First Anniversary of Virtual Grip Network’s VGN Weekly Podcast

by Tim Corder

June 14, 2025

Tuesday June 10, 2025, marked the first anniversary of Virtual Grip Network’s podcast, “VGN Weekly.” The show serves as their weekly rundown of the races the network broadcasted the previous week. VGN Weekly also features interviews with drivers of the series they cover, the VGN broadcasters themselves, and others within the sim racing community. “We wanted another way to highlight the leagues we broadcast and their drivers,” shared Lowell Jewell, VGN owner, when asked what inspired the podcast. Asked the same question, John Heyn, VGN interviewer extraordinaire said, “The goal was to give the drivers a platform to introduce themselves to the people that watch the broadcasts.”

The podcast owes its start to the efforts of Lowell, John, and Producer Ryan Senneker. John noted he had, “talked to Lowell about doing a Virtual Grip Podcast for some time after Lowell founded VGN.”  John, Lowell, and Ryan made a few attempts at starting the podcasts, eventually leading to a test episode that was recorded with Matt Hoose as the trial guest.

That pilot proved successful, and the podcast has been a weekly occurrence since. As of the writing of this article, 51 episodes have been published through Virtual Grip Network’s YouTube channel. In total, those 51 episodes consist of nearly 50 hours of interesting conversations. A wide variety of guests have been interviewed, including brothers and a father/son combination!

When asked if any of the interviews have surprised him, Lowell said, “Honestly, they all surprised me! You ‘think’ you know someone right up until you see them on camera and hear them speak at the same time.”   John added, “Funny thing is, I’m usually surprised once in every interview . . . I’ve learned that we have a crazy amount of people in the leagues that do really interesting things.”

Lowell also shared the important work that Ryan Senneker does each week to publish an episode, “Ryan does the bulk of the work, lots of gathering content, splicing, editing and recording.”  Fellow VGN members and viewers all appreciate Ryan’s efforts.

For his part, in preparation for interviewing a guest, John shared that he, “usually prepares about 10-15 topics to cover during an interview based on a questionnaire that interviewees are asked to complete prior to their interview.”  Then, “I just start a conversation with that week’s guest. I like to keep the conversation as organic as I can to keep it conversational.”

Has the podcast changed the way Lowell or John view their fellow drivers? Lowell answered, “It has, and I hope it has for everyone. We are all human and we enjoy the same hobby!”  John responded, “Yes! On the track I have gotten behind the people I have interviewed and have the realization that they desire to play nice. They have been so nice during their interview, and I’ve gotten to know them on a personal level.”

John also notes that some of the most entertaining conversations can come before or after recording the interview. “Some of the pre- and post-taping conversations have been ‘better’ at times than we can broadcast. We keep our broadcasts PG, and, some of these side conversations would have us into an R rating within a sentence or two!”

Congratulations on the inaugural season of VGN Weekly! Here’s to another year of interesting and fun conversations!