The Dork-O-Motive Podcast – Details, episodes & analysis

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The Dork-O-Motive Podcast

Brian Lohnes

Leisure

History

Frequency: 1 episode/30d. Total Eps: 79

The Dork-O-Motive Podcast hosted by Brian Lohnes is a research driven, story fueled, mechanically stoked look at the machines, people, and history that make up the modern mechanical world. Whether it's the stories of the men and women who have done amazing things in racing, the machines that roar around tracks and shape the Earth, or some bizarre mechanized history, Dork-O-Motive is here to bring you the story in a fun, well-researched, and informative way!

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Apple Podcasts

🇺🇸 USA - automotive
25/08/2026
#88
🇺🇸 USA - automotive
23/08/2026
#92
🇺🇸 USA - automotive
22/08/2026
#83
🇺🇸 USA - automotive
21/08/2026
#84
🇺🇸 USA - automotive
20/08/2026
#93
🇺🇸 USA - automotive
19/08/2026
#85
🇺🇸 USA - automotive
18/08/2026
#78
🇺🇸 USA - automotive
17/08/2026
#48
🇺🇸 USA - automotive
16/08/2026
#60
🇺🇸 USA - automotive
15/08/2026
#80

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Score global : 47%

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4.3 The Greatest Race You've Never Heard Of: A History of Bahamas Speed Week 1954-1966

Episode 42

Sunday, February 25, 2024 • Duration 01:06:13

Every winter for 13 years between 1954 and 1966 the greatest sports cars as well as the greatest sports car drivers in the world would gather in the Bahamas for what may well have been the coolest racing event in history.

10 days of partying, racing, hanging out on the beach, and enjoying life with some of the world's greatest stars is just as awesome as you think it is. Racers like Stirling Moss, AJ Foyt, Mario Andretti, Phil Hill, Masten Gregory, Roger Penske, Carrol Shelby and others showed up year in and year out to battle for the money and glory in the world's coolest cars.

The first ever 427 Cobra race car debuted at this event, Duntov brought the Gran Sport Corvettes, Ferrari, Porsche, and on and on it goes.

The history is interesting, led by a tyrant named Red Crise the event was his idea and with a unique combo of an iron fist on one side and a velvet gloved Baronet's hand on the other, he made magic.

This is the fantastic story of Bahamas Speed Week.

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4.2 The Wild History Of INDOOR Drag Racing In Chicago During The 1960s!

Episode 41

Friday, February 9, 2024 • Duration 36:41

During three winters in the 1960s, hot rodders in Chicago had the unique opportunity to do something no one has been able to do before or since. They went drag racing indoors. The didn't just do it once or twice, they did it weekly. How? Where? Why? Who put it together?

The story actually begins in the 1930s and the indoor drag strip followed go kart racing, midget car racing, even a road course indoors! The promoter, a man named Bill Schade is a story in and unto himself.

This is a story of the city of Chicago, a brilliant promoter, and a hot rodding culture starved for action in the winter. Enjoy!

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2.5: Rip Tide: The Incredible and Dark History of The World‘s Water Speed Record

Wednesday, December 15, 2021 • Duration 03:50:42

The world's water speed record has been held by only 9 people since 1928. It has an 85% death rate in attempts and the current record has stood since 1978 with each successive attempt to unseat it resulting in the death of the driver. This long form look back at the history of the water speed record is a blow by blow account of an activity that has captivated and killed many people over the years. The people and machines who have shot across bodies of water from Argentina to Italy to Australia are each unique in their own way but their vision was the same. To defy the laws of physics and end up on the right side of the game. To our knowledge this is the most in-depth look back at the history of the record using research materials, newspapers, period audio, and personal interviews with the subjects at hand. An amazing tale that once dominated the headlines of the 20th century and has now all but dropped off into obscurity.

