something smaller on race weekends,” said Eversley. “However, when we couldn’t even make it work at Petit Le Mans, which is the home race for most of us, we knew that it had to be a separate project.”

After a couple of years, podcasting became more viral and understood, so the pair decided that would be the best route to take. The intention was to avoid current topics so that each program would be relevant long into the future. Eversley had a previous working relationship with Continental Tire, so he and Heckman presented a rather uncertain proposal to the company. Without batting an eye, Continental Tire got behind the abstract concept.

To put it mildly, the first season was a massive hit.

Part of the reason for the series’ success was the variety of guests that the podcast featured. Racing drivers from all over the world, legendary broadcasting personalities, industry insiders and even individuals from outside the sport all joined hosts Heckman and Eversley to tell incredible stories.

“What we learned was that it’s actually not about how big of a celebrity the guest is, but more about how cool the story they had to share was,” said Heckman.

In addition to hosting, Heckman works with a variety of clients both inside and outside of motorsports through his company, The Media Barons. Heckman was behind the production of the podcast, including recording, editing and perhaps the most difficult aspect – setup.

“One of the biggest technical challenges is the fact that we didn’t know what we’re getting until we got there,” Heckman said. “We didn’t get to scout these restaurants, so we didn’t know if there was going to be electrical outlets or space to work until we showed up.

“When we record these, we are actually in headsets like you see on TV, with microphones and headphones and the whole deal. We do that specifically because we are actually in restaurants for all of these interviews, it’s not some staged thing. We never knew what we were going to end up with as far as noise goes, so the only way to really block that out is to have proper headsets, and of course all the gear that goes with them.”

Adequate space wasn’t always a concern, but it came up a few times when guests of the show brought guests along with them, perhaps most notably in season one with now reigning IndyCar champion Simon Pagenaud.

“The only true entourage we had was Simon,” said Heckman. “He had family visiting from France and brought them along, so while we were interviewing him, there were about five or six lovely French people watching that didn’t have a clue what they were listening to. It was quite entertaining.”

The entire first season was apparently quite entertaining to all, almost to the point of becoming an issue.

“We didn’t realize just how many were going to download this, to the point where servers apparently couldn’t quite keep up,” explained Eversley. “For the launch of season two, the servers crashed, so Sean had to get more to handle it. This is a thing now. Just crazy, just awesome.”

“We did not expect the positivity that came out of this,” added a grateful Heckman. “I just can’t get over how many people listened to it, how positive the feedback has been, it’s just been incredible and truly humbling.”