I've been a little inactive on your channel for a good bit. Hope you're doing well! ^^ Man, Grinder. The People's Truck. It'd honestly feel surreal to have this back in competition. Definitely one of the trucks that deserved to win a championship, but couldn't get it done before its retirement. My main question is- What even encouraged Advance Auto Parts to leave? I have no doubt it has something to do with FELD, since AAP had plenty of resources to keep dumping into the truck. (Plus they were getting backing from the sponsorship itself.). But I'd love to know the shit show that happened behind the scenes. And while I personally disagree it was the signaling of the fall, the argument that it did does have some merit. If you also take requests for tributes, I'd love a tribute to Captain's Curse or Monster Energy! ^^
Why Grinder hasn't returned without the AAP stickers is beyond me. They did it with Blue Thunder, finally put Todd Leduc in it, and suprise, it did well, and people liked that. it's such a simple design too, just replace the stickers, put a hot driver in it, and watch the praise come in. There is no reason for duplicate trucks with this many beloved designs sitting in the dumpsters for years. As far as how AAP only lasted 4 years, I kind of agree that there was probably some stuff behind the scenes going on, because it wasn't just AAP. Essentially every big sponsor (AAP, Traxxas, UTI) all either left or became much smaller after moving to FS1. I think BKT kind of pushed the others out too. Funny how every driver who had the popular Ukraine tires suddenly switched to BKTs when they came out. I already planned to do a tribute to Damon Bradshaw (USairforce+MonsterEnergy) so look for that, and I guess I'll put Captains Curse in my mind for later.