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2.4: 1,000 Ton Sucker Punch - The Wild Story Of WWI Q-Ships

Episode 32

Sunday, April 11, 2021 • Duration 01:49:58

Imagine a single weapon of war with such vicious tactics that it nearly defeated an entire country. Such was the case with Germany's fleet of U-boats during WWI. As the U-boats sunk hundreds of ships per month, Britain was in danger of running short on food, war materials, and basic necessities of life. The mighty British Navy had no answer for these silent killers of the seas.

And then someone had an idea.

By creating a shadow Navy of secretly armed merchant ships, Britain created their first line of submarine defense and it was brilliant. They were called Q-ships and from the outside they looked like fishing trawlers, sailing ships, and simple tramp steamers, but they were manned by experienced gunnery crews and had powerful secrets hiding in plain sight.

Starting in 1915 when U-Boat captains surfaced to attack an unsuspecting merchant ship, they were at risk of they themselves becoming the victims of these awesome new weapons.

On this episode of the Dork-o-Motive podcast we examine the incredible history, bravery, and innovation that these oddball fighting ships brought to WWI and how they were a legit threat to U-boats and frustrated German commanders on the high seas. Wild history you never knew!

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2.3: Too Fat To Fly: The Crazy Story Of How Super Speedway Big Rig Racing Was Born!

Episode 31

Sunday, February 21, 2021 • Duration 01:45:25

In 1979 a promoter from Tennessee put on the first ever big rig super speedway race and it caused a national panic. The government, the trucking industry, the Teamsters, tire companies, and sponsors all tried to stop the event from happening. Only, they failed and it did happen. Predictions of the race being a "public suicide" or a "bloody spectacle" filled the nations newspapers. Truckers protesting the 55mph national speed limit and fuel shortages across the country were angry at the gross consumption of these 1,000hp diesel race trucks. It was crazy, it was bedlam, and it was the birth of a racing series that would run for nearly 20 years after its chaotic launch at Atlanta International Raceway in June of 1979.

Through vintage audio, interviews with Charlie Baker the winningest driver in the history of the series, Bobby Doerrer the announcer for the first several races, and a myriad of newspaper clippings from sources all over the country, we tell you the story of how a promoter used a tsunami of bad news and dire outlooks to propel his event into the history books of American racing.

14,5000lb trucks with 1,000hp on the high banks of Atlanta and the Indy of the West, Ontario Motor Speedway. It's so crazy that if we didn't have the proof you wouldn't believe the story!

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2:2 - Truckin' Amazing: The Story of WWII's Red Ball Express

Season 2 · Episode 2

Monday, February 8, 2021 • Duration 01:09:33

In July of 1944 the Allies had a problem. Having landed successfully in France and established a beachhead, they had been stalled for weeks. Thankfully a fortuitous victory over the Germans opened up the line and Allied troops roared across France, chasing the Nazis back to where they came from. This presented another problem.

With ports mangled, railroads destroyed, and all their stuff sitting on the beach war planners had to think fast to supply, feed, and fuel the armies fighting on the front lines. Their answer was one of the greatest single logistical feats in the history of war. They created the Red Ball Express and supplied multiple armies with more than 6,000 trucks working 24-hours a day on a closed loop highway system.

On this episode we tell the story of the Red Ball Express. How and why it was done, how it worked, how much stuff it managed to serve up, and why it was so key to the Allied successes in France during 1944. It is something that no other nation on Earth could have done at the time, but America did. This is an awesome story. Truckin' awesome if we may say so ourselves.

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2.1: Suicidal Speed and Splinters - A History Of Board Track Racing In America

Episode 30

Monday, January 11, 2021 • Duration 01:08:03

For a span of about 25 years in America, the fastest racing venues in the country were not made of asphalt, concrete, or brick, but rather wooden boards. These tracks, which ranged from less than a half mile to two miles in length were quick and cheap to construct and drew fans by the tens of thousands. They also birthed the first generation of hero American race drivers that the country had ever seen.

Unfortunately, it killed the drivers about as fast as it made them legendary. Even worse, with banking angles that sometimes approached 50-degrees or more, the tracks killed spectators as well when cars and motorcycles would fly into the stands. The Motordromes were then called "Murderdromes" by the newspapers of the day.

From coast to coast, the tracks sprang up and the speeds grew and grew. The performances from drivers and motorcyclists are still nearly beyond belief today!

This show tells the story of why the tracks were built, how the tracks were built, who built them, and why this bizarre racing supernova flashed so semingly fas t across the American racing landscape. This is this a story of suicidal speed and splinters. The story of American board track racing.

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1.28 Out Of Gas At 41,000ft: The Unbelievable Story Of The Gimli Glider

Episode 29

Wednesday, December 30, 2020 • Duration 45:51

On July 23, 1983 a Canada Air 767 with 61 passengers and eight crew aboard ran out of fuel while flying over a remote area of Ontario, Canada at 41,000ft. The pilot and co-pilot were able to take the airplane and glide to to a harrowing but safe landing on a drag strip in Gimli, Manitoba, Canada. The outcome was less a miracle and more an amazing example of expert pilot work from Captain Robert Pearson and co-pilot Maurice Quintal. But how did this happen? How did a modern airliner run out of gas halfway through a flight? How did this impossible scenario come to pass?

A series of coincidental mistakes culminating with some bad math set the wheels in motion to produce the scenario that was and will forever be known as The Gimli Glider. This is the story about how some small breaks in communication, a mis-calculated math problem, and dauntless skill all combined to create one of the most fascinating stories in the history of modern aviation.

Think running out of gas in your car is annoying? Try it miles in the sky while trying to get hundreds of thousands of pounds safely to the ground!

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1.27: Twisted Steel and Sex Appeal: The Weird History of Staged Locomotive Wrecks 1896-1935

Episode 28

Monday, November 30, 2020 • Duration 01:01:30

Between 1896 and 1935 a unique and bizarre series of spectator events occurred across America. Those events were the staged head-on collisions of steam locomotives done as profit making spectacles. Starting in earnest during September of 1896, there were hundreds of these wrecks completed with varying degrees of destruction, carnage, and human injury.

You may have heard of the "Crash at Crush" before but you likely don't know that Crush, Texas was not the first time this had been done. The famed wreck at Crush launched the practice into the national spotlight and proved that the huge undertakings could be as profitable as they were destructive.

In this podcast we examine the people, the places, and the things that lead to this very American activity becoming so popular and why it died a quiet death as a profit making enterprise in the middle 1930s. We tell the story of the times, the trains, and the consequences of taking tons of steam driven steel and iron and pitting it all against good sense and physics to make a dollar.

This is truly an odd tale of profit and performance art.

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1.26: Under Pressure: The Story of Bill Lear’s Steam Powered Race Car That (Never) Ran The Indy 500

Episode 27

Monday, November 23, 2020 • Duration 01:20:13

Bill Lear will go down as one of the most incredible inventors of the 20th century. The man who created the car radio, miniature tuning coils for radios, who invented auto-pilot, radio guidance for airplanes, and the basic automatic landing system that is still in refined use today he also invented the 8-track tape, and his biggest accomplishment, The Lear Jet.

There is one area where he failed spectacularly at though. Bending the laws of physics. Later in life Lear became obsessed with steam engines and steam power to end pollution. He designed steam engines, and was planning on running the 1969 Indy 500 with a steam powered race car! It was a spectacular failure lead by a dubious English engineer who’s credentials fell far short of Lear’s. He would go on to create a working steam city bus among other things but the Indy 500 effort was really something.

Rich, eccentric, and seemingly unstoppable, the laws of nature ground Bill Lear to a halt and cost him the majority of the fortune he made in his life. This is the story, some of it in Lear’s own words, of how that happened.

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The Dork-O-Motive Podcast – Details, episodes & analysis

Podcast details

Recent rankings

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The Dork-O-Motive Podcast – Details, episodes & analysis

Podcast details

Recent rankings

Apple Podcasts

Spotify

Shared links between episodes and podcasts

RSS feed quality and score

Publication history

Latest published episodes

Similar podcasts and content

Related Shows Based on Content Similarities

Related Shows Based on Content Similarities

Apple Podcasts

Spotify